Instructions: A. Poire William is a sweet pear liqueur named after the variety of pear the French call Williams Bon-Chretien, and which our secular society calls Bartlett.

A Poire William can be either a true pear brandy, distilled from pears and made

In alsace and Switzerland, or a hybrid, made by infusing crushed pear with a grape-based spirit. Stuart Walton, author of The New Guide to Spirits and Liqueurs says that, like pears in general, Poire William can have a strong and luscious flavor, while the taste is often "disappointingly mild."

In the absence of Poire William, pear nectar and brandy in some combination would probably be a fine substitute.

Q. We almost always have either skim milk or 1% milk in the house. When a recipe calls for whole milk can I add light cream to it? If so, what proportions would I use to make whole milk?

A. There are significant differences in cooking properties between milk and cream. The more fat, the less likely a dish is to curdle, so you can be taking a substantial risk if you substitute skim milk for heavy cream in a cooked recipe.

But, in general, a recipe that calls for milk or whole milk is not using it for its cooking properties - rather to add flavor and richness to the dish. The use of skim or reduced-fat milk in place of whole milk will produce just the result you expect - a thinness in both taste and texture. Depending on the amount of milk called for, the difference may or may not be very meaningful to you.

You can certainly boost the amount of fat in the milk you have on hand to approximate whole milk, which has about 3.5% fat. Half and half has about 10% fat, light cream has about 20%, and whipping or heavy cream runs between 30% and 40%. We recently got into trouble by bragging about our math skills, so by first admitting that these numbers may be wildly inaccurate, we believe you would approximate whole milk by mixing one part half and half with three parts of 1% milk, one part light cream to seven parts 1% milk, and one part heavy cream to 15 parts of 1% milk (or 1 tablespoon cream to 1 cup less 1 tablespoon of 1% milk). As a practical matter, the proportions dont matter all that much - add a little cream and you boost flavor and richness.

Q. I have a recipe for Irish Creme Mousse cake that uses gelatin leaves in the preparation. What are gelatin leaves? Are there any substitutes?

A. Leaf or sheet gelatin is the same substance as granulated gelatin, just packaged and sold in a different form. It is more widely used in Europe (and shows up in more European recipes) than in the States. The gel-making ability of sheet gelatin is constant no matter what its size, so four leaves equal the amount of gelatin in the standard 1/(4-ounce) packet sold here. Leaf gelatin dissolves a little less readily than granulated gelatin, which is surely another reason that it is not as popular in our speed-obsessed kitchens.

Q. I am curious about soy milk safety. I know that with cows milk, one can generally use it one or two days after the "best before" date, without too much trouble. How strict are the "best before" dates on soy milk?

I would also like to know how strictly it needs to be refrigerated. I would like to bring a small amount of soy milk on camping trips, but I dont know if I could pack enough ice to keep it safely cold.

A. Soy milk is most often sold in aseptic packaging, which has an unrefrigerated shelf life of at least a year. Once opened it needs refrigeration, and, according to all the sources we can find, should be used within five days. Soy milk is also sold refrigerated in plastic containers. We have no reason to believe that that the manufacturers use-by date is any more liberal for soy milk than for cows. You can also buy powdered soy milk, which is said to lose in flavor what it makes up for in convenience. (One of our sources even suggests that the powder should be refrigerated, which takes away any possible benefit the powder might have.)

Eden Foods sells small aseptic packages of its Edensoy Organic Soymilk (just over a cup per package), and perhaps other brands are available in small size as well. Rather than carry the weight of that ice on your camping trips, why not just pack as many small containers of soy milk as you think youll need, and pour out whatever you dont use each day? Its organic, so the environment wont mind....

Q. I have been given a bunch of ginger root. And I was wondering if there is a way to make ground ginger with it?

A. Yes, but it may not be the best solution to your problem of abundance. You can dry ginger by peeling it, slicing it thinly or grating it, then placing the shards in a dehydrator or on a mesh in a very cool oven (less than 100 F

(40 C) or in a warm, dry location in a room, turning it once daily until dry.

At that point, you could use a spice grinder to produce your very own ground ginger. But it will suffer the same diminution of flavor you find with store-bought ginger. And, like store-bought, the longer you keep it around, the less flavor it will have. So dont make more than you can use within a few months.

You can wrap fresh ginger in plastic and then seal it in a freezer bag and keep it in the freezer for up to a year. Some people find it a bit soggy as it thaws and object to that, but it retains its flavor, and in many cooked dishes the texture change is not noticeable. You can grate it without thawing, which can save you some time. You can also store fresh, peeled ginger in a jar of sherry or Madeira for about three months, which will flavor the ginger a bit, but will also flavor the wine and make it particularly suitable for stir fry dishes, sauces, salad dressings, etc.

Q. I have a daughter who is allergic to corn syrup. She has been craving some type of lollipop. How would I make lollipops or any hard candy without corn syrup? Would brown rice syrup be a good replacement?

A. Corn syrup is often used in candy making to control sugars tendency to be grainy and to crystallize. We think several other liquid sweeteners would substitute nicely. Golden syrup, a pale derivative of the process of refining sugar cane, is our best guess. Other options include the rice syrup you suggest or barley malt. Wed stay away from honey, though. First, it has a lot more flavor than corn syrup or the other choices and might overpower whatever fruit or mint flavors you might choose. Second, it tends to soften candy, because it attracts moisture.

Q. What is Greek yogurt? One of the recent ucook.com Recipes of the Day called for this. I dont know how it differs from regular, or non-Greek, yogurt.

A. Greek yogurt is especially creamy, and, according to George Mondiotis, author of Traditional Greek Cooking, "probably superior to any other obtainable in Europe." What hope, then, can we in the relatively yogurt-impoverished United States have? Greek varieties made with ewes milk contain about 5% milkfat, and cows milk yogurts contain 9% (as opposed to whole-milk yogurts in this country which have around 3.5%).

If you substitute plain, American whole-milk yogurt in your recipe, it will fail miserably, and your self-esteem will suffer. Then again, none of the eight Greek cookbooks we checked specify Greek yogurt in recipes that call for yogurt, so were guessing most any whole-milk yogurt you find will work.

Q. Julia Childs recipe for a mixed-starter bread calls for using a small piece of previously made yeast dough. Can this dough have been frozen & thawed?

A. Almost certainly. Freezing is a good way to keep a starter that isnt seeing active use. You lose a bit of the yeast when you freeze it, but there should be enough life left in it to help raise and flavor your new dough.

Bernard Clayton, author of Bernard Claytons New Complete Book of Breads, says if your starter doesnt show signs of life after it has thawed, you may need to give it a little boost with some instant-rise yeast.

Q. Can you give me one Bulgarian pie recipe?

A. Not really. We can get you to a page about Recipes from Bulgaria, but in a quick scan didnt find a recipe for anything pie-like. Some of the recipes are in Bulgarian, though, but in the Roman alphabet.

You might also like to check Traditional Bulgarian Cooking and Bulgarian

Rhapsody: The Best of Balkan Cuisine, both of which are in print. Sadly, we have neither on hand to help in answering your question.

Our Practical Encyclopedia of East European Cooking, which is nearly always close at hand, has very appealing recipes for Bulgarian Lamb in Pastry, Fish Baked in a Dough Jacket, and Cherry Strudel, but none of them qualify as pies in our book. Sorry.

Q. I would like to know how to thicken sauces with blood. How to hold the sauces for service, how to fix them if they break? What I can do and not do?

A. Cooking with blood has a long heritage in Europe (especially France), and certainly other areas, as well. Blood sausage or black pudding is basically pigs blood and fat (and often onions), encased in a length of intestine, and is thought to date to ancient Greece. Sanguette, a dish still prepared in southwestern France, is little more than fried coagulated chicken blood.

Blood, or alternatively pureed liver, adds richness and color to brown sauces. Liver provides substantial thickening, while blood thickens only modestly. And it is finicky. You should add a small amount of your hot sauce to the blood, then incorporate that mixture into the sauce off the heat. Put it back on the burner and heat it gently until it thickens slightly. If you overheat it, it will curdle. Similarly, you cannot reheat it - it will curdle.

If you added liver or foie gras, strain the sauce before serving. You can hold such a sauce briefly before serving, but it is not stable enough to keep for long, and once it curdles, all is lost.

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