project

Congratulations to you. You will likely have fun, meet a lot of people good to know, learn some interesting things about food from the food places you visit, build a <i>public persona</i> for yourself, and maybe get a good start on a good new career. <br><br> Alas, the program does not sound like one I would want to watch. <br><br> I go to <i>food</i> programs on TV for exactly one purpose: Plainly clearly <b>instructional</b> material to teach me to be a better cook. <br><br> Your program does not sound very <i>instructional.</i> Thus, for the food I see on the program, the program will do little to teach me how to cook that food for myself, and I will find no good reason to watch.

Looks like we won: It appears that Ms. Sara Moulton is now back on Food TV with <i>Sara's (Secrets)</i>.

By accident discovered a <i>carrot dish</i> that ate with dinner tonight. <br><br> Bought 6 pounds of skinless boneless chicken breast pieces and wanted to do <b>something</b> with them. <br><br> So, took 8 C Chardonnay wine, reduced to 2 C, added 2 C chicken stock, 12 ounces of each of carrot, celery, leek, and yellow globe onion, all julienned, and 10 ounces of sliced white mushrooms and made a <i>vegetable stock.</i> <br><br> Lightly sauteed the chicken pieces and deglazed the saute pan with the stock and then made a sauce with white roux, whipping cream, and egg yolks. <br><br> Put the chicken pieces in the sauce and heated gently to 145 F to finish the cooking without overcooking the egg yolks. <br><br> So, for dinner, had some of the chicken and sauce with some of the vegetables as a side dish. <br><br> A curious thing about the vegetables is that they were pretty good with mild well blended but still somewhat aromatic flavors -- tough to tell what vegetables were in the mixture. <br><br> So, for just carrots, if combine them cutting and with proportions as here, then they can become a side dish with mild blended aromatic flavors.

Cold beef, possibly sliced thinly, with a variety of cold sauces, e.g., Cumberland, horseradish, mustard. Aspic? Pate?

I keep track of recipes and other information on cooking as a special case of how I keep track of nearly everything. The main tools are <blockquote> <OL> <LI> personal computer, <LI> a <i>taxonomic hierarchy</i> based on the computer's hierarchical file system, <LI> a file of documentation in each directory, <LI> a good text editor, <LI> a simple search program, <LI> a central file of random facts. </blockquote> Hierarchical file systems go back at least to the computer system Multics done by Project MAC at MIT in about 1970. I started using hierarchical file systems in 1977 on a Prime computer, much like Multics, and have been a heavy user of these file systems ever since. I regard hierarchical file systems as one of the crown jewels of civilization, especially for organizing the information of a person or a small group of people. <br><br> An hierarchical file system is something like having a house where to find a sweater go to the second floor, the master bedroom, the closet, and look on the top shelf on the left side. If that closet is a mess, then can divide its contents into, say, several categories and for each category punch a new door in the wall of the closet and behind it get a new closet. Such new closets would solve a lot of problems in organizing personal <i>stuff</i> and do solve a lot of problems in organizing information on a computer. <br><br> Yes, as in <blockquote> Jeffrey D. Ullman, <i>Principles of Database Systems, Second Edition,</i> ISBN 0-914894-36-6, Computer Science Press, Rockville, MD, 1982. </blockquote> with entity, attribute, relational data modeling, (EAR) can use any of hierarchical, network, or relational data base systems for any EAR model. Still, as just a file system, hierarchical is terrific. Yes, a better file system could be built. However, since the world of practical computing still has not widely exploited all the good ideas in Multics, better ideas now could take decades to get into practice. <br><br> So, for now, as a practical matter, just exploit hierarchical file systems for all they are worth. They are worth a lot. <br><br> I built the computer last year, and now it is running Windows XP. The file system is NTFS and seems quite capable. My favorite text editor is KEdit. Can write little programs for KEdit and have about 100. The simple search program is the Windows program FINDSTR; it's good enough. <br><br> The system has three hard drives. The first hard drive has drive letters C:, D:, and E: for operating systems. Drives F: and G: are for DVDs. The second hard drive is drive H: for my stuff. The third hard drive is I: for backup. <br><br> Drive H: has directories <blockquote> H:\prog01 <br> H:\prog02 <br> H:\prog05 <br> H:\data01 <br> H:\data02 <br> H:\data05 </blockquote> Directories PROGx are for programs. Directories DATAx are for other data. PROG01 and PROG02 are old; PROG05 is getting new programs now. DATA01 and DATA02 are old; DATA05 is getting new data now. <br><br> On my computer, deliberately, directory <blockquote> H:\data05 </blockquote> is the only directory in the root of a drive letter on a hard drive with directory name DATA05. That is, there are no directories <blockquote> C:\data05 <br> D:\data05 <br> E:\data05 <br> I:\data05 <br> J:\data05 <br> </blockquote> etc. So, really, DATA05 implies H:\. So, the drive letter could change, and the directory would still be identifiable. So, a lot of the software I have just starts with the DATA05 and looks up the drive letter H:\ (via a simple <i>environment variable</i> DISK.DATA05=H:). So, if the drive letters change, then that software will still work. There are other ways to accomplish such <i>drive letter immunity,</i> but this approach is simple. <br><br> The directories x01 and x02 are from 10 years ago. So, this scheme of DATAx and PROGx can last centuries! <br><br> In <blockquote> H:\data05 </blockquote> the most important directories are <blockquote> H:\data05\topics <br> H:\data05\projects </blockquote> So, TOPICS has my copies of files mostly from others. Currently TOPICS has 37 directories -- so, right, currently off and on I am adding files to 37 topics. PROJECTS has files from my projects and currently has 36 directories -- so, right, currently I have 36 projects. <br><br> One of the projects is COOKING. So, there is a directory <blockquote> H:\data05\projects\cooking </blockquote> with directories <blockquote> BBQ <br> BEEF <br> BREAD <br> CHICKEN <br> CHINESE <br> DESSERTS <br> DRINKS <br> EGULLET <br> EQUIPMENT <br> FISH <br> INGREDIENTS <br> ITALIAN <br> PORK <br> SALADS <br> VEGETABLES <br> </blockquote> Right, given a recipe for an Italian chicken dish, do we put that recipe in the directory ITALIAN in the directory CHICKEN or do we put that recipe in the directory CHICKEN in the directory ITALIAN? Right, once we have a directory CHICKEN and have 150 recipes in it, maybe we would like to reorganize and subdivide into stock, soup, stew, casserole, grilled, roasted, etc., or into French, Italian, Chinese, and we would want an automatic way to do this and to update any pointers to the old locations. Such issues are for Computer Data Administration 102 next semester! <br><br> For example, am typing this note into file <blockquote> H:\data05\projects\cooking\eGullet\post053.dat </blockquote> Mostly the files I type in are via the editor KEdit. One advantage here is an easy solution to the computer version of the Tower of Babel problem: For all the files I have typed in using KEdit, it is easy search them with FINDSTR and to move data among them; one spelling checker program (Aspell) works for all of them, etc. A file I enter with KEdit usually starts with a few header lines of descriptive information, e.g., <blockquote> POST053.DAT -- <br><br> Created at 06:40:12 on Saturday, April 1st, 2006. </blockquote> So, these header lines help finding and identifying information. When I get the URL of this post, I will insert it in these header lines. <br><br> A good aid in organizing information is to slap times and dates on wherever not inappropriate. So, I have a KEdit command "insert dated comment" (IDC) as in <blockquote> Modified at 06:42:37 on Saturday, April 1st, 2006. </blockquote> The files I enter with KEdit have lots of these lines. <br><br> But these KEdit files alone are not enough. In addition, get files of other types where it is not easy to enter a few descriptive header lines at the top. E.g., for a really good thread on eG with lots of pictures, the easy way to keep it is just to have the Web browser write the main HTML file and a subdirectory with all the other related files. But for such a Web page, would like to have its URL, etc. Similarly for many other file types -- JPG, PNG, WAV, MOV, MPEG, PPT, PDF, etc. <br><br> So, to solve this problem, each directory has a file of descriptive information that provides documentation, when appropriate, on all the other files in that directory. In directory COOKING, the documentation file is COOKING.DOC. Yes, I maintain this file with KEdit and not with Microsoft's Word. Since I make very little use of Microsoft Word, that DOC is the Word file type is of no great concern for me, but others might want to use a different three letter extension for such files. <br><br> In cooking, the main data is in files somewhere in <blockquote> H:\data05\projects\cooking </blockquote> I make only incidental use of paper. <br><br> Finding things on cooking in <blockquote> H:\data05\projects\cooking </blockquote> is fairly easy due to the taxonomic hierarchy there, the mnemonic naming, the use of dates, and the abilities of FINDSTR to read nearly all the relevant file types. <br><br> Yes, there is <i>legacy</i> data on recipe cards, in file folders, etc. Yes, I have a small tin box of recipe cards I got from my parents. I have about 1/2 of a full file drawer of file folders with notes on cooking. <br><br> Generally, though, now, the main data is on my computer. If some paper copies are important, then data at some appropriate place the computer points to the paper copies. <br><br> E.g., recently cleaned out my home office space and got 20 file folder storage boxes of old books. So, for each book, I typed in its bibliographic information, the box I put the book in, and the date I packed the book. That file is in a directory with other bibliographic information. E.g., there is a file of all the books I own: When I get a new book, I enter its bibliographic information in that file. So, for the book on data base by Ullman above, I had KEdit copy that from the file of bibliographic information into the file for this post. <br><br> Also, in many of my project directories, I also use the directory descriptive files directory_name.DOC to keep a log, with dates from IDC, of activities. Here a good thing to do is to have good references to relevant e-mail sent or received. Standard e-mail starts with some <i>header</i> lines, and one of these has time and date as in <blockquote> Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 18:17:07 -0500 </blockquote> It turns out that, for one user of e-mail, this time-date line usually uniquely identifies that e-mail message. So, a good facility to have is a little program that will take that time-date line and find and display the e-mail message. On my old computer, where I wrote my own e-mail software, I had such a little program and could invoke it with one keystroke in KEdit. On my new computer, a project soon to move to the front burner is to have such a facility again. <br><br> There are items of information not easy to categorize elsewhere. For such information, I have a file FACTS.DAT. The file is mostly a <i>log,</i> that is, new items are added mostly only at the end. There are time and date stamps and key words for each entry and some simple KEdit programs to make new entries and search for old ones. There is lots of stuff in FACTS.DAT: User IDs, passwords, mailing addresses, pointers to information that might be difficult to find elsewhere, answers to tricky questions in computer usage, etc. If one entry in FACTS.DAT needs to grow to a long file or to a directory, then put in a note that the entry is <i>closed</i> and insert a pointer to where the more recent information is. <br><br> Here is a big point about FACTS.DAT: The number of new entries averages only a few a day. So, a file of one million characters, easy enough for KEdit, can handle entries for some years. By that time, the earlier entries are mostly old enough to be of low interest, out of date, etc. So, really, a file of one million characters is enough to keep essentially all the reasonably relevant random facts. <br><br> To type this note, I went to a Windows text window and typed in commands to make directory <blockquote> H:\data05\projects\cooking </blockquote> the current directory. But to do this bit of directory tree <i>walking,</i> I started at H:\ and typed command <blockquote> dn d p c </blockquote> for move down to directories DATA05, PROJECTS, COOKING. The D is ambiguous, so my little program DN gave me the options and let me choose one. Then the C was ambiguous, so DN let me choose from <blockquote> 1 cars <br> 2 computer <br> 3 cooking <br> </blockquote> So, typing <blockquote> dn d p coo </blockquote> would let me avoid the second ambiguous situation; this is what I usually do. <br><br> Yes, more can be done, but such issues are for Computer Data Administration 102 next semester! <br><br> Generally such keyboard usage is much faster than mouse usage because (1), since it's YOUR computer, you usually already know about what you have to type in and (2) ten fingers and over 100 keys are FASTER than a mouse and some icons on a screen. Indeed, you can usually type a command faster than you can just move one hand to the mouse. <br><br> Okay, but frequently I just want to go to directory <blockquote> H:\data05\projects\cooking\eGullet </blockquote> So, maybe I should be able to type, say, just <blockquote> g eg </blockquote> for "go to eGullet". Yup, but, again, that's for Computer Data Administration 102 next semester!

Clever dramatic writing. Disastrous dating. The US Social Security Trust Fund takes another hit. <br><br> WOW! <i>Dating</i> has <b>sure</b> changed since the last times I was pursuing dating. Sounds like the dating <i>scene</i> has gone a <b>very</b> long way downhill. In particular, it very much sounds like you have been getting wine from the very bottom of the barrel. <br><br> I would hope that there would be more significant and meaningful ways to evaluate a date than extrapolating from menu choices. And, during the dinner, I would hope for some conversation that at least touched on <b>something</b> with some substance. Gee, whatever happened to subjects such as cooking, higher education, science, finance, business, movies, music, theater, children, child rearing, education for children, <i>socialization</i> of children and the influence of <i>pop</i> culture, other aspects of parenting? E.g., are SoX and the SEC making private companies, private equity, M&A, and hedge funds more important than public companies and the stock markets? Why does J. Cramer never mention the CAPM? Are the reds a little south of Beaune really a little lighter than the ones a little north of Beaune? If there is a <i>world financial market</i> without any regulatory agency with world scope, is the world asking for financial instability that would make the problems of 1929 look small? E.g., does the <i>leverage</i> of financial derivatives bring the same risks of cascading insolvency that the leverage of buying on thin margin caused in 1929? What the heck is Asian <i>fish sauce,</i> and what accounts for its importance? More generally, just why is it that such a large fraction of good and strong flavors come from cases of fermentation? E.g., are we somehow programmed to like at least <b>some</b> of the flavors from fermentation? <i>American Idol</i> gets some shockingly high market share, often from singers who likely cannot read music, couldn't pass a college course in sight singing, and would need some weeks of singing lessons to get into a US Midwestern Protestant church choir -- curious. What is <i>pop</i> culture doing <i>right</i> that Juilliard and Lincoln Center are doing wrong? <br><br> There are a lot of possible pursuits in life other than having children, but there is a certain <i>Darwinian</i> fallacy to them. Once again it looks like some mature, conscious, deliberate, planned approach to having children encounters some severe problems, more severe even than the severe problems of the traditional approaches of foolish, young, spontaneous, romantic emotions. <br><br> I am reminded of the remark in <blockquote> Erich Fromm, 'The Art of Loving', Harper and Row, New York, ISBN 0-06-080291-X, 1974. </blockquote> "Men and women deserve equal respect as persons but are not the same." Moreover, it appears to me that when a date was really promising, across the two sides of the dinner table there wasn't a lot of symmetry. The traditional view was that a man was supposed to pursue finance, and his date on the other side of the table was supposed to giggle, at least after the <i>Champagne.</i> There is the remark in <blockquote> Maggie Scarf, 'Intimate Partners: Patterns in Love and Marriage', Random House, New York, ISBN 0-394-5585-X, 1987. </blockquote> that marriage was supposed to be about "offspring, security, and care-taking". The book didn't mention either <i>exotic</i> menu items or "toys". <br><br> Some people will be heavily interested in being good parents; other people can be heavily interested in other things; and Darwin will pick the winners. <br><br> One view is that traditional motherhood is where a woman gives up the best years of her life and her career, ruins her body, and does low grade menial scut work to care for some man's children, that what is really important in life is a career, not mere motherhood, and that the modern woman's approach to motherhood is to adopt and hire a nanny. In recent decades in the US, many women have believed this message. In time we will see Darwin's view. <br><br> For some more from Fromm, the main purpose of a relationship is supposed to be "security against the anxiety from the realization that we are vulnerable to the hostile forces of nature and society". In such a relationship, important features are supposed to be "knowledge, caring, respect, and responsibility" where by this last Fromm meant responsiveness. So, a <i>date</i> that has a chance to lead to something worthwhile needs to get started on such things. Such a relationship, combined with children, could be good for all concerned. Exotic menu items and "toys" do not help.

We saw Ms. Sara Moulton's <a href="http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=81688&view=findpost&p=1108009"> response</a> which included: <blockquote> The new president came in with her agenda which included getting rid of some of the old guard. Their new demagraphic is something like 15 to 35 year old males and their goal now is to appeal to that segment of the population. They want talent that is for the most part young, telegenic and very entertaining. I have a producer friend that tried to pitch some shows and was told, "No chefs please, and nobody with training." </blockquote> Gee, I used to go to the Food Network in my efforts to become a better cook. I wanted to <b>learn</b> and evaluate the results by how well what I learned worked in my hands, in my kitchen, on my table, and in my belly and where the main criteria are flavor, preparation time, cost, and nutrition. For this learning, I wanted material that did exploit video and was as educational, instructional, and informative as possible. I know about education, spent a lot of time in a classroom learning and later teaching challenging material; for learning about cooking, I want more of the same. These points are true now and were just exactly as true when I was in the "demagraphic" of "15 to 35 year old males". Indeed, it was those years when I bought <blockquote> Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck, <i>Mastering the Art of French Cooking,</i> Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1967. <br><br> Prosper Montagné, <i>Larousse Gastronomique: The Encyclopedia of Food, Wine, and Cookery,</i> ISBN 0-517-503336, Crown Publishers, New York, 1961. <br><br> A. Escoffier, <i>Le Guide Culinaire: The Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cookery,</i> Translated by H. L. Cracknell and R. J. Kaufmann, ISBN 0-8317-5478-8, Mayflower, New York, 1982. </blockquote> the Time-Life series <i>Foods of the World,</i> etc. <br><br> In particular, if I watch a show on <i>cooking</i> and don't really actually meaningfully significantly <b>achieve</b> the <b>GOAL</b> of learning as I have described, then I feel like a total fool that has been manipulated and lied to and has wasted time. In fact, this bad result has happened on the Food Network far too often, well past my tolerance level, and as a direct result I have spent very few seconds tuned to that channel in many months. <br><br> I liked Ms. Moulton's programs because she has good credibility, good knowledge and skills, and is a good teacher. That she's cuter than kittens and puppies didn't hurt but was not important. <br><br> But, it appears that the Food Network wants to go in different directions. So, let's try to help the Food Network in their goal of a "demagraphic" of "15 to 35 year old males". I know something about such males because I was one and very much have not forgotten at all, not at all. Indeed, some of those memories are indelible! <br><br> I give four suggestions below and invite suggestions from others. <br><br> <b>Suggestion 1.</b> <i>Home Economics 101</i> is a <i>reality</i> series in a high school home economic class on beginning cooking. All the students are girls ages 14 to 17 and drop dead gorgeous. They have ponytails that bounce. They tend to gossip and giggle. When a girl burns some food, she pins one ear to her shoulder, makes her eyes really big, acts meek and sweet, looks up, and squeals. <br><br> The class next door is on physics, and one of the students, Joe, is a senior, Captain of the football team, and with a 505 HP Corvette. His father owns the important Italian foods import business Testosteroni and Son. <br><br> Joe's project in the physics class is to develop software to calculate the stiffness of a titanium tubular space frame to be used in a mid-engine car with a 14 Liter W-16 engine with turbo-charging and inter-cooling and 2000 HP. <br><br> In one episode, one of the girls starts a fire and screams, and Joe rushes in and, using his knowledge of physics, puts out the fire. During the clean-up after the fire, one of the girls explains to Joe her fears of burning the water, and Joe assures her gently that she will not. The girls are <b>really</b> impressed and whisper to each other "Isn't he <b>awesome</b>!" <br><br> <b>Suggestion 2.</b> <i>Home Cooking 101</i> is also a <i>reality</i> show, and one episode is about a pizza slumber party with six girls, all age 16, all drop dead gorgeous, in nightgowns in a big fancy kitchen and struggling to make pizza. The soft dough-balls are suggestive. The girls make a mess out of the pizza. One of the girls uses her cell phone to call Joe who goes to his after-school job at the pizza parlor, recently closed for the night, heats up the oven, quickly knocks out four pizzas, and delivers them to the girls in his Corvette. The girls are <b>really</b> impressed and whisper to each other "Isn't he <b>awesome</b>!" <br><br> <b>Suggestion 3.</b> <i>Camp Fire Cooking 101</i> is, yes, a <i>reality</i> show, and one episode is about a camping trip with eight girls, ages 15 to 17, all drop dead gorgeous. The girls are not able to get the tent poles erected. When trying to build their camp fire, it rains. It's a disaster. <br><br> One of the girls uses her cell phone to call Joe who breaks off from his duck hunting trip, races over in his souped-up 572 cubic inch 650 HP tricked-out Chevy Silverado Crew Cab 3500 Big Dooley with his big friendly dog Hunding, starts the fire, digs rain diversion trenches around the tent sites, quickly erects the tent poles and puts up the first tent, warms the <i>cassoulet</i> brought for the hunting trip, and, with the girls, all in the small tent, enjoys the <i>cassoulet</i> and dessert of chocolate cake with chocolate icing and soft chocolate ice cream. The girls are <b>really</b> impressed and whisper to each other "Isn't he <b>awesome</b>!" <br><br> <b>Suggestion 4.</b> <i>International Cooking 101</i> is, yes, a <i>reality</i> show, and one episode is about Sandra, 16, drop dead gorgeous, daughter of a US diplomat in an unnamed country in South Asia. Sandra is learning about South Asian lamb stew with ancient spices when some angry dissidents dressed all in black and carrying AK-47s break into the kitchen and abduct Sandra, screaming. Next we see her sitting with some native women, all in Burkas, including Sandra, and guarded over by an angry looking man dressed all in black and carrying an AK-47. <br><br> Joe is a Captain in the Marines and a test pilot and has just completed flight tests of the US Joint Strike Fighter F-35B Short Take Off/Vertical Landing (STOVL) two seat trainer version. We see Joe in his Marine uniform giving a presentation on the F-35B when a determined senior diplomat with Marine escort interrupts the presentation, takes Joe to a small conference room, and explains that he and the F-35B and its unique STOVL capabilities are the only hope for Sandra and for peace in South Asia. Joe flies his F-35B to South Asia, does a midnight vertical landing at the GPS coordinates, sets up a diversion, rescues Sandra, remotely detonates the diversion, and does a short takeoff with Sandra. Landing on safe ground, as Joe helps Sandra from the F-35B, the collected US embassy contingent gives a standing ovation. Joe and Sandra have a romantic dinner with lamb stew with ancient spices, eaten with the fingers, with dessert a local dish with figs, walnuts, honey, cinnamon, and sweetened yogurt, and at the end, with the sun descending over the distant snow covered mountain tops, are embracing at the corner of the arched portico of the US Ambassador's residence. <br><br> Several women on the embassy staff whisper to each other "Isn't he <b>awesome</b>!" <br><br> Maybe no one learns much about how to boil water or cook pizza, <i>cassoulet,</i> South Asian lamb stew, or figs, but think of the <i>product placement</i> opportunities! I mean, what Nielsens did <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_T._Aubrey%2C_Jr."> James T. Aubrey, Jr.,</a> get from teaching cooking!

In a <a href="http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=21737&view=findpost&p=1062580"> post</a> on a thread on the Time-Life series <i>Foods of the World</i> I posted in part: <blockquote> There is a Black Forest Cherry Cake (<i>Schartzwälder Kirsch Torte</i>) recipe that is difficult to make but good: The cake itself has lots of eggs and some powdered cocoa but very little flour, takes some special handling, but is unusual, unique or nearly so. Learn how to handle the cake, get a good source of cherries, learn how to make and handle the decorative chocolate curls, get some whipped cream that can hold up, use high quality <i>Kirschwasser,</i> do much of the work in a cold kitchen (in the winter, with the windows open!), and can have a winner. </blockquote> The recipe is on pages 160-162 of <i>The Cooking of Germany</i> (1969) and has a large picture of the final cake spread across pages 161 and 162 and taking up about half the total area of those two pages. <br><br> It would be far too expensive for a US commercial bakery to do that recipe at all routinely. It's the best <i>Schartzwälder Kirsch Torte</i> I've had, but I'm no expert and haven't compared with the best of Bavaria and haven't worked from another source.

When a dog walks on its hind legs, the wonder is not that he does it awkwardly but that he does it at all. Buttercream is like that dog: That you have been able to make it stand up at all is already plenty amazing. I tried to make buttercream once, from 'Mastering'. I followed the recipe very carefully and ended up with a yellow liquid with the viscosity of cream. Then I got desperate and started improvising. I did this and that. Finally I just put it in the freezer for most of an hour and then beat it over ice. Finally I got something light yellow and about like whipped cream. That's the way it got used, and I never tried buttercream again.

FANTASTIC! We've got mention of at least: Beans -- Use a variety, not just Great Northern. Flavorings -- Whiskey, mustard. Herbs -- Thyme and bay leaf, maybe marjoram. Aromatic vegetables -- Yellow globe onions, garlic, ginger, mirepoix (the French version of "the trinity"!). Other Vegetables -- Tomato paste, ketchup (assuming Jack's "Heinz" was ketchup). Meats -- Bacon, salt pork, sausage, smoked pork hocks, and hot dogs. Sweetness -- common granulated sugar, molasses, brown sugar, maple syrup. Smoke -- From bacon, smoked pork stock, sausage (if smoked), Tabasco Chipotle sauce (or similar). Browned Flavor -- Onions browned in oil, browning from the baking. Stock -- Smoked pork stock, maybe with mirepoix and other common stock flavorings. For acid, maybe the only source mentioned so far is the vinegar (I'm assuming) in the Tabasco Chipotle sauce. Might need another source of acid? We've got salt, pepper, sugar, acid -- the big four in Gray Kunz and Peter Kaminsky, 'The Elements of Taste', ISBN 0-316-60874-2, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 2001. We've got a lot of mention of smoke that Kunz and Kaminsky also emphasize. Jack mentioned butter. I love butter! Looks like I'm alone in thinking about Worcestershire sauce. Haven't heard anything about bell peppers, roasted bell peppers, mushrooms, or anchovies. Maybe some whole cloves of roasted garlic? Hmm, wonder what could be ripped off (i.e., stolen!) from French cassoulet cooking? Maybe from the SW of France? Hmm ...! Apples go well with maple syrup, brown sugar, and pork. So far, no mention of apples! Chunks of apple in the beans? I would guess not! Of course, as Kunz and Kaminsky point out, can't just throw stuff together. At least need some balance. Might need a 'theme' of some kind. Then, there could be more than one good theme. That's one HUGE advantage of the suggestion of Snowangel and Marlene -- it's known to be good! With some minor editing.

christine007, Thanks! Yes, I, too, have concluded that common grocery store canned baked beans have too much liquid and need to be drained or, perhaps, baked uncovered. Your family recipe is another vote for bacon, bacon fat, and browned (caramelized) onion! Snowangel, Thanks for the details on smoked pork stock! Yes, since my last post, I did a Google on smoked pork and found mention of smoked pork hocks and necks. One recipe, starting with Lima beans, did say to cook the hocks slowly, separate, and include the meat with the beans. One recipe mentioned marjoram.

I recognize the lion by his paw!

Snowangel, Now that Marlene is also saying that this is her "go to recipe", it's sounding better, still! By "smoked pork stock", I'm supposed to get, say, a smoked pig's foot or knuckle, soften the usual suspects of onion, carrot, celery (in proportions by weight of 2:1:1) along with some garlic in cooking oil, add bay leaf, pepper corns, the pork, and water, simmer at about 180 F until the pork is about to fall apart, remove the pork, separate out the lean meat, chop and/or shread it, strain and defat the stock, add the meat to the beans, and use the stock for the liquid?

BryanZ, For your "I cannot conceive why one would want to cook a rib roast to 171 and hold it there for over an hour." One reason is that the trial I described was from some notes now over 20 years old, long before eG or my reading of Jack's posts! A reason for the 171 F was that I like "medium well" beef and my meat thermometer has about 170 F as about the range for medium well done. The reason for holding the roast for over an hour was that we were cooking the roast for a dinner party, started the roast in 'plenty of time' to have it ready at the appointed starting time for the party, had the roast ready early, and held the roast warm until time to serve. We didn't hold it an hour as part of 'cooking' it. But, it was good, plenty tender and juicy.

Snowangel, OOPS! Only now do I see in the recipe the footnote: "** Tabasco now has a chipotle variety; whatever the brand, it must be a liquid sauce, not a chunky type salsa." Okay. So, there is some tomato paste, but there's no bell pepper or whole tomato.

WOW! THANKS Snowangel! You are putting "manly men" to shame right away! Your recipe has bourbon. Actually, was wondering about that. Your recipe also has smoked bacon -- I suggested hot dogs, and good smoked bacon should be MUCH better. Your recipe has "chipotle salsa". I don't know what's in that, but I'm guessing tomatoes, bell peppers, onions along with smoked hot peppers called "chipotle"? So, the salsa would be a way to get in a variety of tasty vegetables? And, thanks for showing how to start with dried beans instead of just "baked beans" from a can! I wasn't clear on this point!

For a construction analogy, the beans of 'baked beans' can be simple versatile components from which magnificent structures can be built. Baked beans can be simple, red, dull, soupy, and boring. Or, just starting with something from a can (a noun), can (a verb) add some Worcestershire sauce, red pepper sauce, a little molasses, chunks of yellow globe onion, garlic, and chunks of hot dogs, bake to reduce the soupy stuff, and call it "kicked up a notch". But, what can be done to really kick them up "notches unknown", over the top, off the charts, "manly man" food, really, REALLY bombastic, idiosyncratic, as "full flavored" as Jane Mansfield was "full figured", something a man would be proud to serve up for his turn to cook on a men's camping trip, something to totally knock their socks off (just from the immediate flavor, not the subsequent flatulence!)? Be proud. Show off! What's your best? Eager to have contributions from women, too, although they might understand that a man might take their beans ready to eat on the camping trip and encourage some ambiguity of attribution! Edited for some small improvements in wording.

Jack, On your "Your conventionally cooked 300F beef, is still likely to be pink in the centre, and so probably around 135F", SURELY we recall, over in Dr. Susan's "Why is my roast beef always tough?, 18 yrs trying to make good one--no luck" your post 16 and, just ahead, my post 15 with Beef Rib Roast. For rib roast, here are some notes from a successful effort: We bought a rib roast with three ribs, including the "first rib", with the rib bones attached (not cut away), and raw weight 8.11 pounds. We placed the roast in a shallow stainless steel roasting pan covered with aluminum foil; the orientation of the roast was fat side up; we placed the glass meat thermometer in essentially the center of the meat; we roasted (uncovered, no water added) at 325 F; after 3 hours 45 minutes, meat internal temperature was 150 F; after 4 hours 15 minutes, 161 F; after 4 hours 39 minutes, 171 F; we kept the roast in a warm oven with meat internal temperature between 165 F and 171 F for another 1 hour 20 minutes before carving and then carved and served. It was good. I agree that the center was sterile, from your table and the fact that the center of the roast was over 150 F for 2 hours and 14 minutes and over 165 F for 1 hour and 20 minutes! That thar critter was DEAD, COOKED, and STERILE! I liked it! Our guests that evening were a meat packer and his wife, and she tried unsuccessfully for years to do as well with her fancy oven! No "Your conventionally cooked 300F beef, is still likely to be pink in the centre, and so probably around 135F" for me!

If a restaurant served me 'roast beef' at 130 F, I'd say: "Heck, the plate from the plate warmer is supposed to be hotter than that. Bring this thing back once it's both dead and cooked." Jack is starting something new: Restaurant customers will arrive with their cell phone, credit card, watch, pen, and instant read food thermometer! Uh, guys, if you like 130 F beef, okay by me, but might keep in mind that Jack's table says that need to be at 130 F for 112 minutes, that is, nearly two hours. So, just raising the temperature from 40 F, 70 F, or 98.6 F to 130 F, slicing, pouring over the pan sauce, chomping down on the garlic bread, and guzzling the Chambertin doesn't promise to meet the FDA criteria. NOW I see how Jack was able to cook the thing without strapping it down: It didn't feel enough pain from the heat to want to jump out of the oven!

Jack, Ah, come on! Humans detect pain from heat when skin temperature reaches about 144 F. At the temperature you are 'cooking', the animal might not feel a thing! That temperature and your final photograph reminds me of my father's remark: "I seen critters get hurt worse'n that and get well!" When you took it out of the oven, was it still moving?

I took "low, medium, and high" to be settings on the knob that controls a stove-top burner. What this knob is really controlling is power, not temperature of the burner itself. E.g., for a gas burner, the temperature at the hottest point in the flame will be about the same whether the flame is low and flickering or high and roaring. If by "low, medium, and high" you mean the temperatures inside a pot or pan on a stove-top burner, then I would say that roughly "low" was about simmering temperature of water, say, 200 F, "medium" was about the same as a medium oven and hot enough to brown slowly, say, 350 F, and "high" would be smoking temperature of, say, virgin olive oil. E.g., 350 F is in the usual range for deep frying temperatures able to produce browned hush puppies (YUM -- I wouldn't have anything to do with a woman who could cook hush puppies; too tempting!), donuts, and all the hundreds of other foods that taste too good and are too tempting. For most of what is going on in a frying pan on a stove-top burner, the temperatures are commonly varying across the pan and its contents and also varying quickly over time. E.g., suppose we want to take two cans of soup and add some Chinese flavor. So, let's put 1/4 C of peanut oil in a pot and heat it. Maybe we get the oil up to 300 F or so. Then we add 1/4 C minced garlic. The garlic bubbles quickly. The garlic contains a lot of water, and that water will have a tough time being over 212 F without converting to vapor (steam) and rising out of the pot. So, as long as the garlic still has a lot of its water, its temperature will be held down to 212 F. So, we've got a pot with some oil at maybe 300 F or so and some garlic at 212 F or so. Once the water converts to steam, the solid parts of the garlic are free to rise in temperature over 212 F, reach, say, 350 F and start to brown, etc. [For the rest, we might add 1/4 C of vinegar and about 3 T of dark soy sauce. Then add the soup. Makes the soup taste a lot like Chinese food.] Similarly, if we are cooking an omelet, we put butter in the pan and melt it without burning it. The pan might be 350 F or so. The butter melts at some temperature under 212 F. Once the butter is melted, the water in the butter starts to separate, rise in temperature to 212 F, and start to boil. This boiling keeps some of the butter from getting hotter than 212 F. Once the boiling stops, the water is gone and the butter temperature can rise quickly to browning temperatures when the milk solids in the butter can brown. If we start with a pan at 400 F or so, then we can get some of the butter browned while some of the butter is still not melted. That is, different parts of the pan and butter are at very different temperatures. Typically we do not want browned butter in our omelet, so we should add the butter to the pan while the pan is still fairly cool and apply only "medium" power from the burner. Once the butter is melted and the bubbling stops, we pour in our eggs. Then we stir rapidly trying to get the liquid eggs heated enough to be lightly but fairly uniformly cooked. During this rapid stirring of the eggs, the temperature of the eggs varies widely from under 212 F in the cooler parts up to near browning temperatures at the surface of the pan. If the burner is on "high", then we have to stir more quickly or will overcook some parts of the eggs while other parts are still liquid. If the burner is on "low", then we have to wait longer for our omelet. The difference between "high" and "low" on the burner dial is really power, not temperature. But, more power from the burner will make the range of temperatures in the pan wider. For your "A minor correction, the calories on food are actually listed in kcal, kilo calories." we are in agreement. In physics, one 'calorie' is about the energy required to raise one gram of water by 1 degree C. One 'kilo calorie' is 1000 of these calories. For food energy in nutrition, a kilo calorie is commonly called one food Calorie or one Calorie. I tried to make this point in "1000 calories (which is the same as 1 Calorie of food energy)" which you quoted.

For "I am trying to figure out what low, medium, and high mean in actual temperature ranges. I have not been able to find it out online or anywhere. If anyone could post what those ranges are that would be great." For an oven, "low, medium, and high" might mean something in a temperature range. E.g., a "low" oven might be at 225 F, medium might be at 350 F, and high might be 475 F or above. But, for a stove-top burner, at least a common one without a thermostat control, the real measure of "low, medium, and high" would be in power, not temperature. I explain: The usual units of power are Watts, BTUs per hour, horsepower, etc. For a stove-top burner, we would expect to have its power level measured in Watts or BTUs per hour. To convert, one BTU (British thermal unit) is 1055 Joules, and a Watt is one Joule per second. So, one Watt running for one hour would be one Joule per second for 3600 seconds or 3600 Joules or 3600/1055 = 3.412 BTUs per hour. Then, to scale up to something more practical, an electric burner that draws 1000 Watts would have a power of 1000*3600/1055 = 3,412 BTUs per hour. Generally that would be considered "medium". As I recall, on common home electric stoves, the largest electric burner has a power of about 12,000 BTUs per hour. For about 60,000 BTUs per hour, can heat a well insulated house. I have a propane burner on the back porch (it's an outdoor puppy only!) that claims to have 170,000 BTUs per hour. That thing will get a Chinese steel wok smoking hot quickly! But with a burner, what "temperature" is involved? It can vary widely. That is, for power of 3,412 BTUs per hour, the source of the heat can be from a wide range of temperatures. For example, if have hot water baseboard heat in a house, on a cold day could easily be putting 3,412 BTUs per hour into one room of the house but the baseboard should still be only warm, not hot enough to ignite paper, boil water, or even cause pain. Human skin notices pain at about 144 F. So, can have a lot of power in BTUs per hour but still have temperature under 144 F. Or, if have a gas burner, then there is some temperature at the hottest point of the flame. Then this burner would never be able to heat anything hotter than that temperature. But, that temperature is likely high enough to have iron glow red and far above any cooking temperatures. In principle, if put a cast iron frying pan on such a burner, then in time might have a frying pan glowing red. But, in practice, could cook over such a gas flame for decades and never get any pan nearly hot enough to glow red. So, in cooking over such a flame, we don't get our onions, steak, eggs, sausage, bacon, garlic, chicken, fish, etc. anywhere near the highest temperature in the flame. So, the highest temperature in the flame is not very relevant. The hottest part of such a gas flame would be essentially just as hot for a small flame of just a few Watts as for a roaring flame of 10,000 Watts. We use a burner at a higher power level mostly because we want to get a pot or pan up to cooking temperature more quickly. Let's consider boiling water. Suppose we start with 1 liter of water. So, that's about 1000 grams of water. Now, to heat that water by 1 degree C, we have to add 1000 calories (which is the same as 1 Calorie of food energy). So, suppose we start with water at room temperature of 70 F and want to heat it to boiling. Then, the temperature of the water is (70 - 32)*5/9 = 21 C So, to get the water to boiling at 100 C, we have to heat it by 79 C. So, we need 79,000 calories. Well, 1 BTU = 252 calories. So, we need to add 79,000/252 = 313 BTUs So, a burner with power of 3,412 BTUs per hour would need at least 60*313/3412 = 5.5 minutes to boil the water. But, a lot of the heat would go into the room and not just into the water. So, we might need 10 to 20 minutes to boil that water. If we were trying to boil four liters of water, then we would need roughly four times as long. So, if we were in a hurry, then we would want a burner with more power than 3,412 BTUs per hour, and THAT'S one of the main reasons for having a "high" burner. We are not trying to get the water very hot -- only to boiling -- yet we still want a "high" burner, not for a high temperature but for high power. What the actual temperature is at the hottest point inside the gas flame or the electric heating coil we do not much care. If we are cooking pancakes in a cast iron skillet, then we notice that pouring in the batter cools the skillet and, then, we need time over the burner to get the skillet hot enough to brown the pancake. It it is 5 AM and we are hungry for breakfast, then we don't want to wait. Well, a burner on "high" will let us need less time to get the the pan and pancake hot enough to brown. The inside of the pancake is still only about 212 F and, thus, not very hot, but, still, we are using a lot of BTUs per hour. So, mostly a "high" burner is not for getting a pan to a higher temperature but for getting the pan to some temperature we want -- 212 F 350 F, 475 F --- sooner. Still, yes, there are cases of using a burner to heat the contents of a pot or pan to a specific temperature and just hold the contents at that temperature. So, what about 'simmering'? Well, once we get the water up to 'simmering' temperature, say, 200 F or so, if we are careful then we can turn the burner down to a "low" setting and have the water just continue to simmer at 200 F. In this case, we are no long heating the water -- it is at 200 F and just staying there. But, our kitchen is at maybe 70 F or 80 F, so a pot with 200 F water will cool slowly due to the cooler kitchen. So, we need for the burner to add heat to the pot at the same rate at which the pot loses heat to the room. This is a tricky adjustment to make. The adjustment is a little easier in a tall pot than in a flat one, and that is likely the reason traditional stock pots are so tall. This example is basically assuming a covered pot. One reason is that it takes a LOT of energy -- few hundred calories (see a physics book) per gram -- to convert liquid water at 212 F to water vapor (steam) at 212 F. Or, as water evaporates from a liquid to a gas, it absorbs a lot of heat. So, on a hot dry day, pour water on your skin, let it evaporate, and feel cooler. Nature knew this -- that's why we have sweat glands. But, if have a pot of water at or near boiling and have the lid off, then the water will be evaporating, and that evaporation will cool the liquid. Then, we will need much more heat from the burner to keep the pot near boiling. Again, though, we assume that the burner itself can get to a temperature higher than we need for our pot or food so that usually what we really want is more or less power, not more or less temperature of the burner itself.

Why ovens don't have connections built in for temperature probes like microwave ovens and laboratory equipment? For times X(1) < X(2) < ..., why don't ovens have a feature that permits at time X(i) start temperature Y(i), i = 1, 2, ...? Answer: The whole oven industry is waiting on Robby, the Model 704 robot with stereo video vision, stereo ears, headlight in center of forehead, voice response, home WiMax Internet connection so that at work at 3 PM you can put on the special 3D glasses, the audio headset, and the data gloves wake up Robby, move to the stove and set the oven at 250 F, move to the sink and unwrap the frozen chuck roast you set out at 7 AM, put the roast in the big red LC pot, pour over a can of Campbell's Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup, insert a thermometer in the roast, place on the lid, move to the oven, open the oven door, turn on the headlight, reach in and pull out the rack, place the LC on the rack, slide in the rack, close the door, return Robby to his battery charging location, and tell him to call you back in two hours so you can read the thermometer. Net, you want the roast ready when you get home at 7 PM. The industry is waiting on Robby because you might be out of Campbell's soup, tell Robby to get in your second car, drive to the store to get the soup, and lose the WiMax connection while Robby and the car were doing 55 MPH on the hills and curves of the NYS Taconic State Parkway! CRASH! BOOM! Tinkle, tinkle.

For a thermometer I can put inside the oven as food cooks, I have a Taylor glass thermometer with an attached stainless steel scale. It's just a thermometer and doesn't have any automatic features, alarms, cables, transmitter, etc. I got the thing about 40 years ago, and it's been fine. Since it is glass, sure, it could break. But, for glass, it is reasonably rugged. With reasonable handling, there is no good reason for it to break. To clean it, I let soak a day or two in soapy water and then brush it and rinse it. To store it, I wrap it in a cushion of paper toweling, secure with a twist tie, and store in a shallow gadget drawer. This way, the thermometer has been safe for 40 or so years. Maybe people break the glass when when inserting the thermometer into meat: For this step, usually the main resistance is just on the surface of the meat, and insertion is easy enough if just cut a small slit in the surface for the thermometer. Sure, lots of automatic features, alarms, etc. in principle would be good, but in practice I can't see having a cable threaded out the door of my oven. Sure, if designing an oven starting with a clean sheet of paper, I might have a connection inside the oven for a suitable probe. My microwave oven has one of these although I have yet to use it! I find that just a thermometer is enough: As the food begins to reach the desired final temperature, it is easy enough to see how often to check the temperature. For example, for BBQ where might be cooking for 16 hours, 30 minutes more or less near the end is of no great concern. So, say, after 14 hours, just check temperature every 30 minutes. For an alarm each 30 minutes, just use a kitchen timer. In addition, I wrote a little software to have such timers on my computer; the software plays a little tune when the time is up.

Gee! I never saw the point of the blond jokes -- I alwaysliked blonds! <br><br> My suggestion is REALLY old! Since you have a smoker, you should be able to do really well with BBQ pork, either pulled or chopped. Besides, one of the reasons for a restaurant to have a smoker is to 'flavor' not just the pork but also the 'atmosphere' in the restaurant and even in the neighborhood! <br><br> Some of the posts on this thread have some really good sounding sandwich ideas with some themes well known in the US only recently. Good! <br><br> At <br><br> http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...dpost&p=1002480 <br><br> I posted a list of descriptions from 1979 of some outrageous sandwiches from a unique restaurant Roy's Place in MD. That list might still give you some additional ideas.