Dave the Cook

Actually, like many things Southern, molasses came from the Carribean. - Dave the Sugar Geek

You dog you.

Clearly, you haven't been through their entire menu.

You make a good point, but it's not relevant to woks, because even heating is not what woks are about. These numbers are useful if your only goal is to minimize hotspots. They don't account for heat retention. A copper-bottomed pan will heat more evenly than steel because it's a better conductor, but it won't hold the heat as well for the same reason. If you wanted a cast-iron pan that heated as evenly as a copper pan, it would have to be almost an inch thick, and it would take forever to heat up. In the real world, though, the cast iron holds the heat so well that with sufficient pre-heating you end up with the appearance of even heat. You can mitigate this further by pre-heating a pan in the oven. But woks are a different case, as FG pointed out. You don't want to minimize hot spots.

Previous avocado thread here.

I am loathe to counter both Dr. Johnson and Harold McGee in the same post, but a discussion at A Cook's Wares.com presents a much simpler approach: Does this oversimplify to the point of uselessness?

That it is. And nearly as flexible as "yonder."

All in or near the Gaslight District: I second Cafe Pacifica. If I remember correctly, a good wine list at decent prices. Blue Point is very good -- you'll probably need reservations. Baca was also good. I wanted to try La Strada, but couldn't get in. Croce's (yes, run by Jim Croce's widow) Jazz Bar/Top Hat is not great food, but it can be a fun couple of hours. Bayou Bar and Grill does decent Cajun (for California), and now I see they have music. My experience with the waterfront restaurants has not been good. Nice view, ordinary food. After two or three, I gave up. I've been to SD three times and never had a car, so I've never gotten out of the city proper, except for a cab ride to the Zoo. But there are a lot of nearby destinations that make a car an attractive proposition. You'll have seen everything the Gaslight District has to offer in a day. Another half day to see the whales and the harbor, and you might feel like you're out of options.

No. I'm saying that you might not need all that power. An you need to be careful -- about make-up air, and bragging about your equipment. People might get the wrong idea.

All correct, Fat Guy, and thanks for the continuity information. Unfortunately, the largest and most powerful burner I have (and this is true for all GE electrics, as far as I can tell) is front right. It's just not practical to sear in a 12-inch pan (or stockpot, though it's an interesting idea) over an 8-inch element, even if the pan is preheated (sometimes in the oven). Even if you can preheat the pan evenly, a 12-incher won't sit anywhere close to center on the burner. This is a big part of what led me to the Allure design, which does a good job of controlling the smoke generated at the front of the range.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. Here's what we installed: The Broan Allure III. It has four fan speeds. The highest speed, called "Boost" moves 400 CFM. At the time I wrote the article, I had not used it. Since then I have, once for searing the fat on steaks and once (again for searing edge fat) on lamb loin chops. Otherwise, it rarely goes above the second setting. It claims to have an automatic feature that sets the fan speed if the heat get too high, but this has never kicked in. I recommend it, with the warning that in Boost mode, it's quite noisy. But I should also say that I think a lot of the noise is due to the duct work that had been installed when the house was built. I originally wanted to do a remote installation like Vengroff is contemplating, but the way the ducts had been installed, I would have had to do extensive work on a load-bearing wall. Neither my budget nor my skills would have stood for that, though I thought about holding out for a medical "prescription" that would have let us deduct part of the cost, due to the respiratory difficulties I mentioned. The other option (sort of) available was to install a hood that mirrored the footprint of the stovetop. Aesthetically, this was very appealing. But again, whoever did the original installation vexed me. I'll have to wait for a full remodeling. Look for a report when Thing 2 graduates from college. This should be on or about 2013. Washington is one of the few states that has any regulations whatsoever, so you should feel at least a little lucky. Their guidelines seem to be base on Cnadiam standards, which have some thinking behind them. Not enough, IMHO, but at least it's a point on the checklist. Most states don't check for it at all. They check only HVAC, and that, in my experience of buying five houses (all of them new construction) in twelve years, is cursory at best. This is a business that is very much a "good 'ol boys" club. As Ms. Ramsey alludes, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.* tsquare, if you need further information, PM me and I will forward what I have to you. *Thanks to Ron Shelton, "Bull Durham"

I've known establishments where the opposite was a problem, excessive venting was pulling heated/air conditioned air out of the dining room. This happened in the first restaurant I worked in. The solution was to prop open the back door, which was just down the hall from the loading dock. The hall was used to stage food for banquets, which were served in adjacent ballrooms. At times, we'd get a 10 - 15 mph wind through the hall; if we closed the dock door, air got pulled from the banquet rooms. Doesn't sound like much, but when it's indoors, a breeze that stiff can be disconcerting. It made the hall useless for staging in the winter, because the food would go cold.

Thanks, Stella. The steaks were a reward and a test. Prior to the new hood, this sort of prep filled the house with smoke; Mrs. Dave, the girl and Thing 2 would walk around with those Home Depot-style dust masks, giving me the evil eye. After a couple of evenings of feeling like I lived in Northern Iraq, I just gave up trying to cook steak unless I could grill it outdoors. But I think the photo shows that the fan works pretty well. In the interest of full disclosure, I should admit that when I do that edge-fat thing (which I hadn't tried at the time I took the picture), I do have to use the boost mode.

For a sashimi platter it's $80 and for the hotpot it's $90 both of which need reservations. Nigiri however is only $12 and can be ordered any time. Does anyone know of another place in the States that servers fugu? Is it readily available in New York? Apparently, reservations are required because the fugu has to be thawed. It's flash frozen after being cleaned. Restaurants that serve fugu: Blow me.

Actually, I didn't run across it my research. I've been at this place (a major vendor of electric utility control software and hardware) for four years and I haven't been able to get any of the big brains around here to give me a decent explanation. Most of them just shrug. Thanks. Your explanation was perfect. I may steal it. How do you suppose it came to be called "reactive"? Never mind -- has to do with reactance, doesn't it?

I'm not sure where I've got it wrong. It's the extreme low pressure of the tornado that creates the suction. This is analogous to the vacuum cleaner on the outside of the box. When you say "it pops like a balloon," you have it exactly right. A balloon doesn't explode, it implodes. The balloon skin collapses in on itself. The pop that we usually associate with an explosion is due to the violent outrush of air. Air in a balloon is slightly pressurized, just like a house. If you suddenly depressurize a house, it will collapse, not explode -- assuming associated high winds don't simply blow the house off its foundation. If this isn't correct, please tell me where it goes off track. Thank you. I hope I made the point that not only do you not necessarily need a lot of CFM, too much can cause a lot of trouble. I consulted friend of mine, who has been in HVAC for thirty years, and who I hoped would be a valuable resouce for the article. He turned out to be almost useless. Partly this was because he mainly does furnaces and AC, but also it was because no one had ever asked him. Once I started asking poited questions, he caught pretty quickly, but in the end, I think I taught him more than he taught me. There are tests you can do to check for depressurization and backdraft, but they're all post-installation. To figure it out ahead of time, you need to consult an HVAC person, not a kitchen person. They might not get it at first, but they will. They'll cough up lots of helpful charts and calculators, once you explain what you're after. I didn't talk about dedicated make-up air (this is how many commercial kitchens handle the problem), but it's a viable option if you're doing extensive remodeling. In its simplest form, it's an opening to the outside that allows air in as necessary -- a hole in the wall. You can dress them up and add heaters and so forth. Apparently this is quite common in Canada. Here's what I know, or speculate (it's kind of spotty, because I didn't pursue this application): 1. You can't mess around with lots of turns and adapters that change the cross-section of the duct. These cause pressure changes and turbulence that can significantly affect fan performance. 2. I suspect (but don't know for sure) that lots of high-power fans get sold on the premise that you need more power due to the remote mounting. I think that this is misleading. If your ducts are well sealed, the only things that can cause suck reduction are turbulence caused by joints and turns, pressure drops due to poor duct design, and friction. You can minimize the first two; there's not much you can do about the third. But the main reason to have a honkin' big fan is to overcome the inertia (is this the right term?) of that long column of static air in the duct when the fan is not operating. Once this air is moving, a slightly bigger fan makes sense, but not a hugely bigger one. The important thing is to capture the air that you want to remove -- hood design is where it's at. 3. If you generate a lot of airborne grease, make sure you have a good filter. You can get into a vicious cycle here, as filters create resistance (something I didn't get into in the article). In general, better filters create more resistance, which creates the need for increased fan capacity. But there's a balance somewhere. I have also seen fan designs (one is here) that claim not to require filters, but none for remote installation. Thanks. For some reason, I just find these terms too slippery to hold on to. Based on what you've written, I'm pretty sure that most of the EEs I work with are using it wrong, too. You couldn't by any chance explain reactive power (kVAR), could you?

Thanks. Now, please.

Stir-fry. Frittata. But Suzanne's original suggestion is the one most often employed.

I did not know that. Thanks.

Interesting piece on Morning Edition today. Here's the on-line version, which has some good links. We used to get these at the Italian Market in Philadelphia for our traditional Christmas Eve multi-fish dinner. Closest taste equivalence is frog legs, I think. I find it interesting that restaurants have to be licensed, but anybody can pick these up (or catch 'em) and cook 'em themselves. Since the fish is already prepped by the time it reaches the restaurant, who's being protected?

How do you get the shrimp to jump out of the pot and into the strainer like that? Oh. They must be in pain.

I pulled it out of my you-know-what. Not every magazine that gets printed gets paid for; there's always freebies. For example, ToH invites you to send a free issue to a friend, and I'd bet a lot of issues get sent to subscribers of the other Reiman mags. Other freebies might go to the trades or the press, but that's probably not much in this case. 80% is probably too low. Still, it's an astounding amount of money for not a lot of work. And now that Marlene has pointed out that they only publish six times a year, I'm sure they've got a decent margin. If each finished magazine costs $1.50 to produce, add -- what, 25 cents for postage? I don't really know-- you get gross profits in the range of $7 - 10 million.

I'm not sure why you find this so hard to believe. At 80% paid subscriptions, they're taking in more than $55MM off this one magazine. You can bet with a 4.6 MM press run, they're getting rock-bottom prices for paper, printing and postage. It may not make huge amounts of money, but if relatively small mags like CI and CR can do it, ToH probabaly can, too. Anyway, if it only breaks even, that's OK, because it has created an audience -- millions of loyal readers with known tastes, finances and desires. It makes for a deep well. Like CI and CR, the magazine itself is just the start, All of three of these publications have spin-off merchandise (mainly books, but Reiman appears to have all kinds of ways to get into your wallet) that is probably more profitable. But the scheme doesn't work unless you've got the audience to begin with. That's where the mag comes in. On top of this, Reiman can rent that subscription list (at $50 and up per thousand names) to other retailers. And with a list that big, they can slice and dice it a bunch of different ways (at premium rates) to get just about any demographic you could want. You're right about CI's sub rate. But a promo that's always available is not a promo at all -- only tourists would pay more. I've never paid more than $25.

And in the case of Taste of Home, anyway, much of the research and recipe development is done by their readers -- for free.

Taste of Home is $15/year. Reiman Publications, publisher of ToH, has ten other magazines, all catering to the same demographic. They also run a cooking school, which is supported by sponsorships, and a "country store," which is fed by the web sites of all the magazines. So they're pulling in revenue from several different sources, and I think the magazines are simply a vehicle to gain access to this audience, which may be underserved by slicker pubs that cover the same issues on a more elite level. Further to the mailing list issue, this is from their privacy policy: In other words, it's an "opt-out" policy. Miss the little check boxes on the subscription form, and your mailbox (e- and snail) are likely to be flooded with offers from who knows where. BTW, CI is only $25/year; CR is $26.