Steve Klc

Good point Shaw. This Lander piece wasn't anywhere near as persuasively argued as Brown and Plotnicki and others have argued their similar concerns here on eGullet. It's full of distraction and nary an original or in-depth thought. You want to talk about lack of progress, fine--why muddle in supposed service flaws as if it were endemic? Prove it--prove regional specialties and artisanship are in decline as you eat around the provinces, prove the spirit and freedoms of an Adria, Pascal Barbot, Gagnaire, Pierre Herme, Philippe Conticini are not taking more hold--even subtly--among the next generation of French chefs, prove that savvy diners are increasingly unable to find interesting low to mid-priced meals around Paris that aren't rote, aren't composed of frozen and commercial ingredients. Prove that the "traditionalists" are not still putting out perfect examples of their form--whatever form--Poilane bread, the salted caramels of Henri Le Roux or the chocolates of Jean-Paul Hevin, etc. Lauder hasn't demonstrated to me he is going to the right places to ward off a jaded palate--be it weekend market, restaurant, bistro, charcuterie, patisserie, etc. Nor that he ever appreciated the things, which he now bemoans, for the right reasons to begin with. The difference with Brown and Plotnicki is I "feel" for their perceived loss, I feel for their uncertainty, in short, I care. Lander neither convinces coherently nor makes me care. "Eating out in France is no longer as exciting as it once was." Duh, where's he been? France has been conservative, sexist, insular, protective and chauvinistic for how many decades now? The advantage has deteriorated as Plotnicki has pointed out but again, this is not news. In fact, I would have thought even for the FT this would be seen as behind the arc. How much of the decline is perception versus reality, why has it declined, and will it ever rebound into something so compellingly and recognizably French are the real questions here. Where's the indictment of the French media, presumably complicit in this perceived malaise, or French diners themselves? "I would put forward another argument. The French restaurant industry is finding life tough simply because it has failed to adapt to a changing world, to meet its customers' new and more exacting demands." Again, like this is news? And what are these new and more exacting demands and who are these customers? And shouldn't Lauder mention palate or speak of a decline of interest on the plate in order to make his case? I guess not, not when blanket indictments of service issues are so obvious to him.

Yes, slarochelle, what you are doing in the freezer--opening the door, opening the bag, scooping out what you need, re-sealing the same bag, returning it to the freezer, grinding frozen beans--I wouldn't recommend--it seems to speed moisture accumulation on the beans, deterioration, loss of flavor, etc. The only way I've been able to get it to work well in my grinder and without noticeable degradation in the cup is to remove whole bags of beans, let them thaw at room temp completely, and then open the bag and fill the hopper of my grinder once completely thawed. I try to keep them in small batches, about 3 to 4 days worth, which is about the size of my hopper. And I only keep beans in the freezer for a few weeks at most. Like Phaelon56 I am convinced of the viability of this small, sealed package freezer method. But the only way to test this for yourself is to eliminate all the other variables, as best you can, so you can test impeccably freshly roasted beans alongside the same beans, from the same manufacturer, out of the freezer, side by side. I've done that with several different roasts and brands, I suspect Phaelon has as well. Prove to yourself whether it works for you and ideally, involve another taster with some affinity for coffee or espresso who doesn't have as much invested in this experiment.

I never agreed with that, Dstone. I freeze beans and concur with Owen/Phaelon's method. And I think if eGullet has a shared opinion on this matter--it is that coffee and espresso are two different beverages, two different concepts. Russ Parsons did a very nice coffee/espresso piece in the LA Times not too long ago, it's probably archived and no longer "free". It didn't break much new ground that we hadn't already covered and discussed here in several of our very involved coffee/espresso discussion threads. Like some of us here, he went the Sylvia route. But his article was the most comprehensive and best general introduction in one place that I've seen lately. I think the consensus is to grind medium coarse for the French press. The Scientific Am. article was by Ernesto Illy--yes, that Illy--and not one of the articles freely accessible. Here's the link to their site and the issue in question: http://www.sciam.com/issue.cfm?issueDate=Jun-02 I posted this link back in January in one of our coffee threads. The really serious coffee machine crowd hangs here: http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&as_...up=(alt.coffee)

This is on their site at the moment--a bit old, though: http://www.americastestkitchen.com/promotions/703.htm

This a good thread in the sense that it reveals how different pastry chefs approach the same tasks creatively and how methods might be adapted or bent to personal needs and different technologies. On coffee, some pastry chefs don't like using real beans for an infusion for they fear the beans absorb too much moisture in the infusion process, especially from the cream. Others adjust their recipes to take this into account. Still others use an instant espresso powder, like a Medaglia D'Oro, which releases alot of flavor and supposedly does not suck up as much liquid. And then others change the parameters of the equation, as I do with the syrupy blackened espresso extract. This is also where a bit of inventiveness and science can come into play, as well as one's personality, philosophy and circumstances. In the end, it is all still coffee ice cream or gelato--but oh, the end results can taste very different in isolation and in a given application, as a component of a dessert, a larger whole. The technology issue is a valid one--yes, it might be nice to have a PacoJet but you also have to be prepared to change or adjust every single one of your "traditional" ice cream and sorbet recipes. Things that work in a batch freezer will not work equally well in a Pacojet and vice versa; differences between a Krups Glaciere with removable gel core, which has to be frozen in advance and a much more expensive tabletop ice cream maker with a self-contained freezing unit are readily apparent as well. And as far as mint and other herb infusions go--again, for some pastry chefs this isn't as easy as it sounds, for the oils and essences of some of these things are fragile and ethereal in nature, and at higher heat can possibly be frittered away into the air--rather than retained in the infusion. We've discussed the grinding of fresh lemon verbena leaves with sugar in a cuisinart before on this site. For mint, our method is to add fresh mint to your cold milk and cream mixture, whiz with an immersion blender until completely shredded into fine particles, and then cold infuse overnight in the fridge. Sometimes we preface it with an additional step--flash the mint leaves briefly in boiling water and then dump in ice water. Then prepare your creme anglaise with this mixture the next day, straining as usual. We like the color and it seems to retain more of what makes the mint minty this way. "Seems" is the operative word and this could be the subject of a paper at next year's Molecular Gastronomy Workshop if the subject hasn't already been investigated in the lab already. Some pastry chefs hold back a portion of these cold infusions--so only a 1/3 or 1/2 of the mixture is heated at all, even to 180, as they prepare the anglaise. Still others wonder whether cream is the best vehicle itself for extraction--and if the high fat content in cream doesn't somehow interfere with the efficiency and effectiveness of the infusion process. I'm sure there will be alot more to uncover and share.

Yes, Torakris, I use it as a sauce for a chocolate dessert I call "Turkish Coffee," infused with a hint of cardamom. (Chocolate timbale cake, chocolate flan with a hint of anise, cardamom creme anglaise foam, toasted sesame, sea salt and candied orange zest sprinkled on top.) I do cinnamon in the Pacojet now--no need to infuse the cinnamon just freeze a whole stick in the beaker with your mixture--then it is pulverized by the Pacojet's blades and infuses its flavor into the whole mixture amazingly deeply and efficiently, much more so than in any traditional infusion.

Make a home made extract: cook sugar dry to caramel until just before black, deglaze with freshly brewed espresso. Flavor your ice cream base with this thick syrup.

Rochelle--keep up the good work. I'm as interested in your reflections as I am in the nuts and bolts of your actions. One of the advantages of going to school--and not also working full time--is that you can reflect, you can go home and practice, you can do dessert buffets, and you can really immerse yourself in your quest. This is a good thing, not something to feel guilty about. It also gives you the freedom to follow Jin's advice and trail a friendly butcher for a day if you so choose, take a stagiaire position at a good restaurant a few days a week if you want to, even before this first 6 months of your program is over. By the way, I don’t think I’ll make puff pastry again unless I’m in a real bind.

Perhaps you'd be willing to comment on a few of your favorite Vin Santos, David, and why you recommend them--and also speak a bit to some your favorite desserts at Babbo that proved to be good wine matches for Vin Santo? The first olive oil ice cream I ever had in New York was at Babbo, in a wonderful dessert with pumpkin seeds. How easy or difficult has it been for you to create wine matches across the whole dessert menu?

Are you giving away more content from our "So you wannabee a food writer" class, Shaw?

Fascinating, troubling review on many levels, Suvir. I can imagine agreeing with the review in spirit--that his assessments of dishes were spot on--but not in principle. You don't have to have eaten at Tamarind to feel for the employees of the restaurant today or wonder whether the writer and editor made the right call on this. Is this possibly a reverse form a snobbery--an anti-elitist sliding scale of ethics--it's ok to allow a piece like this as long as the restaurant is pricey, but we'd never allow something like this on a Cheap Eats destination? I don't read enough food columns in the NY Press to know from past material. Anyone? How often do they cover or consider fine dining, ethnic or otherwise? Have there been hit pieces, pieces with edge like this that possibly crossed over the edge a bit? And Suvir--apart from Indian cooking--did the writer also do a good job of understanding and capturing the subtleties--and not so subtleties--of Indian restauranteering or restauration, to borrow a word Robert Brown has used on other threads? Are there common elements or themes with other Indian restaurants in the city? Another thing--I read the review quickly, so I apologize in advance if I'm mistaken--do you think the writer should have mentioned that Raji died? I don't think he did. "It seems that whoever Mr. Walia installed in his kitchen for Tamarind’s auto-pilot phase (it’d be astonishing to learn that the current crew cooked for the Times reviewer) has even himself fooled. " Don't you think it was incumbent on the reviewer to know this? Also, it appeared he took but one meal there ever--or at least he reports on one meal. Does anyone else find it surprising that he didn't eat there early on--when Raji was still alive and when, presumably, Grimes ate there? or took a second meal there before writing the review--to be able to speak to consistency? Still, this passage haunts: "In fact, the restaurant does a lot to succeed but little to please. Any comfort to be found there stems from being lulled by overconfidence, and its food will rate highest with diners impressed with how highly the restaurant rates itself."

In case any of you are wondering what I'm talking about--here's a link to Prince so you can see the range of models and prices and yes, even the infamous whipping disk: http://www.jbprince.com/subcatmfgprod.asp?...&1=267&2=-1&6=2 The cheapo blenders are usually 200 watts. The next step up is the newish Braun "Vario" which is 280 watts and does do a decent job. Detachable stainless steel wand, sanitizes well. It's in department stores and some specialty food stores. I have several and use them for tempering chocolate--and I haven't burnt a motor out yet. (This works, by the way, precisely because the metal blade does not do a good job aerating the mixture, does not whip but a very small percentage of air into the chocolate--it chews up and smoothes out the chunks and bits of chocolate and creates a homogeneous, lump free mixture.) For foaming--I use Model #P245--the electric handheld homogenizer--which Prince sells for $57.70. Based on my direct hands-on experience, this is the entry level blender for foams and froths. The Mercedes of handheld immersion blenders, very powerful with a fantastic foaming disk, is the Bamix Gastro--Model# P272 I believe--which is used in Europe alot, it's more shielded and machined for professional kitchens than the P245--but also is significantly more expensive--$157.60 (There is a "home" version of the Bamix that I have seen reasonably priced, with whipping/frothing disk, in Williams Sonoma.) I don't own one of these, I find the P245 very satisfactory, but have tested the Bamix and the Bamix is what I'd recommend using in a restaurant where you have to foam or froth sauces daily. At home, go with the P245--which includes a whipping disk and the regular metal pureeing attachement--or go with the Braun Vario if you don't care too much about foaming. For fans of the show, there's also some real Alton Brown-like potential here--stick blender in all sorts of stuff, whiz, report on what happens, them's Good Eats!

No brig--it's not a reduction. It's an infusion first, as Suzanne points out and then foamed--made frothy by whipping air into the mixture. And I always find it's more efficient to take the blindfold off, but hey, different strokes for different folks. Polly, I think you're going down the wrong road as well with "reducing" and emulsifying the "fat in the liquid and the acid in the mixture." I think you're thinking emulsion/mayonnaise and that's not what's happening here with Brig. It's much simpler than that. (And actually with mayonnaise, the scientists say it is the water content from the egg yolks and from the vinegar which is the key ingredient, without the water you wouldn't get an emulsion with the oil.) Suzanne, it's very nice and generous of you to try to help, but do you own one of these handheld blenders and have you tried to froth or foam anything with them? Not blend, puree or create an emulsion like the water and butter beurre monte. Have you tried to foam milk at different fat percentages either with an espresso steam wand or an immersion blender? It doesn't appear you have. I've found you can froth or foam any milk with the proper technique--it's the milk protein which allows this to happen rather than the fat content--and if you know what you're doing you can foam any milk from skim to full fat. ("Whipping" cream is different, different from frothing or foaming milk.) Have you ever tried to create a frothy sauce at home or in one of the restaurants where you worked? Just stuck a handheld blender into something and whizzed to see what happens? Have you worked with canned coconut milk or frozen Ravifruit or Boiron coconut puree or a coconut milk from real coconuts--and observed differences in sauces or soups? Have you observed a difference between foaming "cold" things and "warm" things?" Do share these experiences, otherwise you really are walking around with a blindfold. Brig, Suzanne, others--if you're curious, take a look in Trotter's Dessert book--he does a different coconut emulsion on p. 160 and there is a beautiful frothy white coconut foam on the plate, around a Macadamia nut chocolate cake. Here's the money passage: 1 C milk 1 T orange zest 1/2 C toasted unsweetened coconut "To make the coconut emulsion: Bring the milk, orange zest and coconut to a boil. Remove from the heat, cover, and steep for 30 minutes. Puree the mixture until smooth and strain through a fine-mesh sieve. Warm just prior to serving and mix with a handheld blender until frothy." Granted Suzanne, "So many recipes are incompletely written; they don't give quite enough specifics." And as I read this--my first question would be, well, how did he want you to "puree" the mixture? And as a home cook I'm not sure--blender? Cuisinart? immersion blender? You and I know all three will work but the home cook doesn't, necessarily. But then Trotter (or probably his recipe writer and tester, Sari Zernich) does specify the handheld blender for the froth, which is nice. But there is no substitute for direct, hands on experience--it overcomes speculation and perceived shortcomings in recipes. (The fact that I think recipes are over-emphasized or blamed too much anyway could be the subject of another thread.) And if any of you do get to that point--where you are a little dissatisfied with the foams you are getting, with the bubbles deflating quickly, take the blindfold off and remember this thread about the immersion blender with the whipping disk attachment. And if this really piques your interest, start whipping and frothing all sorts of things. It just may add some spice and texture to your cooking. And there is nothing quite like a milk or coconut foam in the Adria style--talk about silky smooth perfection.

Bux--yes, mayonnaise is the classic emulsion example trotted out in Food Science 101 articles--emulsions are two liquids combined that don't ordinarily mix. Think oil and water. Aioli is an emulsion--oil droplets into the water content of garlic. Foams, according to the definition police are different--usually combinations of solid and a gaseous element--say whipping air into a meringue or mousse. Most souffles are foams, many cake batters, like a genoise, are considered a foam. What Adria developed with his iSi Profi whipper are technically foams and foamy emulsions--because they are charged and stabilized with pressurized gas. To the scientists and Molecular Gastronomy crowd "heavy cream" technically is an emulsion itself--and when you whip cream and add a little sugar, say in making creme chantilly, you're turning it into a "foamy emulsion," where the air bubbles become trapped into an emulsion and are stabilized by--get ready for some more techspeak--surfactants--which are present in the cream. So, if it isn't hard enough, these terms emulsion, foam, suspension, etc. can overlap as well. Science and food writers can distract, however, by defining terms out of context, especially if their writing and experiments are removed from the real world. Definitions, in order to help the home cook or pro have to solve problems, to explain and demonstrate meaning--or you haven't really helped with the problem. This is why in this country McGee was so good--he could communicate meaningfully to people in language they could understand. Back to Brig's problem--while it might be nice to read the definition, it isn't mainly that he does or doesn't know the science lingo, the terminology. What he'd benefit from is help from chefs and pastry chefs in modern kitchens have some familiarity with these techniques. Suzanne is right, we may not know for sure what Brig is trying to do, but one can guess pretty easily--he wants a foamy, frothy, bubbly liquid--and especially from his comment about what happened when he put it on the plate, the very few bubbles just plain bubbled away, leaving liquid. This is what Laurent Tourondel was doing alot of at Cello, what Laurent Gras is doing at the Fifth Floor in SF, what tons of elite chefs are doing today and have tried to do for years. There's only one way to get it with these ingredients like coconut milk and milk. I've done fruit soups and foamy sauces like this alot--and paired it with pineapple, herbs like basil, yogurt or fromage blanc sorbet, etc. Chefs and pastry chefs work with foams and emulsions and froths all the time--and you've either tried to whip up coconut milk stocks or bases or you haven't, you've either tried frothing milk and observed the differences between 2% and whole milk or you haven't. It's fun to see what works and what doesn't. At least it's fun for me. Then I turn to the scientists for help in figuring out what I observed. For those of you at home curious, do a test if you have one of those cheapo stick immersion blenders--take 1 cup of 2% milk and put it in a beaker or 4 cup pitcher. Stick your immersion blender in it and whiz--what happens? If you have the metal two-pronged blade and less than 200 watts--nothing much. Put it in a countertop bar blender and whiz--what happens? Now, when you do this experiment with a good immersion blender like the one I use, from JB Prince, which is also the one Laurent Tourondel used at Cello, with a high RPM and a detachable whipping disk--watch out. In about 20 seconds you'll whip so much air into that 1 C of milk it will overflow your 4 C container--you'll quadruple your volume very quickly. There are inexpensive versions of this advertised on infomercials and I've even seen smaller versions of the blender with whipping disk in department stores--people are using them to froth milk for espressos and cappuccinos. (Of course, what you lose by this method is a taste element--frothing the milk by the steam wand on your espresso machine changes the flavor of the foamed milk as well as foams it.) Anyway, pour this foamed 2% milk out into a bowl and watch it--it's beautifully viscous, relatively stable and stays frothy for a long time, it's very light and you get alot of servings out of what was originally 1 cup of liquid. Chefs and pastry chefs have their own little tricks and trucs with these mixtures as well--using varying percentages of skim milk, heavy cream, gelatin, egg whites sometimes--to get the foam to do what they want it to do. Warm, cold, how long will it sit in the bowl before it reaches the customer, etc. (You may also find that certain foams only foam or froth once--the proteins get destroyed--and they never re-foam quite well. This is the problem in lax coffee bars which leave pitchers of foamed milk lying around and just try to freshen their milk pitchers up--you lose the micro foam and it just tastes stale.) So Brig--if by chance you're trying to achieve this, your best hope is with a handheld immersion blender with the whipping disk--it's round, flat, about an inch wide. And Steve--a potential problem with your observation is that you may be giving the appliance manufacturers too much credit--as in that they actually know how their tools are being used. Like with the Krups or Braun handheld immersion blender--well, it actually does a very good job pureeing chunky squash soup, for instance, and models cost between $20 and $40--and that's the use typically seen on tv shows, right? I doubt the manufacturers knew pastry chefs years ago started using them to temper chocolate or have any idea what Laurent Gras uses to froth up his lobster cappuccino. Pros were using these things, burning out the cheap motors because there wasn't a professional alternative. (You'd be surprised, though, how many pros don't know this technique.) JB Prince had to go to a scientific equipment manufacturer to get them to build a high powered handheld that wouldn't burn out in 3 months. Before Prince secured this model, I'd say I went through 5 of the Krups/Braun models in the past 3 years. I looked at them as disposable.

Brig--a short course on the science of emulsions aside, I'm curious--where's the recipe from and what dish are you trying to do with it? Also, what kind of immersion blender are you using--a cheapo hand-held stick, like a Krups, with the flat two-pronged metal blade? If so, that blade doesn't actually emulsify or whip air into a mixture--it purees/chops/shreds--like if you had a chunky gazpacho or chunky meat sauce or leek and potato soup and wanted to blend it or cream it. If you are trying to emulsify--to get a mixture really whipped up and frothy--oh so bubbly and all the rage in fine nouvelle dining these days--you need to use an immersion blender with a whipping or frothing blade or disk. The good stick blenders have sets of these interchangeable blades that you slip on. So if you're trying to do a foam or emulsion--and you don't want to employ the Ferran Adria iSi whipper method--you have to use the right kind of immersion blender to get that cappuccino-style froth or foaminess. It isn't just about fat content and adding ingredients in a certain sequence. Without the right immersion blender attachment, you'd be better off using a countertop blender instead.

Might it have been a trend after all, Bux? Viscerally, who really craves a liquid potato? Perhaps it's not a proper or rewarding form for a potato to take, an over-intellectualized unnatural form of the potato? Maybe making potage has come to be seen as a greedy act--a way for a chef to use up all the old mealy potatoes and shortchange his customers? My serious answer, Bux, is 'I don't know'. But, for those following along, hung up or otherwise, on this--a wonderful traditional pureed potage with potato, leek and cream--could be strained and loaded into an iSi Profi whipper. Because of the cream content it would "foam" up just fine and be a wonderful side dish, with all the flavor of the soup and just a different texture. You know how some traditional potato soups have sausage or ham flavoring the stock? Or kale in the case of the portuguese caldo verde? Well, to help you follow through with this potato foam--here's how I, as an amateur cook, might utilize it in a modern version: Cook kale separately. Dice ham into a brunoise and saute until very crisp. Place a small mound of kale in the bottom of a bowl. Sprinkle a few ham cubs over. Drizzle some garlic-infused olive oil and sea salt over it. Fill bowl with "potage" foam. Shave some cheese on top of the foam, sprinkle more ham cubes and quickly gratinee before serving. Enjoy. Now, there is a difference between the potato, kale and ham "in" the traditional, familiar soup and how those ingredients are combined "in" my dish--the ham flavor isn't integrated, infused and extracted out in the long process of making the soup--but what does it matter that the preparation, form and integration of flavors between the two dishs are different? It does not, simply whether either dish is good matters. Imagine how the wonderful possibilities must be endless for a real chef? Imagine some nightmarish possibilities as well--but again, so what? I've had nightmarish brownies and chocolate chip cookies. Here's a basic Adria's recipe for a warm potato espuma: 600 g boiled potato, 300 ml full fat milk, 100 ml water in which potatoes were boiled, 50 g butter, salt, nutmeg. Combine, pass through a sieve. Season, load into an iSi Profi whip. This foam can be held warm in a bain-marie. He describes as "light, airy, almost liquid." Hmm, almost liquid...as in a potage? What's so disconcerting about that? Why is foam some stumbling block of form, of texture, of unnaturalness, of over-intellectualization and liquid potato not?

D--my sense of local critics in smaller markets is one of the ways they get on the map nationally is when they help boost a local restaurant, putting it on the map nationally. I'd be very interested to see if the customer service policies at the Herbfarm have gotten any play from local critics or food writers. Links anyone? Or is eGullet the first to openly question, and in my case, ridicule the Herbfarm?

What he said. Or she said. Thank you so much lxt. Very well crafted.

Southern Girl--welcome to my side of the fence. Not that I was feeling lonely over here or anything. But I'm sorry we had to meet under these circumstances. Seems my "vitriolic remarks," according to malarkey, were just a gentle breeze compared to what they would have been had I known this was the policy. I'm open to other suggestions for most onerous and unreasonable restaurant in the country from the perspective of customer service.

Ahh, wild salmon that has never been frozen. I knew there had to be a catch. I can't recall whether Wegmans printed "fresh" and didn't think enough to ask whether it was "previously frozen." Next time I will.

Steve and David--all valid assessments re: highest quality seafood. However, below the highest level restaurants--the very top percentage--consider the 95% of the rest of foodservice where most professional chefs work--just how good do you think seafood is? How much frozen calamari or New Zealand mussels or orange roughy is out there and utilized at the pro level? And is that level demonstrably better than what is available retail in a place like Citarella or in a market or in an upmarket supermarket like a Wegmans--where you could readily get cleaned fresh squid, bags of farmed but live mussels or somewhat fresh fish? Is the level of cod at a retail fish market significantly different than the level of cod available to most restaurants, restaurants below the elite level, in that given city or area? The situation may be improving. Case in point Shaw--last time I was in the Princeton Wegmans I saw several varieties of labelled fresh "wild" or "line-caught" Salmon which were flown in--on top of their normal number of different farm-raised options. I do trust Wegmans enough not to bullshit their customers. If they were going to hedge or mislead I'd suggest they never would have introduced their own line of irradiated ground beef. Home cooks have to buy these items to support a system of providers willing to go this extra length in more areas of the country, but even better levels of quality may be breaking out all over.

Malawry--just to use your two examples, edible flowers are routinely available in Dean & Deluca in DC and always available by mail order sources anyway. I've seen them at Whole Foods. I was in Philadelphia the other weekend and 7 or 8 different varieties of edible flowers were packaged and available from produce vendors in the Reading Terminal Market. I was very impressed. So maybe the larger factors are willingness to pay and awareness of sources. Microgreens--would that they be so prized--I have not spotted them around town as you point out either. But how many professional chefs and high end restaurants use them around town? 20? 40? Admittedly a micro-percentage of all pro cooks and restaurants in our area. The vast majority of working pros do not use them or cannot afford to use them. On your other points, I'd gently disagree with your perspectives. Yes perishability is an issue--but Myth #1 is it isn't like restaurants have fully stocked walkins at their disposal to such a degree that home cooks can't even relate to let alone approach. It's just not that romantic. Flats of the same quality stuff get delivered--say mediocre Asian pears--as what you find in Whole Foods stores and as a home cook you have the option to drive to the Asian market where flats of several different species of Asian pears are piled sky high--and you can choose your own perfumed, ripe fruit if you want. You simply don't have that option at most restaurants. I used to have the worst fruit delivered to me at a two-star restaurant in NYC sometimes and I've seen very average fruit delivered to very fine restaurants here in DC--if I wanted better I had to go out and buy it myself. You accept or reject and you make due--usually you accept, since you probably need the fruit or you can't put out your dessert special that night. Why do you think Wingding buys fruit at the Greenmarket just like home cooks do? Though it is unrealistic and unlikely, a home cook could get the very same box of fresh lemon verbena flown in for $20 as a restaurant chef has to in our city. Malawry--you know we can buy fresher eggs, duck eggs even, as we have together than 98.5% of the restaurants, chefs and cooking schools in our area--most of whom get their boxed flats of eggs from the same commercial sources. A few other statements of yours pique my interest: "Most home cooks can't afford to have a huge variety of perishable goods available at any given moment." Again, I disagree. I'm not sure what perishable goods you're talking about, but--home cooks can easily have a small container of Lewes Dairy heavy cream, little tubs of fromage blanc or marscapone, tiny portions of fantastic goat cheeses, a single bell pepper, a clump of parsley, herbs, Pelugra butter, whatever. They can buy fresh dates or gooseberries just like the pros and have little garlic bulbs and baby ginger just as easily as the pros. If you cook at home you'll go through these in a week and you can be even more efficient about it and just buy a half pint at a time. I'm hard-pressed to name a single perishable good that isn't readily available to me as a home cook doing my weekly shopping, except for the quaint microgreens and corn shoots and lemon verbena examples. I'm sure there may be other examples of specialty items, which have to be sourced or purchased in volume from professional channels, but the differences surely are insignificant. Possible myth #2--it isn't like restaurants have such vast stores of perishable ingredients on hand that they aren't specifically planning to use, to turn over, quickly--ordering is tight and specific much more often than not. Stores of things just aren't lying around. You're not going to find a lemongrass satlk just sitiing in a walkin if it isn't in a dish on the menu. It's a myth to think pros have little bounteous stocks of perishables at their disposal to create and combine spontaneously. What they have on hand is the same gourmet stuff you and I, as home cooks, can easily have in our cupboards or freezers if we so choose--sea salt, harissa, arborio, dried peppers, pine nuts, panko crumbs, truffle oil, ice cubes of pesto, etc. Restaurants get their flat of soft shell crabs delivered daily just as a home cook would have to shop for their crabs or bag of mussels daily at dozens of different locations around town. If I were a home cook in Iowa I'd be at the same logistical disadvantage as a professional. Possible myth #3--"Professional cooks have to create dishes that hold without deterioration for hours, requiring minimal fuss for last minute finishing." Again, not really. Much of higher end modern professional cooking these days is a la minute--all fuss at the last minute--the prep--washing, cutting, portioning is done ahead of course--but if you're on the line or watch what's going on in open kitchens these days it's "usually" some variation of flash sauteed, seared or deep fried raw main ingredient--crab cake, shrimp, salmon, foie gras, etc.--with oils, vinegars, reductions, fruit added to the pan, plated on top of just tossed greens or greens wilted in the pan or re-warmed flash-poached veggies, slaw, herbs sprinkled on, maybe another drizzle of a quickly and easily made sauce and served. This really has been streamlined and there is alot less "holding" going on than one might think--unless you're talking hotels and banquets and foodservice. But if you were it would support my contention that home cooks could expect to achieve brighter fresher cleaner entrees a la minute for their family than a chef under these banquet conditions where 1,000 plates had to go out quickly. Shaw goes on to say "As a home cook you just wouldn't do all that stuff if you were cooking for six people, unless you were going to spend two whole days preparing the meal." And he's right--but as a home cook you could make other time-saving choices--which reflect the realities of your situation--and choose NOT to do time-consuming purees, stocks, etc.--just as restaurant chefs make choices and streamline things to make their jobs easier and more efficient. A home chef can reduce balsamic or Pedro Ximenez just as easily as Ferran Adria does at El Bulli or Gian Piero does at the Elysium, and choose not to cream Robuchon's famous potatoes just as these chefs have chosen not to. The best book for home cooks that I've seen recently, which gets these points, is "A New Way of Cook" by Sally Schneider. She clearly has been paying attention to what pros have been doing and readers can pick and choose among many simple quick ways to boost flavor, which aren't too different from what pros are doing these days. Simon--have you cooked anything from this book? It seems up your alley and might dampen your enthusiasm for eating out.

As many have mentioned on this thread, of course there are differences. It depends how you define the question and what aspect(s) you want to zero on. Since ingredients were mentioned, I might as well chime in with a contrary opinion--and state that in many cases a home cook has access not only to comparable quality ingredients of a professional chef--but in reality a home cook could use clearly superior ingredients to most working professional chefs. Sounds idiotic, right? Look at it this way--many working chefs in restaurants, hotels, country clubs, commercial bakeries etc--are under pressure to use inexpensive ingredients, inferior commercial ingredients because their F&B director or chef does not allow the best quality ingredients to be brought in. They're too expensive. Why do you think there is a Sysco? In some cases chefs are aware of the differences in quality and in some cases they aren't--but it's naive to think the situation is otherwise. The vast majority of professional kitchens in foodservice make compromises--and try to overcome this disparity between what they know to be the best and what they have at their disposal. They buy in bulk--and very often have large amounts of ingredients stored, in essence losing flavor--whereas a home cook can more easily buy smaller amounts of superior ingredients--think spices, teas, espresso blends--and can have fresh nuts stored in the freezer whereas in a professional kitchen freezer space may be at a premium so bulk nuts are stored at room temperature, near the flourescent light fixture going rancid. As a home cook you do have the luxury not to compromise. You think all restaurants get wonderful produce delivered? The stuff at Whole Foods market is either of similar quality--can you say mesclun mix?-- or frequently, superior quality. As a home cook you do have access to farmer's markets, most chefs don't have that option even if they did have the time off, you can just as easily outsource artisinal cheeses and wonderful breads as professional chefs do, you can use the best versions of Valrhona chocolate or Cluizel or SharffenBerger--if you are willing to pay the price and as an amateur home cook you could create simple better tasting chocolate desserts than the bakery on the corner who is using a chocolate which costs $1.00 a pound or worse, might not be using real chocolate at all, for their simple chocolate desserts. In some product categories, a home cook can buy the very same gelatin sheets, French frozen fruit puree, almond flour, heavy cream, yogurt, butter, cheese, whatever--as the very best restaurants are using. Yes, the most high end restaurants and most elite chefs have access and suppliers which provide them with a percentage of ingredients undeniably superior to other restaurants and to home cooks. But this is a rarity in the grander foodservice scheme of things--and in that scheme, I propose home cooks have greater freedom to use better ingredients than the vast majority of working professionals.

lxt's lines that "What is important, however, is the quality of their work. The challenging part in identifiying this aspect lies in one’s ability to “hear” no matter what vocabulary the “composer” chooses to use." Perhaps lxt should have written the Showalter piece in TAP. Steve P.--this is the crux of the issue for you when you write: "The texture of potatoes are the best part of eating them. And because that's the case, I'm still waiting for someone to tell me how seperating the potato from it's form will end up with an item that tastes better than a potato in it's natural form." You are imposing beliefs, suppositions, projections onto something and holding yourself back. You find disconnects when I or Shaw do not. It precludes you, more than anything else, from moving forward as when early sailors feared falling off the flat end of the world. But eventually, everyone realized that wasn't going to happen. With Adria, you will too. But it is going to be a long process, because you are getting hung up on the mere "concept" of a potato foam, let alone how it actually tastes, or how there might effortlessly be a hundred different potato foams and how they might be used in thousands of different dishes simultaneously all over the world.

Robert, quite eloquently, writes "No question the man is an original. No question his influence is already upon us. No question we don't yet know what the kind or degree of that influence will be in the long term. And no question we'd all like to eat there. I'd rather not, however, eat with a notepad at my side and my fingertips pressed to my furrowed brow." So, don't. Simple as that. In the Guardian art critic's article, one of my favorite lines is this: "There's no opposition between simple or complicated, Adria said, there's only good and bad." Begin here. Adria does. Why get hung up on defining Adria, boxing him in? Eventually the shock, the extreme intellectual exercise, the "demands" you are all bringing to the table and imposing on the meal will diminish and you'll just enjoy, you'll just understand. Steve--you'll even understand better why Adria is so influential without having eaten at El Bulli. Lizziee--you'll see his global marketing of himself as a red herring--so what if his restaurant is closed 6 mos. of the year, allowing him to travel and taste and experiment? Why? Because he can. It's just one of the many things he does as a chef/restaurateur that hasn't been done at that level before and it's just another thing throwing you off your game a step. He's no more or less a celebrity chef than Keller or Ducasse--all three were on Gourmet magazine trading cards, remember? All of this speculation is just a diversion--interesting, yes--but a diversion. In future posts I will try to sound less like a new age spiritual guide.