IndyRob

IMHO, it depends a lot about where you grew up and how open a mind you have. To compare a New York pizza with a Chicago one is an exercise in insanity. They are completely different things. I might well ascribe to the notion that a Chicago pizza is more casserole than pizza, but in the end it is a form of pizza and worthy of the name. Then there are Sicilian pizza's and the Sicilian styles done in Detroit. Then the midwest thin crust square-cut round pizzas. Or the California style 'upper crust' rebellion pizzas. Or the cracker-style crusts. Or Neapolitan pizzas. And I've only addressed the U.S. In Italy and France you have all sorts of other examples. Over the years I've become a reformed pizza bigot, and feel that I am better for it.

You can also dry this salt on a sheet pan in the oven and use it to impart some smoke flavor to just about anything (store it sealed). I googled 'liquid smoke salt' and found some more elaborate methods for making smoked salt.

I have no experience with this sort of volume, but can suggest a couple of do-ahead ideas that have enough overlap that you'll be sharing a bit of effort between two dishes. A lot of details are left out because a) I'm not sure exactly what your challenges are, and b) if you're taking on something this big, you'll know how to make the necessary adjustments. Some (maybe even many) days before, make a boatload of crepes and cool and refrigerate, or even freeze. One day before, (assuming you're not up to a huge batch of bread dough from scratch), bake store bought frozen bread dough (you probably need a bunch of disposable aluminum pans, unless you have a bakery), cool and let sit, exposed to air, uncut overnight (you want fresh, homemade, but slightly dehydrated). Also, one day before, slice/chop (slicing is more for garnishment) many strawberries. Macerate in balsamic and sugar. Morning of - Slice bread, prepare french toast batter. Mix a good amount of large curd cottage cheese and strawberry mixture until just pink (and to taste). Bring out crepes to warm/thaw. Begin cooking the french toast. Spoon cottage cheese mixture onto crepes. Roll up crepes (warm and hold here if possible, unless you can do to order), drizzle with macerated strawberry juices (preferably later than sooner) and garnish with macerated slices and a drizzle of juice. Use more of the macerated strawberries over the cooked french toast, with a dusting of powdered sugar. Obviously, the finishing steps are best saved for the last minute, but it will depend on what kind of staffing you have at your disposal and what you can fit into your overall plan. But for two dishes, this leaves you only one thing to cook on the day. From there it's just about warming and timing.

After looking at it a little more, I think it's a pretty good gimmick that won't give you authentic smoked ribs, but will give you good ribs. I speculate now, but bear with me. I have a Tony Roma's clone recipe that's very simple but produces falling of the bone goodness. Just take a sheet pan and lay down a layer of aluminum foil and then your favorite BBQ sauce over half the foil. Put your rib rack on top of that half of the aluminum foil and cover it with sauce at well. Then fold the other half of the aluminum foil over the top, but leave the ends of the bone uncovered. Then roast at about 225 for two hours. At the end, if you want, you can throw the rack under a broiler or on a grill. It's great, tender and, um, basically braised. This is not what traditional rib smoking is about. It is, however, a technique similar to what Alton Brown did on Good Eats. And it is good. If you do this and think "Gosh, a little bit of authentic smokeyness would have made it perfect", Then I think this thing is for you. I can see how it will save time. I've had what Bon Appetit claimed were the best ribs in America and this isn't the style. From what I've seen, traditionalists are not looking for 'falling of the bone', but rather, meat that comes cleanly off the bone when bitten. They're also looking for a 'bark' on the outside. I can't say I agree with this - seemed like nearly burnt shoe leather to me - instead I'd prefer a crispy layer of pork fat, but that's tradition I guess. But the inside had a wonderful delicate fibrosity that was quite different from any braised cousin. I've been able to produce the texture, but not flavor, sous vide, by not brining - which tends homogenize the texture into one like bologna. Originally that's what I thought I was going for until I had the real thing. I've got some more experimentation to do on this. But if you're looking for traditional smoked ribs, I don't think this thing will do it.

I just happened to see a commercial for this thing this morning. Could be good, or a complete sham. Seems plausible at least.

In the "Scrap Iron Chef" episode of Good Eats, Alton Brown uses a high school locker and a hot plate to create a smoker for bacon. I don't see why the same thing couldn't be accomplished with a length of cylindrical duct work from a hardware store as long as you can fit a bend to route the top out of a window. But keep an eye on it, and do buy a quality fire extinguisher.

When you go back, a critical thing to check would be which walls are load bearing, and which are just dividers. This will tell you what what sort of modifications will be easy and which will involve major construction. Wish I could help more, but I'm more of a "Get outta' my kitchen!" type .

It's actually not so crazy. One Christmas we went over to my (nigh on elderly) parent's house and discovered they had neglected to take the turkey out of the freezer. We had nowhere near the amount of time it would've taken to thaw and cook the bird (it was meant to be done when we got there). There being nothing else in the house, my wife and I headed out to find something to salvage the Christmas dinner. It being Christmas day, only gas stations and pharmacies were open. So I was facing my own quickfire challenge. Very similar to this one. This was before Top Chef. I really wish I had seen it first. I did view it as an interesting challenge, but it never occurred to me to think of it as a challenge on this level. We wound up finding a canned ham and some biscuit mix, and it was just okay. I wish I had the inspiration to, say, seek out some donuts for bread pudding, or do a spicy red Cheeto mac n' cheese.

I was confused by it. Perhaps (or perhaps not) like you, I expected extreme noodle spinning or hand made Greek Fillo dough. Instead it was about basic techniques. But what a cast of instructors. I don't think this show was for 'us'. I think it might've been for non-cooking, or ill-cooking foodies on parole from the Food Network. I imagine that Tony has a much wider audience than us. Especially on the Travel Channel. Samantha Brown's viewers might well routinely ruin their steaks or chickens. And, as Tony himself has said, if that raises the general quality of cooking in America, that might not be so evil. On the one hand, I find it hard to complain about seeing how Keller roasts a chicken. On the other hand I think (in non-restaurant time) I could blow away that Les Halle steak (given the same cut). But what annoyed me the most was that there was no credit card ad .

My current favorite is Boar's Head hot dogs - with the natural casing. Nathan's with the natural casing are also good but I can no longer find these locally. Soft white bun with Gulden's mustard (important point) between the top of the bun and the dog (not on top of the dog as it sits in the bun) But I also long for proper Detroit Coney Island dogs.

Unless someone can come up with a neighborhood gem, this stretch of I-70 is not exactly a fertile plain of gastronomy (mostly industrial). Downtown would be better. Or, get something at the Airport itself (will take you all of two minutes to decide whether there's something that appeals to you). The better parts of the airport area are to the west - which is the wrong way. Downtown shouldn't be too bad - especially if you stray a little bit from the immediate vicinity of Lucas Oil Stadium. Shapiros, as suggested, would be good. Acapulco Joe's (Mexican-American) (365 North Illinois Street) is also a local favorite. But my wife tells me that BW3 downtown (Buffalo Wild Wings - 7 East Washington Street) is the temporary Butler headquarters - if you want to seek crazy. Le Peep (301 N Illinois) might be good too if you're in a brunchy mood. But if you can manage 20 minutes of walking around time downtown, you should be able to find something agreeable. There's a Brazilian steakhouse. The Oceanaire Seafood Room. Brewpubs, etc.

I read this post this morning and it interested me in some strange historical way I'm not sure I can explain. But Wikipedia didn't provide any answers. I can say that from things I've learned and seen, that I think the whole concept of Kosher or Halal comes from guilt. It's more acceptable to slaughter and eat one of God's creatures if we do it in way a prescribed by Him. But I found a reference to a proper method of slaughtering a cow and it involved suspending them from their hindquarters and then dispatching them with a decisive cut at the throat. Given that blood is verboten in both Kosher and Halal, perhaps there is a physical impediment to blood draining out of the back half of the animal when 'done' in this way. So, perhaps someone does this and discovers that the further back they get in the butchering process, the more blood there is. At some point you have to draw a line. Just a hypothesis.

I had pretty much just discovered poaching chicken breasts in wine when I discovered sous vide and drove down that road for a while. Then I read about various confits. So now I'm wondering if, beyond the obvious differences of cooking medium and trading liquids, if there really is any real fundamental difference between the three. If I brine my pork ribs and then cook them sous vide, could I not just poach them in a brine? Thomas Keller has apparently hit upon poaching lobster in butter in a sous vide bath. Could this be called a confit? Since all three can be oxygen free, do the safety procedures applied to sous vide work for poaching and/or confit?

If you go to hulu.com and search for Bourdain there's a video of a talk he gave that's about an hour long. Short talk, followed by Q&A (Actually, this might get you there directly: Oops, no it didn't. Try the hulu search). I imagine it's the same sort of format. Although it's about two years old, he's already showing signs of being over the Rachel thing. But provides some insight into thoughts on what he considers good and evil in a TV Food Celeb.

After re-reading this thread, and upon reflection, I think there might also be other answers known only true locals (I'm a transplant from Michigan). Given that the vast majority of corn grown in the state is for pork production, I'd be willing to bet that there are some pretty epic pork roasts going on in the countryside. As I was imagining what might be going on there, I was reminded of a chance experience. Not about pork, but oddly enough, fish.... I'm driving back to Indy from Louisville on a snowy Thursday night when the ominous odors of burning electronics start reaching my nose. It soon ends with me stranded on the side of the highway somewhere in southern Indiana. So I walk a mile or two to the next exit, find a service station with a tow truck and get towed there. By then it's late and there's no one there who can fix it, but they give a ride to a fleabag motel - which was by then somewhat of a blessing. So I show up at the garage the next morning and they're already there investigating the problem. I get a brief rundown on the problem (the air conditioning compressor burned out and seized up and there's not a replacement anywhere near) and settle in while the mechanic gets to work. I notice there are a bunch of other people hanging out in the garage - including some old guys (owners? retired mechanics?) with a small kitchen fryer breading and frying up locally caught fish right there in the garage bay. I'm offered a fish sandwich which was surprisingly good (although to say my expectations were somewhat tempered would be an understatement). After about an hour, the mechanic had freed up the idler pulley on the air compressor, put a new belt on and had me on my way, sans air conditioning (but I could care less about that with 6" of snow on the ground). Bill? Tow, ride to a motel, fish sandwich and repair/belt - $40. That's Hoosier Hospitality. I imagine that only God and the locals know what they do if/when they have a whole hog on hand.

Just as a matter of loyalty, I'd like to mention another place, not really for brunch (although it could be had there - after a fashion), but just for donuts. The Donut Shop at 5527 N. Keystone Ave. With Krispy Kreme and the local super markets driving out all of the local independent donut shops, this one remains and outdoes them all on a daily basis. Despite the Waffle-House style decor, this place is a real local gem. They actually have a much bigger menu (that has received some acclaim - although I've only had the donuts). It has all the appearance of a breakfast dive, but the donuts, and I'm talking about the yeast ones, are among the best anywhere. Almost ethereal in their lightness. If you'd like a light chocolate icing (on the inside), the Chocolate Angels are recommended. Edit: My usual preference would be a chocolate bavarian - with the custard on the inside and a chocolate glaze on top. But these donuts are so light, that here it creates a unique problem; The custard is perfect, but the chocolate glaze must be able to keep to itself when packaged into a box of 11 other donuts. So the glaze seems rather rigid in contrast to the softness of the rest. But I think that only serves as a testament to the excellence of the basic package. (EDIT EDIT: Oh wait, there's a powdered Bavarian - MINE!) Website (just as cheesy as the rest of the decor): http://www.thedonutshoponline.com/index.html Edit: Oh, and this from the link in the post immediately preceding this one - cash only.

From lefty at pizzamaking.com - Dollar Pizza Wars in Manhattan... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/nyregion/16pizza.html

I might be defining 'starches' rather narrowly, but one avenue might be to teach/demonstrate how different starches work without any application to any particular dish. Then end with a whirlwind of applications. For instance, I was never looking for a lesson about cornstarch when I was following directions for a glaze to make a shiny bread crust. But when I dissolved some cornstarch in a little water and added it to boiling water, I was amazed by the gel that resulted. I totally got it at that instant. Do the same thing with a roux. Just add water and compare and contrast with the cornstarch mixture. I think with just those two examples, one can easily see why cornstarch would be better for berries in a pie, or the roux is better for gravies.

One thing I'd like to add to the discussion is the value of what I'd call micro design. Once we got our renovation done we quickly loaded up the cabinets with all the things that had been relocated to other rooms. Although I had a general idea of what would go where, it took me a year or two of pulling a pile of dishes/bowls/pans out of the cabinets - in order to get to the one in the middle of the pile, to finally put my foot down and (figuratively) scream what so many would have seen at the outset... "A place for everything and everything in its place!" As I analyzed the situation, the solution was simple. More shelves. Usually in a stock cabinet you get two shelves. Few things in a kitchen will take up the vertical space between them. Simply putting in more shelves will give you much more storage area for the cost of a plank of wood/particleboard and a few shelf pegs.

What area of the country do you live in? Midwest. Indiana to be more specific.

Based on the original post (but not knowing how the current kitchen is), I'd say hold off a bit. I've not been to culinary school, but if I had, I imagine it would have a significant impact on my kitchen design requirements. The pics posted at the sites you mentioned are awesome. But I can't help but contrast them to Julia Child's kitchen - which might seem more like Grandpa's garage than an in-home Trattoria. So is it meant to be a showplace or a workplace? Most likely, the home kitchen won't further the culinary career since, at least in my area, it can't be used for commercial purposes. That said, my son and I accomplished a major kitchen remodel in almost a weekend - on the cheap and with good results. All of the appliances were nearly top of the line, but the cabinets were boxed DIY fare. We made only minor changes to electrical and plumbing systems. In retrospect, I would like more electrical outlets, but in our house it's the sort of thing that could lead to a complete rewiring of the whole house fairly quickly. But I'm pretty proud of the job we did. Except for some matters of fit and finish, I think we did a great job. I'm the kind of person who is really confident with the larger issues of design, but I lose interest when, say, mitered corners need to match up. I could have really done better to stop at the finishing steps and brought in a pro. But if, in contrast, you love to work on the the details, maybe you need to have someone come in up front for the broad brush. So you really need to take stock of yourself, and your SO, and have a lot of discussions.

Well, I think you were on the right track to begin with. Take 1 1/2 cups of stout and reduce by half. I wish I had a lot more experience with Guinness Stout than I have ( ), but I don't think the liquidity would be significantly affected(edit: unlike some Bock beers). More power Scotty! (Ooh, that might be too Scottish a reference wouldn't it?) Of course, you could go to unsweetened chocolate as well. Or pull back on the sugar. Or replace some cream with more whipped egg white. I love cream, but I'd say that's the major moderating force in the recipe provided.

I had to bump this thread because I just discovered that my Trader Joes is no longer carrying President butter(!). I've tried Isigny St Mere (which I think I can get elsewhere), but it wasn't even close, IMHO. I'd love to try all the varieties of French butter, but the President has been the only locally available product that was what I was looking for. All the European and 'European Style' butters I've tried have fallen flat - very bland - even to the point where I prefer American butter. Does anyone know if comparable brands exist in the US? Or, since President Brie seems almost ubiquitous, has anyone had any luck arranging for special order from a distributor through a local market? Of course, I can find it online, but unless I aim to open a butter store, the shipping would be more than the product.

I can't believe it took me this long to try this (was out of popcorn for a while and don't make it very often anyway), but this is a total winner. Flavocol into melted coconut oil - then the kernels. By itself, I think think I'd classify it as 'circus-style' popcorn. With some melted butter or margarine after the fact, I'm pretty sure it will be my holy grail of classic old school movie theater popcorn. Since I viewed this as an experiment, I didn't inform my wife that popcorn was in the offing. She had fixed herself a small bowl of ice cream. Carrying it out of the room, she decided to stop and sample a kernel. "It's good!" Then another, "No, it's REALLY good." Then a few more. Then I noticed her looking at the bowl of ice cream in her left hand like "What do I do with this now?". But having committed herself by dishing out the ice cream, she carried it away to consume - but then came back for more popcorn. Once I fine tune the proportions, I believe my popcorn preparation search will be at an end.

If I read Mr. Bourdain correctly, he's not overly impressed with himself. He knows that he's been incredibly lucky and grateful to have chanced into a unique opportunity to travel around the world tasting food. The cameras surrounding him are a necessary evil. The producers are a constant butt of his snarkasm, but are the same time, his life blood. He's almost a parody of himself - in a good way. So, when he looks at food bloggers, I imagine that it's hard for him to take himself out of the equation. The job is basically the same. And since he doesn't take himself very seriously, can he in any good conscience not view food bloggers with the same deprecation he willingly and enthusiastically heaps on himself?