ChrisZ

I've got mine in Sydney, Australia. I joined eGullet over a year ago specifically to find out more information about the book, after I read about it in a New York Times article on Nathan Myhrvold...

Ditto, am looking forward to this very much too... you also have some great wineries close so I'll be interested to see if any of them pop up later on... Bendigo is a beautiful city.

I was put off by reports of its short shelf-life, although some of these seemed to be conflicting. I figured that it's probably going to take me 6 months just to read the books, and if I want to make a specific dish with Transglutiminase then I'll order it when I actually need it. I'm in no rush to fill the pantry with expensive powders that become useless before I get around to using them... Transglutiminase is the only modernist ingredient that I have seen with reports of a very short shelf-life, many of the acids and salts used should last indefinitely. Lecithin is reported to go rancid very quickly but it's also very cheap and readily obtainable. I have thought about buying a bunch of those silica-gel pouches that absorb moisture, for each bottle of stuff I have, can anyone advise if it's worth it? They're hardly expensive (about 10c each).

We had a Soda Stream in the 80s - I've been impressed at how they've relaunched it recently. There's a where he uses a Soda Stream to fizz up some cheap wine, and then asks random people if they can tell which is expensive champagne, and which is the fizzy wine. Most people get it wrong! Worth a look for some vintage Soda Stream ads... (about 1 minute into the clip)

Hi, I just phoned DHL too (in Sydney) to check on my order , and their own records didn't include weight or dimensions - which the operator said could have been down to laziness by the original loader. But she was able to check the airway bill, which listed the recorded weight as 21kg - PHEW!!! If you're seriously worried about the 10kg weight (can't blame you) then perhaps try phoning DHL again and specifically asking them to check the recorded weight on the airway bill, rather than the weight typed in by the Amazon operator, as they may be different. The airway bill will be the actual weight of the box as recorded when loaded onto the plane... She also said it's feasible that, depending on where you live, the books may even be delivered this afternoon. Check the DHL tracking site, and if it's going out today then it will be updated around 1pm as out for delivery. But it will probably be Monday... Cheers and good luck...

Make a batch of chocolate fondants. That link is my favourite recipe, it makes about 12 big ones. It's not difficult to get rid of 1kg of chocolate!

I have a jar of barley malt syrup I bought for a specific recipe, it smells like vegemite/promite or even Guinness but has the consistency of liquid glucose. I found it in a local deli. I have often wondered if it is the same as maltose syrup? (and I'm thrilled that my copy of Modernist Cuisine has shipped from Amazon at a time when the Australian dollar is at a record high. I interpret this as karma, and a cosmic sign that the universe intended me to own it...)

How funny, I made honeycomb yesterday and afterwards I was thinking about using a vacuum to make the air pockets bigger... next time... As the others pointed out, all you need to do is add some bicarb soda, no need to worry about siphons. If you google around for honeycomb recipes (aka hokey pokey) you'll find a few variations- some are sugar only, some include Golden Syrup and/or Honey for flavour, and the instructions for boiling vary too. But the recipes in the link Matthew linked to above look more promising than anything I discovered through Google yesterday. Getting the right amount of brittleness will come down to the temperature you take the syrup to before adding the soda, if it's too low then it will sink down again before it hardens and you'll end up with something more like soft toffee. And one piece of advice - when it cools completely, it will stick to absolutely anything like concrete. So make sure you remove it from the tin and peel off any paper/foil you might have used while it is solid but still warm.

The Sydney Morning Herald has just posted an article on the increasing significance being placed on the appearance of restaurant dishes... I thought it was interesting enough, and the photos pretty enough, to share with a wider audience!

I researched hangovers many years ago and discovered many different theories, not all of which are valid. Most of them are wrong. But one point which most people agree on is that dehydration is a definite factor - drink water before you go to bed, drink more water the next day. There are certainly vitamins and minerals that the body uses to digest/process alcohol, and along with vitamin B12 (I think) zinc plays a fairly major role too. But I wouldn't go as far as saying that taking vitamin tablets or zinc supplements will prevent a hangover. Although I haven't heard the term 'congeners' before I can elaborate on what they are. Basically - 'alcohol' is a term used to cover a family of chemicals. In common usage people use the generic term 'alcohol' when they're referring to the 'ethanol' in brewed drinks. But ethanol is only one type of alcohol. There's also methanol, propanol and butanol plus hundreds of others which aren't as common. I have a bottle of 'isopropyl' alcohol that I use to clean electronic equipment. But when it comes to drinking, it's ethanol that you want. The human body has developed the ability to metabolise ethanol cleanly, and this is done by the liver. The liver produces an enzyme called 'alcohol dehydrogenase' and it deals with ethanol quickly and efficiently. The problem with creating alcohol by fermentation - which is how people have done it for thousands of years - is that ethanol is not the only alcohol that is produced. You also get a simpler type of alcohol called methanol (model airplane fuel), and possibly a bunch of other byproducts too depending on what you're fermenting. While the liver is pretty happy dealing with ethanol, methanol is very nasty indeed. The "alcohol dehydrogenase" that deals with ethanol efficiently actually turns methanol into formaldehyde (preserving fluid) and formic acid (wasp and ant venom). These are the two chemicals that give you a really bad headache- a hangover - until the body eventually breaks these compounds down too. Which takes longer... Different fermented drinks contain different amounts of methanol in them, and thus they will give you differing levels of hangover. Vodka is generally a very clean spirit with little methanol in it, and so vodka is less likely to give you a hangover. Wines and beers contain much more methanol in them, and so they will give you a worse hangover. There have been deaths caused by people making home-made spirits such as Grappa, and using methanol (wood spirit) instead of ethanol. The way the liver works explains the old 'hair of the dog' tale. The liver will process and metabolise ethanol first, something it can do without producing harmful byproducts. So as long as there's ethanol in your system, the liver will deal with it effectively. When the ethanol is gone, it moves on to the methanol - producing the formaldehyde and formic acid byproducts that make you swear you will never drink again. So if you have a hangover it's a sign that your body has processed all of the ethanol in your bloodstream and it is now processing the methanol. But if you have another drink, you are 'refuelling' your body with ethanol again, and so your liver stops metabolising the methanol and resumes work on the ethanol. The formaldehyde and formic acid levels in your body will drop and you will feel better... in the short term... But basically, to answer your original question, yes- you are more prone to a hangover from beer than from (high quality) spirits.

If it's a special occasion and you're on holiday, then consider the OXO tower. You have the choice of a cheaper brasserie or a more expensive fine dining restaurant, but they share the same incredible view. Ignore the grumpy online reviews from people who think it is overpriced and simply sit back and enjoy the scenery. I've been there a few times (brasserie only), the food was much better than I expected and I've definitely paid the same or more for decidedly more average food without the breathtaking view. You'll also get live jazz. You should make a reservation to request a window table, or at least a table near the windows, and you won't need to wear anything formal for the brasserie- can't comment on the restaurant.

I worked for a London company that ordered Blackpool Rock with the company name in it. Despite the truly dreadful 1996 website, it's easy enough to do online. Clients liked them, there was always a huge bowl of them in reception and it was easy to hand out a few sweets to everyone at meetings, presentations, etc etc which was always a talking point. Really a very simple, effective - and relatively cheap - marketing ploy. I didn't like the stuff - I'd much rather chocolate than a boiled lolly - but they went through loads of them and I was always impressed at how popular they were with clients. I haven't worked there for over 2 years but I still find the odd sweet in drawers, or files, or in archive boxes...

If it's the colour you're worried about, then perhaps some food-grade titanium dioxide powder can help? Titanium Dioxide is the most commonly used pigment in the world - it's white. It's used in toothpaste, powdered milks, and a bunch of other stuff you've probably already consumed today. It's safe to consume, pretty cheap and not too difficult to find online. Adriano Zumbo is a famous Australian Pastry Chef. Thanks to the TV show "Masterchef", his "V8" cake has become a cult celebrity in its own right. He uses titanium dioxide in the recipe to ensure the cake is white, not yellow. If you have a recipe that you're comfortable with but your concern is the colour, then maybe titanium dioxide will help you out...

Thanks! Yesterday I flipped through the Fat Duck Cookbook, as well as the books for Heston's 'feast' series, and looked more closely at all the recipes. Having followed all of the Modernist Cuisine threads very closely over the past year, none of the ingredients looked unknown or foreign - which was not the case when I first bought the books! I noticed that Malic Acid popped up quite a lot - more than citric acid or tartaric acid - and so I've ordered some and am looking forward to experimenting with it...

Thanks for the input and feedback regarding quantities and qualities, it's been very helpful. I've spent the last few weeks idly checking out different suppliers and planning my own Modernist cooking kit. The hardest part I'm having is choosing jars. Currently I'm leaning towards tea tins, but they're more expensive and I'm not sure if they're airtight. And if I do go for jars then I have to choose between clear or amber, round or square, etc etc. All fun and games. I have found it interesting to see major price differences between suppliers for the same product, and to read online discussions by various home enthusiasts to minimise supply costs. As an example using local Australian prices - Calcium Chloride is sold by a high-end specialty food shop for $40kg. The same product is sold by an online home-brew website for $20kg. But if you read the home-brew discussion forums, some users say that the $2kg calcium chloride they get from swimming pool shops works just as well, even if it is only 90% pure! (the other 10% is salt). Not sure that I'd want to drink their beer though, but I find the differences intriguing. The more common an ingredient then the more variations I have found in prices. Citric acid & ascorbic acid vary more than Gellan or Calcium Lactate, presumably because they're more common. I'm still waiting for my copy of Modernist Cuisine, which is probably at least a month away, so I have plenty of time to choose between jars & tins, and to ponder the different grades of tapioca maltodextrin... BTW- for those with more experience, does Malic Acid have much of a use? AFAIK it's the main ingredient in denture cleaning tablets... Oh well, back to looking at jars and bottles...

"Squid's ring" Say no more...

Chris, Your collection looks great and is something I'm aspiring too. Can you offer any insight on how these ingredients compare regarding weight-volume? Ignoring the tapioca maltodextrin, does 50g of ingredient X take up roughly the same amount of space as ingredient Y? Considering that the kit you ordered delivered 50g quantities, are you happy with the size of the bottles you chose, or would smaller/larger have been better? Do you think that 50g is a convenient quantity to have on hand for all these ingredients, or do you see yourself using some more than others? Sorry for all the questions, but you're blazing the path for the rest of us.... -Chris

The really smart researchers figure it out and then keep it to themselves, thus maintaining the high price and demand for truffles! I was given the Quay recipe book for Christmas, and Chef Peter Gilmore noted with one of the recipes that Australia has a flourishing truffle industry, producing truffles that rival the imported Perigords from France. I was intrigued by this and did some very basic Googling, and basically deduced that truffle farmers do know what they're doing but they're not about to tell anyone...

Both my parents have a German background, and they sometimes make a pig's head "wurst" - that's what we called it anyway. Wurst is the generic German term for sausage, so I imagine that the original recipe was for a pigs-head sausage, but my parents simply press the mix into bread loaf tins and slice sections off (like a terrine) to be fried individually. They have a traditional cast-iron, hand-cranked meat mincer which is probably well over 100 years old and it was always something of an event when it was extracted from the garage and cleaned up in order to make wurst. Almost as big an event as opening the fridge and finding a pigs head in there...

How many of these more common modernist ingredients come in different grades, and if so then does the MC book specify the grade/quality/type that they use? As an example, a local store has 3 different grades of tapioca maltdodextrin, including one labelled "N-Zorbit" which is four times the price of the cheapest grade for the same quantity... how do I know which one will match the results in the MC book? And considering the grief that even humble gelatine can give you regarding consistent sources and results, can I expect different grades/qualities when looking for other modernist ingredients such as agar-agar?

Yes, but it's sometimes good reading! Here's an article from the UK's Guardian that was published in 2006, which details the attempt to make a Coke analogue from one of the many recipes that are online. The ingredients and techniques they used are also detailed at the end of the article. Although I find it curious, the real downside seems to be the quantities involved. I think (skim-reading the article again after almost 5 years) that the recipe in the article makes about 50 litres of 'coke', but some of the ingredient quantities listed are only a few drops. I don't think a 'drop' is a metric unit, and I think they're fairly variable, and so I imagine it would be difficult to create a consistent product without up-scaling the recipe significantly, in which case you'd end up with enough syrup to keep you in 'coke' for life... Dealing with such small quantities also makes it difficult to tweak the recipe; when you're dealing with 3 - 6 drops of a liquid you can't really add an extra dash just for luck without seriously affecting the end result...

Refrigerators and freezers are undoubtably better today, especially fridge/freezers. They are much more efficient, more effective, more stylish (!), more environmentally friendly, and relatively cheaper. In older fridge/freezers altering the setting for the main fridge would have unpredictable results on the freezer and vice versa.

While the worst I have done to myself is simply slicing off the end of my thumb, the injury that haunts my mind was described to me by an apprentice when I was doing work-experience in a french restaurant. Apparently the instructors had been drilling into the young apprentices the importance of tasting the food as you cook it. Unfortunately one of them was too eager and stuck his finger into a saucepan of boiling caramel. The stickiness of the caramel and the difficulty in removing it from his finger made a very bad burn much much worse... Twenty years later and I'm still especially careful around caramels...

Just thought I'd remind everyone that the eGCI conducted a comprehensive seminar on braising a few years ago, with enough information to keep you busy reading for a few evenings. Many of the issues discussed above are looked at in greater detail and tested thoroughly. If you're interested in braising then it's definitely worth a look, and contains a lot of very useful information and opinion that would be a shame to neglect. Here is the link to the 'course' introduction and overview. Here's the link to part 1, which has the links to part 2 at the bottom (and so on...) And Here's the link to the overall Q&A sessions.

Blumenthal devoted an entire episode of his 'In search of perfection' series to steak, however I haven't seen it, just bought the book. He lists Longhorn as the best tasting British breed with 'Pedigree Meats' as the preferred supplier. You'd have to either read the book or watch the episode to gauge the specific characteristics that he classifies as 'perfect', as the fat/marbling is hardly the main factor. You can find isolated clips from the series on YouTube, but a very basic search failed to reveal full episodes of the steak one. But it sounds like it will be worth your effort to find it (just buy it on DVD), as his team has obviously spent months researching the same questions.