daves

I have a bamix. I doubt I would have bought it for myself -- it was a gift from my wife's parents. That said, it does a great job of everything we've tried it on.

Totally agree.

Our KitchenAid went south a few years ago (not an ideal home oven), and it was replaced with a Miele double 30". Considered the Wolf and the Miele and went for the Miele due to the stability of temperature. Simply the best oven we've ever used.

When I add yogurt to my curries, it separates into tiny little curds -- sort of looks like little specs of white. Is this what you're seeing? In my case, the specs are gone after an hour or two of simmering. And I'm pretty sure the pot is already quite acidic before the yogurt goes in with a healthy portion of caramelized onions, spices, and tomatoes.

Add us to the list of meal planners. We shop twice a week, so our shopping list usually has 3 meals on it. The menu rotates to be somewhat seasonal (lots of bbq and grilling in the summer, braising in the winter), but we also have a cheat sheet of old stand-bys for when we aren't feeling particularly creative. Left-overs tend to be brought to work for lunch, or the kids will have them the next day.

I think so. My favorite prep for prime rib is low 'n' slow with indirect 200° heat and mesquite smoke on the bbq -- 'til it reaches an internal temp of about 115°-120°. Then take it off, rest it while stoking the fire to 600° or so, and then throw it on to get a nice crust. Serve immediately We'll be doing this Christmas day...

Had lunch here today: WOW! Time-travel back to Saturday noon: I was telling a friend that I was at Salumi last week for lunch, and that we needed to meet there sometime. He said that he'd recently tried Porcella, and that I really needed to head there. So head there we did. He had warned me that the chef Noah loved fat in his charcuterie, and I found out this was an understatement. Almost everything was extremely rich - in that pork/duck fat sort of way. There is now great charcuterie on the eastside!

Hmmm. My non-frost-free stays pretty solidily at 0 degrees F. We open it about once every couple of days to grab something. Frost build up isn't a problem -- we usually have to defrost it every 18-24 months. And we've never found ice buildup or freezer burns on anything in there... Sounds like the thermostat is gone and is now starting up the compressor at too high a temperature, resulting in a virtual defrost cycle but without the ability to remove the moisture.

I'm pretty Woods is the manufacturer of about half of all freezers -- other companies just slap their name on some variation of a Wood's model. That said, we have a GE Upright non-frost-free. Went without the frost-free to avoid the damage to the food that occurs in the daily frost-free defrost cycle.

I haven't read the whole thread, so these might be elsewhere -- apologies in advance if I'm rehashing previous material... Grass vs corn fed beef. I think you hit the nail on the head here. Grass fed tends to be more lean and definitely has a gamier taste. You can find grass fed at the local farmer markets. My two favorites are Skagit River Ranch and Thundering Hooves. Lamb: Costco of all places carries lots of lamb at reasonable prices from Australia or NZ: racks and boneless legs. I've never had lamb in Australia, so I don't know how it compares, but it does have the gamier grass-fed taste. Stock: we haven't found a decent replacement for homemade. If you find something good, please post...

I've used the same 3 Guys recipe a few weeks ago. Bought and trimmed a full pork loin, marinated in the mojo overnight, and then roasted/smoked on the bbq for approx 2 hours at 300F with hickory. Took it off at 150F internal temp and let is rest for 20 minutes. The meat was sliced and guests either ate off a plate or created their own Cuban sandwiches. Extra mojo was available as a condiment. It was served with a black bean/rice creation of my wife's, along with some type of citrusy salad.

According to this page (scroll down a bit), omega 3 starts disappearing as soon as the steer starts eating grain. Within ~50 days, it is 1/2 the level. I have no idea how long cattle is typically finished in feedlots. Of course, this data is on the internet, and I have no idea how valid/truthful it is.

We've been buying 1/2 of a grass-fed steer for each of the last couple of years and splitting with another family. We got into it with the goal of supporting a local rancher (or grass farmer as he calls himself) and the apparent health benefits of grass-fed beef. I agree with the posters above: it is like 2 different animals, and both are great in their own right. I would characterize grass-fed as more gamey and just having a more concentrated 'beef' flavor. This may have something to do with our rancher dry-aging the beef for 21+ days before packing. The corn-fed beef is also great, esp with mouth feel from the better marbling. I find I have to be a lot more careful cooking grass-fed beef steaks on the bbq, and I gave up guessing based on touch/feel/6th senses. I started using my handy thermopen and pull them off the heat when they get to a rare temp. The carryover usually puts in squarely in the med-rare zone which is what we've shooting for. My father-in-law still talks up a steak I cooked him a couple of years ago: a grass-fed rib-eye done to med-rare on mesquite in my backyard. He claims it was the best steak he's ever had, and this is a man who made it a point to check out top-end steak houses. Other cuts, esp chuck etc for braising, seem to cook no different than corn-fed.

info about superheating here.

Or maybe, just maybe, they're just idiots. Unfortunately, I look back at my academic phase and, in hindsight, see that most are there because they can't survive elsewhere (but there are some clear exceptions). My experience is that the old saying "Those that can, do; those that can't, teach" is more correct than not.

When I graduated and started my first real job, I was able to sign up and take candidates out for dinner at nice Seattle restaurants -- places that I normally didn't end up with what I was earning. So we're someplace that served Chinese bbq pork as an app. We ordered some, and I proceeded to liberally coat it in mustard and then sesame seeds. I popped it into my mouth and thought my head was about to explode. I distinctly remember asking the candidate if I was bleeding profusely out of my nose/ears/middle of forehead while frantically signaling for another beer from the wait staff.

exactly. I *love* tomatoes, but I'll turn down a hothouse or hydrophonic one since they taste little better than ketchup-on-cardboard.

Hmm... I read this as nothing more than Saleton trying to incite change in our society -- per his own moral beliefs -- without the fortitude and decency to do it personally on his own. Back to your steak, Bill! Hopefully you can't talk with your mouth full. His moral beliefs? A quick internet search uncovers a few columns with the same general theme, and he's certainly not shy about his vat-grown meat pet project. He wrote: So here, he sets up a strawman and then rips it down to prove his point. So we're half-evolved because we can both love animals and eat them? I guess we then must aspire to be fully evolved and give up on meat. I guess PETA got to write his evolution manual. And then he links meat eating to animal sacrifice, human sacrifice, slavery, the subjugation of women. Again, PETA seems to have given him a few ideas with their disgusting "We are all animal" campaign. Actually, he might have gotten those ideas when he wrote a column at least partially defending that campaign and adding his own call for the end of "butchery of higher mammals." Finally, he also throws out a few non-facts to confuse. No fat beef? No thanks. Good fat transplanted from fish? Grass-fed beef is already rich in omega-3, thank you very much. Replace bird flu/mad cow/salmonella with the much greater risk of a monogenetic engineered food source? Now that's mad. Perhaps Saleton should first? Meanwhile, I need to finish off my steak...

I think you'll like them. We have a MasterChef double convection that's a couple of years old. They've been working great*. Best part is the temperature stability throughout the entire oven. From the website, it looks like we have a H398BP2. * we did find one software bug. On our model, if you have the clock display turned off, it'll shut down the computer as you turn off the oven. Normally it wants to run the fan for 20 minutes or so to keep the computer cooled. We now leave the clock display on.

??? The credit card company is legally required to put the charge through if the merchant can produce a signed credit card slip. They don't have any authority to get involved in the "after the fact" argument in this case. Best to take the advice already posted...make sure you get the price up front next time, don't sign your credit card if you don't agree with the bill, talk to the owner & finally...consider it a lesson learned. ← Sorry, this won't help with your situation ned, but... Once, for a wedding, I stayed at a nice resort that advertised all sorts of amenities. Turned out they were a little too optimistic with their ad copy. Several times during the stay, I voiced my displeasure/disappointment with their setup, and the management stated they would make things right. At check-out time, I told them they needed to make things right financially. They 'forgot'. Before signing the credit card receipt, I called amex and told them about it. They advised to sign the slip and then put it in dispute. To make a long story short(er), after their investigation amex cut the bill in half.

Four days have passed since I sent that email note, and no response yet. At this point, I think we'll just not "darken their doorway" again and have tatin elsewhere.

Ditto. ← Probably should have gone ballistic like this but we were on a date night, so we wanted to keep the evening on a positive note. I have sent a note to the restaurant management, respectfully pointing out the error of their ways, and we'll see what happens. Hopefully they'll take feedback better than some Vancouver restaurant owners and not ban me from "darkening their doorways."

There must be a fine line between creativity and scamming. So when is that line crossed? The more I think about the 'tatin' last night, the more I think it was a serious scam. Tatin takes time to do right and it should be priced accordingly. What we got last night was their interpretation of "let's make up something easy to put together and hard to screw up, but priced like tatin." Fine -- but that isn't tatin. I know there would be a lot of seriously peeved people if a restaurant served hamburger when the customer ordered the filet (but in their defense, the menu obviously didn't say it wasn't ground). Of course, I can walk with my future business, which I probably will.

Last night, my wife and I were out eating at a decent French restaurant (who shall remain nameless). We finished up dinner, and then decided to have a look over the dessert menu. The Tarte Tatin caught our eye. We're fans of this dessert and ended up both ordering the same thing. This rarely happens and you should take it as a sign of our enthusiasm for not sharing . Here's the rub: the restaurant's Tarte Tatin wasn't Tarte Tatin. I'd venture to say that it wasn't even a 'modern interpretation'. Sure it had apples and a puff pastry crust (although I prefer pate brisee), but it wasn't cooked upside down or even caramelized. It was good, but it wasn't Tarte Tatin. So how do you think of menu labeling? If the restaurant significantly changes a traditional dish, should they tell you about it on the menu? Is everything a gamble?

Interesting interpretation and I didn't mean to drive you toward a smog-stick. I was thinking that the global thing was fundamentally fair because there are clear rewards for success -- you get to compete and sometimes win in the marketplace. The only thing I would have considered bleak is the rejection of all global "cutting the line" and living on a commune, subsisting on the potatoes and carrots tended equally by the community. You know -- just to be fair and all. Apparently there is a price to be paid in advance for crossing through the pearly gates. The price isn't clearly and objectively posted and you need to be paying it well in advance with no guarantee of delivery. I'd hate to think that some people would consider this a bribe... Mousse cutting man realized that the price was higher than he expected -- ingridsf's ire -- and he didn't want to pay the price