nightscotsman

You're supposed to take the foil wrapper off and chew before swallowing.

I was going to ask this very question! Sorry about butting in mamster I was in Vancouver just last month and dined at Ouest (fabulous - the foie gras parfait with apple gellee was perfect and one of the most elegant presentations I've ever seen) as well as several other fine dining restaurants. Overall I thought the level of creativity, skill, presentation and service was definitely superior to most Seattle restaurants at the same level. On one hand I'm glad it's not just me that has noticed this, but on the other... why don't you open a place down here and show the rest of them how it's done?

Supreme Corq, the makers of the most popular "plastic" cork, happens to be a client of ours (we did their Web site years ago). The SupremeCorq is actually made from surgical grade thermoplastic elastomer. In other words, you could implant one of them permanently inside your body with no ill effects. Not that you would, of course. The material is completely innert and does not out-gas. They, and the wineries that use the corks have done extensive testing. Here is a quote from the site: Send me a private message if you would like more detailed information on their testing techniques and results and I can get you a password to view the full reports. The bottom line is that we will be seeing more and more synthetic closures in the future. The major buyers are not happy with the amount of spoilage from traditional cork (I've read up to 15% gets corked) and they are tired of losing money from returns (they don't get any refunds from the producer). There may come a day when one of the major retail/supermarket chains will refuse to buy any wine without a synthetic closure. Who will be first?

Oh. My. God. Yes, please! Are they real white chocolate with cocoa butter or "white coating"? I hope they show up here on the west coast.

In the Michel Bras Dessert Notebook there are recipes for candied celery (using the stalks) and a celery liqueur and celery sorbet (using the leaves). I'm actually really excited about trying them. So many recipes, so little time.

Absolutely. After one bad meal I can tell they are at the very least inconsistent, at worst it's just a bad restaurant. As ngatti said, I also work hard for my money and there are plenty of other places that I know to be good and consistent. If I take a risk on your restaurant and you let me down, I will take my money elsewhere since you obviously don't have your act together. If it was one bad meal after several good ones I might give you the benefit of the doubt and give a second chance.

In the June 1998 issue of Cook's Illustrated they rated 8 best selling unsalted butters. The butters were blind tested by a group of 15 chefs and pastry chefs from the Boston area and Cook's editors in several different forms: at room temperature, melted, in yellow cake, pie pastry, sauteed turkey cutlet, and butter cream (butter, powdered sugar, milk recipe - no eggs). In brief the results were: Plugra First in the melted tasting and clear number one for buttercream. Third place in pie crust and room temperature. rich, clean flavor. Celles Sur Belle (Normandy, France) Rich, buttery flavor, but fourth in pie crust because it came out undercooked (guess they should have let it bake longer - duh). Best score when eaten at room temperature, but tasted "off" when melted. Second for buttercream. Challenge First for pie crust. High marks for buttercream. Smooth and clean tested plain, but lacking flavor. Land O'Lakes High marks when tasted plain and very light buttercream. Downgraded with "off" flavors when tasted melted. Last place for pie crust - tasted greasy. Kellers/Hotel Bar A solid "B" rating overall. Very flaky pie crust, but lacked flavor. Mediocre flavor in buttercream and an "off" flavor. Breakstone Very flaky pie crust. Both packages they tested had a "rancid" spoiled taste, possibly due to poor storage. Crystal Farms Airy buttercream, mediocre flavor. A bit heavy in the pie crust. Organic Valley Second in the pie crust. Cultured like some European butters. Downgraded for tasting "tangy" and "weedy" when plain and "oily" in buttercream. There was no clear winner in the yellow cake test and the turkey cutlet test.

Hattie's Hat in Ballard. Buscuits and gravy.

Chinooks = best fish'n'chips in Seattle. Haven't had the breakfast there yet.

I confess I haven't read the book yet or dined at the restaurant (some day!), but I was wondering who the pastry chef is at Daniel? How do they work with Chef Boulud? Do they work together to develop a dessert menu, does Daniel dictate the types of things he wants, or is the pastry chef more autonomous? Is the dessert style at Daniel fairly simple and straightforward, or more complex and showy? Maybe you could describe a bit of what life is like on the "sweet side"? And of course - what is your favorite dessert at the restaurant?

for a quick, really simple peach treat I like to slice fresh peaches and mix them with a bit of creme anglais and crumbled amaretti. This combo might also work nicely in a trifle with slices or cubes of cake.

Ah, hot towels. One of many, many things I loved about the restaurants in Japan - along with beautiful food, wonderful service, seasonal delicacies, and last-but-not-least: no tipping! So civilized. When my brother and I were young we always had warm washcloths at the dinner table. We considered paper napkins to be barbaric. In fact, my 40 year old brother still insists on a washcloth when eating at home.

Just got back from Viet Wah Super Food, and while it has a fairly good selection and prices I'll stick with Uwajimaya as they have more of the Japanese products I like. However, I did get fresh young coconut for the first time. Wow! Very different flavor and texture. The milk is clear and refreshing and the meat is thinner than mature coconut and has a soft, almost jelly-like texture. Does anybody know what to do with this stuff other than just eat it fresh? I'm sure there must be some southeast Asian recipes, but I'm wondering if any French or pastry chefs have used it successfully?

I had a lovely hors d'oeuvre sometime last year from the fine folks at Brasa here in Seattle: parmesan cookie (sort of a sweet/savory, cracker/shortbread) half a fresh fig goat cheese drizzle of reduced balsamic wonderful balance of flavor and textures.

I took my Mom to Salty's for brunch last month. Some plusses and minuses: We had a reservation, but they still made us wait in a crowded corridor for about 20 minutes. The dining room is pleasant and every table seems to have a good view - and a spectacular view of the downtown skyline it is. The feature alone would make it worth it for out-of-towners. Huge quantities and selection of food. Lots of fairly well prepared seafood, especially crab. The waffles are freshly made, but terrible with no flavor. Omelets are also cooked to order, but the fillings were bland and uninteresting. Great bacon and sausage. Pretty good fresh pasta. Large selection of attractive desserts, but they tend to be very heavy and without much finesse flavor-wise (canned peaches in the peach tart). Overall I would say the food was good for a buffet, but I would be disappointed if I had ordered any of it from a menu. But then I'm hyper-critical - my Mom loved it and happily plowed through several plates of crab legs.

I eat boxed cereal almost every morning. Mostly I get the natural or organic stuff from Trader Joes because it's not as sweet and waaaay cheaper than supermarket brands. My current new favorite is Barbara's Peanut Butter Puffins. (disclaimer - I'm a sugar addict and must have something sweet in the morning and after all meals) On thing I've noticed (for those parents who don't like their younguns to have the super-sugery kids cereals) is that if you look at the nutrition labels, many of the so-called "adult" brands actually have more grams of sugar per serving. It's just that most of the kid brands have the sugar on the surface in the form of frosting or marshmallows and therefore *taste* sweeter. Much of this sugar frosting actually dissolves into the milk, so if you don't drink the milk left in the bowl you actually ingest much less sugar.

For the life of me I can't seem to make a decent cannele. See ongoing cry for help here: http://forums.egullet.org/ibf/index.php?ac...2669103cfab6ccf Aside from that, I'm terrified of deep fat frying, so I've never tried it at home. Someday I would love to make bengiets, donuts or tempura.

mb7o: loved the link to the candy testers. This is a great quote: "How many sickening crunches does it take to get to the center of a licorice olive?" I'll have to check out the tofu factory - thanks!

Thanks Charlotte, I'll add that one to my wish list. And I'll let you know what happens when I try the recipe. Sadly, the Nancy Silverton recipe caused the same problem as all the others I've tried. Here's what is happening - as the cannele starts to bake it expands and pushes itself up and out of the mold, leaving a big airspace between the batter and the bottom of the mold. This means that the top tends to burn and the bottom never browns. I've tried slipping a knife down the side of the mold to release the pressure when it starts to rise, but within minutes of putting them back in the oven they spring out of the pan again. I actually "re-seated" them about five times before giving up and letting them bake. I'm getting really frustrated! Does anyone else have this problem? If so, how do you handle it? I'm using copper molds (both chilled and room temperature) and I've tried various coatings including butter, non-stick spray and lecithin. I've also tried oven temperatures from 350 to 410

Wow, Michel Roux's recipe is very different from all of the others I've gathered so far. I will have to give it a try. Can you tell me which book it's from (if that's where you got it)? I'm baking the Nancy Silverton recipe tonight, so we'll see if her version works better for me. The Herme recipe was closer, but still had problems. Thanks for all the help everyone - this place is great!

By the way, does anyone know where I can get yuba bean curd? It's actually thin sheets of skin that forms on top of tofu before it congeals while it's cooling. I know it doesn't sound pretty, but it has a nice, fresh, almost creamy flavor. It can be used to wrap around a filling and fry like an egg roll, or you can eat it uncooked or in soup.

Kewpie Mayonaise is great! Very rich tasting and a must for Okonomiyaki. Mmmmm... Okonomiyaki. I'm a sucker for elaborately overpackaged Japanese candy. Most of them are seasonal, so the types available at any given time vary, but I especially like "Melty Kiss" (if just to be able to say to a date "would you like a melty kiss?" ), and the tiny (about 3/4 inch), individually wrapped "cheese cakes" complete with crust. Japanese chocolate tends to be higher quality and dark like European chocolate. They also tend to use more natural fruit flavors - often if a candy is strawberry it is actually flavored with real, dried and ground strawberries and has a fresher, non-artificial taste. My favorite mints are the tiny "5mm" (literally five millimeters) breath mints packaged in a little plastic tube dispenser. They are the strongest I have found. I'll buy any candy that is green tea flavored - just this weekend I found a Pocky knockoff from Kirin that is green tea and cream flavored. I also love the green tea mochi-wrapped ice cream and I'm so glad Trader Joes carries it (cheaper than Uwajimaya). There is a kind of cookie called Kyoeido Kakugiri Yatsuhashi that I can sometimes find at Uwajimaya in the rice cracker aisle. It's a specialty of Kyoto. They are dark-golden brown, shaped like little half-round roof tiles (but not disk-shaped like a tuille), very firm and crunchy and taste strongly of cinnamon. When I was in Japan last year several ice cream sellers included these with their cones so you could use them as a spoon. Fun and delicious - and they never got soggy from the ice cream. I actually really like the Japanese soft drinks like Pokari Sweat (yep, as in persperation - that's not a typo). They tend to be lightly flavored, non-carbonated, and very little sugar. Much more refreshing than our overly heavy and sweet sodas. My favorites are green apple and muscat grape. I also stock up on the baked Hombows - BBQ pork and curry chicken flavors - when I go to Uwajimaya. They make great quick lunches.

Of course the obvious difference is Uwajimaya is larger and therefor has a bigger selection of items. Beyond that I would say 99 Ranch seems to have more southeast Asian items while Uwajimaya has more Japanese products. I happen to love Japanese snack foods, candy and soft drinks so I shop at Uwajimaya at least once a month. I saw several things at 99 Ranch that Uwajimaya doesn't carry, and the fish (still swimming!) and meat looked good and fresh, but I didn't see anything that I would make a special trip for - if I was in the area I would make a point of stopping, though. I wasn't paying too much attention to prices, so I couldn't say which was less expensive, though I would bet 99 Ranch is cheaper for most.

In case you're interested, I was just at the 99 Ranch Market (thanks for the tip girl chow!) and they had big bags of fresh lychees in the produce section. They only had them by the bag so I didn't get any. I'm not sure I would like them and I just wanted to buy a few to try them. I'll try Uwajimaya to see if they have them in bulk.

A fresh, perfectly ripe peach = better than sex. A fresh, perfectly ripe nectarine = better than a peach.