[Top Chef : Season 8 - All Stars]

Love the pairing. Antonia slimed along thru too many shows. Karla should have made it.

Mike has matured in a nice way. He's growing. I'm happy with either winning.

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[Curtis Stone - Already Sick Of Him?]

He does a good rod Stewart impression.

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[Tuna Salad]

Mine's tuna, apples, celery, a few currants, mayo, Worcestershire, salt & pepper, parsley, maybe a little relish or chopped capers, maybe lemon zest. I think that's the universe. And as dry as possible while still holding together.

nice

[Tuna Salad]

I do something similar. Canned tuna, mayo, chopped bottled jalapenos with some of the juice added. Its still mostly tuna, though the peppers and juice give it a nice bright taste. Broiled as an open faced sandwich with some cheese on top is really nice. I can imagine making mini sandwiches for canapes.

[Speck, the Restaurant]

So they didn't have a written business agreement up to this point? Hard to imagine.

Or is Blatstein trying to amend the one they had? In which case I don't think he can lock out his partner without triggering a suit.

[eG Foodblog: PopsicleToze (2011) - Honeysuckles and Huckleberries... F]

That out-of-print Prudhomme family cookbook is a treasure. It contains a bunch of serious Cajun home cooking; "sticky" chicken, smothered potatoes, etc. I scored one at a used bookstore, and I can't understand why someone would have ever let it go. Alibris has a few cheap copies listed right now.

Abe Books has a lot more copies available (some cheaper, too).

Once at our office Christmas dinner/party, we had appetizers of deep fried alligator (along with rattlesnake, ostrich, and turkey "oysters" ). From what I recall, the alligator was quite good. But then you could probably deep fry a hockey puck and I'm sure it would be palatable.

Thanks, Rhonda, for the pictures and the tours! I am thoroughly enjoying your blog.

Just got one for $6.78 used at amazon!

[Krispy Kreme]

KK is way better than Dunkin. A shame the way they expanded wildly during the stock market bubble. If I remember right they execs were pushing KK as a growth company and riding the bubble.

[eG Foodblog: PopsicleToze (2011) - Honeysuckles and Huckleberries... F]

Love those greens. I like mustard and kale better than tough old collards.

[Define "empty stomach"]

You need competent doctors. Docs should know everything important about a drug they prescribe.

[Blend Tec on sale]

I wonder if they will eventually reprice the unit. It seems that the volume unexpected and indicates that their usual price is way to high for a big chunk of the market.

[Marcel's New Show On SyFy]

The biggest tool in the history of top chef ... now on syfi channel.

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[Define "empty stomach"]

Its hard to know what necessary is. You might be fine with an empty stomach 9 times out of ten. Many who take these meds long term go on an antacid to prevent irritation, but who wants to take another pill...

I'd be sure not to lie flat for half hour or so after taking the pill and to take it with at least good volume of fluid.

[Define "empty stomach"]

I'm thinking specifically about ibuprofen. You're not supposed to take it on an empty stomach. So let's say I need to take it at midnight. Do I need to eat something at 11:59pm or am I covered by what I had for dinner a few hours earlier?

Ibuprofen will irritate the heck out of an empty stomach. Dinner at 7 won't help a pill at midnight.

In any event, I wouldn't take ibuprofen before bed. Its asking for an irritated esophagus. Why not take a longer acting drug earlier instead, like naproxen (alleve)?

[Define "empty stomach"]

Interesting responses.

I am probably the most expert in pharmaceuticals (from what I can gather) among the eGullet posters.

I agree that "empty stomach" reasonably means 1 hour prior to eating or 2 hours post prandial.

Honkman is wrong. Food effect can either increase the overall absorption (AUC) or speed of absorption (tmax) or decrease those indices; it depends on the formulation.

Whether this makes an appreciable difference depends on what the drug and indication are.

Exactly right. There are all sorts of food/drug interactions. Some drugs need fat for absorption (isotretinoin), others need some acid in the stomach (triazoles), others are retarded by ions like Ca, K, Mg, Fe (cipro or tetracycline). Still others need an empty stomach. Some are affected by food that you ate days ago eg Vit K and coumadin, or grapefruit juice and cyclosporine. One rule doesn't fit all drugs. The best rule is to ask your doc.

To make it even more complex pharmacy computers put many warnings on drugs that aren't important. Best to ask the doc when you get t he Rx.

[Provenance of Wild Yeast]

Take two identical bowls of flour and water, leave one open and cover one with foil....wait a few days and look for the bubbling.

Also take some flour and bake it... as well as the bowls and foil to be used for an hour or so at 325 to sterilize it. Mix it with boiled water and a boiled spoon.

If the yeast are airborne both uncovered bowls will begin to ferment. If it comes in with the flour or utensils then only the unsterilized flour bowls will ferment.

I'm not sure this would necessarily tell you what you want to know. It could be that the baking of the flour would denature the proteins in ways that would make it harder for yeast to break down.

It might do that a little, but I'd be surprised if the yeast wouldn't grow in cooked flour to a degree. They are hardy buggers. But if you want to get all rigorous on me , we could just substitute a sterile sugar solution for the flour and see what grows.

[Provenance of Wild Yeast]

I've always doubted the yeast in the air theory. Could be true, but given that the technique so often gives good results and airborne yeast would probably vary considerably, I suspect that the yeast comes in with the flour, or the utensils or the hands.

It would be an easy experiment to do. Pasteur did a similar one to disprove the theory of spontaneous generation in the 1800s.

Take two identical bowls of flour and water, leave one open and cover one with foil....wait a few days and look for the bubbling.

Also take some flour and bake it... as well as the bowls and foil to be used for an hour or so at 325 to sterilize it. Mix it with boiled water and a boiled spoon.

If the yeast are airborne both uncovered bowls will begin to ferment. If it comes in with the flour or utensils then only the unsterilized flour bowls will ferment.

[Mariani Takes On...Achatz, Myhrvold, et.al.]

Here's the other side of the story which jibes with what I've read about Mariani. http://eater.com/archives/2011/03/18/nick-kokonas-to-mariani-i-stand-by-everything-in-the-book.php

[What did You Learn (To Cook) From Your Parents?]

I learned to incinerate meat and limpify vegetables.

[Corned Beef At Home: Recipes, Tips, etc.]

I find it amazing how great the whole process is. I know it sounds silly to get excited at the transformation, but pulling the corned beef out of the water bath always makes me smile and marvel.

[Tender Quick Curing Salt]

Many places will not sell nitrates as they can be used to make explosives ( sigh - sign of the times, I used to do this as a kid and had a lot of fun) but you can get it here http://www.sausagemaking.org/acatalog/Saltpetre__500_grammes.html

I did that too . My idiot friend almost burned his house down when he was grinding it one morning. He forgot to keep it damp. A word to the wise.

[Vegetables for a vitamin-K restricted diet]

Vitamin k restriction is different than other diets. Consistancy is important. You can't restrict 4 out of 5 days. It has to be every day.

I'd talk with the doc and find out how little she can actually have.

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[UK food writing rant]

In some ways food writing can be as crappy as sports writing, which, unless done by an unusual talent seems required to be cliche-ridden and awkward. The same sins are committed by sports writers and bad food writers. Most of the food sins have been recounted...use of pretentious jargon (eg flavor profile), chiche'd hyperbole (eg decadent), pointless jargon (eg aromats instead of aromatics..Ruhlman!). Where food writing separates itself from sports writing is the use of the too-clever put-down. Our UK colleagues in particular seem to relish snark, and it detracts from their work.

[The Revolution (new restaurant concept)]

I'd do a treatment of this project and send it to food network or one of them.

[Pizza]

Not trying to be disagreeable. Perhaps it has to do with the frame of reference?

I distill pure water for many uses. Everytime I serve distilled water to friends, I always get the same reaction,"Something is wrong with your water. It has a strange taste."

I have had many excellent pizzas in Vancourver. Perhaps you guys are so used to lousy pizzas elsewhere you are using them as standards to judge Vancourver pizza?

dcarch

Very possibly right. You have presented the flip side of my position.

Re distilled water. To me, DW is just wet, but not tasty in the least. We drink well water that is full of iron and lime. That sounds terrible, but it really is satisfying drinking water.

[Pizza]

I have a generic answer to the question.

Its the same answer as the one to "why are there no good cheesesteaks in the South?", or "Why can't I get a good Reuben sandwich in Dallas?" or "why do the fish tacos suck in Philly?" (boy do they!)

I think its because the average consumer in those areas doesn't know what good is. There is no local standard of comparison. Without that standard a pizza place can get away with cooking in a convection oven, using sweet sauce, and having a puffy bready crust. If that's all you've ever had it doesn't seem bad at all.