I'm in the market for an electric kettle after mine died suddenly on a gas stove last week.

Got a favorite to recommend? Or one to avoid?

Does anyone have one of these? What do you think? Are they any good?

I wandered in to a second hand shop on my way to see a client today and saw a Kitchenaid stand mixer that had not yet been priced. I waited around anxiously until the man who was in charge of getting everything ready to sell looked up and saw me. 50 bucks, he said.

OK, I replied casually, while doing an invisible happy dance.

It's a KSM90, has the whisk and paddle attachments, and appears to work perfectly. It was obviously well loved, since it had some batter still sticking to it.

How shall I break it in?

my local grocery in hudson heights started carrying omur turkish yogurt. it is the BEST yogurt i have ever eaten, including the yogurt i ate in europe. i'm completely hooked on it, and so naturally they stopped carrying it. anyone else know where to find it?

everything i've been eating the past few days has tasted just disgusting, and i have a bitter, metallic taste in my mouth that no amount toothpaste or altoids will vanquish. so i google "all of my food tastes bitter" and i get a whole screen full of links to blogs complaining about the aftermath of eating trader joe's pine nuts. then i remembered that a few days ago, i made roasted asparagus and topped them with tj's pine nuts. apparently the effect can last for days or weeks. the kind grown in italy don't do this, but according to what i've read, the ones from asia are notorious for leaving the mouth coated with a bitter oil that takes forever to go away.

does anyone else have this problem?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/nyregion/16pizza.html

any thai cooks out there? which fish sauce is the best one?

i went to the salon where dorie is selling her cookies {mizu on park between 59th and 60th}. she was there in person! i wish i had thought to bring my camera {i got a pic on my cell phone}.

her cookies are wonderful, and it was very nice to meet her, so if you're in the neighborhood, you should definitely make it a point to stop in!

well, i try not to eat in the subway, but i had a super busy day and was starving to death and couldn't stand it another minute. so i pulled out the little plastic bag of food i had prepared that morning: two hard boiled eggs, two tangerines, and a bag of cut up carrots and peppers. as soon as i had taken it out of my backpack, the man sitting across from me asked me in an extremely loud voice for one of my tangerines. so i gave it to him. as soon as he finished eating it, he said, HEY MISSY! MISSY! CAN PUHLEEZE HAVE SOME OF YOUR CARROTS??? so i handed him the bag. i got off the train before he could ask for anything else and waited for the next one.

he didn't look at all like a homeless person, by the way. he was very neatly dressed and groomed.

anyone know where to buy ready to eat lupini beans in manhattan?

i went to Babycakes Bakery this afternoon and had a gluten free, nut free, refined sugar free, vegan cupcake. it was so delicious i couldn't believe it! now i'm interested in learning more about vegan baking. anyone else in NYC tried it?

i recently read a review of a memoir about living on a farm in oakland california. now i can't remember the author or what it's called. can someone provide the title? thanks!

I'm enjoying the worst foodie gift thread, so I thought i would flip the coin and ask if anyone has received any wonderful food related gifts.

I have two: one of my friends, who is a great cook, gave me my first microplane grater.

Her sister, also a great cook, gave me a Mercedes-Benz of a vegetable peeler and a whole stash of great stuff from Penzey's. She knows I love to bake, so she got me everything a baker loves, like vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, chocolate, etc.

i just bought my first bottle. haven't opened it yet. what do you like to do with yours?

i got some szechuan peppercorns from penzey's and would really appreciate some suggestions for cooking with them, preferably vegetarian. thanks!

is anyone interested in joining a writers' group with an emphasis on food writing? I live in upper manhattan and would like to start a small group consisting of maybe four to six people that meets on a regular basis. the format would consist of bringing current pieces to meetings for reading and critiquing.

i just got home from seeing julie/julia and wanted to say that i absolutely loved it. meryl streep positively channeled julia child, but she was so funny that the audience laughed and laughed the whole time she was onscreen. and the food porn! yow! it was exceedlingly entertaining. i can't recommend it highly enough. but i couldn't find ed! where were you? which scene were you in?

nice article about the future of the slice:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/200003

i bought some fava beans at fairway this afternoon. this evening i peeled them, poached them in shallots, garlic, olive oil, thyme, salt, pepper, and bay until they were tender, and then sat down to eat them. they were DISGUSTING. bitter as ##$%!!!

what did i do wrong?

it's so adorable!

http://thepioneerwoman.com/confessions

So a few weeks ago I tried making the spelt crackers (water, spelt flour, salt, sesame seeds) from the videos at the New York Times. A disaster.

This time, as dbcurrie suggested, I used a recipe with yeast. I made a lavosh recipe by Diana Kennedy, from her book Nothing Fancy, using all purpose flour, kamut flour, water, salt, yeast, and canola oil. They were fantastic! Easy, too. When it came time to roll them out, I coated them in sesame and nigella seeds and used that instead of flour, which had the added bonus of making them stick really well. I served them with cheese during the salad course at Sunday lunch, and they were a serious hit.

They looked and tasted just like the artisanal flatbreads that sell for ten bucks at Citarella, but probably cost about two bucks to make. Next time I'll swap out the canola and use extra virgin olive oil.

i canNOT believe what i just did. here's the scenario: i'm starving, and in the middle of a dozen projects at home. i'd decided to try the bittman "vegan and whole grain until 6pm" approach to eating, so after looking in the fridge for an appropriate snack, i decided on popcorn. i put some olive oil and a handful of popcorn in the pan, turned on the burner, and WALKED AWAY to attend to another task.

by the time i remembered what i had done, the popcorn was flying all over! plus i couldn't figure out what i had done with the lid, so i was running around looking for it while hot flying missiles continued to bomb me and my entire kitchen. they're on top of the refrigerator and on every windowsill. guess i'll add cleaning the kitchen to the list of tasks to be accomplished this afternoon.

this is not an isolated incidence: one of my friends very kindly bought me an electric kettle {which promptly shuts itself off when it boils} after she observed me forgetting to make tea after heating up the water and burning my all clad pot more than once.

who else is prone to being absent minded in the kitchen?

i've been enjoying the tiny kitchen videos at the nytimes website, and decided to try the cracker recipe. salt, flour, water, and seeds, right? how hard could it be?

very hard, as it turned out. rock hard. and tasteless, despite the fact that i used exactly the same method and recipe and even brand of ingredients.

i'm still game, though, considering that crackers are expensive and i can go through quite a lot of them.

anyone have a good tried and true recipe? preferably one that has at least some whole grains {i have spelt and kamut flour on hand} and a minimum of fat.

i bought some plantain flour at a west indian market in brooklyn, mostly out of curiosity. this evening i mixed it with milk and cooked it on the stove for a few minutes. it got really thick, and i added some vanilla and sugar for an impromptu pudding. it was sensational! anyone ever cooked with it? what else can you do with it?

i saw some quinces from california at the whole foods at time warner today.

i canNOT believe what i just did. here's the scenario: i'm starving, and in the middle of a dozen projects at home. i'd decided to try the bittman "vegan and whole grain until 6pm" approach to eating, so after looking... More