Yes, the acid is boiling off, as well as the yucky cooking cabbage smell.
1 Like
Your dad sounds like a regular awesome guy!
2 Likes
Just yesterday I bought the 3 pounds of root vegetables (including several different colors of carrots!) to make my French country potage soup. You just havenāt had good soups or stews, thatās very obvious. 
(What is it about cooking threads that makes me such a chatterbox?)
5 Likes
Oooh the book just says vinegar so we have been using Braggs, but I will have to try red wine next time and add some butter because like bacon how can you go wrong with adding it?
3 Likes
The fat brings together the vinegar and sugar into a perfect triumvirate of flavor.
1 Like
Okay,the āViking Partyā is tomorrow, and I think I have everything planned. For the All American food spread I am gonna keep it simple.
- biscuit, fried chicken, and gravy sandwiches (very southern)
- Oklahoma style potato salad (quintessential Midwestern)
- onion and asiago San Fran style sourdough (little bit of California)
- BlackBerry sorbet from fruit I picked in my alley (very Oregon)
And knowing Heather she will make deviled eggs and chocolate chip cookies, per the usual (this Viking better bring an appetite).
Iām bring my own burner, a cooler, a thermos, my big lodge cast iron, and tools. Also:
- balsamic
- grapeseed oil
- pimenton
- fresh basil from the yard
I should probably get a cheapo bread knife from the discount store so I donāt need to bring my nice oneā¦
7 Likes
Aaaaaand what time does the party start? Should I arrive early?
7 Likes
It should be a lot of mellow fun. Everyone thatāll be there is a hacker in some sense of the wordāhardware, software, deconstructing historical clothes, food, beer.
I guarantee you the rolling chalkboard my friend keeps in his garage will be used.
7 Likes
Those are weird sounding cookies. I guess you did say that was what you were going for.
9 Likes
Yes. Yes I yam.
6 Likes
I couldnāt help myself. This tater salad just looks soā¦ Seventies. And it is effing delish.
I had an extra hard boiled egg, so yeah. I shoved it in the middle.
Edit
Wait, why arenāt I making a jello mold? I have a lobster mold that looks suspiciously like a dudes business, and a can of mixed fruit. Would it last overnight in the fridge?
7 Likes
This super sucks. I want to EAT THAT and I canāt have it.
5 Likes
Prototype for tomorrowās fried chicken sandwiches (fried chicken only).
Bout three ounces, pounded flat, double dredged. It really needs a buttermilk brine though, but thatās okay! I got 24 hours.
4 Likes
Well, after carefully making and freezing serves of stewed/mashed/pureed fruits and vegetables for my baby she has decided that she just wants to eat what we have. So tonight she had zucchini quiche with us.
2 Likes
I usually make a gingerbread house every Christmas, but Iām going to make one earlier this year as it looks like Iāll have a bit more time next week. Each year I try to incorporate a different technique that I havenāt tried before, as well as developing some of the techniques Iāve used in the past. Iām pretty excited about this yearās model, which will be Martin Behaimās Erdapfel Globe - the oldest surviving terrestrial globe in the world:
It was created between 1492 and 1494, so the Americas and Australia donāt appear on it, while quite a few other parts of the world are pretty inaccurate. The idea is to make the globe by baking gingerbread on an upturned metal mixing bowl, then make the countries with speculoos, again baked on the outside of the bowl to get the curved shape. Iāll have to find a rod to go through the globe, as the idea is to make a functioning model. This may be a disaster, but I should at least learn something in the process and it will be pretty cool if it does work.
The mounting will be tricky, as thereās no way I can recreate this with gingerbread:
However, I may just approximate the top mounting circles or forget accuracy altogether and place it on a different support. The main thing is to make the globe itself, then make it rotate - Iām pretty sure those two things are feasible. The mixing bowl Iām planning to use has a flat base, which may actually make things easier - I can hide anything I use to protect the gingerbread from the rod (probably a plastic insert), then round it off with more gingerbread and disguise the join with the speculoos continents. Another potential problem is that the gingerbread dough can flow down toward the base when youāre baking curved shapes like this, so Iāll have to make sure itās fairly thin and chilled before it goes in the oven. I may also need to be realistic about the size of the globe, as this will affect the weight and probability of success.
3 Likes
How are you going to prevent the half sphere from shrinking during cooking? What will you use to bind the shells together given that it will be a weak but joint? Will it be mounted on an axis or simply vertical?
I need to know!!!
1 Like
You use egg whites mixed with icing sugar to make an icing that sets pretty hard - as long as you can hold the pieces together until they set (which shouldnāt be too difficult in this case), itās a pretty solid join. The whole shell will be quite thin and pretty hard - its more of a hard biscuit texture than a cake, but it gets softer if you eat it with hot chocolate. The dough doesnāt tend to change shape that much while itās being baked, although it does rise a little. The idea is to preserve any detail you put in the original dough, so you can have gingerbread figures like this one:
Iāll probably experiment a bit before making the globe, but I may be able to replicate some of the detail before baking it, especially with the continents.
Iāll be mounting it at an angle, hopefully about the same as the original. Iāll probably have to try a few techniques, but I should be able to make a fairly strong outside circle for the mounting by making two or three layers with offset joints.
4 Likes
Great, now another hobby Iād like to participate in 
2 Likes
What about making the molds for the pieces out of CNCād pieces of wood? That way you could relief the continents like this highly detailed gingerbread man. Then assemble something like a Goode homolosine in curved parts that fit together.
1 Like
Quick, and I mean quick. Anyone have a fast buttermilk substitution? I have whole, half and half, and acids coming out my ears.
