BadRabbit

I made the Conchinita Pibil on Sunday and it was really good though I felt like it needed something. The pickled onions did gave it a really nice sour punch. Is pibil traditionally served with crema or salsa? It's not mentioned in the book. Linda, That looks really spectacular. I'll definitely try that out but do you think it's too heavy for the summer time? It's already 90 degrees here.

I find most home fans to be worthless anyways. Unless you are going to shell out the big bucks to install a quality hood and exhaust system, most people have to deal with crappy ventilation. My kitchen is 400 square feet and has a standard exhaust fan and it's still an issue. For that reason, I usually use a cast iron pan on my gas grill to sear or blacken foods. I also have an hot plate that I can sit on my table on my back porch for this purpose (I do have the benefit of my back porch being right off my kitchen).

I like my bacon soft so I never use the oven unless the bacon is for sandwiches. I usually pan fry in a cast iron skillet so I can pull it out exactly like I like it.

My family is full of good cooks but at holidays we tend to do the same dishes in the same way we always have. As the years move on, our family has gotten so large that we're now doing more of a "pot luck" style except that each person is assigned a particular dish. This year I've gotten hashbrown casserole and I'd like to update it a bit hoping that I will inspire everybody to be a little more adventurous in the future. It may backfire and they may kill me for ruining Easter but it's a chance I'm willing to take. Any ideas on how to update my dish and ideas for revisions to other Easter classics?

I was assuming that everyone who bought Modernist Cuisine now had no more money to buy other cookbooks this year.

I hate my icemaker but I hate icetrays more. I don't mind the cloudiness as I'm not running a modernist mixology bar out of my home. I just want ice to keep stuff cold. That said, the shape of my ice is horrible. It is crescent shaped and the curve of the outside fits perfectly against the side of my glasses forming a tiny dam. This causes one to tilt the glass further in order to obtain the liquid which eventually comes rushing over the ice and down one's shirt.

I've noticed quite a few recipes call for piloncillo which I haven't seen anywhere lately. Is it worth tracking down or should I just use his suggested substitute of dark brown sugar (I always have Muscavado)?

I make tiny tostadas all the time that get rave reviews. They're super easy to make but take a little time to assemble. The brightness of the salsa makes them really good at room temp. I make tortillas that are roughly two inches in diameter. You can do these pretty quickly if you have a big griddle and a second person. One person just needs to press out the tiny tortillas while the other person crisps them on the griddle. I then top them with a spoonful of salsa: Shoepeg corn Red onion Black beans (I use the preseasoned canned beans if I'm in a hurry) Jalapenos Cilantro Red wine vinegar Lime juice S&P. If you've got a big food processor for the jalapenos and the onion, this takes less than 10 minutes to put together. I also grill some chicken and top the salsa with a chunk or have it on the side if I know I have vegetarians or vegans. If I'm doing them for a big party, I make everything the night before and just assemble before the party. The salsa also gets better if it's given 8 hours or more to meld. Note: If you have vegans, make sure to make the tortillas with vegetable shortening. I was making these one time and forgot not to use lard. I had to whip up more tortillas at the last minute.

I just got this book yesterday for my birthday and was wondering if anyone has done much cooking from it. I've read a good bit of the narrative and instruction and looked over lots of recipes. My first impression is that the recipes look a little less involved than the recipes in his other book I have. What have you cooked from this book and what were your impressions of the recipes?

I see this ALL the time. Their day starts with "My bus ride to get to school is 45 mins long and I wake up at 6am to get to school so I just eat some poptarts for breakfast" and then moves to a brown bag of chips, cold sandwhich and "fruit" juice. At one school I worked at there was a kid who came in with a huge lunch bag that had a soda, a couple different kind of cookies, some M&Ms, all rounded off with a variety of chip snacks. The mother saw me looking at this "food" one day and explained that the kid was a picky eater and that she had given up on fighting with him over food choices. It was absolutely appalling -- this family would have benefited from the policy. On the other hand, if the school had told ME I couldn't send a bag lunch with MY kid, I would have gone ballistic. How would the kid have benefitted? He wouldn't have eaten anything at school almost guaranteed.

I've personally seen cases where the allergy is so severe that it affects kids that are in the same room as someone who ate a PB&J some hours before and either forgot to wash their hands or brush their teeth afterwards. A lot of schools are using a "Peanut Aware" policy, meaning that FS doesn't purchase nuts or nut butters but are not promising a "Peanut Free" enviroment. I see this ALL the time. Their day starts with "My bus ride to get to school is 45 mins long and I wake up at 6am to get to school so I just eat some poptarts for breakfast" and then moves to a brown bag of chips, cold sandwhich and "fruit" juice. My child isn't really a problem because she likes raw carrots, raw brocolli, homemade granola and fruit but there are lots of kids who don't. Schools can't sit down and make the kids eat everything like parents can when the kids are at home. Even junk food is more nutritious than no food at all. If the parents know that their kid is just going to throw away the plate full of peas, beans, carrots etc... that the school is serving, then the kid is better off having a sandwich and cheetos than nothing at all. For those of you who think they can judge what is and what is not a "valid parental choice" are part of the problem. Perhaps you should worry about your own life and your own children. I doubt seriously you'd care much for me demanding that the government decide what your children could read or see on television (I would never do this). That is something for you to decide.

At the end of the day, I'd rather the kids eat a sandwich, some chips, and a piece of fruit or a pudding than for them to get a plate of food that they don't eat any of (or only eat the meat). You can't get nutrition from something you refuse to ingest.

After seeing what they were feeding my child at school, we have gone to sending her lunch with her. Basically, she was surviving on chicken fingers\steak fingers\some other fried meat every day. The schools seem incapable of cooking vegetables in a way that children will eat them and there's no way they're going to eat horrible vegetables without a parent to make them. I'll be surprised if by the time I'm an octogenarian we're still allowed to come up with our own menus at home. Some bureaucrat will probably decide what tasteless lump of mushy mess we're allowed to eat each day (for our own good).

Oh man, now that is a bummer. I've come close before but always been able to resuscitate mine. A total loss sucks. It ended up being OK. Though mine were unable to be revived, it turns out my mother had planted all the same varieties (I gave her the same collection I bought last year) so she's going to give me everything I lost. Fortunately, my mother always overplants.

Pretty much any braised dish or stew could be adjusted for the slow cooker. Osso Bucco, short ribs, Beef Daube Provencal or Coq au Vin would all be easy to adapt to longer cooking times. I would just use a classic recipe and cook them in a crock pot on low for 6-8 hours instead of cooking traditionally. If you have a programmable, I'd set it to kick over to warm after 6. The only trick would be to hold off on potatoes and carrots until the last hour of cooking. ETA: You also need to do any initial browning of ingredients traditionally before you put things in the crock. Dumping raw lardons into a crockpot while trying to make Coq au Vin would not yield the same results as cooking traditionally.

Well I killed all of mine today. I was hardening off my seedlings and hadn't looked at the weather. It ended up being 90 and they dried up before I realized it was so hot. Every last one is toast.

The Gamekeeper is good and serves some interesting game meats. Good wine list too. Louisiana Purchase is good for cajun/creole. Not a restaurant but if it's warm enough, you should take a picnic out to the pasture area of Moses Cone park. It is a truly stunning vista.

I thought sterility was generally more of an issue with modern hybrids. My botany knowledge is limited so perhaps someone else could enlighten us both on this point. Heirloom is an empty term these days. It can mean different things to different people. The most common useage in plant circles is for an open-pollinated variety that will indeed breed true to seed--in other words, a plant that will set seeds that produce similar offspring. On the other hand, some retailers identify anything that's not a hard, machine-picked tomato as an "heirloom" variety, when some of those odd tomatoes are indeed hybrids (just less common than the most productive commercial varieties). I'm with you on this. The Atkinson variety was developed at my Alma Mater in the 60s but is regularly referred to as an heirloom (in fact it's included in the collection I linked above).

How about a seared banana " scallop" on a half shell topped with a stabilized cream and caramel and brandy "caviar"? It would taste like bananas foster but look like seared scallop with creme fraiche and caviar. P.S. Top Chef has had a dish that featured bananas seared to look like scallops so this isn't completely original.

I thought sterility was generally more of an issue with modern hybrids. My botany knowledge is limited so perhaps someone else could enlighten us both on this point.

There's actually a variety called Creole that should work for you if you can find them. I saw them last year and heard good things about them. The named variety 'Creole' is pretty much crap in my garden. It is a low producer, not very disease resistant, and generally lackluster all around; tried it several years running with poor results each time. I'm also annoyed by the co-opting of the general term "creole" for a named variety. Around here, a Creole tomato is any tomato, regardless of variety, that is grown in the alluvial soils deposited by the MS river. Typical farm-grown Creoles are from hybrid varieties like Celebrity; they're heavy, non-symmetrical, and often have healed cracks on the shoulders (thanks to abundant rain). The people I heard from were growing them up here but I was told they were developed for Louisiana (hence the name) so I figured they would work for you. Guess not. ETA: The site I mentioned in my original post has a collection of Hot\Humid varieties that I might order next year (I feel like it's too late this year). http://www.tomatofest.com/tomato-seeds-tropical-hot-humid-collection.html

There's actually a variety called Creole that should work for you if you can find them. I saw them last year and heard good things about them.

I'm in 7b and my problem last year was not production. I had plenty of fruits but almost all of mine split before they were ripe. This year, I'm using a moisture control potting soil and I'm growing mostly smaller fruited strains (except for the Brandywine). Hopefully that helps. ETA: Was the Russian "Black Krim"? My mother had no luck with hers either (she's in 8a).

This year I've started 18 tomato plants from seed and all are coming along nicely. I ordered a couple of variety packs from Tomatofest.com last year and so I had to pick through and decide what to plant. I decided on (better desciptions at website): Blondkopfchen - A Yellow cherry from Germany http://store.tomatofest.com/Blondkopfchen_Heirloom_Tomato_Seeds_p/tf-0070.htm Black Cherry- The only truly black cherry tomato. http://store.tomatofest.com/SearchResults.asp?Search=Black+Cherry Dagma's Perfection- Yellow tomato with red stripes http://store.tomatofest.com/Dagma_s_Perfection_p/tf-0136.htm Pink Branywines- Sudduth's Strain- Possibly the original Brandywine strain? http://store.tomatofest.com/Brandywine_Sudduth_s_Strain_p/tf-0080.htm Flamme- Golf ball sized persimmon colored- Good for sauce http://store.tomatofest.com/Flamme_Tomato_Seeds_p/tf-0175.htm Green Zebra- Yellow with green stripes- Citrus flavored http://store.tomatofest.com/Green_Zebra_Tomato_Seeds_p/tf-0225.htm I have never grown any of the above before so the descriptions are what Tomatofest says about each one. What is everybody else planting this year? What are your favorite strains? Any strains you've planted in the past that were disappointing?

I'm guessing that it's a glitch. I just listened to Dave's latest podcast (from April 5) and he didn't mention anything.