johnsmith45678

Wasn't aware I was drinking "burnt" coffee. So, what are the good brands/shops? As for point number one in the article, I have long wished the US had an autobahn lane, especially on the vast stretches of interstate highways.

I eat lighter foods, and less food. And lots of iced tea. Other than that, the heat (105F here the past couple days) doesn't bother me - I never use air conditioning, go outside in the heat of the day, use the oven/stove, etc. I thought I was a bit warm on Saturday, but then I read this story about people training for the 135 mile race in Death Valley later this month. Incredible.

That's not enough! Might even lead to a comeback of the TV brick!

Yeah aluminum sheets and silicon papers sheets work great, both available at my local restaurant supply shop. But the silicon sheets are kind of pricey (roughly about $0.75/sheet IIRC), so I use (at home) spray.

GR doesn't like Germans either? I know he likes to insult the French, but never heard about Germans...

I forgot one! Rachael Ray: Seems vacuous, ditsy, perky, superficial, and too nice to a fault. I don't think it'd be possible to have a deep and serious conversation with her. Heh.

Heh heh, yeah, I had a hardcore edible plants phase several years ago. I bought Steve Brill's edible plants book, as well as checked out various related books from the library. I went all over identifying and eating plants (never got ill either!). One plant I liked sauteing like any other vegetable is cattail - it's good, and there's a ton of it. And just last week I found a big patch of blackberries with a lot of ripe berries. On the south side of the city grape vines run rampant in the wild - they haven't developed grapes yet. Other than that, there's a lot of other stuff -- mostly weeds -- that are more work than I think they're worth, and the end result (taste and/or yield) isn't that good. When foraging, you also realize just how much invasive species are taking over. Oh, daylilly flowers are tasty (taste like vitamin C), yucca flowers taste like soap (yuck). There's also a walnut tree at a local college that is developing walnuts. In all, other than cattail, it's hard to gather much from foraging. edit - I never got into foraging for mushrooms. I meant to, but finding them is much more difficult. Plus there are so many types and you absolutely need to be an expert at identifying them.

Bourdain also mentioned that Scott Bryan used to be a yeller and a screamer. In all the kitchens I've worked in, I've only encountered one chef that was a complete asshole. In the rest, everybody gets along enough to work togerther, jokes around, but also usually let the sarcastic insults fly wholesale. But in the high end restaurant kitchens I've visited, everybody was pretty quiet, friendly, focused, busy, and otherwise professional. I think the berating, insults, etc. comes when there's incompetent/arrogant staff that aren't holding up their end. Kitchens are also high-stress environments and there's going to be a lot more venting than in other work places. I've seen many otherwise easy-going people have a bout of yelling and/or throwing stuff from time to time.

Yeah, right. That'll get us chucked off the plane for sure---somewhere over Greenland, I'm thinking ← The outer shell(?) probably wouldn't even make it past security.

Durian.

There's A Taste of Colorado in Denver on Labor Day Weekend. (I'm surprised that testicle festival isn't held in Severance Colorado - a town named for castration. ;P)

Offer the table a free, complimentary round of drinks. Slip roofies in the drinks. Let the kitchen staff have their way with the diners while using their credit cards to pay for their meals, plus 20% tip. Then put them in cabs bound for their homes.

Send a busboy by and have him cut one loose.

Wow. I'm curious how much money and man-hours of labor this day is going to consume.

I don't know about Austin's restaurants, but it sure has a happening night club scene - about 3x8-10 square blocks just south of the capital. Unlike any area I've seen in any other city. Probably some good restaurants in there.

There were some truly miserable kitchen moments in Boiling Point seasons one and two. The "nice guy" Ramsay was completely absent in the kitchen. In other shows -- like "Friends for Dinner" -- GR is better. He's all business in his kitchen, but jokes around a bit with Sarge (who definitely took verbal abuse in BP), and shows a great deal of patience (but which show signs they're at their limits) while working in his kitchen while on the phone with the annoying dork who keeps calling him for help preparing his dinner. When Boiling Point was filmed, I think GR was under tremendous pressure - striving for THREE Michelin stars, having a big and unfavorable loan on his restaurant, competing against all the other restaurants and celebrity chefs, dealing with a lawsuit from Aubergines, dealing with his brother's drug problems, bad press from that bad bosses show, critics (like AA Gill), and other stories which frankly he had only himself to blame (badmouthing that Cherry critic, the Australian food show host, Brambley apples, etc.). The standards for three Michelin stars is next to impossible, and I suppose when clueless employees just off the street threaten to screw everything up by not living up to standards, we'd all get a little ticked, to say the least. But surely there are chefs who have achieved three stars without being so nasty? Perhaps if he trained his staff better, he wouldn't need to berate them so much. However, I think most people (like GR's staff) would rather work someplace that's among the best where the chef may be nasty, rather than some mediocre place where the chef is really nice to a fault. In the former, you'd be challenged to your limits every day and be expected to always bring your A game and you'd probably make a lot more money, in the latter, you'd get bored and be lazy and probably earn far less. With GR, I'm reminded of many cliches: nice guys never finish, only cream and SOB's rise to the top, it's better to be respected than liked, give people an inch and they'll take a mile (probably one of his policies for dealing with employees), etc. I don't feel sorry for a lot of the people GR attacks - especially the critics, who are generally snobby, and never have (and probably never have had) a hard days work.

Link And I found the original article at Charlton's site - interesting picture of Wray. ;P

I think it's the real deal - I've seen a few stories lately stating that Walmart will start selling organic food.

According to this page: So things (like, hmm, probably just water) could probably be flavored with some combination of extracts and/or spices and contain almost zero calories (which is good enough for marketeers to call it zero calories). I assume essential oils are about the same thing as extracts, and they can be distilled from just about anything.

I'm kinda rooting for Garrett. As for photo ops, or just about any other public situation - HOLD YOUR FARTS! Jeez, WTF? I watched The F Word after HK, and enjoyed it much more. But the crew of ladies he had on this time did far worse than those on HK - they kept burning SCRAMBLED EGGS.

Hmm, we NEVER kept alcohol near the burners (doesn't heat break them down?) except for the brief moment off adding it, and certainly wouldn't have been startled by erupting flames (a prep cook though, might be).

It's actually a little of both. The hot pan is what vaporizes the alcohol and makes it airborn. If the flame beneath the pan were to light the vapor it you were still pouring from a bottle, it could ignite the contents of the bottle. Kaboom. ← Has anybody ever experienced a liquor bottle exploding in such a way? Or heard of it? I and many others I've worked with have splashed plenty of liquor into hot saute pans over flames (and done other things like light lighter fluid streams out of bottles and spray out of aerosol cans). Never a once had an explosion. Or even remember the flame traveling up the stream. I tend to think an explosion isn't possible - at most, perhaps the (high-alcohol) liquid in the bottle would slowly burn like various flaming drinks before rapidly exhausting the oxygen supply in the bottle. It's like gasoline - it needs to be aerosolized like it is in the pan for it to combust rapidly.

Yep, that's a kick too. But the average cook in the typical shift rarely gets that feedback - at most it's clean plates coming back, or lack of complaints.

Heh, great post Alchemist. The few shifts I had to work the salad station I was climbing the walls from boredom. A couple more: They love sauteing over flame and making the items in the pan "dance." (Yeah, even though it's probably not the best method.) Then hitting it with that shot of alcohol... They have lightning fast reflexes and can catch food and other items falling toward the floor, and without damaging the food/item with their grab or injuring themselves (well, usually - myself and other cooks I knew have risked serious burns rather than drop a hot plate). And in general: They love playing with knives. And fire. And chainsaws and ice picks (for those that do ice carving).

Yeah, since Coors is here, there are a lot of billboards and other advertisements advertising their "Rocky Mountain spring water." I don't know where this "spring" is, but I'd think they get their water from Clear Creek -- which is downstream from the huge casino boom going on in Central City -- since it flows right by their plant in Golden. I hope they treat it for giardia first! ;P