Chris Hennes

Well then, let's just call the floor a structural component .

The floor is constructed of treated yellow pine, rated for full-time ground contact: it won't be doing any rotting anytime soon. Despite some concerns about those chemicals leaching into the compost and from there into the plants, the most recent studies I have read have shown this effect to be extremely minimal, so I decided to forge ahead. I put a floor on them because that's Bermuda Grass around them. It's weed. You can't kill it, it will grow in anything, and the last thing I want after going through tremendous effort to remove it from my beds is to reintroduce it by letting it grow through the compost. Man I hate that grass.

I finally got off my rear last weekend and built the compost bins I'd been telling my wife I'd build since we bought the house a year ago: It's just treated lumber and chicken wire (itself recycled from the garden fence I just took out). Each chamber is a cubic meter, which seems to be the recommended minimum size. I've been doing some reading about "ingredient" balance (nitrogen-rich "greens" vs. carbon-rich "browns"), but would love to hear your tips and tricks about managing your compost heaps. In particular, what kitchen scraps DON'T you put in yours?

Excellent point about the Extension offices, azurite. In my neck of the woods that's the Oklahoma State University Extension, and they are tremendously helpful. Their online resources are excellent, and are specific to the OK region (which is very helpful to me). They are also the ones who do the soil testing: as mentioned above, that's really the way to be sure that you've got the correct nutrient balance and soil condition for a particular vegetable. If you tell them what you are growing they will recommend exact fertilizer types and rates for that product, which is great. I'm growing the rye this year at their suggestion.

Yes, Kerry, you're right: I was mistaken about rye fixing nitrogen. It recovers excess nitrogen from the soil and prevents it from migrating into the water supply, apparently, but it doesn't actually fix it.

That's the beauty of rye: it stops growing in temperatures below 33°F, but it doesn't die, as long as it's been established for a few weeks before it starts staying that cold full time. It also is somewhat "aleopathic," meaning it suppresses weeds (at least, those with small seeds), for up to a month after its cut down, too, if you don't till it in. Since I'm growing this to improve soil conditions, I won't be harvesting any of the grain: I need those nutrients to get back into the soil. This is purely a green manure crop for me, designed to boost my tomato crop next year.

"Winter" is approaching (such as it is, here in the southern US), so all of my summer crops got pulled out last week. The soil here is quite poor: before this housing development went in it had been wheat fields for many years, and the soil nutrients were nearly completely depleted. The underlying soil is a very heavy clay, and it proved extremely difficult to grow anything in this past season (the unusually hot July didn't help my tomatoes any, either). I'm trying something new this year (new to me, anyway), and last Friday I tilled the garden up again, added a bit of 10-10-10 fertilizer and some peat moss, and then planted a crop of Winter Rye. The idea is that the Rye a) is nearly invincible, and will grow all winter here, b) has a strong root system that will help break up the heavy clay soil, and c) fixes nitrogen, eventually helping to increase the nitrogen content of the soil. Anyone else growing a cover crop for the winter to get ready for next year's growing season?

I'll be anxious to see if it can really churn out high quality fresh masa... if it can, it's going on my wish list immediately.

Does anyone have a recipe for the filling for butternut squash ravioli? I've been craving it recently, and squash is now in season here. I'll probably go with a sage and brown butter sauce in keeping with the way it's usually served in these parts, but I'm open to other suggestions as well.

Has anyone tried making their own cream cheese? Have a recipe to share?

I noticed at the produce market last weekend that nectarines were really cheap, so I think this weekend I'm going to buy some. But then what? How do nectarines differ from, say, peaches and apricots in flavor and usage? What do you do with nectarines, anyway?

Well, it seems like Jewish holiday season is kicking into full swing: I've made Challah a few times recently, and I'm having a little difficulty with the texture. I fear I may be over-baking it. In Reinhart's book he's got a recipe that has a good flavor (two whole eggs and two yolks, no dairy) and his recipe says that after 40 minutes in the oven it should be at about 190°F: well, despite looking great after 40 minutes, both times I've measured it it's been more like 205°F. How long do you all generally bake your Challah? At what temp?

An update on the breakfast food at Big Truck Tacos: very good, but almost entirely build-your-own, which is a little disappointing. The regular menu at BTT is full of fascinating and generally tasty flavor combinations frequently involving off-the-beaten-path ingredients and combinations, and unfortunately the breakfast menu does not take the same tack. The taco selection is simply a list of ingredients: the combinations are up to you, and they are all basically conventional breakfast taco ingredients (chorizo, potato, cheese, eggs, etc.). So, if you know what you like you can put together a good taco, but it's not going to be anywhere near as interesting as their lunchtime fare. I've also given the Huevos Rancheros a shot, and they are among the best in the city (bear in mind that I am a huge sucker for Huevos Rancheros). The sauce is basically perfect, the ingredients well-balanced, and the overall flavor was excellent. My mom thought it was weird that I was taking her out for tacos for breakfast when she was here to visit, but even she came away impressed.

I am absolutely switching white chocolate to Valrhona right now, Lior! I have been using the E. Guittard chocolate line for everything, but I find their white nearly impossible to work with it is so thick. I simply assumed that this was a standard property of white chocolate, I'm glad to hear it is not!

Absolutely: that comment struck me as a lame cop-out from a bitter loser. Which also struck me as completely beneath him, since he's an excellent chef.

Yup.

Not surprisingly, we have a whole topic dedicated to the merits of various sausage stuffers.

Sopresatta (pp. 186–188) A few weeks ago I made the Sopresatta from Charcuterie and it turned out very well: it's not as heavily seasoned as the Tuscan Salami from the book, so has a more pronounced pork flavor. Using good-quality pork is a must for this recipe, I think. I used the rest of the scrap from last year's pig: Ground it all through the coarse plate: Added the seasonings (quite heavy on the garlic): Stuffed using the usual apparatus: Incubated in the oven with the light on overnight: At this point they weighed 1699 grams, making the target weight 1189 grams, which I hit 16 days later (curing in the mini wine fridge): The fat maintained pretty good definition: Overall the sausage is quite good, though not as good as some of the sopresattas I've had from professional charcuteriers. I should note that the humidity was quite low (65% relative) so I got no mold formation, and the outer edges of the sausage was slightly drier than the interior. Two more weeks vacuum-sealed in the refrigerator evened out the internal moisture and mellowed the flavors a bit.

The idea behind this dichotomy seems to neglect the fact that, at least for many of us, variety is worthwhile for its own sake. Certainly, I can think of one or two "best dishes of my life." But I wouldn't want to eat them all the time, to the detriment of anything else! Where do you draw the line, if you're an absolutist? How far down in your rankings of all foods ever are you willing to eat?

OK, perhaps I've gotten a little riled up here! I apologize for the implication that there is anything wrong with Oliver's "primeval urge to burn things" and I'm certainly guilty of it myself. It's amazing how much passion BBQ inspires! Obviously, I like my toy, and I like the BBQ I make with it. I get the same kind of "crust" with the Bradley that I got with the more standard BBQ techniques. (As an aside, for an in-depth discussion of the Smoke Ring phenomenon, check out this topic from the archives).

I got the digital Bradley after a few years of using a Brinkman, and I find that especially for long smoke times and large quantities of product, it is a great machine. It does leak "liquid smoke" as the moisture from the water pan and product condenses on the door and drips down, so I have the whole thing in a full sheet pan from a rest. supply store: $10 fixed that issue no problem. Bradley sells all the different woods I care to use, and then some: mesquite, hickory, apple, and maple are all in my arsenal at the moment. In my opinion there is nothing else comparable in terms of ease of use and quality of the finished product, simply because of the level of control you have. Even after a few beers, there's no fear that you will forget to stoke the fire or reload the pucks. Because of the puck-feed mechanism, once the wood has burned down it is automatically ejected into a pan of water, stopping the burning and preventing any acrid buildup, even over very long smoking periods, something that as far as I can tell no other product offers. This is a device for people who want to EAT and PERFECT barbeque, not for those with the primeval urge to burn things. It gives you a level control unavailable through any other means.

The look is similar, yes, but I think Jennifer is a considerably better chef (or at least appears to be).

I'm not so sure they wouldn't have wanted equal-sized teams for the challenge. But at any rate, over the years my faith has grown that the producers don't interfere with the judging, and that it's not rigged in any way beyond the choice of contestants (concluding disclaimer notwithstanding). I rate any possible conspiracy to eliminate a woman first as highly unlikely. Either they had a backup plan, or they didn't care if the teams were unequal.

I agree about the folks at Eat Around OKC, they seem to be a good bunch. I find that even better than the reviews on their website are the quick recommendations you can get by adding #eataroundokc to a Twitter post looking for someplace to eat. I admit, I haven't braved any of the sushi in OK yet...

I think it's more likely that they had a backup plan, with some other kind of challenge waiting in the wings if they couldn't do the men vs. women. They could have even done the same challenge and just drawn knives, etc.