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Did you notice that the sidebar links back to this topic? Also, the comments about Paula Wolfert are nice - especially the upcoming revision of The Cooking of Southwest France. Pretty good summation for a short piece.

We all knew that Louisa Chu was Bourdain's "fixer" for the Paris episode, but I wasn't expecting her to have major on-camera time. The marketplace scene was awesome! Yay Louisa!

Silly Disciple, you don't have to make a huge investment to try sous-vide at home. One of the consumer-level vacuum packaging machines (e.g. "Foodsaver") will get the job done, with a couple of caveats. First of all, you won't be able to enclose any liquids in the bag - they just get sucked into the vacuum and ruin the seal. You can slip some frozen liquids in as long as you work quickly. And well-chilled butter works fine with the external clamp machines. The cheapest chamber machines (such as the lowest-end Ary VacMaster that I have) will cost considerably more. Another minor annoyance with the external clamp machines is that they require an embossed bag (sort of tiny channels imprinted on the surface), and the texture from the bag gets transferred to the contents. For shorter cooking periods you can try cooking in a really big pot of water on the stove top. For the longer-cooking techniques an immersion heater is nice to have - precise temperature control without having to constantly monitor. As for Roca's book, I wish that the English version was available two years ago - it probably would have paid for itself by now. At this point it mostly serves to confirm what I've learned through trial and error. Lots and lots of error.... This is really the only authoritative book available at this point. It's more of a reference volume than a conventional "cook book". There are a couple of dozen recipes (with nice photo illustrations) to demonstrate the principles he's describing. There's a sous-vide topic started by nathanm here [Moderator's note: you are reading that topic now -- CA], and another on water baths here.

One thing I failed to mention about the Roca beef filet recipe is that he seals the meat with three tablespoons of Lagavulin (a smokey single malt from Islay). In my experience one needs to be extremely cautious in using strong alcohols or acids in sous-vide cooking, but the short (very short!) cooking time he uses probably guards against the weird overpowering effects I've seen in longer cooking. So maybe one reason he finishes the meat with a brief sear is that the alcohol needs to be burned off. Actually, I'm surprised that he doesn't flame the whiskey first... Roca doesn't specify a time or temperature for the final sear - he just says to "lightly brown on a charcoal grill". It's clear from the accompanying photo that the grilling only effects the very thinnest outer layer of the meat. Generally when he uses the "double-cooking" technique (his term for a finishing sear or browning), Roca cautions against allowing the internal temperature to rise too much. He doesn't want to negate the inherent advantages of the sous-vide treatment. crosparantoux, I don't disagree with you about the virtues of simple unadorned sous-vide. But even you admit that you had to revisit the new texture and flavor of the sous vide lamb. Had it not been Ducasse, would you have given it a second thought?

Browning before sealing has its advantages (the "browned" flavors can permeate the meat during cooking, and surface bacteria are killed in the process), but logistically the brown-after-sous-vide (what Roca calls "double cooking") has the edge. You can remove the meat from the bag, reserving the juices for a reduction sauce, and sear it just before service. Or you can rapidly chill the meat in an ice bath or flash-chiller and refrigerate it for later use. Don't be put off by the weird appearance of meat cooked sous-vide. The oxygen-free cooking results in an unappetizing purple-brown color. A quick finishing sear restores the rosy-red color.

There's a recipe in Joan Roca's Sous-Vide book that features beef filet. The startling thing (to me) is the low temperature / short cooking time. He starts with a 1 3/4 pound filet and cooks it sous-vide at 65 ° C / 149 ° F for 15 minutes (! )followed by a brief sear over charcoal grill. Even after the second cooking this has to result in a blood-rare piece of meat. I suspect that Nathan's timing will get you closer to medium-rare, and the finishing sear should take it home. Please report back on any findings.

So, are you implying that chefg and the rest of the kitchen crew at Alinea eat a lot of grapes these days? I'd still love to hear what (if anything) really stood out in your experience there.

Wendy, I hope you're not asking for a demo of the naked-and-shaved nitro treatment. Louisa Chu has an account of Albert Adrià's oil-encapslated-in-sugar thang here. I'm wondering how he gets the oil encapsulated in the sugar coating - does he super-freeze it wit LNG? Enquiring minds want to know.

Fair enough, but if ChefG is indeed "brilliant", did anything about your meal at Alinea strike you as truly innovative? I've been admiring this thread from afar, and the peeled-grape thing sounds like a lot of fun to me. Several people here have been generous enough to post their impressions of dining at Alinea. I'm not asking for the sort of detailed blog-plus-photos account of your experience - just a capsule remark about what made this experience memorable (or not) for you. BTW, I think that peeling a grape on the stem pretty much rocks.

Perhaps we've all been reading too much into chef Santamaría's statements. Is this a minor case of professional jealousy due to the admittedly extraordinary amount of attention drawn by Adrià and the other leading-edge chefs? In reviewing docsconz' report on his experience at el Raco de Can Fabes, I'm struck by how challenging, inventive, and "modern" the dishes are. Santamaría uses sous-vide techniques, which certainly indicates that he's no culinary Luddite. Somehow, I can't imagine that Adrià (or Blumenthal, Dufresne, Achatz, Roca, Andrés...) would disagree. It all comes down to execution. And perhaps the press has been overly obsessed with the "wow" factor of high-tech gadgetry. Since I've never dined at Can Fabes or el bulli, I'm hardly in a position to compare the experience. Frankly, I don't care if chef Santamaría's techniques would be at home in Ferdinand and Isabella's court, while Adrià employs tech straight out of science fiction. They're both on top of their game, and Spain has become a culinary destination of the first order.

I thnk it's fair to say that he's bending over backwards not just to disassociate himself from Adrià who's captured the attention of the media, particularly the English speaking media, but to be critical of a certain technical direction in New Spanish Cooking. ← I wonder if Santamaría is really attempting to dissociate himself from Adrià, rather than simply distinguish his personal style?...I guess I don't detect so much a sense of disapproval of the "radical" cuisine, but maybe I'm being dense. Probably the most telling quote is this: So Adrià is focused on constantly surprising his diners, while Santamaría prefers to focus on refining a more familiar theme. I don't see these viewpoints as being in conflict - they're simply different. I think it's a mistake to assume that Adrià is disconnected from tradition. I think it's equally unfair to assume that Santamaría rejects innovation out of hand. Pedro, thanks for a very engaging interview - I look forward to the rest of the series.

Has anyone seen the promos for the new season of Iron Chef America? There's a shot of Wylie squirting something from a bellows contraption into a pot of boiling water. I wonder if it's "shrimp noodles", or something similar.

I'm a coffee geek. I'd be interested in seeing their roasting operation. (I do the home-roasting thing, but I'm definitely a newbie at it.)

An immersion circulator is a heating element with a pump to circulate the water. It's basically the working parts of a tempertature-controlled water bath without the tank. You bolt the circulator onto the side of a container of water to make a water bath for your process. I have a Lauda MS that I use with a twenty-gallon pot. It has no problem maintaining ± 0.1 °C, which is plenty accurate for sous vide cooking. You can get immersion heaters (or complete water baths) from laboratory supply companies. You can also find them second-hand, although that may not be a good option if you plan to use it in a restaurant kitchen - health officials may be suspicious of where the instrument was used in its previous life. nathanm started a topic on sous vide that has discussions of equipment.

The English edition of Roca's book is already available. Ted Nicely posted a note in the Food Media forum. I can't wait to get it - the table of contents looks like this is an important reference.

Add me to the list for Saturday.

Sure. We can see what looks good in the markets that day, and get people's opinions on what would go well with the other dishes. This is gonna be fun!

I can make it up for the Saturday events. I'll be driving up from Oberlin - does that count as "Cleveland"? Looking over the previous posts, I'm not sure what to bring. Looks like desserts are covered, and bringing bread would be silly considering we're visiting a bakery that morning. Maybe something appetizer-ish? Is there a grill we can use? I haven't seen mention of much in the way of vegetable / side dishes, but we can probably just survey the available stuff at the shopping venues and wing it. Edit to add: Kristin, I'd offer a ride to you and your friend, but my car is a two-seater.

That's a different show entirely. Keller did dish out some stern disapproval over the risotto. One shake of the head is probably enough to send a cook into a tailspin....

I was impressed by the way the correspondent tried to convey the obsessive nature of Keller's cooking. Not in a sensationalistic way - just trying to help the viewer "get" the experience. Bourdain's comments were fun, as were Laura Cunningham's. Best of all were the views of the kitchen in action.

Lolita is open now? Cool! I swear I checked the lolabistro site before posting and the home page still had the "Lola will close in April..." message. I see it's been updated now. As for the blue eggs, I've been buying them for a while now thanks to a post by Nancy in another Cleveland thread. They really are awesome (and they really are blue!). Carrie Cerrino's isn't in the current edition of C.E.E - maybe someone could contact Laura Taxel about it. Her email and address are in the back of the book under the heading "Tell me where to go!". A question for Nancy: you mention that the Blue Egg Ravioli has been added to the "regular" menu, but you also said it's available on the first Friday of the month. Is that the only time it's available?

Hey, Kristin! Weren't you back in town last summer as well? I seem to recall a fizzled attempt at an eG meet-up around that time. I carry my dog-eared copy of C.E.E. with me even when I'm out of town. I get a lot of comments from people who notice what I'm reading. Occasionally the snide "Oh, you're from C L E V E L A N D" sort of remark, but more often genuine interest. If you can venture as far west as Tremont, one highly-anticipated opening is "Lolita", in the former location of Lola Bistro. It's so new it isn't even open yet. (Should be by the time you're in town). It's supposed to be more casual and more "ethnic" than Lola was/will be. Mediterranean theme. I'm looking forward to it.

I can't resist asking: Where's the beef? Is this one of those deconstructed things where the title ingredient is implied by a synthesis of flavors? Or is there an actual identifiable piece of meat that I can't spot in the photo (maybe hidden behind the crispy-looking thing on the right)? Just curious... Thanks for posting the reviews, chefseanbrock and yellow truffle. Really intriguing stuff!

I can't remember where I saw this (maybe the old Justin Wilson show on PBS?), but supposedly you can add a pinch of cornmeal and a dribble of milk to the water. The crawfish develop indigestion and purge themselves.... The Folse recipe is rather different from what I usually think of as "bisque". Dark roux-thickened sauce covering stuffed crawfish "heads". Sounds yummy.

Apparently the Buffalo Trace folks recently encountered some "glitches" in their web ordering system. I was informed that my order shipped after I had already received it. I was worried that they had double-shipped - I contacted them and they informed me of the teething pains in the system. The bitters are absolutely fantastic, by the way.