Mjx

What with a lingering and severe cold, a dissertation to copyedit, congenital sloth, and my boyfriend's currently being away at a conference and having recently returned from Kiev with a stupendous array of chocolates (also vodka, and, I kid you not, Crimean chamapne), I've been living for the past couple of days on increasing numbers of chocolates, as the real food gave out, and I couldn't work up a head of steam to go out to shop. So, today I ploughed my way through a bunch of whiskey truffles, and feel... not entirely well. I'm not complaining, it just seemed worthy of this thread. The interesting thing is that if I eat only chocolate, I don't eat very much in total (the calorie count for the past few days has been going down, rather than up, to today's low of about 800).

Oh well, I guess it isn't any sillier than 'starve a fever, feed a cold'. I don't know if you'd consider things like advice to thrash chilblains with a holly branch until they bleed in the same category (or for that matter, recipes for corns/fading freckles/making children stop biting their nails), but I remember seeing that, and thinking that people in those days were way, way less whiny, if they actually thought that trying out that sort of advice was just another something to do on a quiet Tuesday (I know it's more painful than you'd even expect, because, even though I had no idea what chilblains were when I was a kid, I tried it. Scientific curiosity). I've seen veteranary advice in old cookbooks, too. Oh, and a recipe for hot chocolate with ambergris as an emergency restorative for the ravages of sexual excess by older gentlemen

Rubber mat? It sounds like she has some good restaurant supply connections.

Are you looking for a restaurant, a catering service, or suggestions for doing it yourselves at a hired hall?

Article in English, from Singapore News: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_singapore/view/1111182/1/.html The cause of death is apparently still unknown/undisclosed, although what I've seen in Spanish (not one of my strong lanaguages) articles seems to be suggesting a heart attack.

That's exactly the sort of thing I mean! I have a couple of friends who are well over six feet tall, and (I'm seeing this more and more, as they move deeper into their 30s/40s) often watched them sort of crouch over the stove or counter, then begin to straighten out, and have to pause to clutch the lower back, which went into spasm as they were chopping or stirring... not the sort of thing you want have happen as you're hoisting something heavy and blisteringly hot. Kitchen-surface heights seem inadequate for both ends of the height spectrum. When we installed out new stove, we decided to get a stovetop, and were able to install it at whatever height we wished (it's quite low, since I'm short, and my boyfriend isn't particularly tall). But that's the only bit of the kitchen that 'fits' me.

I don't know whether they're the best going, but I have a set of stainless steel measuring cups from Williams Sonoma, and really like them. The depth/width ratios are good, and they double as pounders/espresso tampers, etc. I'd link to them, but the WS website forbids me access, which is weird.

Apparently, EL stands for 'Esslöffel'(= 'tablespoon'), and is equal to about 15 ml (about a tablespoon measure, in fact): http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/EL, under the second grouping ('sowie eine Abkürzung für:'), second item down ('Esslöffel, in Kochrezepten als Maßeinheit angegeben, wobei 1 EL ca. 15 ml entspricht. Siehe auch: Essbesteck'). According to Lebensmittel-Lexikon, traditional seasonings for Jagdwurst are mace, cardamom, garlic, and mustard seed (left column, towards the bottom, p. 2072).

For whatever it's worth, I plugged a German recipe for Jagdwurst into babelfish: http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?doit=done&tt=url&intl=1&fr=bf-home&trurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.praxis-lexikon.de%2Fdiy%2Fdiy-bauplan%2Fj%2Fjagdwurst.php&lp=de_en&btnTrUrl=Translate Vogon poetry, more or less (fifth step: 'Everything into intestines rackings.'). If the link goes a bit odd, this is the original: http://www.praxis-lexikon.de/diy/diy-bauplan/j/jagdwurst.php. If nothing else, it does give an idea of general ingredient parameters. 'Spice blend' is a fairly opaque term, and other sources are more specific (and mention spices such as pepper, mace, and ginger), but things like 'Nitritpökelsalz' and 'Farbstabilisator' don't strike me as likely to have been used in the original iterations.

Hm... so, no one else is standing on phone books in order to ensure a decent range of elbow motion/be able to see past her hands when chopping and slicing? I'm not even that short (158 cm/5'2"), but average kitchen counters are just a bit too high (yet I've nicked my scalp by cracking my head on the corner of the exhaust hood).

I plugged both 'Jagdwurst' and 'Jägerwurst' into a German-restricted image search, and, as pretty much everyone says, these don't seem to be hard-and-fast designations, but the former appears to be a larger and more finely textured product than the latter. I had a run of German boyfriends, and I can recall getting one or the other (both?) for breakfast sometimes, which was seemed a needlessly harsh way to begin the day.

What, if anything, would you change about the geometry and layout of your kitchen, to improve its efficiency and safety? Reading the 'Kitchen injuries' thread left me thinking about home kitchen design. We routinely work with very hot, sharp, heavy, and delicate objects in our kitchens, but most seem designed with an eye to looks/industry tradition, rather than ergonomics and functionality. I'm not talking about kitchens that have been crammed in wherever they would fit, and are consequently poorly located/microscopic, I'm talking about kitchens in decent-sized spaces designated for this specific purpose. My biggest gripes are with surface heights and lighting. Cutting or lifting, or even grating, become more complicated when your elbows are raised halfway to your shoulders, or you're practically bent double over your task, as you compensate for a 'standard' surface that's too high or too low. Kitchens that have only overhead lighting are problematic (and seem fairly common), since they almost inevitably cause your upper body to cast a shadow on the task at hand: annoying at best, at worst, you're squinting about, wondering where the tip of your thumb ended up, as you try to not bleed all over dinner. In our kitchen, I'd love to rip away the blocks and panels that were used to raise the counter surface about half a foot/15 cm, and restore the original 1953 counter height (unfortunately not an option at the moment, since our flat is for sale). How about you?

I had no idea one existed! Is is any good? I was just re-reading Sayers's The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club which has this comment of Lord Peter's, which I've always found rather balanced, with regard to the appreciation of food: This kept coming to mind when I was over in the 'Moral Crusade Against Foodies' thread, and I ended up grabbing the book and re-reading it. A lot of what I read seems to mention food, but I don't know that I could describe it as truly food-related. I do have Dumas' Dictionary of Cuisine sitting on a nearby table, trying to seduce me from the load of work I'm supposed to be doing.

If a recipe looks like it's difficult, it will probably attract, me, especially if I'm missing at least one important piece of the necessary equipment. Otherwise, I tend to have a clear idea of what I want to cook and just hunt up a recipe that looks like it will deliver.

I get nervous around pointy and hot objects, so I'm fairly careful, but at any given time I'm likely to have at least one minor, cooking-related wound somewhere on my hands/forearms. A lot are related to scale issues: I'm not remarkably small, but significantly smaller than the so-called 'average', so things are bigger and higher up than they ideally should be, which affects my leverage. The open wounds are usually from pushing against something too hard (compensating for decreased leverage), then having my hand lose purchase, and slam into the counter or wall, which usually opens a knuckle. Also, the angle of my arms relative to the tallish edges of the large frying pan we have is just right for me to burn my wrist when I'm flipping something. I try to remember to grab a potholder (I made a point of hanging then on the wall between the oven and stove), but they're encumbering, so I usually chance it. I got an impressive burn over the winter holidays, when I flaked, and grabbed the handle of the cast-iron pan I'd just removed from the oven and set on the stove, forgetting to use a pot-holder. Everything ended up on the floor, which was depressing end to my crepes Suzette. No crying out, but a lot of swearing in several languages.

I feel a bit of a dunce asking this, since the answer probably should be self-evident, but I'm not getting the reason a fryer would have a non-stick coating... wouldn't it be unnecessary?

Does anyone get together with others on a regular basis to divvy up things that, if bought in bulk, are significantly more affordable than if bought in 'need of the moment' quantities, but that would involve too much cash outlay/take up more space than many people have in their homes, if just one person were to make that purchase? Now that I think of it, perhaps there's even a thread about this...

The Best Recipe has not once let me down in terms of delivering what it promised, nor has The Splendid Table (and you learn from them, which is at least as important). I also regularly turn to McGee's books, because they also teach. I actually think I favour The Curious Cook, even though its scope is far narrower than that of On Food and Cooking.

Thanks! I kind of wish I'd eaten there at least once, though, just to see what it was like, even if it had been pretty bad.

I think I've been more holding the line, rather than progressively cutting back; I spent a bunch of years scary broke, after a very comfortable early childhood, and that made me permanently cautious about any expenses I couldn't justify. The only significant change is that an even greater portion of the designated food budget goes towards ingredients and equipment, rather than prepared food (particularly, dining out). I notice the economic situation most when I'm back in NYC (in Denmark, things are fairly stable): I try to not eat more than $10/day, not so much because I can't afford it, but because I see how bad it is for so many people, and I just feel guilty spending more... several times I felt so ashamed of myself for eating a sandwich or something when I was walking past someone begging, I just handed the rest of it over.

Anyone know of a more or less comparable (with regard to quality/quantities/cost) kit that's available in the EU? Amazon's UK site offers the elBulli Texturas Mini Kit, which is a little on the pricey side for me. ThinkGeek ships internationally, but I have no idea of the quality of the set they offer (the sell baconnaise, too). I've found some EU sellers, but quality is a real concern... I'm afraid I just don't know which brands are reputable. Any thoughts/suggestions in this regard would be much appreciated.

It seems like the density of chocolate would make it very difficult to get the smokiness past the surface; would charring a little cacao and blending that in be an option?

Am I wrong, or was there an still automat in Manhattan in the 90s, not far from the Art Student's League (on the SE corner of Broadway and 55th? 56th?)?

To suggest that the term 'foodie' has nothing to do with this fairly venomus piece makes no sense (just look at the numbers, even: 'foodies' occurs 24 times in this article, compared to obsessed/obsession, which appear twice, 'gourmet', which appears 6 times, and 'gourmand', which, oddly enough, given the overall tone, doesn't appear at all). 'Foodie' clearly does have something to do with the article, or Myers wouldn't have selected that particular term to use in the title, or identified this so-called group as the target of his 'moral crusade'. And, he does say foodies suck: He specifically identifies 'foodies' as a distinct, homogeneous group – 'In values, sense of humor, even childhood experience, its members are as similar to each other as they are different from everyone else. For one thing, these people really do live to eat.' – then proceeds to embellish and elaborate on this definition with a cherry-picked set of lurid examples. Racism is rooted in a great deal more than semantics, while 'foodie' is a semantic construct: it only exists as an abstraction, of which the term itself is an intrinic part. It also seems to draw a great deal more fire than previously existing terms describing those who love food. Given my own feelings about the word 'foodie' (as I've said before, these are largely aesthetic, and very subjective; I don't expect everyone to agree with me), I can understand how someone might see red when they hear it; what confounds me is that Myers actually seems to believe that it signifies anything in particular, but I think djyee100 makes an excellent point about Myers setting up straw men. I have no intention of trying to dissuade those who like to refer to themselves as 'foodies' (even if I'm pretty vocal about how I feel about it, when the subject comes up), but I honestly believe that it's unrealistic to insist that the term doesn't contribute to the unattractive and inaccurate perceptions it evokes... caveat emptor.

Was the issue with the non-standard characters ironed out? For some people, it may be necessary to change their password.