Dave the Cook

...and I'm sure she would be the first to agree with you. She does seems to be able to attract first-rate guests. I haven't seen Alice Waters hob-nobbing with Rachael Ray lately. But Martha can't help condescending, even to Ms Waters.

I bought my first Henckel knife mumbledy-mumble years ago when I when they let me fill in in the kitchen of the hotel where I worked as a purchasing agent. The Chef told me if I was going to be serious, I should get some good knives. Where to start? I asked. German, said he. Trident. Henckel. These names were not familiar to me. Previously I had only seen Forschner, Dexter, etc.--as ngatti says, "house" knives--which I had purchased for prep cooks and general use. So I got a Henckel 10" chef's knife, because no place in town had Wusthof (we're talking Atlanta, 19-mumble). The knife seems fine to me, though I don't use it much any more. But, based on ngatti's comment that the line seems to have changed, I think maybe we're looking at a difference in pre-/post mass market design--like Fender Stratocasters made before and after CBS bought them, or a Marantz stereo amplifier before they decided they just had to be on every bookshelf in middle-class America. I also like those 3-packs--cute and useful, dishwasher safe, ultimately cheap enough to be disposable.

Clearly craftsmanship is not the only criterion. As Wusthof is superior to Henckel, so Henckel is superior (in craftsmanship) to Dexter and Chicago. Yet people claim them as favorites.

What 's the rap on Henckel? I have a couple and I've always found them to be quite satisfactory. What am I missing?

Any smallish board will do this, but a wet kitchen cloth between the board and the counter is as good as nailing it in place.This stuff also works very well. Find it here.

No, no no! You break down the bread to get the cook sauced.

Jinmyo--Using paper towels or parchment paper sounds like false security. Seems to me the bleach/lemon juice would do the trick. Don't you end up scoring right through the paper? Steverino--I use plastic, even though I have a beautiful maple board. When the plastic boards get moderately scored, I replace them. They've become a consumable along the lines of sheet pans--new ones every six months or so. To answer your question directly, I would not use bleach on a wooden board, because I would be afraid of drying it out. Tell me that's not a concern, and I might switch back. And since I can't put them in the dishwasher, I quit using them when bacterial contamination became a widespread concern. Having looked at the link nightscotsman provided, I would reconsider this practice, except for one thing: I've been spoiled by the lightness of plastic boards. It will be tough (and expensive, since, to assuage the concerns of She Who Must Be Obeyed, I would need at least two) to revert to the wood boards. Keep in mind that TV chefs do not have to lift, clean, seal and store the heavier wooden boards. Nor do TV chefs have to pay for them. Bastards.

I follow Jinmyo's recipe with a these mods: 1) I do the simmering in the oven at 300--it's just earsier to control the temperature this way; 2)if it's just for family, I don't bother with the second straining 3) I don't do the second simmering for nearly as long. I simmer just long enough to get the vegetables well done--maybe 45 minutes. Then I turn the ribs meat side up and set the pot under the broiler for few minutes to crisp up. The crust alone is worth all the trouble. Rather than two vessels, I use a Le Creuset braiser for the entire process, a device that I thought was silly until I had one. Most important--don't skip this step:

I had the same experience with the commercial Essence; consequently, I never tried any of the other blends. If you say some of the others are worth trying, I'll give them a shot. (I did try his red pepper sauce, which the entire family found bland--went back to good old Tabasco.) However, I give him credit for re-engergizing the idea of blends as a legitimate seasoning choice (chili powder, curry powder, etc.), and I made some Essence of my own from the Food TV website recipe. It was pretty good, but not, I think, the universal agent that he implies it is. Inspired, I whipped up three of my own, along with a short cookbook, for Christmas presents last year. I'm convinced that what he uses on the show is not Essence at all, but is something concocted to look good to the camera--maybe coarsely ground paprika? colored kosher salt? Real Essence is too heterogeneous to be that uniformly bright red, as well as have the physical properties to be tossed around like that. I agree that his older show is more interesting--he's so self-conscious that he's endearing, and he seems more honestly evangelical about Creole/Cajun cuisine. Not that he was required to stick with that--we all need room to grow--but the early shows, for all their awkwardness, are much more honest. But again, I have to give credit where credit is due. The place in TV Heaven reserved for Michael Mann, the guy who, apocryphally, scribbled "MTV cops" on a napkin in a Florida bar and so invented Miami Vice, should be shared by the guy who first thought "Las Vegas cooking." It's brilliant programming, even though we may think it now lacks substance. A couple of years ago, I read a Ming Tsai interview in an airline magazine. A sidebar mentioned that Ming was studying with the same consultant who trained and polished Emeril for his Emeril Live schtick. A few months later, Ming had a brand new (and higher budget) show. Who'd-a-thought? I'm a big Mario fan. He's honest and comfortable, obviously likes people, and his recipes work. Occasionally I grow weary of hearing Italians described as if they were some aboriginal culture that is inaccessible except through the word handed down by a precious few. I also think Alton Brown does some great work; he's the token Smug Scientific Bastard, and I find that stuff fascinating, even though much of it is recycled from Harold McGee--so what? Most people who watch FoodTV never heard of Harold McGee, and they ought to be exposed to his sensibility. ( snob alert!) I've only seen Chef Paul on TV once--he was tooling around the kitchen in a wheeled office chair, and it seemed a little weird--maybe sad. But I think he's great--in many ways a revelation. For some reason, Jacques Torres cracks me up.

If you like cumin and coriander, you'll like cilantro. Joke, right?

Dunno. That's not the way it appears to the casual tourist, which is what I was. All the guides I found were quite complimentary (though leaning a bit heavily on the "Sleepless in Seattle" connection--this is more likely to make me avoid a restaurant than go there. I'd be afraid that food would not be at the top of the priority list. But I thought The Dahlia Lounge was very good--in fact I ate well at all three of his stores while I was there). In fact, he is made out as something of a local hero. I don't see the same thing here in Atlanta, at least not on a personal level. But I do think some restaurants are factored down because they are owned a by a very successful local chain--The Buckhead Life Restaurant Group. They own The Buckhead Diner, The Atlanta Fish Market, Chops and Nava, among others. The fact is, they serve very very good, very consistent food, and they are the party most responsible for proving that Atlanta was a serious food market, thus elevating restaurant quality throughout the region. Without them, Ritz Carlton wouldn't have seen fit to hire Gunter Seeger, and then Joel Antunes--and neither would have stuck around to open ther eponymous kitchens. And Tom Catherall probably couldn't gotten a loan to open his first place. And we wouldn't have seen the likes of Canoe, La Grotta or Bachanalia, either. A prophet without honor, etc., I guess?

I suspect there is nothing exceptional about this.

Even if you were to eliminate environmental and cultural factors, you could never control for emotion. Having observed my father, who recently concluded a nine-year battle with the big C, I am convinced that attitude influences health more far more than diet. I'll bet on a happy meat-eater over a cancer-obsessed vegetarian any day.

Better than whom?

I'm pretty sure "beans" and "lentils" are close to nutritionally equivalent. Adding the rice to either (or both) would probably provide the complete array of necessary protein.

Could we get you guys to include prices? I don't want to get all hot and bothered over something I can't afford.

Yes. I agree, about both his book and his eventual celebrity. A couple of years ago, I was at one of his restaurants. I asked the waitress if I could get the recipe for the pork chops I had had. She came back and told me that they wouldn't give it out because they were writing a cookbook and didn't want to blow the suspense. Finally I convinced her that I would buy the book the day it came out. She returned with a napkin cluttered with ingredients and instructions, and after leaving a healthy tip I went on my way. Based on those instructions, I was able to replicate the dish almost perfectly. When the book was finally published, I pulled out the tattered, grease-spotted napkin to compare. Dead on. But maybe I should have had him autograph my original?

I saw your post and started working back up the thread. My god! You are so right. Looking down on this thread, it's a battlefield--after the fight. Are you kidding? I thought this sort of humor was lost when Douglas Adams died. Oh, wait a minute. You guys are trying to be funny, right?

Suzanne--It's the water in your butter that's exploding, similar to the water trapped in popcorn that makes it explode. If you use a lower power setting, the water will be able to exit the fat matrix more gracefully.

You make a good point that a lot of errors are almost certainly transcription-related. I expect this is part of the problem I have with Emeril. But knowing why it happens doesn't make it OK. It's clear that in many cases (and this is true of a lot of cookbooks, not just those of celebrities), recipes were never tested. This pisses me off. When I buy a cookbook, I assume I'm buying non-fiction. But I'm not sure that Emeril, for instance, sells a lot of books to people that actually use them. Remember Mark Twain's definition of a classic, "a book that people praise but never read." Or something like that.

Dry on the surface, yes. But an overnight salting will draw moisture from the flesh. This is what I don't understand, unless the salt is in the form of a brine. And in this case, your objective would be to add moisture, not remove it.

I've soaked chicken in lemon water to get rid of the excess blood. Excess blood? Where do you people get your chickens? And what would "excess moisture" be? Is dry chicken preferable?

I agree, and I admit to being a big fan of the Food Network. I think TFN is responsible for a generally increased interest in things foodish, which I also appreciate. But I think people are bound to be disappointed when they can't duplicate what they see on TV, especially when it is implied that they can--these are presented as do-it-yourself shows.

I was just quoting the recipe as I remembered it, though upon reading it here, I may have specified too much chicken. I do usually triple it (or more, depending on how many carci litter the freezer). I freeze two thirds of it in one-cup containers and give the rest away to needy friends and relatives, who repay me in...empty one-cup Rubbermaid containers, of course. As for the salt, I understand the reluctance; I am usually of the same school. We can do the math: if you were to reduce two quarts of stock containing one teaspoon of salt by 75%, you'd be talking about 1/2 tsp. per cup of liquid. Hmmm... it does sound a little salty. But, I wouldn't normally reduce a chicken stock that far, and probably not without additional ingredients, and certainly not without tasting it. Tell you what: I'll do two batches this weekend (I'm out anyway)--one with salt and one without, and report back. The relatives get the rejected batch.

May I suggest that we include comparisons of cookbook recipes vs. show recipes (and vs. restaurants, from those that have been there)? I suspect that not enough people have the opportunity to visit restaurants run by TV chefs (and a number of them--Sara Moulton and Alton Brown, to name two) don't even have restaurants. A general example: though I consider myself an accomplished cook, I often find Emeril's book recipes disappointing. When I have an opportunity to compare the written version to the show version, I invariably find he has omitted ingredients or (more often) neglected to explain technique. I can't imagine what an inexperienced cook would do about some of these errors, and I am offended on their behalf. On the other hand, Mario's recipes work more often than not, although I'm still trying to figure out how to properly smoke pork jowls.