Chris Amirault

You overestimate me, but I will do my best.

LPShanet, perhaps you can explain a bit more clearly how disliking the look and texture of a particular item of food is akin to racism. I can think of dozens of other examples -- people dislike the sensation of spicy foods; people prefer very sweet or not at all sweet items; etc. etc. -- that I've always written off as personal preference. And while those preferences probably have a significant sociocultural basis, I can't quite make the leap from disliking something to demonstrating a systematic exploitation of and prejudice against a modernist food technique that can maintain serious comparison with, say, the Ku Klux Klan or National Socialism.

First off, yes, I realize that a water bath is a water bath. Now that we've taken care of that: how do people cook recipes designed for oven water baths in their SV rigs? Most recipes requiring bain maries report inches of water, boil first or not, temperature of the oven, and time, or some combination of same. I can't quite figure out how to translate those. In addition, it seems that it should be easy enough to get the ramekins or flan mold or whatever to sit on a shelf in the water bath, but I'd be interested to see photos of how people do it.

Thanks for those Boqueria pix, though they make me wistful. Did you make it to Laurenc Petras's mushroom stall in the back?

What a great expression of friendship that is! I completely understand it, too: I have been lugging it around town for weeks now just to share it with people: chefs, librarians, teachers at my school, food writers... anyone who has an interest in food. Every time it inspires a sense of shared joy that such a thing exists! I know that's over the top. But now that so many of you have it, perhaps it makes a bit more sense.

oops. Photos didn't load. That stuff looks just as amazing as it was when I was there. Posted from my handheld using the Tapatalk app. Want to use eG Forums on your iPhone, Android or Blackberry? Get started at http://egullet.org/tapatalk

More info needed, please, on Pinotxo. Did you get the baby clams? Posted from my handheld using the Tapatalk app. Want to use eG Forums on your iPhone, Android or Blackberry? Get started at http://egullet.org/tapatalk

Did she like the mushroom ketchup?!?!

The KM doesn't fit in the acrylic box, but it has a special little throne in the cardboard box inside the cardboard box within which the entire package has been packed. At least, that's how the first round went out.

According to Modernist Cuisine, a foam is "a very interesting structure that's nearly all air (or some other gas) enclosed in bubbles made of thin membranes of liquid. ... You can think of a foam as a kind of gas in water emulsions." They list traditional foams including fat foams like whipped cream and parfait, starch foams found in baked goods, egg foams like zabaglione, soufflés and meringue, and protein foams like latte foams and mousse. Modernist foams include many of those types along with sugar-glass foam, fluid-gel foam, and methylcellulose foams. Again, I think that the spit-haters aren't talking about this entire class of foams, but the foam lovers are trying to point out that bubbly foams are but one type. Babies, (bubble) bath water, all that.

Agreed on the lemon bump. Today bought M&R rosso, Citadelle gin (my wife's favorite for the Fever Tree G&Ts I'm planning to make once it warms up), and Dubonnet rouge, which I buy almost exclusively to make one of my favorite drinks, Robert Hess's Rochester: 2 oz rye 1 oz Dubonnet 1/2 oz Licor 43 1/4 oz absinthe 2 dashes Angostura

I think that the foam haters don't like the subset of foams that involve bubbles that are a mm or two in diameter. And whenever anyone talks about smaller bubbles, those haters think that we're not talking about foam any more. Yes?

Yes, but that has more to do with what's in them than how they look. You haven't met my kids -- or my parents.

I wish I could help. I get all that stuff from Butcher & Packer. They've always been pretty fast.

What does this sentence from the website mean? Do extruders require disassembly and cleaning regularly? You are strictly forbidden to wash most of the rollers I've seen.

Oh, man, Quimet et Quimet.... Gotta go there....

Is this really true, though? I have heard this argument so many times but it seems untenable to me. For example, every conversation I've ever had with baking professors takes for granted that you use precise measurements based on weight, which suggests that variations in the moisture content of flour change the weight very, very little. Even if there is some variability based on moisture, it seems specious to me to claim that measuring flour by volume "is no worse than using the scale" if you're "adjusting as needed." Which means what exactly?

Excellent question. After all, there are probably just as many people who would look at savory aspics and think, "Ewww...."

Society members Alex and Aki (twodogs) over at Ideas in Food have been displaying some remarkable pasta made with their Arcobaleno extruder. I need another kitchen gadget like I need a whole in my head, particularly one that has no price listed on the website but instead offers a "Financing" tab. But that doesn't prevent me from living vicariously from y'all. So who's got a good extruder out there these days? Even the hand-cranked ones are in the $400 range, it seems. Any budget options for those of us who just must make bucatini at home somehow?

Will you look at that! No trimming at all? Vacuum setting? Are they at all squeezable, or did the vacuum get all of the perceivable air out of the chokes?

With the "paper" that is printed on being almost indestructible and stain proof, my suspicion is that you wouldn't be able to get anything that would write on it and not simply wipe off. While this may be a shock to some, I found that a permanent marker allows you to take notes on the Kitchen Manual. I've also already got three pads of post-it notes stuck to various pages throughout the volumes.

Let's post in both appropriate topics and here. That way, Society members will get the chance to see it over there in context and also discuss the different ways that, say, recipes like this one differ from other sorts. These are also excellent candidates for inclusion in WikiGullet, of course!

Have you had any thoughts about Barcelona? I'd head to the Boqueria and eat breakfast at Bar Pinotxo at least once, myself, then grab a snack at Escriba next door....

Well, sure, but I keep thinking about what Colman Andrews said about the Brown Food Problem in the intro to Catalan Cuisine: Of course, el Bulli is in Catalunya....

Have you even looked at the menus and dining reports these days? I don't know if I'd be obsessing over it or assiduously avoiding it. Actually, given what I did in the lead-up to Alinea, probably the latter....