IndyRob

My mother was from the same area and I had an uncle who fished Lake Superior nearly every day of his life. He passed some years back and his ashes were scattered in the lake (sorry about that ). As a child I had gone out with with him many times, and still have pictures of me as a child holding up a trout in each hand and can still (40 years later) mentally feel the bones behind the gills digging into my thumbs as I held them up for those pictures. I learned how to scale and clean them and my mother was always given the assignment of cooking them. Now, while my mother taught me some good things about cooking, as a general cook, I now realize that she could struggle with some things. But this she knew. She had grown up up there. She knew how to cook fish. This is my touchstone whenever I hear a great chef say to respect the ingredient. Get it fresh, and treat it simply. She used nothing but butter, S&P - maybe some flour. It is still the best fish I've ever tasted. IMHO, you can't make fish good. You just have to avoid screwing up good fish. Get it off the boat and treat it simply. [Edit]To be clear, Mom did it simply in a pan on the stove.

I liked this show, and it's interesting that it has spawned something that we can actually sample, but I think it vindicates Top Chef's sudden death, one loss and you're out rules. At least for the last two episodes, I was pretty confident that I knew that Soul Daddy would be the winner. That's good for the selection process, but not as good for TV.

I guess Bobby lost the argument. Perhapss this is explained by this item that says that Chipotle is buying Mr. Ells' interest for his cost - $220K, and that they're pumping over $2M into ANGR Holdings in exchange for equity. Presumably, the other judges have the same $220K share as Mr. Ells, so it would appear that Chipotle will be in control. ANGR Holdings also owns the trademarks on all the other concepts. Well played, Mr. Ells. But I want crispy fried chicken.

Ah, here we are... http://www.souldaddyrestaurant.com/

I think I've lost my grounding with respect to garlic bread. Kind of like pizza, I've discovered that there are styles which can be just as good as whatever your own tradition may dictate, but in different ways. I literally can't decide what garlic bread should be. Actually, I came to like the unlimited garlic breadsticks at, of all places, Fazoli's. But only if they were fresh out of the oven (which is sometimes a tall order). My son was at the time at a high school cross country team member and before meets, it was traditional to have parents host a pasta party to load these boys up with carbs prior to the run the next day. I never hosted one, but I noticed that the 'cool' parents always had Fazoli's breadsticks. But recently I tried something I had been thinking about for awhile. Instead of using prebaked breadsticks as Fazoli's does, do it from almost fresh. I took some frozen supermarket white bread dough, thawed it, formed it into sticks, and let it proof. Then I brushed it with garlic butter before and after baking. I thought they would be good, but they were great. Screw Fazoli's prebaked crap forever.

One little detail that I've come to appreciate in this show is that they break with the Top Chef model of saving the final elimination until after a final commercial break and then showing maybe 60 seconds worth of television. ANGR seems to save a contestant to critique after the break and then you have fewer dramatic pauses prior to the announcement. As a viewer I feel a bit less exploited this way (although I like Top Chef more overall).

We have one very much like this one. I consider it one our best buys ever. It's absolutely dog proof, easy to operate, easy to empty, and the standard kitchen trash bags fit it perfectly.

To take the question on a little more serious note, here in Indy we've been witnessing this same thing in the realm of motorsport. In 1977, the first female driver broke into the Indianapolis 500. It didn't really open the floodgates for female drivers, though. More recently we have Danica Patrick, who has appeared to do that with the follow-ons of Sarah Fisher (who might've actually preceded Danica), Katherine Legge, Simona DiSilvestro, Ana Beatriz, and Milka Duno. The latter was an awful driver, but the rest were/are certainly competent, and even good (keep your eye on Simona). While breaking into the game may be noteworthy, the advancement comes after that. Alice Waters is a controversial figure and I bet many of the Top Chef females would choose to disagree with her on some things. But that's when the change happens. When women are not a bloc and can be judged on their individual merits.

IMHO, that seems as though it's asking for a bit too much literal truth when 'Whole Paycheck' is usually used tongue-in-cheek. But a 50% increase in a grocery bill is certainly significant, especially with rising prices overall.

After some searching and testing, it appears that some may contain bitterants. The can I have at the moment apparently doesn't. Apparently, bitterants are used in cases where huffing teens need to be dissuaded from their huffing ways by offensive bitter smells and flavors - which also tend offend legitimate users. The cautions on my can are all about extreme heat and cold, and spraying it directly into your person. With a little knowledge, I progressed from a sniff test more to progressive tests until I was blasting my fingertips with air and then tasting. The taste was more finger-like than (imagined) ass-like. Likewise with wrist and forearm tests.

I was out today and decided I had a chance to gather data. So I went into Whole Foods, and then immediately into a Kroger literally across the street. But I didn't want to walk around writing in a notebook so my memory has failed me in some cases. Tomatoes - WF: $2.49/lb, Kroger: $1.79/lb. Both were smallish tomatoes on vine clusters. They looked identical. No mention of organic at either place. Strawberries - WF: $3.99/container, Kroger: 2 for $5. I can't swear that the containers were the same weight. Quality looked about the same. Boneless Chicken Breast - WF: $5.99/lb (no mention of organic, free range, or much else), Kroger: Quite a bit less (sorry for that less-than-precise measure). But there appears to be a lot of little distinctions in chicken breast packaging ('whole' breast, tenderloin, and the various combinations of those) that I'm not fully understanding. Milk - Mostly inconclusive. WF was a minimum of a dollar more per gallon than Kroger, but they were nearly all organic. But, just last weekend I was talking to a guy who is a manager at a grocery and he said he's buying milk at $4/gallon and selling it for 2 for $5 just to lure people into the store. De Cecco Pasta - WF: $2.99/lb, Kroger: N/A. It was disappointing that I couldn't find this at Kroger because it would've been truely apples-to-apples. A quick search online reveals that I can buy 5lbs for $2.35/lb plus shipping. But that's not a fair comparison. In general, I came away with the impression that WF is indeed much more expensive than a general grocery for general products. Does this apply to items I can only get there? Well, that's hard to answer. I do agree that their employee's are very helpful. One day I was trying to find some kosher salami and the meat guy didn't know if they had any but he wasn't going to give up until he had exhausted all departments. Then again, I don't think I've ever seen a Whole Foods flyer, whereas I get them weekly from Kroger, Marsh (our regional grocery), Aldi, Walmart and sometimes Target - even TJ's flyer. For the sale buyer, I think Whole Foods gets buried price-wise.

I can't view the video but a search turned up this... http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/heston_blumenthal/article616039.ece A potato peeler works well for shavings. Just BTW, if you care to endure a curse-filled experiment for the sake of science, I think I may have a way to bodge up an external-mix air brush from - a can of air (the things we geeks use to blow dust out of keyboards, etc.), and a few other bits, like a small jar, and a few wisely chosen miscellaneous bits. I've done this successfully with slightly different arrangement for paint, but not chocolate.

I think points would spoil the Judges Table. This is an important part of the show. And this part of the show is one of the things that sets it apart from Iron Chef. Although I'm not a fan of delaying results for drama, when it's done to include the debate I really like it. Again, I think you can (in Masters) reward creativity by removing some of the time constraints.

Eric Ripert?

I'm a huge fan of different and experimental and it does make for more interesting tv. Having said that, think about your statement above from the perspective of the person eating the food. It's all well and good that they try something different and use cool techniques... but in the end, it's food. If it doesn't taste good, we won't want to eat it. If we don't want to eat it, it's effectively not food. As big a fan as I am of experimental cuisine, I'd rather have unexciting food that tastes good than cutting edge food that doesn't. I've made a lot of fun things work when experimenting that might seem cool but were inedible. Being creative in a culinary sense is doing those cool things and having it be something that tastes good at the end. I'm not sure I like the judge's message that being creative just for the sake of creativity is ok. I agree with both points. At least for Masters. I think that since they can't torture 'masters' to produce drama, they should focus more on the cooking. Keep the silly quick fires since they're fun and don't mean much if anything. But the time limits for the eliminations should be more lax. Here, I'd rather see cooking than the drama we can't really have anyway. With more time there would be less of an excuse for something that was just botched.

You might be right, but it could be a risk if people didn't see the winner's vision. Another possibility is a Hell's Kitchen prize where the "Head Chef at !!!!" becomes Skeptically-viewed-sous-chef at Meh. But I suspect they'll install some general managers and get as far away as possible. If the concept fails they can avoid blame. If it succeeds, they can rush in to claim credit. I suspect their investment is actually, at least in part, their pay for doing the show.

I think the editors would've had to have committed outrght fraud to avoid this episode's result being telegraphed. I had absolutely no doubt who would be eliminated. She was just not ready. I was wondering about this as I saw their countdown tick down to 7 days. I presume the three locations are hidden behind a big show logo and they'll put up signs overnight after the finale? [ETA]Would you says that the neighborhood selected is representative of a typical location for, say, Chipotle (which BTW, I've heard that Steve Ells founded)?

Pastizzi. Mix about 15oz ricotta with two eggs and liberally season with salt and pepper. Roll out one package (this is the easy version) of puff pastry and cut out 18 3"-4" circles. Put a tablespoon of ricotta mixture on each circle and fold the circle over and seal the edges. Place upright (seam side up) on a sheet pan. At this point you can freeze at this point and bake from frozen later, or immediately bake at 425F for about 20 minutes until golden.

Much more expensive probably, but potentially much better looking, you could look at storeWall. They have a good assortment of things you can hang on it including baskets, shelves, magnetic strips, wire grids, a variety of hooks, a garment hanger for your chef's jacket, and a garden hose hanger for cleanup.

If the results turn out to be this close overall, I wonder if there is a clear winner on price (I suspect not).

I'm not experienced, but maybe that's my point here. Here is an article about Ohio Valley Food Venture which is a kitchen designed to be shared. Their website (foodventure.org) appears to be down, but this article was written just earlier this month. As someone who has wanted to dabble in starting a food business, the lack of a commercial kitchen is a huge barrier. Even if you just want to sell prepared products at the neighborhood farmer's market, you need a commercial kitchen. Back when I was looking into it OVFV had everything set out for hourly fees, storage space, etc. The legal issues might be daunting, but I bet you could get a lot of help from local small business entities if you were to bill it as a business incubator.

The published record is somewhat different from that, IndyRob. The published record is exactly what Google has sought to capture, and what this tool is based on. I'm very willing to consider flaws in my logic and/or dataset, but you'll have to propose reasons why your dataset is better than Google's.

i thought i posted earlier today, but must have failed to click "add reply". this thread caused me to go check my container of trader joe's heavy cream (pasteurized, but not ultrapasteurized). indeed, it contains carrageenan. i don't think this was the case in years past. still, it's my favorite cream. i think i will email to ask why the additive now? Strange, I'm 95% sure I was referencing your post because I remember the pasteurized/ultra pasteurized distinction, but can't find it now. But I suspect that although TJ's felt they were doing the right thing by offering a cream with no additives, they also got feedback saying "Hey, this stuff doesn't whip up like the stuff I buy at the mega mart."

I've been googling and pondering and don't have anything definitive, but I feel the issue may be coming into focus. First, here in Indiana, for me (just a consumer) to get raw milk/cream legally I would have to buy a part of a cow so that I'm not 'buying' the dairy. So that leads us necessarily to pasteurization. Ultra pasteurization changes shelf life from weeks to months. That is a big insurance policy if you're a retailer who is trying to meet all the demand without losing money to spoilage. But ultra pasteurization, beyond affecting the flavor, also makes cream harder to whip and/or remain whipped. Ergo carrageenen and mono/diglycerides. In my own anecdotal experience in the U.S., cream is used by the general populace primarily for whipping. I've seen my wife buy cream only twice in twenty years and both times it was for whipping. It is used in coffee, but I've noticed a preponderance of non-dairy creamers. I think cream as an ingredient in general is not viewed positively in the U.S. Rarely do I see mainstream recipes with cream. We'll do Half & Half, but that's about as far as we'll go - except for a chocolate mousse, or some such desserty thing. Regarding Trader Joe's, I happened across a post dated a year ago on some site saying that Trader Joe's cream had no additives. Apparently that has changed unless it's a regional thing again.

I agree with brining and roasting. You'll end up with too much meat, but you can send some away (or leave) with the parents. The whole roasted bird has a visual effect they'll be expecting. Or you could cut all the meat into strips, brine it, and lay the strips on a length of plastic wrap. Cover that with cheese, spinach, etc., and roll it up and sous vide it. But I must say that for leftover turkey sandwiches, I prefer unadulterated dry roasted turkey. It gives the mayo something to do.