Jason Perlow

Objectives: 1) eat great Jambalaya (have had it at several places but always looking for more) 2) eat great Gumbo (been to Gumbo Shop) 3) eat great "bbq" shrimp (we've been to deenies and are planning a return visit) 4) Eat great muffalettas and Po Boys (been to central grocery and Mothers, where else should we go?) 5) Eat great beignets. I hear theres a new contender in new orleans besides Cafe Du Monde, where is it? 6) Eat any other great creole and cajun food of note.

Vaccum meat marination is one of the coolest things it does. Put meat in one of the large containers or in a bag with marinade (if you use a bag, put some paper towels at the top to prevent the marinade from getting sucked out and into the machinery) and pump all the air out. Does the equivalent of an hour or two of marinading in seconds. Leave it marinaded in a vaccum for a half an hour or an hour in the fridge and it will be REALLY marinaded. As to the coffee bags, no you cant reseal them. But you can put the coffee bag in a Foodsaver bag or a foodsaver vaccum container and seal that and keep it fresh that way. Get more of the plastic containers for stuff like coffee, cookies, veggies, things that you use a lot. They are a lot easier to deal with than the bags, which are only really good for things you plan to save in the fridge or freezer for a while.

I'm going to try steakums in there shortly. Not sure how well a burger would work, would probably need several toasting sessions at full darkness.

Stay tuned for an EGCI course on potatoes...

Per Hollywood's request, Monte Cristo a la Toast-N-Serve. A sandwich of two slices of buttered bread, turkey breast, ham and swiss is prepared, along with a wash made from one egg and a little bit of milk, whisked up. The Sandwich is inserted into the eggwash, and flipped to absorb it on both sides. Sandwich is inserted into Toast-N-Serve and toasted on the dark toast setting once and then a second time on medium. Finished product. Note that the process of inserting the soggy sandwich into the Toast N Serve may require that you wipe off the bag before inserting it into the toaster, it requires a steady hand and good manual dexterity to do this without making a little bit of a mess. When releasing the sandwich from the bag, you may need to use a a butter knife along the sides of the bread a little to unstick the sandwich from the inside. Any more requests?

This is what the rest of the world calls Chow Mein: http://www.achefshelp.co.uk/chow_mein.html Chow Mein, Hong Kong Style

While Googling I found the coolest T Shirt: http://www.mooneyes.com/TM/TM273.html

Eddie, we're talking about what New Yorkers call Chow Mein, not what Chinese people in San Francisco (and well, people in Hong Kong) call Chow Mein, right? In those places Chow Mein is a stir fried egg noodle dish similar to Lo Mein.

Midnight Snack: Rare Roast Beef and Melted Cheddar. The classic. Not one of the more photogenic ones, but definitely very tasty. Hollywood: I'm working on the Monte Cristo for lunch tomorrow.

Wow thats like totally Fear Factor.

Whoa.. are those SCORPIONS?

Thats just turkey and ham and swiss and challah dipped in an eggwash, right? Sounds doable. Yeah, it's the eggwash that's got me wonderin'. Well apparently you can do French Toast that way in the bag. I tell you what, I dont have challah but I do have white bread. I'll try a montecristo with that tonight for a snack and see how it comes out.

Thats just turkey and ham and swiss and challah dipped in an eggwash, right? Sounds doable.

Rachel's is probably more your speed. She sliced the meatballs thinner and set the toasting setting lower.

Youre looking at it sliced in half and the peices stacked on top of the other.

Yeah, I have it turned all the way up. I like my toast that way.

After yesterday's pitiful S'mores performance I am happy to report today's lunch was an unbridled success. Meatball Sandwich Parmigiana on Garlic Italian Country Bread Meatball Sandwich Parmigiana on Garlic White Toast

A chinese wok sauces course for eGCI would be brilliant.

I think Rachel may have set that one on "medium", I'm not sure. The key is to have the correct balance of toasting the grahams while at the same time melting (and toasting) the marshmallows and the chocolate. I'm thinking this might work better with waffles or pound cake. Something that can take more serious punishment than a graham cracker.

Okay, so we tried to do smores in the Toast-N-Serve tonight. You know, the thing about pioneering new cooking techniques is that sometimes, things don't turn out so good. First, we assembled the Mise en Place. Then we prepped the S'mores according to the traditional method. Then we inserted them into the bags and toasted away. This unfortunately, was the first result. This was the second attempt, at a lower toast browning setting. Basically we discovered that the Toast-N-Serve bags get so hot, that they will burn graham crackers. So we either have to find an alternative medium to convey the marshmallows and hershey bars, or we have to give up on the idea of making Toast-N-Serve S'mores altogether. On the side of the Toast-N-Serve though, this was an excellent test to see how well they cleaned up under fairly adverse conditions. On the first attempt, we really got burned chocolate and marshmallow all over the inside of the thing. After letting it cool down for a few minutes and putting it under hot water and soap in the sink, the gunk came all out and we were able to clean it off quite fast with a sponge, leaving no residue behind.

Actually, it sounds pretty tasty: http://www.virtualcities.com/ons/ky/x/kyx89011.htm The traditional one is open faced,but theres no reason why you couldn't do it as a sandwich.

Whats a Kentucky hot brown?

All of the tables at Craft are nice irregardless of where in the restaurant they are. Huge wooden tables with ample room for lots of side dishes and mains.

I'm thinking they taste much better in Amsterdam coffee shops with a nice fat doobie on the side.

Bought some of those. We're going to be marinading them in korean bulgoki sauce and cooking them in the bags.