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Margaret Pilgrim

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Posts posted by Margaret Pilgrim

  1. First, we don't eat out much in San Francisco.    We are out of town much, and have found kinds of small restaurant, passionate chefs, loyal following AND a kind of civilized calm in the dining room.    Not the club or party atmosphere that is to prevalent in SF.    And the tab at these places is as digestible as the innovative cooking.

     

    SO, are there these kinds of places in SF today?     We'd love to be able to dine as well at home as we do abroad.

  2. We do something similar. My husband cut one long side off a Farber grill so that food on the spit had more exposure to the radiant heat of the fireplace. We cover the motor with heavy duty foil, secure the meat (chicken or leg of lamb) on the spit andplace the grill in front of the fireplace coals. Absolutely fabulous results. You can play with the kinds of woods you use, such as peach or almond or use vine cuttings.

    Of course, you can buy these fireplace "roasting jacke", but as the OP suggests it's fun to "do it for free".

  3. Elsie, I think you answered your own question. When things stick, it is usually because they have not formed enough bottom crust. A minute longer might give you releasable slices.

    I often take these fried slices, place them in a buttered baking dish, shingle fashion and sauce them: a drizzle of marinara sauce followed by a drizzle of bechemel. Shower with parmesan and back until hot and bubbly.

  4. Braises are my idiot-proof dinner party go-to. I brown large cuts (osso buco or lamb shanks) or smaller chunks of lamb or pork, less frequently beef, deglaze the pot (All Clad dutch oven) with appropriate wine, pile the meat on browned onions, garlic cloves, a bouquet garni, add appropriate broth almost to cover. Cover with a paper lid and put in a 275 to 300F oven for 3 to 5 hours, checking on doneness after 3. Always, always tender as love meat and ambrosial juices.

  5. Our gleanings so far this weekend: On my shopping list was baking soda, French working jars (the ones with the orange, red or green plastic lids and a double boiler large enough to hold dinner party quantities of mashed potatoes or polenta. Went to one estate sale where my husband unearthed 2 unopened boxes of arm and hammer with 2012 dates, a box of 12 working jars with 6 lids and a 2 qt Calphalon double boiler. Total price: $5.00. Raced to the car, yelling to husband, "Start the car, start the car!", channeling a local Ikea commercial in which the wife thinks they have mis-rung her purchases because her bill was so low.

  6. I fell in love/lust with this heavy glass at the swap meet today. The lid is threaded and screws securely to the base - like a precursor to travel mugs. The glass can sit in the lid as a coaster app. The vendor had no clue. I overpaid at $10 but she often just gives me things so it was one of those balance of nature things. Any thoughts?

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    Heidi, It looks like a pickle or jam "caster" jar. These usually were in sets of two or three and were held in silver or pewter "hangers" ..

    Here's a page with a bunch, the style varied considerably, some open, many had lids.

    Castor jars usually had metal (silver plate, etc) lids and were not threaded. Threaded, in fact, is the operative descriptive word for this jar. I have seen them at French flea markets but have never asked their original use.

  7. I fell in love/lust with this heavy glass at the swap meet today. The lid is threaded and screws securely to the base - like a precursor to travel mugs. The glass can sit in the lid as a coaster app. The vendor had no clue. I overpaid at $10 but she often just gives me things so it was one of those balance of nature things. Any thoughts?
    Super find! And if you only paid $10, you should feel guilt for robbing a vendor with whom you have a relationship! Threaded glass is very perishable, so to find a piece that is intact is in itself a coup. It's a lovely piece. I don't want to hazard dating it, but I would warn against screwing and unscrewing it unnecessarily (as in show and tell) because the threads do chip. (I remember being severely scolded at a flea market in France when testing just such jars.) Enjoy your treasure!
  8. We keep them for years. I put them in a tall screw top jar and add a half inch of rum or bourbon before closing them up. We don't bother to make extract, just scrape some of the seeds into whatever we're making. I bury the "empty" pods in sugar. I suppose I could also put them in bourbon for a faux extract.

  9. I am thinking back to a dessert we served often in the 70's made with rennet: This is an example. It was softer and not as clear as a gelatine but really lovey in texture.

    Oh, yes, that was lovely, if rather synthetically flavored stuff. I more recently found a recipe for doing it from scratch in French Saveurs or Elle a Table. Will try to locate it. Sublime. Thanks for the memory.
  10. I'd vote for Rouen in winter also. You can while some extraordinarily interesting hours in the ironworks museum http://www.rouentour...&language=fr-FR where you can marvel at beautifully crafted practical objects made of iron: tools, locks, keys, signs, grillworks... Arte Populaire at its most sophisticated. To keep this food oriented, you could pick up a picnic to enjoy during a musee break.

  11. Plenty of excellent Brentwood corn in the Bay Area at this time. And for the first time there is a small showing of yellow corn. For maybe a decade we have had almost nothing but super-sweet white corn, perhaps the choice of the younger generations but not what we grew up with. Hallelujah!

  12. Flour tortillas are an excellent suggestion; if you have the equipment to make them yourself, so much the better. When I go away for a week one of the things I need almost daily is bread, and getting good bread isn't always easy, or means a drive, which kinda defeats the idea of staying somewhere out of the way. ...

    Good point. If you have a dutch oven, you could make NYT 18hour no-knead bread. (I would bring dried seaweed to add to dough for yum loaf to go with shore dinners, chowder, etc. )

  13. ....If you have a cellar or another cool dry place to store it, you don't need to refrigerate commercial mayonnaise.

    i didnt know that commercial mayo didnt need to be kept cold.... but aside from that..... a 4 pack of THOSE big jars would last me the rest of my life.

    I am pretty sure that SW is saying that UNOPENED commercial mayo doesn't need to be refrigerated. If otherwise, it's certainly news to me and refutes the instruction on the label.

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