Hi all,

I recently went to NJ and was reminded of the deliciousness of Dr. Brown's Cel-ray Tonic. I know I have seen it sold once or twice by the can, but does anyone know where I might be able to buy a six pack of it? Are there any groceries that might sell it?

Thanks,

Will

I made matzo balls last night and they were the worst I have ever had in my life. It was like eating a ball of leather flavored like cardboard. Here is the problem -- I used the recipe I have used for years: the one on the back of the Manichewitz matzo meal box. The only difference was that that batter was a little dryer than usual and the matzo meal was a different brand, but I don't think this should make I a great difference. I chilled them for a while and then cooked them for an hour. I just can't believe that after an hour of cooking they were not even remotely soft, soggy, or water logged.

What I would really like is for someone to explain to what makes a matzo ball fluffy or barring that what my problem might have been.

I realize the topic of thermometers has been discussed ad nauseum, however, after reading through two dozen threads, I have not found a good answer to my question.

I make candy, I make homemade ricotta, and I roast meat. I am looking to replace my two older and inaccurate thermometers with a single kitchen thermometer that works for different uses. This requires that it can be used as a meat probe, is accurate at all temperatures, can go up to 400 or so degrees, reads fairly quickly, and also has a clip to be used as a candy thermometer. Ideally it will have an on off switch for when I use it as a meat probe.

Is this too much to ask from one thermometer?

Is there a specific reason why as far as I can tell thermometers are not explicit marketed as both candy and meat thermometers.

I have been looking to buy some Slivovitz and I have only a found a very small number of stores that know what I am talking about when I ask let alone carry it. Many sales people seem to confuse plum liqueurs and brandies so I am dubious to trek out to any of them. Are there any stores that carry more than one type?

(I live in Somerville)

Thanks. I'll give them a call.

I have been looking around Boston for whole dried mint leaves and I have been unsuccessful. I have tried several tea shops, so far I have only found cut leaves. I am not really sure where to start looking because I got them at an upper end middle eastern specialty grocery when I lived in NYC so I am not sure what stores might carry them.

Any suggestions as to where I might find who dried mint leaves. Thanks for your help!

Thanks everyone for your help. Based on the feed back I finally decided to try the silken (in the name of science). Something did not go quite right -- I think perhaps too much. the problem was that it came through as a background taste and that the texture was not quite right. Luckily, my friend was rather generous toward my effort. So the question now remains do I try it again with my new found knowledge (in the name of science) or move on to another egg replacer.

I saw this topic posted about five years back so I am hoping that half a decade is enough time to produce some additions to that rather meager list. I am going out to dinner with a visiting friend who is a vegetarian and I not being a vegetarian do no know much about finding places like this and so far my search has been rather fruitless (no pun intended). Our main restriction is that she is not a fan of Asian food in general and also that we are impoverished college students, so while I would give an arm and a leg to get the vegetarian tasting menu at Orleana, they only accept money-- something I do not have much of.

Bottom line, what is a cheap place to get some good non-Asian vegetarian fare?

I have a vegan friend for whom I would like to make some zucchini bread with the bumper crop I got at the farmers market. As an egg substitute, one of the the things I have seen in the recipes and on chow is tofu. I don't really know much about about tofu, so can some one explain why exactly this works as an egg substitute?

I came across this post looking for a cooking challenge naturally. Croissants were mine this summer. It turned out that they are not nearly as difficult as I thought they might be when I started. I used the recipe from Sherry yard's Secrets of Baking. A time consuming but so worth it.

Thanks for all the advice and support, I am going to eventually try all of these recipes.

I tried making the ciabatta since this worked best with my schedule. The crust was amazing. I have been hankering for a good crust since I returned from France. the inside texture was not as holey as I would have like but it was still pretty good. My big problem was the taste. Maybe I am not used to homemade bread, but it tasted like matzo in that it tasted like flour nothing else. Butter corrected this problem, but still I am wondering how to get a more flavorful bread.

if you can get the ingrediants, the first thing that came to my mind was spanikopita. Also if you can get ground meat or find some way to grind it yourself something like kefta might be a good option.

This is sort of funny but i often add cinnamon to bisques that I make, which would go quite nicely with the cappuccino theme.

For the fish, I am going with the scallops. They are bite sized elegant and delicious. Perhaps you can tell the chef to make a lighter sauce that emphasizes the wine rather than the cream.

If as you say dessert is for stragglers, I would go with something a little lighter. More of something to nosh on than to take in fully. To me that rules out the Rum Babas and the crepes suzette. I think both are too heavy. I think the floral lavander in the milles feules would be excellent as something not too heavy although raspberry and chocolate mouse is a combination par excellance.

The firs thing to recognize is that cognac does not have that much alcohol in it. We are not talking about vodka or Molotov cocktails here. Many people associate flambeing with the initial poof that is the result of the combustion of the vaporized alcohol, but this quickly dissipates and the flames are much lower so the key is to prevent that initial poof from causing any problems. Use common sense things: since this is your first time don't use too much since you can always do it twice. Don't pour it from the bottle. Don't put your arms face cloths over the pot. Basically don't do anything over the pot that you wouldn't do over a stove burner or grill. Lastly don't get to close to the flame as you are lighting it. This is easily fixed with a long match or one of those long lighters. Or my solution since i don't have either of those is a gripping a match in a long pliers.

It doesn't really matter to tell you truth if you flame it or not, but you should try it anyway. The more different things you try the more confident you will be a as chef, which will empower you to try even more exciting things. Besides it i kind of beautiful. I love turning the lights off and watching the clean blue flame of the cognac dance in the pan. It is a bit of a romantic moment for me and my meal.

Avoir coeur mon ami. Just do it once with a little cognac and you will see that it is quite harmless. It flames up for moment and then the flames become much smaller. This is because it first catches all of the vaporized alcohol on fire but this quickly is consumed and then is more like a candle or gas stove if you can imagine that. Cognac has a relatively low alcohol content. You should be worried when you start playing around with vodka and the like because they make a big poof when ignited.

If you don't have a long lighter or long matches what I have found to be ver effective is to hold a match in a large pliers.

Once you become more comfortable with this, which I am sure you will, turn off the lights. Cognac makes a beautiful blue flame.

Thanks for the advice and encouragement. Its funny, but I think a lot of cooking simply requires a bit of courage and reading your posts have emboldened me. Its not so much a money issue as it is an issue of time. A bad batch of bread is is another trip to the grocery and an hour or two making it again, plus waiting for the dough to raise. I'll try something this weekend and let you know how it goes.

I have wanted to make bread for a very long time. Over the summer I made some delicious croissants but now I am back at my college dorm sans kitchen aid mixer. I basically have no tools beyond the basics -- a cookie sheet, a bowl, a large wooden spoon etc. and an electric oven of dubious quality. So no pizza stones or other hoity toity tools. Elbow grease only. Anyway, I am wondering what kind of bread I should attempt. My goal is to make a baguette but I have heard that making a good one is rather difficult and I can't afford to waste bags of flour.

I have searched around and it seems like German sausages are very difficult to find in the Boston area, i.e. on the T. As far as I can see karl's is the only game in town. Mostly I am looking for some good weisswurst or knockwurst, and I am willing to settle for Schaller and Webers which I think is the best commercial brand. So, Where are the best wursts in Boston?

Maybe this is a cop out, far too easy, but my favorite quinoa dish is simply quinoa and a lot of sauteed onions. there is something about the contrast of texture and taste of the two ingredients that I love.

Thanks everyone. I guess I will have to check myself since I actually had called the Shaw's and also the Stop and Shop near me and both denied carrying the product. I suppose in their defense not many people call them asking for it.

I tried making it, but I was not as good as I remembered it, a little weird. Perhaps I was remembering my youth. It turns out that the secret ingredient was celery salt and a ton of garlic powder.

Here is the recipe he gave me (its not very exact):

Crushed saltines mixes with melted butter pressed into pie pan for the crust

Mix for filling:
2 cans tuna
onions. finely chopped
celery, finely chopped
1 egg
1/2 can cream of potato soup
garlic powder and celery salt to taste
breadcrumbs to absorb any liquid

put the filling in the crust sprinkle with bread crumbs
bake at 350 until set. (you basically poke it and when it fell firmer its done)

good luck! I hope you enjoy it as much as I used to.

I think this basically explains itself. I am looking to make a treacle tart, but of course this can't be sans treacle. I have called up a few places in the Boston area but in truth I have no idea where I would find it to do this effectively. Any suggestions? Also, if it is in fact impossible to find it in Boston, advice would be appreciated about ordering it online. Thanks.

A restaurant I go to with my parents (I go to tufts and my brother is over at BU at the moment) quite often is Brown Sugar. It is a mildly upscale Thai restaurant. Dishes in the $10-20 range. I've never had anything bad there and some of the dishes are out of this world, like the chili duck (as long as you avoid the red chilis). Its right on Commonwealth so you could hop on the B line or walk from BU.

I have not had much success in the north end except at mikes pastry. you have to stop there and try the cannolis. They are to die for.

It really is a personal call about how comfortable you are with raw eggs. If they have been properly refrigerated, it is enough to dip them in boiling water for 30 seconds. Since the salmonella exists only on the outside of the egg, this effectively sanitizes it. I do this when I have guests who are worry warts. On the other hand, I don't really care. I've eaten a lot of raw meat and eggs and I have never gotten sick.

Canned tuna seems to be the but of many of these recipes. Growing up my dad prepared a dish called Tuna Pie.

The shell was crushed up saltines mixed together with butter pressed into of course a pie pan. This was then filled with tuna mixed with onions, celery, eggs, Cream of Potato Soup, bread crumbs and old bay seasoning I think was his secret, but to this day he will not tell me.

My aunt also had this thing called bean dip, which incidentally contained no beans and was in fact cooked ground beef mixed with sour cream and chili starter. Suffice to say many vegetarians fell victim to unfortunate name.

Not too far off from what you have been doing, but I love grilling zucchini. Marinade in a little olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic, salt, and some oregano or basil or both. The balsamic and the char on the zucchini give a completely different and delicious character from the sauteed version.

Neither of these places are not particularly glamorous, but the food is fresh and delicious and very cheap -- $10 or less for a huge serving of pasta. They are small and you order at the counter. Mostly takeout, but the pasta is fresh and so are the sauces. they usually sell about 10 some of which rotate on a daily basis. Some meat dishes, too, but this not why to go. Also don't order the lasagna in all of them it is made in advance and warmed up.

My favorite: The Village Kitchen, Cambridge

or since this is not particularly accessible by public transport

The bottega fiorentina restraunts. There is one on newbury and another in brookline

I tried my hand at Italian buttercream for the first time. It seemed simple enough. Everything was fine until I added the butter to what seemed like a very good meringue. I added the butter and it broke. But I kept on mixing and it seemed to get much worse. Finally it came together but it seems like whipped butter, rather than icing. It was far too soft and lacked that stiff but light quality, i associate with icing. I have tried to find detailed recipes to see what I might have done wrong, but there seems to be a paucity of these. I would greatly appreciate any tricks of the trade.

I am student in Boston FINALLY with my own kitchen. I went to buy rabbit for the first time recently and was a little shocked at how expensive it was in comparison to what I had been used to back home. I am not sure if it was the butcher or maybe it is more expensive here, but could you guys give me an idea of the price range for rabbit in boston