fifi

My heart melts. I was trying to think of a way to send her some venison. (Lame attempt to stay on-topic. )

YOIKS! I didn't read down far enough on the cordyceps. definitely some limb pulling. Yet another "virility" drug. Not in my roast, thank you very much.

I think that Alex has hit on how my thinking was headed. I don't tolerate disruptive behavior well from anyone, regardless of age, and would like to see it handled quickly by the management. As in... you're outta here. From the restaurant management point of view, this makes some business sense. You risk alienating the rest of the customers if the situation is not handled promptly. Just do the math. You always have the risk of disruptive behaviour in any establishment that serves the public. The problem is, disruptive children in inappropriate settings is pretty predictable. Therefore, I can see the wisdon of a "No Children" policy. Like FG said, Little Lord Fauntleroy gets left out but, too bad. Even if a separate "family room" is available, that shouldn't excuse the behavior of disruptive children. But I can see that that might be a temporary solution around the holidays when parents are more likely to trot out the whole family to a restaurant. I can see a situation where a restaurant with a "No Children" policy might be able to designate a day or two around the holidays as a "Family Day" and advertise that as such to patrons ahead of time and being sure to notify patrons that are making reservations... "Yes, Mrs. Gotrocks. We have a reservation available that day. But we do need to inform you that that day is our annual family day. Is that still acceptable to you?" I actually think I have seen something like that.

Mabelline... I am so glad you liked the technique. And I am honored that you told the ladies of the source of the recipe. I love it. Do you mean that you didn't get to take home any pork skin? Does "nailed" mean that they ate it? Funny that you should mention hummingbird cake. A dear friend heard about it and asked me to look up the recipe. I found one having something to do with the Kentucky Derby. We got all of the ingredients and were going to have a cake baking session. That got interrupted by a minor crisis and we may do it over New Year's. I don't think the recipe I found had the cherries, though. And I think it had a cream cheese frosting. Gee, I will have to google again and see just how many versions there are. Here is what I found about cordyceps. I didn't find any culinary information, though. this is what I found about wolfberries. Again, no culinary information.

Heather, you bring up a good point. The Chuckee Cheese places of the world aren't helping. I never thought about that. Bravo to you for not buying into the madness.

I have very strong opinions on this issue, from the diner's perspective. Children (I will define that as somewhere under the age of 12) do not belong in high end restaurants... PERIOD. I really wish that restaurants could make that a policy up front. My kids are in their 30s now and we didn't take them to high end restaurants until that age and that was after they had gotten rid of their "training wheels" at more suitable dining establishments. Of course, it also depends on the child. My daughter was ready for the finer places at about age 10, my son maybe a little later. Of course, by the standards of some of today's parents, I would have been judged a tyrant of a parent and probably faced intervention by a state agency. I insisted on civilized behavior with a lot of lessons on consideration of others, particularly in public. (THE HORROR!) Of course, this was a lesson that took years for them to learn, one step at a time. Were they always perfect? No. I have had to remove them from the premises when that next step up proved to be a bit of a stretch. But I didn't give up and would try again. What I ended up with were two kids that liked to go to a nice restaurant with friends... on their own... as early teens. (This would usually happen when we were traveling and they met some folks at the hotel.) Being a sneaky and meddling parent, I would call the restaurant the next day and get a report. It was always a good one, usually with a large helping of surprise. The whole process required effort and thought with a long term goal in mind. The same was true for any social occasion, not just dining. It is really a shame that clueless parents put the restaurant staff in the proverbial rock-and-a-hard-place situation. Maybe they were raised the way they are raising their kids. That is a scary thought. A second generation of self-absorbed navel gazers that have no social skills? Bleah! Put up a sign... NO CHILDREN! Is it any coincidence that the newest burdgeoning cottage industry is "etiquette training" for new hires in the corporate world? BTW... My applause to those parents out there that are still raising their kids the "old fashioned way".

You are right, Dick. And almost all of the time we appreciate venison for what it is. However, that doesn't keep us from trying to do the impossible or even, sometimes, the absurd. You never know what you will stumble upon in the process.

Dog? Basset? A basset named Marge? How did I miss that? I am a basset hound FREAK! I had my lovely Sophie for 15 years and can't wait until I can get another one. Maybe two. Thank you for sharing your lovely home and your holiday. May you and all of your loved ones (and especially the dog ) have a happy season and continued happiness in the new year. edit to add: Oh! Now I see what I missed. Damn. And give the very distinguished Marge a hug for me. She obviously comes from a very aristocratic line.

Well... It wasn't really dry for venison. What we were after was the unctuousness of pork. That may be an unattainable goal given the differences in muscle fiber structure and not as much connective tissue to turn into gelatin. If the larding doesn't work, the next step may be confit. Yeah... We do steak out the leg a lot of the time.

Well, guys. The deed is done. Now a critique. The flavors worked very well with the venison. There was one dissappointment. It wasn't moist and luscious like pork. We were not surprised there. I wouldn't say it was dry, we are just enamored with pork. Our theory is that the venison is just such a dense muscle that the fat doesn't really permeate. Next time, we will use a larding needle and insert strips of pork fat parallel with the grain. We had some beautiful white pork fat to lay on the venison prior to wrapping it in the skin. The skin wrapping worked very well for keeping the fat in place and the final texture of the fat was just like that under the skin of a fresh ham. One thing we did do after a couple of hours was to cut some slits in the skin so we could get some of the braising liquid under there to flavor the fat. The meat acted quite a lot like pulled pork. What we are going to do with the leftovers is chop it with some of the fat sort of like Carolina style BBQ and add a little of the braising liquid. We pretty much cooked all day, prople came and went. Everyone kind of grazed through the day. Some of what we did: Quiches, the family favorite hot dips (artichoke heart, dried beef and cream cheese, if we don't do these we are dead), roasted brussel sprouts (will never cook them any other way again), yams, a couple of batches of fudge, glazed spiral sliced ham (picked up on a great sale to add to the quiches). My feet are tired but it was a good day. I hope everyone's Christmas was as happy. Nephew is going on a hunt again in the morning. We told him to shoot a pig.

All of the "foil" techniques pail before the cooking bag. I don't do foil anymore.

Given jackal's garden, oven and all that, I would like to see a year long blog that takes us through the seasons. Oh well. I guess that is too much to hope for.

I am more of a "slow cooking" kind of gal but this thread had me intrigued. This one cracked me up. Dave, that toy is awesome. And you know how I love toys. I think I will ask my furnace monitoring expert types about a good infrared monitoring tool. I will let you know what I find out. What temperature are we looking for on the pan? Also, how much smoke is involved? If I have a really good vent hood (capable of 1000 cfm) will that take care of it?

This blog is incredible. I love England and have many friends there. Thank you so much for sharing. I am really intrigued by your table. I am in search of the ultimate dining table for the new house. I was thinking along the lines of a "wood plank" table and there it is in your picture. Can you tell me more about it? How you go it?

Other than the orange peel, what is that stuff? I am intrigued.

I do have one of those earthenware bowls that I used to use for my brief forays into bread making. I wouldn't have thought of using that but it does make ultimate sense. Many thanks for the information and happy Christmas to you.

That recipe with the coffee has become the family favorite, short of firing up the smoker. When the kids are in town, I usually do this one because it can pretty much sit in the oven all day while we go tooting around town doing other stuff. I will say that I have added leftover red wine to the coffee and that was good, too. I think the original was heavy on lemon pepper but my general "rub" for a couple of years has been Emeril's Rustic Rub and that is good, too. I have posted in the This Really Works thread that the big 2 gallon Hefty One Zip baggies are great for putting rub on a big piece of meat and massaging it in.

Is sent the Spiegelau wine glasses to my daughter when the Amazon offer popped up on eGullet. (Awesome deal. 12 glasses for 24.95 and FREE shipping. Woo Hoo.) That is her "happy". (Uh... I bought them for me too. Arrived yesterday. They are awesome.) On Sunday, my sister and I made 4 batches of my dad's recipe for Scotch Raisin Bread. We do this every Christmas as a tribute to him. He baked these every Christmas since 1946. We even have his pans. We give these out to family and friends.

We did a turkey one year that was stuffed with tamales and had tamales lining the bottom of the baking pan. There were also some little hot chiles stuffed into the breast and thigh meat by working from inside the cavity. The drippings on the tamales in the pan made for a mighty nice "tamale pie" type dish and froze well. The original recipe was by Jean Andrews in some magazine about her south Texas Christmas. (Texas Monthly? Southern Living?) There were several other good recipes in that article. I wish I could find it. She is the lady from Austin that wrote the definitive pepper book. I will do some googling and see if I come up with anything. Oh yeah... And another welcome to eGullet from me!

Oooo... that is a good tip. I would have grabbed the Le Creuset, myself. Paula, if I go out and actually buy something to do this in, what do you recommend?

OH! Please do! I am gonna bet you a can of dulche de leche that the condensed milk version is closer.

First get one with as much fat as possible. If I am not smoking, I use a cooking bag. There is a recipe floating around called Aggie Brisket. I saw it in the Treebeards cook book. You basically put on whatever rub you like and toss it in the baking bag with a couple of cups of strong coffee. Then you cook away at about 250. You can't really get BBQ without a slow hangout in a smoker but this makes a pretty damn good piece of brisket. Oh yeah... No searing.

Sorry, I forgot some details. I am not sure that the mushroom soy adds a whole lot. At least I can't tell. That is just what KJ does. And I wouldn't worry too much about the rock sugar either. I mean, sugar is sugar, right? That is just what he uses and I can get it at the asian market, cheap. This is about pea sized and a little larger.

BTW thcocolatl... Welcome to eGullet. I hope you find this a fun place like I do. I sure learn a lot. Does your user name and your post on the use of chocolate have a connection?

Biglots!!!??? You have to be kidding! If you want to try that braising mixture, What the recipe calls for is slicing the ginger (you can't do too much, use a lot) and put it in the bottom of the pot. Oh, don't bother to peel the ginger. Sit the meat on it. Then you tuck the green onions around the sides. We do the pork at 275F but I am inclined to do the venison at 250F. Baste with the liquid every now and then just because that seems like the right thing to do. The leftover braising liquid when it is done makes a killer soba noodle soup. For sides I am thinking something like the following: Sweet potatoes with ginger and maybe Chinese Five Spice or cardamon. Roasted brussel sprouts with water chestnuts added at the end and maybe a splash of good soy sauce. Watercress salad with a rice wine vinegar vinegrette. (The watercress at Hong Kong Market is supposed to be beautiful.) Maybe some steamed baby bok choy because we love it and they are so cute. edit to add: Do you mean a bison ham? How big is that sucker?