Panaderia Canadiense

I'll weigh in as another Canadian of Scots extraction. This is reprehensible, as you're leaving the store with something that they can't really sell. It's akin to going into a bakery and popping just the crowns off the muffins and leaving the stumps behind. Also, what do you have against Shiitake stems?

I'll bite, since I started the topic, and also since I grow Canna, Heliconia, Ginger, and Bananas for leaves to use in cooking. These are strictly outer wrapper leaves and aren't meant to be eaten, but they do impart a lovely flavour to the food. Ecuador's traditional in-leaf/on-leaf dishes include: Humitas (Corn husks), Tamales (Banana leaves), and Quimbolitos (Canna leaves), all of which are breads; Maito (Heliconia leaves) and Ayampaco (Ginger leaves), both of which are fish dishes but can also be made with game meats; a version of Cochinita Pibil (Banana leaves), and a type of shrimp dumpling wrapped in ginger or Canna. In the Chinese sectors of the larger cities, you can also get sticky rice wrapped in banana or ginger leaves, and on the coast the African uses for banana leaves surface. I make most of these things in my own kitchen (apart from the Cochinita, as I don't like pork), as well as using chard, cabbage, and grape leaves for stuffed rolls.

Add another vote to the "why bother with a rice cooker" camp - I eat rice fairly often, but I never have any problems with sticking in my stainless steel pots.... I have a small rice cooker, but it rarely comes out of the cupboard!

OK, colour me curious. I have a large number of recipes that call for me to cook things in various types of leaves - Canna, Banana, Fig, Grape, Cabbage, etc. I'm curious about you chefs up in North America and Europe - beyond the standard cabbage rolls and dolmades, what do you use large leaves for in the kitchen?

I'd look at your leavening before playing with the egg or flour amounts. Sometimes 1/8 tsp (about 0.1 oz) more baking powder or about 0.05 oz soda with the same amount of cream of tartar, will solve the problem without introducing any undue flavours to the dough.

I'm failing to see how advertising - visual samples offered in the hope that you'll buy a product - is any different from a sample cart (physical samples in the hope that you'll buy a product) in this case. Is it wrong, then, to take multiple copies of flyers? The two products are used for the same end. Besides which, given that Chris is reusing the bags in a context where the advertising will likely be seen again (lunches, etc) he is not failing to meet the needs of the companies who are advertising on them....

I keep Bananas Quarterly for the international recipes at the back. Beyond that, nope.

I'd say that this is definitely a grey area.... Then again, my supermarket doesn't supply bags (you have to bring your own) and produce vendors are remarkably stingy with their bags. This boils down to I buy mine - and even in small quantities they're not expensive things (less than 1 cent each). In Chris' case, where the supermarket gets the bags for free, I see no reason that he shouldn't take them. They're offered, after all - it's like returning to the free samples cart, except that in this case he's sampling the plastic and not the produce.

Glad you mentioned this! I'd be lost without our spice purveyor too. A few neighborhoods away from me, but the only place I'll buy herbs and spices. And can you imagine food without good spices!? I can't. I also can't imagine trying to make oatmeal-walnut cookies without walnuts or cinnamon, or apple cake without ginger and nutmeg and macadamia nuts. Spice Bazaar is downtown from me - about 15 minutes by bus - but it's well worth the trek. She's the only store here that sells sunflower seeds!

Spice Bazaar, where I purchase all of my herbs, spices, and nuts. Elsa, the proprietor, is incredibly knowledgable, funny, and often suggests things to me that I didn't even know she carries (like dried strawberries!) If she ever goes out of business, I'll probably sit down and weep for a while - it took a very long time to find her and both she and her shop have become completely indispensable.

It's a touch on the oily side, yes, but the flavour is superior.... I am very fond of yellowfin tuna steaks prepared in Maito, which is a local delicacy here. You'd need some banana or large canna leaves (but you're in California, so that shouldn't be so hard to source.) If the fish was frozen in steaks, you'll have no problem preparing it once it's thawed - it will behave more or less equally to fresh. Start by washing the banana leaves in hot water, then break the spine of the leaf at about halfway by hitting it with the handle of your knife. Meanwhile, roll your fish in fresh chopped herbs and spices. I like powdered aji pepper, rosemary, and lots of dill, with a dash of garlic powder for good measure. Lay the fish (one steak to a leaf) onto the leaves. Surround them with chopped palm hearts, baby potatoes, and diced green onions. Wrap the banana leaves - start by folding the edges towards the center, then fold in half using the crease you made in the spine. Tie the ends with a bit of twine. These can be grilled (keep water handy for sprinkling so that you don't burn through the leaves) or steamed - I think they're better on the grill. Depending on the size of the chunk of fish, they're done after 45 minutes or so (large chunks of fish will take longer, naturally). Be cautious when opening the packets, though - Maito effectively steams/poaches the fish in its own juices, and escaping steam has burned me in the past....

It might be more the fact that there is yet to be a good wine in a tetra brick (at least, I haven't had any). Tetra wines are great for cooking where you only really need a winelike flavour, but it's never something to be served as drinkable.

It's to remove the surface alcohol after the bean has been soaked in spirits. Alcohol messes with the texture of chocolate, especially in barks, but if the beans are surface-dry they won't cause a problem and they'll be less crumbly. Otherwise I wouldn't advocate re-roasting, unless of course you want a darker flavour than the beans already provide (medium vs. dark roasts).

If you want to avoid the crumbling issue, you can also soak coffee beans (especially "middling" ones) in spirits overnight, then dry them a little bit by draining them and roasting another 2-3 minutes in a hot pan over medium heat. This gives you a nice liqueur flavour in the final bean, and it's a bit less crumbly than a straight roasted bean. The spirits you use for this also come out a bit coffeed, which makes them excellent apertifs.

Huh, my deli uses brown paper and nice restickable labels. It's about the only thing they do really well, packaging wise. I have a gripe with the leaky plastic tubs with ill-fitting lids that the use for olives and the like....

Active dry yeast in 1 lb non-resealable foil packets. If you don't use a nice sharp pair of scissors to open them, hey presto! Your counter is well leavened, as well as anything else that might be nearby, including your drink. Sometimes this happens even if you do use a nice sharp pair of scissors they'll escape, since the foil is that same stuff Darienne complains about that's used in chip bags. I end up putting mine in a brown glass jar, but honestly - if they can put those nice functional zip strip thingies on bags of frozen shrimp, surely they can put them on the yeast packs!

Ginger Snaps. Boy howdy, the recipe made a lot of them!

I absolutely keep "emergency" UHT milk in the cupboard - although the emergency is often something like "OMG it's Sunday and everything's closed and I've run out!" It's never going to be the same as the fresh milk I buy from the farmer, though.

For me, 'tis the season to pick Fuchsia berries. The big tree-Fuchsias have finished their current bloom flush, which means there are tons of berries ripe for the picking. Same goes for the Joyapas (relatives of blueberries), which are extremely tasty. If I'm feeling more adventurous, I'll try climbing the Mountain Coconuts after some nuts, and if I can time it right (so that the park maintenance people don't see me go up the tree - they worry about me falling) I can get Medjool dates in the city's central square.

In the Andean alfajor, Ecuador is the manjar sandwiched between Colombia and Peru. We're right on the equator. I can also keep my eyes open for good bilingual cookbooks for Ecuadorian cuisine. I know there has to be at least one out there....

Have you looked at Silikomart's selection of clip-together silicone chocolate molds? There might be something for you there....

I do indeed have a large copper kettle and a larger clay pot (for the ice) for ice cream making - any other way (and I've tried it) doesn't taste quite right. I received my recipes for ice cream from a very kind ice cream maker in the jungle town of Puyo, who also taught me the proper technique for spinning the bowl and using the wooden scraper to get a very fine texture. Helado de Paila is an artform that was invented in the highland Ecuadorian city of Ibarra about 150 years ago, but very little has been written about it - basically to learn how you have to ask somebody who knows to teach you. I don't have an Ecuadorian cookbook actually. I have neighbours! So the recipes do come to me in Spanish, and I jot them down. I'm slowly and steadily accumulating a nice collection. My favourites in terms of dessert at the moment are Alfajores (actually a Chilean thing - they're manjar sandwich cookies rolled in coconut), Dulce de Coco (a coastal chewy coconut and molasses bar), and Tres Leches (literally Three Milks - a moist cake pudding thing that kind of defies description). -- For those of you out there: Manjar de Leche is a reduced milk sweet similar to caramel; helado de paila is ice cream made in a copper kettle.

Apple-ginger cake with manjar de leche icing, and a nice lump of vanilla helado de paila.

Thayes, do you toast your own malt? If you do, panela or piloncillo in the toasting process makes a lovely variation on caramel and black malts.

Rounded on the end, but not a pestle (although I do use my large marble pestle for larger tarts). It's basically just a rounded glass rod, fairly thick, that fits perfectly into my mini-tart pan.