Fat Guy

Maybe for pasta (others can comment on whether it affects the pasta negatively), but what about for the only thing that has boiled over on me in the past few years: oatmeal?

It's a really cool shade of green, though.

It is still in its packaging. You can be sure that when watermelon season rolls around I will report in full.

In doing some research about my new Kuhn Rikon watermelon knife I came across a YouTube video promoting Kuhn Rikon's "Spill STOP," a device that prevents the apparently pervasive problem of overboiling. Allegedly this device "will change the way cooks boil." Is overboiling a big problem for you all?

I'm hardly up on the science but I thought it was both: cohesion/surface tension AND atmospheric pressure, in other words if you go into space the two glass plates will separate but if you're under atmospheric pressure they still won't cohere without the layer of water.

Why would a nonstick coating be affected by sharpening? It's not the cutting edge that has a coating, and you don't sharpen the flat faces of a blade.

It so happens we do have a dedicated watermelon knife! We also eat an abnormal amount of watermelon. As watermelon season will soon be upon us, I'll be sure to report on the efficacy of this product.

Here by the way is a video from Kuhn Rikon promoting the watermelon knife.

Mother-in-law just gave us a "watermelon knife" with a red nonstick coating on the blade. Could nonstick coatings on knives possibly be a good idea? Does anybody have any experience with them? Kuhn Rikon seems to make quite a few.

I had a slice of pepperoni pizza today and remembered this topic. Has any new information come to light regarding the origins of the product?

The chef I spoke to said that the striped bass season for most of the fishery opens on April 15 but that there are some coming in from up north on the Hudson where the fishery opened a week or so ago. That may very well be wrong.

The question is: what is the best fish? Needless to say the answer will vary on context, such as geography and whether it's being cooked. I'll start: I think if you live in New York City and want cooked fish the best fish is wild striped bass.

I emailed Floyd Cardoz, the chef at North End Grill, and asked what he means by cod throat and whether it is the same as the Spanish kokotxas. He said yes.

The new restaurant North End Grill in New York City has an item on the menu, "Cod Throats Meuniér." What do you think it could be? A quick Google search for cod throats turned up ear, nose and throat specialists in Cape Cod.

What pizza-dough recipe are you using?

I think the "no shortcuts" theory has been disproven so many times in so many areas of cooking that it bears examination wherever it is introduced. It may be that in pizza making there are no shortcuts, but I'll have to run through all the shortcuts to see. Our friends in Italy make risotto in the pressure cooker without stirring and claim most people they know do too.

I suppose another topic could be devoted to the taxonomy of New York pizza. I wouldn't argue for 99 cent pizza as the best thing in the world, but it's something I'll grab if I happen to be going to the Lincoln Tunnel. I had a slice for breakfast two Sundays ago, actually. But I'm more interested in the empirical data on screens. I guess I can buy one and test, if there's no good evidence out there.

This guy, Billy Reisinger, in his "Ridiculously Thorough Guide to Making Your Own Pizza," argues:

I just heard from a guy who made an impassioned plea for pizza screens. His claims: - They are virtually nonstick - They crisp the crust better than pizza stones - They are cheaper and less prone to breaking than pizza stones True or false?

In Googling for Hearth's address in order to send it to our friends, who were to meet us there for dinner tonight, I came across a piece on Eater on "20 of NYC's Most Underrated Restaurants." Restaurant #1: Hearth. I agree. The meal we had tonight was as good as anything at any restaurant anywhere near the price range. And if Hearth is the most underrated restaurant, the whole roasted fish for two people is the most underrated dish. Today it was a wild striped bass from Long Island waters, roasted with fennel, red onion and potatoes. It comes standing upright nestled in a bed of potatoes and the rest, scored and partly filleted such that with a spoon you can neatly pull sections off the sides. It's the kind of dish that, when they bring it to your table, all the other people in the dining room wish they'd ordered it. The same friend also shared with me as an appetizer the platter of house-made charcuterie containing duck liver pate, rabbit ballotine, pork rillette, smoked ham, cured duck breast, air-dried ham, pickled vegetables, beer mustard (the mustard is house-made too) and toasted Sullivan Street bread with lardo. Amazing in every way. Also, if you're into Riesling or you want to get into it, Hearth is the place. The Riesling selection is hilariously deep.

Nothing settles an argument like pulling volume 2 off the shelf and opening it to the parametric recipe for jus.

I'm having a lot of fun with the imagery of a "ginger-beef-obsessed boyfriend." I did a search on Menupages.com to see how many restaurants in NYC have "ginger beef" on the menu. I got a bunch but had to rule most out because they're either not Chinese restaurants or it's a case like Dim Sum Go Go where the dish is something different. I need to do some followup work on the ground with some of the good candidates.

That's a sauteed dish of sliced beef with actual ginger, though. I think the Canadian variant has deep-fried strips of beef in a ginger sauce.

I have a friend from Western Canada who speaks of a Chinese-restaurant dish, ginger beef, that's popular in Calgary. Wikipedia confirms that this is a regional specialty of Western Canada. It sounds a lot like what we know in NYC as orange beef: crispy fried pieces of flank steak with a sauce -- in the case of ginger beef a thick, sweet, ginger-and-vinegar sauce. Has anybody seen this dish around NYC? I'd like to check it out and also get my expat friend a fix.

The two things I've used it for lately were for taking poached eggs out of the water and fishing dumplings out. I'm not sure it was better for either of those things than any other spoon, but it does match the other Kunz spoons. I guess for something really delicate it might be gentler than a lesser spoon.