nibor

I personally find the sauces to be extremely sweet. This may be part of the appeal to others.

This, maybe?I like the idea of Cook's Illustrated, but every time I open a copy, it seems fully 9/10ths of all the recipes require an oven for some step, which I do not have. I realize ovens are used for most Western dishes, but I wonder how much of it is really necessary. ← Is not having an oven common in Japan? In my experience all but perhaps the smallest apartment in the US has an oven. Others can correct me if I am wrong.

I too am a horseradish lover, but the pistou from Food & Wine didn't pack the punch I had hoped. It was ok but not the really yummy addition I was looking for. Maybe that was because I make vegetarian matzoh ball soup, and it is already very vegetal. ← That sounds right. I think the dill-horseradish pistou needs chicken stock to play against, just like regular soupe au pistou would. The vegetal broth would only seem more so with the addition of dill and horseradish, which is quite vegetal in addition to being hot and a little bitter.Sorry it didn't work for you. I might try it later on and report back. ← I have the leftover pistou in the freezer, so I may try it again next time I make chicken stock. I am not a vegetarian, but some of our young folks at Seder are, so I learned to make veggie matozh ball soup. Not bad actually - I use a lot of oven-baked carmelized root vegetables. Yum. But I am still irritated that my matzoh balls were like rocks this year. There is always next year, as we say.

When I was a kid we had a cold room off the basement. Reading this thread reminded me of the way it smelled. I wish I could describe it - it would almost be worth building a root cellar so you could hang out and smell it.

Dear Randi, Your situation reminds me of when I worked as a nurse in an ICU for a few years, a long time ago. Do something for people and most of them (especially old people) just want more. And they want it faster. And you better be doing it their way. You are not even a person as far as most of them are concerned. In the five years I worked ICU I think had exactly two people thank me for basically saving their lives. This, along with the low pay, are the main reasons there is a nursing shortage. And there is also a degree of sexism involved that I don’t think I need to explain to you – if you were a guy, those old ladies would probably be fawning all over you. I quit, changed fields, never looked back. So yeah, you might think about moving on to a more rewarding job. Then the oldsters can eat what they want – Hamburger Helper or whatever. And you will probably be happier too, because you will not be taking shit from them and waiting for thanks you are not going to get. Sad but true. As someone above thread said, you can just take notes and hope you don't act like that when you get old.

I too am a horseradish lover, but the pistou from Food & Wine didn't pack the punch I had hoped. It was ok but not the really yummy addition I was looking for. Maybe that was because I make vegetarian matzoh ball soup, and it is already very vegetal.

Good parody Josh. Another is: http://www.iwritefunny.com/2008/03/10/cook...e-boiled-water/

My matzoh balls were awful last night! They not only sunk but they were tough and chewy. I should not have used the recipe off the side of the can (which is already out in the garbage) instead of my old stand-by from the Joy of Cooking. In the Joy they separate the eggs and beat the whites. I thought, oh, maybe that is overkill. Now I have a whole year now to ponder this, and to try to live it down.

Not so strange - the Germans are all eating Turkish too. When we lived in Berlin we went to the Hasir's behind KaDeWe at least once a week. It doesn't have the ambiance of the original but it was closer to where we lived. Mmmm, the excitement of digging down through the meat to get at the eggplant... And I miss those adorable waiters!

The Classic Lemon Tart from the Jan/Feb 2000 CI is one of my signature desserts. I love lemon in anything, and don't like things too sweet. The side box on page 23 [science in a Shell] helped me understand what was happening as I varied the proportions of ingredients in the tart. I add a lot of extra lemon juice and zest (and don't strain out the zest) You can go too far!

There were some interesting passover recipes in the Los Angeles Times this week. The theme is kind of Zuni Cafe goes Sephardic: http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo...1,6870005.story

I was so fascinated by the tattoo photo that I forgot to commend you on the title. Really very funny.

This is more about a “dining experience” than food per se, which I actually don’t remember… but there are hotel restaurants built into the side of the Blue Jay baseball stadium. It is so cool. You feel like you are right out there with the players, but you are having dinner and drinks while they do the work. I stayed at one of these hotels during a meeting last summer. The Jays were on a winning streak at home, and after a while nobody was attending the conference – we had all turned into Blue Jay fanatics. I am not even a big baseball fan, but it was so much fun that I have thought about taking my husband to Toronto for vacation, just to hang out at the stadium.

I have never received an unwanted book or had any problem with my subscription to CI. In my experience their customer service has been great. I sometimes leave the US for years at a time, and they cope with that without blinking an eye. Via personal email. Several of my most in-demand recipes are adaptations from CI. I can pull off these adaptations because, thanks to them, I understand the consequences of, say, too much acid or too little sugar. When they defer to the food science faculty at Cornell it totally cracks me up. But then, I am a scientist too. And I realize that that kind of approach is not for everyone. As for the smarmy essays at the front.. well, I grew up in an eastern forest, and then moved to the LA sprawl. I have been out here in condo-world for 20 years. I like those essays the same way I like the photos of Kim Shook’s kitchen. They take me back, and remind me of a place a long way away, both in time and space, that I will probably never get back to. But which I loved very much.

I left Ann Arbor almost 20 years ago and still dream about Zingerman's. And I live in a place with good chow. I have half-way seriously considered having them fedex me a sandwich - they will actually do that!

While I appreciate that CI might not work for the average EG type, for me (who got to age 40 without knowing how to boil water, and had no one to help me learn) CI was a godsend. Those little experiments were just what I needed - they helped me understand why my own improvisations were failing.

I love chopped liver but am often disappointed when I buy it at the deli. If it isn't fresh, boy, do you know it. Yuk! Now that I think of it, I never buy it anymore. It is really easy to make.

My most memorable meal in France was also at Auberge de l'ill. Everything about the experience was charming. The food, the wine, the extremely gracious service. We were even charmed by the swarm of vicious mosquitoes that attacked us as sat down for our welcoming drink by the river. The staff anticipated everything, and this too; they had the doors open and ready up at the house when we finally ran for cover. It has been some time, and I don’t remember exactly what we ate, but I did save the menu that was provided for the taking. It was on a card printed with a watercolor of the Ill river, painted by our host. We had planned this meal as the finale of a week-long vacation focused on dining, and were neither disappointed or too numbed/sated/bored to appreciate it. On the contrary; it was a perfect way to end the trip.

Has anyone gone on one of the food trips he leads?

Chris - honestly now - are your cupboards always that tidy?

I am a scientist. I have been quoted by journalists in the past. Now I refuse to talk to them. Most just take what you say and twist it around so they can sensationalize it. Whether they understand it or not. Which they usually don’t. There are a few top-notch science journalists. Not many. I also have been in a study. I still am in fact. I am a “control” in a long-term study of the immunological effects of silicone implants on women. I promised the researchers that I would never get breast implants, or any other type of silicone implants. I knew I wouldn’t. Why would someone who rarely even combs her hair bother to get a boob job? They are comparing my immune function with that of women who do go plastic. I send them blood every five years or so. I didn’t read this particular study but will say that this type of research is extremely difficult to do, and to analyze. But people try anyway, because we do wonder…

Yup. I have the highest "hit rate" with their recipes of any of my sources: not 100%, but definitely over 75%. I also really enjoy reading the procedures they follow in their articles. I just recently started a subscription of Fine Cooking but I have only tried a dozen or so recipes, so it's too early to tell how they will fit into my cooking habits. ← I am a scientist too. When my husband sees me with CI he asks if he is having a factorial design for dinner.

I agree with all above (Except Dave - who may be spoiled from living in Rural France!). This thread makes me want to hop on a plane. We ate our way through Alcase Lorraine over the course of a week last year. We can only dream about that now that we are home eating, well, whatever.

Does CI stand for Cook's Illustrated?

One night we walked into our favorite Chinese restaurant to find the entire wait staff had just up and quit. We were early and there were only 2 other parties. So we waited on ourselves and on each other. It was really fun! The next time we went back there was a small waitstaff but no customers, and the carpet smelled like cat pee. Haven’t been back.