Chris Hennes

Have you considered just using melters? They are a lot cheaper than fully-automatic tempering machines: of course they require a little babysitting, but you can make them work. And they will be useful to you even when your volume picks up, and you start tempering in an automatic machine and just transferring the tempered chocolate to the melter when it's ready to go.

According to the New York Times: The article even quotes Nathan Myhrvold (member "nathanm" here) whose recent Modernist Cuisine eviscerated the USDA's attitudes and regulations. Now, when are we going to get our chicken standard fixed? Edited to add: USA Today article that doesn't require a log-in at the Times.

What is your expected output? How much are you looking to temper at once? And what's your budget? Tempering machines by and large are not cheap devices (it's a pretty niche market).

I tried it, but honestly found tempering by hand faster, easier, and less messy.

My first suggestion is that 160°F for pork tenderloin is quite high to my tastes, which are more like 140°F. If your guests aren't comfortable with pink pork, at least try to keep it under 150°F: do you have a thermometer? Second: embrace the MSG, it tastes good. Stick with Alton's recipe, sounds tasty to me.

I made the Spanish Chorizo off page 190. I tweaked the recipe a bit to increase the fat content (the recipe calls for 2.25 kg of shoulder, but my shoulder was a bit leaner than I would have liked, so I used 1.75kg shoulder and 500g of belly fat). I also used F-LC instead of F-RM-52, on recommendation from Modernist Cuisine. After ten days at 60°F and between 70% and 80% humidity, the sausage had lost 30% of its weight and the internal pH was about 4.4: I vacuum sealed it at that point and let it cure for an additional ten days at 60°F, then moved to the refrigerator. At that point the internal moisture had evened out nicely and the sausage was ready. The flavor is excellent, but of course entirely dependent on your Pimenton. I guess mine was good! I found the texture a bit moister than the Spanish chorizo's I've had: I think a 40% moisture loss may be a more appropriate target here, however.

A question regarding the Halibut Brandade (p. 5•152): Step 5 is to bring the soaked halibut to 58°C and hold it there for fifteen minutes. What is the purpose of the fifteen-minute hold time? Is that just to infuse the garlic flavor? Or is there a food-safety issue?

The Purple Pig was directly across the street from the hotel I was at, so I could not resist stopping by. I was disappointed that they were out of their house-made Coppa, so I had to settle for the Lengua, which was fine but nothing special. We also had a number of cheeses and olives, all of which were good. But the best part of the place, it seems to me, is the wine list full of $30-$40 bottles and tons available by the glass. Definitely what a thirsty traveler needs. I would have liked to try other things off the menu, but we has reservations at Moto later that evening so I figured I better hold off. What else is good there?

I've seen a number of recommendations for The Bongo Room for breakfast when in Downtown Chicago, so I had breakfast there two days ago, and then again yesterday (I returned purely for scientific evaluation purposes, I assure you). Most people seem to recommend their pancakes, so I tried two varieties, the orange ricotta and the red velvet. Both had excellent flavor, though I found the texture of the exterior on the orange ricotta to be a bit tough. They were both quite sweet, but not overwhelmingly so. I also tried a couple omelets, which are of the "sheet of egg wrapped around massive quantities of filling" variety. The first day was a chorizo and avocado stuffing and the second an artichoke and olive stuffing: both stuffings were very good. Hold the egg. The price was very good considering: I think the two-pancake order was around $6 or $7, and that's a lot of food. What else do you folks like here?

With Tramonto now gone, Anthony Martin is the Executive Chef at TRU: my wife and I had dinner there on Thursday, and it was quite good. A couple highlights off the tasting menu were an excellent pea soup, and a glazed veal dish served with morels. I was a bit surprised that the biggest disappointments of the evening were in the dessert category, none of which were really noteworthy, and some were not very good. The service, however, was top notch, and by the time dessert rolled around I was stuffed anyway, so it didn't really affect the meal that much.

Last night my wife and I enjoyed the Grand Tasting Menu (20 courses in four hours) at Moto: we skipped the wine pairing so as to remain conscious and sorta-kinda on-budget. Overall the meal was very successful, both flavorwise and just from an enjoyability standpoint. The previous evening we dined at TRU, and while that was good, we both felt that Moto was clearly better. I won't give a play-by-play of the meal since many of the best parts were surprises and I don't want to spoil them, but a few highlights were the "Chicken Noodle Soup" (noodles were made from chicken powder, with a chicken skin chip, more chicken powder on the side, and some kind of very chicken-y sauce underneath: basically pure concentrated essence of chicken-ness), a piece of Capon that was served in a very surprising and delicious way, and a cuban pork sandwich in the form of a cigar (as in, it really, really looked like a smoldering cigar, complete with ash). All told there was only a single dish of the twenty that I didn't care for (an Earl Grey ice cream-based dessert thing that felt disjointed to me), about a half dozen dishes that were just "good", and the rest ranged from "very good" to "wow!" I should note of course that Moto is clearly not for everyone. When we first sat down there was a couple next to us who clearly hated the place: the woman criticized everything from the food to the silverware, they hated the noise level (it is quite loud in there), and they left in disgust after completing only half of the tasting menu. I thought that was crazy, but to each their own, I guess.

Ice is good for garbage disposal blades? I had no idea...

I've never thought of "poaching" as a description of a liquid. Can you "poach" a soup?

I don't think you're missing anything, though you may be making it more complicated than it is . Pretend you are pressure-canning a fat/water puree. The exact ratio of water isn't that important, you separate it out when the fat is rendered. I basically use enough water to make a barely-pourable puree.

And of course, Kerry is failing to mention the number one individual who made this possible: Kerry Beal! She seems to have more energy than any ten of us combined, and the event came off without a hitch. Thanks, Kerry! I thought that this year's knowledge-sharing format worked very well, giving people the opportunity to share their skills with others. I tend to prefer the more "workshop"-oriented format, as opposed to a "conference." Stick us all in a big kitchen with a bunch of ingredients and let's have at it!

A random smattering of photos:

Phew, finally got home, after spending all day waiting in standby lines after my first flight was cancelled. As always it was a pleasure meeting you all in person. Now to process and disseminate... Another video of Derrick showing the dipping technique: And one of his molding technique:

I've done the potato flakes, I think I posted about it uptopic. I sautéed them in butter until browned, then added to a potato purée. I thought it worked pretty well.

I'm dining at Moto on Friday, but am stretching the budget a bit to do it. Anyone have any opinions on the relative merits of the longer tasting menu versus the shorter with wine pairing?

I'll be at dinner, with my plus one.

Is it sacrilegious to admit to liking large curds? I don't mind the small curds, but I like big ones better.

Are cured lemons supposed to be wet or dry? I'm not making lemon juice, I'm trying to cure the rinds. Maybe we're talking about completely different products, then. The preserved lemons I make are whole lemons, stored in a very salty liquid brine. I don't recall what the recipe in the book is for: is it not that kind of preserved lemon?

I agree, the pressure-cooked stocks are nice: I'm glad Nathan convinced me to try it despite having a pressure cooker that has the jiggler (the Cooking Issues guys don't like the stock they get out of that kind of pressure cooker). I especially appreciate the time savings of a) using the pressure cooker, and b) doing a fine dice on the ingredients. I would really suggest having a go at the white chicken stock recipe as it's written, though: pressure-cookers do marvelous things to leeks in particular.

Lots of good advice in the Kitchen Scales topic.

Ruhlman and Polcyn's Charcuterie quite literally changed the course of my life: it's not that it's a great set of recipes, or at all flawless, but it's such a friendly introduction to what can be quite a daunting topic, I think it has dramatically influenced a lot of beginning charcuteriers.