Carolyn Tillie

Now wouldn't that be fabulous! Sonoma Market is where I buy my beef -- from their dry-aging cabinet! Maybe Melkor could thaw out some of his cow and we could have a taste comparison, n'est pas?

While living Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Paso Robles were the close, weekend-getaways for wine lovers but nothing ever really stood out. Shawn and I liked Beckmen wineries, but I think it was due more to knowing the Beckmens personally and having been wined and dined by them at one point... I think all you folks ought to come up to Angwin and visit the winery where I work now! I give private tours and barrel tastings. I think melkor should attest to what Ladera is, hmmm?????

Thank you! Before moving here, GB was a favorite of ours and is one of the reasons I wanted to be in the industry. No matter how bit my "career" gets, I will still moonlight a day or two a month at GunBun!

I think I'm with you on that one. I HAVE had insects (there is a restaurant in Santa Monica that has fried ants and I've cooked grasshopper bread so it is no big deal to me), but those embryo eggs just look a bit too scary...

Wine Drinkers Rejoice! Sadly, the article is not very indepth and does not discuss any industry-wide utilization of their findings...

I absoultely adore Clear Creek's products -- I found them when given a nipper of their Muscat Grappa and never looked back.

In SoCal, I ate at Morton's, Ruths Chris, and Nik & Stef's. Have yet to go to Cole's here in Napa. Interestingly, I can't get past the fact that a "good" steakhouse steak is in the $30 to $40 range (sans side dishes) and the best grass-fed, Humboldt beef at Sonoma Market is in the $10 to $15 a pound range - it doesn't get better than doing it at home, IMHO.

When we were setting this class up for editing, Jackal asked a similar question. I'm afraid that in my almost 40 years, I've never had access to a convection oven. The only information I could find online about convections ovens instructs: With that information, my instict would tend towards the "Bake" as opposed to "Convection Bake" but if *someone* were willing to conduct an experiment and try out the two, I would LOVE to know the differences!

Hmmmm... interesting -- I wonder if it had anything to do with the salmon being too moist. It should not have been very wet in the middle, but light and fluffy. Then again, if you look at my first attempt, it was definitely too wet due to the asparagus! Was your salmon flaked or still chunky?

I love pain. Alternately - Pain Is Good.

Truth be told, a "crispy exterior" generally means the souffle has been overbaked because then it gets chewy.... For you it means perfection and it may be hard to accomplish each time.

Thanks, Sequim; I'm slightly confused about your question -- do you mean do I brown the top with a torch or broiler? Typically, the souffle will brown itself in regular baking. The chocolate ones did not brown that much, but have another recipe for a chocolate-brownie souffle (a bit of instant espresso in the mix adds a "burnt" taste akin to a brownie) and for that, the top seems to crust a bit more. I didn't discuss frozen souffles as (I indicated), to me, they are replicas of the baked version. For a frozen souffle, one typically tapes stiff cardboard or aluminum foil around the souffle dish, make a base (usually with cooked egg yolks), let cool and fold in the eggwhites, place in the dish and freeze. When solid, the collar is removed and you have a frozen confection that resembles a baked souffle. I guess as a child of the '60s and '70s, I saw too many of these frozen things served at my mother's "coffees" and I don't find them particularly appealing. Maybe I'll have to reconsider....

Absolutely! In fact, I have to admit that the CIA recipe for the cheese souffle was too much for my dish and there was left-over batter... I think the hardest part of reducing a recipe, is the fact that it IS easier to whip a larger quantity of eggwhites. For the chocolate souffle recipe, to whip only two eggwhites alone might prove difficult only in that you may not get the volume you want. But for the savory recipe I provided, THAT one could definitely be cut in half. As Jackal advised me in our editing session, it is generally best to allow one egg per person in the production of souffles. On making those smaller souffles for guests, I will always make a few extra as there is invariably someone who will want seconds....

Walt - yes, your recipe is very similar to mine. Truthfully, the one I decided to use was only because I had TONS of powdered cocoa in the house and no solid chocolate. There are a number of recipes that call for melting chocolate and both seem to work just fine. The idea of putting the ramekins in a water bath (or bain marie, as the French call it) comes from the same idea in baking custards or cheesecakes -- that it will protect the otherwise-slightly delicate batter from over-cooking too early. Honestly, I wouldn't worry about it with souffles. In my copious amounts of free time, I may try a side-by-side comparison in baking with and without a bain marie, but I seriously doubt I will see a difference. And as far as making the base ahead-of-time is concerned, by all means. That is one of the joys of making souffles. Sometimes, in restaurants, huge batches of a base will be made for two- and three-days' worth of service. And you don't need to re-heat it at all -- but do let it come to room temperature. I don't believe having hot base benefits the rise of a souffle at all. It is the last-minute whipping of the eggwhites that is most critical. How nice for your wife, I must add! She will be EVER so impressed! An added note, a dollop of whipped cream or simple melted vanilla ice cream is a great last-minute addition to a chocolate souffle. In many restaurants, there is great show in bringin a souffle to the table, breaking through the surface, and then pouring in some fabulous sauce to accompany it. You'd be surprised how great melted vanilla ice cream is as a sauce for chocolate souffles...

Running one's thumb around the edge of the dish is not so much to create an "indent" as it is to assure a clean edge, free from any potential drips that may have occured in pouring the batter in the pan. It makes a difference if there is a drip -- that drip would bake up and harden first, keeping the souffle from rising above that spot (or making an unsightly rise) when it hit that baked-on bit. Do try one! And report back with your successes or failures! (We all learn from each others mistakes, after all...)

I always look forward to the Saveur 100 -- just to see if there is anything I've missed out on or am ahead-of-the game on. A few disappointments this year were the preponderance of breakfasts (like FOUR of them or something -- including COLD PIZZA?).

By Googling Filipino Restaurants CA, I got: This pretty interesting link...

The crab was exactly why I suggested the Pinot. I frequently have pinots with very gamey venison and find the fruitiness of pinot complements the fruitiness in game meats and will definitely work with an addition of crab not to mention the complexity of a rich sauce. I definitely wouldn't want to have a rich sauce fight with a shiraz.

Pinot Noir. End of sentence.

Nah.... if you are going to pick a sandwich, it has to be either Phillipe's or Cole's French Dip.

Although it is about lodgings, there are some additional comments worthy of note in the Napa Valley Lodging thread. Two Days in Napa thread. Eating my way from Phoenix to Napa thread. Hope these help!

These individual souffles were baked at 350Fº/180Cº. During the editing of this course, there was much discussion about variable temperatures (are large, savory souffles always baked at a higher temperature?, etc). In my research, there does not seem to be any consistency in oven temperatures. I read recipes for large, savory souffles that were baked as low as 350Fº/180Cº and small, individual souffle baked as high as 425Fº/220Cº. An interesting aspect is that many books recommend putting the rack as low in the oven as possible, for bottom-generated heat. The Joy of Cooking even offers the recommendation that if you have an oven with both bottom- and top-level heating elements, you should remove the top heating element.

Yes, I'm sorry I didn't document the entire chocolate souffle-making process -- we will be fixing this text in the next few days. The egg yolks were added after the cocoa, flour, and butter mixture was heated and smooth (along with the butter and vanilla).

Carolyn, I'm not one of those food sanitation fanatics. I'm just wary of taking stock through the heat-cool-heat-cool cycle too many times. As for hillvalley's stock, the foam on the surface raises an alarm. It's normal for stock to have flotsam and jetsam on the surface the first time you bring it to a boil (if it hasn't been clarified) but that frothy stuff sounds ominous. I can't tell you how many times I've had a container of stock go bad in the fridge because I neglected it a day or two too long. The likelihood of stock spoiling in the refrigerator is inversely proportional to the quality of the stock. I had to toss a gorgeous veal stock last weekend because I forgot to "maintain" it. It didn't really smell "off", but better to send it down the disposal than make someone sick. Well, I do belong to the "when in doubt, throw it out" club and that flotsam DID sound a bit odd. Mostly I wanted to say that I disagree with the idea that there are limitations on how long stock could be kept. I've never done it for a year, but while in school, I routinely kept an eight-gallon container of chicken stock in a status of half-filled, re-filled, etc. for several months.

I disagree with that -- my cooking school teachers attest that chicken stock would keep indefinitely if brought to a boil every three days. There are a number of restaurants that continue to replenish their stock in this fashion. Instead of throwing out the stock, it can't hurt to strain it through some cheesecloth and bring it to a boil -- depending on how cold your 'fridge is, it might be fine.