joancassell

I'm not a dessert person, but I do find my biscotti addictive. Here's how I make them: Biscotti di Prato (recipe from "Biscotti" by Lou Seibert Pappas, with my additions) 1. Preheat oven to 300. 2. Toast 1 CUP BLANCHED ALMONDS, 1/2 CUP BLANCHED HAZELNUTS till fragrant and lightly colored. Cool, then buzz in food processor - a few pieces can be whole, some can be halved, some can be just powder. 3. In a small bowl, beat 3 EGGS, 1 TSP. VANILLA, 1/4 TSP. ALMOND EXTRACT,GRATED PEEL OF A SMALL ORANGE with small whisk. 3. In a larger bowl, mix 2 CUPS (9 1/2 OZ) UNBLEACHED FLOUR, 7/8 CUP SUGAR, 1 TSP. BAKING SODA, DASH OF SALT. (Don't bother using a mixer, a wooden spoon is faster and more convenient.) 4. Add egg mixture, stir well, then add nuts. Blend well. 5. On a Silpat liner, in a baking sheet, pat dough into two logs, roughly 1/2 inch thick, and about 12 inches long, spacing them 2 inches apart. 6. Bake for 50 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes, transfer carefully to a rack. 7. With a serrated knife, slice diagonally at a 45 degree angle about 1/2 inch thick (use a gentle sawing motion, if you press to hard, they'll crumble). 8. Lay slices flat on the baking sheet (you may need an additional baking sheet- no need for silpat now) and return to a 275 oven for about 15 minutes. Turn over and bake 10 or 15 minutes more. 9. Store in tightly-covered container.

I find my Hearth Kit (recommended warmly by Paula Wolfert) helps make excellent bread. But I recently moved to a new house with a new Blue Star range, where the single oven goes only up to 500 (as opposed to 550 on my previous oven). This makes for problems: 1. It takes more than 2 hours, even with the convection feature on, to heat the Hearth Kit to 500, which is the temperature I need for my version of Pain Poilane. 2. I can't figure out how to turn the oven DOWN quickly - which some roasting and braising recipes call for. 3. Removing the darn thing from the oven, to make a recipe that calls for high, then low heat, is a (literal) pain. I have to bend down to my under-stove oven and remove the pieces, one of which is VERY heavy; the pieces then occupy a great deal of counter space in my small kitchen; and I'm always a little nervous about dropping and breaking that heavy center piece. Do I have to switch to a lighter pizza stone? Or does anyone have suggestions on how to tame the Hearth Kit?

Thanks Paula! I saw that photo and description earlier on this thread, but still was unable to follow it. When Googled the yoga position you named (being unenlightened re yoga) it brought me to your description -- no other entries. How about describing it via Pilates! I think perhaps I've figured it out, but I still don't see how one skewer holds the entire thing - I ended up with two, and a somewhat mauled chicken after all those yoga positions.

Paula, I've spent a great deal of time trying to prepare a "red" chicken from the Slow Mediterranean Kitchen to cook in my new Rifi tagine (oiled but no ashes available to "age"). But try as I can, I can't figure out how to "twist each wing back up over the neck and fasten legs, wings and neck with one bamboo skewer". Help! I'm looking forward to your new claypot book. jc

They bake their own bread at my St. Louis WF. Ranges between mediocre and barely edible, although the loaves have lovely artisan-y names. There is one excellent bakery here in St. Louis -- Breadsmith -- perhaps they should get it from them. But then, I've never tasted any WF prepared food that utterly delighted me -- except for their cured "salmon candy" and (surprisingly) ready-to-cook crab cakes at the fish counter.

I've always wanted marrow spoons! I now have Oxo implements, purchased at Zabar's as lobster forks. One end has a little fork, the other end a very small spoon. So now I have marrow spoons. Not silver, which would be comme il faut, but they do the job.

Perhaps it's peverse but I enjoy duck feet in Chinese restaurants. They soften the menu entry for queasy occidental readers (or is it a direct translation?) calling them "Duck Webs." But then I'll eat and enjoy all sorts of odd things in Chinese restaurants -- a friend and I tried various dishes in a new restaurant, to us, in New York City's Chinatown. The staff looked quizzical, but after we both ate everything with relish, they warmly invited us to return! And yes, I use chicken feet in my stock -- just however much I have on hand, along with lots of other chicken bones, gizzards, etc. The gelatinous quality has a lovely mouth-feel.

I don't only make too much, I routinely get carried away at the organic Farmers' Market and BUY too much, far more than I, as a single person, can cook or eat. But it's so beautiful, and summers' lease has all too short a date, and I'll go back to less beautiful stuff at the supermarket, or attractive painfully overpriced produce at Whole Foods. Yes, it's a disease. But I still remember the awful meal many years ago where someone served one small chicken for five people! I'd love some advice on using my Foodsaver for the all too often times when I've cooked far too much. I use very old Tupperware, with plastic wrap on the top, but it does tend to get freezer burn on the top.

I have an electric Cookshack on my deck which I love. It does a marvelous and relatively fuss-free job smoking. The company, located in Oklahoma (someone from there told me Oklahomans smoke everything including potatoes!) sells boxes of large-ish apple and hickory chunks suitable for the Cookshack. I've had it for several years and love the results. I've smoked lamb (rack, loin, and leg flattened and rolled with olives), chicken, brisket. I attach my Polder thermometer through the top hole, to tell me when the meat is done, and often use recipes from Smoke and Spice by the Jamiesons --although for butterflied chicken, any good marinated recipes (e.g. Marcella Hazan's Deviled Chicken, marinated for a day or two in lemon juice, olive oil, and lots of roughly-ground pepper) gives delicious results. The skin is too smoky, but the rest of the chicken is mouth-wateringly good. The Cookshack comes with a book of excellent recipes. Baby back ribs with the Jamieson's Texas Rub are divine! I prefer them dry, Memphis style, but they give some sauce-y Kansas City-type recipes as well. (The Jamiesons give a recipe for Buttermilk potato salad in the back of their book -- I use yogurt, instead - and mash the potatoes adding the dressing to them when they're hot, rather than chunking them, to give a result similar to one I had in a friend's home in Birmingham. It's what I think of as Real Southern Potato Salad.) One caveat, you've got to wrap the Cookshack results in foil, or the smoky flavor evaporates. They're fine made ahead, though, and reheated in the foil.

My multi-cultural take on chicken soup gets similar results but the techniques are somewhat different. First of all, following Barbara Kafka, I save and freeze in zip-locked bags all chicken backs, bones, gizzards, etc. (from eaten and dismembered chickens). When I have lots (or am running out of chicken stock) I defrost the parts, and add chicken feet, which I get from one of the local Chinese stores. Duck feet work just as well, and the stores generally have one or the other. If I see an old chicken at the Farmer's Market, I'll add that. I then bring the chicken just to to a boil, dump the chicken pieces into a colander, rinse the pot and the pieces and start again. I add celery, carrots, onions (unpeeled) and often a head of unpeeled garlic whacked in half, bring to a boil, and simmer anywhere from 9 to 12 hours, usually overnight, skimming occasionally (the pre-boiling means that there's less skimming). Then I decant the results through either a few layers of cheesecloth or a linen dishtowel, cool it overnight, toss or save the fat, and freeze. If the soup looks a bit weak, which it does on occasion, I boil it down until it looks and tastes rich. The feet give it a lovely gelatinous quality. Then I freeze. I always have some on hand for recipes or the makings of Jewish or non-Jewish chicken soup.