Shalmanese

I think I said it best in this thread. The correlation between price and quality of food is tenuous at best. At best, it is only one way. That is, good foods isn't neccesarily expensive but expensive foods are usually good. If you believe the sole determinant of the quality of a food is taste, then food snobbism has no justification. Dozens of foods which are now expensive were once cheap and those which were cheap are now expensive. To arbitrarily reject foods because they are cheap is to denounce the snobs of the past as hopelessly misguided. Similarly, the foods you reject today might one day be highly prized by food snobs cut from the same cloth. Foodies recongise this fact, that great food exists at every level and so does mediocre food. Being a foodie is to seperate the great from the mediocre, not the expensive from the cheap. And mizducky: I don't think at all that foodieism is a symtom of the idle leisure class. Go to nearly any culture in any socioeconomic bracket and you will find people who are passionate about their food and could be properly classified as foodies. French farmers, italian grandmothers, chinese peasants, mexican bakers. However, I think it's an absurd myth fostered by rose tinted tourist glasses that an entire culture could be like that. I'm willing to bet that if you landed in any one of those cultures, you would find quite a sizable proportion of the population as apathetic about food as the average american. Perhaps this is the reason why they aren't typically thought of as foodies, because of the mistaken notion that foodies in America are very much out of the ordinary in society while completely normal in idealised french countryside. But the French have latched onto McDonalds and Hypermarches just as much as the Americans and foodieism is still very much a minorty position, no matter where in the world you go.

Well, I could certainly imagine being able to play around a bit with tableside cooking... if you could work out the liability issues with people getting burnt. ← Liquid nitrogen is indeed used tableside both at El Bulli and The Fat Duck. ← I know LN2 is used tableside. I was envisioning *cooking* tableside with LOX.

If you can't get an easy source for chicken feet, just amp up the stock with some powdered gelatin. Gelatin DOES add to the mouthfeel of a stock, making it feel fuller and more rounded.

And what I want to know is, why shouldn't every tomato be like this? That is just what a tomato should be. No more, no less. ← Heh, when I was reading that, I was thinking... "But, thats how my tomatos ALREADY taste!".

At-Kens huh?

Well, I could certainly imagine being able to play around a bit with tableside cooking... if you could work out the liability issues with people getting burnt.

Oddly enough, I've never added white sugar to my vinagrettes but I've done brown sugar, caramel, honey, maple syrup, fruit purees and juices, balsamic reduction, onion confit and all manner of sweet things to my vinagrettes.

I've heard that wine is the best soaking liquid for saffron. The alcohol releases a few more of the alcohol soluble flavours. Then again, it could just be bullshit.

T minus 12 hours until my alinea dinner. I'm sooo excited.

If yoy lay one wok on top of another, both woks shouldnt take up significantly more storage space than a single 16".

I don't usually cook carrots but I've fallen in love with Thomas Keller's carrot soup. Glaze 3 large carrots in 1 1/2 cups of carrot juice, 1 tbsp of butter and 1 tbsp of honey and a pinch of curry powder. Then, add 1 cup of carrot juice, 1 cup of heavy cream and puree. Delicious

I wouldn't get your hopes up

For those of you who are daunted by the proscriptions that you MUST have an absolutely A+ quality, home-made stock (and, you really do), then you might want to experiment with Miso Based Risotto. For me, it's a wonderful alternative when I don't have frozen chicken stock on hand.

Sure. £100 Baked Beans: Heirloom beans, Kurobata pork smoked with organic applewood, Danish Smoked Salt... and truffles! $200 Hot Dog: 100% Wagyu Sausage, artisinal sourdough loaf, heirloom tomato relish... and truffles! €500 Beer: Organic, Artisinal hops, Hand threshed barley, Water from pure norwegian springs... and truffles! ¥100,000 Chocolate Truffle: Single Estate chocolate, organic, Madagascar, hand picked vanilla, Pesticide free, artisinal sugar... all enrobing a massive truffle.

I love it. The recipes aren't fantastic but the non-recipe articles are always meticulously researched and presented in a clear fashion. The horizontal reciple diagrams are interesting as well and I'd like to see them pop up in other places.

Whats with the towel around it's head?

What? The butt half has far more yield. The shank half is primarily bone and connective tissue. The butt half has a lot more meat.

PS: I've made the discovery that a large spoonful of onion confit is the perfect foil to balance the acidity in a tomato sauce.

I guess the key here is to make sure the ice is cold, far colder than 0C/32F. That way, it can cool down the chocolate without melting the ice. I wonder if you could mix chocolate with liquid nitrogen or dry ice to create other interesting effects? Has anyone tried?

Ha! I love how you artfully arranged it so it looks like the newspaper is saying "Melon".

So have all the shows been translated into english? Any chance of a... *whips out calculator*... 100 DVD set coming out?

I'm mildly toying with a 21 course tasting menu for 21 people for my 21st birthday. Seeing your inspirational work tammy has made this seem slightly less crazy.

I would eat that.

What? How do you brown salt? Salt is a rock!

How many 3 star restaurants are in the Bay Area? French Laundry is obviously a shoe in. Chez Panisse, probably. What others are there? Is Gary Danko a 3 star?