JAZ

I use a lot of aluminum foil in the kitchen -- both to cook with and to store leftovers (mostly meat). I've always thought it's a bad idea to use it with ingredients that are high in acid or salt, that they would damage or even dissolve the foil (like the way foil on top of meatloaf will dissolve if it's sitting on top of a ketchup glaze.) Lately I've run across several recipes that call for using foil with foods that are high in acid, or salt, or both. For instance, one is a gravlax recipe that calls for wrapping the very heavily salted salmon in foil. The only time I made gravlax, I thought I remembered the recipe specifically calling for plastic wrap, not foil because the foil would react with the salt. The others were recipes that used foil to braise dishes that called for pretty acidic braising liquids (orange juice in one case; wine in another). Was I wrong about aluminum foil? Are these applications safe?

I don't think this is a very accurate description of the choices. It's more like: Leave work at 5:30 so you can pick up the kids by 6:00. Unless you've got a fully stocked pantry and have planned menus and done all the shopping for the week, stop at a market to pick up the items you need to make dinner. 20-40 minutes later, get home, give the kids a snack so they stop whining, and start dinner. 30-60 minutes later, serve dinner. So you're eating some time between 7:30 and 8:00. Clean up the kitchen. OR Leave work at 5:30 so you can pick up the kids by 6:00. Stop at the drive-thru window of the fast food place on the way home. 20-30 minutes later, get home, serve dinner. I'm not saying that the second choice is better, but it's very much more convenient. For people who don't truly enjoy cooking, it's even more tempting.

I recently made a celery root remoulade, and added both celery leaves and sliced celery. It was a good combination.

How about pepperoni rolls?

According to Harold McGee in the New York Times:

Yes.

A few days ago, I made quite possibly the best onion soup I've ever made. As usual, I caramelized a lot of onions to start. When it came to adding stock, though, I used some chicken-mushroom stock I had leftover from risotto, and some "jus" leftover from a French dip sandwich. As I recall, that was a combination of beef stock, reconstituted More Than Gourmet veal demi-glace, some Worcestershire sauce, and other stuff. Since it was fairly concentrated, I also added water. Then, as usual, I finished the soup with a splash of sherry and sherry vinegar. It was great, but I'll never be able to make it again, because I'll never have that combination of ingredients on hand. Does this happen to anyone else?

As we tell our cooking students, botanically, there is no such thing as a "vegetable." What we call vegetables can be fruits, leaves, stems, roots, or tubers.

It does in French, and it's pronounced mee-ELL. But as I found when I started working for a company that sold the company's appliances, the French pronunciation of "miele" and the German pronunciation of "miele" have no similarity.

Miele is the one I'm unsure of. Is it "Mee-lay" or "Mee-luh"?

Of course I was being facetious in my comments -- I do realize what he was getting at. But in my experience, adding oil before the pan is hot isn't usually problematic. It doesn't make food stick more, at least as far as I can tell.

It was Jeff Smith (the Frugal Gourmet)'s mantra; "Hot pan, cold oil, food won't stick." I always thought that was a really strange saying. First, once you add oil to a hot pan, it heats up pretty fast, so it's no longer cold. Second, what's the alternative? Heating up your oil separately, then adding it to the pan you're cooking in? Would anyone actually add hot oil to a cold pan? Certainly, if you add oil to your pan when the pan is cold, and then start cooking without heating the pan and the oil, you'll have poor results. But that really just means that you should cook with a properly heated pan and properly heated oil. So it should actually be: "hot pan, hot oil, food won't stick."

I remember one year when I worked for a real estate company, the admin manager gave all the employees dried fruit and nut arrangements. He was always trying to eat "healthy" so I'm sure he thought it was a great idea. I don't like dried fruit at all, so essentially what I ended up with (after giving away the fruit) was a handful of raw almonds and a few pecans. The next year he gave us very good chocolate. Usually, though, I was the one taking baked goods to the office.

Here at least, it's 35% black malt, 30% crystallized mollasses, 20% wheat (of some sort; not specified. I suspect it's toasted whole wheat kernels which are then ground up), and 15% roasted bean flour. That's Kauffe brand instant coffee substitute, which is wickedly hygroscopic stuff. Andie, it sounds like Postum, but I'm not sure that's made anymore.

Because I'm almost always cooking for just myself, this has been a great purchase. I think I've only turned my big oven on once since I got the Breville, which means the kitchen is cooler, the oven heats up faster, and (I imagine) I'm saving electricity.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention is that since I'm doing this for a class, simpler and easier is better. Which is not to say that more complex methods aren't welcome for my own use.

Lots of great suggestions to consider. I have a few questions, so I'll list them all here. Doesn't it melt? I don't think I'm familiar with any plastic wraps that are heat proof enough for an oven. Good to know. I always have parchment paper on hand, but have never tried that trick. This sounds promising. Do you use the same size pan inside as outside? If so, doesn't it make the dough really thin? You know, I thought of that after the fact. Nice to know it works.

Maybe the problem is the foil that I'm using, which is heavy duty and not very flexible. In a larger tart pan, it works fine, but it's really hard to fit it into the individual pan without damaging the dough. I'll try a lighter weight foil.

I've been working on a recipe for a class on "cooking for one" for an individual quiche. I'm making it in a 4-inch springform pan and have the amount of pastry dough down, but I'm having some problems baking the crust off. Ordinarily with a full-sized quiche I roll the pastry, put it in the pan, line the pan with buttered foil and put in pie weights (I use pennies). Then after 15 minutes or so I remove the foil and weights and finish baking. When I tried to do that with the small sized pan, I ended up tearing holes in the sides of the crust with the foil. The second time, I skipped the pie weights entirely, but then (of course) the crust sides slid down. I was able to remove the crust from the oven and push them back up, which was mostly successful, but kind of a pain. I think I must be missing an obvious solution, but I'm stumped. Any ideas?

I wouldn't say that I have "great" stuff available all the time. I do live right next to a grocery store which is pretty well stocked with typical ingredients. That is, lots of beef, pork and chicken; some lamb -- but no veal, quail, or duck. There's a small fish and seafood counter, but I can almost never get whole fish, and nothing exotic. The produce is also pretty mainstream. And because I don't have a car, that's really my only option; nothing else is within easy walking distance. (I can take a bus to a Whole Foods market, but that's pretty time consuming for "spontaneous" trips.) So (like you, it seems) if my market is out of something I'd planned on, I have to change plans. Fortunately, I'm pretty good at that.

I make a tuna tapenade for classes and parties, which is always well received. It makes a great sandwich too. Tuna and Olive Tapenade 1 cup pitted kalamata olives, drained 1/3 cup sliced green olives with pimento, drained ½ cup very coarsely chopped roasted red peppers 2 large cloves garlic, minced or smashed Juice of half a lemon 1 tablespoon capers 1 tablespoon minced shallot 1 pinch red pepper flakes 1 can light Italian tuna packed in olive oil (do not drain) Place the olives, red peppers and garlic in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse a few times to chop the olives roughly and mix the ingredients. (Or chop roughly by hand). Transfer to a medium mixing bowl and add the rest of the ingredients. Stir to combine and adjust seasoning if necessary. (Can be made a day or two in advance. Refrigerate, but bring back to room temperature for serving.) For an appetizer, I serve this on crostini topped with a parsley leaf. (My usual tuna is Genova brand -- light, not white)

I think this is a false dichotomy. First of all, even if you look to the market as your inspiration and buy what looks best, you have to plan at some point. Otherwise you end up at home with, for instance, a beautiful piece of sole and nothing else. Plus, you can only shop this way if you can go to one or more markets every day or two. Most people don't have that luxury. On the other side, I'd guess that most people who shop with a weekly menu in mind are flexible enough to deal with the idiosyncrasies of the market(s) where they shop; that is, they can make substitutions or figure out alternatives if necessary. Finally, in my experience, most people have a combination of the two styles. I certainly do.

Having a somewhat limited stock of ingredients for a while, I stumbled across this drink -- Bronx Terrace -- which is also in Harington's Cocktail book. It was actually quite good, kind of a cross between a martini and a gimlet, if that makes sense. It's made it into my rotation in those instances when I want a martini-like drink but not quite a martini.

Nicoise salad, I also make a warm salad of red potatoes, blanched green beans and tuna with pesto.

Public Radio's Marketplace talks about the purchase.