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Oh man, this thread takes me back. I loved haw flakes! Haven't had them in ages though. My sister and I used to call the plum pellets guinea pig poop. Anyone else remember flat square chewy candies wrapped in coloured wax paper? Sugas, or something like that.

Good luck with your search! If you happen to see sweetbreads during your quest, please let me know :)

How about the recipe in Tony Bourdain's book for Rognons de Veau? S&P, sear in oil and butter. Remove from pan, add shallots, white wine, chicken stock and mustard to make a sauce. He suggests having the butcher trim and clean them for you. Coop, what's involved in the coring process? Is that the removal of membrane or blood vessels, something like that?

Yes I do! I haven't looked at it in a while, thanks for the reminder. I'm going back to Victoria this weekend to visit the families, maybe I can mooch some goh off them :)

Last weekend I made the chocolate macaroons from Chocolate Desserts and the Riveria cake from Desserts. The macaroons were amazing, I couldn't believe that they actually worked on my first try, they got feet and everything! My husband took them to work and they got huge raves. I can't wait to make them again. For the Riveria cake, I had some trouble with my lemon cream. It thickened up nicely like other lemon curd recipes but the temperature just didn't seem to want to go much higher than 150F even though the bowl was sitting over boiling water and had been for a good while. I took it off the heat and proceeded with the rest of the recipe. It didn't look like Patrick's picture, not nearly as thick or yellow (though that could be lighting) but it still tasted really good and worked just fine in the cake. Those who have made the recipe, did yours get all the way to 180F? Was I just not patient enough?

Ajl92, thank you so much for your tip about grinding the almonds! I made my first macaroons using the recipe in Pierre Herme's chocolate book and they looked almost exactly like your first picture. I was so shocked that they had turned out at all, it is so unlike any other cookie batter. When you grind the almonds with the confectioner's sugar, is there any risk of overgrinding? I don't want to accidentally overgrind and end up with almond butter.

Planning, then eating, then cooking. I love flipping through cookings, reading through recipes and seeing finished dieshes but I always go overboard and add too many dishes to the list. Then when it comes time to shop, I see stuff that I don't need for the meal but buy it anyways "in case I have time to make a little extra". Cooking, depending on how the planning/shopping went and how much time I have to prep/cook, can be fun and a good learning process or an excercise in coping with time and pressure. Eating is good no matter what because I finally get to sit down and enjoy the fruits of my labour but I still can't turn the brain off totally. While I'm eating I do a post-mortem of sorts, thinking of how to improve it or do it differently, whether I would make it again, etc.

Dejah, your goh looks so amazing I can practically taste it. If you ever happen to type out your recipes for your children ..

Peppyre, you've sparked my interest too. What's the selection at the Delta docks like? What sort of seafood do they have?

For those of you in the industry, do the restaurants try and book as many people in as possible to partially offset the no shows? That was the big DOV negative for me this year. As a diner, I have no problem with a credit card deposit and being done in 2 hours if it means that four people don't have to sit around a table normally meant for two. I also like the idea of extending it for a longer period, it would feel less like marathon eating that way :)

I was there 4 years ago too and experienced similar bad service. Can't remember what we ate but nothing stood out as particularly bad, but nothing was great either. Our whole table felt, how shall I put this, marginalized. Everyone was in their 20s or 30s, dressed appropriately and most of us had alcohol of some sort.

Have you tried Cioffi's (4156 E Hastings) or Rocky's (4243 E Hastings)? 3P Natural and Exotic Meats (223 Mountain Highway, North Vancouver) is supposed to have hard to find stuff. I can't remember if kidneys was one of those strange organ meats I ate as a child without knowing it. Probably in a Chinese restorative soup or something. Out of curiosity, how are you going to prepare them?

When you shop at professional and restaurant supply stores and the staff ask where you work. I say "I don't work in the industry, this is for home use" and wonder what they must think.

Sorry, I should have been more clear with my question. The website has two kinds of vanilla beans that you can order. I'm familiar with vanilla bean type descriptions like Tahitian, Mexican, Bourbon. I've Never seen "Planiforia" used on an online store or on any vanilla products that I've bought so I was wondering what it was like compared to other vanillas that I know.

Yup, that thought had crossed my mind (I have the two waffle Cuisinart). I'll see how my next batch(es) turns out before I begin to consider buying another waffle iron. My tiny apartment kitchen is so full it's not funny, the appliances have long been overflowing into the den.

Yikes, that's somewhat daunting. Good to know though. I think I'll try using bread flour next time and knead the dough for longer, see if that makes them chewier. Mine were not in the least bit chewy but the dough was only kneaded long enough to incorporate the butter.

I took an evening pastry class with Thomas Haas a while back and someone in the class asked about the clear glaze that he used on his cakes. At the time, I took down the recipe (I'm obsessive about taking notes) but didn't think I'd ever use it. I just realized this morning that his recipe and what La Patisserie refers to must be the same thing, or very similar. Thomas Haas's recipe is: 480 g sugar 250 g glucose @ 30 Baume 5 g powdered citric acid 490 g hard tap water 7 g apple pectin x 58 8 g apple pectin for nappage (NH) Bring 400g sugar, glucose, water and citric acid to 75 C while stirring. Combine rest sugar and pectins and add to mixture. Bring to a boil and cook to 66 degree Brix by using a refractometer. Let cool and clarified with filtered water or fruitjuices to desired consistency/taste. In regular recipes calling for glucose, I've always used corn syrup without ill effects. Anyone happen to know the Baume rating for regular old supermarket corn syrup? I had no idea that there were different types of apple pectin. Is it perishable? If this recipe calls for 8g and chefswarehouse sells them in 16oz tubes... that's a lot of clear glaze. Why the two types of apple pectin? Thanks for the encouragement Wendy! I'm not going to let the lack of glaze keep me from trying his recipes, I figured since a lot of fruit isn't in season I'll start with a chocolate one :) I'm a little uncertain about recipe yields though. The cake recipes don't say what diameter rings to use or how many cakes a recipe makes. Some of the pictures show two cakes and I guesstimated that most of the round ones are about 9" in diameter. Is that a close enough estimate? I'm not sure what you mean about not having to complete a whole cake at one time. Do you mean the components can be made days/weeks ahead of time and I can assemble when everything is ready? If so that'd be great!

Silly question here, what does "Planifolia" indicate? Hayasaka, where do you live? If you're in greater Vancouver, you can ship to Point Roberts, drive over to pick it up and pay the duty/tax like you normally would. You would save on S/H and the customs brokerage fees that the shipping companies normally charge.

I found the pearl sugar at Meinhardt and made the Liege waffle recipe out of Larousse tonight. Here's the recipe, with my modifications and comments in parenthesis. 500g bread flour (I used all purpose) 15g fresh yeast or 1 1/2 tsp dried yeast 125 ml water (I used milk) pinch of salt 125g caster sugar (I used pearl) 4 eggs 200g softened butter Dissolve the yeast with the liquid (if using dry yeast) and mix with 1/4 of the flour. Let rise until doubled. Add the rest of the flour, a generous pinch of salt, the sugar, eggs and butter. Mix well. (I used a standing mixer and incorporated the eggs into the initial dough first to get it smooth and uniform, then added all the flour until it was all incorporated, then the butter until it was all incorporated and finally the sugar. The dough is very soft and sticky at the end.) Divide the dough into balls about the size of an egg. Let rise on a floured surface for 30 minutes. Heat a waffle iron, place a piece of dough between the plates, close the iron and cook. (I flattened each piece of dough before putting them in the iron. One piece per square grid on the Cuisinart. They cooked for 5 minutes on setting 3.) The results were very good, though not quite like the Lebeau or Chambar waffles in taste or look. Mine were more like brioche dough cooked in a waffle iron, and they came out quite a bit darker. I will try making these again and see if I can get the colour lighter while still retaining the crispy outside and thoroughly cooked inside. The last one to come out of the waffle iron had less dough than the rest and was flattened out more before being pressed and it had the lightest colour so I'm going to explore that more closely next time. Less kneading might help as well, though I'm not sure if that's possible since it takes a while to get everything incorporated into the dough.

Another weak soul confessing here. I also got La Patisserie and want to try making some cakes out of it. Being a home baker though, I don't have some of the specialty equipment and ingredients. Most of the cake recipes seem to be finished with a glaze of some sort. Is this something that professional pastry chefs buy in large quantities? Is there an alternative I can use or make? I've really enjoyed reading this thread and it's made me bound and determined to make some recipes this weekend. Here's hoping my macaroons turn out as well as everyone else's!

When the beef is done braising, there's probably still going to be a lot of liquid left. Even after straining and skimming, I had what looked more like beef soup than stew so I reduced the liquid down quite far to more of a sauce consistency. Either way though, you'll love it.

Hi Sthitch. I'm going to replace my stone this weekend and came across your post. I had reasonable crust results using a baking stone and pouring hot water into a pan immediately after the loaves went in but one time I poured too much water in, it splashed, and cracked my stone into three pieces. Have you tried the hot water method? Would you recommend one stone plus hot water generated steam, two stones plus steam or just two stones?

I've never seen pearl sugar. Does it come in different sizes? Will it dissolve in the batter or stay whole? Can I use it cup for cup in the Liege recipes that call for regular sugar? What else does the European Warehouse have? I've never been, got any other shopping recommendations? Andiesenji, I tried that yeasted waffle recipe last year and it didn't really work out for me, I don't know why It tasted very yeasty but the big problem was the batter. It didn't cook properly in my iron, it was too runny and the waffles were cooked on the outside but not in the middle. I just have a cheap little Cuisinart though.

Was it just the texture that was grainy or did it also look wrong at some point, like when the egg whites or whipping cream got incorporated? When I made chocolate mousse tart, the mousse came together fine. I let the eggs out to come to room temperature while doing the chocolate and the chocolate had cooled down lower than body temperature by the time the two were mixed.

When is a last minute cancellation considered to be too late? I had a reservation for New Year's Eve one year and my spouse came down with a migraine a few hours beforehand. I called the restaurant to cancel and got a lecture. Is that considered to be a last minute situation? Isn't calling still preferable to being a no show?