jackal10

6. Apple and champagne foam Has to be foam somewhere

5. Fillet of Sole Florentine. Poached turban of Dover sole, Spinch Puree, Mornay (cheese - PArmesan and Gruyere) sauce, Macaroni cheese. Classic Cuisine, straight out of Escoffier, but modern presentation.

4. Chicken soup, baby thyme, onion and parsely dumplings The soup is a reduced consomme.

Amuse 3: Stuffed pig's trotter, Jerusalem artichoke puree, coffee and garlic warm jelly. Pig;s trotter is stuffed with a fine chicken mousseline, more truffle, pied de mouton and trumpet de mort mushroom, then sliced. The coffe and garlic agar gell was inspired by Peter Barham's lecture: http://www.katho.be/hivb/culinologie/index-en.asp Its one of those combinations that comes from looking for common chemicals. tasts ort of like deep, slightly bitter garlic.

2 Amuse 2: Pan fried scallops, Beurre Noisette, Black Truffle, Hot cucumber, Roast Cauliflower puree The truffle were shaved at table. They were chinese truffles http://chinesetruffle.com/, otherwise not affordable. The Beurre noisette was reinforced with some truffle oil.

1. Amuse 1: Foie Gras Truffee, Champagne Jelly, Smoked Salt, Cracked pepper, Spelt toast. The champagne jelly was following a recent thread, with gold leaf to provide sparkle: Sourdough spelt miche: Toast (handed seperately) Should have made more Ready to go:

Last night's dinner. My partner says this is showing off, but so be it. Multiple graphic intensive posts. I'm also a little hung-over, so there will be typos... Please ask if you need any recipes or more details. Share and enjoy! First: mise en scene We are eating in the kitchen... Interested onlooker, just outside the windows (no, we are not having pheasent) Ready... The wines: Not shown (chilling in the fridge): 1998 Champagne Jacquart Brut Mosaique Millesime Brilliant straw-yellow hue with a lively mousse. Melon, pear and yeast aromas. Medium-full with good weight on the palate, this has ripe fruit, nice length in the finish and a lively streak of acidity. 94 points (Tastings.com) 1991 Domaine Zind Humbrecht Gewurztraminer Heimbourg The Gewurztraminers are stunning in 1991..... It is spectacular, with full-bodied flavors, and a perfumed, intense aroma 93 points (Parker) 1990 Château Batailley Pauillac Beautiful wine. Very dark ruby-red. Wonderful blackberry, mineral and violet aromas. Full-bodied, with round and velvety tannins and a long, beautifully fruity finish 92 points (Wine Spectator) I laid down a case en primeur - now time to start drinking them. 1989 Clos de Ste Catherine Coteaux du Layon I'm very fond of these old sweet Loire wines, now drying a little. Sweet, unctuous but not cloying 91 points (Parker) 1977 Grahams Port Deep purple-ruby, with intense floral, cassis and prune aromas, full-bodied, with plenty of fruitand extremely hard tannins. (90 WS) )

My favourite wine merchants don;t have a shop, or if they do its minimal. Its more like going to someones home (it is for some), discussing wine over a tasting glass or three, ordering and the wine arrives later that day or the next day. Most of their business is online, and the wine is held in a proper cellar, or in bond.

The Big Egg List is here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=36904 They were mosty from La Repertoire rather then Escoffier, although the two are close, and its for hard boiled eggs (hen or quail). More for lunch dishes. I agree its a trend, and I suspect its because of better temperature control. None the less I'm astounded when an establishment can produce hot runny poached eggs as part of a dish for 200 people served simultaneously at a banquet, as I witnessed recently.

http://www.bbr.com/ but you need 300 years of history... Its not so much the shop (which is really a carpeted warehouse) as the service, and the building up of relationships both with the customers but more importantly the producers over years. Are you a wine seller, or a wine merchant? A seller just moves wine as a commodity. A wine merchant does it for love of the wine. Is your primary aim to make money, or to break even but enjoy the wine and spread the word? Brad, as always, is right. Great service is knowing your customer, their tastes and needs better than they do; the ability to find wonderful wines at bargain prices; at the top end managing and storing private cellars right and en primeur offers. Educate your staff - they should have tasted every wine in the place. Always have the right wine in stock, on taste, and deliver the right wine to the right place at the right time and when you said you would. Its hard to make a living retail; wine is expensive, heavy and perishable. Inevitably you will be driven to mass market appeal moderately priced wines, or to develop a wholesale trade to restaurants etc. What special are you bringing to the transaction? Is just having those wines in that part of Texas enough? To be really great you probably need to build relationships with the vinyards and import your own wines that can be found nowhere else within Fedex range, otherwise its too easy in these days of the Internet to find and deal direct with the importer and cut you out. We are blessed with many good wine merchants here. For example on Tuesday I was at one for a tasting of 2005 Burgundies, cask samples, complete with some of the producers present. I shall be buying some from them of this exceptional vintage.

What is sad is that the heckscher appears sometimes to be political, and can at times be given or witheld depending on the payment of a large fee...

I think that is a good question that Steven poses, and cenral to the debate. For the specific case, there is an answer. If the cell line is derived from animal, then its meat, if from vegetable or microbial or fungal (like Quorn or Tofu), then its parev, unless the form and circumstance might confuse. However there is a doctirne that says if it goes through a stage that is unfit for a dog to eat, then it becomes stops being food and becomes parev.

Oxtail is another case. My mother remembers it as kosher in her youth, before the Rabbonim changed their minds, or rather decided that the buthcers were not skilled enough to remove the forbidden sciatic nerve; Oxtail is to be regretted since its nowhere near the forbidden parts, but comes under the general hindquarters ban. See, for example http://oukosher.org/index.php/articles/single/6550/

In the UK they are traditionally pickled in white (clear) strong vinegar and sold at fish and chip shops and in pubs. Very acid! Pickled quail eggs make nice amuse or cocktail snacks

But that is just the point. Are you saying you have to accept the whole lot or nothing? Tofutti Ice Cream with Lamb is contrary to "marit ayin" (and good taste), just as drinking cola in McD is.

If its not personal choice between equally valid interpretations, then how do you choose between them? Pork and shellfish I will grant you because of the biblical injunction, Mixing meat and diary, except in the case of goat is an interpretation. However there are those who argue that the bible lays down the principles but the specifics should be interpreted in the light of circumstances. Here the principle may be "eat only wholesome food", so you could argue that pork is OK, now that ther is little threat of trichinosis but beef, with the modern threat of CJD is not. Equally you can argue that the purpose of Kashrut is to put distance between jews and others and to remind a Jew of thier heritage. Thus eating a Bagel may be as symbolic as refraining from imitation pork. <Warning: Non-PC but slightly food related joke> A Rabbi and a Catholic priest fall to discussing what their religions forbid them: Bacon vs celibacy. The each agree to try what is forbidden, just the once for the sake of understanding They meet aferwards. The Priest says "Sure beats bacon, doesn't it!" </>

You do this anyway Every Jew does this implicitly. Few follow just the biblical regulations, Most follow some Rabbinical interpretation or another, with some stricter than others. Few are "glatt kosher", and there are only a few places in the world (NY and some parts of Israel) where it is possible anyway. The Rabbi, and Kashrut authorities disagree with each other so you have to decide between differing opinions and your own common sense as to which rules of Kashrut, other than the ones in Old Testament apply, and just what those rules mean. The case in point is imitation foods. There is a rabbinical doctrine "marit ayin" that says these are not kosher. You may chose to say this rule is impertinent to me, and does not apply in this case. That is your choice. Like much else, Kashrut is personal choice, not absolute. Two Jews, three opinions.

There are many Liberal and Reform Jews who happily eat bacon and scallops, and even, as I was served at a drinks party last night, one wrapped round the other. They argue that the Kashrut laws were for Mediteranean tribes. For example the Pittsburg declarion of 1885 establishing the Reform movement in the US stated However some I know say they keep their own form of "kashrut", typically serving traditional Ashkenazi foods, rather than saying they do not keep kosher at all. For them food lore is eating bagels on Sunday, chicken soup on Friday and saying grace before meals. Each to their own.

Sticky rice makes RISOTTO

For one individual, maybe. Very few foods have complete agreement for all who call themselves Jews, or come from Jewish families.Virtually all foods can be said to be kosher for x% of Jews but not for the rest. Even the circumstances can differ - many foods are Kosher if prepared at home or under trusted Jewish supervision (not just by any Jew), but not otherwise, even if the food is identical. I think by your own definition, Steven, you have to say that imitations don't violate the spirit of your particular lore; for some they do, in that they violate "moris ayin". Pleasure or deprivation don't come into it, except there are commandments to be joyful. Much of the lore is interpretation and "fence around the lore" - the rules are stricter then the exact biblical injunction. For example the prohibition against mixing meat and milk is from the biblical injunction not to seethe a kid in it's mother's milk, apparently a delicacy of the Egyptians. Rabbis extended this to prohibit mixing of any milk and meat, even in the stomach or using the same utensil, but its not biblical as such - the strict biblical interpretation is one particular dish. How much of this you take on board is up to the individual, and their local and family traditions. Some people feel especially worthy by taking a very wide and self-denying interpretation, others argue that the biblical injunctions were appropriate guidelines for a biblical nomadic tribe, but times (and food hygiene) have moved on. None of this is black and white, laid down by biblical authority, but all shades of grey that can be supported by different rabbinical arguments, and that each individual has to decide in their own way. "There is no right or wrong, but thinking makes it so" (Hamlet).

Oops yes I did mean de-gas, that is try not to squash out the gas. To try and answer elderno's questions: 1. I have received some sourdough starter from http://www.sourdo.com/]Sourdoughs International. Once I get this going, how is the substitution made (quantity) to use the starter instead of the instant yeast? Using sourdough is a somewhat different technique to instant yeast, so its not a direct substitute. It is also often slower to rise. Assuming you have made up your starter from the powder that Sourdo has sent you, and its now a nicely fermenting mother culture, maybe refreshed once or twice, then what I would do is to make a preferment (sponge starter). Take 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of water from the recipe and 1 tablespoon of the mother culture and mix together. Leave in a warm (28C/90F) place for 12 hours or so until its bubbly, then mix that with the rest of the flour and water and continue as the original recipe. It may take longer to rise - my sourdough takes roughly 4 times longer than commercial yeast, but the long slow rise in the recipe may be enough - depends on the individual culture. 2. I feel ready to do some additions to the bread. I am a more savory kind of gal and am thinking about rosemary, olives, that sort of thing. How and when should those additions be made? For example, I would love to add some course salt and rosemary to the surface...but am afraid, at such a high temperature, that there would be burning. The surface doesn't get that hot - add away. 3. I am using a 5 quart cast iron dutch oven and/or a 5 1/2 quart Le Cruiset dutch oven, both round. Would it be worthwhile to purchace a vehicle for baking of more oblong shape? Anyone see any advantages one way or another? Only if you want oblong loaves.

I understood there was the doctrine of "hookas hagoy" (sp?) which says that imitation of the gentile, such as imitation but kosher food is not kosher, since it can mislead an onlooker to think the original food (or action) is allowed. However Judaism is a personal religion, with no central earthly authority. Many Rabbis and Kashrut organisations express opinions, but that is all they are - their opinion. Whether you agree or not is personal. Hence there are multiple opinions and definitions of what is kosher, and no single answer. The Talmud says that Bacon is kosher in the Messianic Age, so its kosher if you beleive the Messiah has come...

Divide the dough for rolls before the second rise.Handle the dough gently trying not to deflate it Ideally you should shape each one, but just cutting into roughly equal size chunks works just as well, gives good rustic rolls, and you degas less. Put each roll onto baking parchment for ease of handling.

Inventor of instant noodles dies http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6237013.stm The inventor of instant noodles, Momofuku Ando, has died in Japan, aged 96, of a heart attack. Mr Ando was born in Taiwan in 1910 and moved to Japan in 1933, founding Nissin Food Products Co after World War II to provide cheap food for the masses. Nissin has led the global instant noodle industry since then, selling 85.7 billion servings every year, according to Agence France Presse.

Peaches and CREAM of course