Kouign Aman

Doc, you've nicely illustrated a problem with medical questionaires. There's no place to enter "adverse reaction to". The only place I can find to list those meds which family members should avoid is under "allergies". Perhaps, slowly, as a group, we can help those we know change their vocabulary from "I'm allergic to onions" to "I have an adverse reaction to onions" or "Onions upset my stomach", or whatever. "Allergy" is perceived as a useful shorthand. Maybe, leading by example, eGullet members can start a wave of clearer communication.

the fruit makes a nice substitute for the green apple sour candy chews that have been so popular with kids for the past few years. Chewy, and plenty sour enough!

You just made my day! That's a terrific story.

Oh, it will be fun to see winter and not have to dress for it! Thanks! I think you and I must have the most popular fridge in North America. I've seen it in at least two previous foodblogs as well. And I must say yours is nicely stuffed!

Thanks for blogging, y'all. Best wishes for success in your goals for 08 and beyond. Its been fascinating and interesting reading.

The canape maker would be a hoot to use for petit fours for valentines day. Editted because tho I read it thrice, twasnt til after I posted this that I saw "The platter says Wagner on the back."

Righto, that's the menu next time I get to Saigon. Yum. Thank you kindly! RachelD - if you look, you can see Ellen's hand, quite elegant it is. Stunning Tshirt too.

what were the height differences- was batch 2 taller? ← Batch 2 was considerably taller! Maybe 25%. I liked them better for both texture and appearance. They were more domed tho, which for me is jes' fine.

Pookie, good good good good vibrations going your way. I hope ya get an easy keeper! Apparently babies can taste what you eat, starting around 5 months pregnant. So, its easier to introduce babies to those solid foods later (so say the statistics). S'far as I know, no one's studied its carryover into later life, just at that smashed food stage. Hoping, I ate way more broccoli, spinach and other greens when knocked up than before or since, and the little munchkin did indeed prefer those smooshed foods to things like bananas. Mangos were my intensely orange of choice. However, the little palate is maturing, and once-favored mangos have been knocked off the list along with most things that are even the tiniest bit 'sour'. (tho oddly bitter remains acceptable). It appears the window of opportunity is small. More to the point given your current situation: what you eat affects the taste of your milk. My kid was VERY happy when I ate mustard, garlic or horseradish. Did not much like it when I ate legumes. I have no idea how lectins would get from my gut to my milk, but based on her gas pains, they did. So, have fun. No way to tell what will make baby happy til you try it! Caffeine - March of Dimes puts the cut off at ~ 3 cups of coffee a day. They are kinda expert in these things.

One could get up to go to the restaurant, and in passing the table, stop and politely respond to something they'd said previously. Something like "Oh I agree, she's TOTALLY overrated as an actress too!". Might even work. I've never had quite the guts to try it in a restaurant setting.

Re body image, dieting etc, it seems to me its probably a component that straight women, gay men want to be sexy to men straight men, gay women want to be sexy to women. Regardless of gender, if the target audience is the same, the methodologies are probably too. California does seem to have more than its share of body obsession. Is it the beach, or Hollywood, I wonder? A bunch of small meals reminds me of Gone with the Wind, and Mammy forcing Scarlet to eat before the party at Ashley's folks, so that she'd only be seen to 'eat like a bird' in public. Maybe that helped those Southern gals stay whip slender as well?

Its baaaaaaaack...... San Diego Restaurant Week 2008 If I had stomach enough and time (and a babysitter), I'd be after these ones - new to me * Trattoria Acqua * Marine Room (oh the view) * CHIVE * El Bizcocho and these, some old favorites, some fond memories out of my usual range * Vincent's * Bertram's at Mr A's (oh oh OH! the view! Is that BA's new jet?) * Mille Fleurs * Fish Market * Bernard O's And then, if there were still resources: * Roppongi * Arterra

racheld and divaslasvegas, just think of it as a sweet noodle kugel, not mac'n'cheese.

Morning food.... our bodies arent all that picky. If you're getting up and having a cup of coffee with a bit of milk or sugar, your body thinks you've broken your fast. So, if you dont get hungry for 'real food' til later, but you are feeling energetic, you've probably knocked your body out of 'fasting' mode. One way to check is to check your pulse. When I was dieting drastically, my bod would hit a point where it decided we were in famine/fast, and my pulse would drop nearly 20 beats per minute. This is not a subtle change. And all it took was a few bites to bring it back up to its more energetic self. Since I read about that technique somewhere, the symptom cant be unique to me. Baseline non-fasting resting pulse rate is easy to get: check your pulse after lunch or dinner, before standing up from the table. Do it a few different times to get a feel for where it sits. Then you can use it to check yourself in the morning before and after breakfast. It wouldnt surprise me if you (chardgirl) found that your pulse dropped just about the time you decided you had time to eat. Your decision could well be triggered by the change in the way you feel, due to the change in metabolic rate. caveat: I was a college student at the time, and all this pulse monitoring took place during classes. I have no idea how its affected by activity such as bending, lifting, carrying etc. all of which raise the pulse rate. My body/lizard brain works differently from mizducky's. I do best eating 3 meals in 2 days. I need to get good and hungry so that I know when to stop eating because I am really good at feeling the difference between hungry and not hungry, but I suck at telling the difference between not hungry and not-quite-full-to-the-point-of-pain. And I prefer substantial meals to small ones. As the lady says: whatever works for you!

I can only remember once having a craving that sent us on an oddessy, to have corn bread and baked beans. Went to 3 places to get what was "necessary", and ate it for dinner and breakfast and lunch, then it was all gone, and the craving never repeated. I refused to completely give up coffee, but pregnancy changed my perception of the smell from wonderful to foul. I'd just kinda hold my breath and drink my daily halfcup. God, I loved that rush of feeling slightly less tired, for those few minutes. My mom was put on salt-free diets for both her pregnancies. My sister and I both grew up eating table salt straight. I always wonder if there is a connection between our strong attraction to salt and mom's diet.

Its cooked, its chilled. I'd eat it if I felt it had been promptly stored after cooking. Although you might not want to serve any portions in direct contact with a metal surface. That's plenty of time for amino acids to eat the metal and make a funny tasting mouthful. You could warm it gently for a short time to bring the surface temp up to ~ room temp, then serve it cold. As its sliced, the new surface will warm up a bit. Since the center will be cold longest, not much is gonna grow.

Hey! I have that poster! Its my souvenir of a walking and eating trip 'round San Francisco - we stopped and bought a dark-chocolate dipped candied apricot in every candy store we saw. 13 of 'em total, in one day. LOTS of walking! The actual goal was to locate a poster shop that had that specific print, without dealing with city traffic and parking. The candy was a bonus. I remember it better than I remember the sights. What's the playdoh for? Salt-fixes? Sandy, is there any possibility of biking partway to work, or home? Is there an interim station where you could load and offload a bike, or store it during the day? 30 hilly miles sounds like work!

Thaw the shrimp in the fridge the night before, so you dont risk solid shrimps or sneak thieves, day of. dont clean the office. Clean out the fridge instead. you need space to put work in progress. Can you assemble the potatoes in advance or at least slice them and leave them in acidulated water in the fridge ? 1 hour to get all that done, WHILE THE FAMILY IS IN THE HOUSE, is risky. Even tho its probably totally doable when you are home alone. Good luck. Oh yeah, and one more thing: wake up in am, open a bottle of wine. Keep it in the kitchen. Its 'cooking wine'. Refill your glass as often as necessary to keep your sense of humor and wellbeing going strong. I figure I'll get thru one full bottle between calming my mom about the turkey at 7 am, to putting the last dishes away after the third meal, at 7 pm. That doesnt count what get serves with meals, of course. One of my friends swears by pink lightbulbs. She replaces every bulb in the place just before parties. That way you cant see the dust, she says.

Somewhere on this website is a recipe for bacon candy. So the answer to your question is "Yes".

Made a buche de noel on Sunday. Fast and easy. Pretty, and delicious. No pix. Cake was from Joy of Cooking. choc genoise, syrup = kahlua, frosting/filling = faux mousse (whipped cream and melted chocolate, well merged). Made a nice rough textured bark, and light but very rich cake. Next time, finessing touches like multi-colored bark! I finally want a spray bottle for the kitchen, to apply the syrup. Brushing it on was a pain.

Made one of these this weekend. < 2 hours, start to finish. Yahoo! I filled and frosted with something that I expect has a technical name, but that we refer to as faux mousse at home: melted chocolate folded into whipped cream. It did a lovely bark with little effort. I want to improve two things (which are fortunately interrelated) before making the next one for Xmas. I used Joy of Cooking's chocolate genoise. It was not so very chocolate. Does anyone have a recipe for a dark colored, very chocolately genoise? JOC called for 1/3 c clarified butter in the batter. Would it be a disaster to replace half of that with melted chocolate? (more solids, less fat, going for the color & flavor). The interrelated thing is that my cake and my filling were darned near the same color. I want to increase the contrast. If the cake idea above wont work, then I'll darken the filling. A third possibility I'm wondering about is: instead of painting the cake with liqueur or flavored syrup before rolling, perhaps painting it with melted nutella, to get a dark edge in the roll. Although the kahlua tasted muy very good and was very easy!

In 2008, I will eat ..... Oh yes, I will eat! I will make that persian lamb & cherries dish the tenor likes so much I will find a new 'favorite' vegetable / veg preparation for the family, or at least for the munchkin I will learn how to plan ahead for a special recipe, since the tenor does all shopping and how to cook spicy garlic eggplant because I like it so much I will teach the munchkin more about cooking I will read ... nothing in particular comes to mind And I will grow vegetables we like to eat and cook. And yeah verily, the munchkin shall help me. And we shall look for the unexpected, like red carrots, purple potatoes and black tomatoes

To get folks to depart in a timely fashion - run out of booze. That works fastest. second choice = run out of ice. Not always successful, depending on how impaired tastebuds have become. third choice - run out of food. Ultimately successful, but can take a while. in a real pinch, call the cops on your own party. I try to avoid that one. Sounds like a fun feast and a good party to attend. Are you hiring?

Um....why is your own company and food so uninteresting that you are 'forced' to watch other tables? How was it accomplished ? I've been 'forced' to hear other tables, in that they were so loud that our conversation was difficult to sustain in comparison. But forced to watch others eat.... never once in 40+ years of eating out at restaurants of many different caliber has this been done to me. Its fascinating to contemplate.

Half sheet baked alaska in the making. ~ 1 dozen egg whites, cream of tartar and sugar getting light and glossy in a bowl. With 20 min before the guest of honor is expected to walk thru the door, up jumps my mom's cat and lands his two front feet square in the center of the bowl. Meringue went everywhere, including all along his back. His chest, sides, throat and chin were completely coated. Pitched the cat into the bathtub and closed the glass door. Pitched the meringue into the sink, washed the bowl, put more eqg whites into a warming bath. Got the thing covered and stored seconds before the bell rang. The cat took days to get clean.