achevres

I have been making the traditional Toll House recipe with Plugra butter. It makes a big difference. In what way? Crunchy and chewy at the same time. Also, very consistent. My daughter and her friends said they were the best ever. I had read so much that using high-fat butter made baked goods better and have to agree. I followed the recipe exactly but with the addition of an extra 1/4 teaspoon salt to compensate for the lack of salt in the butter (1/8 ts per stick). I am going to try some of the recipes posted here next time.

Thanks for the tip on the butter. Your pictures are better than the ones in some cookbooks!

No one has mentioned my absolute favorite hot sauce: Sontava XX, from Belize. It is a habanero sauce with heat and great taste. Also comes in XXX. Definitely worth ordering.

I have this model and have been very happy with it. I keep the bowl in the freezer. 1 1/2 qts homemade ice cream has been more than enough for us (shorter shelf life than commercial).

Saveur is my favorite food magazine and I am a subscriber since the very beginning and my subscription goes to 2009...but I'm having a hard time reading the new format. The font is very small. I could deal with it in the body of the articles, but why why why is the font so small in the recipes and "methods"? I have a hard time believing that any kitchen testers actually tested a recipe out of that small print. Also, the thickness of the letters is quite faint. Which brings me to the "Method." I'm not clear on the difference between a "recipe" and a "method" as they are being used in Saveur. The methods also have ingredients, amounts etc. But they are even harder to read (and impossible to cook from) because they are in paragraph format. We have come so far in recipe writing since 1900, but the way the methods are written in Saveur are going backwards. Anyone else bothered by this? I want to write to them. Who would be best? Anyone else want to join me?

My daughter and I have been enjoying the Sacher Torte I brought from Vienna. Sacher torte needs a lot of real whipped cream to go with it, then I think it's quite good. That's how they serve it at the Sacher.

I looooove shortbread. Great idea!

Thanks, Le Gourmet and Carrot Top. "Ribisel" is nowhere on the label. I found the translation for Johannisbeer at the Meinl info counter, but I didn't think to ask about the product itself. I wish I had gotten the regular preserves. I'm not crazy about Linzer torte, though I like all the ingredients. At least the ones I've had have been dry and the crust too thick. Maybe I would like it better really thin, more like a filled cookie. Schnitten appears to be (now) a general term for what we would call a bar in the USA. I can't find any recipes on the web like what you describe, although I understand what you mean, Carrot Top.

I was just in Vienna and bought these items at Meinl's. They were in the jam and preserves section. Staud's fur die feine Mehlspeiskuche rote Johannisbeere konfiture extra (I know that's red currant). In the back it says: Tipp: Staud's fur die feine Mehlspeiskuche wie z.B. Linzer Torte As far as I can tell (with my foodie interpretation of several online translators) this means "for the fine pastry kitchen. Tip: use for Linzer torte." The ingredients are fruit sugar, pectin and "zitronensaft" I also got an apricot one (Marillen), and this one says: Marillenkonfiture fein passiert Tipp: mit rum abschmecken I'm about to give them as gifts. Could they be used like jam, on toast etc.? BTW, at Meinl's I had a mild anxiety attack, since I could only bring back a couple of things. The variety, quality and display of foodstuffs was fantastic. I got apricot because it's local, but the other one you shouldn't miss is the Staud's strawberry preserves. The best ever. They have it at L'Epicerie

I was just in Vienna and at Demel's. My pastry was not that great. The coffee, however, was one of the best I have ever had, period. The coffee in Vienna is generally quite good, but Demel's stood way above the rest. I had the melange (half coffee and half milk). Only one other time (in buenos Aires) have I swooned over coffee like that.

When it's a show about food, and food in Miami, I think getting stone crabs and blue crabs confused is a big mistake. The Food Network is, of course, trying to appeal to the masses, but these shows can be accurate at the same time. And maybe in time the simple masses won't be so simple food-wise and will be an even better audience for them. In sportscasting I know that often there is a person in charge of sports statistics giving accurate info to the on-air sportscasters. Can you imaging if they got Joe Montana's or Mickey Mantle records wrong? Shows about food should be accurate about food.

The mangosteen is an Asian fruit. Goya (unfortunately) does not have any mangosteen products. Some is being grown in Puerto Rico for export, to get around the USDA ban on importation from the Orient and Hawaii. It has also been grown in other Caribbean countries sporadically, but it has not become part of the diet there at all. Most people in the Caribbean have not heard about it, unless they have had it in the Orient (like me). I only wish we had them here in the US. I am lucky enough to have had mangosteens (a long time ago). One of the best-tasting things I have ever had.

This has been dabated in many threads, but I would suggest first reading Melissa Clark's article in the New York Times: Heaven in a Pie Pan: The Perfect Crust from November 15, 2006. She tests various combinations. Butter with some other fat added was the best (lard, duck fat, shortening, suet, etc). I can PM you the article and recipes. Let me know. I used butter (3 parts) and non-trans fat shortening (1 part) and loooved the results. I've done all-butter a lot and love the taste but I was looking for improved flakiness.

Chappie, I obviously had the wrong idea about your budget, but I'm glad it was higher than I thought and you guys went to some great places and had a good time. Wild Fig is one of our favorite also. Apart form the places I already mentioned earlier, my other favorites are Matsuhisa Aspen (blow-out $$$$) and L'Hosteria. Jimmy's has been a huge disappointment on 2 occasions and I'm not going back.

I'm reviving this topic beause I've been looking up chocolate glazes and this just came into my email: RLB's Deep Chocolate Passion Cake. The glaze recipe will be in her new cookbook which should come out Fall 2008.

I returned a 14" covered saute pan with short handles which had de-anodized and Calphalon replaced it with the same size but with a long handle, plus the lid, which I hadn't sent because it was fine. No problems at all. I enclosed a letter telling them that the pan had been always washed by hand and had not been used that much to begin with, which was the truth. They will replace it with the most similiar they have. Definitely return it, that's why you got a product with lifetime warranty to begin with.

Although you do not want an French-only focus, I urge you to reconsider Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Julia Child. Any number of people you have seen on TV learned to cook well by following the recipes in these books. I have made several and can tell you they come out perfectly and you will learn technique as well. The recipes look long because the explanations are so thorough. You will never feel lost. Maybe you can copy some of the recipes from the library and try them.

I would like to make the Ruffle Cake, or a variation on it. As of now...I have 2 questions. I have to buy the baking pans, because I don't have 8x2 or 8x3. This is not a problem, since I'm dieing to try the Magic-Line pans with the removeable bottoms, but do I really need both? My question is, do I really need to get the 8x2 to bake the genoise, or can I bake the genoise in a 8x3 and then assemble it in that too? My other question is, when assembling the cake, can I use a cake board on the bottom instead of the original metal bottom? Thanks in advance!

About the pineapple flan...You can't make it with fresh milk. I found 3 options: Eggs and pineapple juice and no milk products: Pineapple juice flan With crushed pineapple: Goya Pineapple Flan. You could sub undiluted evaporated milk for the cream. (Also search the site for the Pina Colada Flan). And I also found a cream cheese and pineapple juice flan, with evaporated and condensed milk) that I can translate for you and post if you want. It only has 1/2 cup of the juice for 3 cans of milk, but you could get an idea of a flan that would work. Flans made with evaporated and or condensed milk are creamier and more foolproof than those made with fresh milk. The fresh milk ones are much lighter (wobblier -- not my taste). But with pineapple you can't use fresh milk, as you found out.

When I bought my china (Lenox with decoration and gold rim) the older salesman, who had been selling china for years, told me that Lenox could go in the dishwasher (specifically dishwasher-safe), and that all others could also go in the diswasher, but not not go through the drying cycle. He said it was the drying cycle that did the damage. I would not try it with old or antique china, however. Silver can also go in the dishwasher as long as it does not touch other metals. I would wash the knives by hand if they are made of 2 metals soldered together.

I loooove Fage 2% (only 4 grams of fat that taste like a million). I usually eat it for afternoon snack with muesli (Familia, quite hard to find now) and apple (grated or sauce) mixed in. I take issue with posts saying that Fage is not good, has additives, etc. I have the container right in front of me and the ingredients are: Grade A pasteurized skim milk and cream, live active yogurt cultures (L. Bulgaricus, S. thermophilus). I have had yogurt in Turkey and can attest that it is absolutely delicious. Here in the USA, however, the yogurt companies latched on to the the low-fat doctrine of the 70s and what passes for "yogurt" here is a disgrace. If you taste Fage and fresh Turkish yogurt side-by-side I'm sure there is a difference, but Fage is the closest we have here to "real" yogurt. I like the fact that it is strained, as this appears to strain out some of the sugars and this yogurt has much more protein than regular yogurt. Edited to add: I think the US yogurt companies have wanted to appeal to people who don't like yogurt to begin with, with mousse-like and pudding-like concoctions, and in the process forgotten about true yogurt lovers, like everyone posting here so far.

Any time I make grits I make them with half water and half chicken stock or broth. The stock adds just a little extra depth of flavor which is not really discernible as chicken and which goes with butter really well.

Do you tip less if you stand at a bar than if you get a stool? IMHO, when you sign on for lunch, you sign on for a standard tip, too, regardless of posture. ← Well, I'm not convinced, since I wanted to sit down and they had the space and it was about 45 minutes standing up (not relaxing). Can you imagine if at a regular bar they didn't let you sit down when stools were available? I would not have tipped if I had just taken the same things for take-out. They really want to be "Italian" with the stand up espresso bar and I am inclined to tip what I would in Italy for stand-up service -- much less than for sit down.

We go to Aspen 1-3 times a year. From that list I highly recommend Montagna, IMO the best restaurant in Aspen, but it's not cheap. D19 was a dissappointment (dissappointing food, service and also loud) and also expensive. Our favorite inexpensive place to eat is Hickory House. The baby back ribs are flown in from Denmark and are delicious, as is everything else. The service is fast and its open breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's a local's favorite. Also good and well priced is Main Street Bakery, also open for breakfast, lunch and dinnerand also a local's favorite. I've only been at breakfast, and, with the exception of grits (what was I thinking, so far from the South) everything has been delicious. I had house-made corned beef hash once. The delicious jam on the table appears locally made and the granola is also made in-house. Address is 201 E. Main St., Aspen, CO, USA Phone: 970/925-6446 Another local's favorite that we've frequented is Bentleys, a great bar with bar-type food like burgers, sandwiches, nachos, etc. at the Wheeler Bldg. It's very, very affordable. OK, one more: Mezzaluna. Reasonable prices and good Italian food and a hip atmosphere. They usually have an apres ski special (pizza and drink, I think). None of these places is pretentious in the least. BTW, jeans are acceptable anywhere in Aspen. On a non-food note, I'm guessing you are skiing or boarding, so don't just do Aspen Mountain (which we never go to), but take the free bus to Snowmass (my favorite), The Highlands (great for 1 day, for us) and Buttermilk (easy skiing and a great terrain park for boarding). Have a great time!

I love this thread and the new categories. I would like to add Corti Bothers. They have food and wines that I haven't seen anywhere else. They are a pleasure to deal with and the newsletters are very informative.