Chris Hennes

I believe the ones I have are the Luigi Bormioli, sold in sets of four. I'm not positive that it is these, but it is close. They don't advertise how large they are, which is usually a good sign .

Same here - I go out of my way to phrase things such that I never need to describe my love of food with a single term. Why say "I am a foodie" when you can say "I love food"? I typically interpret "I am a foodie" to mean "I am now going to pretend to know something about food and will proceed to parrot something I heard on Food Network."

Actually, it may seem dumb, but I buy glassware from Amazon.com on a fairly regular basis, and have never had any problems. The selection isn't great, but I picked up a set of cheap crystal 5-oz Martini-style glasses a year or so ago that get a lot of use.

Antelope, huh? Definitely never had that one... I noticed that igourmet.com sells a variety of meat products - anyone tried them? Also, the Debragga and Spitler site is pretty new: has anyone tried them yet?

Maybe a better tack is for me to just put up whatever prices we have readily available, and just use 'X's to mark the other stuff they have. I could do the same thing with several of the other wholesale distributors. The point of the pricing is just to compare sources, but I think a list of potential sources, even with missing pricing info, could be useful.

Tape? Brilliant! (As usual, the engineer makes things more difficult than they need to be... )

Is there a price list somewhere that I'm missing, or do you just have to call them? I think they carry almost everything on my list, but I'd feel bad trying to get pricing info for all of it without actually intending to purchase (yet)... Also, regarding the Albert Uster chocolate: I'm not familiar with Des Alpes, which appears to be the only brand they carry, so that's why they're not on the list. How many people here are using this stuff?

I think you are overestimating how much chocolate 5kg is: the box is maybe 4"x12"x16" or so (just a rough estimate) for the disks (rather than the blocks -- the block are probably half that). It's like two bags of flour or so. Also, chocolate keeps pretty well on its own, and if you use about a pound per recipe, you will go through it pretty quickly. I have three boxes (dark, milk and white) and just keep them in a closet in my tiny apartment.

I've been working on a new solution recently, actually, since I didn't find the original wooden mold to be flexible enough (I want to be able to easily do three different heights: 1/4", 3/8" and 1/2"). I bought 16 neodymium magnets from a place online for about $10, then a 12"x12" sheet of cheap steel (magnetic) and had some 1/4" bars of stainless steel cut to length. The stainless was supposed to be the magnetic sort, but I ordered the wrong kind. Besides that, the custom cuts were not clean or precise enough. Finally, the rolled steel plate was not flat enough. Doh! So, I'm going to get a much thinner steel plate, and get a local shop to do a higher-tolerance cut of some magnetic stainless steel. I'll post pics once that's done - my target cost is $30. Edited to add: I'm using the magnets to hold the mold rails in position (no welding): neodymium is very strong, so I can use small magnets coated in plastic so they can be washed. I am using stainless for the rails so they can be washed, and cheapo cold-rolled plate for the base since it gets covered in parchment anyway.

Recently I've been building some spreadsheets trying to make sense of all the online food sources. The tables in the posts below represent my current take on the "protein" category. It is U.S.-centric because, well, I'm in the U.S -- I'd be happy to include a worldwide list if I could figure out how to do it effectively. The sources are those that I have seen pop up in various "where can I get it?" eGullet threads. I have only tried a few of them personally, so what you see isn't an endorsement of any site, just a statement that they exist, and as of today (Jan. 22, 2008) they stock the particular selection shown below. The "style" category is somewhat nebulous: I marked a place as "organic" if any of their stock is claimed to be organic, either certified or not (since even certification is a pretty loose statement). The "specialty breed" category basically means that they actually list the breed - for beef, this is typically Waygu, Kobe, or Angus. For pork it could be Berkshire, Duroc, etc. I also decided against including pricing since there is no good "apples-to-apples" comparison between the various purveyors. The cuts listed are one U.S. university's take on the "standard cuts" available, but I may change that since I don't really like the list. The primals are from the U.S. system. For the most part only un-prepared products are included. Hams and bacon are included if the site also sells raw pork, but I'm working on a separate table for charcuterie. I'm sorry if I omitted your favorite purveyor, cut, or protein. This is a work in progress, so please post (or PM me) if I've missed something or gotten something wrong. Eventually I'd like to include a "member's recommendation" row that indicates a sort of "approval rating" by eGullet forum members, but that will take some more work, since to be representative it needs to be a count, not just a check box. Finally a disclaimer that sites come and go, stock changes, I probably typed some stuff in wrong, etc. so this is a guideline---if you find something wrong, please let me know and I will fix it. Keep in mind that sites like Heritage Foods have a variable stock list, so what's below represents what they have now, not what they carry on-and-off throughout the year. (The Kitchen Consumer forum hosts have kindly agreed to post the tables as HTML in some posts below: thanks to Pam R for all her help and patience!)

What a pain! We have a family friend who announced one day that he was allergic to mustard. I don't recall the symptoms, but they were something like a migraine type headache. He had been eating at our functions for years with no issues. I am a big fan of Dijon and dry mustard. He has never had those symptoms around me. I must say that I usually am using the mustard as a flavor note among many and have never put out anything glowing yellow like ballpark mustard. Totally think it is mental but I just say nothing. Your situation with the micromanaging of your cooking is certainly different. I think your idea of making her things separate and "special" rather than making everyone suffer is probably the most sensible and least stressful approach. Good luck! ← lol, you guys got nothin'! My mom's new husband is "allergic" to white cheese. Not the orange stuff, just the white. Uh, huh...

There are a number of online sources for Guanciale. Heritage Foods comes to mind, but I'm sure there are other (cheaper) options as well. Of course, I'm sure the all'amatriciana would be excellent with the jowl you have, as well.

Is this before or after scraping the top of the mold? Do you put it in the fridge upside-down?

You'd be surprised - I chose the 5kg size because it is reasonable and relatively cost-effective for the home confectioner in need of lots of practice (i.e., me!) .

Hmm, I didn't think about that. I was thinking the temper was fine because the ones that did release had a perfect crisp "snap" to them when bitten into. Of course, that's not a very scientific way of determining proper temper .

I had a go at the Mango-Mint-Coriander filled shells from Shotts' "Making Artisan Chocolates" (more images at my website): This was my first try at making the filled shells: they all had tiny bubbles, and I didn't polish the mold surfaces well enough. Also, I think I made them too thin, since the chocolate didn't contract enough and many of them didn't release from the molds. All told, however, that wasn't that big of a deal, because I didn't like the flavor!

I made the Mango-Mint-Coriander filled shells this weekend, and they were not exactly a "resounding success." I must have misunderstood the meaning of "three springs of fresh mint" because wow, mint can be bitter in excess! Way, way too much mint flavor, and almost nothing from the mango or coriander. I'll get around to posting photos later this week, but I also had trouble getting the chocolates to release from the mold, and I didn't polish the molds well enough. And the Packers lost, besides!

Definitely - I find that any quantity of Fernet over a dash or two and it tends to completely dominate all of the other flavors, to the point that I was considering putting some in the dropper bottles I use for bitters and dosing it out like that.

I assured my wife that we could move to anyplace with FedEx service, which is mostly true, but we do like to eat out on a pretty regular basis. As I was checking out Oklahoma City today I found almost zero mentions on the eGullet forums... Zagat doesn't cover them, and there are only 30 or so OpenTable listings. What gives? No one likes to eat out in OK?

Thanks you for sharing all this here - it's great to hear about what others are doing once they get "hooked" by chocolate! I have found that even giving away some of the more "modern" flavors can be a challenge. I think we are all so used to trying weird-sounding new flavor combinations that we sometimes forget that they are still weird-sounding .

We have all sorts of threads around here discussing great "cocktailian" bars, i.e. places where you are basically assured a good drink. Here in State College, PA, bars serve crappy beer, crappier beer, and booze that if consumed in enough quantity makes said crappy beer taste "good". In other words, no place to get a good cocktail except at home. BUT WAIT! Last night I went to the local Olive Garden (for shame, I know, I know...). There was a wait so we grabbed a seat at the bar. Now, I admit that I actually go there pretty regularly because I like the bartender there - he's a nice guy, and my wife likes his Tom Collins'. I generally order a martini because I like olives . But last night, I ordered a Manhattan. Things start out well, with two healthy dashes of Angostura. But then he free-pours from the bottle of Maker's Mark (no spout, just the regular opening), which makes me a little nervous. I mean, come on, it's the Olive Garden! Same with the vermouth. But THEN! he gets out a spoon and stirs the thing. Holy crap. Now I'm excited... and sure enough, when it arrives, crystal clear and perfectly chilled, it is fantastic. Anyone else end up with a good cocktail someplace where you would ordinarily convince yourself to order a beer, just to be on the safe side?

I love the presentation - your chocolates are gorgeous.

A:[...] in a Philadelphia, no matter what you ask for, you can’t get it. You ask for something, they're not gonna get it. You want to do something, it ain't gonna get done. You want to go somewhere, you can't get there from here. M: Good God. So this is very serious. A: Just remember, Marcus. This is a condition named for the town that invented the cheese steak. Something that nobody in his right mind would willingly ask for. -- From "The Philadelphia" by David Ives (collected in All in the Timing)

Looking for a restaurant that makes everything in-house seems like you are going for novelty, not necessarily quality. Making really great *anything* requires whole-hearted dedication - sort of a "jack-of-all-trades, master of none" problem. I appreciate a restaurant that makes some things in house, but I'm not sure making *everything* in house is even desirable, from a quality standpoint.

What about Turkish pistachios? How do they differ from California, in terms of taste?