Mjx

Why not just contact them, and ask? You'll probably get a response (this is my experience, at least), and perhaps some advice, too. For whatever it's worth, I don't own MC, and probably won't for quite a while, but I enjoy reading about what people are doing with it (in the forums, here); the absence or presence of an actual/complete recipe doesn't have any real effect one way or another on my interest in what I read. ETA: Frankly, posting someone else's recipes on a blog seems like a bad idea, but if you contact the MC authors, they may have an entirely different take on this. Still, I definitely would not do this without the getting the go-ahead from them.

I remember hearing this used with regard to wine a good 15 years ago, when wine had no place in my life, so it's actually not a newborn, but a really irritating and boring teenager

Actually, DKK995/8 courses. For a meal of this calibre in Denmark, I agree the prices are quite good, although I don't think I'd use the term 'bargain' I'd love to try the current menu...

By some odd fluke, I'm sort of loaded up with palm sugar... isn't at least some of the Indian jaggery palm-sourced? Are ladoo fairly straightforward to make? Several of these dishes sound like they rely on being cooked over an open flame, any idea of how something like litti chokha would come out in a conventional oven? Is the millet ever ground up as flour? I'd be thrilled to hear that millet flour get a lot of use, because I don't handle wheat very well (although I love bread, so I sometimes just take a batch of NSAIDs, and deal with the consequences), so a new alternative is always interesting to work with. I know... that really made me wonder about the best title to give this! I'd love to hear more about the Fanesca, which sounds delicious. I'm also curious as to the the method used for roasting suckling pig (is the local method indigenous, or introduced?), although my odds of getting my hands on one are pretty slim. Yes!!! MJX, winter in Denmark sounds even more dreary than Seattle, and being farther North, I'm sure it is. We have a large Asian population here, and pho has become hugely popular. I'm looking forward to a lot of pho this winter. Laksa is heartier and richer with coconut milk, so good. I find myself craving Korean kimchi tofu soup lately as well - really almost anything spicy and savory. And don't forget udon & ramen soups and congee (rice porridge). Another good dish for winter (just because of it being citrus season) is Vietnamese pomelo salad with pieces of pomelo (you could use grapefruit if you cant find pomelo or ugli fruit), fresh mint, crispy shallots, and shrimp. Maybe a nice bright side to a steaming cauldron of noodle soup? http://www.vietworldkitchen.com/blog/2008/02/pomelo-salad-go.html At this moment, that pretty much all sounds good... I definitely need to make a trek out to the Asian foods shop that was really close to our old flat!

'M' is for 'musculus'. The fausse-araigné cut is probably not the soleus, though, since in mammals the soleus is a deep muscle of the posterior lower leg (back leg, in a cow).

Please tell me more! And yes, you got it, the winter dishes of tropical/subtropical regions are what I actually most want to hear about (I found out, by looking up 'monsoon season' after posting, that I messed up the usage ).

I'm in Denmark, where we don't get monsoons as such, but during winter it rains. And rains, and rains, and rains, even more than it does during the summer. It's also darkly overcast most of the time, so by November, even getting out of bed seems way too demanding, never mind using my imagination to think of something marginally interesting to cook (and I like rain). This year, I want to see if I can forestall the supposedly inevitable, fading-to-grey feeling, by starting to explore – now – what people in warm countries cook when rainy season comes around. I love the traditionally European things I tend to cook in winter, but just now, I think I'm in a bit of rut (even though I'm negotiating a challenging kitchen setup). What are traditional winter specialities in various tropical/subtropical regions, including those in Asia (I'm including India), Africa, the Middle-East, South America? I'm as interested in cold-and-rainy-season-specific ingredients as I am in recipes, so let me hear what you've got!

Definitely agree with this one. An app that incorporated something like onlineconversion.com, which bases its weight<>volume conversions on ingredient density, would be a great idea (accuracy of the ingredient density database would be crucial, of course).

'Liquidise'?! You've got to be kidding me... Sorry, my first reaction on reading the recipe just wasn't culinary. My original reaction, and the reason I took a look at the pumpkin soup recipe, is that sesame oil and balsamic vinegar strike me as a slightly odd combination. I've never tried it, it could be great, but I do have doubts. Is your sesame oil toasted? If it is, that may be the problem. I've noticed that even a couple of drops of toasted sesame oil have a really strong presence in something as mildly-flavoured as a winter squash. The amount of oil seems a bit much, too: 40g is nearly 50ml, or over three US tablespoons, which seems like rather a lot for an 'or to taste' quantity. In combination with an entire block of butter, I can understand your wife's reaction (I'm by no means anti-fat, but it's just not so pleasant to drink). I've also heard that kabochas need to mature after harvesting, so that some of the starch breaks down to sugar; perhaps it just hadn't been held long enough?

Thanks, that's sweet of you! We're on the other side of Storebælt I'm sheepishly admitting having given up on the brick idea. The chicken was hot after 2 minutes, so I didn't press on for a second round, even though that was the original plan. I should have just been more assertive (i.e. not a gutless worm), snagged a burner one way or another, and heated slowly on the stove. Not that the microwave isn't good for anything. My boyfriend's parents don't even realize that there's a problem, because A) I'm trying very, very hard to not be intrusive, and B) they tend to do kitchen-dominating bulk cooking (they keep a filled, full-sized, separate freezer; our freezer is a micro-morgue for half a dozen things we can't figure out what to do with, and a couple of paint rollers), and the idea of another completely diffrent approach is only an abstraction. But they don't love cooking, which may be the thin end of the wedge... If we went in for daily take away, our bank account would break long before anyone's spirit did Actually, I don't think it would prove spirit breaking at all, they'd just vaguely wonder, 'Why all the take away?' I can't really eat bread That is, I can, but it makes me incredibly congested, and my joints swell (I'm sure you wanted to know that, especially if you're eating). I have to admit that, after a day of eating nearly nothing (I'm a more or less 'dinner only' person), I'm usually in the mood for something more complex. But I'm starting to form a plan: My boyfriend's mother would prefer to spend her time doing something other than cooking (gardening, knitting, getting root canal), and I like to cook, so now, all I need to do is figure out how to very tactfully deploy this knowledge (Bright pink steak tartare? Haven't seen that, but have seen some remarkably vividly coloured sausages.)

I really don't get the impression that a dislike of seafood and fish is more characteristic of the US population than many others. You mention travelling a lot, and now I'm curious as to which countries you visited extensively (perhaps their culinary traditions are intrinsically more seafood-based?). I've also travelled a good deal since I was a child, and although I've encountered a number of Americans who at least claimed to dislike seafood/fish, in terms of percent of the general population, it doesn't seem as though it is any different from any other culture whose culinary traditions are not based on seafood or fish. Someone's dislike of fish seems to be equally worthy of note in the US, Italy, a Middle Eastern country in which I lived (unidentified because they're apparently all controversial at this time, and I've no desire to inadvertently sidetrack the discussion into a political arena), and Denmark (i.e. the only countries in which I've spent enough time to have more than a visitor's perception of this). The fact that vetoing fish on one's plate is considered worth mentioning suggests that it does not represent majority taste (if it did, no one would mention it, since it would be the norm). As I mentioned, I've travelled a lot, if not particularly broadly (mostly the US and EU), but I can't say I've encountered any anti-US feeling first hand, although I've heard a good deal about it (yes, I'm American, as well as another nationality, third generation born in NYC, in fact). I'm not denying that it exists, but am starting to suspect that anti-fish feeling is far more common Getting back to fish, you mentioned previously that Dover Sole improves with some days holding: Does it get fishier, or does it change in some other way? Is it held in the refrigerator?

Congratulations! Does this come with improved access to sleep?

Can't speak for eG as a whole, but I hunt it down and remove it (same as I do with venison); I've always understood that if left in, especially if the leg is from an older animal, it can make for an aroma that is beyond just 'gamey'.

That's the crux of the matter. A good place to start is with a shoe that you find comfortable in the ordinary run of things (e.g. when you're out shopping for several hours), and look into what else the brand has to offer. This is what I did when I was working as a massage therapist (7.00 to 22.00, seven days a week). For me, New Balance trainers, augmented with gel insoles, did the trick, because it's a brand that uses a last that works with my foot shape. The last shape is crucial, and if it is significantly different from the shape of your foot, the shoe is going to give you hell, sooner or later, no matter how much other people may swear by it. With regard to insoles, I began with a cheap but likely-looking offering, and was prepared to work my way up (pricewise) if necessary, but my first pick worked out fine. One other thing I found was that lacing the shoe loosely enough to turn it into a slip-on allows your feet to move more in the shoe, and the structure of the foot can do its natural shock-absorbing thing far better. I wouldn't recommend this for those with weak insteps or ankles, however (I'm extremely foot conscious, partly because of an 11-year dance background; almost no other physical discomfort can make me as miserable as even slightly uncomfortable feet, and I'm on my feet a lot).

I have fond memories of the food I ate in Denmark, except for the sild (cured herring) {shudder}. Danish food always struck me as more refined than German, but along a similar vein. Of course, most of my food memories of the place are from when I was a teenager who approved of things like potatoes in caramel and was impressed with eating good bread, which was tough to come by where I grew up. But Christmas food is delicious, so at least you've got that to look forward to. If a purloined brick or two from someone's garden is unapproved by the oven owners, give a thought to the cast iron. I regularly cook pizza in my oven using a cast iron pan as my 'stone' at 210-220 C and it's worked well. I wasn't aware of any potential problems using it at that temperature and have never experienced any. Danish food may have deteriorated since you last visited: A sort of inverted snobbery more or less dominates what happens in the kitchen these days. I should also add that since my tastes were formed by a very different culture, things like potatoes in caramel are intrinsically disturbing to me (sugar-sweet in a savoury dish just doesn't work for me). I can actually handle sild, however. I've been thinking about using the cast iron items, although I'm wondering how my boyfriend's parents react to the idea, given that they like to economize and use 2 or three racks full of stuff in the oven at one go, meaning they'd have to remove all the cast iron from the oven before using it each time. Under the 'schadenfreude' heading, since neither the oven nor the stove was accessible the other evening, I tried reheating some braised chicken in the microwave. I thought the stuff was indestructible (braised three hours to spoonable tenderness), but I was wrong. Two minutes in the microwave, and it had a weird, soggy, stringy texture, and smelled vaguely of wet dog. I admit to having next to no experience with microwaves (never had one, since I couldn't imagine what I'd use one for), but I'm underwhelmed.

But so many places identify themselves as being some sort of crossover establishment, there would inevitably be tons of screaming over having been judged according to the wrong set of guidelines. Could be entertaining, actually Thats exactly why I said the category would have to be agreed with the owner, there would still be lots of screaming and shouting though as delusional restaurant owners and out of date Michelin inspectors clashed horns Agreement on a category? Can't even begin to imagine that happening (not to mention, I think the question of the food being worth going out of one's way for being the defining criterion really does make more sense)!

Regarding the lack of richness: Wet peppers (impatience has caused that problem in some things I've cooked)? You could add some fat, too. I keep a pot of mixed fat (duck/lamb/chicken/whatever) in the refrigerator, and tossing a teaspoon into a gallon or so of soup does wonders. Ginger is always brilliant with winter squash.

But so many places identify themselves as being some sort of crossover establishment, there would inevitably be tons of screaming over having been judged according to the wrong set of guidelines. Could be entertaining, actually

As a term, I'm used to hearing it (in this specific context, I mean) as 'breakfast'; can't think of any time I've seen it written, but would expect to see it/be inclined to write it as a single, unhyphenated word. I'm most accustomed to hearing this as a phrase (e.g. '...going to so-and-so's place to break the fast'.

Roasting them should boost the flavour, but I find that winter squashes mostly contribute body/texture, sort of like potatoes. I use them in a winter squash and chestnut soup (chicken stock, roasted squash, caramelized chestnuts), in a winter squash, lamb, and white bean stew, which I season with cayenne and various Indian spices, or roasted and mashed like potatoes (and seasoned with Indian or Latin American spices). I used to use pumpkin, but now primarily use hokkaido squash, because it's the easiest to get locally; as you pointed out, winter squashes are on the bland side, which makes them fairly easy to interchange. ETA: My boyfriend just reminded me that we also once used a blend of winter squash, shredded lamb, and black pepper as a ravioli filling, and it was an extremely good combination.

Why not just try it? That's the plan. It's also useful to hear from people who've tried something one has in mind, and get the benefit of their experience.

This is going to sound really apathetic, but I just don't have the motivation in this case to buy the bricks (about USD10, here). The arrangement is temporary, and my boyfriend's parents really don't have a problem with it, but actually find it amusing. I don't want to know how much a brick house costs at $10 a brick. Around here, bricks cost 30 - 50 cents a piece and they'll often just give you a couple for free if you're only asking for 1 or 2. It's Denmark! Everything is shudderingly expensive! On the other hand, the food is delicious, the people are friendly and it has a great social security system. That's it in a nutshell. Except about the food. The food is, erm.... edible. Yes. That's it. Entirely edible. Incidentally, I asked a few more people about the cost of bricks, and got wildly varying answers, except in one respect: Everyone wanted to know why I didn't just, well, 'appropriate' some. I don't think the brick idea is going to fly with my boyfriend's parents, however. Since the bricks don't look like they're going to happen, and bread is regularly baked (according to the dial, and, occasionally, the thermometer in the oven) at 210C or higher (=410F), the cast iron pan thing isn't likely to be workable, I'd still really like to know: Do any of you have any success with relying primarily on a probe thermometer temperature when you use the oven? This really is looking like my best bet, if it's doable.

I think for many, it's the smell. My boyfriend and I are temporarily staying with his parents, and since I bought some cockles recently, I had plans for something with a strong seafood component... then found out the damn things will have to just sit in the freezer, because his father loathes the smell of fish. However, in his case, the blanket veto excludes salmon.

Anything special and regional? Although I spent most of my allegedly formative years in Italy, I did spend a bit over half my life in the US, and remain kind of fascinated by its regional food, which I somehow never actually experienced much, and seems sort of elusive. Looking forward to whatever you have to dish up, though!

Good point, BUT since Danish toasters are the flat, incredibly inefficient kind, making a batch of toast in the oven would actually be not be a waste. I could just keep an eye on the toast, and pull it before it starts throwing out billows of smoke. Not to mention, if I made an oven-trayful of toast, it's be so appreciated... even if they had to scrape some of it a little lighter This is going to sound really apathetic, but I just don't have the motivation in this case to buy the bricks (about USD10, here). The arrangement is temporary, and my boyfriend's parents really don't have a problem with it, but actually find it amusing. Cooking rice is one thing I am actually in charge of, since my boyfriend's mother finds it irritating and challenging, and what you suggest is prompting me to expand my repertoire of rice-based dishes. Unfortunately, most of the time there wouldn't be anyplace to put an electric frying pan, and it can't go in the dishwasher (and washing up pans with cold water is really aggravating).