OliverB

thanks Dave, that's interesting to know!

Isn't the scum blood etc cooing out of the bones? When I made veal stock I had to skim a lot and that stuff looked nasty. Grey and slimy, not something I'd want to eat. But I'm truly intrigued now, I might just have to get a cooker. Anybody know if I could use a pressure canning cooker for this? I want one of those, but they are expensive and I have no idea if they can be used for regular pressure cooking also. That would be neat and take me closer to the "finalize order" page.

I really prefer natural casing personally, I don't even buy a sausage if it's not in natural casings. I often find the artificial ones to be too hard and for some reason it's hard to get the meat out of some of them. Natural casings you just slit open and the meat falls out, with some of the artificial ones it's close to impossible to get everything off. Why take meat out of a sausage? Well, for pasta sauces or to put on pizza. Of course I'd not make my own sausage to then slit it open

neat, I'm looking forward to this one! I love his books, have a couple of his more recent ones. And it's true, what ever I made from them turned out very nice. Also looking forward to the show, I hope I can find it on my local cable! Never would have thought to look on youtube for book reviews, interesting!

does Amazon Australia not ship world wide? I've ordered from Amazon in Germany several times, don't even have to create a new account, has all my info available. Does Australia have price protection on books? In Germany you are not allowed to sell a book below cover price (except books not published in Germany) which makes Amazon more a matter of convenience (not having to go to the store). I love Thai food, I'm gonna have to check out that book!

interesting thread! Really shows you how different everybody is and views things. I love all of Keller's books! Those intimidated by the FL book or even Bouchon (why? It's a great book with relatively easy to make things) might want to check out the new Ad Hoc at Home, a great book with much simpler recipes. Of course, the French Laundry book will not have simple to make recipes. I think there are a whole of 71 or so restaurants with 3 Michelin stars on the planet. Reading the FL book opened my eyes to why. The work and effort they put into each dish is simply amazing. I've eaten there once and while the check almost made me laugh out loud for the silly amount we spent, but wow, every single dish was way past sublime. There really isn't a word in the English language to describe it. I've not made much from his books, I simply don't have the time, and the recipes are supposed to be one of 12 or 15 courses, I don't usually cook that way I never found his tone patronizing though, I really like reading his books. Of course, most of that might be Ruhlman, who knows, but still, I find them interesting, entertaining and very educational. As they say, your mileage might vary. But I've learned a lot and gained a lot of respect to what these people do. The least useful - to me - Keller book is Under Pressure, but I knew that when I bought it. I doubt I'll ever get an immersion cooker or commercial vacuum packer, no matter how good things might come out. I'm plenty happy with food cooked the normal ways. But, you can still use the recipes, you don't HAVE to cook sou vide. Won't be the same, but I hardly ever follow recipes to the word, so it doesn't really matter. Alinea is a wonderful book, but almost more on the art level. I probably never will cook from it, but I will eat there some day and it's simply amazing what they do with "food". I'm surprised some don't like the flavor bible, I find it very useful and page through it often. It's not really a "cook book" but a collection of ideas that bring inspiration. Some of the listed combinations are things I'd never think of, and for that alone I love the book. Oddly enough, to me one of the least useful books has been McGee, as it tends to get more into detail than I care for. I love to know the science and whys and whats, but in that case I'd probably go for the cliff notes. I actually prefer How to Read a French Fry. But I don't own any books that I was disappointed with, I research them, follow eG recommendations, Amazon reviews, or look at them in the store. I haven't set foot in a library since I left colledge, but the screams of my wallet can attest to my presence in (used) bookstores loudly

I have some dry ones (salted) that will last for ever, but I also bought one at Whole Foods a while ago, hoping to make some sausages that week. Never got around to it so I froze them, putting them back into the state that Whole Foods (according to the guy that sold them to me) keeps most of theirs. I doubt they'll break any easier on you, though that's just gut feeling. After all, sausages are often sold (or kept) frozen too, and don't pop apart once you cook/bbq them? You don't want to overstuff anyway, and make sure to pop air pockets with a needle.

my freezer is just a couple months old and I still pretty much know what's in there, but since we're sharing feet, I have 5 pig's feet in there too! 4 of them off a Berkshire pig, skin and hair on. As I have no good idea on how to get the hair off yet, I vac and froze them for now. Should I just throw them in hot water for a moment? Pour boiling water over them? A project for a rainy day, which we don't seem to have any of in our near future right now.

I had a thing like the slap job a long time ago, it's been around for quit a while. It did cut though, the blade was very sharp. Eventually the clear plastic ring that held it all together broke and I never got a new one, as I love cutting, dicing, chopping, slicing, one of my most favorite parts of cooking. If that were not the case though, I'd not hesitate to buy an other such tool, though I'd probably not go with the Slap thing because I can't stand that sales guy.

interesting idea. But is the stock better, or just faster to make? I don't care about the time it takes, but if it's "better" I'd be inclined to add yet an other gadget to the kitchen...

LOL, I'd do the same! I wish that publishers would just make the index of cookbooks available for download in a simple format that allows you to just add it to a database, thus allowing you to search the index of every book you own on your computer. It will probably happen some day. I hope.

I got my copy a couple days ago and I love it. Some great instructional photos, and more recipes that I'll probably make than any of the other Keller books. French Laundry is wonderful, but just about everything in there takes a lot of time for a little dish, not something I normally can justify - sadly. I'll just have to go back to the French Laundry to taste that kind of food again I guess. In the long run probably cheaper too, as I'd probably mess up some expensive tender ingredients anyway :-) Bouchon is wonderful and very useful. Ad Hoc is probably even more so to me. There are some dishes that make me want to run to the kitchen right now. While certainly more - well, pedestrian would be the wrong word, but more "reality based" maybe - than the French Laundry (or Alinea, Fat Duck, etc) I don't see why anyone would not get a kick out of this book and suffer the same urge to cook RIGHT NOW. It's actually refreshing to have a book by one of the best chefs currently alive that focuses on more of an every day kind of food. I'll add some more once I made something from the book, the last week has been crazy busy, but as of now I can only highly recommend the book. Not that I would have thought differently. Amazon packaging was abysmal unfortunately and all four corners of the book got damaged, a replacement should be here on Monday. I'm anal with my books and if they don't look pristine and fresh off the press they go back. This one really suffered though, the corners sticking out of the lame excuse of a box. (more a wrap around cardboard thingy) If in doubt, look at it in a bookstore, it should be on the shelves by now, but I'm sure I'll learn some good things and make some great dishes from this book!

I'm turning them over every day. Might just be that the fat of the Berkshire doesn't harden as much as what ever breed it is they sell at the Asian market? Skin is off, since these are extremely hairy pigs (as the 4 feet in the freezer can attest to) and they don't have a way to scald it on the ranch. I guess since I'm not curing this for weeks or months I'll probably be fine any way. If I get around to it, and if they have it in stock, I'm probably gonna get the big green egg XL this weekend and smoke them on there :-) Thanks Chris!

I love making pasta, don't do it often enough. Mainly because I'm too lazy to clean off the long counter that I need to do so... I also never cared about the not square end parts, who's measuring their pasta on the plate? I'd probably show them the door, Alfredo - the original - is fantastic. Uses a truckload of butter, but it's oh so good! No cream, thanks. just parmesan and butter. Some magazine, I think Sauveur or La Cucina Italiana - had an article about this a while ago, including pictures of them preparing the dish at the table side at the restaurant where it originated. Lots of butter on a serving platter, add noodles and cheese, toss with golden spoons I think. I love to make "stained glass" pasta too, where you put small parsley/oregano/thyme/what have you leaves on half a rolled sheet, fold it over and run it through the machine again. I usually hand cut that into large lasagna style pieces. gorgeous to look at and oh so good! A bit of butter, parmesan, and some fava beans sauteed in butter with a touch of garlic - heavenly :-)

good question. They throw out quite some "stuff" when they clean it out, and the shells are probably of a good weight. I probably would expect to get less than one lb out of a 2lb crab, if that much. If you need a certain amount of crab meat, you might be better off just buying the meat already removed. More expensive by the lb, but probably justifiable? Google brings up some info for blue crab, I did not dig much deeper. But if you google "how much meat in a crab" or something like that you might find something.

I'm curing two bacons right now, both are somewhere around 3.5 lb. One is cured with the Charcuterie recipe for savory bacon (bayleaf, garlic, etc) and seems to come along fine, getting a bit harder. The other is cured with a mix from butcher/packer (cure with maple sugar) and if I calculated things correctly I should have used plenty enough cure. that one is softer still, though. I did add a bit of maple syrup to get even more sweetness. The meaty side is hardening up, the fat side is still pretty soft though. Should I be worried? The meat is w/o skin, it's from a Berkshire pig and they don't have the facility to take all the hair off (yet). Once smoked half of these will go to a friend. I've only done this a couple times and have no idea what might indicate a bad/imperfect curing process. I sure don't want to poison anyone, should I add some more curing mix? Should I just see what happens? Throw it out if it stays soft? I really have no clue on how to be sure that this will not be a botulism bomb... Edit to add: I cured them on Monday, so they have an other two + days to go Grateful for any pointers...

interesting, I'd usually see a thing like this as a gimmick or a chef trying to cash in on selling "a spoon" for silly money. Well, $9 is really not worth worrying about, but still, I have a lot of spoons in my drawer already. Of course, I'm sure I'd buy it if I'd see it, just because. And then I'd loose it somewhere in my drawers and use my regular spoons Maybe the fact that these are a bit larger (it seems) than a regular spoon, you can hold a bit more sauce? I'm actually tired of that paisley (or what I call it - tadpole) shaped sauce puddle, I usually prefer my sauce on top and dripping off the food item, instead of having it underneath. I'd love to see one of these in person though (w/o ordering one), as I've certainly never heard of a sensual to hold spoon before, though I can imagine what you mean. I love my shun Ken Onion knives for that reason. They just feel completely right to me.

won't the stone facilitate steam moving away a bit better than solid metal? Even at high heat, the relative porous material pizza stones are made of should allow some steam to get into it and distribute better? Interesting thing to think about, I might just put a metal plate or cast iron pan on the grill some day and see how it compares. Would actually be nice to be able and stick a pizza in a pan in the bbq - if it works.

great stuff, thanks! I'm gonna get that big green egg in the near future, looking forward to playing with that thing! If I create something noteworthy I'll post :-)

my guess would be it does nothing but float on top, I can't see it adding any flavor to the pickles. It might add some once you pull a pickle out, but then you might as well just pour some on later. Just a guess, but I don't see how the pickles would get in contact with oil that floats on top. You could try to use some soy sauce instead of salt, rice vinegar instead of other vinegar, things like that. Simply exchange similar things from your standard recipe. Throw a hot Thai pepper in. There are different ways to pickle Asian style, but they seem to be very different from ours, not using vinegar at all etc. Kim chi the like. But as for the 2nd part of your question, I can't see how the oil would throw off the flavor of what it sits on top of. It might go rancid if you don't store things well, I'd try it with a batch I intend to eat soon. But then, you could just pour a bit on the plate before putting the pickles on. Curious to see what others might have to contribute!

I learned from my mom and her books and she learned from her mom, that was my initial education. But as for books that influenced me the most, two come to mind: Thailand, the beautiful cookbook, which introduced me to all kinds of new and foreign things. Before I moved to the US I never even ate let a lone saw a Thai restaurant. Nor had I ever heard of a wok and oyster sauce was something to eat oysters with. The French Laundry Cookbook, as it opened my eyes to what pains these cooks go through to make every single tiny bit of something as perfect as can be. I've not cooked much from it, but I learned a lot about the philosophy behind these restaurants and that has changed how I work with my food. And where I buy my food. Most recent and current influence would be Charcuterie, Seven Fires, and Japanese Food and Cooking which sells for a silly 5.99 at Borders. Now I just need to build a curing chamber, a smoker, and learn how to read the Japanese (and Chinese and Thai and....) labels in the Asian supermarket and I'm all set :-)

I'm definitely in the low 1-2 percentage rate if you mean "followed a recipe step by step". I hardly ever do that. I hardly ever cook with a set recipe, usually make things up as I go along, combining ideas from different books/magazines and just see what I have handy. I do cook from recipes if it's something new to me, like the rabbit, abalone, frog legs and giant fresh water prawns I just got for example. I do follow different instructions for a perfect roast chicken, but might change herbs and spices around. I own a bit over 200 and page through them almost on a daily basis, looking for ideas and inspiration or just fun stories. I love books with little stories going along with the recipes, some history, etc. Funny thing is, I've probably followed more recipes from the internet step by step than any from any of my books. Probably because I tend to look up something I've never made before but have in the fridge/freezer. Many of the books I own are also in the sub category of art book (layout, design, and especially photography, which is one of my (too many) hobbies). Alinea etc, I doubt I'll ever try to make much from them, but they are a pleasure to just look at. As for excuses? Who needs excuses to own cook books?

That's probably a question everyone asks themselves at times. I have a bit over 200 cookbooks (and twice as many about music and somewhere in between about art). Have I cooked from all of them? Not even close. Have I been inspired? Most certainly! I rarely cook from a recipe following each step, I mostly take them as idea and run with it. But I love paging through them, there's alway something to learn. I tend to concentrate on some categories if you will: Restaurants/Chefs I admire Food specific books (meat, bread, fish, etc) Countries The old standards (Escoffier etc) mostly for fun Historic cuisine (Roman, medieval, etc) Particular techniques (open fire cooking etc) I probably almost covered anything out there with this, LOL. I do not own any cake/cookie baking books, don't have a sweet tooth. I own books that I'm pretty sure I'll never cook from, Alinea, Fat Duck, etc, and with some reservations, French Laundry. I have made French Laundry recipes and am pretty sure I could recreate a lot of them, but with all these extreme fine dining books, there is a lot of work going into a dish that's supposed to be one of a multicourse dinner, supposed to be a small amount. I just can't justify the time (and cost) to prepare something that won't feed the family. Yes, you could upscale, but you might as well set off a calorie bomb and be done with it ;-p I only buy via Amazon or from used bookstores, unless I get one of those nice 50% off coupons from Borders. I have little interest in Food TV celebrities, most create just average food IMO and most are annoying (hello Mrs. Ray!). I do occasionally like to watch Paula Deen, just to see how much fat and butter she's gonna sling today. That show is almost a parody, lol. The one I like best is Jamie Oliver, his recipes always work, I've cooked from several of his books repeatedly. I am and always have been a book fanatic. I'd love to have every wall of the house covered with book shelves (and artwork). But if I cover any more walls with books I'm gonna get in trouble ;-) I have to be much more selective in what I get for space reasons and will eventually sell off some of the books I really don't use. I'm nerdy with books and keep them in top condition, they are all like new. Even the ones I use more often.

As part of my 1/7th of a Berkshire pork I received a huge part of pork belly, scaling in at almost 8lb. I cut it in half today and cured one half with the savory mix from Charcuterie, though I added more garlic, pepper, and one more (fresh from my tree) bay leaf. The other half I made with a sweet cure from Butcher/Packer and added a bit more maple syrup. Once cured I'll smoke them both with Almond wood I got from the ranch. I'll have more detail and pictures on my blog once it's done, but I'll post the main images here too in a week or so. There's one ingredient to Charcuterie that's hard to come by I noticed. Patience! The kitchen smelled so good after crushing the pepper and garlic, I was tempted to just bite right into it :-) And I think I'll put that mini fridge on my x-mas list Chris, what you're pulling out of that wine cooler looks simply amazing!

great videos, thanks! I never used to truss a chicken until I read the French Laundry cookbook, though I was not really clear on what to do. I tried for a while, then I read some other great cookbook (and I can't remember which now, but also from a top restaurant) where they never do this, so that the hot air can get into the cavity and the legs are surrounded by as much heat as possible. Somehow that made sense to me and I stopped trussing. I have a chicken ready to roast tonight and won't use any string on it again, but I'm also expecting Ad Hoc At Home in the mail this week, where I guess one can find a step by step instruction. I never stuff my birds except maybe throwing some herbs and lemon pieces in there. I used to do that, but somewhat agree with the idea that it will take a long time to cook the stuffing all the way through, by which time the chicken is probably overdone. The Big Sur Bakery book now debones the legs before roasting, I won't do that tonight, I think I'll rather first go there and it their version. It seems to make sense as there's less "stuff" to heat through, but I can't imagine how one would then grab the leg like a caveman and have a go at it. And that's just something that's part of a good roast chicken to me, since I was a little kid! Of course, my boy caught on to that, luckily my wife prefers the wing and breast. Just hoping my daughter will follow the mom, otherwise I'll have to have somebody breed three-legged chicken! Or roast two :-) I will however remember that hand under and twist move for other things, that's really neat!