Chris Amirault

I didn't even think of spice mixes when I started this but... of course! I try to keep the portions pretty small so they don't peter out, but there's usually 5-6 different ones around, from curry powders to quatre epices to BBQ rub.

Now that's the sort of effort I'm talkin' about!

That fusilli calabrese looks fantastic and doable both. Does it turn out like very fat bucatini?

Doesn't this change depend on how you define "following recipes"? Use exact ratios? Do every step exactly as written? I'd venture to guess that no one here follows any recipe to a T all the time. So perhaps the question is, where do you veer off when, inevitably, you do?

Half brandy (Hine cognac), half rye (Rittenhouse) Sazerac, with gum syrup, Peychaud's, and Leopold Bros absinthe, which is just the thing to finish the fruity cognac and pick up the anise notes in the bitters.

Shalmanese, can you share with us some examples of these cocktail snobs universally decrying sweetness? He asks while drinking a Sazerac with a good dose of gum syrup.

Thanks, Lisa, but I can't make out the basics: thickness of the rolled out dough, what exactly happens in their palms. Maybe I'm overthinking this, but I'd love more guidance.

Three days ago, the non-stick surface on our Hamilton Beach waffle iron/grill started to blister. We don't use the thing enough to replace it with anything special; you know, recession, all that. We'll go cheap -- probably this Black & Decker one, in fact. Wish I didn't have to replace the thing. But there are some things I want to break. Last night, our lousy Cuisinart blender, which I've endured for far too long, finally bought it. The base plate in which the blades are set cracked, oozing red wine all over the place. (Red wine, you say?) That leaves only one blender in the house. Fortunately -- but also unfortunately -- it's a vintage Osterizer with a stainless steel blender jar. It's lost its front plate, so I don't know what labels the buttons had, and the base looks like it barely survived a thermonuclear event. But this thing blasts through most everything I give it, and it will probably outlive me. And if that happens, I'll never be able to make the case for a Vita-Mix or Blendtec. Surely you've got a piece of equipment that you can't justify tossing but can't quite stop plotting against.

I illustrated another approach to deveining shrimp in my foodblog, using the tip of a knife and a wet paper towel. If you wear a glove in your non-knife hand, neither needs to get shrimp-stinky. As you can see, I don't worry about that myself.

One thing that cooking with the online version has demonstrated clearly is that this massive project belongs in a good ol' book. The amount of information, the cross-referencing, and the quality and size of the images makes negotiating it on this MacBook a multitab exercise in frustration.

The promised photos. First, a shot of the potatoes in the FoodSaver bags. They were all trimmed square; if I had been thinking, I would have grated the trim for hash browns at lunch. As I mentioned above, no water in the bags: A note to the SVS owners: those bags were just barely too big for the SVS, so I had to get two long skewers, poke holes in the top of the bags, and let them sit slightly diagonally from the top. I learned the hard way that big bags lying flat are a nightmare for the temperature controls on the SVS for all obvious reasons. Meanewhile, here are the steaks getting ready for the smoker along with some other items: Post-cold smoke (~2h of apple smoke; never got about 50F in the smoker) and trimmed. I am seriously looking forward to using that smoked fat somehow: I was working quickly -- the steaks were a bit warmer than I'd like -- and I got them into their bags with some black pepper, Aleppo pepper, kosher salt, and a knob of rendered beef fat: Into my high-tech, super-expensive ice bath: As I mentioned above, I SVed them at 56C, which was a bit warmer than I'd have liked for the steaks, but I was thinking about our guests. Here they are getting their last marks on a screaming hot grill that I'd sprayed with high-heat Pam:

I've been fooling around more often with homemade pasta lately, and I've been trying my hand at making different pasta shapes. I'm no expert at all, and I'm hoping that others can chime in with ideas and photos of techniques. Besides long shapes like tagliatelle and linguini, the two shapes that I have been making are farfalle and orecchiette, and I documented the exceptionally easy and forgiving orecchiette below. I always use the dough from the eGCI course on stuffed pasta: 400g ‘00’ flour 4 large eggs 1 additional egg yolk 1 tablespoon olive oil pinch of salt Once the dough rested, I rolled it out two about 1/2" and then cut it into strips about the same width. Then I rolled the strips into tubes. I then cut the tubes into small bits: Then, one at a time, I'd center them on my thumb: Push them down: The pull them slightly to release: Halfway there: The whole batch: After cooking in well-salted water and draining them, I sautéed them with some cavola nero, onions, sausage, and S&P: I'm sure others have a broader repertoire of shapes than I do. I've never tried strozzapreti, for example, and would appreciate a tutorial. The examples I've seen on the internet must make shapes the length and thickness of a large carrot.

Worked like a charm last night.

This morning I was making pancakes and had the scale out. I finally found some corn flour that's got the grind I want in the bulk bin at Whole Foods, but the flimsy bag broke as I was using. So, looking at all the ingredients assembled, I thought, "Why not combine the dry ingredients into proper ratios and bag them as a mix?" Easy enough to scale it up, of course, and now I have a bunch of bags that just need a couple of eggs, some milk, and some melted butter. It's only saving ten minutes, probably, getting out everything, weighing it, and putting it away. But in the morning it's probably the difference between making pancakes or not. Surely there are other mixes that can be pre-made without loss of quality.... You ever do this?

I am without my usual computer, which is being repaired, I hope, by an Apple genius. So apologies for the limited commentary on the great posts above and lack of photos. I ended up making a less involved meal that I had planned due to the trip to the Apple store: steak, potatoes, mushroom ketchup, asparagus, and artichokes. No innovations with that last item, though I will report that, like Steven, I did find myself being more mindful of technique and processes as I prepped and steamed them, wondering about the chemistry of acidulation and artichoke cell walls.... In addition, the methods I used for the steak and asparagus were not entirely derived from the MC book, though I picked up a few tips there about temperatures, times, etc. so, for example, I found myself using the rosemary-cured bacon I had smoked earlier in the day in three ways: as lardons atop the finished dish, as grease in the sherry and roasted garlic vinaigrette, and as a cooking liquid, blanching the asparagus in the pan that had the bacon fond in it. Again, there's nothing in the book about this technique exactly that I've found, but I found myself thinking through problems more mindfully. For example, when I added water to the pan and the fat rose up, I paused and wondered if the asparagus would be greasy. Then I remembered Robuchon's degreasing technique and realized that the ice (snow, actually) bath would harden the fat, making it easy to remove. Easy enough! As for the potatoes, I used a modified version of the method, putting the potatoes into the bag for their 70C 45 min bath without water. The trick here is getting uniform pieces of potato so you can get all the air out. Photos later, but they turned out very well, even without the 50% butter addition! (Added a few drops of white truffle oil instead.) the steaks were cold-smoked in the Bradley with apple pucks, trimmed, cooked SV at 56C for, I dunno, maybe 90m or so, and then finished on a cast-iron grill and served with a bit of sel gris. Photos of those to come, too. The last item was the mushroom ketchup, which I've been fascinated by since seeing that insane burger photo. As Nick said, you've got to be willing to substitute thoughtfully with these recipes, I think, or you'll be spending a fortune to create a full larder. Computer issues prevent me from seeing the list of ingredients, but I know that I had none of the malt items (vinegar and syrup); instead I used sherry and cider vinegar and gum syrup, the latter of which has a decent malty note. I also used espresso powder, coconut vinegar, and ... um... something else in place of items I lacked. It turned out great -- and having a scalable, weight-based recipe was a godsend. You set up your scale, calculate your base percentage, pour, tare, repeat, and in a few minutes you've got everything in one pan cooking away. The guests I had over have eaten here a lot, including many lavish holiday meals. To a person, they said that this was the best food they'd ever eaten here. More soon, I hope, with photos.

Pausing to solve some computer issues (I hope). But the basics are cooling in the fridge: steaks are smoked, seasoned, and sealed with some rendered beef fat; potato starches are retrograded; mushroom ketchup is done. And that mushroom ketchup? It's fantastic. Updates with photos after dinner.

Dinner tonight will be at least partly from the MC book: smoked NY strip steaks cooked SV and quickly finished in high-heat grapeseed oil retrograde starch mashed potatoes mushroom ketchup hyperdecanted wine that the guests bring Also have some artichokes and asparagus to go with, so I might try to make an additional sauce....

Stirring the Martinez cocktail I just made.

I have guests coming over tomorrow for some SV steak and retrograde-starch mashed potatoes. Seems like the perfect accompaniment, eh?

I made the Junipero version of this tonight, but grabbed the Branca Menta instead of the Fernet Branca. It's very good, though I think I'd dial back the Menta a touch.

Zoiks: vegetarian cassoulet? I got through to schwa! They aren't taking March reservations yet. Still trying.....

And here's Popular Science's slide show tour of the labs.

Accolades pouring in. Check out this blog entry from the MC website:

Given that reviewers are getting access and going gaga, seems like there's no better time than the present! Looking for that Society-friendly link? Click here!

Yes, exactly. Can people comment on the sizes they have and what they use them for? For example, how much stock can you realistically produce with an X liter pressure cooker? 40-50% of X? 80%?