abooja

I add xanthan gum to my husband's low-sugar/sugar-free ice cream bases. Since I also add liquid lecithin and glycerine, I'm not exactly sure what's doing what, but the resulting ice cream is always creamy, never icy.

Wow, is your name Roberta? Because that's the first time I ever noticed that in your signature. Hi, Roberta! (And, if your name isn't Roberta, then please forgive my idiocy.) I'm really looking forward to this! Anyone who loves dogs so much is a-okay in my book.

While I do not yet own the book, I did make the Racines cake a few days back. We loved it, despite the fact that it cracked. The instructions I found did not include a bain-marie. I should have known better, but it was just the two of us, so it didn't much matter. It was my first time baking with cocoa nibs. I had no idea how nutty they would taste! I had a half pound of Valrhona nibs sitting in my freezer from my last Chocosphere order, and finally got to use them. I also used Guittard 61% couverture discs. Served with freshly whipped cream for me, and homemade low-sugar vanilla ice cream for my husband, it was a homerun on a number of levels: gluten-free (for me), and low sugar (for my husband), easily made with few ingredients that I always have on hand, and delicious. Thanks, David!

Presumably the inclusion of any meat would be problematic, if the OP wants to use cream and butter. It seems to me like the real benefits of either fish or clam juice would be salt and umami, so any ingredients that would add those two elements would be good. A little smoked salt would be nice for a bacon-y touch. Or how about using a good dashi as the base stock? (Is dashi kosher?) Right. I have clearly still not grasped the finer points of Kosher eating.

I once used turkey bacon in place of pancetta when making chicken marsala for a pork-averse (not Kosher) friend, and it turned out very well. That, or smoked turkey legs, might add a nice, meaty touch to a chowder.

Why not direct one's ire (and condescension) at those marketing expensive, inedible food-like crud disguised as "healthy" and gluten-free, rather than at us lot of poor saps suffering from real, and chronic illness that most traditional doctors are incapable of curing? This discussion quickly veered from thoughtful to downright insulting. If avoiding gluten makes someone feel better -- and not just in an emotionally deluded way, but in a fewer-trips-to-the-toilet-and-no-more-crippling-pain kind of way, who are you to say otherwise, and why should that irk you so much?

It is precisely this perception that upsets me most about the gluten-free = healthy campaign. While there are plenty of folks who will latch onto a gluten-free diet for the wrong reasons, there are those among us who genuinely benefit from avoiding gluten, if not eliminating it altogether. At my doctor's suggestion, and after testing negative on a blood test for Celiac, I began a two-month long elimination diet in order to determine the cause of my nearly lifelong digestive issues. I did not eliminate sugar and unhealthy fats, nor did I increase my fiber intake. (That actually decreased once Cracklin' Oat Bran was eliminated from my diet.) My notes were detailed and precise, embarrassingly so. By the end of the two months, I was feeling spectacular. Was this anecdotal? Yes. But many doctors will tell you that NCGS (Non Celiac Gluten Sensitivity) is a very real phenomenon. This one, for instance. I would never choose to be this way. I love to bake. I love pasta. Most gluten-free breads and pastas are vile. In fact, more and more since I discovered this problem, I have been deliberately avoiding them altogether because they are, in most cases, a complete waste of time, an utter disappointment. I'd rather eat the real thing and feel sick to my stomach, which I do quite often again these days.

The perception of gluten-free products as being, somehow, better for you than non-gluten free products is a marketing success story. As with vegan food, most people assume that gluten-free food is inherently healthier. Gluten-free pasta made from milled rice or corn is higher on the glycemic index than wheat pasta, which is one of two reasons I am reluctant to serve it to my diabetic husband.

Interesting. I thought I was crazy for being loathe to drink even unopened bottled water that's been around longer than a couple of months. In fact, I recently dumped out a gallon of distilled that I managed to avoid using for almost a year. I'm still not sure it wasn't a waste of money.

It's been my experience that red onions are more likely than yellow or white to be soft and beyond their prime even before I have purchased them. Lately, however, bagged yellow onions have been equally disappointing. My last onion purchase was a few days ago, and at that point, only the large, Spanish onions were worth buying. Strange, because these are often of the same mushy quality as the reds. This has been true across the board at all the markets I frequent, even Wegmans.

Thank you for that very detailed answer, Merredith. My instinct told me not to stuff all four packages in the SVS at one time, but I held this childish hope that, maybe, I was wrong. It's no big deal, in this case, as the cooking time is relatively brief, but I will have to do a lot more planning ahead for larger quantities of long cooked items in the future. I have seen many references on eG to SV chicken breasts, but none (that I could find) that specified bone-in breasts. I assume the cooking time is a bit longer. To add to my confusion, the Food & Wine version of the Keller fried chicken recipe doesn't even include a SV step, and the one that does uses leg meat. I guess I'm going to SV the legs separately from the breasts, and at a time and temperature more suited to leg meat. I'll SV the breast meat for somewhat longer than I would boneless chicken breasts, and hope it all comes together in the deep fryer. Thanks again.

I'm using my Sous Vide Supreme for the very first time today and have a couple of quick questions before I proceed. How much stuff can I pack in there at one time, and how should I pack it? I've got a bit less than four pounds of chicken parts in four bags -- two pairs of bone-in breast halves and two pairs of bone-in thighs. The two bags with breast meat are thicker than those with thigh meat, but still fit in the rack. Should I fit the two larger bags at the ends of the unit, outside the rack, so there is some space in between the breasts and the thighs, or will this impede water circulation? I'm making a version of Ad Hoc's fried chicken, and am supposed to sous vide at 140F for at least an hour, before breading and frying. I will actually be chilling the bags first, and frying later, but that's a separate issue. Another question: should both the breasts and the thighs be pulled at around the same time? The breasts are thicker, but I figure they cook more quickly anyway, even on the bone. I have no way of taking the internal temperature of the chicken before unsealing the bags at this point. Many thanks.

As a kid, I would hand knead and cut pasta noodles, and dry them on a couple of three-foot long lengths of string tied between two back-to-back dining room chairs. The only problem with this method, besides flour all over the floor, was unsticking the noodles from the narrow strings. My mother eventually got me a wooden pasta drying rack.

My dear father instilled in me a lifelong dish rearranging fetish. We have a pretty tiny dishwasher and fairly large dishes, so I'm always looking to maximize space. My husband, an A-personality who is impeccably neat and organized in every other aspect of life, cares not a whit about dishwasher organization. I, on the other hand, who can ignore piles of clothes and messy counters, tabletops, etc. for days/weeks at a time as if they weren't even there, very much like a hoarder, cannot abide by a disorganized dishwasher. It's a sickness. And I will rearrange right there in front of my husband, often acknowledging my insanity and apologizing as I go. He indulges me, I suspect, because he's hoping this one area of neatness will expand to other aspects of my life. Ha!

That's it. I am *never* buying a mandoline. My mother offered to buy me one years ago, and I turned her down, wanting to save her money, but the real savings was in flesh and blood -- my own. Misshaped potato chips are far preferable to misshaped fingers.

I baked a gluten free crumb coffee cake the other day that had an odd, rubbery/gelatinized texture, so I tossed it after eating just a half bite. Not wanting to waste nearly a half pound of butter, I put it out for the birds. Here is a squirrel enjoying a slice hillside.

For what it's worth, buying KA flour from KA is no great bargain. I can get a 5-lb. bag of their A/P flour for $3.29 at Wegmans (down from $3.99 in recent months). Even when buying the 25-lb. bag online, you're still paying the equivalent of $4.10 for every five pounds of flour, and that excludes shipping.

I'm currently wading through this article in the Atlantic Monthly and am increasingly baffled by the author's outrage. Perhaps the reason for his or her hatred of "foodies" will become clearer when I'm done.

I'm confused as to how pastrami and corned beef might not qualify as actual beef sandwiches.

A predominance of real deal bakeries, and not the par-baked, made-from-a-mix crud that passes for baked goods these days, and is available in most supermarkets. I particularly miss Jewish bakeries. Even if I still lived in New York, I'd be hard pressed to find a decent slice of seven layer cake or, God forbid, an individual Charlotte Russe baked in a small paper cup. People don't value great bakery items like they did in the 70s. This saddens me.

We finally got around to checking out the authentic menu at Han Dynasty. It turns out, we had been to this place once before, around two years ago, when we first moved to Exton. Being far less adventurous at the time, my husband naturally opted for the Americanized menu. We remembered it being very tasty, but expensive compared to the usual takeout Chinese places, which this clearly is not, so we foolishly never went back. Until a couple of days ago, that is. We did take out: Taiwanese sausage, deep fried shredded beef, three cup chicken, and what was supposed to be seafood and pineapple fried rice, but wound up being fine noodles with egg, shrimp and sesame oil. I loved everything. My husband found the shredded beef far too spicy, but after plucking out the chili pods, I dug right in. Everything was extremely flavorful and, with the exception of the noodles, very different from anything we had ever eaten in a Chinese restaurant. I can't wait to go back. I can't believe I missed out on two years of eating such great food. And it's very nearly within walking distance of our home. Wow.

Your blog has been at the top of my e-reading list all week. Seeing China through your eyes has made it seem that much more accessible to me. With any luck, I will be joining my husband on a business trip to Shenzhen (and Hong Kong) in a few short months. Thanks to you, I am a bit less terrified at the prospect, and actually quite looking forward to it. As for fried pigeon? Not so much... Thanks for a great week!

I finally get why macarons are so maddening to make. Despite weighing everything scrupulously, aging the egg whites, and grinding the nuts as finely as possible in a dedicated coffee mill, I get different results each and every time. The first time, I underground, undermixed, and wound up with lumpy, but otherwise well formed macarons, one or two of which had cracks. The second time, I got lots of cracks, and lost the shiny tops. One time only, they came out damn near perfect, though still a bit chunky, because of my inability to sift. A couple of days ago, I made a batch of hazelnut macarons that looked like they were going to be the best of the bunch. They had frilly feet and shiny, flat domes. The whole magilla. Except, each and every one of them was completely hollow. The shells shatter into many tiny pieces when you bite into one. I filled them all anyway, and intend to eat them. (I do not throw out Nutella.) I'm not even really asking for advice, because I'm not sure there is any that will guarantee a successful next attempt. Maybe I should start counting my strokes...

New York style black and white cookies, with some yellow food coloring in the white side. It's more of a brown and yellow cookie, but -- scatological references aside -- is infinitely more appetizing than a cookie with black food coloring.

I was given this Hershey's Silver Kiss Fondue Maker a few years back, and never even opened it. Maybe it works alright, but I'll probably never find out. My mother once gave me a pear-shaped covered casserole dish that strongly resembled a baby's butt. I'm kind of sorry I got rid of it when I did, because she's not around to give me any more wacky gifts like that from Amazing Savings.