David A. Goldfarb
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Posts posted by David A. Goldfarb
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In that comparison, I think it would depend on the olive oil and it would depend on the butter, and it would probably also depend on the bread and how it went with either one.
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French press uses a coarse grind, which means it's less important to have a burr grinder, or a grinder that can grind particularly fine or with the uniformity required for espresso, and if the beans are good and roasted fresh, it's good coffee without a lot of expensive equipment.
If you've got Arabic shops in your locale, a cezve for making Turkish coffee isn't expensive, and they can grind it for you, and while it would be ideal to be able to grind it yourself, Turkish coffee takes a really fine grind, so if you buy it fresh ground every week or two or buy it in vacuum packs, it's still pretty good coffee.
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Anti-planner. Good food comes from good ingredients, so I go with what's good in the market.
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I've seen this product in my neighborhood:
From what my father told me about army rations, it seems like a counterintuitive marketing strategy.
It is imported from Poland, and apparently comes in different rankings--
http://www.squareenterprises.com/products.php?bd=2&td=-1&sd=-1&pp=8
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Half milk/half egg sounds like too much milk, especially with a soft bread like brioche loaf, though it might work for something drier and heavier. That would explain the sogginess. I don't measure it, but I'm probably using more like 1 part milk to 4 parts egg. The bread should be a bit dry.
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My father used to make a really good stew with veal and Italian sausage in a tomato sauce base with generally Italian seasonings. I don't know if this is authentic to any regional Italian cuisine, but it was good, and I make it occasionally.
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Depends on the type of rice and how much, and I haven't timed it exactly, but I'd say 4 rice-maker measures of brown rice takes around 45 minutes in our ten-cup simple rice cooker, which can only claim the iron-clad logic of "on," "warm," and "unplugged."
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Another shameful confession. I don't like pineapple on pizza but pizza that has had the pineapple removed is okay. The faint hint of pineapple is actually kinda nice as long as there is something spicy or salty to balance it. This wouldn't be so bad except I'm many times four-years-old and haven't outgrown it.
Hmmm...I see a new technique here emerging to add subtle hints of flavor to things, like spritzing a pizza with pineapple juice, or rendering pepperoni for the oil and brushing it on the crust before adding the other toppings.
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Our four-year-old son has thankfully just gotten out of a phase of insisting on essence of pepperoni pizza, meaning he wanted to order a slice of pizza with pepperoni, but wanted to remove the pepperoni before eating it.
You don't have any older kids, do you? I can hear them now, "Dad, just put HIS pepperoni on MY slice...!"
No older kids, but rest assured, the pepperoni doesn't go to waste.
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If the time saved is inactive time, it's harder to distinguish. As I see it, no time is saved. It takes a couple of minutes to set up rice in the rice cooker or to get something out of the freezer and microwave it.
There's also a question of the broader impact of using a more extensively packaged product and shipping it cooked. In general, I avoid most such products.
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Sounds like the broiler's the way. If you want grill lines with a broiler, you can preheat a cast iron grill pan under the broiler and use it as your broiler pan. I do that pretty frequently. Pour off the grease, if it gets to be too much, to minimize smoke and flareups. Open windows and have the fans running.
Another option is things that don't require much grill/broiler time, like seared scallops or tuna, seafood kebabs and such.
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I'd be interested in a cost-per-serving comparison. That would better allow someone to judge whether the increased per-serving price is worth the speed advantage.
Our everyday rice lately has been Nishiki Premium Medium Brown Rice, which is around $1.80-2.10/lb, depending on where and how you buy it, which is one of the more expensive brands at the Asian market where I usually get it. Lundberg organic will be around 50% more.
Hunting around on the web, the most recent quote I could get about TJ Frozen Organic Brown Rice was $3.99 for six cups cooked, but that was a couple of years old.
So six cups cooked should be around 1.5 cups dry, depending on the rice, which would make my Nishiki Medium Brown around $1.40 for the same amount as a box of TJ Frozen.
As for cooking time, if I'm planning to make rice and I'm the first one home, the first thing I do when I walk in the house is to put it in the rice cooker and get it going. That usually leaves plenty of time to get settled and start making dinner.
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Our four-year-old son has thankfully just gotten out of a phase of insisting on essence of pepperoni pizza, meaning he wanted to order a slice of pizza with pepperoni, but wanted to remove the pepperoni before eating it.
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Even if it is excellent, the idea of buying packaged, precooked, frozen, shipped rice strikes me as ridiculous, like buying precooked oatmeal or frozen omelets.
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I'm more curious about CETUSA, the international educational exchange organization, in this whole issue than Hershey's. CETUSA is a non-profit organization purporting to foster educational exchange and "citizen diplomacy," and I suspect they do some of that, but they also present themselves to potential employers as a staffing agency, and there are cases like this one, where those objectives are at odds.
If European students want to earn good money for a month of hard work in a kind of fun social environment with other international students and have a nice vacation for the rest of the summer, they can do things like picking strawberries in Sweden. They don't need to spend the money on a J-1 visa to the U.S. If they are coming to the U.S., I suspect that they are after something more than just a job, and if CETUSA is implying that they're going to get that kind of experience (the usual expectations might include living with an American host family, being in an environment where it is possible to meet Americans, practice English, and learn about American culture, and doing work that is more culturally interesting than warehouse packing), then I see them as being more at fault than Hershey's, which is just looking to hire labor, and may or may not be aware of the expectations of such employees.
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I've been a few times (I work down the block) for lunch and dinner, and I quite like it. It's very different from typical Korean fare. I'd recommend whatever dishes they are featuring with seasonal ingredients, and the mushroom dishes I've had there are particularly good. I can't remember what it's called, but there is a cold mildly bitter ginseng drink that is served in a bowl that I always like.
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I'd rather not patronize a restaurant that engages in religious proselytizing, but as I see it, that's their business, and if customers don't like it, they'll go elsewhere.
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Then why not just order a big pile of meat?
It would be uncivilized, of course.
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The subtlety and complexity are in the flavor and texture of the meat. The bread is a formality. Anything else is adornment.
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We usually don't keep a lot of canned food around, since I don't use many canned products, but I made a point of stocking up on some canned and shelf-stable items, since we're prone to power outages in this part of Queens, New York. It was also an opportunity to take stock of things like first-aid supplies and batteries and make sure we were supplied. We filled up lots of spare containers with drinking water and made plenty of extra ice.
Fortunately, the power has stayed on. We've had some high winds and heavy rain, and we seem to be getting the back end of it now. The roof was repaired about a year ago, and it hasn't leaked.
I remember from 9/11 that it took a few days for stores to restock dairy items with bridge closings and traffic restrictions, so I bought six quarts of Parmalat, since our 4-year-old son drinks a fair amount of milk. We did open one quart, when we finished the milk in the fridge. He didn't particularly care for it, but at least he can't say we didn't try our best.
So, the storm hasn't been as bad as all the hype, but I don't regret taking measures to prepare. It didn't take that much money or effort to be ready; nothing will go to waste; and had the hurricane been more severe, we would have been better off for having made some simple preparations.
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I've kept bees, and I always buy local honey from small producers. I don't know if inspection has inproved, but it used to be considered that the commercial producers would boost yield by feeding the bees sugar water. I don't know if that still goes on, but it would explain why commercial honey is so bland.
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I think mine has to be the 20+ year old bottle of Liquid Smoke that I mentioned in the "oldest condiments" thread.
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Consider the top three dishes your "everyday" set and the rest of the stack as the special dishes you take out for company. How often do you have dinner for twelve?
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If there was no canola oil, I'd suspect the eggs. Fish meal is sometimes used in chicken feed.
The best fat for the job
in Cooking
Posted · Edited by David A. Goldfarb (log)
Roasted potatoes in duck fat are really good. I toss them in a cast iron pan with duck fat, maybe rosemary and/or thyme, coarse salt and pepper, and then into the oven, usually at whatever temperature the thing they are going with is cooking at, otherwise 450F.
Rendered bacon fat in a fruit pie crust is really good.
Beef fat is also good for deep frying French fries and other things.
I like a flavorful Hong Kong peanut oil for high temperature frying and stir fry (the brand I use is "Roxy," but this seems to be the name of the US importer, if I'm not mistaken).