Fat Guy

Am I mistaken, or are those cinnamon rolls resting on a sheet of dough? If so, what's that about?

Yeah you don't want to be pulling off a leaf from every artichoke candidate, unless you want to get into a fistfight with the produce manager. But I think one leaf from one artichoke works well as a batch test to make the threshold decision, "Am I buying artichokes today?" I find this is a good general approach to product buying: only buy from a good batch. If you try to find the three good specimens in a bin of poor produce, you're fighting an uphill battle. Just cook something else that day.

My experience with artichokes is that the good ones stay together. In other words, if you have a produce bin of artichokes and one is good then they'll pretty much all be good so if you get one good one and grab others that are visually similar they'll all be good, and if one is bad then it's usually a bad bunch and you should just skip buying artichokes for the day. For me the most reliable test is to pull off a leaf. If it snaps, it's a good artichoke. If it bends and is kind of limp, not good. This assumes that you've already picked up a heavy, tightly-packed specimen with good color.

Quick poll everyone: does this make you more or less interested in eating at this restaurant?

I'd argue for Dorie's herbed spaetzle recipe. Finely chopped herbs in the dough and the spaetzle are sauteed with mushrooms. Here's the recipe as it ran in Bon App, though I'm sure I've seen it in one of her books too. But if you want to make your life easier, just boil plain spaetzle and toss in a bowl with butter.

It seems the plan is already locked in, so perhaps this is just piling on, but I too support spaetzle as the choice here. Also, I should add, I did not create the spaetzle we had at that pig event. I just sauteed the spaetzle someone else had fabricated. Which raises a relevant point: there are many ways to serve spaetzle, including straight up, tossed with various things, cooked right in with a stew/soup/whatever, and sauteed.

Last day before the winter break. I think these are all or most lunches since December 1:

Last-Minute Holiday Shopping For those of you with year-end shopping needs, we hope you will make your purchases through We-Care.com. A percentage of your purchase will come back to the Society as a donation, at no extra cost to you. Here are some great last-minute specials you may find useful: “MUST ORDER TODAY” Deals: Walgreens Get 25% off photo gifts with promo code HURRY25! http://egullet.we-care.com/EOffer/c19152'>http://egullet.we-care.com/EOffer/c19152 Dell Laptops as low as $449.99 ship next day free! http://egullet.we-care.com/EOffer/c19650'>http://egullet.we-care.com/EOffer/c19650 “FREE NEXT-DAY SHIPPING” Deals: Kodak Store Free Next-Day Shipping on Digital Cameras! http://egullet.we-care.com/EOffer/c196478'>http://egullet.we-care.com/EOffer/c196478 Kiehl’s Complimentary Express Shipping + Free Gift on these high quality bath and body products! http://egullet.we-care.com/EOffer/c196477'>http://egullet.we-care.com/EOffer/c196477 “PRINT/EMAIL NOW” Deals: Apple iTunes Print or email gift cards instantly! http://egullet.we-care.com/EOffer/c11390'>http://egullet.we-care.com/EOffer/c11390 “PICK UP IN STORE” Deals: Sears Buy now, pick up in store! http://egullet.we-care.com/EOffer/c11394'>http://egullet.we-care.com/EOffer/c11394 Best Buy Buy online and it will be waiting for you in the store! http://egullet.we-care.com/EOffer/c15052'>http://egullet.we-care.com/EOffer/c15052 As a nonprofit organization, the Society is entirely dependent on donors and sponsors for support. Especially with the holiday shopping season approaching, this is an easy, cost-free way to help the Society continue to offer its program services for free. There are two ways to use We-Care.com: First, you can start at our We-Care.com "mall" page -- http://egullet.we-care.com/ -- where you can select from a large list of online merchants, or follow one of the specific links above. The second way is to install the We-Care extension for Internet Explorer and Firefox. This extension, once installed (which takes about a minute), sits silently in the background and automatically makes sure that if you make a purchase on a participating merchant's site a donation will be routed to the Society. So, please go to http://egullet.We-Care.com/Start and install the We-Care browser extension. It only takes a few clicks and a minute or so. If you have more than one computer (work, home, etc.), please install it on all.

New Directors The Society's board of directors has voted unanimously to elect and/or re-elect the following directors, effective 1 January 2011: Steven Shaw, current executive director and director Dave Scantland, current director of operations, eG Development, and director Chris Amirault, current director of operations, eG Forums, newly elected as a director Chris Hennes, current director of operations, eG Technology, newly elected as a director Janet Zimmerman, current treasurer, newly elected as a director As a result of our work with non-profit consultants Cause Effective, we have asked our most active volunteers to serve as a working board. The new directors will continue with all their current management responsibilities. We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to outgoing directors Jonathan Day and Paula Wolfert for their years of service to the organization. The new board will be voting in January on resolutions including one to reconcile the Society's fiscal year with the calendar year, and one to drop the word "eGullet" from the name of the parent entity, which would become "Society for Culinary Arts & Letters" (the web services would continue as eGullet.org, eG Forums, etc.).

If you dig through the Modernist Cuisine website, there's a surprising amount of information there, including some material that by its nature can't be in the book. For example in the blog section of the site there's a photograph of what the set of books actually looks like. Also, several videos including this one of popcorn popping:

I know from the book's PR person that there are some events and appearances planned for March, but I don't know that it's a book tour as such.

This morning I had the opportunity to spend some time with Nathan M. for a preview of the book(s). He had pages of the book, videos and a PowerPoint presentation loaded up on his laptop. By the way he has shaved his beard: Modernist Cuisine is a staggeringly impressive accomplishment. It is not hyperbole to say that it is the most significant culinary book project of our generation. It is far more comprehensive than I'd have imagined, with chapters or sections on food safety, nutrition, regional barbecue styles, food history, wine, coffee, thickeners, the truth about the invention of molten-center chocolate cake... it covers just about every conceivable aspect of culinary modernism save for a full treatment of pastry, which has been left for a potential future project. Not only is the material comprehensive but also it is beautiful. The photography is, as I imagined it would be, absolutely first rate. But the camera is only the beginning. To illustrate several key points of technique and process, they cut pots, food and machines in half in order to photograph their cross sections. They've done many charts, graphs, maps, timelines and other illustrations, all at the highest standards. Here's one example of the photo work Nathan M. and his team have done. This the ultimate cheeseburger: I definitely recommend that you explore the Modernist Cuisine website. It contains quite a lot of information about the book. In particular, the "About the Book" downloadable .pdf is definitely worth grabbing. I believe it is the first few pages of the book, consisting of Nathan M. telling the story of the book and addressing several of the most common comments about it. [Edited to add: the first photo was taken by me, the second was posted with permission of Nathan M.]

Any part of the round, as well as top sirloin and a few other tough cuts (but not braising cuts), will do well for tenderizing into cube steak for use in chicken-fried steak. You should probably just get what's least expensive.

As a consumer, a bathroom key kept at the counter doesn't bother me. On the whole I think places that do it this way tend to have nicer bathrooms.

As a customer I have no problem with keys behind the counter. This is a pretty common technique. I would just recommend giving the keys freely to anyone who asks. Simply needing to ask is going to deter a lot of non-customer users.

I think the place would be a little overwhelming even if empty. But the crowds in the mid-to-late afternoon are no worse than at any New York City supermarket-type operation and not nearly as bad as at Fairway or Zabar's.

I haven't heard of this specific brand but for as long as I can remember I've had friends who've done home carbonation here in the US, either with dedicated devices, cartridges, or plain old tanks of CO2. The problems with the consumer-grade machines I've seen are that 1- they're flimsy, and 2- they kill you on the cost of consumables, charging 10x or more what you'd pay for an equivalent amount of CO2 from a commercial supplier.

I've seen a few of these around: Messermeister Executive Chef Attache Case They're very nice and the longest dimension is stated to be 19" -- not sure if that's going to accommodate your biggest knife or not.

Often, restaurants have various programs: the beverage program, the dessert program, the cheese program... It's just a part of the vernacular of restaurant management.

So sorry to hear about your friend. Do you know what the general dietary recommendations are for someone with colon cancer? I'm sure we can come up with a lot of fine ideas, but I'm completely unclear on the protocol.

I'm hopelessly behind on posting lunch photos, and I recently switched computers so everything is a mess. But this should be most of what is needed to get caught up, including a checkerboard sandwich demo.

I've received some pretty poor treatment at Batali-Bastianich restaurants in the past year. Whether that's because they recognized me and hate me, or didn't recognize me and hate everyone, or consider recognizing me to be an irrelevant act, or some combination of other factors, I don't know. But I must confess, my lunch at Del Posto yesterday was every bit the four-star meal -- and I really don't want to be saying that. It was also with a big group and I'm pretty sure nobody at the restaurant knew or cared about my presence. In particular, I don't think I've ever had pastas that achieved such a high level of refinement. The quality of beef served surpassed anything I've had in recent memory. And all the service and appointments were absolutely first rate. I only tried four items, so this is just a snapshot, but it was all impressive. We started with carne cruda with truffled salsa, Parmigiano and shaved porcini. Last week I had Manzo's version of the dish (Manzo is the Batali-Bastianich restaurant at Eataly). No comparison. The Del Posto rendition was balanced across all its flavors, the knife work was scary accurate and the truffle flavors (albeit probably from truffle oil, which is sort of an haute copout) put it over the top. Next we had garganelli verdi with ragu Bolognese. The garganelli, made with spinach, didn't look at all like the pale green spinach pasta you see in supermarkets. They were a deep forest green. Lidia Bastianich was in the room (this was a lunch hosted by some Dolcetto producers) and I asked her about the color. She insisted it was achieved through spinach only. Next, caramelle (pasta tubes with the ends twisted such that they look like little wrapped candies) with gorgonzola dolce and black truffle butter. They were impossibly delicate. I can't believe they survived the trip from the kitchen. Finally, a thick hunk of New York strip roast with arugula and eggplant parmigiana torta. The Piemontese (or Piemontese-style raised in America -- I wasn't totally clear on it) beef, from Pat LaFreida, was really off the charts in terms of the combination of mineral-rich flavor and non-mushy tenderness (it had the texture of cold butter), and the eggplant parmigiana was on par with the other best eggplant parmigiana I've ever had, both this month -- the other being at Lincoln. All of a sudden the bar has been raised on this dish. I had to run out before dessert -- I had low expectations of the meal so scheduled something earlier than I should have. Another reason I'll have to return to go deeper into the menu.

You may have noticed, here and there, our pleas for you to do your holiday shopping using the We-Care.com website (and to install the We-Care.com browser extension), which allows -- at no extra cost to you -- a percentage of your expenditures at thousands of online retailers to be channeled back to the Society as a donation. Giving through shopping is our major fundraising push for the fourth quarter. In the first quarter of 2011 we'll be running our annual donor-membership drive. In the second quarter we'll run our annual appeal. In the third quarter we'll focus on an auction. And then in the fourth quarter we'll be back to giving through shopping. We, like many nonprofits concerned with best practices, are trying to follow a fundraising calendar so as not to divide our attention or yours. But you can of course contribute anything at any time. Why does the Society need money? First and foremost, to keep the lights on. Every month we have a server bill to pay, and we have to cover other technology costs such as our backup server. In addition, in order to improve our program services we need certain financial resources. Just as one example, we have recently been looking at the best ways to enable eG Forums for mobile devices. There are some good solutions out there, none of which will happen for free. Finally, if we are to be the best organization we can be, we will eventually need to increase our budget for office expenses and have at least a small core of paid staff. The Society follows the model of NPR or PBS, albeit at a smaller scale. We are a member-supported community operation. Anybody can view and participate in our programming for free, but in order to offer our content for free we depend on a percentage of our members to make voluntary annual contributions. Given our web traffic and highly desirable user base, we could produce more revenue through commercial undertakings. But in 2004 when we were planning our long-term financial future we didn't want to go down that path, which we believe eventually leads to compromising on quality in pursuit of profit. What you see today is the result of that commitment to quality over quantity, public service over profit. We hope you find it valuable and worthy of your support.

Really looking forward to hearing about all your ingredients and adventures. It's always hard for me to believe that when it's November here you're getting toward the end of Spring and beginning of Summer there.

In theory I love the idea of other kinds of English muffins. But I've been so conditioned by Thomas's that I rarely enjoy the better ones. I generally experience them as too greasy or too dry. The bacon was Leidy's. http://www.alderfermeats.com/leidys-bacon The eggs were from Marcus Dairy, though produced by someone else. http://www.marcusdairy.com/ Land O' Lakes white American cheese from the deli counter at Stop & Shop. There was also a little Marcus Dairy butter on the English muffin.