jsolomon

Have you tried pre-heating your molds to some extent? 165C is 330F so, I don't think your temperature is the problem. Isomalt may be the answer. What is probably happening is that you're breaking the bond between the glucose and the fructose in your sugar which then doesn't allow your crystals to form right (because they're cooling too fast and crashing into crystalline lattice). My suggestion would be attempt using invert sugar, or isomalt, and cooling them slowly in a preheated oven (preheat to 300, then turn off when you put in your molds). Best of luck!

That's really, really odd. It reminds me a lot of one of my hot-pots. It just randomly stopped working one day, so I took it apart and found that the rheostat had a piece go bad... so I wired around the rheostat and it worked like a charm. Of course, it only had two speeds after that... plugged in and plugged out. But, since I only boil water in it for coffee, that wasn't a huge issue. Best of luck! And, I'm glad the duck turned out edible!

Pictures, if possible, please. And, best of luck, as always.

"coarse meal" makes me think of eating in an infantry dining hall...

I live in Nebraska. My lesbian friends take me dancing at a gay bar. Two of my military jobs are circumcisions and administering drug tests. I have seen enough meat in my life. Now if it were a bacon restaurant...

I hope their food is as good as their website is annoying! Holy zounds that thing stings my sensibilities.

Would you miniate churrascaria for the rubes in the durbar?

So, you're having a meat orgy, but can't stand a slutty chicken? I'm going to get that twitch back if I think about this too long.

Yeah, try knowing that you are working with yeast on those days. Of course, working on campus means that the bars are certainly within walking distance. Bloody mary anyone? So, what's/where's tonight?

Cranberry and cabbage soup looks interesting. I'm not sure it's quite at the level that I'd publish it, but a savory cranberry soup seems appropriate.

So, uh, not to be a shill, but did that baby set you back much?

Kathleen, six words. Recovery run (aka "hangover hash"--you should google it) and Hair of the dog

This doesn't exactly fit, but it's related. No wine tonight, honey.

Kathleen, if you want a most excellent recipe for roast chicken (and a most excellent treatment of roasting in general) check out "Roasting" by Barbara Kafka. Roasting Mr. Chicken does look quite well-dressed for the night, though. Brava!

That will happen. Make sure that the chicken is low enough to keep from spattering only the top element (assuming your oven is electric). I frequently roast chicken at 500 degF. It works great. But, smoke is produced. Just part of the joy.

My suggestion would be to look through the oven door at Mr. Chicken after about 45 minutes and every five minutes thereafter to make sure that nothing untoward isn't happening in there.

No eGullet support of the New York Marathon? Harrumph.

I must admit, part of my suggestions of caution are due to me being the guy who had to tell a mother that her daughter was exhibiting the signs of chronic heavy metal poisoning... along with 30 of her classmates. Then, I had to continue working with the mother for the next two years after that. It was a very grim situation for a long long period of time. The good news is that the daughter is fine now. The bad news is that some of her former classmates are not. Chronic metal poisoning is a shitty way to go, so I urge all people caution when using reactive cookware.

Dunno. But, if you change the 'c' to a 'p'

One thing to keep in mind, r_g is that the acid scale, from 1-14 (aka the pH scale) is a logarithmic scale, not linear. So, a drop in pH from 5 to 4 indicates a 10-fold change in acid activity. There are a lot of things in the 5 to 4 range. For pan uses of less than 30 minutes, I would not fear this very much (keep in mind, I'm giving my feelings here with no real evidence to back it up. YMMV) For high acid foods, in the 4-3.5 range, 5 minutes in the pan. For even higher acid foods, I wouldn't use the pan at all. Also, keep in mind, acid strength changes as temperature changes. That's just how the thermodynamics work. So low acid, high heat, long temperature, can give you the same results, copper corrosion-wise.

In what context - and how much? I'm sure EVERYTHING is poisonous to some degree, but as a jeweler, I have been filing and sanding and inhaling copper for 20 years and have never heard this before... ← Copper ions tend to precipitate your proteins out of solution, inside your cells. This is incompatible with life. Ingested copper is not very good for you. But don't take my word for it. Take the FDA's. Edit to add the good news is copper chloride (what you're likely to form in your digestive system by ingesting metallic copper) is much less poisonous than other compounds of copper.

Dude, I love it. I'm just waiting for the forks that say fork(); But, I'd really like my glass to say #ifndef FULL #define FULL

diva, My suggestion is, whichever you plan on doing, make sure that when you get ready to place the duck in the oil, make sure that the skin and underlying tissue are reasonably dry. You don't want blow-outs, or blow-ups. I like the marinade in soy et al, steam, fry. I think that should turn out really well given the disparity in cavity size and breast meat volume compared to a turkey. You're right about steaming rendering the fat, but I'm slightly concerned about frying time... it would be a shame to have the skin and fat done, but the bird not warmed through... that's why I'd advocate steam, towel, fry. The frying would be just enough to crisp the skin. Best of luck!

Really, that can be done with some pretty simple glassware and a good steady temperature source. Check out labwarehouse.com for cheap glassware. Or, you can look at a rotovap, which is really cool. I always wanted to set up one to distill my own liqour, but never have.

On a more serious side, and complementary to slk's post, high acid foods are not compatible with tin, either. Tin is not quite as reactive as aluminum, nor iron (think cast iron), but general care should be taken when cooking acidic foods in tin, as well.