C. sapidus

Jenny: Awesome story - thanks for sharing. The clean-up sounds horrendous but, y'know, funny from a distance. When you get spousal approval to try bread pudding again, I recommend stirring the caramel with a nice, dry wooden spoon. Link to my mishap with caramel and a plastic spoon. Grub: That would be an excellent sig line, or a perhaps one-sentence autobiography. ETA: add'l comments

Alina: I’m looking forward to tales of Moscow and to your wonderful pictures. Congratulations on the impending family addition. Our two sons are from Russia, so we spent few jet-lagged days in Moscow each trip. I have very fond food memories from Russia, and I am still haunted by the delicious aromas that emanated from Russian pastry shops wherever we went. Moscow is huge – can you give a general idea of where you are? Any tips for making shashlik (including what fish to substitute for sturgeon in the US)? Any tips on making Russian fruit-filled pastries? How many diminutives are there for Alina?

I'm kinda curious about those... ← Specks of metallic sodium that remain on rubber gloves will melt the rubber when you put your hands under running water. Trying to light a plugged Bunsen burner will generate a fireball large enough to remove arm hair instantly. Concentrated nitric acid leaves long-lasting brown marks on your skin. Trichloroacetic acid solutions penetrate intact skin, leaving a particularly deep burn in the gap between your gloves and lab coat sleeves. Mixing chromic acid, hydrochloric acid, and nitric acid is a bad, bad idea (unless you really want to remove paint from the walls and ceiling.

Yes, I learned the hard way I can't imagine a spoonful of caramel in the face, though

Another rank amateur here, but I had a pretty spectacular burn when making caramel. I had an old phenolic spoon that, unknown to me, had developed an invisible crack. Apparently, water had seeped into the crack. When the spoon hit the hot caramel, the water boiled, the spoon exploded, and dime-sized drop of molten caramel landed on the back of my hand and stuck there like sweet napalm. That's the best I can do. Now if you want to talk about burns in the chemistry lab, I have a few stories . . .

Asian basil seems to last a lot longer in the refrigerator compared with regular basil (Ocimum basilicum). Basil leaves last best on a growing plant, so we always plant a few in the spring after the danger of frost and cold has passed. Alchemist gives good advice about re-cutting the stems regularly. After a few days, plants will form a callus where the stems are cut. The callus prevents the stems from taking up water, but cutting off the stem tips solves this problem and keeps the cuttings fresh longer.

Chad and others addressed this issue in rbm's "Sharpening with waterstones" tutorial. I have quoted the part of the conversation that seems most relevant. It seems to support the idea that Western-style Japanese knives are ground asymmetrically but at the same angle on both sides. Sorry, I goofed up the quotes a bit, but I think the gist is clear. I am very interested in the correct answer to your question, because I will be playing with the edges on my new Japanese knives as soon as time allows. Chad: any new information since ~2004?

Varmint: You may have found this already, but here is a bulletin on Growing Peaches in North Carolina from the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service.

Shalmanese: Two different issues. 1. Angle of the cutting surface. If the overall angle is 30 degrees, it will typically be ground at 15 degrees on both sides. This is independent of edge symmetry (see below). For a far better explanation than I can give, see the figure titled “Knife Angles Explained” in Section 1 of Chad's Knife Maintenance and Sharpening tutorial. 2. Symmetry of the cutting edge. Typical Western knives are ground symmetrically (50:50). Traditional Japanese knives are chisel-ground (100:0). In other words, the edge is ground on only one side. Many Western-style Japanese knives have intermediate symmetry such as 80:20 or 70:30. Symmetry is independent of edge angle. See the first figure in Section 3 of Chad’s tutorial. Heck, read all of Chad’s tutorial. It is very good. Apologies if my explanation is confusing - I wish I could summon a picture of a knife with 80:20 symmetry ground at a 30 degree angle (15 degrees on both sides).

Austin: Thanks! Oyster omelet sounds intriguing. Do you cook the oysters separately, or just fold them into the omelet? SuzanneW: Thanks to you, too! I know what you mean about getting cranky in the last 15 minutes before serving a crowd. Abra: a few years ago, I never imagined discussing the relative merits of chicken feet vs. duck feet. Your feet look good, and the flower (Galliardia?) is nicely color-matched. Is the red sauce like a barbecue sauce? I’m taking a small break from Thai cooking to try some Vietnamese dishes from Mai Pham’s Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table. Results (if photogenic) on the Dinner! thread.

jsolomon: you are correct - my bad. I should have engaged brain before typing. Ion exchange is relatively fast and cheap. Reverse osmosis is much slower. I should know better - we have lots of RO units in the labs. I still wonder whether the salt in Dasani is from reducing hardness via ion exchange.

Reverse osmosis softens water by removing calcium and magnesium ions (“hardness”) while substituting sodium ions (“salt”). The alternative to reverse osmosis is distillation, which is much more expensive. Are you sure that the salt is added for taste, or is it a byproduct of the filtration process? Me, I drink tap water, although Dasani does taste good. If I'm spending that much money for a liquid, it better fuel my car

Shalmanese: Many folks here are way more knowledgeable than I am, but not all Japanese knives are single-beveled. Many Western-style Japanese knives (Tojiro, Hattori, Ryusen, Mac, Ittosai Kotetsu) are double-beveled. Korin has a good summary of the different types of Japanese and Western-style Japanese knives. Click on Japanese style knives and Western style knives

Shalmanese nailed it. Chef Witherspoon’s list seems very Eurocentric. The first eight items seem fairly universal (except “mise en place” might be know as “chopping up your ingredients” in the local tongue), but some of the remaining skills seem pretty specific to particular European cuisines (pesto, Hollandaise sauce, etc.). Basic skills depend on what kind of food you are interested in making. For example, basic skills for various Asian cuisines might include using a wok or balancing hot, sour, salty, and sweet flavors. For Mexican food, toasting and roasting chilies would be pretty basic. For the Southeastern USA, barbecue would be a basic skill. The various Indian cuisines probably have their own lists of basics. I wonder what percentage of the world’s population primarily eats European-style food.

SuzanneW: Cucumber relish is delicious and simple. If you have access to a grill, meat salad seems like a natural (see below). I have been on a Thai (and Thai-style) meat salad kick lately, but have neglected to post to this thread (one of my favorites in eGullet). Many of the salads have been more Thai-style than Thai. I have gotten much better at balancing the hot, sour, salty, and sweet flavors of the dressings. Nahm tok (sp?): grilled beef salad with larb-like seasoning. Thai-style steak salad and cucumber relish: Thai-style pork salad: I have also been making a lot of Thai-style omelets. This is one of the more presentable ones:

Shalmanese: I recently obtained a Hattori HD 270 mm gyuto, an Ittosai Koetsu 210 mm gyuto, and a Tojiro DP 150 mm boning knife. I love the Hattori HD already. The knife is beautiful, and nicely rounded handle is very comfortable to hold. The blade is wonderfully sharp out of the box, and makes light work of everything from onions and garlic to tomatoes and steak. The Ittosai Koetsu has a Damascus-style blade like the Hattori HD, but the cutting edge is supposed to be a bit harder. Time will tell whether the difference is noticeable. The handle is less rounded that that of the Hattori HD, but it feels comfortable. I haven’t used it for any marathon prep sessions, though. FWIW, the Tojiro Powdered Steel blades are supposed to be amazing, and the cost is comparable to the Tojiro Pro knives. If you can, try to handle one of the Tojiro knives before you make a purchase. Tojiro’s handles are much less rounded compared with Hattori HD’s handles. Watanabe, Shun, and Mac have their admirers, but I have never used them. Good luck!

We had an egg-fest brunch during our beach vacation. I couldn’t find any salt, so I used fish sauce instead. The 2-year old nephew had cheesy scrambled eggs (and asked for seconds, despite the fish sauce). The pre-teens had regular omelets, and grown-ups had Thai omelets with sautéed mushrooms, garlic and jalapenos. Great fuel for riding the waves.

I have already voted, but new evidence has come to the fore. My brother made his first-ever pie at yesterday’s lunch: store-bought crust and fresh local blueberries. I had a piece hot from the oven, and then had another. At dinner, a friend made a strawberry-blueberry-rhubarb pie. They picked all of the berries locally, and baked it in a cast-iron frying pan. I had two more pieces of glorious pie. Meanwhile, a raspberry-filled chocolate cake made by a local high-end baker sat nearly untouched. I'm sure that the cake was quite good. Cake cannot compete with pie, the delicious concentrated essence of summer.

Ah, yes, California. The land where old cars never rust. I wouldn't cover a central Californian grill, either. 'Round these parts we get 40 inches or so of annual precipitation, not all liquid. Covering our grill won't stop corrosion, but (in my experience) slows it down a bit. Yes, corrosion would be the least of my concerns if I had a stainless steel grill. Pot ashes produce potash, which is the water-soluble fraction of wood ash, according to Wikipedia. Wood ash contains potassium hydroxide, chemically very similar to lye (typically sodium hydroxide). Happy grilling.

Bryan: excellent blog, and thanks for sharing your week with us. I wish you great success in your future endeavors. I think that using the mechanical advantage of hydraulic pressure will solve the extrusion problem. See the section beginning near the bottom of the page, and continuing on the next page. The greater the piston's diameter relative to the diameter of the extrusion hole, the greater the mechanical advantage. It sounds like some fun with mongo syringes, food-grade tubing, and Swagelok fittings may be in order.

Edible gardening was an afterthought this year. Starting this fall (we hope), a house addition will sit on the far end of the current veggie garden. When that happens, we will completely redo the backyard landscape. This is a project that should happily entertain us for our remaining time on earth. Anyway, we cleared out some overgrown shrubs and threw in some chilies and tomatoes (late, as usual). Here is the temporary veggie patch (really just a patch of tomatoes and chilies, with a little basil thrown in): The tomatoes are valiantly making up for lost time. The Serrano chilies are productive (as usual). A friend gave us a variety of chilies grown in Russia: And we have our first Thai Hot Dragons: My wife is very interested in growing berries. Much to our delighted surprise, the small patch of woods in our back yard is loaded with brambles. We need to figure out what we have, but there are at least three varieties (two early, one later). Delicious rewards await those willing to brave the abundant poison ivy

We have had a Weber Spirit for at least a decade. The cover developed some large tears last year, and this spring the grill started rusting for the first time. We got a new cover, and all of the rust went away Not really Moisture is necessary for rust to form. When iron is exposed to moist air, it reacts with the oxygen to form rust. If your grill is made from iron or non-stainless steel and the cover keeps the grill drier, then you will see less corrosion. If the grill is made from stainless steel, you probably don’t have to worry about rust. Further explanation for the chemically inclined.

I drove “down the road” to Maxim’s for supplies and stopped by Pho 75. I had number 6 on the menu (beef and beef tendon) with non-iced Vietnamese coffee (café su da). Yes, I know it was 90 degrees. It has been way too long since I have enjoyed good pho. Highly recommended.

Jason, that’s way healthier than our breakfast: Mexican scrambled eggs with chorizo, sautéed mushrooms, fresh basil, oregano, feta, and home-made salsa on flour tortillas warmed over an open flame. Despite looking somewhat regrettable, it was very tasty. Next week I’m back at work, so no more fun at breakfast.

I have read through this thread, and decided that my “magic mouthfuls” were flavorings rather than specific dishes. Our food growing up was lovingly prepared and healthy, but tended to be somewhat under-spiced (in the sense that the Marianas Trench is somewhat underwater). As a teen, I had a series of taste revelations. I can’t remember the sequence, so I’ll declare a three-way tie for first place. Garlic: Mom disliked the smell of raw garlic, so she never cooked with it. For some reason, one day I sautéed garlic in butter. Oh, my. To this day I consider garlic one of the basic food groups. Mom quickly warmed up to the aroma of cooking garlic. Black pepper: I used to liberally coat nearly all foods with stale, pre-ground black pepper. I also dumped the stuff into soups until they were gritty. A frequently-heard comment during school lunch was “You gonna have some meat loaf with that pepper?” Discovering freshly-ground black pepper was a true paradigm shift, equivalent to the world changing from black and white to glorious Technicolor in the Wizard of Oz (apologies if this analogy has been used before). Chilies: A can of green chilies once found its way into Mom’s kitchen cabinets (probably by mistake). It sat there for years. One day, I was making a frozen pizza and decided to add the chilies. Cue the violins and hallelujah chorus. Chilies provided the taste sensation that I had been seeking (but never finding) through black pepper. This gave me an appreciation for how cooks in India, Thailand, China, etc. must have reacted when chilies first arrived from the Americas.