rgruby

I agree. It seems like he's hardly ever there (er, NYC). Not often enough, anyhow. The word overextended comes to mind. It's one thing to let it go when it's working, but if it isn't, you'd better fucking be there. For fuck's sakes people, get a grip! (That's my best Ramsey imitation - sorry.) Now, I haven't eaten there, and won't likely for some time - maybe ever. I suspect the food is very good. But, obviously not a hit in NYC. At least not out of the park. Yet. So, NYCers, what's (wots) he doing wrong? Anybody eaten there? Obviously the man can cook and run a restaurant. Are there any glaring differences between the London and NYC high end dining scenes that might account for Mr. Ramsey's apparent difficulties opening on this side of the pond? From my perspective this is not meant to be a hatchet job or cutting someone down to size just because. But clearly (or as clearly as I can tell not having eaten there) something is not quite right with Ramsey's NYC venture. But what exactly? From Buford's article, it seems Mr. Ramsey himself is not quite sure. Cheers, Geoff Ruby

Well, Feb has come and gone. Where'd you go. What'd you do? General comments/ observations? Things you'd do differently or pass on next time? Cheers, Geoff Ruby PS I ate at Rain this weekend for the first time. I thought the meal was pretty good, but I don't know if I'd recommend it as THE place for visiting culinary students with the means to have only one high end meal in town. Nice presentations on large and assymetrical "look my food must be important" plates - but less fussy than some of the stuff I remember seeing on their tv show. Sometimes hard to eat though, pulling the banana leaf "ring" off before you can get to the food, etc. Still, given my one experience there, I think you'd have a pretty decent meal.

I mentioned this somewhere else on egullet, but I'll say it again: those with meat slicers looking for some more ways to use them should have a gander at Michel Richard's book "Happy in the Kitchen". He's doing all kinds of wacky things with his slicer. For example, slicing an onion and using the slices as "pasta". Cheers, Geoff Ruby

Hey, no problem. I was just having a look at the Cookbook store's website here in Toronto, and they had it listed as a new book. I couldn't get their site to link, so I googled and found the site I linked to. Amazon doesn't seem to carry the book though (yet) - I suspect it has just been translated into English. Might be interesting for those interested in high-end restaurant style food and presentations. And, I'm not sure if anyone else has mentioned this, but in and around Pesaro you can find a Pizza Rossini, whose defining trait is the addition of mayonnaise. I never could bring myself to try it though. Cheers, Geoff Ruby

There's also a book called "A Taste of the Marche". More info can be found here: http://www.artisanideas.com/Detail.tpl?rnd...&sku=8886174837 I haven't seen it - and given its hefty price, I'm not going to be getting it anytime soon. Has anybody seen it? Comments? Cheers, Geoff Ruby

Baggy, Could you tell us a bit more about Essence and its author? I haven't heard anything about it on this side of the pond. BTW, there is a thread about the Locatelli book. Cheers, Geoff Ruby

I saw an article in the paper that mentioned that this product - Glasskote - is new to Canada, but has been around the Antipodes for a while (a decade or two?). From what I understand it is essentially tempered glass, available in a myriad of colours, and is being used for kitchen backsplashes (among other uses). Just wondering if anyone has installed it in their kitchen, or otherwise has comments/ opinions on it. I do think it looks preety sharp, from the little bit I've seen of it. Cheers, Geoff Ruby

I'm bumping this back up, if for no other reason that I told Dave I'd try to add my kitchen reno experience to this thread. In a nutshell: it's a nightmare. Well, maybe not a nightmare. But it's still been almost three months without a kitchen sink. Our reno started Dec. 1 - the kitchen was gutted (which took about an hour - I'll post photos later if I still have them. there wasn't much to gut). The flooring guys came in and did their thing - stripped out the five layers of flooring (well, removed four - they left the original plank stuff) and rebuilt up. So far so good. Then the cabinet installers came and did their thing. Three weeks after the start of the reno, the kitchen was probably 90% done. The last 10% is still in progress. Even though the first three weeks were the most turmoil, noise, dust (well, except for the drywall stuff) and general inconvenience, I don't think that was the most frustrating part. Because pretty much every day it felt like progress was being made. After that, it kind of felt like we were really close to having a kitchen, but that not much was happening. Less invasive? Less disruptive to the daily routine? Perhaps. Less satisfying? Yup. Progress, or even the illusion thereof, would be nice. the countertops have been delayed - they moved over the hols and had to get their tools recertified. They didn't know this. Delay. My contractor (who did the floor, cut down a half wall, and fixed up the myriad drywall and plaster booboos) was seemingly less interested in attending to the niggling little bits that were left after the flooring (mostly the plaster and drywall things) so what seemed to me like it could have been done in an afternoon or two seemed to take weeks. I'm doing the painting (still not done), my wife threw her back out. Delays, delays. Contractor on holidays for a couple of weeks. Brutally cold here, kid sick. Didn't feel like having the vent hood folks come and put a hole in my kitchen wall when it was minus twenty so haven't even tried to schedule them yet. Next week maybe. When I can post photos, I have an interesting connundrum (sp?) with something we found. Got the dishwasher hooked up temporarily. A godsend. A couple loose ends with the cabinet install (different folks than the contractors). Difficulty getting hold of them. Budget? What budget? - Actually pretty close to what I expected. Except for the floor, but that was the result of many layers of floor over 125 years, most of them done poorly, having to be removed, and then the florr built up again ( the original floor would have been a step down from the rest of the house). So, additional expense there was not entirely unexpected - we knew there were subfloors, we just didn't know how many. So, getting closer, but still lots of loose ends. will try and post some photos in the next week or two. In the meantime, I'm going to try and finish the painting. Cheers, Geoff Ruby

Tom Kime catered the Thai meal Geoff referred to and his book is called "Exploring Taste and Flavour" ← That's the one! Cheers, Geoff Ruby

I don't have the Goldstein book, but I own the others you mentioned. Some other suggestions include Flavor by Rocco DiSpirito (yeah, that Rocco). I actually think it's not a bad book, and have opined as much a couple of times here on egullet. It includes a decent list/chart of which flavours might be slotted into the salty/ sour/ bitter/ sweet categories, and talks a bit about how he develops (developed I guess now) recipes. Taste by Sybill Kapoor is a British book that came out a couple of years ago, and has a bunch of recipes divided into sections on salty, sour, bitter and sweet (and maybe spicy too?) which build around an ingredient that is categorized as predominantly salty or sour or bitter or sweet, and then discusses how the recipe uses that predominant flavour, but also how the addition of salt, or sugar, for example affects it. Interesting book - but I've cooked very little from it. Keep meaning to come back to it to see if I agree with what she is saying. One weird thing about it to me - her focus is solely on what is sensed by the mouth and tongue. She doesn't deal directly with aroma, which is of course incredibly important to how we taste things. Some ingredients less often seen across the pond - samphire (?). There's another British one that also might be of interest to you. I recall that the author was a Thai chef and catered Jamie Oliver's wedding. I remember all that. The name of the book? Alas, it eludes me. Will try and look it up over the next few days. Of the three I mentioned, I think the Kapoor one most closely adheres to what you are looking for. And, I think Culinary Artistry is a good read - but it is just skimming the surface of what you're looking for. Kunz's book I like as well, but it is definitely a chef's cookbook - well, I suppose Roberts' is as well, although the recipes are less "chefy". Or is it just that the edition I have is not the big, glossy coffee table book that Kunz's is? In any event, I started a thread on much the same topic, well who knows how long ago? I don't recall what it turned up, if anything. Well, if nothing else, there's a couple more ideas for you. The Kapoor book is out in paperback, so it's not too spendy. Rocco's can probably be found in cutout bins - I do think it's actually worth a look. Good luck with your search. Cheers, Geoff Ruby

How to scale up/scale down the recipe. (Especially for baking). What can be made ahead and how best to hold it. For how long? Can it be frozen succesfully? (Way too few cookbooks give us this info). But mostly, I'm hopeful for a recipe that works without too much tweaking, and has some sort of story/ context for why it is in the book. I do know that I'm somewhat torn between the recipe writers who spell everything out (ie Julia Child, to name but one example - but a very good one) and those who don't (ie Claudia Roden - who doesn't delve into the level of technique of Ms. Child necessarily, but whose recipes, to me at least, are still very clear and give excellent results. Often, they're more guidelines than a definite path etched in stone.) So, do you have opinions on the degree of specificity in a recipe? Is more necessarily good? Cheers, Geoff Ruby

the larger supermarkets on Spadina in Chinatown will have them. I tend to buy the little tins, not sure of the brand. The larger plastic containers (different brand) are there too. I suspect you'd also find them in the larger stores in the other GTA Chinatowns as well. I think House of Spice in Kensington also carries them. I suspect many of the better large chain grocery stores (Loblaws etc.) will also carry them. There is also a Thai grocer in a strip mall off Weston Rd. in the Sheppard/ Finch area called Ventiane, if memory serves. My one trip there didn't turn up too much in the way of canned stuff that you couldn't find in Chinatown, but for more esoteric herbs, that'd be the first place I'd look. Good luck, Geoff Ruby

Ok, Can anybody (in addition to Markk's comments) talk about the differences in the performance of home broilers. For example, a DCS (or similar) versus a GE or Kitchenaid or Maytag or whatever (ie less spendy) model. Or perhaps price isn't really a good way of parsing out the differences - perhaps a better way of looking at this is - what should we be looking for in a broiler? Does electric versus gas make a difference? How about the ceramic (infrared???). Other factors? I have to admit, I pretty much never use mine to cook anything - but I use it to finish; a roast chicken whose skin isn't crisp enough, onion soup, to get more caramelization on a salmon etc. If that' all I use it for, does the quality of the broiler really matter that much? Am I really missing out? Do I need broiler therapy? cheers, Geoff Ruby

Gotta admit I rarely use mine, but am considering a new oven and the two models I am considering have vastly different broilers: one looks incredible, the other a bit lacklustre. Since I use it so infrequently, I don't think this should weigh all that heavily on my decision. And yet ... at the very least I'm gonna get sucked into this thread. Ok, I'll look at the Bittman bit first before I venture anything further. Cheers, Geoff Ruby

Very limited real kitchen experience here - but did help serve, prep, cook (might've just plated dessert - who knows - can't really remember) for the lead singer dude from Simply red (erm, that does count as a celebrity right?) in a castle in Italy. Sort of a long story. I'm not Italian. I don't speak Italian. But I was there, and think Valentino Rossi will regain his crown this year. There were also some Italian celebs that got the rest of the kitchen all aflutter, but I couldn't tell you who they were - one was a female talk show host - but that's all I know. Here in Toronto, was in the kitchen when Ron Howard (Opie!, Richie Cunningham!), in town directing Cinderella Man was dining - but I was just doing prep - he didn't eat anything I'd touched. Pretty sure I didn't even help plate the desserts that day. And that's about it as far as I know. Doesn't really matter though really - I guess it's sort of a talking point after you go home, but while you're at work, you just get on with it really. I suspect it impacts front of house more? Cheers, Geoff Ruby

In addition to the participating restaurants of Winterlicious, there's a bunch of other Winter City festival (or whatever it's called) food-related stuff happenning. Read more here: http://www.toronto.ca/special_events/wintercity/cooking.htm and here: http://www.toronto.ca/special_events/wintercity/culinary.htm I wouldn't mind hearing Gurth Pretty (author of the new Canadian Artisinal Cheeses - or sonething along those lines) tell me about cheese. I think the stuff in the first link is free; prices for the cooking demos in the second link are mentioned there. Cheers, Geoff Ruby

Around the time I started this thread, I started another one re: Corian, Silestone and the like - I'll see if I can find it. Not sure to what extent it discussed butcher block or formica. Cheers, Geoff Ruby

Pretty much any cookbook that tries to put the food in its historical and cultural context is going to grab my attention. So, for "ethnic" cuisines, some history of the peoples of that region, how much influence from other cultures (were they invaded, and how did this influence the food; were they colonists bringing back foods from distant lands, etc., etc.). Also, whether the food in the book strives for authenticity (whatever that means) or whether, and to what extent the book "adapts" the cuisine. I like knowing about that too. Something like Julie Sahni's Indian cookbook comes to mind, as do the travel and food related books by Alford and Duguid. Paula Wolfert comes to mind. Well, there's lots of examples. Sahni's book has no pictures - just a few line drawings, so you really are in it just for the text. Of course, some cookbooks also draw you in with gorgeous photography. Sometimes it's just food porn, but sometimes the photography does give you a sense of where the food in the book comes from - I think Alford and Duguid do pretty well on the latter, and I think it can really add to the book if done well. Madelaine Kamman's Making of a Cook is another cookbook that adds a bunch of history - I like reading that one too. Don't think I've cooked from it nearly as much as from Sahni's and Alford and Duguid's books though. Cheers, Geoff Ruby

Given the half page ad in this week's Now (pg 52) - I'm less likely to subscribe to that view. Uh, the non-accident bit, not the cheese or cocktails. Also, I think the news reports indicated that customers had to flee. It's one thing to torch a place at four in the morning when nobody will be in the building, it's entirely another when the place is full of staff and customers. And, during a busy and presumably profitable time of year. So, I'm guessing it really was an accident. Kitchen fires do happen, unfortunately. I feel sorry for the staff. Geoff Ruby

Well, was poking around a bookstore this morn and a couple of other books did look interesting to me. Any fans out there of the Michel Richard book, or Aliza Green's? (Hope I got the names right). Cheers, Geoff Ruby

My understanding is that soapstone requires periodic oiling to give it a nice even (but darker) coloration. The frequency of oiling required to achieve this decreases over time. Of course, you don't have to oil soapstone - it's purely for esthetic reasons. Given this, I suspect that the darkness will fade somewhat (perhaps even quite a bit the first time or two) but will fade less each subsequent oil application. I'd try not oiling it again, or maybe just oiling it when it gets too uneven in color/tone. Cheers, Geoff Ruby

So,you're really working with a space that's @ 20 x 11. I probably would have killed to get that extra 3 or 4 feet. I still think an island is untenable unless you can free one of the "long" walls of cabinets and counter. A penninsula will depend on the doorways/flow along the length of the room. But, not knowing your room, I'll bet you could have an awesome penninsula somewhere in your space. If you can show us som more detail of your space, I'm sure you'llget some opinions. You'll definitely get mine (fwiw) but it sounds like we've been groping with similar issues for the last couple years. Cheers, Geoff Ruby

Ha! i think that was you over on Dave's reno thread asking about islands vs. penninsulas! Good luck with it. I think concrete could be right if you know what you want and can oversee the installation like a hawk. It seems more prone to error on the fabrication/ install side than just about anything else. Cheers, Geoff Ruby

When did I start this thread? It seems like eons ago. It was eons ago. In any event, I plunked down some money for countertops last week. In the end, I went with soapstone. I'm still not convinced I made the right decision. I'm mostly worried about how the edge will hold up given that I expect my kid will be banging on it and whacking away with anything he can get his hands on. Anywho, they're gonna look fantastic. Install date late Jan probably. Cheers, Geoff Ruby

Just a quick couple of things about Ikea kitchens. I, like Dave who started this thread, am installing an Ikea kitchen. (Well he's already installed at least two. My cabinets will allegedly be in before Christmas. Wish me luck). I've recently learned that there is a website called Ikea fans (something like that) that may be of assistance for others thinking of doing the same. I can't vouch for it myself - I haven't tried to use it, just had a quick browse - but there are some custom mods that people have done, for example, that may be useful. I don't think it's associated with Ikea in any way directly, however. I have also learned that the 36" sink cabinet can be cut down to 34" and that the doors from the 25" corner unit will fit. We are doing this, and we desparately needed those 2 inches. The kitchen staff at Ikea don't know about this (well, if they did, they didn't tell us). So, using an installer very familiar with Ikea's product might be a good way to go if you need to think outside the box (ugh - pun intended) a little bit with your kitchen design. Also, apparently cutting down the depth of the cabinets is fairly easy; it's the width that's an issue because the doors can't really be messed with. I expect this is true of other ready-to-assemble cabinet makers as well (whoa, look Daddy-A I'm learning some of the lingo!) Cheers, Geoff Ruby