JAZ

Here's a link to the paper cited by the Wikipedia article. Seems to be a case where some oxidized nuts caused the reaction, while most were fine. and I know I've eaten lots of pine nuts -- plain and in things. Never had them go rancid, and never experienced that taste disorder.

Jamon -- You've got to tell us a little more here! I'm really having a hard time wrapping my head around this. What is the texture like? And is it sweet? I would think the carrots would make for a very sweet macaroni and cheese, which really doesn't sound all that appetizing... ← I agree -- especially with the orange juice. The one review posted of the recipe says the same thing (too sweet). You didn't find it to be so?

As long as whatever it is means that goat cheese is no longer on every salad ever made, I'm all for it. That was a trend that never should have happened.

Savory souffles? If time is an element, you can make Anne Willan's twice-baked souffles. I've made them before, and they puff up remarkably well during the second baking.

I got mine sharpened (by a local professional knife guy) and it's great. One thing you should keep in mind is that if your blade has "microserrations" like mine did, the sharpening process will remove that edge and leave a regular one.

It's been at least five years since I've been to Destino on Market. I took my brother there when he was in town for a conference. We were all very happy with the food and service. Now he's headed back to SF for another conference and is thinking about taking a group of colleagues there. I'd like to make sure it hasn't gone downhill since then. Anyone been lately?

In On Food and Cooking, Harold McGee says that for best whipping, the cream should not only be cold, but it should be "aged" in the refrigerator for 12 hours or more. That is, if the cream sat out and warmed up for a while and was chilled just before use, it wouldn't whip well. Maybe it sat out for a while in the car while you were shopping, and then you chilled it quickly and tried to whip it?

I've made cardamom ice cream and got a subtle but definite flavor by steeping 8-10 pods in 2 cups of hot cream for 15 minutes or so.

I may be alone in this, but I find the organization and layout of this book sadly confusing. I looked up "Corn" (and found nothing I didn't already know, but that's beside the point -- it's corn, after all. But how odd it is that "corn" was listed under, well, "Corn") and was flipping through the surrounding pages and came upon "cooling," which was something about which foods have a cooling aspect, I guess. "Appetizers" comes after "Anise, Star" and "Korean Cuisine" comes after "Kohlrabi." I wonder why they didn't arrange the information into sections that make some sense, instead of just jumbling everything together. I can tell there's some very useful information there, but I'm unlikely to refer to it often. I certainly won't read through it or pick it up to browse for fun, which is what I expected to want to do. I'm very disappointed.

I wonder, though, if Ruhlman's intent is to provide starting points or to provide absolute ratios. I think it's the latter. For instance, from the blurb above and from what he's said on his website, it seems that he's saying that the ratio for a vinaigrette is 3:1, not that it's a starting point. From his blog: This seems absurd to me. Yeah, it's a useful starting point, but how you can discount the difference in acid levels between vinegars, the oil used, and the food you're using it on? I make some vinaigrettes with equal parts oil and vinegar, all the way up to 4 or 5 parts oil to 1 part vinegar. And his mention of a "Thai inspired vinaigrette" is especially confusing -- the Thai salads I'm familiar with don't even contain oil in the dressings; they use fish sauce and sugar to balance the lime juice. Maybe it's just me, but a book of ratios seems to be useful only in a very limited sense -- as a starting point for some sauces and baked goods. Not much else.

David, how did you get started with the show? Is your background in professional cooking? Did you know someone from the show? It also sounds as if you weren't the only guest chef on the program; is that right? Who were the others -- home cooks like you or local restaurant chefs?

Since it's brined already, I'd go very easy on additional salt.

I'm not familiar with a "Peanut Plank" but if it's anything like a Munch bar, maybe this information or this recipe will help. I think corn syrup might help keep the syrup lighter -- the nut crunch recipe I have that calls for a comparatively large amount of corn syrup stays much lighter in color than other toffee recipes.

I'll echo Maggie and say that the Sidecar is an excellent way to introduce newcomers to cocktails. It's what I usually suggest.

Much of it will probably be Le Creuset, Chris -- I have pieces I've only used once or twice, or never even used (like a tagine still in the box). I love Le Creuset, but I find myself using only three or four pieces regularly. Yet I've been moving the rest of it from kitchen to kitchen -- why? Or the marble board and rolling pin that seemed like such a good idea when I got it ten years ago and have yet to use. There's some All-Clad and Chantal in there too. I'm not sure about any of the copper. I think I'd regret selling that.

Just the one week made some changes in my cooking -- I'm much less likely to throw anything away. Not that I waste a lot of food, but it always seems like I have the last little bit of lettuce or cabbage go slimy before I get to it, or I find some cooked rice growing mold in the back of the fridge. Last week, for instance, I had half a cucumber that was in pretty bad shape, but I managed to cut the bad spots off and had enough to make a drink that calls for cucumber and basil -- and I used up more of the basil too. Before this, I probably would have thrown both away.

I used to work at a Sur La Table store, and for a while the Mauviel we got in stock was stamped with the SLT mark, not Mauviel. Then I think they switched back later on. So yes, it's real Mauviel.

Something that I found in my freezer was a bag of "flaked oats" that was a gift from my CSA. I hate cooked oatmeal as a breakfast cereal, which is the only thing this package has directions for. Can I just use these in oatmeal cookies or something? A topping for a fruit crisp?

I must be alone in this, but I was not terribly impressed with his mushroom soup.

The "one thing" was my Borner V-slicer, to make onion rings. I have a ceramic slicer that I use all the time for thin sliced potatoes, cucumbers and other vegetables. If I don't need really thin, uniform slices I generally just use a knife, but onion ring slices are always tough to get right. Hence the V-slicer. If I make onion rings once a month, or even just four or five times a year, the V-slicer is worth keeping, but that doesn't mean it has to take up kitchen drawer space. It can live elsewhere.

Very true about the freezer leftovers -- even though I wasn't wildly crazy about the short ribs and lentils I made, having three or four servings in the freezer will still come in handy. IF I remember to use them.

I've been a long time in following up to this, partly because life's been intruding, but also because I wanted to take some time to rethink my kitchen strategy. With all the talk of pot racks and hanging bars, I did consider putting one up over my counter, when when it came down to it, two thoughts occurred to me: First, I really don't like the look of pot racks for my kitchen. I like a cleaner look, and it's just not possible with all my cookware hanging out on hooks. Second, I don't need more room; I need less stuff. In the month or six weeks since I cleaned out the drawers, I've needed one thing, which I took out exactly once. Doesn't mean I won't need some of it later -- I do use some things only occasionally, like candy-making accessories. But that stuff doesn't have to be in the kitchen. On the other hand, there have been some very helpful suggestions here that I woudn't have thought of on my own. One thing that Anna suggested was hooks for frequently used utensils. I don't have room on the walls or the fridge as she uses, but I do have the inside of cabinets. Thus, in the cabinet where I keep strainers, colanders (stuff with holes, if you recall), I put up three hooks and hung all the strainers there. Not only are the strainers easier to get to, but getting them out of the colanders, where I used to stack them, means that the colanders are much easier to get to as well. Coupled with removing a few things that I never or rarely use (set of tamis, anyone?), it means I've gone from this: to this: Something else helpful that I believe I already mentioned was getting a small storage cabinet, which I've put out on the deck (only a few steps from the kitchen). Here I can keep cookware that I use, but not often --a stockpot, kettle, the 8-qt. Demeyere dutch oven (missing in this photo, because I was using it), extra Le Creuset. Finally, I got a pull-out cookware drawer for one of the cabinets. I'm still working on exactly what needs to go where in this, but it's already helped enormously. Yes, pots and pans are still stacked (although not as much as these photos make it seem -- I've done more rearranging since I took these photos), but they're much easier to get to because the drawers pull out. And although the drawer isn't the entire width of the cabinet, that's turned out to be a good thing, because I now store my cutting boards here -- where I use them, instead of across the kitchen with the sheet pans. Here, by way of comparison, is the before picture: The kitchen is still a work in progress, but it's already so much more functional I'm tempted to stop. I don't need any more drawers or shelves or cabinets, at least. I think it's just a matter of figuring out what I use most and getting those things where they're most accessible. Now that I've cleaned out my cabinets, I have a closet of cookware (some of which I haven't even photographed) that I need to get rid of. I think it's time for a virtual garage sale over on the eG Shopping Block.

I've been remiss in posting here. I'm not really able to continue for another week, but it was a great exercise. I figure I probably saved $60 by not shopping for a week. More, if you count the items I used that probably would have spoiled or been tossed. A couple of dinners that I made during the week: This was spaghetti carbonara with the rest of the pancetta I'd discovered in the fridge. Since I had the tomato-based sauce earlier over polenta (aka grits), I was able to save the pasta for this night. I used one of my remaining eggs, and some parm. I used short ribs and lentils for this dish, inspired by Fat Guy. I discovered two things when I made this: first, lentils expand a lot; second, I don't really like them all that much. Too bad, because I have a lot of leftovers, now in the freezer. Most nights, I had a salad like this, made from arugula and romaine. Not really exciting, but it was greenery. You'll notice that most of these meals were pretty heavy, which was only a problem because I had so many of them in a row. I found myself wishing I had the ingredients for snapper Veracruz or Greek salad. The last two nights I had a steak I'd gotten from a local farm that raises grass-fed beef. It was supposed to have been a ribeye, but I've never seen a ribeye like this before. Anyway, it was huge, and I still have some left. The first dinner was the rest of the mushrooms (still viable, sort of) and one of the last onions sauteed with strips of the steak in a sort of Stroganoff, except that I used heavy cream instead of sour cream. To make up for the acid, I found a bag of frozen cubes of red wine in the freezer, so I used that in the sauce. It was pretty good, but again, really heavy. My (late) contribution to the pot luck was part of the rest of the steak, marinated in a red chile sauce, the recipe for which I got from a Rick Bayliss cookbook. I had a bag of dried anchos or New Mexican chiles; I started the sauce with those. I had rice left over from earlier in the week, and mixed in some of the strained tomatoes still in the fridge, along with carrot, onion and some dried jalapenos that I think came from Tales of the Cocktail a couple of years ago. (Who knew I'd ever have occasion to use them?). I cooked pinto beans in the pressure and turned them into refritos with the last of the onion and some pork belly. If I'd been able to go shopping, I'd have gotten the ingredients for pico de gallo, and some beer to have with dinner. As it is, I went salsa-less and had a Margarita with the last lime of the week.

LizD, Does this recipe look like what you want? It's from Fine Cooking magazine, and there's some discussion of them here. I made a small batch of them yesterday, and my only problem was getting the seeds to stay on the crackers. Today I made another batch with toasted sesame seeds mixed into the dough and I'm much happier with them.

Last night I used up some lentils I've had in the pantry forever. I braised them along with a small package of short ribs that I bought a while back. A carrot and onion went in as well, leaving me only two onions (but a bunch of carrots). I'd made beef stock recently, so that was the liquid for braising. I now have a lot of lentils and a couple of short ribs left; I froze half and have half in the fridge. To go with the lentils, I made sweet and sour cabbage with some shredded coleslaw mix I had in the fridge. It was a little old for coleslaw, but it worked fine cooked. For lunch today, I thawed some roasted red pepper soup and used one of the pieces of bread I found in the freezer to make an open faced grilled cheese sandwich. Luckily, I had a three-pound can of cheese from the dairy at Washington State University that I opened not too long ago, so I'm okay on cheese. Tonight's dinner was pasta carbonara with the rest of the pancetta and spaghetti, and one of my remaining eggs. I used about half of the romaine I have left in a salad, and drank the last glass of wine I had left.