runwestierun

We bought a house with an old galley kitchen. Not wanting to do a full remodel right away, I ordered pull out shelf kits from Costco for one side of the kitchen. You send them measurements and they send you wood trays to install. They work well. I am very happy with them. They attach right onto the existing fixed shelves. On the other side of the kitchen, we ripped off the bottom cabinet doors and ripped out the shelves and had a cabinet maker install 2 very deep very large drawers. I can fit my food processor with the bowl sitting upright in the drawer. I like the drawers better than the pull out shelves because they hold more stuff and don't have to be stacked as carefully as the pull out shelves.

Have you tried the Cook's Illustrated pie crust with vodka as the liquid? It rolls out kind of like fondant, you can handle it alot, and it is always very tender and flaky. You can handle it as much as you want (with the KA mixer or in rolling all the little crusts) because the vodka doesn't form gluten like water does. http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2007/11/cooks-illustrated-foolproof-pie-dough-recipe.html You could try a test with all vodka if you are going to handle the dough excessively. It rolls out well between sheets of plastic cling wrap.

I also use Clearjel and I love it. I buy it from King Arthur Flour online. For me, the big advantage is that it thickens without heat. If I mix some into my berry pie filling mixture, I can see before it goes into the pie how thick the filling will be. Just remember, mix the Clearjel with the dry sugar for your filling before adding it to the berries to avoid clumping issues. I also use Clearjel to add a little body to homemade fat free salad dressings.

Modernist Cuisine dipped to $475 preorder today at Amazon.com. It remains CDN$402 at Amazon.ca. I am so looking forward to this book!

215 in the Eat Your Books database and 36 that aren't in it for a total of 251. And I am getting a new bookcase so look out Kitchen Arts and Letters!

Cardamom.

I am also late in my planning. I saw a recipe for cardomom honey ice cream somewhere earlier this year. If I can locate that I think it would be a delicious accompaniment to Thanksgiving pies. Hmm, maybe it was in David's book. I always make a cold wild rice salad with artichoke hearts and grape tomatoes. I also roast 1" diced pieces of sweet potato with brown butter, sage, maple syrup and cinnamon. I sure would like to do a turkey roulade this year but I don't think the family would stand for it. Maybe I'll cook the turkey in the Big Green Egg! We have a giant party the first week in December every year. Most of my brain power has been devoted to planning that. Thanks for getting me started on Thanksgiving. I'll post my full menu when it gels in my brain.

I agree completely. When the three way tie was announced I thought those exact same words, "I smell a rat!"

On the subject of buying a used ceramic cooker-- The previous owners may have used lighter fluid to start their fires and that smell stays in the ceramic and flavors the food adversely for a long time. Just sayin' it's a risk.

Just to be clear, there are two companies making ceramic cookers that use 'Kamado' in their name: 1) The highly respected Komodo Kamado 2) And, the much maligned (most say deservedly so) Kamado Company I have not dealt with either company, but everything I've read about Komodo Kamado has been glowing, while Kamado Co. gets slammed regularly... Ah, that explains alot. I didn't know they were separate companies. Well, I wish I'd talked to you sooner. I do like my BGE, but the Komodo is soooo beautiful. I am a sucker for a pretty grill.

I remember reading online that people were having trouble getting their Kamado's delivered, but I also remember reading about people not getting their grills AND losing their money. I don't know if it's true, but it'd be something to look into. There's a whole forum devoted to it. http://www.kamadofraudforum.org/ It swayed me away from the Kamado when I bought my XL BGE. I learned about the BBQ Guru here on eGullet. If you want to cook low and slow with any of those models take a look at that. It works like a dream and fits most models.

We have a giant sous vide topic already in progress here, it might help you: I use Baldwin's matrix, I found it in that same thread: http://amath.colorado.edu/~baldwind/sous-vide.html

I REEEEEAALLLY miss Gourmet.

You know that Modernist Cuisine isn't just one book, right? I assume that's why you edited the word "single" out of your post above. It is 5 books.

Helen, thank you. I made this cake 2 days ago and it is very close. This recipe is a very good springboard. I think with some tweaking I can get it to be just like grandma's. The cake isn't very sweet, which is also very nice. The new husband really likes it, and he never had grandma's. Thank you for finding this for me.

Thank you whoever revived this thread! I made this last night with some pretty pedestrian tomatoes (store bought special vine on, 99cents a pound) that I'd left on my counter for a week to ripen a bit, and it turned out absolutetly delicious. I was committed to making this true to the recipe, so I ordered the spices I couldn't get here in Nowhereville through the mail. It is just as good as everyone here says. It had a bite, but it wasn't as hot as I like chutneys to be, so I think next time I will double the chilies. I am truly afraid to can anything since my neighbor killed her husband with some pickled asparagus a few years ago, so I froze the remaining chutney in small containers. Hope this works. I also think that if I have to use store-bought plastic tomatoes next time, I will throw in a big can of San Marzano tomatoes for sweetness and lovely tomato flavor. But these would be my own minor tweaks to a truly fabulous recipe. Thank you Suvir.

Is "irregardless" a word?

This thread made me want a high speed blender bad. When Modernist Cuisine dipped under CDN$400 on preorder, I figured I could swing it financially, so three days ago I became the proud owner of a shiny new Blendtec blender. It is so epically, intergalactically better than my pathetic wheezing old Waring. It's like buying a riding lawnmower after owning a scythe. I know your sides probably all still hurt from laughing about the Blendtec ice cream recipes but for me they made me think outside the regular ice cream box. The new husband is intolerant of dairy so I can make ice cream with soy milk or non-dairy creamer. I can make myself a really good thick ice cream-like smoothy using milk and fruit. The texture (thick and smooth) achieved with really pedestrian ingredients is remarkable. I am in love with this thing. Thanks everybody who contributed to this thread.

It's going down! Not much, but hopefully it marks a trend. CDN$397.10 at Amazon.ca. Steady at US$500.00 at Amazon.com.

Macaron has finally been reprinted in French. I just got my copy from Kitchen Arts and Letters.

Iced tea gets bacterial growth very quickly. I will never hold a batch longer than 24 hours. However, if you are at a restaurant that keeps their tea until it's sold, it can taste funky that way. I encounter that "bacteria" taste a little more than occasionally when I eat out, and when I do, I switch beverages right away and tell the waiter the tea tastes "off". I don't know if that is the taste you are referring to, but it is certainly one way that iced tea gets funky.

Wow, Helen, this looks closer than anything I've seen yet. I will try it and report back. Thank you.

170 degrees is too low, the collagen hasn't broken down yet. It has to go to at least 185. I think competition BBQers shoot for 188 on butts. I try to keep it between 185 and 195. I find that above 195 the meat gets a little mushy. I dry rub the butts and put them in the fridge for 12-24 hours. Now I cook them in the Big Green Egg, which is a very moist environment. In the past, though, I would grill all six sides of the butt over a med high fire to sear and impart a little smokey flavor. Then I would put it in the crockpot and braise it on low with a cup of apple juice for 11-14 hours, depending on the butt. I like the taste of the meat cooked this way better than oven braising. It pulls apart beautifully and is very moist. It's flavor is somehow meatier than butts I finish in the oven. About your friend's meat: Pork won't be undercooked at 170, it'll just be tough and dry, well-done. Think of a beef pot roast. Beef is delicious when it's medium rare, but then it cooks more and becomes nasty and tough and well done. But then you take it further and let all the connective tissue dissolve, and it becomes grandma's lovely pot roast. People forget there is that tough intermediate phase. You must go beyond that.

Do you use your existing account or try to open a new account?

Thanks, Nextguy. I did the same thing. I waited 2 days in hopes the price would drop at Amazon.com, but it didn't and I don't want to chance missing the discount on my preorder so I cancelled my order with Amazon.com. The shipping from Canada was just CDN $9.98. I was very pleasantly surprised at that. I think $400 for those books is a screaming deal.