MichaelB
participating member-
Posts
393 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Store
Help Articles
Everything posted by MichaelB
-
There's a bar I visit too infrequently where the owner and his girlfriend are both good friends. He generally serves me and at the end of the evening my tab might be $3. When I am ready to leave, he just nods in the direction of one or the other of his employees. She's the one who gets whatever my tab should have been -- or more. I never ask why he chose waitress A or bartender B; maybe she worked a slow shift earlier in the week, maybe she just broke up with her boyfriend, maybe she irritated Bob less than everyone else that night.
-
I can see your tongue residing in your cheek from here. :) Hats off to such an establishment that puts their prices up by 15% and advertises the fact that the difference goes to the waiting staff as wages. Hats off to the next company to occupy the building after the first company has gone under in short order. ← I am only aware of one fine dining restaurant in the US that is currently doing this -- and it is located right here in Cincinnati. At Jean-Robert at Pigall's, the 3 course prix fixe is $75 and the 5 course is $110 (I think) -- gratuity included. All beverage pricing, including the wine list also reflects this pricing. When you pay by credit card, they have stamped in red across the tip line "Service compris." My impression is that most guests appreciate the pricing decision. Edited to include link to web site.
-
I think the book is out in the UK with a May something US publication date. I ordered from someone in the UK and should have a Brit-English copy next week.
-
Yes, La Belle Poultry has a foie gras chunk (they do other stuff). Their production methods mimic Hudson Valley's. I think I've heard they used to be called Bobo, but I don't know the details on that. ← The description above sure sounds like La Belle. I have never tried to source it directly, though. I get mine from a friend who orders together with someone else.
-
I am just not afraid of "hurting" the knife. It can be replaced or repaired, after all. In fact, I used it just once for a few minutes and then ran it across my finest stone a couple of times -- sort of like kicking your new car just after you leave the dealer's lot. Using my knife for its intended purpose is probably safer for it than using a lot of other expensive hobby gear for its intended purpose. I am thinking of fast cars, custom golf clubs, fly rods, camera lenses. You get the picture.
-
The metal grip creeps me out. A wet palm, five pounds of cremini... One of my favourite things in life is still chopping mounds of mushrooms at full speed. The Global knives always bring a bodily flinch of disaster when I've touched them. Am I wrong? ← I have a couple of Globals and don't really use them very often for two reasons. First, the grip does get slippery from either the moisture of the product or (really slippery) the fat (think ducks). Second, my knife hand tires and cramps very quickly whenever I use a Global for serious work. The size and shape of the handle just isn't right for me and the top of the bolster hits where my knife callus is not. Thanks for the appreciation of my newest art tool.
-
That's a good idea, considering this knife is for instance worth about 2 or 3 good dishwashers. Silly. ← 900 bucks for a chef's knife? Sounds like a yuppie thing to me. ← Lighten up guys. It was a gift; the cost is not important. It is a functional work of art that I will use cheerfully and often for its intended purpose -- this knife will not be a display case queen. And I will think of my wife every time I pick it up. Is it any more extravagant than the piece of jewelry that I gave her? I submit not.
-
Beto, thanks for posting the picture here. I wouldn't know how anything would hold up in the dishwasher -- none of my knives has ever seen the inside of a dishwasher.
-
The ultimate knife is the one that brings a smile to your face each time you pick it up. I have 3 ultimates: My 5 1/4 inch Hattori Fruit knife. My 9 inch Bob Kramer Meiji style chef's knife. I have had this one about 5 years. My 7 inch Bob Kramer vegetable knife. This was a Christmas gift from my wife and I just recevied it last week. In looking for a link for his damascus steel knives, I noticed he put a picture of my knife on his web site. So: Michael's new knife -- last pic on page
-
On Christmas Eve, I do champagne and canapes for friends and family. There is always some version of foie gras on the menu. This year, I decided to confit a third of the lobe. Out of the fat, wrapped in parchment then two layers of saran. It was hovering near 0F, so I decided to put in on the back porch for 10 minutes or so to get a good start on a chill. Fifteen minutes later I went out to fetch my torchon. In its place was a whole bunch of shredded parchment and racoon tracks. $18 of foie gras down the gullet of a racoon and the guests had to make do with seared foie gras.
-
Like several others, I always bone out the loins from the saddle. Legs. Braise in white wine; braise in red wine; confit in duck fat. Saddle. Simply roast to medium rare; wrap in bacon and roast; stuff, wrap in bacon and roast; stuff, wrap in caul fat and roast; stuff, wrap in foil and confit. For stuffing. Use meat from the forequarter and make a farce with egg, cream, herbs, salt and pepper. Puree and pass. Make sure that your loins have the rib flap attached. Spread stuffing on flap and roll. Remainder of forequarter. Use for stock with loin bones.
-
All of the game birds that I have gotten through D'Artagnan over the years have been from Scotland. I can assure you that what you (meaning everyone upthread) ate at Daniel or Craftbar or ADNY -- or pretty much everywhere else, including Seattle -- came from D'Artagnan. They pretty much have a lock on that market. Funny thing is -- that Scottish pheasant was probably a chick bred and hatched on the huge operation in Wisconsin (the name escapes me right now), shipped to Scotland, raised on an estate and shot by some American who paid big bucks to do so. ← Do they sell woodcock? ← I am confident you won't find it on the web site. This is the sort of thing that a chef would hear about when he phones in his order. The rep says "I am getting a few [whatever] next week. How much do you want?"
-
All of the game birds that I have gotten through D'Artagnan over the years have been from Scotland. I can assure you that what you (meaning everyone upthread) ate at Daniel or Craftbar or ADNY -- or pretty much everywhere else, including Seattle -- came from D'Artagnan. They pretty much have a lock on that market. Funny thing is -- that Scottish pheasant was probably a chick bred and hatched on the huge operation in Wisconsin (the name escapes me right now), shipped to Scotland, raised on an estate and shot by some American who paid big bucks to do so.
-
I -- and my marriage -- have lived through two kitchen remodelings in the same house. The first, a remodel of the existing space. The second, a move of the kitchen to what had been the garage (but we reused all the cabinets). It's been 15 years since the second and I still get cold chills thinking about them.
-
I always have a supply of duck confit on hand. Nothing is more versatile, or keeps longer. I most recently replenished my supply on Christmas eve when I confited the legs and thighs of 13 ducks. Most of what I say below has been covered upthread but bears repeating. You should never have to "find" rendered duck fat. Make your own. Buy whole ducks for a while. Bone out the breasts to serve on festive occasions or at dinner parties. Remove the legs and thighs for confit. Trim the excess fat off the breasts and legs and trim the fat and skin from the carcass. Save the carcass, wings, neck and gizzard for stock (or confit the gizzards). Saute the livers for a quick snack. With a bit of practice, you should be able to break down a duck like this in under 5 minutes. I take all the duck parts that I am not using immediately, wrap them separately and freeze them. My freezer is usually chock full of packages that say "duck fat" or "3 duck carcasses." When those items fill up their appointed space, it is time to make duck stock (reduced to a glace and frozen for later use) and rendered fat. I almost always make both these things at the same time. Render the fat over very low heat at a bare simmer for a couple of hours; strain; and cool. Done; you have rendered duck fat. It will keep in the freezer until the end of time. Once you have a base inventory of rendered fat built up, you will never need to acquire more -- unless you give too much away to your firends for whom the process is too much (not eGulleteers, obviously). Don't throw away the stuff inthe strainer. Make cracklings from the strained out skin and bits. My curing rub for confit always contains lots of juniper berries and a bit of allspice along with thyme, marjoram, bay leaves, salt and pepper. About that juice that sits under the fat after confiting the legs, my freezer has several containers marked simply "duck jello." It does an incredible job enriching poultry based sauces. Be careful, it will be quite salty with the concentration varying with how much curing salt your duck absorbed. Now that I have typed all this, I am sure that there is a similar thread from more than a year ago. I recall another member asking me if he could incorporate into his signature something I said in that thread -- along the lines of: Duck -- eat everything but the quack.
-
With all respect, I think its difficult to determine if a restaurant is coasting if its your first visit. I have a list of reasons that make me have this opinion, including a number of almost exact dishes from last year's menu..but I'd want another visit, not a a business dinner, to determine if my opinion is accurate. Shelton used to have dishes that were original, now they seem to mimic any three star NYC place. ← This is probably a better topic for another thread but I cannot conclude a restaurant is coasting because the menu repeats dishes from year to year or because the menu doesn't seem as inventive as it once did. (That also perhaps says as much about the beholder as it does the menu.) Coasting to me is more an attitude that I see in the service and how the food is cooked. There is a very fine line that chef/owners like Shelton have to walk (and the longer you are open the finer the line gets). How can you take a top selling item off the menu? How do you deal with the guy from Cincinnati who having read a review has his heart set on the dish the reviewer loved? (By the way, that didn't happen.) Your menu can only be so big. Every dish that has to stay takes the place of something you'd like to stretch with. Is it a coincidence that the menus in all the New York 3 stars (NYT scale) look similar? Are all the chefs and owners conspiring to feed us the same stuff. I suspect that the dining public is at fault. These dishes may, or may not, be what the chef wants to do -- it is what SELLS. Shelton and all the rest of the restaurateurs have to make the payroll and mortgage. There was just an article in the Times on precisely this topic -- was it a Grimes retrospective on his reviewing stint? There are probably 200 chefs in this country capable and willing to do the one-off, nothing else like it, 4 star (NYT scale, again) that would appeal to the people who regularly post on e-Gullet -- rather than the perhaps 5 chefs who are already doing so. Every additional restaurant like that needs to serve 15,000 (or more) dinners a year at a check average of say $250-$300. How big is that market? Let's start with the "hard-core" e-Gullet crowd. Anyone know how many e-Gullet members have at least 200 posts, including say 5 in the last 30 days?
-
We were there on the Friday night before Thanksgiving (11/19, maybe, without consulting a calendar). The restaurant was busy. We had a 7:45 reservation and the room we were in was full. Several tables turned while we were there.
-
My wife and I had our first experience at Ryland three Friday nights ago. I got no impression of coasting. I do think that Chef Shelton may be a bit too ambitious with what he tries to deliver. Out of the one kitchen they do the bistro menu (which I did not see), a small a la carte menu, five different eight course tasting menus plus whatever priviate parties might be doing. There were one or two very slight mistakes in what we had and the meal was (intentionally) *very* expensive -- we had the truffle tasting menu and lots of moderately expensive wines. That said, I felt like I got my money's worth and would return soon were it not a 575 mile trip.
-
I'l chime in agreeing with Russ on this one too. I used to be one of those people who worked all day long to put out a fancy meal for guests. It really was no fun; and I am sure it wasn't that enjoyable for the guests. Fortunately, my skills have improved and maybe my ego has shrunk a bit. I now refuse to enter the kitchen earlier than 2 1/2 hours before guests arrive. Also, no course can take longer than 10 minutes to pick up and plate. It's a dinner *party*; and I am not the paid help. That said, in any 5 or 6 course meal that I do, one or two will be "4 star quality." Every one has the potential to be so; I just cannot predict which it will be. With just one pair of hands, it is more or less a matter of luck that I get the meat to the prefect temperature, the vegetables done and seasoned perfectly, the sauce not over reduced, etc. all at the same time -- oh, and make sure everyone at the table has wine, the correct silver got placed, the plates from the last course are rinsed and stacked out of my way. I know how to do all these things; I know exactly what is wrong with every plate I put out -- it is simply impossible for one person with one pair of hands to get it right every time in that setting. Did I also mention that I would have several glasses of wines consumed by course 4 or 5. I also don't sweat that every course isn't quite to the standards of Per Se. The meal is free to my guests. They are there to enjoy the company of others. The food and wine is just lubricates the occasion.
-
I likewise have done risotto for up to a hundred on many occassions. If you are entertaining a large group, you may want to par cook your risotto ahead of time. The risotto comes out perfectly and the timing during your party is easier. To do so, just cook the rice the normal way until about 2/3 cooked. Then, spread the risotto in a thin layer on a sheet tray and refrigerate. When you are ready to serve, just add the simmering stock (in somewhat larger "portions" than you use normally) to the cold rice. The rice will finish cooking very quickly. Add your pancetta and mushrooms and serve!
-
Strain it. You'll need a fine chinois -- or cheesecloth.
-
I have posted here before about something I make every year for my office's pre-Thanksgiving lunch -- chocolate pudding with softly whipped cream. Every year there is at least one new employee who won't believe that you can make pudding. And are several who each year stand slack-jawed as I apply a whisk to a quart of cream.
-
Don't have an answer for you; but my wife cannot take any medicine with codeine in it. It comes back up almost as fast as it goes down. Took her a little while to figure out. Once determined, she just gets something else prescribed.
-
I have been following this thread hoping to find the reason anyone needs more than one (Kosher kitchens excepted) of any of these things. What's wrong with a wipe, a rinse or a wash? Or are you people using these things as storage containers? My inventory plastic two liter 1 each pyrex liter, 500 ml and 250 ml 1 set imperial dry measures -- 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 1 and 2 cup I do have two sets of measuring spoons, but one was a gift and I saw no reason to throw away the old set. Now, I do have 3 scales the plastic srping loaded imperial only -- good for quick approximations and portion sizing the electronic scale switchable between imperial and metric (1/4 ounce and 5 gram increments) -- used for all baking and general kitchen use up to 5 kg max deli type electronic scale I picked up at auction, imperial only, hundredth pound increments up to 50 pounds.
-
I can honestly report that I have never taken anything from a restaurant that I wasn't supposed to take. I did quip to friend on the opening of his reataurant that I was pleased that he selected the same Bernardaud china my wife and I chose. He remarked that he didn't recall ever seeing that china in our home -- to which I replied "no, but by the end of next week, you'll be able to!" I recall an article some time ago on this subject. It reported that one of the Vegas restaurants (either Picasso or Renoir) had Lalique ashtrays at the beginning. $15,000 worth disppeared in the first several weeks the restaurant was open.