Mjx

The two separate sides of this debate are never going to be able to see the other's point of view. I've been on both sides: I've waited tables in the US (as a US citizen), and found myself discussing/arguing the amount of a tip/topping culture with various Europeans (as a US and Italian citizen, like some sort of nano-UN). On the one hand, if you've eaten out at a US restaurant where the tip is not included, and wait-staff has been at least friendly and made a real effort, a 20% tip is the fair way to go. If they've been rude/neglected you, it can come down to 15% or less, depending on how atrocious they were (this is pretty rare, in my experience). If the food was lousy, or the waiter, despite his/her best intentions was not exactly competent/coordinated, I would not tip less, unless their incompetence resulted in actual damage (they didn't prepare the food, and dammit, they tried). On the other hand, I almost never eat out at US restaurants anymore. Being waited on by people who are being paid a ridiculously tiny sum makes me horrendously uncomfortable, even though I know I'll be tipping 20% unless the waiter is unambigously rude/ignores me entirely/or assaults me. Working for tips is a form of gambling, like any other activity that relies on the kindness of strangers. I also know someone is going to disagree violently about with this conclusion, but please consider this: any activity that relies on the goodwill of others is a form of gambling (I'm not saying this is fair, I'm saying this is the case). If you're a gambler, it's fine, you recognize and accept the risks. If you can't accept the risks, you're not a gambler, and another job is a far better bet. There's nothing wrong with not being a gambler; I'm not one, and in fact soon requested the lower-prestige but more predictable posisition of bus-kid/dishwasher. I'm uncomfortable with the whole tipping paradigm, and being involved in it makes me feel (please bear with me, I did say 'feel', I realize it's subjective) like I'm supporting something incredibly exploitive, so I can definitely see why those coming from cultures where wait staff is paid a standard wage, and the entire cost of dining out is evident up-front are troubled by a tipping culture. In the US, you look at the menu, and realize that with tax (not inlcuded in the list prices in the US) and tip, the meal may cost 33% more than the menu price. That feels dishonest, tricky, if you're accustomed to the menu price being a clear guideline to what you're going to pay: it's not the cost, as such, but the awareness of unknown quantities appearing at the end of the meal that is the problem. If legislation banning 'waiter's wages' was passed, and restaurants threfore added 20% to their prices across the board, I cannot imagine that people would eat out less; any sane restaurant management would point out 'Hey! No tip! What you see is what you get!' Even the tax argument, having to pay taxes on the greater income owing to the 20% higher prices does not hold up: In the EU, where income taxes tend to run far higher (in some countries, starting at around 26% on the equivalent of roughly USD18,000.00), restaurants manage to stay in business. Besides, the increased annual profits on which they'd be paying taxes would be modified by their paying wait staff at least minimum wage. And I don't find that paying a regular wage affects wait staff service: I've dined out in many countries where you don't tip, and haven't found service quality any different than it is in the US. Restaurants with lousy service aren't patronized, and have trouble staying in business. Bottom line: Until US wait staff is paid standard wages, they deserve to be properly tipped. If you're from a country that looks askance on tipping culture, just consider it in light of something that reflects the local economy (maybe a bit like the barrage of offers from sex workers in bars in Kiev or Bankgok, even if your wife or girlfriend is with you, in the sense that it's just the way things are, now), something a bit uncomfortable that you talk about, even when you get home. Under-tipping won't be what changes things (the vast majority of diners in most US restaurants are not from outside the US), it just creates bad feeling, and guarantees that your waiter was underpaid for the hour they took care of you.

Nina, the castagnaccio was not bad, but I think that something was missing from the recipe that I used from here http://thriftytuscany.com/chestnut-cake-castagnaccio-recipe. The texture was extremely crumbly and almost falling apart whenever you tried to pick it up. The colour was a light golden brown with small cracks on the surface. The flavour was quite subtle and went well with the prosciutto, pecorino and home made basil and cashew pesto. I would love suggestions on better recipes to try. Simon The appearance sounds correct (the small cracks all over the surface). Castagnaccio holds together quite well, the consistency can even be a little rubbery when it's cold, so you might be right about the toasting being responsible (although you mention 'heaps of fresh rosemary', which may have provided more breaking points for it ). I grew up with a lot of different takes on castagnaccio, and like a simple one best, so I've been using this recipe (I'm not wild about pine nuts, and don't like the consistency of raisins in this when it's cold): 500 g/17.6 oz sifted chestnut flour650 g/22 oz. water20 ml/4 tsp olive oilRoughly a tablespoon's worth of very small rosemary leaves (I've also used fresh rosemary/lavender blossom)Pinch of salt Preheat oven to 180°C/350°FAdd a little water to the chestunt flour, and mix until you have a smooth paste with no dry lumps.Add the oil, rosemary, and salt.Slowly add the rest of the water, mixing well as you do so; I go for a thick, soupy consistency (you might not need to add all the water).If you're using raisins, add them now.Let it sit for half an hour; it will thicken a bit.Pour onto a greased baking sheet/pan that will let the mixture spread to about 1 cm/0.5" layer.If you're using pine (or other) nuts, scatter them over the batter.Bake for half an hour, until the top is covered in fine cracks.The amounts of inclusions (e.g. rosemary, raisins, nuts) aren't at all critical, so long as they aren't so large that the castgnaccio is broken up by them to the extent of falling apart. ETA: Despite the recipe's instructions, I don't start preheating the oven until after I've finished mixing the batter and it's been sitting for about a quarter of an hour, at least, since the ovens I've used have never taken more than 15 minutes to reach the required temperature.

I've found that baking on/in darker surfaces gives better browning (you might not want that with cake pans).

I've heard that too, and I'm pretty sure that's correct, but these have no fibreglass in them. ETA, I took a closer look, and they're not silicone, either, but Teflon-coated. I'm not enthusiastic about Teflon, but since these aren't exposed to temperatures at which the stuff degrades, and using them doesn't involve scraping (the way it does in a pan), I'm not enormously concerned about it.

I am feeling deeply envious. Those are gorgeous (I haven't been able to get my hands on decent chestnuts in ages), and those dishes sound like they're going to be delicious, so I'm hoping you'll follow up with images/descriptions.

Nope. Already tried that one

Nope. already tried that one

I had to leave pretty much all my cooking and baking things behind when I last moved, and now only have two kind-of-cheapo 'non-stick' springform pans for cakes, and a lidless tinned Pullman pan, for bread (I also use the oval Le Creuset for large loaves of bread). My preference is for tinned steel, probably because it's what I used growing up, and what I'm used to using (I have it on good authority that for pies, clear glass is the way to go, however). I got hold of some silicone baking sheets that have a much finer weave then the Matfers (a bit like the ones made by Regency), and cut those into rounds that I put in the bottoms the springforms, when I bake cakes (I butter the sides and dust with flour or cacao; these pans are non-stick in name only). These do an excellent job of keeping the cake from sticking, and I've been reusing them for about half a dozen years; they're still good. The pans are not shedding their coatings, either, since they're protected. For the loaf pan, I fold up a piece of silicon baking paper into a shape that fits right inside the pan, and am usually able to reuse that a couple dozen times before I need to replace it, but I'm planning on switching with a similar solution to the one I use for the springforms (I like having solutions that don't involve the possibility of suddenly running out of the key material).

Is an acronym an option [e.g. ". . . muffins and cupcakes ('MCCs' in this discussion). . ." ]? This sounds like a B to B sort of thing, and unless it's for marketing purposes, the term doesn't have to be especially cute/attractive, just compact and comprehensible. Hand-cake?

'Mini-cake' is already well-established for scaled-down cakes that are baked in everything but a muffin tin ( a google image search yields masses of hits – https://www.google.dk/search?q=%22mini+cake%22&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=m6xlUZKXBNHWsgbtgIGgBA&biw=1362&bih=640&sei=oqxlUZDLJMXatAb4uYDYDw – and virtually none look like cupcakes/muffins).

Keep an eye out for Martin's reply, since I'm certain there is a better way of doing this, but I've grown ginger as a way of salvaging pieces that began to sprout: just stuck them in a container of standard potting mix, and watered them regularly. They grew nicely (at one stage showing those shoots you describe) with no special attention, even through a dark, Scandinavian winter. Doing this the right way would probably give even better results.

Something based on absinthe or pastis would be period-appropriate.

Pocket cakes? Mini- or micro-cake already seems used to mean conventional types of cakes made in miniature tins.

I'm wondering how swapping egg whites for an equal amount of some of the yolks would work out, since the white is the part of the egg that provide structure (Maybe just omitting some of the yolk? Too much white might make the cake tough).

And if you do make chestnut flour, chestnut flour pasta (especially pappardelle and gnocchi) is great with game.

I'd never heard of brining pineapple, either, and have never found fresh raw pineapple irritating; possibly in Eastern countries it's eaten less ripe, so it's more puckery?

If nothing else seems to do the trick, you might need to add something like a little powdered gelatin or konjak.

That's half the fun in them - when you are a kid... or when you give them to your friends' kids.Yeh, but once you're adult, you tend not to get a pass, when the front of your coat (and your face, including your glasses, and back to your ears) are abundantly dusted with white powder

Apropos of powdered sugar, what's the deal with doughnuts that are simply dredged in the stuff?! Just try eating one of those in a high wind while wearing a black coat! This is definitely something that needs to be cut back on, unless they're trying to conceal footprints on the damn things.

Did you try fat, and decide you didn't like the results, or..? I have a thing about crisp, even crunchy, skin, and lightly oiling the bird seems to make a significant difference there.

I just burned through a 100 g (3.5 oz) bag of malt powder. It's great stuff. I picked it up in Copenhagen a few weeks ago (where I am, the shops don't run to such 'exotica'), since I wanted to experiment with using it in bread, and ended up putting the stuff in everything I could think of (hot chocolate! like Ovaltine, but with flavour), then wanted to think of more things to us it in, and suddenly (about 10 days after I began my malt binge) realized I was down to just a bit of dust clinging to the inside of the bag.

I'm curious: What do you all favour as a fat for rubbing on the chicken before you put it in the oven? I've found butter gives the most lovely colour, but I like the flavour of olive oil far better.

That was my first thought, too.

What mkayahara said. Pastry chefs who are successfully producing creative desserts/pastries/sweets tend to have two things in common: they have a lot of experience and internalized knowledge, and an active imagination. The former makes it possible for the latter to function as the guiding force (i.e. they've moved past the necessity to spend a vast amount of time looking things up or finding them out); the latter is something no book/course/person can teach you, you just have to get out there, look at things, think about them without other crap cluttering up your environment. Don't go out of your way to be outrageous, since that just leads to being derivative, but don't let yourself be embarrassed about making a complete ass of yourself (e.g. the brilliant idea for a dessert inspired by Piranesi's Carceri, which, unable to sustain it's weight, ends up looking like Post-WWII Dresden ... don't ask, it seemed good idea at the time). Basically, learn the physics and chemistry of what you're working with until you know it inside and out, and then just play with it. ETA, Migoya's Elements of Dessert is a great book, I got it recently, and it's just killing me that I can't really play with many of the ideas at this time.

Usually, when I do this I just clarify the butter to get rid of the water and protein solids, then substitute 1 for 1. However, I have to admit that on a few occasions I simply melted the butter and did a 1 for 1 substitution for oil, the results were absolutely fine (butter here is a bit higher in fat than in the US, which may account for that).