haresfur

I'm pretty sure that thermocouples like the thermapen probe are very linear in their temperature response. I checked my thermocouple in ice water and in boiling water and found it was very close to 0 and 100 degrees so I'm confident it is accurate in the 60 degree range. You might have to correct for elevation, depending on where you live. My SV controller is off by about 1.5 degrees so I will adjust to match the thermocouple now that I have found the instruction book.

Sounds like a good winter project, then.

I knew someone who always did spaghetti carbonara for Thanksgiving - to honour Columbus.

Cool. Are you going to drink them, sell them or pass them on to the next generation?

I use black-currant syrup instead of Cassis when making Kir because, well, I'm cheap. You might have to change the ratios for some things but the best thing to do is to try it and see.

I forgot to update that I asked my mussel man and he did suggest the life cycle factor but said he works around it by having a number of locations. He also turned up his nose at South Australia mussels, saying their water is too warm. Now if I can ever make a broth as good as I remember from when I first tried mussels at age 7 in Italy...

I know nothing about cake decorating but potters use some really heavy duty (duh) banding wheels and turntables that may interest

I'm not sure I'd dare use a full half oz of my rotgut Mezcal but I might have to do the research. I like the just-a-hint effect of the rinse and am pretty sure I've done it with Pechauld's bitters which worked out, too. BTW I my favourite tequila/mole bitters drink is (corrected from an old post):

I'm sure I or someone else has done something similar but a sort of Mexican Sazerac with anejo tequila, agave syrup, and a mezcal rinse for the glass. Oh, and I used a dash of Chris Taylor coffee, cinnamon, and cocoa-nib bitters. Much like a Brave Bull with a background smokiness and less sweet.

Well, that's good to know.

Interesting. I wonder if it would work to promote dissolving marmalade into drinks. Save a lot of shaking but maybe lose some mouth-feel?

I tend to agree with you. For me Dalwhinnie 15 has a nice level of smokiness without the medicine and is a good value.

Online it says the pots are made of unglazed micaceous clay and 'It is still made in the traditional manner, by families in the village of La Chamba, on the banks of the Magdalena River in Central Colombia. Each piece is hand-crafted using local clays, burnished by hand and fired on-site.' Micaceous clay is good for resisting thermal shock but this is unglazed. Burnishing makes the clay look quite shiny because it lines up the flat clay particles along the surface. This provides a little water resistance but is by no means like a glaze. The traditional firing technique means the clay will be porous. Bottom line - these pots have the potential to harbour bacteria and food residue in the clay. How big a potential is hard to say. But yogurt is made at temperatures in a risky temperature zone in my opinion. I'm sure similar pots have been used for this for hundreds of years but we can do better. I just don't see any advantage in pursuing this.

Bottle of each + friends = taste, learn, have fun ETA: I think Rittenhouse is the benchmark so well worth experiencing a bottle even if you decide you prefer something else.

Dark and Stormy (unless the Goslings lawyers are around) Dark rum Ginger beer wedge of lime When it gets cold put your Meyers in hot chocolate

I'm with Chris and tend to do this in messing around mode, when it just seems like a drink needs a little something. I think it is fun to experiment with different bitters (potable or non-potable) in martinis, either in addition to, or replacing vermouth.

I might be the resident contrarian but I would skip the vermouth if you are really wanting to keep to 5 bottles total. My reasoning is that an Old fashioned is as manly as a Manhattan and a Campari and soda is much more manly than an Americano. I would also start with bourbon and graduate from there to rye or scotch. I would also chose a good reposado tequila over mezcal but that's just me - I think it is more versatile. Skip vodka - anything it can do, gin can do better Aside from that it depends a lot on what you like. You could go with maraschino to bring in manly funk with sweet for another dimension.or my personal choice would be Fernet Branca. So that would be: Bourbon London Dry Gin Campari Fernet Branca But, what ever you do, think of it as just a start.

I'd like to see someone market a cross-flow filtration system for kitchen use.

A quick report on an experiment I ran this week. I had a nice piece of sirloin steak to SV and thought I would try to cut it up before cooking and searing to increase the ratio of sear to inside (Since the seared layer is so thin with SV). But then I wondered if I would lose more moisture if I did that so I divided the meat in half and left one half whole while the other half was sliced into about 3 cm wide pieces. I weighed both bags then put in the SV at 58 C for 40 min. I then drained the liquid and reweighed. Obviously the meat isn't perfectly uniform, but the cut up part lost 6% of its weight while the whole piece lost just under 3%. So, I think that I would be better off doing the SV on larger pieces of meat and then cutting before searing.

You can redirect your savings.

Seems less objectionable to me than massive towers of food. I guess I don't mind the asymmetry as much as the grossly oversize plates, whether used as an asymmetrical or belly-button canvas. Philosophically, I think that if you are going to go to the trouble to fuss with the plating that much it should say convey something about how to eat the food. A little bit of food on a big plate says, "Better savor this in tiny bites because that's all you get". Smears of sauce around the plate say, "Dab bits of this with the rest of the food to get the right mixture for your taste". A really tiny bit in a spoon or a spot says, "Stuff the whole thing into your mouth at once." And in general fussy plating says, "You didn't really think food should be served hot, did you?"

I believe T-C-L is commonly used. Dan was just emphasising that there are some people even more sugar-phobe than he. I should play with the ratios a bit more but I don't want to lose the orange by dropping the Cointreau too much.

I didn't count so maybe there were as many mussels as shells. I did think it was weird that they fell out because whenever I have cooked mussels they stay pretty firmly attached. That and they appeared undersized for the shells, but as pointed out above, that might be a life-cycle thing that I was unaware of.

I do like a Brave Bull. And, no I don't count water in any of its physical states.

Thanks for the responses. I'm learning something. The mussels were cooked a bit more than I do, but they weren't rubber. I didn't know about the life cycle thing. Perhaps they don't hold on as strongly at that stage. I have been blessed the past few months with a vendor at our farmers market bringing in fresh mussels (they are farmed, afterall) and they have been large with strong attachment to the shell. But this restaurant could well have had their source over in South Australia, given their location. So the seasonality could be quite different. And I'm far from expert on cooking them (although this could be a topic for a different forum). If they hadn't done the shell thing, I probably wouldn't have thought twice. So I don't really have any complaints except it was a bit too spicy for my taste - hides the seafood flavour too much. And I was happy with the service and happy to tip them to be sure they knew that.