johnsmith45678

I use my stovetop as counterspace, but only temporarily. Sometimes I confuse which knob controls which burner (front or back) -- since they're all lined up horizontally and each has two circles: a solid white circle and a hollow white circle (guess which means which!) -- and turn on the wrong burner. Two of the burners are coils so it's easy to tell immediately which just got turned on (by putting my hand over it), but the other two are discs which take many minutes to heat up and cool down -- this usually just results in me going "WTF? Why isn't the water boiling by now?", but one time I stacked the burner covers over the disc I wasn't planning on using; a little while later smoke was pouring out of them...

I found this page on Food Network which gives a pretty good summary of the various types of chocolate: http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/ck_culinar...1707813,00.html

I thought the last episode was pretty good, felt like it had a lot of stuff in it. And it seemed to be rough on poor Alton - broken collar bone, yet he soldiered on, all the food he gorged on in LA, the pepper paint ball. The part with the muffler stew and hot lunch box (I had no idea they existed either) meatloaf was fun. Kind of sad the show's over...

Hmmm… his swearing is just old hat now. Perhaps he’s angling for a cameo role as a coq au vin sucker in Deadwood. I just think that the series worked much better when it went out before the watershed. And I take back what I said about him not being the right person to get people back in the kitchen. He’s well able to do it, if he would just leave the angry, swearing caricature behind. Yelling at ordinary people trying to cook in his professional kitchen is missing the point completely. The first series had all the ingredients for family viewing; a magazine style with something for everyone, and my 6 year old loved it. If they are going to exclude younger viewers by going out after the watershed, they are missing an opportunity and I question whether this chimes with GR's "back in the kitchen" mission statement. When I was a kid, I loved to sit up and watch the few cooking programmes that were on with my mother. It was a special moment shared and it made me feel grown-up. My 6 year old loved Gordon, his kids, Hugh and the animals. But this time round, I couldn’t let her watch them. A minority audience yes… but a very important one I would have thought. And that really annoyed me. It may not sound like it, but I’m a big GR fan. There are few people who can be equally great as a chef, restaurateur and TV personality, and he’s got passion, which makes him compelling viewing. Just not for a 6 year old this time round. ← Blech, if you want kid-safe cooking shows there are a plethora of others on. Cooks swear. Cooks yell. That's how it is, any show that depicts it otherwise is phony. And most kitchens I've worked in weren't "safe" places for children. I don't know what you mean by "watershed."

Still being a novice baker/pastry chef, I'm basically confounded by the array of chocolate available in the baking isle: bittersweet, semisweet, milk-chocolate, white chocolate, cocoa powder (of which there are two types: "regular" and dutch process), and I don't know what else. I've begun to educate myself a bit on the different types: - Bittersweet has no sugar added and is nasty to eat. Presumably only for baking with other ingredients (like sugar!). - Semi-sweet has some suger added and isn't pleasant to eat either. Similar uses to bittersweet I'm guessing. - Cocoa powder: I know dutch processed is supposed to be smoother or less alkali or something. I don't know if cocoa powder is bittersweet or semisweet or something else and why you'd choose one over the other. - White chocolate: just the fat from chocolate. - Probably several other types I'm forgetting or not aware of. I thought there was a kind that had its fat removed - perhaps that's dark, or bitter/semi-sweet chocolate. Then there's also chips (for cookie-type recipes only?). That's about the extent of my knowledge! Bittersweet and semisweet seem really similar to me - I don't know why you'd use one instead of the other (or if they're interchangeable). Any chocolate experts (or anybody who knows more than me) who can help fill in my gaps about the uses of each type of chocolate? Any other types/forms of chocolate/cocoa? Thanks!

I just made dijon-honey-brown sugar chicken and brined (salt only) it for an hour. Tasted great!

I have a few of those type of tomato plants, but I'm pretty sure they were called cherry tomatoes. And yeah they're amazingly good - almost like candy. Mmm mmm...

There are a couple of McDonalds around here that were remodeled to be retro. They look similar to this: http://flickr.com/photos/agilitynut/107903...57594074051997/

Old thread, and several good suggestions -- I don't know if these square tins with clear tops are new, but they're about as close to perfect as it gets for me I think. Cheap ($0.68 for 4oz, $0.88 for 8oz), almost square (I hate the space inefficiency of large round containers), and everything else the round tins offer.

The Most Difficult Thing You Can Make? And vegatarian? Hmm...how about... Something that is actually tasty, satisfying, and filling! (I kid! I kid! I think )

Further info?

Yeah, I use a blender for smoothies (don't even have an immersion blender) -- it can handle ice cubes, frozen fruit, ...

I remember now -- the show was Good Eats "Olive Me." Heh: Here's the transcript.

I really enjoyed the show -- all the locations, the guests, the food, the detailed explanation of prepping the main course, the animals, the swearing, the humor, and more. How am I going to get my GR fix now that this and Hell's Kitchen are over...

First off, what's wrong with black olives? I think I recently heard them bad-mouthed on some cooking show. I've bought canned black olives from the grocery store for a long time and use them in salads, on pizza, with chicken, and other stuff. I think they're okay, if salty and metallic tasting. Secondly, if black olives are crap, what to use instead? I think I tried kalamata olives a long time ago, and I've seen the smorgasboard of olives at Whole Foods, but I don't know anything about all the various types. Anybody help?

The rest of the world bans GM food?!? Huh? From what I've found, most countries don't, some requiring labeling, and the EU had a temporary ban. It also appears that many US companies have done studies on GM foods, so that assertion of yours also appears false. The usual gang of "the-sky-is-falling" appears to be behind the opposition to GM food. By and large, GM food technology will be beneficial - no technological advancement is without peril. I guess you're opposed to irradiated food as well?

That's the same rationale for brining as explained in the brining thread. If the mechanism is the same then why would you want to pre-salt instead of brining? Pre-salt would not be able to penetrate as deeply as the brining. Huh? Brining also adds liquid, and flavored at that. edit - Actually I should probably revise -- I don't think brined meat weighs any more than non-brined before cooking if I recall correctly, but the flavored brine has infused the cells and whatever else will hold it with its flavors. That's the difference.

ATK also said that salt helps denature proteins so that they hold moisture better, so I'd postulate that pre-salting also helps retain existing moisture.

Is there anything more to "pre-salting" than just sprinkling salt on the meat?

I've only tried brining once -- it was some recipe from Good Eats that had orange juice in the brine. I didn't think it made any difference, and the brine was a PITA -- extra time (a whole day!), expense, cleanup, etc. But I have some brining recipes from ATK that I think I'll give a try.

I thought his name was Keith Greene, and he usually referred to himself as K-Greene but they changed that for the TV show because they didn't want people to know his last name. I also thought that Heather was involved with, um, someone else on the show. No? ← Who?!? Did she fall for Larry in the hot tub scene?!? Or is it Rachel?!? Enquiring minds want to know!!!

Heh, yeah, camping with a sleeping bag that isn't rated cold enough is real misery. I didn't blame them at all for bugging out. When I climbed Pikes Peak, there were many marathoners doing practice runs up -- most had nothing more than running shoes, shorts, maybe a shirt, and a fanny pack with a couple water bottles (and presumably maybe a few sport bars and rain poncho). I've encountered some nasty conditions on fourteeners and other mountains (mostly lightning storms, and some really cold conditions), but I can't fully imagine the conditions somebody like Aron Ralston -- who climbs fourteeners in the dead of winter -- has experienced.

Heather West? Didn't Keith refer to Key West as Keith West? And they sure seemed to hug a lot in the final episodes...I bet Keith and Heather got MARRIED!!!

Selective breeding is not the same as genetically spliced. ← Technically, no, but the idea's the same. Genetic splicing doesn't worry me either.