abadoozy

This is what I do as well. There's little I throw away anymore, I can always use a half a cup of BBQ sauce or leftover braising liquid or the liquid that comes out of the sous-vide bag. I might not know immediately what to do with it, but eventually I find a use.

I ordered on 2/21, and so far, it's still telling me mine will ship by April 15. *Crosses fingers*.

What browser are you using? I tried to download that document a couple weeks ago and had no success until I switched browsers - something in Firefox hangs it up, but it downloads fine in Internet Explorer. That book is is really worth having. I was indeed using Firefox. I did end up getting the book - downloaded it on my Mac, then copied it to my Windows box, works fine.

I tried this. My .082 gram measuring spoon was in the dishwasher, so I added just little bits of sodium citrate to about 2 T. of the base until the spheres seemed to come together better. The base is now VERY thick - almost like honey - and the spheres definitely stay together better in the bath. However, they still just fall apart when they're taken out, and the base now has an unappealing salty taste. Grrr. This was supposed to be an easy "beginner" recipe. Now I feel like a mad scientist.

I tried - adobe says there's an error in the PDF. If i try to view it in the browser, it opens, but trying to go to any page but the first page gives an error. Is it just me? Can anyone else view it?

I honestly have no idea. I'm a rank beginner when it comes to this stuff.

I bought an iPad for work (I'm a software geek, currently working on mobile apps), and it quickly made its way to the kitchen and practically lives there. It's an amazing resource, even if all you do is use it as a recipe book. I cut and paste recipes on the web from my computer (where I sit all day) into Evernote, which I also have on my iPhone and iPad, and wham! that recipe is everywhere I am. I can cook from it in the kitchen and refer to it on my phone in the grocery store. I can make notes as I cook, or the next day, at my computer ("great recipe, next time don't eat so damn much.") I'm very excited as more and more cookbooks come out in iPad format, too. I just love the thing. Highly recommended as a cooking accessory.

I just got my Ariste Molecular Gastronomy kit in the mail today. I don't have my copy of Modernist Cuisine yet, but heck if I can wait, so I decided to do a simple spherification. I found a recipe for Red Wine Caviar, from here. All good, until I start dropping the wine into the calcium chloride bath. It simply dissolves! If I drop it very, very gently, some stay in a sphereish shape, but immediately dissolve when I lift them from the water bath. I checked the documentation that came with the Ariste kit, and their water bath had slightly different ratios - 6.5 gr of calcium chloride to a liter of water. So I tried that, and if anything, my drops dissolve even faster. So... what am I doing wrong? My scales could be slightly off, as they're rated only down to 2 grams (got a better one on order), but other than that, I did everything to the letter.

I've worked at more than a few places where it was not at all uncommon to have beer/wine/liquor in the office fridge. At one place, my department shared a kitchen with the CEO, and it was very common to come in and find the garbage filled with liquor bottles after the CEO spent the evening entertaining people in his office. This was all in high-tech, if it matters. And nowadays, we always have a healthy selection of beer/wine/liquor around. Hard not to, when you work from home!

I know my local small-town library takes direct book donations, and even puts your name in the front of the book with a "Donated by..." label. If I had the extra cash, I'd buy them a copy of Modernist Cuisine, if only to balance out the huge number of vegan-related books (cookbooks, books on health, books on vegan lifestyle) that the local vegan group has purchased and donated. Unfortunately I'm not so wealthy that I can spare the cash to buy them a copy. Maybe someday!

I'll be interested to hear your results. I was going to do sous-vide hard boiled eggs a few months ago, but after doing some research, decided against it. I read a lot of blogs/posts that said the consistency of the whites wasn't very good. Unfortunately i don't recall why, nor did I keep links to the posts.

Now I want a burger. For breakfast. That's OK on a Friday, right?

Interesting - I'd assumed they used a ghost writer, but apparantly not.

I get "overwhelmed" more than lazy. But maybe that's the same thing when you're tasked with reviewing one of the most eagerly awaited books for one of the most respected newspapers in the country. It's an odd review; I read it last night, shortly after it came out, and again this morning. On the one hand, he fully admits that there are brilliant recipes and information (the pressure-cooker stock, the custard ratios, the format of the recipes themselves) that he himself will use "forever." On the other hand, he takes potshots - "The only cooking discipline they do not cover is pastry (perhaps because you can’t cook a pie crust sous vide)" I dunno. I really respect Ruhlman and generally love his writing, but this review struck me as odd and scattered. In one paragraph, he seems to be saying the book is opinionated and cold, a book for scientists, not cooks. In the next, he lauds it for its preciseness, attention to detail, and innovative research. Of course, all this is being said without me actually seeing the book, I'm just going by what I read about it. Maybe I'll understand Ruhlman's review a little bit more when I get my own copy, but for now, I'm not sure what to take away from it all.

I ended up getting the Kindle edition and, like daisy17, read it in 2 days. Pretty good read, though I found it a little light. Would have preferred something a bit more detailed, but I'm sure we all would have!

If I hadn't already invested in a whole pile of Penzey's jars (and labelled them) I'd be tempted to go with this solution. But after buying all these jars, I'd rather not change unless I can't figure out anything else. Heh, what's becoming increasingly apparent in this thread is that I'm not the only one with 5 different spots in the house for herb/spice storage.

You and me both. I'm a software developer, and I've been pondering throwing together a smart phone app that tracks my spices - could even bar code them! Now, is that a sign of a dedicated home cook, or just pure obsessiveness?

That picture was one of the reasons I started that thread. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no wall space in my kitchen - it's all covered with cabinets.

I have those little jars of herbs/spices stashed in no fewer than 4 places around my kitchen and pantry - the very-common spices in small jars from Penzey's, nicely labeled and stored in a drawer. A big plastic bin of the secondary spices (whole peppercorns to fill the pepper grinders, cinnamon sticks, etc) stashed in a cupboard. Refills for the small jars in the drawer in plastic envelopes on a shelf in the pantry. And another box in the pantry with dried chilies and other "big" spices that don't fit anywhere else. And I just remembered, a bowl on the counter with a bunch of samples sent to me by a friend. Does anyone have a good system to store way-too-many spices? I do go through them all, they're not old or forgotten or anything like that. But I have too many to fit in any sort of commercial rack. I'm wondering if there's some sort of nice case or box that would hold, say, 50+ small jars. And, of course, I've got my eye on all the stuff necessary for Modernist Cuisine projects. So add in another 10 or 15 jars of various thickeners, transformers, spherification agents, etc.

No way. I read that article, and frankly, living to 125 but not eating most of the things I love to eat (not to mention drink!) doesn't sound fun at all.

Not really a dish - but what's really cut down on my grocery bill has been having the cooking skills and creativity to use everything. Anything from the myriad of dinners you can get from one roast chicken (roast chicken, chicken pot pie, chicken stock, etc) to never throwing anything out. Example - I froze the liquid from sous-viding some pork ribs a few weeks ago, that went into a batch of carnitas I made a few days later. Next to no work, no money, and the carnitas were excellent. I've done the same with leftover broth from posole (which is amazing. I think I like the carnitas better than the original posole) Dried beans are always good, but they're even better doctored up with a little (homemade) BBQ sauce left over from yesterday's dinner. And "Refrigerator Soup" - soup made from all those leftover bits of stuff that is going to go bad in a couple days if they don't get used - can be excellent.

I ordered mine in Feb as well, and had a ship date of March 8th, also Amazon Prime. Decided to spring for the $3.99 Overnight a few days ago, and upon doing that, the ship date changed to April 15. Called them to see if there was anything I could do about it, and they basically told me it was never going to ship on the 8th to begin with, and gave me the impression that they had no idea when it was really going to ship.

Staff who haven't even tried the food and fall over themselves to admit it. I still remember a time over 15 years ago at a casual steakhouse, asking about an item on the menu. The waitress said, with no prompting at all, that she was a vegetarian and had not tried anything except the one lone vegy entree. Even worse - "I don't like <x>, so I haven't tried it." Had that one thrown at me at a fish place once. "I don't like fish so I can't say!" If you're going to work at a restaurant where you can't/won't eat the majority of the food, at least put some time into finding out about the various choices so you can answer questions. And if it's a high-end/pricey place? I want the waitstaff to try everything and have the ability to talk intelligently about the choices.

Anyone have a copy of this yet? I'm trying to decide whether to order the real book, or get it on the Kindle. Part of the decision process is whether or not there's a lot of pictures or graphs - they tend not to translate well to the Kindle. A few pictures, fine. Lots & lots? I'll spring for the hard copy. Amazon doesn't have "Search inside" for this one. Can anyone help?

Cinnamon is supposed to have an effect on blood sugars. I tried taking capsules of it for a while (Type 1 diabetic), but never noticed anything beyond nice cinnamony breath and a craving for Red-Hots (which definitely DO have an effect on blood sugar, though not the one I'm typically looking for!)