Dr. Teeth

I like Meritage as much as any place in Boston and it's an easy walk from the Westin.

I'll second, or maybe third the suggestions of Peppin or The Way to Cook. Olney's Simple French Food is also excellent.

My pots. But I'm more passionate about knives. It's because if all my cooking items were consumed in a fire I'd buy the same pots again if I could, but I don't feel as if I've found the one perfect knife for myself yet. So essentially what I'm saying is that I would save my perfect little puppy, but leave my girlfriend, who I'm just not quite able to make it work with, to the flames. I feel bad about myself.

Think like a chef is a great cook book. One of my favorites, really has a focus on teaching technique rather than just recipies. I assume you already have La Technique and La Methode?

Asian markets mostly, I'm kinda mixed on Penzey's a lot of their blends (five spice powder, all their curries) taste a little off to me, particularly if I've eaten the real thing recently.

I'm stumped. He endorses Gustav knives, so I assumed it's one of those, but I would swear, having watched the video twice that it's an offset bread knife and gustav doesn't seem to make one of those. But I mostly just used google, so anyone with with better eyes or actual knowledge might know better than me.

Congratulations, great school.

All the time. It's sold as "Sour salt" at any supermarket with a Kosher food section. Wine as opposed to wine vinegar also adds an acidic element, surprised nobody mentioned it.

Anybody really think Hosea will be in the finals?

I have no problem with Leah staying, because the rules are clear: in team challenges, the whole team gets the win. Also, I think she's very clearly a better chef than Carla, who is still in the game.Radhika suffered because the judging is one challenge at a time, and not cumulative. Looking at just this challenge, there's a colorable argument that Radhika deserved to go, because she was the "owner" of the restaurant. But if you consider the whole body of work to date, Carla seems to wind up near the bottom over & over again, just managing to avoid elimination, while Radhika has generally been a star. With a bit better luck, I could have imagined her winning the season, while it is inconceivable that Carla would. But frankly, even judging this challenge in isolation, I would have sent Carla home, because this is fundamentally a cooking show, and on the losing team Carla cooked the worst food. Radhika proved she doesn't belong in the front of house, but the name of the show is Top Chef, not Top Host. ← That is exactly the type of arguement you have to present at the judges table too. Unfortunately it is also very cut throat to do so, but it is after all a competition. ← I'll miss Radika on the show, I thought she wasn't the most consistent chef, but she did cook some of the best food and had an interesting perspective. That said, she deserved to go. To belabor an already overstressed phrase, it's Top Chef, not Top Cook. One thing Radika had total control over was choosing the team and the job assignments, and she screwed both those up. That she got to choose first, and that Leah took her boyfriend with her first pick essentially gave Radika the first two picks. It's kind of criminal not to win with an advantage like that. After Leah chose Hosea, Radika could have taken Stephan and stacked her team, or taken Fabio to work the front of the house - she didn't. And she could have told Jeff to work the front of the house rather than wandering around like a zombie.

Beer's a pretty well established migraine trigger and your description is pretty classic for a migraine. It's not totally clear, but it's probably due to an amino acid called tyramine. In the future, most larger brewery beers have less tyramine (due to force carbination as mentioned in an earlier post), and bottled beers tend to have less than beer in kegs. Bad news is there are some other foods (cheeze, salami) that you may find you have a hard time with as well. You might want to go see a neurologist and get some meds for the next time you get the headache. Sorry about the headaches, they can be pretty nasty.

Reeses peanut butter cups. Only problem i've found is that the two cups to a pack container gives false hope to spouses and friends that you will be sharing with them.

Great looking corn fritters, Kim. Brisket looks outstanding

Red bull and Clamato with Everclear.

Congrats to egullet. Particularly grats to Sam.

Like Diet Dr. Pepper? You may be on to something; people may be cooking "just well enough" to get by. They probably don't want to showcase their best dish in the beginning. ← Hear me out on this. Mostly because this is the only place people will listen to me when I talk about game theory on Top Chef. My experience with reality shows, and sadly I watch a number of them, is that the shows are best on the first couple of seasons before people figure out that they aren't really trying to meet the person of their dreams or start a new civilization on a tropical island. After that, people start to approach the show as a contest, and usually act based upon the most efficient strategy to get the most possible for themselves out of the experience. If you win the quickfire (rather than finishing in second place) you get immunity or get an advantage that gives you a pretty good chance of not being the one sent home. Given that the "title of Top Chef," comes with 100,000 and that there are sixteen contestants this is worth about 6,000. It's worth less in the begining and more towards the end, but 6,000 is about the median value. So you cook to win, rather than just finish in the middle of the pack. If you win the elimination (rather than finish second) you get a copy of Padma's book. This is worth 24.99. So most folks, even later in the game, seem not to take risks in the elimination round. I only mention this because I noticed Colicchio and some of the other judges complaining about the chefs not cooking to win. I don't think the show would be hurt if the winners of the elimination consistently won a somewhat valuable prize, like the trip to Italy they gave away or the gas grill. Thoughts? Other folks feel it would hurt the show somehow?

Sometimes I rough chop them and then use them in a root vegetable soup that will be put through a blender before it's finished.

This is a low brow suggestion. Forgive me. Most good 4 year colleges offer work study jobs to students in the food services at the college. It's not Lutece, but you do get some work experience that might convince an employer that you aren't just some college kid who has no idea what he's getting into, will fool around and then quit in a couple months.

Oh, I forgot the best gift of all. I got a 10" Griswold cast iron frying pan that had been sitting in my in-law's garage gathering dust. Seasoning seems to have been stripped off of it somehow, but otherwise in great shape. Can't wait to re-season it and put it to use.

I agree with most of the above comments, Lisa and Gene both really needed to go. I think the comparison of Adrianne to Brian Malarkey is an apt one, and I think her future on the show will mirrior his: I think she will hand around, hitting singles, until the field narrows down to 5 or 6 and then she will just get outclassed by some of the other contstants. I'm pulling for Stefan and Fabio, although I am now pessemistic about Fabio's future he seems to have fallen back since his elimination win in the second episode. Anyone else think that they might want to encourage the chef's to cook a little more adventurously in the elimination challenge by offering some more substantial prize than a copy of the guest judge's latest cook book?

There are a few doctors floating around the site. I'm not ofering you a medical opinion, but it would greatly help if you could let folks know: 1) What happens to you when you eat the food - "a bad reaction," isn't really helpful and usually means that it gives people the runs or bad gas, neither of which means you have a food allergy, and they don't want to talk about it. 2) What, if any, testing you have had done for your allergy. Certain foods are hard to digest, and others have been more commonly linked to allergic reactions, so this isn't me just giving you a hard time.

Sorry to hear about your predicament. Just getting through a period of limited resources due to prolonged academic training. Most of the tips I might have for an a limited food budget have already been stated but: a) Asian markets are a godsend, particularly for fish. I can still buy a small fish, white bass or rockfish, that will feed two adults (with some rice maybe a vegetable) for less than 3 bucks. b) Once a week is omelet night, and once a week is a curry. Both help use up odds and ends from the vegetable drawer that would otherwise go bad. And both are cheap, <1.00 -2.00 for two adults. c) Scootin' long the Shore is an old Maine term for a meal made of hash browns. Cast iron skillet, yukon golds, knob of butter. Low heat for 30 min no turning, higher heat for 40 min, higher still for 20 min. It's fabulous. And cheap. Usually round it out with some cukes or pickles or a salad on the side. <1.00 for two adults if you buy the potatos in big bags. d) I buy whole chickens, take off the breasts and make cultlets for chicken marsala or piccata, then stew the legs and make stock from the backs and wings along with some chicken feet. Half the stock gets eaten the night it's made as Matzoah ball soup or chicken noodle, the other half gets saved for cooking stock. e) I like mashed potatos or polenta with the chicken. I just use plain ol' cornmeal for the polenta which sells at the Asian market for about 50 cents for a 12 oz bag. Never really broken down the cost, but I would guess cost is about 14.00 for three meals for two adults and some chicken stock. f) I do a lot of pasta and risotto as main dishes. For pasta I like aglio olio (if I have a good block of cheese), carbonarra, caremelized onion, vodka sauce, canned italian tuna (less than a buck a can at Costco, and it's not bad), marinara with squid or blue crabs or 40 - 50 count scallops (clams would be great, but I don't often find em cheap), tomato with canelli beans and arugala. All the pasta dinners come in pretty cheap, even the ones with seafood, <2.00 - 6.00 for two adults. g) Pork dumplings with napa and scallion made with pre-made (yes I should be ashamed) wanton skins make for a cheap dinner and make awesome lunch leftovers. h) I find a small indoor herb garden to be economical. I grow sage, italian parsley and I always promise miself I'm going to grow cilantro but never get around to it. i) Costco is nice for some staples, but only makes sense if you can buy in bulk and have space to store things. Sorry for the long post. Hope things get better.

Bob beat me to it, but I think it's too small and for a chinese chef's knife. Frankly I think your money would go farther someplace else $100 buys a lot of cleaver.

A 3 lbs block of Parmigiano carried by hand from DiBruno's in Phily's Italian Market. A kitchen-aid meat grinder attachment

I'm another OXO man. 3 pairs, all with stainless tips. I prolly should get a rubber tip pair at some point.