Chris Amirault

I think that packages aren't necessary a bad idea. Long ago I got an 11-piece Sitram Profiserie set about which I posted here and here. I spent well under $200 and have items I use every day (plus a steamer insert). That's the key, though: this is the stuff I wanted and needed.

Well, how about that. So... why, exactly? Are leafy herbs like parsley and basil likely to get lousy, and beefier herbs like rosemary, sage, oregano, are thyme likely to get stronger?

Right: I got that part. I wasn't clear in my OP: I'm wondering whether there are post-drying things that change the intensity of certain herbs: freezing, reheating, etc. Maybe it's poppycock....

I strongly suggest you determine what you want to do before you lay out cash. Write down your last several dozen home-cooked meals. What did you make? What did you use when you made it? Were there things you couldn't make because of missing equipment? How often do you saute? braise? deep-fry? boil pasta? broil? roast? stir-fry? How often do you make sauces? popcorn? crepes? soup? risotto? caramel? fried eggs? stew? How big? small? what shapes? what surfaces? You get the idea. Let your use patterns and desires drive the items, not someone's notion of a set.

Got Breath of the Wok but I don't remember seeing anything about that subject. In addition, I have an outdoor wok burner, and so I could do this if it were a recommended practice. But is it? Or not?

His website says nothing but has the preorder link still up.

Yesterday I was watching someone stir-frying in a well-seasoned wok. They put the wok over high heat, poured in oil, and intentionally ignited it. Immediately after the aromatics went in the flames died. It made me wonder about the relationship between wok hei, high heat, and smoke/flame points of oil. I mean, I never try to ignite the oil when I'm about to stir fry in a wok. What gives?

I make 10# batches of meatballs at my house on a regular basis and freeze them in two dozen pouches for later use. Last night, I defrosted a batch, made a quick tomato sauce, and got ready for spaghetti and meatballs. As we all dug in, I noticed that the dried oregano that I had used in the meatballs had intensified quite dramatically since the original batch. No science here -- everything is relative; sense memory is unreliable -- but it made me wonder about whether certain herbs intensify and other herbs weaken. (Thyme in gumbo, for example, seems to lessen.) I don't know whether it's the type of quality of herb itself, the preparation(s), or what. Anyone else have this experience? Any sense as to what causes it?

Can someone give a screenshot (or, failing that, a digital photo of the app in use)?

I agree that the Prague episode was fantastic. I loved the pig butchering session in particular: how in the world was that guy stuffing sausages with his bare hands?!? However, the Hudson Valley episode was just awful. The CIA is nice and I'm a Bill Murray fan, too, but there is so much going on up there that went unmentioned.

Update: Keeping it dry and bright in the south window, I've got several new shoots and leaves throughout the plant. Seems happy now, and this is as cold and grey as it's gonna get.

2 oz Macallan cask strength 1/2 oz R&W Orchard Pear 1/2 oz Ramazotti Oh... no. No, no, no. No.

I think that we have to pause here before giving you too much more information for you to get your work flow chart for the day(s) of prep and service. Take your crostini questions. Right now, it sounds like bread service, not an amuse or appetizer. If you want to plate a la minute with a garnish, you could spread 1 T of the tapenade on the toasted bread, poke in a single parsley leaf, sprinkle gremolata atop it... lots of possibilities. (100 hand-carved olive bunnies? That sounds like a circle of hell.) So the question isn't how to garnish it. The question is when do who do what? If you have ten people helping with plating, you can do something more sophisticated a la minute. If you're it, then you will have enough to do getting your mains taken care of; you don't want to spend 15 sec per plate arranging gremolata -- that's nearly half an hour on that one course. The BB is a fine option, but you have to keep scale in mind here, too. You're going to have a massive pot of stew -- 10 # of beef alone, if I'm reading correctly. Think through your timing: I don't think you can brown more than a pound of beef in a pan, and each batch takes a good 10-12 minutes at least to brown it on all sides. That's two hours just browning the meat if you're alone and have one pan. Cooling it down takes time, too: you'll need to bring that stew down to a safe temperature by stirring it in an ice bath before you can stick it in a fridge, or it will sit at dangerous temps for hours and warm up everything else in there. Some items are simple to handle. You can blanch your beans, shock them in ice water, and they'll hold a day or two in the fridge no problem, to be reheated at service: easy peasy. But some items are the sorts of things that cause a big meal to grind to a halt. One more thing. I strongly, strongly urge you to take great care with corn starch as a thickener unless you are very familiar with its effects. It can easily lead to glossy, gummy glop that overpowers the flavors you've so carefully built. Better to serve a tasty if thin sauce.

Who are the key NYC distributors?

First off, have fun with this! You're going to have screwups no matter what you do, and your ambition is pretty big. If you treat it like a chore it will be; if you roll with the punches, it will be a blast. A few specific comments. Crostini: your bread in the photo doesn't look toasted at all, and imo it's cut too thick. Prepping bread without toasting it (see below) is going to lead to stale bread. Perhaps you should consider slicing the bread 1/2" or so, toasting it in a very hot oven or under the broiler (carefully!), maybe with a bit of olive oil and salt sprinkled on it. It makes more of a chip-like piece of bread, which you can prep well before service. Salad: your ratio of parsley to the rest of the items seems off to me, but I don't know what a "huge bunch" is. I'd cut the cantaloupe and the "spring mix" -- a lousy combo of bland stuff around here -- and up the parsley. With the savings, I'd use a vegetable peeler to shave parmigiano reggiano over the salads just before service. And you'll be adding salt and pepper, yes? I hope? Boeuf Bourguignon: I realize that everyone wants to try BB thanks to Julie & Julia, but it's a challenging dish to prepare at this scale if you've never done it before. Preparing the meat for the stew, which is critical to the dish's success, is going to take you a lot of time: drying, S&P, browning over high heat in small batches.... That can't be hurried and requires pretty constant attention. Also, you'll have major temperature control issues with such a large amount -- getting a low simmer takes time -- and that may extend your cooking time significantly. So I strongly urge you to prep this a day in advance, remove it from the heat when the beef is just this side of done, cool it down properly in the stew (you can't stick it in a fridge, you know, so if you don't have a plan for that, ask), and reheat it the next day. No matter what you do, I'd drop the green beans, which will be pulp after all that. One more thing about the dish: where's the starch? Or are you foregoing potatoes/noodles/etc.? Ravioli: I hope you're planning to prep your stuffing ahead of time; better yet would be to make all the raviolis and freeze them until just before service. Pears: that seems like way, way too much cinnamon to me. Plating and garnishes: that slab of spinach and piece of tomato on the beef look, um, ungood to me. BB is supposed to be a hearty, satisfying plate, not a piece of 1980s art. Let it be, let it be. You probably realized this, but unless you're going to thicken your sauces with something (not the time to learn that particular technique), swirling and edging won't work. That just looks messy. Let the food speak for itself this time around. Spreadsheet: switching among weight and volume measures, even within a line item, freaks me out: there are too many opportunities for colossal math errors. I'd choose one (weight, myself) and stick with that; during prep, it's easy to confirm that you're scaling up properly. Finally, what's your schedule? What are you prepping ahead of time? How are you planning to reheat the stew? (You know to cool the stew down in the liquid, yes?) What pots & pans have you for all of these big-batch items? There are some tricky spots in there -- don't juice your lemons too early; be sure to reheat the stew evenly -- that you'll botch if you don't have a plan. Or, at least, I'd botch 'em. Good luck and keep asking questions!

Of course!

That works for warm in a mug; I'm wondering about something cold and up.... Not at all! I think that those are relatively easy to pull off with standard bottles on the shelf. As I sit here, I'm realizing that part of the challenge in my head is thinking about what has to be on the shelf to put some excellent, flavorful responses to overly sweet (chocolatinis), tart (pucker- or sour-mix-base drinks), or blah vodka drinks on the menu.

Sorry -- I was unclear. Of course, the meat is intended to feed away from the machine. What's happening, however, is that the slice of meat is itself concave, creating a bowl shape with the bottom of the bowl facing the blade as it leaves. So far it's happened with bacon, bread, bresaola. Maybe it's just with stuff that starts with "B"....

That's not history; that's technique. Still, it's a good point, as there's a lot of bad food history on library shelves, particularly concerning the more anthropological claims of "ethnic" foods.

And the silence is deafening. Here's a more specific question, then. I've been noticing boatloads of "Chocolatinis" out there, and the ingredients are quite, uh, horrifying. Any ideas for something we could make on the sweeter side but with a nod to something more classic that could make a first-timer say, "Wow, that IS better than the Hersheytini!" or whatever?

Well, in preparation for slicing some bresaola, I couldn't get the sharpening discs to move at all, so I went ahead and sliced with the blade as is. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I spied my ceramic sharpening rod, thought "DOH!", and got to it. I simply lined up the angle of the rod with the angle of the face of the discs, turned on the machine, and applied light pressure on both sides of the blade. The meat side was flat, and the "slice side" was beveled. I couldn't exactly feel for a burr as it was rotating -- the thought of it give me weak knees -- but I think the edge sharpened up nicely. On a related topic, does anyone get a concave curl as meat comes off the blade? Any idea how to fix it?

Just an update: the effect was definitely related to the cold. Something was shrinking in the frigid air, making it more likely to fall out of the coupling. Made some fried chicken last week in 45F weather and all was fine.

From the article, quoting Simpson: Now closed to be refurbished as a gastropub.

Found and grabbed a dusty bottle of Skane aquavit last week for 15 bucks, and it's vastly superior to the Aalborg (the only thing I can get around here most of the time). Makes a killer Norwegian Wood in particular.

Yes to the recipe; one grind.