davidthomas8779

Because Southerners don't get enough grief, our standardbearer has to complain about how confusing this new-fangled indoor plumbing is. ;)

I second that. We took my (Vietnamese) mom to the Eden Center once and she asked all the little old ladies where we should go. They all suggested we go here. Way better than anything else in the metro area IMHO (unless my mum is cooking, of course). At the risk of making myself look like a fool, the Four Sisters place is actually named Huong Que.

If we let the girls feel superior, they'll cook more stuff for us, right? FYI--I can cook my ass off, but usually just cook on the weekend b/c I'm not home early enough to properly feed the kids if I were to cook during the week.

Tonight Eggs Ham Eggs and Ham Green Eggs and Ham (and Muenster and Jalepenos for Dad) Sam, I am (actually, Dave I am) I did this as an image gullet experiment and it took me about 4 minutes from the point when I sat down (including resizing my images)

Because barbecue shouldn't be sauced except just before eaten, I don't worry about having to freeze sauced Q. I usually take my leftovers and toss it cubed in a hot wok with chopped bok choy or another asian green. Note that the first sentence was there just to irritate Varmint and the rest of the ENC BBQ crowd.

Tell them that you're sure that someone else would be happy to take them out for a steak.

I use heads when making my stock, unless I'm super concerned about making a clear stock. If I want my stock to be clear, I just use bones.

You free on Sunday? We can go to the First Pentecostal Church of Hiram and have lunch at Morrison's Cafeteria?

My wife and kids have the same issue with gluten. We have bought some great gluten free baking books and the stuff works (pause while reading to mimic me going to the shelf to get them) Gluten Free Gourmet Bakes Bread (Bette Hagman) Gluten Free Gourmet Cooks Fast and Health (Bette Hagman) Gluten Free Kitchen (ROben Ryberg) We also keep meringues and macaroons on hand for easy dessert.

Barbecue Sextathalon (don't get your hopes up by the name, the pig will be safe) Opening with hickory splitting, to be judged on speed and lack of missing extremities (unless said extremities were missing at the start of the competition). Fire-building and maintenance (judged on speed of preparation and maintenance of proper coals) Pork preparation (proper cleaning and seasoning of the following a) pork butt, b) pork ribs, c) whole hog) (judged on by a tripartite panel of individuals from East and West NC and TN. Artistic expression in proper selection of attire for hog). Pork cooking (proper coordination of team to turn and adjust porcine products) Presentation (garnishes are interesting, relevant if made of pork, but wholly unnecessary) Taste (I'm happy to handle the judging for this event)

Japanese Cooking, a Simple Art is a great book that covers a broad range of a cuisine that most are not familiar with cooking. It has great technique information and good illustrations. I enjoy reading the China Moon Cookbook.

You're a legal secretary, there is no way they could justify firing you for the first time you fall asleep. I look at the stuff I give my secretary to do and am astounded that I don't have to call her every 15 minutes to wake her up.

I got them in Duluth from Beudreaux's Cajun Seafood. they're from LA, I forget where in LA the sack was labeled from.

I paid 2.75 a lb for live crawfish in Atlanta, GA a few weeks ago, I was wondering how prices were in LA and in other parts of the country.

What kind of potions? Sounds vaguely Harry Potter.

I tried to search the forum for sorbet discussion, but all of my searches failed due to technical issues. I'm considering making a sumac sorbet or ice cream. My concern is the ground sumac will be gritty, so I think that I'd need to do something with it so that I don't have to use the actual ground sumac in the sorbet. Is this something that I should steep in water and strain (and use the water) or is there some other appropriate technique that would work well? If the steep and strain method is the appropriate method, what do I do for ice cream?

I want someone to make me sumac ice cream or sorbet (or I guess I could just make it myself). I think that it would be an astounding flavor/texture contrast.

It was the saffron. It was ok, but didn't make me want to jump up and kiss the pastry chef.

I went to Blais with my parents and wife on Valentine's Day and had a great meal with almost flawlessly prepared food. First I'll rave about the food then I'll get my issues off my chest. Pros: 1. The food kicked all kinds of ass. If I could eat ever dinner here, I'd come for a month straight. 2. With the exception of the bread thing, the service was impeccable. I needed to be done at 830 (started at 640 or so) because of a babysitting issue. We were done at 829 and didn't feel rushed. The food: Amuse Him: Oyster with cocktail sauce sorbet. This was incredible. Perfect small oyster with a little scoop of cocktail sausce sorbet (yep, cocktail sauce made into sorbet). It woke up the mouth and made me really hungry. Her: Asparagus/parm. froth. MM described it perfectly above. I'll add nothing execpt my dad was pissed that mom only shared a little bite. I discovered that an inverted fork worked well to get the last of the froth out of the glass. Course 1 Him: Tuna/veal salad. MM describes it spot on. Her: Warm smoked barely cooked hamachi with yuzu sauce. Carpaccio of the gods and my second favorite course (my wife and I were doing a lot of sharing which made this a good V-D meal) Course 2 Him: Edamame cream soup. Captured the essence of edamame perfectly. Wife and fought over this one. Her: Globe artichoke soup. Also good, but could have tasted more artichokey. Course 3 Him: Striped wild bass over something (apparently something not memorable) Her: Turbot served over almond gnocchi (made with almond flour and potato). The gnocchi were my wife's favorite flavor of the evening. After tasting this course, it makes MM's comment that Blais is the next Ripert seem not like exaggeration. Course 4 Him: Perfectly cooked piece of filet served with smoked potatoes, braised root veggies and blue cheese ice cream. The beef was great, potatoes were done well (but not really interesting), the veggies were astoundingly great (I could have eaten a bowl of them for dinner), the ice cream tasted just like blue cheese. Although the cocktail sauce sorbet worked for me, for some reason the blue cheese ice cream (although it did everything it tried to do) just didn't work for me [my dad loved it]. Her: MM's duck issues have been worked out. Same duck dish he had except the duck was cut to the appropriate thickness and they lost the pom. seeds. [perhaps somebody reads egullet?] Course 5 Him: This was the best dessert I've eaten in a year. Parsnip cake with pear compote and ginger ice cream. Not too sweet, not too heavy, it was great. Her: Wife had fruit and an apple wafer. She was happy, but only because she has expectations of dessert because of the wheat thing. Mom had the oozing chocolate thing with some ice cream that was not memorable. It also was served with little red wine gelatin squares that were really tasty. It was a good oozing chocoloate thing, but my dessert was better. Next Up Shots of white chocolate and truffle juice foam with microcelery. This was tasty and cleared my mouth up for the final course. Finale Tang. MM describes it well. It was really tangy. I liked it. Wife liked it. Dad will eat anything so his vote doesn't count. Mom, not so much. I was surprised that it was a little powdery (like some didn't mix in well enough) but that could be by design to get it to evoke more Tang thoughts. All in all, I thought the food was extremely well done. I'd have rather had MM's meal because his pushed the edges a little more. I'll go back again to try the tasting menu again. Cons: 1. The tasting menu is generally $49. They jacked it up to $69 on V-D and nobody mentioned it ahead of time. Also, they were only offering the tasting menus (1 for men, 1 for women) on V-D, so if the 40% price jump bothered you (other than just being irritated at it) you didn't have an option other than exiting. 2. I heard one of the wait staff mentioning that they tried to tone down the "out there" aspect of the food because it was V-D. I made my reservation to enjoy the "out there" so having it toned down bugged me. 3. My wife has a wheat intolerance. They did an almost perfect job dealing with it, except for 2 things. a) even though the waiter told us that he'd make sure that there wasn't an issue, I noticed that there was bread in her soup just before she was going to eat it. They immediately redid the soup without the bread, but she had to eat 5 minutes behind the rest of us (and if I hadn't caught it, would have been in for some issues); b) even though we told them about the wheat thing 2 weeks ahead of time, they didn't think real hard about desert and served her a bowl of fruit. Quite frankly, a small scoop of each of the ice creams that were accompanying the regular deserts would have been much better. 4. My parents both had martinis before dinner. They complained that they tasted watered. I assume that this is because they (martinis not parents) were shaken with smallish ice cubes.

http://www.blais-atlanta.com

No, these are astoundingly useful for use on ginger. For some reason they work great on ginger in spite of its fibrosity (isn't that the technical term for being really fibrous?)

Potato starch has worked the best, but it is still a bit grainy. Rice flour had a nasty grainy texture (like bad paste). I guess there are no celiac cajuns

I snapped my Kyocera in 2 while peeling a sweet potato after just 18 months.

I make great roux with wheat flour. Unfortunately, I can't cook with it any more and I can't get any kind of gluten free flour (rice, garbanzo, etc) to work and not taste grainy. Has anyone successully made a gluten-free roux?

Downtown is indeed a pit. Sundial is good for the view, but you have to have perfect timing because you would want to go late enough so that it is dark enough to not notice the threadbare carpet and general look of grime, yet early enough to see the view in daylight. I wouldn't waste a meal on Luxe unless you don't have the time or energy to leave downtown. I think Veni Vidi Vici is overrated and if you're coming from the northeast, you can get better italian. Places to go: South City Kitchen has great contemporary southern food that is well executed Seegers if you want an astounding high end meal Bluepointe for good straight ahead continental cuisine. Philipe's in midtown is a great belgian restaurant (mussels, rabbit, etc.) Tamarind is great, Surin in VA highland is also great and is in a neighborhood that is fun to walk around in. Brasserie la coze in Lenox mall (yes, in the mall) has great french bistro food. Skip chops and bones b/c you can get a steak anywhere Tierra in Midtown (http://www.tierrarestaurant.com/page1.html) gets great reviews and has fun south american food. I just met the husband and wife who own it and really enjoyed their company. If you go, make sure you order what might be the best tres leches in the free world. Bachnallia consistently gets reviewed as one of the best in the city (This year's recipient of the James Beard Foundation Award of Excellence for best restaurant in the Southeast ). Chefs are ingredient crazy (organic and high quality stuff abounds) For more, check out the local food critic's guide at http://www.accessatlanta.com/restaurants/c...g_top50a-l.html he is generally very accurate. If I were coming from out of town and choosing 2 dinners in Atlanta, I'd go to South City Kitchen and flip a coin between Bachanailla and Seegers.