IndyRob

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.

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?

"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.

"Crunchy yet soft?" Yes, I believe I've fallen down the rabbit hole.

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.

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 don't think that happens here. It doesn't need to. Some of the best game show moments in history came totally unexpectedly. I suspect that many people here would call that a properly planned dinner party. 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. 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. I thought that was what I was trying to do.

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?

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.

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.

Perhaps we need to expand tipping rather than eliminate it. The chef doing the expediting could have a jar - to insure promptitude. Instead of answering "Qui, chef!" to an order to fire an entre, a line cook would respond "75 cents, chef!" And of course, you'll want to drop a quarter into the sauté pan you're sending to be washed.

Just a gut reaction, in no way influenced by anything as valuable as actual experience.... I think I'd keep a sample cake around the shop and ask anyone who comes by to try a sample (be it a repeat customer or the FedEx delivery person). You could present it as a new flavor that you're considering, or just tell the truth and say you're trying to get to the bottom of it. When you remove the payment from the equation, you should feel a little more confident in the results of the survey. Also, if you again find yourself in a situation where you're taken to task in a semi-public way, you might want to solicit other opinions among the group. It could be subtle. Ask for some clarification and then ask for agreement from one of the more sheepish looking people in the group. If the person is playing you in front of their friends they (the friends) may be less impressed if forced to play along, (and may, in fact, admit that it's just fine). Either way, if you're going to give away some goods, make sure to try to learn the proper lesson from it. That could either be not to sell to this person ever again, or that you need to ask more questions during an order (or provide a sample at ordering time).

Feed it to a calf.

IMHO, ribeye (as mentioned in the original post) is two different cuts of meat that really shouldn't be cooked together as a steak. You have the cap/deckle/calotte, and the rest. It's kind of like cooking white and dark meat of chicken together in the exact same way without making allowances for their differences. It doesn't work. In a rib roast (or prime rib) it does work, because the fatty, sinuous bits are more towards well done, while the inner bits are med-rare.

I suspect it's a combination, but I bet 'most recipes' are geared towards the ham-handed (like me ). The finer the chop/dice, the more chance you're going to end up with disintegrated spuds. If starchy water is integral to the dish, I'd expect some very specific instructions.

I think that's where the Combi Ovens come in.

Rocks (and chains, I guess) can get a lot hotter than water and therefore can store a lot more heat - which the water can use to change phase from liquid to gas (steam). The amount of water will limit the amount of steam and the size/amount of stone will determine how much energy is available for the conversion. I recall one of my uncle's sauna in the hinterlands. A couple cups of water poured on a large column of heated stones created quite a plume of steam.

I use my wife's steam cleaner. I put a baguette pan on a half-sheet pan, and cover that with an inverted foil roasting pan with a hole punched in it. Once it all goes in the oven I inject steam through the hole several times a few minutes apart. I've also tried all sorts of other methods in the past. I've often wondered about the effect of water on the electrics, but I think an oven has to be designed to allow for things steaming, as well as stuff potentially boiling over.

The words 'gelatin' and 'firm' don't seem to go together for me, but I'm not sure what texture you're looking for. I might add some caramel sauce.

This is the type of thing that bites me when cooking for myself. Sure, making a BLT for one is accomplished easily enough, but then I'm left staring at 2/3rds of a tomato, a largely whole head of lettuce and a bunch of bacon. Okay, well, the bacon will keep ok, but the tomato and lettuce? Not so much. Some meal planning can help, but planning around a BLT?

A couple of weeks ago, on a whim, I bought some frozen White Castle burgers. They were actually okay in terms of resembling the real thing (although I think I've only been to an actual White Castle once in my life). Bread and grease, as it turns out, seem to be minimally affected by freezing and thawing.

Brined chicken or pork might work at 160, but as I mentioned, if you leave the lid off the temp is lower (I just don't have the numbers so didn't post guesses). But even so, it could still be successful if you watch the time. Cooking at 160 SV is still more controllable than traditional methods. Ha! I chuckled at that thought as I was posting. But apparently, some people like to do the sear-first method. I know I get a better sear when doing it first in a traditional method vs. searing after SV, but I've never tried sear-first and then SV.

You might look into getting an Aerogarden. It will take care of things while you're away as long as you can get back often enough to fill it up with water and add nutrient pellets. Basil works very well. In fact, I'd suggest buying the smallest version and only growing basil in it, as the plants do so well that they want to completely take over the thing.

I use a Presto Kitchen Kettle (now Multi-Cooker) which can be had for as little as $30. It can sous vide (with some fiddling), but it can also slow cook, steam and deep fry. At the extreme low-end, I'm intrigued by the possibility of using a Crock Pot Lunch Crock ($20) and a ZipLoc manual vacuum pump ($5). I have the former and have just done some simple experiments with water so far. There's no temperature control (it's meant for just warming food) but it seems to hold a temp of about 160 with the lid on. Less with the lid off. Its small size and handle opens up the possibility of sous vide-ing your lunch on your desk at work.

Well, who woulda' thunk that little Debbie kid would be such a brazen opportunist...http://www.littledebbie.com/

You have to tell us how quickly it works. Your audience are not designers, but food service people. Quick in, Quick out. Okay, so I might like to make some safer Mayo, what will it cost me in capital (buying the device), and ongoing labor costs? As opposed to buying a carton of pasteurized egg product?