Search the Community

A Gremolata reader is looking for Chinese Mustard (either powdered or already mixed). I have not been able to reconnoitre any of the China towns, and am lazily posting in the hope that that there's a TO eGulleter that knows where to find...

Trader Joe's low sodium tamari has been my soy sauce of choice for a while now. For tamari, it seemed like a good deal. Lately, I've been considering whether or not I can get something better/cheaper at an Asian Grocer. Stench aside, my grocer of choice is Top Quality in Parsippany (formerly Maxim's). What do you guys think? Any particular brands to look for? I'm not looking for top of the line, just a good everyday soy sauce. I'm also definitely NOT married to the low sodium concept (that's all TJs sells).

My day began innocently enough as Mama Fresser and I enjoyed our breakfast nosh at the mall's food court McDonald's. I stood in line for a refill of Diet Coke when I spied the unlikely perpetrator: a youngish lass, maybe 20 years of age, clutching an unwrapped Subway sandwich. "What's she doing here?" I thought. "If Subway forgot an ingredient on her sandwich, they're in the other direction." Thus did I watch in horror as the lass, with great insouciance, strolled to the McDonald's counter and doused her Subway sandwich with barbecue sauce from the McDonald's self-service pump. "Condiment thief!" I shouted after the lass. She turned to me, snarled, and brandished her chicken breast sandwich as a weapon, intimating that such battles are best fought in the media, not in the mall. So here will I present my grievance and warn of an impending sandwich sauce crime wave. Savvy marketers that they are, fast-food chains are keen to the threat of conspicuous condiment consumption. McDonald's manager Thorsten Veblen noted that his store charges 5 cents for each ketchup or dipping sauce the customer requests in excess of two packages, calling customers who dispute the surcharge "(P)arasites on the capitalist host. Ketchup may be a vegetable, but it certainly isn't free." Acknowledging the experimental Serve Your Own Sauce Station, Veblen posits the existence of the Saucy Equilibrium, whereby bourgeois sandwich-eaters balance the transaction costs of excess auto-dispensing with the indifference cost of schlepping a dozen ketchup packets in their satchels. Not being a trained economist, I take the sociological view that a crime wave may be taking root at our local hamburger stand. After all, why stop at barbecue sauce? Hot dog stand owners may soon invaded by the Mustard Marauders preparing for their 4th of July picnics. Why stand in the grocery line to purchase your Plochman's when you can just swipe some from the local wienermeister? I also fear that seafood restaurants are not immune. Next time you're at Arthur Treacher's enjoying your fried fish and hush puppies, be on the look out for the Tartar Sauce Gang and the Vinegar Vixens warring over their turf. All I know is, the next time I see a non-customer taking condiments from a restaurant, I'm calling Interpol.

A few days ago I posted a topic over in the Special Occasions forum. Next week I need to make Jelly doughnuts / jam-busters on TV. Now - it's been a few years since I've made them - but after tested a couple of recipes, then tweaking, I've come up with my own recipe that I like very much. My question involves the logistics of it all. I need to be at the TV studio at 6:45 in the morning. I figure I'll have a dough ready to go so that we can roll and cut them - but I think I should take some rounds ready to go (proofed again). Does anybody have any suggestions on how to best do this whole thing? I just put a few rounds in the freezer - can I do that the day before and just pull them out in the morning when I leave? Will they rise and fry well? Any thoughts? For filling them, I've tried a couple of things - the best thing that's worked for me is to cut a little x at one end with a pointed knife, then use a pastry bag with a small, plain circle tip to insert the filling. If anybody has any suggestions to make this work smoothly I'd appreciate it. Tip and ideas welcome.

hi just got back from holiday in Hong Kong and had one of my favourite desserts there. I'm back in london and am in seperate need of it. 桂花果凍 桂花 jelly "gwai fa go" ? osmanthus jelly? "Kwai hua" jelly? "Quan fa" jelly? can't find anything google . anyone know how to make it? got a recipe pretty please

Much like cookbooks, what the world needs now is many fewer restaurant critics. Over the next week, it’s my goal to ensure that you talk me out of my job, while I, meanwhile, try to talk you into it. So to speak. In other words, I want you to ask me lots of questions. My life doesn’t hang in the balance of my next review, something that I’ve been doing professionally for the past 15 years. But from writing about restaurants I’ve also come to know the food service business quite well, I suppose. And behind the swinging doors lie much bigger stories, especially of the collaboration of chef, farmer and fisherman; distribution; cross-cultural influences (Vancouver, where the culinary DNA is still knitting itself together, is a fine laboratory to observe that in); the collusion of wine with food; and more recently, the necessity of sustainability, especially as it relates to the global fishery. This week I’m going to eat my last Russian caviar. Ever. No, restaurant reviewing would be much less interesting if I couldn’t write about these bigger stories. So I hope that I can transmit to you how the research works, how the writing gets done, and ultimately, lend a sense as to how culinary cultures--born from diversity--emerge with a sense of their new locality. We’ll be covering a considerable amount of real estate across this big, raw-boned place: • We’ll begin today In British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley Wine Country and for the next two days and nights look in on some agricultural history (in an attempt to track the area's culinary evolution) and wineries, cook with chef Michael Allemeier of the Mission Hill Family Estate Winery (braised boar cheeks will be featured at a Friday night dinner party with some wine folks) and a revisit to a restaurant to demonstrate our review process and methodology. • On Saturday I’ll return to our home in Vancouver—where we have some friends joining us for a little seasonal cheer, ‘Seven Hour Sacrificial Lamb’ and ‘Cheesier-Than-Mariah Carey Scalloped Potatoes.’ • On Sunday morning we’ll be flying to the wild outside coast of Vancouver Island to the ecotourism town of Tofino, which is about an hour’s flight in a twin engine aircraft. Once there we’ll be looking in at coastal cuisine from the pans of chef Andrew Springett at The Wickaninnish Inn and, in a more casual vein, at the construction of excellent fish tacos at Sobo. • On Monday we’ll be returning to Vancouver to go behind the scenes at pastry chef Thomas Haas’s (he was the opening executive pastry chef at Daniel in Manhattan) lovely production facility, and observe John van der Liek at the Oyama Sausage Factory, which carefully produces more than 150 products. We'll aslo track the history of a new restaurant, from development menu to opening night and review. • Through the balance of the week we’ll look inside many more professional kitchens and markets, hopes and dreams. I’m sure we’ll find a few other things to do too. Once again, I very much encourage your questions. Last night, the Ice Wine harvest was supposed to start. In order to trigger that, Vintners' Quality Alliance reguations demand the temperature must stay at or below -8 degrees Centigrade through the entire pick, which can take a while. Anything else is just Late Harvest fruit. Alas, there was a slight inversion off the lake yesterday afternoon and it was called off. So we stoked the fire and rolled back into bed. But now I’m off to pick up some croissants down the hill at La Boulangerie. We baked some Irish soda bread yesterday as well. I’ll make some strong coffee when I’m back, and begin to tell you a little more about this disturbingly beautiful place . . . Welcome, Jamie Image: On the Beach - Okanagan Lake last afternoon, 1530 hours.

I recently started making my own strawberry jam. The recipe i used, by Christine Ferber, called for the berries to be macerated overnight, and the entire mixture is boiled on the 2nd day, cooled and re-fridged again. Finally, on the 3rd day, the mixture is sieved, the syrup simmered down and the fruit added back in for a final quick boil. I've read several recipes since, including those on eGullet, and they all seem much simpler, with the whole process taking not much longer than an hour plus or so. Is there a difference? WOuld appreciate some help. Thanks. btw - I separated my strawberry jams into 3 batches - 1 original, 1 with a vanilla pod added, and the last with a pinch of lavender (lightly crushed with a pestle). All 3 turned out wonderful

http://entertainment.news.com.au/story/0,1...0-10229,00.html

I belive jamaican beef patties are one of the perfect foods. Flaky pastry, tender meat, and a bit of perfect scotch bonnet heat...what more is there in this crazy world. I also love that they freeze beautifully, I can eat many in one sitting and that my boyfriend hates them (zero competition) I've been trying to find the recipe from the nyt to no avail..but obviously family recipes are much better. Anybody have anything tried and true to set me foreward? I hope to be surrounded by the wafting aroma of beef suet by tomorrow evening... thanks live long and patty

We are going to Angell Animal Med Ctr. to have our dog operated on. We'll be there from Monday Oct 31 to Thursday Nov. 3. Looking for reasonably priced solid full flavored fare. All cuisines. Also, good spots for coffee. Thanks.

I made a trip to Koreantown and noticed a lot of pickled/fermented stuff besides kim chi and decided to try some out. The only problem is I didnt manage to finish eating all of it and only noticed recently (a month and half after purchase) that I still had some of it at the back of the fridge (some pollack roe and pickled clam meat). So how long do these things keep? Kinda clueless here...

I have a question that has been on my mind for the past couple of years that I figured I would come out of lurkdome to ask the "pros." Every year for the months of November and December I bake pumpkin rolls for friends and family. Depending on my work schedule I have made anywhere from 60-120 of these bad boys. It's the jelly-roll style cake with the cream cheese filling. Anyway, my problem is the towels that I use to roll the cakes up in to cool. I find that no matter how long I soak them or what kind of bleach or detergent that I use to try and cut the oil, they still get rancid quickly. I always end up buying new ones every year because they smell so bad and I don't want to ruin my cakes. Does anyone here have any suggestions or any alternatives to the towels? Any special type of detergent that you use? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. Val

Green Tomato Chutney, Spicy and Sweet This is a condiment that is a favorite with my family in Kentucky and a family recipe that uses up green tomatoes left at the end of the season. Green Tomato Chutney, spicy and sweet. Makes about 16 pints A family recipe from Kentucky 4 pounds green tomatoes 3 large or 4 medium barely ripe mangoes (other fruit can be substituted, firm peaches, tart, firm apples, barely ripe papaya or similar fruits. You should have about 6 pounds of fruit. 3 large yellow onions (do not use the very mild or "sweet" onions) 6 banana peppers (hot) peeled and seeded. You can also use other medium hot peppers of your choice. If using smaller peppers use enough so you have about 1 1/4 cup of chopped peppers. 1 cup sultanas or other light or golden raisins. 2 cups raw sugar, use turbinado or light brown as a substitute. Or you can use 1 cup white sugar and 1 cup dark molasses. 3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh ginger - if not available, use 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger. 2 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt (Diamond Flake) if you use the finer grind use only 2 tablespoons. 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 4 cups apple cider vinegar Water Blanch and peel the tomatoes, peaches, peel the other fruit and remove cores and seeds. Chop all fresh ingredients into 1/2 inch dice, approximately. Place the vinegar, sugar, salt, ginger, spices and raisins into a large non-reactive pot. Bring to a boil. Add all the fruit and onions, stir well. If more liquid is needed to cover the fruit, add up to 1 1/2 cups of water. After liquid has returned to a boil continue cooking for about 30 minutes. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook uncovered for about 2 1/2 to 3 hours, stirring occasionally. The mixture should be thick and the fruit should look slightly translucent. About 2/3 through the simmering time, remove some to a small dish, taste and adjust flavor, adding additional spices, salt or sugar if necessary. At this point you can also add fruit syrups, hot sauces, etc., to adjust the taste if desired. This is a very versatile recipe, stamp your own mark on it by varying it to suit your taste. When done, ladle into hot sterilized jars. Clean the top rim of the jars carefully, place the lids and add rings loosely. Process in boiling water for 15 minutes. Finished amount can vary depending on how much the fruit cooks down. I have gotten as much as 20 pints using very firm fruit. My grandfather liked this made with coarsely chopped pecans or walnuts cooked with the fruit. So there was always a separate smaller pot prepared the way he liked it. I still make a couple of pints this way, just for old times. Andie Keywords: Condiment, Hot and Spicy ( RG1435 )

White Bass Braised with Bean/Soy Sauce (酱烧鱼) Jo-mel: To celebrate your 1000th post, I have created this pictorial for you. Sorry I should have posted this sooner. I learned that you just had tried this recipe. Tepee: Sorry I missed your 1000th. Let me know what Cantonese food you would like to eat. Perhaps I can create one for you to celebrate your 1111st post, or 1268th post, or 1288th post, or 1388th post. Braising with bean sauce and soy sauce is typical of Northern Chinese cooking. It is not a Cantonese style. In Northern Chinese style, one will typically find brown sauce (bean sauce and soy sauce), sweet and sour sauce or "five willow" (five shredded vegetables). Serving suggestion: 2 I have found these beautiful White Basses in a local Asian grocery market. I have decided to cook them with a sauce based on chili bean sauce, brown bean sauce, soy sauce and hoisin sauce. Because they are so small, I needed to purchase 2 of them. Together they weighed only 1.5 pounds. Ask the grocer to cut and clean the fish for you. It is messy to do it at home. Wash the fish thoroughly and pat dry. Make a few slightly diagonal cross cuts on both sides of the fish. Rub a small pinch of salt on the fish body. In a pan/wok, use medium heat, add 2 tblsp cooking oil. Pat on some corn starch on both sides of the fish. Fry the fish over medium heat for about 5 minutes on each side. Gently turn the fish over and fry the other side. Be careful not to let the fish fall apart. Oops! I broke the tail of the small fish! Remove from pan after browning. Lay the fish on a plate. This picture shows what you need for the sauce. Chili, garlic, ginger, green onion, dark soy sauce, chili bean sauce, brown bean sauce, chicken broth, and (not shown) vinegar and sugar. Use 3 green onions, slice diagonally. 3-4 cloves of garlic, minced. 1/2 chili (e..g jalapeno), sliced. 1 inch in length of ginger, shredded. Use the same pan, add 2 tblsp of cooking oil. Set for high heat. Wait until oil starts fuming. Add minced garlic, sliced chili, shredded ginger and green onion. Stir-fry for a few seconds. Add 2-3 tsp of chili bean sauce, 2 tsp brown bean sauce, 4 tsp hoisin sauce and 1 to 2 tsp of dark soy sauce. (No need to add salt because the fish have been salted and these sauces are already salty.) Dash in 2 to 3 tsp of white vinegar. Stir the sauce and cook for about 20 seconds over high heat. Add 1/4 cup of chicken broth and 1/4 to 1/2 cup of water. Add 2 tsp of sugar. Wait until the mixture starts to boil. Keep stirring. Add some corn starch slurry to thicken the sauce until it has the right consistency. Scoop and pour on top of the fish on the plate. Finished dish.

I love the fresh green chili/cilantro/mint condiment (relish/non-cooked chutney) that is offered at some Indian resto's, one place has a tub of it at the till (sort of a fast-food type of establishment at the mall), and I load up on it before going to my table. I've been searching for a recipe, and am wondering if anyone here might have one available. I know it doesn't have mango in it. I think there is green chili, mint, cilantro, onions?, garlic?, tomato? ....... spices? Would anyone know the amounts of the different ingredients etc., for a reasonable size for one persons use over a few days? Oh, and I could eat lots, with whatever, I love it! TIA ETA - p.s. sorry about the spelling mistake, should be desperately, but I don't know how to correct the topic.

Pan-Fried Prawns with Superior Soy Sauce (豉油王煎虾) I bought some large spot prawns from the market. Tonight, I wanted to make a pan-fried prawns with "King of soy sauce" (Superior Soy Sauce) - which is a light soy sauce. My favoriate brand is Pearl River Bridge. This dish is offered in some Hong Kong style seafood restaurants. Picture of the spot prawns. The ingredients are very simple. All you need is some light soy sauce and garlic, and a little bit of Xiao Shing cooking wine. You need to be careful with these spot prawns. They have a sharp, jagged "horn" at the front of the head. It can poke through your skin when you try to handle it during cooking. Very painful. Better use a pair of scissors to trim off the "horn" and the fillers, and some of the legs before cooking. Use a pan/wok, add a fair amount of cooking oil in medium heat, add the prawns and cook them first. It's done when the prawn color has turned from grey to bright red. Remove prawns from the pan and drain the excess oil and moisture from the prawns. Mince about 4 to 5 cloves of garlic. On the same pan (no need to wash), now set the flame to high, add cooking oil, wait until it is almost fuming, add the minced garlic. Cook for 20 seconds. Stir. Re-add the prawns. Cooking until the prawns have coated the cooking oil and got hot, about 2 to 3 minutes over high heat. Dash in the light soy sauce. About 3 tblsp - adjust to your taste. Stir. As a finishing touch (an important one), dash in about 1 tblsp of Xian Shing cooking wine. Stir for about 30 seconds until the wine and soy sauce dry up. The finished dish.

Is ketchup a commonly used condiment in the Indian kitchen? Yesterday I attended a wonderful Indian festival here in Tokyo and on my first trip around the food booths, I picked up samosas, pakoras and shish kebabs. These were ordered from 3 different booths and they were all served with a side of ketchup, for the shish kebeb it was actually squirted down the whole length of the kebab. A later purchases of more pakoras at yet another booth was not served with it though. Are these foods normally served with ketchup? I have never been served them this way in a restaurant.

This is also posted on The Heartland but I thought I might reach a "transplant" here who might not check that forum. I am overwhelmed with eggplant and wanting to make the favorite salad topping of my misspent youth. Angelo's (Wichita) pickled eggplant recipe has appeared in the newspaper but I can't find it in their archives. If you have it, I would really appreciate! Thanks in advance.

Sweet Green Tomato pickles 3 lb green cherry tomatoes 2 lb sugar 1 tsp vanilla essence OR cinnamon 1/2 pt vinegar Wash the tomatoes. You can peel them but I don't Bring the vinegar, suagr and 1/4pt water to the boil, add the tomaotes and reboil for 10 mins. Pour into a non-metal basin, cover and leave for a week. Strain off the liquid, reboil, add the tomatoes and boil for 5 mins. Pack into jars and seal hot. Leave for a month or two in a dark cupboard before eating. Keywords: Condiment ( RG1417 )

Green Tomato Chutney Adapted from Bulletin 21 "Home Preservation of Fruit and Vegetables", Her Majesty's Stationary Office, first published 1929 You can adapt this for any garden surplus: apples, marrow, plums etc. Liquidised and sieved you can use it as the basis for a brown (steak) sauce. The long slow cooking and maturing gives a mellow dark brown chutney. The basic ingredients should be cut up and cooked so that the result is not completely smooth, but nothing is directly recognisable. Raisins, small cubes of crytallised ginger etc may be added to give character. 8 lb Green tomatoes 2 lb Apples 1 lb Raisins 2-1/2 lb Onions 2 chillis (more if you like it hotter) 1 oz Ginger 1 oz Salt 2 lb Brown sugar 2 pt Vinegar Cut up the tomatoes, peel and chop the onions and apples. Chop the raisins if they are large. Chop up the giner and the chillis, and tie them in a piece of muslin Place everything in a large pan, bring to the boil and simmer slowly until the desired consistency - about 8 hours. Remove the bag of spices and bottle in preserving jars (canning jars) while hot. Leave for a month or more in a dark cupboard. Keywords: Condiment ( RG1416 )

Stir-fried Mustard Greens (Gai Choy) with Salted Fish (咸鱼抄芥菜) I bought some very fresh mustard greens (gai choy [Cantonese]). Usually I would simply stir-fry it with some oil and garlic. Inspired by some talks of salted fish (ham yue [Cantonese]) in this forum, I had decided to try using salted fish to jazz up the taste. The result was surprisingly good. The taste of salted fish seems to blend very well with mustard greens. Some fresh mustard greens. Mustard greens chopped into bite-size pieces. Wash well and drain the excess water. Ingredients: use some garlic and salted fish. I took a small piece of salted fish from the jar. (I bought those salted mackerals kept in a jar of oil.) Chop the salted fish into small pieces. The stir-frying method is very simple. Heat up the pan/wok in high heat. Add chopped garlic and salted fish. Add a pinch of salt. Cook for 20-30 seconds until fragrant. Keep stirring. Add mustard greens. Cook with the lid on for about 5-10 minutes. Finished dish.

Soy Sauce Chicken Soy sauce chicken is a very common dish: both home-made or bought in restaurants. There are hundreds of recipes. The key to making it is the sauce ingredients and the timing. The sauce ingredients Dark soy sauce, lo shui (Chinese Marinade), 1/2 onion, chicken meat, garlic, and some brown sugar. Ginger and star anise - (not shown in picture) Chinese Marinade I like to use this ready-for-use mix from Lee Kum Kee. In Cantonese, it is called lo shui (master sauce). They translated it as "Chinese Marinade". It is a mix made of soy sauce and five spices and such. It is very flavorful. If you taste it, you will notice that it is very salty. You dilute it with water for use. If you cannot find this ready-for-use mix, you can also use the whole spice: Cinnamon, star anise, funnel, clove and corriander? Dark soy sauce Here is the dark soy sauce I use. I like the Peal River Bridge brand. You may use your favorite brand but I think this brand has the best flavor. Onion, garlic, ginger, pein tong: I like the taste of onion and garlic in my soy sauce chicken so I use them to prepare my braising soy sauce. Some recipes don't call for them and you don't need to use them if you don't care for them. But the ginger and brown sugar is absolutely essential for making soy sauce chicken. I normally use rock sugar (bing tong) but I ran out the other night. So I used pein tong (sugarcane sugar?), which is an acceptable substitute. White sugar is a bit too plain for the flavor. Wedge half an onion, mince the garlic, grate the ginger (I like it grated so the flavor is absorbed by the sauce, you can just slice it if you like.) Boil the sauce with all ingredients If you make the "master soy sauce" for the first time, add "lo shui", dark soy sauce and water in a 1 to 1 ratio on all three. If you re-use the master sauce from previous cooking sessions, you should replenish the "lo shui" and dark soy sauce but have no need to add water because each time you cook, the sauce will be diluted from the water content extracted from the chicken meat. Bring the sauce mix to a boil, add the wedged onion, minced garlic, grated ginger, brown sugar and add about 10 star anises. Boil the mixture for a good 15 minutes with the lid on. Put the chicken in and simmer. Add the chicken in the boiling sauce. I use a whole chicken sometimes, but this time I used boneless chicken breasts. Whole chicken (with bones and skins) is the best in flavor because the chicken skin protects the meat from overcooking (meat turns rough), and dark meat can tolerate overcooking more than white meat. Once the chicken meat is in, turn down the fire immediately to slow/medium. Put the lid on and simmer it. If you use boneless chicken breast like I do, be very careful with your timing. Breast meat can be overcooked easily (if you forget to turn down the fire). Dark meat is more forgiving. Chicken breast can be ready in just 15 minutes. Give or take. Just check the meat. The simple rule to tell is: NO MORE PINK. When chicken meat turns from pink to white, it's done. If you cook with a whole chicken, the sauce should cover at least half a chicken. You just simmer/braise the chicken on one side, then turn it and cook the other side. (The second side doesn't take as long). Maybe 15-20 minute for the first side and 10-15 for second? Finished dish. When the meat is cooked, take it out and slice it (or chop it with a cleaver). Use a strainer to filter out the onion/garlic/ginger/star-anise/etc. Discard them. Scoop some soy sauce and pour on top of your chicken. If you have left-overs, it's best to keep the chicken breast whole and only slice it up when you serve. I usually save the master soy sauce. When it cools down, drain all grease and other pulps. Keep in a plastic container in the freezer. Use it again for your next round.

Even cheap yellow mustard has its place in my cooking world. For example, I add it in equal parts to currant jelly as a sauce for cocktail franks. It stinks when it first starts cooking but it winds up to be a wonderfully mellow sauce. I slather decent brown mustard on bread when making carbonnade flammande, and use a mustard-guava jelly combination to enliven plain old chicken cutlets. How do you use mustard in cooking?

I'd like to make a couple apple pies to freeze for later since they are plentiful and cheap now, but I always though it a bit wasteful to throw away all that apple peel. I'd like to make some sort of apple peel jelly, since it is naturally high in pectin and such. Any ideas on how I could do it?

The 87-year-old mother of a friend of mine makes these pickles that I've never seen before and I was wondering if anyone else had or knew if there is a story behind them. She uses large cucumbers, peels them, then scoops the seeds out of the middle (leaving a ring shape). The secret ingredient is...red-hots candies. The pickles come out bright red, looking and tasting like those pickled apple rings you see at Thanksgiving. The woman lives in Ahoskie, in rural eastern NC. Here's her recipe, as written: Red Ring Cucumber Pickles 2 gal. cucumber rings, peeled 2 cups pickling lime 8 1/2 cups cold water Soak 24 hrs. & drain; wash and soak 3 hrs in cold water. Put in pot and cover with water, with 1 cup vinegar, 1 T alum, 1 oz. red food coloring. Simmer in this for 2 hrs., drain & throw away solution. Heat the following and pour over cukes: 2 c. vinegar 2 c. water 10 c. sugar 8 cinnamon sticks 20 oz. red hot candy Let stand over night; drain off & reheat two mornings; put back over cukes, keep covered; 3rd day, reheat together and pack in jars. They are really quite good...if odd...Any thoughts?