caitmcg

I first heard of porphyria when I read the author Isabel Allende's memoir Paula almost 30 years ago; her adult daughter (Paula) had it and eventually fell into a coma and passed away as a result.

I believe the Christmas special (or as PBS styles it, the Holiday special) is the only one that we get that's not edited. This is a show that has a huge cast of regular characters, plus stories of the week. Half-hour sitcoms usually have A and B plots, and hour-long dramas often A, B, and C plots, but yeah, CTM always seems to add a letter or two. The episodes were less hectic in the early seasons, perhaps because the plots were largely lifted from Jennifer Worth's memoirs. Funny story, when we were in our teens I knew two sisters who were two-thirds of a set of triplets, and one of them told me her parents had planned to do A, B, and C names and picked out boy and girl names for each possibility. They were Betsy and Cindy — and their first-born brother was Michael, because their parents simply could not agree on how to spell their A name (Alan vs. Allen). I was glad that there was a quick mention early on about setting up the Shelbys with resources for after the birth of their "twins," because they'll (literally) doubly need them with four newborns. When Shelagh kept looking worried as she listened for Toni's baby's heartbeat (again and again, as Toni kept talking), of course I was worried about a full-term stillbirth. But as someone said above, we can't have a sad ending in the Christmas special.

I think the best payoff, so to speak, was how Barbara's death affected Phyllis, not just in that episode itself, but also going forward, where we saw practical, take-in-stride Phyllis still grieving the loss of her friend.

On the first point, it's unusual for sure, but certainly possible IRL. A good friend of mine had an unplanned, unassisted pregnancy at 44. She did comment that missing a couple of cycles at that age, her first thought was perimenopause and not pregnancy. On the second point, I concur.

I watched this, now that it's shown up on Netflix in the US a year later. I too enjoy these more than the Christmas specials with TV personalities (both because of the clueless fumbling and also that, for the most part, the participants are usually random folks for those of us across the pond). This was a surprisingly even bunch. In regular seasons, there's usually some talk about how much the technical counts, with the conclusion often being not a lot relative to first, the signature, and especially, the showstopper. Since they praised the showstoppers essentially equally, and really only nitpicked the signatures, it was interesting to hear Paul say the deciding factor was Manon's first place in the technical. I had forgotten how dry and funny Lottie is. I guess these specials are the last those of us in the US will see of Matt Lucas. I fast-forwarded through all his and Noel's bits, but he wasn't too bad on his own here.

Obviously they don't do eyeglass frames, as when have we ever seen Prue in black ones vs. some bright color to match her outfit?

There is also vegetable suet available in Britain, which is essentially a shortening with the particular texture of suet. I did a double take of sorts when the roundup at the end said that Matty and Lara had been together eight years, because he hardly looks old enough for that to be true. Looked him up; he's 28, so he was 20 when they got together.

If they awarded the win based on personality/personableness and skipped the quiet ones, Rahul wouldn't have won his season.

I've been making all-cream scones like this for many years, with endless variations. It's the easiest ever (no cutting in butter) and produces a very tender, light result, but the texture is different than the flaky biscuit style or crumbly texture you get from recipes that include eggs.

Some of them were shown uncovering a pudding and using a tester, and then finding the puddings weren’t cooked (this why Tasha took hers out of the bain marie). But when they all pulled them out and began unmolding them, it was definitely because they were completely out of time. None of them got the puddings in the oven early enough to have them fully done within the allotted time.

Regardless, the outcome was a too solid and stodgy texture. Her meringue shell was pretty, but it was her cream puffs that did her in; they faulted the texture of the choux as well as her too-muted flavors. It really seems like it was a wash between her and Christy.

For the thyme, at least, you brush it with beaten egg white and roll it in sugar. For citrus peel, you usually remove all the pith (white part), simmer it in sugar syrup, dry, and optionally roll it in sugar. They could do the latter while infusing the drizzle.

My understanding from people I've known who've made TV appearances is that the most basic requirement is not wearing solid white or cream or black. Obviously, loud prints are A-OK in the tent. And whatever they choose, has to be comfortable enough to wear for two long shooting days.

If you've ever had Indian or other South Asian food, you've had cardamom.

I remember him saying that about American pies in general. I don't recall the negative remark about fruit pies overall, but in Series 3 (i.e. the first season shown in the US) they had "American pies" as one of the challenges, and Paul characterized American pies as disgustingly sweet. (That was an odd challenge, in that it stipulated a single-crust pie no matter the filling, which is, of course, not an American thing.)

I understood Paul's comment to mean that the style of the blueberry pie filling seemed to be very American (Prue referred to it as intense), and it certainly looked like a typical blueberry pie here. So I take it that a filling that's made just from blueberries, sugar and thickener to fill a whole pie is not common in British pies. Certainly, the comment came about as they tasted the pie, not as they discussed ingredients beforehand. Of course, bourbon is a type of whiskey (generic spelling rather than whisky as in Scotch), as is rye. I've always assumed the reason it's bourbon in particular called for in American recipes that add it is bourbon is produced, and pecans are grown, in close proximity in the American south.

We weren't shown every step; we saw them working on the base, the blackcurrant jelly, the caramelized white chocolate, and then put the cheesecake batter in, so we didn't see them mixing up the batter, which I'm sure had eggs and cheeae. Nicky also had a chocolate cake of some kind that was sitting on top of her mousse.

I think his point was that there wasn't much cake involved. Those comments have been made when there's a challenge that's meant to be cake-centric but there ends up being more mousse, whipped cream, filling, etc. than cake. So it's less like biting into cake and more like eating a non-cake dessert. Since white chocolate is basically cocoa butter, sugar, and milk solids, you can cook it so that the sugar and milk solids caramelize. It transforms the flavor and makes it more butterscotch-y and complex. I don't care for plain white chocolate, which is too sweet and bland to me, but I do like caramelized white chocolate. Seems as if there's someone every season who announces that they've never made something basic before, more basic than cheesecake, even, like meringue, when it shows up in the technical, and I always wonder how they've never tried it when they're all conversant in Swiss meringue buttercream, pastry cream, etc. Anyone else watch this episode and flash back to Cake Week, when Prue said it would be challenging to taste twelve chocolate cakes in a row during the technical?

It was very convenient to the plot that the station seemingly hired her without an audition or prior discussion about the structure of the show. Then again, across all seasons, Jean has been portrayed as a competent therapist who's pretty incompetent at everything else.

Look for Collection 11, Episode 3 under the GBBS listing.

None of them were making changes on the fly, though (the exception being Dan after he screwed up by using all his bread dough before making all his shapes), they were executing the plans and recipes they had developed before entering the tent. So their overambition may have been part of what doomed them, but it was hardly spontaneous. If anything, Dan was probably thrown off his game by how badly the technical went (he was apparently saved by having done pretty well with his signature).

Dan got lucky, that's for sure. I guess one good bake and two really bad ones trumped three mediocre-to-bad ones, in the case of Abbi and Rowan. I certainly thought Dan was going, but if it came down to the other two, I might've thought Rowan over Abbi – at least they really liked all her flavors.

For a North American, it might depend on one's consumption of childhood literature; Winnie-the-Pooh, Paddington, and the Hobbit all partake of elevenses. Then again, how many actually make custard creams from scratch?

That was my point in looking up the location after checking myself on my reaction to the price; that's far below what someone would pay here, in a large city, and it's less than someone should be paid anywhere for that type of work, but for where she is, that's probably the most she can charge to maintain business given the local economy. Yeah, I live somewhere very much the opposite of where she is (an urban area on the west coast with a high cost of living) and unadorned whole pies at my neighborhood bakery cafe start at around $30 these days. I can't imagine what such an ornate, labor-intensive pie made with good ingredients would command around here.

It's basically cornstarch with added colorant and flavoring, to which you add sugar and milk and cook it to make a custard sauce, like a mock crème anglaise. Similar to old-fashioned cooked (vs. instant) pudding mix.