Shana Tova - Happy New Jewish Year 5767

On 9/22/06 11:32 AM, "Lucille" wrote:


"ellice" wrote in message
...
On 9/22/06 10:20 AM, "anne" wrote:

Mirjam Bruck-Cohen said

To all of you who celebrate our New year , and To every other Person who
also can always use some good wishes

Shana Tova =Happy new Jewish Year 5767

Thank you for the kind wishes. May you and your loved ones experience a
happy
and healthy New Year.

As a teenager, I hated peeling what seemed like many bags of carrots and
sweet
potatoes for tsimmes. My attempts don't come close to my mother's sigh

Ah, I remember those days. In preparation for this weekend, I finally
splurged on a new, large, Cuisinart. My old 7 cup one is packed
somewhere,
and y'know - it's so much easier with the food processor (not the peeling,
but the grating, shredding, chopping).

I started doing the cooking with my grandmother when I was pretty young -
so
poor mom had the reverse problem as we got older - the request for me to
cook. But, she was a pretty good cook, didn't really like doing it so was
happy for me to go at it.

I'm excited that I was able to order Taglaich from Wegmans. I was toying
with the idea of making one - growing up in NY & Miami, every bakery had
their own special one. For the rest of you - it's a mounded thing of
little
kind of crunchy balls coated with honey, and some have nuts, candied
cherries in the mound. A wondrous, gooey treat for the New Year.

Have a happy,
ellice

Do you actually have a recipe for taglaich? I personally never liked it,
too sweet, but I would love to surprise my friends by making it.

My grandmother was useless when it came to getting recipes from her and her
standard answer was you put in a little of this, some of that, etc. When I
asked how much was a little, the answer generally was "Till it looks right."
Not much help for the recipe impaired like me. My mother didn't like it, so
I never found out the how.

Lucille

Yes - I do. But, I've never made it. I'll look for it, and send it in a
bit. I'm just about to run out to Costco - to buy folding chairs. And then
stop at either Linens & Things or Bed Bath Beyond, and use a coupon to get a
tablecloth - found the pads, but don't think I have the huge size (seats
12-16) in an accessible place.

I'll send the recipe later today.

Ellice

Lucille wrote:

My grandmother was useless when it came to getting recipes from her
and her standard answer was you put in a little of this, some of
that, etc. When I asked how much was a little, the answer generally
was "Till it looks right."



Because that's how they learned to cook in the Old Country where many
people couldn't read a printed recipe.

We put together a cookbook as a club fundraiser, and almost every one of
the recipes came back with such useful quantities as "add flour till it
feels right". The next weekend, we kids were dispatched to grannies'
houses with measuring cups/spoons, and when granny said "add a handful
of", she had to dump it into the measuring cup instead of the mixing
bowl, so that we could get an approximate quantity.

Quite frankly, the only recipes where precision is necessary are those
for certain baked goodies. Some of the stuff won't turn out right if
you get the proportions wrong, or substitute margarine for butter, or
substitute saccharine for sugar....


--

Karen C - California
www.CFSfacts.org where we give you the facts and dispel the myths
September is National Pain Awareness Month

Finished 9/20/06 -- baby bib

WIP: baby and housewarming gifts, July birthstone, Flowers of
Hawaii (Jeanette Crews) for ME!!!
Retrieved from UFO pile: Marbek's Snow Angel
LTR: Fireman's Prayer (#2), Amid Amish Life, Angel of Autumn,
Calif Sampler, Holiday Snowglobe

Editor/Proofreader www.KarenMCampbell.com
Design page http://www.KarenMCampbell.com/designs.html

"ellice" wrote in message
...
On 9/22/06 11:32 AM, "Lucille" wrote:


"ellice" wrote in message
...
On 9/22/06 10:20 AM, "anne" wrote:

Mirjam Bruck-Cohen said

To all of you who celebrate our New year , and To every other Person
who
also can always use some good wishes

Shana Tova =Happy new Jewish Year 5767

Thank you for the kind wishes. May you and your loved ones experience a
happy
and healthy New Year.

As a teenager, I hated peeling what seemed like many bags of carrots
and
sweet
potatoes for tsimmes. My attempts don't come close to my mother's
sigh

Ah, I remember those days. In preparation for this weekend, I finally
splurged on a new, large, Cuisinart. My old 7 cup one is packed
somewhere,
and y'know - it's so much easier with the food processor (not the
peeling,
but the grating, shredding, chopping).

I started doing the cooking with my grandmother when I was pretty
young -
so
poor mom had the reverse problem as we got older - the request for me to
cook. But, she was a pretty good cook, didn't really like doing it so
was
happy for me to go at it.

I'm excited that I was able to order Taglaich from Wegmans. I was
toying
with the idea of making one - growing up in NY & Miami, every bakery
had
their own special one. For the rest of you - it's a mounded thing of
little
kind of crunchy balls coated with honey, and some have nuts, candied
cherries in the mound. A wondrous, gooey treat for the New Year.

Have a happy,
ellice

Do you actually have a recipe for taglaich? I personally never liked it,
too sweet, but I would love to surprise my friends by making it.

My grandmother was useless when it came to getting recipes from her and
her
standard answer was you put in a little of this, some of that, etc. When
I
asked how much was a little, the answer generally was "Till it looks
right."
Not much help for the recipe impaired like me. My mother didn't like it,
so
I never found out the how.

Lucille

Yes - I do. But, I've never made it. I'll look for it, and send it in a
bit. I'm just about to run out to Costco - to buy folding chairs. And
then
stop at either Linens & Things or Bed Bath Beyond, and use a coupon to get
a
tablecloth - found the pads, but don't think I have the huge size (seats
12-16) in an accessible place.

I'll send the recipe later today.

Ellice

Thanks. No need to hurry. I'm going to dinner tonight at a friend's house
and won't have time to fuss with it till next week, if at all.

Have a happy.

Lucille

On 9/22/06 1:31 PM, "Karen C - California" wrote:

Lucille wrote:

My grandmother was useless when it came to getting recipes from her
and her standard answer was you put in a little of this, some of
that, etc. When I asked how much was a little, the answer generally
was "Till it looks right."



Because that's how they learned to cook in the Old Country where many
people couldn't read a printed recipe.

We put together a cookbook as a club fundraiser, and almost every one of
the recipes came back with such useful quantities as "add flour till it
feels right". The next weekend, we kids were dispatched to grannies'
houses with measuring cups/spoons, and when granny said "add a handful
of", she had to dump it into the measuring cup instead of the mixing
bowl, so that we could get an approximate quantity.

That's nice that you did that.

Quite frankly, the only recipes where precision is necessary are those
for certain baked goodies. Some of the stuff won't turn out right if
you get the proportions wrong, or substitute margarine for butter, or
substitute saccharine for sugar....

Actually, most baked goods require precision. Except I guess chocolate chip
cookies - and I know people that would argue that point. Especially
pastries. Differences in amounts often have to do with size of eggs, liquid
proportions, humidity, how creamy is the butter, etc. Pastry chefs are like
chemists with food. Depends on what you cook - I have some "food" recipes
that still require some precision - albeit not to the extent that baking
does.

Not everyone is an intuitive cook. If you're lucky, then you get to feel,
smell, see what the not-writing it down, or "just know how it should be"
cooks are doing. So, then you can appreciate what the feel will be. Once
you know with different things - then it's not such a big step to modifying
a recipe, and having some prediction of what will happen. Even for
something as simple for me as making matzoh balls - I KNOW what the batter
should feel like with eggs, meal, seasoning, and again what it should be
like when the liquid is added. I have a basic recipe - it works fine. But
for them to be really great - the proportions vary - as some eggs are
bigger, sometimes the matzoh meal absorbs a little more, etc.

If no one has really told you that their dough requires chilling before
rolling, or some similar detail - a simple thing can come out kind of
disappointing.

I'm the only one in my family who can make some interesting kind of potato
dumpling like thing my grandmother made. My father used to make them as
well - at some point he had my nana write the recipe. But, the reason mine
come out like hers - all those days spent helping her, and she wanted to be
sure that I knew what the dough felt like at different times .
Consequently, I have my grandmother's cookbook - which has a lot of actual
measurements for baking (she was a fabulous baker), and not so much for
cooking things.

ellice

"ellice" wrote in message
...
On 9/22/06 1:31 PM, "Karen C - California" wrote:

Lucille wrote:

My grandmother was useless when it came to getting recipes from her
and her standard answer was you put in a little of this, some of
that, etc. When I asked how much was a little, the answer generally
was "Till it looks right."



Because that's how they learned to cook in the Old Country where many
people couldn't read a printed recipe.

We put together a cookbook as a club fundraiser, and almost every one of
the recipes came back with such useful quantities as "add flour till it
feels right". The next weekend, we kids were dispatched to grannies'
houses with measuring cups/spoons, and when granny said "add a handful
of", she had to dump it into the measuring cup instead of the mixing
bowl, so that we could get an approximate quantity.

That's nice that you did that.

Quite frankly, the only recipes where precision is necessary are those
for certain baked goodies. Some of the stuff won't turn out right if
you get the proportions wrong, or substitute margarine for butter, or
substitute saccharine for sugar....

Actually, most baked goods require precision. Except I guess chocolate
chip
cookies - and I know people that would argue that point. Especially
pastries. Differences in amounts often have to do with size of eggs,
liquid
proportions, humidity, how creamy is the butter, etc. Pastry chefs are
like
chemists with food. Depends on what you cook - I have some "food" recipes
that still require some precision - albeit not to the extent that baking
does.

Not everyone is an intuitive cook. If you're lucky, then you get to feel,
smell, see what the not-writing it down, or "just know how it should be"
cooks are doing. So, then you can appreciate what the feel will be. Once
you know with different things - then it's not such a big step to
modifying
a recipe, and having some prediction of what will happen. Even for
something as simple for me as making matzoh balls - I KNOW what the batter
should feel like with eggs, meal, seasoning, and again what it should be
like when the liquid is added. I have a basic recipe - it works fine.
But
for them to be really great - the proportions vary - as some eggs are
bigger, sometimes the matzoh meal absorbs a little more, etc.

If no one has really told you that their dough requires chilling before
rolling, or some similar detail - a simple thing can come out kind of
disappointing.

I'm the only one in my family who can make some interesting kind of potato
dumpling like thing my grandmother made. My father used to make them as
well - at some point he had my nana write the recipe. But, the reason
mine
come out like hers - all those days spent helping her, and she wanted to
be
sure that I knew what the dough felt like at different times .
Consequently, I have my grandmother's cookbook - which has a lot of actual
measurements for baking (she was a fabulous baker), and not so much for
cooking things.

ellice

My grandmother was a semi-professional baker and used to bake challahs and
strudel for neighborhood bakeries when they needed something really special.
She also worked in a small hotel in the Catskills several summers. But she
didn't read or write, and since I had to go to school and she had a pushcart
to take care of during the day, I couldn't stay with her for the length of
time necessary to watch her and write the recipes down, and most of them
were lost. By the time I was old enough and interested enough to care about
those things, she was gone.

Just as an interesting note, she rolled her strudel dough on a clean white
table cloth right on the kitchen table. Even though she couldn't read a
word, she would take a page from her neighbor's newspaper and hold it under
the dough when it was rolled thin enough to please her eye. If she could
see the individual letters through the dough, she deemed it ready to be
filled and rolled. The end result was mouth watering.

As far as precise measurements, my father-in-law was a bread baker. He made
possibly the best rye bread in Brooklyn. When I asked for that recipe, he
did give it to me, but he correctly stated it would never be as good in a
home oven as it was in the bakery oven. He also remarked many times that
baking bread like that wasn't ever doable with a written recipe. The end
result was affected by the humidity, the temperature and the general weather
conditions and the proportions had to be changed daily. That was why he
despised packaged rye bread and said they knew only the exact proportion in
their written recipe and it simply didn't work. I guess you could call him
a kosher breadbaker snob.

Lucille

ellice wrote:


Actually, most baked goods require precision. Except I guess chocolate chip
cookies - and I know people that would argue that point.



Well, there's precision to get an edible result and precision to get
exactly the same result as Grandma.

One of my former co-workers had a boyfriend who loved to cook (which was
good, because she barely knew how). He was a teacher, and on some
school holiday when we had to work and he didn't, he went out first
thing in the morning for supplies and a dozen Mrs. Fields cookies. Many
batches later, he had a pretty close clone of Mrs. Fields. The only
thing she could remember was that he said it used twice as much butter
as the normal recipe off the chip bag.

I have regularly had people beg for my brownie recipe and refuse to
believe that it's the 99c Safeway house brand mix. They're right, it
*is* moister than when they make it, because I add more water than the
box says -- I have the experience to know that I can do that, and to
know how much is too much. An extra quarter-cup is one thing, an extra
gallon is quite another.


--

Karen C - California
www.CFSfacts.org where we give you the facts and dispel the myths
September is National Pain Awareness Month

Finished 9/20/06 -- baby bib

WIP: baby and housewarming gifts, July birthstone, Flowers of
Hawaii (Jeanette Crews) for ME!!!
Retrieved from UFO pile: Marbek's Snow Angel
LTR: Fireman's Prayer (#2), Amid Amish Life, Angel of Autumn,
Calif Sampler, Holiday Snowglobe

Editor/Proofreader www.KarenMCampbell.com
Design page http://www.KarenMCampbell.com/designs.html

Lucille wrote:
The end
result was affected by the humidity, the temperature and the general weather
conditions and the proportions had to be changed daily. That was why he
despised packaged rye bread and said they knew only the exact proportion in
their written recipe and it simply didn't work. I guess you could call him
a kosher breadbaker snob.


I heard the same thing from the professional bakers in my family, which
is why I was trained that recipes are only a guide, and you have to know
whether the weather required adding more or less of something.

There was one thing that my grandfather flat-out refused to make on a
rainy day because it just wouldn't come out right. I can't remember
what it was, but since I live in ever-sunny California, I don't NEED to
remember.




--

Karen C - California
www.CFSfacts.org where we give you the facts and dispel the myths
September is National Pain Awareness Month

Finished 9/20/06 -- baby bib

WIP: baby and housewarming gifts, July birthstone, Flowers of
Hawaii (Jeanette Crews) for ME!!!
Retrieved from UFO pile: Marbek's Snow Angel
LTR: Fireman's Prayer (#2), Amid Amish Life, Angel of Autumn,
Calif Sampler, Holiday Snowglobe

Editor/Proofreader www.KarenMCampbell.com
Design page http://www.KarenMCampbell.com/designs.html

Lucille wrote:
As far as precise measurements, my father-in-law was a bread baker. He made
possibly the best rye bread in Brooklyn. When I asked for that recipe, he
did give it to me, but he correctly stated it would never be as good in a
home oven as it was in the bakery oven. He also remarked many times that
baking bread like that wasn't ever doable with a written recipe. The end
result was affected by the humidity, the temperature and the general weather
conditions and the proportions had to be changed daily. That was why he
despised packaged rye bread and said they knew only the exact proportion in
their written recipe and it simply didn't work. I guess you could call him
a kosher breadbaker snob.

He was right. My grandmother spent her life in Iowa and Missouri and
baked raised breads and rolls regularly for family, church, friend, etc.
She said never attempt bread on a day when the weather is rapidly
changing (common in those states) because it won't turn out right no
matter what you do. If the air pressure, temperature and humidity stay
reasonably constant all day, you can go by the feel and appearance of
the dough to get it right. She also didn't trust the oven dial and kept
two thermometers inside the oven to make certain it heated evenly.
While she could read and write, her bread recipes were all in her head.
She's been gone for over 20 years now; the closest any of us have
found to her dinner rolls is a recipe for "Fly-Off-The-Plate" rolls in
the Kitchen Klatter cookbook. Since she did gather (and frequently
modify) recipes from their radio show, that was possibly her source.

--
Brenda
Help Project Gutenberg--become a Distributed Proofreader
http://www.pgdp.net/

Mirjam Bruck-Cohen wrote:
To all of you who celebrate our New year , and To every other Person who
also can always use some good wishes

Shana Tova =Happy new Jewish Year 5767

mirjam

Haifa the Beautiful City of Israel.

www.fibersiv.israel.net

And Happy New Year to you and everyone else, as well. I love the stuff
I learn on this newsgroup! If I have any Jewish friends (besides the
virtual type), I don't know it, so had no idea when the New Year
started.
Tegan

Karen C - California wrote:
I have regularly had people beg for my brownie recipe and refuse to
believe that it's the 99c Safeway house brand mix. They're right, it
*is* moister than when they make it, because I add more water than the
box says -- I have the experience to know that I can do that, and to
know how much is too much. An extra quarter-cup is one thing, an extra
gallon is quite another.

Ah, but compensating for the extra gallon can lead to something even
better than planned. My cousin and I accidentally added twice as much
milk as called for to a no-bake cheesecake mix. We compensated by
adding instant lemon pudding and ended up with something much better
than the original.

--
Brenda
Help Project Gutenberg--become a Distributed Proofreader
http://www.pgdp.net/