Mjx

Not certain about the US, but here a fair number of fruit juices (same brand and ingredient list)--both concentrate you add water to, and ready-to-drink--may be found in both cans and aseptic packaging. Pineapple and black-currant juice, in particular.

The eggs were just firm enough to pick up with the fingers, which is what we did. Wood, twigs and straw? Wood is just very traditional (and makes for nice warm surfaces in a climate that runs to the cold and clammy), and I'm guessing the straw and twigs are about 'being in touch with nature', or something. I can check their prices – I know they're listed on their site – but don't know offhand, because it was a birthday present, so I made a point of not looking. I do know that it's not cheap, however.

Have to agree with the consensus on the Trip Advisor reviews, although you do get better information if you look at the forum discussions (e.g. that's where you find out that the 'charming... great deal!' has no actual physical existence in this dimension).

Are those crayfish? Because those you can catch pretty much all over, the stream behind out house in Western NYS was bristling with them.

Curious, here: How do you feel, physically? Anything different? Growing up vegetarian was a problem for me, because my parents relied heavily on wheat-based products (which I don't handle well), but several of my friends mention feeling significantly better when they remove meat from their diets.

By 'blackish', do you mean that when you look into the pot-ful of liquid it looks murky, or that even if scoop up a little in a spoon it looks like that? Nothing that you put into the pot sounds like a problem, so perhaps the quantity you used just oxidized (or something similar: a lot of beans contain a fair number of sulfur compounds, if I remember correctly, and those can go black pretty easily) as it cooled, which I can't imagine being dangerous.

Have you experimented with using small amounts of avocado (about 17% fat, according to USDA stats) to give a richer mouth feel to foods? It's surprisingly neutral tasting (McGee even recommends it as an addition to sorbets, in The Curious Cook), and does the job extremely well.

The scenes around the meal in Airplane never cease to enchant me. 'I haven't felt this awful since we saw that Ronald Reagan film.' Brilliant.

I'm on board with non-alcoholic drinks for adults, but I don't see the point of calling them 'cocktails'... what's wrong with 'drink', even if they contain ingredients that are often used in cocktails?

It's sort of an acquired taste, too... for me, it has the nostalgia factor going for it. Cavolo nero is excellent in a traditional Tuscan soup that also includes borlotti (I've had in other soups and stew, and really liked in those, too). It takes a good age to cook, however, and is not something I'd recommend trying, if my sister's reports of the temperatures there are to be trusted. As far as I can remember, cavolo nero is regarded as a winter vegetable, anyway.

Coconut oil has no emulsifier; evidently the very little that is present in butter is necessary to keep it in solution.

I'm just basing this on my experience of getting sunblock in my mouth (the stuff I use on my lips when I'm on the motorcycle, to be precise), but I'm hoping this brilliantly white chocolate is intended just for show, because frankly, although it isn't horrible, titanium dioxide is not a real treat.

The first time I did this I did run into trouble with the spacing/thickness of the piped icing, and after that, made a few experiments to get a sense of the correct spacing of letters by writing out words on paper, then going over them with icing, to see whether I'd got the size/pacing right (I definitely recommend this). I also use the finest tip I've been able to get my hands on, and a proper bag, since I've had a couple of traumatic fiascos involving parchment paper unrolling/plastic bags splitting, and spewing icing over the cake. I've only used a stencil once (as afar as I can remember), for a rather tricky pattern: I used waxed/greaseproof paper, and made sure the icing surface was no longer sticky, but dry, then rested the stencil on it. I cleaned out my Badger very carefully, and used that (if you don't have an airbrush or other spray device, this probably won't work). For lettering, I don't have the patience to make a stencil (and the ones I've seen in art supply shops were on the pricey side), even if I'm just writing 'Happy birthday', so I just scratch it in, take a deep breath, and hope for the best.

For the lettering, is there any way you could use transfers, or compose a stencil? When I'm doing lettering on a cake, I usually work out the characters and spacing on a paper mock-up of the surface, then copy it onto the cake surface itself using needle (stuck into a chop stick), whose light scratches are really only visible if you're looking for them, so a small mistake seldom shows. Could you do something like that?

We don't have a combi oven, but do have the Gaggenau BO 270 oven and also the CE 490 stovetop, and the performance and reliability are top notch for both; great brand.

I wish I could say I was in, but I handle carbs and dairy poorly, which already restricts my choices most of the time. But I hope you don't mind my asking whether you'd care to elaborate on your reasons for doing this (my parents made this decision for life, over thirty years ago), or, if that's too personal, what meals you're planning for the week.

A few weeks ago, my boyfriend took me out to dinner at Malling & Schmidt (M & S), a restaurant I’ve wanted to try for several years, ever since he came home from a business dinner there with an extremely enthusiastic report. The restaurant is the joint effort of Thorsten Schmidt (Chef) and Rikke Malling, and lies a little outside the centre of Århus, the largest city in Jutland (the mainland of Denmark, bordering Germany to the south). I was particularly interested in seeing how their premise of creating 'regional Nordic food' would turn out, since my quest (ongoing since 2000) for attractive Danish cuisine has been a little disappointing, to say the least: Although many Danes have gardens that yield wonderful produce, unless it is served fresh, it tends to be boiled at length, and since the growing season is short, most of the year only imports (mysteriously second rate or worse, despite their really high prices) are available. I've eaten at some excellent restaurants, but none that focused on locally and seasonally available ingredients. I had hopes of fresh, kindly treated produce and meat, and some interesting Danish specialities and presentations (and licorice: I love licorice). The restaurant definitely lived up to expectations: From the site to the food, there was a sense of every detail having been carefully thought out. Their menu changes monthly; this was their June 2011 menu. M & S do a single seating, and we arrived at 19.00 (Danes dine early, usually at about 18.00, so this was 'late'), with the sun filtering through the leaves of the linden trees outside. The amuse-bouche are served on the small, enclosed terrace, while you look over the menu. There is a choice of three, five, or eight courses, accompanied by three, five, or eight wines. We considered this over a glass of wine and smoked paprika potato crisps in a sealed jar with smoking twigs, Something very like prosciutto, but from leg of lamb, and lightly smoked, and soft-cooked quail’s eggs in a nest of twigs: I'm not an egg person, something I got around by approaching the eggs as a completely unfamiliar food, and ended by really enjoying these; the texture of both white and yolk was almost creamy. Having decided on the five course menu, with five wines for my boyfriend, and three for me (I was taking the pictures), we happily moved indoors (it as starting to get chilly, although a few brave souls remained outside, wrapped in the blankets provided by the management). The kindly sommelier described each wine (and the beer) in earnest and enthusiastic detail. Unfortunately, what with my Danish being particularly thin in this area, and my having a very poor memory for wines (nope, didn't think to take notes, either), I am ashamed to say that I have no recollection of the names or vintages: I feel this needs to be mentioned, or my failure to discuss the wines might suggest they were best not discussed, which is not at all the case (to use technical terms: I really liked them). The first course was langoustine (Nephrops norvegicus) with green gooseberries, baby greens, including nasturtium leaves, and a langoustine reduction, and made me feel glad that my birthday is in the summer: Some extremely good rye bread – full of rye flavour, but not at all heavy or gummy – accompanied by a flavoured butter and seasoned ymer appeared between the first course and the second, a straw-inspired salad of steamed new potatoes, lovage, flakes of well-aged Svendbo cheese, and a flax-straw-smoked egg yolk. This would have been a challenge for me, since I don't normally like eggs or cheese, but I'd taken a preemptive strike at my array of ingredient prejudices by carefully absorbing a couple of glasses of wine, and actually wished there had been more of this savoury mix. The next course was roe deer with freshly ground spices, a blackcurrant reduction, and a game foam. The flavour was full, without being harshly gamey, but texture puzzled me: It was extremely soft, almost like a pâté, and the flavour did not mesh with my idea of what venison would be like if cooked sous vide. So, we asked: it was a tartare. I confess I would have been happier without the foam, which I felt diluted the fantastic blackcurrant reduction that could have easily stood on its own (in general, although I don't dislike them, I'm not enthusiastic about loose, bubbly foams). The main course was pork tenderloin, with red currant preserves, small ‘charcoal briquettes’, quenelles of pork tenderloin dusted with asparagus charcoal (used, it was explained, because it does not become bitter when it carbonizes), with demi-glace, baby greens and mustard (?) flowers. This was extremely tender without being mushy, and the demi-glace left my lips nice and sticky . Dessert was accompanied not by a wine, but a beer, which I thought was unusual and interesting, although I had some doubts as to how this was going to work out. It actually worked extremely well with the summer vegetable ice cream (asparagus was specifically mentioned, but other vegetables may have been in there, too) and foam on a bed of immature strawberries and a Bornholm licorice sauce, adding a traditional note to an untraditional ice cream flavour (licorice is an extremely popular and familiar flavour in Denmark). The layering of flavours, textures, and temperatures made this one of the most interesting dishes, despite my initial (usual) scepticism regarding vegetable ice cream: This is something I would seriously consider making. We finished with coffee, which was accompanied by chocolate ‘stones’, and a brief fictional narrative involving Vikings, delivered by the slightly blushing sommelier (by this point, it was well past ten, and the light was going, so the image isn't what it could be). This was the perfect summer dinner, including their lovely, light take on traditional dishes, and ingredients that were in one way or another, very characteristically Danish (in terms of source/role in Danish cooking). The interior too, was full of light and air, the decor managing to steer a refreshingly welcome course between minimalist and rustic. The waitstaff was friendly without hanging all over the diners, and the open kitchen was interesting and reassuring to watch. If you're in Denmark, and looking for a place that does terrific job of showcasing some of the most interesting and attractive ingredients that the country has to offer, Malling & Schmidt is definitely a place to check out: I'd go back in a heartbeat.

Have you tried amazon.co.uk or amazon.de (in which EU country are you?)? I've seen at least the basic Japanese ingredients (noodles, various sea vegetables, etc., and sometimes the array is truly impressive) in virtually every EU city of any size that I've visited, and if you're a regular, you may be able to get the shop owner to cut you a deal on bulk quantities.

Sausage making is something I've considered trying for a while, so I enjoyed seeing this step-by-step. And happy anniversary!

OXO tools are pretty good on both counts. The thick, soft rubber handles on OXO tools are quite kind to hands with a lot of mileage on them (after initially resisiting it, my parents came to love the OXO can opener I gave them), and they're (apparently) designed for ambidextrous use, so I have quite a few of them, too (my boyfriend and I are both left-handed). However, I've found that as long as tools aren't designed to be used with the right hand specifically, I have no problem using with them.

Short answer: No. Spelt is essentially a form of wheat, and behaves virtually identically to it (sifted spelt flour has a gluten content of about 12%, or at least the bag I'm looking at does; I use it more or less exclusively). None of these potential substitutes has any gluten at all, so you'd almost certainly end up with rather tragic little bullets (I've never worked with xanthan gum, although I've seen it listed as an ingredient in rice breads I've eaten, none of which I can honestly recommend, but my experiences may not represent the rule). Your best substitute would be all-purpose flour: All other things being equal (e.g. source, processing), it is no more unhealthy than white spelt flour. If you have whole spelt flour, you could try using just that, but the results are going to be on the, well, rugged side. But if your guests are as health conscious as all that, they may even like that.

ATK tested this, and the findings were that, if the oil is properly heated, this is absolutely correct (The Best Recipe 1999 p. 147). If you don't feel like frying, and don't mind the amount of time involved in alternative cooking method, why not just make them in the oven? They take about half an hour to finish at 230C/450F, a bit less time, if you toss the potatoes in a little oil before baking.

I really enjoy chilled mugicha; its slight smokiness really hits the spot. I'd add two coffee scoops (I never weighed it, and at the moment have none to weigh) to a litre of boiling water, take it off the heat, and let it steep until it's room temperature, then strain and chill.

Gold strikes me as a tiny bit pompous (particularly for someone who forgot to use spell-check ). Food preferences are so personal: I don't particularly care for meat cooked sous-vide, because the consistency inevitably reminds me of airplane-meal meat (which I eat far, far too often), which puts me off, ever so slightly, as does the fact that I always get a faint whiff of wet dog from it (I'm completely ready to accept that this may be an olfactory hallucination). I do not mention these objections when I'm dining with people who rave about the technique, however: Why rain on their parade? As a technique, it also looks like it would be really interesting to work with, and I can definitely appreciate the level of control it gives.

It's news to me that any 'real New Yorker' would compliantly swallow that sort of statement. All I could think of when I read that, was my great-grandmother's favourite dismissive retort: 'Go to hell, that's what you are!' (she came to the US in her 60s, so her English never quite achieved flawlessness).