Aloha Steve

Pray-tell what do they buy them for then ? To put in their $50K kitchens with Wolf ranges and Sub-Zero refrigerators; to give to friends "who like to cook"; to look at for a few weeks before shelving them; to impress friends and relatives; to read for ideas, inspiration, and entertainment. Don't believe me? Well, if you'd like to participate in an utterly invalid demographic experiment, click here for the cookbook use throwdown. Forget the cookbooks I want a 50K Kitchen ! Wait I live in Honolulu, my kitchen is probably 50K but a Sub-Zero fridge is bigger than my whole ktichen and a Wolf on the range is in Montana someplace, yes ? LOL Ok, I'll take the survey. I'm sure I have about 20 and only use 5, so far. FYI, mine are put away in a closet for no one to see. If they were on the counter, I would have not work space at all!

Pray-tell what do they buy them for then ?

Sorry then, I don't know. I know sweet onions are not as sweet cooked as 'regular' onions are when cooked and thought that might be what's going on.

Cooked or raw ?

Shame, for a guy like me, who is impatient, scraping tops of measurement vessels does not work as well as looking at the numbers on a digital scale.

Wait...is there a difference between an apple crumble and an apple crisp? I thought it was just a tomato/tomato thing. What distinguishes the two, to your minds? Is it only the oats that are different? I like a bit of cheddar cheese with my apple baked goods, but I've never thought of actually grating it into the baked goods themselves. Interesting, I've been thinking about this and IF there is a difference, I would say the toping on the 'Crisp" is cooked longer and crunchy whereas on the crumble its crummy. LOL One of my favorite NYC commercially made sweets is Crumb Coffee Cake. It is square with a light coffee cake bottom and yummy cinnamon crumbs on top. To me this is a crumble type not a crisp. Incidentally, the last couple of years when visiting NYC, I have not been able to find this I've looked hard too! I use to be able to find them at every deli, coffee franchise, and at both airports! Not anymore. Ginger and I have just decided to have a getaway. Right now, we hold reservations for NYC and if we do ticket, when we go the first week this Nov along with all the recommendations for the best pizza, the best restaurants like Per Se, Michelin 3 Stars and where to get the best cheeseburgers, I will continue my quest to find one of my all time favorite snacks......Crumb Coffee Cake There is definitely a difference between the two, I like them both but if I had to pick its the crummy crumble that wins!

Dorie Greenspan presumeably has a fair amount of political capital, as authors go, and she only seems to win this battle once in a while. I asked her why one of the Pierre Hermé books had no weights while the other did ... she said, "I tried!" I think you mean that Dorie is in favor of using weight measures ? I wonder why then, the recipes in her latest book "Baking: From My Home to Yours" are 99.8% without any weight measures ? One recipe has only weight measure for butter and none for anything else in. Great recipes but I would have really liked measurements by weight.

We are talking very picky, with no tolerance for heat in their food past a 2, at the most. My youngest son age 5, loves Orange Chicken and white sticky rice. The rice CANNOT touch the chicken or he will not eat the rice. He eats a lot of both, but only in different mouthfuls. He inherited this from the Matriarch of the family, my Mother-in-Law. Of the 25 people coming to the party 20 have this particular gene in their make-up. We are talking PICKY LOL

I have 9 & 9.5 x 5 & 5.3 (respectively) X 5 " loaf pans which I used to make bread recipes calling for 8 x 4 x 2 bread pans. One finished recipe was a complete bust with the loafs not rising during baking and the other tasted good, looked as it should but did not have the hight of the usual size of a slice of a wheat bread, which is what I made. I believe the end result on the 2nd bake, was not smaller by 1 inch but more like 3". Would it mattered if I used the 8x4x2 loaf pan as opposed to what I did ? Does size really matter when its that close, in bread baking ?

My favorite as well. Steve says > Just got notice they shipped mine. Now I need the expertise to use it LOL Don't know what recipe you are using or if by mild you mean not sour, but most naturally leavened breads are not esepcially sour tasting. Very mild with not hint of what I think of as Sourdough. Like Boudain (sp?) bakery in SF. I used these directions.

will try to post correctly: to follow

If its not to much trouble, as in you have the recipes electronically, would you folks post them ? I would love to have a couple of really great recipes to make.

Thanks. I don't read any French at all. The ingredients are pretty quick and easy to learn with the help of Google Translate - you can even write out the ones that come up often (for example, in the shell batter). Google Translate is also great for working out the fillings and the method for making the fillings. I had made quite a few macarons before trying the book, so once I have the ingredients and basic method, I can pretty much work out what's going on. But Google Translate is a great resource as is this forum - there are quite a few people who do know French ingredients well who are always happy to help. Many thanks, exactly what I needed to hear I use Yahoo Bablefish all the time to translate antique French porcelain descriptions. I have a good scanner program which I can use to make the scan into into OCR, then viola, translate it. Now I hope I can master the art of making Macaroons, which is not easy.

You know, a place that cuts and sells meat; not meat along with chocolate, coffee, ice cream, ivory soap, etc. I think Chris might have been meaning where does one find a real butcher in his area, as you describe. Well, for me, anyway, there is not a real or fake butcher shop on the entire Island of Oahu. Therefore I have to believe in the entire State of Hawaii. I've been mail ordering meat with various degrees of success to try to get around this. On topic: Being inspired by this topic, I want to make a Lamb stew for my son's 18th B-day party next Saturday. I've got to get it just right because I'm not telling any of the 20 family members, including the lovely Ginger B.H., that it IS LAMB, until after they eat it ! Or no one will try it LOL I want to be River Cottage minded, buying meat with a conscience, which means my only two alternatives is to buy at Whole Foods or mail order. Whole Foods is out because they do not stock Lamb Shoulder, could order it but takes 3-4 weeks. They do have leg but after Chris' experience that is out. SO, I will be on the net looking for lamb shoulder or compromise my resolve to buy animals that have been treated humanely or forget the whole idea. BTW, anyone got a recipe for Lamb stew that tastes so good a picky eater would like it ?>

It looks gorgeous. I have the book and want to get started. Do you read French or did you have it translated some way?

Got my Beard Book yesterday, Oatmeal Bread being made later today. If it comes out 1/2 decent (don't bet on it unless you don't need your $$) I will post pictures :>) Thanks Ruth ! Ahhhh, a total bust today for bread. My two loafs did not rise in the oven and came out the same hight as they went in. I could have used them for bricks. I have absolutely no clue what I did wrong. The first rise went as expected the dough seemed correct. I also struck out with my first attempt at Sour dough, same problem plus too mild a taste even though the starter had all the markers of being ready. The final rise, did not happen. I made Tarte au Sucre w Brioche dough (I believe both dough and tart are recipes are Dorie Greenspan's) yesterday and while the form showed a first attempt the end result was delicious, I think I nailed it in terms of taste.

Hawaiian Sweet Bread French Toast.....mmmmmmm, a little butter with grade A Maple syrup.

I'd like to echo Lisa's first comment from her post. This recipe "Barb Schaller's Famous Orgasmic Chocolate Brownies" takes me about 12 minutes from start to oven. Try it and see if it is not only better than the box mix but maybe the best plain brownie you've ever had ! Barb tweaked the recipe and came up with "Chocolate Cherry Amaretto Brownies" She says and I quote "They won first place at the Minnesota State Fair a couple times and a variation (Chocolate Cherry Amaretto Brownies) also won first place" The original is here in the Brownie Cook-Off discussion posted with Barb's permission.

My girlfriend watched - quite perplexed - as I weighted ingredients to the gram in the beginning, and then at the end said "well, the dough is a bit too wet", and dumped in a handful of flour to fix it. I don't think the problem is so much the kneading for me (i knead almost entirely with the mixer), but rather in the choice of grains for the breads that are about 40% other-than-flour (for example multigrain struan or multigrain hearth bread). Different grain mixtures absorb different amounts of water. So the same recipe with a different grain mix yields different hydration bread. Having said that, I really enjoy the book, and I bake from it all the time. But I would be very frustrated if this was my first bread book. My favourite bread book is Daniel Leader's "Local Breads". Artisan breads from across Europe. My family thinks I was an artisan baker in a former life. The truth is, I just make the breads from the book dougal: I've been using Crisco for my hands and the silicone mat for some breads and butter for others. So far, your idea is a stone cold WINNER. Hardly any sticking and the dough does not change anything near what it did when using flour. BTW, am using it for rolling out pastry dough too. isomer: Funny story about to the gram measurements and then poof (pun intended) a bunch thrown in. And you rascal, I just bought a copy after reading your reincarnation story My wife's moratorium on no more cookbooks is not working out quite as she thought

Nothing wrong with good natured kidding and ribbing. And when deserved, being yelled at. BUT BURNING ? Nope, I don't think so. I'm a guy in business for 30 years with 45 employees, most of which archetypically fit Webster's definition of PRIMA-DONNA or is it Pavarotti's ? LOL Again BURNING, no way is it playful or safe. And I can guarantee you, its a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Thanks so much for the link Andie, I have a starter going now for about 2 hours. I hope it being in about 75 degree temp it might be ready in a 60 hours instead of 72, as I want to make for Sat night....if not, no biggie will just wait. This is a almost "I will never again _____" story I decided to blend it really well in a cereal bowl, with a hand held mixer. I did not want to clean a processor or blender. HAHAHAHAHAHA ON ME, I'm still finding little sticky spots all over the kitchen and they are stuck like GLUE!

Got my Beard Book yesterday, Oatmeal Bread being made later today. If it comes out 1/2 decent (don't bet on it unless you don't need your $$) I will post pictures :>) Thanks Ruth !

The important thing to understand about Reinhart's books is that, as a series, they document his growing understanding of bread. With commendable honesty, he documents this at the start of Whole Grain Breads. Thus BBA incorporates things that he had learned from others since his writing of previous works, including Crust & Crumb. The videos indicate that he has now learned of doing stretch & fold on an oiled, rather than (as in BBA) a floured, surface. (See for example page 19 of Lepard's Handmade Loaf). There is little point in weighing out accurate quantities of flour and water (yes, do weigh the water for accuracy), only to have the proportions upset by a variable amount of flour pickup during kneading (or stretching & folding). Maybe he now needs to consider water pickup! ***** I prefer to use a bowl with a couple of spoonfuls of oil to grease my hands and tools. ****** The matter of required, but quantitatively undefined, pickup of extra flour during kneading is something I find particularly frustrating about his recipes/formulas in his Whole Grain Breads book - which does introduce a genuinely novel technique (his own 'epoxy' method). Two further points regarding the videos. It would be better to minimise the time that the oven door is open, cooling the oven. (It also affects how much steamy humidity immediately escapes.) This matters much, much more with a home oven than a commercial-sized one. And BTW, a touch of flour (or better, semolina) under the parchment helps it slide more easily! I'd also suggest removing the water tray after about 1/3 of the bake time. Even if the tray has boiled dry, briefly opening the oven helps to reduce the humidity for the last part of the bake. (On a commercial oven, Hamelman wants the vents to be opened at that point.) Reinhart usefully gathers together, and makes accessible, many scattered pieces of wisdom. However, exactly like the rest of us, he's still learning! I'll certainly be taking a look at his new book when it appears over here. The pickup of extra flour when working the dough upsetting the %s makes sense. What oil or oils do you use ? I'm going to do it this way too. Hey dougal, want to just fly to Hawaii and train me for a couple of weeks ?

BTW Dougal, in your very helpful earlier post you mentioned buying a kitchen scale with certain specs. I bought this one a couple of months ago and it has all you mention. It is priced very well and the reason for that is its lightweight. When I opened it I though Oh Sh... got to find a way to return. But I have been using it and it seems to work just fine for home use. Got 416 reviews and 5 stars.......so Steve its worth being open minded.

sorry I asked a question which I did not think thru, so I erased.