cbread

Yes, sure, there are plenty of recipes that need little accuracy. But that doesn't excuse sloppy and inaccurate writing / editing for recipes where accuracy is important. A scale good down to 1 gram now costs less than $30 almost anywhere. There is just no upside to messing about with teaspoons or shovelfulls or whatever when you need 7 grams of yeast and 12 grams of salt. Housewife measurements are slower, more work, less adjustable and less accurate. A lose, lose, lose, lose proposition. I hate trying to mess with taking a housewife measure recipe and working it up in grams. I don't want cookbooks that don't show metric weights. Looking to: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=17226 - we should have some there are at least 161, 756 cookbooks owned just by some of our Egullet membership who have written in to answer the question of how many cookbooks they own. Doesn't a number like that suggest some clout in the publishing world?

What a loony wonderful idea!I've started using a couple of darkroom style timers in the kitchen, GraLab 300 model, and find they help enormously. The darkroom items going up for sale have made many available. Their big face and minute and second hands are easy to read from across the room. They can be set in a moment; much faster than using my oven's timer which is what I did before.

My too many knives, two steels, and a pizza paddle are stored in somewhat the same way as Fat Guy's system. All my counters are 30" deep. I have something like 8 feet of butcher block counter. In it's 30" depth, the front 24" in depth is solid Boos oak butcher block, behind which are three solid oak pieces, each slightly less than 2" wide, separated by spacers to form two grooves that I slip my knives between. Not a very good description, but if you imagine that the handles of my knives stick up above counter level from grooves near the back, you're getting it. Under the knives is a slot that can be opened for cleaning by lifting the 2 inch wide blocks.

I don't understand a device promoted as "Pro" being made with low grade wimpy machine design for amateurs. I guess KA is implicitly saying that if you want it to last, buy a Hobart.

Maybe a stew or braise where beer might be added?

Nah, at least not me. I eat things I'd never admit here. Call them comfort foods and don't ask further. I'm utterly unqualified to be a surpertaster. Cilantro really is different to me and the others who get the soap taste thing.I suspect there are degrees. The fact that another person tastes the soap thing, but is not utterly put off by it makes me suspect cilantro's soap thing is genetic in the amplitude of the soap taste. For that person, mild. For me, the soap is so strong it feels like a violent assault on my mouth. Did I not know it is a genetic thing and that some actually love the stuff, I'd think someone maliciously tampered with my meal. Given how many people find cilantro deeply unpleasant, I don't understand it sometimes being served without warning. I would never order it in anything knowingly. But on the brightening of stew, so that I'm not hijacking this worthy thread, a touch of acid and a last instant addition of parsley or similar is my best way.

You're not the only one. But, to be more accurate; dill doesn't hit me as being anywhere near as nasty as cilantro - to me. I can tolerate dill if I really must, where cilantro comes across as so vile to me that I'd go hungry rather than eat anything with cilantro. I wish I tasted it like others do!

Thanks - and my darkroom using photographic friends thank you too since thermapens are great for darkroom work too.

I'm feeling older by the second reading this stuff.

precooked bacon?

Why do people put themselves through that???? I am someone who thinks in math terms - and I shy away from problems like that. Even if there is a correct answer that fits into a integer number of volume measures, the accuracy and speed just aren't there. I marvel that friends of mine need to be yanked kicking and screaming to try the electronic scale. Somehow it appears harder to them. It's my secret laziness tool. I get things done more cleanly, faster, better, easier. And easier to scale. Quick: what's half of 1-3/4 cups flour? A third of 1-1/4 cup sugar? ←

I hate to say this, and suspect I will be deluged by irate Egulleters, but even RR makes more sense to me than a kiddie chef. RR doesn't suit my need for food info or my "aesthetics" but at least she is just a person talking about food. I'd rather have her get a show than a child put on a pedestal as a gee whiz curiosity.

Tim, I don't get it either - each of those design decisions you note seems a no-brainer - but I didn't get a vote on design. At least with Mauviel M'cook there are 6.4 qt and 9.2 qt sauce pots - they refer to them as stew pans - with two "D" type handles, stock pot style. I'm leaning towards those double handles on even 6 qt pots - since I crank my arm less with stock pot style handles.

Part of the value of the gram scale is that if you have a volumetric recipe that works for you, you can convert as previously suggested, but a larger value is that once you have converted, you can make very fine adjustments to really perfect a recipe; say from 350 grams of such and such to 345. Far more precise than cups and whatever, and at whatever number, far faster than volumetric. It's win - win - win. Faster, more accurate and more finely adjustable.

I posted the topic "Eeeeek! Kiddie Celebrity Chefs?" after receiving the link to an article in Slate Magazine online about children cooking, having cooking shows and reviewing restaurants. I had no idea that there was a youngster with a television cooking show. and, I was surprised to read, children getting visibility for reviewing food - visibility including coverage in the New York Times and CBS's morning show. Following the links in the Slate article demonstrated that these are not your garden variety McCheezeburg kids, but for their ages, simultaneously very accomplished and unusually mature. Nothing in the articles gave me anything but admiration for the kids themselves. Nonetheless, the information gave me a media bellyache. It is the adults around these children that make me wonder. I can't help but suspect that some part of the interest generated by all this is a titillation from watching precocious kids as foodie freaks of nature. Sort of a “watch the wonderchild” entertainment playing off the current food + celebrity mania. The media coverage of these kids seems somehow - I can't think of a better term - pornographic. In the field of visual arts there has been similar coverage of other unlikely or precocious wonders; the autistic child who has a gallery show of his/her art and sells at mid-career adult artist prices; the zoo elephant who's "paintings" get frenzied media attention and sell for more than peanuts. The kids in Slate’s article are good kids. It concerns me that the nature of the attention given them is misdirected.

Added note - it's not just that I have torqued my wrist and arm - that''s an issue with any pot I use, but the nearly sharp back edge of the handle on Allclad. That sharp corner just sticks in my hand in a way that's user hostile. And Allclad handles are too narrow for me anyway - too little leverage for easy manipulation of the pan. Otherwise I'd just take them into the shop and grind off the sharp edge. I could, I suppose, get material added to the width of the Allclad handles by welding. I would then be able to pretty it up by grinding filing polishing etc, myself. I can't quite see the cost though of someone else do the actual welding extra material onto the Allclad handle to beef it up - by the time that was done, each pan would cost a lot - I'd have spent less buying Viking at full boat price.

I realized I just could never be happy with the Allclad handles. Absent that factor, I would have got Allclad as it is otherwise the best value of it's ilk I could find. Allclad really needs to rethink those handles. They seem a real deterrent to some folks like me. I doubt I'm enough of a cook to feel much difference between Allclad and M'cook pans by their cooking performance as you note, but just handling the M'cook pans is way more pleasant for me. Not something I'd urge on anyone else, but it seems the solution for me.

OK - I refrigerate olive oil in the summer if I am not going to use it for quite a while. My theory is that refrigerating olive oil is discouraged since too many people would use added heat as in microwave etc. to rewarm it, thus ruining it, rather than letting it take it's time at room temperature. I have heard nothing that the cold is an issue, but repeated warnings that heating good oils will ruin them. I would be pleased if anyone more knowledgeable could confirm or refute my guesswork.

Update - But first - a note of thanks for everyone who has made the effort to pass along their experiences to me. I noticed Mauviel's M'cook line, along with Viking's, both tout seven ply stainless over aluminum construction. I have assumed they are made from the same material - possibly at the same manufacturor. Given the positive responses about Viking (other than price) I began to suspect the Mauviel M'cook would be worth considering. Based on my hope that the actual pots would have identical cooking performance, I ordered a M'cook stainless saute from www.jbprince.com who have the best retail prices I was able to find. I really liked that pan and subsequently found a couple more Mauviel stainless pans at auction sites, and bought them. Very interesting result - three pans, all of which have Mauviel M'cook stainless pot bodies, but three completely different handles. One, cast iron handled came from JBPrince. A brass handled pot and a stainless handled pot each came separately from two different auction sites. All have riveted attachment to the body of the pan. I have only had those pans three or four weeks or so. The cast iron handle is my preference; the cast iron handle seems to stay a little cooler. And it feels a little larger and fits my hand better. The brass handle is drop dead gorgous but gets hot quite quickly. The stainless is beautiful and is middling in it's time to heat up. I am presuming www.jbprince.com obtains some sort of commercial version of M'cook stainless and that the other versions with their slicker stainless and brass handled pots are intended more for homeowner use, given what looks like a greater emphasis on esthetics over function. The stainless clad bodies seem all the same, so the cooking properties should be identical. Given prices at JBPrince it appeared a win-win situation.

Frightening items in this article. www.slate.com/id/2212816/pagenum/all

I can't imagine cooking without Teflon. It is incredibly inert, so I don't see how it's a danger.

I don't know about dedicated remodeling web sites, but I can say you'll get some very good feedback from the knowledgeable folks here. I'd urge you to start firing those questions of yours in this direction. If nothing more, you'll be in a position of greater knowledge when you start talking to the people who want your money. And knowledge is power when you are dealing with designers, contractors and tradespeople etc. I hate being at a loss when they start in on something I know nothing about - better to be forearmed with the basics. Then you can respond intelligently and not feel like you are paying through the nose for something you'll regret later.

I add cream and marsala or similar to the ingredients from slkinsey. I am not so taken with blending it. I don't usually blend it at all, but if the mood strikes me I set aside enough cooked mushroom and perhaps onion too, to provide textural contrast.

From the illustration: http://tinyurl.com/c26lpw, the third spatula - largest and only one with one concave side - is my favorite type of silicone spatula. Better at scraping out a bowl / pot etc, and generally a more robust design. They get use in my kitchen, and another set get used in my studio for scooping paint etc. They excel at the tasks they are designed for, and are not too bad as large general purpose spoons.

Hmmmm, I've been looking to upgrade cookware recently too, and I too noticed Mauviel's M'cook line, along with Viking. Both tout seven ply stainless over aluminum construction. I probably would have gone for AllClad had the handles not been so uncomfortable. What responses popped up when I asked about Viking seemed to be very positive - price excepted - and I am assuming that the actual multilayer material is the same in M'cook and Viking. The weight feels the same to me. Anyway, people who had used Viking wrote they were happy with quality, and based on hope or faith faith that the actual pots would have identical cooking performance, I ordered a M'cook stainless saute from www.jbprince.com who have the best prices I could find. I really like that pan and subsequently found a couple more Mauviel stainless pans at auction, and bought them. Very interesting - three pans, all Mauviel, all M'cook stainless, but three completely different handle designs. One, cast iron, is from JBPrince, and the brass and stainless handled pans each came separately from different auction sites. All have riveted attachment to the body of the pan. I have only had those pans a few days, but the cast iron handle is my preference; the cast iron handle seems to stay a little cooler. The brass is gorgous but gets hot in moments. The stainless is middling in it's time to heat up. I am presuming www.jbprince.com gets some sort of commercial version of M'cook stainless and that the slicker stainless and brass handles are intended for homeowner use, given what looks like a higher emphasis on esthetics over function. Prince's prices are quite a bit lower so it appears to me to be a win-win situation. Best, C