[Looking for a chemist]

Pierre Gagnaire is one of the great chefs of the last thirty years.  He contacted Herve This to influence last three years of cooking as relationship between molecular research and gastronomic cuisine d' auteur or author's cuisine.

Sounds interesting, but was it any good?

[Baking at Home with the CIA (lots of pictures)]

And let's put an end to end to any sense that having conversion tables in the back of the book is an adequate compromise or middle ground on this weight versus volume issue. That's just more laziness on the part of the dumbed-down cookbook cabal.

Okay, fine. You sold me. I'm not willing to forgive them any more.

But this newfangled metric stuff-- do we have to insist on that too?

Now, if my scale could display decimal fractions of an ounce instead of quarters of an ounce, and if it didn't have to switch to pounds:ounces as soon as it goes over one pound it wouldn't make any difference to use metric or imperial. But many of the newer digital scales have 1/4 ounce resolution in imperial and 1 gram resolution in metric -- it's as if suddenly the scale becomes eight times smarter when you switch to metric. There's a big difference between 1/4 and 1/2 ounce of salt or yeast in bread for example.

Anyway, the CIA Home Baking book will have a list price higher than a low end digital scale, so there's absolutely no economic rationale for not using weights in the book. Laziness doesn't explain it either, because they actually had to "dumb down" existing recipes (OK, formulas). The only explanation left is that they think their intended readers are too dumb to handle the weights.

Guess I won't be buying "Baking for dummies with the CIA"

Edited a typo.

[Your Culinary Nemesis in the Kitchen]

Pan sauces.

It's not so much actually making the sauce, but the time pressure to make it, while the rest of the dinner is ready to be served.  Practice, practice, practice...

And a question.  I'm afraid to deglaze a cast iron pan, so I either use a stainless steel saute pan, or make a sauce without the fond.

why not hold off on plating and just let the protein rest for a couple minutes while you whip up a pan sauce. Do you have the sauce ingredients laid out before you start?

Generally, I give steaks at least 5 minutes, more for larger chunks. It's a chicken and egg problem. I'm afraid to do it because of lack of practice, and that's why I'm not getting much practice. The difference is that when I'm peeling carrots for stock, it doesn't matter how long it takes. With a pan sauce, everything else is ready to go while I'm klutzing around.

OK, this thread helped me diagnose what I need to work on.

[Your Culinary Nemesis in the Kitchen]

I'm afraid to deglaze a cast iron pan, so I either use a stainless steel saute pan, or make a sauce without the fond.

Why?

I'm afraid to deglaze the pan seasoning. In the All-Clad I can see how the deglazing is going. Also, some wines can be quite acidic - can they be used with cast iron?

[Your Culinary Nemesis in the Kitchen]

Pan sauces.

It's not so much actually making the sauce, but the time pressure to make it, while the rest of the dinner is ready to be served. Practice, practice, practice...

And a question. I'm afraid to deglaze a cast iron pan, so I either use a stainless steel saute pan, or make a sauce without the fond.

[Why separate dessert menus?]

I think there's another factor here. A separate desert menu allows to restaurant to encourage or discourage a desert, depending on how busy the restaurant is. When people are waiting for a table, and one person at a table orders a desert and proceeds to consume it at glacial pace, the house is loosing potential revenue. That's $5 or $6 per table, per half hour, while you could sell four entrees for about $100 in the same time. On the other hand, at the end of the day, few extra bucks per table may look more attractive. A separate menu allows more flexibility.

I'd be interested if any restaurants are using such tactics.

[Mel's New Bakery]

Criollo Bakery

4727 NE Fremont

Portland, OR 97213

Mel,

How about putting your business address in your signature, so we don't have to scroll through a bunch of old messages to find it?

[Stuffed Mushrooms]

It's been a while since I've done them -- the kids thing that mushrooms are disgusting -- but the last time I did, I sprayed them with a little oil and prebaked for about 5 minutes (gills down).

I used goat cheese, fresh sage and shallots for stuffing (I think it was based on Martha Stewart's show) and I really recommend the combination.

[I will never again . . . (Part 1)]

Actually the "plastic pizza peel" didn't make as much mess as the pizza, when I realized what I was doing and spilled most of the topping. Ahh, the smell of mozarella hitting the red hot heating coils

[I will never again . . . (Part 1)]

I will never again think that a $1.99 plastic cutting board can be used as a pizza peel.