JAZ

In Michael Recchiuti's book Chocolate Obsessions, he has a chocolate bark recipe that starts out with caramelized peanuts. I used the same technique for almonds for an almond bark and it worked great -- and the almonds were so good on their own they almost didn't make it into the bark. For 8 oz raw nuts, he calls for 3.5 oz granulated sugar and 2 tsp. butter. I thought the amount of butter wouldn't be enough, but you definitely get the butter taste, and the texture was great. The procedure is to lightly toast the nuts, then mix in a hot pan with the sugar and heat until the sugar is melted and coats the nuts. Then add the butter (he also calls for salt) and stir until the butter is mixed in and the nuts are shiny.

Maybe in some parts of the country. I'd never even heard of Red Velvet cake until I started reading internet food message boards, and I never once saw one at a bake sale, potluck or dinner in the 60's or 70's. I still have never seen one in person.

Some might say a Perfect Rob Roy. Although my guess is that the proportions of the vermouths to the Scotch really would make this an entirely different drink. I love Scotch -- it used to be my drink of choice before I discovered cocktails. But I hardly ever drink it these days, because I find it doesn't lend itself to cocktails. Nice to hear of a drink that uses it successfully.

Don't know if its common or not. I started adding it because once you've peeled & deseeded the cucumbers & peeled, deseeded & cored the tomatoes I found that the taste was right, but the gazpacho was too thick. So I added stock for consistency ( I was afraid that plain water would dilute the flavot too much.) ← One great thing about this recipe was that there's no seeding or peeling of the tomatoes, so the only prep is seeding the red pepper and quartering it and the tomatoes. Then they go into the food processor with a small chunk of bread, some garlic, and a splash of sherry vinegar. Then you add half a cup of olive oil slowly while the processor is running, and then you strain the soup.

It's not difficult to cut a mango, once you understand about the pit. It is easier to show than to explain, so here's a web page with some photos: How to cut a mango If you decide you like them enough to get them often, you can invest in an OXO mango splitter, which really does work.

These are my favorite "everyday" glasses, but they came in a travel set and I'm not sure how to get more. I like these for tall drinks: This is most of my "vintage" glassware (as well as some that's not so vintage):

I found a great, very simple recipe in a cookbook called La Cocina de Mama and wrote about it here: gazpacho. It's different from almost every other gazpacho recipe I've seen in the very short list of vegetables that go into it: no cucumbers, no onion. Tomatoes and a red bell pepper, garlic -- that's it. It's the best gazpacho I've ever made, and by far the easiest. I've never heard of adding stock to gazpacho; is that common?

Tito's is (or at least it was when it first came out) distilled from corn, although I'm not sure how much difference that makes. I always thought Tito's was more interesting than most other vodkas (not that I have a lot of experience) primarily because of the mouthfeel -- it was comparatively viscous. As I recall (I haven't tried it in years) it had more flavor than most vodkas, too, which meant it didn't always work very well in the typical vodka + fruit cocktails.

I really like a lot of different salads, but for nostalgia's sake, I'm going to say a wilted lettuce salad with red leaf or butter lettuce, sliced onions, and hot bacon and vinegar dressing. It's one of the salads I grew up with, and it's still great.

I had a rum based drink with muddled red jalapenos and yellow bell peppers a while back. It was great.

The Rathbone sour doesn't seem to have anything sour in it -- did I miss something?

I had a cucumber gimlet quite a while ago at Cortez, a San Francisco restaurant and bar known for its cocktail menu (not sure if it's still on the menu, though), and a basil gimlet last week at Rye, a newish SF bar. So, naturally, I decided to blend the two -- I muddled cucumber and basil with gin, then added a little simple syrup and a splash of green Chartreuse. It was good; but it's important not to get it too sweet. I thought at the time it would also be good with a splash of soda as a tall drink.

I know you said that you don't want to use pectin, but I would recommend buying some Ball Fruit Jell pectin for freezer jam. It requires much less sugar than regular pectin and gives reliable, good results. If you use apples with the strawberries, you'll dilute the strawberry flavor -- you'll end up with apple-strawberry jam, which will probably be good, but won't be strawberry jam. Freezer jams in general require less sugar and also don't require sterilization or sealing jars. Just make sure you get a pectin that's formulated for freezer jams.

If you started with a cocktail at the Top of the Mark in the Mark Hopkins hotel or the Starlight Room in the Sir Francis Drake (better cocktails at the latter, in my opinion) then you could take the cable car to Tadich Grill, which is definitely old San Francisco and has pretty good fish and seafood as well.

Here are a few things that come to mind: The chili would probably stand out more if it were in a solid color bowl, rather than glass -- if you had a yellow bowl, that might look good. Also, ordinarily I prefer white plates to colors, but since all that's on the plate in this case is the saltines, a darker plate might provide some contrast. As far as the contrast goes, some chopped cilantro would be nice, or -- since you don't want to add more heat to the chili, you could try a little diced red or yellow bell pepper (or both). Slivers of the peppers might be interesting too (instead of the dice).

Depending on the texture you're after, you might want to try seeding and shredding the cucumber, then draining and drying it. That's what I do for tzadtiki (sp?) and it doesn't end up watery. If you want largers pieces of cucumber, you still might want to seed it first before slicing. I find that leaving the seeds in results in more water seeping out.

Your recipe as written calls for baking soda, but then you talk about baking powder. They do vastly different things. Baking powder is a leavener, but baking soda is not on its own -- it needs an acidic ingredient to act as a leavener. So if your batter recipe really calls for baking soda, you need buttermilk or something acidic in it.

Can anyone give a good recipe for the batter? I think I know the basics, but every recipe I've come across seems to be a little different. For instance, some use just egg whites; some use whole eggs. Some use baking poweder; some use cornstarch. My attempts so far have been less than satisfactory.

Would this just be an exercise (seasoning without salt)? Do you not use salt, and if not, why? You could just as easily assert that butter (or other fat) is a cop-out, or that sugar is a cop-out, or that mirepoix is a cop-out. Yeah, you can make things taste good without them, but why?

When I buy waxed lemons, I scrub them with dish soap and very hot water and then rinse thoroughly. It's always worked for me.

These walnuts are great bar snacks. I used to sell them to a couple of local bars.

I've had deep fried anchovy-stuffed olives that make a really good bar snack.

A couple of notes about organization: Even though you'll have everyone work on the preparation, don't forget to give yourself time to unload the groceries, wash the produce and divide it into bowls/baskets/piles so everything they'll need is ready for them to work on. You'll also want to do things like fill a couple of bowls with some salt for seasoning, get your spices ready to be measured (if you're not pre-measuring), and make sure that anything your liquid ingredients (oil, soy sauce, etc) are in containers that are easy to manage (i.e, not the two gallon Costco cans). With everyone working on the prep, you'll need lots and lots of prep bowls of all sizes, and also several sets of measuring spoons and cups -- how well is the kitchen stocked? You mentioned having people bring their own knives and cutting boards; given that they're coming from work, you might want to invest in a package or two of the flexible plastic cutting boards so they don't have to. They're only $7 or so for a package of 4, and since you can charge a materials fee, it might be worth it. I've found that they work pretty well if you put a damp towel or paper towel underneath to keep them stable. Then you can keep them, or donate them to the kitchen. As for the content of the class, one thing to spend some time on in your class (which you're probably already planning to do) is the role of seasoning, especially salt, in cooking. I've found in my classes that even fairly experienced cooks really don't know what they're tasting for when the directions say "salt to taste." Letting them taste a dish after adding salt in several stages is an eye-opening experience for many of them.

Since I'm all out of Pernod, Herbsaint or any plausible Absinthe substitute, I couldn't make a Sazerac. However, I think an Old Fashioned Cocktail made according to Dave Wondrich's recipe in Killer Cocktails is a good way to celebrate, and a good way to break in my new bottle of Michter's rye.

Maybe because I'm reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, I've been thinking about this sort of thing, which is why I jumped in. There's an interesting account of "eating locally" in the Missoula (Montana) Independent: Grubshedding