Fat Guy

At the other end of the dining spectrum, we know some folks -- I won't use their names here but they're pretty well-know in the New York (and beyond) chef community -- who are just about the most incredible dinner-party hosts in the universe. They often reproduce dishes from the finest restaurants in the world in their home, and when I say reproduce I mean exactly -- as in, they'll acquire the exact plates, bowls, marble slabs or whatever the dish was served on in its original restaurant incarnation, they'll go to great lengths to source ingredients that meet the original specification, and they'll often convince the chef who invented the dish to teach them how to make it.

I thought it was exhaustive but exhausting. The least well-written piece I've seen from Buford. And it seemed to contribute little to the dialog. Gawker called it "maddeningly hagiographic." I'm not going to do better than that.

I learn something new every day. A couple of questions, though: 1- I think the answer is yes, but does boiling definitely cook more thoroughly than steaming? 2- Even with just steam, wouldn't the vertical orientation mean the bottoms get cooked more quickly than the tops?

I went by Saigon Grill on the UWS this evening, and at the counter they had a stack of the following letter from the owner. It's in all caps, however I've typed it in mixed case: Attached to the letter is a printout of a comment (as in a reply post from a reader) on an article posted on the Washington Square News website (the Washington Square News is the NYU student newspaper). The article is here and the comment in question is here.

thdad, can you be a little more specific about the task at hand? Are you preparing a complete meal, and if so how many courses? Do you specifically want to use the kettle for all the cooking, or do you have ovens, etc., also available? Do you have budgetary, dietary or other constraints?

I mentioned this on another topic, but for the record here: I think Bertolli's Fra'Mani products have raised the bar for American salume. I haven't tasted anything that is quite at that level.

I have no knowledge in that area, but I'm wondering what equipment would be required. Is there more involved than just carbonating the water?

I have at least six different pots with tempered glass lids, about four of which I use in the oven for one reason or another, and have never had a visibility problem when using them in the oven. I don't have a totally firm grasp of the science of condensation, but I think that when the whole pot and lid are in a hot oven the lid doesn't experience the kind of steamy condensation that's caused by the temperature differential between the inside and outside of a pot lid when it's on the stovetop. At worst, when you first put the lid on it steams up, but once the whole system comes up to temperature there's water on the lid but not steamy condensation. Even on the stovetop I find that there's good enough visibility to avoid the need to lift the lid. There are also some brands of lids, like Ultrex, that have anti-fog coatings, though I've not used them myself and don't know how durable they are.

So there really is no good term to describe what a rice cooker does, or what happens when you cook rice in a pot with 2:1 (or whatever) water:rice and a lid on. It's not just boiling. It's not just steaming. And "absorption" would seem only to describe the early part of cooking. Interesting.

As I understand it, we're not talking about standard-issue reviewer anonymity here. In a typical situation, a reviewer like Frank Bruni of the New York Times tries to make reservations under different names and not reveal his identity when eating. But he publishes his reviews under the byline Frank Bruni. Here, it seem the critic is writing anonymously. In other words, there is no such person as "G.E. Fellrath," even though Kansas City Magazine publishes reviews under that byline. Although writing under a pseudonym is a time-honored tradition -- e.g., Mark Twain -- it is not really appropriate in this journalistic context. A mainstream publication in a society where a free press is guaranteed should not be shielding its writers from public accountability. So I sympathize with the desire to "out" the writer, who appears to be using this pseudonym as a sword not a shield. In addition, I think it's good to give restaurateurs a voice in the press. Critics shouldn't always have the last word. The knowledge that, if you treat restaurants unfairly, restaurateurs can go to other media outlets to challenge you can help keep reviewers from getting out of control.

It should be noted that even for the 20 or so percent of plastic bottles that are recycled, recycling of plastic is not particularly efficient. With glass or metal, you just melt the stuff down and make other glass and metal things out of it. Plastic can't be melted and re-formed in this way. Instead, what little of it gets "recycled" gets processed into pellets and the like, and used as industrial material. The recycling process itself also uses a lot of resources -- it may not even be worth doing in the case of plastic.

I believe the number, just for the US, is 30 million plastic bottles thrown in the trash per day. These bottles are of course made from petroleum, and require energy to produce and transport. It's often stated that more water is wasted producing a bottle of water than goes into the bottle. In several blind tastings, most people have chosen tap in cities like Chicago, Austin, Baltimore, Minneapolis, and Philadelphia, over major bottled brands. Sure, there may be some bottled waters that taste better than tap, but the ones you typically see in a convenience store or mainstream restaurant don't. Indeed, plenty of bottled water -- about half -- is tap water. In addition, bottled water on the whole has never been shown to be safer than tap. In the United States, tap water is better regulated and conforms to higher standards than bottled. Tap water, placed in a reusable bottle, is also transportable. You can even drink it while driving. I'm not sure how that's relevant. Are you saying that, because so many consumer products are environmentally destructive, it never makes sense to discuss the destruction caused by any particular product? There's already water coming out of your tap. No need to return to an agrarian society. Just turn it on.

Bruni's indictment of the meal was pretty comprehensive -- not just dry roast chicken but also tough steak and inedible risotto. My own experience with Balthazar's non-breakfast food has been similar -- steak au poivre with so much pepper even I couldn't eat it, etc. I've also not found that the restaurant is particularly responsive to customer criticism. The servers I've dealt with didn't really seem to know what to do in response to dissatisfaction with a dish. In general, though, I agree with the chef. Restaurant reviewers are too passive-aggressive that way, preferring to complain in print than to give a restaurant the chance to correct a mistake.

Here's an example of a website that calls standard rice cookers (which, as far as I can tell, cook by boiling -- unless the point is that when you boil with the lid on you're steaming) "rice steamers." http://www.issendai.com/lifeskills/Miso%20...nese-rice.shtml

Adam, can you clarify a couple of your comments? First, while I understand what you're saying about roasting, I don't get how it applies to steaming. Is there an old use of the term that differs from modern usage? Second, I guess I don't understand your method for cooking rice. What are the steps and at what point do you consider it to be steaming?

Needless to say, to steam is to cook with . . . steam. Most often this is accomplished by putting a small amount of water in the bottom of a cooking vessel, then using a steamer basket to elevate the food to be steamed over the water. When the water boils the vapor rises up, circulates around and cooks the food. In the past few weeks, however, I've been reminded several times that often when people say food is "steamed" they actually mean it's boiled, as in cooked by being immersed in boiling water. I've heard boiled rice referred to as steamed rice (and a rice cooker referred to as a rice steamer), boiled asparagus referred to as steamed asparagus and boiled dumplings referred to as steamed dumplings. Boiled rice, boiled asparagus and boiled dumplings can be delicious in their own right, but they're not steamed. What am I missing? Are there languages and cultures where they don't really distinguish between steaming and boiling? What's going on?

It's a bit cringe-inducing to hear something like this, as if one has to choose between poached and scrambled eggs and declare one superior for all time. Your friend is surely happy in his limited universe; no need to disrupt his equilibrium. But he's misinformed. There are several ways to cook rice, and there are several kinds of rice, and pretty much all you can say categorically is that the different methods produce different results, some of which are better suited to specific purposes than others. Boiling, steaming, absorption, absorption-plus-stirring . . . no one method is inherently the best. It's a question of the rice you're using and what you want to get out of it.

I agree that "corrupted" includes a value judgment that kind of squashes the discussion, but I'm not sure I'd use the word "authentic" either -- the concept is generally bogus. I think I'd probably go with "least adapted." Having properly formulated the question, I'd then point out that most imported cuisines are available in a range of styles -- including under the roof of a single restaurant. In the United States we have Chinese-American restaurants, and we have Chinese restaurants that cater to recent Chinese immigrants, some very specific to a region or narrow style. We have Chinatowns and we have Chinese buffets on suburban highway strips. You can walk into some Chinese restaurants and find tables of Americans eating moo goo gai pan beside Chinese people eating from a whole different menu. With Mexican, we have everything from Taco Bell to Southern California trucks catering to migrant workers to Frontera Grill. Italian from Olive Garden and Pizza Hut to Babbo and Felidia . . . you get the idea. So, to generalize is kind of difficult.

The advice, "Don't let the butter brown," is often given, and is surely appropriate in many cases. It seems, however, that many people have internalized this direction as a commandment against browning butter, ever. Yet, brown butter, called beurre noisette in French because of its hazelnut-like aroma, is delicious. It's the basis for wonderful sauces (e.g., lemon, capers and brown butter on fish) and is also delicious standing alone. I thought about brown butter today as I was cooking an omelette. Typically, one lets the butter froth a bit and, as the frothing subsides, the eggs go in. I decided today to use extra butter and to let it go way past frothing to browning. I added the eggs to the brown butter and proceeded as usual. When the omelette was done, I plated it and drizzled the remaining brown butter over it. It was amazing! A whole new dimension in omelettey goodness! And efficient -- no need to make a brown butter sauce; it's just a byproduct of the cooking method. So, I thought we could use this topic to celebrate the greatness of brown butter, share recipes and techniques, etc.

Okay, so here's what I did: I preheated the oven to 400 degrees. I had about two pounds of boneless, skinless chicken thighs in the freezer. I took them out and let them defrost a bit, but not all the way (semi-frozen chicken is much easier to slice thin). Meanwhile, I took about two cups of pretzel nuggets and pulverized them in the Cuisinart until they were the texture of breadcrumbs. I sliced the chicken into approximately 1/4"-thick strips. I dipped the semi-frozen strips into beaten egg, then breaded with the pretzel crumbs (the pretzel crumbs didn't need any added salt). I took two half-sheet pans (it would have been too crowded on one), sprayed them with olive-oil cooking spray, and laid the chicken strips on them. By the time I was done with the slicing, dipping and breading process, the pieces were basically defrosted. I also quickly sprayed the tops of the pieces. I put everything in the 400-degree oven for 10 minutes, then turned all the pieces over with tongs, then back in for 10 more minutes. (With convection on throughout.) I thought they came out quite well. The breading was crispy-crunchy, and the meat was moist. I'll need to grind the crumbs even finer next time, though. The larger bits didn't crisp up properly. We ate most of them for dinner, but I also froze four pieces overnight. This morning, I took the frozen pieces and put them in the toaster oven at 400. I kept opening the oven to check on them, so I couldn't get an accurate time measurement -- I'll have to work on that -- but they reheated very well: minimal loss of crispness, meat still not dried out. I have to do some tweaking, and will report back on the next round.

As I understand it, the problem with the trumpet is that it doesn't contain or concentrate the aromas, so they just dissipate. You want a glass that curves in, to contain the aromas, and you want some decent volume and liquid surface area. So for really good Champagne, you want the Champagne glass -- or even a regular white-wine glass if it's a particularly wine-like Champagne (like some of the grower Champagnes). The flute is fine for basic NV Champagnes, I think.

The flavor of foie gras isn't what's hard to reproduce. If you're making pate, mousse, parfait, whatever, you can engineer something that's pretty close so long as you have a livery component (though I doubt you'd fool a serious chef). What's much harder to reproduce is the texture-flavor combination of seared, roasted or otherwise quickly cooked, intact foie gras. As much as I like a good pate de foie gras, I'll almost never order it if there's a fresh foie gras option available. Also a good terrine, made from whole foie gras, is going to be tough to reproduce -- it's a very specific texture.

A fifth the price? Do any of the New Yorkers here know about decent wines in the el-cheapo range that are available here? Seems to me the $8 or so is the cheapest bottle I ever see. ← TJ's. also Warehouse Wine and Spirits. ← Even the nicest wine shops in town carry some very inexpensive wines. For example, at Sherry-Lehmann, you can get Sauvion Cler' Blanc for $5.69 and Sherry-Lehmann's own Maison Rouge also for $5.69. At K&D, which is my local wine shop (and also in my opinion one of the best wine shops anywhere), they have the full line of Carta Vieja wines from Chile (several varietals to choose from), priced at $4.99. I've served these at parties and they've been consumed with gusto -- and usually when I have people over there are a few wine-savvy folks in the group.

I don't know. That's like saying you can't criticize the President of the United States or the presidency unless you've been the President of the United States.

There's an interesting website called measuringworth.com that provides multiple versions of the historical dollar value comparison. For this particular amount, comparing 1947 to 2005 (it only goes up to 2005), the results were: Kind of amazing that you can still get a waffle baker, albeit a piece of crap, for $21 today.