SethG

I'll make savarin today, I think. But I'm going to skip the pear eau de vie-- I may use a little brandy or cognac instead. I'd appreciate anyone else's thoughts on the wisdom of such a substitution. Anyone else?

Agreed. Savarin might be good-- berries are in season. I'll look at the book tonight.

Yeah, but. But. How's their opera house? I bet their ballet stinks! So there.

I finally made something from Bittersweet tonight-- the Queen of Sheba cake/torte, which I served with plain whipped cream and vanilla ice cream. I made it with Scharffen Berger (70%). I thought it was fantastic, and very easy to put together. I managed to get it into the oven in about a half hour after work. The almonds really do keep their identity in the cake so I agree it is important to pulverize them pretty well. I didn't leave any big chunks and I could still detect the almonds as a seperate taste/texture-- which is good, but I wouldn't have wanted them any bigger. I'd love to hear other recommendations from the book.

I was bummed out about this as well today, although the cheapest of the lot (at $3.00 per pound) were amazing tomatoes. Huge yellow specimens with streaks of red and green. I added some chunks to a sauteed red pepper/onion puree for a bruchetta appetizer tonight. Heaven.

I'd be game for doing something from the book, whenever.

Beans, you're not in Brooklyn, are you? I think you're elsewhere. But in Brookyln, they were in the brand new store, in the same area as the baking stuff, I think. I like the wide mouth jars (official eGullet credit link) myself. They're easier to load and aren't quite so frilly/sissy as the Elite jars. My manhood is questioned enough as it is, what with the jam-making and all. And the fact that I recently read Like Water For Chocolate. So I like to keep my jam jars functional and masculine. But I ran out of the wide mouth jars and I happened to see the Elites at Target so I bought some.

Have you tried Target, Heather? Here in Brooklyn (hardly a canning mecca, I reckon), they sell the half-pint Ball "Collection Elite" jars (with the decorative plaid dome lids/rings).

I made the peach saffron this weekend, and it uses the 221 degree thing. I think it worked well, if anything it provided a set that's more than firm enough. (I actually think I did boil a little too long with my litchi/raspberry. It was perfectly set at room temp and a little more set than I'd like after being opened and refrigerated. Did I mention that I'm still new to this jam stuff?) I think I wasted some saffron in the making of my peach jam. Saffron mostly provides color, and I thought the yellow peaches were better than the white ones this week, so I went with yellow. I contemplated just dropping the saffron, but then I thought it might still add something. But in the end, I think it didn't alter either the color or the flavor very much. Still a tasty jam, lovely to behold. AND I made the fig/pear jam. I used black mission figs and it is really great. This one set in just about the recommended time.

I wasn't suggesting that I found a special bargain. I'm excited that they've become so much more reasonably priced. They were $4.00/4.50 a pound two weeks ago.

The array of tomatoes available at the Brooklyn GAP greenmarket today was stunning. I bought three different types of heirlooms, some yellow cherry tomatoes, and some red golf ball-sized ones. The heirlooms keep coming down in price; the ones I bought today were $2.50 a pound (not bad, right?). And I almost bought a whole barrel of tomato rejects for $20. If the owner had come down to $15, I would've bought it, and done a bunch of preserving. I also bought serrano peppers and squash blossoms (finally available in Brooklyn!).

Oh, I didn't notice the picture! I've returned the book to the library (under duress), so I can't take a look for myself until I buy it. I xeroxed a few of the recipes I thought I might try soon. One of the problems (well, not really) with this eGullet thing is that lots of people get the same ideas! I barely got my fingers on the Ferber book before someone else placed a hold on it with the NY Public Library.

I can't think of a clever '80s title to put in a sentence (and looking at that list is cheating!). But no food says 1980s to me more than sun-dried tomatoes. And goat cheese. It's All Coming Back To Me.... oops, that was from the '90s. C'est La Vie! (Finally thought of one!)

Trillium, a late answer to your question: bacteria could come from your ladle, funnel, the towel you use to wipe the rim of the jars, or most likely your hands. I'm sure you're right about the extra bath being overkill-- but I keep doing it anyway, I can't help myself. Last night/this morning I made Ferber's Litchi/Raspberry/Rose Water jam. The sample I tasted was certainly delicious. But I gotta say I think her boiling times are often understated. I'm still very inexperienced in judging the "set" of my jellies/jams. But when I made the green apple jelly I boiled my apple juices longer than she recommended and still think the jelly looks a bit loose in the sealed jars on my shelf. A batch I put in the fridge is set up better but still I think it could be firmer. It's too soon to say regarding the raspberry/litchi, but I boiled it at least five to ten minutes longer than she recommended before I thought it would set up right. And I think she neglects to mention that the litchis should be roughly chopped. She just says to pit them, but I don't think she really wants whole or half litchis floating in your jam. I fished them all out after I realized they weren't going to fall apart after cooking. I then chopped them roughly and tossed them back in. Other than that, I'm very excited about this jam! I'm going to try to make the peach/saffron jam tomorrow.

Maybe you got some that was past its prime.

I've recently been seduced by The Vermont Butter and Cheese Company. They have a web site through which they sell only cheese (which I haven't tried), but their sensational butter is sold in the New York area by FreshDirect. I have been told that it is also sold at Fairway and perhaps some other gourmet markets but I haven't seen this myself. The butter is very lightly salted. On the wrapper the company says it is appropriate for recipes calling for either salted or unsalted butter, but I might hesitate before using it in baking because of the salt.

I think I did see the movie, but my only recollection of it is that I thought it wasn't as sexy or as fun as another food movie called Tampopo. Now that I've unlocked the dark subtext of the novel, however, I think other movies are closer analogues. Movies like Angel Heart and Mulholland Drive. By the way, I just took a look at the reader forums over at the NY Times web site. I was thinking about posting my theory over there, just to see what would happen. But the reader forums are really a bust-- most of the postings are inquiries from readers who didn't get the inserts in their daily delivered papers. The postings that do discuss the books are borderline illiterate. One posting, about the great Gatsby, refers to protagonist Nick's "disalusionment" and "cokneyed romanticism."

I finished the book today while I was sitting in a courtroom, waiting for a case to be called. There are definitely many other recipes that look to be worth a try. In addition to the chorizo, I may make the oxtail soup, the Champandongo (a layered casserole containing beef, pork, cheese, and mole), the cream fritters, the beans with chiles, and the chiles in walnut sauce. I will post here (and maybe in RecipeGullet) about the results. WARNING: there are spoilers in the paragraphs below. Don't read on unless you're familiar with the plot of Like Water for Chocolate. As I neared the end of the book, I was feeling a bit worn down by the continual need to suspend my disbelief in the face of the numerous "magical realism" twists in the narrative. Then it occurred to me that most of these implausible plot turns conveniently cause the deaths of people standing in the way of Tita's romance with Pedro. I then realized that I had been reading LWFC all wrong. I had assumed that the reader is to accept the magic at face value, thereby missing the real point and all of the black humor in the book. For in reality there is no magic. Tita's account of the events of her life is a self-serving document, written to explain away the obvious: she is a cold-blooded serial killer. It was lucky for Tita that the Mexican revolution was going on all around her as she quietly killed her whole family. Had the local police been less distracted, they might have taken a sample or two of the "magic" dishes that caused such havoc. If they'd ever bothered to look closely at the events at the ranch, the REAL story wouldn't have been hard to piece together. Humiliated by her mother's refusal to let her marry Pedro, Tita deliberately ruined her sister Rosaura's wedding party by adding poison to the wedding cake, making everyone sick and accidentally killing her mentor Nacha. Nacha's death sank Tita further into a lonely psychosis, and simultaneously revealed to her the power she could wield if she chose to. Not knowing what to do next, Tita lay low, but tried to put together an aphrodisiacal Quail dish that would woo Pedro away from her sister. Unfortunately, this dish too missed its target, hitting Tita's sister Gertrudis instead, tragically sending her into a life of prostitution she would not escape for years. Tita was still only semi-competent as a food contaminator, but she could see the possibilities if she kept at it. And keep at it she did. She successfully ruined a batch of sausages, although they spoiled too quickly for anyone to be sickened by eating them. She somehow managed to kill Roberto, the hated spawn of the unholy marriage of Pedro and Rosaura, through time-delayed poisoning before his parents moved him away. And she further practiced hardening her heart by killing pigeons. All of this was just rehearsal for the main event: killing her mother. Tita accomplished this by skillfully manipulating her mother into poisoning herself. Tita included trace contaminants in her food-- just enough to make her mother suspect something and keep her off balance. And then Tita applied the master stroke: she contaminated her mother's bottle of syrup of ipecac, and let her mother desperately drink the fatal dose, ironically hoping to counteract the nonexistent poisons in the food. Secure in new feelings of omnipotence, Tita could afford to bide her time, waiting decades before poisoning Rosaura, and in a final abominable act, killing Pedro and herself in a greusome arson/murder/suicide. Although her motivation is clear through most of her life, it remains a mystery why she chose to kill Pedro and herself at the moment when she finally had him where she wanted him. Perhaps he rejected her and she simply erupted with rage. Or perhaps her love for him had long been buried under her seething, murderous hatred: hatred for her mother, her sister, for Pedro, and finally for herself and her inexcusable actions. I see the book now in a whole new light. I think I like it. (And yes, I'm kidding.)

My adventure was derailed by a trip out of town last Thursday. I didn't know that the "Great Summer Read" series is only being included in the New York editions of the Times. I was mightily pissed off to find no LWFC chapters in the Washington edition over the weekend. So I bought the book, but of course without the pressure of serialization I didn't read any more of it over the weekend. I do intend to finish it, and to see if any of the other recipes are worth trying. I do think the recipes are authentic and good (I actually think they're better than the novel!), although they require a little investment and faith from the reader.

Yeah, okay. Good idea. I will, next week.

So how did the mole come out? Aren't you dying to know? It came out really nice. And Esquivel's recipe isn't bad-- although she gives the reader nary a clue about how much liquid (wine & stock) to add to the chile/nut paste. And she includes items in the ingredient list (peanuts and the seeds from the chiles) which she never mentions again. Just a couple minor problems! I consulted with Mr. Bayless just to get some idea of how much stock I ought to be using. I didn't want the dried chiles to overwhelm the dish. His recipe calls for roughly double the number of chiles and about 6 or 7 cups of liquid. So I ended up poaching a couple pounds of chicken in light chicken stock to cover and then using about 3 cups of this liquid to make the sauce (along with about 1/3 cup of white wine). (I have a feeling that Ms. Esquivel would advise using a lot more liquid, as her recipe is apparently intended to provide sauce for a whole turkey, though likely a much smaller turkey than we get in American supermarkets. But I thought the amount I used made a nice sauce with the right kind of spiciness. And it thickened up right away.) I don't have a large mortar, so I gave myself permission to grind the toasted almonds, sesame seeds and the fried chiles in the blender. This required the addition of several spoons of stock to the blender. I didn't make it a complete puree, but left a little bit of texture to better approximate the real thing. (I didn't use the food processer because I feared it would obliterate the texture I wanted. I did use the food processor to make the bread into crumbs before sauteeing it with the onion and garlic.) Ms. Esquivel doesn't specify amounts for several of the spices in the recipe, and I ended up using a big pinch of each, pehaps as much as a quarter teaspoon. She calls for sugar to taste, and I kept adding it until it tasted right to me; I added at least a tablespoon, maybe two. I thought she called for too much chocolate, although if I'd used more liquid I might not have felt that way. If I made this again, I'd cut back by half on the chocolate, although my chocolatey mole was no problem last night, believe me. I considered toasting the peanuts and adding them to the blender with the almonds, but in the end I decided to use them raw as a garnish, along with more toasted sesame seeds. I discarded the seeds from the chiles; the sauce was spicy enough. We have a lot of sauce left over for tonight! Today's first chapter is accompanied by a recipe for Northern-style Chorizo. It looks really very simple and quite doable-- I may give it a try, but not this week. The second chapter printed today features a recipe for homemade matches. This I'm unlikely to try.

Today's Times has two chapters, one of which features the quail dish. Thanks for linking to that adaptation-- but I don't have access to any rose petals at the moment. The other chapter features turkey in mole sauce, however, and I might make it tonight. The mole seems very similar to Rick Bayless' recipe in Mexico One Plate at a Time (if my memory serves me well), but a little less complicated. I made the Bayless version a few months ago, and he strongly advised putting it all together and letting the flavors mingle for a few days before serving. I think I'll refer to Bayless for help in filling in some of the blanks in Esquivel's recipe, but otherwise just use her method and see how it comes out tonight. And I think I'll use chicken and chicken stock instead of turkey. By the way, I really like typing the name "Esquivel." It's no "spatchcock," but it is fun, isn't it? Esquivel Esquivel Esquivel.

I think the disclaimer comes from Random House, not the NY Times. And the "with recipes" line is all over the book, see?. Looks to me like it came from the author. Anyway, this novel vs. cookbook thing is a false dichotomy. Can't it be both? What about Tender at the Bone, or The Apprentice? Are they memoirs or cookbooks, or both? I do agree that the book so far, while pleasant enough, isn't in the same category as a masterpiece like The Great Gatsby. Still, it's very enjoyable, and the Times has promised us nothing more than a "summer read," so I think it is a fine choice for the series.

No, it's a "novel in monthly installments with recipes." Note that part at the end about recipes. If the reader is not intended to cook the food in these recipes, it's kind of a sham, isn't it? I believe Ms. Esquivel is delighted when people try to cook from the book. Clearly she's no cookbook author, however, and thus the recipes will always offer some ambiguities or other challenges. This is part of the book's charm, I think. The fact that it isn't a traditional cookbook is obvious. That's partly why I find the disclaimer strange. What, will someone who fails to recreate the Christmas Rolls sue for the damage to his or her psyche? For the lost evening? Today's chapter is accompanied by a recipe for... wedding cake. I am not making wedding cake today. But this cake is so weird I think I might try it later. It calls for 300 grams (10.6 oz. or about 2 and a half cups) of flour and SEVENTEEN eggs. This is for a cake to serve 18 people. It also contains grated lime peel. And there's an apricot filling, and a fondant icing that contains lime juice. The flour/egg ratio is not a typo. It is discussed in the text. But it is kind of crazy, right? I'm trying and failing to picture what this cake would taste like. A fritatta? A custard?

The disclaimer was printed in the NY Times with chapter one yesterday. It states that the publisher hasn't tested the recipes. I thought it was an odd disclaimer-- does the PUBLISHER usually test the recipes contained in any book? Or is the author relied upon to arrange for whatever testing is appropriate?