embee

Actually, I believe that what Subzero has is a good marketing department. The shallow interior can be convenient, but having a Subzero otherwise seems, to me, primarily a lifestyle statement. There isn't anything special about their technology. I've seen better technology, design, and features in fridges for a fraction of Subzero's lofty price.

Although my regular deep frying oil is peanut, I have had no problems (and delicious results) shallow frying/sauteeing in low end but decent EVOO and deep frying in "light" olive oil.

Two ideas: - Have you dried adding the starch that drains from the potatoes back into the latke batter? I've found that this improves the latkes, whether the potatoes have been soaked or not. - If you live in the Toronto area (and perhaps elsewhere in Canada), look for Western brand sour cream. The one with 30% butterfat is yummy; the more widely available 14% version is pretty good also. Much better than the name brands.

I see that nobody has ventured very far into turkeys, so here we go. I've tried just about every kind of turkey around: various permutations of air chilled, free range, organic, naturally raised, Mennonite, and kosher. I've tried all kinds of cooking methods, at low temperatures and high, turning in various patterns and leaving alone, using foil for all or part of the cooking time, salting or brining or neither, basting or not, stuffed with various things or empty. Some of these birds were juicy, some were dry, some tasted good, some had little taste at all. The one thing I never got was a great tasting turkey. Perhaps there was no such thing. Well, I found a way. I gave up on the fancy birds and got one from a supermarket: a President's Choice (Canadian private label - about 15 pounds) turkey injected with real butter. I butterflied it and put it in a solution of 3 liters of Coke Classic and a cup of kosher salt. I let it stand at room temperature for about 4 hours. I wasn't worried about microbes with all that sugar, salt, and acid, but I don't think doing this in the fridge would alter the results very much - it would certainly lengthen the cooking time. I poured off the solution, toweled the bird, and dried the surface with a hair drier. I mixed up a dressing, mounded it over the bottom of a nonstick roasting pan, and spread the butterflied turkey on top with all skin-covered surfaces exposed. I spread some softened butter the bird and sprinkled it generously with a dry rub-type mixture. I put it into a home convection oven preheated to 450 and reduced it to 375. It sat in the oven, untouched, for 1.5 hours. It was the best turkey I've ever eaten. Both dark and white meat were juicy and succulent. The skin was beautifully, evenly brown and crisp. It smelled and tasted like turkey. It wasn't salty or sweet, cured or rubbery, or weird in any way. It did not taste even slightly of Coke. It was delicious. And the dressing mixture tasted like it had come from a stuffed bird, did not become salty from the drippings, and was adequately cooked through. There were sufficient drippings to make a wonderful gravy. Thinking this outcome a fluke, I did it again for Canadian Thanksgiving the other day. The results were exactly the same. Try it and let us know what you get.

Something is missing here. Do all of you like your burgers cooked to death? Thanks to our Public Health police, restaurants have been convinced that it is illegal to cook a burger to less than 160 degrees F. While I got the impression that this is merely a "recommendation" (please correct me if anyone knows for sure that I am wrong), I've heard the word "illegal" over and over again. Most places are so paranoid that they are cooking all burgers beyond well done - to 185 or even more.. While a McDonalds "burger" tastes better to me when cooked until crispy (which they can't do any more with their cook-to-order system), a real burger is something that is seared outside; pink and juicy within. Licks once had the distinction of being the only fast food place that would serve a rare burger. Now they cook them until gray and dry, hack them up, flip them around, and cook them even more. Yecch. And they do this with Pasteurized beef cooked directly from frozen. Please tell me where lies the dastardly risk? My impression is that our "hamburger disease" is coming from raspberries, spinach, lettuce, bean sprouts, water, and food handlers who don't wash their hands. So I assume we'll soon be required to eat our salad veggies cooked until well done... To me, Allen's wins the restaurant prize. I had one last week, medium rare, and it was delicious. The top quality beef doesn't hurt. I can get RAW beef at any Ethiopian resto, and I haven't been poisoned yet. I'd love to hear about other possibilities. Many places that served delicious burgers in the past now serve wizened pucks that once resembled beef. Lots of condiments can make them edible but, truly, what is the point. The condiment sandwich tastes like a burger - NOT... Someone mentioned South St, which displays a prominent sign that their burgers will be pink and to ask for them well done if desired. Sure. I tried them several times and got the same gray disk every time. I managed a pink burger once, at an off hour, when I complained to the manager and he personally cooked me a burger that wasn't dried out. I'm not going back to be tantilized and disappointed again. Dangerous Dan may successfully give you the promised coronary, but the huge creations aren't edible to me. It's interesting that New York City public health allows rare burgers but has banned sous vide. We can get sous vide, but not a decent burger. Egad. I could go on and on, but end of rant for now.