weinoo

But sometimes I make cheese platters for my wife and me. What to do then?

Don't you hate when you open a new box of crackers and half of them are broken? I sure do. But what do you do with them? Do you put them out with the unbroken ones on a cheese platter? Or do you just guiltily stand there in the kitchen scarfing them down?

Aren't they super sodium filled?

!. Make sure you don't stick your finger in it while it's plugged in. You could buy the stuff that some use to clean coffee grinders. Though it's probably just as cheap to buy a new grinder. I use a little paint brush.

I think it was an early Marcella cookbook where I first read that she prefers water over stock to make risotto, especially seafood risotto.

I've definitely used that technique in the past. I'm sure the first place I read about it was in one of my earliest Chinese cookbooks.

I like the organic (I think it's Pacific brand) stock that Whole Foods sells. They sell it in 4 packs of 8 ounces each, so it's perfect when only a cup is needed.

I would say 4 oz. of potatoes, an ounce of cream and an ounce of butter.

I always iron with a towel on top of what I'm ironing when I'm on the road. Cheese, pizza, steak ums or guess what, rusty, mineral laden water won't ruin my clothing that way.

I bought a bunch of products from La Tienda recently, including some dry cured tuna loin. As an aside, they shipped very quickly and packed the stuff I bought perfectly with everything arriving in good condition, including jarred artichoke hearts, bags of potato chips, and the loin, which was packed with the sausage in a styrofoam box with 2 frozen gel packs. Anyone ever use it or have some tips for its use?

I skim chicken stock, if I make it on the stove top the old-fashioned way. I guess I skim veal stock too. But, I don't skim any other soups and some of them definitely look scummy at the start of the cooking process. Like, for instance, the split pea soup I have on the stove now. Do you skim?

Since it's generally a shaken drink, you could batch it all up and then just shake to order.

Beautifully ripe peaches topped with crumbled amaretti cookies (baked) and a glass of vin santo.

Flavor. Moisture.

I always try to follow a cookie or cake recipe verbatim the first time, then futz around with it. Best chocolate chip cookie I've ever made was a recipe from CI. Lots of compliments.

I gotta try to find this Wright's bacon.

Check this guy out stretching the crust: http://ny.eater.com/archives/2014/01/amateur_hour_ribalta.php Seems so simple, doesn't it?!

I'm sure - but it probably isn't available commercially. I forgot another one I really like, available here in NYC and, I believe, in other markets, and that's Schaller & Weber. Their double smoked bacon is great, and their slab bacon is one of my faves too.

Yes they did...I have the original, bought back in 1978 I believe...it's price was $5.95... A couple of friends and I had an interesting discussion about knife skills one night a few weeks ago. Two of us are culinary school graduates and one of my least favorite things to do was to tournée vegetables. Fortunately, I never had to do that in a pro setting, only in school. But it was a good skill to learn. I'd bet a big dinner that RR can't tournée a thing.

Is shoulder bacon bacon?

OK - so my next experiment is/was bread during the snow storm today. Simply following the recipe for "Rustic Italian Bread" from the recipe booklet that came with the oven. Well, not simply, because the recipe calls for proofing active dry yeast with sugar - I mean really, who the fuck does that for rustic Italian bread? Oh, it also calls for a first rise of 1 hour and a second rise of one hour, but my first rise lasted about 2.5 hours until the dough doubled - as is to be expected. I made the whole dough in my Cuisinart food processor, basically doing nothing by hand (since I still can't use one of my arms for another 4 weeks!). So it's a Cuisinart Rustic Italian bread . After the 2 rises and the proofing which takes place in the oven on the steam function set to 100°F, I reset the oven to the Bread function at 400°F, and let it rip for 35 minutes. Here's what the result looks like... You know what? It doesn't taste bad - it certainly doesn't have the crumb structure or the flavor of a slow-risen, overnight rise in the fridge. But for all-in-one-day bread - it's not bad. Some futzing with the recipe might make for a really nice loaf. Oh, I imagine that focaccia will be quite good.

I'm a big fan of Neuske's, and I also happen to like Niman Ranch's various bacons as well as Benton's. But I recently split a few pounds of Broadbent's bacon, and it doesn't move me - it's very salty (I know, I know, all bacon is salty but this stuff is over the top) and it cooks up almost too crisp for my liking. What's your favorite bacon and what brands do you avoid?

I don't peel the beets before roasting. The convection bake/steam setting seems to be the best one for browning.

An experiment with cooking beets worked out really nicely. I steam roasted them at 400°F for about 40 minutes, and they were perfectly cooked. There are a couple of steam settings on the oven. One is "steam" and another is "super steam." The "steam" setting goes up to 210°F, while the "super steam" setting allows for a much higher temperature, and that's the setting I used. I don't know if it also makes more steam, but it went through about 1/3 of the water tank in that 40 minutes.

So, I like the skin on russets, reds, Yukon golds, etc. And, because I try not to buy commercial potatoes, I believe they're (the skins and underlying flesh) quite healthy. But what about the skin on sweet potatoes? Who eats and why? Who doesn't...and why not?