Kouign Aman

Its never too late to plan ahead for next year! Thanks chef koo, 'cause I had wondered about that, seeing as its standard with other salt-preserved food. I've never cooked corned beef. <shameful confession time> I grew up on the tinned product and I like it.</shameful confession time>

I wonder if they'll have the wit to market this in obstetrician's offices and pregnancy magazines?

If the words were part of people's every day vocabulary, they wouldnt need to be replaced and explained. It seems to be "the nation's top food companies" that are simplifying instructions. How many people who are competent cooks, and conversant with cooking's specialized vocabulary, rely heavily on Kraft for their recipes? It seems to me that if someone who is interesting in learning how to cook begins with the simple recipes from Kraft, Beatrice, etal, and succeeds in correctly making the dish, it might give them the confidence to try something from other recipes. And if they've followed enough recipes, some of the specialized words & briefer instructions will being make sense just from context & experience. Its clear from the examples cited, that some folks do not have the basic knowledge to leap right in. Greasing the bottom of the outside of the pan....ay yi yi yi yi. This is someone who has so little experience he doesnt know the purpose of the grease. Cut him some slack, he's trying to learn to cook. Maybe one day, he'll become a moderator on eGullet. <she ducks, runs for cover> And remember, there are specialized uses of common words in every field. How many of us knew all the vocab for all the parts and processes of our computers before we hit the power button and started poking away at the keys? Isnt a RAM a male sheep?

Why must we know a specialized vocabulary to prepare good eats? One of the reasons I treasure the Time-Life Foods of the World cookbooks is their fool-proof recipes. A recipe that took 5 lines for Brillat-Savarin to record is allotted ~5 pages of detail. Who remembers what a warm boot and a cold boot are?

plastic egg separator. Hand-thrown ceramic vegetable steamer <editted to add the EVULU; "hippy" is an ethnic group, right? >

What a week you have planned! And what a start! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Yes, what is in that blue soup?

Im familiar with IMF, having dropped a few too many pennies there when I lived in the neighborhood. Now Seisel's is pretty close. I'll check it out. A friend of mine bought a roast from IMF and arranged to have it aged longer than standard, by several months. That seems like really good service. Glad to hear your corned beef was good. I'll check in if my friend decided to get some. Thanks for the help again, and thanks also Shalmanese and lcdm. I'll give my friend the heads up to check her local Vons next year!

a marvelous thread! Fat, salt, & crunch. 'til the ache in my stomach approaches the level the cramps will cause the next day. Anything deep fried, especially if it can be dipped in something salty and fatty. All washed down with Kahlua and milk in vast quantity. Those baked pretzel /kiss / m&m things sound very dangerous.

kalypso, thanks! My friend drives past IMF on her way home from work. I'll give her a heads up. Are you familiar with their other location off Morena (has a diff name)? slkinsey, exactly why I thought it an oxymoron. But, gotta try to help out a friend.

Its St Paddy's day and the desire to celebrate is colliding with dietary restrictions for a friend of mine. Are there any brands of low sodium corned beef available, that anyone is familiar with? (It seems oxymoronic to me.) Is there a way to reduce the sodium in regular corned beef without losing all the flavor? Thanks.

Would someone be willing to explain why a solid surface counter is needed for an under-mounted sink? I am thinking its because "undermount" means not only the final resting place of sink relative to counter, but because sink is literally mounted to the underside of said counter. Would it not be possible to build a hidden sink support and install a sink as if top mounted, but below counter height, to give same final effect, using the flimsier laminate counter?

I've been working my way thru this thread for days, laughing my head off. I feel so at home here.... When I was 10, I decided I wanted to try a glazed ham, never having had one. My folks had a small fully cooked ham in the fridge, so I carefully chose a recipe and made the glaze. I removed the printed plastic wrapper, rinsed the ham, then placed it in a pan. For over an hour, I lovingly and carefully basted it with glaze every 10 min. I will never again not notice there if there are TWO layers of plastic on the ham. I will never again assume someone else knows how to use my oven: my girlfriend set it to bake, but didnt set the temp nob. The perfect-in-13-min cookies were charcoal. The oven had last been used to broil, and was set at 500. I will never again (this makes its third entry in this delightful thread) lick the whipped cream off the power cord when it falls off the handmixer base into the bowl. I'm glad I'd bent my head down. that let gravity assist to stop the 'fun'.

That's a thought... thank you. Maybe we could replace our double sink with a single....we use the second side for holding washed stuff pre-rinse, but I think I'd rather just be able to fit large pieces into the sink and deal with rinsing another way. hmmmmmm must ponder......... DW: aint that the truth! !

"distended animation" - that is beautiful. A delightful turn-of-phrase, one for my collection. Thank you.

Thanks for including marrow bones this week. Your assembled crostini look delicious and so pretty with the delicate onion curls on top. Nice job food styling.

What fun this is to share your design process. Thank you! Not only has it been enjoyable, but I've learned a lot and been given a lot of food for thought. 42" seems like a huge sink. Have you taped its outline on a counter and played pretend wash-up yet? Would anyone ever want to be loading or unloading the dishwasher while another person was working on stovetop cooking? With your existing fridge, it looks like that asymmetrical upper corner cabinet might be darned-near inaccessible. Is it slated for 'rarely used' storage? Would shelves work in place of either of the corner cupboards? Dishwasher - ours (courtesy former owner of house) is nice and quiet but it takes for-freaking-ever to run a cycle. You might consider cycle-time when comparing models.

The cassolet looks prettier in the EH, for what its worth - I think its the rich color of the pot's interior. It all looks delicious in any case.

I wonder where they got that 30 day shelf life limit. That's that kind of thing that can usually be extended if the business in question can supply the data. It would be tough for a restaurant to show sufficient consistency etc to satisfy the FDA but a commerical processor should be able to. I'm guessing that's enough to let the big guys manage inventory easily. I would hope that a 30 day shelf life on cooked food wouldnt be a problem for a restaurant. Robyn, did you get your info from the FDA website?

FYI for all the scallop-reactives. My dear friend is allergic to all the 'sweet' seafood: lobster, scallops, but not crap or shrimp. She discovered conch is in the sweet group by accident. Just something to keep in mind if you travel to the Caribbean.

roasts including large veggies. Delegate prep chores to Mr.M as much as possible. Major bummer on the arm, especially with HRH due soon. Whoever suggested the food prep party, that seems like a really good idea. Off-Topic, if no one gave you a baby-sling, invest in one. They make a lot of things easier to do with HRH in tow. like...OT ..cooking. Good luck.

Thank you. I got the information about reversing chopsticks from one of the links on this thread. It was the first I ever heard of it. To provide a "serving spoon" set of chopsticks: would that be a pair for each dish, as with western serving utensils (one utensil or a set per serving bowl/platter) ? Does anyone know if the same applies in Chinese chopstick use? (reversal if no serving pair is available)? I'm assuming so, for hygiene reasons. So fun to learn. Thanks for starting this thread, Soba.

Are there any traditional cold miso soup recipes? Or would you be willing to serve it warm despite the august heat on Marathon? That would be fairly straightforward to make and could probably be done ahead, tho'd you also probably need to bring the miso with you...how does the FAA feel about concentrated fermenting beans-in-a-tub?

May I suggest cracked conch (or conch fritters) and grilled grouper to celebrate the locale. Southern biscuits to eat with the fish. Or serve it on sandwiches. Sounds like a fun wedding.

How does one manage turning the chopsticks around before picking food out of a communal bowl? I'm having a hard time visualizing a graceful way of setting them down, then picking them up reversed.

Almost nothing except its the Federal Food and Drug Administration that regulates them both. And with both, the FDA is intensely focussed on manufacturing/storage/shipping processes.