Mjx

What if you ditch all the old stuff, and keep only have a small quantity of [a] good quality tea on hand? That's what I do with all things alcoholic, since I really don't care much about booze, but realize that I really do need to have a basic grasp of the stuff.

Fresh as a daisy (I'm fussy about the date stamp), and cake yeast is the readily available form, around these parts. I've experimented fairly extensively, and do crumble the yeast very finely; a fairly high temperature is simply what works best for this particular yeast. Agreed, although I prefer to not spend half an hour keeping an eye on a bowl of cloudy water, waiting for something to happen My point? Experiment: it is the best way to get to know your ingredients, and this goes for the failures, as well as the successes.

Well, as it says on that page: 'Pacemakers: Today's pacemakers are now designed to be shielded against electrical interference. Consult with your physician if you have concerns'. I guess if you have an older pacemaker (no idea how much older, however), there might be issues. It seems probable that anyone with a pacemaker would know whether or not their pacemaker was new enough to not be troubled by the electrical interference generated by various appliances (?).

Not certain what sort of yeast you use, but the cakes of yeast I normally buy respond best to fluids that are well over human body temperature: As soon as the fluid has cooled to the point that can keep a finger in it for several seconds, in goes the yeast (I always proof, since dead yeast is a depressing discovery to make an hour into the bread-making process). At about blood temp, there's no sign of any activity for a good half hour. I'd experiment with this a bit.

According to the FDA page on this topic, microwave ovens sold in the US must meet stringent microwave emissions limits, and must cease emitting microwaves when the door is opened. Unless a microwave oven's door is damaged, it shouldn't present any risks (I imagine that damage to other parts of the housing might present similar risks, although that isn't mentioned).

Really enjoyed the blog, Pam, thanks for doing this even though you had so many other demands hitting you from all sides!

I don't love magnetic strips for holding knives: if the knives are not placed on the strip quite carefully, you can really mess up the edge (this tends to be a particular problem if a guest is using a knife, and isn't familiar with the extent of the pull... next thing you know, you have quite a bash in the edge). Doesn't everyone? I certainly do. Just what I was thinking!

Hm. It'll be at least a year, probably longer, before I actually have Modernist Cuisine, but a packet of citric acid gives a remarkably big bang for the couple of bucks it costs, from the standpoint of experimenting in that direction. I have a hunch that, properly sourced, this holds true for many of the less-common/traditional ingredients mentioned.

I installed the beginnings of a hanging system like Mitch's, but bailed on it, when I realized that an excellent exhaust fan--which we don't happen to have--is necessary to keep the exposed tools free of a film of fat (and the dust that sticks to it). Definitely something to keep in mind when considering anything of this sort.

Beat me to the punch, David. Fine Fare is the only grocery store within 1/2 a mile...the other store farther east on Grand St. is a...Fine Fare. Ah... thanks. Where I stay in NYC, when I go back there these days, there's Landau's (which has a far more extensive selection than I'd anticipated), and a Shoprite (which is the size of a hangar, so perhaps a bit beyond the concept of 'grocery store').

What?! Openly? How? Please explain.

But it would never survive the trip! Besides, although I don't know about Norwegian supermarkets, those in Denmark (e.g. Fakta, Superbest, Føtex) have their dairy shelves fairly bristling with various Philadelphia cream cheese products (at least in the major towns)... if it can't be found in Norway, it would be easier to just take the ferry over to DK.

Going by the image you you posted, I have to agree with you, and the rounded corners also work against tile inlay being a good solution (unless you really enjoy solving this sort of challenge).

If there's been a change to the actual texture of the wood itself, that's tricky to fix, unless the top is made of smallish pieces, which can be taken out and replaced entirely; getting this done properly would probably cost a bundle, unless you have a friend or family member who does this sort of thing. You might want to consider eventually inlaying some tiles in the scarred area, which would also have the advantage of being usable for setting pots and pans on the table, on occasions when you don't plate.

It seems as though the fewer connections need to be maintained, the less confusing things will become over numerous generations of changes, so keeping these separate, and your suggestion of just putting tables/lists in the topics would be simplest.

I never worked on a glass stove top until about eight years ago, so don't know about a change, but here, now, they are the norm, and I've worked on ones of every quality, from cheapo Gorenjes, to the Gagganau that seduced my boyfriend into getting itself installed in our kitchen (and it is a terrific stovetop, so I'm not complaining), and surface damage due to spills and and vulnerability to scratching don't seem to be major issues. I've found salt and misused cleaners to be the biggest offenders in terms of scratches (I may be mistaken, but this seems to be mostly cosmetic). I seldom slide pots far over the stovetop (this wasn't something I could do on other sorts of ranges, either), but if a pot slides a bit-off-centre on a burner, I do push it back. Although I don't make myself crazy worrying about it, I do direct my aim carefully when adding salt to water for pasta and the like, and add from lower down than I might on another sort of range, so none scatters outside the pot. When cleaning, it's a good idea to use a blade scraper to first remove major patches of muck, and removing all the cleaner is important too, or the surface can start to look hazy over time (sort of the way glasses sometimes do, when they've passed through a dishwasher many, many times) I've spilled every sort of crap on stove glass stove tops, and even had stuff ooze between the cooking pot and the stovetop, generating billows of smoke, but it wiped or scraped away, leaving not a trace behind (and I have to admit that I've sometimes left our stovetop in a fairly grotty state for several days, with patches of residues of all sorts sitting there, waiting for me to get to them). I would like to have a gas burner for one or two things, but apart form that, I'm extremely happy with the our electric range (I should mention that the single control knob is magnetic, and can be lifted off, leaving a 100% unobstructed surface, when I clean).

I'd be inclined to slice it across the grain (because it is rather fibrous) and perhaps dry it, to either eat as a snack, or perhaps see whether it makes for a nice infusion, perhaps in conjunction with ginger. To be honest, though, I've always treated pineapple as something intrinsically two-textured (a bit like a carrot), and have never cored (even though I'm incredibly finicky about the way I peal it); I just slice it across, and cut each slice radially, so each piece has a little bit of core.

In the shell; the things keep forever. The bowl is not that tall, by the way, maybe 7 or 8 inches. We also sometimes use a large dish with a bunch of votive candles in small glass holders (they're easy to dust, and you can fire them up for a dinner party). Again, nice low profile, pleasant to look at, not too intrusive.

I use a large bowl filled with nuts for a similar purpose to the one you describe. The bowl is a broad, relatively shallow one by Pillivuyt (the classic footed one, 13"), and the nuts are about as low-maintenance as you can get.

The published record is somewhat different from that, IndyRob. I became curious about this topic after recently encountering differing perceptions about the phrase "French-fried" on eG. I've been checking hardcore printed modern and historical sources (no idea to what extent their upshots surface online -- in some cases very little certainly, because of active copyright covering the past 75 years or so -- with information like this, my experience is that sometimes you do get what you pay for). Certain landmark food books reveal the practice and thinking of the cultures they came from. (Incidentally if anyone reading this is doing related serious research, you are welcome to PM or email me to discuss.) This inquiry (as food history research often does!) led to surprising side information that I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere. I'll add upshots to WikiGullet soon and post at least a link here. This might become an example (I'm sure others exist) of useful reference information that's online exclusively on WikiGullet. But in a nutshell, on the terminology, the phrase "French-fried" and variants have been used by major US, British, and French cookbook writers; it was extensively current in mainstream US sources for most of the 20th century; it's one among alternative phrases, never used exclusively in the US (I mentioned that in post #26 upthread); and it seems to've been particularly common in the US, other cultures having their own preferred folk idioms. (Pommes frites is especially international: its European use is not limited to le monde francophone, and it also appears in print as one of the British alternative idioms.) Cooking potatoes this way in the US emerges as one example of a broader historical shift, which one brilliant food historian documented. US popular taste and food writing, after following English traditions closely during the colonial centuries, shifted visibly away from English and toward French cooking starting around 1800. What's remains unclear to me, however, is whether you are saying that 'french fry' is being used as a verb, or as an adjective. The adjective, I've come across plenty, the verb, honestly, no: Are you actually finding this in extensive use as a verb, at any point in time?

This is my thinking as well. Also, adding gums and stabilizers means that producers can use the minimum fat for the labeling requirements. But surely, trebling shelf life isn't that related to the distance that dairy is transported..? As far as I can remember offhand, most dairy products in the US come from regional divisions of large industrial concerns, and don't travel that far (I'm basing this on my experience in NYS; I should ask my sister in law, whose parents were dairy farmers in Oregon). Sounds like there must be a pretty solid tangle of regulations involved in this, including what counts as 'cream'.

The probability that the the presence or absence of additives is most likely a national, rather then industry-related issue gets some support from the fact that a brief online search indicates that, actually in Denmark there is one massive dairy (Arla), and a number of smaller producers; the unadulterated stuff sitting in our refrigerator comes from Karolines Køkken, part of the Arla group.

I'm curious: Are the licorice sticks you refer to the pieces of dried root you can find in some shops, or the candy?

Exactly! I like to be able to retain some control over what is in the ingredients I buy. This can't be the whole story though, because I doubt there's a country left whose dairy industry isn't primarily industrialized. In Denmark, for example, there are just two or three huge, ultramodern dairies, and I don't even know whether there are any small independent ones left, but finding plain heavy cream isn't a problem. Many electric mixers turn unadulterated cream into butter if you over-whip it by even a few seconds, so perhaps in places where additives are the norm, this arose because of consumer complaints about that.

I have the same problem: Can't afford it, so I'm biding my time until further editions come along, and the price drops a bit. The chemistry and physics grab me a bit more than the gadgets.