HungryC

Absolutely the potato starch will determine the texture of the bread. A pullman/pan de mie loaf is supposed to have a close, tight, even crumb, so it is usually made with an enriched dough. In other words, a dough with added fat, powdered or liquid milk, sugar, starch or similar ingredients to tenderize the crumb. Potato starch (or mashed potatoes, or potato cooking water) yields a very soft-textured bread. Dehydrated potato flakes (aka instant mashed potatoes) can be substituted in a pinch for straight potato starch, but be sure your instant potatoes aren't full of weird stabilizers or emulsifiers. Leaving out ingredients in bread recipes will always create different results. Sugar, salt, milk, fats: all have different impacts on the loaf's texture, browning, cooking time, and eventual taste.

Can you re-imagine it as a truffle? Maybe a little more white chocolate melted into it would stiffen it sufficiently to hold its shape, and you could coat small orbs or squares in chocolate shavings, sugar, nuts, etc. Try refrigerating it, then scooping it with a spring-loaded tablespoon or teaspoon scoop, coating the balls with (whatever you'd like), then placing the coated orbs into candy cups. Thus, if they're too soft to hold their shape, the recipients can still pell it out of the paper cups like a typical candy.

No answer to your question...but I have a (not so minor) pizza bianca (and rosso) obsession, and I've had pretty good luck making my own using Lahey's p.b. recipe. The dough is almost liquid, and it requires a loooooong fermentation (though making it from scratch is still faster than flying to FCO). Check out the recipe for yourself---I wasn't a believer at first, as the recipe calls for a little sugar, but it baked up pretty damn close to the real thing.

It's great as a seasoning meat for beans or vegetables, so you can always vaccuum seal 3-4 slices per package for later use. Save the hambone, too.

It's also good cut into smallish cubes, pounded, and then cooked as New Orleans style grillades, served over grits.

The pic of outside the resto made my eyes water w/longing...I can smell the Vespa fumes, I can taste the espresso. Damn, I wish I was in Rome!

The very name "olive loaf" always made me giggle, along with liver loaf and the rarely seen "luncheon tongue". Ha!

And here is a photo of a turmeric plant in flower, with the broad leaf visible. (in case you encounter the mystery plant in the field)

Kinda depends on the packaging. Holding smoked meats for a week in the fridge is fine, but unless they're vaccuum sealed, they have a tendency to stink up the fridge. Esp if you have dairy, fresh cheeses, or other delicate items in the fridge, you might want to put them in a sealed zipper bag & stash in the freezer.

No. The ventral nerve cord runs along the underside of the shrimp (hence 'ventral').

I freeze brisket all the time--it might be a tad softer upon defrosting, but since when is that a bad thing in re: brisket? I wouldn't freeze either the sweet or savory bread puddings, as they tend to weep, but both can be made ahead and simply baked the day-of, or baked 1 or 2 days before and reheated gently in the oven. RE:stuffing, I can't vouch for bread stuffing, but southern-style cornbread stuffing/dressing is perfectly fine frozen when uncooked. Don't bother to thaw, just put it directly into the oven. I usually make three or four pans of it at a time, cook one for immediate use, and stash the others, well-wrapped, in the freezer for later use.

I think you're looking at Cochon Butcher, which is very, very good, but personally, I would recommend Cochon over it. Butcher is a sandwich and small plates kind of place-- we go there for lunch a lot. Cochon is a sit-down restaurant. If you do choose Butcher, though, those sound like good choices; my girlfriend loves the brisket sliders, too. yes, do know that Cochon Butcher is wholly separate from Cochon proper. It's connected, but the two have different menus & focus. Butcher is a casual, sandwiches & small places spot, good for a quick bite, with stools & counter seating.

Does a particular blogger or news outlet cover your area/neighborhood? Invite 'em not only into your restaurant, but into your kitchen. Pitch a story on sausage-making to the local daily newspaper (a concise email to the food section editor will suffice). Offer a sausage-making workshop at a day/time you're typically closed. In short, identify what makes you different from your competitors, and tell that story as often as possible. Can you do a sandwich board on the sidewalk or signage in your front windows? If you've got lots of walking-by traffic, you need to give them a reason to come inside: touting your kitchen's made-from-scratch wares, the pedigree of your cooks, the provenance of your ingredients, etc.

Aforementioned Tracy's & Mahoney's are good, but I'd have to add Cochon Butcher in the Warehouse district if you're into sandwiches. Not poboys, but full of house-cured meats and great flavors. Also worth a stop: the fried seafood sandwiches at Casamento's: cornflour crusted, fried in lard, served on toasted pan bread. The trout sandwich or fried oyster loaf are classic.

Well, Link is representing Acadiana and his personal cooking style in his book, not the cuisine of New Orleans. While red beans are the most popular bean in NOLA, white beans, baby green limas, and blackeyed peas (and other related peas like purplehulls) are equally popular all over cajun country. A standard Friday lunch special in my part of LA is white beans & fried fish (or fried shrimp).

I read the linked recipe, and it only calls for 4 minutes of machine kneading. This is very easily left out---just use a big spoon, bench scraper, or your (wet) hands. Make sure all of the flour is hydrated before you stop mixing, and don't worry about the 4 minutes. With a 3-hour bulk rise and 1-hour shaped rise, the dough will have ample time to develop its own gluten. What the linked recipe calls "turning the dough" is the same thing as the aforementioned stretch and fold technique. It can be done inside of a large lidded container--no need to remove it from a big bowl or dough bucket to perform the turns.

Stretch and fold is the heart of Robertson's Tartine bread methodology. It works for any wettish, not-too-yeasted dough. I've used it successfully on plenty of other doughs, including a 65% hydration pizza dough. It won't work on a typical American white bread recipe (a bit too dry, and usually has too much yeast--the bread won't be sufficiently kneaded before it over-rises), but it's definitely a good tool for a baker w/no mixer.

Calcasieu, which is the special events venue upstairs from Cochon. http://www.calcasieurooms.com/

Cajuns cook plain rice w/salt. (but it's a fairly salty food tradition)

You should get a copy of Hamelman's "Bread". He describes the Detmold 3-stage process for rye bread in detail. Or google Detmold process and you'll find a wealth of info on manipulating sourdough & rye.

Wow--I hadn't realized how vastly energy costs varied across the USA, and how cheap they must be in my area. I just did the math for my 2-person household in the deepest South, and we spend just under $2K for elect/gas/water/trash in an average year. (And our water/sewer/trash is wildly overpriced compared to surrounding areas.) No solar, no extreme water saving measures (low flush toilets but standard water heater), A/C runs 10 months out of 12, one fridge, one big chest freezer...and the usual complement of home electronics. Regarding energy conservation in the kitchen, I use a natural gas stove & oven, though I bake significantly less in summer (and do so when the outdoor temps are lowest) to reduce a/c needs.

Cut fine, douse in salsa, wrap in a tortilla w/beans and rice. The Americanized burrito covers many culinary sins.

Restaurant Depot sells Callebaut in giant, 8-lb bars (milk, dark, and white, I think). Less than $50 for the milk & dark. RD has a location in Milwaukee: http://www.restaurantdepot.com/Misc/Storedtl.aspx?Id=146 You do need a membership, which requires a business license or nonprofit affiliation. They don't care what sort of business...but the prices are nearly wholesale, so it's worth finding someone who can apply for membership. My local store gives each member multiple swipe cards, and you need to scan your bar code when you enter the store.

If the cake bakes up fine in a loaf pan, then your conversion to bundt is mainly one of time/temperature and volume. Your standard loaf pan holds far less than the average bundt pan. A 10-inch bundt pan holds about 12 cups, whereas an 8" loaf pan is around 6 cups and a 9" loaf pan is 8 cups. So if your recipe fills an 8" loaf pan, you could just double it to properly fill a 12-cup bundt pan. Regarding time/temp, the central hole in the bundt pan will allow the cake to cook a tiny bit faster than a standard loaf, but since you'll be doubling the volume, you may not need to adjust the timing at all. Don't plan to bake to time, but rather start testing for doneness at least 5-10 minutes before the suggested timing ends. And watch for over-browning--you might need to lay a sheet of foil over the top near the middle of the cooking time if the upper surface is browning too quickly.

I regularly use Kitchen Calculator Pro for conversions. Take a look at it, it's easy to use. http://www.kitchencalculator.net/ It handles weight to volume conversions nicely, with a long list of ingredients to help you out. What I want is a baker's math app....add the percentages into a formula, put in the amount of dough you want, and it calculates the weight of each ingredient needed. Sure, it's not so hard to do this with a calculator, but an app might be fun.