Fat Guy

I haven't done any tests with grains or nuts, but literature-wise the Blendtec claim is that the Vita-Mix wet container is inadequate for dry ingredients so you need a special dry container, whereas the Blendtec container works for both wet and dry.

I've now been through 44 cycles in the Blendtec (it tells you the total when you turn it on) and can make some preliminary conclusions: The Vita-Mix is highly dependent on its tamper. The Blendtec is far less tamper-dependent, which is good because it doesn't come with a tamper. If your Blendtec cavitates or otherwise loses traction on what it's blending, you need to shut it down and manipulate the ingredients. Some practice is required to avoid the need to do this. But all other things being equal, for example in a given frozen-dessert recipe, the Blendtec can do without a tamper what the Vita-Mix can't. This is I think largely due to a superior pitcher design. In my experience with the Vita-Mix, use of the tamper is the big challenge to the system. Especially with frozen items, when you start pushing down that's when you can cause the system to shut down or you can damage the various parts. With the Blendtec, since you don't work with a tamper, that stress never gets put on the system. That's why, I think, the Blendtec is going to last longer for me even though as far as I can tell it's not as hefty and sturdy as a Vita-Mix. It doesn't need to be. Which isn't to say it's flimsy. But the Vita-Mix is definitely a more robust product that, for me, is more easily broken because of its dependency on the tamper. I think if you only ever make smoothies, soups, dressings and other easy stuff -- the stuff you can make in a normal blender and just comes out better in a high-power blender -- you're never going to test the limits of either machine. They'll both probably run for a good long time without much stress on their systems. If you're going to get into frozen desserts and other stressful things, then you start pushing the limits of the devices. In this regard I'll be interested to see how the Blendtec holds up over several months of using it a couple of times a day on frozen stuff. This destroyed my Vita-Mix but perhaps the tamper-free design of the Blendtec will give it more longevity. I think in a given number of seconds the Vita-Mix makes a slightly smoother smoothie, probably because of its sharper blades. I find that I need to run the Blendtec about 10 seconds longer to liquefy flax seeds and eliminate the graininess of blackberry seeds and such. In the end, however, I prefer the texture of the Blendtec smoothie. It comes out more like a Jamba Juice smoothie, assuming you use ice or a decent percentage of frozen fruit. The Vita-Mix makes a more liquid smoothie, whereas the Blendtec smoothie is more slushy -- I prefer slushy. Ergonomically, I vastly prefer the Blendtec. Even though the pitcher holds the same amount as the Vita-Mix, it's much shorter. It's also dishwasher-safe. The Vita-Mix pitcher asks not to be put in the dishwasher, but it's an academic request. I routinely ignore manufacturers' instructions not to use the dishwasher, but even if you want to put a Vita-Mix pitcher in the dishwasher you can't because it's taller than the bottom rack of a residential dishwasher will tolerate. The Blendtec pitcher fits just right, and the base is designed to drain when upside-down so It doesn't collect dishwater -- water runs out through four little holes in the corner. Likewise, because the Blendtec base is more compact, you can store the base and pitcher on the counter under a normal-height kitchen wall cabinet. This is the sort of thing that, as a home cook, I have to care about. As much as I'd like not to care about the size of my kitchen equipment, I have no choice. I've read that the Blendtec is louder than the Vita-Mix. I'm not so sure. But both are quite loud. I've taken to using hearing protection. The Blendtec's program cycles are nice but not terribly useful. First, you really have to operate the blender with a hand on the lid or you risk having it jump up off the base. So you have to be there. At Jamba Juice, where they use pro models in sound enclosures, it seems they don't have to worry about that. It may also be that for simple smoothies there's no jumping risk. But when you do frozen stuff the risk is very much there. I also find that the program cycles aren't necessarily right for a given application. The frozen-dessert program works better for smoothies than the smoothie setting, etc. More thoughts to come.

Ed Mitchell and his business partner (left of Mitchell) overseeing the meat: Blue Smoke's beef ribs: Sausage and pimento-cheese stuff:

That was me and we weren't talking shop -- we were just BS-ing in the great barbecue tradition. Nobody should ever hesitate to approach me. It makes me feel legitimate. I have to say I think this was the best year ever. I'll be interested to see the crowd numbers and number-of-portions stats, but if this year was bigger than previous years the crowd-control and organization effort was amazing. Even the people who showed up with no game plan were able to get some good 'cue, and those who gamed it effectively were able to get everything they wanted. Moonlite. I had one bite of mutton, which will suffice as my mutton for the decade. It was better than I thought it would be -- John Sconzo described it as "well-modulated" -- but I can't imagine ever choosing mutton over beef or pork. The mutton guys were great and I loved the idea of them being there, but mutton just isn't my thing. Jim & Nick's. I really wasn't fond of the pimento cheese mayonnaise thing, and thought that sausage was just okay. I miss having Southside Market at the event and wish they'd return. Salt Lick. I've never been a big fan of Salt Lick, and they seemed not to be in attendance even though they were listed on the event map. So for me no great loss there. I just wish I'd remembered to ask someone the story behind the missing Salt Lick. Blue Smoke. I had Blue Smoke beef ribs again today. I wrestled with my decision to devote stomach space to locally available 'cue but I decided to be utilitarian and simply eat what I thought was objectively best. And the Blue Smoke beef ribs were my favorite thing at the event. My three favorite things were those beef ribs, the Ed Mitchell chopped pork, and the Mike Mills ribs and beans. Big Bob Gibson. Over the years I've tried Big Bob Gibson's pork shoulders a whole lot of times. This year the sample I tried was not up to snuff. But that's the world of barbecue mass production. Hill Country. I thought their brisket was excellent. Score another for the home team. While New York City barbecue still lacks the romance of barbecue in its native places, and while it's still expensive by comparison, I think it's now possible to get barbecue in New York City that's on par with barbecue in most places. The big exception is that nobody here is doing great North Carolina barbecue in any of the major NC styles. But for ribs and such, we've done very well. Baker's ribs were, I thought, really good. I only had one but I was impressed. Also noteworthy, a superb berry cobbler from the Blue Smoke dessert operation. At about 2pm it seemed everybody at the event simultaneously got the idea to have a Blue Smoke dessert and that line temporarily became almost as long as Big Bob Gibson's line. I got out of there before the rain in the later part of the afternoon. I assume most of the 'cue had been served by the time it rained. And the nice thing about the whole weekend of impending rain was that it kept the weather cool and breezy. I remember some of the barbecue weekends being brutally hot, like the one when my wife was pregnant. This weekend was lovely.

I fell behind a couple of months on posting lunch photos, but I never stopped taking them. You can see there's a point at which the countertop switches to white. That's when we moved into our current, temporary dwelling. With any luck we won't be here forever and by the fall we'll have a new countertop color. So anyway, school ended last week and here are all (I think) the lunch photos for the past couple of months. Not much to add to the information content of the photos, except that there are four in a row where the sandwich pictured is grilled cheese. Grilled cheese? Yes, PJ wanted cold grilled cheese for lunch every day that week. He got tired of it after that week and never asked for it again. One day, as a test, I made one for myself and ate it at lunchtime and it was pretty awful.

I don't think there's much difference between a high-power blender and a regular junk blender in terms of minimum quantity needed for processing. Neither is going to go down to the quantities that a mini-prep kind of device can handle.

The buzz on the mutton seemed positive but I didn't get to it. Tomorrow I will, surely. Some photos from today...

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the New York barbecue places are the unsung heroes of this event. Eight years ago, when the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party started, the barbecue scene here was totally different: there was no Hill Country, Blue Smoke was struggling to get its equipment under control, Dinosaur hadn't come to the city or hit its stride... New York was a different town, barbecue-wise. Today, I thought the beef ribs from Blue Smoke and the pulled pork from Dinosaur were totally competitive with what the visiting pitmasters brought to town. A beef rib from Blue Smoke was the best bite of food I had all day. I didn't make it over to Hill Country today, but I will tomorrow in order to continue the research. But people don't come to this event to eat what they can eat any day, so the lines are longest at Mitchell's, 17th Street, and Big Bob Gibson's. I made it to the first two of those today, and they were superb. I don't have anything new to say about Mitchell's. I still think what he's doing with the whole hog is on another level from what everybody else is doing. It amazes me every year. If you're at Mitchell's tomorrow, I suggest asking for extra cracklin's and extra vinegar-pepper sauce on your sandwich. As for Mike Mills and 17th Street, the guy really is the master. Last night he rolled in with an imposing rig with all-new, shiny pits, and his guys cooked more than 2,000 racks of ribs with impressive precision. He also brought a few pork-butt steaks and some hot links, which were not for sale on the public side but were available to friends of the house. They were good. I had an ambitious plan for coverage going into the event, which got derailed by various technological and personal failings. I thought I'd go down last night and photograph the setup, but I fell asleep -- parenthood will do that to you. Today I took a camera and my wife's netbook but the promised free public Wifi in Madison Square Park was not to be found. So now I'll process and post the photos I had wanted to post today. Stay tuned. Tomorrow I'll try more systematically to sample the wares from the places I missed today -- most of them.

The crab sliders are the most expensive sliders, and I do think they're pricey -- as in expensive (not overpriced, however, given the going rates for crustaceans around town). But I wouldn't say the Food Hall is pricey overall. The pricing overall is substantially lower than I'd have expected.

I'll second the motion above to check out the Midtown Lunch site, which has cornered the market on documenting the best cheap eats in Midtown. My go-to place in that 'hood is Dimple, Indian vegetarian on 30th Street (11 W. 30th). The lunch buffet provides a good overview, though the best stuff is on the menu. In terms of Korean, I think the most interesting place is Cho Dang Gol on 35th (55 W. 35th). Not your typical barbecue spot. Maybe pushing the boundary a little, but I like Hill Country for barbecue. That's on 26th (30 W.26th). I don't think Nanoosh is all that great. In that vein, surprisingly, some of the best falafel I've had in NYC has been at Kosher Delight on Broadway near 37th (1365 Broadway), especially at lunchtime when they do high turnover. I'd steer clear of anything but falafel there, though.

My guess is that petstore animals aren't very good eating. They haven't really been bred or raised for that. But that's just a guess. I'd be up for a blind comparative tasting.

I haven't seen baekban listed on menus here (USA), except as part of a dish name as in Gae Jang Baek Ban. I have, however, experimented with ordering just the cheapest lunch special on the menu, which is usually a soup, and it invariably comes with banchan and rice for about $8.

It's a combination of restaurant and retail. The PR materials describe it as a "European-style food hall," but it's much more heavily weighted towards sit-down dining than I'd expect from a Japanese department-store food-hall-type setting. There are some nice retail products there, but the dining operation really dominates.

Final temperature really depends on how long you run the blender. I'm sure it's theoretically possible to hit boiling temperatures, but I'm not aware of anybody who bothers to do that. It's already a staggeringly inefficient way to heat food, so the idea is to heat it only as much as needed to serve warm.

Whether the burner is low or high, a pot or pan will eventually reach a maximum temperature and go no higher. It's just that on a high flame the pan may be destroyed before reaching equilibrium, whereas this isn't a concern with most pans (nonstick could be an exception) on a low setting.

No idea if this is accurate or not but Wikipedia says a potato is cooked when it reaches 99C. If so, the temperature of blender-friction soup never gets anywhere near that. I'm guessing 80C is normal for blender-friction soup. I think it might therefore be necessary to pre-cook the potato. Then again maybe the action of the blade breaks cells down in a way similar to cooking?

I wondered about that and will definitely experiment, though with summer on the way I'll probably be focusing more on cold soups for a while.

Today is the official opening of the Plaza Food Hall, a 6,000-square-foot dining-and-retail area underneath the Plaza Hotel. I recently wrote about the revitalization of the Palm Court at the Plaza, under chef Willis Loughhead. The Food Hall project is separate, operated by a lessee at the direction of Todd English, the chef who made his name at Olives in Boston but is now a major restaurateur all over. The food hall is a series of stations arranged in a U shape. It differs from a food court in two ways: First, it's a mix of dining and food-shopping options, so you can sit at the raw bar and eat a meal, sit at the wine bar and have a glass of wine, or buy bakery items across the way. Second, it's all operated by one company so you can, for example, sit at the wine bar but have food brought to you from the raw bar, pizza station, grill, noodle bar, etc., by your server. Altogether there are 8 seating counters with about 80 total seats. There's also a "concierge" up front who can take a phone order and put together a lunch to be eaten in Central Park, or whatever. And there's delivery within a certain radius, as well as a series of room-service options for Plaza residents and hotel guests. I went in the other day for a tour and preview tasting, and wound up eating way too much. I had something from almost but not quite every station. I didn't take any photos but I got some from the PR company that I'll post here. (The photos are by a photographer named Evan Sung, who holds the copyright, and are reprinted here with permission.) I started off with a selection of sliders. This is a photo of the normal, hamburger slider. I also had a crab-salad slider and a roast-beef slider. If you actually go in and order sliders you'll get three of one kind for $10 - $18 depending on the type (crab salad is the most expensive). Another relevant slider photo: The sliders come off the grill station, where I sat. The grill menu also offers sandwiches, steaks, chicken, etc., all cooked on a grill of course. I tried some sushi from the sushi bar, which was quite good and very well priced (you get a massive dragon roll for $10, for example), and some absolutely first-rate beef dumplings and kimchi from the dumpling-and-noodle bar. Here's a photo of the dumpling bar and some stuff I didn't eat: Here's a photo of a pizza from the mighty Woodstone oven: The oven turns out very good pizzas. I would have eaten the whole thing, but I was stuffed. I had some excellent oysters from the raw bar. I tried a selection of pastry items, all impressive, including a "grasshopper" cupcake designed I think by Mr. English's daughter. Some pastry/bakery items: I tried a very strong Nicoise salad that I was surprised is priced at only $14. I didn't try anything from the cheese-and-charcuterie menu, but that looked appetizing. Also nothing from the wine bar. The only dish I had that needed work was an underseasoned, weak pork-udon soup. That's a very strong ratio of great-to-not-so-great dishes for a preview tasting. I imagine they've got the soup right by today. I've never been a partisan of Todd English, who I've long thought had too heavy a hand (the one Olives classic I had -- butternut squash ravioli from the $9 tapas menu - reminded me of why I've never loved the overly sweet, fatty food at Olives here or in Boston), but he has done a fantastic job here. Much of the food evidences lightness and finesse, and the heavier items are not gratuitously so. And he has accomplished it all at a very friendly price point. I imagine that if they hold the line on prices -- or maybe even if they don't -- they will be mobbed, especially at lunchtime. Here's Todd English with Jeffrey Beers (who designed the Food Hall) and Miki Naftali (who I believe is the developer responsible for the whole project). I should note that the actual chef on the ground, there every day, is a fellow named Mike Suppa, who trained at Olives New York. Practical info: Location The Plaza Concourse Level 1 West 59th Street New York, New York 10019 (Dedicated entrance on 59th Street and Fifth Avenue) Website www.ThePlazaFoodHall.com Telephone 212-986-9260

Could you say a little more about this? Is the friction from the blades heating the soup up (above the warm tapwater temperature)? Correct.

Today I really put the Blendtec through its paces. We had five for a four-course Blendtec lunch. The menu: The Blendtec performed admirably. The smoothie course was a cinch, but of course this is what the Blendtec excels at. I do think, however, that the smoothie program on the Blendtec is too short. I've been getting the best smoothie results from using the sorbet setting. I guess the Blendtec smoothie program would work well for very liquid smoothies, but if it's that Jamba Juice smoothie texture you're after then the sorbet program is better. (By the way I went to Jamba Juice this morning and had a pretty bad service experience, but I digress.) I didn't know what to expect with the white-bean puree. I wasn't working from a recipe. I just cooked a pound of white beans for a couple of hours, added about half to the Blendtec pitcher, and added roasted garlic, olive oil, turmeric and salt by eye. I pushed the dips/spreads button and the machine did indeed turn it into a hummus-like puree. I had to add a little more salt and pulse a couple of times at the end, but it was delicious. For the soup I tried to do basically what I sort of remembered the guy at the Costco demo doing. I boiled a potato, washed some celery, carrots and tomatoes, and cut a small piece each of parmesan and cheddar. I added it all to the pitcher with some warm tap water and salt. I pushed (or rather had my son push) the soup button and the unit went wild for 90 seconds, after which there was a steaming hot soup in the pitcher. This was everyone's favorite item of the day, served with biscuits. At the Costco demo they added some tortilla chips to the soup at the end and pulsed. I didn't do anything like that, so it was a totally smooth-textured soup. Finally I made a capacity batch of frozen yogurt from plain yogurt and frozen fruit. This really pushed the Blendtec to its limit, and if I hadn't had my hand on the pitcher it surely would have flown off the base. So I'd say that's a defect (I had the same problem with the Vita-Mix). It did, however, accomplish the task without a tamper -- no way in hell the Vita-Mix could have done that without a tamper. With about 12 seconds left on the program, a household fuse blew. I guess I should have shut off the air conditioner that's on the same circuit as the kitchen. But the last 12 seconds were not necessary -- the right texture had already been achieved, so I served up the dessert and then switched the fuse. One other defect I've noticed so far with the Blendtec: the rubber feet are not non-marking. I had it on a white countertop and it was a real pain to clean off the black smudges left by the feet. All in all, a good day for the Blendtec.

My limited experience indicates that the kind of warping that happens from not storing the board flat can't really be cured by sanding. But sanding will take out shallow surface scratches and such.

In general, just laying it flat overnight will flatten it. For more serious warping, a warm oven seems to be the recommended procedure. Either way, it's an inconvenience. I paid $24.95 for the 12" x 18" x 1/2".

I recently got a Sani-Tuff board and I love it. It's grippy, easy on knives, sanitary -- it's the best cutting board I've ever worked with. I can think of only two negatives: 1. It's ugly. It looks like the skin of a person with a rare disease. I wish there was another option. Almost anything would be preferable. Pretty much the only reason I'd get a wood board, given how well the Sani-Tuff performs, would be so I wouldn't have such an embarrassingly ugly board out. 2. It warps. The warping thing is a real pain. You have to store the board flat or else. And storing it flat makes it space-inefficient not to mention hard to dry. It basically has to be out all the time. Or maybe someone here has come up with a solution.

I did three frozen-dessert tests yesterday and today with the Blendtec. I'm pretty surprised how well the program cycle worked. Here's a video I made of the Blendtec producing a yogurt freeze. That's plain yogurt, frozen mango, frozen pineapple, frozen strawberry, sweetener, and a little water. I eyeballed the quantities the same as I did on the Vita-Mix, the difference being that the Blendtec actually made it happen without resort to tamping.

My primary uses are smoothies and frozen desserts. I have a fruit smoothie almost every morning, to which I add whole flax seeds. Several nights a week for dessert I make a variant of frozen yogurt: frozen fruit plus plain yogurt plus fake sugar and a little water. A regular blender can't do either of these things well. It just doesn't have the power. I also occasionally do things like hummus and white-bean puree, which a high-power blender does better than the food processor but a regular blender does poorly. I was making smoothies for a while before I got the Vita-Mix, and it was possible to make them in a regular blender using pre-ground flax and a lot of love and strategy. But the Vita-Mix made smoothies with a superior texture. The Blendtec does an even better job, I think, assuming your standard for excellent smoothie texture is the slushy-textured smoothie you get at Jamba Juice. And once I had the Vita-Mix, I started making smoothies more often and I added frozen desserts and other stuff to the repertoire. Once you see how effective the machine is, you find uses for it. I've done a couple of frozen desserts with the Blendtec now and it has performed surprisingly well without the need for a tamper. I haven't done any other food in it yet, but plan to make white-bean puree as soon as I get a chance. Each unit comes with a recipe book and instructional DVD. The Vita-Mix literature is much better. I sort of wish I had kept the Vita-Mix book for use with the Blendtec, because the Blendtec recipes are embarrassingly bad. Blendtec's recipes are mostly patronizing, semi-home-made garbage using ingredients like Tang, instant vanilla pudding, non-dairy creamer and onion-soup mix. Luckily you can get most of the information online, not that you really need it. I'd love to see some harder science, since effective use of a blender is more about the balance of liquid, solid and temperature than about a recipe.