skipper10

(Host's Note: This discussion was split off from the Will Immersion Blender Hurt My Sourdough Starters? topic) I made Nancy Silverton's sourdough starter following instructions published in Washington Post Food section, I believe it was in 1993, when Julia's "Cooking with Master Chefs" came out. I love the bread it produces, people who taste it for the first time inevitably ask me for the name of the bakery I bought it from, they say that this is the best bread they have eaten in the States. I no longer keep the starter in the fridge, not enough space, and now that the kids are out of the house I don't bake bread as much or as often. This is what I do: feed the starter as instructed three times, I no longer follow the time schedule, by now I know when it is ready for the next feeding or baking. It no longer takes three days in my kitchen either, it is much faster in the summer and slower in the winter as we tend to keep house temperature on "sweater warm." Starter tells me when it is ready to be used, not the clock. After I bake the bread, I measure out my leftover starter into 18 oz portions and freeze them either in plastic containers or freezer bags. (Yes, I date them and use older ones first.) Before the next baking I defrost my frozen starter in the fridge and proceed with feedings. I never have leftover starter as I try to use as much as I can, save for the next batch and often share with foodie friends. I am sooooooo envious that you are able to work all that dough by hand. It must be so rewarding. Good luck with your baking. skipper

Thyroid? Psychological issues? With absent dad and tired mom, food may be the only source of comfort. Poor kid. Poor mom.

I wonder if the boy has access to medical care. The reporter does not say whether he has been examined by an endocrinologist, psychiatrist, etc. I think, at this stage, he needs a good doctor, not foster parents.

I stopped watching it. Based on what I've seen so far I won't be wasting my time watching "The New Food Network Star" whoever it will be this year. I was interested in Jeffrey's recipes until he served crab salad with store bought potato? chips. Where did FN find these people? Not one of them seems to have cooking know-how or teaching ability. I wish them all well, but I hope they have other ways to earn a living.

If you have access to Patricia Wells' Province book -- try her clafouti recipe, use cherries with stones in. You will not be sorry. If you make it, would love to know what you think. Her crust is very interesting, my daughter started making it when she was 7, but no one who ate it believed that she made it all on her own. Can't give you the page number, daughter is in Europe, have no idea where the book is. skipper

We love caramelized onions and use them often, especially in the winter. After years of trial and error I started following the Bouchon technique for chopping and caramelizing onions, definitely the best, although NOT a " quick and easy" way of doing it. Because I multitask in the kitchen I use my electric skillet for onions. Works like a dream. When my daughter left for college I had to buy a second electric skillet. She hated cafeteria food and fed herself pretty well using electric skillet, tiny rice cooker and a microwave. We also take it with us when we go to the beach where most restaurants have long lines and greasy fried food.

In case you get a bushel of obdurate oysters don't forget to arm yourself with an ordinary beer can opener, hammer and pliers. From Julia Child's Kitchen, page 165 Julia Child & Company, page 112 Good luck.

Interesting. Awhile back I've seen it in a restaurant supply store for under $70 on special, not sure which model, but it flew of the shelves while I went home to check it out on the internet. When I got back to the store they were gone. Will investigate some more. Thanks.

Decisions!!!!!Decisions!!!!!!! Should I get the "old" termapen on sale for $74 or the new improved model for $96? Has anybody been using the new model? Is it really that much better? http://www.thermoworks.com/products/thermapen/tpen_home.html

I've been making Nigella's recipe which is basically all these, plus good olive oil, sliced Kalamatas and some chopped Italian parsley. We love, love, love it around our place. ← Jaymes I've heard of this salad and it sounds delicious but I haven't made it yet. Can you share what kind of feta cheese you use? I want to use the type of feta that doesn't crumble but that holds together when sliced or cut into cubes. Thanks. ← Well, that could be a problem. I'm not really a 'feta expert,' but all of the real fetas I've had do crumble at least some. I very much prefer a real feta from either Greece or Israel. I find that they have more flavor, more 'tang' than others. They are much more expensive than the US-made "Feta-style" cheeses, but I don't think there's any comparison in flavor. As far as the crumbling thing goes... I do cut them into squares. They hold up fairly well at least for a while. But I am unaware of any feta that won't crumble at all. I just don't think it's in the nature of that particular type of cheese. ← Thanks. I'd probably need to just compare different kinds of feta (I think there's even French feta?). I love that tang too, I just don't like it when it falls apart so easily that it ends up looking like scattered little curds of cottage cheese which I find visually unappealing. ← I've been making & loving this salad since the recipe appeared in Gourmet a while back. I actually prefer the tiniest specs of feta, as it tastes so much better. I am able to find Bulgarian feta in my neck of the woods, I've also used Costco feta and received no complaints. To me, the quality of the Olive Oil and herbs used with this recipe is most important. I've also made it sans olives simply because I did not have them. cheers. Skipper

You may be on to something, I will have to check my notes and the menu, but I think I did have a tiny bit of pickled eggplant. My only disappointment, if I can call it that, was that all those amazing pickles and other veggies were served very sparingly, while chef was very generous with protein; look at all those appetizers, chicken, beef and tuna. Is this how Indonesians eat? Unfortunately I have to run, (picking up friends from Dulles in VA and then on to a Swiss feast for lunch in MD) so I can't think about Flavors until much later today. Meanwhile, I would really appreciate some info about Indonesian rice. James Oseland was so concerned about his, and at one point he said that if our prayers don't work we would have to eat rice from (Chinese?) carry out. Salvadorans eat a lot of rice, granted there were language issues, but why would they screw up rice? What kind of rice do Indonesians normally eat? Does it in any way resemble Uncle Ben's? Thanks.

On Tuesday we had Indonesian meal from Cradle of Flavor prepared by James Oseland and what he called a "Salvadoran brigade." Although I've spent a big chunk of my life in Asia I've never had Indonesian meal before, and had it not been for Chris Amirault's response to my recent post, probably, would have never have had one. Thank you Chris, and, thanks for your help with picture posting. The food was amazingly good and so different from anything I've ever tasted before. The aromas were so unfamiliar and so intoxicating. I don't have enough words to describe the interplay of different unfamiliar tastes, the complexities they create and how unexpectedly a tad of something rounds up the entire sensation. This was one meal that I would have eaten and not asked for wine, but, this was a "Wine" dinner. JO diplomatically refused to discuss the wine part, he was very funny and after the "rice crisis," that apparently was taking place in the kitchen was resolved, easy going throughout the evening. Because there was some issue with rice he made all of us "pray" for rice while we were drinking Singapoure Slings and Mai Tais and eating appetizers. The appetizers were good, but the dip sauces were incredible, each one was more interesting than the other: The Shrimp was fresh water from Florida. The first course - Crispy Hicama and Pineapple Salad, Rojak (p.159) blew my socks off. I could have eaten the whole bowl. Not a drop of oil in the dressing that was very stingily drizzled over the fruit and vegetables, but it was so good. Dry shrimp paste was another revelation. I can still taste it. (Salad was served with Rose de Syrahh, "Syrose". Guffens Aux Tourettes, France, 2008) JO said that the Spice Braised Tuna, (Ikan Bumbu Rujak, p242) is a breakfast dish in Spice Islands. In the book he warns "not to overcook tuna," mine, unfortunately, was seriously overcooked. I suppose his brigade did not read his book but braised tomatoes in that sauce were divine. Tuna was served with wine from Argentina;Torrontes Reserva, Nieto, Mendoza, 2008 Javanese Chicken Curry with Sauteed Bok Choi ( Opor Ayam p.275 & Acar Timun p. 132) Chicken did not look very appetizing, but it was sooo good with pickled eggplant. Again, the sauce and spices made the dish. (We were served Cotes-Du Rhone Blanc with this) Chicken was followed by Sambal Undang p 262, Stir Fried (perfectly I should say) Sweet Water Shrimp with rice and Italian red wine Aglianico, Mastroberrardino, Campania. Last main course was Beef Rendang with Javanese Cucumber & (Really good) Carrot pickles Rendang Daging Sapi, p304v& Nasi Kuning, p178 with Auastralian Shiraz-Viognier and my plate is clean because since tuna, I was putting most of my food into a doggie bag. Yes, there was a dessert, but I have no idea of its origin, it tasted like a ginger bread / cake. It was not on the menu and I was too full to ask. My head is now buried in Cradle of Flavor. Where to start? Must get dried shrimp paste! James Oseland gave all of us Fresh Kaffir Lime Leaves urging us to incorporate them into our cooking. We also got copies of (May) Saveur, and he said that the next SAVEUR issue is all about Texas. James Oseland with our designated driver.

I'm guessing that would be why he ran the BOH for such a short period of time before Tower was hired as the chef. You also fail to mention that the very next sentence reads: "Alice, superb cook though she had become, could not imagine herself behind the stoves." ← I used the quote you refer to in my post # 363. I retyped the entire paragraph. This thread is fascinating, but I have tons of things to complete before I can read all posts. sorrrry.

For the same reason that you could read a book about Danny Meyer and see tons of references to the ways his ideas about food have informed his restaurants. This fork of the discussion is beginning to become a little nonsensical, with Alice Waters' proponents reacting to everything other than unferrered admiration as an attack that must be defended against. The question remains: When was Waters running that kitchen? Let's make a timeline of Chez Panisse chefs. It is actually quite difficult to figure out who the chefs at Chez Panisse have been. Even the Chez Panisse web site doesn't let you know that it is David Tanis. Here is what I have been able to find out so far: Paul Aratow 1971 - 1972 Jeremiah Tower 1972 - 1978 Mark Miller 1978 - 1979 ??? 1979 - 1982 Paul Bertolli 1982-1992 Jean-Pierre Moulle - 2000 David Tanis/Christopher Lee 2000 - 2004 David Tanis 2004 - Current Mitch, before you jump in here, I should point out that the gap between 1979 and 1982 doesn't necessarily mean that Alice was running the kitchen at that time. What it means right now is that I wasn't able to figure out who the chef was in a 10 minute search of the internet. Whether or not the restaurant web site calls Alice the "executive chef" or not is really moot. She's the owner. And I don't think anyone is denying that she has been a guiding force behind that restaurant throughout its history. But that doesn't necessarily mean that she was ever running the kitchen or having a primary responsibilty for designing the menus, etc. Indeed, there seems to be someone right now who has that job, and it ain't Alice. Again, the word "chef" at this point has become diluted to the point where people want to call me a "great chef" despite the fact that I am a home and semi-professional (as in, the occasional small-scale catering gig) cook and have never run a professional kitchen. This is similar to the way that people seem to want to (incorrectly) call anyone who plays an instrument "maestro." If we would like to use "chef" to mean "the person who runs or has run a professional kitchen where they had a primary responsibility of devising the menu and seeing that the kitchen executes that menu to spec" then it is not clear that Alice Waters has ever been a chef. If you want it to mean something else, then yea... she's probably a chef. So am I. ← I've got to go, but, if this thread is still here later on, I will return. According to the McNamee book: Page 43 "...As construction progressed the reality of the unforgiving hours of drudgery that are sine qua non of chef began to sink in. When he learned what his salary would be, his mind was made up. Cheffing at Chez Panisse was not going to be Paul Aratow's career." I would also like to clarify that I am not Alice Waters aficionado, I am actually quite neutral towards her. I am not expert on her life or activities, I've read a number of articles and books that mention her and read her biography.

You brought up the book and I thought you've read it. According to the book over the years Alice did her share of cooking, she took over every time her chefs were away, including Jeremiah, who, as you know, took extended trips to Europe to see Olney, to the Carribbean, and so on. I don't know how much time Alice spent in the kitchen, but there are numerous mentions of her exhaustion, including temporary loosing eyesight. she seems to have worked very hard. p95 Anne Isaak describes how she met Alice :.."there was nobody in the restaurant....There was this woman at a large sink, cleaning trout. Alice. P 137 Alice, for whom extended stays in the kitchen were exhausting, needed a vacation... I don't have time to go through the book now, but, as I recall, the book ends with Alice cutting down her travel and other activities and focusing on Chez Panisse.

That's interesting, isn't it, that she's listed on THE RESTAURANT'S WEBSITE, as the executive CHEF, even though she's not in the kitchen a whole heckuva lot. Just like a lot of other executive chefs who don't exactly get their whites dirty. And she won the Beard award for Best Chef - that is one tainted award, in my opinion. On the back flap of Bourdain's cookbook..."executive chef." So whatever he calls himself, and whatever Alice calls herself, at some point they were both executive chefs. ← Could somebody please explain to me why Alice should not be called Chef, and what difference does it make? I did not go through the entire Thomas McNamee book, but every page I randomly opened had a reference to her cooking or standards she set for Chez Panisse. By the way, Aliceo says "It's hard to be successful and not have some people be upset with you." p 43 Alice, superb cook though she had become, could not picture herself behind the stoves. She wanted to be in the dining room--with people, personifying the open-hearted hospitality that she saw as fundamental to the restaurant's identity. She also wanted to determine menus. She would certainly be in the kitchen as well. She alone would dictate how every dish was to be prepared, down to the fines touch of tecnique: how brown a particular saute should be, how many shallots to sweeten a sauce, how finely chopped. She knew exactly how she wanted everything to taste, to look, to smell, to feel. P 95 In Jeremiah's absence Alice took over as a chef. P 134 In January 1977, Alice Waters for the first time assumed the title of chef of Chez Panisse....her sous chef Jean-Pierre Moulle... P 138 Starting in January 1978, therefore, Jean-Pierre would function as a chef, while Alice, though overseeing the front of the house, retained the title... ..."History," Charles Shere observes, "is littered with the bodies of men who feel they should have gotten more of the credit than Alice." P 138 -139 "I thought about this issue a lot," says Greil Marcus......."Chez Panisse is Alice's idea. It's Alice's values. It's Alice's standards.......if she were hit by a bus, the restaurant would close. I don't think it would sustain itself. When Alice is in Berkeley, she is at the restaurant all the time, and there is never anything that is right. She is always finding fault, whether it's with service, or food preparation, or ingredients, or the way something is cooked. That's because she has a clear idea about every aspect of what restaurant is. And nobody else does. Nobody else d has the complexity of vision that she does."

Could it be that this quote is taken out of context? ← It couldn't be. She's not a chef. She doesn't consider herself a chef. She's a restaurateur. She knows it and has no hesitation saying it. She's commonly referred to as a chef, but that's not accurate. This review of Waters's biography does a good job with the chef language: ← from "Alice Waters and Chez Panisse" by Thomas McNamee page 68 As chef, Alice delved deep into the provinces of France for recipes hardly ever seen on this side of Atlantic: cou de canard, duck neck stuffed with duck meat and foie gras; jambon en saupiquet, a very old recipe, ham in a vinegar-piqued cream sauce; cassoulet, the laborious white bean casserole with duck or goose confit; aillade de veau, veal stewed with tomatoes and lots of garlic, the sauce thickened with bread crumbs; ris de veau a la lyonnaise, scallops or sweetbreads with a sauce of chopped hard-boiled eggs, mustard, capers, cornichons, and chives; choucroute garnie, the steaming heap of juniper-redolent sauerkraut piled with pork loin, ham, bacon, preserved pork belly, and an omnimum-gatherum of sausages; and, with a frequency attesting to its popularity with the Chez Panisse crowd, Victoria's archetypal bistro dish lapin a la moutarde.

Could it be that this quote is taken out of context? If I recall correctly, Chez Panisse staff was cooking dinner in Italy under difficult circumstances; they were not getting fresh fish and other supplies they needed, stock pot was too small and Alice was not able to invite friends she wanted to be there because the woman who was in charge of the event would not talk to Alice.... As I understood it when I read it, AW made that statement because she wanted everyone to know that Chez Panisse chefs were the best. Earlier in the book there is a statement by Alice saying that she "never wanted to be a chef, but had to be one" after some chef quit. If I recall correctly, according to her authorized biography not only Alice cooked in the Chez Panisse kitchen, but no menu was made and no food/dish was served without her approval.

It means what it says: fish born and raised in a hatchery located within the named watershed (Copper River), then released into the wild. As you can see, this is a very small proportion of the total sockeye population. Additionally, keep in mind that "hatchery released" is totally different than "farmed". Farmed fish spend their entire lives on the fish farm, and are fed manufactured feed by the "farmers" (aquaculturists), and are frequently administed supplements, including antibiotics. Once hatchery fish are released (which happens as the same age as wild fish would normally leave their home streams for the open seas), they feed and live the same as wild fish, then return to their home waters to spawn. The hatchery program is more akin to "ranching" than "farming". The Alaskan program was introduced in the 1970s when wild salmon stocks were exceedingly low. The wild stocks have since rebounded dramatically and much care has been taken by Alaska to reduce risks to wild salmon fitness. ← Thank you, I did not not know that.

"During this period I learned some Turkish. Well, one word to be precise. Baksana. I must have heard it a thousand times as Gino and Julian yelled it at each other. As the creditors circled and closed in they each would hide and if one of them was nabbed he would say that particular area fell within the other's purview. As I understand it, baksana means "look" or "see" or "pay attention." I almost died of laughter. Having lived in Turkey "bak sana!" brought lots of memories backl. bak=look and sana is a form of sen=you (in familiar form) it basically means look here! I am going to share "baksana" as one word idiom with my Turkish friends. As soon as I stopped laughing I ordered your book from Amazon.

What does Sockeye (hatchery released) mean? I thought all salmon from Alaska is wild. What a bummer.

Crock pot? Wonder what Aidells and Fine Cooking would say about that... they should have thought of it and mentioned it. I don't have a crock pot and doubt that there is a crock pot large enough for Barbecue-Braised Bourbon Beef with Mustard Glaze that I really want to make. However, you got me thinking! I could probably set up my Turkey roaster next to my grill outside, turn it on "low and slow" and braise away. I am a real Aidells recipe aficionado. I love his MEAT and sausage books and can't wait to try his latest offerings.

Thanks. Pleased to meet fellow charcoal grill person. My three pronged jury is still out: cool kitchen versus grill versus wait till fall. I am going to read your entire thread as soon as I can, I find this subject very interesting. Wonder how Aidells would respond to the idea of Oseland beating him, at least partially, to the technique and how Oseland would respond to FC article... Hope they are all good friends... Well, I am going to James Oseland's dinner later this month. Perhaps, I could ask him a few questions. http://press.org/wire/article.cfm?id=922 Skipper

Fine Cooking came up with a new issue(99) that has a picture of "Barbecue-Braised Vietnamese Short Ribs" on the cover. The article is by Bruce Aidells ( whose recipes have always worked well for me in the past). This article "A new way to to grill: Barbecue-braising" includes recipes for spare ribs, Thai chicken legs with lemon grass glaze, Moroccan lamb shanks, bourbon beef and Vietnamese short ribs. All cooked using his four step technique: 1. Season, 2. Sear on the grill, 3. Braise in a pot on the grill, 4. Remove from the pot, return to the grill and glaze. The pictures of cooked meat are great, but there is no picture of a pot after it has been involved in long searing on the grill. OK, I have a cast iron dutch oven that could probably work without much damage. The kitchen will stay cool while I barbecue-braise, BUT we use wood in our charcoal grill...Will we require a retired railroad worker to keep the fire going? The pictures look so good, (especially the Bourbon Beef) and Aidells sounds so convincing... What to do? Is this really a new way to cook meat, or have some of you been there and done it?

There is an article in today's Washington Post on RATIO too. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...9042800877.html