Mjx

Thanks, Jane, that's actually breathtaking. It also confirms my suspicions that many of the ingredients would need to be specially grown, or harvested from the wild. Some of the recipes look intriguing (others look like they're trying way too hard). Lokks like a beautiful book, anyway.

This must have something to do with the legal drinking age in public places in Scotland being 16 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_drinking_age#Europe ). Must be a response to some sort of crack-down on reinforcement, although when I scanned news items, I didn't find anything specifc regarding September 2009 (I did think it was odd that it applied to dinner hours only, then noticed that don't serve lunch).

I hate to suggest, this, in case you've already tried this and had it fail miserably, but have you tried the finest setting on a coffee grinder? If it has an espresso or Turkish coffee setting that ought to do the trick, since the latter, particularly, essentially turns out dust (justs run a bit of rice through to clean it before/after).

If you give me an idea of what you want on that list to stick to the refrigerator, I'll happily make one up for you; I made the switch a while ago. Once you have your metric scale and volume measure(s), get an overview of the big picture: Memorize a few equivalent volumes (e.g. a litre is a hair over a quart; a teaspoon is almost exactly 5 mL), the relationship between kilos and pounds (2 2/5 [2.2] lb–or 35.25 oz–to 1 kilo), and what 1 mL looks like (a very scant quarter teaspoon). Tricks to memorize measurements generally demand the same amount of time and effort as simply memorizing US to metric conversions; I can't really recommend that. Hold on to your measuring spoons: Even if they aren't metric, they’re still more accurate than 'a pinch', or using an actual tea or soup spoon, as is often done throughout the EU. For dry ingredients, I find it easiest to remember the weights of a quarter and a third cup of a given ingredient, and multiply those basic quantities as needed, than to remember the whole cup weight, and try to do the math on that. I don’t flog myself over this, because converted ounce-to-gram measurements tend to involve odd, hard-to-remember figures (e.g. a quarter cup plain flour is about 1.25 ounces, which converts to 35.4 g, and few cooking scales are precise to fractions of a gram, so there is a fair amount of rounding off to do). What seems to help the most, though, is working out the conversions for a recipe before taking it into the kitchen. My two favourite cookbooks are US ones, so before I get to work with any recipe, I sit down with it and do all the math. The good thing about doing this is that it helps you memorize frequently-occurring items. The unfortunate thing is that you end up with those odd quantities I mention above. CI magazine gives weights as well as volume measurements (their cookbooks fall fail to do this, however), which is particularly helpful when it comes to ingredients that are not used that often. This link is quite useful: http://www.onlineconversion.com/weight_volume_cooking.htm

I haven't seen this book, but I'm wondering how accessible it would be, even to Danish cooks. I spend a lot of time here in Denmark, and one of the first things that struck me is that the selection of available ingredients is really restricted, when compared to what you can find in a medium-sized Italian or US city; almost all you find in most places are bog-standard staples, and even speciality shops all tend to have the same things. I have a feeling that, as is the case with most high-end Danish restaurants (e.g. Malling & Schmidt), the owners of noma make arrangements with various farmers, and get many of their ingredients specially grown for them, since they are otherwise not available. So, this is really a coffee-table/daydream book, with the option to try things out if you ever do get your hands on the odd bundle of bullrushes.

I refuse to have any cookbooks on my shelves that aren't dead reliable. So, I have CI's 'Best Recipe' (not the revised version), and Rossetto Kasper's 'The Splendid Table' (neither has ever let me down in terms of promised results). I also have McGee's 'The Curious Cook', Schwabe's 'Unmentionable Cuisine', and four small, paperback compilation Tuscan cookbooks clearly designed for those who do a lot of cooking and are familiar with the recipes (lots of 'pinch' and 'generous handful' sorts of measurements): 'Ricette Tradizionali Fiorentine', 'Zuppe della Toscana', 'Un Piatto di Pasta', and 'Dolci della Toscana' (I grew up in Florence). So, I'd say eight cookbooks, here.

Eh, that sounds possible, since that is a book I recall my mother having. Now I'm feeling sort of ashamed... Did I mention my parents became vegetarian for ethical reasons? I never did understand the hair-shirt approach to eating healthily/ethically.

I wish I knew the name of the cookbook that supplied my mother with the recipe for 'nutmeat' (which is something like meatloaf, without meat, or any of its charm), since that would, on the basis of that recipe alone, win the prize for worst cookbook. It also made such things as whole-meal angel-food cake, gelatin desserts using agar-agar and poorly dissolved brown sugar, and the gnarliest rice pudding I have ever eaten, see light of day But that nutmeat is what makes the cookbook take first prize as the cookbook from Hell. My parents became vegetarian when I was about two, and nutmeat still makes an annual appearance on my family's Thanksgiving Day table. Until I lived far enough away (the other side of the Atlantic) to have an honest excuse for not making an appearance, Thanksgiving Day meant a quiet, smouldering brawl between my father and myself, over whether or not I would eat the nutmeat (I didn't: it has the consistency of what I imagine a blend of chopped worms and sawdust packed into a loaf to have, and smells like wet dog). Anybody have any idea of what cookbook this might be?

I've never tried using kabocha squash, but I've found that hokkaido squash compares favourably to pumpkin in any recipe that calls for the latter. This works out well, under the circumstances, since most of the time it is nearly impossible for me to find any sort of pumpkin, here (i.e. Denmark). Since Thanksgiving is not a Danish holiday, I often overlook it, but this year I'm planning on using the opportunity to do a test run on a couple of things I will be cooking for Christmas: CI's Sacher torte reboot, crêpes Suzette, and what I have been told is 'back of deer', and which may turn out to be anything (I haven't seen it, yet; my boyfriend's father hunts, and now has a couple in the freezer). I'm fairly confident about the desserts (reliable recipe source), but the venison really worries me (could it really be an entire back?!). I'll also be making a hokkaido-chestnut soup, and I'm toying with the idea of introducing my boyfriend to latkes (I know, it's early for them, but I've been looking for an excuse to make them--I don't normally eat potatoes--and a major food orgy seems like the perfect opportunity). I won't be making a pumpkin pie; I'd be the only one eating it, and the last thing my waistline needs is an entire pumpkin pie.