KennethT

Thank you! Went out to Lavender to the Hill st. Tai Hwa pork noodle... Waited on line for about an hour but totally worth it...thanks for the recommendation.... Then we went one more stop out and walked to durian culture and had some excellent durian... Great day so far!

Went to Din Tai Fung (@ 313 Somerset) yesterday for lunch as we were in the area... big disappointment. Compared to the two we tried in HK last year, the menu here was extremely limited and the service was inconsistent. The first 4 dishes came practically all at once, and there was about a 30 minute gap between the main meal and the sesame buns we had for dessert, and the only reason they came that fast is that we finally were able to flag someone down and beg them to push it through. The Xie long bao were excellent as to be expected though... I was curious as to whyI there was no line to get a table at 12:30 - whereas in HK, there would be a 30-45 minute queue at least. Where are other well known places to have chicken rice (besides Tian Tian in Maxwell)? We would like to compare different versions

Right - it works synergistically with gelling agents such as LBG so you can get much better results while using less.

As far as I was aware, Xanthan isn't a thickener, technically speaking, it's a stabilizer. So, it's really meant to keep particles (like spices, etc.) in suspension so they won't settle out. That's why it's commonly used is bottled dressings and sauces so from the time of filling to the store shelf it shouldn't separate. Xanthan creates sauces that are thixotropic - meaning that the fluid at rest tends to stay at rest, but will move easily under shear. Like ketchup - you can mound it and it stays put, but it spreads easily with a spatula. While it's doing that job, it will thicken as well, but if you use too much it gets a bit of a mucous-y texture. It also works synergistically with other hydrocolloids like LBG and will help it do its job and using less of it. For true thickening, I'd consider an ultra-tex or ultra-sperse starch based thickener by National Starch. If thickening cold liquids, the Ultra-tex line works great... it tends to clump in hot liquids, but for cold liquids, you just whisk it in a little at a time and it thickens, with no heating required. It's flavorless and has a nice creamy mouthfeel. Ultra-sperse is better for thickening hot liquids. They're both heat and reheat stable, freeze stable, etc.

What do people think of Sin Huat Eating House? Is it worth the hype?

I buy Gulf shrimp online - I think it's freshfromtheboat.com.. The shrimp are IQF and very high quality with great flavor. I can also get them head-on which is a big plus.

dcarch has it nailed down pretty good... what happens with a rooftop farm (a commercial one at least) is that you need to get permits to do anything. Before you can get permits, you need an engineer to assess the situation and make sure that it will be safe for the roof and also any possible wind loads that might blow anything off the roof and injure someone below. What happens when a non-commercial enterprise decides to plant their roof? That's the main concern. ScottyBoy - that is my concern for you! I applaud your decision to get a new place because of the roof potential. I just hope your roof can handle 1600 sqft of dirt!! I'm not that up on soil stats, but it seems like a bag of topsoil weighs about 50 pounds, right? How much does that cover? Maybe 1-1.5 cubic feet? (1-1.5 feet long, 1 foot wide, 1 foot deep). With a 1 foot soil depth, a 1600 sqft roof would use about 1066 bags of soil to completely cover (at the rate of 1.5 cubic feet per bag) or about 53000 pounds! And when it rains, it'll gain all that water, so it'll be much heavier than that!

It depends on the roof, I guess. Here in the northeast, buildings are designed to handle at least 2 foot heavy snow loads which adds up to a lot of weight. I have some structural engineering experience, and a quick back of the envelope calculation told me that my roof would definitely hold the weight of a hydro greenhouse. Keep in mind that a hydro greenhouse is much lighter than a standard soil based greenhouse because soil is very heavy, especially when saturated with water. Also, hydro farms require about 30% of the water required for a standard farm, and there is no fertilizer run-off that is bad for the environment.

I've done quite a bit of research on this topic. At one point, I had a fantasy of turning the roof of my workplace in Yonkers (just north of the Bronx in NYC) and turning it into a hydroponic greenhouse focusing on high quality produce for restaurants. A lot of the stuff I was/am growing in my living room was a test bed for a potentially larger project. I also don't think it's the "future of agriculture" just yet. In theory, it's great, but the reality is the cost. It's VERY expensive to set up a decent sized greenhouse, which will then have to be amortized over how much produce you think you can sell. A plus of the hydro greenhouse is plant density and number of crop cycles per year. Even still, you need to get a very high price for your crop to amortize the greenhouse. There are more expenses than jsut the setup though - at least in the Northeast, during the winter you need to provide heat and supplemental light. Lighting is really expensive - especially in this area where our power rates are not so friendly. In the summer, you have to cool the greenhouse, which is also expensive. Then labor, of course.... And with hydro (as with all farming) you have nutrient cost, which is actually a lot less with hydro than traditional soil based farming and probably the least expensive part of the whole thing. An interesting read is: This work by Dickson Despommier

I do something similar and it reheats just fine (microwave or stovetop), even without retrograding (although doing the process does make it even more bullet proof). I boil until tender, drain and reserve the starchy water, then rice, then add riced potatoes back to a warm pan and stir around until you drive off quite a bit of the moisture. At that point, I turn off the heat (or turn it to very low), and start whipping in the cubes of cold butter. Once completely incorporated, you can refrigerate it, making sure any exposed surfaces are covered with plastic wrap. To reheat, I take a little of the starchy water and heat to about 160F in a small pan, and whisk in chunks of potato over medium-low heat. If it's too thick, I'll add starchy water as I go a very little at a time - it's much easier to thin as you need than to get it too thin and have to thicken. Don't get it to boiling or it might break. Once completely reheated and rehydrated to the consistency you like, then I season and serve.

Maybe slkinsey? He's talked of travels to Italy, and has been active with the sousvide set from the beginning.

So, in anticipation of impending travel, I cut down my basil and Thai basil and donated them to friend. My friend usually buys a few bunches of basil at a time, purées, then keeps in the freezer. My3 basil plants yielded 8-9 CUPS of basil purée!!! I think he'll be set through the winter....

hmm... that looks like the tram station going to Roosevelt Island from Manhattan...

Thanks, Julian - exactly the advice I was looking for.

Thanks.... Not yet, but stay tuned.... I don't want to start anything fast growing right now as I have a vacation coming up and won't be around to take care of it. Hydro is a bit different than growing in soil as changes in pH and nutrient concentration and reservoir levels can happen very quickly with quickly growing plants. And since I haven't had time to automate a lot of it yet, the new stuff will have to wait. But, since I'll be headed to Singapore, I think I might be able to find some really interesting seeds that might be hard to come by here. Holy basil is surely on the list.... No worries!

So here's a couple shots of the garden now... This is a shot of the same 3 basil plants as before, growing out of a 1" rockwool cube - it's become a hedge!!! The leaves range from 3-5" long and are super fragrant. (BTW, please excuse the mess!) L-R: Rosemary, tarragon (cloned from another plant, not from seed), and bok choi Pretty soon, I'll have limes!

I understand Shalmanese's point - we never wash decanters with soap - only a rinse with hot water, and use "decanter beads" (sort of like stainless steel BBs) to "scrub" any stubborn stains if not rinsed right away... The glasses, however, get washed because people's mouths are all over the rim. We frequently have about 10 people over for tastings where each person gets 3-4 glasses. That's a lot of glasses to wash on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. We used to wash them by hand, but having far too many break in the hand caused us to get a glass rack from the restaurant supply store. It holds 16 glasses and is intended to go into a commercial dish machine. Removing the bottom dish rack from our rental apartment's crappy dishwasher allows us to put in the commercial glass rack with only a slight modification to the rack, resulting in clean glasses with very little effort. The rack looks like this one:

+1. My sentiments exactly.

Looks great, Chris... but to rival Katz's, you'd need to use 3x more pastrami!

That was really interesting. I was surprised that they're actually using real food, as opposed to more camera-friendly materials. I always thought that the buns were typically made from foam and painted to look browned, and that ketchup wasn't really ketchup but some type of red gel made to look like ketchup, but is much stiffer so it can sit under the hot lights for hours and not sag.

+1

Kim - where did you get your seeds? I found this place: evergreenseeds.com - it's a Yahoo store (temporarily closed until June 20th) but I don't know if there's somewhere better out there...

Just came back from pok pok a few hours ago. Got there at 6:30 and already an hour wait. Totally worth it. Best Thai food since I was in Thailand a few years ago. Really made me miss it, and brought back many memories of that trip to Chiang Mai.

I'd say that probably the most well known self-published cookbook (especially on eGullet) is Modernist Cuisine, and coming soon, the Modernist Cuisine at Home.

I'd imagine that it's already precooked/pasteurized in the bag and that the instructions given are reheating, not cooking instructions. Also, I'd imagine their thickness in the finished product is relatively consistent, so I'd imagine 35 minutes at 145F would be plenty of time to bring to temp.