paulraphael

If you go this route than I think the best choices are unclad aluminum commercial pans. Many are available in the best shape (low sides) and the best color (dull metal). Like some of these. I do like the option of using the the roasting pan on the stovetop for certain kinds of browning tasks. It's a bit of a luxury but has come in handy. For this kind of thing having a conductive pan with stainless interior has been great.

This is the pan I mentioned earlier in the thread. It's turned out to be the best roasting pan I've ever used (for large things ... a turkey, a pair of chickens, stock bones, etc.). You can ignore the 7-ply marketing buzzwords. Here's what's great about it: 1) low sides. this improves air circulation and keeps the sides from blocking radiant heat. you get better browning. 3) the right color. dull-finish, light colored metal absorbs just the right amount of radiant heat to properly brown foods on the bottom without burning them 3) stainless interior. Ideal for deglazing and making pan sauces (that web link says it's nonstick, but that's a printing mistake) 4) useable on the stovetop for pan sauces. The clad construction gives very even heat distibution. I've even used it as a gridde for some tasks, where having higher sides than a regular griddle were helpful. 5) oven safe to 640°. my oven doesn't go that high, but I wish it did! And a couple of downsides: 1) pricey 2) high tech looking handles can get in the way, and don't seem to offer any advantages. For smaller roasting pans I use 10" or 12" stainless lined skillets or saute pans. They work perfectly, although the long handle on the 12" pans can be a nuissance. I can see the utility of a medium sized, rectangular roasting pan built like the Viking, but I don't have one. Incidentally, for anyone squeamish about Viking because of their dismal record on appliances, rest assured that they don't actually make their cookware. It's made by Demeyere of Belgium.

Ha! that's THE question.

I've only eaten there once. If I had been a Michelin reviewer, they wouldn't have even been in the running for a star. Bad night, maybe. But it's all I have to go on. Bruni's review didn't correspond at all to my experience.

Not that I can remember.

I've been brushing up on food saftey, and am alarmed by the USDA's rules for cooking temperatures. Their idea of "rare" beef is 140 degrees. Their idea of minimually safe poultry is something I don't ever want to see on my plate. Are these guidelines unrelated to the rules of local and state health departments? If not, how do restaurants get away with cooking food that's cooked properly from a gastronomic perspective rather than an official one? And are there special rules for raw food like sahimi and carpaccio?

I don't know what the salt is for. I'd be afraid it would lead to pitting of the metal. I also don't know what the 12 hour wait would be for. Seasoning isn't magic ... you're just trying to bind a layer of polymerized oils to the porous surface of the steel. I think you did yourself a favor using safflower oil last time. The more unsaturated the oil is, the more quickly and easily it will polymerize. I'd be inclined to rub a very light coat of oil (safflower, sunflower, cannola or something similar) and put it in a 400 degree oven until the oil solidifies. you could then repeat with a couple of other very light coats. No need to let the pan cool all the way. Alternatively, if you're lazy and plan to use the pan a lot, just let it happen naturally. Because of the surface structure of spun steel, it tends to build up seasoning faster than cast iron (but the finish is a bit less durable).

I like to do at least a few courses or small dishes. That lets me experiment with new projects (in my house, dinner guest=guinea pig), and then ease any anxieties with some standbyes that are more reliable. And I keep in mind who's coming. Not based on adventurousness--my neighborhood is enough to filter out the unadventurous--but on food preferences. If my mom is coming, there will be a fennel dish. She's a sucker for it. If my godmother is coming, there won't be any olive oil. If my girlfriend is coming, there will be lots and lots of meat. The biggest decision is whether the evening will be more about food or about hanging out. If the former, I'll resign myself to spending more of the meal in the kitchen, doing sauté and pan sauces and a la minute preparations that I think are fun. If the latter, I'll do braises, soups, or stews ... as many things as possible that can be prepared in advance, so I can act like a guest at the party instead of a staff member.

I think the issue here is cheap-ass pans, not rivets in general. Some of the best pans made have riveted handles (there are restaurants in Europe using copper pans w/ rivited iron handles that are decades old). I have cookware that I've been using since 1991 that has never had a rivet issue. But I agree with you on the warping and the oxidation. Warping is an issue on any non-sandwiched aluminum pan. You can warp the bejeezus out of anodized cookware (I've had to straighten mine with a hammer a few times). I do have a 20qt, plain aluminum stock pot. No problems at all with it. Cheap, performs well, and isn't used with highly acid ingredients for the kinds of high heat cooking that causes warping.

Ha! I have the opposite problem ... people who only have nonstick pans. I find them useless for 99% of the cooking I do. My biggest issue with people's cookware isn't the quality. I think it's possible to cook on crappy pans (it's just more work). I'm just often thwarted by the lack of a pan that can be used at all for what I want to do. For example, a pan that can go in the oven, and on the stove, and that can be deglazed, and that's about the right size for a chicken. I'd have trouble getting though most days without such a thing, but I rarely encounter a friend's or family member's kitchen that has on. Examples would be any kind of frying pan or small, short-sided roasting pan made out of aluminum, lined copper, clad metal of any kind with stainless on the inside, etc.. But what I find instead is nonstick nonsense, pans with plastic handles that can't go in the oven, roasting pans that are too thin to go on the stove, or that are made out of glass or ceramic ... So in this case the lack of the simplest, most useful pan possible forces me to compromise the quality of the simplest, most delicious meal possible (a roasted chicken with a pan sauce). Other examples abound! Happy note: a friend just convinced me to cook at her house by buying the pan I told her to get. $17 online, and everyone will be happy.

Probably the most effective way to reduce your aluminum intake is to stop eating leafy green vegetables. Let us know if you think it's a good idea!

I think you might find some real differences between "foodies" who do a lot of fine dining as a passion, and serious amateur cooks who study and practice and push themselves and create recipes based on a personal vision. Most of the professional cooks work at a very low level ... because most of the restaurants out there serve food at a low level. For every French Laundry there are thousands of Denny's, burger shacks, taco joints, diners, etc. etc. And each is staffed with professional cooks. Some of them may know an aweful lot about food and be able to prepare meals at a much higher level than what they do day in and day out. But not all of them. For many it's a blue collar job; they do what they're told and that's it. They will most likely have more polished and efficient production skills than anyone who isn't cooking 60 hours a week, but would you really assume that they're better cooks than any of the passionate amateurs who labor with food out of love?

Yeah, I realize that's the flipside to all my pissing and moaning. Talk about humbling ... check out this article from 2001 on small restaurant kitchens in NYC: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...kitchens&st=cse

I gave my mom a knife for christmas a few years ago. I also gave her a lesson in how to use it. But the real present was hidden in the fine print of the card, and she didn't like it: a promise to throw out all the knives currently clogging her knife drawer.

I'm constantly amazed that the smartest, most capable, self-sufficient, resourceful people I know live their lives with kitchens that seem to have been stocked by a roomfull of monkeys at computers, typing randomly and furiously on the Williams Sonoma website. There are typically dozens and dozens of pans, mostly nonstick and in bizarre shapes, none of them oven safe. If there's one decent pan it's under a mounain of useless ones. Every inch of counterspace is occupied by salad spinners, salad shooters, cookbooks, magazines, microwaves, t.v. sets, decorative knicknacks. There's a garlic press but no tongs. A George Foreman grill but no wooden spatula. A giant refrigerator, but a cutting board the size of a cocktail napkin. And the knives. I know you already know about the knives. But I'll continue: they are either from the salvation army, or they are a complete set of the department store's most expensive German or Japanese brand. In either case they have been in the sink and drawers and the dishwasher enough that that they are no sharper than the wooden spoons. You know the whole story. But I like cooking at other people's kitchens. So the question is, do people think it's rude or pretentious if you show up with a knife roll? I don't mean a giant tool kit full of everything. But I've taken to bringing a few knives, a whisk, tongs, a thermometer, a spatula, etc., all in a roll that can slip into a backpack or messenger bag. I'd hide it from them if I could. But I want cooking to be fun, and value my sanity.

I actually think the guy is just clueless. They buy the cookies from some bakery. I'm probably the only customer who noticed. He said he told the bakery about the problem (when I brought it up last week), and seems to think his responsibility ends there. The did not seem at all the managerial type. He just does what he's told and has no interest in the big picture. That's really the root of the problem.

Ok, so my local deli is selling "Macadamia Nut Cookies" that don't have macadamia nuts in them. They're full of peanuts. I brought this up with the manager, pointing out that not only is he ripping people off, but he's potentially endagering people with food allergies. His roundabout response was that no one else has complained, so it's obviously not a real problem. Granted, this is a minor issue in a world of war and economic collapse, but this level of disrespect (toward customers, toward the law, but mostly toward food) really rubs me the wrong way. What's the best way to complain about this guy?

I used a few of the stainless with aluminum disk bottom pans at a vacation house. There were a couple of saucepans and a medium and large saute pan. I thought they were surprisingly good. I used the saute pans on the stove and as roasting pans in a 500 degree oven with no issues. I actually like them better than some commercial lines, like Sitram and Paderno. On the Martha Stewart pans, the disk bottom tapers at the edge and covers the entire bottom of the pan. On a lot of disk bottom pans, the disk leaves a pretty big gap at the edge. If you don't keep a close watch on the flame (especially tricky on home stoves that spread the flame out to the sides instead of projecting it straight up) you end up with a nasty hot spot all around the outside rim. Some disadvantages to the M.S. pans are that the stainless steel is flimsier than on the pro pans, and the lids are glass. The glass is conventient, but in my kitchen its lifespan would be about ten minutes. I found another line of pans that has a nice disk bottom and is roughly in the Martha Stewart price range: Optio by Lincoln. It's their budget line. Big benefit is that you don't have to have something in your kitchen with a "Martha Stewart" logo (I'd pay a premium for this feature alone).

The phrase "molecular gastronomy" was coined in 1988 by Heve This and Nicholas Kurti. It wasn't originally about a style of cooking. As This describes it, they needed a pithy title for a series of lectures they were giving on the physical and chemical aspects of cooking. Their lectures were as much about soft boiled eggs as they were about futuristic ingredients and techniques. Since then, of course, the phrase has been applied to many new approaches to food. It's been embraced by a generation of chefs, and it's been rejected by a number of them who have been closely associated with it (nothing surprising here ... creative people have often shunned categories and dogma that they helped invent). If there's anything truly distinctive about Molecular Gastronomy as an approach or a style, it's not that it employs chemistry. Cooking has always been about chemistry, whether the cooks knew it or not. I think the difference is that traditional cooking evolved through trial and error, and was taught as a tradition. The science behind it was only studied and understood much later. This newer approach to cooking starts with lessons from those scientific investigations, and uses them as the foundation for brand new techniques and traditions. So the difference is about the role of science. Science used to be applied retroactively. In the new approach, it's used as the starting point.

You could say similar things about almost any creative pursuit. It's not just foodies romanticizing chefs; it's outsiders romanticizing any creative process. Granted, not all endeavors involve miseries equal to the hot line, but as life choices many come close. Being an artist/writer/composer/whatever involves a lot more toil and repetition and tedium and failure than most fairy tales acknowledge. And who can blame them? If the fairy tales were accurate, no one would like them.

Interesting. I never saw that big a difference. What kind of container did the dough age in?

I bet the problem is less about gas vs. electric and more about one of the ovens (or even both of them) having innacurate thermostats. A good oven thermometer or infrared thermometer can sort this out for you. I'd get a reading on the oven you're familiar with before leaving on the trip. Make sure you know the actual temp that you've been using. Then just make sure the new oven preheats to that temp. I'd be surprised if temperature cyling is a big problem with something that has the thermal mass of a turkey. At any rate, pay less attention to cooking time and more attention to the look, feel, and smell of the bird. Pull it out when it's ready, not when the recipe says it's ready.

Good point. I wonder if the restauranteur realizes that. Maybe he'll make them sign a contract constricting their diet? ← They could just do like they do with heritage pigs. It would be great for marketing" "Ice cream made with milk from free-range moms raised on a diet of chestnuts and acorns."

Well, that gives some idea of what this ice cream might cost. All I can say now about breast milk is, "it better be good."

My mom evolved a dish that fed us for years. It was a blend of French regional and American lazy, and we loved it. She called it the Permanent Dinner. It was basically a pot au feu, but heavy on the broth, so you could think of it as a braise or a stew or a soup, depending on your disposition. The broth wasn't thickened. Some of the ingredients were browned and cooked long, others just simmered til tender. The key was that the ingredients were in constant rotation. Chicken, beef stewing cuts, French sausages, leeks, carrots, cellery, pearl onions, herbs, whatever, all rotated in and out. More broth would get added as needed. It lived in a giant Creuset enameled cast iron pot, that could go from the stove to the fridge to the freezer. Bringing it to a simmer several times a week kept the microbes away (I have since learned that the Health Department frowns on this concept, but we all survived our childhoods). Anyway, we had it a lot and it was delicious and low maintenance and always changing.