paulraphael

I haven't experienced this, but suspect it has to do with the thickness of the cut (and the corresponding cooking time). For SV I always get steaks cut to 1-1/2 inches. Any thicker and cook time is too long. Thinner and it's hard to sear them without cooking through (unless you have monstrous BTUs). For prime, dry aged steaks, the best I've had have been cooked s.v. For more modest steaks, I prefer methods that let you put on a more serious sear / char. This meat can use help from the added seasoning of smoke and fire.

I think they don't want to provide customer service to residential customers. It's expensive and time consuming to do so. I believe it's why almost every commercial kitchen equipment company that branches into consumer products ends up spinning off the consumer division as a separate company. BTW, I looked into getting a commercial fridge for home, because they're awesome, and are designed intelligently (room inside for dozens of sheet pans, no stupid drawers, etc.). The problem is that they're all crazy loud. And the ones I saw were energy hogs.

Maybe an offensive one.

Ranges are totally understandable. Commercial ones violate a long list residential codes. They're actually dangerous, unless you make serious modifications to the kitchen to accommodate them. Even then, kids and the uninitiated can get burned from touching any exterior surface. With pans, I wonder if it's something more mundane, like you need a different class of liability insurance if you sell consumer goods, or if experience shows that it's more expensive to to give customer service to individuals rather than restaurants. I've always thought hotel pans were cool, but never found a use for them at home. I prefer to use plastic containers for prep, because they do triple duty for storage and leftovers. And I don't have a steam table. The big sizes do make great litter boxes for cats.

My local hole-in-the-wall fancy beer store suggested I try a tall can of Interboro You're All I Need IPA, and I did, not knowing what I was in for. This wasn't like anything else I've experienced. After having my mind blown, I hit the internet, to figure out what it was, and learned about the "New England IPA" uprising of the last few years, of which I'd been completely oblivious. On the off chance that you're as out of the loop as me, I'll try to describe: these nothing like what you think of as IPAs. They're hopped to high heaven, but most of it is dry hopping, so the profile is much more about fruit flavors and citrus / floral aromas than bitterness. The background bitterness of the hops is balanced by a syrupy, malty sweetness. They're unfiltered—hazy, big mouthfeel, perishable. This particular version was as full-bodied as orange juice, and exploded on the palate with citrus and tropical fruit flavors (all from the hops!). Nothing like what I usually turn to an IPA for, but it was magnificent. I haven't found much of anything written about Interboro, even though they're local to me. And sadly their site says this beer isn't in production anymore. My next stop is Other Half Brewing, in Brooklyn, which gets good reviews, and has one or two NEIPAs on their roster.

In my experience, having the meat freshly ground (within not too many hours of cooking) is most important. The choice of cuts is 2nd priority. Maybe within reason ...

I have an end grain boardsmith board and love it. But I find that my crappy poly boards (which I don't love) are a bit more gentle on knife edges. And I'd bet anything that rubber boards like sani-tuff are gentler still.

I think there's an undercurrent of people flailing wildly for a sense of control, in a world where systems are so complex and where decisions that affect us profoundly are made on such high levels, far out of reach. One of the only places people can find a sense of power is in information and knowledge, which we have in unlimited supply. The trouble is when people's hunger for that power outstrips their critical thinking ability, their basic understanding of science, or even just their patience for being rigorous. This seems to describe practically everyone, and it makes me want punch people in the face by the thousands. Especially all the charlatan authors and bloggers. I'm so over this shit. And yeah, it's a 1st world problem, in all the worst possible ways.

I've never compared the actual performance of the two lines, but I really don't want to reward companies like all-clad for the 5-ply and 7-ply marketing nonsense. It's not too hard to imagine that the 5-ply pans could perform reasonably well. If the steel layers are thin enough, these pans would act a bit more like disk-bottom pans with thicker aluminum. Which is to say they'd be better at some things, worse at others. What I like about the AC triply is that they're thin and fast, so I'm not really looking for changes here.

The flanken cut ones seem easier to trim. It's not much work to get those little cross sections of bone out.

I stumbled onto a nice discovery this weekend, making burgers to bring to a friend's back yard. The supermarket didn't have any brisket or shins, which are part of my standard blend (1/3 each chuck, brisket, shin, plus marrow from the shins). So I improvised and got 2/3 chuck and 1/3 flanken-cut short ribs. All of this was supermarket grade "certified black angus" that totaled about $7/lb ... the same as the preground, prepackaged grass-fed burger meat, with unnamed cuts that I occasionally buy when lazy. This meat was easier to prepare and grind, and the burgers were really, really good. My usual blend is more assertively beefy, but not necessarily in a better way. I wouldn't be surprised if more people would like the short rib blend in a blind taste test. It's also a bit cheaper and easier to prepare. This is a blend I hadn't experimented with, because back when I trying out a million version, my butcher / confidante advised against short rib. He said it wouldn't have the flavor of the other cuts. I'm no longer convinced of this.

Except some of us find the flavor of American cheese insipid and pointless. I don't want to eat it. I'd rather have tasty cheese and a lumpy texture. But the Modernist Cuisine people really have the ideal solution. Get whatever cheese you like most, and melt it with sodium citrate. This is no more "processed" or "molecular" than using baking powder in a cake. It's just an ingredient, and it just works. Here's a way to do it. I'd go for gruyere, or some aged cheddar. Personally, if I can make the burgers tasty enough, I don't bother with cheese at all.

That Panasonic has the exact kind of user interface that makes me want to scream. I realize anyone can adapt to anything, but I don't want to adapt to a toaster. I want analog dials that are obvious at first glance when I'm sleepy and caffeinated. This isn't a lot to ask for, because it's a f'ing toaster. My microwave is like that but worse. Give me dials or give me death. I'm leaning toward the Hamilton Beach model at the bottom of the Wirecutter review. They said it made toast better than anything else under $100, and it has an interface which while still plagued by some utter stupidity, is at least simple.

Ok, reasonably fast, reasonably sturdy, reasonably cheap. And simple. I'll let go of accurate. The inaccuracy bummed me out with the cuisinart because I was hoping to bake with the convenction feature. I don't care about that anymore (but I don't want to pay for the feature).

Maybe, but it seems like some of these simple ones are nicely designed and made. Others (like the Black+Decker one we're getting rid of) aren't. I also had two different samples of a medium-complicated Cuisinart convection toaster oven, that looked like it ticked all the boxes, but was complete trash. Took forever to toast toast, did it unevenly, and the oven thermostat was off by 50 degrees in both directions.

Any recommendations? It will be used for toast and for reheating small portions of things that need to stay crisp. We won't use for cakes, tarts, bread, or chickens. We don't need convection, steam, rotisseries, or combi-oven features. Small is good. Simple is good. Cheap is good. Analog controls are good. Pushbuttons and computerized interfaces designed by bottom-tier engineers with Aspberger's syndrome who never see daylight or talk to other humans are a deal breaker.

Ah, ok. I have the earliest hardware but it must have newer firmware <<I seldom cook humans or at human body temperatures.>> It's never too late.

All the Anovas are user-calibratable ... the company has just recommended against it. Have you looked at Basal thermometers? They claim accuracy to 1/100°F and usually cost under $20. Mine is an analog one from the drugstore. I'm skeptical that they're really this accurate, but they should be good enough to check a circulator. I don't know if I'd actually use it for calibration, since it only gives a reading in a single range. But if it shows your circulator's off by more than 1/2 a degree you'd reason to call tech support and get their advice. They may tell you to send it in for a factory calibration, or maybe they'll say you can use the basal thermometer or thermoworks to calibrate.

I think it's worth talking to Anova. I had some concerns about the accuracy of my circulator a couple of years ago (it didn't match my thermocouple). The tech guy suggested that I get either a thermometer designed for calibration ($$$) or an ovulation thermometer from the drugstore (cheap). The latter is very accurate and reads to 0.1°F, but only over a one or two degree range right around body temperature, so you can't test linearity. I went with this anyhow. It showed the Anova was within 0.1°, and my other thermometers were off. Anova may have other suggestions now ... this was a while ago, and with their first model.

The Anova's thermocouple should be more accurate than than the one on the Thermoworks. If you have doubts, write to Anova tech support. They generally implore us not to try to calibrate the circulators using home thermometers. If you have reason to believe the thing is really out of whack, they can calibrate it using their lab instruments. If I remember their support article right, it suggested the only really good reason to calibrate to your thermometer is if you mostly care about them agreeing.

It completely depends on what the image needs, if anything. My perspective might be a little different from other peoples', since I use Lightroom to process raw files and organize my photo library ... so pictures get slurped into LR right off my phone or my big camera's memory cards, and the initial processing is automatic. If I don't like the way the default processing looks, it's usually just a matter of moving a couple of sliders until the color pops into balance. Maybe it needs to be cropped or straightened. Then I export into whatever format is needed for posting online or emailing someone. Typically JPEG, at a very reduced size. If I'm making exhibition prints or sending something out for publication, that's a whole 'nuther story. I might then spend hours or days on an image, much of it in Photoshop, just as I once would have done in the darkroom. I don't know what it's like working with the more consumer-oriented raw processing and library organizing tools. I hear many complaints about these, but then I hear many complaints about Lightroom too ...

My smallest ones are a 0.3L stainless mixing bowls that came as part of a set. I use these constantly for little stuff, including whisking slurries and weighing out small quantities of dry ingredients. Beyond that, it's all takeout containers and semi-disposable plastic containers from the supermarket, which do triple duty for prep, storage, and leftovers. I try to standardize on just a few sizes to keep from going crazy with organizing and finding lids. Right now the arsenal includes: -1pt takeout containers -1qt takeout containers (uses same lids as above) -1 qt square ziploc containers -2qt rectangular glad containers The ziploc and glad containers last almost forever, except the lids sometimes tear. The takeout containers last almost forever too, which is a problem, because takeout delivery people are always bringing new ones. Both kinds can break when they're cold (I use the pint takeout containers for ice cream, and often crack them when trying to scoop before it's warmed up a bit). All this stuff is dishwashable. All but the stainless mixing bowls can go in the microwave. The plastic containers are all polypropylene, so there are no food safety concerns. But they'll all melt at moderately high temps (don't use for grease right out of frying pan, etc.).

I have that exact one. Forgot how cheap it was. It's great for getting a quick read on oven temperatures, seeing how the fridge or freezer is doing, and checking the temp of any non-shiny pans. When I bake bread I use a dutch oven, and the gizmo lets me check the actual temp of that vessel so I can know how long to preheat. And it's not a bad cat toy.

Raw doesn't really take more time to post-process if you use an application like Lightroom. There will be some default preset (editable by you) that will be applied on import to all your images. If you just take what you get from the default process, then that's the same as if you shot JPEG. But you also have the option to do all kinds of tweaking that go beyond what would be possible without the raw file.

You probably have days worth of batter left. One of those plump blueberries just got stuck in the valve. Try talking to it gently.