Panaderia Canadiense

Absolutely I dine alone. However, when I'm going to do this, I tend to go to restaurants that feature communal tables, so I'm not really alone - I'm meeting new people! However, when I'm really dining solo at a restaurant that seats me at my own little table, it's still never lonely. I relish the moments of "me" time and I can take as long as I bloody well please over my meal without anybody pressuring me to eat up and move on.

One of my favourite banana-dulce de leche recipes is a cream pie combining the two, which was submitted to (and subsequently published in) my magazine. It's absolutely decadent.

OK, on behalf of my own reposteria I'd welcome a review in the local paper; I'm already discussed by locals (many of whom won't give out my contact info or location, as my bakery is considered super-exclusive. This irks me a bit, because the more business the better! I'm only exclusive at the moment because I don't have as many clients as I'd like to. ) Personally, I'd want locals reviewing me before I'd ever let a so-called "professional" from the capital in, although I'm quite confident in the quality of my offerings. However, what I sell isn't available anywhere else in the country so perhaps a big-city critic would be a good idea.... I'm also comfortable writing reviews of other bakeries and food establishments, as I try very hard to be objective about the experiences I have (who knows if I make it or not), and generally unless I get food poisoning the reviews I write tend to be neutral to positive. I'm also completely aware that in Ecuador at least, a bad review won't kill a reposteria. People here are quite sensitive to the fact that reviews are personal opinions, and in fact a bad one can increase business as people flock to the establishment in question find out whether the critic had his head up his butt or not. In most cases, the declaration is that the critic was being nasty for nastiness' sake.

Third'd the damp mop or sponge. *sigh* I wish I had wood floors in the kitchen, but sadly although the rest of the house has lovely cinnamonwood parquet which is very easy on the feet, my kitchen is tiled.

Hmmm. Very odd - I'm always able to burn milk or caramelize it in batches of 1L or less; it takes about an hour, and I stir maybe twice if I'm burning it. I don't have a dedicated milk pot, just a nice stainless steel one that's fairly easy to clean up afterwards. Maybe try adding a pinch of baking soda before you start the burn - that acts as a catalyst for the caramelization reaction.

Pep, when burning milk it's best to stir as little as possible, or to burn in small volume batches and blend these together at the end of the process. Personally, I'd never try with more than 1L of milk at a time, simply because larger volumes take forever to achieve that nice caramelized flavour.

If you can find a pouncing wheel (used by scenic artists and some painters), this is a very handy tool for making regular indentations in dough. It looks like a seamstress' pattern transfer wheel, with teeth that are spaced further apart. If you can find the pouncing tool made for scenic artists, it's got nice big teeth on it and works perfectly. And now my scenic art prof is spinning in his grave....

This is going to sound odd, seeing as how I'm such a large proponent of DIY ice cream, but I actually really like Pinguino Sánduche. They're really vanilla ice cream between really chocolate cookies that are just the right kind of soft. They've recently come out with a dark chocolate sandwich with vanilla cookies which is also a winner, although their mixed-flavour sandwiches leave something to be desired (strawberry-dulce de leche on vanilla cookies, however, is not so bad). I'm usually far too busy to make my own ice cream sandwich style cookies, but I am fond of using black molasses gingersnaps with bourbon vanilla when I have both at hand. ETA - Darienne, you don't need a mold to make the "holes" - you can use a thin-gauge bamboo skewer and just poke the dough before you bake it. That way you can even write messages on the cookies...

Huh. I went back and measured all of the cabinets, and while they all appear to be the same distance off the countertop, I've only got one bank at 31" - the remainder are at 24". I wonder why I never noticed that before? So, one block of hanging cabinets, which are double-faced and are hung above the breakfast countertop, have 31" of clearance, and the ones on the walls have only 24" but still leave enough room for me to hang all manner of kitchen gubbins from the walls underneath, and my Kitchenaid mixer (a 45-SS, which always makes me think of the old super-stock Dodge I used to have - so much so that I'm tempted to paint racing stripes on it) has enough clearance that I can have it under the cupboards and actually tilt it up should I so wish.

For fresh breads that have recently exited the oven, I tear them. After that, thick slices for honey whole wheat, and for black breads, slices so thin that you can see light through them; ideally 1/8" or less.

Try it - powdered milk has more concentrated sugars in it than fresh/liquid milk, so you'd probably get a fairly intense caramelization by dry-toasting it. Then you might even be able to skip the step of "baking" the milk in the crockpot - if it works the way I think it will, you'll end up with instant baked milk.

OK, I just measured. My countertops are 31" from the bottom of my high cabinets. It might be due to the way kitchens are designed here - everybody's except mine has a little step-stool for accessing the wall cabinets. ETA - The wall underneath the hanging cabinets has all manner of hooks and whatnot on it for storing kitchen tools and pots and pans and whatnots; I keep my whisks on the wall, as well as my bageling implements, my knives (on a mag-strip), and all of the spatulas (spatulae? spatuli?) that have holes in them for hanging. The wall closest to the sink has strainers and colanders on it.

Wall cabinets are the hanging cupboards; floor cabinets support your countertop. Fat Guy's looking for the distance from your countertop to the bottom of the hanging cupboards. The distance between mine is about 36" - I'm too lazy to measure at the moment. I find my counters to be abysmally low, but the house I live in was built with standard-sized Ecuadorians in mind. I'm a giant here at 6' tall.

What was your family food culture when you were growing up? A huge mix of everything, from British, Scots, and Canadian to Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Thai, Viet, Lao, Tibetan, Nepali, Japanese. Rarely were these ever preserved purely, though - we tended to mix it up and there was a lot of fusion at the table. Was meal time important? Absolutely! Dinner, in particular, was a sit down around the table, eat, and discuss the day kind of affair, usually with friends over (in fact, I don't recall many dinners when we didn't have company of some sort.) Was cooking important? Hugely. We were too poor to go out, but we grew a lot of our own food and cooking it well was emphasized. What were the penalties for putting elbows on the table? None at home; Grandma would whack offenders with her soup spoon, though. Who cooked in the family? Everybody, including me as soon as I was able to use the stove safely. Were restaurant meals common, or for special occassions? Strictly special occasions, and always with friends. Did children have a "kiddy table" when guests were over? God no. Children were considered equal to adults at our table. When did you get that first sip of wine? I think I was 5 or 6; my uncle, who is a vintner, came by with some different bottles he'd found at the back of his cellar. I loved it, particularly one red that nobody could figure out (we narrowed it down to a Malbec blend around my 15th birthday, after extensive comparisons with his other wines of that vintage.) Was there a pre-meal prayer? Always; silent and personal except on special occasions, where we tended to just go around the table and say what we were all thankful for. Was there a rotating menu (e.g., meatloaf every Thursday)? Nope. What ended up on the plate was a function of what was in the fridge and what sounded tasty. Fridays were often homemade pizzas, but it wasn't a hard and fast rule. How much of your family culture is being replicated in your present-day family life? Almost all of it. I still live with my folks! The only major change is the amount of fresh veggies available in the fridge (more than it was when I grew up - but hey, I'm from northern Canada!) and that we've integrated Ecuadorian and pan-Andean influences into the fusions.

Roast chicken, yes? Here, regardless of the size of the restaurant, they're made in a commercial rotisserie chamber and cooked until they're truly done. The turnover at roast chicken places is so high that there's never the question of how to hold the birds - they sell out almost the moment they're fully cooked, both as whole chickens and cut in half. I'll try to get a picture of the process later - there's a roaster on the corner of the main square in most towns.

I'm headed downhill later today (I'll be descending to 2,000 feet), and for foraging that means a couple of things (well, one big thing, actually): wild pineapples! I hope nobody's discovered the patch I raided last year, because they were some of the very best I'd ever eaten. If I'm very lucky, there will also be giant passionfruits, mountain grapes, and the vanilla-scented orchids (Sobralia, not true Vanilla) I like to use in ice-cream. In all cases, there will definitely be Pelma (edible-rooted Xanthosoma) and small greens of SiguemeSigueme (Caladiums).

KA, that's taking Molecular Gastronomy to a whole new level! Do you require your guests to use the glove hood, or are they allowed physical contact with the oh-so-dangerous contents of their (petri) dishes?

On a long tasting menu, I say it once before the start of the meal.

My next two flavours will be candied ginger with clove, and cinnamon with a dulce de leche ribbon and praline chunks.

Higest possible rez, downsampling for posting. That way the photo can be used in print media if it turns out, and you've got a lot more flexibility and whatnot while editing as well (fewer digital artifacts, etc.)

I have a savoury scones recipe for sharp cheddar with raisins (which could easily be turned into sharp cheddar with herbs), and I'd also suggest quick breads like baking powder biscuits, focaccia, and herb cornmuffins. --- Here are the scones: 2.75 C flour (you can sub up to 1 C of this in specialty flour) 2.75 TSP baking powder 1/2 C butter 1 TSP salt 3 eggs 1 C sour yogurt 0.5 C shredded cheddar cheese 0.5 C raisins (or just sub in your herbs here. Rosemary is nice with cheddar) Mix the flour, salt, and soda (and herbs, if you're using 'em). Beat the eggs into the yogurt. Add to dry, mix until just blended. Fold in cheese. I like to form these in fluted silicone muffin molds, but what you do with the batter is up to you. These are best when the batter has been handled the absolute least amount possible. ETA - whoops. 20 minutes at 350 or until a pick inserted comes out done.

I have a nice deep stainless steel saucepan that I use for small-batch deep frying; I use it with a spatter screen (love those!) and it works wonderfully. I clean my screen by scrubbing it gently with a brush and a bit of soap then rinsing really well. Very easy.

I eat them by themselves, but I've also had people rave about them when included in stuffings and sauces as a condiment (they're generally just finely chopped), and when they come out perfectly I also use them as a garnish. I have a friend who purees them and uses them as salsa.

I have a standard prayer - I give thanks to my teachers, the Buddha, my friends and family, and the cook who so generously made the food for me to eat (who normally falls under "teacher, friend, or family".)

I should point out that I was being as inobtrusive as possible, and that my personal beliefs are just that - personal. My choice to bless my food regardless of where I am is a personal choice that has to do with how I feel about food and prayer, and has nothing to do with a "holier than thou" attitude. I have no idea where I am with God, and I'm not saying grace to try and improve my chances in whatever comes after this life. The food just tastes better after I say the grace, and I'm sure it's psychosomatic. It doesn't stop me, though. ETI - I'm also not blessing your food when I'm blessing mine. That would be incredibly presumptuous of me.