JBailey

What did Alice say? Curiouser and curiouser? I also wonder if Ruhlman and Brown may indeed fear a backlash from followers who don't have the interest, means or desire to follow what this book may present? Mr. Browm I personally dismiss as an entertainer more than a food leader. Mr. Ruhlman, though, has been a user and advocate for the companies which sell the Sous Vide Professional and Sous Vide Supreme machines. His authorship of Under Pressure puts him squarely in the chamber vacuum/circulator/Pacojet discussion as either an expert or one who could convey in words the concepts of sous vide and advanced cooking. Regardless of what Michael Ruhlman wrote in the NYTimes, a fact may have been undiscussed. No public company or privately held firm is at risk for publishing Modernist Cuisine. The invested dollars to date and for getting the book published and into buyer's hands has all been Nathan's risk. While he may indeed account to his family, it was his dollars he ventured not knowing whether even one of us would really buy his book, let alone a hoped for 6,000 orders. I would be interested to learn when Michael Ruhlman was first contacted about The French Laundry Cookbook or even Under Pressure whether he wrote it 'on the come', as the phrase goes, or if he had a contract that laid out payments, terms and conditions? If they failed would he have lost his base payments? Risk and courage of your beliefs are marvelous qualities Nathan...not to mention being responsible for the paychecks of your collegues who worked with you on Modernist Cuisine.

Ruhlman is certainly no neophyte when it comes to advanced techniques. His association with the CIA, Chef Keller and even a couple glimpses we see of his experiments with sous vide in his blog should have made him the nearly perfect person to review Modernist Cuisine for a national audience. If you look at the sources section of Under Pressure, there are references to chamber vacuums, circulators and PacoJets, along with ingredient purveyors. Only Michael Ruhlman can answer why he wrote the review from that perspective, but in his blog he does talk about anxiety. Also, I read that he concedes that he will be purchasing a copy for himself. Time may have been the tyrant in this case. A bit further on in his blog, he says that chefs with a positive cash flow should get their copy and use it as a teaching tool. Perhaps, he is trying to avoid calling this a grail and causing people who cannot afford the purchase price to sell the couch and the dog to get a copy for themselves that will never be utilized sufficiently. On balance, I believe this was a good review for the national audience. There are lots of people in Cleveland and New York and San Francisco who will find the book and the press about the book interesting, but who will not or maybe even should not bother to purchase it. On the other hand, there will be home chefs in small towns in Indiana to which this will be a great addition.

Dear Nathan Thank you for your thoughts and update. Yours is the type of personal service and concern which is seldom seen today, regardless as to whether your name is on the product or not! Maybe the analogy is that all of us are seeing how the sausage is made in the publishing industry thanks to you. In a way, I wonder how any book makes it from concept to the shelf. Stuff happens and my attitude is that my copy gets here when it gets here. There is little you can do to speed up the propellers or recommend which is the most efficient distribution center for delivery. Well maybe you could advise the one firm as to how to correct their computer errors! Again, I personally appreciate all you have done.

Perchance Mr. Brown's stardom has become such that publishers, promoters and publicists offer him gratis books and equipment so that he doesn't have to part with his dear dollars himself? Maybe he was even trying to indicate that he should be sent a complimentary copy. The statements of Mr. Brown do not seem to be what I would hope from someone who is a chef and author trying to sell books. Should not the diplomat in Alton Brown have said there is a market for everything and those who choose to buy Modernist Cuisine hopefully will enjoy their copies and those who buy his books should enjoy their purchases. I cannot imagine someone foregoing one of Mr. Brown's books because they were saving for Nathan's, so I would presume he is not being deprived of customers. Then again, Mr. Brown may fear losing his doyen status, the perks, the quotations in interviews and the invitations to host multiple programs on his network if someone else surpasses him.

Rule #1 - Never buy a centrifuge when the eBay address is Yucca Mountain Nevada or Hanford Washington Rule #2 - See rule #1

Jeff In one of the Modernist threads, I asked a parallel question. If you have a sous vide dish that was finished to 135 degrees F, that is the serving temperature the best I can tell. Yes, you might bring it up a couple degrees when finishing it off with a sear, but I guess sous vide will never have that 'hot' mouth feel. Is sous vide destined to lukewarm serving status?

Modernist Cuisine/sous vide/butchering. Last night I put a boneless rib eye roast into my sous vide. As I was preparing the roast, again I wondered how much more a roast or a steak or say a rack of lamb ribs need to be butchered. Obviously, silver skin needs removal. My instinct is to shave off the larger caps of fat one finds based upon my guess that at the lower temperatures of doneness, the fat does not sufficiently melt. If I were conventionally roasting, the melting of the fat would take place and further act as a basting or at least render more. Should we cut off the extra fat, but leave the excess in the bags or does this not aid much in flavor development? My practice is to season, sous vide and then sear, while I have seen opinion that pre-searing may be better. Which also brings up the second question of how 'hot' meat done sous vide is at the table, versus the still sizzling one might find from a steak just off the grill. To compensate and give the expected warmness someone expects when dinner is served, do you heat the plates or how exactly do you keep the food warm?

Nathan For those on the verge of deciding about a vacuum purchase, I fully affirm your statement that "once you have a chamber style vacuum packer in your kitchen, you use it for everything - it is very convienient." As I related in other threads, I purchased my MVS-31 from Polyscience many months before I purchased my circulator. I find myself using it every day for a myriad of applications-tonight I prepared a steak from Costco sous vide and vacuum packed the other two steaks in the package for later use. Your observations about pockets of air in fruit was most intersting. While I have done some experimenting, I certainly intend to do more. Keller's watermelon was one of the first things I tried and it was a delightful success.

I believe it is Electrolux which is not offering a cooktop with a hybrid of both flat surface electric and induction hobs. Personally, I have been using a CookTek hob and find it certainly is as, if not more, versatile than electic when adjusting temperatures. The biggest advantage I appreciate is the steadiness of temperatures. From what I have read, induction allows for direct melting of chocolate where one would want a double boiler using conventional gas or electric.

So you feel better when the swinging door into the kitchen of a restaurant closes and you don't see their sanitation and food safety practices?

Sur la Table offers a 'pizza and snack' oven by a company called Fusion. They say it has a 16 inch opening and can be adjusted between 150 degrees F and 500 F. Delonghi makes a similar oven to the Breville, if I am not mistaken.

My guess is that all the centrifuges capable of the higher rpm's are spinning in Tehran...

As I have inquired earlier, are there particular models, sizes or types of centrifuges we should seek for food experiments? Also, I appreciated some of the warnings of things and types of machines to avoid. Like circulators bought surplus, you may never know where they have been, what prior chemicals they were used with or how well treated they were.

Speed racks hold bottles, mainly liquor behind bars so bartenders can quickly find different liquors during service, but they would be convenient for holding most anything in a bottle like olive oil, or vinegars, or spices, or even boxes to better organize them. Any number of manufacturers like Scott make under counter ice machines that fit within home cabinetry. The bonus is they make LOTS of ice and the ice in this type of machine is often clear. As for refrigeration, look at some of the commercial brands. The downside is that they are often noisier and don't always fit in traditional home refrigerator spaces.

I was going through my library of cookbooks and seeing how much I have spent on them over time. Consider that if you bought a Keller French Laundry, a couple of Julia Child, some of Batalia's, a Flay, a Momofuku and several from the CIA technique series you have tied up a considerable sum. While they all have elements of teaching, I cannot imagine the sum of knowledge will equal what this book covers. In essence, you spend the money once, not over a year of the latest picture cookbooks. Divide by number of volumes, pages, words or any other metric so you can see how it compares favorably!

One of Nathan's Seattle neighbors is Wood Stone who make the ceramic cooking ovens seen in so many restaurant kitchens. They have developed a method to cast the floors and walls of their wood fired and gas fired ovens with their proprietary high-temperature ceramics. As I shared elsewhere, in my oven I have one of their baking slates which is the ceramic material poured into a baking sheet pan. It works wonderfully as both a heat sink and as a pizza stone. They are not cheap, but I believe may work for what you desire.

Jack Fry's restaurant on Bardstown Road in Louisville features Shrimp and Grits in a Red Eye gravy. Theirs also includes tomatoes, country ham and shitake mushrooms. According to one source, they use both milk and whipping cream (4 cups to one) in the grits preparation.

In glancing at the Parametric Risotto page, I did not see a farro (emmer). Granted, it is a grain which yields similar characteristics. My understanding has been that farro is not spelt and spelt is not farro, but the two are oft confused. When I do prepare farro, I have previously followed how I prepare risotto, although I discovered farro did not need as much stirring to take on rich and creamy textures. Or have I been the one duped into thinking what is labeled farro is actually another grain product?

Nathan Any chance you will have a raffle for one or two of the rest of us to obtain a seat at one of your dinners?

Chris Amirault Chris Hennes In this thread and others, discussions have been had about buying modernist/special ingredients. Let's start from the beginning. Either in your experience or from Modernist Cuisine, is there a recommmended list of pantry staples, like we already do with sugar, salt, pepper, various spices, et. al.? What are the priorty items, which are most shelf-stable and what are the ones that last longest on a counter or in a freezer? I know the kits are omnibus and probably are a good random selection. Which items do the kits miss that we should be acquiring and what are the unnecessary additions? Are there ingredients we should stock more of and others we could skip until a need arises? Yes, I know those regular spices I stock are based upon my preferences and what I cook, but I guess I am looking for a path through the wilderness. Finally, are there local places you use if you are missing one item? I looked through Whole Foods and there are bits and pieces, but for the most part they are not a good alternative. Are most of the ingredients best and only available on line?

Check into David Lebovitz's blog from time to time as he has conducted tours and gives a good run down on 'must sees'. Also, you may want to follow Heather Stimmler-Hall's Secrets of Paris.

As I read of Nathan's logic in his blog about fairness and distribution of Modernist Cuisine, it seems he may have put his mathematic degree robes back on to conquer random number theory and chaos theory giving the buyers of his book an orderly process. His approach sounds reasonable, thoughful and better than custom may have been in the publishing industry. I feel better about this than when I got a draft number or my chances in my state's lottery!

I just looked at Nathan's blog-too bad he does not look more excited in the pics! Seriously, that is one very happy man from my viewpoint! I can't imagine that he ever thought of such a long journey when he posted his first sous vide inquiries and then all of a sudden opening a box and seeing the fruits of his labor.

Chris At least walk through the Purple Pig near Nordstroms on Michigan Avenue-wonderful small plates (many done on a Wood Stone plancha). Also though you won't have time, Chicago Cut along the river near the Mechandise Mart is a great steak house, awesome views and center of power diners, but their best trick is the complete wine list on iPads presented at each table which allows sorting, discovering and reading about the wine for your evening.

If I recall, it is also available on Barnes & Noble's website and from Kitchen Arts and Letters, although the prices are probably different than from Amazon. I agree the stats are amazing. Being self-publsihed, Nathan must have all types of issues. For example, do they trust the quality control of their printer in China who probably also pre-packages the volumes for shipment. They may have needed to send someone there or hire an auditor to observe the process. If it were my books of this importance, I can imagine myself going to the docks, opening the container and then trying to check each package to make certain there was no damage in transit. Also, Nathan probably is having them drop shipped at one of Amazon's warehouses, likely one near their respective headquarters in Seattle. However, Amazon may have to then ship them around the U.S. to their regional shipping warehouses for distribution to the end buyers. Finally, can you imagine the debates that went on about how many first editions should be published?