Dave the Cook

I wasn't clear about the water. I was referring to the local tap water, not what the cow might have consumed. But since you've been cooking in this location for years, we can rule this out along with the cookware. Before shrugging and calling it "just one of those things," there are a couple of loose ends. You say you bought the whole roast. I'm not sure what this means. How much did it weigh? Did it look like this?

Good point. The fact that the cheaper cuts are cooked for a long time would mask some problems. My surmise was based on the assumption that the original "sell by" dates have a good amount of slack in them, so a few more days on a Porterhouse wouldn't matter. Also, a store is going to be conservative in its inventory of expensive cuts as opposed to the cheap stuff, so there's a lot more total dollars tied up in chuck and round than tenderloin. In the end it's probably futile to guess what's in the mind of a meat department manager, because it must change with the situation. You stock up on T-bones for a sunny 4th of July, and it rains all weekend -- come Tuesday, there's a huge sale on ground sirloin. Even as a kid, I liked liver, but now I know what you're talking about. To me, anyway, it's not the same as spoiled. Like you say, we'll have to wait for NolaFoodie.

I wouldn't necessarily agree that cold-water oysters taste better. I would agree that they taste different, and in a way that might not appeal to everyone. But the reverse is probably also true, just as some people prefer spiny lobster to Maine lobster. But I wouldn't pass up an invitation to either one -- as long as fifi or Nick has OK'd them.

It makes more sense (to me) to be less scrupulous about the expensive cuts, since more money is at stake. And you're right, there were reports (including something on 60 Minutes) not too long ago about re-dating of cut and ground meat at major chains. But to me (again), liverish and spoiled are quite different smells and tastes.

Are you out of your mind? 1? tommy, and Dave--don't.

When you say "stew-type cuts of meat," do you mean meat that's already been cut into cubes, or whole cuts?

It's an English recipe, so I expect this is one of those cases where the English nomenclature differs from the American (common language and all that). Perhaps one of our UK members will chime in. My money's on the boneless sirloin side of the loin roast.

Don't we get oysters from the Southern hemishpere, and wouldn't their reproductive cycles be the opposite of Northern inhabitants? (The oysters, I mean.) I second fifi. Gulf oysters in August are scary.

Sounds great -- give me a call when you light the grill. What is meant by lamb filet? A tenderloin? That's not big enough for this recipe. Loin?

Two possibilities occur to me: 1) Different cuts of chuck have subtly different flavors, from honest-to-god beefiness to practically nonexistent. To a discriminating palate, some of them might be described as liverish. Was the chuck you got the same cut as you usually get? And at the risk of insulting you (I don't know what your experience level is, so pardon me if this is off base), are you sure it was really a chuck roast? 2) You say you were out in the country. Is there any reason to suspect the water supply of contributing or altering flavor?

23 I think you missed: 24

22.

In fact, I know of at least two occasions on which this has happened.

Scroll down on this thread. I haven't tried it yet, but it's on the menu this week at the Dave's Short-Order Kitchen.

wilted spinach, mushrooms, gruyere roasted tomato, artichoke hearts, feta and pecorino romano or tomato, mozzarella and eggs, a la slkinsey

An informative, sometimes poignant story about an Atlanta institution and the people behind it, by Atlanta Journal-Constitution writer John Kessler. The 25-year-old DFM is the prototype for many of today's urban markets. Full story, with photos by Rebecca Reid, here.

Oh. Another important thing is capacity. For what I do (cook for a family of five, with occasional dinner parties), five pounds is not enough. I think the Salter I have goes up to seven, and even that's not sufficient for breaking down a pork shoulder or a whole brisket. Whatever tare you use counts against the total capacity of the scale (at least on mine, it does). for instance, if you use a glass bowl or measuring cup as a container, it can easily weigh close to a pound, cutting your five-pound capacity by 20%.

So what do you use in your kitchen? I, too, have a Salter 4001, which is how I know all the stuff I mentioned (and for which Fat Guy criticized it) is important! I will say that I didn't pay full price for it, though. Fifi, I knew that you knew what accuracy and precision were.

It's really helpful to be able to remove the weighing platform for cleaning. This information is not always explicit in product descriptions, unfortunately. Accuracy is how, well, accurate it is -- if you put a one-pound weight on it, does it show one pound on the read-out? If it doesn't, what's the margin of error? (What is never disclosed is the accuracy across the measuring range, which is too bad, because it matters. Scales -- even digital scales -- are inherently non-linear.) Precision is how small an increment (e.g., 1/10 of an ounce, or 0.25 grams) it can weigh with a given accuracy. I think. If that's not what they mean, that's what they should mean, because they're what's important. IMHO.

Somewhere on another thread, we got Calphalon to confirm the two-vs-three coat theory via e-mail. This does indeed increase the useful life of the coating, if for no other reason than that there's more stuff to wear off. More recently, Dupont, along with cookware manufacturers (which are, after all, Dupont's customers), have been using other techniques. For instance, if you look at (and feel) a non-stick pan of recent vintage, you'll notice that it's rougher. Look closer, and you'll see what appear to be little bits of metal peeking through the coating. There are two (maybe three) reasons for this: One, the bits of metal provide an increased surface area for the coating to cling to; in cross-section these bits are sometimes mushroom-shaped, so they act as anchors, too. Two, the less the food comes in contact with the non-stick surface, the less the surface wears. (For an extreme example of this theory in action, look at a Circulon pan.) While each bit is practically nothing its own, in aggregate they comprise a significant percentage of the pan surface; they can also lift the food slightly, so actual contact with the PTFE is reduced. The third byproduct is that the metal bits mitigate the problem of fat dispersion in the pan (other textured PTFE sufaces do this, too). You've probably noticed that oils just don't behave the same way in Teflon as they do in a metal-surfaced pan -- a tablespoon of fat poured into a Teflon pan remains a tablespoon of fat -- it just won't spread out. By dispersing metal bits (or by texturing the surface), the surface tension of the fat globule is continually disrupted, promoting more even coating of the pan bottom. In practice, though, while these new surfaces are better than the super-slick coatings of a few years ago, they are far from duplicative of what happens in a stainless steel pan.

According to their web site, Berndes uses Autograph as its non-stick coating for its SignoCast and Tradition lines. Autograph is Dupont's premier PTFE coating, and is most often seen on professional quality cookware, though it's creeping into high-end stuff for the home, too. Autograph applications are often customzied for manufacturers, including special primers and textured finishes. Like all Teflon coatings, it can only be applied under license, meaning that Dupont has approved the manufacturing technique(s). It's unlikely that there is a better non-stick coating. More here.

There's nothing new about this. Fifi and mikey note, and I recall, places like this going back quite a bit. It's an idea that seems to surface every ten years or so -- but I personally have never seen one of these places last more than about a year. It's probably easier to get your head around if you abandon the equation: restaurant = good food and instead adopt the formula: restaurant = entertainment It may not be how you think of eating out, but it's a valid concept, IMHO.

I just want to say: I love threads like this. At first, I was with Sinclair: sounds yuck. Then the Yoplait thing comes along, and I'm mentally rolling it around in my mouth with a shattering of flame-broiled sugar: hmmm . . . it could work . . . Then Steve's post, with a Torres reference and conjecturing based on his own experience -- and by the time Lesley makes a suggestion, I am totally sold on the idea of Raspberry Creme Brulee, and I have to -- just have to -- know the best way to make it. Please continue.

You gotta get out more: Like to the Boggy Bayou Mullet Festival, in the pleasantly named Niceville, Florida.

But Marlene -- uh, how was the coffee?