Tri2Cook

A banana poking through a hole hitting a cherry? No f'ing way that's a coincidence. "A more innocent time" my arse.

That would be a cool book as well. I'd buy it. I thought about asking on the Tailor Kitchen blog if he's still comtemplating a book but there doesn't seem to be much activity so it may not be read or answered any time soon.

That was a minus? I like sherbet! Sounds like it was a big success all-around. Where are the pics?

Maybe. It depends on how well made the ones from the pastry chef are. Some of the commercial shells that contain real butter are not too bad. People used to primarily eating typical grocery store pastry will think they're awesome. I prefer to make my own. Partly because I think they're better than the commercial stuff and partly because I don't use the same shell for every filling. The commercial shells frequently are a bit on the thick side as well. I don't like the commercial chocolate-lined shells. I find they have way too much chocolate in them. If I seal shells with chocolate or cocoa butter I like it to be extremely, almost undetectably, thin... even if there's a chocolate filling going in.

I wanted it when he hinted at the possibility. I still want it. I'll definitely buy it if he gets around to doing it eventually. I'm not holding my breath though. I haven't heard/read any of the usual rumours and pre-buzz whispers that usually float around when something like that is in the works. I'm not betting on it happening any time soon... if at all. There are four books I've really wanted to see happen. Sam Mason, Michael Laiskonis, Johnny Iuzzini and Alex Stupak. One down, three to go. I got a good dose of Alex Stupak stuff from the Alinea book but I'd still like to see him do a complete book himself.

I figured out the trick to finding the recipes easily. Just use the "rate the plate" thing and copy and paste the dish name into the search on the "recipes" page. I open the "rate the plate" page in one tab and the "recipes" page in another to avoid having to go through the pics over and over. Finds them every time.

Can you post the link to the print recipe? ← Yep. It's here.

When I was much younger I thought it would be a good idea to get my tongue pierced. In hindsight, it probably wasn't such a good idea and it's been removed for many years now. It fell out in the middle of a class 4 rapid while kayaking and I wasn't in a particularly safe place to mess with it so I spit it into the river and never replaced it. Anyway, the thing about that type of piercing is that you never completely get used to it being there. There's always something in your mouth that's not supposed to be and it's virtually impossible not to mess with it unless you make a conscious effort not too. That's why many people with tongue piercings end up with tooth problems, because you constantly move it around and clack it against the back of your teeth and stuff. It's pretty much automatic and you often don't even realize you're doing it until you notice people looking at you because they can hear it clicking against your teeth. I think maybe it's the body's way of saying "I'm not happy that's there so I'm going to constantly remind you that it's annoying". I'm not saying that makes it less off-putting, I just kinda understand why she does it.

The Bravo site sucks for putting the macaron recipe in video format instead of print and then only allowing it to be viewed within the U.S. Ok, I'll eat my words... found the print version. Bravo rocks! One final edit: they semi-rock. They do post the recipes but you have to be some kind of psychic to find them unless you happen to find a direct link on someone's blog or something.

Unless you have access to a paco jet or liquid nitrogen, yes to question 1 and no to question 2. I don't have a paco jet and liquid nitrogen is too difficult to get where I live to rely on it so I work to find ways to minimize the sweet aspect of it as much as possible by working with low DE glucose and atomized glucose, isomalt and maltodextrins.

I've experimented pretty extensively with savory-style frozen items. Some successful, some shameful. It's something I'll continue to work on whether it remains "cool" or not because I enjoy it. As far as recipes go, there are several that are good starting points in Migoya's Frozen Desserts. I visit his blog frequently and bother him with questions all of the time so I'll ask if he minds if I share a recipe or three from the book just to get you started. Maybe it will spark some more interest in the book for him as well. I've already done many of the recipes from the book and none have disappointed. There's a fun (and tasty) savory recipe here. The agave can be replaced with honey or dark corn syrup (or glucose or light corn syrup for that matter) if necessary without harming the result. As far as my own experiments (which are not all entirely original, some are others ideas that I don't have a recipe for so I just worked it out for myself), some are going to seem strange (and some were strange) but a few I've done are... dill pickle sorbet sweet pickle sorbet caramelized onion ice cream (actually not as terrible as it sounds) green pea ice cream carrot ice cream carrot sorbet tomato ice cream (for a play on cream of tomato soup) baked bean ice cream (not one of my better ideas) mole negro ice cream (see above) chipotle ice cream

Heston Blumenthal claims caramelizing (maillard-izing ) onions with star anise enhances meaty flavors. I've tried it. I agree. It's a subtle thing but, once you've got beyond the basics and have a really good base to work with, subtle enhancements are the best anyway. You don't want to swing it away from what it is, you just want to see if it can be better.

Don't you think that is a hipster affectation like vege? That was my take on it. ← My take was that it might be the way they pronounce it in her and Ripert's kitchen as sort of a shorthand, "One order of the scallop cevich'" ← If they were in Canada, it would resolve itself. "One order of scallop cevich, eh?". I agree. For all we know they were having a fun conversation in which they were teasing each other and he said "So what, you're the pastry chef right?" and she said "Yeah, now go mop the floor donkey." and the editors just pulled a convenient segment out to get the drama flowing. Either way, she didn't seem too worried about it so I don't know why so many others are. I've never understood the need to be offended for people who are not themselves offended.

I love experimenting with ice creams, sorbets and other frozen items so I have one freezer pretty much dedicated to that use. I have another dedicated to meats/seafoods and stock storage. The other is for stuff that I forage or grow through the spring/summer/fall to use during the winter. The fridge freezer is for day-to-day type stuff.

I use rendered chicken fat for these chicken biscuits. I've been hooked on that recipe since she posted it. I've also done a couple of my own variations on it. I've done a beef version and a bacon version so far and have a couple other ideas in mind that I haven't got around to yet. It's great for lots of uses though. Google schmaltz.

I think that may be one of the funniest things I've read in a long time. I've wondered about local pigeon before as well but felt silly asking about it so I'm glad you did. Thanks! I live in just about as un-urban an environment as you can live in and still be in a town. Population 5,500 (about 1.5x the population of the highschool where I grew up) spread over a very large land area and no large cities within 6 hours drive. No industrial business/waste of any type locally. We actually see very few pigeons in the area to begin with, our major bird pests are the ravens. I eat locally hunted partridges without hesitation... but I ended up passing on the pigeons. Mainly because they're so rare here that I thought they may just be on a refueling stop while traveling between cities.

I love summer. Heat, humidity and all. They're way too short here and not always as dry and warm as I'd like but I enjoy every sunny, hot minute that we get and you'll never hear me wish it would end. They make moles in Mexico during the summer. They make stews in Africa during the summer. Most without the benefit of AC. HTFU and braise!

I've become recently obsessed with food history for some reason. I've been interested in the subject for a long time but recently have become completely immersed in reading everything I can find on the subject (and there is a lot out there). One thing that has become apparent is that cooks have been doing a lot of really cool things for a really long time. I've found many examples in my reading but something that jumped out at me during one of my almost daily pilgrimages to The Old Foodie site was the concept of savory-based ice cream. That's new-ish, cool-ish and generally only found at higher end places right? That's what I thought anyway... until I saw that 180 year old recipe for parmesan cheese ice cream.

I'd guess the area where my kitchen deviates the most from the average person in the grocery store (unless that person happens to be an eGulleter ) is the wide variety of industrial ingredients I have in my toy box. I also have a much wider variety of options for sweetening things than your average non-eGulleter probably bothers with. And I'm definitely not an equipment minimalist... though sometimes when I stand there and look at it all I wish I was. Going in the other direction: knives - I have some good knives but I pretty much have what I use with backups for a couple of the essentials and that's it. I like the idea of being a hoarder of knives but, so far, I haven't been. canned goods - "and when he got there, the cupboard was bare" is a hauntingly familiar tune. I don't tend to stockpile them, to the point where I often end up having to make a store run even for basics.

Rob (aka gfron1) did a multi-course dinner about a year ago that was themed around those chiles. He's in New Mexico which is a long way from where I live in Canada so I wasn't at the dinner but it looked and sounded tasty. He posted pics and descriptions on his blog. If I'm not mistaken, it was late august or early september of '08 if you're interested in digging it up.

You're not trying hard enough! I see space for at least 6 more of those containers. 10 more if you don't mind crowding. I agree with the general consensus in principle but I don't see a problem with keeping smallish amounts of things you use often or don't mind replacing regularly. It may even be beneficial, a convenient reminder to keep them fresh.

Disclaimer: I'm not a cake artist by any stretch of the imagination so I may be going too simple here. If you want something fun and not too overwhelming for starting out that has lots of pictures and explanations without getting into teaching texts or massive tomes, I've given the Whimsical Bakehouse book as a gift to a few people who expressed an interest in getting into celebration cakes. They've all loved it and it doesn't usually take too long before they decide they want something that goes deeper but it seems to do a pretty good job of getting them rolling and having fun.

Yeah, ascorbic acid usually does the trick. The method you used is my first choice for clarifications now so if it did what you wanted that's great. I was excited when Alex introduced it on Ideas in Food and then the Cooking Issues guys made it even easier the very next day. The internet is a really cool thing sometimes.

A quick blanch and shock helps as does a bit of ascorbic acid. Personally, if I was going to do a clarified mint water, I would probably cold infuse very lightly crushed mint into the water and use gelatin filtration so that it never had to be heated. If you're using the freeze/thaw method with the agar, the gelatin won't take all that much longer unless you're doing a very large amount.

Interesting but kinda hard to imagine as legit. I can see it now... "My Double Down is too cold!" "Sorry, here's another one." "It's hot! I burned my fingers! I'm gonna sue!" "Dammit. Didn't we learn anything from the McCoffee Incident?" ...and not only would it happen but, most likely, someone would go into a KFC with every intention of making sure it happened. "It's supposed to be a sandwich! I didn't know I'd get burnt holding it in my hands. Gimme money!" Still, Kentucky Fried Cordon Bleu sounds a lot better than those nasty looking bowl things they came up with.