Bruschetta

My trusty Farberware stockpot has gone to the big kitchen cabinet in the sky. There was a vegetable stock, there was the doorbell, there was a long conversation, and....well, let us say my stockpot is no more. So I need a new stockpot, but I'm baffled by all the differences in materials. It should be 8 quarts, not tend to stick on the bottom like some do, and have a tight fitting lid, preferably glass. It should not require a second mortgage or sending the 7 year old out to panhandle. Can anybody make a suggestion?

Hi---yes, I did braise covered, and I did replenish the liquid. But I agree, the temp may have been too hot. I'm going to try it again this weekend, doing a much longer braise at 250!

A few weeks ago, I had the most amazing meal ever at Hugo's, in Houston. Not living in Houston, I thought I'd try and recreate the smoky braised osso bucco I had there. It was delicious--falling off the bone, deeply flavored with smoke, with melting marrow in the bone. I thought I could surely deconstruct the thing and make it at home. But my version was HORRIBLE! Tough, dried out, leathery, awful! Where did I go wrong? Since it was going to be braised within an inch of its life, I took beef shanks instead of veal (this may have been the fatal error). I cold smoked them for about an hour. Then I braised in beef stock, sangiovese, and mirepoix for five hours at 350. I served it with braised kale, polenta, and red pepper coulis. I love the concept of the dish, but boy, my execution was terrible. Where did I go wrong? Bad cut? Did the smoking toughen the meat? Overbraising? Underbraising? I love this dish, and I'd love to develop a good recipe for it.

It sounds like the issue isn't what he eats, but that he's unkind. Unkindness is amusing for a millisecond and then leaves a really bad taste in your mouth....

I use a really terrific---and hilarious---anthropological study of Tim Horton's in my "Food and Culture" class. It's called "Eddie Shack was no Tim Horton," by Steve Penfold, and it's in a book called "Food Nations" by Warren Belasco.

Is it cajun boudin blanc or French boudin blanc? If it's cajun boudin, I like to squeeze the innards out of the casing and put into triangles of puff pastry, and pop in the oven. I eat it with mustard, preferably Maille, and a couple cornichons.

I'm curious about the different forms of recipe names, and was reminded of this by somebody posting a recipe called "pit stop fritatta" in another thread. In some cookbooks (and in those Diane Mott Davidson mysteries), recipes have cute or hokey names that don't tell you very much about the dish: "Pit stop fritatta," "Aspen Meadow muffins," "Death by Chocolate" and so on. There are even serious names for dishes that aren't very informative, like steak Diane, peach Melba, pasta puttanesca, etc. On the flip side, there are dish names that almost ARE the recipe. Anything they show on Top Chef, for example, lists about twenty ingredients as the name of the dish: "Braised shank of elk in bourbon with lemon cucumbers, raspberries, gorgonzola, micro-microgreens and confit of kitchen sink," or something like that. Is there a happy medium? Are names that give the historical reference (like peach Melba) or a sense of the occasion that the dish was served better than a list of ingredients? When you create a new dish, do you name it?

Lime sherbert, just like you get at the japanese steakhouse Actually considering what all was served, chocolate would finish nicely. Plus Hung "BAKED" chocolate cake in high altitude and pulled it off. ← Hey, it's not baking at high altitude that's hard, it's adapting all your recipes for sea level! :-)

Altitude sickness at 11,000, after having been there for several days? That severe? It's not impossible, but I have never seen anybody that dazed and confused by the altitude and still standing, not after three days. In general, people that I've seen with altitude sickness do not run around like chickens with their heads cut off. They complain about their headaches, and then do a face plant. (Bruschetta, a Colorado native, writing to you from 6,500 feet. And yes, we do actually get a rolling boil up here. It just takes a while.)

If time were no object, I would finish that meal with a granita. Maybe a scoop of mango, and then a scoop of something tangier like dragonfruit. I think the crunchiness of granita and a bright, sweet-sour taste would have been good after the richness of the duck.

I loved the finale last night. All in all, I think I would have rather eaten Dale's meal than Hung's, but I think Hung's consistency won the day. The only jarring note in Hung's menu was the dessert. What do you want after a wonderful Vietnamese-inspired meal? It sure ain't chocolate cake. What would you all have made to end that meal?

I was stunned when Colicchio said that in order to show something of himself in the dishes, he'd have to use Vietnamese flavors. WHAT?! I was stunned by the implicit racism in that statement. Does Colicchio have to cook Prince Spaghetti, just because he's from New Jersey? Is Padma Lakshmi only allowed to make Indian food? If what Colicchio is implying is true---that a person can only put themselves in a dish if it's from the cuisine of their own ethnic group---then Rick Bayless is in a heck of a lot of trouble. Somebody better tell Bayless to start melting some Velveeta over those Mexican dishes, or nothing he cooks will have any "soul"!!

I love French Onion soup done right. But I'm with you on the beef stock--it gives it a very rough edge that I don't always like. The other key, I think, is the cheese. I've eaten lovely French Onion soups with creamy melty cheese. Others I've had, though, have a melted gob of rubber bobbing up and down in them---yuck. What's the difference, cheese quality or cheese variety?

My thought exactly. There is flat-out nothing nicer than a perfectly roasted chicken. I like to do mine with preserved lemons in the cavity and garlic cloves under the skin, and baste the heck out of it. And maybe I'm overly conservative, or too much of a purist, or something. But is there anything better to do with potatoes than some variation of mashed? I love the texture, especially alongside juicy roast chicken. Green salad, tarte tatin, and I'm in heaven. It ain't fancy, but it sure is good.

Okay, this is such a simple thing, and yet I cannot do it! I live north of Denver. The altitude here is about 5400 feet. And for the life of me, I cannot properly cook a soft-boiled egg! Either I crack them open and they're too runny, or I miss the mark and they're hard-boiled. Trial and error, surprisingly, isn't really getting me anywhere. Is there a useful formula that will help me determine how long to cook soft-boiled eggs at various altitudes?