bleachboy

Whoah, great link! Must have been before my time. I, too, like to eat the shells, especially on the small deep-fried shrimp in New Orleans. Even on big shrimp, I like to chew on the shells, although I usually spit them out. Of course, this is an act which should be confined to close friends or solitary, at-home dining only. Spitting stuff out ain't too genteel, y'know. Kinda like gnawing on bones.

The fact of the matter is, a "perfect" score is like "infinity" -- man can never attain perfection, although he may hope. I agree that giving out perfect scores (in anything) is automatic Bad News. Because no matter how good a thing is, it could be a little bit better. I recently tasted some 100-point TBA. I would not have declared it "perfect" -- just "really damn good". "Perfect" is an absolute that really shouldn't be used unless you're talking about God or some other noncorporeal concept.

We do have a abundance of great corn in Tennessee right now. If I get a chance, I'll make some this weekend. I love corn, I love cream, I love eggs... what's not to love?!

It's actually true. The French have the second-lowest rate of heart disease in the world, behind Japan. It's called "The French Paradox".

Fish 'n' chips and hushpuppies, all from scratch. Pretty tasty. Reeked up the house. If you're gonna fry, fry HARD.

I was at a restaurant one time before though and they claimed the pork had been cured, or smoked or something, so I could order it medium rare if I wanted. I didn't want. However, is there perhaps such a process that could be done to pork that would render it safe to eat when rare? (Actually, I agree with SethG.. trichinosis has pretty well been eradicated due to modern feeding practices .. the main reason I would get pork medium is just because I think raw pork sounds like a nasty proposition). Think "proscuitto"?

A new word has been coined on eGullet! Please attempt to use this word at least once a week in daily conversation. Thank you.

I think I posted it once before, but I'll post it again: Find White Lily self-rising flour. Follow directions on back of bag, substituting buttermilk for whole milk. Use either Crisco or a combination of Crisco and butter. 100% butter is hard to work. I've never tried lard, as it would cause my vegetarian wife to fly into convulsive fits with tasty biscuits she couldn't eat. Perfect biscuits. I really have never tasted any better. I make them all the time and I'm a klutz baker.

Do you mean like this? Scroll down to see "Bun Tray racks" in this? Or this? Yes! Maybe, anyhow. The "Bun Tray Racks" are what gave me the idea, but I've only ever seen them used in a walk-in. Also I saw somewhere where a guy had done all the drawers in his kitchen with a similar gizmo designed to hold hotel pans. But those True refrigerators DO claim to have an "optional interior kit" with "tray slide sets" which sound like that might be the ticket -- I'm going to be buying a fridge sometime late this year or early next, and I will check into that!

I'm sorry to hear you didn't enjoy your experience at Daniel to the fullest. I ate there about a year ago, and was quite impressed. We arrived about 45 minutes early, and sat at the bar and ordered a bottle of champagne. The waiter brought out a multi-tiered silver platter with assorted amuses, mixed nuts, etc. Very nice. The meal was impeccably presented and perfectly prepared. Two dining companions declared it the best food they had ever eaten. I would not go that far, but it was undoubtedly world-class. Granted, it's not a "so full you might vomit" kind of place. McAppleback's (courtesy Mayhaw Man) provides that. But I wasn't expecting that either. I left sated but still ready to go out and spend a night on the town in lovely NYC. I heard a lot of complaints in your post about small portion sizes (at the bar and on the table), which leads me to wonder if you knew what to expect. Fine dining's not a diner. I, too, noticed the Asian influence. I can't remember exactly what I had, but I know that I passed on some favorites (potato wrapped sea bass) to try the more Asian inspired dishes. Do you know if Chef Boulud was actually in the place the night you went? He said goodbye to us as we left, so he was definitely there. The presence of the executive chef often makes the difference between a good meal and a great meal at these types of places.

My dream refrigerator wouldn't have shelves, but instead just notches on the sides that would accomodate sheet pans so that I could reconfigure the shelves as needed, slide the shelves out to get at stuff in the back, etc. I wonder if there is such a beast...

I'm no doctor either, but my wife has also told me before not to run cold water on a burn. Whenever I burn myself, I run to my wife like a whiney baby for help. This also happens if I see a huge bug. I am kind of a sissy like that. Anyway, she always prescribes holding the burn under tepid or maybe even just-slightly-warm tap water for a minute at least. Honestly, this usually does the trick. The pain disappears and I don't notice it again until the next hot shower or handwashing or whatnot. Obviously, serious burns should be treated by a professional.

You just gave me a good idea.. I bet you could use those colored thumb tacks to color code them, too. Green for veg, yellow for poultry, red for meat. I think I will do that one day when I have a kitchen large enough to accomodate some nice big cutting boards (I have a tiny apartment kitchen).

My parents love veal piccata, so I decided to use my "annual veal quota" to fix them dinner tonight. Served with polenta and a caesar salad (which my dad made and sort of messed up). Everything was okay.

On the freezer: I prefer a bottom-loader myself, mostly because I grew up with one and it just seems "right" to me. Since you're going to be installing an ice machine, ice storage is not a consideration. The big drawback, though, is that stuff tends to sink to the bottom, only to be forgotten permanently. You eventually find the meat loaf labeled "1/4/1999" but it's waay too late. Do you have a deep freezer for that kind of stuff? If so, a bottom freezer is great for the "frequently accessed frozen stuff". On the oven: Normally I shy away from digital type controls. My mother-in-law's oven doesn't work at all due to the flat-panel digital controls completely dying. However, hers is an old model and may have been a second to begin with. But man lemme tell you, every time I go to my mom's house, she has nice double ovens with digital timers, and there's nothing so nice as being able to set something to "195 degrees for four hours, thirty five minutes". So I would definitely recommend something that's all programmable and stuff.

I have 28 cookbooks that I can find. There may be more on the "back in the corner and you can hardly reach it" bookshelf, but if so, we never use them.

Consult ye the Periodic Table of Condiments!

Yeah. While we're on the topic of "doing something else altogether", why not a pot roast or some other form of braised beef, like shortribs? Always well done, always moist and juicy and delicious.

It might just make the vinaigrette taste great though, like an infused oil or whatnot.

I was watching what is undoubtedly Food TV's finest offering, "Unwrapped" tonight, and what I believe was a representative of Hidden Valley Ranch or something offered an astonishing statistic. 98% of American households have bottled salad dressing in their refrigerator. The average American household refrigerator, in fact, contains eight different varieties of bottled salad dressing. WTF?! Is this for real? Are they counting mayonnaise as a bottled salad dressing or what? I love snooping in others' iceboxes, and I will agree that most I have seen contain some form of bottled salad dressing. So the 98% ... well, it might be close, anyway. But eight different bottles?! So quick. Go to your refrigerator. Count the number of bottles and varieties. Report your results. Feel free to name specific varieties, if you like. I sort of sometimes have a weakness for "French" dressing of the red/orange variety. But only infrequently. Fake bacon bits sometimes enter into that equation as well. As for myself, I have zero bottles of "salad dressing" in my fridge. But if you're counting "things that could be salad dressing ingredients," I probably have about 18.

I also kind of like the color coded boards. For wood, there's one called Identibord. Rubbermaid has a very similar product with color-coded plastic cutting boards.

Whoah. My mind is blown. Has anybody tried this?! What's it made of?

At some point in the future, all food will be tagged with RFID tags (or whatever successor we humans invent). Then the auto-scanning cart will be a reality. Your fridge will also be able to inventory itself. How will they stick RFID tags to fruits/veggies? Mystery.

Growing up in Texas, my wonderful parents never offered me anything spicy. Or Asian. Gatorade. Flat Sprite. Campbell's chicken noodle soup. Saltines with Smucker's grape jelly.

Okay. You guys are freaking me out.