Mjx

I never heard of this before you started this topic, but I'm thinking this would be terriffic with potatoes, for tossing them in before roasting/before serving. And for some reason, I'm aso thinking it would be good with chickpeas.

Actually, raspberry season is coming up, and they grow wild in many parts of the US, so (for anyone who is up for spending an hour or so picking them) now is the time to get them free.

If Austrian food counts, then I'd add Wallsé, where I had a couple of excellent meals (admittedly, this is a few years back). What are you including in the 'Eastern Europe' category?

My boyfriend takes his lunch to work every day: three open-faced sandwiches on (more or less fresh) bread, a little butter (I'm lying, he favours margarine, no idea why), a slice of cold meat (lower moisture ones like prosciutto and bresaola hold up better than wetter things like jagtwurst or cooked ham). He's Danish, so it's open sandwiches all the way. If you have a closed sandwich, you can stuff a lot more in, since there's something to hold the stuff in place, and a pita or firmly rolled wrap gives even better ingredient restraint. I also sometimes make empanadas, which you can fill with anything you like (sweet or savoury); they microwave very nicely, if you want to eat them hot, but are excellent cold, too. Plus, they have the advantage of being the sort of thing you can just grab out of the refrigerator (no prep), wrap, and toss in your bag. Are you dealing with some very specific wishes/restrictions?

I've seen that sort of thing so much (at least in NYC, it seemed to reach its frenzied worst in the 1990s) that I now only notice it enough now to regard it as a warning sign to eat someplace else, or I may end up with the waiter cosying up to my dinner party to share his feelings on The Tao of Pooh (yep, happened). @mgaretz, 'over-egg' is figurative, and exclusively (I think) a Britishism.

I tend to be on the receiving end of 'for your own good lectures' ('You wouldn't want to spoil [insert some aspect of skin/figure etc], now, would you?'). Mostly, I'm irritated by the inaccuracy of the comments, but I'm fairly certain the basis for this is a combination of obsession with appearance (including not wanting to look like a greedy pig) and simple mimicry (a friend was disturbed when his very slender five-year-old daughter began saying 'I'm so fat'; it turned out she was parroting her kindergarten teacher; this kind of behaviour persists our entire lives). I love carbohydrates, and find it almost tragic that I can't eat most complex ones without unpleasant consequences (yes, really: my joints swell, and my URT becomes incredibly congested). If you see me eating something starchy, it means I'm enjoying a treat whose consequences I'm fully prepared to pay, or I'm being polite; in either case, a lecture on the evils of carbohydrates is unwelcome. Unfortunately, carbohydrates are getting a lot of attention at this time (and I know carbohydrates function [almost] exclusively as fuel, and the amount you eat should be predicated on activity level, but I figure adults should be left alone to make their own decisions on this), and I'm grateful for an educational background that enables me to accurately come across with something that makes people shut up. I've found that the best way to keep people from uttering a word about this in your presence is to spew facts. I do not let the fact that I'm not being addressed directly stop me; if someone start this nonsense within earshot, I figure they're fair game. I'm stick to accurate scientific terms, and I politely steam-roller them if the try to get a word in. I don't lecture them, I make fine show of concurring with, and supporting what they've just said. I tend to focus on the large intestine, and what is very likely happening to the very food they're eating as it moves along into their colon. 'Impacted fecal matter', 'decomposing mucosa', and autopsy details (I was seeing a pathologist for a while, and am well-stocked with this sort of information) are the sorts of things that tend to linger in people's minds. I recommend reinforcing the effect by going up to them the next time you see them eating, and picking up the conversation where you dropped it; you will find the nuisance of their lecturing will be curtailed. I also have the engaging work Tissue Cleansing through Bowel Management (with glossy, full-colour photos!), which I make a point of showing to dedicated, casual 'health' nuisances.

Kerry, I candied some angelica stalks a few months back, and although they're nicest in the spring/early summer, if the smaller shoots (?) of the stalk are flexible, not string-y, and fragrant, they'll do just fine.

The detailed photos of the "Something Borrowed" cake suggest that it is covered in actual pie crust, not fondant. I would be amazed if fondant could be made to look that blistered and brittle, like real pastry. My bad; I was going by what was written below the photograph. Particularly the part that states: " Here, piecrust is a decorative and delicious fondant on the cake" That line fooled me, too (especially since a skilled pastry chef can make fondant very convincingly look like all sorts of things, including far less probable ones than pastry crust). The semi-illiterate who wrote up that copy apparently believes that 'fondant' means 'something covering the surface of a cake', rather than being a specific substance. The line in the letter from the Betty Crocker contact, describing the preparation, seems to remove the ambiguity, since it seems improbable that fondant would be baked (or look like that if it was):

What is the 'noodle agent', and why isn't it addded in with the water? It seems that would be an more effective way to distribute it evenly throughout the dough.

Hm. I guess you could get some heavy duty foil and make the forms you need (I imagine they're also supported by some internal packing of additional foil).

I'm fairly certain that those curved pieces were baked on the inside of a pan or pot that was set on its side. If you're careful to not overbake, the crust should be a bit flexible when you remove it from the oven, and you can cool it draped over the outside of something that has the diameter of you want for that layer. If you try you make that in one piece, there is the risk of it cracking/breaking apart in an uncontrolled way, whereas if you do it as three (?) panels, it not only looks nice, but is far less vulnerable (it also gives a starting place for slicing that doesn't demolish the layer). The intricacy of the decoration on most of the other tiers makes it difficult to see whether or not they were done as one piece, but I doubt it. Even that relatively unadorned middle layer may have been done as two sections: seen from just one side, it would be easy to hide the seem. This comment is also making me wonder whether that is truly pastry crust: 'Here, piecrust is a decorative and delicious fondant on the cake'. I've seen fondant made to look convincingly like all sorts of things, pastry crust wouldn't be that much of a stretch; any chance of getting a little more information on what that actually is, from the Betty Crocker people?

My though,t too: my boyfriend's mother has several heirloom varieties grafted onto one of the original trees on the garden, and it's been quite successful. Seems a shame to chop down a tree that is probaly at least good for shade. Another vote for applesauce (or, I don't know, how well do they dry?). I don't think I've ever bitten into a Red Delicious apple that hasn't been disappointing, and have always assumed they were a hybrid designed to stock supermarkets.

I don't think I can 'taste' the cornstarch in my ice creams. I can sometimes 'taste' eggs in homemade ice cream and don't like that. I am assuming that you are cooking the cornstarch thoroughly. (I never had cornstarch pudding before using cornstarch in ice creams.) Can others 'taste' the cornstarch? Am I lacking a cornstarch taste bud? Just insensitive to some tastes? Etc? I am curious about this. I use cornstarch in the base of almost all my ice creams. I can taste (perceive? not sure whether it is precisely taste) corn starch, at least if it's present in any significant amount, a sort metallic sensation on the tongue. It doesn't always bother me terribly, but I'd be just as happy if it wasn't there.

The July/August 2011 issue of Cook's Illustrated includes a recipe for vanilla ice cream, and the accompanying discussion goes over several of these issues.

Mostly, we eat out when we travel, because in Denmark a lot of money will usually net you something between 'very nice' and 'Well, that was disappointing'. And by 'disappointing' I don't mean that expectations of novelty or entertainment were not met, but that the food wasn't particularly well-prepared. Spending a lot of money on food doesn't strike me as implicitly immoral, but spending a lot on something that I know I could do better myself is not the sort of thing that puts me in a good mood.

There are two possibilities here: The first is that alcohol-based extracts are not sold in what you would consider 'the usual sorts of shops', and may instead be found in one of the last shops you might be likely to look for them (e.g. pharmacies); health food shops sometimes have ingredients that aren't found elsewhere. The other possibility is that in Germany, vanilla is not [widely] available in liquid extract form. I've never looked for vanilla extract in Germany, but in Denmark (where I spend a lot of time), vanilla is most commonly available as the ground bean (powder), as a paste, and as vanilla sugar (and the whole beans, too); recently, I've seen a single brand of vanilla extract in a some branches of one supermarket chain, but it still isn't commonly found. For whatever it's worth, the Dr. Oetker site (one of the major German baking-ingredient producers, also very widely distributed in other EU countries) lists several forms of vanilla: http://www.oetker.de...ackzutaten.html. My German is nearly non-existent, so I couldn't determine for a certainty that any of the products listed were alcohol extracts (but I think not).

Swim bladder!

Miroir! There may be other options, but none are springing to mind.

I'm up for shops that cater to professionals, too...

Have you checked out some of the tea discussions right here on eG? http://forums.egullet.org/index.php/forum/127-coffee-tea/

How are the bees looking in your area?

I'm not in North America, that's the reason driving down to Berlin is an option I kind of like to handle something/see it in action, before buying. Also, in Germany the warranty period covers up to 2 years, so it's a better deal for anything that has the ability to conk out. But mostly, I'm interested in seeing what I can get my hands in Germany that I'm not likely to find in Denmark, where the selection tends to be a good deal narrower.

The goose fat is a brilliant idea!

You do need to cut up larger bones, since it doesn't seem that boiling/simmering extract collagen from any great depth. I've never made stock from just bones, because unbrowned animal proteins tend to have very little flavour (but I have made stock with no bones; it needs a good bit of reduction to acquire some body). I can't think imagine buying bones to make stock, although I do keep a pretty good supply of them in the freezer. However, I generally don't make stock without bones (or chicken feet, or what-have-you), because stock made without bones lacks body and a certain unctuousness that comes from the dissolved collagen.

I'd second that, food mills do a great job of this sort of thing. but couldn't you just peel the apples? It's a bore, but might be your simplest solution, if you don't have a food mill.