annabelle

I just pop them our with the tip of a paring knife. Easy-peasy.

Hey, Blether. Wikipedia includes vinaigrette, citing Careme and Escoffier both. This is a chicken and egg sort of a discussion. I've seen it both ways, vinaigrette and no vinaigrette.

That has been the argument, chefbryn. Escoffier and Careme say it is. I had said that tomat was not a mother sauce and was corrected upthread. It was added by Escoffier to Antonin Careme's five Mother Sauces, which included vinaigrette. So, we were both right depending on which century we were speaking of. In this case, Le Cordon Bleu or your instructors are inaccurate.

Lisa, I have certainly found that (Dunning-Kruger Effect) to be the case when teaching my children to cook. Rather than tackle simple tasks, they want to make something with 45 ingredients.

Dental work always stirs up bacteria. Strep viridians and the like. One of my friends (a microbiologist) had a hip replaced a few years ago and she always has to take a course of antibiotics before having any dental work done.

rotuts, hospital labs are staffed around the clock, at least they were when I worked in one. I don't recall this method of sterilization being used in the lab, but that could just be because I didn't work in a reference lab. "Don't eat in the lab" are words to live by.

dcarch, you realize that you just kissed all future dinner invites good-bye, yes? Friends will look at each other and say "Good lord, Bill! We can never come close to that. We may as well just order in a pizza." Of course, you can counter this spread-o-rama that you did (and it was fantastic, make no mistake) by serving potato chips in a bag and dip in the plastic container from the deli if anyone drops in.

Fewer tatttos? Less attitude? That would be good.

I watched one of the BBC shows a few months ago, Master Chef, maybe. One of the challenges was to prepare a hollandaise and two or three sauces that used it as a base. One used whipped whole cream, one became a bernaise and the third was infused with blood orange. I can't for the life of me remember what their names were. It was impressive to watch the chefs make all four sauces in about 20 minutes. Take that! Top Chefs. Escoffier includes vinaigrette as a mother sauce, so I guess we just learn to live with it.

I guess we get to watch this in about a year in America?

I like your mother sauces best, pastrygirl.

Thanks for the tip! Since he pretty much hates everything, except his own cooking, it should be a fast read.

I've not watched this last installment but did manage to watch Restaurant Wars and the soul food place episodes. I'm underwhelmed with this show this year. For instance, I never caught the names of either restaurant. "Restaurant Bound"? what, I was thinking. And Fin. As in over? Talk about tempting fate. I can't stand having Yankees (Tom C.) judging soul food/southern cooking challenges. Tom C. can stay out of the kitchens, too since all he does is snark for the cameras. Several people on here have eaten at his restaurants and proclaimed that they weren't all that, so he should stick to his knitting.

Try subbing in cake flour, Franci. It is low in gluten and a very soft flour milled especially for cake baking. Swan's Down is a good brand and is readily available. If you bake a great deal of bread, you could buy gluten flour at the health food store (or maybe Whole Foods?) if you wish to have a stronger flour for table breads, bagels and soft pretzels. For cookies and brownies, I use AP flour sifted twice and measured by weight. American recipes are measured in ounces if by weight and in cups if by measure. This is confusing if you are used to cooking with metric weights. I have a scale that has a tare feature so I can measure the flour into a bowl that is sitting on the scale. I can also change the weight measure from ounces to grams. Julia Child suggests a tablespoon or two of lard in butter based pastry crust to correct AP flour's strength to something closer to French flour for pies and tarts.

I'm not going to argue with Escoffier.

Tomato is not a Mother sauce. Patissier? Since when?

Oh, I am. No question about it. My mother even says so.

I have an ulu knife, too. My step-daughter gave it to me. Herbs are the only thing I use it on.

Chicken and waffles just sounds like drunk food to me. (Yes, I know it has been around since at least the Jazz Age.) People seem to love it from all the talk about it. My brain just says "I don't think so" whenever I hear about it.

I'm going to start baking our bread again. No more store bought bread in the house is my goal.

Shelby, 2014 is the year that you tackle that pie crust and wrestle it to the mat. Make yourself proud!

Happy New Year, David, to you and yours!

The only thing I'll caution you about is the folding feet. I accidentally melted the rubberized covering off the side of one by setting it too close to the stove. They are fantastic grippers, though. You can clamp them onto a bowl or a pot and transfer whatever you're cooking into a new vessel.

I love France. I must curb my envious streak with your adventures. Unless I can go a long as your assistant.

Wow. Still a bargain after all these years. You'll like it Patrick. It's easy to use and to clean. If you have a pot rack, it has a hole in the handle to hang it up and all the discs stack on each other in the hopper for storage. No hunting through the kitchen drawers for them.