Fat Guy

I think he's a lot like Jackie Chan. Yes, he's a little goofy and plays to stereotype. But under all that he is incredibly serious, educated, skilled, erudite. I've met him at the Top 100 Chinese Restaurant Awards. The guy knows his stuff and I think there's little question that he's brilliant. To see him in a more serious context -- though he always cracks jokes no matter what -- I think it's worth a look at this Asia Society appearance: http://asiasociety.org/video/style-living/chef-martin-yan I've also been led to believe by several Chinese people from China that Martin Yan is highly regarded there. Doesn't he have a cooking school there or something?

It seems to me that just because the serial number starts with R it doesn't necessarily mean it's remanufactured. It's logically impossible for them to have an unlimited number of remanufactured units. At some point they have to run out and then choose between filling orders with new units or not fulfilling orders. Since they have chosen to fill the orders, it seems more likely that at some point they have to switch to shipping new units. So the R could just mean it's part of the series but it could easily be all-new.

I don't have mine yet. Black, ordered on last day of sale.

The Costco near me in Yonkers, NY, has a whole kosher section for Passover season, with some really appealing cheese choices including Parmesan and an impressive-looking English cheddar.

It's a little more complicated than meat-and-milk. Trace amounts of animal products can be in dairy foods and not cause them to be unkosher. If animal rennet from a kosher cow were to be used, one could still produce a kosher cheese with it. The problem is that nobody is really producing or using rennet from kosher cows. There's also the Talmudic prohibition against "non-Jewish cheese." So in order to make kosher cheese in, say, the Cabot facility, a masgiach (supervisor) needs to come in and kasher (make kosher) all the equipment. Then during the production run he has to supervise and, when the time comes to add the rennet (which in most cases these days is microbial not from cows anyway), he adds it. There's also extra work that needs to be done to clean the equipment to make cheese that is kosher for Passover. Passover requires a higher standard. If you want to read a lot more on the subject, this is a good place. I should note, the above is the view of the Orthodox community. Those of us in the Conservative movement are happy to eat any cheese.

There's a "Week in Review" piece in the New York Times today by Gardiner Harris that gives a very good overview of the food-coloring scene. I thought we could use this topic to gather all our thoughts on food coloring: - Is it safe? - Is it essential for enjoyment of many products? - Are current regulations adequate, too little, too much, wrong-headed, wise, or what?

I had some surprisingly good camembert tonight from Les Petites Fermieres. Kosher-for-Passover but not at all handicapped by being kosher-supervised. Also had some of the sharp cheddar from Cabot's annual kosher-for-Passover run. Tasted just like their normal sharp cheddar to me, i.e., very good.

I almost never drink wine without food. And I agree that for very subtle or complex food a less aggressive wine fits the bill. But for most of the food I eat, that's not the situation. For a lot of my meals I'm eating mostly raw ingredients -- cheeses, cured meats, etc. -- and for a lot of other meals it's grilled or roasted (or braised) meats. I recently had a hamburger with a bottle of Rosemount Syrah McLaren Vale Balmoral and I was in heaven.

I'm tempted, also, to rewrite all my recipes using baker's percentages.

I must confess, I love big, obnoxious, fruit-bomb, New-World wines. There, it's on the record. Give me a glass of Opus any day and I'm happier than with some subtle French thing. In this preference, I know I'm not alone -- wines like the ones I like are really dominant in the marketplace -- yet my tastes are anathema to most of the serious wine people I know. They bemoan the New-World style. Not me. I love what the Aussies are doing, I love gigantic California cabernets, I'm glad Italy is modernizing. Forgive me.

Mine either.

There's an apropos quote from Charlie Trotter in today's New York Times:

I'm amazed that this item exists. It sort of changes the premise of my inquiry.

It's possible to cook amazing food on a $400 stove that puts out 9,000 BTU/hr per burner. (It's also possible to find $800 stoves with at least one burner that pushes up into the 16,000 BTU/hr range that every Wolf burner produces.) But it's more pleasurable to cook on a heavy-duty range. Such a unit is also more pleasurable to look at. Depending on one's resources and hierarchy of values, those things can matter more or less.

If "75% say they very often or occasionally will use pre-prepped and/or frozen ingredients" then that means that only 25% do most of their cooking from scratch. 25% of 70% is 17.5%. That's why I said above that the survey is not nuanced enough. They lump together "very often or occasionally." Most of the best cooks I know would say yes to the "occasionally" part of that. While over-reliance on pre-prepped products is on the whole a problem for good cooking, there's a certain amount of it that's fine. So I don't think it's possible to get a good measurement from those data.

How are you backing out the 17.5 number?

I totally want one of those. How do you get a NEMA 5-20 outlet?

This is the best data I've found so far, but it's not as nuanced as it needs to be: from Harris Interactive It's America-only. Some highlights:

This has come up on a few different topics. It seems axiomatic that people in the industrialized world are cooking at home less and less. But does that tell the whole story? At the same time that cooking is purportedly in decline in the population as a whole, we have see advances in home cooking like never before. You can now go into a retail store and buy a Sous-Vide Supreme. These forums are populated by plenty of home cooks who are purchasing the Modernist Cuisine six-volume set. Cooking blogs have exploded in number and popularity. So, what does the research show? I did some quick googling and didn't find anything compelling to explain the overall state of cooking. Maybe one of you has a better handle on things.

I'm sure there have been studies, so maybe I'll go do some research, but my impression is that we're seeing two trends: one in the direction of less cooking overall one in the direction of very advanced cooking that nobody was doing 20 years ago. There are so many things we can point to, e.g., the arrival of the Sous-Vide Supreme, that are counter to what is probably the general trend. The audience for premium kitchen appliances is, I imagine, a mix of people who are serious and people who are not -- that's the same across many consumer categories. I wonder which way the cookbook argument cuts. You'd think that the lack of, say, consumer CVap cookbooks would represent opportunity. Then again the equipment manufacturers aren't really in the publishing business. So I don't know.

Like a lot of stereotypes, that one is demonstrably false. I personally know many, many excellent cooks who can and do purchase high-end kitchen appliances. I certainly have seen a few "show kitchens," belonging to rich people who see a Viking range as a fashion accessory, but that is not the norm. The other thing to bear in mind is that high-end appliance manufacturers owe a significant portion of their revenue streams to housing developers. When people buy into new developments, much of the time they buy pre-equipped kitchens. Developers know that expensive kitchen appliances increase perceived value, so they often spend more on the kitchen than the actual human purchasers would. I know this to be true after looking at hundreds of pieces of real estate over the past three years. Indeed, I may soon be the recipient of such a kitchen.

The New York Times reports today that manufacturers are shrinking their retail packaging of groceries in order to mask inflation: I've definitely noticed this phenomenon, and will now be more vigilant about checking package sizes and doing the math.

I don't know about rural buyers, but I can say from first-hand experience that plenty of suburban buyers purchase premium European appliances. I'd love to learn more about these next-generation European appliances. A lot of US kitchens are wired for 220, so with a little effort it may be possible to use some of them here.

The average consumer, maybe. But there is a huge luxury market in North America. For what a Sub-Zero refrigerator or Wolf pro-style range costs, it should be possible to mass produce a home version of just about anything.

When I saw Nathan Myhrvold speak at a Modernist Cuisine event the other day, one point he made was that, with the exception of the addition of the microwave, the technology of home ovens has been basically unchanged for decades whereas in commercial settings they now have all sorts of ovens like the combi and the cvap. Presumably most manufacturers are under the impression that home cooks would be slow to accept new technologies. But I have to wonder if that's true. Home cooks have historically embraced worthy new products. Maybe they'd embrace better ovens too.