Photos

Categories

• About
• Travelogue
• Dining
• Books
• Wine & Spirits
• Freakish Ramblings
• Tools
• Recipes
• Des Autres Bon Mots

Monthly Archives

• August 2010
• June 2010
• February 2010
• January 2010
• December 2009
• November 2009
• October 2009
• September 2009
• June 2009
• May 2009
• March 2009
• February 2009
• December 2008
• October 2008
• September 2008
• August 2008
• July 2008
• June 2008
• May 2008
• April 2008
• March 2008
• February 2008
• January 2008
• December 2007
• November 2007
• October 2007
• September 2007
• August 2007
• July 2007
• June 2007
• May 2007
• April 2007
• March 2007
• February 2007
• January 2007
• Complete Archives
• Category Archives

Most recent entries

• Suddenly, we’re in Paris.
• The Baltic Cruise 2010: Friday and Saturday, St. Petersburg
• The Baltic Cruise 2010: Thursday, Tallinn
• The Baltic Cruise 2010: Wednesday, Stockholm
• The Baltic Cruise 2010: Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday at Sea
• Minor Calamities
• The Summer of Us
• Valentine’s Day
• If You’re Ever in Cedar Rapids, Iowa …
• The Cowboy Star Restaurant and Butcher Shop
• Beginning the New Year With a New Kitchen
• Favorites from 2009
• On My Not Getting Lucky Last Night
• And I’ve Decided That Close Enough, Is Enough
• A Little Closer

Syndicate

• Atom
• RSS 2.0

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

The Best Indian Food I’ve Ever Had …

… was in a small storefront in a strip mall in Lexington, Kentucky. Thank you, Masala (and thank you, Philip, for turning up your nose to sushi and getting genuinely excited by the possibility of Indian instead)!

Masala
3061 Fieldstone Way, Suite 600
Lexington, KY 40513
859.224-0001

If I were staying another night, I’d so eat here again tomorrow. 

Saturday, October 03, 2009

It’s Like Having Three Food Processors in One … Uhm, Week

Behold, my favorite new kitchen tool, the Magimix 4200XL, produced by Robot-Coupe, the company who first created the food processor, and sold by our friends at Williams-Sonoma. It’s the third machine I got in the course of seven days. Let me explain ...

It all started with Honey P.’s desire to do something nice for me (and to pay forward the fact that I was about to become the spouse of an academic department chair, which I’m told is not an enviable position). That good intention coincided perfectly with my toylust for the Cuisinart 16-cup Elite, recently and exclusively released by Williams-Sonoma and boasting a sizable list of enhancements and improvements that included a locking chopping blade, an adjustable disc cutter, spill-proof gasket, quick-release lid, three separate nesting bowls, retractable power cord, and blue, backlit keys. Wow! Honestly, they had me at blue, backlit.

So off we went to the Old Orchard WS, where I confirmed that the Cuisinart was indeed everything the catalog promised, and I happily carried it home in my lap because it was too big to fit into the trunk of our two-seater. And it worked perfectly ... until it didn’t. Four hours before a dinner party was supposed to begin. The faint scent of smoke and burn, and I was left with a bowl of butter and flour.

So off we went, this time to the downtown WS, which was closer to us than Old Orchard. Strangely, there was no replacement Cuisinart to be found in any Chicago-area WS store, and none were on order. However, the downtown store had the Magimix, which had none of the new features of the Cuisinart and cost $100 more, but at least it came in brushed steel. I looked at it, confirmed that it would suffice, and we tried to buy it. Except that they only thought they had it in stock (the computer said they did, but the stockroom begged to differ).

So off we went, Honey P. to the Old Orchard store where they confirmed they actually had the machine waiting at the register for us, and me, home to finish making dinner for eight. In the meantime, Honey P. convinced us (royal we, I had nothing to do with it) that we needed a juicer that thankfully did fit in the trunk. Also in brushed steel.

A couple of hours later, I had the machine unpacked and was really enjoying the differences I noted between the Magimix and my 10-year-old Cuisinart. For one thing, it had an extremely powerful motor. So powerful that it turned cream into butter while I was putting the cream carton back into the fridge. So powerful, in fact, that it broke itself. Let me explain ...

One of the things it’s supposed to do is knead bread, which is perfect, I needed to bake some. But the motor was so powerful and the tolerance between the spindle and the dough blade just imprecise enough, that after a little bit of kneading, the machine managed to strip both the spindle and the inside of the dough blade--the motor continued to churn, but the blade would no longer spin.

So off Honey P. went, back to Old Orchard, to replace the mighty machine. One of the things that I’ve always appreciated about Williams-Sonoma is their customer service policy. They really back their products and take care of their clients. That said, Honey P. describes the exchange as an exercise in friendly interrogation:

“No, he wasn’t mixing cement in the food processor. He was kneading bread. Using the recipe included with the machine. No, he didn’t have the dough blade in the smaller mixing bowl. Well, if he was supposed to, why is there a picture on the box of the dough blade being used in the largest bowl?”

That exchange complete, I had a new machine that I promised myself I would never use again to knead dough.

And let me report how much I love this food processor. Some tangibles include the fact that it’s more efficient in processing food than my old machine, so less goes to waste. It’s powerful, quiet, easier to clean than the Cuisinart, and made of sturdier stuff. But there’s also something about the machine that I appreciate that’s hard to describe. Something, well, very French about its physical design and functional performance. As if it loves working with food as much as I do. As if we were MFEO.