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I think Mark Prince's comment may actually say more about the chapter than the article itself. Interesting perspective. There's a link in the blog post to a review by Mark Prince on the Coffee Geek site. I like his discussion of the expected audience for the book, and why it's a good thing that coffee gets some love in MC.

The Chow Down was a big success, despite the chilly weather. Here's a shot of W. 11th Street lined with food trucks just before the start of the event: First stop after surveying the lineup was the Fahrenheit truck. Chef Rocco was serving some very tasty food indeed. I had the lamb slider with salad. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5180/5564669823_a58255f096.jpg"] Next up was Dim and Den Sum. I had the coffee-braise short rib steamed bun. A friend and I strolled down the street to check out the recently remodeled Lilly Handmade Chocolates (worthy of a post itself...) When we returned to Lincoln park this is the sight that greeted us: I decided not to brave the long lines. I'll check out the other trucks at a future Chow Down. (Photos link to larger versions on Flickr.)

Yeah, these are all local folks. A couple of them are from the Akron area, the rest are from around Cleveland.

Food trucks may be old news in other cities, but it took a change in regulations last year to bring them to Cleveland. We now have a half-dozen or so trucks selling food in a variety of styles, from Asian-inspired to wood-fired pizza. Up until now I've only managed to chase down two of the trucks. Dim and Den Sum has been around for nearly a year now. Owner Chris Hodgson has been a tireless promoter of the food truck scene. I'll post a few photos and some comments about their food in a bit. The other truck I've tracked down is Umami Moto. Co-owners Sandy Madachik and Jae Stulock are relatively new to the food business, but they bring a great attitude and some tasty food to Cleveland. Tomorrow (Sunday March 27) we'll get the opportunity to sample food from a half-dozen trucks and a mobile pizza oven. C-Town Chow Down runs from 11:00 to 3:00 at Lincoln Park in Tremont. In addition to the previously mentioned Umami Moto and Dim and Den Sum, Set's Polish Boys, Cakes Plus Traveling Treats, StrEat Mobile Bistro, JiBARO, and Pranzo Forno Wood Fired Oven will be there. Over a thousand people have signed on for the Facebook event, so it promises to be quite the scene. The group organizing the event promise to do similar ones around the city.

I didn't realize that the compression technique required a higher-end model of chamber vacuum. I have a VPC10, which is the precursor model to yours, so I'm sure the vacuum level is comparable. Mine has the oil-less motor.

Ah, my link went directly to the mp3 stream. The page you linked to hadn't been updated with the audio feed yet when I posted.

Michael Ruhlman was interviewed about Modernist Cuisine on a local NPR show today. He clarifies his statements in the NY Times a bit. It seems to me that he has immense respect for MC. I'm sure some here will find something to quibble with. Link to a podcast of today's show: "All chefs will need to have this" The Ruhlman segment starts at about 21 minutes in.

My SVP-10 does that too. It has a fairly deep well which is curved. They supplied a bunch of heavy plastic inserts so you can adjust the depth. These can be tilted a bit to keep liquids from draining out, but then you get the bag-creep effect you described. I just put a dish towel behind the bag to keep it in place. Seems to work pretty well.

They specifically state that the bags can be boiled. One of the challenges of ordering bags online when I first got a vacuum machine was finding bags that were heat-safe. The old Food Saver bags were not rated for heat as far as I know, and even after I got the chamber machine I had to email or call the vendors to find out if the bags were heat-safe. I guess it's a sign of the times that vendors no longer assume that their products are just going to be used for storage.

I bought the SVP-10 several years ago at nathanm's recommendation. The SVP-10 and SVP-15 were identical except that the 10 had an oilless motor while the 15 was oil-lubricated. The latter was preferred for higher-volume applications because it has a faster cycle time. The SVP-10 has worked out great for me since I don't do commercial or high-volume work. The VP-112 looks like it's the replacement for the SVP-10 in the current product line. The price point is a bit lower than what I paid back in the day, so that's an improvement. ARY has modified their bag design so that it evacuates more efficiently. With the old smooth-textured bags it took a long time to get a good vacuum. The newer bags have a textured insert that aids in channeling the air out of the bag. Unlike the clamp-machine bags, these don't leave an obvious texture imprinted on the food. (Amazon sells them with free shipping if you subscribe to the Prime service.)

I have a couple of questions about the Beet Juice-Fed Oysters (3·206). The juice is passed through a 500-micron sieve. The Cooking Issues guys say to keep the particals smaller than 10 microns. I have a 100-micron Superbag and a Vita-Mix. I'm hoping to avoid choking the oysters. Is my Vita-Mix + 100-micron bag going to work for this? I don't have a homogenizer. Neither the MC book nor the Cooking Issues blog specify what type of aquarium salt to use. I found a shop that stocks supplies for salt-water aquariums. I picked up some of the Tropic Marin brand salt. It's supposedly "pharmaceutical grade" and contains a lot of the trace elements found in seawater. Some of the ingredients are a bit scary, but if they're in natural seawater I guess they're in the seafood as well... I believe that this is the first time I've shopped for a recipe ingredient in a pet store.

The cheap bookshelves I put them on are looking a bit saggy. Time to upgrade the furniture.

We're way overdue for an update on this topic. Jonathon Sawyer has long since moved on to start his own restaurant to much acclaim. Chef Michael Nowak has stepped up to command the talented staff at Bar Cento, and I'm happy to say that the food is as good as ever. The menu is frequently refreshed with tasty updates. Crispy fried quail with collards and parsnip purée Hanger Steak w/ mushroom vol-au-vent Mushroom Pizza The kitchen stays open late, which is a big plus. Great food, reasonably priced - can't argue with that!

A sad follow-up to this thread: Bar Symon closed a while back. I guess they didn't get sufficient traffic to warrant keeping it open. This surprises me, considering that they seemed to be pretty busy every time I was there. On a happier note, Matt "Chatty" Harlan has returned to Lolita, this time as front-of-house manager. Also, the B Spot burger place has been thriving. A new location will open in Strongsville soon, and another in Westlake this summer.

The other side of the box is labeled "HEAVY". No kidding! I was impressed by how securely it was packed. Double-boxing it was a great idea - less risk of dinged corners. I'm glad that mine arrived on a Friday. I'll have all weekend to play with it.

I'm a regular at a local bar that serves a great brunch on the weekend. Yes it's a bar, but they have a kitchen and the menu is fun and varies from week to week. Keeping things fresh for the regulars. I meet up with a group of friends who usually show up at about the same time. We sit at the bar and have a nice conversation and enjoy some good food. One of us takes photos of his food (food geek!). Photo set of The Feve Brunch (Fève as in "bean" in French) Edit to add: The photo captions have links to the menus in PDF format. Click on the photo to see the set. Every week they have a new menu. There are some constants, but there are always enough new items that it can be tough making a selection.

Maybe the mustard will thicken as it stands, now that the seeds have been blended with the liquid ingredients.

I saw the emulsified cheese mentioned on a post about the book (I think it was on Pop Sci) and was afraid it would require some sort of high-tech emulsifier. Glad to hear that the technique can be done with typical kitchen equipment. I love the possibility of making a full-flavored cheese sauce that doesn't break or turn grainy. I've recently been experimenting with the starch + evaporated milk combo used by Kenji Lopez-Alt. I used a tiny bit of Xanthan and it worked like a charm. I'll have to try the Modernist approach to see how it compares.

There's an event scheduled on the book's Facebook page for Feb. 22 in Seattle: I checked my Amazon order and it's still scheduled to ship on march 8. I was hoping that the date was getting bumped up.

I see that the Xanthan is only 1 % of the flour mixture, so I'm surprised it makes a difference. Your piles of pasta pre-cooking look like they stayed separated beautifully. I'll have to try this.

The WillPowder products are available with free shipping if you have Amazon Prime. The 16-ounce Methylcellulose F50 is $32.15. Another vendor has a pound for $32.60 without the free shipping.

Kenji from Serious Eats posted some photos and comments from a dinner at the Modernist Cuisine labs: http://www.seriouseats.com/2011/02/30-course-modernist-cuisine-dinner-nathan-myhrvold-cooking-lab-seattle-bellevue-wa.html'>30-Course Modernist Cuisine Dinner.

I think that's the way McGee reads as well. Sufficient time at the target temp to transform the starch. And complete cooling so that the retrogradation sets in. Then the higher temperature can be used to free the starch grains.

Oh, I should also mention that I start timing when the internal temp of a potato chunk reaches target. Nathan described a technique for using a strip of weatherproofing gasket to maintain the seal on the bag. (This was way back in the sous vide thread). Poke a sharp thermocouple probe through the weather strip, through the bag, into the product you're cooking. That way you can monitor the internal temp of the product you're cooking, not just the environment it's in.

I usually heat the bath a bit warmer than the target temp with the expectation that the temperature will drop. I 'd just start timing when it reaches the target temp and not worry about it. There's a discussion in McGee about the various temperatures that are key thresholds for potatoes. I think that's what Jack based his technique off of when he did the Potato Primer for eGullet. I think it's important not to excede the 71ºC temperature by much, though I'm not sure how critical it is. The goal is to "set" the grains of starch by cooking-then-cooling (retrogradation). The second, higher-temperature cooking frees the grains and finishes the cooking process so that the result has a creamy, luxurious texture. It works! p. s. - I'm envious of you guys who already have access to the book on line. I'm counting the days 'til it arrives!