Fat Guy

I noticed today that Target sells a device, made by Nesco, that functions as both a pressure cooker and a slow cooker (aka crock pot). It also works as a steamer. Browsing the Nesco website, I also noticed a product that combines the functions of a deep fryer and a fondue pot. Seriously. I started to wonder, though, is there really any major technology difference between the pressure cooker/slow cooker/steamer and the deep fryer/fondue pot? I then learned from a friend that he once had a combination deep fryer/slow cooker. So that's one from column A and one from column B. And I was able to find a combination deep fryer/slow cooker/steamer with but a moment's Googling. It seems there are a lot of small appliances that are essentially a pot with heating elements. So really, shouldn't it be possible to create a single appliance that is at least the following: -pressure cooker -slow cooker (crock pot) -steamer -deep fryer -fondue pot -rice cooker -pasta pot -mini roaster Is the reason nobody makes such an appliance simply that it's more profitable to sell several appliances than it is to sell one? What's going on here? I can't imagine there's a significant engineering challenge here. Right? Right?

I wasn't aware there were multiple English translations. The only one I've seen, and I'm pretty sure this is the standard work, is titled "Escoffier: The Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cookery," translated by Cracknell and Kaufmann. I think it has been issued by a few different publishers, but I believe today the standard edition that's available is the one that Wiley has been publishing since some time in the 1980s. It's $44 on Amazon. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471290165?ie=UTF8&tag=egulletsociety-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0471290165">Escoffier: The Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cookery</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=egulletsociety-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0471290165" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />

I don't think 8 ounces was ever a standard pour. A 750 ml bottle of wine contains 25.36 ounces. The choice has mostly been between getting 4 or 5 pours out of a bottle, in other words between a 6-ounce pour (24 ounces needed to get 4 pours) and a 5-ounce pour (25 ounces required for 5 pours). The 5-ounce pour, also known as 150 ml (very very close), is difficult to pull off. In a European wine bar where they have wine glasses with a white line etched in at the 150 ml mark, it's just possible -- though most wine bars I've been to in Europe (admittedly not many) have poured 175 ml, which is close to 6 ounces. A restaurant that does freehand pouring without measuring is likely to need to account for 4 pours per bottle -- especially if a taste is offered before pouring. I haven't personally noticed pours getting smaller. I have, however, noticed that glasses (as in the actual stemware) have been getting bigger. If you pour 5 ounces of wine into a standard old-style Paris goblet, it looks pretty generous. If you pour 5 ounces of wine into a big-ass Spiegelau stem, it looks like a taste. P.S. It's nearly universal in the literature about alcohol to assume a 5-ounce glass of wine. A glass of wine is defined that way: it's 5 ounces. I think reality is more like 6 ounces. The only place I consistently see an 8-ounce pour is in my home, because I often drink a bottle of wine over a three-day period, and I'm usually the only one drinking wine with meals here, so I pour roughly 8 ounces for dinner each day for three days. But I'm using 8.5-inch-high, 25-ounce-capacity Spiegelau stems, so an 8-ounce pour looks right.

In our first kitchen, we had to choose between convenience and clutter: appliances could either fill up the limited counter space, or they had to be taken out and put away. It's possible to undercabinet mount some appliances, but I don't favor that arrangement, first because I prefer to have undercabinet task lighting everywhere, second because I don't like to work with an appliance in my face so that counter space is useless to me anyway, and third because you have limited choices of appliances when you undercabinet mount (like, you go from being able to choose between a million toasters to having only a handful of choices). I don't like built-ins either, because they're difficult to replace once you've committed to an exact size for a microwave or something. I also don't like microwaves mounted above the range -- I want a real hood. So, in our second kitchen (that's the one we're in now), I knew the kitchen was too narrow to put counters on both sides of the galley, but there was enough space to run a half-depth countertop (using wall cabinets as the base cabinets) along part of one wall. That countertop, while not intended to be a work surface, is great for small appliances. There's a depth limitation bit it's not terribly burdensome. So, on that cabinet we keep the coffee roaster, burr grinder and drip coffee maker; the Cuisinart, the toaster oven; and the microwave. The only appliance that I wish we could keep out but that's just too big for the space is the KitchenAid mixer, and as a result we surely use the KitchenAid mixer far less than we would otherwise. Probably the only appliance we use pretty often but keep in a drawer is the immersion blender. At some point I'd like to mount it on a wall bracket so it can stay plugged in and available. If we ever move and have the opportunity to create a third kitchen, I plan to use Metro shelving or the equivalent to create a space for all our small appliances so they can all be out and available. It should be possible to position the appliances between waist and eye level on two or three shelves, at appropriate heights for their uses. And, to be sure, I'll add a few appliances to the collection when we do that.

FYI, I checked online and it looks like Stolichnaya vodka, Bacardi 1873 rum and Canadian Club 6-year are all 80 proof (40% alcohol by volume). So . . . my "more alcohol" theory with respect to the vodka is probably wrong. I say probably because I threw away two of the bottles so I'm relying on web sources not the actual bottle claims.

Two questions to get this started: A can is metal, right? So how come when you put up preserves in a Mason jar they call it canning? And, is Mason a brand or a generic name?

I usually think of racism in America as an attitude white people have towards minorities, but racism of course comes in many forms and I found the Hispanic-black racial tensions described by Jeff to be particularly poignant. I wonder, now that Jeff is in charge of a restaurant, how he deals with those rivalries. Most of all, I'm glad somebody has brought the situation to light. I don't think anybody has gone this deep, in a mass market book, in terms of describing how race can be such a critical factor in the ultra-competitive environment of a restaurant kitchen.

There seems to be a big PR initiative underway to promote a product called the Cook-Zen. It's a Japanese product, created by Machiko Chiba, billed as "Japan's leading cooking advisor for restaurants and major companies." It seems to be a small pot with a lid, that you put in your microwave oven. As if by magic, everything you cook in it comes out beautifully. http://www.cook-zen.com/ Anybody have a Cook-Zen? Is it legit?

Just for the record, there is a section at the bottom of the Le Bernardin menu called "Upon Request," which is targeted at those who don't eat fish. There are four dishes available: squab, rack of lamb, Kobe beef (a $150 supplement, I don't know what cut), and black truffle tagliatelle. I don't recall ever hearing anybody complain about these dishes, and indeed I know one person who goes to Le Bernardin specifically for the rack of lamb and believes it's the best meat entree in town.

A few other tricks: - Towards the end of cooking, add some butter. Butter is a great browning and crisping aid -- much better than whatever oil you used to do the cooking up until that point. A little bacon grease also helps. - Use the oven. When you roast your hash in the oven instead of sauteeing it on the stovetop, it's surrounded by dry heat. You just pull it out of the oven periodically and give it a stir. Using the oven also allows you to use a baking pan, which gives you a lot more surface area on which to spread your hash. - Also in the oven milieu: finish the hash under the broiler. - Start with cooled, baked potatoes. - Don't go crazy with the onions. They contain a lot of moisture that takes awhile to cook out.

I've never prepared one. I've eaten about ten of them, though (I probably had three of them at Momofuku Noodle Bar the other night). It's a technique that I can definitely support. I wouldn't say that an egg coddled this way is better than a properly poached egg, but both are good and there's a definite feeling that, when you eat one of these water-bath-coddled eggs, you're getting a really pure expression of egg. I agree about sous vide and water bath/steam oven cookery in general: they can produce great results, or not -- they're often not as successful as traditional cooking methods. But in this particular instance, I think it's a good use of the technology. I believe it's also possible to get eggs cooked this way without using a recirculating water bath. I haven't tried, but I think I remember one chef telling me he did it manually for awhile when his circulating pump broke. Presumably, if you heat a hotel pan of water to the right temperature, add the eggs and put it all in an oven at the right temperature, you'll get something usable. Finding the right oven temperature might require some trial and error, though. Good thing eggs are cheap.

I've exercised monumental self-restraint thus far, but as it has been a little over a week I decided to check in on the experiment. I took the three jars out and agitated each with about 50 vigorous shakes. Before I shook, the first thing I noticed was that the vodka had turned pretty much the same color as the rum and the whiskey. Then I opened them and took a whiff of each. They all smelled pretty awful. While there was some identifiable vanilla aroma, mostly the smell was industrial-seeming. The rum and whiskey samples, I couldn't have told the difference between them blind. The vodka sample was a little different -- harsher and stronger smelling. Then I took a very small taste of each. They all tasted terrible, though I'm not sure what I was expecting. It occurred to me, after I tasted, that I had never tasted vanilla extract straight. So I pulled some commercially produced vanilla extract out and tasted that. It wasn't nearly as awful. I checked the ingredients, and saw corn syrup. So that probably made it sweeter and less offensive. I suppose vanilla extract isn't supposed to taste good on its own -- you need to incorporate it into a recipe. Again, there wasn't much difference between the rum and whiskey samples tastewise. The vodka was harsher, stronger. Maybe it has a higher alcohol content?

The department of health had the right idea about a week ago. Deputy Health Commissioner Jessica Leighton gave the straight dope to New York 1 News: But rational talk got swept aside by hysteria and pandering, so now restaurants are being shuttered willy-nilly. You know, closing an unsafe restaurant is a necessary evil. But closing restaurants that are perfectly safe, that have been serving food and harming nobody, just because they have rodents like every other building in New York, is just wrong. It's wrong to do it to the business owners, and it's wrong to do it to the employees.

Perhaps I can clarify Mr. Sneakeater's comment. He's referring to an op-ed in today's New York Times that I wrote. There have been several news reports lately about rats in New York's restaurants, and a video is making the rounds on YouTube showing rats playing at night in the dining room of a KFC/Taco Bell store in Greenwich Village. The department of health is closing restaurants left and right now, in response to the outcry. My point is that this is an overreaction, driven more by people's psychological problems with rats than by any sort of public health crisis. What Mr. Sneakeater is referring to is a line later in the piece, where I point out, "Were rats a delicacy here, as they are in parts of China, we’d demand the right to rat tartare with a raw egg on top."

I was there a long time ago, like maybe 2002 I'm thinking. Surprisingly un-theme-park like. I was impressed with the operation, particularly with the quality of the ingredients. Preparations were not particularly impressive, but the food was done right and the quality of product was outstanding. We had a good service experience.

It has been observed often over the past few years that cooking is, more and more, considered to be a legitimate career path in North America, as it long has been in Europe. But I don't think we've ever had a topic here that focuses on the issue. There's a story in this month's New York Restaurant Insider that contains an insightful quote from chef Waldy Malouf: The article, about C-CAP (Careers Through Culinary Arts Program), is here. Definitely worth reading, and discussing.

He has never reviewed it, however he took a swipe at it in his review of Eleven Madison Park and the Bar Room at the Modern.

It's not hard to believe that Richman found lapses in service and food at Gramercy Tavern. It's a restaurant in transition. But I couldn't disagree more with his overall conclusions. It seems Richman fundamentally doesn't enjoy Gramercy Tavern's style of service, or somehow got turned against it. I like the fact that the servers are engaging and personable -- I don't find it intrusive. I also prefer the decentralized arrangement whereby every captain is knowledgeable and passionate about the wine list. Foodwise, I think Mike Anthony is doing a great job. Certainly, the food is dramatically better than it was when I stopped bothering to go a couple of years ago. Is it as good as it was at its peak -- say, the five-year mark -- under Tom Colicchio? It's different. Anthony's food is, to me, more interesting and has the potential to be better. Right now, at this early stage of Anthony's tenure, no, of course Gramercy Tavern is not where it was at its peak. But it's evolving nicely and seems on track to meet and surpass the old standards.

The closest thing texture-wise is a soft-cooked coddled egg. The egg is soft and custardy throughout. It's not quite like a poached egg, where the white coalesces but the yolk is runny. It's a uniform texture somewhere in the middle. Eggs cooked this way (recirculating water bath at about 63-64 C for about an hour, I think -- sous vide geeks will know exactly) make for a particularly dramatic presentation because they maintain their smooth ovoid shape and they really glisten. Then as soon as you go at one with a spoon it oozes everywhere.

Any idea of what it was near, like a particular museum or shop? How sure are you on the "near Fifth Avenue" theory, and how near? Would you recognize the name if you saw it on a list?

One aroma I get off mine is faintly licorice-like. Is that what you're talking about maybe? Otherwise, I don't know -- I don't detect a rubber/plastic aroma as such. Could it have rubbed off from the Zip-Loc bags I used for mailing?

I must have sent you the vinyl ones. Maybe you're in the placebo/control group.

Yes, that's just about the coolest thing I've ever seen.

Any chemistry geeks with ideas on how to measure the strength of vanilla extract objectively? Is there a simple test like for brix, or is it something that would require special chromatography equipment and such?

I agree with oakapple's basic point, which seems to me to be that fine dining and casual dining are not mutually exclusive. There's no need for Bruni to go to war against fancy restaurants. Fancy restaurants and non-fancy restaurants can coexist. Likewise, we can celebrate excellent non-fancy restaurants without insulting fancy restaurants. And, indeed, there is still much demand for fancy meals, though even the fanciest restaurants have, in keeping with general social trends, become more casual than their predecessors. I've got to say, I'm guilty of the same thing to a lesser extent. It's hard, when writing about the rise of excellent casual dining, and facing tight word-count constraints, to keep the contrasts from sounding like you're ragging on fine dining. I have a piece coming out soon that commits that exact sin in one place. I don't think this is really anything new, either. Bruni has been the worst offender, but Grimes had his inverse snob tendencies too (before we had eG Forums, I criticized him for this in an article), and earlier critics made various judgmental-sounding "death of fine dining" statements too (insert Leonard Kim citations here).