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leviathan

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Everything posted by leviathan

  1. I thought Batali attended Le Cordon Bleu in London after he graduated from Rutgers? Today, if you're starting out, it seems like you need to go to culinary school. Even famous chefs who didn't go to culinary school seem to prefer employees who have had some formal training.
  2. Cook's Illustrated recommends Zojirushi Neuro Fuzzy and Warmer NS-JCC10 as the best, and National as best buy. But, it doesn't seem they were testing rice cookers with regards to brown rice. I don't know, wouldn't you just add more water for brown rice?
  3. In western style places, the restaurant makes its money on beverages such as wine and drinks. Its on those items that the restaurants enjoy the highest markup, and where they really make their money. But, with chinese restaurants, I don't often see customers drinking anything more than tea. So, how do chinese restaurants make their money then?
  4. I've seen those signs too(although nothing about measuring) and think that buffets have every right to that policy. I've witnessed people at all you can eat sushi buffets, where they will take the whole thing- the rice and the topping, but then only eat the topping and throw away the rice. As for Chinse buffets, I haven't eaten one in many years since my family went on a tour guided bus trip to Yellowstone, where we stopped at every all you can eat Chinese buffet for lunch or dinner for the entire trip from California through Idaho and Wyoming to Montana and back. The first Chinese buffet on the trip wasn't very good, and it didn't get any better when you ventured into states such as Idaho for Chinese food. Part of the problem was that the food was exactly the same, horribly mediocre at every buffet. I'm convinced that every single buffet used the same source, where it was all bottled up and shipped to them. Every buffet had the exact same menu- fried rice, won ton soup, general tsao chicken, a few spare rolls pretending to pass itself off as japanese, and the dessert would be the ice cream you see at soup plantation and sizzlers.
  5. Is there any reason why you're using the whole tangerine peel, and not just using a grater to get the zest of the peel?
  6. Here are some old posts and subsequent replies on cleavers: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...dpost&p=1186684 Here is an old post on shopping for a wok and where I bought mine. (Note: I don't like the manager at The Wok Shop! ) http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=85547 P.S.: Welcome to the China forum! ← Thanks for the warm welcome, and the threads. In the Cali forum, I noticed that you were down in SoCal and ate at A&J, which used to one of my favorite Chinese places to eat in SoCal. Did you get to eat at Small Wei in Huntington Beach? It is a minor tragedy what happened to the place, which was IMHO, one of the best Chinese places in all of Orange County. I found a Cooking Illustrated, aka America's Test Kitchen, book to look at its equipment recommendations for a wok. Yet, it didn't really recommend any brands so I guess they don't really recommend one for the american cook. If the wok won't work in a american kitchen, could you get the same dishes simply by using a frying pan and sauteing your dishes. It seems like they're doing the same thing.
  7. I wasn't sure if this topic belonged in this subforum or the kitchen tools but are there any particular brands you'd recommend for Chinese equipment such as woks and cleavesr for Chinese cooking? Is there a Chinese All-Clad version, or a Chinese brand that's considered the best value? The only brand I've heard of is Joyce Chen's, but I live in SoCal so I have access to ethnic stores and shops. And, has anybody seen America's Test Kitchen recommendations, and do you agree with them? I was thinking of buying their Chinese book just for their recommendations, but I think they were probably limited to what was available to them.
  8. Thanks for the answers. So, would it be correct to assume, if we're talking about cast iron, then you should heat up the cast iron for a few minutes before adding oil and/or food to it. And, Restorer, Wouldn't your example with the garlic end up burning the garlic? If you heated up the pan and then added oil and garlic, woudn't the garlic have less exposure to high heat and therefore less likely to burn?
  9. Ooh, I used to love this place; it was one of my favorite chinese places to eat. But, for some reason, I just don't feel the same love for it. Maybe, I've eaten there too many times. And, I think they made their tripe less spicy too.
  10. I've noticed in some recipes, they'll tell you to heat up the pan for a couple of minutes and then add oil and/or food. But, in other recipes, they recommend you to heat up the pan and oil together before adding food. I'm confused when you do the former vs. the latter.
  11. I think its risible that american cookbooks get dumbed down for home use since I doubt that many buyers end up actually trying to cook the recipes from those celebrity driven, high end cookbooks. I have no idea what the percentage of buyers who actually try to follow those recipes, but its got to be pretty low. Instead, I think most buyers use it for food porn, and just look at the pretty pictures. That, I suspect, is why prices for american market is lower. If the prices went too high, that would price out the majority of the buyers who are buying it just to look at the pictures. Its one thing to pay $30 just to look at some pictures of food, and its another matter to pay $300 for a cookbook you're not actually going to use the recipes for. So, if the european cookbooks do not make any compromises, how involved are the european celebrity chefs with their cookbooks? I've been surprised to learn how detached american chefs are with the process of making their cookbooks.
  12. I'm really jealous at what everybody's found. I lived, or at least, my parents lived, in a fairly nice area and I never stumbled upon so nice. If anything, people had unrealistic prices for the items I've seen at garage sales. And, it's been my experience, that you'll find better stuff in less desireable areas. Has anybody else noticed how Target is donating all their items to Goodwill. They're brand new, but I might as well have just bought them from Target at the prices Goodwill is selling them for. I would think that with EBay that it would be unlikely that you'd be able to fortiously stumble upon some of the deals people have found. I did find some brand new, opened wine charms from Pottery Barn for two dollars that I bought for my mom. Personally, I think wine charms are pretty silly and I wouldn't have bought them but I knew my mom wanted some. For books, I've found James Beard's American Cookery, New York Times Cookbook, LaRousse Gatronimique, Marcella Hazan's The Classic Italian Cookbook, Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking together for a good price. They're the older versions so they're not updated, but I don't know how much of a difference that makes. I think Hazan's is a first edition, but I don't really know how to distinguish if something is a first edition or not. Not that it really matters, since that book is only in fair condition.
  13. Does it make a difference? And, if it does, which one would you recommend? I have Marcella Hazan's original 'The Classic Italian Cookbook' so would it be worth it to get her Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking if Essentials is just a combination of her earlier works. Did she tweak the recipes, and if so, which version would be better? (Its strange that the copyright for The Classic Italian Cookbook is earlier than the reported publication date I found on Internet) I also have older editions of James Beard's American Cookery and New York Times Cookbook by Craig Claiborne, and I'm just wondering if there's any signifigant changes between the older versions and the updated ones.
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