paulraphael

A thought on sweet vermouth ... the most common brand in US liquor stores, Martini & Rossi, is divisive. Many people think it's perfectly good, many people think it tastes like soapy bathwater. It's not about the sophistication of the taster; it seems like a phenomenon similar to cilantro. The people who like it have no idea what the bathwater-complainers are talking about. I'm one of the bathwater-complainers. It ruins drinks for me. You'll have no idea where you stand on the issue until you taste it. I'd suggest that if it's the only brand you can find locally, try the smallest bottle they have.

Chocosphere and Worldwide Chocolate both sell Michel Cluizel Le Noir Infini 99%, which strangely is edible as a bittersweet chocolate, if only barely. Lighter than that, I pretty much lump everything north of 65% together, and choose based on flavor. My favorite single origin at the moment Cluizel Villa Gracinda, which is only 67%, but it tastes as dark as any of higher percentage bittersweet chocolates I've had. Many people have given good reviews to lindt 85%, but I'm distracted by the chalky texture.

The secret is that it's not very good straight up.

Yeah, an index would be good. I mostly have the patience for the podcast when I'm on a treadmill for an hour or more. It would be too much if I were just sitting around listening.

Anyone listen to this? It keeps me company at the gym on endurance days. Dave is the former Grand Poobah of food science and technology at ICE, has the excellent/defunct cooking issues blog, a defunct/soon-resurrected avant garde NYC cocktail bar, and knows as much about all-things-culinary as anyone on the Modernist Cuisine team. The style of the show is irreverent, wildly discursive, and steeped in in-jokes. The tone is Bugs Bunny on crack. If these don't clash with your personal esthetics, you'll probably find it informative, and maybe even entertaining. Bonus: the global audience seems to be about a dozen culinary nut jobs, so if you call in with a question, you'll probably get through.

Later model iphones (7-plus and onward) have a "portrait mode." This is a setting that uses gobs of processing power to simulate a very shallow depth of field. It may work by assuming that the thing you want in focus is in the middle of the frame; not sure. Phones have to do this with digital effects because they have very small sensors, which require a very short focal length lens, which because of physics is going give huge depth of field (unless the lens has a wider maximum aperture than anyone wants to pay for). So the phone takes a picture that's sharp corner to corner, and then throws alogrithms and processing power (and maybe some AI) at the problem. The result is a vaguely convincing simulation of selective focus with a wide-open lens. The few samples I've seen had a bit of an uncanny, processed look that wasn't too appealing. But people will like it as a shortcut to blurring out distracting backgrounds. You'll have to experiment to see if you like the results with food.

Anyone looking for tips should check out James Peterson's blog. He's one of my favorite cookbook authors. Many years ago started doing his own photography, and doing it beautifully. FWIW, I've taken none of his advice. Despite being a fine art photographer by profession, my food pictures are terrible. Studio stuff was never my thing. It doesn't help that plating is my least developed culinary skill. Most drunk people with an instagram account take better food pics than mine. Mayb one day I'll get motivated to learn.

Which is another way of saying that the difficulty in cocktail making isnlt the making ... it's the shopping, the affording, and the preparing / not wasting all the various fresh ingredients and infusions. Based on this, I think the easiest cocktails are ones that don't require fresh ingredients (juices, etc.), homemade infusions, or relatively obscure ingredients that will take a bite out of your bank account and cabinet space and that you'll use a few ounces of maybe ever. I'd look at cocktails like the Negroni, which is all spirits, and all useful ones. Technically speaking, vermouth is perishable, but it lasts long enough in the fridge that you'll probably drink it in time.

I'm not assuming that's what it smells like when anyone else does it ...

It would be fun to experiment with. The moka pot coffee I've made has been on the bitter side, but not in an unslalvageable burnt office coffee way. I didn't know what I was I doing (just using the resident pot at an air b&b). I suppose it's a given that you'll be brewing with 212° water, so that might be tricky to compensate for.

When I was a kid my dad bought a coffee roaster and experimented with it for a few weeks. I don't know why ... he's not an obsessive nerd like me. I was thrilled that he dropped it because roasting day made the whole apartment smell like a tire fire.

Just to keep it simple, there is exactly one definition of espresso: coffee produced by forcing hot water through coffee grounds at very high pressure, typically 9 atmospheres. There's a bit of wiggle room with the pressure, but if it's much lower than that it's not espresso. For example, a "moka pot" aka "stovetop espresso maker" can make good coffee, but it's not espresso. These contraptions produce about 1.5 atmospheres of pressure. The result doesn't resemble the flavor or viscosity of the real thing. The pressure requirement isn't arbitrary; a major part of what characterizes espresso is that the high pressure emulsifies the oils from the coffee bean. This creates the syrupy mouthfeel. Other factors that have been mentioned—grind size, water temperature, etc.—are incidental to the process. You need a fine grind size to make the process work, and uniform grind to make it work well, but the pressure is what makes it espresso. The correct water temperature (which can vary from 196°F to 205°F) is important for dialing in the right flavor, but this is no different from other coffee processes, in principle. There is absolutely no correlation between roast and espresso. The idea of an "espresso roast" is a con. It was a way of convincing people they could simulate the taste of real espresso by brewing coffee with burnt beans. Most 3rd wave coffee roasters don't even go anywhere near the 2nd crack in the roasting process, because they want you to be able to taste the beans. Even traditionalists in Italy ... their dark-roasted espresso is usually what we'd call a "city" or "full city" roast in the US (medium roasts). Nowhere near black and oily. If you want to taste the full flavor and origin character of the coffee, you need a light or medium-light roast.

Well, I want to experiment with it at the urging of a chef I know personally and respect completely, who is not shilling anything. Acids are all different. Saying that "Balsamic does pretty much the same thing as verjus, and is far cheaper" is a head scratcher. Where I live, real balsamic vinegar costs around $30 an ounce; fake supermarket balsamic is useful for basically nothing; and neither tastes anything like unaged, unfermented acidic juice. I would consider them to be at opposite ends of the flavor spectrum when looking for an acid. FWIW, my current go-to acids (in order of brightness to roundness) are pure citric acid, lemon juice, fino sherry vinegar or grenache vinegar, palomino sherry vinegar, moscatel or pedro ximenez sherry vinegar, and reduced wine. I probably use more px sherry vinegar than everything else put together, at least these days. I want to play with verjuice for the brighter end of the spectrum, for things where I currently use lemon juice or the lighter vinegars. Edited to add: the main acids in unripe grapes are tartaric and malic, which should lead us to expect a quite different character from the usual citric and acetic acid-based potions.

Mezzalunas belong on the wall. They're pretty. And a they're lousy tools. Cutting herbs is one of the more delicate tasks in the kitchen (I knew a chef who considered it the most highly skilled prep job; you'd graduate to herbs after mastering butching fish and cutting sushi). A curved piece of lawnmower blade steel that you'd probably never sharpen even if you knew how is probably the last tool for the job.

Just make sure the cord is rated for enough current. Without looking at the specs I'd guess the thing can draw close to 9 amps.

It's got egg white, egg shell, egg yellow ...

That's $30/ lb. I pay roughly $20/lb for Stumptown or Toby's Estate. And that seems like a pretty crazy price to me ... it's high enough that I really just drink it on the weekends. But I'd be happy to come sample the Norwegian coffee any time ...

Yikes, that's gotta be expensive. I'm sure it's great, but it seems excessive paying shipping and also Norwegian prices. You like them so much more than the stuff roasted at your doorstep?

Dave Martell at Japanesecharpening.com said that the steel in Globals such a nuissance to sharpen that he doens't do it on Japanese waterstones anymore. He treats them like European knives and sharpens them on a belt sander. He finds the steel unusually gummy and difficult to deburr.

Thanks so much, Chris. I'm curious to compare results to my current methods. It's interesting that they give refrigerator proofing as an option. My sourdough culture just goes to sleep in the fridge ... it would never work. I used to do it all the time with commercial yeast.

Anyone cook with this? Recommended brand and where to find? Preferably something not too exotic?

Are you trying to figure out how to get similar results more economically? I'm not trying to get any more flavor than it already has. It's pretty intense.

Yes, many experiments with temperature and time. Things were a little different than brewing into water, partly because there are other ingredients affecting flavor perception, and possibly because the solubility of many compounds into fat is different than into water. I got the best results with a temperature that's 4°C hotter than what I like for press pot coffee. The way I'm extracting is very much like using a press pot, only it's sealed, to keep the aromatics in, and I chill it before opening and straining. It wastes a ziploc bag, and gives you a strainer to clean, but otherwise isn't more work than making coffee. You got me thinking that maybe intead of using a chinois (which takes about 10 minutes to fully strain everything) I could pour the brewed mix into my press pot and strain with the plunger.

Interesting read. That mostly fits my experience in Rome a couple of years ago, where the espressos were all good, but had a bit more of a "comfort shot" feel than what I get at the best US coffee shops these days. Not dark roasts, but a little darker. More emphasis on base coffee notes and toasted flavors. More mellow than bright. The thing is, the dairy and sugar in ice cream mutes the brighter notes, so all coffee gets pushed in the direction of mellower, sweeter, toastier. The challege is if you want the brighter flavors and aromatics ... you need to start with bright beans and use an extraction method that might lead to a too-bright cup of coffee. I wouldn't put add sherry vinegar to my morning cup of joe, for that matter.

You could use a different sherry vinegar, or even a balsamic. Some people might prefer to leave it out entirely. I wanted to bring out the fruit and acid flavors of the coffee, but my neighbor (a Café Bustello man) doesn't like those flavors. He doesn't like my favorite café, doesn't like my coffee, doesn't like my coffee ice cream. I'm pushing that PX vinegar on everyone partly because it will make the world a better place. I agree with all your thoughts on eggs. It's why I only use two yolks per liter. For some flavors (like chocolate) I leave them out entirely, and use alternate emulsifiers. That said, I didn't experiment with an eggless version of this, because I pushed it so far in the direction of low fat to begin with. Chocolate brings so much fat of its own so is a different story. If someone else wants to play around with eggless versions I'd love to taste the results, but right now I'm quite happy with both flavor and texture and so don't feel the need to start over.