bloviatrix

Will you post the apple's travel blog? A picture of the apple in Piazza San Marco will do.

Sunday night/ pre-Yom Kippur fast Chicken Soup w/Matzoh balls Turkey Breast w/Apricot-ginger sauce Bulgur Pilaf Baked Potatoes and Baked Sweet Potatoes Monday night/break-fast Assorted Bagels Cream Cheese Whitefish Salad Farmer Cheese Plain Omlettes Chocolate Babka Blueberry Cake Baked Farmer Cheese w/Apples and Cinnamon Tea and Coffee

Wow. I'm impressed.

Oreo packages chocolate cookie crumbs. I've only seen them once, but they made the best cheesecake crust ever, and it was so much easier measuring the crumbs in a cup than taking lots of cookies and crushing them.

I actually had Cherries Jubilee (in NYC) last year and they flamed it tableside. Granted, it was at a kosher restaurant, and they tend not to be on the cutting edge of desserts, but it was the most popular thing on the dessert menu, and the other diners kept looking up at the preparation everytime the cart was rolled out.

Thanks for telling me I need to re-think my quantity of stock. That's part of what I was looking for. But do I need to add any more vegatables or chicken? Or is the flavor ok as it is? I actually don't think I need to add any salt since I used kosher chickens and the necks, especially tend to have a lot of salt in them. BTW, I'm serving with Matzo balls.

There was a teaser for this article on the front page of the Travel section, so I was hoping for more of Ellen's beautiful writing. Alas, it was not to be. And the article wasn't nearly as good.

I'm not sure if any of the instructors are still checking the early eGCI lessons, so I'm duplicating my question here. I finished making my reduced stock. I started with a 20 qt pot and 7 pounds of chicken carcasses. I finished with about 18 ounces of liquid. The color is deep brown like apple cider. I need to convert some of the stock into chicken soup. I though I would take 3 ounces of stock, add 2 quarts of water, a mirepoix, aromatics, and simmer. Is my thinking correct? Do I need to add more chicken? Are my ratios wrong? I need to do this today in order to have chicken soup ready for the pre-fast meal, so a quick answer is appreciated.

The stock already quite gelled when I took it out of the fridge, plus there was minimal fat, so tonight I skimmed it off and further reduced to about a quarter of what I had originally. I divided the liquid into one ice cube tray and two pint containers with about 3 ounces of stock in each. Which leaves me with a question -- I need to convert this into chicken soup. I figure I'll take one of the 3 ounce containers, add 2 quarts of water. Then add some more carrots, celery, onion, dill, s&p, etc. Do I need to add any chicken pieces? Am I thinking this out correctly?

So, how did the dinner party go? I expected a full rerport before you went to sleep.

Last night Blovie cooked. We had turkey burgers - me with basil mayo, he had ketchup I froze all food left over from Rosh Hashana. So tonight's dinner will be: Yellow Tomato Soup (usually I serve it chilled, but tonight we'll have it warm) Broiled Flank Steak with a mediteranean spice rub Sweet Potato and Carrot Tsimmes with apricots and vanilla Cranberry Smush Sorbet

If this is the place I'm thinking of, it's been immortalized in A Cool Breeze on the Underground by Don Winslow. Maybe the appearance of burger joint in fiction should be one of the tie breakers?

The guys who own Les Halles also own a kosher steakhouse in NYC called Le Marais. The atmosphere sounds alot like Les Halles - butcher when you walk in, noisy, crowded, and good simple food. Awsome frites (except at Passover when they change the oil) and perfectly cooked steaks. No boudin noir or pig's trotters though.

Best tuna salad sandwich I ever made, hands down, was tuna packed in olive oil, drained and the chunks broken down into smaller pieces, on a french dinner roll schmeared with homemade herb mayo. Simply Heaven.

I love going into supermarkets where ever I travel. You come out with an amazing insight into how the natives eat, how products are packaged and the marketing that goes with it, as well seeing unusual products. It's particularly fun going into markets where you are completely ignorant of the language i.e. Prague, Budapest, etc. I love the idea of workers on rollerblades. I doubt we'll ever see that in the states due to liability issues and workers' comp.

For me, proof summer is really over happened this week. All summer I've been making iced tea. This week, for the first time since last May, the kettle came out. I've begun to drink hot tea again.

I finally got around to making the stock. I used about 7 pounds of chicken carcasses with lots of meat still stuck to the bones and the necks attached. I put it up at about 10:30 pm and continued to strain off scum, in the beginning and then the congealed fat until about 2:30 am (we keep late hours). Woke up this morning and strained the stock trough a cheese cloth lined strainer. It's now chilling in the fridge. I think I got the bulk of the fat off last night, but this afternoon I'll skim off whatever accumulated and reduce. My plan is to use some of the stock to make chicken soup for the pre-Yom Kippur meal. The rest will come in handy now that the weather has turned cool.

Fifi, great question. I've wondered how to choose good garlic as well. The only thing I know is that you want heads of garlic with tightly packed cloves and that it should feel heavy for its size.

I realize it will be awhile until I get an answer, but what did J do to keep busy (once she recovered) in UB the week you were gone?

Richard Sax, in his book Clasic Home Desserts has a great section on Cobblers and its relatives. He tries to trace the origin of pandowdies and explains that the dish is of American not English origin.

I've heard another derivation for the name. Using the definition of "to cobble" meaning "to piece together," a dish was cobbled from various ingredients found around the house - fruit, flour, eggs, etc.

You mean Raw Umber? (where's the quizzical emoticon?)

My f-i-l turns it into a game and tries to get as many turkey's as possible (Shop Rite in NJ offers kosher turkeys). It's gotten so bad, my m-i-l yelled at him to stop. She was embarassed.

I do. It's either Honey Bunches of Oats or Coco Pebbles. But now that the weather is getting cooler I'll move to oatmeal. Then the cereal and milk become a late-night snack.

This may be true, but Venice is the most fun place to get lost in that I know of. I agree about getting lost -- we discovered some great neighborhoods, off the tourist trail because we made random turns down alleys. But eventually you need a good map to find your way back.