culinary bear

I'm sure there's scope for some uptake of moisture by 'denatured' meat; otherwise techniques like salmis wouldn't work.

Possibly; if it has I haven't had it. Then again, I'm not a general fan of minced muscle. My mincer is mostly used for haggis and faggot prep. It's past two. :) I usually get by on four hours a night.

I struggle not to think of them as "fartichokes"... we had a 'choke veloute on last week as a soup du jour, and very nice it was too. Happily, most of us in the kitchen had colds at the same time so the after-effects weren't commented upon. Now that I think about it, though, the gas burners seemed to be running a little hotter than normal. :)

nyc, you make science sound so, so, so... unenjoyable. :) Perhaps we call the sound "The Passionate Embrace of Glutenin and Gliadin"? I think it's a bit of both.... :)

They don't. At the moment I'm reading MFK Fisher's "With Bold Knife and Fork" and loving it. Ah, nostalgia... it's not what it used to be. Interesting. The proteins would be denatured to a greater or lesser extent by cooking; an internal temperatue of much above 40C would lead to the fibres being functionally damaged. I'm not entirely sure that the fibres provide all the mechanism by which juices may be reabsorbed, nor that 'reabsorption' is indeed physically necessary to provide a juicier mouthfeel to the meat. One could hypothesise that "re-juicing" interstitial spaces between cells and between meat fibres themselves, even temporarily (the time between injecting and consumption) would be enough to provide more juiciness without the need for actual re-uptake by meat fibres. Maybe worth a little experimentation...

Simple physics. When you take the loaf out of the oven, the temperature of the loaf drops. As the temperature drops, the air in the bubbles in your bread contracts, producing a slight inward-pull on the crust of the loaf from the inside, as the loaf shrinks slightly. If your loaf is of a thinly-crusted variety, the rigid crust gives way at various points due to this pull. Each little crack is audible. :) In essence, it's the exact parallel of the process whereby your crust sometimes cracks when you put your proved loaf in in the oven, just due to negative not positive pressure. Congratulations on your non-simian baguettes. :)

Wasn't Alice B Toklas the lover of Gertrude Stein? I'm sure I saw a recipe of hers that included hashish in it somwhere...

I've managed to get the best part of a bottle of smirnoff vodka into a watermelon by injecting it. :)

Not in the UK. I have two sources; Westons, and Wildcat (a site for body piercing supplies) whose 2.7mm medicut needles come with syringes attached. I'm active in the piercing/body mod community, so I have easy access to all sorts of culinarily useful things through contacts there. I'm not sure where you can find equipment in other countries, but your best bet is probably medical supplies companies.

I've used standard 2.7mm medicut needles for brining, and I carry smaller ones (21ga and 25ga) for injecting alcohol into fruits and other such things. 5ml and 10ml syringes also make very handy alternatives to squeeze bottles for placing single drops of coulis or syrup on to plates, as you have complete control of the placement at all times; there's no gravity-induced dripping on to the plate after you've finished applying the coulis or syrup. I've also been known to vac-pack 10ml pouches of syrup and then use a syringe-needle assembly to puncture and withdraw the syrup, before removing the needle and using as described. Currently I'm using this for a passionfruit reduction which is dotted on to a passionfruit marshmallow as a garnish for a dessert.

Why flute mushrooms? Because, like turning vegetables (although arguably turned vegetables are more 'useful'), young commis chefs need to learn that professional cooking should involve graft, dedication, and hard work before you get to play with the interesting stuff.

Very slightly off topic, but my best friend worked as a research scientist for Univeler, and one of her more, erm, off-the-wall tasks in her career was to formulate fake excrement for the purposes of toilet-bowl cleaner testing. Apparently she had to consider such parameters are odour, viscosity, stickiness-to-porcelain, and something referred to as 'bitty-ness'. delightful. :)

As long I live, I'll remember a piece of advice given to me when I visited very, VERY rural upstate NY in the fall. "Allan, if you go out walking, try to look as little like game as possible". no comment. :)

Rouen duck are quite large, and traditionally killed by smothering to prevent blood loss from the flesh. They're the ducks used at the Tour d'Argent for Caneton Presse, where your duck is numbered and records kept...

They probably have an import license. Customs seem to have something against the recreational cheese-bringer. I've travelled, post 9/11, with a full case of knives. The only stipulation was that I had to have them in the hold.

Personal Digital Assistant. One of these little palm-computer things. or Potentially Droppable Accessory. Usually in soup.

I don't drive; I cycle! Actually, in the UK it's quite easy to book a hotel room, rent a car or do other things without a credit card. We have debit cards, which are almost as well accepted as credit cards and function in the same way except that they draw on existing funds, not on a credit limit.

never mind the fax, I don't even have a credit card; I've never had an overriding need for one! :)

Oh, porridge (or pedantically, 'porage')... delightful stuff. Coarse oatmeal, half water half milk, salt, boiled... brown sugar and cold milk for dipping the spoon of porridge into. I swear I used to glow on the way to school in a winter morning...

Medium well instead of medium rare is never, ever acceptable; in that case it's clearly the fault of either the kitchen or the serving monkey. We may scowl and curse, but if it's a genuine mistake I'd feel more aggrieved if the customer was having to eat something he'd rather not in order to avoid offending sensibilities. I'd avoid this like the fucking plague. Lawsuit, lawsuit, lawsuit, apart from actually being an illegal act in itself. You may, possibly, get away with handing the person the epi-pen and allowing them to medicate themselves, but under no circumstances are you allowed to administer either adrenaline in the UK or epinephrine in the US without proper training. I have seen someone lose a limb because an untrained person thought it would be a good idea to plunge the epipen into their ankle, the reason being that they were wearing a skirt and they didn't want to puncture it. Vasoconstriction led to necrosis, gangrene, and a below the knee amputation.

I'm afraid I follow the dictum "If you don't mind not seeing an item again, or at least not seeing it in the same (although cleaned) state it was in, don't give it to the porters to clean". I caught one of them using my brand new carving knife to punch air holes in an oil can the other day. He's Congolese, and since I happily speak French, I was able to communicate my rather strong displeasure concerning his actions. I imagine the fact that I locked him in the walk-in freezer for twenty minutes emphasised my displeasure equally effectively. Seriously though, I can't begin to tell you how many non-stick items I've had that have been wrecked by asinine porters.

The number in the UK for the four emergency services (police, ambulance, fire brigade and coastguard) is 999. 112 also works, but not very many people know about it (apparently it was introduced so that if the 9 key on your phone was defective you were still in with a chance).

This may or may not be strictly relevant... Very few places (certainly very few outside London unless they're serious gastrotemples) in the UK take credit card numbers, although I believe it's on the increase. I have worked in two establishments where it was common practise for the management to call up no-shows at 1am, at the end of service, and ask if they were still coming. They tended to get the message. Two tables of six not turning up three times a week, if you have fifty covers in your restaurant, is a significant dent in your finances. People should book responsibly; restaurants should treat bookings responsibly.

PDAs and kitchens don't really mix. :)

The downside to the "filing system on your shoulders" way is that some little oik of a commis will always need the recipe four minutes before service because he's forgotten it; it's handy to be able to hand it over.