SethG

So I've recently acquired several of those Time-Life "Foods of the World" books, and I've been inspired by the British Isles book to make a traditional anglo-American dinner of roast beef with horseradish sauce and Yorkshire pudding. I don't think I've ever actually tasted Yorkshire pudding. It looks incredibly simple. The recipe essentially requires you to whip up 1 cup flour, 2 eggs, 1 cup milk and half a teaspoon salt. Then you heat a couple tablespoons of drippings from the roast, pour the batter in, and bake for half an hour. Is this a good recipe for Yorkshire pudding? Anyone have a favorite recipe that's significantly different?

When my daughter was just born, we always called her "the muffin." We said it so much that my MIL once remarked that "she's going to think her name is muffin!" But now Leah's three years old, and I can't remember the last time we called her that. They grow up so fast. My son Nate has always been "the little guy." No food there. But he eats like a horse!

This photo really got me. If you look at it a certain way, it creates the optical illusion that the glass is floating about an inch over the butcher block. I spent a few minutes staring at it, trying to figure out how Lucy got the glass to levitate, and then finally I saw it correctly and felt foolish.

We had a great meal last weekend at Ici, which is located on DeKalb just off of Vanderbilt Ave. in Ft. Greene. It's a French Bistro, but the menu includes numerous pan-Mediterranean touches. I had a lovely beet salad with yougurt appetizer and a delicious (if maybe a touch too sweet) braised pork shoulder with pecans and roasted brussels sprouts (which I usually can't stand). I'm looking forward to going back in a month or two and sitting in their garden.

Lucy, I'm intrigued by that pain des champs. The crumb looks so dark, but it has such a nice open hole structure. Do you know why the crumb has that dark coloring? It looks too even to be from the seeds, but the amount of whole grain flour you'd need to get that color would usually result in a much more regular, hole-less crumb. It almost looks like the color you'd get from walnuts, but again it's so even... Just curious. Loving the blog.

Jinmyo's method sounds very tasty. I've used this James Villas recipe (scroll down-- it's the second recipe in the article) numerous times with very good results. Villas would say that traditional Southern fried chicken must be dredged in nothing but seasoned flour-- bread crumbs are a no-no. I would say if it tastes good, do it. Penelope Casas has a very tasty, very rich recipe in her first book for a Spanish take on fried chicken, which involves pre-poaching the chicken, coating it with bechemel and then bread crumbs, and finally frying.

That ice cream looks fantastic.

Excellent work as always, Patrick. I finally got an ice cream machine. I'll be tackling the chocolate ice cream soon, and I also plan to hit the strawberry and (especially) the creme brulee ice cream in DBPH. Edited to add: credit where credit's due-- it was redfox back at post #212 who first mentioned the Korova cookies on this thread. That post sent me to my copy of Paris Sweets to check them out.

Okay, Spring is almost here, so what better time to make ice cream! I FINALLY got myself the Cuisinart machine, and today I wanted coffee ice cream so I just did a quick search on the web and came up with this recipe, which seemed good enough to start with. I actually upped the richness ante by using one cup milk and three cups cream. And I heated the eggs to 140 degrees for four minutes before cooling them and whipping them with the sugar. This is a precaution I wouldn't bother with on my own, but my mother is visiting this weekend and I can't imagine living with the guilt that would accompany giving her salmonella.... but I digress. The ice cream is still setting up in the freezer, but it came out of the machine tasting great, and with the texture of soft-serve. I'm looking for other recipes, and I'm especially looking to use fruits this year as they come into season. And so, with seasonality in mind, anybody have a great recipe for ice cream with: strawberries? rhubarb? asparagus??

I like many of the books (in English) mentioned above. Another book that hasn't been mentioned is James Peterson's Glorious French Food. It is a recent book, but it is devoted to the classics. He approaches the stodgy in a non-stodgy manner, subtly delivering a manifesto in support of food that many consider passe. And he's a born teacher.

Marcia, I have a few suggestions: 1. The way your loaf exploded upward in the oven leads me to believe your starter was active-- but the extreme growth in the center and the cracks around your slashes indicate that it was underproofed. The bread sprang up, but had a lot of growing left to do. The crust formed before the dough was finished expanding, and your crumb got compressed by the crust before it could reach its full glory. How long did you leave it out before you refrigerated it? I'm assuming you baked it straight from the fridge as Jack Lang does. It is a procedure I sometimes use as well, and I know it works well for Jack, but it is not something I would recommend to the uninitiated because it can be difficult to tell if your loaf is proofed enough when it is right out of the fridge. With some experience, you know how your dough will behave in your house, but without that experience I'd counsel letting the dough sit out for an hour after you take it out of the fridge, letting it wake up a bit. Then you can try to determine if it's ready. If you gently poke your (wet) finger into it, does the dough spring right back? Then you should probably proof a bit more. Does the indentation fill in slowly? Then you may be ready. Does it not fill in at all? Uh oh, you may have gone too far. Get it in the oven, and you might not want to slash it at all. Right out of the fridge, indentations stay put and the dough feels firm no matter how well proofed the dough is. 2. Your loaf was in the oven for 35 minutes-- not that long. You could be baking at too high a temperature. The inside of your loaf may not have been done. How hot was your oven? I usually start at 450 and turn it down to 425 when I turn the loaves, and my 2 pound sourdoughs are usually done in about 45 minutes, but your experience will be different than mine, of course. Even at the temperature you were using, it looks like you might have been able to leave them another five or ten minutes. From the picure your crust doesn't look that dark. 3. If you think your starter wasn't active enough, then that may have something to do with it as well. Patience is required, especially when you're bringing back to life a starter that hasn't been fed in a while. You might want to just leave your starter on the counter for several days, feeding it at whatever intervals make sense for your schedule: once, twice or three times a day. Then use it again when you're really sure it's good and active. Good luck, and don't be discouraged! You'll get there!

I should have added that my spouse shares your feelings about fruits & chocolate, Daniel, and she had no trouble with the Pave.

I don't remember how much my batter shrank when I added the chocolate... but that always happens when you add stuff to whipped-up batters, so I don't think you did anything wrong, arbuclo. My cookies looked exactly like yours. Thanks for posting that pic, and sorry I was so lazy! I didn't really get the crinkle/wrinkle thing either, but they did puff and sink. I thought the cookies were pretty forgiving, despite Dorie's warning that they are better under- than overcooked. My first batch was in for a few minutes longer than the second-- I was looking for the crinkle that never came-- and I thought they tasted just as good. My mother is coming to visit this weekend, and I may whip up another batch on Friday. (The batter can be made ahead and baked off days later.) But I'm also considering another go at Pierre Herme's cookies from Paris Sweets. Decisions, decisions...

This is pretty painful to read. Am I wrong? Mango is orange and avocado is green. No kidding. The avocado is not only unctuous (i.e., oily or fatty), but "vaguely" so. What does that mean? Does it mean anything? The mango is cut in circular shapes. The avocado is cut in rectangles. The lobster is clumped into non-geometric blobs. Along with the colors and the flavors (sweet vs. acidic vs. unctuous(!)), these different elements combine to form an "exquisite balance." And you wouldn't notice unless you really paid attention, as Bruni does. I haven't eaten at Le Bernardin, and I'm sure the food is exquisite, but I'm not persuaded it is by this purple prose. Edit: sorry, probably should have posted on the Bruni thread. I forgot about it because I hate all the griping about him, but somethimes I just can't stand it.

Does this mean you plan to leave out the apricots? I'd counsel you to put them in. They add more texture than flavor. I don't think you'll find them offensive. Leaving them out means taking the dessert down a level of sophistication, although it will still be great!

Is that Gromit as in "These are the WRONG TROUSERS, Gromit!"?

Thanks for those reports. Beautiful pics, too, especially that sunset shot of Ostuni. And those olive trees!

When you complain about food on the spot in the restaurant, you are obviously an actual customer. Anonymous slams on the web, on the other hand, may not be from customers. They may come from disgruntled employees, unscrupulous competitors, or others with some personal grudge against the owner or the chef. As to the issue Randi asked about on this thread: sounds like the owner and the chef take pride in their new restaurant. I think their response, while a little tone-deaf, came from the best of intentions. They wanted to demonstrate to you that they take pride in their ingredients and their product. They may have come off as too confrontational about it, but I, like you, would give them another chance. Sounds like they aim to please, even if they're a bit too aggressive about it at the moment.

160 is the "instant kill" temperature for salmonella but you will do less potential damage to your eggs if you hold them at 140 for several minutes, which is just as effective at killing salmonella. Why don't you make one no-bake and one baked cheesecake? I have prejudices on the subject of cheesecake, and it just seems sad to me to make a cheesecake and have it not be the real deal.

I didn't make the Nightcaps this weekend, but I did make the Double Chocolate cookies, because the latter were the kind of thing I could bake off and bring to my office. The Double Chocolate cookies came out great-- they have the texture and taste of a good brownie of the cakey (as opposed to fudgy) school. I might post a pic later.

A question: Did the books in the Time-Life Good Cook series come with spiral recipe booklets, or did they come just as hardcover volumes?

Remember this was filmed in 1998, when he was 32, he was on the cusp of celebrity chef then ← Yeah, I know. That's my point. His years of fame have made him drop the pretense of being "just a cook," and that's kind of sad. I find the abusive personality much more understandable from a man who is working sixteen-hour days opening a restaurant on which he's staked a fortune and his Michelin stars. As a reality show schtick that personality is not something I care about watching, and it's no longer really about the food. About "spic," did anyone else hear it? I believe it was when Ramsey was upset about a thumbprint on a plate. He said "Hey, you, spic..." or at least I thought he did. Maybe it was just that man's affectionate nickname. I could have heard it wrong. Now that I know that the narrator is that guy from Coupling I'll be distracted for the rest of the series!

Upon reflection, I was disappointed that the show didn't cover how on earth he got his brand new enterprise up and running in just four weeks. All they really showed him doing was approving some decorations. Did he develop new dishes? Surely he had to train some staff? Also, this new reality show thing he's doing depresses me. In Boiling Point, Ramsey makes a point of saying all the time that he's not a celebrity chef, he's a cook, he likes it in the kitchen, etc... Seems like that's no longer the case.

Mmmmmmm, duck. Ever serve the girls duck? You could saute the breasts medium rare, slice diagonally and serve with salad. Confit the legs and a month later serve them with the same salad! Yes, I'm kidding.

I'm fortunate to have DirecTV, which carries BBCA. What a show! After watching Boiling Point, I think Gordon Ramsey was actually sedated before he filmed Kitchen Nightmares. I found both episodes aired tonight absolutely riveting. And hilarious. The guy has chutzpah to spare. That thing with the apples killed me. However: the personal abuse he heaps on his staff (i.e., "fatty," "Spic" and the like) I found a little hard to take. The food for the most part looked beautiful. I thought the little complimentary macaroons (in four different colors/flavors) he offered were a beautiful touch... but did I hear the Guardian critic's companion (a caterer) describe them as looking like "little turds?"