Xmas Loot.... (merged w/ "Santa" topic)

[lesfen]

Or, you can season the hell out of it, and it will fill in some of the gaps. I've always been a fan of the open fire version of seasoning, either in a hole in the ground or on the charcoal grill.

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Please elaborate...

[FistFullaRoux]

Or, you can season the hell out of it, and it will fill in some of the gaps. I've always been a fan of the open fire version of seasoning, either in a hole in the ground or on the charcoal grill.

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Please elaborate...

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Place the pan over a charcoal or wood flame upside down for 15 minutes or longer. Not trying to put out the fire, but you are trying to heat the pan as high as possible to burn off any residue from the manufacturing process. Let it cool, then coat with a solid shortening (not butter) and put it over the flame, upside down, for 10-15 minutes. Let it cool, wash carefully, repeat the process a couple of times.

Basically, the goal is to build up a little bit of carbon in the nooks and crannies. Yes, carbon is a poor conductor of heat, but it's also non stick. What you end up with is a better start for the patina which will eventually develop. This method works a lot faster and results in more buildup of the non stick surface than the oven method. Eventually, it will become slick and smooth (or at least smoother). You are essentially doing a sped up version of a couple of years of cooking in one shot.

[Kris]

...Actually, I miss the Gethsemani Trappist cheese my partner's sister used to give us every Christmas and might buy some of that.

...

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Just curious...I checked out the site and see that that sell 3 varieties of this Trappist cheese. Which is the one that your partner's sister typically got for you? How does it taste?

I didn't get any food gifts this year. I was hoping to get a gift basket from Zingerman's or Wolfermans's. But alas, it didn't happen.

I did get two placesettings of Lenox Holiday china though. I'm trying to build a placesetting of 8, so I have two more to go!

[Kim Shook]

Best Food Writing 2005

strange measuring cup - Wonder Cup - that has a plastic sleeve over an inverted cup - you slide it up and down to measure and empty - good for shortening and peanut butter, as well as wet and dry ingredients. Also, has metric measures.

Wonder Cup

oops, forgot the food: marcona almonds, quince marmalade, two cheeses - both goat, one hard, one brie, a bottle of red wine, and cherry pumpernickel bread.

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Let us know if you like the wonder cup. My dad and I both got them in the past and decided that they were more trouble than they were worth.

[hjshorter]

The wonder cup is great for molasses and honey.

We got Charcuterie, which of course means we get to go out and buy supplies and ingredients. And a large All-Clad saute pan.

Piper-Heidsieck Cuvee 2000, a bottle of Aberlour a'bunadh, and Hendricks gin from friends.

My mom is visiting and brought 15 kinds of cookies.

[johnnyd]

My favorite, about 10 lbs. of dungeness crab, trapped by my sister and her family, boiled, frozen and FedExed two days before Christmas! Great stuff.

Extra special when harvested by family. Nice!

[Chris Amirault]

We had a very nice Christmas. I "helped" my folks with their gifts to me and my wife, so all in all we really scored. The final tally:

this 11-piece Sitram Profisserie line at Bridge for $162;
Ruhlman and Polcyn's absolutely fantastic Charcuterie;
three Alford and Duguid books: Home Baking, Seductions of Rice, and Mangoes and Curry Leaves;
Wolfert's new Cooking of Southwest France;
Nathan's New American Cooking;
Hamelman's Bread;
some bannetons, linen, and proofing baskets from The San Francisco Baking Institute; and
a titanic, thick baking stone from Golda's Kitchen.

Oh, yeah, almost forgot (): as part of a joint anniversary/xmas gift (click here for explanation), StudioKitchen in the new year.

Heh.

[CaliPoutine]

Nice cookware chris, great price. I have one piece of sitram that I love.

I got:

America's test kitchen cookbook

Huge Paderno( Canadian Brand) Roasting pan

Silicon set( glove, pastry brush, tongs, etc)

Deep fryer( tfal, exchanged for the West Bend Pro)

As an added xmas gift. I found 4 brand new copper pots at a thrift store for 4 bucks.

[PS]

Looks like Keller's done well out of Christmas - I got a copy of Bouchon as well.

Also:

Thierry Breton's De Terre et De Mer - recettes de Chez Michel (I'm going to have to work on my french cooking vocab again)

Larousse Cocktails

Schott's Food & Drink Miscellany

And a bottle of Tomintoul Glenlivet 12 year old, which must have been in my dad's cupboard for 20 years at least - the bottle design is straight out of the 70's - it looks like an enormous bottle of aftershave...

Also, as a present to self, Hugh Johnson's Wine, A Life Uncorked

[Megan Blocker]

Looks like Keller's done well out of Christmas - I got a copy of Bouchon as well.

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And I GAVE a copy of Bouchon!

Though, not to PS...to my friend Miles, who has been hankering for Bouchon's croque monsieur ever since eating there last summer...

[andiesenji]

Another cookbook arrived today, gift delayed by zip code error: Spices of Life by Nina Simonds.

[peppyre]

I got some fantastic food related gifts this year.

5 pieces of Emile Henri in red, well the bowl is a beautiful cream

A Messermeister torch (it will do double duty, it's primary function will be for my silver work with a few food items thrown in occasionally)

Charcuterie, which I just love

My mom went nuts at a local store Gourmet Warehouse. I got a bag that contained 1 box of MarieBelle sipping chocolate in Dark, a tin of Bellagia white chocolate cocao, a box of Clodhoppers, and a jar of white truffles!!

C sesame salt

I can't wait to see what my birthday brings next week.

[barolo]

Lots of food and cooking related gifts for me:

home blended and roasted coffee beans

home made chocolate covered almonds and hazelnuts

home made sugared walnuts

home made chocolates

home made cookies

sherry vinegar

champagne vinegar

organic olive oil from Lesvos, Greece

Thyme, herb and pine honey from Crete

Raspberry honey from Vancouver Island

a bottle of white wine from a Greek cooperative - can't remember what grape/s right now

a bottle of Walla Walla Merlot from Five Star Cellars, either an '02 or '03, I'm too lazy to check

roasted hazelnut oil

Gourmet Cookbook

a milk frother

kitchen shears - the kind that can cut through chicken bones

a set of 8 mini-ramekins

a gift certificate for Marquis Wine Cellars, a local wine store

[MarketStEl]

...Actually, I miss the Gethsemani Trappist cheese my partner's sister used to give us every Christmas and might buy some of that.

...

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Just curious...I checked out the site and see that that sell 3 varieties of this Trappist cheese. Which is the one that your partner's sister typically got for you? How does it taste?

She usually got us the assortment that included one wedge each of mild, aged and smoked. The cheese is a semi-soft cheese from cow's milk.

The mild cheese has a delicate, creamy but slightly tangy flavor, just a bit more pronounced than that of Havarti.

The aged variety is stronger, needless to say, with a slightly nuttier taste. I can't really draw a parallel to a more familiar type of cheese.

The smoked cheese has a pronounced smoke flavor and a bit of a bite.

I didn't get any food gifts this year.  I was hoping to get a gift basket from Zingerman's or Wolferman's.  But alas, it didn't happen. 

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Wolferman's! "Good Things to Eat" since 1888.

My grandparents regularly bought cakes and pastries from Wolferman's, which for many years was a chain of specialty grocery stores and bakeries in Kansas City. They had five locations in the city during my childhood. I think their grocery business began to head south not long after the Bon Vivant vichysoisse botulism incident (Wolferman's was one of the chains for which Bon Vivant made private-label soups). I thought the company had gone out of business completely until one day in the early 1980s when I heard Willard Scott pitching the English muffins on the Today Show. I've tried them; they're all that and a bag of chips--big and fluffy with lots of holes to soak up the butter.

Edited December 29, 2005 by MarketStEl (log)

[mikeycook]

Got a bunch of cookbooks including:

Scott Conant's New Italian Cooking

Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing

The Cook's Book

La Bonne Cuisine de Madame E. Saint-Ange: The Original Companion for French Home Cooking

Molto Italiano

Skuse's Complete Confectionary (reissue of original)

Candy (can't remember author's name, but it is from the 60s)

Also got a Michelin Red Guide for New York.

And my mother-in-law bought my an cobalt oval casserole from the Paul Bocuse collection.

But, the best thing I got was this double-handle knife, which I will use for cutting nougat but which I believe was originally intended for cutting wheels of cheese.

[Kim Shook]

We had a very nice Christmas. I "helped" my folks with their gifts to me and my wife, so all in all we really scored. The final tally: this 11-piece Sitram Profisserie line at Bridge for $162;
Ruhlman and Polcyn's absolutely fantastic Charcuterie;
three Alford and Duguid books: Home Baking, Seductions of Rice, and Mangoes and Curry Leaves;
Wolfert's new Cooking of Southwest France;
Nathan's New American Cooking;
Hamelman's Bread;
some bannetons, linen, and proofing baskets from The San Francisco Baking Institute; and
a titanic, thick baking stone from Golda's Kitchen.

Oh, yeah, almost forgot (): as part of a joint anniversary/xmas gift (click here for explanation), StudioKitchen in the new year.

Heh.

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I just put that baking stone on my wishlist for NEXT year !

[avocado]

I got a Cuisinart ice cream maker, and also that new Cuisinart grill-griddle-panini press. Haven't used either one yet- they had to be shipped back from my parents' house and they haven't arrived yet.

I also got the Silver Spoon cookbook.

And the one I unexpectedly loved most- Rachel Ray's 365 Dinners cookbook along with a tshirt- her own label!- which is bright red and reads "MEATBALL" across the front in yellow letters. Suits me quite nicely, in fact.

[pansophia]

My husband and I had a fantastic Christmas. Now that I've actually started to cook and bake, I know better what we need and don't just run to Target everytime I think I don't have the right pan.

We received:

-A lovely handmade pottery casserole dish

-Two new nice cookie sheets

-A set of two decent knives, a chefs and a santoku

-A soup cookbook from my family's church (They sponser soup dinners every year and finally assembled all the recipes. There is a long tradition of church cookbooks in my family, most of my childhood food came from a 1959 cookbook from my Great-Grandpa's "Norwegian Memorial Lutheran Church."

-A set of six nice German wine glasses

My husband gave me:

-A pastry board with pie crust measurements (to go with last year's rolling pin? Maybe it was a hint that the rolling pin IS NOT for use as a weapon)

-New ladle

-Nielsen-Massey vanilla extract

-Nice metal measuring cups and spoons

-Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook

We still have Christmas to do out in Montana with my Brother & Sister-in-Law and I think that might include another santoku as well as a cast iron skillet. Just a hunch (i.e. what I told my brother we wanted when he called!)

Strange as it is, I think one of my favorite gifts is the Jamie Oliver cookbook my British in-laws sent over at my husband's request. It's "Jamie's Italy" and the recipes are mostly from his travels in Italy on the show "Jamie's Great Escape" which I'm addicted too. (A tough addiction as we have to wait for the episodes to show up online.) The cookbook isn't available in the US yet and I just love getting things from England!

[Tkrup]

Got a trifold carrier for my Global knives

Gave a cheese of the month club and a bottle of 21 year old Scotch

we also gave the "Ex" knife block seen in another string on this forum.

[Berlinsbreads]

I happily received two presents that were on my "Wish List" for Christmas. When I was telling my non-cooking friend about these items, I could hear a pause and then her response of "ooookaaaayyy," which means "why would you want that??" It reminds me of the phrase about one person's trash is another person's treasure!

What did I get? I got an All-Clad double boiler (something I probably wouldn't buy for myself) and a Cocorico roaster which is this clay thingy that you put a vertical chicken on to roast. I also received a great cookbook on Vietnamese cooking----can't wait to try the recipes! I haven't tried the Cocorico but plan to tomorrow.

What about you?? Did you receive any cooking items? Have you tried them? Tell all!!

[emilyr]

I got a set of creme brulee ramekins and a kitchen torch. We used it that night to roast marshmallows, and I keep finding things to "toast" with it. Now, I just need to find time to make creme brulee!