JAZ

Wusthof is very good with returns from the retailers it sells to, and because of that, customer-service-oriented retailers like W-S or Sur La Table will generally replace anything that's defective, regardless of how old it is.

Do you always use the same brand of chocolate? If so, maybe you could just say, "Made with 100% Callebaut (or whatever brand) chocolate." Or print up a little card explaining about chocolate quality and artificial coatings. You don't have to say that the other vendor uses the imitation stuff; you're just explaining that high quality costs.

I use mustard as well (dry, usually, but dijon style if I don't have dry), but have also used a pinch of cayenne instead when I didn't have mustard. You could try that.

In contrast, I like a very soft consistency with lots of sauce. When it congeals into a solid mass, I'm not happy. I think that's why leftover macaroni and cheese is never very satisfactory for me; it always seems to solidify after refrigeration and never regains its original creaminess.

Whether I'm formally developing new recipes or just playing around in the kitchen, I tend to fall back on a few combinations of ingredients or flavors. Some are traditional combinations from ethnic or regional cuisines, but others are just duos or trios that I've come upon and keep returning to. Here, for instance, on the "Reputation Maker" topic, I wrote about a cookie I make with browned butter, cardamom and cinnamon. Since coming up with the cookie recipe, I've adapted the flavor combination to both a cake and caramels. On the savory side, I use roasted red peppers, caramelized onions and aged gouda cheese in a soup, as a pizza topping, in twice-baked potatoes, and macaroni and cheese. Also as a topping for crostini, which is the recipe I started with. I'm in good company here. Tom Colicchio's Think Like a Chef contains a chapter on "Trilogies" -- his tried and true combinations. Yet I wonder if my use of such combinations borders on overuse. Maybe my guests think my trios are as trite and boring as some people think cilantro, chiles and lime are. Does anyone else fall back on a few combinations? If you do, what are they? And how do you know if your tried and true ingredients have put you in a rut, or whether they're worth returning to?

I first learned that trick with the potatoes from Linda Carucci, former dean at California Culinary Academy. It works with any waxy potatoes you're roasting. Let them go about 20 minutes longer than you think you should and the insides turn creamy -- almost as if they're mashed. Onions are another food that benefit from longer cooking than most recipes call for. I always see recipes for "caramelized" onions that call for cooking until they're light amber (the given times vary from 30 to 45 minutes) but I find that letting them go until they're a darker brown (anywhere from an hour to two, depending on the amount) results in a much deeper flavor and a texture that's practically melting.

I've never learned to truss or tie correctly, which is probably one reason I avoid it whenever possible. I tend to spatchcock chickens, which obviates the need for (or possibility of) trussing. Years ago, I decided to make a boned stuffed leg of lamb for Easter dinner, and not knowing anything about the anatomy of the leg or the technique of tying, I used at least 724 feet of twine to subdue the thing. Not my proudest moment.

Over here, people are discussing the relative merits of French toast, waffles and pancakes. Me? I'm just not a fan of any of them. In many cuisines, savory food for breakfast is pretty common. Americans might be alone in their predilection for sweet foods at breakfast. Sweet cereals, pastries, pancakes and all the rest seem uniquely American, or am I wrong? I prefer savory breakfast foods. Give me eggs, pork products, toast, potatoes. I sometimes like a touch of sweetness -- jam on my toast, for instance, if I have bacon or cheese and eggs -- but overall, I'll skip the sweets. I don't think I've ever ordered pancakes or waffles at a restaurant, for instance. I'm an omelet kind of person, or leftover pizza. (I once ordered a patty melt at 9am.) So, what do you prefer for your breakfast? Sweets? Savory foods? Both? Does it depend on when you're eating, or who's cooking?

One thing to remember is that college students who get care packages can trade heavily with the contents, so even if Diana doesn't have a big sweet tooth, she might like receiving sweets. Cookies are college currency. If she likes spicy, these spicy walnuts are a good snack. They ship well and keep a long time too.

I've never tied short ribs, and I've never found that they fall apart. Also, since I trim off the connective tissue that holds the meat onto the bone, tying them seems like it would be more trouble than it's worth.

I've read that kaffir lime (both leaves and rind -- not sure about the juice) have the same components as citronella. I think it's that rather than pine or lemon that comes into play with kaffir . Whatever it is, though, it can definitely be overpowering in large doses.

It's important to differentiate between various "spicy" ingredients. Mustard, wasabi and horseradish, for instance, affect your nasal passages pretty directly -- take a hit of one of those and your eyes will water and your nose will run immediately. Whereas capsaicin, while hot on the tongue, doesn't really affect mucus membranes when you eat foods that contain it. The circumstances in which capsaicin come into play are if it's dispersed in cooking -- as when you lean over a wok when you're cooking chile flakes in hot oil -- or if you inadvertently sniff cayenne (well, yes, I have, in case you're wondering -- don't ask). Not to mention touching mucus membranes with capsaicin-covered hands. But just eating foods with chiles doesn't do much to your nasal passages.

I'm a big fan of the dishwasher, so I put everything in there and wash away. I have some glasses that don't go in, but that's about it.

Not quite the same, but years ago, a neighbor from the street down the hill came to my door with a bag full of ripe Santa Rosa plums. She said it was to make up for her son's band practicing in the garage (which I never heard) but I suspect it was that she was just making excuses to give them away. In either case, I ended up with a bag of perfect plums. I ate some, but it was a big bag and I knew they wouldn't last, so I decided to make a sorbet. I was thinking about what to add to the sorbet and remembered a bottle of "Black Muscat" dessert wine I had. I'd gotten it at a wine tasting a while earlier -- a gift from the winemaker. I knew I was never going to drink the wine -- way too sweet -- but I thought it might go well with the plums. In a word, the combination was perfect, and the sorbet was sublime. In a way, it was even better because I knew I would never be able to recreate it. I'm glad that I've never tried.

I use country ribs almost exclusively instead of a hunk of pork shoulder, both because I'm usually only cooking for one or two, and also because they cook so much faster than a shoulder roast. I generally do mine in the pressure cooker, either with tomatillos and poblanos for chili verde, or as faux pulled pork, or with soy sauce, garlic and ginger for Asian style pork over rice. My supermarket has started packaging pork loin as country ribs, which I find distressing and confusing. They're still packaging shoulder as well, and I asked the meat manager not to stop carrying the shoulder ribs, so I hope they don't. Has anyone else encountered loin country ribs?

That's why when I buy pastries donuts or bagels for a crowd, I always buy the "miniature" ones -- not so small, actually, but small enough that people don't seem reluctant to take a whole one.

A couple of years ago, I wrote this about pouring caramels: Since then, I've used the silicone pans a couple of times, but have always been looking for silicone molds that are a small enough size for caramels. No luck until very recently, when I saw these ice cube trays that are almost the perfect size. You can't tell from the photo, but the cubes are just under 1 inch on a side. They're too large (for my purposes) when filled all the way up, but halfway filled is the perfect size to fit the candy papers I have. I refrigerated the caramels overnight, and the next day they popped out of the molds perfectly shaped. I'll never cut another caramel again. (Next time I make them, I'll take photos to post.)

You can also juice the fruit and freeze the juice in ice cube trays.

This I get completely. . . .. Actually, it isn't true that all of the alcohol evaporates in cooking. Sometimes it does (if you're deglazing a hot pan, with wine, for instance, and reduce the liquid to a syrup) but sometimes quite a lot of alcohol is left, as when you're simmering coq au vin or boeuf bourguignonne. And while it's true that cooking with wine adds flavor to dishes, what's equally important is that alcohol dissolves some flavor molecules that water doesn't. As far as the original question, wine has two things that water doesn't which make a big difference with food: acidity and tannins. Both acids and tannins tend to cut through fatty foods, and also serve to refresh the palate. Which is not to say that this is the only way wine interacts with food, but it shouldn't be discounted.

Sometimes what's interesting is not the size of the burger so much as all the stuff that's on it. I was having lunch at a not particularly good bar and grill the other day, and the "burger" section of the menu didn't even have a plain cheeseburger listed, much less a hamburger. Rather, there were increasingly complex accretions of toppings, culminating in the "Kitchen Sink" burger, which had (as I recall) bacon, mushrooms, some kind of pepper, two cheeses and a fried egg -- and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few things. I think that when the burger itself is not great, a restaurant will rely on excessive toppings to try to cover that fact. But exactly why a giant mediocre burger would be a better thing than a small mediocre burger is anyone's guess.

I keep mine rolled up inside paper towel cardboard tubes. I use my sheet pans much more often without Silpats than with them so storing them in the sheetpans is a pain. Besides, when you buy Silpats, they're rolled up. I figure if they've been stored rolled up in the warehouse for who knows how many months or years before they're purchased, they can continue life rolled up in my cabinet.

I was in a cookware store the other day, looking at the display of Silpats, and a question occurred to me: If the Silpat site tells me to store my Silpats flat, then why are they rolled up when I buy them? Seems to me if I'm supposed to store them flat, Silpat should too.

I'm confused. Why do you have to slice ten loaves at a time? You toast them all at a time? You slice them and then freeze them?

I've found that, as has been mentioned, Asian ingredients such as fish sauce or hoisin can help low- or non-oil dressings out a lot. I think it's the glutamates, which seem to me to give a richer, fuller mouthfeel to sauces and dressings that almost mimics oil. I've used nothing by lime, sugar and fish sauce for Thai-influenced salads, or hoisin in a rice vinegar and sesame dressing (like this one which I use with an Asian style cole slaw).

A few weeks ago, I was in my grocery store, buying ingredients to make pizza. I hit the cheese aisle, only to find that they were completely out of whole milk mozzarella. I noticed that Sargento brand had a new line of shredded cheese, labeled "Artisan," one of which was whole milk mozz. Ordinarily, I don't buy shredded cheese unless I need a lot of it in circumstances where grating is too time consuming (vacations, for instance). But, that being my only choice for whole milk mozzarella, I figured I'd give it a try. I was very favorably impressed with the quality: it melted beautifully and had actual flavor. So the next week, when I noticed that the line was on sale, I picked up a package of the Mexican blend (the website's description: "The exuberant flavors of El Regalo™ Anejo Enchilado and Manchego Cheeses are perfectly paired with the smooth creaminess of our own Queso Quesadilla, Asadero and Queso Gallego Cheeses"). I'm not sure about "exuberant," but it was pretty good -- in fact, compared with other Mexican blend grated cheeses I've tried, I'd say it was excellent. As I said, I don't generally buy shredded cheese. But it's nice to have a decent option in circumstances where I don't want to grate my own. Any other opinions? Here's the product link from their website: Sargento Artisan cheese blends