johnder

How many do you need? You can pick up a case of generic win glasses in one of the Bowery restaurant supply houses for under 30 bucks. I am not sure how much it costs to rent, but I would assume it would be in the same ballpark. Of course if you are dealing with needing 72 or more glasses, you probably don't have a place to store them afterwards.

Place my vote for GR and Alton Brown please! Now there's a blood bath the Contender or even the Ultimate Fighting Championship couldn't touch! ← I think this would be a bloodbath, AB would last about 10 seconds.. GR is an ex rubgy player after all.

Well I guess I can eat crow now. Thanks Chef for answering this.

While I understand now that they are open they probably don't have time to post, but I would like to hear why they implemented this policy. They sure managed to drum up interest and try out ideas before they opened -- now that they are opened and have gotten the PR, they seem to -- at least to me lost interest in posting.

Well it seems the complete bios are not up on the fox site yet, but the partial bio for Chris updates his profession to "Freelance Executive Chef" Which I guess you can take to mean I am unemployed and made up that title myself to be cool. edit: fixed typo.

I just finished watching the show, and I found I needed to pause it on my tivo every now and then because watching it all in one fell swoop was too painful. While I like the hour long format, and wish the PBS show had it, I think they spend too much time insulting the poor saps, as opposed to showing the poor saps making mistakes. Obviously they are looking for drama and I think they will deliver on that. I am not going to say I won't watch it anymore -- I will probably give it one or two more shows to see how it turns out, but I like the PBS show better at this point. In regards to the people at the "restaurant", there is no way they are paying guests. They would have to sign a waiver to have their image publicized, and I a sure included in that waiver was language saying you may or may not be served a meal, and you may or may not suffer from one or more of the following: Food Poisioning Botulism E. Collli Salmonella Trichinosis Explosive Diarrhea Personal insults by the Chef Given all that, they had their meal comp'd in return for having their faces on national TV. This is LA after all.

I am by and large not a fan of vodka, but it is useful for the occasional drink and Charbay does make a good product. That is their blood orange vodka that I bought because I wanted to try making a kumquat-based drink from Town called Convent in Chile. The best place to get Charbay is Astor Wines down by Astor Place. That is actually probably the best area to get liquor in Manhattan, because right around the corner from Astor Wines is Warehouse Wines & Spirits. These two places combined likely represent the best selection of liquor in Manhattan. ← Hah, one would think going to NYU and having it suck all those years out of my life would have at least imprinted the selection Astor had. Although I guess at that time I really couldn't afford any of the fancy stuff.

I looooove Charbay vodka. I haven't actually seen it in NYC, only when I am out in SF. Is it actually available here in NYC?

My vote for the mystery basket is to go vegetarian. While I am not a vegetarian personally, I have always had fun on several occasions doing a 4 or 5 course vegetarian tasting menu.

Actually all this talk of lemon verbena make me decide to have a drink with it tonight in the backyard since today it wasn't actually raining here in NYC. I usually always have a bottle of simple syrup in the fridge for iced teas during the summer, so I squeezed a few lemons, added some simple syrup and a sprig of lemon verbena and let it sit in the fridge for 2 hours. Filled a tall glass with ice, a generous splash of Ketle One Citroen vodka and some of the verbena lemonade. Very very tasty.

I actually just planted some lemon verbena 2 weeks ago in my garden. I found some plants at the local farmes market. It is really taking off, it pretty much doubled in size in 2 weeks. I have it in a pretty large pot and it gets about 6 hours of sun. It seems very happy.

Yesterday I had a few Victory Prima Pils in my backyard. I love it's hoppy taste. Great for a bbq.

A freshly baked loaf of bread spread with some amazing salted butter.

I think I overplanted the tomatoes. I got so happy we finally have a garden I went tomato crazy. I think I have 9 plants by last count, mostly early girl, a few brandywine, one roma, a burpee super steak and a few cherry tomatoes. I also have a few patches of radishes growing, sugar snap peas, along with romaine and brussel sprouts. I put must of my herb in pots to contain their growth, specifically the spearmint, peppermint and thyme. Rounding out the slection I have some oregano, lavender, lemon verbena, lemongrass and bay leaves.

I actually just picked the first batch of french breakfast radishes from my garden over the weekend. After a quick chill in the fridge it was served with some soft sweet butter and some good sea salt. Wash it all down with a good pilsner, mmmm tasty.

Ok, I enjoy this show, but I really need to fast forward the tivo every time Todd comes on the screen. His facial expressions drive me insane, or maybe it is actually the Botox has made him only have one expression. I can't tell. Also between him, Ming and Katsuji it seems they have cornered the market on hair gel.

I would expect to see quite a few service changes in the coming weeks. While these presentations (smoking tubes, bacon wires) look great and definately cause a media "buzz" -- which is obviously what they are after, it will soon prove to be too much to deal with both on a logisitics as well as a cost perspective to maintain. I think anyone who wants to see the presentations in their most complex form should hurry up and eat there before most of it changes.

Currently I have a big bottle of white and apple cider vinegar that I use for pickling and recipes that call for it. I also have bottles of red wine vinegar and sherry vinegar which is what we prefer for our salads and by and far get the most use. Rounding out the selection is some rice wine vinegar and some old home made red wine vinegar that needs to be replenished. I think the mother died a few months ago.

sam, your recipes look amazing on the site (once I resized my window again ) -- I did have a question, where can a layperson find gellan? It appears it is only sold in bulk to food services.

It is a pretty nice site, but really -- the resizing thing has to go. It ranks up there with the infamous <blink> html tag in terms of annoyance.

For the record people like Jacques Pepin and Julia have been preaching the qualities of the brocolli stem for ages. He even did a recipe on a recent Fast food my way with one.

There is a bar in Brooklyn called Commonwealth -- they made a mean julep over the weekend. I think they were 6 bucks. The owner is from Kentucky and has a pretty impressive bourbon selection. They were pretty awesome. I regretted them the next day though.

As with most reality based TV shows, editing can display a persons personality in a way the producers want it to be shown. While no doubt the NYC girl has 'tude, I am sure some creative editing has reinforced it to the viewers. I am curious to see how things play out, in the other episodes. I have to say that I was cringing through many shots of the knife skills portion -- I would be surprised is someone didn't cut themselves during filming. I would think if someone couldn't dice onion, they shouldn't be presented a beautiful salmon to butcher. Seems like a waste of food. Just my .02.

I was actually out to dinner with 2 other people last night at a moderate Italian place on 5th avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn last night and we all got totally caught off gaurd by the cash only. From the menu of his place, where antipasti run between 8 -13 bucks, entrees run up to the 20's and their wine list has bottles reaching up to $70, it is totally unacceptable not to accept at least one CC. Between that and the fact that all 3 pasta entrees came out of the kitchen without apparently any salt. Seriously -- We have never needed to salt food at a restaurant as much as we did last night, it was amazing. Although they did have entertainment in the fact the waitress had a very thick Italian accent at the start of the meal, and by the time the check came she completely lost all of her accent. She went from southern Italy to South Brooklyn in 1.5 hours. So, I digress.... I think any restaurant where the average bill runs >$50 pp should accept CC.

I would think if you had a large enough pot you can probably do them all at once. My usual method (for when I do 6-8) is put them in a pot with cold water, turn heat on high, uncovered until it comes to a boil. Turn off heat, cover and let sit for 10 minutes. Then immediately dump out the water and leave under running cold water for 5-7 minutes. It is important to get them from the warm stage to the cold stage as quickly as possible to avoid the green ring around the yolk. john