Panaderia Canadiense

But...aren't they? Does any other city know for either its bagels or its pizza have the same quality municipal water? Montreal, at least on the bagels end of it. I'd say that the NYC water/bagels thing is definitely a myth.

Cinnamon, with a darker background of clove, earthy tones, and just a whisper of camphor. Ishpingos are also one of the neatest-looking whole spices I've ever come across. Apart from their obvious uses in sweet applications, I'm quite fond of them as part of the spicing in adobe for beef and goat, where they neutralize "off" flavours and add an interesting dimension to the final product. Since the cinnamon bark is an important part of the recipe, I wouldn't remove it alltogether (although I will mention that most cinnamon in Ecuador does come from the bark of Ocotea quixos rather than Cinamomum officianale, and that IMHO Pastaza Cinnamon is a superior-flavoured product to Ceylon Cinnamon. There are also applications for the leaves of Ocotea, but I won't get into that here, particularly since they only seem to be available locally.) It would be worth it to try a tea made of just Cassia buds to get an idea of their flavour profile; I'd certainly do that before adding them to any recipe wholesale. What you're looking for is an earthier cinnamon flavour as described above. Sorry about that. Liophyllization is actually the main distinction down here between "instant" (non-lio, chunky granules) and "microgranularized soluble" - for a coffee-growing country, we sure do drink a lot of convenience coffee. What you're looking for is microgranularized soluble coffee - the larger-particle versions, like Nescafe, don't dissolve completely and can produce off-flavours. I'm not sure if it's exported, but SiCafe is an excellent lio coffee.

I've Fedexed carving tools (essentially, fancy knives) before with no problems.

Sort of a dyspeptic yam-ball god? LOL! I think it needs to become the mascot for this thread....

Theoretically, that should work, but start with very small amounts of molasses (and start with blackstrap when you do). What you're approximating is a whole lot darker than US dark brown. The block of panela in the center of this photo is close to what you're aiming for - the grade is actually a bit darker than that (the photo was taken outside of fig season) it should be nearly black and has a very complex aroma and flavour (partly due to the molasses, but also due to the method of production, which requires less boiling than the lighter grades. It will be difficult to replicate it with just molasses, but I think you'll come close.) Of course, if you luck out you'll find the true black grade, which may be in block form rather than ground. If you get blocks, soften them in the nuker for 30-60 seconds and then whack them with a tenderizing mallet to break them into smaller, more manageable pieces. Block panela from Colombia is generally in 500 g rounds; Ecuadorian is in 1 pound and 3 pound loaves.

Avocado for dinner here, too. Green salad with oil-packed tuna chunks, and cooled potato chunks, all topped with guacamole (and a dash of hot paprika on the potato side, for heat as much as looks). I swear that I didn't realize dinner was a happy face until I looked at the picture....

By popular request from the Brekkie thread, here's the Ecuadorian method for candying fresh figs. The end result is what's found in the fresh cheese and fig sandwich, a tasty traditional street food; candied figs and fresh cheese is also a common desert across the highlands. The best type of fig to use in this recipe is called a Breva; these are large figs that are purple when ripe and which have fairly thick walls. However, any and all figs will work provided they're not over-ripe. Weigh your figs. For purposes of argument, let's say you've got 1 kg. Weigh out an equal amount (1 kg in this example) of the darkest panela you can find (in fig season, local trapiches put out a very high-molasses panela specifically for use with figs; in North America, find the highest molasses-content raw sugar possible) Weigh out an equal amount (1 kg) of water (this is easy in metric - 1 kg = 1 litre). You'll also need 10-12 whole cloves, a nice thick curl of cinnamon bark, and a handfull of whole allspices. If you've got access to them, you can also throw in 2-3 ishpingos (the dried flower bracts of the ishpingo cinnamon tree), which will deepen and darken the flavour of the final product very nicely. Dissolve the panela in the water (you'll need a big pot for this) and bring to a boil until everything is fully dissolved. Add the spices and simmer over low heat. Just before the figs go in, stir in 1 tbsp of liophyllized coffee for every kilo of figs. While your panela syrup is dissolving, wash the figs well, and cut a cross from the stem ends to about 1/3 of the way down the fruit (you're opening the center of the fig for the syrup to get in, but not so much that the seeds get out. This is very easy to demonstrate but quite difficult to describe. What you're doing is quartering them, but only 1/3 of the way into the fruit, so that the base is still fully intact.) Once the syrup is ready, toss in the figs. Cook over low heat until the figs are completely darkened by the panela and the syrup is the consistency of heavy maple syrup or light honey. This should take the rest of the day; the figs will release water as they cook, which will thin the syrup out; this needs to be boiled down. -- At this point, you can make fig sandwiches (fresh bread, slice of fresh mild cheese, stuff in as many of the candied figs as you think it will hold), which are best with hot figs. If you've got more than you think you can eat right away, the figs can be hot-canned covered in their own syrup; they keep for at least a year that way. If you're going to eat them all within the next two weeks, they keep beautifully in a crock under their own syrup, at room temp.

I'll start a new thread on it, kay. They can be held for extended periods of time so long as they're fully covered in their syrup; my friend Clemencia hot-cans hers in order to have them even when figs are out of season.

Thin sour yogurt (the type sold here for use in smoothies; it has the consistency of thick cream. If you simmer it low enough, this doesn't curdle or separate the way that sour cream does.) It's also much easier on Mom; since she hasn't got a gallbladder, it's hard for her to process the amount of fat that sour cream or nata plus a squeeze of lime implies. It also means, of course, that I can't really call it Stroganoff. Since it's essentially a variation on what my family calls "stuff in a pan" it was christened Stroganstuff - it's close enough ideologically, if not ingredients-wise....

It was delicious, and in the end I regretted not having made more. Too bad it looked so awful!

Oatmeal with real whole milk, panela, and chopped fresh-candied figs from my neighbour (everybody but me has a fig tree, and huzzah for friendliness!)

Ask and ye shall receive.... ETA - And here's the full collection of the cards....

This was beef stroganstuff (not quite a true stroganoff - no cream); delicious, but it looks kind of like cat yukk with noodles in it.... Try as I might I couldn't get a flattering photo of it. The peas are particularly unfortunate, I think.

DOOL-say day LAY-chay, roughly.

OMG, the blob ate something that didn't agree with it! I love it - what flavour was the wrapper?

... and speaking of bananas, I came across a fairly egregious problem today. Not technically a mispronunciation or misnomer so much as terrible grammar, but all the same: No, no, no. No it doesn't. Bananas don't eat anything - they're not animals. They're fruit. They're incapable of what's being suggested. I'm sure what's intended in that sentence is "Bananas are usually eaten fresh" and it's not like adding one tiny little article and ensuring subject-verb agreement would have caused the layout an insufferable runover.... Can anybody tell me when the standards for English grammar in established publications dropped this far? Please? (edited for grammar... )

Latin Americans consider that coffee requires a rest period between roasting and drinkng to allow flavour to mature. Hence on commercial Latin American coffees, it[s common to see the rest period defined, since it's different for different beans and roasts. ETA - Ernesto yada yada Lara is the full name of the cafetero; Apaneca is the bean cultivar.

I'll get prices on the full line of standards then. I suspect that the luxury line is handcrafted in small batches, so that would be bars only (I'll verify this, of course; the Sacha bars I've eaten have been excellent, but I understand that the process used is more artesanal than that of the standard line.) If you're interested in trying some to begin with (eat before you leap, so to speak), I can ship you a bar of each. PM me. ETA - just checked my email, apparently at least the main line is also available in bar form at Whole Foods accross the US.... Good for them!

I'll start emailing around, then. I'm friends with some of the growers, so it shouldn't be too hard to make contact with somebody who knows.... The one thing is that Kallari only does dark. If memory serves, their main line is 70%, 75% and 80% and the subsidiary luxury line (Sacha) is between 70% and 85% with additional organic vanilla. Is there any particular strength you're interested in, tiki?

Also, sorry about adding to an old thread like this, but Kallari of Ecuador's full line is organic wildcrafted Arriba gran cru. I'm not sure if they wholesale (they ought to), but I can ask them if you're interested. It's probably the best organic chocolate I've ever eaten, and that's saying quite a lot.

Frozen yogurt with curry IN it? We do have yogurt on top of many meals, including Mexican instead of sour cream or crema, so why not try frozen? OTOH, on the vanilla frozen yogurt which is mostly gone now, I've eaten homemade Magic shell (with a combination of Chipotle and Ancho powder in it) and it tastes just fine... ??? Yes, frozen yogurt with (mild!) curry IN it, as the flavouring agent. What I'm thinking about is something like shrimp or chicken adobado in very hot peppers and green cardamom, then grilled, and served with a side of the curried yogurt as a cooling agent as well as a complimenting flavour. Equally, if you make a spicy curried frozen yogurt, it would go well with milder dishes, like chicken breasts sauteed in butter with onions, for example.

Darienne, think of it this way: any flavour that compliments the sourness of fresh yogurt will go well with it - hence, most fruits are ideal. However, things that don't go well with the sour note of fresh yogurt (say, chocolate, or coffee bean), will taste horrid. This said, there are nearly endless possibilites - if you're serving a very spicy dish, a cool heat-free curry frozen yogurt might be just the ticket (I've tried this myself, it's very tasty...)

Walley is delicious smoked - as any northern Albertan worth their salt will tell you. The best stuff (above even what you smoke yourself) comes from the Driftwood First Nations, who still smoke it the traditional way: in a dedicated smoking teepee over birchwood.

Considering the amount of microscopic sand particles we probably unknowingly inhale on a daily basis, I think a few pieces in the rice is going to have pretty low odds of increasing the risk by much. Not that I'm an expert on the matter. Amen to that, Tri2Cook, and especially true for those who live within the ashfall radius of active volcanoes (where the rate of silicosis is actually astoundingly low). I probably breathe more silica on a daily basis than I get from my Machica (roasted barley flour, which is done whole-grain in hot sand in a very similar method to Jenni's rice puffing detailed above.) I'm also interested to try the hot salt method - it seems that it would have interesting results

If anything, down here we're seeing a wine vinegar revolution. At my local supermarket, I have the choice of 3-4 different brands of each type, both domestic and imports, the best of what comes being Ponti, from Italy; on the other hand, there are two brands of balsamic on the shelves (one Chilean and one Italian, both of which are properly aged). I can also get herbed red and white wine vinegars, spanish brandy vinegar, and champagne vinegar. What seems to be disappearing down here is standard white vinegar for pickling. I have to buy mine from a wholesaler chemical company!