Mjx

In theory, at least, the closer the food is produced to where it is sold, the less fuel is needed (and by extension the less pollution is produced) to transport it; at a cumulative level, this can make a difference. Also, you might argue that supporting local (or as local as possible) sustainable agriculture is simply good for the community. Clearly, if you want lemons and live in in Denmark, you're going to be importing. But importing them from Italy has advantages over importing them from China (also in terms of being better able to monitor the labour and hygiene standards in place at the point of origin).

In Emilia Romagna, goose prosciutto has a history going back to the 1400s. If you could find a reliable recipe for this, it might be possible to adapt to other poultry, although chickens and turkeys would present a couple of additional challenges, including the risks presented by various pathogens (e.g. salmonella), and the absence of the thick layer of subcutaneous fat that waterfowl have.

I had frog's legs once, and they were fine, although I don't think I'd make myself nuts getting my hands on them again. I'm guessing that (as with anything) it's mostly about quality and form of preparation. I'm sure there are frogs-leg dishes (and other amphibian- and reptile-meat dishes) that are the stuff of heavenly dreams.

Bingo.

The jamon looks gorgeous, but even vacuum packed, I'm not certain how it would survive the (admittedly shortish) flight. On the other hand, since my boyfriend is reading this, he's probably going to return several punds heavier. Brilliant, thanks Chris! But I'm starting to think I should have suggested going along with him. I was slammed with work during the planning stage of the trip, and didn't pay much attention, or I would've started fluttering my eyelashes persuasively. So. About those baked goods... can you think of any that may survive the rigors of a short, but two part flight with a possibly longish layover between segments?

My boyfriend is heading off to Barcelona, and asked the inevitable question: 'Anything I should bring back?' My reply of 'Anything that looks delicious or interesting' didn't help much. I've never been to Spain, and have no idea of what sorts of edible/drinkable things are worth finding and bringing back. Various sites promoting Spain/Barcelona aren't that helpful, since they push what they want to sell/figure will appeal to tourists, and those aren't likely to be the most interesting or noteworthy things. We're interested in everything from low-end, mass-market items, to high-end specialties, as long as they can survive and are permitted on short-haul, EU flights (some of the more durable seasonal produce, perhaps?). Also, since my boyfriend will be spending the majority of his time at a conference, he's unlikely to have a chance to do any really intensive or out of the way hunting, unfortunately. Anyway, if you have have suggestions (things you ate there/brought back/wished you'd brought back/were given by someone who'd been there), I'd love to hear about them!

The reason recipes specify "lye water" is because that's the most common English language label on bottled jianshui, and a simple sodium bicarbonate solution made at home won't be strong enough. Could jianshui be a solution of sodium carbonate, that is, heat-treated sodium bicarbonate (AKA baking soda)? According to Cook's Illustrated (January & February 2012, p. 31), spreading sodium bicarbonate in a layer on a baking tray, and baking it for two hours at 250 F° (121.1 C°) will increase its pH 'from about 8 to about 11' (lye has a pH between 13 and 14). A solution of sodium carbonate gave a result very similar to that of lye, when preparing soft pretzels, without the risks associated with the use of a lye solution.

I use rice flour for every flour application in which gluten structure is not important (frying, kneading dough, velveting, thickening sauces, roux, etc.), as well as a replacement for potato or corn starch/flour; it also makes for pasta with a great texture (extruded forms, and gnocchi, at any rate). I actually go through it really fast! Unfortunately, my boyfriend dislikes recognizable anchovies, although he does appreciate than in tiny quantities, they add a lot. Which means that unless I want to eat every bit of something that has noticeable anchovies, I use an average of an anchovy a week (at most). Those are the ones I get, but surely it can't be okay to keep them in the refrigerator for over a year, once they're opened? Then again, I'm not sure why not. The ones I currently have list a salt content of 43%, and I always refill the space up to the rim of the jar with fresh salt.

Trenchers? You effete degenerate! You'll eat it from your bare hands, and like it! Food itself is honest, regardless of what it is or who made, and from what. Food preparers (from chefs, all the way down to the kid dumping chicken nuggets in the the fryer at a fast food place), maybe not. What it comes down to is whether or not preparers are presenting the food as what it is, and acknowledging their actual feeling/beliefs about it: If he or she is willing to acknowledge 'Here's a bunch of fried, breaded, composite, chickenoid substance, made with ingredients of unknown, possibly dubious origins, and I'm cool with that', or 'Here is a bite and a half's worth of locally sourced, organic and foraged foamed parsnic and a cube of eel, very pretty, and I had fun making it, although it is a little bit silly', that's 'honest' (really, 'honestly presented') food. You start saying either of those things is other than it is, and honesty (and in my opinion, credibility) goes out the window. The whole 'down-to-earth, locally foraged, cooked over a live flame' thing is fine (to a point; I've seen what some of those idiots can do to a bed of ramps, and I'm not seeing much respect for nature, there), but implying that it makes for more 'honest' food is just another form of snobbery.

Recently (blog post somewhere? can't remember, but I'm racking my brains), I came across 'pasta y fagioli' multiple times in the same place, so, not a typo, and it made me crazy. Should be 'pasta e fagioli' (or I guess you could also have 'pasta y frijoles'). I've also come across 'porchinis', which is even worse than 'porcinis', since not only is it doubly pluralized, but in Italian, it would be pronounced 'por-KEE-neez'. <shudder>

Won't anchovy paste in tubes do the trick for you? Eh, I'd still have the same problem; last time I had a tube, I tossed it after a couple of years, still mostly full. What I've been dragging my feet on doing now is taking my current jar of anchovies, blotting them, laying them out between strips of parchment paper, rolling that up for compactness, and freezing.

Anchovies. I just never use that many in a given time span, but they add so much to the savoury dishes in which I do use them . Why can't they sell then in some easily frozen format?

Those are actually rather cool looking; makes me think of the exteriors of older, brutalist architecture. In fact, if I were an estate agent showing such a building, I'd want a tray of these by the door, for prospective buyers to snack on. You must be able to do worse than that!

Without a pinch of salt, that combination of ingredients is going to taste pretty insipid.

Nope: what you see is what I've got. I'm not concerned with the rate of decay, those bins are plenty large enough for the two of us. That said, I actually hadn't heard that closed bins were better, I thought the reverse was true. Most backyard bins are designed with ventilation slots, aren't they? The bins I've seen haven't had a ventilation slot, at least, not that I've noticed (meaning, they could have been riddled with slots, and I completely missed it). They do have that little trap-door thing, which I suppose could function that way, though, and I've noticed it is sometimes left open. Basically, the people I know who compost either use a black plastic bin that yields black loamy looking stuff that is used in the garden, or a keep a heap of muck behind a tree, which doesn't really yield anything. How does the open bin do? Do you call it a panino, though even when it doesn't involve a roll? But in Italy, 'lasagne al forno' is a pretty generic name, connected with no one, specific recipe; it's more usual for the dish to have a specific name. 'Lasagne' sounds like 'lasagna', except it's got an 'eh' at the end, instead of an 'ah' (because it's plural: 'lasagne' are the pasta strips themselves; if you fixed yourself just one strip with sauce and so on, it truly would be a 'lasagna'). But now that I think about it, in the US 'lasagna' often gets a schwa sound at the end, which could be interpreted either way.

I've used a small whisk to get fairly similar forms to those in PC's dream image – with a spatula, I got a sort of clumsy, slab-like effect, perhaps a narrow one would do the trick – although I've never attained that level of browning (I've never even considered the possibility, but now I'm intrigued).

Here, those buckets that plaster of Paris and ceiling paint come in are very popular for this purpose (they're free, have a wide mouth, a lid, a handle, and clean up easily); not hideous, but admittedly, not gorgeous. I'm curious: Are your outside bins normally wrapped in plastic? I know open bins compost much more slowly.

Maybe it's more a planning issue? It sounds (and I may be misunderstanding) like things have reached the point of being combined a bit haphazardly, because they're there/you're used to them. Maybe just a little pruning is in order.

You're welcome CI (January & February 2012, pp. 19–21) says to preheat the oven to 425 F° (218 C°), put the croissants in the oven, and reduce the temperature to 400 F° (204 C°), and bake them for 12 minutes, then rotate and switch the positions of the two baking sheets, and bake for a further 8 to 12 minutes. The time given in the Tartine recipe is a bit longer, but the real issue may be your oven temperature, which may be higher than that indicated by the temperature knob/button array (from what I've both read and personally observed, this is extremely common, far more common than these accurately indicating of the oven temperature). The only way to determine/resolve this is to get an accurate oven thermometer, and use that as your guideline, instead of the temperature knob/button array.

Im particularly enchanted by the blue and yellow ones. Would you mind saying a bit about the flavours? I always like knowing what's on the inside, too.

Not clear as to whether or not you're interested in a commercial unit (they don't generally run small), or if, by 'professional' you mean one that's a good quality. To get you started, have a look here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?/topic/136006-espresso-machines-for-less-than-500/page__p__1774410__hl__espresso+machine__fromsearch__1#entry1774410 and here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?/topic/119939-best-espresso-machine-800/page__p__1615548__hl__espresso+machine__fromsearch__1#entry1615548 After researching espresso machines for a couple of months, I decided that the Rancilio Silvia was the one that best fit our requirements (and got a unit for my boyfriend as a birthday present last year). To date, I have to say that it still seems the right choice.

I've been gearing up to try CI's croissant recipe, although I haven't done it yet. RE:butter, they instruct to beat the cold block flat with a rolling pin until it is pliable, then roll it out in a parchment paper envelope, to make an easy-to work with shape. RE:freezing, the CI recipe says to form them, put them, 1"/2.5cm apart on a parchment covered baking sheet, cover with plastic, freeze for about 2 hours, then transfer to a zip-lock plastic bag; they may be kept frozen for up to 2 months. The instructions for the rising and baking of the frozen croissants are, proceed as you normally would with your formed croissants, but increase the rising time by an hour or two.

The question is, given an intensely flavourful dish, and an identical-except-for-flavour-intensity counterpart, would the former ring the 'Ah, that's enough' bell more quickly than the latter? I've certainly done the 'Well, I've had enough, but... damn, this is so good, I'll keep eating, regardless' sort of thing, but I am always aware of when I've reached satiety (even if I ignore it). Still, I can put away a lot more plain crisps at a go, than marmite-flavoured ones (even though I'll pick the marmite-flavoured ones over the plain ones, almost any time).

Hi gekichan, and welcome to eGullet! Pastrami isn't something I've attempted to make, but there was the the The Great Pastrami & Smoked Meat Experiment (click!), which covers quite a lot of territory, and is likely to go into your question. With any luck, some of the experimenters will weigh in now, with their expertise.

Coconuts are concave so flat graters don't work. But you don't – okay, I don't – grate coconut in the shell, and the meat tends to break apart, so the original form isn't particularly relevant. At least, that's been my experience. But unless you're grating masses of coconut on a regular basis, I'd hesitate to go with a dedicated tool that doesn't really do anything else.