Kouign Aman

I like Monterrey Jack. It melts well.

Thanks for asking that Q. The only downside I know of to HFCS is flavor. In liquid products, it provides a different taste, slightly, than sugar. Not worse, just different.

Oh joy! A triple header! I'd just bought the carrots for JAZ's carrot soup (52 1/2 wks, 52 soups thread) on Friday. I look forward to souping along. If you want it super clear, filter it when its done and still warm. This is no fun and I wouldnt bother, but you can get crystal clear stock. The gelatin comes from the cartilage breaking down - all good. I second your Q about cooked vs raw bird. I've seen references on egullet to using both. Some folks even pre-roast the bones if they've taken the raw meat off the carcass for some reason. Has anyone tried it both ways (raw / precooked bird) and can report back on any effect on flavor?

Sweet marjoram with berries, rosemary with orange, especially with orange peel.

You and I could play JackSprat and wife :laugh: "Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean. 'Twixt the two, they licked the platter clean". That texture you gravitate toward? Thats the one I dont like. And I lurv whipped cream, meringue pie topping, etc.

There may also be concern about the manner of failure. If there are three rivets, one is going to go first, and even if it quickly causes the other two to fail, there is time to notice, react and quickly put the pan down. When a weld goes, there it goes. Hot stuff everywhere. Its a much more dangerous mode of failure.

I need to replace two trees, before they destroy the plumbing. I'm thinking a Meyer Lemon will take one spot, but Im not quite sure its tall enough. My dad has one that grew in a big flat shrub. Wonderfully easy to harvest! The other might be a Buddha Hand, if its compatible with the space. What a weird and freaky fun thing to have. Thanks for the heads up on the peppers. I save seed too, but this is only the 2nd year of the garden.

I dont enjoy eating 'rubbery' textured things, no matter how much l like the flavor. There was a delicious cold dish I was served several times in China that looked like noodles but had a resistant-then-sudden-give texture that made it an act of self control to eat. (I think the guide said it was sea cucumber.) Snails are out too, same reason. Great sauce, you can keep the pencil erasers. I suspect this texture is because I never experienced it growing up. If I tried, I could perhaps overcome it. I dont expect I'll try tho.

There are drunk driving laws (we catch you while you ARE drunk) and open container laws (we catch you while you are sober, in case you may become drunk). Regardless of whether it is sensible, an open container law is fairly easy to live with. You have to be doing something to get pulled over in the first place, and then something to make the cop look for that open container. Bad idea to flash your Bud can at the nice policemen. They get so much less nice, so very quickly. If you are waving that open wine bottle around where the police can see it, you probably need to be taken off the road anyway, for impaired judgement regardless of blood EtOH level. Anyway, the Q was are there other such laws as the one in RI. Answered (by several) for CA.

Before you commit yourself to a cabride, mapquest the distance.

What a treat, to have fresh greens from the garden, despite the snow. Im thinking of planting bell peppers this year. Does anyone have any favorite varieties? Otherwise I shall take the seeds from a supermarket donor. thanks

Actually, pompous lady had forgotten to be pompous for once, and was enjoying a huge tucker with visceral pleasure. MFKF took that way and sent her back to her pompous prison. The writing makes it sound deliberate. That was mean. Re the guy on the train platform - laughing where he could see it was flat rude. Laugh after he's out of sight for petes sake. But as I noted before, it reads as if it were involuntary. Ok, people are mean sometimes. Pretty much all of us. Doesnt make me dislike MFKF or not want to read her. In fact, it probably helps my enjoyment. She has to be whitewashing a lot (we do want people to see us in a good light, yes?) but she shares these bits. Delving back in - well I read the thing cover to cover in what, a week? Not so hard to delve back. I'll probably skip bits this time. Another thing I enjoy is her recipes calling for "herbs". She's so strong in my largest area of culinary weakness. I cant use herbs without a recipe to save my life! Any recipe of hers that I followed would be bland or inedible. So I admire and aspire to that ability she takes for granted. I did laugh at her tiny samples of adult foods for her kids. Times have changed! There's a point when they've returned to Europe to close the Swiss house and buy painkillers for Chexbres, where it sounds like he's already decided to suicide when it gets too bad, and she knows it.

Righto then - I challenge you to accept duckduck's challenge!

If you know anyone who crosses the pond, you might ask them to bring you a 500g jar or two. Its harder to get your finger into it to clean out the bottom, but there's a luxury in looking at that large amount of yum all in one place.

In Italy, the waiter came over, to ask our large party if we had a last order & to give us our bill, because they were closing soon. We all rushed to apologize and pay and stand. He assured us that we were welcome to stay (outdoor tables) as long as we liked, and to simply leave the carafes and glasses on the table when we left. They would clean up in the am. We stayed for at least another hour and walked by several times during the night (one of those where you see both the sunset and the following sunrise) and the glassware remained undisturbed. Not a risk that could be taken in the US, I think sadly.

The law as I learned it (lo these many years ago) was that the driver could not have access to the open container. I've wedged bottles under piles o' stuff in a cooler tho the trunk is easiest. I suppose technically I had access, but its a Rosemary Woods procedure to get at it.

It wont. You might as well give in and eat them now, so you stop hearing the voices in your head. And now you've got me hearing them.... damn.

Marmite crab sounds delightful. That sweet and salty contrast. Yum.

I've devoured AoE on this read. I've finished. I think I'll go back and start again, to cement it in my brain a bit better. What appeals to me is her humanity & sensuality, vividly put on the page. She writes about food as it affects all of her, not just her tastebuds, and she writes how her interest in foods changes with her mood/situation/age. I need the book in front of me to find wordperfect examples of her ?images?*, but in "Z for Z...", she writes (parenthetically) that she's never had enough caviar, tho once she ate a pound over the time of a day and the space of infinite imagination, (I have the wording similar, if not exact). That description evokes an actual physical reaction in me - much more than would "caviar is delicious, it is my favorite food, I travel miles in my mind when I eat it". *images isnt quite right, as the effect is more than visual. "Evokings", as a noun, is not a word. Is there a word that means the same? She presents her philosophy of life, sometimes dictatorially and sometimes as an option that works for her. If hers is completely alien to yours, I expect she'd be no fun to read. In many ways, I find hers to be reassuring. She allows for the practical, while maintaining high standards. And sometimes she sounds like a complete twit which also makes me laugh. There is a mean streak, it shows occasionally and overtly, such as when she spoils an 'oh so refined' lady's enjoyment of a huge lunch, and when she and Al laugh at a man who is chasing after them on a train platform. The man is distraught that Al left without saying good-bye. I get the feeling the laughter was involuntary, but it was nevertheless mean. Ok, she's human. Want more examples of mean-streak, to balance the humanity? Cause I think most of us have one, even if we never give it free rein. Check out the Practical Jokes thread going on right now. Earlier there was much discussion of the annoyance of "Chexbres" (the word, not the person) appearing so often. I found it didnt bother me. What I did find myself noticing is that she wrote about Al, Chexbres, and then "my husband". Made me wonder why the guy didnt get a name? Perhaps his choice. One style thing that bothers me is her use of parentheses, particularly in How To Cook a Wolf. The comments themselves, made at a later date than the original work, are interesting for the most part. But, in many cases, they are so awkwardly inserted in the text that reading it becomes difficult. I think she'd be better served then to have inserted the () at the end of the sentence in question and I'm surprised her editors didnt make that change. editted to improve clarity via sentence structure, etc.

I've never had any difficulties in bringing a partial bottle out of a California restaurant. Been doing it for a long time. Dont need a special bag either. Common sense puts the bottle in the trunk, because we do have an open container law, but to my recollection, it deals with driver access to said open container. Then again, we can buy booze at the grocery store so our laws seem comparatively liberal on the subject of alcohol acquisition (except for the 21 thing, which we had while much of the US was still at 18).

Wow, just wow! That looks fabulous. What was it like to serve? I'd hate to cut into something that special, myself.

I'd argue the deeper flavor, but V is certainly safer to spread when hung over as it is not as concentrated. M on toast, M on bread - its all good.

Wow, ma'am!

Nope. I'm just gonna wait patiently til your local supplier runs out and you have to do without for a while. I get it in huge jars, carried across the pond in the suitcase of my aunt (which last sentence is causing flashbacks to French class). :eek: editted to add: last night the munchkin found a 'travel size' (~ 1 T) marmite container, opened same, and ate the entire contents off a finger tip. You are not alone!

Yeah, but you're infatuated. I have a 4-decade relationship.