Chris Hennes

In wonder how long it would take to make a caramel setting the heat source to exactly the target temp, though. Don't you think it would take hours to hit that last degree or two? Since my heat source isn't controllable like that I'm ignoring the instruction, of course. Makes me wonder if they actually do it in the MC kitchens, though.

OK, so I'm making this Modernist onion sugar, and the instructions call for cooking the syrup at 340°F until a light golden caramel forms. Does anyone make caramel by cooking with the hotplate set at a specific temperature? Does it matter? I've always just cooked to a particular target temp, not cooked at some particular temperature.

On days when I am doing a lot of cooking, I tend towards extreme simplicity for lunch:

Item two on today's agenda was originally just to make some onion juice, since I didn't know how long it would take to filter. It went quickly, however, so this is now just step one towards making onion sugar: Start with two big sweet onions: I don't have a juicer, so I went with the blender: One press of the "whole juice" button: After straining it through three successive sieves and then through a coffee filter, I wound up with this: I'm hoping that's clear enough that the onion solids that remain don't burn when I make the caramel, but we will find out soon!

OK, getting started on the Bolognese for tomorrow's lasagna. I start by gently rendering some pancetta: While that renders, dice the vegetables: Those get slowly cooked until they start to soften, then garlic is added and the heat increased: I add some tomato paste and cook it a bit to darken it, then deglaze the pan with dry vermouth: Then I add the meat: in this case I used a meatloaf mix of 50% beef, 25% pork, 25% veal. I also add a cup of whole milk. That's on the burner now on low, where it will cook for a couple hours.

Good morning, and welcome to a day of cooking. Lots on today's schedule, though most of it is prep for tomorrow's and Friday's dinners. I have a class to attend at 7pm Wednesdays, so we eat dinner a little earlier than normal, which usually means something quick to prepare. Tonight I'm making a couple stir-fries from a Fuchsia Dunlop book. Tomorrow is a lasagna al forno, so I'm making the bolognese today, and Friday is some crazy Modernist concoction that requires onion juice, which suspect is going to take some time to filter, since I don't have a centrifuge! But to start, of course, breakfast, going old-school with the 2005 eG mug:

Right: it really doesn't bother me if there are others in the restaurant taking (non-flash) photos, but I feel very conspicuous when it's someone at my table. And I really, really hate when it's me. Even at Five Guys today I tried to be all surreptitious with my cell phone shots.

David, I for one absolutely require soft rolls for burgers, fast food or homemade. I despise those "artisanal" pieces of crap some places insist on using that completely overwhelm the burger (in addition to making it harder to eat!).

For dinner tonight we went to a local favorite, Benvenuti's. As I refuse to be one of those people taking flash photography in a restaurant I'm afraid I have no images for you. In addition to a bottle of Spanish red (Rivola, Sardon de Duero, 2008) I had a Caesar salad and the Risotto Verdure (which contains more vegetables than rice, I think: I love it). Back to cooking tomorrow, I promise. Tuesdays are busy!

I have a shelter: considerably safer than a basement, but also considerably more cramped! And no, I do not store anything down there except our emergency kit. I think the foodstuffs amount to some granola bars and some bottles of water.

Mineral oil. I should note that the idea of a "food grade varnish" is absurd: regardless of the blend, once it's cured, it's inert. Period. "Food safe varnish" is just an expensive label, it's ALL food safe. This includes all of the varnishes with metallic dryers, etc.

I typically only buy fresh masa when I am about to embark on a couple of weeks of Mexican cooking, which usually involves a batch or two of tamales. So I make a bunch of tamales and then freeze them. But of course I also make a few dozen tortillas over the course of the week, etc.

I treat fast food burgers as a category unto themselves: none of them are going to compete with homemade, ever, since they are cooked to well-done. But for what they are, Five Guys is a great burger, as is Smashburger. No In-n-Outs here (yet!) so I haven't tried them.

You might have noticed in those kitchen shots one of those Jiffy greenhouse-things on the counter. That one's got peppers in it, that I just planted a couple days ago (they have not germinated yet). My tomatoes and tomatillos, however, are a couple weeks in: Does anyone else use those little peat pellets to start seeds? I usually take the plastic bits off when I pot them up for the first time: does anyone leave them on? And how big do you wait for your plants to get before potting them up?

My wife points out to me that ChefRubber does actually sell a couple kits that come with the little containers: Transfer Sheet Kit Cocoa butter painting kit

Lunch time: since I have the car on Tuesdays, I usually go out for lunch. Today I went to Five Guys (I have a slight preference for Smashburger for this style of burger, but the nearest SB is 35 minutes away, whereas the nearest FG is five). Bacon Cheeseburger with Fried Onions: Five Guys aficionados will notice something conspicuously lacking from this order: there are no fries. I'm sorry, Five Guys, I simply do not care which farm those potatoes came from or what day they were dug up if you do not know how to cook them!!! I like crispy fries, and Five Guys aren't. Total deal-breaker. But I love their burgers.

The cutting board in those kitchen photos is about ten years old, and I don't take very good care of it. As a result, it has started to crack. Rather than simply buying one, being the obstinate sort, I set out to make my own. Here is the current status: End grain, of course, made of a Canadian hard maple. The target final dimensions are in the neighborhood of 23" x 16" x 2.5", though it looks like it's going to be a small bit larger in each dimension in the finished product, depending on how the final planing goes. I have 22 of 63 glue joints completed, and I'm doing them one at a time because it's easier and more reliable. Have any of you reading this made your own cutting board? How did you do your glue-up?

It is, by construction, substantially more difficult to post on a forum than it is to post on a blog, on Facebook, or on Twitter: I think this manages to be both a strength and a weakness of forums. If you want to post on a forum, at the very least you have to decide which forum to post in. If you are a knowledgeable forums denizen you will probably also want to search for related topics first, rather than simply starting a new one. Whereas if you want to post at Twitter, you just type your 140 characters and hit "Go." On mobile devices it's even easier, of course: the iPhone has "Tweet" buttons all over the place. Alas, there is no "Post on eG Forums" button (and there can't be... where would it get posted?). So forums force you to perform some categorization work that you don't have to do to post at Twitter. I think it makes forums more readable and in some sense more useful (depending on the use) than Twitter etc., but it means the volume is going down.

I'm glad you asked! I'm actually not sure whether the ingredients list would actually look any different between masa made from reconstituted masa harina and that made from corn, but as you can see, I am buying a masa that has preservatives added, and I'm doing it on purpose: In my experience, if you are not using fresh masa within 24-48 hours of the time it's made, it starts to develop a weird off flavor. Since I am buying it in five pound bags and am only cooking for two, it typically takes me about two weeks to use a whole bag, by which time the other available brands (without preservatives in them) are more or less inedible. I've found that this particular variety has the freshest, cleanest flavors of the bunch, and lasts far longer. Amazing, those preservatives actually work!

No, actually: my house is a single level (no basement, even).

OK, I'm back at the office now. On Tuesday mornings I volunteer at the public library, which means a) I am up and about early, and need to eat a real breakfast, and b) I have the car today. So, after dropping my wife off at work I typically drive through someplace to pick up a breakfast sandwich. This week I went with Braum's, a regional fast food chain. They have the best breakfast sandwich around, IMO. It's not flawless, but it's damned good: Note the immense slice of cheese (and it's a cheese that actually has taste, unlike certain other fast food cheeses), and the plentiful crispy bacon. Yum. If only it were consistently awesome... every now and then the bacon comes out soggy, or the sandwich isn't quite hot enough to melt the cheese. I actually didn't eat it yet at this point, since as you can see the cheese is not melted yet. back into the wrapper, and into the bag, where I let it rest for a few minutes. Next on my list is a stop at the Gray Owl for a cup of coffee. They brew Intelligentsia here, and it's always fresh: At this point I was running a bit early today (library opens at 9) so I took a walk through nearby Andrews Park, and shot this: That's a mega-spillproof mug: non of this "spill-resistant" crap. I can turn that sucker upside down and shake it and it won't lose a drop. Nice when it's sitting on top of large stacks of books.

Tuesdays are my odd day out, I'm out of the office all morning, so I typically eat breakfast and lunch out. I'm on my way to Braum's for breakfast now.

I make another salsa that I use the fire roasted in, but I've never tried them in this one.

Thanks—the ganache is a milk chocolate flavored with orange/lime/vanilla/bourbon.

Tostitos blue corn chips.