Mjx

I shop pretty much every day, because my plans to plan ahead never seem to happen. For the most part, I still end up going to the local supermarket (early in the morning, usually, when there's no one there apart from a scattering of octogenarians), because I bake all our bread, and the local butcher charges prices that suggest that he is funneling substantial funds into a Swiss bank account he does have. I think I actually spend more when I buy ahead, since I'm spending so much money and getting so much stuff already, getting a few impulse purchases doesn't seem as spendy. When I'm shopping for that day, I stick to the list.

A variety of cake sprinkles that I use very occasionally, mostly on birthday cakes requested by other people, lurk behind the herbs and spices in the cabinet. They've been with us for two moves (over six years), and I have no idea of where they came from, no recollection of buying them. They just sort of... manifested.

Treat it like persistent jetlag (something I have to deal with really often): Do whatever it takes to make yourself sleep through your new 'night' for several nights in a row, even if if it means taking sleeping pills for two or three nights (or weeks). Seriously, if your body doesn't adapt, and you don't get enough sleep, you'll mess up your health (not to mention the potential for driving related accidents) at least as much as you might taking some sort of sleeping pill for up to three weeks (if it hasn't 'reset' you by then, it probably won't). Get new drapes, a white noise generator, avoid coffee during the day (really, really hard when you need it to stay awake, but caffeine lingers in the system for several hours), whatever, but if you don't get results in a couple of weeks, give some serious thought to getting a 2-3 weeks' worth of sleeping pills (an OTC one if there's one that works for you, or a prescription one, if not).

Have you tried extending the baking time? Generally, baking the loaf until it has relatively deep colour will fix the problem. I've found that the temperature will seldom rise significantly at the centre, even if you end up baking for as much as half an hour past the point that the suggested internal temperature has been reached.

I'm slightly concerned about that too, even though I don't use a dishwasher, so I just haul the stack of dishes out of the closet, put the just-dried ones at the bottom, and put the others back on top. Sort of a drag, but in the general scheme of things, not a huge deal.

I think if you grew up with/have a background in one of the southwestern European culinary traditions, it's standard knowledge (I'm basing this on my own experience, growing up in Italy); in other cultures, it might be unfamiliar, so possibly a 'secret'.

Apprently, yes. From what I can see, apart from cutting back on fibre, the array of things you can eat isn't actually affected (https://patienteducation.osumc.edu/Pages/search.aspx?k=gastrectomy, third link on the page).

I wonder whether that's the ice cream place I remember, which I really wanted to revisit... cannot remember the location or name at all. I'm starting to think that this may be worth a separate trip, before we head south, and not just for the sea food. Although I don't know about the bookstore... It's not really safe for me to enter a bookstore, at least not if i have my wallet with me. Oh man. Thanks, something definitely worth looking into. I love pie. I just hope we still fit into out clothes by the end of this trip.

When I was a kid, the cannoli I saw in Florence were plain, or with the candied fruit/pistachios you mention, or a light brown that was either hazelnut or coffee. I don't think I saw chocolate-chip infested ones until I was about 14. Even the last time I was there, a year or so ago, they seemed mostly confined to places that didn't do much business with the locals. I also recollect seeing some cannoli with candied chestnut pieces (at Gilli, I believe).

Good lord. YES. For whatever my opinion is worth, given that I'm still in the 'interested maybe' category, pending the announcement of the probable date (and compounded by the fact that the Phila. 'Heartland' gathering is looking awfully, good, too, and there's no way we'd be able to do both).

Got some Thai fish sauce that may be nearly a year old... just don't use that much at a time, although I do use it pretty often. And some shrimp paste that's several months old, which worries me a little. But that's it. Partly because we tend to use stuff as we get it, although over the past few months, the freezer has become a sort of holding pen/dump for various odds and ends we can't quite bring ourselves to bin.

From a practical standpoint, I'm wondering whether dough wouldn't stick more to the plastic ones than the willow ones, since the plastic surface seems like it wouldn't hold the flour so well. Since bread is baked long and hot, I don't think the sanitation is a huge issue (and I'm a bit of a germ freak), and they don't get treated that roughly, I imagine even the willow ones last a decent stretch of time. From an aesthetic standpoint, I confess I find the idea of a plastic banneton sort of depressing and self-defeating, since the willow ones are so nice to look at and work with, and part of the pleasure of using a banneton has to do with a sense of tradition (that might just be me, of course). I only have one, which is actually too big to use (birthday present from my boyfriend, who simply cannot resist the largest size of most things), but I love using it, even though the loaves I make in them are inevitably are gigantic and flattish, because they collapse under the weight of their ridiculously large volume. I'm planning on getting a more realistically sized one soon.

I'm afraid organic chemistry is several years behind me, now, but I'm fairly certain that I recall citric acid as being one of the compounds that is degraded by UV light/heat, so... store in a cool, dark place?

ATK recommends cooling things to about 90F degrees before putting them in the fridge, because when they're really warm or hot, they can raise the temperature of the entire refrigerator space to a level that is congenial to bacterial growth. I easily flake on putting things away while they cool, so I just set the timer for 20 minutes, as a reminder to put the pot in the fridge.

The gel sets up really quickly, so you can mould it in virtually anything that you can pry it loose from once it's set. I usually just pour it into a bowl, and cut it into cubes once it's firm. For noodles you could just pour it out to the desired thickness, then slice it into strips (maybe using a rolling herb mincer of some sort).

I've never tried making konjac pasta, although I do use it a lot for desserts. There's a discussion of making noodles here: http://www.konjacfoods.com/konjac.htm. I doubt the gel would extrude well, so it's probably mostly sliced and moulded. I'm fairly certain that I've seen at least one discussion of making these noodles in the forums here, possibly in one of the MC topics; a search should bring it to light. Konjac powder won't give you a carbohydrate-free pasta, however, since it is mostly carbohydrate, although it is soluble fibre, not starch, which is useful for many people.

But perhaps a little too close to goiter for comfort, though? Maybe that's just me... Croquer means "to crunch" which might be nice for a salad and sandwich kind of place, and it also links nicely to croque-monsieur in my mind. Very much depends on the kind of place, though. Heh. Most people would be hard-pressed to identify the thyroid, let alone any of its pathologies. But good point, about checking any potential name for awkward meanings in other languages (at least the major ones). There's a place SoHo (NYC) called the Tisserie, and it cracks me up every time I see it: 'tisse' means 'piss' in Danish, something its would-be hipster staff is clearly unaware of. I walked past it with my (Danish) boyfriend, when he was visiting NYC and we were on the lookout for a caffeine and carb. fix; I was curious as to whether he'd notice it. He did. We got coffee and pastry just down the street, instead of at the Tisserie, because we couldn't get a grip on our unseemly giggling. For us, funny; for the establishment, probably not so much (you'd be amazed at how many Danes are wandering about NYC at any given moment).

Philadelphia sounds good to me (I'd really like to attend one of these events, and for me, the East Coast is by far the most accessible part of the US).

I cannot find the post that mentions it, but unless I'm completely mistaken, I recall a member mentioning an induction cooktop that has no burners: You just put your pot down wherever, regardless of its size, which suggests that more than one coil configuration exists (a diagram should be available from the manufacturer).

Can't tell you how much I'm appreciating the advice, especially given our kind of squished timeframe, and the apparently countless options! I'm doing a LOT of reading, based on all this information. I'm really looking forward to this trip. Last time we were on the West coast, we saw just a few bits and pieces, teasers, really. I'm trying to remember at least the name of the town near a costal place that had this incredible ice cream. The name of the ice cream place itself eludes me completely. Ooops, and quite different towns at that. Also near Arcata is a town of Trinidad. It's been a few years but Larrupin Cafe was sure nice then. http://www.larrupin.com/ HaH! Given the fact that we won't be going south of San Francisco, we won't even have the chance to accidentally end up in southern California, let alone Trinidad

I know LCD screens aren't cheap, but they always give a place a cheap feel, as though the people coming in aren't restaurant clients/guests, but units to be moved in and out as quickly as possible. It may be because I travel a lot, but I'd hate to eat at a place that reminded me in any way of an airport; if I had to eat at such a place, I'd expect it to be cheap. If you must scrap the chalk board (e.g. for reasons of legibility), how about a white board, if you could commit to keeping it clean, and you (or other staff members) have nice, legible handwriting? Unless you're going to be serving a real laser-light-show-plus-three-ring-circus of a menu, I'd stick with fairly traditional elements that contribute to a suitable setting for the high-end comfort food you plan on serving.

Sort of on tenterhooks about the date, since if it falls during high season, we probably wouldn't be able to manage the trip (we'd be coming from Denmark, and we're buying a house, too).

"Forced"? I don't get your reasoning. Surely nobody is "forced" to wait on table unless perhaps they're working at the prison cafeteria. As for being pleasant to nasty customers, there is a line of "nastiness" to be sure, and when a consumer, in this case a restaurant customer, crosses it, a good boss is going to back up the employee. But if the customer is merely run-of-the-mill, everyday unpleasant and difficult, the owner of the restaurant, just like the owner of any retail outlet, is absolutely going to expect the employee to put up with it. Tipping system or no tipping system. That wouldn't change one iota. If you don't think so, you don't understand how the world works. At least this way, the "very big tip" goes to the waiter that actually put up with it. Justly, in my view. As for this relationship being akin to prostitution, of course it is. All sales are basically the same principle. I'm going to be nice to you in the hopes that you purchase a product or service from me. It's all a matter of degree. How much will I put up with from you? How much will I want from you? What's it worth to me? How much product or service will I provide you? In the case of prostitution, it's a pretty intimate service. In the case of a used car, or insurance, or the fellow that wants to come cut your lawn, not so intimate, but it all starts the same way. Form a relationship. Trust me. Like me. I might not really like you because I think you're unpleasant, or too old, or too young, or too fat, or too conservative, or too liberal, or too light, or too dark, or too poor, or too "merry" but I'm going to pretend to like you because I want something from you and I've got rent to pay and children to clothe and educate, and food to put on the table. I can tell you that I owned a small business for about eight years. A travel agency. And I had overhead to pay and a payroll to meet. We certainly put up with a lot of jerks, and I damn well did expect my agents to deal with clients that they didn't particularly like. Of course, as I said above, there's a line, and if a client crossed over from being a jerk to being abusive, I told them to leave. But that only happened about three times or so over the eight years. An overbearing, demanding, know-it-all, "I've-traveled-all-over-the-world-and-I-never..." arrogant jerk, on the other hand, came in at least once a week. If my agents wanted to keep their jobs, the first thing we all needed to do was to keep our doors open in an increasingly difficult economy. I remember once attending a sales/motivational seminar being held for employees of a local bank. The bank's business had been falling off, primarily because that bank had gained a reputation in our town for grumpy service, for employees that waited on you begrudgingly, behaving as though they were doing you a favor to interrupt their very important and busy schedule to bother to wait on you, even going so far as to snap at you if you did or said something they didn't like -- as opposed to giving you that big, fake, phony "prostitute" smile and friendly insincere "personal" greeting. I had told the manager of that bank branch that I was going to move my agency account elsewhere, because I was tired of putting up with his tellers and that attitude, so he invited me to the seminar to demonstrate that things were going to change. I remember one comment in particular that the motivational speaker made: "When customers walk in, you should treat them as though they were bringing you a gift. Because they are. Your job." The tipping custom may bring that seller/buyer prostitute/john relationship into much sharper and less-subtle focus, but it's all sales. Anybody that isn't willing to gut up and shut up and put up with a difficult customer has no business dealing with the public. And it's contagious. Get one surly employee with an entitled, "I don't have to put up with you, asshole" attitude, and your entire staff is at risk of adopting it. They'll kill your business. You'll have to close your doors and then nobody will have a job. Put them back in accounting, or in the kitchen working the line. Put the politicians and prostitutes and salespeople and phony insincere glad-handers and servers willing to bust their asses no matter what for a big tip out front. They'll keep your bottom line in the black. Which is better for everybody. Don't you think? With all due respect, I have to say I don't think so. The tipping system is problematic, unless you have a boss who cares at least a little bit (don't hold your breath), and you actually get decent tips. In smaller towns, at least, this is not a given. When I first went off to university, I waited tables, really briefly. I did 'gut up and shut up and put up with a difficult customer' (several, in fact). I put up with a bum-grabber (charming, he tried for my crotch next time I passed, after which I made annoyingly time-consuming detours), a family who'd apparently had their children raised by wolves, and left a lot of praise and a religious tract as a tip, and a drunk or two. I smiled, and I smiled, and I smiled. I was accommodating and efficient, and by the end of one morning, I begged to be the bus/dish'boy', a job that paid the minimum wage. The boss kept his bottom line black by paying waitresses as little as he could legally get away with, and telling them that being groped and poorly tipped was 'part of the job if you're cute'. I don't think I'm particularly soft (I've been self employed most of my life, and spent several years doing heavily physical work for 89 hours a week), but I don't think anyone should have to put with that sort of thing, especially for sub-minimum wage and the possibility of a tip. The tipping system is just no good, apart, perhaps, from at places where a 20% tip for good service is considered 'standard' by at least half the clientele. I've spoken with plenty of people who have waited tables, and my experience is far from unique. It would make more sense for restaurants to charge a bit more up front, and pay waitstaff a living wage. They do this in plenty of countries, and it doesn't seem to be hurting business, nor have I noticed poorer service. If the only way an establishment can stay in the black is by underpaying staff and relying on the kindness of strangers to make up the difference, I don't think they really belong in business. I'm not sorry I had the experience; it makes me pay much more attention to what is going on when I dine out, and it is at least partly the reason that I'll tip 20% (or at least a dollar, if the cheque comes to under $5) if the waiter seemed to be giving the job his or her best shot.

@ azurite, thank you! More bullets on our map; Albany is definitely a stopping point for us, and the Carousel Museum sounds right up my alley (I need to look at their site; I'm hoping it is small, and really old). We'll be going north along the coast from SF. We now realize that, while we're on the road, places that don't require reservations are probably a better bet, since we don't know precisely how long this is likely to take, especially if a lot of things catch our attention along the road. @StanSherman: Thanks! The oysters are sounding particularly good, and I'll be taking a look at New Sammy's Cowboy Bistro site. We're planning to take an inland route through the national park on the way down, and go back north along the coast, so this is definitely the sort of thing we'd hope to find on our way back. We're figuring two days down, two or three days in San Francisco, two days back. Family at both endpoints, so the schedule is a bit pressed. We'll be spending a night or two somewhere along the way (we're looking at places in the park), but won't be camping. We aren't going to have much chance to linger along the way this trip, since people are expecting us on specific days at the endpoints, but this is definitely not the last trip we plan to take to these areas, so even if we can't check out everything we'd like, there will be a next time, if we have anything to say about it. Do you know whether any places near Crater Lake do a decent breakfast?

Minced/dried mushrooms, buckwheat groats, cacao? Cacao itself isn't at all sweet, very little of it adds deep colour, the flavour (this is subjective, obviously) works nicely with mushrooms and buckwheat, and buckwheat provides volume without becoming really expensive. Or you might consider teff, which is also dark, or black sesame seeds, or one of the black versions of various grains/legumes (rice, lentils), to add a dark, earthy colour to a paler base.