paulraphael

I think you hit the nail on the head. Part of this is tied to Fat Guy's point that our context is almost always commercially viable restaurants. But even if you point out that people buy ugly art and pay to see confrontational futurist theatre, there's something different about food. Dining involves primal bodily functions in a way that looking at painting doesn't. You put the art in your mouth. It makes sense that even sophisticated diners will hang on to basic conservative values (the food should taste good; it shouldn't be poisonous), even when they seek conceptual challenges. This might change someday, but I suspect it would mean completely recontextualizing the food. Like a meal served in an experimental theatre context instead of a restaurant. One that makes no promise of satisfying your hunger, and requires a liability release. Think of the different expectations for a typical feature film vs. an esperimental video insallation running on endless loop at PS-1.

I agree, in general. I prefer to use a scale. But seems to me that a measuring spoon shouldn't be off by 30%. Especially a professional looking one sold by NYC's most expensive cookware store.

because currently there are no real problems in the world, so i decided to hunt for one.

I work a few blocks from Bridge Kitchenware in NYC, and picked up a professional looking set of measuring spoons last week. Simple, stainless steel, flush rims for leveling off ingredients, markings in teaspoons and mililiters. So I was surprised to discover that they're completely innacurate. I only noticed because I was putting together a recipe by weight, with a 0.1g resolution kitchen scale, using the tablespoon as a scoop. The numbers didn't look right. So I weighed a level tablespoon 15ml of water. I would expect it weigh pretty close to 15g, but it weighed 11g. My other set of measuring spoons--cheap and sloppy looking--was imperfect but came close to 15g. What's up with this? I assume I should be able to return the things.

There's a theory that what makes music enjoyable is the right mix of predictablility and surprise. Melodic patterns, familiar chord progressions, familiar forms, and familiar chord/note relationships set up expectations for what's coming next. Music that you like satisfies these expectations enough to be comforting, and surprises you enough to be interesting. The catch is that this mix is going to be different for everyone. A little kid who hasn't heard much music can revel in the simplest patterns repeated over and over. Barney singing "I love you" in major triads, while the parents start looking for the most potent bottle of pills to swallow. At the other end of the scale is a musical sophisticate ... like a composer or a jazz musician who's studied most popular traditions until they sound predictable and even boring. They'll like some music might sound like random noise to me; I wouldn't grasp the pattern so nothing would be predictable. And with nothing predicted there can be no surprise. Food strikes me as similar. The most enjoyable dishes have some mix of predictability and surprise. Comfort food (whatever your version of it might be) leans heavily on the predictable. Avante garde food leans heavily on the surprise. Whether or not the food goes so far into the realm of suprise that it just seems ungrounded and random depends on the context that you bring with you to the table. Guys like Achatz and Adria are probably riffing in subtle ways on existing traditions (some of which might be fairly sophisticated themeselves). You'll probably like a dish best when you can grasp where it came from, but be surprised and delighted by where it takes you. It seems t me like a delicate act to pull off; customers are going range from pizza-eating brooklynites like me to chefs who crossed an ocean to sample the new ideas. I don't know how you can create a peak experience for everyone.

I've tried that, but in general I like the machine for sticky doughs. A lot of people seem to get great results with these doughs in a KA; I just don't have a good sense of when to turn it off.

I've just read through this thread, and I'm interested in Jackal's earlier comments on mixing and overmixing dough. I mostly work with dough in the 70% to 80% hydration range (especially one's based on Reinhart's/Gosselin's pain a l'ancienne delayed fermentation techniques). And I have a hard time telling when the dough is properly mixed. It never gets to the point where I can do the windowpane test (as shown in various books and websites). The times I've pushed it really far, using a KA mixer, It's overmixed. The bread is still tasty, but it loses its ability to fully rise. The last couple of batches of baugette I've made used a 20 to 45 minute autolyse, refrigerated, after the dough first came together. Then mixing in the mixer after that. I'm always guessing at when to stop mixing. This is sticky dough, and I don't know what it should look and feel like when it's ready.

I just got the book and am curious about the method Mr. Lebovitz recommends for making custard. I've always whisked the egg yolks and sugar together, and heated the milk/cream separately. He suggests mixing the sugar with the milk and cream before heating. Are there advantages to this? Or significant differences between the two outcomes? I'd be inclined to keep doing it my way unless there's a compelling reason to switch. It seems to me that it's easier to temper the yolks without any curdling when they're already well liquefied, and when they have the added thermal mass of the sugar. Thoughts?

I'm not sure about that. I found a technical paper online about vanill extract manufacturing, and if I remember right the difference between single and double strength was purely the quantity of beans (by weight) to liquid. I'll see if I can find that anywhere. At any rate, I remember the standard for double strength being a huge amount of vanilla ... much more than what I have going on in the pantry.

How are sneakers not "slip resistant" ... ?

That was the only one I actually knew with certainty. I had one of those when I was little (and I miss it!)

That was a funny test. All the easy ones were at the end (I think because the questions included better hints). By the 13th question I'd only gotten one right, which makes me about a third as smart as a monkey guessing randomly. Then I got the right answer on all the rest of them. Which overall is a little better than the random monkey, but not much.

I think some of the best dishes of all have just a few ingredients. Roasted Chicken -a chicken -butter or olive oil -salt -pepper optional: stock (for pan sauce), garlic, herbs, other seasoning. Roasted Vegetables (fingerling potatoes, asparagus, brussel sprouts, anything roastable) -salt -pepper -olive oil Flourless Chocolate Torte -chocolate -eggs -sugar -butter -salt

So, I went off the deep end and bought a nitrogen dewar on ebay. Now I need some nitrogen. I've been reading things like, "oh, yeah, just go to any welding or hospital supply place and they'll hook you up." But I'm not having much luck. Google is getting sick of me. Maybe I'm searching for the wrong terms? Any thoughts? A pint of futuristic gelato (or one amateur wart removal session!) to anyone local with the answer. Also: this dewar is a pressurized one and has a lot of aparatus attached to the top. Does anyone know about these thing? I'd like to find out if I need to do anything to make this safe (test any pressure relief valves), if any of the gadgets can be removed, etc. Here's what it looks like: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...bayphotohosting

I just went to amazon and answered my own question about the size. AND ... i got teased by this link to the cuisinart pizza oven: http://www.amazon.com/Cuisinart-PIZ-100-St...d_bxgy_k_text_b Anyone familiar with this? Looks like a terrible pizza oven, but might be a killer toaster.

Thanks for the insights. I'm intrigued by the cuisinart brick oven. Even though it seems like more of an appliance than what I was looking for. Can you give me a sense of its size? And does it seem well made? Some of these things look so nice in pictures, but when you get close and twiddle the knobs they have that uninspiring Easy-Bake vibe.

I just retired my Cuisinart toaster. Retirement, in this house, tends to be a loud process. It's typically earned by some kind of incompetence, and followed by a few weeks of little plastic and sheet metal shards appearing in the far corners of the room. But I digress. It's time to find a better way to make toast. Toasters in general bug me. I don't like appliances that do just one thing. But friends with toaster ovens have told me they don't make very good toast. Is this stil true? In a perfect world, I'd have a toaster oven that's small (no more than a foot and a half wide), solidly made, easy to clean, simple to use, able to make great toast, and good for reheating things like pizza, sandwiches, pastries, and anything that needs to be crisp. I don't need it to roast chickens, bake cakes, fit a half-sheet pan, or turn a wild boar on a spit. Does such a thing exist?

I'm interested to hear that this is thinner than a regular ganache ... the butter based ganaches i've made have had a smaller proportion of butter and quite a bit of added liquid in order to match the consistency of ganache made with cream. It looks like a good recipe.

You could also make a marquise. A bit upscale for a teen b-day party, but maybe they'd be into it. Intense chocolate flavor, no need to decorate (but it looks great) and very easy (chilled, not baked). Can be embellished with sauce like a flavored creme anglaise or a fruit coulis, or dusted with cocoa and a stencil, or whatever you dream up.

Did he talk at all about handling high hydration doughs? I love the flavor and crumb of breads made with Reinhart's (or Gosselin's) pain a l'ancienne method, but the 80% hydration doughs are tough to handle. Lately I've been stretching the dough in the conventional manner to make baguettes. I can't tell if the extra handling is doing more harm than good. I think Reinhart demonstrates just stretching this dough into strips, rather than forming baguettes in the usual way. Also, scoring the dough is difficult. I've started using scissors, since razor blades just stick. The results are only o.k. As far as very long fermentations, I've played with this a bit. I've retarded some dough for 36 and even 48 hours. My results couldn't be less scientific ... there was no control sample, and my technique is pretty inconsistent all around. But subjectively I couldn't taste any improvement, and if anything the 48 hour dough might have been LESS flavorful than the regular 24 hour dough. I don't know why this would be. I was actually afraid of off flavors developing, but this didn't seem to happen.

plastic is nice for this because if you drop it into the stand mixer by mistake, there's a chance you won't cause a disaster.

It seems that all the consumer mixers have quality control issues. I'd base any decision largely on availability of service. In other words, I probably wouldn't buy a Delonghi in the U.S., and I probably wouldn't buy a KA in Europe.

I had Grom for the first time today (Bleeker st.) and was impressed. Only tried three flavors: espresso, vanilla, and pistachio. Texture was uniformly excellent. Flavor was fairly bland in the vanilla but intense and excellent in the other two. Based on this brief encounter it's hard to compare directly to Il Lab. The styles are completely different. Grom tastes to me like a very low butterfat (possibly milk-only) gelato; Il Lab tastes more like a moderate butterfat ice cream. I like both, and might prefer the richer Il Lab style. But if I want something exceptionally light (and have cash burning a hole in my pocket), I'll choose Grom. I haven't had Cones yet. Every time I go in, I look at the display freezer and see all these colors that don't exist in nature, and I walk out disappointed.

I just picked up a Chico Bag at whole foods for $5. http://store.chicobag.com/ I like the size ... folds up into its own pouch, about the size of an egg. Weighs practically nothing and can be a permanent fixture in a backpack, shoulder bag, purse, or whatever you carry around (unlike those big, horsey canvas bags).

Sometimes the most important reason for cultivating and eating meat gets forgotten: ruminant animals can convert grasses and shrubs that we can't digest into concentrated, digestible (and delicious) protein. The growth of civilization was made possible in part by dairy farming, in areas where the environment did not support growing vegetables and grains. Of course, the total amount of dairy and meat that can be sustained by natural grasslands is small ... not enough to put a big mac on every child's plate. But it challenges the idea that meat fundamentally represents a rape of the planet.