IndyRob
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Posts posted by IndyRob
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I've only been to Vegas once, but I say we give Guy the keys to the city. Hell, make him the mayor. A thin veneer of cool, shrouding a vacuous tradition of fraud could be the best match Vegas has found yet.
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I think the Big Shop is also very common in the US. One variation is with one woman I knew who shopped ALL the supermarkets on Saturday. I think it works if you have good planning skills (well, probably more accurately, the desire to plan)
You're trading between economy, quality and convenience. If you're cooking for one, that's another limiting factor.
I have mixed feelings about Ramsay but I think that, generally, when he rails against frozen foods it's in the context of having something better right down the road. Living here in the largest landlocked city in the US, coming across shrimp that have never been frozen is unlikely, and may even be of dubious origins if found. If you are near a coast I'd think it would be well worth your time to try to find seafood right off the boat on a day-of basis.
But IMHO, freezing is not evil. For instance, a freshly baked loaf of bread is the best sort of bread of all. But, sans preservatives, fresh bread frozen as soon as it is cool is infinitely more desirable than day-old bread. I think shrimp frozen on the boat is similar.
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BTW, I forgot to recommend some classic Lay's potato chips with the above sandwich. But it occurred to be that there is a more relevant piece of advice with regards to lunch packing. DO NOT buy the lunch-sized bags of potato chips. They have to use smaller potatoes to get chips that will fit in the bags and those are definitely inferior.
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I've recently found that home-made enchiladas can be very microwave friendly.
I've also found that re-sealable snack bags can be quite useful. These are about 1/3 the height of a sandwich bag and are good for some roma tomato slices or other veg, as well as condiments, shredded cheese, or even for use as a little pastry/piping bag.
Freezing sandwiches was a trick my mother always did for my school lunches. I've upped the ante by baking fresh bread and using homecooked meats (corned beef currently). The sandwiches can thaw at your desk until lunchtime. Disassemble and nuke the meat briefly if desired.
My best one, also from the 'guy' menu, is my Little Caesar's Italian sandwich clone. Take some pizza dough and roll it out as if making a rather thick (1/2") 8" pizza. Divide that into two half-moon shapes. Cover and let proof. Brush both sides with butter and bake until golden brown. Remove and re-brush with more butter. Let cool and slice a pocket into the flat side like a pita. Slide in some mozz/provolone slices with ham and salami on top. Wrap and refrigerate (or freeze). The morning of, put some lettuce and tomato/onion slices in the aforementioned snack bags. Final prep involves wrapping the sandwich in paper towels and microwaving only until heated through. Then stuff with the veg on top of the meat. In this case, the microwave is not a compromise heating solution. It's actually an integral part of the method which steams and softens the bread while heating the meat and melting the cheese.
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Hmmm....
164 tons of food...
= 1.48778 typical blue whales....
= 1.6 x cargo mass capacity of a Boeing 747-200F aircraft...
= 328,000lbs...
... divided by 90,000 meals....
= 3.64lbs per meal (not including beverages)
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I decided to give this a try. I bought a pre-brined flat cut and just gave it a good rinse. I cut it in half, applied the contents of the spice packet and put it in two bags. I put them both in a 145F bath. One I took out and chilled after 24 hours and the other I left in for about 12 hours more. The results were virtually identical. Any possible advantage I'd give to the longer cooked one is probably down to the fact that that end had a thicker layer of fat. The flavor was fine (not overly salty at all) but they were both a little bit on the dry-ish side. Both bags had about 1/2 cup or more of juice that came out.
I think both were better than the stuff I paid $$$ for at a local deli but could be improved. Next time I'll probably try 135F for 48-60H.
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I would like to see a side-by-side of Hung going through chickens, and Kristen going through LCK contestants.
Who went through more?
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There's been a lot of criticism of the format and I think I agree with it all. However, the result still seemed reasonable. The fried chicken was a bone-headed play that decided the day.
And I think the final two contestants sort of redeemed my sense of the quality of this entire season. Here we were with two very worthy competitors.
Congratulations, Kristen. Please pack your knives and dough.
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WolframAlpha lists the density of (milk) chocolate at 0.71 g/cm3. There's a drop down box where you can choose from among many brands, but these seem to take their data from the nutritional information data which doesn't provide the volume measurement necessary to calculate density.
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This seemed to me to be the most cordial semi-finale ever. I thought it was kind of refreshing. There were no head games and little drama (other than the chefs worrying about their own dishes). I think this was a redeeming episode for this season.
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I think that the word 'geek' has very broad connotations - from a pejorative to the more complementary form used in self identification. I guess it's the latter sense that we're talking about here.
I think that some food geeks might be people who've amassed a great deal of food knowledge but don't actually cook (much) themselves. Perhaps like a jaded restaurant critic - armed with copious notes about all manner of preparations previously encountered. A sort of foodie naturalist, I guess. Christopher Kimball - at least in his role as host of America's Test Kitchen - might be the poster boy of this sort of food geek.
But for the doers, I don't think that equipment is necessary, but will tend to turn up (as OliverB said). Sodium citrate, a handful of cheese, and a can of beer is all it really takes to get some geeky nachos, but any of us that do that sort of thing also have some favored hardware up our sleeves.
And I think that's where some further distinctions can be made. I propose the terms Enthusiast, Hacker, and Boffin.
The Enthusiast has the means and desire to understand and acquire as much of the technology as he desires and will employ it all exactly as designed. Most likely to become a serial product reviewer at Amazon.
I'll stand in for the Hacker, although probably best typified in the geek community by John Draper, AKA Captain Crunch, who discovered that a toy whistle found in boxes of Cap'n Crunch could lead him to a method of making free phone calls on AT&T's networks. It about how to make incredibly simple things work in unexpected ways. For me, in the last couple of weeks, it's been about making progress towards the world's fastest (good) grilled cheese sandwich....
Take a half a sheet of aluminum foil. Cut it in half. Brush one side of each half with melted butter. Place a slice of bread on each half. That was prep work. Put those in a zip-lock bag in the fridge (unbuttered sides facing and touching each other).
Now, to the sandwich - Put a pan on the stove on max heat. Grab a coated paper plate and drop a handful of shredded cheese on it. Put that in the microwave until melted - about 30 seconds. While that's going, grab your bread and lay the slices on the counter aluminum foil-side down. Take the paper plate out of the microwave and slide the melted cheese carefully onto one slice (some tomato slices are a nice addition here - sprinkle with kosher salt). Cover with the other slice (need I say aluminum foil side up?). Now, drop that bad boy into the heated pan for 10-15 seconds. Place your hand on top of the sandwich to secure it. Flip the pan over and up so the sandwich is left on your palm. Now drop the other side into the pan and remove the first piece of aluminum foil from the top. Wipe the cheese grease from the paper plate and (after another 10-15 seconds) de-pan (as before) the sandwich onto it - removing the second piece of foil. Throw the foil in the trash and (once cooled) the pan back into the cupboard (it was never dirtied).
That's a pretty geeky way of doing it, I think.
And now to the Boffin. Well, that would be Nathan Myrvold and his merry band, I think. They really represent the best of both approaches. The resources to try everything, but with no particular attachment to any of them. Just an edict to get results.
ETA: I'd gladly put my grilled cheese up against Nathan's.
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I was glad to see a bread making requirement in the latest episode. But wasn't there a perfectly good Kitchenaid mixer visible in the background of some of those kneading shots?
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I happen to have unlimited access to 100% cotton surgical towels so haven't used or bought paper towels in 7 years. They are basically an extremely high-quality shop towel. The used towels go into a bucket in the garage until enough collect to do a load of laundry. When they get too worn a towel gets demoted to work such as cleaning automotive grease, paint drips etc- something that renders it unusable, and is then thrown away.
Maybe I have too many, but luckily these towels are one use when contamination issues arise. Handle some chicken... it goes in the bucket and grab a new towel. After washing hands of course.
If you have a friend that works in a hospital see if they can get you a stack- often they are thrown away without even being used. Or surgical towels can be readily found online. The same goes with surgical sponges, which unlike their misleading name are basically a doubled layer of cheese-cloth. I use them for lining strainers, making cheese, cleaning windows etc...
I think this most accurately describes my goal state, although next time I'm near a Home Depot I think I'll check out dcarch's suggestion for towels. The door to my garage is literally one step from my kitchen trash can, so if I could hang a container right inside on the wall it would be very convenient.
I think I'll continue to use the paper towels for raw meat juice and the like.
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I don't see a second season happening, but I think it will get better as the herd is culled. If it comes down to a home cook and a pro it might get good.
But I think the one bite format is very limiting in terms of what they can show prep-wise. Although I suppose it could be cool if, with four people left, they dragged in a whole hog and said "Somewhere in there is the perfect bite. Here are your knives. Find it. GO!"
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For comparison purposes, I believe that MCAH calls for 2.8% of the combined cheese and liquid weight for their cheese sauces.
Although I've just started playing with sodium citrate and cheese for sauces, I find the mere suggestion of getting it anywhere near cheese meant for a pizza distinctly evil.
I freeze grated cheese all the time and don't have any problems with it when thawed. If, as the patent seems to suggest upon a quick skimming, you're topping a pizza with frozen cheese, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.
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I would really like to use fewer paper towels.
But my family has always seemed to use them for just about everything. Oh sure, there have always been some dish towels around, but they've been used primarily for drying clean dishes.
The thing is, I don't know anything about the care and feeding of kitchen towels. Towels are mentioned at least twice in the current Essential Kitchen Tools topic and Anthony Bourdain counts a stack of towels as an absolute necessity prior to service. In my home kitchen, that seems like a nice luxury but how can I manage all these towels?
For instance, America's Test Kitchen had a segment on spinach lasagna. They used some frozen spinach and squeezed the water out with a dish towel giving them some spinach flavored water, some drained spinach, and a (newly) green towel. They didn't tell me what to do with the towel. It seems like I'd need to rush it to the washing machine.
And while the greening of a towel might be a nuisance, towels used to wipe down a butcher block that has been used for, well, butchering, might present a more significant health hazard if not dealt with properly.
So how do you treat towels in your kitchen? Do I need a kitchen towel hamper? Do I need to segregate towels by use?
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See Dave's post above. Crispy and crunchy are interchangable, to my mind.
"Crunchy yet soft?" Yes, I believe I've fallen down the rabbit hole.
You haven't fallen nor have I. When you bite through the "crunchy/crisp" top of the fatty layer of pork belly it gives way to the "soft" fat below. It seems that Tom couldn't get through the cement layer on top of Stefan's pork belly to experience the other textures.
Pork fat would always be a nice surprise under any sort of barrier - including the shoe leather that many BBQ enthusiasts would describe as a highly desirable 'bark'. But I'd rather go through crispy pork fat than crunchy pork skin.
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See Dave's post above. Crispy and crunchy are interchangable, to my mind.
"Crunchy yet soft?" Yes, I believe I've fallen down the rabbit hole.
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I have had crisy pork skin cooked by European relatives though and it was very crunchy.
Might I suggest that crunchy and crispy are not the same things? Well, maybe except for Cap'n Crunch and Quisp.
But for anything that is conducive to being spelled properly, I believe that crispy and crunchy are generally mutually exclusive.
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all these shows are scripted, every one of them. Not word for word like a movie, but in who goes on and what goes on. They'd be a lot more boring otherwise.
To me, scripted means just that - Scripted. This is more like 'arranged' which is what we'd expect from any game show concept. Is it heavily edited? Yes.
I had a fun conversation with a guy who creates these "reality" shows a while ago, there's nothing left to chance. And if something goes off script they just redo the sequence.I don't think that happens here. It doesn't need to. Some of the best game show moments in history came totally unexpectedly.
You have to have drama, the person everybody loves to hate, the quiet one, the sexy girl, and so on. Just look at the panel, got the "controversial" AB, the goofball, the sexy lady and the french guy/outlaw full of tats and with a probably heavier accent than he really has.I suspect that many people here would call that a properly planned dinner party.
Same in all these shows. You'll never find one where teams of boring non-drama people compete, people would tune out.Top Chef: Masters comes pretty close. It's like the Pro Bowl of culinary competitions. Hey, we all make a lot of money - Don't hit too hard and endanger someone's earning power.
It's all about ratings, if you don't have viewers you don't get ads, if you don't get ads you can't produce the show.Why must this come down to something so cynical? If you don't have good food, you won't have good customers. If you don't have good customers, you'll have to close your greasy spoon.
Watch them as entertainment, but not as reality or real battles or real competitions.I thought that was what I was trying to do.
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I don't think it's fixed or scripted. Bourdain seems to have a fanatical desire for credibility which, among other things, causes him to explode quite publicly when he feels his endorsement has been implied without his express permission (Michelob, Cadillac,...). He was also pretty vociferous in defending Tom Colicchio's credibility and resistance to producer tampering on Top Chef.
I'll have to see how the rest of the series goes now that we're out of the audition shows. I like the concept of selecting contestants - professional or amateur - with one chance. One swing for the fence. But if they're going to drag this part out into two episodes, they need to find a way to make it more entertaining. Still, all these types of shows (Top Chef, Master Chef, etc.) seem to have to suffer through their initial episodes with quickfire separation of wheat from chaff.
I'm still not sure where we go from here. How do you mentor a team and somehow not know what they're cooking?
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It seems like Padma and Tom have become a bit too comfortable - like it's their own playground now.
After watching this latest episode I was surprised to see how many people are finding problems with them.
Presumably, the rest of the episodes for this season are in the can and the die is cast. But I wonder if Bravo might send the editors back in to try to salvage the rest of the episodes.
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And I really don't understand why they don't pick people, and then feel guilty afterwards...
They sure seemed to develop regrets pretty quickly. I was pondering this as I read reactions here, and read a bit more elsewhere (Wikipedia already has an article with a handy leaderboard and some links to some other articles). I think there might be a few reasons why this might be....
1) They don't have a lot of time to decide. And during this short amount of time they're being filmed for a show. At least part of their mental capacity has to go towards trying to be entertaining while they try to do their job(s).
2) They're not quite sure what's available. As I understand it, they'll keep going until they have 16. If you're too demanding, you may end up with the last four applicants by default (I don't know if that would be a possibility, but surely there's some limit). The first person out might've been the best of the lot.
3) The show seems pretty heavily edited, but in a way that didn't really detract from what went on. At the very start we got the cocky guy in desperate need of a smack down and that's what we got. But I bet he wasn't first chronologically, just first in the producer's hearts. But putting that up front via editing didn't affect anything. Likewise, there was a segment where they basically fast-forwarded through some eliminations - which I didn't think added much to the show - other than to say "A bunch of other stuff happened." In the end, what made the cut were the more interesting moments. Including those where regrets were had.
I'm still not exactly clear where this is going once they get out of the auditions, but I'm intrigued so far.
Food Sourcing Habits
in Food Traditions & Culture
Posted
In general. if you have the opportunity for fresh (especially at a good price), seize it. Don't freeze the fresh unless you've made some sort of large score. In my case this usually means stalking a grocery store beginning with the morning after a holiday (say, Christmas eve). If they cut too many rib roasts, they're going to have get rid of some at a discount. Since I live in a two person household, some of that meat will be destined for the freezer - but not before I cook the choicest bits from fresh.
I think the conventional wisdom will always come down on the side of never-frozen meat. But I would love to see a true double-blind test.