plunk

I live in Canada and also encountered the zip code problem so I emailed their tickets inquiry people and they said to just enter 00000 for the zip code. They've done the same thing on their end when processing non-US credit cards and the charges do get billed through so I think that's as good a guarantee as you're going to get. Good luck!

Awesome, thanks for checking! The cover had me a little bit worried. It seems a little whimsical and home-cook approachable (i.e. not "scary"/challenging enough) versus a slick enough professional level book, heh. Hopefully the book will make its way to North America eventually, at least to specialty cookbook stores if not amazon.

I loved Adriano Zumbo's challenges on Masterchef Australia! gap, does the Zumbo cookbook have recipes that are really difficult, like along the lines of the V8 cake? I have umpteenth general pastry books already so I really want something that's more at the professional level.

It's also available from amazon.ca for $37.44 Canadian. Probably about the same after the exchange rate but might be cheaper on shipping.

You can buy fennel pollen from Mikuni Wild Harvest. They're a restaurant supplier but are open to open to the public, by appointment only, and if you purchase $100 or more. Not at all difficult, it's like being a kid in a candy store. Wicked fun to browse, though the quantities for some things can be a bit large for home use. http://www.mikuniwildharvest.com http://www.vanmag.com/foodanddrink/07jun/Food.shtml The Vancouver Magazine article has a typo in Mikuni's address, it's 8750 Aisne St.

Are the recipes in it scalable to quantities suitable for avid home bakers? Does it call for hard to get specialty professional ingredients or equipment? I'm an avid amateur that has baked from a few professional books (Pierre Herme, Frederic Bau), and most of the difficulty has been trying to guesstimate/scale quantities down to single cakes, etc. Thanks!

Has anyone out there used this book yet? Would it be helpful for avid home bakers or is it only useful to professionals? I haven't been able to find a copy locally to flip through. Thanks!

Do you happen to know the name and address of the storefront? Thanks!

Intriguing ... think he'd sell to civilians?

I had a fantastic dinner at West last Friday. My group sat at one of the chef's tables by the kitchen and I got to try everything on the menu. My favourites were the salmon appetizer (I wish those oyster beignets came by the bowlful!), the truffle ravioli and the apple dessert. The banana ice cream with the chocolate cake was superb, so banana-y and creamy.

Argh, and here I thought I was organized by setting my VCR to tape at 7 all week. Can someone please post a summary for tonight's show?

Try Ponderosa Mushrooms, they supply restaurants but will also sell to the public. 1592 Kebet Way, Port Coquitlam, BC Canada V3C 5M5 Phone: 604-945-9700 Fax: 604-945-9735 http://www.ponderosa-mushrooms.com/

I've poured chocolate on Silpats for making chocolate bark and scored it before the chocolate was fully set. It worked quite well but I didn't cut down all the way through and the Silpat facing side was not shiny.

I love that book, so many great recipes. What cookbook(s) are you using for the mousse cakes? Ravensburgen looks awesome, I can see myself going a little crazy in there. I'd be interested to hear about your trip too. I called Lentia and Qzina last year looking for fruit purees for home use (mousse cakes, sorbets, fruit jellies). They both sell to individuals, but I think Lentia has a minimum order and delivery only. For Qzina, you can go directly to the warehouse and get what you want. (I may have that backwards.) I haven't made it out to either of them yet so I don't know if that's still true. Qzina webpage (seems unreliable) Lentia webpage

First time out with members of this group, & we chose HSG, because of eGullet. Finally got to taste the Gingerbread Pudding, & it lived up to the hype! One particular member of the group (you know who, Neil), literally licked his plate clean! Too bad we were too embarrassed to take a picture...you could have used it in your ads. ← Man, what an experience that evening was. I second the Gingerbread Pudding plaudits, it was amazing! I only wish I had room for the yam fries as well. Thanks to Neil and Luc and the rest of the staff for being so gracious and patient with our table.

Michael Noble ran some of his potato battle dishes as a special tasting menu for a while a Diva. Feenie served versions of at least four of the five dishes on Sunday, I'm not entirely sure if the veal one was excluded.

You've got me beat Ling, I don't even know that much but if the menu has both English and Chinese I can recognize a good handful. This is part of the reason I don't have dim sum in Richmond. That and I think I'm being reversely discriminated against, being Chinese (born here actually) and not knowing how to read and write it. I've shamed my ancestors, I'm sure of it

Thanks for the feedback Wendy. My chocolate had probably cooled down too far, I had set it aside while heating the sugar syrup.

Zeitoun, I made the Peas and Carrots a few years ago and my presentation looked exactly like yours. Try as I might, I couldn't get mine to have that "pillowy" look like the FLC picture. I love this cookbook, in so many different ways. Some general thoughts about other recipes that I've tried. Pasta dough: The earlier comments about ratios was what I encountered when making this. Mine came out quite sticky. Fortunately I've made pasta dough from other books so I just added more flour until I got the right "feel". Concord grape jellies: Ditto for the comment about cooking times. I've tried this recipe and variations on it three times, with consistent results. It takes a lot longer than 10 minutes for the mixture to thicken enough, regardless of what the thermometer says. I imagine this is where a refractometer would come in real handy. Also, parchment makes a much better pan liner than plastic wrap. Ever wonder what happens to plastic wrap when you pour 220+ F liquid on it? Severe shrinkage, and a mess. Strawberry and Champagne terrine: Made with u-pick berries, to die for. Simple and perfect. Coffee and Doughnuts: Also worked like a charm. I would make this more often, except that I dislike deep frying. Whipped Brie: I couldn't get my brie to quenelle, the cheese was too sticky. I may have picked the wrong type of brie for this though. Ultimately I just put it into a small crock and served it that way. It tasted really good with the reduced port.

Was just at Senses today, picked up a couple of the truffle hearts. Don't recall seeing anything with cherry in their regular selection though. Does anyone know if you can just walk in and get the Cin Cin chocolates to go? I work about a 15 min walk away so I could go down at lunchtime but I don't think I have time to eat, unless they're super quick.

This is probably one of those things that seems easy in concept but hard to do the first time on your own unless you've already seen someone else do it in a home kitchen. Unfortunately, no one in my family seems to make this themselves.

Patricia, I liked the lemon chocolate combination quite well but if you're not a big fan then I would recommend having a lot of people around to share the cake with as it's very very rich. I think it would freeze nicely though. PatrickS & Patricia, I had at least some trouble with each of Riveria cake components but I think I was trying to rush through it too quickly. The lemon cream you already know about, I think my bowl was suspended too high and there wasn't enough bowl surface to steam exposure. I'll probably try making this again, probably for the lemon tart. For the flourless chocolate cake, I got three discs out of the batter instead of four. I had never made a cake like that before, with the whipped whites and the piping, so I gave each disc a bit extra so that there would be no chance of holes. In the end, that turned to be a lucky coincidence because the batter spreads as it bakes and apparently my oven has a slight slant so the rounds didn't bake up in perfect circles. Once the darkened edges were trimmed off, I got three near-perfect useable rounds of cake. Patrick, do your other flourless chocolate cakes use a similar method? I was surprised at how these cakes baked. When they were done, they were very flat and quite dense, about 1/4" in height. Chewy and chocolately. I should mention here that the lemon disc took about two hours to freeze solid in my fridge freezer. The chocolate mousse was, by far, the most stressful component. When I folded the chilled whipped cream into the melted chocolate, the mousse seized! Panicking and freaking out but determined to salvage it, I set the bowl over low heat and melted the whole thing back down to a ganache consistency, stuck it in the stand mixer and whipped the heck out of it. Got it to the point where it was roughly twice its original volume (noticably less than it would have been had it folded together properly) and set it aside. Whipped the egg/sugar mixture without any problems (really neat to see it come together) and folded that into the seized-melted-whipped chocolate/cream mixture. But despite all the previous hiccups, it assembled and unmolded like a charm and the finished cake was really tasty (hard to go wrong on that part though). And unless someone had seen the book, seen me make it or made it themselves, they wouldn't have known that it didn't come out like it should have. Drats, I wish I had taken pictures. Comparing mine with the picture in the book, my mousse is denser (due to the salvaging), my lemon cream is lighter (due to not coming up to 180F) and I'm not sure about the chocolate cake. Probably denser too. I'm glad I made this cake, it was a great learning experience. The seized mouse is still bothering me though. Based on what I read in Shirley Corriher's Cookwise, what happened was not unexpected. I was adding a cold compenent with liquid to warm chocolate that was not melted with additional liquid or butter like other mousse recipes I've made. Anyone have any ideas about this?

If my largest tip is half an inch in diameter, is the proper technique to just hold it over the pan and just squeeze a big dollop? In my first batch, I used a quarter inch tip because I thought the half inch was too big. In order to get a somewhat circular shape, I piped the batter into spirals. Needless to say, the circles were uneven.

Interesting, what Ben calls "wong tong" is called "peen tong" (slab sugar) in my family. And since I can't read Chinese, I don't know what the package actually says!

I tried Blonder's recipe in Dim sum too and encountered most if not all of the problems in this thread! It's hard to float the pan in the water so that the sheet is of an even thickness so most of them had at least one corner that was thick and floury. I vividly recall trying not to burn myself on the hot steam and by the time I got a good one, I wasn't hungry for them anymore. Now that my curiosity is satisfied, I'm sticking to the purchased ones!