A number of years ago I had the pleasure of spending two months camping out in the Amazon region while doing a tree inventory. About once a week we would be in some small settlement for a day and visit the local restaurant. I became fixated on a toasted, Panko-like manioc condiment (Grape-Nuts like) present on every table. It was all over Manaus also. It was meant to be sprinkled on everything (at least that is what I did). I became addicted, and, on and off, I have tried to find some in our local Tucson ethnic stores (3) and on the web without success. I can find plenty of manioc (cassava) flour, but a toasted crumb product eludes me. I suspect that I just don't know the proper Brazilian name for that particular product as I would find it listed on a web grocery site. Can anyone help, please? Thank you.

Fred

A year ago I lost 50 pounds, I'm 74 yrs old. No secret, just counted calories and did excerise. However, I really like to cook and enjoy a fancy bowel of salad maybe four times a week for dinner. The greens and shrimp or a few pork belly lardons are no great problem, but any dressing oil is 120 calories a tablespoon, and at 700 cals a day allowed, that was a problem.

I found a company, Walden Farms, that makes no calorie salad dressings, and, using their list of stabilizers, set out to make the dressings I like, no-calorie. Gel suppliers for the commercial market, on the web, sell each of the usual stabilizers in "pound" quantities, and I was disappointed until I stumbled on TIC Gels. They sell small containers of various mixes under snappy names and so you can try a few till finding what seems to suit you, for a reasonable initial investment. I tried several and their #702 "Saladizer" is what I now use; about one teaspoon in an initial two cups of water plus whatever additives used, makes a pourable dressing. My final mixes, done in a blender, with a tablespoon of olive oil to absorb the oil soluble components (such as powered cheeses), usually comes to about 10-15 cals/T; not 120. Also, you need a preservative and that seems to be sodium benzoate (1tsp/2C water) and needs a low pH to be effective so I add a dash of vinegar or lemon juice. I found a small quantity of sodium benzoate available at, of all places, SoapGoods.com.

Over the years I also have grown pounds and pounds of basil for making pesto, and now use water rather than olive oil plus the same gel mix. The pesto certainly doesn't have the "oil look or feel," but dressed on hot pasta you really can't tell the difference. And the pesto, with pine nuts, comes in at 10 Cal/T rather than 140.

All of this might seem trite and small, but if you are really trying to lose weight, and are honest about counting calories, hopefully it might help. Substituting for oil is not all that easy.

My wife is allergic to ginger. I have cooked Asian food for 40 years and can handle other substitutions due to other allergies, but ginger has me stumped. I just leave it out, but the final flavor is simply missing that punch. Can you help? Maybe there is no substitute and galangal is a ginger so that doesn't work. Thanks for the time.

Anyone who has a pot or pan of simmering liquid, and turned off the heat (gas), must have noticed the instant "burst" of steam coming from the liquid surface. I mean instant. There is no way that any change in heat transfer from the source, to the liquid surface, could be involved in that instant.

I understand all the physics of boiling, atmospheric pressure, heat transfer, and the energy of the molecular movement of water molecules. But, I still don't get the "puff" of steam which happens when the energy source is removed. And, that elevated emission continues for some period of time.

My latest sighting just occurred when finishing a reduction of half and half, a head of garlic, and two tins of anchovies for a northern Italian bugna couda dip. Thanks for the time.

Various blogs, trying to provide a recipe for Momofuku ramen broth, seem to have some meaningful variations from the TV noodles show on Mind of a Chef with David Chang. The show adds kombu, mushrooms, meat, and vegetables in a certain sequence and for certain timings which, sort of, follow how I have always made stock (50 years). Basically, you cook the meat and vegetable components for a long time and throw them away because there is no flavor remaining as all flavor is now in the stock. But, on various blogs (I know, I know, not even close to experts), we see variations which are, apparently, quotes from the Momofuku cookbook which deviate greatly from the TV show. Cook the chicken for an hour and save the meat? Put the vegetables in for only an hour at the end? The show, with presumably footage from the restaurant, says cook it all (after the kombu and mushrooms) for 12 hrs plus and, I guess, throw meat and veg out....which seems like the correct way to make a stock.

So, if you have the cookbook, and have saved the TV show, any ideas on these two diversions on Momofuku ramen broth?

For your enjoyment, I offer the following mixture.  We have worked on and off in southern India since the early '80s, and have always appreciated the use of local black pepper in southern Indian cooking.  A bit different, try this instead of your table pepper.

3:1:1 black pepper, Szechwan pepper corns, Grains of Paradise....dry toast and grind. We really enjoy this mix on a piece of seared tuna or on a light pasta.

Fred and Melinda Rickson
Tucson

Interesting that a February 22nd piece in the Miami Herald, on the South Beach Wine & Food Festival lists Food Network folks such as Flay, Deen, Ray, Laurentiis, etc. as personalities, while other names we recognize such as Ducasse, Trotter, English, Matsuhisa, etc. are listed as chefs. Elaine Walker in the Herald sure got that one right.

Maybe it has been said many times before, but you do not need to add salt to pasta cooking water. It does nothing to help in the cooking. I bring this up after watching cooking show after cooking show grab a paw full of salt (especially the "blond" chef of the Cooking Network) and add it to the water (or anything else in sight of the stove). I had two grandparents who emigrated from Italy who salted everything. So, after 60 years of salt 'cause my grandparents couldn't be wrong!, right? my doctor said knock off the salt, you don't need it.

Look, if you make a good sauce, you do not need the salting "at every layer of flavor" admonition offered by everyone on TV. You have salt on the table....your guests can use it. Adding salt at every addition to the pot (hear me, Lidia Bastianich?) is really a sign of ignorance. It doesn't work that way because you STIR THE POT so there is no "layering" in the mix. Additionally, a braise of meat does not need salt and pepper because you will adjust the seasonings at the end of evaporation (cooking) period anyhow, so the initial browning is just browning....not an important time for salt addition.

OK, enough, sorry. You get it, think salt versus cooking vs. health and offer salt at the table, not in the cooking process.

Fred Rickson

Since I started last week’s downer look at the No Reservations show (the clip extravaganza), I would like to note that the NY show was great. The food and its preparation was forefront with a minimum of Tony side facial shots. All hail and long live the food.

Oh, @ gingerwhatever, I hope this meets your language standards….I apologize for forgetting my long ago Latin classes.

heat. After traveling and cooking Asian for 40 years I can tell 99% of the Talk folks who ask “How?” that the answer is more heat. About 30 years ago I sent home (from Kuala Lumpur) a 15 kg. gas propane ring and my cooking improved 100%. Then 10 years ago I bought a free standing Viking, three ring, natural gas burner ($1500. bucks) and thing just got easier and better. Think about it…..when was the last time you saw a real Asian chef cooking on an electric hot plate or even a typical gas range. No, they cook on a rimmed hole with what looks like a dozen blow torches facing upward. Heat equals quickness. You stand there and keep the food moving for just a bit of time, while the Food Network chefs (sic) put everything in a wok and go off to do something else. You never see an Asian chef leave the wok after adding something. Get yourself some heat and enjoy.

was a real ego trip, and bad show, for Bourdain.

Over and over a recipe ends with “remove the bay leaves and serve.” Sorry, but using whole bay leaves, dry or fresh, doesn’t make sense. Put a few dried bay leaves into the spice grinder and treat them like the rest of your dried additions. Same with fresh bay or give them a nice fine chop. Why do folks grind everything from peppercorns, to sumac, to cardamom, to pandan, but use bay leaves whole. I don’t get it, and I'll bet you release more flavor from the ground/cut form..

I am about finished traveling, but for the past 50 yrs I have traveled in Asia and the New World. I have always sought out book shops and looked for the really local tomes put out by churches, civic groups, or women’s groups. They usually run about a buck or so. You might have to work on translations for local items (it’s a nice introduction for talking with the locals), but you’ll remember where you purchased each one and that can be fun it itself let alone cooking from really authentic recipes. And, it gives you a meaningful project for those empty moments on a trip. Start young, as my earliest is from Mexico in 1958.

A portion of my career consisted of taking and publishing photographs. Unless you really wanted to highlight a portion of a photo, such as one person in a crowd, your complete subject matter was in focus. Now, I see a plate of spaghetti photographed with maybe the middle strand on the plate in focus, and everything in front or behind, fuzzy. You would have been laughed out of the club had you tried to submit something like that for publication just a few years ago.

An out-of-focus photo means that the image depth of field was inadequate for the depth of the subject. This depth, in “close-up work,” is controlled by how small your lens is stopped (closed) down, and the amount of light you bring to bear on the subject. So, with film, quality of equipment, including the light source, was a big consideration if you wanted a complete plate of food in focus when taken at maybe a 45 degree angle.

So, is the out-of-focus in today’s food photography the result of “coolness,” something restrictive in digital equipment, or just an example of a cheap system used in film photography? Thanks.

Maybe it’s just my weak memory, but most of the recipes from this source have enough mistakes to engender questions in the “comments” column. Maybe whoever writes the web site needs an Editor or just someone who can proof the articles.

We need your recommendation for a Panini press. Just the two of us so one large or two small sandwiches at a time is all we need. I ask because there is a plethora of models out there and a seemingly equal number of considerations....lid weight, lid angle, equal heating on both sides, etc. Price is not a consideration. Thank you for the time.

It seems official that he will have a hit. The promos indicate that Central Casting has found Emeril’s old audience and so there will be wild applause, cheering, and weeping at the addition of salt and pepper to a dish. Well, at least no Tivo space will be used up on this new show.