Chris Hennes

I've never had a sink I liked, actually. I currently have a double that is too shallow. I hate single sinks because I like to put my main drying rack in the second basin and my secondary drying rack up next to the sink. I either need a bigger sink or more counter space next to it!

This is where I get my bitters bottles (the dropper variety) and bottles for syrups (the plastic squeeze bottles). I just wish the squeeze bottles came in a larger size. I go through the simple syrup pretty quickly. ETA: They look to be quite a bit less expensive than the container store, at least for the amber dropper bottles. All of mine were under $1 each, with pretty cheap shipping, at least if you are buying a bunch.

Oooh, potstickers, good call! My wife loves potstickers. What do you (or rather, what were you going to!) use in yours? I use pork, ginger, garlic etc., following the the Cook's Illustrated recipe.

Those look fabulous (though I still maintain that I would re-dip in blue cheese dressing!). Thanks for the photos. I'll bite on the oxtail... got photos of that, too? P.S. To post photos here you upload them to ImageGullet - see here.

OK, I admit it, I'm dumb. I don't understand how the cheese stays in the wing without creating a colossal mess in the deep fryer. Plus, I think I'd dip them in blue cheese dressing anyway, for the texture and temperature contrast, and because I'm a blue cheese fiend.

Fresh peas, raw. Just pull them off the vine, pry them out, and eat. Actually, just about anything fresh from the garden... but peas lose so much flavor so quickly! (Edited 'cause I can't type today)

Are you a "convert," a "believer," or a "Jersey sucked before, sucks now, and will suck until eternity" type? It sounds from your writeup like you enjoyed at least Moshka, but what about the other places on the tour?

That's a good idea - I usually only need small quantities (around 50 grams), so a squeeze bottle would be perfect. I wonder if you can get food safe refillable caulk tubes? That would help minimize waste, too. Do you have a problem getting it all out of the corn syrup bottle? It seems much more viscous than corn syrup, but maybe I've just never dealt with corn syrup in these quantities.

I am going to miss having football to watch on Sunday's after next week. It's not so much the food I eat during the game, but I typically cook while watching football, so Sundays have become "confection days" at our house over the last couple months. For the game: nachos and beer. Thrilling, I know... During the game I am going to make some kind of fondant and invertase confection. Maybe the mints... dunno yet.

OK, I just tried this, and I have some questions. First, is there some trick to handling glucose syrup? I'm fairly certain it is the stickiest substance I have ever dealt with. I feel like I end up wasting twice as much as a use because it gets so stuck to every utensil I try to scoop it out of the bucket with! Second, I brought the sugar syrup up to temp and then added the "seed" fondant that I made yesterday. After stirring for a few minutes the seed fondant was completely melted and incorporated and the fondant looked like Elmer's glue---does that sound about right? But what then? Do I keep stirring until it is cool, or just pour it into a container? Does it also need to "ripen" overnight, or is it ready to use now? I just stopped stirring and poured it into a container, so hopefully I didn't just ruin it!

I just finished the Gingerbread Squares, and I'm really happy with them. Of course, the perfectionist in me can see a million things to work on, but thanks to all the advice I've gotten here I'm definitely improving. Here they are (as usual, more photos at my website): The thing I found most helpful was dropping them into the enrobing bowl upside down and then pushing at the edge to flip them up onto the fork---it took me a while to get the hang of it, but since these are short and squat it was much easier than with the habanos, and I was able to get it to work most of the time by the end. I still had trouble maintaining the appropriate temperature for the chocolate, but I just need some more time to work out the heating pad-to-towel ratio, I think. So, thank you all for your help with this new hobby: so far, so good!

How did you guess? This sounds great - I saw that Greweling talks about adding "seed" fondant, but with his technique you still have to agitate it on the slab, just for less time. I am hoping to make the lemon logs, or maybe the mint patties, later this week, and I was wondering how I was going to make enough fondant for the recipes (1/4 batch from my little slab is not very much!). This solves that problem just in time - thanks!

Without agitation, or do I still need to give it the granite slab treatment, and this just speeds up the process?

Just remember that what you are making is nothing like rolled fondant for a cake. that has gums and such (i think it can sometimes have gelatine) Sugar, corn syrup, water, palm oil, natural and artificial flavor, gum tragacanth, titanium dioxide, glycerine, cellulose gum, modified corn starch, potassium sorbate, acetic acid. (satin ice rolled fondant) ← Sure, but when you're making it yourself isn't it basically the same recipe for all type of fondant, with only the sugar cooking temperature increased to make the firmer ones? That was the impression I got from Greweling, but obviously I could have misunderstood. I was thinking this one would be very soft based on an earlier comment in this thread, but looking at the recipes it is used in that is not really possible. It has to set up enough to be enrobed, at the very least. Thanks for the feedback---I think I must be on the right track anyway. On an unrelated note, I have a batch of the ginger squares underway. The ganache tastes fabulous, and set up firm enough to slice in under a half hour, so I hope I don't mess them up in the enrobing!

Isn't that the point of featuring them in dishes, though? To emphasize the subtle differences? I have recently purchased a bunch of different salts from L'Epicerie, and this sounds like a great idea to me!

Making a frosting ahead is very different from leaving cream cheese out on the counter: the amount of sugar in the frosting can, depending on the amount, prevent any significant bacterial growth for several days. Think about a chocolate ganache: it has a lot of cream in it, but also a lot of sugar. It is frequently left out overnight to set, with no ill effects. You can't judge whether it is safe based on the individual ingredients alone. This is more obvious with things like salt-cured meats, but it also applies to confections. Edited to remove the implication that *any* amount of sugar would do: the higher the sugar-to-other-stuff ratio is, the more preservative power the sugar has.

I just picked up a small (12"x12") granite tile to play with, so I decided to try Greweling's fondant recipe (1/4 batch, of course, to fit on the tile). I'd never made fondant before, so I didn't know what to expect, and I have a couple questions. When I was making the fondant I stopped agitating a few times to try to scrape the buildup off my scraper: is this necessary, or could I have just left it alone? Also, the last time I did that, at about the ten minute mark, as I was cleaning the scraper the fondant almost immediately turned into a crumbly-textured solid (no longer the sticky goo). I tried to kneed it like bread for a few minutes and got the texture into what I am used to fondant seeming like, but maybe a little softer. Greweling suggests that it should have taken 20 minutes of agitation to complete, but it was definitely much less than that. And I was under the impression that I should have ended up with a very soft fondant in the end: this one is softer than what you would cover a cake with, but still more like play-doh. Did I bring the temperature up too high?

I think we need to be very careful with this kind of conversation. I am of two minds: 1) it is certain that our fears of bacterial contamination are vastly overblown - stories about the 999,999 people who didn't get sick don't exactly make the news, and most people's immune systems can handle moderate doses of bacteria with no trouble, BUT 2) there is certainly a clear precident that sometimes people really do get sick and die from being careless with food safety. Yes, it's rare, but do you really want to take that chance when it is so easily mitigated? So, while I personally have left all of those ingredients out overnight on occasion, and never gotten sick, I just can't actually recommend that anyone do it.

I have to say, to me that sounds like one of those "easier said than done" things. Could just be me misunderstanding the term, or the industry as a whole: what does a restaurant consultant do? Is it really reasonable to just give up a cooking job and simply decide to consult? How do you drum up business? OK, maybe this belongs in a separate thread...

OK, the plastic-wrapped potatoes do seem a bit extreme... but this sort of thing seems to come up on eGullet a lot: a lot of us look at convenience foods and think, who would ever buy that?! It only saves a few minutes! And it usually isn't long before somebody else drops in with a reasonable argument for why you would want to buy such a thing. I doubt anybody on eGullet is paying for those little bags of prechopped mirepoix, but I know plenty of people who do. The price seems outrageous on a per-pound basis, but it's only a buck or two! My wife buys the pre-cut apple slices all the time when we are traveling: it's easier than carrying around a paring knife, and better for you than a bag of chips. So, at any rate, while I might *GASP* at the prices, I still understand why people pay them. Now, this year's truffle crop, on the other hand... OUCH!! GASP!! YOWZA!!

I have started falling into this category more and more recently (probably since discovering eGullet!). Though for some things, discovering a superior product actually caused me to *increase* consumption. I spent my whole life until last year thinking I disliked pork! But after discovering "the good stuff" online last year, my annual pork consumption went from a few pounds of bacon to a few dozen pounds of shoulder, belly, chop, etc. I draw the line at the "prime" beef they sell at the Wegmans here - as far as I can discern it is no better than the choice, and is certainly nowhere near the quality of the prime I've had at a good restaurant.

No additional sugar? It has always been my understanding that it is the sugar in the buttercream that allows it to be room-temperature-stable for days on end, though I guess the egg whites get pasteurized in the process, so maybe this isn't the case.

That's a lot of Screwdrivers...

Excellent, thanks. I need to come up with some kind or "rating system" for these places. The table simplifies seeing the available sources, but doesn't give any indication of the meat quality, or how many eGullet forum members have had good experiences with any given place. There are so many potential sources it is still almost impossible to choose one.

Have you ordered from Snake River Farms? I'm always a little leery of places that sell "American Kobe" beef, with no comparison at all to the true (Japanese) Kobe marbling scale.