tino27

You got it. I also appreciate the use of your mixer. Heartland Gathering Bread Workshop Friday, August 8th So far, I have: edsel karen m Amy Viny CaliPoutine (*) Jean Blanchard santo_grace (*) = probable

Jean -- Being unfamiliar with the Chicago and surrounding areas, I'll take your word on the distance. However, thank you very much for generously donating the use of your KitchenAid mixer though. I'll be bringing mine up as well. I figure it we can get between 3-4 mixers, we should be able to rock and roll during the workshop. Thanks, Tom

Heartland Gathering Bread Workshop Friday, August 8th So far, I have: edsel karen m Amy Viny CaliPoutine (*) Jean Blanchard (*) = probable

Once again, Edsel, beautiful pictures!! I attended today along with Edsel and NancyH and was again pleasantly surprised at how "fresh" everything tasted. Such simple and profound flavors makes every visit there a fun time and dynamite experience. And based on the reaction of many of the staff members at Wonton Gourmet, I think they truly enjoy having non-Asian customers who are really looking for a true taste of Cantonese cuisine. I think my favorite of today was the Chive Dumpling Soup. The dumplings were quite lovely and silky and the soup had suck a lovely pork base to it. Almost unctuous in the mouth. Afterwards, we made a quick stop over at Koko's Bakery (corner of Payne and E. 38th -- sorry Edsel for getting you lost) where I picked up a nice Almond Bubble Tea and some pork buns which I intend to enjoy soon. The place was definitely hopping with locals. And the bubble tea was delicious.

Tom I would like to attend. Could an all day event till 5:30 be practical if one also wants to attend Lao Sze Chuan in Chinatown? Karen -- Great!! I did think about the dinner on Friday night (as I plan on going, too). I wanted to balance between not starting TOO early and making sure that we have enough time planned to get everything done. If people would rather do 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM instead, I'm certainly amenable to that suggestion. As more people sound off, we can get a general consensus of what time people would want to start the class.

I don't think so. When inserting meat thermometers they always tell you to stay away from the bones because the temperture near the bone is always cooler and you will get an inaccurate reading. Where is that eGullet Food Science board? Or perhaps an SSB will wiegh in on this. ← I thought that because the bone was denser, it would conduct heat better, thus giving you a high false positive. Kind of like the nail through the potato trick to cook them faster.

Hello fellow Heartland Gathering attendees! With the festivities almost upon us (can you believe it's less than 2 months away now?), I wanted to announce that I've been working with Ronnie_Suburban on trying to make the Friday, August 8th bread workshop a reality this year. I know a number of you expressed a desire between last year and this year about attending this type of class about the in's and out's of breadmaking in general as well as to see some of the techniques, recipes, and foresight into baking bread to feed 90 people. For multiple courses. My proposal is to do a hands-on, day long bread class on Friday, August 8th from 9 pm until 5:30 pm. I will break it into two segments; from 9:00 pm - 1:00 pm and 1:30 pm - 5:30 pm, although in reality, we'll still be monitoring and baking from 1-1:30. This will allow people to attend only a 1/2 day in the morning or afternoon, or all day if they so wish. Bread basics will be covered twice, from 9-9:30 and from 1-1:30. The rest of the time we will be busy mixing, kneading, shaping and baking! Questions, of course, are welcome at any time. Topics covered during Bread Basics: * Basic ingredients * Equipment needed * Basic breadmaking technique * Bread storage / freezing * Pre-ferments (poolish and biga) * Additional texts you might find useful I would like to price this very reasonably, basically enough to cover the cost of the bread, the facility, and any supplies needed for printing up recipe/instruction packets for attendees. If you are interested, please post back to this thread and let me know answers to any of the following questions: 1) Would you be interested in participating for part or all of said workshop? 2) If local to the Chicago area, would you be willing to: (a) lend the workshop a KitchenAid stand mixer (note: the smaller KA mixers might not stand up well) (b) know of a home kitchen or professional kitchen we can use during the day (we would probably need a minimum of 2 ovens in order to make enough bread) 3) Any suggestions on breads or the format of the workshop you would like to see us make As I did last year, I am more than willing to prepare specific breads for specific courses for the dinner. Even if you aren't planning on attending the workshop, please PM me or post what you are considering making and we can work something out. Here are some examples of breads we can do: * Black Russian Rye * Brioche (Rich Man's or Poor Man's) * Ciabatta * Cranberry Walnut * Focaccia with various toppings * French (batards / baguettes) * Guinness Walnut whole wheat * Honey Whole Wheat * Pesto * Portuguese/Hawaiian Sweet * Potato Rosemary * Roasted Red Pepper and Black Peppercorn * Rosemary Olive * Sweet Potato I will keep a tally of those interested in the bread workshop here on the thread (as Ronnie has so wonderfully done with the other events). Once we have a venue and a menu locked into place, I will figure out the cost per participant and post it. Thanks for reading! Tom (tino27)

The right person won. I'm interested in reading the Blogs on bravotv.com.

I have to agree with Chad on the pulled pork results: from my own experience, with a bone-in pork shoulder, I get about 50% of the original weight in usable meat. Besides cooking on-site, you could also do the pulled pork ahead of time and chill/freeze. Then use your crock pots to reheat gently until service. Something else you can do ahead of time to take the edge off during the event. Plus, that's 50% less that you have to transport.

That's the beauty of a recipe, it's just a guideline. I think traditionally it is served cold (at least every time I see it served), but who is to say that you couldn't eat it warm? I say do what makes you happy. As for the brown sugar/white sugar, I would agree that a starting point of 50/50 is good. I probably would think that 100% brown sugar might dominate any other flavors you have in the pudding.

Perhaps instead of the sesame seeds, you could use chives instead. A place I worked at did a cheddar and dried chive bread that was very nice. And devlin's point is an interesting one. Any time you add anything "sharp" (meaning rough edges) or fat-based, it will inhibit gluten formation. Giving the gluten a chance to form and then adding those ingredients at the end will ensure both a well developed and a tasty dough.

Just make sure when you make the scaled down test version that you weigh everything. That way it's much easier to get into Baker's Percentages and easier to play around with.

To try and debunk the "open bottle" theory, when I bought the remaining bottles of "old" Campari (unopened, obviously) at my Akron location, we did a direct comparison with a freshly opened bottle of each at the Velvet Tango Room. As NancyH mentioned upthread, the difference was immediate and remarkable. As I am not a Campari drinker, I was amazed to find the exact same complexity, finish, and mouth feel differences that other, more seasoned Campari lovers found.

I don't think would be any more heretical than doing a butt in a low 250 deg F oven -- obviously no smoke and not true 'Q, but still a darn fine piece of meat.

If you were just making the one salad, I would say, yes, make 50 portions. But if you are giving them a choice of 3 possible salads, then I would either make 40(ish) portions of each at the 1 cup size, or make 50 portions at a smaller serving size (3/4 cup). I can't imagine that your target group would eat not only a main course, but 3 additional cups of salad. I've read somewhere that Brie doesn't freeze well. Hard cheeses freeze well.

While I'm not shopping across any borders, I know EXACTLY what you mean by shopping around. There are some items you can get at the warehouse stores (and not have the quality compromised) and there are some things that you can only get at specialty stores. People ask where I shop for the jobs that I do and it's hard to give them a single or a short answer. Let's see ... 2 warehouse clubs, the supermarket, the spice store ... Although, with the price of gas continuing to rise, it may not make much sense to do all that running around to save that last dollar when it's all used up in gas money. Good luck Cali! I'm looking forward to seeing your progress.

I'm a big fan of making a compound butter with capers, rosemary, garlic, and lemon zest and then stuffing it between the skin and breast meat of a whole chicken right before roasting the chicken. A - MA - ZING.

Ronnie -- Mark me +1 in for Friday night's dinner. It sounds absolutely fantastic! Thanks.

Check out this springform pan. You set the ring on top of the base before securing it with the clasp on the ring section. I have several of these and I have never had any problems with leaking. In fact, I usually forego even wrapping the base with any kind of aluminum foil. Granted, they are more expensive than a standard springform pan, but I really dig mine.

If it were me, I would take my tomatoes, slice them fairly thinly, coat with olive oil and oven bake them at a low temperature (250 deg F), for about 2 - 2 1/2 hours. That will concentrate the tomato flavor. Then whiz the mixture up in a food processor or blender. Perhaps add some fresh basil and garlic, too. Combine that with your souffle base and I would imagine you'd be good to go.

Thank you ! I thought I was loosing my mind, because it *sounded* different......and I was sure of it when I saw them dubbing the Chairman's voice instead of the subtitles. And I believe(?) the voices for the regulars are different too, or maybe I just never saw these later ones as thoroughly as I saw the earlier ones. Maybe that's the explanation for the difference. The episodes so far on FLN appear to be the very tail end of the series that was shown on FN. I only remember seeing maybe 5 or 10 episodes with the Italian IC in the opening credits on FN, and he's been in the opening of each one so far on FLN. Maybe FN didn't rerun the tail end of the series as incessently as they did the front end? So we didn't become so "trained" in the nuances of the music and the dubbing? I'll reserve judgement until I see more episodes on FLN, but suffice it to say I scared the dogs by shouting "YESSSSSSSSSSSSS" when I saw the promos. ← The dubbed voices are the same as those found on FoodTV.com. Only the background music seems to be different.

Please, if you want to contact FLN, go here: Contact Us Request that they bring the original music back. It is such a part of the original Iron Chef experience. The new music is, pardon the expression, crap. I can deal with dubbing (as much as I abhor it), but we need the original music back together with the original show.

It is back, but what's the deal with all new music? It's bad enough that they dub it (instead of subtitling), but do they have to replace all of the music, too? I tried looking for an email address on FLN's website to contact them, but I couldn't find one.

Where did you read that active dry yeast would not work in this recipe? Normally the yeasts (fresh vs. active dry vs. instant) are interchangeable in a recipe as long as you make the appropriate adjustments in the amount of yeast you use.

Yum, now I am salivating. The salsa verde that came on the pork and cheese pizza came across more as a gremolata than a salsa verde. Either way, it was delicious. And that pizza crust ... OMG. That ricotta dip looked awesome, too. Was it similar to a Greek skordalia (skorthalia)? Methinks I need to get back to Lolita soon.