Kouign Aman

'confound'. What a great experiment! Thanks so much for sharing the fun.

I dont think a fritatta would reheat well, but its is delicious at room temperature. As is a Spanish tortilla (not the same as a Mexican one at all at all).

...I'm still trying to figure out if I have the guts to run chicken stock through a still... ← Do it, man!! Do it!! ← I'm certainly thinking about it. If it works like other distillation/concentration processes, in theory you could capture everything before the boiling point of water, then boil of the water to concentrate the remaining flavors. Combine the former with the later and you should have something approaching Ultimate Demi Glace. -B ← I have this image of pure essence of chicken, intense enough to work magic with, produced via sealed bag stock production followed by careful distillation. One drop, enough to perfume an entire room with the essence of chicken. Done with turkey stock, it leads to creation of the Thanksgiving Dinner cocktail - cranberry juice, booze, and that one essential drop of essential turkey. I really hope you do try the still. What a fun idea.

Depends on how many meals I have. The local version of 'ethnic food' is part of the culture. If I have time to enjoy the traditional food, and meals left over, then exploration is part of the game. But I rarely have much time for that - the trips are too short, the meals too few, and the traditional options too many. The delineation is interesting - Indian and gyros shops 'are' serving british food. I usually check out the McD's menu for grins as it does vary interestingly from place to place, tho I have only eat at one overseas once. (In Caracas, McD's was a godsend for reasons quite other than the menu. Cleanest place I think I have ever seen). I took a nice walk downtown in Suzhou, to check out the redbean fried pie. Cant get those here. It was a lot of fun placing the order, because I'd forgotten my little bit of cardstock with the kanji on it (courtesy a previous guide). So the no-English young woman at the order counter and I had some fun, with lots of smiles and laughter, while we figured things out. The pie was good too.

Did they really call it 'house made roast beef'? Menu inflation, oh my.

Colder than the rest of 'em. I use a nonstick pan for pancakes and I dont give it much of a preheat. Just enough to melt a little butter. Plus, I prefer to work my way up to the perfect temp using the first pancake, instead of working my way down to it. On my old stove, I knew where to set it and all the pancakes were good. I havent made pancakes often on the SIH I have in this house. (SIH = stove I hate)

Brand new for me tonight, but I think will be a late summer staple: peeled tomatoes and salted butter cooked together while the pasta cooked. Drain pasta, top with sauce. It was very good. Whoever posted about cooking tomatoes in butter, thank you! It was my (patchy) memory of the existence of such a recipe that caused tonight's experiment.

I'm right there with ya, JEL, but then again, I dont pass out or suffer tissue damage if I miss a meal, nor am I often too nauseated to deal with food despite my body's need for calories. I think the calories are right in line with the 'snack' designation. How many calories, protein etc do you estimate are in the drinks you mix up from the powder you prefer? Just for comparison, I checked out the Carnation Instant breakie, ready to drink Chocolate flavor. There are these cute little boxes, or it comes in bottles. This info is for the boxes (much easier to schlep around). 350 Cal per of which 5 gm Fat (50 cals) 13 g protein (~50 cals) 40 g Carbs (the remaining cals). Thats Fat / Protein / carbs = ~ 14% / 14 % / 72%. A bit low on fat percentage-wise, but if easy-to-digest calories are the goal, this does ok. A general rule of thumb is 10% of dietary calories comes from protein. More wont hurt (helps if you are an athlete), so its ok there. The ingredient list is slightly shorter than that for Glucerna. It can be accessed by clicking the orange bar near the middle of the screen (it says "nutrition facts and ingredients").

Cant help with the choux paste, but could you pretty please put your pigs in blanket recipe in RecipeGullet? The shorter days fast approach and I'll be frantically seeking child-friendly recipes. (I love hotdogctopi. I used to make them for my little sister when my folks were working late. One slit makes a nice 'sea monster' mouth.) Also, how did you make the fancier loaves the next day? It would be wonderful if you could comment on that in the recipe also. I'd love to work with my small one to bake an egg in bread. It would be hugely amusing to the small person, as well as mystifying. I'm glad the pizza dough worked out for you. I bless Rebecca everytime I use it because I am not organized enough to make dough a day ahead. And I here-by give you official notice that I will throw a copycat party one of these days. Perhaps I shall put 'courtesy of sanrensho' on the corner of each certificate. (Um yeah, right. Like I'm gonna get 'round to printing up certificates.....)

FWIW, the only Carnation Instant Breakfast I ever tasted was good - like chocolate milk. Its readily available, and its not that expensive. Ok, I'm really not trying to push this product (Glucerna). Its just that its the only one anyone I know uses, and I got curious as to its contents. Here's a link to the Glucerna snackshake ingredients (far right on screen, click on little box that says "ingredients" above the nutritional info). The ingredient list is as long as my arm, and hidden in there may be things (such as specific sweetners) any given person doesnt tolerate well. To summarize, in 140 calories (1 can) there are 45 cal from fat (~4 g), 7 g of protein (~30 cal) and 19 g assorted carbohydrates (the rest of the calories). That is equivalent to a pretty balanced meal: calories from fat / protein / carbs = 32% / 20% / 48% If it does work for you, the advantage is that Costco sells it by the flat.

symmetry - you have a point. If it tries to curl in all directions at once, its gonna go very straight. And yes, killing and yet keeping fresh would be wayyyyy to much work.

That kitchen is significantly bigger than mine. Nice. I wonder if the worms are dead before they are fried. Dont need a gradient to induce curling if you have muscle action going on, as in the not dead or the just very recently and barely dead (truit bleu or however its properly written). Lily buds - the daylilies we grow in our yards? Do you know genus & species by any chance? What do they taste like (Duh. They taste like lily buds.)

With a big enough 'needle', one could remove some of the tomato seeds and create a space for the vodka/balsamic/whatever. However, I think a small plug would then be needed, to hide the hole. Exploding tomatoes .... halloween cant come soon enough.

HRV - do you get to downtown much? Because there's a lot of choice for your exemplar of italian food. We dont have one of the A+-list restaurants here, and we may be the largest US city to lack one (unless LA only made it to the A-list), but we do have rather a variety of independent places to choose from. I do not understand the constant derision of restaurant options in San Diego. If I had the cash, I'd invite Docsconz and his family out here for a week of eating at my expense. If he panned the place, then I'd have to believe. But in my experience, the city and its surrounds are not a festering conglomeration of bad food / bad cooking.

Good golly, those are some teabags indeed! 'Usual touristy mix of kaffir lime leaves, galangal and lemongrass' - would probably be seen quite innovative over here. Sounds good. Bamboo worms...(pause to control the screaming gribblies) - how do they keep em straight when they fry 'em? I'd expect them to curl up in the hot fat. Or are they wormshapes extruded from some bamboo containing mixture ? Great blog, thanks! eta: your daughter is lovely. Why the surprise re her cake? She looked quite intent on following the recipe.

I'd prefer a labeling option. 'Warning - the surgeon general has determined that there is risk of contracting blahdeblah from consuming raw milk products', and then requiring 'raw milk product' to be somewhere in large bright green letters on the package front. Those who dont know or care about raw milk cheeses will be put off and not buy, but they dont anyway I suspect. Those who want raw milk cheese already know this and will buy regardless. The visibility this will cause will be all it takes to ensure hypervigilance on the part of US manufacturers.

How would you season or sauce or accompany the live termites, for best flavor enhancement? What did you serve with the cicada nymphs? What would you do differently next time? If Sunrise Land Shrimp makes their product available (loin/breast/sortof of waterbug), will you be a buyer? (Do to agricultural laws, it may not be an option to grow your own giant waterbugs in the USA).

Good luck. The only place I've seen single cans is at RiteAid or Longs drugstores. I'll check the ingredients list but the power may be your best route because you can overwhelm the flavor with a flavored syrup if need be.

My mom likes the Glucerna product - its targeted to diabetics. Might not be what you need. Do you have the option of buying a variety of single cans at a drugstore, and trying a few to see what you like?

When I cut my finger (I posted about it on here somewhere), I used a waterproof bandaid and left it on a week or so. Ugh. Do not do this. The damage from the bandaid took longer to heal than the original painful cut: contact dermatitis, peeling, swelling, my finger tip 'pruned' and stayed that way for over a month, and was hypersensitive. The cut healed nicely at about 10 days. I wont stack a half glass of juice on top of a tupperware full of leftovers. Door-opening vibrations lead to a very clean kitchen floor. There was significant passage of time and expenditure of elbow grease in between the two events. The glass sort of threw the juice the way a jai alai ball gets thrown. Except the juice left a trail.

Oh what fun! Those pasta photos have me starving.

Would a well-behaved [or at least well-policed] small child be an appropriate guest at lunchtime, or is this a place where the kinder are better left behind?

Wenselydale is a nice bright dry cheese - sounds like it might work also.

How did it Taste?

That appetizer needs a name. Something playing off 'Angels on Horseback' perhaps. Spanish/American/British/Italian. How very 'fusion' of you . Was it delicious? Would you make it again? Same cheese? Different? Aged gouda? Its been a while since I've tasted prickly pear fruit.