Chris Hennes

My copy of Eric Ripert's new book, "On the Line," just arrived; I love it already. It is an almost haphazard collection of the nitty-gritty details that obsessive restaurant-goers crave. It runs the gamut, from "What's in the Walk-In?" ("Chayote," "Salted butter," "Giant tub of house-made mayonnaise," etc.) to a description of the precise series of calls and steps to plating a particular item in the restaurant. It lists the mise en place for the various stations, gives a few paragraphs about each, and talks about the key elements of filling that slot. The back half is recipes, but I would not call this a cookbook, or at least, not just a cookbook. Naturally the recipes are highly detailed and wonderfully precise. If, like me, you are thirsty for a behind-the-scenes look at Le Bernardin (one of the best restaurants in the world), buy this book. Or make it a last-minute addition to your holiday wish list. But believe me, you want this one. Anyone else pick up a copy yet? Thoughts?

"Languishing"?? "Luxuriating," I should think! How do you cook it?

I don't think that's strange at all—I'm certain that is also my most commonly-used utensil. I didn't mean to imply, in my praise of the tongs, that they are the be-all end-all kitchen tool, or even the one I used most frequently. I simply find them indispensable for many tasks. Scraping down the bowl of my mixer not being one of those tasks .

Not sure about "too good to be true": Oceanaire has very good oysters, at a very high price point. I've never eaten them at their bar, but I've ordered them as an app. Really wonderful.

I'm trying to think of an instance when I might have used tongs when they were inappropriate, and am unable to do so. This may, however, be an instance of a tong-addict's inability to recognize he has a problem. I mostly use tongs for shuffling things to and from pans, and turning them when they are in the pan (excepting particularly delicate items like fish or burgers, which get the spatula and spoon treatment), and I find myself doing this pretty often, hence my frequent use of tongs. Can you give some examples of situations where you have seen cooks using tongs when another implement would have been more appropriate?

It's "loud," I just didn't like it. But, Ronnie liked it just fine, so I may be in the minority here.

In the Charcuterie index topic we've got a link to ronnie_suburban's post back when he made that recipe. I've tried it as well, but my opinion is not quite as favorable as his: I did not care for the flavor. I also found the sheep casings to be an incredible pain in the butt to work with. Are you planning on casing it up, or using it loose?

The Thanksgiving episode was far less jarring to me: they didn't go around wishing people "happy thanksgiving," etc. There were no decorations. There was not talk of the "holiday season." I just feel that the Christmas schtick was overdone.

When I receive frozen foods that have been shipped they always just have ice packs in the styrofoam inner box. If you overnight it you should not have a problem, especially this time of the year.

I agree: I doubt I will ever bother (via the water bath or the torch).

Here's the paragraph from McGee: In an earlier paragraph he says: And from the FDA food safety tables here: So, the bacteria that the FDA are concerned about on meat are easily killed at a temp of 100°C/212°F for 30–60 seconds.

That has been my impression as well, but it's hard to tell if it's true, or if they are just being smarter about the way they compete. I still think that there are enough people cooking that you can count on at least one disaster dish per competition: if everyone is playing to not lose, maybe this is what we get. I'm looking forward to next week's competition: I hope it will help me to separate the winners from the losers in my mind. I still don't see any really clear frontrunners.

That's interesting, it had never occurred to me to pre-cook the outside. Of course, it makes perfect sense now that you mention it. At the moment I am following the "I ain't dead yet!" school of thought with rare hamburgers: if I grind the meat myself, I just don't worry about it.

Did that door really get left open, or did the fridge just die because they put so much hot food in it the night before? "Left the door open" could easily be the excuse they came up with the prevent GE from looking bad. OK, my conspiracy theorizing is done now...

What time of year was this episode filmed? It seems so... awkward. "Happy Holidays!! <snicker><chortle>" This AIDS group got to have a Christmas party in, what, the middle of summer? Wonderful.

So, call it $15/burger? Would I pay that every day, or when feeding a crowd at a picnic? No. But once, to give it a shot? Hell yes. I'm not exactly in a position to buy dry aged beef by the side, so no trimmings for me: the only way I am ever going to get a dry-aged, prime, fresh-ground burger is if I make it myself from a normal steak cut. And I think it may be worth trying. Later. When the economy is better...

What makes you say that? We look down upon ground beef because it is in general made with lower grade beef and/or "beef." But a hamburger is mighty fine food in its own right, no reason to be met with derision when compared to a ribeye or porterhouse: just a different prep method. I suspect that I'm not the only one here who is "insane" enough (though perhaps not actually wealthy enough!) to consider making some freshly-ground dry-aged prime beef into burgers.

OK, I can acknowledge that there are plenty of food items that may be marred using tongs, but to categorically reject them on that basis? There are also a lot of items where they are definitely the best thing you can use: take grilling a sausage, for example. Tongs are hands down the best way of turning the sausage. You have complete control, no piercing of the casing, no "marring" or "damage" to the surface. As for gravity tongs: this is the kind of thing I am referring to (no idea what the proper name is, but they lock and unlock using gravity, so that's what I call them)— On the right side of the tongs you can see a sliding pin, and on the left side you see the slot where it goes in to lock the tongs. Turning the tongs completely upside-down and closing them allows the pin to fall into that slot. When they spring back open a bit, the spring causes the pin to get clamped in that hole and held in by friction, locking the tongs. To unlock, turn downward the squeeze the handles: the tension on the pin is released, which allows the pin to be pulled down out of the slot by gravity. Voila!

You used this only because they included a machine method, right? There is no reason to expect any textural difference compared to when using Greweling's (which is a bit of a pain!), is there? I had to pitch my invertase when I moved this summer, but I should order some more one of these days.

From the article: Ouch. Chang can have my tongs when he pries them from my cold, dead hands . If your tongs are ripping the food apart, you're doing it wrong. At least, that's my opinion on the matter, and obviously Chang has a wee bit more experience (and credibility) to back him up!

In your experience, is there any difference in the results between actually stirring, versus just swirling the liquid by picking up the glass? When swirling it seems quite straightforward to prevent the ice from knocking against itself and to get everything moving around smoothly in the glass. Up-topic someone suggested that a specific shape of mixing glass might make this more effective, but to be honest I am typically too lazy to pull out a spoon (or a chopstick) and typically resort to just swirling the glass for 30 seconds or so. I have not noticed any difference in the cocktails made this way, but I've never done a side-by-side comparison.

Does it look anything like this or this? Our speculation as to the cause of the green tint for those two was related to the way guanciale is processed, however, and would not apply to pancetta (I don't think).

Looks like a delicious selection of "classics"—I think a bacon-wrapped shrimp with some kind of glaze would fit the theme well. But, of course, I'm a sucker for bacon...

Not formal, just loved ones who we want to treat well. ← What is the rest of the dinner? It's hard to go wrong with shrimp wrapped in bacon (maybe with a miso glaze or something along those lines), but that's a pretty big flavor to kick off the meal with.

And how formal is the dinner? Can you do a shrimp-on-a-toothpick-type thing, or is that too gauche?