sng sling

My Dad used to swear by sweet pickle relish and peanut butter on toast or crackers as a hangover cure... Edit -- spelling

A South African friend of Italian descent showed me how to grill the rinds over a gas burner flame. Made a delicious nibble. I've heard that the microwave will work in a similar fashion...

For what it's worth, we have a fairly new Le Creuset grill pan (maybe 2-3 years old) that is enameled on the bottom -- just cleaned it after breakfast this AM. Our older LC items (30+ years) have enameled and untrammeled bottoms. I have no idea why, though. I'd appreciate any info just out of curiousity..

I'd second Ryugin, but if you want something other than Japanese cuisine, Monna Lisa (French) in the Marunouchi Building is pretty spectacular. If you crave excellent Italian, you might try Piatto Suzuki in Azabu Juban.

We buy the Williams-Sonoma frozen croissants for home. If I recall properly, the thaw and proof time for them is 6-8 hours at room temperature. We usually leave them out at bedtime and bake them off in the morning. They increase in size by about 3x. Never had any trouble. Hope this helps.

Sorry for the delay. I'm like a squirrel and forgot my own post!! Can't recall its name, but it was the Italian restaurant on the top floor of Isetan in Shinjuku 3-chome. Hope you get a chance to try it.

We popped for a Vita-Mix about a year ago, ostensibly to make better smoothies, but it is/was a really cool toy. However, the main advantage relative to our previous Kitchen Aid is that the ice or frozen fruit becomes completely smooth rather than pretty smooth. The justification to upgrade is kind of shaky. Another aspect of the smoothie topic is the cost of smoothies outside the home. Our health club offers a $5 smoothie with yogurt and/or soy milk, choice of fruit (all frozen in bags), with added cost options of peanut butter, whey powder, etc. Even using the most generous ingredient cost there is perhaps 75 cents worth of food in the blender. That might be a better gross margin than pizza! I find that the active bacteria yogurts are good for me, and smoothies are a very easy way to add this to my diet. Whey protein powder, as mentioned above, adds protein without adding fat. Soy milk is also said to be good for health, but I don't like the taste. In a smoothie, it is undetectable. Berries (fresh or frozen) allegedly have strong health benefits and taste good. Banana, peaches, and mango work well. Good quality frozen fruit is better than mediocre out of season produce. If you use fresh fruit, you obviously need a handful of ice to cool things off.

There's a whole cottage industry in Photoshop how-to books in your bookstore, and maybe even your library. I bought one for Photoshop Elements 4.0 (haven't updated in a couple years) and found it very helpful. You'd naturally want one for the current version..

Places here in Houston sometimes offer chopped herb mixtures with the oil. Another thought is the Middle Eastern herb/spice/nut mix called "dukkha" (not sure about spelling), which serves a similar purpose as a bread dip.

.....get started. Or if you'd like to help, but you don't know how: maybe you know a nearby excellent restaurant or chef. You could mention to them in passing one day the gist of my story and report back to me their thoughts on it. What would they think about employing some crazy Canadian white kid for room and board? ←

We have a chest type freezer in our Houston TX garage that cost less than $200 at Costco. It's run reliably for about 5 years, and I couldn't tell how much it adds to the electric bill -- it's overwhelmed by the A/C. I figure that if the extra work of fighting Houston summers causes it to last a couple years less, then we'll replace it cheaply. Lots of folks here retire their kitchen fridge to the garage when they redecorate or upgrade. Seems to work out well.

I've had generally good responses by asking the wait person about the dish as I finish it. "This was really great; can you tell me about the ingredients/method?"

Most of the heavy duty cleaners are also an eye hazard. Be sure you are using some kind of eye protection -- especially while applying or scrubbing when the stuff can get splashed around...

When I read the NYT article, it struck me that the recycling possibility was limited. Recycling multi-layer plastic bladders is tough because there is (likely) a nylon or mylar layer in the bladder to prevent oxygen transfer. Much of recycling depends on being able to sort out similar types of plastic. The "milk carton" type paper containers are layered with plastic resins to keep the cardboard from getting soggy and leaking. These don't decompose very well, since the plastic layer "protects" the cardboard in the landfill. Taking away the eco value and recognizing that boxwine is almost always so-so, makes box wines a doubtful deal at best.

Very difficult to weld cast iron, especially if you plan to heat it later. with enamel baked over it, even worse... Sorry.

I still have an old pre-change can of Crisco in the fridge. I guess I better use it carefully. What are you using or thinking about as a replacement?

Has anyone seen yuzu extract/essence anywhere?? ←

I'm confused -- we have a fair number of BYOB restaurants in Houston. The Chronicle did a story on BYO in early March, if I recall properly. Is this a county-by-county thing???

I never had red herring as a sushi neta -- what's it like??

When we lived in Singapore, we had a single Miele oven in our apartment (Ardmore Park). It was so good, that when we moved back to the USA, we spent an embarrassing amount of money to install a double cavity Miele convection oven. Other than the pain of the initial price, we love it. Gives us restaurant quality grillng (broiler) for fish, and is very quick to preheat.

I'm currently in Japan, the land of totally inappropriate pizza toppings -- corn, potatoes, mayonnaise, tuna, etc. Pineapple and ham are minor transgressions in THIS context. However, I'm a libertarian pizza maker and eater -- eat what you like and like what you eat. I had a great and unusual "pizza" the other day -- a plain crust baked in a wood oven so that the dough blew up into a big oval sphere -- think rugby ball with a very thin, crisp, & tasty crust. After it came from the oven, they laid slices of prosciutto over the "bombe" and served the whole thing with garlic-rosemary-chili oil to sprinkle as you like. It may not have been pizza, but it was very, very good.

Btw, I don't think this has been discussed much on this list, but I don't think it is a good idea to cook in plastic bags that were not meant to have food cooked in them. Ziplock bags and most other such bags were not made to be food safe at cooking temperatures. There are some pretty unhealthy chemicals that can leach out of soft plastics into the food when the bags get hot. I would be cautious about doing much sous-vide cooking in bags not meant to be cooked in especially if you are going to be feeding kids or young adults or women that might be (or become) pregnant. The chemicals used to make plastics pliable are known to be endocrine disruptors and pose other health risks as well. You're right that there is controversy about this, but your comment about endocrine disruption is confusing two different things. The endocrine worries you mention are about PVC (polyvinyl chloride) films, which usually contain phthalates used to make them flexible. Zip-Locs (and similar bags) are made from polyethylene, which does not need or use phthalate additives. Although there are concerns expressed, no reliable studies (either by industry or the FDA, etc.) have shown harm from using polyethylene bags at sous vide temperatures. Your mileage may vary.....

I'm really lovin' these reports on your cooking class -- your reports are so good I feel I'm vicariously taking the class along with you. A little OT, I'm the opposite re brown eggs -- I've tried for years to make and pan flip without a spatula (diner style) a two egg over medium with a firm white but little or no brown, of course without breaking the yolks....

A few ideas to enjoy Japanese style New Years: New Year's Eve -- go to ZoJoji temple near Tokyo Tower to watch them ring in the new year (108 tolls of the big bell). Nice crowds -- nothing at all like times Square in NYC. Try to get your concierge to hook you up with a Japanese New Year's (Day) meal (o-sechi ryori) in a hotel restaurant -- good stuff and something you may not have done before. Not sure if you can get into the Imperial Gardens at the Palace to greet the Emporer and his family for NY. Crowds being greeted (from behind glass on a balcony) by the Imperial family.... Bring some good books - it's a VERY quiet time in town.