[Mike Nolan]

'Original Hawaiian Chocolate' was the place my son visited, in Kona.

They're growing criollo cacao, which many (but not all) chocolate experts consider the highest grade, only about 3% of the worldwide cacao crop is criollo.

Criollo has some interesting flavor notes in it. I found it a bit gritty on the tongue, which is a processing choice. Personally, I like my chocolate smoother.

At chocolate school we tasted chocolates made from all 3 types of beans (the ruby chocolate products hadn't been announced yet.) Most chocolates are blended from more than one type of bean, but single-source chocolates are a growing trend.

[Mike Nolan]

Not really, it looks like a custard pie with raisins, which is essentially what it is.

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[Mike Nolan]

Is there no cable operator? Satellite dishes should still work, or you could go the streaming services route assuming you've got enough Internet bandwidth for it, though IMHO that's starting to be as expensive as the other options.

It cracks me up that one of the streaming services advertises a lot on the Game Show Network, but that's not one of the channels they provide.

Aside from sports, the channels we watch the most are the Game Show Network and some of the channels showing reruns of old syndicated shows. Project Runway is probably the only series in current production that we watch, and it isn't on one of the major networks. I used to watch the Food Network a lot, but there's not much cooking information there any more. I've lost interest in the cooking competition shows, though I will occasionally watch Chopped, mainly to see what weird ingredients they make them use. (A few Chopped episodes have led to quiz questions here.)

[Mike Nolan]

I made the sour cream raisin pie filling, it is basically just a pastry cream with some raisins and sour cream added. But maybe it's what my wife is looking for in a sour cream and raisin pie.

[Mike Nolan]

Onion soup again tonight.

[Mike Nolan]

I've had the Evo for at least two years, starting with canola oil, then switching to corn oil and now to a canola/soybean blend. It hasn't clogged once.

The other sprayers I've had were like you described.

[Mike Nolan]

I blind baked a 9 inch pie shell and a 4 1/2 inch tart shell today. I'll fill them with a sour cream raisin pie filling from a recipe my wife found online. It is different from the others I've tried in that it has no spices, not even cinnamon, just some vanilla, and it doesn't call for topping the pie with meringue.

[Mike Nolan]

I tried a number of spray misters for oil, the Evo mister has worked well for me for several years. It comes in two sizes, I think the smaller one makes more sense. I think they're intended for use as oil and vinegar salad spray sets, but I put oil (currently a blend of canola and soybean oils) in one and water in the other, because that's what I use the most when cooking.

I use the fan spray setting, it does a good job covering the entire width of a loaf.

I also keep a spray bottle of bleach solution handy for sanitizing the sink and countertops, but those sprayers seem to wear out in a year or two.

As I gear up for trying some of the fermentation recipes in the Noma book, I've now got a spray bottle with 60% grain alcohol in it. They recommend that for sanitizing large surfaces or ones that you can't sanitize in a dishwasher, like a 5 gallon crock.

[Mike Nolan]

When we were in Hawaii my son found a chocolate company on the big island that is growing their own cacao plants. I've had a number of single-bean chocolates, this one had some interesting notes to it. It was kind of pricey, but I guess they're going for the tourist trade.

Stover (in western PA) has 11 pound bags of Callebaut dark chocolate for $43.99, plus shipping, though I usually buy the 2.5 kg bags, currently $22.37. I've not found a local suppliers (as far as Des Moines or Kansas City) whose prices come close to that.

[Mike Nolan]

If you're old enough to remember wringer washers, years ago I put some celery through one. Not much came out the other end.

[Mike Nolan]

I made some pie dough today but probably won't get any of it rolled out until tomorrow, then I'll probably blind bake one pie shell.

[Mike Nolan]

Not sure if I've ever tried Vegalene, not sure if anybody locally carries it. I don't buy a lot of things in a spray can.

[Mike Nolan]

It is definitely time-consuming to make French onion soup from scratch, several hours for the stock, plus straining and chilling overnight to get the fat out, then another 6 hours or so to caramelize the onions. But it is really good.

So, of course with leftover potato leek soup and French onion soup in the fridge, we went out to eat tonight. 🙂

[Mike Nolan]

I've actually had both mice and bugs get into chocolate, so I always check it carefully.

I haven't found a local supplier for Callebaut chocolate yet, at least not at a price I'm willing to pay. So as long as we make periodic trips to Pittsburgh, I'll continue to buy my chocolate at Stover Company in western PA. I've considered having them ship it, but for at least 6 months of the year shipping chocolate 900 miles by the usual carriers is not a good idea, and it gets expensive. I'm unlikely to ever need to order enough to have it shipped by refrigerated truck.

I was never all that impressed with Ghiradelli chocolate, at least not the stuff available on the retail side, I think they also have some wholesale chocolate lines. Guittard is IMHO better than Merkens, but Callebaut and Vahlrona both make far better (though usually more expensive) products. There are a few other high-end chocolate makers. I look for couverture grade chocolate these days.

[Mike Nolan]

Lecithin is more of a solidifying agent, though it does impact mouth feel. Increasing lecithin while decreasing cocoa butter produces a similar (though IMHO less satisfying) mouth feel at a lower cost.

Similarly, other fats (such as coconut or palm kernel oil) are a lot cheaper and less temperamental than cocoa butter and are used in cheaper chocolates.

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