Prabha

I made my hotel reservation, so now I'm definitely in! Kerry, could you please add my +1 (Ben) to the Sat. dinner list? Thanks!

I have a 6 kg Mol d'Art that I can bring.

I have used sweet rice flour, and don't remember any graininess. I have to admit that was a while ago.

Beautiful sugar work, minas!

Wow, those jellies look beautiful, Minas!

My Valentine's day collection. 64% dark chocolate, raspberry, mint fondant, Earl Grey, salted caramel. And my first attempts at airbrushing. Thanks to Lebowits and RobertM for teaching me how.

I asked him about that in the course I took with him- He said that he found that to be true only for one type of inverted sugar he had worked with that had been inverted with some sort of chemical, (that is not really available to purchase), instead of the traditional way (which is what confectioners usually buy). I don't remember the details of the whole explanation, or the differences between the sugars, but at the end he explained that there is no problem boiling the invert sugar that we usually buy, and the one we used in the course. Thank you, thank you Liron, for this! I've long been confused about why heating invert might be a problem. Now I can stop worrying about this.

Very nice, Chris!

Thanks Donna. I like Chocolate World molds (1000 series) because they are small enough to fit in my hand. Three cavities across works much better for me than four.

I'd love to try the raspberry ganache too. Does it use puree? I'm in the market for some molds, and all of yours look very nice. Could you also post the numbers for the fluted one and the swirl?

After some experiments with Bob M, I too think it's a heat transfer issue. Polishing the molds or not didn't seem to make a difference. I'm going to experiment more with methods of cooling the shells.

Steve, were you able to figure out why this happens? I have the exact same issue. And I have had it happen with brand new molds, so it's not because I've abused the molds.

I have this one and I love it - it's a rare earth magnet inside real wood. I don't own a lot of knives, so I have five knives plus a steel, all on one 12 incher. http://benchcrafted.com/Magblok.html

There appear to be a couple of copies of the English version of the first book, "Fruit and Desserts" by Le Cordon Bleu on eBay right now. Also available used from Amazon UK.

Ooh, very nice, Bob!

Pretty! Would be perfect for brandied cherries. Cherry season is coming right up too. Actually, maybe not. Getting cherries out of it would not be easy.

My craigslist find of the weekend - a Zojirushi 5 1/2 cup rice cooker, for 10 bucks! Had to brag about that. Barely used too. I have only cooked brown rice in it so far, and that was definitely better than what my 15 year old National cooker turned out. I'm looking forward to trying all the other types of rice listed, and maybe some things other than rice.

Thanks, Will, for the detailed reply. Your spaghetti recipe sounds great - I'll definitely try it. My Asian market might even have all the ingredients, though I've never seen Japanese green onions. I also like the idea of greens in a sandwich! I'm not a complete newbie to vegetarian cooking, I grew up vegetarian. But most of my vegetarian repertoire is Indian food and I'd like to branch out from that. Thanks for your suggestions of the books. I'm looking forward to Fuchsia Dunlop's new book. I have Mark Bittman's book, though I didn't have success with most of the recipes I tried from it.

I've decided to go vegan for the month of June! I wonder if any of you have any favorite vegan blogs or websites that have exciting vegan recipes. There are tons of vegan blogs, I know, but too many vegan recipes seem to concentrate on "meat-like" products. I have a mental block against the fake meats and would really prefer to avoid them. I do eat tofu, and don't consider that a fake meat, but I can't bring myself to eat seitan or tempeh. I'm trying to find recipes that are inherently vegan, if you know what I mean. Not vegan versions of something that originally contains meat, so that there would be no question of comparing the vegan dish to the original and finding it wanting. I did look at Kenji Lopez-Alt's posts on Serious Eats and will be trying some of his recipes.

All this is making me very jealous. You seem to be having such a good time! I need to find someone to cook with....whom I could tolerate for hours at a time

All your food looks so delicious, Franci! Thanks for taking pictures and describing everything. I'm really enjoying reading about Monaco and your cooking.

I love Rooh Afza, mixed into milk, or simply into ice water. I prefer the Indian variety for this. The Pakistani variety has a stronger rose flavor in my opinion. I'm not much of a cocktail drinker, but I think it would be fantastic used in small quantities. Have to watch out for the sweetness though.

I love the idea of dessert for supper! Might have to try that one of these days Your capirotada looks lovely. Going to have to try that too.

Very nice, Jess! What flavors are they?

Thanks so much. I knew I could depend on egulleters to know this stuff I know now that he wants $5/lb for it, which is pretty good. Chocosphere charges about $10/lb.