Darienne

Yesterday DH and I did the impossible dog freezer. Yes, our dogs have that much frozen meat and stuff. Took all of five minutes. And it had been put off about 3 weeks as DH obsessed was busy with his latest reno project.

I'm with paulraphael, my own ice cream mentor , on this one on all counts: on the ice cream part, and the other issues...availability, which I mentioned above and obsession, which I didn't but which is paramount and changes as I learn. When I quit learning, I shall be no more.

Breyer's isn't bad, and if vanilla is your choice, I guess,that's fine. But which ice cream maker makes Orange-Szechwan Pepper, or Hot Aztec Chocolate, or Vietnamese Coffee or real raspberry ice cream with real raspberries which taste like nothing you have ever had before? Etc, etc.

Looking forward to reading your blog, PopsicleToze. But an early aside: why Popsicle Toze?

Add one: Time-Life Books. Great Meals in Minutes: Mexican Menus. 1984 Isn't My Sweet Mexico a wonder?

I've had a similar experience. Ditto for me. Spring rolls, chiles rellenos, Indian and Chinese food. Ice cream. Not sure what good foods you can get in my area... Blessing in disguise both for my cooking skills and my avoirdupois.

Re cleaning hands, etc. Aprons that tie in the front with an accompanying small towel to hand over the front part of the tie are very useful. Just finished teaching a friend how to make ice cream in a Cuisinart ICE-20 machine using my cornstarch base method. And how to substitute that method with the recipes which don't use it. Went well...but it was only one person and she was a friend. (Although we did have three dogs driving us slightly nuts during the 'class'.)

Yes. Indeed. I have a bag of powdered buttermilk, purchased to make something or other which never got made and now I have really no idea of what to do with it. And so it sits.

One clever trick my teacher gave us was to use small squares of that open 'weave' rubbery matting stuff that folks use to line drawers and a thousand other things to keep cutting boards stationary. I always put my printed recipes in plastic see-through jackets when I am working on them. These sheet protectors open on two sides...no awkward and difficult sliding stuff in and out. Still easy enough to open the sheet to write notes in the margins. Excellent point about the paper towels. So basic...and yet often not done. In her chocolate class, Kerry Beal had us working on large sheets of parchment paper. What a godsend for cleaning up chocolate which sticks to everything like crazy.

Talk about 'hitting the nail on the head'. Your post was so incredibly bang on and point by point you touched on everything which made the cooking course I took not what it could have been. And I could add a few more points, such as having the students do everything by hand instead of using electrical appliances of some sort to get through the job quickly. And each class. I know how to chop an onion. I may not do it well, but I do know how. And I am there to learn another cuisine. At home I don't whisk eggs by hands. I don't mix some sauces by hand. I do use silicone scrapers to clean out pots...not wooden spoons. Yes, authenticity is all very well in cooking from another culture, but time is of the essence in some cases. And on and on... The teacher never watched us cook at all. She WAS too busy. She had help only one day. We did bump into each other constantly at the sink...whose taps I still couldn't master. I had one set of measuring spoons. Then I had to wash it...and my one knife...and the cutting board. And etc. And not enough pot holders. Conversely, parts of the prep meant that the teacher stayed up very late the night before doing it. She could not possibly have earned a decent wage from these classes. At all. I'll quit. Thank you for explaining my frustrations to me. When I said yesterday that teaching our own craft was an incredible learning experience, I was correct. Having mastered WHAT you are teaching is only the beginning. Teaching it to others is a whole different thing. Thanks.

Thanks for the further information. All these posts will get passed on to DH. And I wouldn't laugh. That's terrific. Now you will have to make one pancake to go with your finished syrup. It's quite something to help with a big production of maple syrup making. Took the dogs with us last year and their dogs and our dogs ended up having such sticky coats...have no idea how they got sticky.

Classes were 10 - 1pm in her wonderful kitchen which is set up for cooking classes. Here's the Indian menu: Tandoori Chicken Sticks, Raita, Aloo Gobi, Cardamom & Cumin Infused Basmati Rice, Silky Butter Chicken served with Naan (merely heated up Naan)and Sweet Lassi for desert. Teacher ended up making the dessert in the kitchen while we ate the other dishes in the dining room. On the printed sheets, she provided recipes for Tandoori paste and Garam Masala but we used commercial products. No one was an inexperienced cook. OK. Just found the Tuscan menu also: Italian Hummus (White & Black Bean Dips) with Toasted Pita Chips, Tomato & Basil Bruschetta, Basil and Balsamic Glazed Chicken, Roasted Cherry Tomato Pasta with Lemon Caper Sauce and Tiramisu.

We have a Champion and forgot to mention in my first post that DH put through it bushels of apples last fall. It did a great job and we just finished (alas!) the last of the apple juice this week. It tasted freshly made. Drawback: it is unwieldy and weighs a ton. We keep it in its original box, down in the cellar.

A great topic with lots of useful answers. We have 100 acres, most of it arable, and can take in a lot of folks. The learning curve would be incredible as we all rebuilt our lives. We would learn again what we can eat and not eat and what grows and what doesn't. We already know some and pooling knowledge would be the answer. Sounds like life used to be. Ed is currently helping a neighbor with his maple syrup production and that neighbor house-sat for us while we were away. Those neighbors also receive much of the confections and things that I make. Now there's a hardship. It was partly behind DH's decision to relocate to the country. We have a powerful generator...it sure didn't cost $250.00...and we have an oil furnace which can also burn wood. We have old covered-over wells on our property which no doubt could be resurrected for drinking water. Thanks again for all the answers.

Interesting topic in light of the fact that tomorrow I am teaching a friend how to make ice cream and that I have just finished 4 'Round the World' classes from a local caterer and chef. I've taught folks how to make certain confections, but always very casually and tomorrow's class is casual also, so I have really nothing to report there. The main thing about ice cream is the time element and so I am making sure I have that part covered. However, the classes I took were another thing. Each class presented a full course menu from a country: India, Italy, Thailand and Greece were the ones I took. They were fun and I did eat delicious dishes and learned quite a lot that was useful in that I could use the knowledge elsewhere. The menus were too ambitious and IMO led to real problems. The workload had to be apportioned..."students A&B made the sauce, while students C&D prepared the meat, etc." So, unless I was really quick, I didn't get to learn much about other task, nor the others about mine. The dishes all had to be fairly quick cooking of course, and so they used mostly cut up chicken as a basis. Also the teacher in two cases ended up making the dessert by herself with no one watching while we scurried around doing this and that. She worked way too hard setting up these classes so that the overly ambitious menu could work and did not earn enough firstly to cut down the scope of each class and also to establish as part of the plan that she would simply demonstrate certain dishes. Please understand that I am not complaining at all, simply pointing out the pitfalls of her choices. I also attended free weekly one-hour demonstrations in one of our local grocery stores weekly for quite a while. It was simply demos with tasting at the end, but was very professionally done and I did learn a lot. Questions were allowed and you can bet I asked a lot. The problem here was that many of the ingredients were those sold by the chain (duh!) and yup! I bought quite a number. Short cuts: you can't make chicken stock in one hour and the store doesn't earn much money. Buy their chicken stock tetra paks.) I don't go any more...there was a limit to the scope of the classes. I've taken classes with Kerry Beal and as you can imagine, they were excellent. I suspect Kerry is somehow super-human! This topic is huge and fascinating. Ed and I taught craft classes, together and singly, of all kinds with hardshell gourds...thus my avatar...and what a learning process it all was. Much of teaching is the same whatever you are teaching.....

Hi Nopales, Thanks for adding your knowledge to this topic and putting another perspective into the ring. This entire subject is new to me and so it is all interesting and challenging.

More work, but you could do something with Royal icing. Make little circles. Or make squiggles on the marshmallows. What's in those colored sugars? And dusting stuff? Probably don't want to know... Well, the colored sugar doesn't sound any better than the sprinkles and although I now have Aztec Gold luster dust all over my hands...the lid fell off...I still have no idea of what's in it. My hands make me think of the woman in Goldfinger? Do I have the correct movie? Sorry, not much help.

Just finished some truffles. 70% chocolate coating on my own ganache recipe (copying Greweling's directions pretty much): Tahini, icing sugar and bittersweet chocolate. Tastes like a cross between Gianduja and Halvah. Now to get them out of the house quickly.

Looks lovely. Now on my list. And I'd be astounded if a)I ever had all the ingredients that any recipe called for and if b) I followed the recipe exactly. Good going, EmilyR

Good for you, Minas6907, You have a faithful audience following your endeavors.

Wonderful Andie. I just love old cookbooks. For any new Mexican dish, I first check in Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz. The Complete Book of Mexican Cooking. 1965. I can't even remember where, when or why I bought it. I'd never been to Mexico...probably hadn't even tasted Mexican food then. Not one photo. It's a mystery. And now it's totally in pieces and nicely stained.

Found this interesting article, The Mexican Kitchen's Islamic Connection , although I can't figure out quite how I got there... Wasn't sure where to post it. It certainly made me sit up and think. No wonder I love both Mexican and Indian food.

DL spends a day shooting film at Patrick Roger.

Thanks so much for that informative response. I really appreciate that kind of detail. Barbara and I should make taffy on our next Candy day. It's been on our list forever.

OK. Photos of Mexican Menus. Alas I have an old ailing camera and if it has a macro lens, I don't know how to use it properly. Rick Bayless is the top right photo, lots of dark shaggy hair, mustache and beard, wearing a plaid shirt. He provides 3 menus: - Chicken Soup Tlalpeno, Cheese Empanadas, Green Bean Salad - Tortilla Casserole, Pickled Cauliflower - Black Bean Tostadas, Chicken in Escabeche The recipes are far from his current authentic ones, calling for canned tomatoes, mild or hot 'chili' powder, 'vegetable' oil, sour cream, etc. I am not implying any adverse criticism here...the cookbook was a good start to getting folks interested in cooking Mexican food. Asking for crema or queso fresco or annatto seeds would not have led to a great readership at that time. (don't know how to do a tilde in this venue) Second edit: other contributors are: Jane Butel, Elizabeth Schneider, Sue Huffman, Barbara Hansen, Constantine Coules, Vickie Simms, Lucinda Hutson and Margaret Shakespeare.