Malawry

I'd be up for this. I peeked at the book while waiting for Hillvalley at Politics and Prose last weekend. There are LOTS of bad words in it. I keep trying to add it to my library queue--I think it's a must-read. C'mon, it's TONY.

Just wanted to mention that I won't do bacon on my griddle. I tried it once and the whole thing made such a mess--maybe for just a handful of slices it'd be fine but after rendering 50 or so pieces it was swimming in muck. The griddle on my stove cannot just be picked up and all the grease poured off--it has a trap for greast but it's a pain to scrape all the mess into the trap. Not recommended, especially when I can pick up a skillet and pour the grease into an empty #10 can on the floor which is then easily emptied into a grease dumpster. (No, I don't save bacon grease and cook with it. I might at home but several of my girls don't eat pork.) A bacon press looks a little like an iron: a rectangular piece of iron with a metal handle. It should be heavy to weight the bacon down. I don't have one but sometimes I think I should--mostly for sandwiches. (I use a heavy pot lid for grilled cheese.)

I know that Kinkead's had a lobster roll on their menu pre-renovation. If it's still there it's worth ordering--I ate it at the bar a few times and really liked it. It's not as good as the ones from lobster shacks in Maine but it scratches the itch.

I guess Palena will lack the one-two punch of Derek and Evan's dreaminess. Which is good. Dreaminess should be spread around evenly. Every restaurant should have a little dreamy guy behind the bar. Babka: No chicken. Oysters.

I have not used it, but I think Sysco carries something like it. If so I will find out at their trade show next week...

I have a Jenn-Aire range at home. I have the grill plates but my range just doesn't have enough juice to make grilling possible--so I never bothered getting the griddle plates. Does anybody have Jenn-Aire griddle plates, and if so what do you think of them? Simdelish, thanks for sharing about your ancestral stove. I hate cooking on electric but I grew up cooking on an electric stove too--my mom is afraid of gas for some reason. Your response gave me happy memories of those days trying to see above the lips of yummy-smelling pots. My mom had an average 1970s goldenrod range where I learned to cook spaghetti sauce, macaroni and cheese and other favorites. I have never made a dosa at all, much less tried one on a griddle. Suzanne, I think you should try it and report back. Cleaning and seasoning the griddle: I only clean it once a week, unless I do some really messy stuff on it or I cook meat on it. (I figure it should be clean enough for the vegetarians to feel good about getting their Boca burgers off of it at any given time.) Every day, at the beginning of service, I fire up the griddle and add about 1oz oil to it. I use the back of an offset burger spatula to smear the oil around. This makes the griddle look black and a little shiny--perfect for griddle cooking. Bread tends to sop the oil up so there can't be too much of it, and sometimes I have to regrease halfway through service. I also regrease whenever I cook eggs--I just add a few drops and spatula them around, and then crack the eggs into the spot I just greased. After service, I turn off the griddle and let it cool for a while. Then I take a bench scraper and scrape all the gook off. There usually isn't too much, and what I do get up is easily deposited in the trash by pulling the scraper against the trash bag. Monday and Tuesday, that's enough. Sometimes, if the grill is grosser, like on Wednesday or Thursday, I use an old rag to wipe it down. On Friday I give it a thorough scrub. First I scrape, and then I use a solution I buy from Sysco diluted with warm water to scrub down the griddle. I use a big metal scrubber--one of the coil type ones--and then switch to a sponge with a green scrubblie side to get more smaller gunk. I pay special attention to the corners and the lip in the front which tend to get especially nasty. Then I rinse several times, and wipe down four or five times with a sponge (cleaning the sponge in between each wipe-down) for the final treatment. The griddle is clean and ready for me Monday morning. The Viking range is very nice, but one of the two ovens sucks. Can't win them all.

I think the Kosher markets may be your best bet. First try Katz's Kosher in Rockville, and if they don't pan out try Shalom Kosher in Wheaton. I wonder if it's possible for that wonderful meat guy at Eastern Market to help you out, if the Kosher places fail ya.

I have a big griddle built-in to my Viking range at work. When I started my job I shied away from it, unsure how to control the heat effectively and unenthusiastic about cleaning it after finishing up. My girls pressed me gently about offering favorites like quesadillas and grilled cheese on a regular basis, so I started turning it on twice a week or so to make these foods for their lunches. I threw out a lot of burnt grilled cheese while I figured out how to moderate the temperature--it either seemed to be way too hot or not hot enough. Eventually I got better with the temperature. I learned how to grease the griddle effectively so foods became crisp without being greasy. I learned when and how to scrape the griddle, and how to clean it effectively (the bench scraper is essential to this job). I got to the point where I could eyeball the flame under the griddle or hold my hand an inch above the surface to see if the temperature was correct. I started weighting the grilled cheese sandwiches with a heavy pot lid, and turning out perfect crisp quesadillas easily. This semester, I'm using my griddle every day. I've instituted a standing short-order menu with things like fried egg sandwiches, Boca burgers and ham or turkey melts to go with the quesadillas and grilled cheese. The griddle is especially good for the fried eggs, which have that lacy crispness around the edges and release easily when I flip them. Boca burgers are much-improved with a little browning on the griddle, and they are made more special by toasting the bun. I toast bread for other sandwiches on the griddle regularly--a BLT on griddle-crisped bread is a beautiful thing. I don't even mind cleaning it so much these days as I've learned how to do it properly. I sometimes use the griddle for dinner jobs, too. Vegetables cooked on the griddle are almost as good as grilled vegetables--either large slices browned on both sides, or moderate slices for fajitas come out terrific. On breakfast-for-dinner nights I've made pancakes on the griddle, 12 at a time, to get it done quickly right before service. I can sear the outside of a whole uncut pork loin on the griddle before finishing it in the oven, and offer a range of doneness on the finished meat so everybody's happy. And I can cook 20 chicken breasts at once easily. My griddle has gone from my most-feared piece of kitchen equipment to my absolute favorite. It's becoming hard to cook without a griddle at home, I love it so much.

Now Derek, was that really worth all the coyness you displayed Saturday night? I am optimistic that this is a great thing all around. Though it does mean I will have to hang out at Firefly more!

Oh, rock. I plan to stop by soon.

Cook in an open pot filled with plenty of boiling water with plenty of salt in it. Don't put too much in the pot at once, do it in batches if needed. Shock immediately in ice water when you remove it from the water. Let it sit in the ice water for roughly half the amount of time you boiled it, and then pull it out and drain it. It should be bright green and keep just fine at this point. I wouldn't add a vinaigrette to it until the last minute, right before serving. That way the acids can't wilt the broccoli.

Not Chipotle. Not Baja. Not Burro. Well-Dressed Burrito.

I make pork chops by searing them on both sides, and then reducing the heat, adding some wine and brunoised onion and chicken stock, covering the pan, and letting them simmer gently for about 10 minutes. Flip them occasionally. Then I remove the chops to a plate and crank the heat to high. I reduce the juices until they are getting syrupy, scraping the bottom of the pan occasionally. Stir back in any juices that have accumulated on the platter. Add a big dollop of Maille mustard, and once that's incorporated, a generous splash of cream. Serve the sauce on top of the chops--I never bother to strain out the onion but you can for a more finished look--or pour the sauce into a puddle on the plate and place the chop on it artistically if you prefer (perhaps on a mound of Swiss chard cooked with pancetta and a splash of balsamic?). Almost as good: Pork chops with onions, apples and sauerkraut as a base. This can go with this sauce too if you like.

Tonight: Frisee, duck confit and toasted cashew salad with mustard vinaigrette (I toasted the cashews using a little duck fat. Ooh.) Slow-braised chicken thighs

Wow. What a description. Welcome.

I second the request. I'm coming by soon, finally.

Sure, it's possible to eventually land a part-time job cooking in a high-end restaurant. I worked in a place where a guy came in weekends only to work saute--he was a stay-at-home dad during the week. Although he was good friends with and went to culinary school with the chef, which may have been why he was able to finagle that schedule. I think it may be a while of grunt work before anybody lets you near the stoves, though--longer than for most people, since you won't be there full-time. Are you really prepared to pay your dues? Catering isn't a bad idea, but the sheer volume of work can get repetitive--and in some ways catering requires you to work harder and faster than line work. Speed is invariably a problem for people new to the kitchen world. I've shied away from doing it for other people partly because speed is still a problem for me. I think it'd be even harder for somebody totally green.

I finally remembered to look at my mixer for you today. I use a Univex at work. It's acceptable, sometimes it sticks a little when it first fires up and the crank to adjust speed is a little rough. It has an infintely variable speed, unlike the Hobart I used on my externship which had only three settings. I don't do much that's hard with it--I have started pizza dough but I pull it out and finish it by hand when it starts to strain the engine, and I think that's the only motor problem I've really seen. I've been using this mixer since January when I started my job, and I have not yet needed repairs, so I can't speak to the repairability of the machine. But it does work well for me so far, FWIW. I assume it's several years old but don't have any confirmation.

I think it's worth a shot, actually. I wouldn't work for free, but I think getting your feet wet for a few months to see what the world of food is like beats quitting your "real job" and plunging in wholeheartedly. Lots of people do what you're interested in while trying to decide if this is the right career field. Have you ever spent a night trailing in a restaurant kitchen? I'd start by doing that in four or five places that interest you, so you can get a sense of how different restaurant kitchens work. Bring your own knives and be prepared to peel potatoes and onions if they ask you to--or to just stay out of the way if they prefer that. Then if you're not turned off you have some sort of comparison and you can talk to the different chefs about any part-time work they may be willing to give you.

No timer. I rarely burn anything. On occasion I will forget cookies for a little too long at work, because I've got so many other things going on there, but then I usually make way too many cookies so it's not like I can't chuck a few. I never burn them to a crisp, or anything.

We did the airline breasts at my culinary school. I just could not see the point of the project. Hacking off the knuckle, on the other hand, makes a lot of sense. We also tunneled out wings and stuffed them with crabmeat and deep fried them for "Bangkok wings" at my school. Now THOSE were worth it. This thread gets my nomination for best title this week, btw.

For the record, I make a respectable burger for the girls at my sorority. They had me run a cookout for a new fraternity on campus last week and a couple of the guys came and hung out with me near the grill. "Ooh, she put the onions right in there and everything," one of them said. Um, bad burger: I know we're not supposed to discuss chains but I think McDonald's is beyond deplorable. I detest frozen preformed patties no matter who slings them--the last one I had was on campus at UMD. Why are we talking about bad burgers anyway? I'd rather talk about Stoney's, about Palena, about Firefly, about Five Guys, about CK. Them's good burgers.

A big salad topped with a seared duck breast. Mustard vinaigrette. One of my favorite dinners, ever.

I use the same method as Hest88 just mentioned. I usually rinse it in running hot hot tap water first to get most of the gunk out (especially fatty things, which I often use brushes for). Then work in the dishwashing soap. Rinse well. I buy cheap cheap brushes and consider them semi-disposable. I just can't be bothered maintaining them well, but it is worthwhile to clean them until they get too distressed. Then I relegate them to grill duty or chuck them.

As you know I bought the same steak yesterday, and I ate mine for dinner. I just seared my steak in a regular nonstick pan with butter, my usual preferred method. I like the butter because I think it adds to the crustiness of the steak. Details: Heat your oven to 450 degrees if you like your steak beyond med-rare. Bring your steak to room temperature. Pat it dry and rub it on both sides with a little sea salt. Heat a medium-sized skillet over high heat until a drop of water bounces and then disappears when flicked in. Drop in a small pat of butter, then the steak. Don't futz with it or anything until you can see the cooked-looking area on the edge of the steak is at least halfway up from the bottom of the pan. Flip the steak (don't use a fork, use tongs or a fish spatula). At this point, if you like your steak medium-rare or less, you can finish it in the pan--but if you like it more done (and I recall you ordering beef medium when we have been together) you can just pop it in that hot oven right away after flipping. For medium I'd probably leave it in the oven 3-4 minutes (this is a small steak). If you want it medium-rare let it sear on side 2 in the pan for about 3 minutes, if you want it rare pull it off in about 2 or once side 2 has been seared and is crusty good. (If you just barely get a crust on both sides you may have a blue steak. I have eaten this particular steak blue before and it's delicious.) OK. So your steak is done. Remove it from the pan and let it rest for a couple of minutes. Sprinkle the top with a little of the parsley, chopped. This will be nice and aromatic from the steak's heat. I lobbed a knob of butter on top of mine because there's never enough butter while it rested; it melted and got a little foamy and gooood. Meanwhile, get some creme fraiche. Add some of that horseradish, s, cracked black p. Stir thoroughly. Put in a squeezie bottle. Using a serrated knife, cut the rested steak (it needs about 3 minutes to rest) on the diagonal. Put it on the plate, crossing the triangles attractively. Pour on the juices that came out during resting and when you cut the steak. Squirt on a squiggle of horseradish creme fraiche. Sprinkle with some crunchy sea salt like Maldon. Encircle with roasted potatoes. Snarf, dunking the potatoes in the juices and the horseradish creme fraiche. Invite me over next time.