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I made the cold broccoli soup with a dollop of curried cream from Dorie Greenspan's "Around My French Table" for supper last night. While you have to cook broccoli and a little zucchini in chicken broth until soft, it takes very little time and doesn't heat up the kitchen much. The soup is fresh and beautifully green. The cream whipped with curry powder makes the whole dish come together.

@ KrizzRule: Yes, in fact, her recipe says 217, and I took it higher, to soft ball stage. It's definitely gooey-er than I thought it should be.

Made this last night with genoa salami, and didn't need skewers, perhaps because I rolled it very tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerated for about 6 hours before slicing and grilling. Am interested in experimenting with other meats (e.g., proscuitto) and cheeses (fresh mozzarella), and various herbs....

I made a similar dish several weeks back using corn, crookneck squash, and haricots vert from the garden. Tossed a little pesto with the veg, and put scallops around them.

The late, lamented Gourmet had a fine watermelon margarita recipe in its 60th anniversary issue that was less complicated--no juicing of watermelon cubes, no watermelon liqueur, just seeded, frozen watermelon cubes with the usual suspects in a blender for a frozen delight!

And the best Thai place I've found: Thai Siam in rural Nelson Co., VA. Calvin Trillin alluded to it, though not by name, in his New Yorker piece on David Chang.

@ DM Kavanaugh: A recipe for Easter Egg Bread (Pane di Pasqua) is included in Gina DePalma's cookbook Dolce Italiano. Hers has orange zest rather than lemon, but does include the colored eggs. With 1/2 c. of sugar, it would seem to be too sweet for a dinner bread. (P.S. This is a great cookbook for sweets!)

The original Jim Lahey version bakes for 30 minutes, lid on, then another 15-20 min. with it off. Why the difference in baking times, I wonder?

Is it a bad thing to move the sweating phase along by initially covering the pan for a few minutes? Of course, then I remove the lid and proceed with low and slow.

The chestnut torte is fantastic! I made it for the first time about a month ago using vacuum-packed chestnuts, which I ran through the food mill. I was unsure about the puree-ing step, thinking that the food processor would yield little chunks rather than a puree. But the food mill yielded a kind of light and puffy result--a cross between flour and a puree--that worked just fine.

I use Julia Child's recipe from The Way to Cook. Very nice buns ;-)

I think the fix was in. Given the premise, how could the White House Chef lose, even if she was paired w/ Bobby Flay?

Is there any problem--food safety-wise--with baking at such a low temperature over such a long period?