nightscotsman

It's true, mascarpone is ridiculously easy to make at home. easier and less fussy than yogurt, even. Since I learned how it's made I can't believe the outrageous prices they get for the stuff in stores. Cream and acid - that's it. There is also a recipe in Bo Friberg's "Professional Pastry Chef". He reduces the cream by a third to make it richer before adding the tartaric acid, but I find that the finished product is a little too firm for me. Another source for tartaric acid is wine or beer making supply shops.

If you want to get a good texture that doesn't have large, sharp ice crystals throughout the pop, I would recommend processing the chilled pudding in an ice cream machine of some kind before packing in molds and inserting sticks. And don't use instant pudding - the cooked version (with whole milk!) is worth the extra effort.

Excellent! Thanks for the link .

Sediment trap. far from ideal. no improvement on what we have now. again, i return to the point: what is the advantage? if it ain't broke, etc. As I said earlier, The plastic-bag-in-a-box approach has the definite advantage and improvement of keeping the wine fresher. Avoiding sediment and letting the wine breath are what decanters are for. I'm convinced the only reason we don't abandon glass bottles completely is pure snobishness (and I count myself among the snobs). Glass breaks easily, is realatively expensive both to make and ship, and the shapes are innefficient. Corks can taint the wine or crumble and break when extracting and may not form a perfect seal. The fact that only crap wine is available in boxes and (until recently) screwtops dooms them from the start. For all rational reasons these are better containers than glass bottles with corks, but the history, emotion, insecurity and romance surrounding wine production and drinking makes for a very conservative marketplace. Don't get me wrong - I want to buy wine in beautiful glass bottles, and while I don't mind synthetic corks, I cringe at screwtops. I also know that these feelings are irrational.

Thanks for looking into this, Schielke . My suggestions: knife skills, foie gras, or truffles.

this is what i was referring to. as far as those little aluminum boxes go, i'm guessing that a whole lotta research would be put into a new type of box, as the effects these things have on juice are not doubt negligible, but put your wine in aluminum for 3 years and see what happens. The fluid doesn't actually come in contact with aluminum, but with the innert plastic inner layer. In Japan sake is readily available in these single serving "juice box" containers. In vending machines. Along with whisky and wine. On practically every street corner. I wanna go back to Japan. Currently boxed wine is much like packaged cereals. There is an inner plastic bag that actually contains the product. The cardboard box is there only to contain the bag and act as a surface to put pretty pictures and branding on. For wine boxes there is a spiggot on the lower front for dispensing like a beverage cooler. In a way this is actually better than glass bottles since as you dispense the wine, the bag colapses and you get less deterioration due to exposure to oxygen. I know these things because my Mom used to keep a box of white zinfandel or rose in the fridge for an occasional before dinner nip.

Nobody can make it to Earth and Ocean on Sunday? Sorry I pick bad date .

I'm thinking about maybe considering doing turkey confit for Thanksgiving this year. I found only one recipe on-line specifically for turkey legs, but they aren't actually cooked in fat. Does this look right to you? would you bake with or without the skin?: http://www.recipehound.com/Recipes/0818.html Also, if I were to make a more traditional confit with the meat entirely submerged in fat, I don't think I can get my hands on that much duck or goose fat. Would it be OK to use some kind of oil? Jinmyo mentioned in her post above packing the meat with fat in zip-loc bags and simmering. I assume this would mean simmering in a water bath? Can anybody give me more details on this method? Thanks

Ya, I can definitely see the "Z snap". I don't really see this article doing any good other than making herself feel better by venting. Her job is to write about food and restaurants, not to write about her job. Not that I don't completely agree with what she's saying, but she should get a thicker skin and stop whining. IMHO, of course.

Excellent! I have a few hundred questions lined up and ready to go . The "Paris Sweets" book is winging its way to me even as I type (right, buy.com?). Can't wait to read it!

I dined at Les Bookinistes when I visited Paris last May. It was good, but for the number of reviews and amount a praise I read about it before making the trip, I thought it was just that. Good, but not exceptional or great. It actually felt like an American restaurant to me, maybe because it tends to get a lot of tourists. You'd be better off at Ducass's Spoon Food + Wine, if I may be so bold as to offer a recommendation.

Cool info Adam. Got me a new sig!

Carmelita's? I've had their squash carpaccio and it was good. In the context of a vegetarian restaurant. This was at 727 Pine. I could see raw squash being interesting (it was raw, right?), but raw beets sounded nasty. I didn't see the dish being served, so who knows - it may have been great.

Sounds like some nice menu selections at Nell's. Thanks for the writeup . Do you happen to remember what the other dessert selection was on the $25 menu? They're near Greenlake, right? Here's a proposal I'm just going to throw out here: Earth and Ocean for dinner on Sunday Nov. 10th. 7:00-ish. Wadda ya say? Anyone want to meet me there?

Gotta agree with that one. Last night I saw "beet carpaccio" on a restaurant menu. That just sounds so wrong.

The Kuhn is the one I read many recommendations for and is generally considered the Mercedes of pressure cookers. However, they are rather expensive, so I went for the Magefesa which is about 30% less. That and the fact that Cooks rated it higher than the the Kuhn. The Magefesa is much harder to find, but ordering it on the phone was easy, shipping is free, and it arrived promptly.

As I mentioned in the slow cookers thread, I just bought a pressure cooker a few weeks ago. It's a Magefesa brand cooker from Spain that I chose after reading the Cooks Illustrated review: http://missvickie.com/library/review.html You can order directly from Magefesa (by phone) here: http://www.magefesausa.com/magefesa.htm The newer-modern pressure cookers use a spring-loaded valve instead of the weight used in old models. This makes them safer and much quieter. Most have multiple redundant safety valves, so there is virtually no chance on one exploding. Mine is heavy stainless steel with a thick aluminum sandwich on the bottom. Even if it wasn't a pressure cooker it would be a great stockpot. I'm extremely happy with the pork roast and beef stews I've made so far, but I need to do some more testing before I'm really comfortable with the way it cooks. A big bonus is the speed of course. This is why they use them so much on Iron chef. There's no other way of cooking meat and other items to a meltingly tender consistency in less than an hour. My last test was a Provencal beef stew with a total cooking time of about 25 minutes. The beef was fork tender, but wasn't mushy and had a good tooth. The coworker that talked me into buying this thing raved on and on about how well it works for risotto, but I haven't tried it yet.

Another option you might consider is a pressure cooker. After hearing from a coworker how much better the new models are and how he raved about wonderful risottos and stews in minutes, I decided to get one a few weeks ago - and I'm glad I did. So far I've made a pork roast and a couple beef stews. They all cooked in a fraction of the time of braising in the oven and were increadibly tender and flavorful. Alton Brown raves about using a pressure cooker for chili in his book. The Provencal beef stew I made last week took just a few minutes the night before to rub the meat with herbs de provence, garlic and olive oil before marinating in the fridge overnight. After work the next day I just dumped the meat in the cooker (I suppose I could have browned it first, but that probably would have burned the garlic) along with some onions, orange zest, red wine, red wine vinegar and a few other items I can't remember. Put the top on, about 5 minutes to bring up to pressure on high, reduce the temp to maintain pressure and let it cook for 25 minutes, take the pot off the heat to let the pressure reduce slowly (about 10 minutes). Take the lid off and remove the meat to a large bowl. Reduce the cooking liquid a bit and add some capers and stuff (sorry, I don't have the recipe in front of me). Stir in a bit of flour to thicken the sauce, then add the beef back to the pot - ready to serve. Total prep and cooking time, less than 1 hour. Even better the next day. I bought the Magefesa brand cooker from Spain after reading the Cooks Illustrated review: http://missvickie.com/library/review.html You can order directly from Magefesa (by phone) here: http://www.magefesausa.com/magefesa.htm

I thought I would report back on my first experience with black cocoa. I'm here to say that it is a wonderful, wonderful thing! I ordered one pound of black cocoa from King Arthur Flour for $4.95. There's no indication on the label who the manufacturer is, but it does say it contains "cocoa beans processed with alkali", so I think that means it's Dutch processed. It really is black - about the color of ground espresso - and has deep chocolate smell. For my first test I made a half batch of spicy chocolate cookies. Half recipe made about 56 medium cookies. Here's the recipe: 3/4 lb butter, softened 1-3/4 cups sugar 2 eggs 3 cups flour 1-1/2 cups cocoa powder (I used half black cocoa and half perigotti, as the package says that the black stuff may be too strong to use my itself) 1/4 tsp salt 1/3 tsp ground black pepper 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper 1 tsp ground cinnamon Cream together butter and sugar. beat in eggs until fluffy. sift in all dry ingredients and stir until well incorporated. divide dough into thirds, wrap in plastic and chill for at least an hour. Using the black cocoa made the dough B-L-A-C-K, not even slightly brown, and it tasted rich and choclatey. pre-heat oven to 375 F. roll out dough on floured board to 1/8 inch thick. Use a pastry brush to dust off any flour on top surface. cut out with cookie cutters and bake on parchment or silpat lined baking sheets for 8-10 minutes. do not overbake. since the dough is already black and the cookies will still be a little soft when they come out of the oven (they'll crisp when they cool), it is very hard to tell when they're done. When cool you can drizzle them with milk or white chocolate or some royal icing for decoration. Using the black cocoa, these cookies came out completely black (of course) with a strong, rich, chocolate taste. Much richer tasting than when I've made them before with regular cocoa. I can't wait to try this stuff in a cake!

Beer bong?

Here's what C&H has to say about cane vs. beet (obviously they are biased, but...): http://www.chsugar.com/Consumer/cane_vs_beet.html The American Sugar Alliance says there's no difference: http://www.sugaralliance.org/faqs/index.htm But this guy at Food Resource says there is: http://food.orst.edu/faq/sugar2.html And the Canadian Sugar Institute also says there's no difference: http://www.sugar.ca/faqGen.htm

OK, I just had a sudden inspiration to head down to Brasa after work tonight (tonight being Friday, Nov. 1st). I think the bunny paella is calling my name. I'll be there at about 5:30 if anyone wants to join me - just show up!

Warm apple cider (preferrably fresh, but certainly not from concentrate) with a generous splash of Clear Creek pear brandy or Tuaca. Benedictine or Drambuie are also very nice on a cold night. An Aviation (gin, marachino, lemon juice) is also really good when you want a crisp cocktail to reflect crisp weather.

Here on the west coast C&H is the standard sugar brand, so I haven't tried Domino for baking. However, I recently tried an older recipe from Fine Cooking for a lemon pie with a brown sugar italian merangue. The writer of the recipe made it quite clear that they had developed it using C&H brown sugar, and that when the editors on the east coast did a test with Domino it didn't work properly at all. Apparently Domino brown sugar contains more moisture and is primarily made with beet sugar instead of C&H's 100% cane sugar, which seems to have slightly different chemical properties. They actually gave alternate directions for using Domino brand sugar to approximate, but not exactly duplicate, the results using C&H.

Please excuse my ignorance, but I assume you mean Pedro Ximenenz? I don't think so - it says it's a "Moscatel Superior"? F. Paul Pacult from the Spirit Journal gave it 5-stars and his "highest recommendation". Suprisingly inexpensive - I've found it well below $20.