What I learned today (Take Two)

It's not that I won't eat it, I just see no reason to pay up for it. I've had avocado oil mayonnaise; meh. There's a whole wide world of interesting olive oils out there -- not to mention specialty oils for specialty dishes -- I don't hear much about avocado terroir.

I don't think of avocado oil as a replacement for olive oil. As Jenise said, it's a 'neutral' oil, so we use it instead of safflower/canola/etc oil.

I love olive oil and there is no replacing it. But we always need some neutral oils around, because I don't want olive oil flavor in various Asian preps. I was fine with safflower/canola, but my wife prompted the switch to avocado for some vague health reasons.

[Jenise]

Jeff, I can just picture the second you hear her shut that door! That "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" moment. Certainly made a memorable Thanksgiving, didn't it?

I missed having one of those last night. Background: about three weeks ago I opened a bottle of something that showed some VA on day two, so I transferred the contents to a bottle that I could see thru better and put it on the counter, wad of paper towel stuffed in the opening, to start a vinegar project.

And last night I had 15 people over for a working dinner in which we previewed the dinner which we'll be serving to 85 guests next week: it's part practice, part constructive criticizing, part teaching, part learning to work together, part counting the steps to make sure we have the right number of hands available for plating--all that for five courses. I put out four bottles of champagne and four bottles of a really good Dry Creek AVA zinfandel, presuming my guests would bring some--only one did, two bottles of bubbly. Anyway, it was enough, and I left it up to my guests to open and pour because I was busy on food.

And then I went to clean up and found the wad of paper towel just lying about. Uh oh. Checked the empties. Yup, they drank my vinegar project.

Jeff, I can just picture the second you hear her shut that door! That "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" moment. Certainly made a memorable Thanksgiving, didn't it?

For the wrong reasons but, yes, there is that.

Yup, they drank my vinegar project.

Guess they aren't really picky about their wine....

And then I went to clean up and found the wad of paper towel just lying about. Uh oh. Checked the empties. Yup, they drank my vinegar project.

That is hilarious!

[Jenise]

That is hilarious!

It's pretty funny. What's more, I put out a follow-up note detailing the evening's decisions and mentioned this caper in it, saying "it's not a problem, I won't miss the wine and I'm laughing about this. I only have to mention what happened because I don't want anyone shaking their head thinking wow, Jenise sure put out some shit wine!."

No one's stepped forward to confess.

Hey! For all you know, they took one sip, recognized it for bad wine, and spilled it out for you. (Yeah, their recognition of vinegar isn't as well developed....)

[Jenise]

Hey! For all you know, they took one sip, recognized it for bad wine, and spilled it out for you. (Yeah, their recognition of vinegar isn't as well developed....)

Naah, you were right the first time, they're just not that picky. And that's multiple they's, as it was half a bottle so probably got three pours out of it.

I learned today that it is great fun having a gift certificate at a kitchen supply store!

No, not a door prize from Wheel of Fortune. My local shop, Whisk, has a frequent-shopper card and I filled it up replenishing all the things I lost to Pumpkin or never had in the first place. So, if you had $75 gratis to spend at Whisk, what would you buy?

[Jenise]

Nice name for a kitchen supply place, Jeff. Any new treasures, like something that beats eggs and peels carrots at the same time?

I think there was one that neutered kittens and made julienne fries....

Well, I was trying to make this a crowd-participation question but I got:
- a half baking sheet (replacement)
- a quarter baking sheet (nod to the realities of a small oven)
- a glass 2-cup measure (replacement)
- a large loaf pan (I have a little one that is just not useful)
- a set of pan protectors (look like giant felt asterisks, tired of using paper towels)

...and I ran $1.21 over.

[Jenise]

Quarter size baking sheets are very handy no matter your oven size, especially since you'll often be cooking for one now. I use them all the time! Everything else sounds very useful. You're okay on knives and stuff? That dirtbag didn't leave you totally defenseless?

[Jenise]

Yesterday I learned that once again a recipe for crepes does not make as many crepes as it claims it will. I'm like 0 for 34 on that particular topic no matter what recipe I use. I remember using Alton Brown's once, and this time it was Martha Stewart's (she said 12, I got 8--using a standard size crepe pan from Scanpan. This matters, as I need to make 85 for Friday.

Speaking of recipes for same I used to use my Joy of Cooking book for basic recipes like this. I gave it away recently, trying to reduce my collection (I bought it about 20 yrs ago at a garage sale and never consulted it for anything other than basic biscuit dough and stuff like that, things easily found on the internet). So I wondered which of the books I still DO have would such a recipe. Pepin did not. And Silver Palate did not. Which is why I ended up on the internet with Martha.

You're okay on knives and stuff? That dirtbag didn't leave you totally defenseless?

No, he didn't. He took back a large knife of his (that I basically never used) and the two paring knives. There was one other good-but-unused knife but I don't recall who got that one. I got all the rest, and the block.

So, part of my frequent shopping at Whisk included a new paring knife, a new shears (they broke some time ago), and a new steel (needed replacing).

I also got most of the kitchen utensils. He kept two spatulas, a ladle, a masher, a can opener, and the toaster oven. (I have another ladle, and I've replaced one spatula, the masher, and the opener.)

Speaking of recipes for same I used to use my Joy of Cooking book for basic recipes like this. I gave it away recently...

Oh, gosh, I would never 'lose' my JoC. It's not that the recipes are so chic, but it has everything in it and they all work.

That's a very practical list of stuff, Jeff. Pretty similar to what I'd go with, I think. A cutting board would have been on my list until a couple of days ago, when we finally got a decent one. The only good-sized one we had was actually the wooden shelf from a cheap kitchen cart that bit the dust years ago. That board also finally expired when it split in two a couple weeks ago, giving me the excuse I needed to get a new one. I'd put a ricer on the list as well, if I didn't have one.

I went off on a mushroom foraging class this past Sunday. We foraged in a state park along the Sonoma Coast and lucked into a perfect day, with blue skies and temperatures in the 50s. It was a lot of fun crawling around under huckleberry bushes in a beautiful, bug-free forest. After a couple of hours, we all gathered with our instructors who went through our baskets and ID'd everyhing so that we could throw out the undesirables. I learned all sorts of things, including the following:

- There is such a thing as a Beefsteak mushroom, which is very large and when cut into slices, looks just like slices of raw, marbled beef. Something of a Wagyu mushroom.

- Beefsteak mushrooms are among the very few wild mushrooms that can be eaten raw. Usually prepared along the lines of carpaccio, sliced thin with a little mild olive oil on top.

- Amanita muscaria mushrooms (the ones with the bright red caps with little dots on them) can be edible, psychotropic, or toxic, depending on how you use them. They do contain the toxins ibotenic acid and muscimol, but can be detoxed by boiling in a couple of changes of water. According to our instructor, they handle this well and are a bit like scallops in texture once you do this. I'm not tempted - this sounds like more work than it would be worth.

- There are many more types of edible wild mushroom than I would have guessed. (That's just including the ones that are considered edible and desirable vs. edible but not great.) On the other hand, based on what I've tasted so far (which isn;'t that much), I can understand why many of them aren't being sought after by chefs. Flavor can be very mild and easily compromised by adding much of anything to the pan. The Beefsteak, for instance, can barely take a little mild olive oil without killing what flavor it has. Furthermore, cooking it improves the texture but also reduces the flavor. I also came home with hedgehogs and violet chantarelles but haven't tried them yet. There's a class in the spring that's focused on morels and spring porcini. I hope to attend that one as those are mushrooms I know I like!

The Science Library at my college had a book called Poisonous Plants of North America. It was 8-1/2-by-11 inches and about two inches thick. Right after reading that book I got the heebie-jeebies about eating anything I found in the wild.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

I once spent an afternoon in a hospital emergency room where I'd taken a girl who had an accident on a lonely stretch of highway in Alaska; I was her first responder. On the back of the door was a chart of mushrooms, and while my charge was being xrayed I had plenty of time to notice how close in appearance the 'safe' ones were to the toxic ones. Clearly it was there to help ER patients answer the question, which one did you eat? I sensed they got a lot of those.

Three reasons I won't go mushroom hunting with you, Mike:

1) Famed mushroom hunter Don Sebastiani (of the winery family) died after mistakingly eating a Death Cap. I mean, he was an expert but still, he blew it. 2) Speaking of Death Caps, a whole porcini mushroom would likely kill me. I have no idea what else in the family is unsafe for me to eat, but my allergy doctor says it's likely something is and recommended that I not even risk supermarket mushrooms. 3) Once in Alaska, I watched friends dump an entire bag of freshly foraged mushrooms into a skillet, and a zillion little bugs scurried out of the gills. NO THANK YOU!

Oh believe me, I'm very familiar with the poisonous properties of death caps. Part of my job over the last thirty years was diagnosing poisonings in animals (and humans, on rare occasions) from these mushrooms. Our lab was one of the first to develop an analytical method sensitive enough to detect the amanitin toxins in urine at meaningful concentrations. We also validated a nifty little $10 unit (much like a Covid test) that you can use to determine whether your mushrooms contain these toxins or not. But the thing to remember is that wild mushrooms come in an astounding variety of shapes, sizes and colors. Yes, there are some edible ones that resemble the deadly amanita ones, but there are many, many more that don't resemble them in any way. No one is going to mistake an Amanita phalloides for a hedgehog mushroom or a porcini or a beefsteak. They're just wildly different. That said, I have little interest in anything other than porcini and morels just because I really like them, they're hard to find in markets around here, and they're wildly expensive when you do find them. For me, they're the goal of learning to forage.