SLB

I have had success halving a recipe for a bundt cake (or a cake designed to be made in that kind of pan), and then baking the half-recipe in a loaf pan. But can any-ole' cake recipe be halved and made in a loaf pan??? I guess I mean, can a cake recipe meant to be baked in a regular cake-pan be successfully reduced and baked in a loaf pan? It seems like the pan might matter . . . . Help! Please! Quick! I'm helping a five-year old struggling with the covid-divorce of her parents make a cake in a few hours for one of the parents. Everybody but me is quite grumpy, and needs cake, but not a big-ass cake that is going to just sit around and make the parent sad when the kid leaves for the other parental home. Aii.

@TdeV, how do you like "Food Drying with an Attitude"? I may check it out.

Seconding their use in soups and braises -- I find the texture of not-entirely-rehydrated items to be a nice complement to the other soup components. That aside -- I am the cook for my hiking group, which led me to eventually get into dehydrating (one of our group is strong as an ox and will carry anything anywhere including full bottles of liquid courage; but at some point I realized that I was being downright abusive and perhaps I could just, you know, dehydrate the food component of our actual meals instead of making her carry frozen blocks of what-have-you.). Anyway, I have now looked into a number of cookbooks for dehydrated backcountry eating. As @chromedome has pointed out -- the aim of this type of food is obviously distinct in that it maximizes calories per ounce. In the backpacking context, it also prioritizes the kind of tastiness that will induce an exhausted person to eat more (hello, salt). But who knows, it may give you some ideas. In order of favor: "Backcountry Eats" by Kevin Ride (he also has a blog, or used to); "Dirty Gourmet" by Aimee Trudeau, Emily Nielson, and Mi-Yan Kwan (a lot of the recipes in this book are not from dehydrated components); "The Dehydrator Bible" by Jennifer MacKenzie, Jay Nutt & Don Mercer (not just backpacking, actually only has one chapter on camp food) "Mary Bell's Complete Dehydrator Cookbook" (not backpacking either) "The Dehydrator Cookbook for Outdoor Adventurers" by Julie Mosier. Unfortunately, the Time Life Good Cook book on "Preserving" does not contain a lot of recipes using dried foods, although it does have a section on the technique. On the leather thickness problem -- it got easier for me when I bought myself an offset spatula. I then eyeball for variations in translucence. It's aggravating when the middle isn't fully dried but the edge is approaching crispy, so I tend to push more material outward, which creates a bit of elevation at the edge. Then -- when the major portion of the leather is done, I can just cut off the still-moist edges and eat them right then. Like licking the beaters. If you store your leathers in the freezer, you don't have to worry about residual moisture, but it is annoying to have to freeze something which one was attempting to otherwise preserve.

I got a PawPaw in a CSA once, and have been desperate for a source of them in abundance, since. PawPaw ice cream sounds like perfection. I see the note about them not being preservable; but honestly, If I had, say, a box, I would cull the flesh and freeze. See what happens.

I'm unreasonably sad about it. NYC has so very many good Indian restaurants, it's a shame to cry too long over this one. But I can't help it. I basically worship Madhur Jaffrey.

Yay! Yay! YAY!! <ChannellingChumShimmyingOverHere>

@Shelby Guurrrrlll. Whew. I'm rooting for ya.

Right??? I have the book -- it's one of the first books I purchased after a long cookbook lock-down from ~1999 to 2005 or so -- but this thread always brings me back to it, with urgency.

https://mailchi.mp/kitchenartsandletters/in-memoriam-nach-waxman?fbclid=IwAR3-rWeYlXILo8ovX69Fzs4_9sI9tw9PqCO2-csZ40MZRnHsRaH53i8zj6A What a mark. It's still one of my favorite places on Earth. For years, when I was not buying any cookbooks (just magazines), I would go there when in NYC to sit and read. Sigh. Rest in power. Rest.

Said blemished New-Air, populated: There are another several bottles in the regular fridge, which I couldn't get in the cooler. It was quite the gift, and included a box of Krug. I guess it's gonna be a good wine summer.

It's the best!

I had dinner last week with a VERY SERIOUS WINE PERSON, who then gave me a few cases of VERY SERIOUS WINES. Well. I live in an un-air-conditioned fifth-floor walkup. So I just ordered me a wine refrigerator. In the meantime, the boxes sit in my neighbor's air-conditioned living room, two floors down. ETA: I got a "blemished" New-Air, which was about half price, and purports to run at 35dB -- a critical quality in an apartment which already features a 20+ year old fridge, a chest freezer, and round-the-clock fans all summer.

I am going to a resto in this cuisine tonight, La Vara. http://www.lavarany.com/ People, I am so excited. I can't wait to eat this food. This is my third restaurant since the pandemic, I'm not messin' around.

Frozen vegetables. I'd get these gigantic deliveries of vegetables, and I would then spend what seemed like a lot of time methodically blanching and freezing and packing. My freezer used to be all protein, plus maybe a few leftovers; now it tends to have a nice selection of frozen vegetables from the prior season, too. So, I'm using more of 'em.

I am the opposite. I experience beer as something which is all and only taste, and with none of the urge for more that has nothing to do with taste. And with that particular taste, I only want a (relatively) little bit. My experience with spirits is . , . not like this at all. I always want a second cocktail. "Want" doesn't even really describe the feeling, it's like something coming from another part of my brain. It's a feeling that is unconcerned with "want". [I guess that would be the "jones".] The feeling -- I more want to call it a *thing* -- it goes away if I don't have the second, but it takes a bit and, weirdly, I have to remind myself that it'll pass. In this way, it's kind of like strenuous fitness activity -- I know the discomfort will absolutely totally pass, each and every time -- plus, the truth is, it isn't really going to get worse, either -- but I have to deliberately recall this little uncontroverted memory, every single workout, every single steep, every single leap in the heartrate. Wine is somewhere in between, but much closer to beer than to spirits. To be sure -- I usually will have more than one glass of wine -- I have possibly raged here about the underutilized quantity in bars and restos, the "quartino", which for me feels basically perfect. But the point is -- I don't have to remember that I'm sated with the wine -- "satiety" seems to be strictly palate-driven, with nothing else in drive. [**To be clear -- I realize that this experience may not be the reality. And, in another fact which seems like it could be relevant -- almost all wine begins to taste a bit sweet to me after about a glass, and while I like it alright, there is only so much sweet I can swallow.] However. Dry, acrid spirits? Having another feels . . . downright sensible! I believe in some addiction circles they call this: "False Evidence Appearing Real." Many glasses of dry, acrid spirits is not, it turns out, sensible. Anyway. I have often wondered what it would be like if I experienced spirits the way I experience beer -- one and done, no mourning -- which is what I think must be true for other people.

How thoughtful of them. We have raccoons here in my very urban neighborhood. They are gigantic as is appropriate in a landscape to overly abundant with garbage. They are also bold, rabid, and not entirely nocturnal. One tried to follow me into my vestibule one evening. I hate them with a white-hot heat.

@heidih, I never have; but it's an awful lot of material to go into the garbage, so I guess I need to look into it.

Red romaine; mint; and BRAND NEW ENGLISH PEAS!!! I shelled 'em on an interminable zoom call. Steak, too.

I am glad to know all of this, whew.

Thank you. I am wanting to make it as a backpacking snack, so I'm not sure the stem stuff would work. I can get nauseous when backpacking with a large pack, I'm not really sure why. But I'm thinking, ginger is what they give you for that in helicopters . . . . Anyway. I have a killer trail mix -- candied dried rhubarb; dried strawberries (this year I'm trying to candy these too; strangely strawberries dehydrate to kinda bland although it's not a bad bland); and cashews. Or pecans, but something about the cashews works out well (I don't actually like cashews anywhere else. Or anything all sweetened up like this, anywhere else. Outside of strenuous physical activity I can't really tolerate sugary-sweet anything. This could be related to the nausea, possibly, the fact that I am suddenly wolfing down straight sugar garnished with a little fruit and fat . . . .) Anyway -- sometimes m&ms also go in, for tradition's sake (preferably dark, let's not get carried away on this hyper-sweetness). Anyway. I was thinking of sticking little candied ginger sticks in that. Although I do like bits of candied citrus peel in cookies and cakes, my only other routine use of candied anything is cocktails. I think candied citrus peel is just divine in my likka. And I suspect that candied ginger is going to perform very well there, if it turns out that I can't take it on the trail. Or if I, uh, have some extra.

Thank you!

Why would a recipe for candied ginger call for sugar (lots), AND light corn syrup? The concept involves multiple rounds of boiling in sugar, followed by long soaks. The second round, however, specifies light corn syrup. This is from the Time Life Good Cook series, which never really misses a landing. And I know that corn syrup makes for a different texture. But I'm not sure why that would be meaningful here. What on earth is the purpose of the corn syrup round???

They are awfully pretty.

Chile'. I would've been that annoying neighbor-kid who had to be flat-out ousted to get to go home. I know this because, my actual next-door neighbor as a kid lived in a house with real cheese, which they had every afternoon for this event called a "snack". I basically tried to be living there, every afternoon. Because over at my house, such a suggestion for a "snack" was met with, "you'll spoil your dinner!".

I love this thread. My mother was a dreadful cook, but disciplined and dutiful. When she made "spaghetti" -- a dish which, on it's own, my father did NOT accept as functioning as some kind of meal, because he was staunchly opposed to filling your belly with starch -- but when she made spaghetti, the spaghetti was boiled a hundred years; rinsed in cold water (to remove the excess starch!); and returned to the double boiler (the one with the holes, I believe in other homes this was called a "steamer"). It stayed in the double-boiler for the whole time while the rest of the meal cooked. It could be hours. You guys. I am still really angry about this. Anyway. @liuzhou, I still remember the picture you posted of your mother's face when you appeared in front of her at her party. It sounds like she had a long, full life; I am sorry for your loss.