jawbone

These seem to be sold out everywhere I have checked. Where did you buy yours? Anyone have leads on a Canadian source?

I find it interesting that most salt-pack anchovy tins tell you to keep refrigerated at all times (i.e. even unopened). Yet some stores don't. Whether Rancho Gordo's (unopened) tin has been refrigerated these past years could make a big difference to their condition.

I have tried the pickled onions (Carol'd Pickled Onions). They were fantastic. I made them to stuff the gougeres (with bacon and arugula) but ended up eating them by the forkful.

and what about soaking chick peas with baking soda? has this been discredited?

Another Asian mushroom that I am curious about is the wood ear or tree ear. I see them called for in recipes but don't know what they look like and can't read the signs/packages in the Asian groceries. A class on Asian ingredients--that had pictures of every item--would be fabulous.

My dear clueless-in-the-kitchen wife did this when she was in high school: Following her mom's scribbled-on-an-index-card recipe for chocolate cookies, she saw one of the ingredients was "1 cup c." For some reason she assumed that "c." stood for cinnamon and not cocoa. She baked the cookies. The house was barely inhabitable for a few days. (And yes, her mom shops at Costco).

The Magnum is fantastic. You can also get a mini version, which is about 3 inches tall, comes in a little pouch, and is very cute. Good for the road. The grinding mechanisms on these are fabulous.

I'll put in another vote for the boxed stuff. But better than the Kraft is President's Choice White Cheddar--great flavour sans scary orange colour. Not sure if it is just a Canadian product. I ate crates of the stuff thru university. And, yes, milk was often too expensive. I've made it with water, sometimes just lots of margerine, or mayo (not so good), or italian dressing (interesting)... The CI baked mac and cheese is great--just in a different league.

When Cooks Illustrated tested HearthKit a while back they at first thought it made very little difference--but that was in their professional-quality test ovens. When they took it home and used it on "normal" stoves, Hearthkit made a significant difference. It apparently helped the oven maintain its temp when the door was opened and minimized the effect of hot/coolspots.

It is a bit of a mystery. By some accounts Toronto already has great supermarkets. I worked at Whole Foods for a few months when it first opened in Toronto. The regional supervisors who came to train us and get the store set up were very impressed with the quality and variety offered by other supermarkets in town. They seemed a bit worried that Whole Foods wouldn't stand out from the competition like it apparently does in many parts of the US. They saw their T.O. competition as not just "gourmet" places like Pusataris but big chains like Loblaws (in particular). T.O. was a very attractive market (at least at the outset) and they were already planning more WF stores in the city. I doubt the entrance of all these new big boxes will be a problem. The good little places that deserve to survive will endure and prices in the chains will be forced down.

The place a few doors south of The Cookbook Store--the Kitchen and Glassware Place (or something like that)--is great for glassware and good for gadgets. I bought a Bron mandoline for $169 there a few weeks ago (it is $200 to $220 in most other places). Superb service. Placewares in St Lawrence Market is good for inexpensive gadgets. Zesters, spatulas, cannisters, cutting boards etc. A few doors south of Fortune (on Spadina) is Tap Phong, which has an amazing array of dishes and cheap cookware and a good assortment of small appliances. Best (if not only) place in Toronto to get sticky rice steamers and huge Thai green granite mortar and pestles. Williams and Sonoma is also good and suprisingly cheap. For example, many stores are selling the large Oxo Good Grips Salad Spinnner for $45 to $50. It's $38 at W and S. Nikolau's is also great. They have a couple ISI foamers that I am eying. Caynes (way up north somewhere) is a great place for very low prices on small appliances. (I've heard). Happy shopping.

Thanks, Sladeums (and everyone else). That is exactly the info I was looking for. The U.K. Chile-Head site is now bookmarked! Chile taxonomy is a bit complex, eh?

I recently had a martini made from vodka infused with berry-flavoured tea. Does anyone have suggestions for the best way of making tea-infused vodka? I'm assuming that some sort of heat will be required to extract the tea flavour?? And how does one do that without causing the alcohol to evaporate? Any help would be very welcome.

Thanks for all the help. I do have sichuan peppercorns. I guess I will just poke about more carefully in Chinatown--or try to find an acceptable substitute. The chiles in the photos in her book don't look like the tien sien and are instead short, boxy (as tommy and Jon describe) and have a smooth thin skin. I imagine the trick will be to find a chile that when used in the copious amounts called for lends plenty of chili flavour and quite a bit of heat but without the incendiary burn that using an equivalent amount of Thai bird chiles would cause (I also really like the way the sichuan chiles look in dishes like kung pao). If I was to substitute a Mexican chile (when size/shape isn't a factor--making chile oil, for example) does anyone have an idea of what heat level (in scoville units) I should be shooting for?

Hi all, I recently purchased Fuchsia Dunlop's "Land of Plenty" and am anxious to begin cooking from it. But many of her recipes call for sichuan chilis, which I have been thus far unable to find. I live close to Toronto's Chinatown but haven't seen any chilis labelled "sichuan"--do they come under some other descriptions? Perhaps there is some Mexican chili that I could substitute?--what would be most similar in flavour/heat? Thanks for any help.