Honkman

I guess, independently what dish or preparation we are talking about, that’s where we differ - I am always interested to change, improve. Doing the same is boring for me. Not only with pizza but in general I think dishes where some people just focus on a few ingredients/toppings are a missed opportunity. I never understand when people always order their same pepperoni or margharita pizza when there are so many more unusual/more exciting variations I guess if there are just a few key ingredients it is particularly important to really understand the chemistry and physics behind it

So is bread but I learned a lot from Modenist@Bread - have you learned anything from it ?

If you just learn from working with the masters you rarely will understand the science behind it to able to improve even further. Working with the masters is good for replicating- books like these are good to understand the fundamentals.

I don't think they get it wrong but here is a good article by J. Gold which explains nicely for what special type of restaurant this list is looking for. And if you go for this trype of criteria than the list makes a lot of sense (but obviously is not perfect) http://www.latimes.com/food/jonathan-gold/la-fo-gold-worlds-50-best-list-2018-20180620-story.html

It is not possible to answer what is authentic German food as it would be similarly impossible to say what is authentic US food. Everybody would say that there are way too many different parts of the US and all of them have very different food cultures, dishes etc. And it is similar in Germany as for example the Northern part of Germany around Hamburg has often quite seafood heavy dishes (with dishes like Finkenwerder Scholle (plaice) or Labskaus (dish with potatoes, red beet and mixed smoked fish) whereas areas in the south like Baden-Wuerttemberg have dishes like Kastaniensuppe (soup made out of chestnuts), Flammkuchen (Quiche Lorraine) or Gefuellter Saumagen (stuffed pig stomach). In addition over the last 50 years Germany had a significant influx of foreign workers from Turkey, Croatia, Italy, Greece which often live now here in the 3-4 generation and so a lot of those dishes, food cultures are also have now become part of Germany or created “fusion” dishes (Doener (with its Turkish roots) for example is the most popular fastfood in Germany).

The quality and selection of cheese at TJ is dreadful. If you have places like Fastachi closeby the nuts are also not something good. Same with chocolate which isn't really high quality - so if you don't care about quality TJ might be a decent place but otherwise they are just good at marketing and hype

I have tried the Market Basket in Waltham but there was nothing which you can’t get anywhere else in often better quality for a similar price (we mainly by produce, meat etc but no processed stuff in supermarkets). And I know TJ is for some reasons quite popular in the US but for me it is the most overrated supermarket if you are not heavily using processed food - I can’t see what people like about TJ

Just curious - where do you live (as I live close to Alewife and don’t think driving to Natick is very far away) ?

Visited yesterday this Wegman in Natick and came away completely underwhelmed - product section had a lot of low quality stuff, e.g. different berries and grapes with tons of mold, baby bok choy just looked awful, for a lot of stuff they force you to buy in bulk, e.g I needed one leek- the smallest bundle had at least four pieces etc. (overall very little care in the produce section), meat section had surpringly little selection and some of the stuff didn't look good, especially the ground pork which had more the look and consistency of slime. The selection of a lot of other stuff I was looking for normally in a regular supermarket was OK but not great and the people working there had surprisingly little idea where anything was located. The perfect finish was the check out where the guy had virtually no clue about any produce and what itwas (e.g. "what is this ?" - "cilantro" - "Italian ?", "is this a nut ?" - "no, a shallot") and a lot of stuff didn't have a PLU number and he couldn't locate anything and it took only 15 minutes at the check out which should normally take 1-2 minutes. Overall if you live at that part of Boston you are much better of with Russo's, Whole Foods (Alewife) and Savenor's to get much better quality and selection at a comparable price

Cooking is too much of chill-out/relaxing time after a long day at work that we would at home “waste” it with any highly processed/low quality food. Also dinner is every day a good time to sit and talk about the day as a family without any distractions and so good food is even more important as it is a great foundation of good discussions

I like this book https://www.amazon.com/Bowls-Plenty-Recipes-Delicious-Whole-Grain/dp/145553658X

There might be more tourists than at other Thai places but the food is much, much better compared to Chada. Now living on the east coast LOS is actually one of the restaurants I really miss from LV visits. It is one of the best Thai restaurants in the US

You should try Lotus of Siam

It would help if you could describe how you currently make your bread, e.g. hydration level etc.

Coming form Germany I am still surprised what money people in the US think characterizes German food today. Most of the people tend to think that the stuff served in most of the "German" restaurant is indeed what most Germans eat on a regular basis even though it couldn't be further from the truth. (But most Germans also still think all Americans eat only burgers, ribs and mac'n'cheese everyday.)

Jacob Wirth is (and most likely soon was) a horrible restaurant with unbelievable low quality food and had very little to do with German food. If you want German (or better Central/Eastern European) food in Boston the only good option is Bronwyn http://bronwynrestaurant.com/

This book sounds related to a German book called “Foodpairing: Harmonie und Kontraste” written by Thomas Vilgis - he is a well known professor who has written a number of cookbooks which rely heavily on chemistry and looks at key chemicals in many different ingredients and how they can be matched or oppose. He worked with some of the best known chefs in Germany for some of his books. If you can read German all of his books are highly recommended https://www.amazon.de/gp/aw/d/3037804807/ref=mp_s_a_1_23?__mk_de_DE=ÅMÅZÕÑ&qid=1521423471&sr=8-23&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=thomas+vilgis

Yes

We love to cook through many cookbooks and magazines but never repeat a recipe (but have kept record of all the ones we tried since living together)

It’s a typical German bread which tends to be very dense (but yours looks too dense). People like to eat it with soup, e.g. lentil soup but duck, pork rillette or Griebenschmalz (lard with cracklings) is also a popular combination.

KBrO3 is a potential carcinogen and thereby bromated flour can be potentially carcinogenic dependent on how somebody is using it (baking time, temperature, etc) It would be irresponsible by MB not to call it potentially carcinogenic without new, peer-reviewed data. The industry is not the problem - it is the other way around - more customer should be aware about potential risk of their food.

In my job I have to work with animal and human data regarding multiple disease indication, including oncology, on a daily basis. Based on your comments it is rather obvious that you have little idea about how any kind of (pre)clinical studies (including epidemological ones) are conducted. There is enough data in animals and humans which indicate potential renal toxicity with bromate exposure that warrants caution (and bans) in using it in material for human consumption.

I don’t really see paranoia about bromate - the scientific (animal) data indicates some possibility of carcinogenicity and based on this it is banned in many countries around the world (with US one of the few exceptions). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1567851/ https://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search/a?dbs+hsdb:@term+@DOCNO+1253

The Neapolitan pizza in two different pizzerias in Naples wouldn't be the same

It's not scientists or people of the region or Nathan who ultimate define what a product is called but ultimately whoever makes the dish. It is the same discussion as with "authentic" dishes - what you define as authentic might not be the same what I define as authentic and we are both right. Where you are fundamentally wrong (even beyond just food) is " You're mistakingly assuming that there's multiple routes to the same destination" - yes, there are always multiple routes to the same destination outside of food, within food and also Neapolitan pizza. It's quite preposterous to believe there is only one way to make Neapolitan pizza and every other approach in the future can only lead to inferior results.