Darienne
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Posts posted by Darienne
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I wish I had some more fast savoury options - the only thing that comes to mind is an omelette or a fried egg. Or buttered toast. There are some dumpling places on my street, but I'm never organized to get in the queue early enough.
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.
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Then there are oils and vinegars that come with some kind of flow restrictor on the bottle that doesn't really restrict it enough for any practical use, so you still have to put your thumb over the top of the bottle to shake it onto something lightly.
And on the other hand, you have to actually pull out the restrictor if you want any appreciable amount for cooking...
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I shall certainly blend rices and other bits and bobs from now on. Never heard of it or thought of it before.
Embarrassing.Like Nakji, neither the DH nor I really like brown rice...and we don't like it cooked the same way...and blending offers so many possibilities.
Thanks to you all.
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And I hate how large packages of things like potato chips and corn chips are made of a material which rips like crazy and so you can't close the bag properly after you once open it.
And I hate how drinks which come in a can cannot be resealed properly.
Both of the above are deliberate in MHO.
well, maybe not so "H"
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Feedmec00kies,
Thank you so much for sending me off to Wikipedia. Who knew? Wonderful stuff....well, except for the part about putting ketchup on French toast.
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Darienne,
Its isomalt, I dye it orange and bake it between 2 silpats at 350 for about 15 min. let it harden about 10 min the peel the silpat off and break it into pieces..
patrick
Thank you, Patrick.
Interesting. Your answer sent me off into the archives. Isomalt is not in my near future, but who knows... -
I miss being able to get REAL pumpernickel down the street. And sour cream that tasted like sour cream.
And lamb at prices we can afford. When we were first married, it was the cheapest meat available.
And, Chris, we DO have a real butcher. He is half owner of the grocery store in a little town near us and he just agreed the other day to grind hamburger for us specially after I read that report by Mark Bitten on today's hamburger. I do bring Dave confections a few times a year. Can't hurt.
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Gorgeous. Is that decoration on top made of sugar and how does one get the neat little holes in it? Thanks.
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I also grew up with salty french toast, so I'll eat it both ways, depending on my mood.
That makes two of us who grew up eating salted French toast. I grew up in Montreal, PQ, and the salt came from my Mother who grew up in a Polish Jewish home. Is it an ethnic, religious, political thing? Never met anyone else who ever ate salted French toast.
My favorite breakfast USED to be cottage cheese and sour cream over pumpernickel chunks, topped with salt and pepper. I haven't seen real pumpernickel for decades and the commercial sour cream leaves a lot to be desired now.
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We have a Cuisinart Ice Cream machine and here is its dasher.
And here is my question. Has anyone a really clever idea of how to get the ice cream off the dasher and into the storage container? I use a variety of wide and narrow soft and harder utensils and then give up. And lick the rest off, of course.
Who has a good idea of how to get it off without resorting to the old-fashioned lick method?
Added: Actually, the real dasher has even more little jutting in and out pieces than this photo shows...
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Interestingly enough, I grew up in a home where French toast was salted, not sweetened. To this day, my French toast calls for salt...while the rest of my family does syrup.
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Another small grocery chain similar to Longo's, with less hype, is Highland Farms. Best for fresh produce , meat counter, and Mediterranean items. If I am going to Pacific Mall, or T&T at Steeles and Middlefield, I swing down to Highland Farms at Kennedy and Ellesmere, and also Diana's Seafood at Crockford and Lawrence.
Googled T&T at Steeles and got T&T. What is T&T? Thanks.
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Brilliant - I'll have to keep an eye out for those.
I'd be interested in a set of those trays if you can find them in Ontario.
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Amongst the things that I am not, I am not a gardener. In my studio window I now have a large thriving container of ginger (thanks to Andie) and another pot of calamansi seedlings. This is a first.
I have had an outdoor garden in the past...the far past.
How do I go about starting an indoor winter garden for herbs? I'd like, if possible, mint, parsley, thyme...I don't even know what else you can grow inside.
Do I need special lights? I live in Zone 5, in east central Ontario (that sounds SO boring, east central Ontario) but I do have large windows on the east and the south.
Please start me off...
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Yesterday I bought a couple of cups of this mix, Jade Blend, simply because it looked so pretty in the bin, a blend of soft greens, ochers, and tan. But there were several other ones. The Jade Blend contains: bamboo rice, wheat berries, basmati rice, green lentils, split baby garbanzo beans, Daikon radish seeds. A single set of directions.
It's for lunch today with Scalloped Tomatoes (accidentally bought tomatoes twice), and the rest of the roasted fall vegetables.
The Jade Blend was very tasty. Alas! The pretty green color was no more.
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I've also piped liquid buttercream into 1" PVC tubes and then sliced when crystalized. However I have to "paint on" a foot by hand, although I've always wanted to ty out "spraying" them with a couverture filled paint sprayer.
Dear Edward J. Could you please fill out the above? 1" PVC tube? How thick is this tube? Do you have a photo? Do you cut right through the tube? Somehow decant the buttercream before cutting? I am lacking in this kind of experience and don't quite get it. Thanks.
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There are several rice,lentil, etc, blends for sale at our local Bulk Barn...a Canadian chain...Don't know whether it's a USA chain or not.
The DH has taken to dropping me off at the Bulk Barn while he goes to the ReStore...a 'guy' kind of store...and I wander around looking at all the stuff. I am amazed at what they actually carry that I did not know about. I usually run in to get whatever it is that I am specifically looking for...
Yesterday I bought a couple of cups of this mix, Jade Blend, simply because it looked so pretty in the bin, a blend of soft greens, ochers, and tan. But there were several other ones. The Jade Blend contains: bamboo rice, wheat berries, basmati rice, green lentils, split baby garbanzo beans, Daikon radish seeds. A single set of directions.
It's for lunch today with Scalloped Tomatoes (accidentally bought tomatoes twice), and the rest of the roasted fall vegetables.
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This has happened to me numerous times over the years and my first reaction is to grab a spoonful of sugar followed up by an ice cube.
I am curious about the sugar solution. Never heard of this before. What is the theory behind it? Thanks.
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If I can stand and walk, I'm in.
However, I can help with computer-oriented tasks.
"To buy or not to buy Cookbooks"
in Cookbooks & References
Posted
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.