JAZ

You can always sell them on the eG Shopping Block. I did that with back issues of Saveur and Cook's Illustrated that I didn't want to keep.

I used to be able to buy bags of chicken backs from my neighborhood butcher when I made stock, but now I have to rely on the backs of the chickens I butterfly for roasting, plus any leftover bones I have frozen from various uses. Since I usually don't have enough, I often augment them with a whole chicken. After some trial and error, what I've ended up doing is cooking everything at a low simmer (skimming as necessary) until the meat on the whole chicken is cooked. I remove the whole chicken (leaving everything else in the pot simmering) and let cool enough to handle. I pull off the breast meat and thighs and throw the rest of the carcass back in the pot. That way I have some chicken meat that's not cooked to death and still has flavor, but I also have a carcass, plus the wings and legs to contribute their all to the stock. It's a compromise, of course, but it works for me.

But that's a fairly well known quote (from the Song of Solomon: "Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples; for I am sick of love."). I don't think it's that odd that two authors would choose it as their book title.

From the article: In the grand scheme of things, this kind of bacterial activity is probably pretty minor. It doesn't bother me a whole lot, but then I come from a family that shares food. (By the way, I don't do it myself out of consideration for others who do care.) On the other hand, this is something to think about: Oh, and that "5-second rule"?

Waring has had an induction burner on the market for a couple of years. Is this a new model?

Nice stories. When I teach cocktail party classes, I always tell my students, "Don't serve anything to eat that requires your guests to put down their cocktails." Everyone laughs, but it's a good rule to follow.

It seems as if every time I turn around, there's a new silicone tool for the kitchen. Used to be Silpats and expensive French silicone molds were all you saw. Then spatulas made their debut. Now, there are affordable baking pans for everything from madelaines to popovers, as well as potholders, oven mitts, pinch bowls, even "poach pods" for eggs. I've tried quite a few of these items and have found that some work beautifully and some not so well. I like Silpats and baking pans for candy work -- a square silicone cake pan is the best caramel mold ever, and I have several ice cube/candy molds that I use for chocolates. As far as I'm concerned, silicone is the best thing ever to happen to home candy making. I like the spatulas and spoons as well, although I have had a couple of them crack, and the style with wood handles are a pain, I think. The pastry brushes are good for oiling pans and for marinades, but not so great for pastry work -- in my experience, the bristles aren't fine enough to get a nice even layer of egg wash or butter on pastry. Potholders and oven mitts? Useless. They're too bulky and inflexible to grab anything securely, and they heat up fast -- I can't hold a hot cookie sheet long enough to get the cookies off. I still use the potholders as trivets occasionally, but that's it. So, what silicone tools are your favorites? Any must-haves?

It's not as dense as a ganache, but I wouldn't call it airy.

On an older topic, I posted this recipe for a malted milk filling that I've used for truffles. It takes a lot of malted powder to make the filling taste like malted milk. You can't do it with a ganache. Hope this is helpful. Chocolate-Malt Filling 1 cup white chocolate chunks or chips 2/3 cups milk chocolate chunks or chips 1/4 cup unsalted butter 3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp plain malted milk powder 1 3oz package cream cheese, softened 1/3 cup milk 2 tsp vanilla extract Melt chocolate and butter in small heavy saucepan over low heat and cool slightly. Beat the malted milk powder and cream cheese until well blended and completely smooth. Beat in half of the chocolate mixture just until incorporated. Beat in the milk a little at a time until well blended. Beat in the remaining chocolate mixture and the vanilla until evenly incorporated. At this point the texture will be really strange and viscous. Don't worry. Refrigerate for 30 minutes, or until somewhat thickened but not stiff. Beat the filling on high speed until light in color and very fluffy, about 3 minutes more; scrape down the sides several times.

Since this topic has run its course, we're closing it. Thanks for participating.

What don't you like about it? I don't have any myself, but have used them in the kitchen where I teach and like them fine. I have the baby one (2 oz.), which I use for cocktails, and wouldn't be without it. Actually I have 5. I love them.

I agree. I wrote about some experiments with MSG in the Daily Gullet a few years ago (scroll down for the section on MSG). Here's part of what I said: and

Baking soda is alkaline, not acidic. So if it's acidic foods that are supposed to cause these off tastes, baking soda would have no effect.

I used to get great mini pastries from Bakers of Paris in San Francisco. They only have one retail location left, but you might be able to contact their wholesale operation and order. I don't know how expensive they'd be, though.

Something I've made a few times and enjoyed is a version of Dr. Cocktail's East India cocktail. He gives two versions, one on CocktailDB with pineapple juice and one in Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails, which calls for brandy, raspberry syrup, a teaspoon each of Curacao and Maraschino, and Angostura bitters. That's the one I've tried. For me, it's a nice after-dinner drink. Sweet enough, but not too sweet.

I've tried a couple different strategies for my cocktail party classes, where I need to pour out 8 to 16 cocktails at once. I've found that if you're making a drink that's best stirred, like a Manhattan or Martini, Gary Regan's method of adding water (to compensate for the lack of ice melt), chilling and pouring out works fine. But if you're making something that's best shaken (Margarita, Sidecar -- anything with citrus, really), you lose a lot in texture if you don't shake them. So in those cases, I've had better results if I mix a pitcher of the ingredients (without any extra water, or just a little bit), refrigerate it, and then pour and shake over ice to order.

This will depend on your thermometer -- most of them don't actually have the sensor in the tip, so it makes no difference where the tip is. What's important is that the probe is at least an inch into the drink -- that's usually where the sensor is. But you're right that you can get very different readings depending on where the sensor is. But we're not talking about ice size or shape or the length of time it takes to chill a drink. We're talking about the optimal serving temperature. So shaking/stirring time isn't really relevant.

Remember that this is a request for culinary authors, not just influential women. Alice Waters has co-authored a few books, but her primary influence isn't as a writer.

Katie, a couple of years ago, cocktailgeek made a tequila and hot chocolate drink that he let me preview (not sure if it ever made it on to the menu -- we tasted a test version) that was fabulous. I'd definitely go with tequila.

Take two on the homemade lime cordial: This time I used white sugar -- again, 1 cup. I upped the gin to an ounce and the water to 1/4 cup. This made the sugar much easier to melt and resulted in a thinner syrup. The white sugar made for a syrup much more like Rose's in color -- it lacked the neon green hue; in fact, it's much like old Rose's in color. Since the other makrut limes had been slowly dehydrating in the freezer, they didn't yield much juice, but it's my understanding that most of the flavor in them comes from the peel. I think in my next batch, I might also add the zest from a Persian lime as well (might make for a brighter green syrup as well. I think at this point I'm pretty close to what Francesco made (going by memory, of course), and I certainly have something I can drink in Gimlets. I'll probably play around with a few permutations, but I think the basic formula is sound.

You might consider M.F.K. Fisher (mentioned above): not only did she write numerous books of her own, but she also translated and annotated Brillat-Savarin's Physiology of Taste.

I like Bugles: they are to Fritos what Munchos are to potato chips.

Since I've worked in cookware stores off and on for 10 years, no one ever gets me cookware or kitchen stuff for Christmas. I did, however, get a few things for myself this season: Two of these Gel-Pro mats for my horrible tile floor Silicone cake pans for caramel (silicone is candy's best friend) A new Infinity Conical Burr Grinder (I was waiting for my crappy old grinder to die, and it finally did -- perfect timing!)

Soaking onions in milk or buttermilk (or water, for that matter) draws out some of the compounds that can make them harsh. I'm not sure that buttermilk has any softening effect on the onions. Also, if you're doing the flour-egg-breading routine (or just the flouring technique for "onion strings"), a soak in milk will make the flour stick better.

Count me as being not terribly impressed with this list. Not that I expect much innovation in an article like this, but there were only a handful I haven't made or had somewhere. I also think the "20 Minutes" part is very misleading -- lots of these, while they sound fine, surely would take more than 20 minutes. I can't cut apart a rack of baby back ribs and get them cooked in 20 minutes. I can't make crab cakes, start to finish, in 20 minutes. I can't form a pound's worth of meatballs in 10 minutes (all that's left given the 5 minutes of sitting and 5 minutes of cooking). In only one (the cod cakes) does he hint that the "20 minutes" is a misnomer.