Fat Guy

I get the sense that Vongerichten took a lot of inspiration from Passard when opening his signature restaurant. The minimalist decor calculated to emphasize the food; the minimalist compositions; the shades of wood; aren't there even violins at both places? I just remember walking into Jean Georges for the first time and saying "This reminds me of Arpege." Or maybe it was the other way around.

The other big advantage of Midtown is the number 7 train, which gets you to a lot of the best places in Queens.

This Comark P250 thing with a street price of $99 has 0.1° resolution and a similar design to the Thermapen (fold-out needle, one-handed operation). I don't know about its response time, though. There are models from a couple of other companies that I was able to find that have similar stats, like the Taylor 9405. Those aren't cheaper than the Thermapen, but they indicate the possibility of other options. We should also just note for those who haven't studied all the models carefully that the regular Thermapen doesn't have 0.1° resolution -- only the "high-accuracy" (which I believe is a misnomer given that it refers to precision not accuracy?) models do.

Right, if you want to dine based on the center of gravity of Michelin stars you need to live on Central Park South.

In terms of direct inspiration, Gramercy Tavern was specifically modeled as an American version of Taillevent. Of course there are lots of restaurants in the world that take inspiration from Taillevent, but it's no small thing that Jean-Claude Vrinat chose, in 1996, to celebrate Taillevent's 50th Anniversary at Gramercy Tavern. Jean Georges has a lot of commonalities with Arpege.

P.S. I think living anywhere on the 4/5/6 line (for example the Upper East Side if you live near Lex) is a pretty good place to be for access to a high percentage of the best food in Manhattan. The weakness of being on the East Side is that it's a little tough to get to the West Village/Meatpacking/Chelsea places. But pretty much everything else is within easy reach. P.P.S. In my own apartment hunting, which has been an ongoing process for almost 20 years, I've long focused on the blocks around Fifth Avenue and 125th Street. Needless to say, food is a big concern for me, but I can't afford a nice apartment in the best food neighborhoods. However, due to the layout of the subway system, if you're standing at 125th and Fifth you're one avenue block each from the 4/5/6 and the 2/3 trains. So that gives you excellent access to just about everything.

I'd position myself near the Union Square stop on the 4/5/6 trains. Like maybe I'd try to find a place on 16th or 17th between Fifth Avenue and Union Square West. That puts you within walking distance of several of the neighborhoods that I'd consider the top picks. You can walk to everywhere in the Union Square/Flatiron/Gramercy area. You can walk to the East Village, the regular Village and the Meatpacking/Chelsea area. And you live right on top of excellent transportation options for the neighborhoods you don't live in: 4/5/6, N/Q/R/W, L and PATH.

I believe it's just a wire without a needle. If it's necessary to spend $89 to get a steak done just right, then it's worth it. If you can spend less for a solution that's just as effective, then it's not worth $89. I'm having a hard time believing that the Thermapen is sui generis and can't be replaced by something cheaper. Maybe I'm wrong.

I finally made it in to the Hummus Place branch at 305 Amsterdam Avenue (near 74th Street) and was totally blown away by the hummus Masabacha, topped with whole chickpeas, olive oil and spices -- and served warm. It was categorically superior to any other restaurant hummus I've had in New York, and comparable to restaurant hummus I've had at cheap lunch places in Jerusalem. Also the first time I've had restaurant hummus in New York that I thought was better than the Sabra brand.

For an oven thermometer that might be able to accommodate expansion, I found this cheap thermocouple thermometer for $19.95 on eBay. The vendor has 36 more of the units available if anybody wants one. I should have it soon and will report whether it works. It seems to come with a simple wire probe, which is not going to be usable as an oven probe, so I also looked around for the cheapest available oven-safe needle probe I could find. That would appear to be this one from Comark. I was able to find it for $17.15 on this website. Plus shipping of course.

I was doing that the other night with a couple of pears, and it definitely saves four knifestrokes over the quarter-and-core approach. But it's only an acceptable method if you don't care about the size of your pieces, because you end up with one big piece, two medium pieces and one small piece.

I do a spiral from the equatorial region up to the arctic and antarctic circles depending on the shape of the apple, then cut off the ends, then quarter, then core each quarter.

(Steingarten wrote about it but Joel Robuchon is responsible for the method)

My mother uses a related method to good effect. The absorption problem isn't significant when you're talking about solid pieces of potato. If you have something that's breaded, shredded, etc., then this method will be a disaster. But for plain potatoes it works. Probably worth its own topic if we don't have one already.

Those of you who don't have a dedicated apple processing device, what's your strategy for peeling and coring? I'm sure I could increase my efficiency several fold if I had a good strategy.

Fairway's white label says "Fra'Mani Chorizo" and the Fra'Mani label says something Italian. I had no idea there was large-format Fra'Mani stuff behind the deli counter, available for slicing. I think the deli counter is one of my least-visited places at Fairway. I don't like taking a number and waiting, and I've found the service there to be really inconsistent. I also don't like my salume sliced at the store -- too much degradation. I prefer whole small-format ones that I can slice at home with a knife.

I guess the fact that 15 years ago the owner did some jail time doesn't really bother me given that all my present-day experiences with Stew Leonard's have been so positive. He paid his debt to society and all that. Last week (well about 10 days ago now) we went up to Stew Leonard's in Yonkers for the lighting of the 21-food menorah. We figured our son would get a kick out of it, and he did. From the press release on the event: Upstairs conference room? I had never before noticed that, to the left of the bathrooms, there's a staircase leading up. When you climb that staircase, as I did after the menorah lighting (which was very nice -- the kids sang a bunch of songs while the cantor played guitar), you're in a whole world of Stew Leonard's that I didn't know existed. There are offices, locker rooms, all sorts of facilities. And there's a big room with dozens of cafeteria-style tables where, I guess, they have conferences and such (which must be why it's called the conference room). Every chair at every table had blue and white balloons tied to it, and up front Stew Leonard's had set up several buffet tables bearing box upon box of pizza (from Stew Leonard's ovens), pretzels and potato chips, plus all sorts of juices and hot beverages. It was really nice. I want to have my birthday party there.

A glorious morning at Fairway. On account of the snow, sleet and slush, the store was blissfully empty. It was like getting locked in the store alone overnight or something. I noticed today that Fairway now has a second Fra'Mani salume product. In addition to the salametto, which has been around for a while, they now have the chorizo. I didn't buy it -- I needed (needed!) the salametto and didn't want to spring for two pricey Fra'Mani products -- but it's there on the top rack of the dry sausage shelf facing the deli counter. Also for the past few weeks I've been buying this goat Gouda stuff, which I'm really enjoying.

As fall progresses into winter and I start eating oranges instead of apples (not that they should be compared), I usually find myself with an apple surplus. Sometimes we pick apples in the fall and, as they deteriorate, we stop eating them. Sometimes we get a bag of end-of-season apples really cheap. Sometimes red delicious apples come with gift baskets, and there's no way I'm going to eat those as whole fruit. This morning I realized I had about 35 apples filling up an entire fruit bin in the refrigerator and overflowing to the bottom shelf. So, I peeled, cored and quartered them and went to work. My wife, Ellen, made several loaves of apple-pear-banana bread (we had some pears mixed in with the apples, and some rotting bananas on the counter). The remaining apples, I cut up into smaller chunks and made apple sauce: just apples, a little water, and ground cinnamon, cooked so as to preserve a lot of chunkiness. Here's some of the work product for the day (there are more loaves in the oven, and some apple sauce has been eaten at the time this photo was taken): So . . . if you live in the northern hemisphere, what are you doing with your apples right about now?

So today I got the idea that maybe I could pick up a Thermapen cheap on eBay -- maybe someone wanted to get rid of a slightly used one or something. I didn't find a Thermapen but I did find this: the Comark P250. Seemed a lot like a Thermapen, right down to the same design problem of having to choose between C and F. The item was advertised as new, in a slightly damaged box, from a seller with a good reputation. I looked around online and found retail of $159 and street price of $99 -- that was the lowest I could find. So I figured if I could get it for half that I'd go for it. I won the item at $38.55. So, we'll see how it works. I'll report when it arrives.

I've done a bunch of traveling where I've been in some small town or another -- places like Gastonia, NC -- for a week at a time, and I've usually been able to suss out a source of fresh coffee for my wife (Blue Coffee Trading Company in the case of Gastonia; really nice place). The strategy is to find the local roaster and engage the people in charge about what and when they roast. Then you just come in at that time and ask for the stuff fresh out of the machine. I've never experienced the slightest bit of resistance -- they're usually just happy to have someone to talk coffee with, who cares enough to want it straight from the roaster. So even if they have bins of week-old stuff sitting around the store, you can still get fresh stuff. But in Houston, this shouldn't be a challenge at all. Houston is huge. I'd check out the place Richard suggested.

Is there such a thing as a digital thermocouple thermometer that has a longer sampling time than a few seconds?

Last night I discovered seven pounds of green beans I'd forgotten about, sitting in a big canister under a bunch of other stuff. I'm parting with the Behemoth on Monday, so I figured I'd do another round of experiments. I spent all morning roasting to different levels of doneness on different programs. I did everything from a light roast to a beyond-Starbuck's roast and was pleased with all the results. Based on tasting today, I'm now sure of what I said before: that the Behmor produces a mellower roast than the i-Roast. In the end I mixed together all the different batches to achieve a really nice blend (all the same bean, but several different roasts). I'm going to miss the Behmor, but it's just too big to keep around in my apartment kitchen.

To rephrase: you can get a tasty, economical lunch at Ssam Bar, but it would be crazy to go to Ssam Bar for lunch expecting to get anything like the dinner experience we've spent 599 posts raving about here. If you want something akin to that experience at lunchtime, you have to go to Noodle Bar.

I've been thinking for awhile that I should just switch to C for everything, and I may do that at some point, but I'm too stubborn to be prompted to do that by a design shortcoming in an expensive thermometer. I have a question, maybe somebody knows the answer. The fast reading (response time) of the Thermapen (specifically models 3 and 7): is that a function of the thermocouple probe, or is it a function of the electronics inside the unit? In other words, using the same type K thermocouple probe, will every digital thermocouple thermometer have a similarly fast response time, or will some be faster than others?