jackal10

To your left. As in the nautical saying "Is there any Red Port Left?" (the red lamp is on the port side which is on the leftside of the boat facing if you face forward) . The port should not touch ground before it has passed round the table. Some port decaters are round bottomed so you cannot put them down until they return to their stand. Everything else, including the stilton (a full round from a truckle, wrapped in a napkin, with a silver spoon to dig it out of the middle) is passed to the right It is barbaric to pour port into the stilton. It ruins both the port and the stilton.

What about the wine tasting from hell? I'm used to semi-professional wine tastings: 50 or so half decent wines, maybe young and tannic, but well chosen to inspect; white table cloths to show the colour; water and dry neutral biscuits as palate clearers; spittons; no pressure, and a simple but pleasent lunch to follow, maybe bread, cheese and cold-cuts or even a hot roast. The open bottles lined up on the tasting table for one to sample at one's own speed, maybe two glasses so that you can compare. I'm lucky enough to have the chance to attend such tastings several times a week The hellish version is a straight high pressure sales exercise, flogging overpriced indifferent wine: maybe six wines, each individually poured, with a fatuous lecture before each one, and no chance to compare. Cheese or fatty food to disguise the wine; nowhere to spit or pour the excess wine, since the vendor wants the alcohol to cloud your judgement, and no way of escaping politely

You are right: I forgot the full coooked breakfast, prawn cocktail as a starter (with iceberg lettuce and Mary Rose sauce - mayo and ketchup combined), nuts after, and all the sweeties for desert: choose from crystallised fruit, crystallised ginger, chocolate ginger, dried fruit (dates, figs) tangerines, ornage and lemon slices, dragees, chocolates, and if up market Elvas semi-dried plums. Not forgetting nougat, marzipan fruits, and turkish delights... Christmas cake (rich dark fruitcake, marzipan and white Royal icing) for tea...

I'm sure lots of others will answer this. I even did a Blog on it last year http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=33730&hl= Firstly its usually lunch rather than dinner; Christmas presents are opened around 11am - or much earlier with kids; Sometime during the day Carols from Kings, and the Queens speech, a jigsaw puzzle and a really bad old film, like the Sound of Music need to be fitted in.. Christmas crackers, with a snap, a motto, a silly joke, a trinket and a paper hat. The paper hats must be worn! Lunch is A light starter, maybe smoked salmon or a soup Turkey (or goose, but a goose only really feeds two), Traditional trimmmings: Chesnut stuffing Another stuffing in balls (easier to cook the stuffing seperately)(optional) Bacon rolls Chipolata sausages, as a chain Gravy Bread Sauce Cranberry sauce (optional - the US influence) Roast potatoes, Roast parsnips Boiled Sprouts (traditionally cooked until soft) Boiled carrots Christmas Pudding, flamed Hard Sauce (Brandy butter) (cream or custard, with or without brandy optional) Stilton Mince pies Drinks: Mulled Wine, Champagne, good claret, burgundy or Rhone or the like, Port, maybe brandy and cigars, coffee...

Is this sliced hardboiled eggs with salad (and perhaps mayo), in which case all the things that dress up salads work: a little honey/mustard, or a little truffle oil or some anchovies, or pine nuts... or chopped egg with mayo or salad cream; in which case chives, or tomato paste or onion, or chopped egg, chicken liver, fried onions, smaltz (ok, chopped liver with lots of egg) In fact chopped egg and chopped raw onion, lightly moistened is my favourite, but a bit anti-social

Applejack and Apple brandy are different, at least this side of the pond. The freezing an filtering process is known as jacking, and hence Applejack. Brandy is distilled, and of higher alcoholic concentration. Tastes different, from being boiled as well. Calvedos is apple brandy, not applejack. In the UK the Somerset Cider Brandy Company http://www.ciderbrandy.co.uk/ has started distilling again. Good stuff too.

Two reasons: One is so that it is reasonably sterile - you want the bugs in the rye, not water bourn ones. Second is to drive off the chlorine or other sterilising agents the water company adds. In some places these can be strong enough to inhibit the natural yeasts and lactobacilli before they get a good strong population going. You could use a mild still bottled water instead.

Oh dear, and I was going to work this morning... Let me add some, and another couple of categories to this excellent collection: First off Baker and Spice: Baking with Passion Dan Lepard. Some think Dan is the best baker and bread teacher in the UK today. This is his first book, woderfully photographed. The Handmade Loaf is about to be published, and will be a modern classic. I've seen a proof copy and it is amazing. Order it today Bread A Bakers Book of Techniques and Recipes Jeffrey Hamelman I guess this goes under the Amreican Artisans category. Mostly sound (though I disagree in places). Good line drawings, except for me the labelling on plaiting a Challah is slightly confusing. He keeps the same label on each strand, while others, such as Manna (Walte T Banfield 1947) relabel the strands left to right at each step.. Secrets of a Jewish Baker George Greenstein 1994. The author is a retired baker from Long Island. Does what it says on the cover, but the styles of bread now seem a little dated. The Bread builders: Hearth loaves and Masonry Ovens. Daniel Wing and Alan Scott. The definitive book for brick oven builders and bakers. Building a Wood Fired Oven for Bread and Pizza Tom Jaine. Slim but informative. Tom Jaine was editor of "The Good Food Guide", and founded Prospect Books. Semi-Professional books, typically aimed a catering students: Baking: The Art and Science. A Practical Handbook for the Baking Industry Schunemann and Treu I like this book. Clear explanations, good illustrations and lots of pictures. Not coffee table food porn, but a good working book. Inspiring. Special and Decorative Breads Volume 1 Basic Bread Making Techniques - 46 Special Breads - Fancy bread - Viennese Breads - Decorative Breads - Presentation Pieces R. Bilheux A Escoffier D Herve J.M. Pouradier Volume 2 Traditional, Regional and Special Breads - Fancy Breads - Viennese Pastries - Croissants - Brioches - Decorative Breads - Prsentation Pieces Classic volumes. Similar style to Schunemann and Treu, but more advanced in the French and Grand Cuisine tradition. Le Cordon Bleu Professional Baking Wayne Gisslen Boring and dull. Recipes don't work well for me Cresci: The Art of Leavened Dough Ignio Massari, Achille Zola Definitive book for Panetonne, Stollen and other sweet doughs. Wonderful Professional Books for the industrial baker Baking, Science and Technology E.J. Pyler. 2 Volumes. (1988) Large scale industrial baking Bread making: Improving Quality Stanley P Cauvin (editor) 2003 A collection of papers more relevant to large scale processes than the home or restaurant artisanal baker Other. Books I've bought, but don't like. Books called "The Bread Book" or "Book of Breads" or something similar just don't work for me, and tend to be more for the coffee table than the kitchen New Complete Book of Breads Bernard Clayton The Bread Book Thom Leonard The Bread Book Martha Rose Shulman The Bread Book Linda Collister and Anthony Blake The Book of BreadJerome Assire

CHIP BUTTIES (for our American cousins, French Fries with ketchup on white thickly buttered bread)

Rye dough is very sticky to handle, and the gluten is different. You might find it easier to start with half rye and half bread flour.

There is a dish named for de Sade?? Plenty of Marquise (sole or potatoes for example), but none that relate to the original sadist, so far as I know. I don't even recall that actual food served at his fictional debauches were recorded I guess you could claim a connection between Sacher-torte and Sacher-Masoch, but its a bit doubtful...

Which collection of certified perverts were you thinking of?

Actually they braise quite well, on their on with a good stock or brown sauce or the leaves used to wrap round a parcel of forcemeat, duxelle etc. Since you are adding the flavour from the sauce or filling it doesn't matter that the lettuce is just a carrier. Also good cooked with peas and onions

Distillation is illegal, freezing is not (so long as you don't sell it), I've beenn told in the UK. Traditionally it was done by leaving a keg of hard cider outside in the freezing winter, then draining off the applejack from the ice. There is an egullet thread here. I made mine by taking a 5 gallon/25 litre plastic keg of home made hard cider and leaving it the deep freeze for a week or so, then taking the top off and inverting it over a bucket. I guess I got about 3 litres of liquid out. Alcohol depresses freezing point, so the water prferentially freezes out first. At deep freeze temperatures the equilibrium point of water and ethanol is about 25% alcohol. Its pretty potent stuff, especially as the fusil oils and other nasties are all in there. In distillation the these are discarded (heads and feints). I would fear the effects of drinking a lot of it.

Tayrand's CULINARY HISTORY The definitive list is Louis Saulnier: Le Repertoire de La Cuisine

Admin: split from a thread on eau de vie. Applejack is produced by fractional freezing, rather than by distillation. Eau-de-vie is usually white and clear, and tastes of the fruit. Serve cold, but not as cold as schnapps or aquavit

Rye is easy, as it has lots of fermentable sugars and the right bugs. Just make a slurry with the rye and equal amount of boiled cooled water, and keep at 30C/85F until bubbly - a few days. Then add equal amounts of rye flour and water to one third of the culture every 12 hours or so, and keep warm. After three days its done. No grapes, sugar, yeast or magic. Just rye and water

I've never had an original broa, but I'm sure there are people on this list who can answer as to its authenticity. However, I'd expect a sourdough version would be delicious, and since modern yeasts are a comparatively recent invention, I'm sure something like that was made in Portugal at some time. Whether authentic or not, it would be your Broa, and a fine thing in its own right.

Lets see... the bleached flour will make the colour lighter. Don't know why they use bleached flour for this product, since the original artisanal bread has cornmeal in it and is quite yellow. The leicithin is an emulsifier, that allows shorter mixing and proof times, and better shelf life; Since its after the salt it will be less than 2%, and usually about 1%, unless in a gluten-free bread. Ascorbic acid (vitamin C) is an anti-oxidant and flour improver; it counteracts an enzyme that cross-links the gluten. Looks like quite a reasonable ingredient list for a basic machine-made bread, designed to look "rustic". However its a long way from the original Broa with cornmeal, except maybe in shape...

You need a burst of superhot steam at the very beginning of the bake - pour a cup or two of water into a hot preheated cast iron pan, for example (care!). After a few minutes it will have evaporated. After that anymore is pointless. Commercial ovens have a vent to let out the steam towards the end of the bake. Maybe you are not baking for long enough, or too hot for the size of loaf. I bake a boule for about 40 minutes at 220C..

I suspect this has to do with the price of the oysters. Similarly the replacement of natives with portugese is economic. Its been a long time since they were so cheap that the 19th century apprentices petitioned not to be served them anymore. I've seen a sign in a pub saying " A dozen oysters and Guiness if you are wenching", but this was a modern faux Irish pub

Much easier to cut off the top and then scoop out the seeds, and then the flesh before baking. In fact don't bake the shell at all. If you bake it it goes soft and is much harder to use as a tureen. Follow the Ultimate Universal Thick Vegetable Soup Recipe. I like, in addition to the pumpkin, some leek, and maybe a little truffle oil.. Serve in the shell. For pumpkin pie I find it easier to start with baked butternut squash. The flesh is denser and the pulp needs less boiling.

I've never understood these stinless steel lined copper pans. Seems to me you get the disadvantages of both. The stainless doesn't conduct the heat well, and is "sticky" when frying, and the copper is hell to clean. If you want a proper copper pan get a real one. - 3mm copper walls. http://www.cuisine-french.com/ have a wide range, about half the prices you quoted. Be warned: They are very heavy The handles get hot. They very quickly lose that showroom gleam You can't use them with induction The base is not that flat for a flattop or other contact heat source They need re-tinning at least once a year If you get them too hot - sugar boiling, for example - the tin lining melts. That's why sugar pans are unlined. That said, they cook like a dream. The nicest pan I had was a copper pan silver plated inside, originally intended for use in the room as a chafing dish.

What do you want to know about oysters? In the UK there are two main varieties grown: natives, with a smooth shell, which are only in season when ther is an "R" in the month, and Portugese, with a spiny shell that are coarser, grow faster and hence cheaper and can be eaten any time. Brittany has many different varieties Myself I prefer Natives, preferably raw, although with a little Tabasco and Shallot vinegar.

The denigration of butter as "unhealthy" is a nice example of the current climate of fear. Following the teaching of Leo Strauss and other neo-conservatives, politicians and others have stopped promising better tomorrows and extolling postive benefits, as such promises are mostly discredited by a cynical public. Instead they preach fear of today, and exagerate the threats. This gives them power. Leo Strauss even suggested that lies about the threat are legitimate, so as to lead the mass of people to a "higher truth". In this By persuading us that butter is bad, margerine is promoted. Strike a blow for individual liberty! Eat more butter! Tastes good too! It is a sad day where our choices are defined not by which tastes better, but by which we believe does less harm to ourselves (never mind the planet, the farmer etc), especially where that belief is artificial. Taste, at least we can determine by our own senses..