JoNorvelleWalker

OK, I've started a poolish with KA organic bread flour. We'll see where this goes.

To which MP recipe does this equate? Caputo says their Chef's 00 is for a home oven. Whereas their blue 00 is for a commercial gas or wood fired oven. I don't have their blue. My understanding is the Chef's is higher protein than the blue.

Beautiful.

I need some handholding if anyone feels up to it. Haven't attempted pizza for some few months, not since the incident. For years my pizza has been made with 200g leftover poolish based bread dough, cold proofed for a day or three. Sometimes it turns out great. Just as often the center of the pizza remains on the peel and the remainder decorates the oven window. My home oven goes to 550F and I bake on a (preheated for an hour) hard anodized aluminum sheet, one inch thick. For anyone wondering, a one inch thick aluminum sheet is one inch thick. Before I load the pizza I preheat the broiler, about two inches above the pie. If the pizza actually makes it as far as the aluminum, I have about 90 seconds to two minutes before the bottom burns. An inch of hot aluminum delivers a lot of energy. In this time the top is often somewhat underdone, though this is a minor problem I can live with. Given this information, what recipe should I be following, what hydration, and what flour should I be using? I like a firm bottom crust with a large and chewy rim. MP suggests ascorbic acid helps cold proofed dough from turning gray. I have yet to try it, though I have ascorbic acid in house. My flour inventory includes several kilos each of Molino Grassi 00 organic, Molino Grassi semolina, Antimo Caputo Chef's, KA organic French style, KA organic all purpose, KA organic bread.* I don't feel up to stocking another flour. My bedroom** is only so big. *This excludes rye and specialty flours. **Many of the bags are stored in the living room and some on the landing of the stairs.

I prefer custard based ice cream.

But do they have blue?

I used to love liverwurst until I learned it was made from liver.

I have enjoyed float bladder soup at a restaurant* down in Princeton. Memorable experience. *not a diner. The diner in Princeton was burned down by an arsonist.

Here there is a coffee shop in the same building* as the post office, not far from the library. I have never been inside. No women, always the same men. Old men. As far as I know the coffee shop gets by without waitresses. *a converted house. Keep in mind the population is about the same as fictional Centerville in The Dead Don't Die. There was a diner out by the highway, but that is another town, and the dinner is now a bank. I broke a tooth on their salad once. If I had a car I think it would be fun to drive up to the Catskills and locate that dinner from the movie. I just wouldn't stay at the motel.

I like Japanese curry, and I stock Japanese curry powder in my cupboard. However the flavor profile seems very different from garam masala, at least from the garam masala I made.

Thank you for ripping open my childhood culinary scars. Not even the most horrid diner in New Jersey would serve melted ice cream to helpless little children. Howard Johnson's was a thing and may Pepin be forgiven in the next life. Just, please, not in this one. No one here would ever, ever confuse Howard Johnson's with a diner. (Though their fried clams were OK if you could chew them.)

For spinach the sensation is oxalic acid etching the enamel from your teeth.

I got out of bed today at 3:00 myself. Technically 2:54. So far my only cooking is a batch Momofuku ranch.

I love the picture of the melting cheese.

Vivek Singh adds the garam masala in the middle.

Two marvelous machines actually.

Well it helps to be Greek but Greek people I know regard this as an egregious racial stereotype. A diner is a real or imagined railroad dining car, with a huge menu, sticky seats, and impossibly bad food.

I have always eschewed recipes that call for garam masala because I try to avoid buying too many spice blends and making garam masala in house sounded too much like work. But I finally succumbed and prepared a batch of garam masala tonight -- about a quarter of the recipe, which is from Vivek Singh's book Curry. Ingredients include coriander seeds, cumin seeds, green cardamom pods, black cardamom pods, cinnamon sticks, cloves, nutmeg, blade mace, black peppercorns, bay leaves. Yes, @Anna N, whole pods. It smells wonderful. And I now have somewhere between a half a cup and a cup of garam masala. Vivek Singh says the garam masala lasts two weeks. The recipe I made it for calls for 1/4 teaspoon. Doing a bit of back of the napkin math I have a lot of garam masala to use up. Once I make the recipe that calls for a 1/4 teaspoon of garam masala, are there any not too difficult recipes that call for a shovel full or two?

The diner in The Dead Don't Die is supposed to be located in Centerville Pennsylvania, although the movie was actually filmed in Middletown New York.

If anyone needs to see what a diner is like, watch The Dead Don't Die.

Being a New Jerseyan I don't see how anyone could mistake a coffeeshop for a diner. Here the line drawing was whether an establishment that sold pizza was a tavern or a restaurant*. The distinction was important, as women were not permitted to work in taverns. *as I am reading in Modernist Pizza.

I am ashamed to offer leftovers to my eGullet companions. However serving crisp-braised duck legs over Rancho Gordo Corona beans elevates the dish to the category of one of the finest things I have eaten. Dessert is a reprise of last night's Nik Sharma blueberry Omani lime ice cream:

Be minded my bedroom sometimes has the redolence of the Guelmim camel market.* *Full disclosure: I have never visited Morocco, but have been about six miles from there.

Thanks! But please don't assume I am always OK.

That may be too cold. I go with -7F, as Ninja recommends.