C. sapidus

I’ll second (third, fourth, twentieth) praise for the Edge Pro and for Chad’s sharpening tutorial. Reading the tutorial provided the impetus to sharpen our 20-year old Chicago Cutlery assortment, and the difference is amazing. Unfortunately, the knives aren’t holding their edge terribly well. After a week of fairly intensive home cooking, the chef's knife feels like it needs to be sharpened again. I use a chef’s knife 90% of the time, so if we have any money left over after tax season this may be a good time to upgrade. I’ve been doing a little research, and a 240 mm gyuto seems like just the thing. Hattori HD, Ryusen Blazen, or Tojiro Powdered Steel look pretty sweet, but I need to find a place that I can try them out in person. Anyone know of any good knife stores in the Washington DC area? Bruce

Susan: congrats on gaining approval from Teenage Daughter. We had a similar experience with a friend’s TD and dum aloo (potato-tomato curry from India). TD was reputed to be a very picky eater, but she had seconds and thirds of the dum aloo, then insisted on taking the leftovers home. People who like my cooking are far more likely to be invited back. Bruce

I’m really glad that the Susans revived this thread. I adore Thai food, so I've been drooling on my keyboard (that explains any typos). This week I have been cooking from Eng Tie Ang’s Delightful Thai Cooking. I never get a chance to take pictures of weekday meals, but described the results on the “What’s for Dinner?” thread. To recap: Spicy fried rice (twice) – excellent! Pork with red curry – sabotaged by my too-mild homemade red curry paste Tonight I made green curry with beef, and it was delicious. The curry paste was from a can, and I substituted lime zest + lime juice for kaffir lime leaves. It didn’t matter a bit – the curry was really good. I must be getting better at adjusting the seasonings just before serving. The boys had hamburgers, rice-a-roni, and pickled beets. Elder son was brave and asked for a small sample of the green curry, heavily diluted with rice. Some time this weekend I’ll make green curry with shrimp (the final dish in the series). Schedule willing, I’ll break in the new mortar and pestle on some green curry paste. So far, Eng Tie Ang is batting .750 (3 for 4). Not bad for a ballplayer or a cookbook, especially since the one miss was my fault.

Pistachio shortbread is yummy. The recipe uses lemon zest and semolina flour: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/109498

Hmm, I love fish sauce, cilantro, dill, etc., but I'm not crazy about raw beef. I had kitfo once (Ethiopian steak tartare). It was pretty tasty, but every few bites I would remember that I was eating raw meat. Urg. My favorite vindaloo recipe uses mustard oil, which has an unpleasant, penetrating, stink-up-your-house aroma. You heat up the oil to remove this “fragrance”. Unfortunately, the stench transfers itself to your house, where it remains like an unevictable house guest. I need to figure out a way to de-gas the mustard oil on the grill.

hwilson41 - I stand corrected. I have had some killer crabs in Virginia. The C&W line is great, too

This thread inspired me to make some standard breakfast fare. In our house, DW usually makes the “regular” food, while I usually make the more exotic dishes. Apparently, somewhere along the line I mentally reversed the directions for making omelets and scrambled eggs. I had been cooking scrambled eggs quickly over high heat, and cooking omelets slowly over low heat. I can hear all of you thinking “Duh”. Anyway, it turns out that the correct method works much better (all together, “Duh”). I made nice, soft, plain scrambled eggs for grandma and younger son. Then, I tried two batches of omelets. One had feta cheese with sautéed Poblano peppers, garlic, and chives. The other had Poblano peppers, garlic, and fresh basil. Can you tell that I love Poblano peppers? I followed Julia Child’s instructions for banging on the skillet handle to flip the omelet. Although clouting cookware is great fun, I need to gauge impact strength better. One of the omelets flipped quite nicely, but the other half-cleared the pan. Even the flying omelet was quite tasty, though.

Maybe this is a Maryland thing, but once you have had real crab cakes you will never willingly eat crab-flavored hush puppies. Big lumps of sweet backfin crab meat, lightly seasoned, with just enough filling to keep it from falling apart. Dang, I made myself hungry. Definitely home-grown tomatoes, picked fresh off the vine. Freshly-ground coffee (Peet’s is wonderful, but others are, too). Freshly-ground black pepper. Home-made sate sauce. Good Ethiopian food, especially the injera.

athinaeos: Absolutely, we are treated to wonderful Russian cooking, and lots of it. Our boys are from Russia, so blinis, pastry-wrapped meats, and Russian salad are special treats for them. A running joke is the time that we were invited over for “dessert”, which consisted of a seven-course meal. Oh, and the desserts are to die for, especially the fruit pies and Russian chocolates.

Yup, when DW is away I revert to bachelor fare: Mexican veggie and egg dishes, fettuccine Alfredo, and frozen thin-crust pizza with lots of added garlic, chilies, ‘shrooms, feta, and Mexican oregano. Favorite one-dish meals include huevos al albanil (bricklayer's eggs) or chayote, zucchini, or mushrooms al vapor (with serranos, garlic, cilantro, lime, and feta) a la Diane Kennedy. Sometimes I just cook the same old stuff with more chilies. Sometimes I’ll have an all-Haagen-Dasz dinner, usually coffee or dulce de leche. It is probably good that DW doesn't go away very often Occasionally, I will devote a day to time-consuming but delectable dishes like baklava, Oaxacan moles, papas chirrionas, dum aloo, or vindaloo. If I make a special dish, I’ll save some for DW. Oh, and I'll enjoy a bottle of red wine. DW loves red wine but it gives her a miserable migraine. It isn't really fair of me to enjoy a luscious zinfandel or shiraz when she can't.

eipi10: Interesting, I had never heard of black salt (kala namak). Googling indicates that it is unrefined and includes sodium sulfate and other oxygenated sulfur salts. This apparently yields eau de sulfur upon dissolving. Yup, I guess that would taste (or smell) different. Some of the web sites caution against eating too much black salt (true for plain salt too, I guess).

A local restaurant supply store cut a sheet of stainless steel to size, and we mounted it behind the cook top with high-temperature caulk (available in the fireplace section of your local big box store). Cleans up great!

Good companions can turn indifferent food into a good meal, and good food into a great meal. When we get together with our Russian friends, the conversation includes anything and everything, jumping loudly around the crowded table in Russian and in English. Topics include scientific research, medicine, travel, philosophy, literature, food, drink, gardening, and gossip (usually simultaneously in a mix of English and Russian). Comparing experiences growing up on opposite sides of the cold war is a recurrent and fascinating topic. When we have a family dinner, the conversation usually veers towards bodily parts and functions, video games, sports, rap music, and other interests of sub-12 year old boys.

As mentioned above, capsaicin is hydrophobic (good SSB word). If the sauce contained fat, and the fat congealed when the dish was cooled, the fat-soluble capsaicin may have been preferentially segregated from the sauce. Perhaps the congealed fat was left behind when the dish was reheated? This could account for the lowered zing. Basis for this theory is as follows: I once made chili with lots of chipotles. The chili packed a wallop, and I was worried that it would be too spicy for its intended recipients. Just before serving, I skimmed an oily layer from the chili’s surface. Apparently, most of the capsaicin was in the oily layer, because the chili went from maybe-too-hot to definitely-too-bland

I suppose fried rice will have to wait for the "stuff, with beaten eggs in them" thread.

The chemical composition of different salts is essentially identical. The only significant difference is the size of the crystals. With larger crystals, you occasionally get a burst of salty flavor. This effect disappears if the salt is dissolved, e.g., in soup. Robert F. Wolke, a chemistry professor and Washington Post columnist, explains all: http://www.wwrecipes.com/salt.htm

My morning-phobic wife leaves early for work, so she makes coffee on work days. She sets up the coffee-making implements the night before, and then grinds the beans each morning. While our nothing-special drip coffee maker does its thing, she boils water to heat up my battered steel thermos. She then grabs a cup of black coffee before leaving for work. I stumble out of bed, shower, and herd the boys through their morning routine. The school bus picks up elder son from our front yard. On my way out the door, I dump the hot water, fill the thermos, put the grounds in the compost, and rinse out the coffee maker. I drive younger son to his bus stop, conveniently located a block from my office. After seeing him safely on the bus, I park the car, carry the thermos to work, and savor my first cup (with half-and-half and a touch of sugar) while the computer boots up. Ahh. On the weekends, I make the coffee. Same routine sans thermos, but I use more coffee and grind a bit finer. My wife rises late, greeting me with her usual affectionate morning greeting: “COFFEE?!!” Yes, dear.