Chris Amirault

I think that we've established conclusively the quality of luck my fingers have with mandoline blades, Bruce! I think it's time for them kevlar gloves....

Is it always just onions, or do you throw in a few garlic cloves? Burnt garlic is mighty bitter.... If my guess is wrong, though, I'll be very interested in responses here.

Yep, I'm doing fine, thanks for asking. That was a small injury, as compared to the one I got the very first time I used the OXO mandoline! I have to say that it really is the perfect tool for certain tasks. I've got strong knife skills, but it's very appealing to have precisely the same sized slices for certain dishes, particularly if you're making a lot. And getting very thin slices of non-flat things (round red onion slices for quick lime and salt pickles, say) is a PITA without a mandoline. So I think I'm keeping ours. So here's my question about the gloves. Do you eventually blunt the blade using them? I mean, if you're a dork like me. Why I'm choosing between ruining the blade and slicing off bits of my fingers is a question for my shrink....

I really think that Jason is correct here. I keep thinking about Spike's Junkyard Dogs, which started as a small shop seeing 100% beef hot dogs, fresh buns, and curly fries, period. They built a huge following here in RI and expanded into MA, won a bunch of "best hot dog" awards, and only then did they test market and introduce, first, chicken breast sandwiches (that fit right into those buns, natch), and then wings. Simple, simple, simple.

My goodness! I'm tired just thinking about that post. Bravo! What wine did you serve with that meal, Percyn?

I'll join this quest, too. Do you have a name for them? Or a rough description of ingredients?

Jamie and Michael, to state the obvious that I think both of you are implying, it seems to me that one of the fusions you're charting is the fusion of haute and not-so-haute cuisines. This discussion has tended to keep those two ends quite separate (Victor's thread on high-end restaurants, Holly's on "dumbing down"), but I find this question more compelling, not only for emergent local cuisines like that in Vancouver (and, he adds proudly, Providence) but also for the corporate giants who fill our freezer aisles and pass feed bags into cars idling in the drive-through.

We must surely be able to assess Holly's initial comments about the "masses" and their attitudes about dining with some market research and consumer surveys on this subject. Does anyone know anything about how markets are reacting to some of these questions?

I thought I'd ask the participants to come up with their own working definitions of "dining." Steven wrote, Here, "dining" seems a version of eating that is elevated from the mundane and prosaic, a particular kind of experience. How would you qualify that experience? Might that experience change in the future in some fundamental ways?

I had a tasty "gingered gentleman" Friday night, which I liked and wanted to try to build at home. (Ratios on that would be welcome!) So I came back to this thread with a question: Sam, for the infusion-impaired among us, can you give a simple how-to here about the ginger syrup? I get the 1:1 but not the "hot and cold". And how much of what kind of ginger?

Hell? Feh. Pho!

Better copyright that. I can see it turning up on a FoodTV show as the chef host's tag line: "But we want to take that apple pie to the next level, don't we?!? Yeah! Let's STAPLE that apple with cinnamon!" [crowd roars]

Rochelle, that's utterly clear -- thanks! A question follows: So, you need quite a bit of fat, yes? Counter to El Gordo's comment above? Mel, I'm assuming that the fat goes in when the pan is ready, yes? Finally: I've got ghee and freshly rendered lard in the fridge. Either of those? Something else?

Bumping this up with two questions. (1) I have a Patio Wok, which is a propane-fueled outdoor cooker that gets to about 50K BTUs, and have my black cast iron skillet at the ready. I've heard tell that one should get the skillet red hot, but is this simply a metaphor? Hot hot should it be? How does one know when it's that hot? (2) In Anthony Bourdain's article in the current (Oct 05) issue of Gourmet, while praising Bouchon's steak, he writes, "[T]he steak is perfect -- pan-seared with a little shallot, basted constantly, finished in the oven...." I get the first and last step, but what does "basted constantly" mean? Basted with what?

From SuzySushi's sister's post (say that three times fast): This seems like such a great idea -- and it'd be swell to see one, if that would at all be possible. Is this standard operating procedure, or your sister's particular approach? Sorry for all the questions, but it's great to have the insider scoop!

Daniel, you never cease to amaze me! Courses with Piaget? I bow down to you, sir! To the spoon matters at hand: So, are we all to understand that using a sauce spoon to consume sauce, as a few members have suggested, is a serious faux pas?

Great thread, mizducky! At the end of the mole cook-off, I posted a link that I found to this compelling article by caroline, a.k.a. Rachel Laudan, on the connections between Islamic and Mexican cooking, which starts with a fascinating anecdote about mole: It's worth a read, believe me!

Surely some bold New Yorker can get over there and get ratios, eh?

I'd answer you except it's hard to type with my thumb all bandaged from last night's OXOdent....

For some photos I took using the KA making pasta, click here and here.

Thanks, Pam. That's precisely the sort of thing I mean. I'm also wondering about -- how to put this nicely -- the level of expertise that can be assumed by the readership. Food Arts can use "brunoise"; Gourmet would probably translate it to "fine dice" or "mince"; I can imagine other recipes coming up with something even less jargon-y. But, really, anything like this would be interesting to read about!

Inspired by the current recipe preferences thread, I got to thinking about recipe style guides. All of the newspapers I know of have style guides, and I can't imagine that they don't exist for recipes as well. If you have experience with these, can you share some insights about them? What guidelines are you given? Do they differ from magazine to magazine, publisher to publisher? Do they crimp your style, or keep you on the straight and narrow?

Does McD's still serve hot apple pies? Or are they considered tiny, napalm-laden lawsuit bombs? I couldn't find a reference at their corporate website. Anyway, you can see where I'm going here, probably.... Might you figure out a way to reinvent handheld pie sans the third-degree tongue burns?

Mon dieu, Charles! They don't? Sacre bleu! Next I suppose you'll be telling me that not all French women look like Jeanne Moreau.... Meanwhile, in an article whose origins I can't quite figure out and thus whose veracity I can't vouch for, one finds: Is there any research to support this?

Wow. I love those diagrams! This is my new favorite recipe format! As for prose, I love good food writing, but, like several others up thread, I distinguish reading food writing from using recipes to cook; I don't seek readerly pleasure from recipes when I'm trying to make dinner (though I do snicker at Anthony Bourdain's little in-recipe jokes).