NYC Mike

WoW Elie that looks like a great sandwich! I've been dipping into the Charcuterie book a little but haven't gotten to sausage making yet..did you just shape the links in your hands and store just like that sans casings? -mike

Thanks for the very nice words and encouragement! They mean a lot and are very motivating! When we first decided to move to Georgia one of the major motivators (outside of cost of living and quality of schools ) was the history and the deep and old culture. With three small children we wanted them to be able to put down roots with meaning and to be proud of where they are from if that makes any sense. The majority of the people we have met in our community are unfortunatly as you describe transplanted and unwilling. But Anne is right, they just don't know what they are missing. I get the impression that we have just begun to scratch the surface but we are loving every minute of it! Aside from that OMG! the food is that good! I may be a new cook (less than 1 year) but I am an old school eater . I know good when I taste it! -mike

Anne, the gravy was really so good. Those darker spots were the best part of the skin, absolutly great caramelization! Yes, exactly. It is perfect sandwich bread and surely better than Wonder brand for the kids. Here is a slice shot, wish I got a cross-section. Happy to help David, we love your site! -Mike

Pontormo, I am so sorry for your experience yesterday! I hope your fingertips are ok this morning! Our attempt resulted in much more favorable reviews. We did our frying in a big saucepot! We did not use the lard (Andrea, my wife won round 1) but we did use the butter and the ham (me, round 2) and oil. We brined and buttermilked for 12 hours a stage. This was by far the most crispy and juicy chicken ever. What an amazing technique. Next time, the only thing I would do differently is cut down the brine time and the amount of salt in the brine, our final product was a little on the salty side for our tastes. But, that was nicely offset by the tomato gravy we made to go with it. We served it with rice and corn and a bed of that tomato gravy and slices of the White Bread recipe in the book(which was amazingly good and used NO eggs and very little butter). My two sons (9 and 3) devoured the chicken and made 2nd and 3rd passes at the plate. My daughter (also 9) is going through a danty I don't want to eat with my hands phase and had less fun than we did. Here is the bread out of the oven. Here is the main dish. Remeber I mentioned my shoddy skin condition, well a few good sized peices fell off in the buttermilk bath. Waste not want not I always say, on the left center plate you can see a yummy peice of fried chicken skin with the chicken.

NYC Mike, can you tell me a bit more about what the book said regarding the cinnamon? It's possible that information dropped off the recipe when we posted it originally, and I no longer have the book. I always like to make sure any notes--even if in another part of the book--are present in the recipes we post. (Sorry, Pontormo, if it caused a problem when baking.) David Leite ← Hi David, this is on pg 9 "a note on Ceylon Cinnamon". -mike

Anne, its so funny you say this, the cake came out around after school time and was gone before dinner. I almost didn't get a picture off my three devoured it so fast! Ludja, we did use their curry mix on the preceding page but we used already dried and ground herbs versus the freshly ground they recommend and we loved it. We are planning to fresh grind everything next time we make it, I imagine it will only make the dish better. We also would have added more heat but since it was for the kids too we only added what was listed. Also, next time we will make the coconut rice with it, we got caught unprepared but it would be a perfect combo. I am a fairly new cook so I tend to live or die with the exact recipe. I am not brave enough with most things to improvise yet...much to my wife's chagrin. As an aside, two of mine are 4th graders and they were in the process of learning about the great explorers and the spice trade etc the week we made it. So, this dish made a great conversation peice with them about Savannah's role in the spice trade and the origins of the dish. Fun stuff! I seriously LOLed out loud Pontornmo and had to check just to be sure!! I have a question on the chicken. I just transfered from the brine to the buttermilk and my skin is in really bad shape. It is mostly just hanging on for its life and many peices have lost peices of skin. Is there a technique to either cutting it up or brining it that I am missing that will allow me to keep all my skin on?? -Mike

It is getting dern cold here in Alpharetta (insert re-evaluation of weather in the "south" here ) and soup was the ticket. We made Scott's Chicken Stock and the Chicken and Seduced Vegetable Soup and served it with a little white rice (I love asopao de whatever anyday). It was a very nice and flavorful soup although for my tastes it was a little too subtle. I can't exactly put my finger on what it was, the base stock was very good and the poached chicken was juicy and flavorful. Perhaps another chicken soup recipe in house with an already good one was just a bad idea . Sorry up front for the poor quality pics. This next is a little off topic but I am sure Miss Lewis wouldn't mind a good pound cake, no matter whose recipe. Anne, we just loved your pound cake, it was amazingly light and fluffy. The crust was so caramelized and good! Sorry again for the pic, I am a butcher with a knife! Fried Chicken tonight!! -Mike

This is very exciting. I remember watching what he did to Anthony Bourdain on No Reservations in stunned silence and awe. -mike

Great looking meal Kevin, especially that soup, its freezing here this morning. What kind of salami did you use? -mike

Well I thought my ebay problems were over and they still shipped my Della Croce book to NYC. I've got it now and have a question on it. On page 75 on the recipe for Umbricelli the method describes rolling 1 inch cubes in your fingers until you have a 1/8 inch thick tube the size of spagetti. BUT! In the picture to the right it shows Ms. Menconi making it more akin to linguini. Can anyone set me straight? I'd like to make them for penci di cascia on the next page. Thanks! -Mike

Awesome thanks!! -Mike

I think Chili Pastes for enchancing dishes and as a condiment. Thanks CS!

Anyone willing to share their recipe for various chili pastes? Do you buy or make fresh? Thanks! -Mike

I'd second that and the Carbonara for sure. <insert drool emote face thing> Congrats on a great gift! -Mike

Thanks Anne!! mike

Anne, would you mind sharing that recipe!? We are on a kick to try a slew of pound cakes and compare. That tender crust the temperature technique imparts is really special isn't it? It was a new thing to us here. -Mike

Pontormo, for this cake we used KA Unbleached AP flour, although we wonder how much lighter it would taste using cake flour. As for White Lily flour, in our limited experience it is the best flour for biscuts hands down. When we first got down here we did a test with every flour on Krogers shelf (and with a little EG help ) and White Lily really makes a great light fluffy biscut. We don't use it for anything else...yet. I would love to hear about how your cake turned out using the butter/applesauce/canola combo. Adding all that veg. oil does make me cringe a little and I imagine there are many ways of imparting that moistness into the cake. On the book's advice, we cut back the cinnamon since we didn't have "ceylon cinnamon" but there was still a nice spice flavor. What kind of apples did you use? The grannies we used gave a great tartness to the cake that offset the sweetness of the glaze and sugars. I've personally never had a winesap but I've been told to hurry and get hunting before they are gone. -Mike

My wife is Dominican, from Santiago and was very excited to hear about your partner. She wants to know if you have ever been to DR and if you have ever experienced Dominican "comida tipica"? Do you have plans to expand into other US cities? Atlanta for example seems perfect and ripe for the "minibar" concept. -mike y andrea

Yeah, whatever, all the same right... So all Blacks, Hispanics, whatever just want to work and get more money, not fame, promotion, fortune, celebrity etc? What gives you this impression? Yeah, professional kitchens are the picture of fairness and equal oppertunity. No really, If in YOUR PERCEPTION Blacks and Hispanics, and whatever, just wanted to go in and get the job done for more money, why would hard work, skill and dilligence matter at all- if THEY didn't want to move foreward. Saying someone works hard, but seems more than happy to pass on a promotion (other than more money. say) seems a bit nearsighted, no? Uh, my experience in the industry. Where do you draw your conclusions from? Why are hardworking people being passed up for promotions? Rascism exists! Sometimes stepping up to the plate is just not enough- someones got to throw you a pitch. ← Uh, my experience in the industry. Where do you draw your conclusions from?Ok, so we should promote on quotas, to fill niches, how about you bank rolling this establishment? As a exec and head chef, I promote on the ability to perform and the willingness to accept the responsibilities. Again I say, not every cook wants this responsibility. Why is this so hard to believe? Its prevalent in every other industry. If I had a majority of blacks applying for positions in my kitchens, then I would have a majority of blacks working in them, or any other race. But in my house, the cooking is technical, so there must be a base level of technical proficiency to step in at a cooking level. I promote from within, my dishwasher will soon move up to a cook position, but will he be head chef soon , no. Its a craft and take years to learn, will he have the patience to learn, who knows? Maybe you can give him a pep talk. Brazilians make up most of the kitchen crews in my area, some are motivated to ascend the ladder, and they do, others just want reliabilty and consistency with out the weight of resposibilty of leadership. They come in do their job great, and leave. Whats wrong with that? A great idea; Go out and ask these folks their opinions, everyone seems to be speaking for them instead. ← yeah. I AM one of them. Me a Black cook, yup, me. Culinary school, line cooking, editorial food...me. I know how I feel and my experiances, and guess what? they are totally valid and 100% the subject at hand. I am what we are discussing, so pehaps I should go give myself a pep talk after I get ignored for a promotion, or totally underpaid. It SUCKS to watch people with the exact same credentials or less move foreward or right past you. After a little while you stop making excuses for your loving bosses and try to examine what's really going on. hmm...maybe it's because I'm a woman? ← So now thats two crutches to carry you around. How about ability being the primary factor in promotion? Culinary school holds no weight. It s easy to find convenient excuses like race and gender when the sole issue that everyone looks to as the determining factor often is in fact skill and ability. All of the restaurant owners I know could care less about the make up of their staff, as long as they are qualified and skilled to do their job. ← It is also easy to call these legitimate hurdles "excuses" as a way to dismiss the evils of institutionalized racism. If only we lived in a world where "ability" was all that mattered when it came to career advancement and the breaking of glass ceilings. Qualified and skilled in no way means fair and equitable pay either, again I would refer you to the Mexican back of the house butcher who is nothing short of a master with knife and carcass who is barely making enough to make ends meet after an 80-90 hr work week. Perhaps "all" of the many restaurant owners you know are the wonderful exception to the rule. I for one see a very miniscule subset of hispanic and black (european or otherwise) cooks that hold senior or forward facing positions in the food media or in high end restaurants. McDs on the other hand seems to have no issues with minority hiring. -mike

just to be clear, Marcus Samuelsson is not African American he is African (Ethiopian) and was raised in Sweden and adopted into a Swedish family. ← Thanks for the correction on the "american" bit. I think for the purpose of the conversation the fact that he is black and wanting makes the point. -mike

The Edna Lewis & Scott Peacock book "The Gift of Southern Cooking" has a very interesting lane cake recipe in it. Aside from that one recipe, the book is amazing and well worth a purchase. -mike

We agree, the answer is in part because those cooks, dishwashers, butchers and preps are from poor backgrounds. They live mostly in squalor and well below the poverty line. But, I find this to be the best current day example of racism and explotation in the restaurant business. The majority of these people are not here legally, sometimes working 2 and 3 to a single SS card and paid as such by restaurant owners far below what is standard or acceptable because the owners are well aware of their status and can. We couldn't even begin to talk about Food TV and Exec. chefdom for this group. In their world business acumen translates into something most of us here do not worry about and might not be able to pull off....how do I feed my extended family from grandmother to infant new born on what I can scrounge off the books at 80 hrs per week because no one will sponsor for a green card. The original question still remains unanswered for me. If African Americans have triumphed and raised themselves up and into the courtrooms and boardrooms and out of these same jobs that are now occupied by Mexican Americans why hasn't that also translated into restaurant ownership and media status in proportionate numbers to the majority. It is at least clear that one African American chef, Chef Samuelsson would like to make that move. mike

Thanks Shellfishfiend! Well, I just can't put this book down! Last night we made the Country Captain with rice and Onion Rings. This was the children's first intro to curry and they all loved it. As with all the other recipes we have tried in this book so far, its a keeper and we will do all again. .....and for dessert. Fresh Apple Cake. We couldn't find Winesaps anywhere so we made it with Granny Smiths. When we try new recipes we always ask ourselves what we would do differently. So far with this book's dishes we wouldn't change a thing. Very fine indeed. -Mike

Judith, I'm speechless, your quail look so perfect. Your description of the dish is torture! -mike

Chef Andres, My wife and I enjoy your TV show very much. We love the format, a little fun, a little school lesson and a whole lot of good food that is easy to make at home. We watch here in the states on TVE International but lately have been unable to find it. Is the show going to continue to be shown in the US and do you have plans for a US version on TLC or Discovery Home? Thanks! -mike