joancassell

In Saint Louis, we can get a local (Pevely) 40% cream that is just pasteurized. Another local dairy (Oberweis) makes a 40% cream that I think even better, it comes in a 12 ounce glass (yes, old-fashioned glass!) bottle and I sometimes go out of my way to find it, and also to buy their superlative sour cream, which is definitely better than the usual supermarket stuff. I'm not a big milk drinker or I would surely drink their milk which also comes in glass bottles. (There's also a farmer who sells chickens and eggs at the summer Farmer's Market; he used to sell raw milk (divine-tasting!), but someone complained and now you've got to contact him and arrange for individual delivery, since the raw milk seems to break some law or other. (Probably the law against great-taste, contributing to the homegenization of American taste buds!)

I tried the method in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes. Mis-labeled, far more than five minutes a day. And it did not taste as good, to me, as my version of the no-knead 18-hour sitting, 2-hour rising bread baked in a casserole. I tried twice. Perhaps I zigged when I should have zagged, but I gave up after the second try. Moreover, the lovely photos in the book are of what seem to me to be very small loaves. I like something larger and gutsier. (The book does have interesting-looking side recipes though!) Cook's Magazine has "improved" the no-knead bread, suggesting that 3 ounces of the water be replaced by lager beer and a Tablespoon of white vinegar. Haven't decided whether I like their recipe better than using plain spring water.

I have another question. I've got two confit legs, buried in fat that I made a year ago. They smell fine, have no greeny-parts, but I'm a bit nervous about eating them. Should I eat or toss? And if I eat them, should I steam them for a while not only to remove the fat but to make sure they're okay?

Until I found someone I liked who roasted his own coffee (and came to my house and taught me to use my Miss Sylvia espresso machine) I found Batdorf and Bronson's coffee excellent. I was not fond of Dancing Goat, but found others I really enjoyed. And they usually have a special blend around Christmas that's delicious.

If you're thinking about having food for her at home, when she staggers home exhausted late at night, barely able to see straight, put a roast in her refrigerator every week: chicken, beef, lamb, pork. Add a container of washed salad greens (baby romaine lasts the longest) and a jar of homemade salad dressing, and perhaps a loaf of good bread, and she'll be well-nourished with little effort.

Paul, one rather labor-intensive solution would be to make her a selection of stews, daubes, etc. complete with cooked rice or noodles, and package them in individual Foodsaver plastic bags. She could then open one corner, put them on a paper or china plate or bowl, and pop them into the microwave -- most residents' set-ups have microwaves. Or she could defrost them in boiling water. And I bet you have plenty of recipes of dishes ou know she enjoys that would take such treatment. (Just provide a small salt-shaker, since the freezing removes the salt.) This will be a lot tastier -- and cheaper -- than anything prepared by someone else.

I don't know who screwed up. The oven door is fixed, but the oven stopped working entirely yesterday. Broiler worked, burners worked, oven did not. Turns out the element that heats it had been wet (probably while mopping the kitchen floor) and I needed a new one. Discovered the oven was out just when I had an 18-hour-rising no-knead bread ready to bake. Tossed it -- it was a Friday afternoon -- called the repair man on Monday morning and he came and fixed it. I still like the BlueStar, but still wish the oven went up to 550. And some recommendations from other owners and how to clean really grummy range tops would be appreciated. The pots and pans cycle of the dishwasher did not do the job. Do I dare try Dawn Power Dissolver?

Do you have a Sam's Club in the area? They have New Zealand rack of lamb at incredibly low prices. It's delicious!

How about a Thermapen digital thermometer. I love mine. The Baker's Catalog has them for $89.95.

I was responding to the wrong message. Sorry. In any case, Ed Giobbi has a delicious recipe for cotechino and lentils in his last book, Pleasures of the Good Earth. I sometimes make a big pot of it, and freeze some; great on cold winter nights. And you can cook broccoli rabe (or brocolini, for that matter) in it, at the end or when defrosted, and you have an entire meal. And I've used cotechino in cassoulet. Not entirely comme il faut but delicious. Volpi, in Saint Louis, makes their own, and it's fun to go get it, and see (and taste) all the delicious things they have in their small fantastically well-stocked store.

No problem. It wasn't that important anyhow. I think the veal stock subject is exhausted.

Tim, perhaps we should start a thread on the joys and sorrows of food, restaurants and ingredients, in a small not-too-sophisticated Midwestern city. Think of the dubious joys of "toasted" (deep fried) ravioli, and something I've heard rumors of -- a deep-fried Snickers bar! And trying not to barf when friends describe one as a "gourmet" cook. My Cleveland sister-in-law used to do that when I lived in New York; I always wondered whether it was disguised hostility.

Well, Tim, I phoned DiGregorio and asked if they had veal knuckles left over after they cut the osso buco. Turned out they had 7 1/2 pounds, at $6.90 a pound. Dierberg has veal breast, which must be special-ordered, at $2.90 a pound.

Tim, you can find veal knuckles at Straub's and, I think, Whole Foods, and perhaps the Ladue market. It's labeled osso buco and priced accordingly. To make stock from it, you'd have to resemble the Gilded Age millionaire, I think it was J.P. Morgan, who when asked the price of his yacht responded "If you have to ask the price, you can't afford it."

Well I tried the Missouri Beef Council. I'm learning a lot. Turns out dairy states produce veal, because they take the calves off to get milk. Missouri does not produce veal so, the nice lady at the Beef Council said, veal is a special order product in Saint Louis. Okay, that's it! Unless someone wants to ship me ten pounds of refrigerated bones -- fat chance! -- veal stock is off the wish list.

I like the dried fruit from www.bellaviva.com. I think they have nuts as well. The quality is excellent, the price seems fair, and you can get whatever you need. I just looked at the site and they seem to have some fruit already diced. If they don't have what you want, try scissors. They're not wholesale, however.

I'm beginning to feel better and better about my inability to find affordable veal bones. And Provimi, who undoubtedly has veal bones out the kazoo, makes a lovely glace de veau. Very expensive, but so far as I can tell very pure, little hockey pucks. They don't seem to publicize it but if anyone is interested, I can go into the basement freezer and copy their phone number. My thanks to the iconoclasts who took Ruhlman's directions with a grain of fleur de sel.

Christine, I'll call the real butcher tomorrow and ask if the $2.50 was boneless, in which case, what is the price with bones. But I am beginning to get discouraged about the entire process. Saint Louis just does not seem to be a veal city, even on the Hill, where there's lots of Southern Italian cooking. Inspired by the thought of the veal stock, though, I did make a vat of chicken stock, backbones, roast chicken bones, a hen from the farmer's market and 2 pounds of chicken feet, which is gelling in my frige right now. I'll defat it -- my German Shepherd thinks the fat is yummy mixed in with his food -- perhaps cook it down a bit, and freeze it. I guess my cooking will never be haute. But then I never did want to be a chef - a cook is fine by me. (In Barcelona last June I was utterly uninterested in visiting that man who calls himself a chemist - those freshly-fried potatoes with allioli were what I salivated over.) Bourgeois woman, bourgeois taste, bourgeois cuisine.

I'll try again. But most of the butchers here seem to get their meat pre-cut in packages; none of them really butcher any more. I know one old-fashioned butcher -- he's in his 80's and broken-hearted because his son can't wait to get out of it -- he's the one who had veal breast at $2.50 a pound. But I don't even know if he carries osso bucco (although I must say, he's one of the few people around who often have hangar steak!). Perhaps small towns, with real butchers, and perhaps real cows and calves in the area, still cut their own meat. But like tinning copper pots, it's becoming a lost art. Somehow, I doubt if I can find anything affordable at Whole Foods - they've got local grass-grown steak which is delicious, if cher, but anything even slightly recondite is either overpriced or absent. (I've been trying to find sweetbreads, with no success - they all say something to the effect of "I have to order 10 pounds in order to get it for you, and no one else will buy the rest.") End of rant. Or perhaps it's a whine...

Thanks for your reassuring words Fat Guy. I tried two more places, one in the Italian section on the Hill; he knew of no one there who carried veal --too expensive -- and he suggested a local supermarket chain. They said they could special order it for me; I'd get it in two weeks, at $2.79 a pound. Fugeddaboudit! Obviously veal stock is possible only in large metropolitan areas, or for millionaire cooks who don't have to worry about the bottom line. Or haute cuisine restaurants, where they can factor it into the cost of the dish. Mr. Ruhlman, I wish you had done a little research in the less enlightened parts of the US before being so positive about the necessity of making this stuff.

So far as gelatin goes, which is apparently one of the advantages of veal stock, I generally put lots of chicken feet in my chicken stock. They're available at the Chinese markets here, and give the stock a wonderful gelatinous texture.

If you can get to a copy, Barbara Kafka's book on "Roasting" has a marvelous spicy chicken soup with jalapenos, lemon juice, slivered garlic and scallions. It cuts through all the phlegm. She says she sometimes drinks the entire amount when she has a cold, and I've done the same. It's delicious, nourishing, and the spice -- while not excessive -- stimulates the appetite.

A poached chicken. Fit a really high-quality small chicken in a pot that just holds it, and fill all the interstices including the chicken's cavity with cut up celery, carrot, onion and, if you wish, garlic. Add water or, if you wish, chicken stock and cook with small bubbles until done. It's great hot, it's great cold (I like it with mayonnaise), and VERY comforting.

I'll try the Hill. Found a wholesale butcher, who does not carry it, and another, who has veal breast at $4.00 a pound. I'm beginning to learn why so few people make veal stock. Fat Guy, I make chicken stock regularly (keep the backbones from spatchcocked and roasted chickens in the freezer, and when I have enough, or when I see a fat hen at the farmer's market, I make more). I also make and freeze beef stock, and fish stock when I can get bones and possibly a head - yucky to clean, but lovely result! Veal stock just seemed like a challenge. Actually, I've got glace de viand in the freezer that I bought from Provimi -- I thought it was expensive, but now that I'm pricing veal, perhaps it costs less than making your own. Many years ago, I did spend two days making glace de viand, but it took so long that I hated to use it. Sigh...

Well, I ordered the book and, all fired up after reading the first essay, decided to make veal stock. Missouri, however, is a somewhat backward state (I've met any number of adults who have never tasted lamb and never want to), and I called five Saint Louis butchers asking for veal breast (I know I can get osso bucco from one for about $4plus a pound), and only one had it -- for $2.50 a pound! Yes, I'd love to try the velvety silkiness of it, but $25 seems a bit much. Ruhlman was perhaps unwise, or overreaching, to echo the title of Strunk and White's classic. "An Alphabet for Cooks" with a subtitle promising "Professional Chefs' Secrets for Home Cooks" might have been more descriptive, and aroused less ire from disappointed or persnickety readers. I can't give my final judgment, I've not yet finished the book. But -- sigh -- unless I locate a European or wholesale butcher, veal stock will probably remain a mirage.