Kouign Aman

I only compost in the yard in winter. If its not on the ground by about March, its going in the greenwaste bin. Here, the city picks up greenwaste and composts it. We can get the compost free. Helps alot w local fly and smell control in the warm summer days. This year we had a few volunteer tomatoes and a stellar volunteer cantalope from last years incomplete composting. In theory, compost gets hot enough to kill seeds and pathogens. Clearly, mine didnt! My neighbor composts everything and I wish they would stop because it STINKS of rotting meat, and makes part of our yard unusable.

Alasdair, do you include reheating time in your calculations? At our house weekday breakfast takes 7 min to prepare. More on weekends, because we can make the fun stuff then. Dinner easily over 20 minutes. Some of that is not hands on, but one is not entirely free to leave the area and do other things either.

Choux, this from the wiki article linked re the CBP: However, I fail to understand how yeast is less nutritious than flour. Differently nutritious yes, but less? I have no problem w tartaric acid in making my souffles, why would I mind it in bread? And soforth w many of the listed 'evil' additives.

Thanks for refreshing my food memories of spain. peas w ham. white asparagus - definitely not canned. olives w anchovies

Very pretty Jello salad, in other words.

I know. Lame, right? Had I known how bad the drink was actually going to be I would've sprung for the souvenir glass. Umm, next time? And though we sat inside for a couple songs, we did make it out to the flaming fountain. Truly, a sight to behold. Dont sweat it, you can get the glass in a thrift shop at some point. The Hurricane is a truely horrible drink. Most of the knockoffs are more swallow-able, if not good. Sadly, the bar doesnt serve "flaming jelly beans", which are possible the perfect drink to go w the fountain.

Very good question! The (assumed) lack of quality ingredients, for one, that results in a machine-made chemical foodstuff that is bread in name only? I again note the profound evil that is the Chorleywood Bread Process. And then there are all the fans of the high yeast, high salt "5-minute" bread - a dozen or more pages of them chiming in here.

Show up at Galatoire's in New Orleans, sans jacket, and they'll gladly hand you a white waiters jacket to wear. I suspect they have a stash of ties too. They've been a successful restaurant for some time and look to stay that way, despite or perhaps in part because of enforcing their dress code.

Fat Guy, if you liked em enough to eat 5 and ask for the recipe, what makes them a "crummy product"?

I made an absurdly rich custard with distinct cardamom flavor using 1 c cream to 3 cardamom pods, peeled cardamom seeds from pods, discarded pods and crushed seeds. Infused cream with crushed seeds over low heat. Strained out seeds. I infused for at least 20 min. cardamom custard you could try a higher ratio. If your customer wants 'in your face' flavor, how about dusting the brulee w cardamom just before serving? Or putting some on the plate so the smell is very present?

USe frozen blueberries if the chief job is color. Or Grapejuice concentrate? Dark intense purples will win against yellow light. Cant wait to see pix of the entire meal!

Why are curry salt and smoked salt at the height of chic, but those old friends, celery salt, garlic salt and onion salt, are looked down upon?

meatballs. potato cubes in spicy sauce marinated tomatoes (cut big tomatoes into chunks) marinated mushrooms

classic quesadillas are cheese only. Low and slow. To add peppers, cook the peppers first, separately. Otherwise the water in them keeps the cheese from sticking to them. Shrimp are another good add-in. Add the additional ingredients when the cheese is already melted; its the last step before folding*. *I usually heat one tortilla, put cheese on one half of it, then fold it in half when its about done, so I have half circles. Easier to manage than two full circles slipping around each other.

This answers part of the Q on another discussion about why glass refrigerator dishes went out of style!

Oh, it is, it is. Its not too short for a caffeine-lack headache (thank goodness for no doz!), but much too short for instant coffee! :LOL:

The purple potatoes dont look very purple in yellowish light, after cooking. If they were browned at all, the combination of browning and light hide the purple. They make a lovely light purple mashed potato which looks a hideous grey with yellow light. Ditto when boiled for potato salad. S'not a problem with blue-white light. Blueberries are the most reliable purple I've encountered for cooked food. They withstand all kinds of light conditions.

I have a spanish version of that olive bowl. I love it.

I used to see musk lifesavers in NZ & Oz. I personally dont see the attraction, but hey.

South, we landed at Picton and headed to the West coast at Westport. We drove down the edge of the world, in at Haast, and eventually to Queenstown, Invercargill, Te Anau, Dunedin and Christchurch. Gonna have to look up names and fix this post. Breakfast at Dirty Mary's in Westport - huge enormous portions, interesting combinations. A small area with a few toys made the child happy. Stopped in small town of _____ by the Fox Glacier for lunch at _________. Salad, soup, sandwich, bowl of chips. All were very good. Had a good Pavlova in Queenstown. Pizza in Invercargill at _________________. We were served by the owner - a young man quite thrilled to have his own restaurant. We enjoyed the meal & the gelato for dessert. Not great pizza, but a pleasant meal of good pizza with a very thin cracker-crispy crust. We missed the Red Cliff in Te Anau . Our schedule was so tight we snarfed down tomato soup and cheese sandwiches in our motel room between returning from Milford and heading out to the glowworm cave. Best lunch of the trip was at ____________ on the way from Invercargill to Dunedin. Again, an area with toys (and a friendly cat) improved the place greatly for the child. Cadbury's for breakfast in Dunedin - took the first tour of the day. (tho I like the other brand, _______________, better). Sushi for lunch - cheap sushi is different from our local cheap sushi. For example, teriyaki chicken does not make it into california cheap sushi. It was interesting. I love the soy sauce fish. We dont get those either. We wanted to have a proper sushi meal at some point, but that wasnt working out for the smallest member of the party. So be it. Next trip. Indian take-out for dinner - we're not sure whether we liked the meal or the containers better. They may be our longest lasting souvenirs of this trip! Along the road were many chicken places - some better than others, but none that we tried were bad. In Christchurch, there was a street market, with attendant food stalls. German sausages, crepes, mini-pizzas built on flour tortillas as crust. All tasted good. The child celebrated her birthday by eating most of my crepe suzette as well as her maple syrup crepe. More tasty indian take-away for dinner, more great containers. This was Arjee Bhajee in Christchurch. Tea at ________ near Auckland - our last formal meal of the trip. A good price and a decent cuppa in a lovely location. What airport food? There's airport food? I dont think so. There's stuff you can put in your mouth to make your empty stomach stop hurting, but food? No. Its as bad as LAX.

We went up around the top of the island, then down thru the middle. The winners were: Eve - a bakery in Auckland. If ever I move to NZ, I need to be in driving distance of that place. If only it werent so far from : the local bakery in Bulls which had a rosemary/honey bar-cookie I dream about. Al Centro in Taihape - we had wonderful steak. Hat tip to the inn-keeper who suggested the restaurant to us. Merkur Hotel in Wellington - a beef cheeks dish they are entering in a beef-recipe contest - quite good. For the most part, we dined on meat pies and sausage rolls. We picnic-lunched a lot, and cooked breakfasts. When in doubt, a bowl of chips fills in the spaces nicely. The Hangi food was much better seasoned (and probably less authentically ancient-traditional) than my previous experiences with it (Mitai, Rotarua). If I can find addresses, I'll come back and post them.

Tri2Cook, do the savory icecreams require sweetening just to maintain texture? Or have you managed a savory flavor without the underlying sweetness? On another note - I want to make tomato icecream next year, treating the tomato as the fruit it is, rather than referencing its savory uses. Early Girls are so sugary-sweet already, much sweeter than raspberries for example, they ought to fit in very well. I will be interested to see how people react to it, if not told in advance what the flavor is.

Most : Rice - generally have 6-7 kinds in the cupboard at a time. Honey - I hardly eat it or use it, but love to collect it. When I want to use it, I taste thru the whole collection to pick the best one for the project. Cant remember them all, but current inventory includes desert wildflower, clover, orange blossom, manuka, tupelo, something from hawaii and a couple others. Least : salts. Have one. it works well.

Man, them's sum sammiches! Only contender I have is pepper bacon & liverwurst on a crusty white roll. Little bits of pickle hither and there for contrast.

how about just eating it with a spoon!