paulraphael

I'm with Shamanjoe. My DW and I vastly prefer thin asparagas - but it does need to be fresh. Agreed! I like the thin stuff. For one thing, it's more tender so you don't generally have to do any peeling.

It starts with an idea, then the exploration of how to do it. Some ideas are so similar to what I already know that this part is trivial. Like, using rosemary in recipe X instead of thyme. Other ideas put me on new ground entirely. In these cases, like If I don't know enough about the ingredients and techniques involved, I do research. This may or may not involve using existing recipes for reference. Finally I'll put together a recipe based on what I've learned. In the case of something technical, like ice cream, a certain amount of math will be involved. Then I'll make it: version 1.0. Try it. If it's perfect (unlikely) I'm done. If not, I study the variables and decide what changes to make for version 2. Eventually I get there. I'm no good at guessing which ideas will be quick and easy to nail, and which will turn into long battles. Every onece in a while i'll come up with something that piques other people's interest. In those cases I'm the beneficiary of guinee pigs. This is great, because I can see how resilient the recipe is when confronted by other people's ingredients, habits, ovens, climates, etc... Sometimes, for example, I'll be lucky enough to get a tester who lives a vertical mile higher than I do, who can provide feedback on necessary altitude adjustments to a cookie or cake.

The plating is thick; your egg whites won't know the difference between a plated penny and a solid copper penny. It would take a lot to disolve the plating off. Certainly more than a few hundred dips in meringue. Both copper and zinc are essential nutrients in low doses, and toxic in high doses, although you'd be better off swallowing an old penny rather than a new one. If you're concerned about pennies leaking zinc (I'm not) you could make sure you use pennies from 1982 or earlier.

They cost a fortune. You can get the same results by throwing a few untarnished pennies into the bowl, along with a pinch of acid like cream of tartar. It's important to not use acid if you're using a copper bowl ... it will disolve way too much copper into your whites, which will taste bad and potentially be toxic. But you can use this same phenomenon to extract a reasonable amount of copper ion from the tiny surface area of few coins. I keep a bag of pennies in the kitchen because I think they're the best pastry weights.

What kind of permit? In most states, as far as I know, there's no official permit required. But insurance companies will sometimes throw a hissy fit (and if you don't tell them about the installation, which may violate fire codes, you void your insurance). Many commercial equipment sellers just refuse to do home deliveries or installations. They're afraid of potential lawsuits. The biggest costs are that the installation of the 3/4" gas line, the commercial hood (absolutely required), and the masonry firewall behind the range (absolutely positively required). these will generally more than offset the cost savings. That said, the performance advantages might be worth the price and hassle, depending on your outlook. Don't let anyone tell you that the quasi-commercial ranges (wolf, blue star, dcs, etc.) are similar to their commercial brethren in performance. They're not even close.

A great accessory would be a walk-in fridge that you could roll the whole thing into!

In the impractical category, I would love a commercial fridge. Not a lowboy or walk in, just a standard upright model, with racks for sheet pans instead of shelves. Such a superior design to home fridges. And no space wasting features like vegetable crispers and butter cozies.

That's hardcore. What size?

Commercial plastic wrap deserves its own shrine. And I'm embarrassed to say I've never bought any. But every time I leave my butcher shop or a restaurant kitchen I resolve to rectify this. Of the many commercial doodads I like, sheet pans are the most indispensable. I have a pile of half sheets and have recently discovered the 1/4 sheet. Surprisingly useful. Baking pans are also up there ... the 14 gauge, straight sided aluminum ones. Big stockpots: no reason to buy anything but commercial beaters. And little stuff: tongs, fish spats, pallet knives, etc... I've never found use for hotel pans at home. Maybe someone can enlighten me.

Missing the point. The chicken is presumed contaminated. Rinsing does nothing to decontaminate it, but is very effective at spreading the bacteria all over the kitchen. Cooking is what actually gets rid of the bacteria.

I've wondered about that a lot, especially since the chef is on display while working. Makes me wonder if the inspectors look the other way under certain circumstances.

To a religious person I think that's like saying "Well, if you don't agree with your parents then why did you choose them?" I wish more people behaved as Jenni imagines ... challenge their beliefs and informing them with reason and skepticism. But in my experience they more often behave as Rob describes. Challenging dogmatic beliefs with a rational argument is like trying to motivate a frozen mastodon with a riding crop.

If the place is a disaster, sure, but there are little things, like putting on gloves. In NYC the law says that you have to wear latex gloves to handle food that's ready to eat, but you never see anyone in a higher end restaurant kitchen using them. At that level people just wash their hands religiously. It's customary, I think, for everyone to slip into gloves when the inspector is walking down the hall.

The issue is that aluminum has to be welded to aluminum, and aluminum handles are a lousy idea on most pans. Too conductive. I have a big commercial stockpot with aluminum loop handles. In this case they work fine. They're attached with big spot welds.

Your point is based entirely on conjecture. Wonder all you want about B's position on Italian Grandmas and pho, but he says nothing explicitly about it. His only example of different rules for different people involves religion, and we've already hammered on this problem.

Sure, and this why I enjoy the piece and even agree with it mostly, in spite of problems with the argument. And I think those problems can still merit a discussion, because they're relevant beyond the article. Bourdain has raised some important questions without having resolved them.

I think you're getting to the most problematic idea in Bourdain's piece. That it's not ok, as he puts it, to "take your beliefs on the road." It's an easy idea to swallow when you're dealing with beliefs presumeably grounded in nothing more than economic privilege, and ones concerning issues like whether or not to eat pho. But taken more broadly it's a troubling concept. As I read it, it could be seen as an endorsement of ethical relativism, and all the ugliness that lurks down that particular rabbit hole. Ideas like, "child labor is wrong back home, but it's perfectly ok here, because their culture accepts it. So I'm going to buy this cool cheap handbag!" Unfortunately the alternative, taken to it's logical extreme, means acting like an activist and a scold at every opportunity ... a good invitation to the Italian grandma to kick your hippy ass (and comfortable shoes) to the curb.

My calphalon pans have aluminum rivets. They're all old; not sure if the company still does this. All my others have stainless rivets. I've seen loose handles on riveted pans, always at restaurants, always on unclad commercial aluminum. I suspect it's the holes in the aluminum wearing, as Slkinsey says, but I'm not sure. The high heat and abuse probably make this more likely in a restaurant setting. At least with a worn out riveted handel the handle doesn't actually fall off and dump hot food and grease all over you.

I think you're making some excellent points, although diagnosing Bourdain as "self-loathing" goes a bit far ... I'd say it's reductive in the same manner as Bourdains own arguments that you're critiquing. It's worth remembering that the chapter in question is a rant, not a philosophical treatise. He characterizes it as "sputtering indignation," and this is what he delivers: broad strokes and a lot of passion. There are holes in his argument that you could drive a truck through, but I believe much of it is defensible. Kudos to you for critiquing his actual book and not some imagined version of it.

Just an observation that there's generally less trouble when you push against secular beliefs than religious ones. I wish it weren't true, but it seems to be. In this sense I disagree philosophically with Bourdain's giving special privilege to religious belief, but I respect the pragmatism of it.

I agree with this completely. I find it troubling when religious beliefs are somehow privileged over other types of beliefs. My personal bias is in the opposite direction: a belief based on evidence and reason should trump one based on inherited ideas and denial of reason. I have much more respect, say, for someone who refuses to eat meat because they've struggled with ethical ideas than for someone who refuses on the basis of scripture. However, I understand (unhappily) that beliefs of the inherited / unquestionable variety tend to more deeply seated and stubborn than ones based on reasoning. An ethical vegetarian can likely weigh competing ethical concerns better than a vegetarian whose afraid of hellfire. Butting heads with someone's religious practice is generally a recipe for trouble. Making a hippy eat Pho? He'll get over it, however comfortable his shoes. On your point about the quality of Western vegetarian food ... yeah, great examples exists. But in my experience they're not especially common. Meanwhile even run of the mill Indian vegetarian food tends to be delicious in comparison.

Would be interesting to do a side-by-side. I think the pre-blanching method offers definite advantages for color, but I've never had a chance to compare flavor and texture. Even some cheap solutions can freeze ice cream quickly. My kitchenaid attachment freezes a batch in 8 to 12 minutes ... plenty fast. It's the lower end compressor machines (or canister machines that aren't cold enough) that seem to suffer in this regard. Pastry chefs tend to use ingredients that are uncommon in most home ice cream recipes: most significant are stabilizers, nonfat dry milk, and alternative sugars like dextrose and invert syrup. These make a huge difference in texture. This doesn't represent a fundamental difference between home and restaurant, just a common one. High end gelato machines and hardening cabinets represent a fundamental difference, although I think that their importance is minor when you're just making a quart or so at a time.

The New York City Health Department now requires restaurants to display a summary of their inspection score (A, B, or C) in the front window. Today's Times ran an article on challenges to its fairness. Here's the health dept.'s page where you can search for current and past inspection details. I'd be curious to hear reactions to the new system from diners and restaurant workers alike.

Well, that's not a fundamental disadvantage. It's not based on inherent limitations of a restaurant (like being able to serve a perfectly roasted and rested goose, for example). It's a choice ... just a reflection of priorities. I've had great coffee at restaurants. In some cases it was made to order in individual press pots. In others they had a high end espresso machine and gave the waitstaff barista training. And in others I have no idea what they did backstage. Of course you don't see this kind of attention everywhere, because it's labor intensive. But so is everything that goes on in a good restaurant.

I think mcohen has a point. Torres and Payard are successful, but are they known outside the extreme food geek community or outside their immediate neighborhoods? It strikes me as a cultural difference, even if the difference is likely to diminish over the next several years.