Darienne

Just talking to the owner of our local bulk food/health food store about making ice cream/gelato with a cornstarch base. He asked if I used modified cornstarch and I asked what is it? His reply was that it would thicken cold liquids and this is good. (I heat the milk/cream when making ice cream.) Who has used modified cornstarch and what for and why and is it good to use? Or is the 'modified' epithet something to avoid, as in just about modified any food? Thanks.

Update on the tasteless blue grape thread: Just reading DL's Room for Dessert yesterday. Wonderful book. P.84, a recipe for "Concord Grape Pie", DL notes the emergence (1999) of 'seedless Concord-style grapes', suggesting that while some are flavorful, others are definitely not up to par. Mine were not.

Goat cheese never-formed-a-mousse I understand...but English per puree on the walls soup must have a good story behind it?????

Just rereading Lisa's post and it reminded me of last year, taking some wonderful Callebaut 70% chocolate with me to Moab and having two good (non-foodie) friends literally spit it out, saying that it tasted like pure powdered cocoa.

pastrymama's suggestion is really a good one. That's what really works a lot of the time. The cooling gives them time to contract and loosen. Freezing makes them nice and hard, and the propane torch warms the grease to let them just pop out. This is how I release my pineapple upside down cakes. Bake, then refrigerate in the pan, then turn the pan upside down and heat it with the torch. It comes out perfectly. Brilliant! So I will try again.

I googled 'pyrolize vegetables' and got your morning post. Could you please explain a bit what this means. Thanks.

I don't clip much, but a recipe in our local newspaper changed my life. And I do make it often, but with my own tweaks such as added raspberries and booze. "Chocolate-covered Banana Mousse Freeze" and the chocolate cover was a ganache. Ganache? That's a strange word, said I and I looked it up online. And nothing was ever the same again. End of story.

I can't recall precisely what kind of grapes they were, but they were getting beyond eating in the fridge. I put them through the Champion grinder/juicer/? and got the most lovely grape juice ever. They could well have been seeded grapes, but I don't think they would have been a Concord type...DH dislikes Concord grapes. The Champion was an expensive purchase for a then quite poverty-stricken family, but so worth the money. We are on only our second one over I think about 40 years.

And so I made the tahini gianduja again with icing sugar a la Greweling...except that I used only 3/4 of his allotment of sugar. Couldn't really say what it tasted like. Not gianduja. Then DH had some after lunch and said...this tastes very much like chocolate halvah...and so it does. Lacks all texture and no doubt other qualities, but yes, it does taste like chocolate halvah.

Scratch two not-very-useful cookbooks for me. Thank you.

We have a lot of storage at the farm...not in the house, but in the drive shed. A drive shed is called that because you can literally drive two transport trucks into it. So nothing really has to be discarded. DH is very happy. He has every nail, screw & piece of lumber he ever bought. But I try not to be a hoarder. So I gave away, donated, discarded, etc so many kitchen and dining items that belonged to my late Mother after a few years. Right. However, now I have started my life in cooking and suchlike. And now I am buying them all back in second hand stores or for whatever price they now are: Salton hot trays, stand mixer, pyrex bowls and measuring cup sets, serving lidded bowls and utensils, etc.

French Toast, on the crispy side, but with salt on top. None of that sappy sweet stuff for me!

Last night I was carelessly humming along, thinking about chocolate and tahini, wondering what delicious cake or mousse could be found on the internet. (Now, for those who have been less than enthusiastic about the use of the internet for recipes, this IS a use for the internet: looking up unusual or unknown recipes.) Found a few, but I lacked either the enthusiasm for said recipe or a key ingredient. So...I turned my thoughts to making some kind of gianduja using chocolate and tahini. I am not sure how much I liked it. DH liked it just fine. I'll try again and this time put the proper amount of sugar into it. Any one else try making gianduja using other nut pastes/butters? And can you call them gianduja? Greweling simply states that gianduja is 'nearly always hazelnuts or almonds'. Not heavily prescriptive, so I suppose you could. We simply ate it all plain.

I like this. You must remember that Road's End Coffee predates my interest in food. Now I think that it is way past due in some kind up upping of the levels of ingredients. Maybe in the interests of science I should make one this evening. I have heavy cream. I have Guittard ...oops...it's only 56 % as I recall...Thanks. Chris.

Here's our family favorite: 2 tablespoons of good quality hot chocolate mix (sorry), into one cup of hot decaf coffee, plus one jigger (size is your call) 1/2 vodka and 1/2 liqueur of your choice (my fave is Panama Jack), thrown into the blender, whizzed so it gets foamy, into a big, big mug with a sprinkling of cinnamon, or whatever on top. We call it Road's End Coffee because that's the name of our farm. It's not sophisticated, but by gum! it's tasty.

In regular grocery stores: Russet apples, Chieftain corn, Northern Spy apples, cream with only cream in it, ditto for whipping cream, peas in the pod, calves liver, etc. (just give me time...) Actually I cannot remember the last time I saw a Russet apple and as for corn; we can't buy any kind other than peaches and cream.

Dear Hungry C, You are brilliant! I googled the title and went to Images and there it was in all its green glory. What a hoot! Thanks.

Well done, Fearless Leader!!!

Unless I am in the States and can get the book from Amazon for a tuppence, I follow my rule: get the book out from the library or from Inter-library loan before you buy it.

Well, this is not quite in the same ballpark. I have always been a great coffee drinker. One day in the early winter of 1960, I realized that my cup of coffee tasted AWFUL, really awful. Guess what? I had just discovered an early pregnancy test for myself and with the next two children I could tell immediately when I was pregnant.

My first two cookbooks were 1. a book which is missing all provenance. It has no covers (they were green). It begins at p.65 and ends with frostings and fillings. The index is gone. It was a compendium of booklets which were available in the 50s. (yes, I am very old. 50 years married this coming March.) 2. The original edition of Joy of Cooking. printed 1962 Along the way and before three years ago when I finally realized I wanted to cook: 3. Regional Cooking of China. Margaret Gin. 1975. 4. A Book of Middle Eastern Food. Claudia Roden.1968 5. The Complete Book of Mexican Cooking. Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz.1967 Since 2006 or so, my cookbook collection has soared and the most important books are: 1. David Lebovitz. The Perfect Scoop. 2. Chocolates & Confections. Peter Greweling. 3. Candymaking. Ruth Kendrick & Pauline Atkinson 4. Cookwise. Shirley Corriher 5. Classic Vegetarian Cooking from the Middle East & North Africa. Habeeb Salloum

Going along with the printed card idea is to do what we do at our shows. Besides a little card which might be available, also print your text, once in a larger size, and put it in one of those clear acrylic stand up frames. Our sales tag on our work...hand-crafted hardshelled gourds...can be larger than on confections obviously and has an insert on which we print all our information. But on the shelves in the galleries are the stand-up frames with all our information. Good luck. Yes. Try explaining to a prospective buyer why something handcrafted should cost more than something imported from the mills of China.

Thank you Toliver and Andie for the replies. My kitchen faces north, but my studio faces south, so the studio will be the garden. And will plant the mint...I LOVE MINT...separately. I never thought about hanging plants...or hanging shelves of plants. Didn't know that thyme trailed. Will get out an 'Indoor gardens for dummies' this week from the town library.

Canadian Thanksgiving at our home also with lots of folks and dogs coming. A big turkey, dressing, gravy, mashed potatoes, etc. For dessert: a lemon cheesecake pie covered with a 70% ganache. The pie, although lemon, is quite sweet. We'll have to see how the very dark ganache goes over. Plus a cornstarch based Italian ice cream which called for ricotta. When I went to make it yesterday, the ricotta was off and that was that. Did the cornstarch, milk and cream based and then added the inclusions: toasted pistachios, pecans and hazelnuts, chopped maraschino cherries and apricots, lemon and orange zest. Like nougat ice cream.

Grilled cheese sandwiches are pretty fast. And things which you have made beforehand and have only to reheat can be fairly fast. I have a couple of recipes for blintz souffles which can be made at night, refrigerated and then baked in the morning...or made the night before and reheated. A blintz souffle is a fraction the amount of prep time compared to actual blintzes.