s_sevilla

looks good, I had some problems finding things online that were milk and egg free. I have some chemicals that could work for sauces.....gums and the like. I was also thinking of making a mousse or "baked Alaskan" with some carboxymethylcellulose. We are cooking regularly for this person (every day, 2 meals a day), so it would be nice to be able to branch out. The case is especially difficult because most of these allergies are quite serious. She can't be in the kitchen in someone has the peanut butter jar open, and If I ever cook with peanut oil, she would have to be quarantined from the house because of the aerosolized oil particles. (also means I can't do sautes or sauces with peanut butter or peanuts, which is a bummer cause I love cooking dishes based on peanuts.) We have been lucky enough to find stores that carry many products specifically for these allergy profiles, but I know I would hate to eat packaged food for any length of time. Luckily, they are not vegetarian, so any simply marinated meat is good, and there are plenty of alternative grain options (quinoa, spelt??, oats, etc.), but for baked goods I have hit something of a wall.

I'm cooking for a person with the following allergies (most will cause severe anaphylactic shock with minimal quantities consumed): Milk, dairy (anything that might contain casein) eggs nuts shellfish fish gluten Any suggestions for recipes or substitutions that could be used. I'm especially interested if there is a recipe out there for rice bread. Thanks.

beans....any way, but especially baked with a ham hock or bean soup made with a ham hock. When I'm in bean cooking mood, get out of town......fast.

I have got to work on my presentation skills....everything looks so good. Aside from that, I made puff pastry for the first time, going a little overboard and making a 10 lb. batch (but hey, why not?). For my utter lack of experience, I'll have to say it came out very nice, though I have to work on my handling of the finished product. First batches in the oven puffed up very nice, doing a few as an atomic lemon curd filled tartlet, and then some straws simply glazed with apricot jam. The giant workstation Roul'pat saved my arse this time around, and I don't think I will ever make danish dough or puff without one.

I got a polyscience 5L-M water bath off E-bay a couple of days ago and have been trying out a few things. After I tested and confirmed it was in good working order (I love gun thermometers) I tried pork loin at 140 for 4 hours with just some salt, pepper, and thyme to season. It came out really nice, moist and tender, however, next time I'll have to season a little more liberally. Yesterday I tried caramelized yogurt, from ideas in food, at 180 for 24 hours using some Strauss family whole milk yogurt. I haven't thought of how to use it aside from what they have on ideas in food, but at first tasting, to me it is most like a washed rind cheese, with a little bit of a smokey nuance, so right now I'm considering using it like any cheese. At the same time I also threw in some sour cream to see how that would go, some onions in molasses, and some figs....all yet to be tasted.

right now I'm biking to work, so I make a nice slurry in my press, throw it in my Polar bottle, and chug it over the 8 miles to work....when I'm back at school with the house espresso machine, I'll make a double or triple shot straight up before my morning rides/runs/classes. If I'm not taking it the usual black, I'll do it carribean style and tamp a teaspoon or so of light brown sugar in the porta-filter before locking it into the machine, that way the sugar is nice and dissolved and I don't lose the crema by having to stir any sugarin. While I haven't been to Jamaica, an acquintance who has been there a few times informs me that this is the way everyone picks up their tweak juice in the mornings from the corner stands.

although most cooks don't have a 0.1 gram scale, they aren't as expensive to come by as you would think. Most science supply stores carry these cool little "pocket" balances that will measure anywhere from 0.1 to 0.001 gram intervals, cost is generally 15-35$ depending on the material it's made of, capacity, and accuracy. Cheapest sub-gram digital scales run in the 50$ range, but you're more likely to find one for about 100 or more.

walk into any german brauhaus/brewery, be it a biergarten or literally someone's garage (I've been in both), and ask for dunkel bier. Don't give a damn about the hops, how it was fermented, the filtration, any other additives, or how the barley was treated or what strain it was. Trust me, it'll be good, and usually pretty sweet. When I first started drinking beer and couldn't stand the bitterness (I love bitburger now, but when I was 16, it didn't fly with me), dunkelbier and Hefeweizen were the only 2 things I drank. Good thing I got started off on the right foot.

Reading above about the beets...multi-colored beets look real neat with some arugula or other green, and fried goat cheese always manages to impress. If you're really pressed for $$ go with some simple roasted veggies. Gnocchi can always evoke a good response. Even more so if they're stuffed. I like using peas or Edamome, the contrast of the bright green colors is really nice, and I like mine best in a simple white sauce spiked with a cheese of your choosing, I generally use Manchego or Reggiano. If you do Marrow, just clean the bones and then roast them, serve with a lot of bruschetta about the plate, maybe some herbs stuck in the bone for more vertical interest. Or, extract the marrow after soaking to get rid of the blood, then poach and create a mousse, that way you can serve each plat with a little quenelle of Marrow. Little corn puddings, crisped on the griddle before serving Parmeson crisp cups filled with a little creme fresh and herbs Cheese plate with port poached figs, almonds,

If you stay in the commodore hotel, you'll be a block away from fleur de lys. Plus, in the downstairs they have a pretty good restaurant. I strongly suggest you stay in a boutique hotel rather than one of the big corporate ones, they are much more unique, most are very nice, and some come with nice little extras.

take the brioche, decrust it, and use it to line a very well buttered ramekin or some sort of casserole, then stuff said lined dish to your heart's content, and cap with a round of bread followed by more butter. After baking (about 400) for a few minutes the outside should be nice, golden brown and buttery. My favorite is a mix of nuts and cheese with some dried fruit, and a bourbon creme anglaise. Brioche also works exceedingly well as the bread component of rolled buns.....remember, the more butter in the filling, the better. then of course, it's always good on its own

what, no buttermilk???? My favorite has always been buttermilk and brown/muscavado sugar.

I've had plenty of sweeter foccacia's, while not sweet in a cakelike way, more like a subtle fruit sweetness. I suggest trying raisins and fresh rosemary. just soak the raisins in a light syrup, and then replace some of your water with the soaking syrup. The key to goodness is use plenty of raisins, more than you think you should, plenty of rosemary on the top for some herby crunch, and plenty of EVOO.

for those looking for a very cheap source, check out www.bulkfoods.com. they have a bunch of dried and dehydrated products as well as baking and pastry chemicals. I usually buy Maltodextrin and protein powders from them to make budget energy drink mix for myself and my cycling buddies. Be warned....you may end up with 50 pounds of this stuff on your hands if you click the wrong boxes.

uhhh......foaming/shearing and emulsifying, sounds a hell of a lot like a mayonnaise or ailoli. If you want something a little more "unique" you could always take some reduced tomatoe water, mix in some powdered or liquid lecithin, then proceed as you would with a mayonaise, just make sure you don't start out with too much of the liquid water phase.

Is this stuff like regular catsup (red) with curry flavor? If it is then I've been having this stuff for years. My mom brought over her taste for it from her years of living in Berlin and we serve it all the time. In Berlin it's very common to get a long, thin brat on a small roll and slather it in this sauce.

Usually just a bowl of Kashi 7 grains.....but the other day I made my favorite: souffled Omelet with Crisped Pancetta, Gruyere Cheese, Carmelized onions, and Spinach, with a side of Bechamel Sauce.

I'll stick to my Hetch-Hetchy and EBMUD water, thank you very much. But, Through the kinds of filtration and purification they use at those plants, it makes absolutely no difference where they get their water from....they could be pulling it from the outfall of the local sewage plant for all we know and we wouldn't know the difference. The absolute purest water you can get would be distilled, but that actually has a very flat "taste" and most people don't like the taste of it. The regulations surrounding tap water also only regulate it up to the point that it is bottled...that means that chemicals can leach to the water from the bottle over an extended period sitting on the shelf.

After doing a little extra research, taro root can be used as a neutral base for icecream. Because of the fine texture of the starch granules and the gelation that occurs when taro is cooked and then finely pureed, it is possible to entrain enough air to create a properly textured gelato without stirring during the freezing process...essentially you can go from an ice-cream base directly to a hard freeze in storage. If I had a turkish style ice-cream freezer and a paddle, I'm sure it would be possible to create a turkish style salep ice-cream texture if more taro is used. I'm a little afraid to put a base containing a lot of taro into my ice-cream maker because the texture is thick enough that I'm sure I could burn out my churning motor.

This makes me want to bring up my little adventure last weekend....tell me if it makes me a foodie: I went on a 10-hour bike ride just so I could have an excuse to ride through Napa valley and visit Bouchon Bakery to get a couple of croissants.....needless to say, they tasted really damn good, probably the best I've ever had, although that could be the heat induced delirium and exhaustion. I also have a great interest in home production of food-stuffs and local produce, although I would say this classifies me as more of a slow-foodie, Although I would tend to agree with some of the first posts stating that a foodie is someone who seeks out different, specific, and new experiences in food. I believe the person going on a pilgrimage to various taco/burrito places is as much a foodie as a person visiting the 4-star restaurants of a region, or someone sifting through their farmers market looking for heirloom varieties of fruit/veggies.

I was playing around with some taro root and I remember that when I grind it in my suribachi I get a very gummy paste, I have seen and eaten Taro ice cream many times, but it was always presented more as a traditional icecream that happened to have taro in it, and it usually tasted more like purple yam/sweet potato. Has anyone tried to use a gummy Taro Paste as an additive to an icecream base, like Salep?

TAQUERIA VALLARTA: If this is the place I think it is in Santa Cruz, then anything with the Chicharron in it is excellent. Up in Northern California Cactus Taqueria (Berkeley) Strays from the bunch and serves up stuff made with Niman Ranch meats....maybe not in the true spirit of a taco/burrito place, but you can't argue with the quality.

First....why not UC Berkeley?, there really is no reason to go to Stanfurd (I assume you're shooting for grad school?), and I've heard the environment is a lot better for grads here than at Stanfurd (undergrads might be a little different, but their football team sucks right now, and the sandstone buildings look like they're made out of mud). While they have spread like wildfire recently, In-n-Out has always been more of a So-Cal institution, in Northern California the place to go has been Nation's Giant Hamburgers...great thick slices of pie late at night are a godsend for cramming. I'd definitely have to say Dungeness crab is a must eat, it's best simply cooked with some drawn butter. Artichokes from Salinas/monterey area. Cheeseboard scones/morning baked goodies (shattuck Ave. near Chez Panisse) Dim Sum in San Francisco or Jai Yun. Any Sort of Mexican Food....International Blvd. in Oakland is a little shady but has some of the best, go during the day. The Mission district in San Francisco is also a very good bet. As far as student food is concerned, carnitas fries down in SoCal, and then in the Berkeley area anything along Telegraph avenue is standard. Sushi is also particularly good here, it all depends on what style you like and what you want to pay, from Urasawa on Rodeo Dr. to the junk you'll get at Todai all-you-can-eat. As far as cuisine, its all about freshness and seasonality, and no one does this better than Chez Panisse, so you are already set up for the quintessential california experience. There are of course many more things to put down, and some would argue over what to taste, but really you just need to go with your gut and take some chances when you're out driving around.

Is it possible to make something like an italian meringue and then dry it out in the oven to make nice little crunchy bits to garnish? So far I've just experimented with it in the production of ice creams and as an aid in creating foams. BTW, I'm surprised people are finding CMC to be more expensive than other gums...my research shows that it was created as a cheaper, consistent and more available substitute for natural gums.

I've been experimenting a bit with the tapioca starch while I wait on some maltodextrin to come in.....the starch really isn't very ideal, you can definitely taste the starchiness in foods you mix it with. I'm wondering about the powdered yogurt: This might just be because of the starch in tapioca starch vs. the pure maltodextrin, but whenever I mix it I only get a nice pasty mass. I'm using a nice thick full-fat yogurt.....not quite as rich as greek style, but rich nontheless. I think you really need to reduce the amount of water as much as possible before mixing the maltodextrin.....it really is more of a fat stabilizer.....at the same time, I have found and it is well documented that Maltodextrin takes on the flavors of whatever it touches very well, so this can be put to good use in some form. Back on the yogurt, this would probably work if you made yogurt cheese and let the whey drain off while resting in the fridge.