ScoopKW
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Posts posted by ScoopKW
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I keep waiting for that engineer from Star Trek IV to bring some transparent aluminum to market. Hell, he's had almost 20 years. What's the deal? Scotty GAVE him the formula.
(Half of my lids are glass. The rest are copper and cast iron.)
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I live in NYC.
A $10 bottle of pinot grigio is pretty cheap.
At those prices it would be worth it to make a road trip to New Hampshire every few months and buy wine from one of the state liquor stores.
Here in Vegas, I can get a decent pinot grigio for $4 and a pretty good one for $10. Even with those prices, I'll make the trip to Napa once in awhile to load up for 25% less.
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Rotisserie? No thanks. Too much work -- flare ups, hot spots, stoking, adding coals, basting. What an effort.
I'll go Cuban.
1) Inject pig with a few GALLONS of mojo criollo. Toss a few onions and other aromatics in the cavity.
2) Dig a trench in the yard somewhere.
3) Build a big horkin charcoal fire in the trench. Do this in the late evening.
4) When coals are even, cover with damp burlap. Then cover the burlap with banana leaves.
5) Place pig on leaves. Cover with more leaves, more damp burlap and then cover with a mound of sand.
6) See you tomorrow, amigo.
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Caged 750ml bottles will most certainly hold more pressure than cans or regular bottles. Most beers have a 2.7 volumes of CO2 at the time of canning/bottling. Any more than that would interfere with the canning/bottling process.
I drink primarily crown corked Belgian ales. Just to be clear, are you saying that those beers would not be the same in cans? Then again, many of those breweries make the same beers in smaller bottles with a conventional bottle cap.
I wasn't very clear. The 750ml champagne style bottles will hold more pressure. Whether the brewer chooses to take advantage of that increase in CO2 capacity really depends on what he or she is going for.
You can take an average Dubble and put it in a can, bottle or wine bottle. It will taste closest to how it was in the bright tanks from the can -- but that is not necessarily a good thing in a beer meant to be aged. There simply isn't enough data about aging beer in cans for me to have an opinion one way or another.
A pilsner, on the other hand, really needs to be in a keg or a can.
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Oh and stinky tofu. Make sure you eat some stinky tofu.
Another traveler offered me $100 to take a single bite of stinky tofu.
No dice. I couldn't stomach the smell. Stinky tofu smells like a durian fermenting in a medical waste dumpster. You can smell a stinky tofu joint a few hundred meters away.
Awhile ago, I wrote a trip-report, which you can find HERE. Scan around the post and you will find a mention of a restaurant called Five Dime. Go eat there.
We also had EXCELLENT duck (traditionally roasted and served) at a place called Celestial in Taipei.
Yeiliu in the north has amazing geological formations and many excellent hole-in-the-wall seafood places. Everything comes out live from a tank, so was all good.
Same with Kenting in the south -- find a restaurant full of locals, with fish in tanks and eat there.
The best food I had, however, was the street food. Taiwan has AMAZING street food. I'd go back to Taiwan in a second. If either of you need a tour guide in December, my wife and I could probably be persuaded.
EDIT -- I found Ding Tai Fung to be overrated. It's always crowded with tour bus throngs. The tables are 4 millimeters apart. And the dumplings, while excellent, can be found just as good at any number of dumpling joints.
Taiwan has STAGGERINGLY GOOD FOOD. You really can't go wrong.
Finally, there is a mandatory 7-11 every 100 meters in Taiwan. Taiwan beer is a good bargain. I think it was like $4 for six 1/2 liter cans.
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I lambasted a friend who used my precious home grown's in a soup, he didn't understand nor did he receive any again.
We are still friends, barely.
Fresh tomato basil soup is one of the best things on earth.
Besides, they're garden tomatoes, not holy relics. The perfect use for them is to satisfy whatever fresh tomato craving the recipient has.
Your friend could do a LOT worse than tomato soup.
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I think cooking with even a $20/bottle of wine is like making margaritas with $200/bottle tequila. Sure, you can do it. But I think it's a total waste. Cooking will destroy the subtle flavors that make a good wine good.
I can't stand the advice to "cook with the wine you're going to serve with the meal." That's great, but I'm serving a limited release Napa cab that I bought from the vintner. I only have two bottles of it. Do these people really think I'm going to open a THAT wine and pour half of it into a short-rib braise? Besides, the tannic cab is simply the wrong wine for that application. Once it's reduced, it will make the flavors muddy.
I cook with Two Buck Chuck. I like the merlot for red sauces and braises. It's cheap, cheerful, and doesn't have a lot of tannins so I can simmer it for hours.
I use the TBC Pinot Grigio for all manner of cooking applications.
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Damaged as in toxic? Unlikely.
The violet flavor has probably fallen off considerably, though. I haven't had the new stuff, and I'm not old enough to remember the original.
I wouldn't bother laying it down. Pour a dram and let us know how it fared.
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Your MIL would HATE us, we sun dry at least 2/3 of our yearly crop so we can enjoy them all year.
Heck, sometimes I take sun dried tomatoes and make a sauce with the freshies that I'm harvesting. (And harvest began two weeks ago). "Last year's crop? Meet this year's crop!"
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Try and take a peek inside the kitchen between now and the interview. How are the line cooks dressed? That's how you should dress.
In this crap economy, the chef and manager are going to see a bunch of people dressed in jeans and t-shirts. Unless they have stellar credentials, they're not getting the job.
They're also going to see a lot of people with little to no restaurant experience, because jobs are scarce. These people are going to wear shirt and tie. They're probably not getting hired either.
When I interviewed for restaurant work, I dressed like I was going to be hired on the spot, and brought a basic knife roll with me. One chef questioned me about this: "Why are you wearing a jacket and carrying gear?"
"Because if you say, 'Get in the kitchen and start dicing onions,' I'm ready to go."
It took awhile, but I was offered the position. (But by then, I had found the job I was looking for, so I declined.)
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Just be yourself. And try to be "enthusiastic" not "overeager due to desperation." Most people speak fast when they're nervous. Take a breath before every answer and think about it for a couple seconds.
Let's get back to your clothes. Dress for the job you want. You're applying for a kitchen job. You should have a pair of black kitchen shoes (not sneakers), check pants, and a jacket. Wear them to the interview. If you don't have them, make that a priority. The shoes can be expensive, but chex and a white jacket are cheap, and you're going to need them anyway when you get a kitchen job.
And make sure they're clean -- no stains -- and freshly ironed. No wrinkles. It shows you care.
EDIT - Extraneous word removed.
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Yes, you can Can Condition beer. Sierra is planning on doing exactly that. I assume they will send a small amount of yeast and dosage into the can during the canning process. Conditioning then proceeds as normal -- let the cans sit in a conditioning room for awhile.
The pressure depends on the canning line. Our system purges the can by blowing enough CO2 into it so it is "spilling over the top" while the can is filling. Then the can is sealed while foam is just starting to escape out the the can. The oxygen pickup in this case is about 5 milliliters per 12 ounce can. That's about the same as our bottling line. The big difference is, once the lid is sealed, that's it. No more oxygen can enter the can. And the complete lack of light is a major improvement.
Caged 750ml bottles will most certainly hold more pressure than cans or regular bottles. Most beers have a 2.7 volumes of CO2 at the time of canning/bottling. Any more than that would interfere with the canning/bottling process.
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We have no wall cabinets. All of them are base cabinets. Anything else strikes me as a waste of kitchen cabinet space, which is the most-prized real estate at my house.
Sorry, NOW I get it. We do all our work on an island, so the distance is about six feet to the ceiling. We have more counter space for kitchen gadgets, the distance between that and the wall cabinets is 24"
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I haven't been in a restaurant yet where the seats are high enough (I'm quite tall).
In most restaurants, I feel like I'm squatting the whole meal. After an hour, I have to stand up and walk around because I lose circulation. I get it that average-size adults don't want to sit down for a meal and not have their feet touch the floor. But how about one or two tables designed for those of us who can dunk a basketball?
Although, it will probably end up like bulkhead seating in airplanes. I have to break my legs with a sledgehammer in order to fit into my seat in 34b. Meanwhile, a row of munchkins is up front, swinging their feet in the air with all that legroom that should be MINE.
Average-sized people will demand the "tall table" because, well, I don't know why they do it.
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If you're at the Cosmo, be sure to stop by Holstein's and ask for some locally-made beer.
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Sierra is going to have Pale in both cans and bottles for awhile, but their goal is to be mostly cans in the future.
http://beernews.org/2011/03/sierra-nevada-brewing-to-start-canning-later-this-year/
I realize that most Americans think cans=Pabst and bottles=Russian River. But that simply is not the case. Bottles are inferior in every possible way -- from quality to longevity to cost to environmental impact.
As for German beers, the reason they're still in bottles is because of public perception (which I find odd -- Germany is generally known for their insistence on quality). But also because Germany's recycling laws make it economically foolhardy to put beer in cans. With the taxes and one-way deposits, it actually costs more to put beer in cans. Which I find astounding.
When Sierra rolls out their pale in cans, do a side-by-side. But you have to decant both into glass. (If you don't decant, you never get the full flavor and nose from the beer. That would be like drinking vintage wine out of the bottle without giving it a chance to breathe.)
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I'd like to know, why is it called "grace?"
Why not "thanks" or "bounty" or "mealtime prayer" or what have you?
Is this one of those things that's been mistranslated down the line, like the way people say "Jesus" instead of "Yeshua?"
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I love it when EOR goes on deep discount. Jerky time!
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One thing I disliked about childhood food, is my family boiled all vegetables until they were a foul tasting mush.
Cabbage? Boil it.
Brussels Sprouts? Boil.
Turnips? Parsnips? Carrots? Boil 'em all.
Nowadays, the only thing I boil is pasta. Veg is roasted, sautéed, grilled, and sometimes steamed. But never boiled.
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That will change. (And I'm surprised that's the attitude in the Netherlands. I thought Holland was a progressive, sensible country.)
It's up to beer lovers to educate their peers about the superiority of canned beer. We'll meet a lot of resistance at first. But we have quality on our side. They'll come around to our way of thinking eventually.
[Cue Joan Baez music]
"Weeeeeeee shall ov-er-come. Overcome some dayyyyyyy."
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The only difference between the draught line and the bottling line is the volume of CO2 in the beer. Otherwise, Extra Stout is Extra Stout -- made from the same recipe of pale malt, flaked barley and roasted barley. (Guinness is one of the simplest beer recipes out there. Just goes to prove that "simple" doesn't mean "ordinary.")
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I didn't think that Guinness in the bottle and Guinness in the tall can were even supposed to be the same beer.
Check the alcohol percentage of both, if they're the same, it's the same recipe. Although the bottled Guinness purchased in N. America is probably brewed in Canada, and the can is brewed in Dublin.
The reason there is a night and day taste difference is because cans are THAT MUCH BETTER than bottles.
EDIT -- That being said, it's better to go with the Young's taste test -- same beer, same brewery. The canned product is sublime. In the bottle, most of the subtle chocolate flavors are lost from oxidation.
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Beer in cans and wine in tetra bricks are an abomination.
And you're basing this on what?
Our brewery is borrowing heavily to put in a canning line. We're doing it because canned beer is superior in quality to bottled beer.
Canned beer doesn't get lightstruck, doesn't oxidize and comes to temperature faster. Draught beer from a stainless keg is slightly better than cans. Beer coming out of the bright tanks at the brewery is much better than both kegs OR cans. Bottles are a distant, distant fourth.
Why do you think Sierra Nevada is moving their Pale Ale to cans? Because they care, that's why.
If you don't believe me, find a can and a bottle of Young's Chocolate Stout. Or a can and a bottle of Guinness. Decant them into identical glasses at the same temperature. If cans don't win every time, there's something radically wrong.
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Nobody has tried to lay down a vintage wine in a box. (Although, I imagine some radical vintners are experimenting even now.)
My understanding is that wine aged in bags would be superior to wine aged in bottles -- so long as the bag lining doesn't degrade over decades.
Just like canned beer is better than bottled beer. A lot of craft beer drinkers think bottles are better, but that's just marketing. A lot of older drinkers remember the original cans, which left a metallic taste to the beer. That doesn't happen any more.
If you don't believe me, put a Young's Chocolate Stout can vs. bottle to the test.
Micro Tandor/BBQ/Pizza Oven
in Kitchen Consumer
Posted
Well, how much is your combo tandoor/pizza/smoker?