cdh

Looking forward to seeing your work in PHL. While I'm out beyond the 'burbs and trek into town far too rarely, I'll make sure to pop down and visit once you open. Fabulous pastry is a wonderful thing... do play with interesting new flavors and be adventurous... but remember to keep a few items priced within the reach of any and everybody. That way you'll get people in the door, and have interesting stuff for them to splurge on.

From what I've read elsewhere, I understand that the theory is that the bottom of the filter acts as a heat sink which adversely affects the final results... the idea is that the coffee should go from grounds to cup at the same temperature with no increases or decreases along the way. Also a good way of ensuring that the puck is not channeling but rather extracting evenly throughout by means of visual inspection of where the coffee stream exits the filter basket.

Sigma's website offers a bunch of varities of "alginic acid, sodium salt", which sounds to be what sodium alginate is... but none of them mention any of the grades you all have mentioned here... just what appear to be different manufacturers. The US Pharmacopea must not extend into seaweed extracts. Thinking about all this purity stuff, sodium alginate is derived from kelp. Kelp is available in any Japanese market in the dashi making supplies section. Is there a way to process kombu into a useful source of sodium alginate for these sorts of experiments? I'd imagine it would need to be soaked for a long time to remove sea salt and other minerals it might have absorbed... How much of the flavor can one wash away and still maintain the gelling properties? And would dropping dashi into a CaCl2 solution result in pearls??

Interesting. A friend who had had the insane idea of going back to college to take organic chemistry told me that the formulators of lab grade stuff pay no attention to the effects of consumption, based in the idea that nobody in a lab is going to consume the results of anything done there. Consequently, I'm more interested in getting stuff made with the idea that it will be consumed rather than made with the assumption that nobody will be so dumb as to consume it.

Any chemists here who can tell us an easy way to make tartaric acid from grocery story cream of tartar? Or is that not an easily reversed reaction?

Thanks for the links.

Having read about the El Bulli faux caviar technique here a number of times, the urge to play with the technique has come over me. I've been googling up a storm and have had no luck finding a source of the sodium alginate. I've tried health food stores and constantly get a funny look from the counterfolk there, though there are google indications that somebody or other used to make a pure sodium alginate dietary supplement at some point in time... I'm wary about going to chemical supply houses because who knows whether the impurities that won't affect lab reactions will affect taste... I'd rather not order from Texturas El Bulli because I don't read enough spanish to figure out what's what, or where on that website to place an order. I've found a kids' science website that sells a kit for making "worms" that appears to use the alginate CaCl reaction, but their stuff appears to be pre-colored. So, anybody found a source? Anybody played with the technique with fun results? So many possibilities.

Is it a gas permeability issue, or a petrochemicals leaching into the wine issue you have with the bucket plastics? I wonder as I have a mead that's been sitting in a plastic bucket in the basement for 3.5 months now... it has had a funny phenolic/medicinal smell from the beginning, which I think came from the yeast (lalvin narbonne), not from the plastic... but a little paranoia is healthy, no? I'm hoping that time will cure that one, and if not time, then the few pounds of frozen cherries and blackberries that I chucked in there a few weeks back. And as to the design of the bags, could you expand on the "small" inner liner and its properties that make it wine friendly? I'm guessing the aluminum is there solely as a light blocker... am I right? And the outer layer is there to provide strength and another layer of protection against gasses getting in?

Interesting perspective you have on the use of plastic in fermenting your wine... I never thought to compare what I ferment it in to what I would like to drink it out of, as you are doing with your coffee analogy. But, yeah, I don't like plastic cups for anything. But the idea bagging the final product sits fine with you, because dealing with glass bottles is a pain? Could you expound on your thoughts about where plastic is OK and where it isn't? Glass has always scared me as a fermentor material because all of my brewing involves multiple trips with the fermentor up and down the basement stairs. I have read far too many "oops, dropped the fermentor!" stories from people who use glass to ever want to get into that boat myself. Particularly because so many of those stories continue with "and I ended up in the emergency room and got 10 stitches in my (ankle/hand/other body part) where the glass shard cut me, and then I had to go home and clean 5 gallons of beer off my floor."

The beans come stuck in sticky sour goo inside the pods... that is the paste. The block form is the paste minus the beans. Moisten the paste and push it through a sieve to get a consistency that's easy to work with. Tamarind makes a great replacement for citrus in mixology... Making sours with tamarind is quite enjoyable. Tamarind margaritas are also nice. I also use the stuff in Thai recipes like pad thai, or when a dish seems to need a little brightening and I don't have citrus around. Also works nicely in marinades. I was recently introduced to a variety of tamarind that brings its own sweetness and is a lot like a sweet and sour candy straight out of the pods... yummy stuff.

Sadly there is one in my head right now that has knocked out my taste buds... talk about terrible timing.

I don't think there is an ur-whisky that incorporates the features of all of them. Closest you're going to get is to pick a representative of each of the major varieties of blends. If I were going to pick representatives I'd pick the following based on my own tastes and preferences. They're all good: Scotch: Famous Grouse, a blended scotch Irish: Black Bush from Bushmills Bourbon: Old Forester Canadian: Canadian Club If you picked up a full bottle of each, you'd be out about $100, and would have a fine variety to try. I think all of the above come in airline bottles, so you could get 4 of them and narrow down your preferences really inexpensively.

You're aiming for a uniform mix at the time the foam collapses. When it starts to collapse, your next couple of folds should go all the way down to the bottom of the bowl to make sure there is no almond dust still there. As the foam collapses, the mixture will stiffen a bit, which you should be able to feel when you're doing the folding. Once you feel it begin to stiffen, only fold 2 or 3 more times. Then put it into the piping bag and pipe it out. If you fold it too much, it will loosen up again and be more difficult to pipe out precisely.

I agree that the problem is probably not your almond flour. In making macarons, there are two critical points in the technique that you must get right. 1. You must beat your eggwhites to very stiff peaks, but not overbeat them. They must be highly aerated, and also retain some elasticity. 2. When folding the almond sugar mixture into the eggwhites, you must fold only until the foam collapses and the batter turns into a shiny magma-like stuff. Don't go more than 3 or 4 folds further once you hit this point. Those are the two keys to getting good feet to form as far as I've figured... Every time I hit those two right on, my macs are beautiful. When either misses, they're just cookies.

You need to develop your own palate for distilled grains. Nobody can tell you what you're going to like the best. This is a field composed only of individual opinons. Some people like young whiskies, others like them old. Some like the coastal influences that show themselves in island whiskies, while others do not (There's a scotch in which I swear I can taste shellfish). Some find the sweet vanilla notes of bourbon cloying, while others love it. Don't let anybody tell you that you are wrong for liking what you like. And don't think that just because something is expensive it must be better. There are a huge number of whiskies out there, and even the cheaper ones are fairly enjoyable. You do need to know the taxonomy of whisky so that if you find one you like, you can try things that should be similar to it. Here's a rough snapshot... feel free to flesh it out more. I. American a. Bourbon b. Rye c. Blended d. TN Sour Mash II. Irish III. Scotch a. Single malt 1. Highland 2. Lowland 3. Speyside 4. Islands (Islay + Campbeltown + Mull +Orkney, etc.) b. Blended IV. Canadian Pick something, taste it, and if you like it, then figure out what else is in the same category and try more.

I still miss it. My last bottle is going very slowly.

Depends. There are many times I take credit for having the fine taste and sourcing wherewithall to get the good stuff I do... I'd not try to pass off work of a factory as my own, but I'd not have a problem telling people that my X guy is absolutely spectacular, and I've no idea where to find better X. Finding good sources of ingredients is key, and often those sources do some prep work, that I'll buy.

OJ overdose was a turning point in my gastronomic development. As a little kid I drank a whole lot of OJ, but then my palate changed and from about age 8 to sometime in the teens OJ just disgusted me. In my family it was mostly FCOJ, and at the turning point, it began to taste more of cardboard than of oranges, and lost all appeal to me. Now, OJ is good when it is fresh squeezed... but I don't do that much, nor do any grocery stores near me.... So my OJ consumption is really low now, and I drink a lot of blueberry juice, cherry juice, peach nectar, etc... They're all much more interesting. But I do recall (with amusement) the endgame in the movie Trading Places every time the concept of FCOJ comes up.

Yes, Doc, it would be copyright infringement. Making a "copy" has been extended to mean making a two-dimensional reproduction of a three-dimensional original and vice versa. And if that is not silly enough, it would also be a violation of the copyright holder's monopoly on making derivative works based on their work...

As I'd said above, the only possibility for an argument that might make taking a photograph of food on a plate into copyright infringement is if food arrangement is a kind of sculpture. Last clause of #5. It is a stretch. But given the copyright-happy nature of most courts, I'd not feel inane making the argument. After all, even when the statute is explicitly amended to undo a court's insane interpretation of copyright rights, courts find ways around the amendment to get right back to where they started. Google "117 and "mere licensee"" for the details. edited to remove really ugly sentence and replace it with a prettier one.

OK, have found my UK statute book, and found the Design Rights section. I don't see how they could possibly be relevant to the act of taking a photograph of food arranged on a plate, insofar as the only exclusive rights granted to the holder of a design right are explicitly limited only to commercially reproducing the design by 1) making articles to that design, or 2) making a design document for the purpose of enabling such articles to be made. See UK Copyrights Designs and Patents Act of 1988, section 229. I see no act in photographing food on a plate that violates those exclusive rights. To get a photographer for violation of 2), there would have to be evidence of commercial purpose, which is lacking in the set of facts we've seen. I also question whether a single photo could possibly be held to be a "design document" under the law.

I don't know much about the UK Design copyrights you're relying upon for your analysis that a plate of food is copyrightable... but I can tell you that under US law food arrangements are in a much greyer area. The only possible category of copyrightable subject matter under which they might fall is sculptural, and that is a bit of a stretch. That means this would be a very expensive issue to litigate for the plaintiff, hence unlikely to happen. And since the Copyright Office does not, to my knowledge, have the capability to register plated food, then the likelihood of getting attorneys fees under the statute would be negligible since they're only available for pre-registered works when the violation occurs affter the registration. But then again, to sue at all, you must register the copyright, which will probably precipitate a prolonged administrative law battle over whether the Copyright Office has to register food arranged on a plate, and if so, then how. As to copyright notices, again from a US perspective, the notice is no longer required in any circumstance, as the Berne Convention's ban on any formalities blocking the attachment of copyright has been interpreted as outlawing a notice requirement here. So it is a pure question of law as to whether food on a plate is (or can ever be) copyrightable. And it has no firm answer. And let me dig out my Blackstone's IP statute book and see what the law in the UK was in 1999 on this matter... or has it changed recently?

I recently got some of the smoked paprika and it is great. Its smoke flavor is powerful like bacon... Really adds a deep smoky richness. Yum. And I'd take 5 spice over chai flavor any day. And I'd love to see spice-centric recipes... but maybe that project deserves a thread of its own... or maybe each spice deserves a thread of its own...

Was it frozen, thawed, and the question is whether it can refreeze? No idea if that works or not. I've recently purchased foie that was frozen rock solid and it thawed and was delicious. I know it freezes well... I don't know if it refreezes well.

Guidance with spice usage would be a great marketing boost for the spice companies. McCormick and the others don't seem to use the back-of-the-box-recipe trick that so many other food companies do. I wonder why. There must be signature dishes that highlight the flavor of each spice... if a spice merchant collected them and back-of-the-bottled them, it might do wonders boosting sales of stuff that people looked at previously wondering "what would I ever do with that?" I guess the fungibility of spices is a deterrant from investing in that sort of research, insofar as customers don't have to go back and buy more from the same purveyor once they bought it once and got the recipe. A fun amateur project (perfect for eG) might be to compile a set of recipes that really highlight the nature and capacities of each spice. I'd bet somebody would publish it once its done too.