thayes1c

Pimenton pop rocks!

Dave Arnold addresses the issue of off flavors from propane over at Cooking Issues as part of his quixotic quest for the perfect turkey: http://cookingissues.wordpress.com/2009/11/25/turkey-time-part-3-how-to-cook-it/ Apparently the issue is uncombusted propane and a screen between the meat and the torch catches or slows the propane enough to let it fully burn. Of course, he's using a 500,000 BTU roofing torch, but hey, it's Dave Arnold, what did you expect?

How about something (and I can't believe I'm saying this) based around BBQ sauce? Smoky, spicy and a little sweet, maybe with a bitter undercurrent? Sounds disgusting but maybe it can be done right.

Anybody know if you do this with vegetables? I just had a fantastic garlic eggplant dish at Tacoma Szechuan and I think they used this technique on the eggplant. It was, well, velvety and smooth and I thought it had the slightest bit of fried coating on it. Any tips on velveting eggplant or other veggies?

I have to say the same thing every year: No more frozen pizzas. Too easy, too salty and too fatty. Let's see if I can make it all year this time.

Radish leaves. Best part sometimes.

Rehydrating dried fruits like cherries or prunes, maybe? Makes the whisky taste better, too.

I can't believe the Rob Roy hasn't come up yet! It's probably my favorite cocktail, subbing scotch for the bourbon in a Manhattan. Bartenders seldom know what it is though, usually they think I'm asking for a Roy Rogers so I have to quickly explain that it's "A Manhattan with Scotch."

Freezing the spheres is the way to go. I can't tell you how many gooey blobs of alginate mucous I went through before freezing it. I leave the alginate bath warm so the liquid can melt, too. I use a 1/2" hemisphere ice cube trays I found at Bed, Bath and Beyond and they work great. I've only really played with making wine "grapes" and the El Bulli olives. The olives are a must try, in my opinion. As for the traditional spherification, if you want to make caviar the easy way grab a Vaccu-Pette is a great way to make 96 at a time instead of one drop by drop. They're cheaper from a lab supply company, too, so don't let some gourmet food retailer rip you off. (And don't worry, they come sterile packaged!)

A farmhouse brewery with a fancy restaurant has always been my dream. My dreams when I sleep, however, often involve me finding new and strange beers at the store. The strangest was a maple lambic that was aged at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean and then sold in amphorae-like jugs. I think it was only like ten bucks, too.

Saw this movie at a film festival recently and I thought it did a good job of explaining the B.S. behind bottled water: http://www.tappedthemovie.com/ Buy yourself a filter and don't get tricked into paying ridiculous prices (500x tap!) for bottled water.The regulation is lax on bottled water, which is regulated by the FDA and not the EPA. Where tap water is quality tested many dozens or even hundreds of times a month, bottled water is not subject to such strict regulation. Add to that the potential for chemicals to can leach out of single-use bottles and you can count me out on the bottled water front! Not to mention the carbon output from shipping water all over the country, the demand it puts on community water sources, and the shady marketing tactics used by companies like Nestle, Pepsi and Coca-Cola to convince people that tap isn't safe, even though they're just reselling tap water themselves. Man, you're making me sound like a real hippie here (and living in Eugene, Oregon I really try to distance myself), but bottled water is something I just can't get behind.

I went to make wings the other day and was out of the bottled sauce so I improvised. Sriracha, rice vinegar and a little sesame oil made for some damn fine Water Buffalo wings. How does anybody else do the wings? Do you just buy them whole? I usually save the wings from five or six cut up chickens in the freezer. When I have enough, I fry them up for an elegant dinner for two.

Eileen Yin-Fei Lo's The Chinese Kitchen disappointed me. I leafed through it in the store thinking it'd be a great book for some Chinese fundamentals, but when I got it home the recipes seemed a little too fussy or something. Looking at it now, I think maybe the problem is the all purple text and the woozy italics that the ingredient lists are written in. It's been rescued from the "to sell" pile once, I don't know if it will get another chance, though. I will at least say it introduced me to some basic Chinese ingredients that have become staples in the pantry.

I guess I'm a light-weight with just fifty. The first fifty of many more, I should hope. (If I hadn't been unemployed for the last year and counting, I bet it'd be a lot higher. The wish list keeps growing...)

The Spicy Italian is remarkably edible. But the Subway sandwich tends to move through me like, I don't know, some sort of underground train that's in a hurry. *SHIVERS* I think it's the "vegetables".

Had a bacon cheeseburger with a pint of Shakespeare stout last weekend. A little heavy, but man was that good. I also like to drink Full Sail Session with some curry, but be careful, the spicier the curry, the faster the beers disappear. Gueze and moules frites is a classic, too.

Cuisinart meets mortar and pestle? Mechanical mano y metate?!? I think I just replaced the Pacojet with a new most wanted, perhaps not entirely needed device. And I might one day be able to afford this one! Thanks, eGullet!

There's a small thread about it over at rival food site chow.com (http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/497484), sounds like you reheat it in sauce and use it as a filling for. Sounds like it'd make some great tortas!

Force meat, of course.

You could serve "Dead Man's Chest Sushi", although people probably don't look a hairy (allegedly dead), pirate lookin' fella while they eat.

Salty dogfish? Crusty barnacle? Roe ho-ho? Pieces of ahi? So many bad puns, so many.

I think they're trying to make it even more obnoxious than before, which is no mean task. The sad thing is, after the terrible intro, the show only gets worse. And what ever happened to Waffle House? I was waiting for her to come back after culinary school and whoop everybody's ass.

Tasty kholrabi. I braised some with red miso a few weeks ago, took forever but it had a great meaty taste.

How about some spicy Asian matzo balls?

In an effort to celebrate Darwin Day, I'm trying to think of appropriate cocktails. I think the man might have been a teetotaler, but I'm not, so what drinks do you all recommend for this occasion? I was thinking something nautical, what with the voyage on the Beagle, but I'd like to do something better than grog.