JoNorvelleWalker
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Posts posted by JoNorvelleWalker
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7 hours ago, Shelby said:
First peonies of the year. My all-time favorite flower, hands down.
When I was a young orphan I had to pick peonies for commercial sale. Not my favorite flower, unfortunately.
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Decades ago I used to pre-separate my yolks for hollandaise (an hour or so ahead) and store the yolks in the refrigerator. The yolks would form an unpleasant skin. I no longer do this.
Not sure if this helps.
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1 hour ago, blue_dolphin said:
@JoNorvelleWalker, thanks for reporting your experiences with Purple Carrot. Did you actually get delivery of one meal at a time? That's a little different from some of the other services that ship 2-3 meals together.
I thought Purple Carrot might offer some interesting vegan umami flavoring options to explore since I usually reach for the usual parm, pecorino Romano, anchovies, fish sauce for that purpose. The little ketchup and mustard packets you got with the black bean burger kit are disappointing in that regard as are the paltry amounts of fresh herbs.
Sorry about the mealy apple as I'm sure you were craving something crisp to go with that baguette and cheddar. Used to be hard to get good apples around this time of year but I would think the Southern Hemisphere apples would be good now. Ah well, hopefully there was some wine?
Yes, wine, thanks! Methode rotuts, actually.
The purple carrot ships me three meals at a time, two serving per meal.
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After a week off, tonight I took delivery of the next kit from thepurplecarrot. The recipes looked pretty good, I must say. Though I was not pleased that the cabbage came pre-sliced. I mean come on, please, when the instructions call for using a mandolin to slice the cabbage or that a knife is sufficient -- why ship the cabbage pre-sliced and all that much more likely to spoil? And not very well sliced at that. This is poor form. I ACTUALLY ENJOY SLICING CABBAGE. Have you considered this?? And I can do it much better than you can. Apparently.
Such a debacle I could almost forgive. But the kit contained an apple. It's been wet here and I have not been able to make it to the store, and I confess I have really been craving an apple. So I caved:
Tonight's dinner was the apple, half of last night's baguette, a block of aged cheddar and some other cheeses...
IT WAS A MEALLY APPLE. Served within hours of arrival on my doorstep. Sixty eight American dollars for a mealy apple. In case you wondered that's sixty eight dollars. FOR A MEALLY APPLE. For a twenty dollar delivery fee I can get almost any delicacy of earth or sky or sea. I call balderdash and shenanigans. Bittman and company should be ashamed.
Unless I wake up feeling quite differently, the purple carrot people will ne'er have another groat from me.
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5 hours ago, pastrygirl said:
I wouldn't necessarily agree with this:
"If you’re making a cake, you can throw together the flour, sugar, butter and eggs however you please, and the cake will come out fine — that’s an associative process. Not so for preparing custard. You must first combine the sugar and egg yolks and whisk them into a froth before you pour in the cream. Blend the ingredients in a different order, she said, “and you end up with a runny mess.”"
But what do I know?
Haha! I came here to post about seeing that today!
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@Franci if you like the taste and results from Fleischmann's have you considered their instant yeast? One time I tried SAF but I went back to Fleischmann's. I buy it by the pound and it keeps nicely in the freezer. Essentially forever.
I can't understand why a baker would want any other form of yeast than instant.* Though the different strains of yeast from different manufacturers undoubtedly have subtle differences. Could I tell in a blind tasting? Not sure, probably not.
I'd be interested to know if Italy has a favored yeast purveyor other than SAF or Fleischmann's. They are the only two brands with which I have experience.
*I'm not considering sourdough organisms here.
Edit: I agree with @paulraphael (and Professor Calvel) that yeast taste is a defect. When I make my batch of poolish I use less than an eighth teaspoon of instant yeast. Sometimes I even bother to weigh it out.
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@BarneyDorfman welcome to eGullet! Inactivated yeast is just dead yeast cells used for their nutritional value (though not by me). If you have instant yeast it may simply be mixed with the flour of the recipe before adding liquid.
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1 hour ago, KennethT said:
Infrared radiation (which is what is coming off the tiles to heat from the top) decreases by the distance to the fourth power, so the closer you can get it to the top of the pizza, the more effective it will be. If it's too far away, it's almost like it's not there at all.
I can't agree with this. Franci's oven tiles are not a point source of energy. And even if one assumed a point source, the decrease to the pizza would be by the second power, not the fourth.
If infrared radiation from a culinary blackbody or a cooking fire decreased by distance to the fourth power, roasting wouldn't work and we'd still be eating nuts and berries. (Spoken as someone who eats a lot of nuts.)
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12 hours ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:
Jo, of course you know that leftover rice can be saved in the fridge for fried rice for subsequent meals.
Unlike some leftovers, I don't refrigerate cooked rice for food safety reasons. The rice cooker will hold the rice in eatable condition for about 24 hours, but I can't always face it the next day.
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I was ashamed to post this in weinoo's "How Many Meals From One Roast Chicken?" thread. However I finally finished off my Griggstown Farm poussin.
I rather wish I owned a smaller Zojirushi. A go of rice at one sitting is a prodigious amount for any average sedentary old woman who is not a samurai. Nonetheless with enough wine almost anything is possible. Served with broccoli florets from my most recent thepurplecarrot.com kit.
For those counting at home, this would have made roast chicken meal ten.
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1 hour ago, choux said:
Anyone else noticing a shortage? No limes at Costco for the past month, and I got a lemon in my pho. Any explinations out there? I haven't checked the grocery store lately to see the stocks there.
From what country are your limes usually sourced? The limes here have typically been from the US, but after a couple weeks of worse than shortage -- eg. no limes at all -- the US limes have been replaced by Mexican: big, beautiful, juicy...but much more expensive. Works for me.
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Widow's Kiss, Kappeler. Following an early dinner, too soon to go to bed. Still haven't found a better excuse for Benedictine. Any of you who are widows and so inclined, please ring me up.
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After thinking about the hard boiled egg topic that is hot right now -- a dinner of soft boiled eggs, by the @pazzaglia method. Along with a bunch of broccoli steamed in the pressure cooker with the eggs at the same time. Hard to do better for a four minute one pot meal.
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27 minutes ago, jim loellbach said:
Cook's Illustrated also recently did an article on hard cooked eggs and sticking shells. It looks like they totally ripped off seriouseats.com. Same tests, same results. I use the seriouseats method: eggs straight out of fridge into an already boiling pot of water or steamer. Have enough water that it doesn't stop boiling after adding the eggs. 6.5 minutes gives a good soft cooked yolk, 9 minutes gives a still translucent yolk good for ramen, 12 minutes gives a hard cooked yolk. Into ice water for 15 minutes (or just a minute or so if eating hot), helps to keep the shell from sticking.
Don't forget Lopez-Alt has worked for CI.
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36 minutes ago, sartoric said:
This was dinner last night in Hue central Vietnam.
We had a 3.45 am wake up call to get to the airport in Hanoi for an early flight, spent several hours wandering in Da Nang, then 2.5 hours on the train to Hue arriving at 5 pm. After such a long day we were both absolutely shagarillered, so ate at the Hotel restaurant. What a treat to find out this restaurant is rated number 1 on TripAdvisor out of 206.
He had pork pho in the Hue style, I had a tuna salad, my first western meal in two weeks. Both these dishes cost about $3 and were superb. There was such depth of flavour in the soup, today I'm determined to stalk the chef, get in the kitchen, and discover his secrets.
I had to deduct a point for green ring around the yolk.
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I seldom cook hard boiled eggs, but the best method I've found so far is the pressure cooker technique developed by @pazzaglia
http://www.hippressurecooking.com/cracked-soft-medium-and-hard-boiled-eggs-in-the-pressure-cooker/
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While still on the subject of Hamilton, I'm tasting a tumbler of Mississippi punch as we speak, made this time with Hamilton's Jamaican Pot Still Black in place of S&C as the Jamaican component of the punch. Both are nice. Not sure which works better. Of course I'm more used to S&C. Plus S&C has the advantage of higher ABV. Fortunately, either way, Mississippi punch is not lacking much in proof.
Guess I'll have to try Jamaican Pot Still Black in my next mai tai.
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Meal nine -- I'm not sure this counts: I cooked up a go of rice and made a sauce of the remaining chicken broth. There is still some sauce left.
I remembered the watercress, though it has seen better days.
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@JTravel I hadn't seen your thread until just now. Thank you for the lovely blog! Oaxaca is a place I would like to visit. (At the moment I am wearing earrings from Oaxaca.)
I've read and enjoyed Kennedy's Oaxaca al Gusto, but some of the insects and the herbs are a bit difficult to source.
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Accordingly I went looking for some blackberries...
I was successful. I had thought to assay raspberry gum in place of ordinary gum, but the blackberries provided plenty of color and berry flavor without it.
So I guess this would be called a rumble:
3 oz La Favorite
juice of one lemon
half a dozen lovely blackberries, muddled
3/4 oz feste's gum
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The rum variation sounds really good. The gin ones does too.
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4 hours ago, btbyrd said:
This is the first year I've been able to get them. These were purchased for too much money at a grocery store, but I found a big patch out in the woods that I'm going to harvest from sometime later this week. Even though they were from a grocer, they were still covered in boatloads of dirt and mud at the roots. Took me forever to clean them, but here they are:
You were on a rampage.
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Tonight was The Purple Carrot Aloo Paratha with Mustard Seed-Scented Eggplant. Specified time 40 minutes, it took me an hour and a half. But unlike the Black Bean Burgers with Spiced Sweet Potato Fries, this recipe was really good. I can see myself making it again, and probably will, since I have half the stuff left.
I served it with a bit of garlic pickle and Major Grey's chutney (not supplied).
A few notes: The Purple Carrot people were really stingy with the cilantro and mint, and even said not to use it all. When I attended a demonstration of Indian cooking techniques the presenter employed a very large amount.
The instructions call for cooking the eggplant over medium high heat stirring frequently while at the same time peeling, trimming and chopping the onion and three garlic cloves. Just no. Maybe Mark Bittman does this. I don't.
Another place I did not follow the recipe: it calls for adding chopped tomatoes to the eggplant, onions, and garlic before the mustard seed. This seems so very wrong to me. I added the mustard seed, cooked for a couple minutes, and then the chopped tomato.
Because the recipe serves two, it calls for frying both portions in the skillet at the same time. My largest skillet scarcely fit one. Clearly I need a larger skillet.
Criticism aside, it made for a good and satisfying meal.
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@Steve Irby how do you get the cats into the vacuum bags?
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NYTimes Articles on Food, Drink, Culinary Culture 2013–
in Food Media & Arts
Posted
Tonight I suspended my membership in the purple carrot. Not cancelled. I'll cook up this week's dishes before deciding what to do. But, really, really, sixty eight dollars is not reasonable for three meals -- not counting any cost of labor -- no matter if the produce were perfect. For that I could just about eat at a nice restaurant. They do the work I'd enjoy and leave me with the drudgery.
Though except for the miserable mealy apple the purple carrot produce does look pretty good.
(Shuddering, thinking about the vile packets of Heinz high fructose ketchup -- not a good way to build brand confidence.)