Thanks for the Crepes

Sounds like something I would do and then have to curse my own self about! Sorry @kayb. But that smoked turkey you had to drive so far for ...

We also grew these small pie pumpkins in VT along with the larger watery jackolantern ones. The small ones are okay for pies. Ours always came out really dense, so they were never a favorite of mine, although I can eat them. When I was working my first real job in the Maybelline cosmetics cost accounting division of Plough, Inc. in Memphis, TN, I ate some pie I thought was pumpkin on a regular basis in their absolutely stellar employee's cafeteria. I mentioned to the lunch lady that this was the best pumpkin pie I had ever eaten one day. She told me, "Honey, that's because it's sweet potato pie!" I have a good recipe for sweet potato pie with a little bourbon in it, which is optional, if any one is interested. It's not real sweet at all and quite fluffy without having to beat the egg whites separately.

We had a hand cranked meat grinder growing up, the kind that clamps onto a heavy table. I used it many times, and didn't find it the least bit dangerous, and I am a bit of a wimp about anything threatening. Just don't stick your fingers into the maw while turning the crank with your other hand. Duh. Much easier to understand and cope with to me, than the automated machines we have today. I wish I had this old meat grinder today, but sadly, it is probably rusting away in a landfill somewhere. It would still be useful now, I would wager, if someone had taken and used it. Fortunately, Food Lion still grinds nice ground chuck daily in their store where I can buy it. I made dinner in my new CSO (Cuisinart Steam Oven). I have an old recipe for chicken and rice that comes from a fundraiser cookbook put out by the Order of the Eastern Star (sisters, mothers, daughters) of men who belong to the Masonic Lodge. I reduced it drastically to 2 servings. So I mixed 1/4 cup fine diced onion, 1/2 cup rice, 1 can Campbell's cream of mushroom soup, and 1-1/2 cups boiling water in my smallest French white pyroceram covered casserole dish. I topped it with one of my huge, one pound, chicken leg quarters, seasoned with salt and pepper all over and dropped on top of the rice mixture. Then I sprinkled paprika on the chix and dried parsley all over the surface of the casserole liberally. Cover goes on and it gets cooked at 350 F for an hour. Then cover comes off and it gets cooked an additional 30 minutes at 350 F to crisp the skin somewhat and thicken the gravy. I also cooked up broccoli which was delicious without even any salt eaten with the gravy and rice. Scoff all you like at the mushroom soup, but this is delicious. I will eat the drumstick portion and the rest of the rice and gravy tomorrow. I was a little afraid of the lack of clearance between the top heating elements of the CSO and the knob handle on top of my over 20-year-old and beloved casserole dish, but nothing untoward happened, and dinner was scrumptious. It makes the kind of sauce where you want to lick the plate, and since I was here by myself, that might have happened.

I don't know if this will help your friend with a free replacement baking pan or not. But I took delivery of a new CSO on September 20. The baking pan that came with my model is "corrugated". In other words it has 11 raised ridges 3/8" wide separated by shallow valleys between them across the width of the pan. That whole surface is raised a little so there is a 1/2" wide trough for drippings around the whole perimeter of the pan. It measures 10-1/2" x 10-1/2" and has a rolled edged all the way around the top. It's only 7/8" deep, so I can see if you're cooking a whole fatty chicken, the drippings might fill it kind of full to be tilting it to get it out of the oven over that little lip on the oven rack. Might want to pull out the whole oven rack with the pan and food still on it, since that is doable in the lower rack position without any tilting. It's certainly not the sturdiest baking pan I own, but I haven't had problems with it warping under heat yet. I broiled something at 500 F the other day in the upper rack position, so I think if it were going to happen, it would have occurred then. Perhaps she can ask for the newer style pan to be sent? Wouldn't hurt, and rotuts said the new one will fit in the old oven. The worst pan I have for doing that annoying sproing warp thing in the oven, or upon removal, is a seemingly very nice baking sheet with Marcus Samuelsson branding. It's the heaviest one I have, large and has a beautiful SilverStone non stick coating all over and feels very sturdy with heavy rolled edges. I should throw it out, because even baking cookies at moderate heat, it will sproing on you and mess with your food. That may explain why I found it for cheap at Ollie's discount outlet. Sure looks deceptively of good quality, though, and doesn't perform as well as the cheapos that come in a two pack with a cooling rack at the Dollar store.

@Shelby, Thanks! I sure enjoyed. Meet you back here in November.

I apologize @liuzhou. Someone (I think) told me somewhere (I think) that advocating for organic chicken was pointless because it was just market speak. I thought it was you, but I am obviously going prematurely senile. I still stand behind my point about organic labeled chix being a superior product in this country, even if my credibility is completely shot at this point. And you are absolutely right about the skeptical part!

So I guess I'm the only one who steals slices or juliennes of raw potato when I'm cutting them up for scalloped or fries? I always get out the salt and pepper, and quite like a raw potato when I'm hungry. One good thing about living alone is that you never have to cook unless you're hungry.

Please do tell, Martin, how this little knife was used. It might lead to a more humane way. Or not. Were all 1,300 chickens done at one time? If so, that was a major, major job of work! How many folks did you have working on it? Did you have one of those spinner machines that pluck the chickens? Did you keep them for your own/family's/employers use, or sell them? There is nothing like the taste of a true pasture raised chicken. We can still buy them today at three or more times the price of industrially farmed ones. And yes, they taste different. Way, way different. @liuzhou, Organic is not just market speak here. It is actually highly regulated and to jump through all the government hoops is time consuming and expensive. I am a skeptic as many might know, but the organic ones here are much, much better than the Big Ag ones. The rich constituency that demands organic is not large, but has a loud voice with politicians, so they allow the moneyed to get what they want at a price, after making sure it won't cut into the Big Ag profits significantly. Good pasture raised chix is like chicken perfume compared to the industrial version. I buy it when I can spare the money, and it compares well with the ones raised on my grandparent's farm, where I was witness to everything that happened in the chicken's lives. That kind of chicken is still available here, IF you can afford it. Sometimes, if you live in a more rural area, people still raise chickens the old-fashioned way and you can luck out and get some at reasonable prices. In the cities it is always filtered through the government which tries to direct everyone to the big factories if they can.

Yes, I think it is sad that this is promoted as a product for dirt poor people who could not possibly ever afford $60 or $70 USD. There are a lot of YouTube videos about how to make your own for much less. Still though, sewing became a kind of niche market here many years ago and fabric by the yard has become expensive when you can even find a store that sells it. People who order online all the time might have spare styrofoam packing peanuts lying around. I sincerely doubt that describes the poor population of South Africa, as I think I remember their income was 20 cents a day. It would take them the better part of a year to buy this thing at $60 if food, housing and everything else was free. I'm also concerned about suggestions that it would be good for a many hours long cook. Food safety, you know. I bet it would make a very effective transport device for potluck dishes for us in more fortunate situations, though. But yeah, I usually wrap potluck dishes in thick, fluffy and much more durably washable towels. It's a nice idea for some people, I guess, but not for South Africans or anyone else who could never afford it, and I really don't like that they are trying to get people to believe that is benefiting that population. Now, if I spaced and missed the part in the videos where the nice white blonde lady was giving these things away to needy South Africans, please correct me. If that happened, some people who could afford it might be more inclined to buy one to support her humanitarian efforts.

@Smithy, I can't speak to @Tropicalsenior's recipe for cheesecake which turned out so well for you, but I can say that I always use Neufatchel cheese in place of full fat cream cheese. I was really surprised the first time I looked up true French Neufatchel, because it is nothing like what is sold here under that name as a lower fat, higher protein and calcium version of cream cheese. The American version has no rind, is pastuerized and is not grainy at all, like the description for the French version. I have always has good results with American Neufatchel in cheesecake, but I must add that I have never tried it in a steam bath or even a water bath in a dry oven, because I kind of really like the slight golden browning in a NY style cheesecake. It could be that in a steamy environment, the Neufatchel will produce a watery result, but it sure doesn't baked in a regular oven.

Yes, exactly! I thought it started with a K. It is so hard dealing with languages one doesn't speak at all. What Turkuaz has is like this picture, and it looks very good. I will buy some later when I get room in the freezer because it comes in a big wheel of a package like you see in the link. It does not look soggy, like some I have seen,but crispy and very delicious. It looks like your example where you made it, with a great crispy texture! Is the linked photo "songbird's nest"? Thanks so much for your help here and for introducing me to the very existence of this pastry, shain.

Yes and yes. But you know what? I am so glad that Vivian Howard has found a way to successfully market an old school printed cookbook. She did that by offering a lot more than can be found on the web. She is our home girl, and I am so proud of her!

I had dinner at Bosphorus tonight. It is an outstanding Turkish restaurant that we are very lucky to have here. I am usually too conservative to spend anything like $25 US on a single dinner, but this was very good, and I have leftovers for tomorrow too. The meal comes with warm Turkish bread with a very good olive oil, tomato/maras pepper? and probably marjoram or mild oregano dipping sauce. I ordered cigar bourek, which are feta, parsley and onion rolled up in phyllo dough and fried. They are drained and blotted very well and do not present as oily at all. I personally do not care for the sauce they are served with, but this restaurant is immensely popular, so perhaps that is just me. I had ordered the kebab plates before, but not the pidelers (Turkish pizza). I decided to go with the shrimp one. While it was good, and I will eat it all by tomorrow, I would not order this again. The shrimp are the small salad kind that come already peeled and frozen. Maybe it's just me, but this kind of shrimp seems to be insipid and without much flavor, watery. The rest of the components of the pideler were fine, tomatoes (not prime garden ones) and onions and green peppers which came out under cooked because they were put on raw. Between that and the watery shrimp, it made the dish quite soggy where the filling was, although there was good browning on the very thin bottom crust. The dough was wonderful and baked up fine. They certainly have a way with breads here. I tore both pointy ends off the pide and ate them while they were fresh, dipping them into the wonderful olive oil/tomato/herb sauce served with the bread. Then I ordered baklava and Turkish tea, which is served in the cutest tiny hour glass nipped waist glasses. This was very good baklava, but not made with honey, like I was taught to do by my long ago Greek father-in-law. I visited the new (opened August 5, 2017) Turkuaz Market before walking a few doors down to Bosphorus. The Turkish owner of Turkuaz is very friendly and speaks English well. He offered me a sample of hot Turkish tea almost immediately. He said it was Caykur brand in the yellow bag. I have a bag of Caykur in the red bag, and frankly, I don't taste any difference between them. They are both good. I picked up Tadim extra-salted sunflower seeds in the shell, sumac, maras red pepper and white sesame seeds (all very inexpensive in bulk containers of 100 grams) Tamek sour cherry jam, Ulker Icim Haloumi cheese and a package of very nice-smelling Dalan pink rose soap. The prices seemed very reasonable for the most part. I was startled at what they asked for the Turkish sausages they had in a refrigerator case, but given my complete ignorance of Turkish sausage and the otherwise very modest prices, this is perhaps the norm? They are considerably (couple dollars) cheaper on a pound of tahini than Harmony Mediterranean Market is. When I went to check out, the personable owner offered me a sample of mastic, a perhaps 3/4" - 1.9 cm square, coated in powdered sugar. I did partake, and we had quite the discussion on the origins and history of it. It tasted like sticky pine sap to me, which it turns out to be, and I am not in love with it, but I don't hate it either. He said it was quite expensive, due to the diminished environment for the trees that produce it, so I am pretty sure I will not be buying it. It was a wonderful experience to taste it for the first time though! They also offered a sample of their sesame seed topped giant (9" / 23 cm) Turkish bagel when his mom? came in, but I figured I taken enough advantage of their generosity at that point. Perhaps next time I'll try it. They certainly looked good. Then we started talking about making baklava, and it turns out the Turks do not approve of honey in it. They want the butter flavor to shine through. They also have that pastry that @shain(little help here, buddy?) posted about in the Dinner thread a while back. shain showed a video where they were pouring out thin threads of pastry dough onto a quickly spinning giant hot disk. For the life of me I cannot remember the name of this dish or the pastry thread component. They have it a Turkuaz! I can't read many of the packages at Turkuaz. I looked a long time at packages I thought contained dates, that turned out to be black olives. Another excellent day to be alive!

Truth!

Well @JAssad80, As a front of house veteran from long ago, food lover and avid home cook, it sounds like you would be much happier and more effective in an administrative function, namely bean counter. You approach your role in the restaurant with no passion for the food or consideration for the long-time patrons. Only cost concerns. That's a recipe for failure, IMHO. Your perspective can kill the most successful restaurant in a heartbeat. You fail to even tell us food enthusiasts what sort of food your restaurant serves. Do you want to perhaps make another run at it, or move on to an accounting site?

Looks like a sturdy spring that keeps a car hood in the up position. I suspect that this spring used to do just that for @Captain's grill hood. Now it has become detached for whatever reason, and it would take quite some force to put it back where it belongs. Just guessing? Cool and interesting photo though.

The UK is just adopting the Big Ag greed principle that has been going on over here since the early '70's. Shoot, I think they drove my grandfather out of the dairy business in the '60's. They have driven most of the small farmers out with regulations enforced only on the little guy. Now the only small scale farming here has to be "artisan", organic, and charge their customers a fortune to get the same product that used to be available to everyone prior to the Big Ag lobbyists making puppets out of our politicians. It is very sad, but venality knows no borders, it seems. I thought food was better in Europe than it is here in the mainstream. Don't you just love (not) the risk-management-speak in the 2 Sisters' commentary on the allegations. Oh, BTW. Our state legislature recently passed a law making it illegal to take photos or videos in your employers workplace. Meanwhile it is totally legal for employers to take photos and videos of their employees. Welcome to slavery. This was in response to infiltrators that took videos inside a Butterball turkey barn and the atrocities were released to the public. Here's a link to the original article. The state ag official warned the turkey production facility about subsequent pending inspections, but I don't think she was fired. I can't find the followup articles, but that's typical. It was just swept under the rug and Big Ag goes on as usual, with laws to limit future disclosure or their evil, of course! That's the way it works around here. Go along to get along and the whistle blower gets screwed. Money talks here. Doing the right thing gets you stomped so far into the ground you wish you were dead, if you aren't already. Arrrgghh! But what can you do except buy organic or raise your own poultry? Bottom line is that most of us who can't afford the "artisan", organic food that used to be the norm are left with the mainstream food supply which is rife with greed, cruelty, filth and deception. Wake up folks!

Fabulous blog so far, and you have nothing to worry about in the interesting and entertaining department. I think many of us are quite engaged in your tales. I am assuming that by steaming the Hatches in the CSO you mean the steam BROIL function to get the browning. I don't think I would be the only one interested in how you did that. I'm sending good wishes for luck on tomorrow's fishing expedition and looking forward to your report. Just make sure to remind them not to lose Chum as you send them off with breakfast.

What more humane method do you suggest? Were the birds left to live and only die upon bleeding out? If so, I agree that a more humane method could easily be found. I was about 13-14 when helping with the family chicken butchering day. I could still run well back in those days and was first set to catching chickens for my grandpa along with a male cousin who was an even better runner than I was. After handing Grandpa my first two or three chickens, I stopped to take a breather and watched what he was doing. He grabbed them by the neck, just under the head and slung the bodies around until the head was in his hand and the body went slinging off across the chicken yard. There was a growing pile of chicken heads by his feet. Why he didn't chop the heads cleanly off is a question we would have to ask him, but I'm afraid that's impossible now. Perhaps because the wringing was the way he learned and that's the way it was always done? It is absolutely true that the headless bodies will get up and run around sometimes for almost a minute. They are dead (I sincerely hope), and not all of them do it. The majority are happy to lay still after parting from their heads. It is unnerving, to say the least, to see it though. I witnessed a couple more times and began to beg fervently to be given another job. Don't worry, I have close to 200 cousins and many of them were there that day. I was easily replaced on chicken catching duty. I was put on butchering detail in the kitchen with some aunts and other cousins after the chickens had been gutted and skinned outside. We didn't have a machine to take the feathers off and it just takes too long by hand, so the skin was sacrificed. Sad. I'd only cut up a very few chickens from the grocery store before. Everyone was skeptical that I could learn to be useful in that capacity and I was warned I'd be put on another detail, if I couldn't perform. An aunt showed me once how to find and pop the joints and what to do. I cut up at least fifty chickens for the freezer that afternoon. I did NOT want to be on gutting and skinning detail! We put about 200 chickens in my grandparents' freezers that day and the army of aunts, uncles and cousins that helped took almost as many home to put in their own freezers. After we stowed the meat in grandma's freezers, and the coolers the helpers brought with them, now empty of the food they brought with them, we cleaned up the considerable mess and had a potluck dinner where everyone had brought dishes. It was a good, and unforgettable day.

Your cheesecake makes me drool and your recipe sounds great. I have bookmarked it. I'm getting together the ingredients for a cheesecake. I'm with you on the shortbread crust. I don't particularly care for graham crackers. In fact, I'm quite fond of cheesecake with no crust at all. It seems to interfere with the creamy smoothness, and I eat the filling and crust separately. Crust first, best part last. Is there a reason one would want to spread the slightly sweetened sour cream on a hot cheesecake? Seems to me like sour cream can become very melty and might drip off the sides. I have a recipe for a cheesecake that calls for a sour cream top layer much like yours, but it is spread on a cold cake. Also there are merits to an airy, lighter cheesecake and one that is ever so slightly browned and caramelized in my world. I think that's my favorite kind. If a food snob's coming over for dinner, cover the cracks with a sour cream layer or fruit topping. I would not kick any of the cheesecake styles off the plate with perhaps one exception. I believe the pizza joint I had fresh pizza at last night and reheated pizza for dinner tonight offers slices of no-bake cheesecake for $3.50. I can't swear to it, because I have never tried to make a cheesecake substitute without baking. The one time (years ago) I bought some for dessert from the pizza place, my husband ate his slice and mine, because after the first taste, I offered to carry it all out to the raccoons. HORRIBLE! How can they offer perfect pizza and wonderful tiramisu (made by the owner's mom, when she feels like it) and then sell unsuspecting customers this "cheesecake" abomination?

I know what you mean. Like this. I don't think @Tropicalseniorwould withhold a component of the device, though, and it looks sort of tippy to be a spoon or ladle holder without a counterweight. Or maybe the Chinese, practical souls that they seem to be, expect one to provide one's own drip bowl/counterweight? I can't even guess what the device would be useful for otherwise, but I could see it holding a ladle or spoon with a heavy bowl put into place on the top "rack" ring above the "foot". Okay, you know what, it still seems really tippy on that narrow foot. I don't think it's a spoon holder, or else I can really see why she gave it away.

@Shelby, Nice looking hors d'oeuvres plate! The roll-ups I had were simple: ham spread with cream cheese rolled around a thin dill pickle spear into tubes and then sliced into tidbits. Do yours have cream cheese?

@Franci, Great video and such a tempting, lovely dessert! The web address under the YouTube video for Zuppa inglese seems to now be spelled correctly, but it is not a hyperlink (meaning one cannot click on it and be taken to your website). I'm sure you want it to be as easy as possible for people to land on your website, so this is probably an oversight. Also the hyperlinks for Pan di Spagna and Crema Patisccera link back to your videos on the YouTube site instead of your website. This might be what you intended, but if I were you, I would take the link back to your website, where people can then easily go and look at the link for the YouTube videos on both these components of Zuppa inglese if they are so inclined. That way you have given them an opportunity to become aware of your website. Also, while Amarena cherries seem to be available online. (I'd never heard of them before.) They are not the same as Amarelle (called Morello here), but I bet the dish would be be very good with these sour cherries, and many people can buy those easily at their local Trader Joe's and other outlets in the US. Just suggestions and random thoughts.

Steam bake? How long for your baguette? I have used Serious Eats covered skillet method successfully, but I bet steam bake in the CSO would do very well too, maybe better. I'm gonna give it a try, thanks.