rlummis

I was going to suggest Peterson for both Sauces and Soups, but I don't have Glorious French Food. In addition to the Pepin books and DVDs I would suggest Madeleine Kamman's New Making of a Cook.

If the problem is toughness, the melting temperature of collagen in beef is generally given as about 170•F, which is approximately 77•C. You might try a temperature in that range.

Another vote for Cuisipro. I, too, have had the plastic housing on the Microplane break. It still works, but there is a lot of flex and the blades are quite sharp. The plastic bottom of my Cuisipro (from Sur la Table) is also a ginger grater.

I ordered the set of 4 spoons from CKTG, and the Richmond spoon is an almost exact copy of the large Gray Kunz spoon, although the angle between the bowl and handle is slightly greater in the CKTG version. The other three are stamped "Chef Knives to Go" instead of Richmond, and are very slightly different from each other. All 3 are canted even more sharply than the Richmond spoon. I don't know which I'll end up preferring.

I think all of the above is good advice. The Coleman Xtreme coolers do a very good job. Igloo MaxCold is competitive. For your purposes, the really high-end coolers such as Yeti, Engel, or Frostbite are overkill. Their main advantage is durability in outdoors/marine settings, but for the price you can replace your Coleman or Igloo twice.

At least for me, the whole point of Maldon or Cyprus flake salts is the texture. To use them in dissolved form, e.g. to salt pasta water, is incredibly expensive to gain, for me at least, no noticeable benefit. I would also guess that the tests excluded the salts with a heavy clay content, like some of the Hawaiian ones, since the tint of the water would be a tell-tale indicator. Tasted straight, I think some of them have an unpleasantly muddy taste. I certainly can't taste the difference in most, if not all applications, but there is a health argument for using the gray or pink salts. Dr. Michael Eades says that they have only about 70% of the sodium of table or kosher salt, with the rest being minerals and micronutrients that may or may not have health benefits, depending on whether other parts of your diet provide them.

For barbecue, Iron Works is less than a half mile from the Radisson, and is pretty good. Franklin is a pretty good walk (1.3 miles by Google), but the barbecue is amazing. It's uphill going there from the Radisson, so it will help you work up an appetite. The remarks above about the wait on weekends are correct.

For carbon steel knives, the reasoning is pretty obvious. For older knives, the wooden handles can become damaged by either the bleaching action or prolonged soaking, but I don't think this applies to the modern treated wood handles. For other types of knives, I've heard two basic explanations: The blades get knocked around into other utensils and chip. It's dangerous to unload. I don't put my knives in the dishwasher, so I have no experience with the first. Most of the people I know who run their knives through the dishwasher don't have very good knives and don't keep them terribly sharp. Also, this would vary depending on how you load them, i.e. whether you throw them in a basket with other tableware or place them in one of the racks. Anything else I own goes in the dishwasher. The good china and crystal don't get used enough for the abrasive wear of the detergent to be an issue over my lifetime and the breakage rate of hand washing (especially late at night after a festive meal) tends to be higher for me. I don't use non-stick pans, and cast iron and dishwashers are a bad combination.

I also use either Ortiz or As do Mar. There is also a French brand that is quite good, but I've never seen it in the US. Has anyone tried American Tuna? It's supposed to be line caught, but it is water packed. The other brands I use are all oil packed.

Make magazine had an article on this a while ago, but I found the following much more helpful: http://seattlefoodgeek.com/2010/02/diy-sous-vide-heating-immersion-circulator-for-about-75/ Scott Heimendinger is the Seattle Food Geek and was very helpful in answering a couple of questions I had during my build.

A lot of web sites claim that "Natural Flavorings" is cover for MSG, but according to the USDA: On March 1, 1990, FSIS published the final rule, Ingredients That May Be Designated as Natural Flavors, Natural Flavorings, Flavors, or Flavorings When Used in Meat or Poultry Products. The rule did the following: Defined the ingredients, i.e., spices, spice extractives, and essential oils, that may be declared as "natural flavors" or "flavors" on meat and poultry labels. Required more specific listing of certain ingredients. Substances such as dried beef stock, autolyzed yeast, and hydrolyzed proteins must be listed on the label by their common or usual names because their purpose is not just for flavor. They are flavor enhancers, emulsifiers, stabilizers, and binders. Required that the specific source of hydrolyzed protein be indicated on the label, for example, "hydrolyzed soy protein" or "hydrolyzed whey protein." With respect to "hydrolyzed protein," the USDA also points out: "Hydrolyzed proteins, used by the food industry to enhance flavor, are simply proteins that have been chemically broken apart into amino acids. The chemical breakdown of proteins may result in the formation of free glutamate that joins with free sodium to form MSG. In this case, the presence of MSG does not need to be disclosed on labeling. Labeling is required when MSG is added as a direct ingredient." So it appears that Lawry's Salt is indeed free of MSG and of hydrolyzed proteins.

Years ago I used a Coleman Camp Oven which rests on the stove top. It has a temperature gauge on the front door. It works, and for camping it folds flat for storage, but I would probably replace the stand-alone before I would use it as a primary oven.

Houston, TX. Amateur cook, but being a gadget freak makes it irresistible.

The brochure on the Electrolux USA website says it needs 230 V 1-phase power, but the Globe Equipment web site says 110 volt and lists for $1,905.70 with an MSRP of $3,400. Even at almost 2 grand, it's tempting if it really would be a countertop combi oven. After all, that's only a little more than 3 sets of Modernist Cuisine.

Make Magazine's new issue (#25) details how to build one yourself for about US$75 in parts (the digital PID is about 1/2 of the cost). Although the magazine rates the complexity of assembly as "Easy," I'm still waiting on a couple of parts I ordered before I can offer an opinion.