RWells

Julia had been quoted in several interviews professing a love of MacDonald's Quarter Pounders.

Damn I missed it.

Chris, thanks for the link. I guess I've been using a similar technique, Pedro had a link in that thread as well. Seems to work pretty well. Good luck with your new sealer.

Chris I will be looking forward to your follow up posts. By the way what is your technique for stock filled bags with a Food Saver?

I think Ruhlman is on to something. Anything that required as much research and dedication as Modernist Cuisine is going to take quite a bit of time to infiltrate our psyche fully. An early member of the legendary eGullet Sous Vide thread who knew nathanm as one of a handful of go to arbitors who could work through a problem with clarity and precision, I understand that this book has been a work in progress, one of increasing scope and incredible dedication. Once Nathan became Dr.Nathan Myhrvold, scientist, Microsoft executive and billionaire, he admited to us that he was writing the definitive Sous Vide book and that the focus was constantly changing and expanding. The New York Times waits for no review, but I think the measure of this book will be borne out over time.

Alton Brown has been living at the Food Network too long. He is truly one of my favorites, that being said the bar has fallen mightly at the home of Sandra Lee, Guy Fieri, Any contestant or even winner of The Next Food Network Star, Racheal Ray..........remember when they used to make fun of Emeril. He would be a god in the current line up. Anyone who brings science and enlightenment to the culinary arts is to be respected. Harold Magee, Shirley Corriher (a frequent guest on Good Eats) and especially now Nathanm and his crew are to be respected. Any serious culinarian should always be curious as to the why of cooking. Applying scientific rigor to cooking can only be a good thing. You can argue a lot of things about this book but the scholarship is undeniable.

I think the woman he was giving crap to made the final 10 right before he got shot down in record time. I loved it when the Chicken/Waffle guy responded to his "Everyone loves wings" with "my wife doesn't". Wang responses to the guy who is twice his size that he doesn't know from a doornob? "She's not very smart." I think that the production staff should be commended for not keeping the creep around merely to stir the pot, ala Top Chef. Karma however is a bitch. Or more correctly in the case of "reality" TV, editing is a bitch.

Very funny indeed. He did forget my favorite though, "little wangs", the bad wings and worse BBQ sauce guy who thought he was God's gift to the world. Kind of like Bobby Flay come to think of it. Of course the best episode is where all of the judges, save Bobby shoot down a burger joint asking, "does the world really need another burger joint". To which Bobby replies "hey I have a chain of Bobby's Burgers." Doh!

Ahh come on they presented the Guy Fieris up front and summarily booted them out the door. If you wanted to see banal click to the Food Network right after the NBC show. We were teased with a couple of "Chopped Judges get their butts kicked" promos so I tuned in expecting to see Scott Conant and Alex Guarneschelli floundering and what did I get? The battle of the Next Food Network Stars rejects!

You know, not as horrible as I expected. Bobby Flay is one of my least favorite food people. That said he was toned down considerably. While they had some of those total losers, you know the drill, American Idol's ten people to laugh at for three episodes, they booted them rather than keeping them around. The obnoxious jerk, who pitched the wings and my great BBQ sauce got told that his wings sucked in 10 seconds and was booted out the door.

I always get the impression that no matter what 2/3s of the line cooks they have on this show would mop the floor with the majority of the judges. My favorite are the "restauranteurs". In my day anyone dumb enough to put up the money for a restaurant has no business commenting on the quality of someone else's cooking skills. I know that the majority of the stuff that inflames the audience is the result of editing and hype induced by the production staff. We've been all over the good and bad character editing.

Well the Food Network has finally come up with a show that doesn't involve (hair) mousse, tattoos or edgy guys who can't cook. Actually it does involve them, it just puts them in an the uncomfortable light that they belong in. Chopped All Stars premieres tonight. The premise of this show is to take some of the people from the Food Network pantheon and put them in totally time constrained cook offs using absolutely absurd ingredient baskets. The further twist for a lot of these "chefs" is that they have been featured on this show as judges being being snarky and inappropriate with regular contestants. The Food Network unfortunately did not take this to its logical end, providing judges that were chefs that these "food industry professionals" abused on the regular show. No the judges are some of the same snarky "food industry professionals" who have been judging all along and some of whom have apparently refused to participate as contestants.

It is also important to note, as was mentioned earlier, the american public is completely oblivious to the concept of high quality, sharp knives.

Here's the scam. The neighbor's kid is graduating from High School and casting about for funds to attend college. Cutco, through a pretty shady marketing company offers these kids, money for selling these knives and puts them in competition with each other by offering nominal "scholarships" for selling the most knives. The real scam is when the deal is done (either you break down and buy a knife from the cute neighbor kid or not). You are asked for "referrals" of friends who probably also know this kid. Now none of us would fall for this from the telemarketer or the door to door sleezebag but for the cute innocuous neighbor kid it's OK. Cutco's marketing arm has this perfect storm where a high percentage of people buy even crappy knives because they were "referred" by a "friend" to the puppy dog kid next door. Hell the kid is getting scammed as much as you are. This is one side step from the door to door Bible sales kids and the magazine salespeople.

Hey I am a huge Tony fan from way back. The folks of Top Chef have never claimed to be anything more than what they are, a vehicle for Bravo to make as much advertising revenue as they can. Tony on the other hand has long expressed revulsion with the sellouts and "Applebys' Hawkers" of the food world. I think it is time that Bad Tony reflect on what makes him so special to the world. A clue, it does not involve shilling for credit cards from the evilest of empires. Many have expressed that we, the unwashed, just don't understand Bad Tony's newly found vehicle of irony and the profound use of the tongue in cheek. Advertising for Cialis or adult diapers would have been funny, shilling for the entity that threatens the very existence of this country is neither funny or cool. Bob