Mjx

This may be insane even as a suggestion, but can meringues be made in a microwave oven (also, I'm assuming polycarbonate withstands microwave, correct)? The fact that cakes can be made in the microwave got me thinking.

She mentions here that:

This discussion may help for a start, although it is focused specifically on chocolate-making (in Australian heat): Chocolateering in warm weather

Strawberries (if you can get any that have flavour at this time of year) with black pepper and a good balsamic vinegar, and pineapple with caramel/butterscotch and a pinch of smoked salt tend to go over pretty well with a wide range of people. I have one foot in the US, and one in the EU, so to speak, and pretty much everywhere I've been, fruit salad seems to be one that is built around fruit and predominantly sweet ingredients; once leaves, animal products, and various savory elements figure in to a large extent, too, it's 'salad with/that includes fruit', rather than 'fruit salad'.

Toast and use it when making larb. I'm pretty sure using any whole grain would leave behind some residual oil, so if you don't clean your spice mill often, you might begin detecting a slight rancid note in your gound spices.

Any time

I regularly make ATK's devils' food cake with their ganache frosting, and a strained jam filling between the layers. This has been incredibly popular with people of all ages (well, between 1 and 87 years of age, anyway, including many small children). It's also very straightforward to make, and doesn't require finicky handling or storage, so you can make all the components ahead of time, and put it together really quickly. I've made a few other cakes, including chocolate ones, over the years, and nothing comes close to the enthusiasm with which this one is greeted (if are interested, but don't have access to Cook's Illustrated or their site, let me know, and I'd be happy to PM you the recipes).

Tough call, but at this moment, I'd have to say budini di riso. They're perfect on their own, and with pretty much any take on coffee, hot or cold.

If your package still hasn't reached its destination, and you were unaware of the regulations prohibiting sending alcohol through the USPS and did so, you may want to think twice before investigating this.

A bit more about the Rösle food mill: their service and warranty are great. I got mine a little over two years ago, and it worked beautifully, until one of the hooks/feet came off, a liitle while back. These feet are welded on, and one of the welds just gave way, no 'pop' or anything, just gently fell off as I settled the food mill on a sauce pan. My first thought was 'It figures, this had to happen soon after the purchase warranty expires' (two-year warranty on everything, here). But I figured it couldn't hurt to contact Rösle through their site, tell them about this, and how disappointed I was. After sending my message, I browsed the site, and noticed that they have a 10-year warranty (which I see I noticed before, and was one of the reasons I chose the brand, but I'd completely forgotten about it). It took them a couple of weeks to reply to my initial message (holidays, I guess), but when they did get back to me they said 'No problem', just send them the mill, and they'd replace it. I shipped off the damaged bowl on 17 January. I figured they'd just replace the damaged part, but this evening, I received a complete new food mill from them, discs and all. I'm really happy and impressed with their service.

The choices are the ones mentioned in the original post. In that case, just use whatever you like that is between 40 and 50% ABV; if the flavour isn't important, no need to over-think this!

I've no idea how this works with edible glitte, but real gold flakes show up really nicely: I inadvertently got a few inside a cake that I was planning on decorating with gold flakes (I couldn't resist poking about in the bag, and they stuck to my fingers, then ended up in the batter), and even this sparse, accidental scattering of flakes really stood out.

Can you give some examples of things with the sort of name you have in mind (doesn't have to be chocolate, or even sweet, I'm just trying to get an idea of the sort of feel you're going for)? My first throught was 'Shove an umlaut in there, or an 'Å' or 'Ø', since most people think of Scandinavia as a source of high quality items'.

Coating bits of somthing seems like it would involve using more whatever-glittery-substance-you-choose, but with less sparkly payoff. I admit I'm a fan of gold flakes and dust, although I've only gotten it on the inside of things by accident. The thing about gold is that it is really hard to kill the gleam of it, you get sparkle from every angle, so every tiny flake is doing a 720° job.

Starch + hot water = glue. Plus, little pieces of orzo are ideally sized and weighted to firmly adhere. Try soaking everything in/with cold water, and scraping off the orzo before tossing things in the dishwasher.

Don't even think about putting gold flakes, dust, whatever, into a mortar, unless you want a gold-leaf interior to it. My idea was that the flakes/dust be simply added directly to the fluid pink batter that is to be the swirls. Add maybe half a teaspoon, mix it well, and see how that looks, then add more, if it seems like a good idea. A combination of dust and flakes might make for the best effect, although more Marie Antoinette than Hello Kitty.

True, but since the cost is by weight, the price isn't prohibitive (e.g. gold leaf flake), and no question, the stuff sparkles.

Pure gold and silver leaf are food safe, so if you can get hold of some of that in flake form, you could give that a go.

That's interesting: all the game birds I've seen around here aren't dressed at all before sale, just at the last minute. They pluck and gut them to order. I thought that when you prepared game, you hung it undressed? Game mammals were always field dressed before hanging (I don't recall rabbits ever being hung for any significant period of time).

When I was a kid and lived in place where people shot and ate game, including rabbits, all the hunters emphasized the importance of field dressing to avoid what was generally described as an 'unholy stink'. Since you saw it gutted before your eyes, this obviously wasn't done, and I'm not sure whether there is anything that you can do to remedy the situation; it's certainly worth a go, but you may need to get rid of it and chalk this up to experience.

I use a hand mixer for kneading bread, partly because I'm impatient, and partly becuause I [almost] only ever work with rather slack doughs, which a re a mess to knead by hand. This works really well (although you can't just stroll away from it the way you can with a stand mixer), and it has the advantage of being a really versatile piece of equipment, and cheaper than a stand mixer.

Heavy cream is about 37% fat, so you should get that about that percentage of the weight of the litre. But butter is only 80% fat so you should get a 46% yield ideally. Good point, and the yield might be even [slightly] higher, since I've noticed some butters have as little as 75% fat.

Heavy cream is about 37% fat, so you should get that about that percentage of the weight of the litre.

In the US, since the thermometer appears to show Fahrenheit degrees?

Even if this method has potential, switching about between Farenheit and centigrade measurents is cumbersome, and leaves a lot of room for error. It doesn't matter which system you go with, but convert all the temperatures to one or the other beforehand. Also, why is the milk 18C? Is this in the recipe?