Chris Hennes

I was going to disagree with you here, but I went back and watched it again and while his exact words were "So I'm going to go ahead and make my own mayonnaise because he gave me the recipe for it which is oil and eggs and I, I didn't know that" I agree that upon closer examination he was probably (hopefully!) being sarcastic. Richard had volunteered the ingredients unasked, it seems mostly as a criticism of Andrew's apparent inability to read the provided supply list. Andrew seemed to be responding to that, and it's hard to tell exactly due to the editing, the clip up on YouTube comes across as sarcastic, on second viewing.

Thanks to everyone here for your tips: I just got my Edge Pro yesterday and finished doing my knives tonight. I can't do any side-by-side comparisons, but they seem to be about as sharp as when I have them professionally sharpened, especially the ones I did towards the end of my marathon sharpening session. I'm one of those people who doesn't particularly care for the chore of sharpening, so I am happy to have an efficient system that does an acceptable job.

Glad it worked out for you---I think next time I make them I'm going to try docsconz's marinade.

Bummer. Glad I've been resisting the impulse when I walk by them...

Chocolate cigarettes? In holders, of course...

Wow, the colors on that really pop: sounds (and looks!) like incredible flavors.

NOOOO!!!!! Sorry to chime in on this so late... I haven't had a Samoa in years, but I have very fond memories of them growing up. I love your bird, and I don't even generally like birds (unless they're called "poultry" ): Ernie's beautiful, though. Great blog, thanks...

I gave this a shot last night, and it was pretty good, though I think careful attention to ingredient balance is key. I made it with Haagen Daz vanilla bean ice cream, which was perhaps a little too vanilla-ey for the olive oil I was using, which was a standard supermarket EVOO (don't remember the brand, but it's national, and nothing to write home about). I tried it with both red Hawaiian and a Guérande. The Hawaiian looked great, but was too large and resulted in over-salted bits when you crunched into it. The Guérande was excellent, but you couldn't really see it on there, so it was visually disappointing. I think a slightly fruitier, and more assertive olive oil would have been better as well. I should add that I convinced my wife to try it as well, and she found the color of the olive oil on the ice cream off-putting, and she was unimpressed by the flavor. Not disgusted, mind you, just unimpressed.

Thanks to Katie Loeb and Capaneus I made my first trip to Capogiro last week following dinner at Fuji. It was a great ending to that meal: I got the pistachio and the dark chocolate. Personally, I thought the dark chocolate was a bit too brownie-like for my tastes, and the others agreed that it seemed as though perhaps something about it has changed recently. The pistachio, on the other hand, was wonderful. I loved the muted green coloration, and the flavor was very pistachio-ey. Has anyone else had the dark chocolate recently and thought the recipe changed?

I'd be scared of hanging up my cast iron while it was still hot... I'm a klutz, and that is just a recipe for serious burns. That, and I relish the overkill involved with a custom-constructed cast iron storage unit. I think the OP should do it, and take pictures for me to gaze longingly upon!

Not many places in the world are farther from Italy than Napa... that is a ridiculously long plane ride (though I guess South American and Australia aren't exactly "close" either).

I think part of the secret to the Twix is the long, narrow shape they use... I suspect that would help reduce the "dry" feeling as well. I love Twix: I may have to give these a go when my wife is done traveling and I have someone to feed again.

The tenderloins I've had were much too narrow to do as medallions, but my usual method is to marinate them with a little salt, pepper, rosemary and olive oil, then toss in a very hot preheated pan and give them a quick sear. They cook in around a minute, I think. Deglaze the pan with a little red wine, mount with butter, and voila! dinner is served.

Here in Central PA the local Wegmans always has a decent selection. The loins in particular are reasonably priced, but the chops aren't bad and racks are available, pre-Frenched, for a bit of a premium. Of course, I still order a lot of meat from online sources in the never-ending search for the perfect meat... tack on FedEx costs and that gets pricey for sure.

Thanks to Katie Loeb's kind offer to drive, I was finally able to make it out to Fuji last night. I will preface this by stating that I am a relative novice when it comes to sushi, and certainly have no reasonable access to it where I live. Until last night the best sushi I had ever had was as a part of the Omakase at Morimoto, and that was the best by a very large margin. Well, no longer. I still hold Morimoto in high esteem, as the meal was quite delicious, but Fuji was truly extraordinary. I hope that in the future I can temper my enthusiasm with visits to some true sushi Meccas, but wow, last night's meal was great. A lot of the dishes posted above look familiar, or at least like variations on the same theme. I had a number of "firsts" last night: monkfish liver, uni, and truffle salt(!) all featured in the meal, none of which I had ever had before. We simply entrusted ourselves to Chef Matt's care, and he delivered round after round. The fish was impeccable, the rice noticeably better than any I had had before, and the uni blew my mind. I know, this is a totally worthless review since I am woefully unqualified to judge sushi quality, but it was nevertheless the best meal I have ever had. Please forgive my naive enthusiasm... I love trying new food (the company was pretty good, too ). ETA: Last night anyway, there were three back-of-house employees that we saw: Chef Matt, his son, and one other guy who appeared to be doing basic ingredient prep. Matt did most of the the work for our plates, which were almost exclusively sushi. And I forgot to mention the Amberjack in my list of "amazing things I had never had before."

Turned out I didn't have to dine alone after all, but that didn't stop my wife and I from eating at the bar last night anyway . In addition to a couple of wonderful cocktails, I had the boar, which was a wonderful, mushroomy dish that suited a rainy evening particularly well. My wife, who doesn't even like mushrooms, had the wild mushroom tagliatelle, which she enjoyed as well. Not a terribly impartial review since the company and service were so gracious, but we had good food and a good time nevertheless.

In my opinion, a big part of the problem is the mis-reporting, or perhaps just overzealous interpretation, of the scientific results, which then leads people to mistrust science in general. In science we find a lot of correlations, but can seldom draw a direct causal link. There are a lot of variables at work, and health is a very complicated issue. We also see a strong trend of "fear-mongering" among a large part of the mass media: they seem to love telling us that this that and the other thing will kill us any day now. There is usually a grain of truth hidden in the mountain of hyperbole... I think it is a mistake to simply ignore health advice from scientists just because our understanding of the human body is incomplete.

Oh man, that looks good. My next pork order arrives in a couple weeks: just in time for some Spring BBQ action!

I thought Padma was just an observer/facilitator, but did not actually get a vote?

I beg to differ. The Haagen Dazs cartons contain precisely one serving.

I thought about putting some rice wine vinegar in with his one, but I was leery of the effect the acid would have on the meat texture sealed in the bag like that. I take it this is not a problem?

Tonight I did a sous vide pork tenderloin at 60C for one hour, per Nathan's recommendation. I assume with a cut this tender, there is no point in going any longer with it? I.e. the hour is just to bring it up to temp, not holding it there for any length of time? I am still astonished by the texture of the proteins that can be achieved with this technique... I have to learn to be more careful with spices, though. A little goes a long way... Here is the final dish (cross-posted from the Dinner thread):

Still breaking in my new sous vide rig, here is Sous Vide Pork Tenderloin, Asian style:

I know it's hardly an exact science, but how long do you smoke 3 kg. of bacon for? I try to keep the temperature under 30'C. I smoke in batches of several hours at the time. ← Way upthread there is a reference to cold smoking bacon for 8+ hours; most uf us myself included lack the equipment to cold smoke and hot smoke until the internal temp of the bacon reaches 65 C ish. That takes 2-4 hours depending on the exact smoker set up used. Also way upthread is a comparason someone did on cold smoked vs. hot smoked bacon IIRC that individual found the differences in the final product to be negligable. I don't have exact quites of the above posts referenced as I've been re-reading this whole thread over the past several days ← I believe this is the post you are thinking of with the hot- vs. cold-smoked comparison.

I was following the method BryanZ detailed in this post, removing the skin and rendering it separately. I think that by re-cooking the breast to render the fat from the skin you were essentially defeating the purpose of the sous vide technique. The breast I made was incredibly tender and juicy, much more so than when I use a stovetop cooking technique. Any of the local sous vide experts care to comment?