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ronfland

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  1. My recipe is about the same - but made with butter. Red Velvet Cake 1c butter softened 3c sugar 6 large eggs 1½ - 2 oz red food coloring (depending on how red you want it) 3Tb cocoa powder 3c all purpose flour 1c buttermilk ½tsp vanilla extract dash of salt 1tsp baking soda dissolved in 1Tbsp white vinegar Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 3 8inch pans In mixing bowl cream 1c butter with sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix food coloring with cocoa and add to mixture. Add flour alternately with buttermilk. Add vanilla and salt. Mix baking soda with vinegar and gently stir into mixture. Do NOT overmix. Divide batter into prepared pans. Bake for 25 minutes. Cool on rack for 10 minutes before removing from pans. Frost with Cream Cheese icing.
  2. Red Velvet Cake 1 c butter softened 3 c sugar 6 large eggs 1-1/2 oz red food coloring (depending on how red you want it) 3 Tb cocoa powder 3 c all purpose flour 1 c buttermilk dash of salt 1 tsp baking soda dissolved in 1 T white vinegar 1/2 tsp vanilla extract Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 3 8inch pans In mixing bowl cream 1c butter with sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix food coloring with cocoa and add to mixture. Add flour alternately with buttermilk. Add vanilla and salt. Mix baking soda with vinegar and gently stir into mixture. Do NOT overmix. Divide batter into prepared pans. Bake for 25 minutes. Cool on rack for 10 minutes before removing from pans. Frost with Cream Cheese icing. Keywords: Dessert, Cake ( RG465 )
  3. ronfland

    Rose Water

    Rosewater goes beautifully with berries. Macerate some berries with it, then fold them into heavy cream and you have a dessert "fool" that's perfectly easy in summer.
  4. I have one of each - non-stick and regular non-shiny aluminum. If there is any difference in the height of the cakes - it is slight and you'd have to have to use a ruler to tell. Made an orange chiffon in the non-stick yesterday and it did just fine, was cooled over a bottle and didn't slip, exited brilliantly and clean-up was a snap. I won't swear that this is the norm, but I have no problems with mine.
  5. The bread basket at Cafe Boulud included a pumpkin seed bread that I thought was MAGNIFICENT. My vote is for pumpkin seeds! (It was a sourdough bread btw.)
  6. The illustration was great - more would be welcomed.
  7. Although I would qualify myself a raisin "non-hater', and have been known to cook with them, I found this piece HILARIOUS! I have friends who feel exactly this way - and actually are even more vehement about it. The hiding sultanas had me rolling on the floor - its one of my favorite tricks.
  8. Actually - How To Boil Water had a comic and a CIA chef with the personality of a dishrag and was one of FTV 's most resounding failures - I can't believe they're bringing it back.
  9. When I lived in Philly - I had the good fortune to dine at LBF and enjoyed the experience - with one exception, the pretentious service. Now this was quite a while ago - and things change. There is NO question, that you should make another phone call and speak to the house manager. No matter the length of the wine list - they can make any/every attempt to get it to you before your dining date, and at their prices (which they seemed to so like to quote) they SHOULD. If this is the gaffe of an in-experienced receptionist, the management should have the opportunity to use this instance to train her (and the sommelier apparently) properly. As a repeat customer you certainly are within your rights to quote this type of service as "unusual" as compared to your past experiences, if you feel that is the case. To my mind, you should get a wine list toute-suite, and the bottle of champagne you select for that birthday dinner should be comped by the house. Believe me, folks with money to BURN dine in that place every night, and would expect no less in light of that type of treatment. This smacks of the apocryphal (?) story of the sales clerk who responded to Madame's price inquiry with "If you have to ask, you can't afford it." Madame was of course and heiress, spoke to the manager and said salesclerk was fired instantly. There's some truth in there somewhere. If your requests are not adequately satisfied - skip a couple of blocks and go to Striped Bass - it was my favorite restaurant in Philly.
  10. Sorry about the fig comment - here in NY we often have imported figs in July decent enough to cook with. Then of course - there are dried ones.
  11. Maybe panzanella for the salad this year? (fun assembly for those who like to get their hands a little messy) Including figs and venison in the menu might be fun. Lamb too seems to be missing from your previous messages. Would it be too warm for a traditional soup, like wedding soup (escarole and white bean) or a beautiful chicken broth with crespelle (which might be fun for the attendees to make)? If so, I seem to remember some Italian fruit soups (in the north) - let me check.
  12. I agree with this wholeheartedly. Northern Italian food is so entirely different than what is generally considered "Italian" food it would be unrecognizable to those who grew up in Nonna's Napolitana or Siciliana kitchen. It is very difficult to find restaurants that specialize in Northern Italian food, and I feel the way Steve P does about the misunderstanding of Tuscan cuisine. Even the d'Abbruzzese, who represent a fair amount of Italian-American immigrants do not get a fair representation, in the home or in restaurants.
  13. Well - in short FG, everything you mentioned in your post is what they can't do, and that's what makes I-A home cooking what it is. I also agree with your assesment in an earlier post of the concentration on slow-cooked dishes which often only make their appearance in restaurants as "specials". I am not a professional chef/restranteur. like FG, I think that at my best I can achieve advanced-amateur status. I am willing to go out on a limb though, and guess that a real I-A restaurant would be a hard one to keep open, and for a number of reasons. The canon of real I-A dishes is a relatively small one, which makes menu variety a challenge. The addition of "trendy" ingredients is often antithetical to I-A (or even continental Italian) cooking, which further exacerbates the variety problem. Those who really appreciate this cuisine, to my mind, are NOT prone to eating it out, and when they do they don't want to pay a lot for it, so overhead issues arise. Short menus (which I-A restraunts should probably have to stay within the scope of the cuisine, and what most "chefs" can probably handle) reduce the "return customer" factor. I-A cuisine has always been problematic among "foodies" in that it can be accessible to the amateur cook, and is downgraded/denegrated out of the big four cuisines (French, Chinese, Indian and Thai). Of course, like the big four, the subtleties of I-A cuisine can be hard for the average diner to pin down. Plotnicki, in the otherwise frustrating "pasta is boring and not worth eating" thread points out that pasta execution is a VERY specific technique, and I agree. Perfect pasta, homemade or dried, seems elusive to most chefs (including Batali, who seems to murder a lot of macaroni on his show - although I have not eaten in his restaurants) and that difficulty seems to grow exponentially when facing 200 covers a night. As far as Mr. Camp's "over-garlicked, over-sauced, over-portioned" comment - I think that is just the mis-guidance of any particular chef/restaurant - just as it can be of any nonna. The notion that all Italian grandmothers can cook is as patently false as the statement "pasta is boring and not worth eating". Nothing is sadder than a little old Italian lady who "thinks" she can cook standing proudly over her miserable gravy (yes, I adopted gravy after living in Philly). I'm sure one of you e-gulleteers can straigten me out on this - I seem to remember a story of a restraunteur who hired four Italian nonnas to cook for his restaurant which would serve only the most "authentic" Italian food. If I remember the story correctly, the restaurant was called "Mamma's" and although their food was good, faced with 150-200 covers a night, they shattered under the pressure and fatigue and quit. Is this apocrypha or fact?
  14. Well - I can add 58 more since I just acquired the complete Foods of the World Series with the accompanyng spiral bounds courtesy of e-bay - ya gotta love that place.
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