Darienne

With the seasonal LCBO fat shiny handout is often a thinner one from Longo's. We have no Longo's in our area...east central Ontario...but DH and I are thinking about sussing out the one in Markham when we also look up the Pacific Mall there. Is Longo's like Whole Foods or Trader Joe's or more like a Loblaws Superstore? I see they carry Western Family Brands although their website page is still under construction and thus gives no information. We used some Western Family products in Utah although they were nothing special at all. Just an inexpensive in-house brand with no distinguishing characteristics as far as I could see. Is it worth the trip?

That's interesting and unpleasant at the same time. I wonder why it overheated your motor and did not get to where you wanted it in the prescribed time. Do please try it again and let us know if a second batch is the same. Or perhaps someone else will try it. Also I am curious about the grittiness. It seems unlikely that DL would post a recipe which was gritty. You have pricked my curiosity.

I wonder who you are talking about in this quote? I have no sense of the physicality of stuff, of the laws that govern space and sharp instruments and fragile objects landing on hard surfaces and how heat travel and things like that. It's not that intellectually I cannot comprehend the laws...it's just that I can't seem to translate them into my extremities, as if my hands are not connected to my brain. Thus I am doomed forever to be over-represented in this eGullet thread.

I just received an email from my friend/former neighbor & landlady in Moab where DH and I lived for 6 months from fall 08 to spring 09. The Director of the Multicultural Center, where my friend volunteers with young Hispanic kids, was giving her yearly 'we must eat healthy snacks' lectures, and then she added...except for the delicious things that Denny's next door neighbor makes. That was me and the kids called me the Candy Lady. Talk about a wonderful reputation! It doesn't come much better than that.

OK. We live in a region in Ontario where there are NO decent, nay even acceptable, Chinese restaurants. So last fall I began back making Chinese food, heavy on the Szechwan style. Now I am hardly an excellent cook or an excellent Chinese food cook, but my DH thinks I am the most brilliant Chinese food cook and he can't believe that he is getting to eat my wonderful cooking so often. He is my sous-chef. Nothing is too much trouble for him. Just as long as I keep on turning out these wonderful dishes. You can't ask for more than that. A small good but intensely felt reputation.

What would be the thinking behind that? I store mine standing, loosely rolled in a large cardboard oats container. Perhaps they would 'warp' or develop a bump/ridge near the lower edge. Think of what happens to a rolled-up rug stored on one end for a while. You could be right but I really can't see it happening inside the cardboard cylinder box. Maybe they are just covering the bases...

What would be the thinking behind that? I store mine standing, loosely rolled in a large cardboard oats container.

Ditto for the cleaning nuisance factor. I don't know how we managed before silicone baking and everything else sheets, but I sure do hate cleaning them. As for flopping them over some rack type thing...if you aren't careful, they just slide off when you turn your back.

Made some cardamom ice cream reported on the Philadelphia ice cream list. It was only slightly 'cardamomy' in my opinion. A dozen different recipes called for a dozen differenct amounts of cardamom. A fellow eGulleter suggested sprinkling powdered cardamom directly on my bowl of ice cream and I did. Yummm... Quite a lot of cardamom, in fact. Interesting because one recipe I looked at said that a little cardamom goes a very long way and that if you used too much, the result would be a 'soapy' taste. I never hit soapy. And I never hit too much for me. Would some folks have a higher tolerance or need for cardamom than others? My DH certainly needed no more cardamom for his taste, and he is the one who usually uses more soy sauce, more salt, more vinegar, more jerk seasoning, etc. Curious.

It tasted wonderful. I sprinkled some on and then I sprinkled some more on, and so on. Yummm... Do I have a high 'tolerances' for cardamom in the same way as some people love any amount of some other spice or herb? Ooops. That would be another thread...

I know that you can candy them. I tried with out much success to do it, but it was my first try. Andie will have candied them, I am sure.

Gotcha. Thanks. Will sprinkle some powdered on my next bowl and try it.

You are perfectly correct that LorAnn makes a cardamom, but unfortunately it is not available in Canada. A tad expensive to get from the States. I'll find a company in Canada soon enough, but thanks for all the help.

Alas. It appears that Xenex does not carry cardamom in their essentials oils, but I will try some other sources. Thanks.

Cut the ginger on September 14th and already I have counted 6 new little buds starting to grow.

I know it's going back a bit, but I would like to know what ice cream recipe you used, please. also from Kerry Beal Where would one get cardamom essential oil, please. Thanks. I am on a cardamom kick, so to speak.

That's a good point, about the steam killing most everything. I think we'll still go for the stainless variety. DH will simply be happier... I did make a sponge cake while away in my bamboo steamer, my first steamed cake, and I was so pleased. Should never have given it to my friend, thinking I still had one at home. Thanks everyone for all the good advice.

Made cardamom ice cream last night, Philadelphia base, no eggs. Very nice. Could have used more cardamom. I gather from a fairly recent thread on using cardamom that it's not the most straightforward of spices to use, but I love it. Next time I am going to make it as Kulfi, the frozen Indian ice cream. The main difference is that one starts with a larger quantity of milk and cooks it down, as is done in so many milk-based Indian desserts. Also Kulfi is often not churned but simply poured into molds and frozen, rather like a Popsicle on a stick. This time I was simply not ready to do the whole procedure and so took a great shortcut and used the simplest recipe I could find.

We too live despite my less than fanatical habits. Thanks. I'll get a stainless one and end the discussion with the DH.

I think the rice vinegar is an excellent idea...not as harsh as regular or wine vinegar generally is. I am not a vinegar aficionado. Prefer lemon juice for acidic needs. DH loves vinegar. Will get the book through Inter-library loan ASAP.

This one is fun : Lauren Chattman, Instant Gratification. Another one of those little treasures which need no justification because they were purchased in a second hand store.

Laughed out loud when I discovered the topic of bamboo steamers was actually started by me. I want to buy a bamboo steamer. DH does not want a bamboo steamer. Says they can't be cleaned properly. Wants me to buy a stainless one instead. He is more germ conscious than I am. What's the consensus on cleaning bamboo steamers?

Thanks to Heidi and Green Mountain for their replies. I nibbled another piece of the eggplant and realized that what was bothering me was not the vinegar, but the oregano. For some reason, it is not my favorite herb and using dried herbs is always a problem. I think I'll drain the oil out, save it for salads...DH loves oregano...and it can be easily modified to mask the oregano for me...and restart the eggplant process in the middle. Thanks. Forgot to ask: do you sterilize the container? I am a total novice at all of this and I sterilized the glass jar which turned out to be twice as large as needed. I'd like to love it all to a smaller glass jar. Can I? Can I put this into plastic even?

Having become enamored of a commercial salad addition, eggplant marinated in oil, I decided to make my own: less costly, better taste, better ingredients, learning experience, possible hostess type gift, etc. Found a recipe online which uses raw eggplant as its base. OK. Started to make it and in my usual inability to read a recipe through ahead of time properly, suddenly discovered that at one point I was supposed to add 1 tsp of vinegar to over 3 pounds of eggplant. One teaspoon to 3 pounds? Does this make sense. Quickly, quickly, back online and found 10 more recipes for the same dish. ALL THE SAME with the 1 tsp vinegar thingy. Just now I looked in Claudia Roden...where was my brain?...and found a different recipe which calls for poaching the eggplant in lots of vinegar for 5 minutes. Then drain the vinegar and add the oil. Sounds good. Does anyone have a recipe for this dish?

I would love to have a conservatory. How lovely! My little seedlings come from my friend's 2 Calamansi trees, indoor in the winter, which have now borne a few crops. Marmalade. Yummm... Many of the harvested oranges had little seeds inside them which were already beginning to sprout, so she used them to plant. This was in May and the seedlings are now 5" at the tallest leaf.