RWells
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Posts posted by RWells
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Damn I missed it.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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It is also important to note, as was mentioned earlier, the american public is completely oblivious to the concept of high quality, sharp knives.
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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.
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Um, Top Chef with Kenmore and the Glad Family of Products (among others)? I like Top Chef more than I dislike commercials.
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
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He didn't seem to be wearing the dust mask tightly during the cocaine scene...
Yeah, that Chase card scene was annoying, but he made up for it by making fun of Sandra Lee.
Dan
I didn't catch the Sandra Lee comment. Somebody quote it for me, I'll hope it can make up for cheesy product placement.
Bob
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The camera cuts to a hand with a bright blue credit card emblazoned with Chase Saphire (sp) and holds for a five count.
That was absolutely jarring, and made me think about sharks as hurdles.
I find the timing of this whole incident interesting. The whole ad concept for the new season of No Reservations has been the concept of "Good Tony" vs. "Bad Tony". It is fairly obvious that this is a response to mounting criticism from some of the show's long term fans that Tony has softened and has lost his snarky edge. Many of us are old enough to remember what Tony is truly good at, calling a spade, a spade with incite and clarity with a dose of the smart ass.
Bob
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Go to the fallout shelters. Loot the grocery stores. You thought the financial meltdown was the apocalypse? I thought I was watching an episode of the twilight zone. Somebody affirm that I saw this last night. Tony is sitting in the Istanbul sidewalk tapas/small plate joint with two lovely local ladies, they have the obligatory "all of these dishes form the backbone of this (insert cuisine) country's food heritage"discussion. It seems to be Ramadan and as the sun goes down the cafe starts to fill up with folks breaking their fasts and Tony says, "Gotta go. Let me get this one." The camera cuts to a hand with a bright blue credit card emblazoned with Chase Sapphire and holds for a five count. The episode then just moves along.
You know Tony it's not the Adult diapers or Cialis that you always joke about but it's pretty damned close.
Bob
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"I just think that when we start calling her the "female chef" we dumb the entire thing down. She's a chef. And she gave the other competitors a run for their money."
Thanks, Bob, not Roberta (!) Jen is a CHEF. A really talented one. That's all there is to it.
I'm losing track of this thread. I, Bob, was making the point that there are easily 10 great female chefs available to Top Chef and that the assertion that because food professionals were predominately male, Top Chef should be male dominated was a spurious one. It reminds me of the assertion over and over again by one of the surgeons I work with, "I've taken out 800 gallbladders in my time", to which we used to mutter under our breath, "And everyone of them was an unmitigated disaster." The fact that you stand in a kitchen and occupy space says nothing about your ability to function in that kitchen.
As far Jennifer goes, she was one of the top two or three "chefs" at the start of the show and proceeded to implode more and more frequently as time went on, not because she was a woman but because she did not handle stress well, lost her focus and ultimately made poor decisions. Look at the three finalists. Each of them had a singular focus that none of the others had. Things could be blowing up around them and they simply put their heads down and turned out their food.
Bob
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I have been hesitant to write about this, maybe I shouldn't. But, hell maybe I should. I am working with one of the bottom ones at the moment. She is not what I would call any sort of TC. Cool girl, but not anything of a high caliber.
This has been mentioned before, but it bears repeating. Professional cooking is a male-dominated profession. I am not saying it should be; only that it is. Since the producers cast an equal number of men and women, it stands to reason that the average female chef available to them is less capable than the average male chef, because the women are drawn from a smaller pool. It is therefore no coincidence that four of the last five chefs this season were men, and in six seasons there have been five male winners.
Jennifer Carroll was the only female chef this season whose food I would be eager to try, and Gail Simmons thought that Jen was, by a long shot, the best female chef that had ever appeared on the show.
I don't think we need to open this can of worms. But unfortunately it has been opened. The analysis that there are more male professional cooks, therefore there are more great professionals who are male is more than a bit of circular logic. If Top Chef wanted to go down the list of top female chefs exclusively they could find enough to have a talented, all female season. My experience has been that women who rise to the top tend to be really good because they HAVE to be even better to gain credibility that many of their male colleagues are simply granted. The BS that a truly talented woman has to go through in this "male -dominated profession" is daunting at best. This is one reason that I have had such a problem with Jennifer being so talented and so flakey emotionally. A bad stereotype that many would foist forward as being borne out. Trust me Top Chef there are plenty of really good female chefs to compete head to head with the really good male chefs of the world.
Bob, not Roberta
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I strongly disagree with Robert's "the best cook won." Yes, the best cook on that night won but not the best cook.
Yes, it is television and I guess that means we have to put up with the b.s. Does it have to be piled that deep though? Us foodies are a small, even minute portion of the viewers and I guess they need this crap to some extent to keep jane and joe couch potato tuned in. I like some of the drama myself and yes, they even get us to buy in (at least in small part) to the hype. I didn't care for Mike V regardless but they blew things way out of proportion to make him the villain for tv's sake. So be it.
I can't believe the misfortune of Kevin having to go try to compete in the finals, tense enough on their own, but having just split from his wife. His cooking and flavors are just so deep and soulful that there had to be a reason part of that was missing and we know the answer to why.
One of the most interesting points of all I feel is that the cooking of all 3 of the finalists seemed throughout to mirror their personalities so well. Mike V's personality was brash, bold, a bit contemptuous and out on a limb and his cooking was the same way. Bryan's personality was the most subdued, almost rigid, stoic, and just very planned. For him too his food followed his personality. Kevin's personality is playful, loyal to his roots, upbeat, with lots of conviction and depth. His food mirrored perfectly his personality. In the previous seasons, we haven't seen the high level of competiton we did here, nor did we see this mirroring of food and personality like we did either.
It is just such a shame that the show itself sold out so much this year. Maybe the show needs to learn something from the food. If the food is high quality you don't need gimmicks.
I have been around long enough to remember the original premise of the "Bravo" network. Bravo was envisioned as the network that would bring the masses opera, art house films and nonsalacious profiles of real actors above the age of 15. The total lack of commercial support for this business model caused virtually 180 about face almost immediately. So what are we left with? Project Runway, Top Chef, and, just a minute I have to gag, The Real Housewifes of ...insert your over leveraged geographic area. I suspect that we who are truly interested in food are lucky to have what we have. The stupidity, drama and total pointlessness of Project Runway and The Village Sluts has certainly crept into Top Chef but relatively only crept. The future does not bode well for Top Chef but at least they still have a lot of high level contestants.
Bob
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In that theme, my wife just commented that no on ever cooks rice on the show. And I remember reading somewhere that Colicchio hates rice...
This is a very interesting observation. I'm a budding senior citizen who has finally succumbed to the passion and is taking classes at a very good culinary school at the local Community College. We have a wide variety of chef's from the classically trained, overbearing European to the 23 year old whiz who staged at Bouchon and Trio. We were sitting around talking during a Veg/Starch Class and one of the Chef's started talking about the total absence of rice (save the occasional screwed up risotto) on the competitive cooking shows. The consensus was that no starch was harder to cook perfectly for service. One of the old school guys suggested that he knew of no restaurant in our large midwestern city that didn't use a large rice cooker because of their superiority in holding volumes of rice for service.
Bob
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It sounds exciting but at 1500 pages of self published technical data sounds like it could be expensive.
The book project is coming along very well.
Yes, it is going to be expensive. Current plan is ~1500 pages, bound into 3 volumes in a boxed set. We looked at a physical prototype of the book yesterday (with blank pages)- it weighs about 30 lbs. One thing I found interesting is that they say that there will be between 1 and 2 lbs of ink!
We have not set pricing yet, but it will likely be in the $300 range. Heston's Big Fat Duck coobook came out at $250, and the el bulli books are $350. We have about 3X the number of pages as el bulli books, and almost that multiple for Heston's book. So if we had the same price per page it would $1000+. The Joan Roca sous vide book is $200 for a much smaller number of pages - indeed our sous vide chapter is longer than his book.
We hope to eventually produce a cost reduced version. Heston has done that with a much cheaper $75 verison of his book, but it did not come out until long after the main version.
I know there will be people who will be upset about the price. I'm interested in getting feedback on this. I think that a lot of the issue is that cookbooks are typically priced very cheaply. It is a bit odd that to eat Thomas Keller's food you pay $250 per person at Per Se or French Laundry - the book is about the same as the tip on one meal.
We have taken a no-compromise approach to making the book with both thousands of person-hours of effort by a large team. We also have no-compromise in terms of photographs - we have color photos on every page. That is really expensive to produce, and expensive to print. Cookbooks published in the US cut corners everywhere - there are very few photos and the like. Most European cookbooks do too, but to a lesser extent, and books like Big Fat Duck cookbook, or el bulli cookbooks have much higher production values. However these books tend not to have as much in the way of step-by-step directions.
Coming from the world of academia I have no problem paying $300 for a work of primal scholarship. Trust me, something with that much content would be a bargain at twice the price. Put me down for one.
Bob
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I don't have any experience with any of the new books, but I will say that Barbara Tropp's masterful Modern Art of Chinese Cooking has absolutely the best instructions ever on pleating Chinese dumplings. My other two go-to books for dumplings are a circa 1975 Wei Chuan Dim Sum book and Florence Lin's Complete Book of Chinese Noodles, Duplings and Breads. All three of these books have the advantages of being multi-purpose books, each one with all sorts of very good recipes for things other than dumplings. Tropp's tome is a back-bone of my cookbook library -- there's no question that is the most well-worn book in my collection.
I have a copy of Barb Tropp's book and it is indeed masterful and a go to book for me as well. Every time I use it I am reminded that she is no longer with us.
Bob
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I am a huge fan of asian dumplings. There seems to be a large number of cookbooks out this year either devoted to or at least partially devoted to the topic. I am only going to buy/suggest one or two this holiday season. Which one or two should it be. Here is what I have seen so far Asian Dumplings, The Asian Grandmother's Cookbook, The Dumpling: A Seasonal Guide, Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking and the ubiquitous Momofuku. Please feel free to suggest personal favorites that I have overlooked.
Thanks in advance,
Bob
Chefs Favorite Junk Foods
in Food Traditions & Culture
Posted
Julia had been quoted in several interviews professing a love of MacDonald's Quarter Pounders.