budrichard

I've been purchasing Bordeaux futures for over 30 years. The vinyards making great wine, sell for the top prices whatever the Classification. The real question is the incremental price increase with percieved quality. Percieved quality is not just the Classification but the tasters subjective judgement. Surely one cannot argue the Parker's ratings are not subjective. So is Lafite worth more than Gloria? Probably yes but the incremental cost for Lafite is substantial over the cost for Gloria. So how much more is it worth? That is the question each purchaser makers for her or himself. I never traded in Lafite or the others but always chose the lessor Growths or non classified wines. Currently we are drinking the 1970 Vintage, my children and grandchildren will probabaly drink the 2000 and 2003! -Dick

1. Tobasco Original for its unique taste dervied from the aging process. 2. Crystal because it not as hot and adds just the right amount of heat for Cajun cusine. Commander's turned me on to it. 3. El Yuceteco XXX, unique habanero flavore with heat the can't be beat. 4. Cholula as a substitute for the another sauce they make but don't import any more. 5. Huy Fong Siracha, simply the best. We have a shelf filled with hot sauces but found many many years ago that excessive heat is worthless except for bragging rights. The above 5 are the ones we use the most.-Dick

What size to do want, for chowder, Quahog is best, for most uses cherrystone is good and for eating, littleneck is best. Scrub your clams well,all else is bunk to reduce grit. Obtain a proper clam knife without a sharp tip or blade, they are blunt for a reason. Along with the clam opener get a good quality mesh glove, saves a trip to the E Room as I once slipped and had to do after 40 years of opening clams without one. Hold clam in left hand whch is wearing glove, put the blunt tip into the back of the clam and wiggle around until you get a purchase and then twist the knife, prying open the clam. Insert opener into clam and cut muscles. Do this over a pan to catch the clam liquor. Opening with heat will toughen the clam as they only need a fwe seconds a of heat for any dish. Good luck.

"the proper, humane way to kill a frog (at least as I recall) is to cut off its head and pith it, " Actually, one 'pith's' the frog BEFORE cutting off the head. The needle is inserted into the brain and because of the frog's primative nervous system, the frog heart continues to beat and circulate blood while the frog is dissected alive to observe how the organs function. If you do not want to study the frog's internals while still performing thier function, than just kill the frog and have at it. BTW, I never eat reptiles raw for the above mentioned reasons.-Dick

Dixie beer, preferably sitting in the Acme Oyster House!-Dick

I second the homemade Mayo. Homemade has absolutely no taste relationship to commercial Mayo. I use eggs poached for 4-5 minutes, works great! -Dick

Core cabbage, cut into quarters and put into pot about 1 hour before beef is done. Really very simple.-Dick

"That's not necessarily true. " Wait! -Dick

I wouldn't be. The first area to assess for increased profits in an acqusition is overhead. It may not be right now but eventually the 'bean counter's' will win.-Dick

We have been members of Co-Operatives since the early 1970's and are currently members of the OutPost Co-op http://www.outpostnaturalfoods.coop/ in Milwaukee. Just about any higher end and lower end grocery store chains have a selection of organic produce to match the quality of the OutPost and certainly are priced less. Whole Foods just opened a store in Milwaukee. Being familiar with Whole Foods in the Chicago area, I told the OutPost Director that they needed to reassess thier competative strategy. The Outpost has done nothing believing that thier 'commitment' to Organic and 'Local Farming' will get the OutPost continued market share. Whole Foods is great and I no longer shop at the Outpost as comparable products for less are available else where. In fact Whole Foods has a better selection in both variety and availablilty than the OutPost.-Dick

The 25th anniversary edition of this just came out recently, though I haven't actually seen a copy in a store (I've only seen ads for it in the paper). ← Best there is! I never purchase cook books by cook book writers, preferring to acquire books written by individuals of the specific culture. I have an extensive collection of Japanese cook books dealing with Sushi/Sashimi and the various other forms of Japanese cookery. Only one is wriiten by a non Japanese, 'The Book of Soba' by Udesky, but he apprenticed in Soba making in Japan.-Dick

Roland and the former Mary Beth Liccioni. I don't think that Debbie and Carlos Nieto quite qualify.-Dick

What seperates Jacques from other writers is his earlier books culminating in the 'Art of Cooking' Vol 1 and Vol 2. Not only are the ingrediants listed but there are step by step instructions with pictures on how to properly prepare the ingrediants. Want to debone a baby lamb or a chicken, Jaques shows how. He is also a true gentleman and respons to queries through his staff. I just purchased another hard cover set on eBay and gave to my daughter.-Dick

What USDA Grade was your chuck? Where did you purchase it? Despite what individuals think, you just cannot take any cut of chuck(or any other cut like chuck) and cook it however long until it is tender. You need a good product to begin with. I suggest USDA Choice or better. I noticed that Walmart sells beef with additives also.-Dick

I admire your system and your courage. As a Nuclear Engineer, former Shift Fire Chief and later Fire Marshal for a Nuclear Power Plant, I am more risk intolerant as I have been directly exposed to Fire Fighting Training and the actual conditions of Fire Fighting and the results from inadequate knowledge of Fire Protection Principles. After looking at commercial ranges (Vulcan) and exploring the hazards, I elected to install a Viking system meeting residential NFPA standards. I would strongly advise you to install a Fire Supression System or at a minimum Commercial sized B/C extinguishers at multiple locations. You may even want to contact your FD for some hands on traning on how to properly suppress the various fires you may encounter. Good luck! -Dick

ETA: The application of rock salt to ice in a cooler of hot beer will cool the bottled beer down to cold refridgerator temp within 5 minutes. After about 20 minutes, you need to pop the lid on the cooler though, or your beer bottles will burst from freezing the beer inside the sealed bottle. As the salt dissolves in the melting ice, it actually lowers the freezing point of the salt/water mixture (Freezing Point Depression) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freezing-point_depression to below 32F, so your beer, if we assume freezes about 32F can actually freeze. Usually the technique is reserved for making ice cream without a mechanical freezer and melting snow/ice on roadways.-Dick

"Cheezborger! Cheezborger! No fries, cheeps! No Pepsi, Coke!"? Theres one near Union Station on Washington http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?formt...ubmit=Get%2BMap .-Dick

17 weight pounds, the size of a full rib roast. If one had temp instrumentation hooked up to a computer with the appropriate heat transfer formulas and a Specific Heat Capacity for beef, then one would be able to predict when to turn off the heat calories. Since we don't usually have that degree of instrumentation, then a simple temp probe will suffice. As I said through trial and error I have arrived at 100F internal for my roasts but the temp may be different for others by a few degrees. What really matters is understanding what is occuring. After resting for an hour I usually make a cut into the middle of the roast to determine if Ok or maybe a little more heat. Generally what happens is the Medium folks take the end slices and then the rare folks get thier slices and the middle if any is left over is good to reheat! Hope that helps. -Dick

Baggy, you sound like a Mechanical Engineer to me! My specifed method and temps was for a full rib roast which is about 17#'s or so after trimming. i only use USDA Prime but Choice will work. I season (Pepin has a great recipe for the seasoning mix) and put into my oven at 500F with the convection on until its as crisp as i want, no problems acheving whats in the Posted pictures. Then dial it down to 350 or so. The roast is so large that as correctly stated the overshoot is 25F. Remember that the 100F is at the interior of the roast and there is a temperature gradient to the outside of the roast to oven temp(350F. What you are doing is getting enough Heat Calories into the roast so that when you rest the roast, the temperature profile will flatten out as the heat flow transfers heat from the outside of the roast to the inside. If you cook your roast without resting to 100F, you get raw meat internally and a done outer layer. The smaller the roast the less resting time and the more difficult to get an internal correct rare. I having been doing this for at least 20 years and I do at least one of these every year with absolutely no problems. I guess it the Nuclear Engineer in me but I understand heat transfer very well and that's all it is, elementary heat transfer. Whether you crisp at the beginning, in the middle of cooking or at the end, the result should be equal if you get the same number of Heat Calories into the roast and then let the temperature profile flatten while the heat flow obeys the Second Law of Thermodynamics.. That's why i can't believe all the ways outlined to accomplish what is essentially a very simple process. -Dick

I can gaurantee that today's Rheingold will not be anything like the Rhiengold of yore! The ingrediants are not being raised as they were years ago and the actual brewing will be different. Probably this effort is being funded by Bud anyway. Beer is basically an agricultural product and farming along with brewing has changed. Wisconsin used to have many small breweries any of which would be considered much better than the crap being brewed today by the big brewers. They are all gone except for a few like Leine's or Point and none of them taste and have the body they had 40 years ago. None of them will come back. -Dick

"Salt, for its part, won't change in flavor even if you leave it, say, buried in the Earth for a million years." Whether mined from salt deposits which were actually formed from ancient seas or procured from evaporating sea water, all the salt has been around for eons, as its constituents were formed before the solar system was born in the interior of stars. NaCl is just a very stable compound. We use commerical kosher, large and fine Balien sea salt and for our wet grinder a Portugeuse source that is relatively inexpensive. I find that the larger the salt grind, the more impact, the salt has on certain foods. Bread fresh from the oven with salt free butter with a grind of salt, positively bursts with flavor. The salt grinder is an integral part of our table. -Dick

I just can't believe how individuals can make such a simple thing so complicated. Just season, brown in hot oven and then roast at 350F until internal temp is 100F. Let rest for at least one hour for full rib roast. Works EVERY TIME!-Dick

The food on the shows that i have seen including last night's show are about food that is only bizarre to someone else not familiar with a culture/cusine. I think the show is well done, tactful and most of the times probably tasteful(Pun Intended). A bright light for the Travel Channel in a sea of Food Channel crap.-Dick

What really matters is your ingrediant. Was the turky frozen with additives, frozen without additives, fresh but with additives or a fresh turkey, unaldulterated? We only use fresh turkey that I get slaughtered as I watch, not one that has sat someplace for a couple of weeks. Anyway using a fresh unaldulterated turkey, it should be very easy to get a moist breast and crispy skin without any additional vessel or any combersome techniques. -Dick

A number of years ago there was a very good article in Vogue about truffle esters and the products made from it. I had always been highly suspicious of products like truffles oils, flours and whatever. The few dishes I had up until that time in restaurants that used the product never seemed quite right. Now the I only use fresh white or black but will sometimes used a jarred black truffle if the price is right but no more oils. If the restaurants lists truffle oil as an ingrediant, I ask then not to include it or I don't order the dish.-Dick