patris

Not sure how we are coming home - we'll get in the car, set the GPS for Buffalo so we can have dinner with Patris Well you certainly have given me quite the task - finding a resto that can compete with all the great stuff you've already enjoyed!

Not sure of its purpose, but agave syrup is readily available here at Wegmans, in the organic/natural foods section - perhaps it would be available at a health food store in your neighborhood? Too bad I didn't know you needed some yesterday - I have a bottle in the cupboard and would have sent it north with Kerry!

It was a tasty meal indeed, made more enjoyable by the company. It was made memorable by our poor befuddled waitress, who was... not good at multitasking. After quite a lengthy wait for our burgers, she brought out only mine, apologizing all over herself that she had forgotten to put both orders in at once (at least I think that was what she was apologizing for; it was such a lengthy monologue that I lost track), and rather than have mine sitting under the lamps to overcook, she thought I should get started while Kerry's was cooked. Turned out she needn't have worried that mine would overcook under the lamps - the chef (and the carryover cooking from the wait, as I was not about to eat my lunch in front of a plateless companion) took care of the overcooking up front. No matter, though - the meat was of very good quality, and its lovely fattiness overcame the temperature abuse.

There is a brand called Let's Do Sprinkles that makes such things with a more reassuring ingredient list: Ingredients: Organic evaporated cane juice, organic corn malt syrup, water, natural colors. Natural colors are extracts of seeds, vegetables and/or fruits. The one place I found them is a site for gluten free/celiac diets - http://www.food4celiacs.com/ShopOnline/LD/160.html . It appears that the confetti sprinkles are out of stock, but they do have rainbow sprinkles and, heaven help us all, chocolatey sprinklez.

What browser are you using? I tried to download that document a couple weeks ago and had no success until I switched browsers - something in Firefox hangs it up, but it downloads fine in Internet Explorer. That book is is really worth having.

I could swear (though I can't find any evidence) that it is New York State law that if an item scans for an incorrect price, the retailer is required to refund you the difference PLUS an amount equal to 10 times the difference. That doesn't help when the cashier enters the wrong produce code, though. I'm lucky enough to shop almost exclusively at Wegmans, where scales are provided for customers to weigh and label our own produce - that is the only sure way I have found to ensure everything rings up correctly. I have never shopped at Whole Foods, but it seems surprising that they don't offer that option!

Dunno about shelf life, but my concern would be the marshmallow taking water out of the caramel syrup and going gooey or crystallizing before too long. It sounds luscious, though. When you do fruit flavors, do you swirl the puree in or beat it with the sugar/gelatin mixture? It never occurred to me to do a fruit swirl, but it's an intriguing idea.

Spooky - I have had my ipod going all morning at work (helps me concentrate sometimes, when I have a thorny writing project to endure), and Woodstock was the last song it played just before I plucked my earbuds out so I wouldn't shatter my eardrums during my Triscuit-based snack. Great blog - your lovely climate and farm-fresh produce make this Buffalonian yearn for Spring.

Man, I am still thinking about those frites. That place is definitely on my must-return list! I do the brisket at 175 degrees F for about 16 hours. Before I bag it I just give it a blot and put about 2/3 of the spice packet on just the fat side. I love the texture - it just about crumbles if you slice it thinly enough, but not in that terrible sawdusty dry way. I cooked a tiny one over the weekend and have been eating it for lunches (except today!) over coleslaw, with a sprinkling of cut-up lite jarlsberg and a little bit of thousand island dressing.

I did a (pre-corned, Wegmans brand) brisket sous vide last weekend - about 16 hours at 175 degrees. Wonderfully tender, as moist as corned beef is likely to be, and absolutely delicious.

That's a relief. They're likely to be gone inside a week - at work we are partnering on a (non-culinary) project with Goya, which has a plant and distribution facility here. I made the PDF, and will make some marshmallow and mallomars, with their frozen purees to bring to our next team meeting out at the plant, just for fun.

I suppose I could wait a while and let experience answer this question, but what do you suppose might happen if one left the glucose out of a mango passionfruit PDF made with the Boiron recipe)? I made it on my induction burner for the first time and was so stunned by how quickly it cooked that I ignored that part of my mise. It seems to be gelling nicely, but do I risk it crystallizing on me or something?

My colleagues are often the beneficiaries of whatever confectionery obsession I've got going on - before the holidays it was peppermint meltaways; a couple weeks ago it was a double-layer piece with morello cherry pate de fruit and milk chocolate almond ganache, dipped in dark chocolate; now on the table in my office sits a container of dark chocolate peanut clusters, made with the chocolate left in the bowl after I dipped the peanut butter s'mores I made for our annual Superbowl commercials lunch tomorrow. Somehow spreading the calories around makes me feel better about spending as much time goofing around with new recipes as I do. And my colleagues sure don't seem to mind...

I think quick chilling is only vital if you want to store the food while it is still under vacuum, on account of anaerobic bacteria - once it is out of the pouch and on the plate it's pretty much subject to the same vagaries of time and temperature as any other traditionally cooked food.

Ohhhhh, saucer sandwiches. We had a few of these (2 or maybe 4, I can't remember) when I was a kid. It was always a production to have saucer sandwiches for supper (8 kids + 2 parents = unholy grilled sandwich staging nightmare), but they were so, so good. Ham, cheddar, a little yellow mustard - and a scalded palate and tongue each and every time from molten mustard and cheese. Years ago, my mom gave the sandwich makers to one of my sisters. She picked the wrong daughter to preserve such a treasure - they were misplaced, or discarded, or left behind, not long thereafter. I still miss them...

More for texture than taste, but nougat and butter toffee are two confections that definitely benefit from a bit of a rest - the texture gets shorter and they become less stick-in-your-teethy.

Canadian Bakin - thank you! I dried the first pan about 15 or 20 minutes, and the others for incrementally longer as the pans ahead of them in line took their turn in the oven. Perhaps I will try shortening the resting time the next time I find a reason to make them. They are great obsession fodder for someone like me, so that may be sooner than later. Shelby (loving the blog, by the way!) - try them! Two tips from a rank amateur who has had some success with them: use the italian meringue method, and make sure they know who's boss.

Sounds delicious! Do you know how to avoid the small feet issue next time? I just learned but don't want to explain if you already know. Oh please do tell! They seem to develop nice feet while they are baking, but somewhere between minutes 9 and 12 they fall on themselves and flatten like that. They have great texture and no airspace at their crowns, so a resolution to the feet issue would be wonderful.

Tomorrow is my oldest sister's birthday. Her very favorite dessert is tiramisu, but she was quite smitten with the macarons I made for Christmas... so I made her some tiramisu macarons. Just added a slurry of espresso powder and water to the macaron batter and made a filling by beating the heck out of unmeasured quantities of mascarpone, butter, powdered sugar, a bit of Choco-Bake, vanilla, and dark rum. Not too happy with the texture of the filling - it's kind of broken and weepy (Yum!), but it is quite tasty. The feet are smaller than I would like, but overall they turned out great and are quite evocative of tiramisu - the point of the whole endeavor.

Thank you, sincerely, for complicating this! I am new to sous vide, having gotten a Sous Vide Supreme Demi only about 3 weeks ago. I really wanted to go with SV for this roast because I tend to overcook proteins and properly done SV makes that impossible. The original plan was to season (salt, pepper, Accent), sear, bag, sv (the question being how long assuming a temp of 131?), ice chill, dry, season, sear, then take to the butcher. How long do you think it should spend in the bath?

How happy I am to have found this thread! I am making roast beef for sandwiches for our family Christmas gathering, and today I went to the butcher and picked up a 4.5 lb eye round roast with a nice layer of fat on top. I had been thinking sous vide, but couldn't decide among all the conflicting advice (great method, not so great, 24 hours, 6 hours, blah blah). I stuck the beast in the freezer and think I'll use this method (well, it's down to this or the Cooks Illustrated method of an overnight salting followed by a low temp roast). Here's my question, complete with preamble. My butcher will slice customers' cooked roasts free of charge - I would just need to bring it in first thing Friday morning. If I cook the roast Thursday night, what do I need to do to cool it safely in one big chunk? Can (or should) I do the sous vide cooling thing and ziploc it and chuck it in an ice bath? Or is fridge cooling ok?

Wonderful! Happy to be useful.

I wonder - could it be a riff on the nanaimo bar? (clickety for link to recipe) Sounds kind of similar... maybe could be adapted to get close to what you're thinking.

If you want the nostalgia/history/kitsch factor, then by all means go to the Anchor Bar. But if you want superior wings, then head to Duffs in Amherst (about 20 minutes east of the Anchor Bar). Take it from a native - no contest!

I made a version of cereal treats that one of the chefs on Top Chef: Just Desserts made - the recipe is here. I liked it because it basically takes the gelatin and aeration out of the marshmallow, and just combines butter with a 240 degree sugar syrup. Accomplishes pretty near the same thing (they turned out more buttery and less gooey than the melted marshmallow kind, which was 100% fine with me), saves a step or two and a whole lot of mess. Edited because I suck at HTML tagging, even when it's done for me.