Lisa Shock

I really like yuzu. I have made infusions from the peel, and will make cocktails with the fresh juice if I can get ahold of some fresh fruit which happens occasionally.

I have to agree. You can have more control with a pot on the stovetop, and make larger batches. I usually add raw nuts when the temp gets to about 140°F. I'd add the cardamom right before shocking the pan.

Your seasons will vary by your location. Here in Phoenix, everything is dead in July/August because everyone leaves town due to the heat. In other places, like beach resort towns, July/August is when you make most of your money. You have to look at the location, then consider the habits of the projected clientele.

I agree. I think there should be a season of the show where certain items are not allowed to be used and certain dishes (ceviche, bread pudding, carpacchio) are disqualified. I saw an interview with one of the previous seasons' contestants and he said they used scallops a lot because they were readily available in the TC kitchen, were quick cooking and didn't need much prep work.

I second the cumin. I put some in the water, along with salt when I start to cook the dry beans.

I'd avoid using a solid copper pot, where copper touches the food. Too many variables and risk. Acids and cooking sugar causes changes in it and a portion of it inverts when brought to about 236°F. (corn syrup is acidic) Having more water in your mix can cause the sugar to 'hang' near that temperature for a long time allowing more of the sugar crystals to undergo conversion to invert sugar. (I have also seen problems with trying to use a tall, narrow pot in a very cold room.) Next time you make candy, take notes about how long it takes to move from each ten degree increment of temperature over 200°. You'd think it would stall around 212° because of the boiling temp of water, but, it's a bit higher because of the hygroscopic characteristics of sugar. And, that time when the temperature increases appear to stall is right in the temperature zone where inversion happens. Corn syrup itself contains invert sugars. They are what makes good hard candies glassy; smooth, clear, and, shiny. However, too much invert sugar in some recipes and you don't get enough structure, it will be too syrupy/sticky.

I find that the fresh stalks, dried leaves, and dried seeds each have a different flavor. What I would do is buy a whole fresh celery and make a lot of stock from it, strain, then freeze the stock as both ice cubes and cup sized blocks. This way, you'll have flavor and nothing to strain out later. Dry celery leaf is a good flavoring for various dishes, it's just different. You might want to experiment with small batches of food and various amounts of dried herb. Good Luck!

I know of one nearby me as well, she's the executive chef at a sushi bar and was in line just ahead of me to audition for Hell's Kitchen a few years back.

I'm doing a liqueur and infusion assortment with some bonbons. I don't have to ship anything. I sometimes think about making a 'greatest hits of eGullet' basket, with Toast Dope, Vanilla Extract, etc. in it with a note of explanation. I am wondering which items other members view as archetypal of the site?

If you have a mixer, there's no need to be hand kneading. You just develop the gluten by running the mixer for 4-10 minutes or so and you're done. Professional bread recipes don't involve kneading. My favorite basic home-user bread book is Baking Artisan Bread: 10 Expert Formulas for Baking Better Bread at Home by Ciril Hitz.

There might be. There are different grades of corn syrup, the name brand stuff available in supermarkets is pretty good, the maltose and higher oligosaccharide contents vary by grade. Some store brand stuff is name brand with a different label. Some store brand stuff is made by different companies, well, differently. And, it can vary from store to store. There's also the chance that your preferred store's house brand changed their formula.

Shouldn't matter. Water boils away at 212°, or less at higher altitudes. At the temps you are going to, the water is long gone. I having the extra water lengthens the cook time and results in inverting more of the sugar which could be the source of the problem. But, I still suspect the thermometer. Oh wait, have you recently changed syrup brands? Gone generic to save money?

I'd weigh the sugar. Your formula seems ok but a bit heavy on the water, although that just increases your waiting around time. I agree with checking your thermometer, it sounds like undercooked sugar. I always take mine to caramel stage. Here's the formula I teach with, so far no student has ever failed with it: 14 oz Sugar 6 oz Water 10 oz Corn Syrup 2lb Peanuts, blanched ¼ oz Salt 1 oz Butter 2 tsp. Vanilla Extract 0.1 oz Baking Powder

I won't buy from those sorts of self-service bars in the US. I have seen too many people sticking their hands in the food. Remember that about 50% of men and 25% of women don't wash their hands after using the restroom. In 1991, on the day before Thanksgiving, I was in the checkout line at Wild Oats and had the salad bar in my line of sight. The line was long, and I was there maybe 20 minutes or more. During that time, I saw people come in to the store, and almost everyone grabbed an item or two off the salad bar and ate it as they walked by. By the time I got to being checked out, the salad bar was wiped out -entirely from people stealing from it. No one had come by and prepared themselves a salad at all.

I forgot to add that I keep my beans in canning jars that I vacuum seal with the foodsaver jar attachment. I started doing this as a way to prevent pantry moths. I like lots of kinds of beans and have limited storage space, so I don't buy large quantities of any one type and tend to not keep them more than a year or so. But, I would like to just add that vacuum sealing has given me good results. -The jars also have a very attractive appearance with all the varied colors and sizes.

I have no hope of receiving these, but, I would like: Modernist Cuisine, an ice cream machine with a compressor, a folding sheeter, a steel work table, and a sturdy coffee grinder for grinding spices and salts.

I too am not fond of canned beans. I keep a few on hand for emergencies, but tend to find them a little slimy with a too-soft texture. Also, some beans, like kidney beans, are canned with sugar and have a distinctly sweet flavor which I find odd after years of cooking them from dry. The biggest discovery for me about cooking beans was discovering the research showing that hard water can be a culprit with beans that take forever to cook. (yes, old beans can be problematic too, but, I don't store them very long) Now that I use filtered water I have better results. I only do a short soak, maybe an hour, sometimes none. I do add a dash of freshly toasted and ground cumin along with my salt for cooking many types of beans. -I like the flavor. I'd like to mention that, here in Phoenix, many ethnic markets, most notably the Hispanic ones, carry fresh raw garbanzo beans in the pod. They just get popped out of the pod and cooked briefly. They are green in color and very tasty with more of a green vegetable flavor to them.

The one thing to avoid is any area that gets vibrations from machinery, for example on top of a refrigerator. You also want to avoid freezing. Inside a cupboard away from light is good, just remember to turn the bottles occasionally to keep the corks in good shape.

Jaymes, none of your points about beans were made in the show. There were no positive comments made about beans in the episode whatsoever. What actually aired were lots of clips of people repeatedly asking 'this don't have beans in it now, does it?' and such, along with lots of grins and happiness when they were assured of a lack of beans. I didn't conclude that all of Texas is anti-bean. I said that that Texans came across (were portrayed by the editing staff) as anti bean and very inflexible about their definition of chili, which I found odd in a cooking competition that usually celebrates creativity.

I am not familiar with the cookies, are they made with regular flour, or are they gluten free? (gluten helps to bind these crusts) I found a review of the cookies online, but no ingredient list. Their thinness may be an issue, it might be other things. I'm, 50-50 on the cause. 1) My first guess would be a possible lack of hydration, which is going to sound odd, I know. Butter is about 20% water (in the US, it isn't regulated well), and that water brings the gluten back to life in crumbs. It's possible that the cookies weren't crumbled finely enough to allow the melted butter to soak in. It's also possible that you didn't use enough butter, your butter had too little water content, or, maybe you used margarine? 2) The super-thin cookie itself may be a problem depending on how it was made. Since crumbs from a thin cookie have a greater percentage of crust crumbs than inner crumbs, how the exterior of the cookie was treated in the original bake may affect your result in a crust. Various washes and treatments that give glossy surfaces (like egg wash) to a cracker/cookie may also lock up the gluten so it won't react in further cooking. I'd try making a tiny tart crust as a test and add a little water to your melted butter and see how it comes out. If it doesn't work, it may not be possible with this cookie. Hope this helps!

Yeah, I expected Team Moto to be strong through at least the halfway-point in the season. After emphasizing the various types of peppers in the quick fire, it was, now that you mention it, odd that there was no analysis of types of chiles used. And, I also wondered about the meat. I though chuck was standard in competition chile.

The quickfire was interesting and fun to watch. The elimination challenge seemed like it had a lot of artificial situations that didn't really add anything except drama for the camera. I am kind of wondering about the whole business of cooking at the house and how teams had to vie to use various ingredients and equipment. Some of this did not seem fair. Also, Texans came across as being very anti-bean. As a bean-lover I found this prejudice to be very closed-minded. -Yes, the challenge was essentially a catering challenge, where pleasing the customer is the foremost concern. And, I understand that to their minds, the archetypal Texas chili has no beans. That said, we live in a world of basil 'caviar' and nitrogen frozen popcorn. Guess I'm not liking challenges where the hoi polloi judge the food.

Or, just stick a knife up the neck and the ketchup will flow right down the blade.

Commercial operations tend to save time by buying cartons of whites or yolks as needed. They are faster and have less labor costs because there's no time taken to crack and separate.

I think the problem with getting ketchup out of a bottle lies with the ketchup itself, not how slippery the bottle is. Ketchup a non-Newtonian pseudoplastic and behaves oddly in terms of its viscosity. Specifically, the more stress that's put on it, the less viscous it becomes. That's why you can squeeze it out of a bottle in a stream like a liquid, but it stays put on your hamburger and doesn't run off. Ketchup is a type of non-newtonian fluid called shear thinning. Another example is paint. When you apply stress with the brush, the paint flows, but once it is applied it doesn't continue to flow, even if it's applied rather thickly. Non-Newtonian fluids are cool. I am sure you have played with cornstarch and water. It behaves oppositely from ketchup: the more stress you put on it the more viscous it becomes. For a fluid to be non-Newtonian it just has to have a non-linear relationship between shear stress and shear rate (related to stress and viscosity). Well, I read a book on business by a guy who went to Heinz in the 70's with a design for a bottle that would let the ketchup flow freely and they turned him away because the long slow pour was their marketing gimmick. They used to try and create an illusion of quality by equating it with thickness. You may have noticed that it flows pretty well out of the squeeze bottles. The marketing people realized that if kids could be trusted to use a ketchup bottle, by making it easier to pour, they could sell more of it since kids are the major consumers of ketchup. Long Reference Article