[Mike Nolan]

Restaurants often just use masking tape and a marker.

[Mike Nolan]

I was introduced to Challah by friends in college, and we lived in the Chicago area until 1977, several years of that within a few blocks of several great Jewish delis and bakeries.

I've never seen Challah at the stores here in Nebraska, and neither have the people I've baked it for. I made a two layer Celebration Challah for some dinners my wife's department chair held last fall, after the first one he said he hadn't eaten that much bread at one time in years!

But the nearest Jewish deli or bakery is probably 400 miles away.

[Mike Nolan]

My wife ordered something she saw Jerry Mathers advertising on TV about Type II Diabetes. It says ignore calories, count carbs instead. So she's been on this low-carb diet, and I have to say it works, she lost 50 pounds in under a year, she now weighs less than she did when we got married 44 years ago.

She showed that material to her doctor, he was interested enough in it that he now has a copy of it.

[Mike Nolan]

We were a Miracle Whip family too, but these days it tastes way too sweet for me, so my wife uses Miracle Whip and I use Hellman's Canola Oil Mayo if I don't have fresh home-made available (which I seldom have available.)

[Mike Nolan]

I thought I saw an ad some years ago for post-it-notes that were designed to be used in the refrigerator, the glue was over a somewhat larger part of the back surface so it stuck better in a cold damp environment, but I've never actually SEEN them on sale anywhere, so maybe I was hallucinating.

Restaurants have to label everything in the fridge by product and date, it's one of the things restaurant inspectors check for, it's a good habit to form at home. (I don't remember to do it most of the time, either.)

[Mike Nolan]

I both disagree and agree with the information on salt. Yes, all salt is, ultimately, sea salt, and, no, there isn't a type of colored salt that will reduce your sodium consumption (unless it's a non-sodium based salt replacement, and those are not without their own medical risks.)

But the trace minerals in colored salts (which are also generally mineral salts, for the chemically inclined) can make a taste difference, and that may cause you to use a little less salt.

Moreover, salt grinder salt generally doesn't have iodine in it. You need SOME iodine in your diet, you don't need it in every salt you consume. I use iodized salt for cooking and baking, but I know some bakers who only use non-iodized salt (usually kosher salt) for baking, claiming they can taste the bitterness of iodine.

I'm also a believer in slightly under-salting in the kitchen and salting to taste at the table. There are chefs who are insulted if you add salt to their foods, I'm not one of them.

If most of the salt you consume comes from packaged foods, you could conceivably get too little iodine, though I've never heard of it happening, and cases of goiters are quite rare in the USA, so few people here are suffering from iodine deficiency. That was not true when I was growing up 60 years ago in rural NW Illinois, I remember several farmers coming in to my grandfather's drug store with big goiters under their chin.

I completely agree with the part about spices and dried herbs not growing old very fast, the stuff about throwing out your spices after 6 or 12 months is IMHO designed to sell more product. However, if your vanilla bean dries out, you won't be able to get as much vanilla flavor out of it.

One of the things that they did at the Chocolate Academy was they collected 'used' vanilla bean pods, after they were boiled in milk, for example, and would dry them out and grind them up. I haven't had occasion to use a vanilla bean since I took the course, but I can see the virtue in doing that, vanilla beans are EXPENSIVE!

[Mike Nolan]

If that's the one in the Mission District in San Francisco, I've been there once, some years ago.

BTW, their prices for a braided Challah (Fridays only) are pretty reasonable, under $8.

[Mike Nolan]

I like to roast chicken breasts on a bed of mirepoix (onions, celery and carrots), which covers providing both vegetables and a light sauce.

I made this recently using some white wine vinegar because I didn't have an open bottle of white wine, the extra acidity was an improvement. I also dusted the breasts with dill weed and celery seed. And since they were skinned, I covered them with a slice of Swiss cheese so that the breasts didn't get tough on the outside.

[Mike Nolan]

About the time that we moved to Nebraska (1977) there was a rumor floating that McD's was going to build a drive-through-only location on Lower Wacker Drive, but I don't think they ever did.

Lower Wacker Drive, for you non-Chicagoans, is under the surface streets in the Loop area and is commonly used by delivery vehicles and by locals who know how to make it a much faster way to get through downtown. (But if you don't know your way through, it was easy to get lost, too.)

It shows up in a few car-chase movie scenes.

[Mike Nolan]

The photo doesn't really do the Rock-N-Roll McDonald's justice, though, it is better at night.

[Mike Nolan]

I thought there was also be a Rock and Roll McDonald's in Las Vegas, though I'm not finding anything on Google about it, but the one on Clark in Chicago is definitely not your typical MickeyD's.

Rock N Roll McDonalds

McDonald's has locations in some of the oases over the Interstate in the Chicago area, too. So you literally get to drive under the golden arches.

The one on Times Square in New York City may have the highest stateside prices. I remember a Big Mac, fries and a Coke costing nearly $10, and that was back in the late 1990's.

When we were in Maine a few years ago, several fast-food places like Arby's had lobster rolls, but McD's did not.

[Mike Nolan]

I know McDonald's was looking into pizzas back in the mid 70's when the company I worked for was doing work on Basic Four Computers, who at the time had an office in the McDonald's HQ building in Oak Brook. (That's how I met Ray Kroc.)

The pizza experiment from the early 80's was not one I ever got to.

However, Lincoln NE was the test site for another McDonald's project, the 3-in-1 restaurant. It was a greatly expanded menu with table service. You'd order using phones at each table and they'd bring the food to your table. They had a pretty good pastrami sandwich. It lasted about a year, closing in 2004. (The building they built for the project was then remodeled into a more traditional McD's.)

Although the 3-in-1 menu was a failure, I think they also were testing some of the production methods they use in most McD's now.

[Mike Nolan]

I've just watched that segment another 8-10 times, and I think I've almost got the braiding pattern figured out.

Basically it works from the far side in, alternating sides, top right, then top left, then top right. There's a twist that I'm not sure how to do yet, I think it has to do with picking up the next strand cross-handed.

Complicating things is that it is a composite scene, almost certainly from shaping multiple loaves, first it shows the process from the other side of the table, facing the baker, so the strands being grabbed are towards the bottom of the image, then about half way through it switches to looking over the baker's shoulder, so that the strands being grabbed are towards the top of the screen.

I'm going to try it a few times with my macrame practice strands, if I can pick up the pattern then I may have to make Challah this week.

Secrets of a Jewish Baker came today, the 6 strand braid in that book is definitely not the one in Deli Man.

[Mike Nolan]

I agree that Golden Delicious is a good pie apple (far superior to Granny Smith, which IMHO has gone downhill over the last few years), and it just nudged out Braeburn in Kenji Lopez-Alt's Apple PIe Test, but it is not as good as the elusive Winesap.

[Mike Nolan]

Depends on how much of a hurry I'm in, I usually let the cake set for 4-5 minutes at most. If the cake is still hot/warm when the frosting goes on, the cake compresses a bit, which changes the texture.

I do things to my recipe that most printed recipes don't do.

I grease the pan with butter then 'flour' it with cocoa powder instead of flour. (For a white cake I often use powdered sugar -- baker's superfine sugar if I have it -- instead of flour.)

I use 4 tablespoons of cocoa in a batch of frosting rather than 3. For a 13x17 cake I always at least double the frosting recipe, I've been know to triple it.

I always make sure the butter/cocoa/buttermilk for the frosting gets to a good boil before I start adding in the powdered sugar, that way the frosting is more like old fashioned fudge. Then I keep it on low/simmer heat for a while so that it's fairly warm when I pour it on.

How can you make a 'cornbread' cake without corn meal??

• This reply was modified 8 years, 3 months ago by Mike Nolan.

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