fiftydollars

I go by weight.

If using fresh pasta, do you have to blanch them? I've never thought to try not doing so although I probably should have since the pasta in my lasagnes is often a tad overcooked.

That black chamba stuff looks awesome! Who has some of this stuff? It looks great. How does it cook? And you know... I'm starting to think that I really don't like fifi. Let's see... so far there was that KA food processor, then the LC, and now black chamba! What next? Crack? Someone needs to put a stop to this woman!!! Immediately!!!

I really hope nobody brings up Onion Confit...

I'm fond of craptastic, myself. I have also, on more than one occasion, called a meal "adequate" because I could think of nothing nicer to say. Crapriffic is also good...

Bacon Creme Brulee

WHOA!!

Le Cheval in Oakland is under $10. They have a pretty good clay pot rice and a great carrot chowder. Their pho is good, too.

Speaking of which... What's the deal with butchers selling cuts of sirloin as châteaubriant? I seem to find this pretty regularly. From my understanding this is a large cut from the tenderloin. However, I often see a large piece of carved sirloin being sold under this name...

I grew up on Mexican candy and I am a huge fan of the tamarind varieties. But I've slowed my consumption because, Jason is right, the stuff has a good deal of lead in it. The problem is that these confections are made in Mexico City, which has quite a problem with pollution caused, in part, by the leaded gasoline still used in Mexico.

I really like chocolate covered potato chips, pretzels, and pretty much anything else that will sit long enough to take tempered chocolate. Scharffen Berger recently started selling some great chocolate covered ginger. These things are awesome. It is candied ginger covered in unsweetened chocolate. John Scharffenberger says they tried it with sweetened chocolate and it amplified the ginger heat so they opted for the unsweetened, which sort of mutes the ginger balancing the flavors.

Braise.

The last time I made veal stock I tried completing the reduction per Jaques Pepin’s glace de viande instructions in his book, Complete Techniques. He calls for reducing the stuff until all of the moisture has been evaporated. I found this extremely difficult the last time I tried it. The very first time a few years ago, with the generous aid of beginner’s luck, I managed to finish the reduction successfully, which according to Pepin is when large bubbles appear and pop, but release no steam. The last time I tried it, a couple of months ago or so, I had a terrible time keeping a workable simmer at the ridiculously low temperatures required to keep the goo from burning and no matter how I tried, the bubbles never stopped releasing steam. Nonetheless, the resulting product is great. It is a super concentrated shot of beef flavor whenever you need it. At room temperature the stuff resembles dark brown plastic. Combined with a little butter and some Madeira it makes a hell of a glaze for vegetables or steaks. Definitely worth making if you have a spare 20lbs. of veal bones and about 50 hours.

Grapefruit juice... that sounds pretty good. Do you season the juice?

I was just in there the other day (Wayne, PA location) and saw that too. I looked over the bottle twice. Then put it down, picked up another. Took both, put em in the basket. (They also had a house-brand vanilla paste that could be worth a try sometime.) Handed it to checkout guy expecting to be ripped off after all. Nope. I think I handled it well. ← I haven't seen it in their CA stores in a while. They replaced it with their own brand, which isn't as good. I do like the vanilla bean paste, though. If they started selling the Neilson again I would be very excited. Their price was definitely the best around... with Williams-Sonoma having the absolute worst price.

I think you're right... I believe an escabeche is usually poached or fried fish that is marinated and served cold. I have seen the preparation made in various ways, but I'll admit I have never seen it as described by Rocco (baked covered in olive oil and herbs). My main point is that I really do love escabeche and I don't care who knows it!

This sounds like an escabeche, which is actually very good and about my favorite way of eating cooked fish cold. I don't imagine his cooking advice will be all that bad. He is, no matter what sort of embarrassments he has put himself through recently, a talented cook. Just because he can't manage a restaurant, runs with degenerate convicts (Chodorow), and spends his time whoring for media attention in a manner that would make Paris Hilton proud... doesn't mean the guy can't teach Rose from New Jersey, Sophie Glickstein from Great Neck, or Stella Esposito from Astoria a thing or two about dining, cooking and all-around cuisine. He's still the effin' Rocco DiSpirito that has spent the majority of his adult life behind a stove in some of New York's best restaurants.

I think Tsai will do alright. Flay has the advantage, as is the case with all Iron Chefs, but Tsai has a substantial repertoire that appears very flexible and I believe he will prove a good competitor. I think Tsai can work competently with a larger array of ingredients and he can perform at more varied cuisine than Flay. This is not to say that Flay doesn't also have experience with a lot of ingredients, but what he does with them strikes me as repetitious. When he is under pressure, Flay seems to find a whole lot of ways of making tacos, salsa, and relish. I think Tsai is more likely to make something interesting with the theme ingredient.

Good point! I had forgotten about the egg white coating my mother used to put on her chile rellenos. I'll have to try the mayonnaise... it sounds interesting.

At a speech given by Eric Ziebold, Keller’s then CDC, he demonstrated a recipe for a ricotta herb agnolotti with a tomato water emulsion that was served at the French Laundry (Ziebold said mainly when Keller wasn’t around as he wasn’t particularly fond of the dish). Despite Keller's reservations, it is delicious and the tomato water does not lose any of its flavor despite the vigorous boiling employed to rapidly achieve an emulsion. The sauce is simple. Just take your best tomato water and put it in a small saucepan. The tomato water quickly comes to a rapid boil at which time the soft butter is stirred in and the sauce is seasoned with S&P. It has become one of my absolute favorite things to do with great tomatoes at the peak of the season. I just love this stuff. As a side note: Watching Ziebold it became very obvious that this is a very talented man that has spent long quality time in the kitchen. The speed at which he prepared the agnolotti was impressive... almost blinding. If you’ve ever tried to make Keller’s pasta dough, you know it’s not easy and requires substantial kneading. Ziebold, while at no point interrupting his talk, proceeded to mix, knead, and roll out enough pasta for several dozen agnolotti. He then proceeded to demonstrate how to make the agnolotti by cranking out dozens in the total span of only a few minutes. I know it’s often said that extremely talented people make things look easy, but I’ll say it again; Ziebold makes it look very, very easy.

Tamales y atole.

Eric Ziebold recommended using a clean, quality pillow case. It works very well. It holds a large volume and proves to be a very fine strainer.

i like an exoglass matfer I purchased last year. I was suspicious of the plastic body, but it has turned out to be a pretty good product. The plastic is molded onto the tight wire mesh and leaves no room for particles to hide. It also has a wire cage that attaches to the plastic and does not seem to trap particles. In general I have better luck with the wire cage, compared to the strap, when it comes to protecting the wire mesh. I also think that It's much easier to clean around wires than it is to clean around a large metal strap. Neither is all that good at protecting against the knives in my kitchen, which seem to be the major threat.

Having been to Bouchon LV recently, I am happy to report, that there is nothing wrong with the steak frites or the french onion soup. As you can see... Bouchon delivers solidly on these two fronts.

I have to agree that unless you tell the restaurant that you were not satisfied they will never learn. I also agree that it is awkward, can put a damper on your whole evening, and many managers don't really care and will stick up for their staff no matter how ridiculously bad their service was. I figure that if the service and/or food was really that bad, the restaurant isn't going to be around very long. There is no point to my getting upset or ruining my evening arguing with an owner or manager. In my experience most of the restaurants I really didn't like never made it past the first year. Sure, maybe if I had said something they would have made things right and might be around today, but the way I figure it; Fuck 'em. It's a competitive business and I am not interested in providing constructive criticism to people that should know better in the first place. My job as a diner extends no further than being polite, saying please, thank you, and paying the bill. Let them crash and burn. I can always find an open table elsewhere.