FrogPrincesse

I believe that they are all variations on the same theme. Tom Colicchio in Think Like a Chef also calls his version "lemon confit". The amount of salt in Eric Ripert's version seems off though, with 5 cups for 6 lemons. I've made Molly Steven's version, which seems very similar to Paula Wolfert's, with great results. You need to wait for at least a couple of weeks but they last for a long time and get better with age.

Please DO let us know your findings. I'm a bit paranoid about getting my hands on a bottle of the old LH151 (tasted but never owned). So far, reviews seem promising that quality has not suffered, but I'm in no position to say whether or not the overall character is a true recreation. I may like to snag an old bottle (read: some old bottles) while I have access to such resources. Anyone else have word on this issue? (Sorry to get off topic...) is what Ed Hamilton and Martin Cate have to say on this topic.

Here are a few interesting tidbits that I found on Wikipedia while trying to understand the specificity of Bolognese sauce versus Ragu in general.

Interesting thread. I've always wanted to research Bolognese sauce and understand its key components. Now I realize that I have never used milk in my meat-based pasta sauces. I will have to try that. Sam - Is it correct that you don't add any canned tomatoes or tomato puree, just the tomato paste?

I was thinking asteroid. Could've been an asteroid. But it was merely the perfect punch bowl ice orb. I wish I knew how to do that. Ice carving is a bit out of my wheelhouse. Was this a sphere or a half-sphere? If it's a half-sphere, it's easy to achieve with the right bowl.

Chris, Like you, I like to keep a record of things that I've tried together with notes for each recipe. Generally, my system consists of finding recipes that I want to try in the various cookbooks that I own using Eat My Books. I flag these recipes with a "Do later" bookmark, or I create a new bookmark if I am going to make the recipe for a special event (for example, "15Nov11 Dinner with friends"). When I make the recipe, I update the bookmark from "Do later" to "Tried" and I make sure to enter an electronic note at that time with my observations. If the recipe belongs to a cookbook/topic that is discussed on eGullet, I also try to post my notes here if they are worth sharing, and I include the eGullet reference in Eat Your Books. I've started doing this more than a year ago and it's great; now I have all of this information in one place. For restaurants, typically I just enter notes on my blackberry with the date, and then I decide later if it's worth sharing on eGullet (I do have a large backlog!). I've made a decision not to have a blog as this would be one more thing to maintain and I really don't have the time.

My vote goes to Lucques olives. I think they have the best texture (i.e., relatively firm) and a delicate taste.

Impress your colleagues and make a terrine! Most terrines are served cold or at room temperature and are great for potlucks/buffets.

Thanks annabelle! Although Julian was nearly destroyed in the 2003 fires, the downtown area and apple orchards were saved. I will be visiting in a few weeks for Thanksgiving which should be fun.

My order from DrinkUpNY just arrived. I gave up after trying to find these bottles in San Diego for several months now, and not being able to order them through my usual channels. So I got a bottle of Bols genever, although not as nice as the one tanstaafl2 posted upthread. I will use it to make John Collins. I've been introduced to that drink at my favorite bar in San Diego, the Noble Experiment, and really enjoyed it. The Clement Creole Shrubb will be used in Trader Vic's Mai Tais. I plan on comparing it side by side with Grand Marnier and Cointreau in that drink. The El Dorado will be also used for tiki drinks. Lastly, the Xocolatl bitters were simply too intriguing to pass up.

Local is definitely the way to go. But a couple of weeks ago I had no honey left in the house and no time to go to the farmers' market, so I picked up a bottle of "American honey" from my local grocery store. I threw it out after ready this article. This morning, another article (twitted by Bittman) goes on to explain that the vast majority of honey in grocery stores isn't technically honey since its pollen has been ultrafiltered out. The practice is most likely used to hide the honey's origin. As expected, honey bought at farmers' market does not have this issue, nor did honey from "natural" stores such as Trader Joe's.

Reviving an old thread. I've been cooking with winter squash a lot lately, and discovered this intriguing recipe for Penne with zucca, onions, anchovies, and bread crumbs in Babbo. The combination sounded a little odd to me (starch with starch?), but given my success with other recipes in the book, I decided to give it a try. The verdict? The squash (I used kabocha) became soft and caramelized a little, some of it "dissolved" and coated the pasta. The bread crumbs added texture. It was really delicious and a nice change from tomato sauce.

A very simple tart made with apples that my daughter picked with her grandparents in Julian a few weeks ago. The apples were very small so cutting them took a while. They were very tart which I like.

EatYourBooks has just launched its member indexing feature. So I've jumped on the occasion and starting indexing The Joy of Mixology by Gary Regan, which I consider a great reference. I am not sure exactly what I have gotten myself into, but last night I spent a couple of hours entering drinks, from The Abbey Cocktail to the Corpse Reviver no.2, a total of 200 recipes already. So this may take a while but soon these cocktail books will be in the database. This is exciting!

Hello jphysc and welcome to eGullet! Whisknladle, a restaurant in La Jolla, does a cocktail called London's Burning with gin, roasted jalapeño and avocado puree, lime, and cilantro. It is like a salsa verde in cocktail form and it's really tasty. Unfortunately I don't know the proportions but maybe you can try to play with the ingredients.

This is what I brought back from a trip to France a couple of weeks ago. The Picon is for a bartender friend, we already have a bottle. I went to a neighborhood supermarket in Paris and was shocked to see that they had a huge selection of rhum agricoles that I had never see before. And most of them were below 20 euros a bottle. They had about a dozen of white agricole rums (including St James, Maurin, Trois Rivieres, Clement, etc), and at least twice as many aged agricoles. It was quite a sight. I chose the Damoiseau because I know it's not distributed in the US. Also my mother brought a few artisanal rums from Guadeloupe last year that were excellent so I wanted to try more.

Squash pie is nice but I can never get enough chocolate. So I made the Chocolate Pavé from Ready for Dessert this weekend. It's a fairly light chocolate cake that is cut into rectangular pieces, like paving stones (pavés). I made sure not to overcook it and it was ready after only about 25 minutes in the oven. The recipe says to dip a fork in chocolate to create abstract patterns on the cake. My melted chocolate was very thick, so this was really impossible. I ended up adding water to the chocolate. The cake looks a little "rustic", but that's probably ok for a dessert that was created at Chez Panisse. It tasted very good and was not dense as pavé cakes can sometimes be. Slice with pool of crème anglaise

These lobsters look fantastic, and I would love to try the tandoori version. Can you share more details regarding the preparation? Thanks!

Easy . . . it's a roasted bird breast, or a baked tuber, or possibly a strange fish. Looks like fish to me.

No, you are not the only one making soup! It's getting a little chilly here in San Diego. Yes, I know, it's not too bad at 65F but for us it's starting to look a lot like winter!!! So tonight I made a Carrot Ginger Soup. I used Nantes carrots from my CSA. The soup was very flavorful with a nice bite from the ginger. A few weeks ago I made a Fennel and Tomato Soup (details on the Les Halles thread here). And I also made this very decadent Pumpkin and Leek Soup with Foie Gras (details on the Cooking with Anne Willan’s "The Country Cooking of France" thread here) So I've had lots of delicious soups recently. It looks like they are all some shade of orange though, so I need to vary my color palette a little... I really love soup. It's so comforting.

On a related note, in the future I shall refrain from adding blanched and still wet vegetables (in my case, Brussel sprouts) to a very hot cast iron skillet to avoid redecorating my whole kitchen with grease!

choux, That is strange because my copy calls for fresh apricots. I have the French version of the book. Maybe something got lost in translation? Problem solved then!

I was sold on the Pavé du Faubourg cake until I realized I would need apricots. Good apricots are hard to come by in San Diego, especially at the end of October. I am not sure that dried apricots would be a good option. Any other ideas?

This is fascinating. Can you elaborate on the "Bombay fresh duck"? How does it taste, and how is it prepared typically?

Thanks to all for the suggestions. I may have to make all of the above! The Pavé cake sounds wonderful and simple enough to make (and it did get rave reviews on this thread). However I have this unwritten rule against all milk chocolate as I typically find it too sweet and never really understood the point of "adulterating" perfectly good dark chocolate with extraneous ingredients. Do you think that this recipe will make me reconsider my position on milk chocolate?