Tri2Cook

Water. Very rarely anything else regardless of where or what I'm eating.

I would agree with that as well. Some people are naturally predisposed to being better at certain things than others and may attain a higher level of proficiency for a given effort but, yes, athletics are also something the body is adapted to through training/practice.

Any job that requires heavy lifting is going to increase strength/muscle. Any job working in a hot environment is going to increase tolerance to that environment. Any job requiring repetitiveness can lead to repetitive stress problems. Any job requiring being on your feet all of the time can lead to problems related to that. In any job that causes some degree of pain or discomfort, the body (and mind) is going to learn to deal with that pain/discomfort. It's all tied to the work being done, not where it's being done. I'm not saying kitchen/bakery isn't hard work. I know it can be, I do it too. I just think it's a bit over the top to try to make it sound like some kind of special superhuman effort. It's just another work environment that will take some degree of toll on the body over time that you have to adapt to if you want to keep doing it.

Those look (and sound) awesome Kerry.

Agreed. That's why I thought the premise of the article was a bit silly. Every job takes some sort of toll on the body. If a person were paid to sit in a chair and do nothing for 8 or more hours/day, that would take a toll on the body. The kitchen is hard work but it's not doing anything special for conditioning in and of itself... there are a lot of fat, out-of-shape cooks out there doing just fine in their kitchens. I spend 6 days/week in the kitchen and, without all of the biking and watching what I eat that I do, I'd be one of them.

Breath deep... I know this isn't the age of patience but that's less than a week in business days for something already stated as being batch built to order and shipped end/beginning of week. Not the instant gratification of pulling something off the shelf at a store but for the advancements being made in quality:price, a little waiting should be worth it. I've waited much longer than that for shipping notices on things listed as "in stock" from some online vendors.

Yep, I understood. We're saying pretty much the same thing. I was reinforcing, not arguing.

The physically demanding outdoor work I did was also very dangerous work. Powerline right-of-way construction and maintenance. Operating chainsaws in dense brush, trees falling, industrial brush chippers, climbing into trees and operating saws while suspended from a rope, pulling tree growth by hand from live powerlines. Things of that nature. And once I'd worked my way up to a foreman position, I had all that plus worrying about the guys on my crew while they were doing those things. So it was physically and mentally demanding but (once I was used to it) it still wasn't as overall exhausting as some busy days in the kitchen can be. I think the repetitiveness of the kitchen can get into the head and become part of the equation. And I agree the kitchen isn't really like athletics. I used to ride motocross, I was heavily into whitewater kayaking until I moved to a place where it's not really an option, I went through a triathlon phase, I mountain bike and road bike now. All of those things tire me more physically than the kitchen does... but they refresh me mentally. But I'm not, and have never been, an elite athlete so I don't really know what that does to my body or mind.

Knives are tools. You take care of them but you use them (with common sense) for the jobs you need them for. I've never had a knife damaged by using it to crush garlic (It's not like you have to whack on a clove of garlic like you're using a hammer to crush it) but, if it did happen, I would just buy a new knife and still do whatever I needed it to do.

Before I started cooking for a living, I worked a very physically demanding outdoor job. If I compared the two, I'd say the old job left me more tired, cooking leaves me more drained. At the end of the day with my old job, my muscles were tired (like after a really good extended training session). At the end of a really busy day now, it's like the energy has been sucked out of me. My muscles aren't saying "okay, that's all we're going to do", it's as much (or more) a mental draining as physical. I can grab my road bike and go for a 20 - 30 km ride and it clears my head and actually kinda energizes me. I wouldn't say either job brings/brought about the conditioning of an elite athlete but I'd say my old job definitely came closer. Although, with the cooking, I have wondered If all that hunching over the plates might be helping me develop a fine Quasimodo physique...

If that bothers you I suggest you never eat in a restaurant again.I was thinking the same thing. There aren't a lot of cooks out there wearing any gloves at all while they handle your food and for every one you see on tv where the chef is yelling at the line cook for not taking a shower after touching the endive and before touching the arugula, there's a whole bunch of them answering phones, wiping their hands on their already dirty shirt, putting lettuce on your sandwich directly after putting a raw burger on the grill, etc. I guess it's easier to not think about since they're not standing right in front of you like at Subway... but there are much more offensive things than wiping some lettuce off the assembly line going on in a lot of places.

Just to be clear, I'm not shilling for the Sansaire. The Anova looks great. I'm just looking for the best I can get in quality:price and this one and the Sansaire at least appear to be pretty comparable in quality which means it comes down to price. $55 isn't insignificant in my financial world, especially when it's entirely related to shipping. There are some things that have been mentioned regarding the Anova that may lead me to go ahead and shell out the extra cost. It's a win for us no matter which one we buy considering what a quality unit cost not too long ago.

I don't... but if I decide to get it, I'll do it before the kickstarter ends so I know what my final price will be. Really, I don't think anybody is going to go wrong whichever they choose to go with. 6 months after we buy these, someone will come out with one that's somehow even better and costs $99. That's just the way technology works.

I'm pretty sure he was saying Anova lowered their price as a reaction to the Sansaire price, not the other way around. That said, the Sansaire is till cheaper if you live outside the U.S. Anova charges ~$75 for shipping to Canada, Sansaire charges $20.

I'd have to look up the recipe. I know I have that book somewhere, it was in my mom's cookbook collection that I inherited. I don't know if I've ever used it though. I just remember being a tiny bit disappointed because (true story), the first time I saw it on her shelf, a few years before she passed away, for some reason I read it as "Mad Hatter's Cookies" and got excited... and then realized that it wasn't actually that. She got a pretty good laugh out of it.

Duh... poutine! No, not seriously.

None of them. I won't watch Shows That Suck™ just because they are ostensibly food-themed.

If I use mozzarella (I don't always use it in a muffuletta, even if it is traditional), I just use sliced from the deli counter. But fresh mozzarella isn't an option where I live so don't take that as advice.

My menu is pretty much identical every day from wake-up to post-work. All Bran Buds with 1% milk before work. Fresh fruit or vegetable every couple hours while working. Lots of water. I'm not suggesting it's exciting but it keeps me energetic. Dinner is usually something that doesn't require a lot of work if I'm cooking. So I guess what I cook in general, other than for work, is... not much. If someone else is cooking, I eat whatever they cook.

Good grief. You are joking now right? I mean it's OK to list a couple of waters on the beverage menu, like with or without bubbles, with or without a lemon twist and maybe even a couple of brands, since they actually do taste a bit different, but make a standalone water list is just stoopid. And "water sommeliers" got to be a joke. Please tell me it's a joke. Saw this today http://eater.com/archives/2013/08/06/la-restaurant-has-a-water-menu.php A water sommelier? I think we've reached the point where some great celestial being should reach down and give us, as a species, a giant collective wedgie and tell us to get over ourselves.

Apologies... but it's too late to edit my original post. I somehow completely missed that this was in the "cookbooks and references" forum and thus didn't realize that my rambling thoughts on the subject were irrelevant to the topic at hand.

To me, soul food is home-style comfort food. I know it's commonly attached to race now but I think It's beginnings stemmed more from income level. Styles, methods and recipes aren't just going to vary across regions, they're going to vary from house to house. It's what mom/grandma/great-grandma/etc. made and, usually, what they made taste good using the cheapest of ingredients or what they had on hand. It's a classification of food I think is in more danger of disappearing than any other with the prevalence of convenience foods taking the place of "making do". I hope I'm wrong because some of the best food out there was born of people doing what they can with what they have.

Blueberries and chanterelles are nuts this year. I've been using chanterelles like the lady in the Frank's commercial uses the hot sauce... I put that *bleep* in everything.

The drink or the shot boss?

I read what you stated in your initial and follow-up posts (and the posts by others who share this dislike). That was what aroused my curiosity and made me want to dig deeper into the subject. I'm really not trying to nail those who don't like curry to a cross or anything, I was just searching for the common thread. If one person stated an all-inclusive dislike of any wide-ranging classification of a food, I might think it a bit odd... but when several people share that dislike I start paying attention and wondering what ties it all together. I'm just curious that way.