Human Bean

Unless I've missed something, they don't really say in the book. Their master recipes for stocks tend to yield 2 - 5 cups, with scaling percentages provided. I ordered a 7.4 quart pressure cooker because it was readily available, could provide some amount of stock, yet still cook other food for one or two people. I hope that was a good choice.

Received the book yesterday and skimmed through it a bit; ordered a pressure cooker today (and looked through the book some more.) I'm now considering sous vide options. I found MC to be fascinating but a bit intimidating; MCaH is much more approachable, but as has been mentioned, many (most?) recipes require a pressure cooker and/or sous vide. That's not a criticism, just a fact. It IS modernist cooking after all. I like that the beginning of each chapter has references to more detailed discussions of some of the topics at hand in the MC books -- a nice feature, but it's not at all essential to have MC; MCaH seems to stand as it's own book admirably.

I can't remember the last time I had a macrobrew. I also can't remember the last time I had a beer brewed out of state. Too many good local choices to bother with anything else.

I wonder what the reasoning was behind that or maybe it was just a mistake? If I have to I'll set the view to 75%, screen grab and then print all 60 pages but hopefully Nathan wasn't aware of this an the Modernist team can release a printable version The other PDFs released by the publisher don't seem to have this limitation, so I'd presume it was intentional. The publishers have the right to protect their Valuable Intellectual Property, and any discussion of methods to bypass their protection are a violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (in the US, at least.) I wish I were just kidding...

Not sure I understand the question. The book set has an index, but I don't want to keep swapping large heavy books to refer to it. Nor do I want to mark up the original index, but I definitely want to annotate my own personal copy of that index (highlighting various items, for instance.)

Delivery of my copy should occur in a few hours. (Yay!) However, after downloading the index from their website, I discovered that is is not printable (by design.) (Boo!) I'm not keen on looking at the index on my PC, netbook or phone. I WILL have my own copy of the index on dead trees, even if I have to go through a low-fi route to get it. Then I can annotate, highlight, or whatever.

Don't even bother with the seeds. Use flax oil instead. It must be purchased and kept refrigerated, otherwise it goes rancid rather easily -- rancid flax oil smells like linseed oil (which is what linseed oil is, more-or-less.) Fresh flax oil has an interesting nutty taste. Try about 1/2 ounce in a 12 to 16 ounce smoothie and work the quantity up or down from there. I don't know that it will emulsify well with the rest of the smoothie; I don't have a mega-blender. If you feel that you want the extra fiber that the raw flax seeds provide, try adding some psyllium husks instead; I haven't used them in several years, so I can't provide a recommendation for the quantity.

Don't feed the troll. Glad I saw this thread; I wasn't specifically aware of the book previously. Looks like a must-buy. Edit: Can't type.

I agree with Mike S - Lunazul reposado is a nice bargain tequila for sipping (I'm not much on the spendy stuff, it tends to get used up too quickly). I haven't dome much mixing with it though. I don't like El Jimador as much for sipping, but it makes a damn fine paloma. They say that theirs is the "authentic" paloma recipe. I don't know about that, but it's definitely tasty.

My company cafeteria served 'house-made kimchi' as part of a special Chinese New Year meal This cafeteria doesn't do foreign food at all well. The 'kimchi' appeared to have been made by someone who had heard of kimchi, but never seen or tasted it before. Soggy, non-fermented cabbage chunks, with a subliminal bit of chile (maybe), tasting of salt water with a bit of ginger. That's it. I wasn't expecting much, but this didn't even live up to my already low expectations. All of which reminds me that I haven't made any kimchi myself in far too long. Need to get a fresh batch of chili powder and get at it...

Momokawa (linky) is local (Oregon) brewery that makes a wide variety of styles in several price ranges. They claim to have distribution in the continental US. Momokawa Silver or Diamond are very nice for sipping chilled and are about $10 - 15 per bottle. They also make a nama that's very interesting; it's hardly distributed at all, even locally. I've never decided if I like it or not, but it's completely unique. (Edit: Can't type while busy doing other things too)

In what way? An emulsion is a mixture of two insoluble substances, one in a dispersed phase and one in a continuous phase. A foam is a dispersion of gas bubbles in a liquid or solid. So both whipped cream and mousse qualify as foams, not emulsions. Okay, fair enough. Both are emulsions of fat and water, but wouldn't be the same without the air. But the air isn't nearly as obvious as in the trendy foams, which I still contend look like spit on a plate, distasteful as that sounds/is.

I think it's great that foam got an entry. Whipped cream and mousse are more emulsions than foam anyway. As for foam, few things look less attractive on a plate than a giant glob of spit.

Good questions. I wouldn't claim that this particular type of pot makes the tea taste any better. It holds heat well, yet develops the same patina (internally) that a porcelain pot would. An unglazed pot would accumulate more residue over time; thus it might be more desirable to have more pots for different types of tea. I like the look of this pot, and it's an improvement over what I was using before. I think I was over-enthusiastic in suggesting different tetsubins for black/green/white tea. It might be a good thing, but not essential. I have a separate pot for Lapsang Souchong because it's intense flavor sticks to whatever touches it; I also have a cup dedicated to it. (Again), I'm really not that fussy. Taste absolutely matters, but I tend to consume tea in approximately 16-ounce portions. I respect the concept of (say) 20 repeated one ounce infusions, but it's not for me. And prasantrin, I currently have Sencha, Kukicha, and Hojicha from Shizouka. Maybe I'll try brewing smaller quantities. Thanks. (Been busy, slow reply).

I don't have any Chinese teapots. Instead, I prefer the tetsubin: The Le Creuset of teapots -- almost literally. Enamelled cast iron, and will still be around long after I'm gone. Their main drawback is Le Creuset-like prices; they're not cheap. The one pictured is the one I use for most everything, with the major exception of Lapsang Souchong; I have a cheap Chinese knock-off tetsubin for that. The capacity is about 16 ounces (475 ml). It's a quite nice dark blue color that wears to reveal the black enamel underneath -- the color isn't quite done justice by the photo. Someday, I'll have another to dedicate specifically for green tea, and maybe another for whites. I'm not that fussy at the moment. BTW, pictured next to the tetsubin are (on the left), a silver tip white tea (fluffy and actually somewhat fuzzy leaves), and on the right, some jasmine silver pearls.