mcohen

does anybody own one and does it live up to your expectations? i know calphalon has a good reputation for its nonstick, and i'm curious if this new technology has worked out all the kinks yet. one of the interesting things i noticed in its instructions is to first preheat the pan first, which is something you don't normally do with nonstick.

Cat Cora has a better won/lost record on ICA than Morimoto: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_resul...on_Chef_America shel ← Based on the figures listed on the wiki link, Kat Cora's loss percentage is at 33.33%, while Morimoto's loss is at 29.16%. And the quality of opponents Morimoto had to do battle are more skilled. Kat Cora's skills, as Iron Chef, is a joke. ← Wikipedia is wrong as of 11/26/07 at 10:20 EST. The record shown in the table is Morimoto's record from the Japanese version of the show. (Actually, to my count, Cora's record is the only one shown correctly on that table.) On the American show Morimoto is at exactly 0.500. It is not obvious to me that their quality of competition has been very different, though that is subjective, and I defer to more knowledgeable people in that regard: (Wins by the Iron Chef are bold) Cora: Alex Lee, Neal Fraser, Sam Choy, Kerry Simon, Dotolo & Shook, Walter Scheib, Michael Psilakis, Joey Campanaro, Elizabeth Falkner, Walter Royal, David Myers, Mary Dumont, Alexandra Guarnaschelli, Mark Tarbell, Irvine/Florence. Morimoto: Rob Feenie, Roberto Donna (x2), Aaron Sanchez, Tom Douglas, Michael Symon, Christophe Eme, Patricia Yeo, Homaro Cantu, Linton Hopkins, Tim Love. Notes: Morimoto went 1-1 against Donna, and his win was guaranteed by Donna essentially forfeiting by not completing his dishes. The battle against Eme was arguably uneven as Eme was short-staffed. Morimoto-Sanchez was a tie. ← cora has the lowest average scores among all the iron chefs, and has a lower average scores than the challengers.

i buy those threepack del monte peach jars from costco, and i'd like to recycle those glass jars and store things in those jars. but, even after washing the jars, i can't seem to get rid of the perfume of the peaches that were formerly stored in said jars. any suggestions as how to get rid of that smell?

i've never understood this. by doing this, bayless was trying to engage the hundreds of thousands of americans who eat fast food and try to offer them a better, healthier alternative. this sandwich was not perfect, but a small step that has helped open doors and possibly introduce an even healthier sandwich next time. this route seems a lot more effective and practical than alice waters lecturing people to build their own personal greenhouses and hoophouses in the midwest and sneering at people eating hot dogs at a baseball game. and, bayless ended up donating the money he received to his frontera farmer foundation, and distributing that money to family farms. compare that to alice waters support and involvement of the controversial ameya project, to build gated multimillion dollar second homes in montana for her fellow elites, where waters only gave one fifth of that money to the slow food movement while pocketing the rest for herself.

Keep in mind that the recipes in the cookbook are not the same as what you'd get from the restaurant. Like most chef books, this book was mainly written and produced by the publishing company. The publishing company sent in people who tasted and observed the dishes, and then went back to their HQ to try to recreate the dish for the home kitchen. So, some of the proportions are off and ingredients are missing.

Any more thoughts on scanpan cookware? I'm looking for a nonstick pan, but I've never used scanpan before.

Is rocket the same thing as argula? From her books, Hay uses rocket as in ingredient many times but she'll have argula in parathensis next to that. I don't know if she's saying they're the same, or that argula is an acceptable subsitution.

I don't know. How can something be 'authentic' and 'unique' at the same time? It sounds like she's putting her own westernized spin on Chinese cuisine and it may end up being tasty, but I wouldn't necessairly call it 'authentic'.

As Alice Waters would condescendingly inform you, all you need to to is just build yourself a greenhouse and then a hoophouse.in your backyard... If she ever got in a real debate, she would be absolutely get destroyed. But, we never get to hear how ridiculous she sounds cause fawning interviewers never include the stuff she says in her interviews where she comes off as a crazy loon. Try listening to an unedited speech or interview... For example, in one interview, she was opening ridiculing those who made the Midwest argument by restating that argument in a whiny, falsetto baby voice. She didn't have a really good answer for that so she just mocked and ridiculed those who made that argument. But, when the interview got printed, there was no mention of any of this...

You have to ask yourself if Bouchon would have earned a star in the first place if not for the association with Thomas Keller? Even if it was hitting on all cylinders, which its not, would it have gotten a star...

i really cannot stand alice waters. there, i said it. she gives off this really unpleasant 'let them eat cake' attitude. when she was in chicago at a cubs baseball game, she sneered at the delicious hot dogs. or, when she's asked how people in chicago can follow her philosophy when there are no local available greens in the snowy winter of chicago, she answers that those people should just build greenhouses. at this point, she's like that old, senile uncle at thanksgiving dinner who spouts off racist stuff but doesn't understand why that's no longer acceptable.

i'm surprised more people aren't outraged by the ending. not necessairly because who won (i was more of a morou supporter so i had no dog in that fight), but the way the judging process was handled. if you read the blogs, its revealed that besh won the paris challenge even though they never announced it. and, that, besh also won the final challenge as well. but, that the judges were going to decide the iron chef on the overall, cumalative performance throughout the series so besh's win in that challenge had to overcome symon's previous victories. all the three regular judges agreed that besh won the challenge. donatella and andrew thought besh's final challenge blew symon away, and that was enough to make besh the winner. and, let's just say that ruhlman might not have been the most objective judge here, even though he agreed besh won that challenge. but, what's really perplexing is that the iron chefs also were taking into account the cummulative challenges even though they had never judged those challenges. and, while they agreed besh won the final challenge (the unedited comments that Ruhlman heard by the ICs during the tasting were all in favor of Besh over Symon), the ICs didn't think that it was good enough to overcome his defecit coming into the final challenge. but, wouldn't you think that the three permanent judges who had tested the dishes throughout the competition would have been a better judge if you were going to look at it cummulatively. and, out of those three judges, two of them voted for besh as the next iron chef. ruhlman's blog takes delight in how offended donatella was in this whole sham. (it comes off as somewhat mysogynistic) my friend refuses to believe this even though that's what two different judges' blog, Knowlton who voted for Besh and Ruhlman who voted for Symon, because that would be too stupid to believe. but, we're talking about food network here.

i've read several pieces that alluded to a very critical piece by alan richman about jean-georges vongerichten, but i can't find that piece. anybody know when it was published, or where i can find it?

sd is a paradox. given all that produce grown in surronding areas like carlsbad and the wealth to support fine dining, sd's dining scene has always been not as good as it should be.

well, i use a plum tomatoe since its not too juicy. otherwise, the tomatoe gives off too much water. but, how do i know when its water or oil that the tomatoe is giving off? i never realized that the oil was referring to oil from the tomatoe.

the show is edited to make these owners as clueless as possible, but it really wasn't fair to the walnut tree. it was this new owner who had brought the changes that finally made the walnut tree inn a michelin star restaurant. while the previous owners were highly respected, they had never attained that michelin star for thirty years when they owned and ran their restaurant. my problem with the show is that while ramsay's style has been very succesful for him, sometimes i think he pushes a certain style onto every restaurant, irregardless of what the restaurant is attempting to do. his emphasis on simple food may be what's needed for a casual bistro, especially when there's no talent in the back of the house. but, some of the other restaurants were trying to be something else and yet ramsay had the same solution for them. for example, if the new owner was trying to take the walnut tree to the next level and michelin star status, was pushing for rustic italian really the best way to go about that? and, i thought it was a bit unfair to compare the prices for the walnut inn and other neighboring restaurant when a better comparison would have have been to compare the price between walnut inn and other one star michelin restaurants. at the reveal, after slashing its prices, the walnut inn was still more expensive than neighboring restaurants but its using better, more expensive ingredients. of course, its prices would therefore be higher.

i'm using giuliano hazan's book, the classic pasta book, for this recipe but i'm still not sure when the sauce is ready. the recipe says to heat the tomates for 10-20 minutes 'until the tomates have reduced and separated from the oil.' but, i'm not exactly sure what that means or what that looks like. how do you know when the sauce is ready?

I though Ruhlman's attitude in the Cleavland episode was strange- he was talking up Cleavland as the place where 'real people' lived but would later get all pissy about that Chilli place which seemed to be where 'real people' ate.

avoid ma's, the chinese restaurant, if you don't fit their desired customer profile if you know what i mean. i brought my cousin and her family on a visit to disneyland last weekend, and we were treated so badly that i'm still angry about it. we stopped by for dinner soon after it opened, and there were still only a few filled tables and so plenty of open tables. yet, we still had to wait ten minutes to get a table. that should have warned us something was up. and, then, they sent us into this little ghetto, away from all the other customers, as if the restaurant did not want other customers to see us. and, then, the insults and slights continued for the rest of our dinner. and, oh yeah, the food wasn't even that good. their bread is famous but i found it to be rather greasy.

i was reading michael ruhlman's blog, and sometimes he has his friend, anthony bourdain, write some guest pieces. well, in one of those pieces, bourdain calls james beard a 'much disliked crank'. i understand why the beard awrds themselves might be viewed in a unfavorable light, but what did the man do to engender such feelings? this is the first time i've ever read or heard something so nasty about a man who did so much for the culinary arts in this country. http://blog.ruhlman.com/ruhlmancom/2007/03/index.html

so, what's the purpose of storing food in plastic bags with perforations? seems like by storing the food in such a way it would defeat the purpose of even putting them in plastic bag in the first place.

so, i have a rental where the kitchen needs to be updated. pretty much everything should be updated from the tile floors with spider cracks in them to the flourescent panels of lighting in the ceiling to the black laquer cabinets to the mismash of black and white appliances to probably even the layout of the kitchen. but, since this a rental and such changes would interupt the cash flow by taking the rental out of commission, what would be the best bang for the buck changes i could make? i was thinking of simply painting the cabinets over with white paint, but i'm not sure how succsesful that would be over the black laquer cabinets. has anybody tried refacing cabinets, and how did that work out?

the strange thing is that happens to groceries i buy outside the supermarket chains, such as at a farmers market. and, i'll wipe and dry them before putting them in a new bag. and, yet, there will be all this condensation inside the bags the next day. i really wonder if it might related to the fridge, but i don't really see how that would be possible.

geez thanks, all this talk about new york delis has gotten my stomach to grumble with hunger. why, oh why, are there no decent delis on the west coast? is it something in the water?

my understanding is that most of today's workers in these restaurants are from a completely different region of china and yet they're making catonese dishes. its like asking a northern italian to make regional southern italian dishes. maybe, the cooking would end up better if they tried their own regional dishes instead of trying to make catonese dishes. let's face it, if not for a quirk of immigration pattern, i don't think catonese style dishes would have surpassed other regional styles of chinese cooking in america.