Dakki

I always thought it was used a bit tongue-in-cheek. "Look at us, using newfangled digital thermometers instead of sticking our hands in the oven! We're reading books on the chemistry of the Maillard reaction and using stuff we can't even pronounce to enhance umami! My old chef thought umami was a small flightless bird native to Madagascar! We ain't chefs, we're like scientists of taste! We're molecular gastronomers!" But then I also thought "flexitarian" was a joke, like the seafood diet joke (I see food, I eat it).

So I took this photo yesterday, messed around with it a bit and posted it in another thread. Looking at it again I'm not sure it looks right. Oversharpened? Here's the original for comparison: EDIT: I also need to remember to clean my counter BEFORE taking photos.

A sharp pocketknife (I like the SAK Soldier) is useful in that situation. Okay, it's a lot like a paring knife but at least it's like a sharp paring knife.

Not in a class with the others in this thread but a pretty obscene sandwich for me. Ingredients: rye bread, dijon mustard (generously applied, both slices), chopped green olives, four slices gruyere, boiled ham (browned in butter prior to assembly), dry salami and prosciutto, heated in a makeshift press consisting of a well-buttered frying pan and an upside-down dinner plate weighted down with a stone mortar and pestle. Oh, and dill pickle quarters on the side.

Mostly you'll go from a viselike grip to force the blade through, to gently guiding the edge as it does its work. That'll come with experience. Just use (and enjoy) your new knife.

Inspired by that essay I roasted some thighs Monday night. Kept it as simple as possible: salt, a little rosemary, some potatoes and onions and a little olive oil roasted @ 425 F until the meat thermometer said they were done. Results were... pretty disappointing. The skin was fish belly white and just slightly crisped. The meat was juicy but bland enough that the rosemary dominated. Potatoes looked steamed rather than roasted, not crisp at all. Drippings were all fat, without enough juice to make even a single serving of gravy. Next time I'll brown the thighs in butter first... Add some carrots and celery... Wait, I'll see what the Fat Duck has to say about roasting chicken pieces...

Article is here. The usual problems with TIME: Article is sloppily written (sorry Mr. Josh Ozersky, winner of a James Beard award), doesn't appear very well-researched, conflates illegal distilling ("Why is moonshine making a comeback? For the same reason absinthe did a few years ago. Because it's delicious. Because it's illegal. And because it's cool."), artisanal distilling and industrial production of white whiskeys. But I've been thinking of something else: TIME has a pretty terrible track record predicting the future. Can we safely declare a trend dead when TIME reports on it?

A couple of years ago I bought the Shun KO 10" to ship on to a friend who lives in a country where it was unavailable. I kept it and used it for a few days before shipping it along. The handle didn't do a lot for me either but I liked it just enough that I got a block full of Alton's Angles when Woot had them for a ridiculous price one day - cheaper than Foschners, even. Most cost-effective knives purchase I ever made, although they don't hold a candle to the gyuto from an unknown maker purchased at a store in Kappabashi - the one with the suit of armor outside whose owner speaks fluent Spanish. Anyway my opinion is that Shuns are about halfway between a really good Western knife and a "pure" gyuto/Japanese Chef's and combine many of the virtues and some of the vices of both. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Shuns to people who want to try Japanese steel but are shy about changing their technique, although the price point is a bit high for a stepping stone if they're going to go full Japanese later.

That's... a really great question, ScoopKW. It depends mostly on whether I decide to go with all business no frills for an affordable and really usable product line aimed at the pros and semi-pros (a losing proposition for a small guy because cost is inversely proportional to volume) or something aimed at Williams-Sonoma shoppers (which is a losing proposition because I have no brand-name recognition, no marketing budget and I'm not based in Europe or Japan). I have some hard thinking to do before this takes any definite shape.

Tungsten carbide (as applied using HVOF) goes from dark gray and rough (rather like a silicone carbide sharpening stone) to smooth, shiny dark gray when ground, then progressively more mirrorlike as you finish it more finely. The finish in that photo is RMS =<3, which is very smooth indeed. Tungsten carbide itself is pretty much inert at much higher temperatures than you could apply to it on a stovetop or oven. Aluminum oxide is indeed very hard (I don't remember how it compares to tungsten carbide off the top of my head) but it's a lot less tough than a tungsten carbide cermet as applied in the HVOF process. In this process, the tungsten carbide particles (imagine them as bricks) are flung at very high speed at the substrate, together with powdered metal (nickel or cobalt, imagine it as mortar). The powders form a sort of brick wall, with the hard bricks stuck to each other and the substrate by a comparatively flexible mortar. Getting off track here. If you could have custom-made pans with expense being no object, what would you order?

I have a machine shop. Our specialty is hard plating (tungsten carbide, stellite, etc) and we have HVOF, plasma equipment, Rokide system, etc. and we're actually looking at getting into electrodeposition as well. So as far as plating goes, basically the sky is the limit at this stage. I'll have to decide if the end product warrants the cost at some later point. Applying tungsten carbide to a conical shaft. Tungsten carbide plated roller (superfinished).

Thank you for your responses. Clarification - I'm not looking for advice on buying copper pans, I want to make them commercially (on a very small scale) and I want to know what you guys would like to see. So, go nuts.

What would your ideal copper pans be like? Be specific. I want to know the shapes and sizes, lined vs plated (not limited to tin here - my business is mostly about plating stuff, often with pretty exotic materials. I just need to find out which are food safe), thickness, lids, handle material(s), how they're attached, everything. We're talking a super-premium product so go nuts.

My butcher (okay, the dude behind the counter at the supermarket) opens them for me Chris. Brains are an acquired taste. Maybe your wife just needs more exposure?

Thank you very much for your detailed response. I think I'm going to hold off on any sour pickling experiments until October or so when the temperature drops a bit.

A friend recommended Faststone Image Viewer as an extremely simple alternative to messing with Photoshop. I touched up the mushrooms pic (no flash) and this is what I got. Original: v2: It's still not a great photo but at least the 'shrooms don't look like they'd give you hallucinations if you ate them.

Good work ChefCrash. I like the salt idea too.

I looked on Amazon. I'm not sure what can be used on an induction stove but here you go. http://www.amazon.com/Germany-Liter-Pot-Glass-Lid/dp/B002KQ6UUQ/ref=sr_1_26?ie=UTF8&s=kitchen&qid=1274039443&sr=1-26

I'm so jealous, David. Thanks for your advice. I've been playing around with the camera a lot more since my first post ITT, taking the same photo several times while changing settings and so on. This is daylight from the window. The side of the skillet threw a shadow on the surface so maybe I should have closed the shutters and used an overhead light? Flash/no flash versions of the same pic. The flash pic has nicer color and no shadow but for some reason it doesn't look very nice. I need to figure out why. Not every photo is food. Is it okay to post these? I'm looking for constructive criticism so I can take better food photos after all. Early morning daylight. I think this is a nice pic for the camera/operator combination but maybe it's a little too simple. This would have been a nice pic if I hadn't screwed up the perspective and gotten my shadow in there. I think I'll look for a similar shot tomorrow and not make the same mistakes. Flash/no flash again. I like how the gears look greasy on the first one but the second one looks somehow nicer. Something else I need to figure out. Same assembly, different perspective.

Thank you very much for your constructive criticism ChefCrash. I will take it to heart. I don't think I used any zoom, optic or digital, in that photo. The Digital zoom = 1 must be the default setting. I think I'll try making an improvised lightbox to fix the light problem and try to find a miniature tripod next. Jmahl, I am intensely jealous of that photo. Would you care to post the details of how it was taken?

Thank you for your responses. Toliver, my camera doesn't seem to have anything like that. It might be hidden in one of the 600 menus, but I lost the manual years ago. Prasantrin, I'm actually looking at entry-level DSLRs right now. It was late afternoon when I took that photo and the sun does not shine directly through any of my windows at this time of year. I would have liked to show the pretty colors those chiles were (they're salsa now) so I guess I'm after a little better than just okay. Tell me more about this light box.

I have some interest in your product but before taking the plunge I'd like to ask some questions. What is the practical range of room temperatures at which one can successfully pickle using this equipment? Is it practical to do it in the refrigerator? Temperatures here can vary extremely in the course of a day and a local joke is that there's a sign on the highway that says "You are now leaving XXXXX. If you didn't like the weather, come back in twenty minutes." What other pickles can be made besides sauerkraut, cucumber pickle and kimchee? Can chiles be pickled this way? Can a mix of vegetables, such as chiles, onion, carrot, cauliflower? Finely diced or pureed vegetables? I currently make chiles and mixed vegetables pickled in vinegar and am interested in experimenting with sour pickling the same. Are the range of LAB present in (say) live sauerkraut the same as those in kimchee and/or sour pickle cucumbers? Can I use juice from live sauerkraut for example as a starter for other types of pickle?

Er, you might not cut on the corners but if you use the board like I do you'll be stacking stuff on them. Things to be cut on the right, things already cut on the left, trash on the farthest side kind of thing. If you're the kind of guy who keeps the ingredients in alphabetical order in color-coordinated bowls and clears the board after every carrot that might not apply to you.

Unless someone can come up with a good reason to use a round board I suggest you stick to the square/rectangular ones. Even ignoring your "long" dimension, a 12" round board will have a surface of ~113" sq, while a square board will have 144" sq. A rectangular board 12x24" will have 288" sq area.

Same camera, no flash. Light source is daylight from a window to the right of the photo. This was taken in Auto; I took a whole bunch in Manual, changing the settings around and this was the best photo. The main problem is that the colors don't look nearly as vivid as they do in real life. How do I fix?