Chris Hennes

I just made a batch of the South Carolina-style BBQ sauce: it's excellent. Of course, I've never met a mustard-based BBQ sauce I didn't like. This one comes out less vinegary than my mainstay recipe, though obviously the recipe suggests using vinegar to season to taste, so that's easy to change if desired. I recommend giving this a try if you are a BBQ fan, it's very good on pulled pork.

No? I'd be very interested to hear the disadvantages, really. The idea of being able to turn out consistent, high-quality products defines what makes a restaurant "good" to a certain extent. And if we can do it with less overall detrimental impact than current farming/husbandry/fishing/etc. practices (not a given, but one possible reason to pursue it) I see an awful lot of upside.

Right: for reference here is my setup: And here is a close view of the wok sitting on the burner

I use a 16" wok on mine: it doesn't get much chance to wobble because I use the wok technique where you are constantly tossing the whole wok, not using a spatula on just the ingredients. But it seems to sit fine when I deep fry in it, I guess. I mean, the wok doesn't conform exactly to the contours of the ring, but it's still got four points of contact at a minimum. I don't know what it would do if I wasn't holding on to the wok's handle and flipping food around with a spatula, though.

No. I try to keep an open mind, but when I am dining out it's usually just me and my wife: we spend the whole time speculating about the other people in the room. Not really cool if they are sitting right next to you!

In the cake decorating class I took we used a mixture of shortening and powdered sugar. Easy to work with and lasts forever but... um... I wouldn't want to eat it. Do you have any go-to frosting recipes for other types of cakes you make? I'm very partial to Italian-style buttercreams myself.

Right: I sometimes add whole pecans, and they get pulverized pretty good, but not to flawless smoothness like a commercial nut butter.

I'm looking at getting a juicer: not the sort for citrus, but for other vegetables and fruits. Anyone have any recommendations of desired brands, features, etc.? The folks on Amazon appear to like the Breville BJE200XL 700-Watt Compact Juice Fountain quite a bit: anyone here have it?

I know it's sort of perverse, but in my view that might become a salad if Fat Guy had just pushed them closer together on the plate. As it is, it's more like an antipasto platter or something.

So, to me, this: is straining the definition of "salad," no? I mean, I'm not saying it's not tasty. But "salad"? I dunno, when does it stop being a salad and start being "a few independent items on a plate"?

As I discovered making the mojito spheres, this is a whole different kind of cooking: "easy" is relative! I think if you can taste the saltiness from the sodium citrate, you added too much. The pH of the red wine is just barely out of range, you only need a very very tiny amount of the SC to adjust it. I'm not sure if that will affect the gelling, though. I take it it seems like there is no gelling reaction taking place. That's odd, because those ratios are very similar to the ones in MC, so I think the recipe is OK.

I'm able to access the PDF and read it: the page on sodium alginate says that if the pH is lower than 3.65 alginic acid may precipitate out: to counteract, add sodium citrate to the base. For red wine with an approximate pH of 3.5, you want to add 0.082 grams per liter sodium citrate.

Modernist Cuisine's "Best Bets for Spherification" table doesn't list any acid-level cautions for direct alginate spherification, only for reverse spherification. They do suggest adding a little xantham gum to the sphere base, however: I think that will make it hold together a bit better. You can also adjust the density of the water bath by adding up to 22% sugar to it, to get it to match the density of the sphere base.

Found this interesting interview with Nathan over on the Modernist Cuisine website:

I believe I saw a tasting menu on the menu at Feast, dinner only. I don't think it was restricted to weekends, but you'll want to double check that.

Here are two topics to peruse: Cooking from Grace Young's "Breath of a Wok" Cooking with "Stir-frying to the Sky's Edge" (Grace Young)

I've heard a number of comments suggesting that the Big Kahuna might be unstable, and I guess I don't quite understand the notion. The stability of the tripod, wok, and burner have simply never crossed my mind, and I've used the setup over a hundred times. You are NOT using this to make a meal for twenty: you are using it to make a meal for four, at least in "wok" mode. It's completely stable as far as I'm concerned.

This morning I made one with frozen bananas, pecans, and cajeta quemada: it was pretty good.

Another nit-picky point: when you create articles, only capitalize the first word of the title (unless it's a proper noun), rather than each word. I know this is contrary to normal title case, but the way linking with the [[]] brackets works, it is case-sensitive except with the first letter. So if you call an article "Black Pepper", trying to link to it with [[black pepper]] won't work. But if you call it "Black pepper", then [[black pepper]] will link up fine. I know this is annoying, but it's not something the software will let us change.

The iPad actually functions quite well as a searchable version of Modernist Cuisine's index, since that's available as a PDF on their website.

Max, so far what we've been doing is just adding the appropriate regional definitions when an editor who knows about them comes across them: the development of a page is a naturally iterative process. I don't think it's posed any problems so far. Did you have an alternative to that?

I personally find myself here a lot: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Contents Of course some of that info is also available in the help pages at WikiGullet Project, but we've trimmed quite a bit out.

I'd caution against over-reliance on redirects for this sort of thing (there are some esoteric technical issues at work under the hood): in general it is better to use the "pipe syntax" than to rely on redirects, which primarily exist to aid searches, not article writers, alas. So, for example, if the article is called "Homogenization" then you might write: Then the milk gets [[homogenization|homogenized]]. For things like plurals (and even some gerunds) you can just put the "s" or "es" or "ing" outside the brackets, like so: There are a lot of [[cheese]]s in the world!

I'll answer you in reverse order: first off, we did indeed have lunch at Feast on Saturday. The upshot is that I liked it: I don't know about "best restaurant in the universe" or whatever other accolades it's received, but I'd be willing to go back for dinner some time. It was way better than RDG :). Also to clarify about the cheese course at Catalan: it's not that any of the cheeses themselves didn't impress, it's that I don't think the plate as a whole was well thought-out. You simply can't pair a highly-assertive blue with two very mild cheeses: after tasting the blue, the milder cheeses both taste the same. I thought it was poorly executed. Regarding the foie gras bon bons, I thought they were far too large, overbreaded, and greasy inside and out. To make a foie gras bon bon properly you have to make sure it is a comfortable one bite, and then you make a foie gras mousse that is designed such that it melts but does not separate (you need an emulsification agent to help with this). Finally, you need to apply a thin breading, sometimes just a simple methylcellulose dredging, so as not to overwhelm the foie. As you might gather I'm rather opinionated about foie gras: I love the stuff, and absolutely hate to see it showcased poorly. Oh well. I am torn about fine dining in Houston: when I am on vacation, I like to eat at fine dining establishments. We have few to speak of in Oklahoma City, so it's something I really can't get at home. I understand that it's not Houston's forte, and that perhaps I'd be better served by sticking with the more interesting ethnic places, etc. But it's hard to convince myself that's a good idea: I wanted RDG to be great, I really did! Damn.

Break out the deep fryer. Crispy puffy pigs ears, oh yes please.