cheezepowder

Here's a weird thing I do: Eat raw dry pasta straight from the box.

Dry ramen noodles - we always ate the crumbs at the bottom of the bag. Also we used to eat tomato slices dipped in sugar. Currently, I'll eat pizza with ranch dressing or hot sauce and tomato-sauce based pasta with hot sauce or Korean hot bean paste mixed in.

I made chocolate babka this weekend from a recipe from Martha Stewart's baking Handbook (title?). Incredibly rich and buttery--quite good.

I was just looking at a recipe for chocolate babka in this month's Gourmet magazine. I was thinking about making it sometime after the holidays. Your babka sounds good. Is this the Martha Stewart recipe that you used? For comparison, here are the ingredients from the Gourmet recipe. The Martha Stewart recipe I linked calls for much more chocolate per loaf.

Makes 2 loaves

dough:

3/4 cup warm milk

1/2 cup plus 2 teas sugar

3 teas active dry yeast

3 1/4 cups flour

2 eggs

1 egg yolk

1 teas vanilla

3/4 teas salt

1 1/4 sticks butter, cut in pieces and softened

egg wash:

1 yolk

1 tablespoon heavy cream or whole milk

chocolate filling:

5 tbls butter, well softened

two 3 1/2 to 4 oz bars of bittersweet chocolate (not more than 60% cocoa) finely chopped

1/4 cup sugar

I'm obsessing about Christmas cookies too. I'm in the midst of researching and testing recipes to decide what to make for a cookie exchange and for homemade treats gift bags for friends and family. I've looked at this month's Gourmet cookie recipies but I haven't tried any of those yet.

For gingerbread cut-out cookies, I tried the recipe for Light Spiced Cookies from the King Arthur Cookie Companion, and due to an uncooperative cookie cutter, I overworked the dough and probably overbaked the cookies too because they came out tough and hard. I didn't like the flavor that much either. So instead, I tried the recipe for Gingerbread People from Rose Levy Beranbaum's book, Rose's Christmas Cookies, and that worked out better for me. If anyone's interested, here's a summary of the recipe:

3 cups flour (dip and sweep) or 15 oz

1/4 teas salt

1 teas baking soda

2 teas ginger

1 teas cinnamon

1/2 teas nutmeg

1/4 teas cloves

3/4 dark brown sugar, packed

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter

1/2 cup unsulfured molasses

1 large egg

Mix the flour, salt, baking soda, and spices in a bowl. In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar, then mix in the egg and molasses, then slowly add in the flour/dry ingredients. She says to then scoop the dough into plastic wrap, form it into a disc shape and refrigerate it wrapped for at least 2 hours before rolling out the dough. I prefer to roll out portions of the soft dough to the desired thickness between 2 pieces of parchment paper and then put the dough sheet with the parchment paper still on it in the fridge to chill. She says to roll the dough out to 1/8 inch but if you want a softer chewy cookie, to roll it out to 1/4 inch and underbake it slightly, which is what I did. Cut out cookies and bake in at 350 for 8 to 12 minutes depending on the size of your cookie.

Anyone baking holiday cookies? What are you baking?

Not sure that this book falls into this category, but a number of years ago, Mark Miller put out a Red Sage cookbook.

Which Safeway branches have bulk bins of nuts?

(Pointing up at ol_ironstomach's picture) That's the same fryer I have. It's one gallon while the one you're looking at is 3/4 gallon.

I just noticed this nice article online from last week's Washington Post.

Earlier this year, I took Essential Knife Skills by Frank Linn at Sur La Table in Pentagon Row. It's $65. The description is "Hone basic knife skills and practice the fundamental cuts for vegetables - mince, dice, brunoise, batonnet and julienne - as well as a few advanced techniques." The class was about 2 1/2 hours long and hands on. We each got a knife, a cutting board, and various fruits and vegetables. He would demonstrate something and then we would do it. For example, he showed us how to dice an onion, we would then dice an onion. He would show us another technique, and then we would practice. I thought the instructor was clear, and he provided individual instruction as we were practicing our techniques. We practiced on onions, potatoes, green peppers, learned how to section an orange, and other things. It was only fruits and vegetables, though. I would emphasize the "basic knife skills" and "fundamental cuts for vegetables" from the description. I did learn new techniques, but I feel like this one class wasn't enough for me. With only a 2 1/2 hour class though, we wouldn't have had enough time to cover more like deboning a chicken, fileting a fish, etc. I think it's also a trade-off -- the more time you have for hands on, the less time there is for instruction of new techniques. Sur La Table also gives you a coupon for free knife sharpening, a discount coupon and encourages you to shop for new stuff.

If you want to learn how to cut fish/meats though Sur La Table, you would need to sign up for the next class (Advanced Knife Skills?) which doesn't seem to be offered frequently so you should consider that when picking a class, especially if you're interested in deboning a chicken, fileting a fish, etc. (For example, the 3 hour Basic Knife Skills class description from L'Academie says it covers deboning a chicken.)

I noticed that Sur La Table offered a Knife Skills Workshop in November that seems to cover material from both classes, and looking back, I probably would want to take that instead of Essential Knife Skills. The class is $85 and "A combination of two popular knife skills classes, this session will focus on cutting a variety of fruits and vegetables, as well as instruction on working with different meats (including how to cut a whole chicken and filet a fish)."

People will believe what they want. Some people may blow their allergies out of proprortion but here is an example of a death due to peanuts and a random article from CNN.

I'm not disputing that there are deaths due to peanuts, but FYI regarding that peanut kiss article, there was a subsequent article that said the death was not due to the peanut butter kiss. I don't know if there were later reports on the cause of death.

What size scoop is a #20?

I pulled out my #20 scoop and measured it. It's about 2 1/4 inches in diameter and, holding it horizontally, I was able to spoon in about 4 tablespoons of water (4 tbls is a 1/4 cup) into the scoop bowl. It would make a large cookie.

It seemed more upscale to me than a neighborhood restaurant, but I guess it all depends on what your definition of a neighborhood restaurant is.

The website now has their menu online.

I also have a Waring deep fryer from Williams Sonoma - the big kind with the rectangular fry basket (sounds like the same kind as ol ironstomach). I was excited to get it, but I've only used it twice in the last year. It takes a lot of oil (almost a full jug), and you can reuse the oil, but we don't fry as much as I thought we would (it's just two of us). So it turned out not to be as convenient for us because we're not frying often or in large quantities. In hindsight, I could do without the fryer or I should have gotten a smaller one.

crackers said:

Has anybody else heard that Eatzi's in Rockville has just closed with only 24 hour notice to its employees?

I swung by the Rockville location today out of curiosity. There were a couple of handwritten signs on the doors in the back that said closed permanently and cardboard boxes piled up outside the door.

Not so much the Ask Tom poster's issue, but I would add to Tom's response that they really should put prices on the menu board, if they haven't already.

I went last night. I think every table was occupied at one point (it's also a small restaurant). I had the 5 course tasting menu, and I really enjoyed it. (Re: question above on shocked tuna - I asked, and it's called that because they sear it and then shock it in ice water.)

Some of my dishes are not on the online menu, and I'm not sure what all the accompanying sauces were so my descriptions are lacking, but here's an idea of what I had:

Plain and raisin bread came with four spreads – red pepper, squash, pesto, and tofu.

Amuse was tuna tartar on watermelon

Rare tuna cubes with a slightly spicy cream sauce, wasabi cream, a red powder, and gingered, pickled, thin slices of apple and ginger

Black eyed pea fritters with refried tomato and tail pepper honey

A scallop in a bowl surrounded by a sauce plus powder and crumbles on the bowl (how's that for a vague description - edited to add: I think it probably was the scallop dish on the online menu with melon seed milk and bacon powder.)

Local beef slices, cubes of simmered daikon, a ball of cooked spinach leaves, tail pepper (?) powder (strong stuff), crushed grapes compote

A slightly cool, espresso sized cup of thick, rich chocolate soup

Spice cake – layers of thin sponge cake, fig, vanilla? mousse, with spiced creme anglaise-type sauce, a tart red fruit sauce, and small cubes of honey gel

My favorites were the tuna and scallop, but I liked all of my dishes. There were a few components I did not like as much as the others. I really like the use of unique ingredients and creative combinations.

Tim Carman's Young & Hungry in the City Paper this week had some interesting news items. Greggory Hill is going to start offering takeout pretzel sandwiches during lunch at David Greggory. I wonder if the trend, like the old Galileo grill, will catch on to other places. Also, I thought it was interesting that the Sette Osteria's pizza oven being broken made such a difference in total sales. The first item is about the Quarry House, but I've never been.

Mia's Pizzas, 4926 Cordell Avenue, Bethesda, is next to Nam's and across the street and a few doors down from Passage to India. It's set back from the sidewalk so it can be hard to see while driving by, especially if you're trying not to slow down too much and annoy the cars behind you. Their website doesn't have much on it yet. Tom's Weekly Dish mentioned that the owner previously worked at Pizzeria Paradiso.

The menu has appetizers (including deviled eggs, little mac and cheese, olives, mini calzones, garlic knots), salads, two sandwiches, a few dinner entrees (salmon, chicken, vegetarian), wood oven pizzas (set combinations or create your own), desserts, and specials.

I started with the three mini calzones, which I liked. The menu said they were ricotta (& basil?), salami & olive, and caramelized onion & gouda, but I received two salami & olive, one caramelized onion, and no ricotta. That was fine so I didn't ask about it. They came with a side of fresh tasting tomato sauce. The salami & olive calzone was small and round with a thin shell that was thicker along the edges, and it was filled with thick, small strips of salami, kalamata olive bits, and cheese. The caramelized onion calzone was flatter, half moon shaped and kinda looked collapsed like the cheese had oozed out and taken over.

The set pizza combinations included more traditional and a few nontraditional toppings like bbq chicken. I chose the combination of sausage, pepperoni and mushrooms. My pizza was fairly big, the size of a plate, and had a thin interior crust and a crispy on the outside, chewy, but then soft on the inside, outer crust. I enjoyed my pizza. I thought the outer crust had a nice texture and a slight smokey flavor, but maybe a tad bland. The toppings were of good quality, and I especially liked the pepperoni.

I had a bite of my friend's dessert"”a really good vanilla cupcake with strawberry frosting. Tom mentions the cupcakes are house-baked, and this one had that homey look with a modest amount of frosting. The cake was moist and not too sweet, and the frosting also was not too sweet with a fresh strawberry flavor and loose, creamy consistency. Service was very friendly. While I wouldn't make a special trip from Clarendon, I'd go back when I'm in the area.

Saw a couple of signs while walking around the neighborhood enjoying the weather tonight.

I posted in the Clare and Don's thread about their moving sign. Also, Mexicali Blues has put up a sign at the old Lazy Sundae on their expansion into that space.

Walking by tonight, I saw the signs at Clare and Don's saying they're moving to 130 N. Washington St. I didn't stop to ask, but I'm assuming, based on David's prior post, that "moving" means the Clarendon location will be closing...

Or Pizza Mart.

I've had a problem with pitted olives growing mold on the inside where they're pitted. Does anyone else have this problem? Do I just need to eat my olives faster? Should I be adding enough brine with my pitted olives to cover them (in which case I'd be paying for brine)?

Tom reported details in his chat today.

The king of the single dish in Adams Morgan -- that would be Scott Bennett, the co-owner of the Amsterdam Falafelshop -- is expanding his empire. Look for the launch of M'Dawg Haute Dogs, featuring sausages created by chef Greggory Hill of David Greggory restaurant, around Christmas. The ode to hot dogs, brats, Italian and other sausages will unfold at 2418 18th St. NW...

With varying degrees of tastyness, there's also:

Tallula, Harry's Tap Room, Little Viet Garden, Hard Times, Rien Tong, and Sala Thai (two of them: one on Wash Blvd and one on Wilson towards Courthouse).