Catseye

In searching around re the upsidedown pineapple cake thread, I came across a low-carb recipe for same: http://lowcarbluxury.com/recipes/recipe-cake21.html In fact, lowcarbluxury.com has a whole raft of low-carb recipes. The website's motto is, "It is an inequitable transaction to trade dreams for surrender." There is a whole page of low-carb desserts at http://lowcarluxury.com/lowcarb-desserts.html Cats

Oops. Disregard my previous post. Obviously I haven't mastered the intricacies of the http code button. Here are the sites again. Vanilla Hazelnut Freeze: www.godiva.com/recipes/recipe.asp?=100 Chocolate Hazelnut Pots de Creme: www.godiva.com/recipes/recipe.asp?=453 Mystery Dessert: www.godiva.com/recipes/recipe.asp?=300 Cats

Simon -- I found these three at the Godiva site: Vanilla Hazelnut Freeze: My Webpage Chocolate Hazelnut Pots de Creme: (Half-and-half is 10 carbs per cup) My Webpage And on the third, I forgot to note the recipe title, so it will have to be a surprise And you'd have to use a sugar substitute: My Webpage And congratulations on your 50-pound loss! Cats

How's your butter? You want it room temperature, but not mushy. I don't speak from personal experience, as I'm not a big cookie maker, but somewhere in my stuff I have an article explaining the importance of this for successful cookies. If you'd like to know more, let me know and I'll dig it out and give you the skinny. Cats

Well, that MHRViandes website I provided lists 27 vendors of andouille in France. If you get desperate, maybe one of them will ship you some. Or if you get *really* desperate, you can maybe make your own. I found a recipe for it at www.recipesource.com/main-dishes/meat/pork/andouille1.html. Cats

You'll have better luck if you think of it as an offering from the realm of Cajun/Creole cuisine. It's a pork sausage, in casings, smoked ideally over pecan wood and sugar cane for 8-10 hours. It's flavored with garlic, pepper, cayenne and paprika, chiefly. It's thought to have been brought to the US by emigrants from Brittany and Normandy in the mid-18th century. I also found this website: www.mhr-viandes.com/en/recherche/recherche/php, which provides a search thingie for companies in France that sell andouille. Cats

Agreed. (And if you haven't read her other, non-cooking books, especially her collections, 'I Wouldn't Have Missed It For the World' and 'Window Over the Sink', do keep an eye out for them.) But in the primer category, the best I ever came across is Craig Claiborne's 'Kitchen Primer'. I have the same one! Mine is horribly beaten up. It lived under the driver's seat of my old 1967 Plymouth Valiant for several months (unbeknownst to me; I went through serious mourning when I thought it was lost forever). When I found it, the back cover had disintegrated into mush and the index pages were all over the place. To this day, the index is stapled together as a separate sub-document, and T through V are missing altogether. Can I hit you up if I need something from that part? Does yours still have those neat red grosgrain ribbons for marking your place? Mine have faded to a washed-out pink. You're right, it's a wonderful browser. I especially love the quotes that she cunningly concealed here and there for the reader to stumble upon, i.e., "The lust of the goat is the bounty of God." :) Try her coffee ring filled with Rose's Lime Jelly sometime. Yes-yes-yes! I even named my KitchenAid mixer, Rosie, in her honor. (What. Doesn't everybody name their appliances?) And wonderfully explained technique. (What can you expect from a woman who wrote her master's thesis on sifting? I've always wondered how she did that. I mean, beyond a certain point, what is there to *say* about it?) I especially like that her technique section is someplace else, so you don't have to wade through it to prepare the recipe unless you want to. Once you've done her Cordon Rose Cheesecake, you'll never go back. As for the faves on my shelves ... I am woefully un-au courant. In addition to Joy and the Cake Bible, I am fond of my Paul Prudhomme's 'Louisiana Kitchen', and Giuliano Bugialli's 'Bugialli on Pasta'. I also love the twinset by Bert Greene: 'Grains Cookbook' and 'Greene on Grains'. And a often-browsed-but-seldom-cooked-from 'Modern French Culinary Art' by Henri-Paul Pellaprat. His Boeuf Bourgignon is THE bomb. Wish list: The Marcella Hazan Italian book, Pepin's book on technique ... and I really really really really want Julia's 'The Way To Cook'. Cats

Ah, but Grasshopper, of what value are those who call you friend, if they do not value your opinion? :) Besides, I thought that's why you liked junk mail. Cats

I share Blue Heron's nervousness about flambe'ing. I've had both results: the wimpy blue flame and once, enormous gouts of fire that shot to the ceiling and panicked me into dumping the dish upside-down into the sink and running water on it. (And it was expensive, too!) So thanks to you all, who posted replies to Blue Heron's question. I am enboldened to try it again. Related: I once waitressed in a restaurant that offered flambe'ed stuff. I'm 5'3" and not strong; shouldering a tray of flaming whatsis eight inches from my face from the pickup station to the table is the closest I ever want to get to visceral terror. Cats

Mr. Muscle, if you can find it. It seems to have vanished from my local shelves. You spray it on, go away and do something decadant for a half hour, then you swoosh the crud off, easy as pie. Cats

I think I might've just cast vote #1000 for e-Gullet! So what's my prize? What-what-what??? Cats

I have pretty good luck with the method of introducing egg white into the stock and straining through cheesecloth. Is this considered a bad idea? Cats

Tommy, I don't know what it means, either. So all we need is one other who doesn't know, then we can start the Three Dummies Club. :cheesy: Cats

This of Bux' says it all for me. I know I'm in for the check-signing-exhaustion-phase that Grimes speaks of when my waiter approaches and chirps, "Hi, how are y'all? My name is Lorne, and I'll be your waitperson today." Too much information! Too many questions! And WAY too much political correctness! Much of the (as always erudite, graceful and bon-vivantish :)) commentary in this thread is moot in my community, however. My waitperson is likely to be a female, named Pauline, Kathi or Sue-Beth, with at least two kids, and the baby is sleeping in the kitchen. She lives in the double-wide next door and is he'ppin out the owner til her old man a) gets in off the road, b) sobers up and goes back on the clock or c) comes to his senses and stops tomcattin' after that no-good golddigger what took him away from his wife and pore lil babies. Her order-taking pencil sticks up out of her hair. If she likes you, she will guide you right. "Oh honey, get the crabcakes. Daryl cleaned out the deepfryer this mornin'." Or, "I'd avoid the peach pah. The mayor said it was a little off, though if you ask me" -- leaning forward confidentially -- "he just plain don't like peaches ever since, well, you know." Sniff. Or if you go to the Amherst Diner, the wait ladies are all over 65, hairnetted and remote. They don't give a rat's behind what you order, just so long as you do it before their bunions give out. And don't ask for two veg instead of the mashed and veg unless you want to find a snake in your mailbox. I have the impression, not for the first time, that my life is in many ways much less complicated than that of the average e-Gulleteer. Lastly, Grimes' opening paragraph reminds me of a two-liner I read recently: Guest: "Waiter, what do you recommend?" Waiter: "I recommend you read the menu, pick something out, and tell me." I think when all is said and done, that's my kind of waiter. Cats

A good beginning. But you forgot: "... and last but not least, all my wonderful fans out there. You're the best. Rilly. I love ya. Rilly." And then you blow kisses. Cats