Jose Nieves

I'd be willing to build a grotto for it and swear to use it every day.. I'm about done with rebuilding a Stimpson Model 63 that will go into use ASAP.

I would argue that it's not cheating at all! If you can get consistently accurate results for light-weight items using spoons, why not use them? The goal isn't weight purity but using weight as a means to improve quality and consistency when possible. When other means do that, well, let's use 'em! A good example is the Calorie Count site that roygon mentioned.. 1 Tablespoon (.5oz) of sugar is 13g but 16oz of sugar are 454g. 454g divided 32 (.5oz x 32 = 16oz) gives me 14.19 and 13g times 32 gives me 416g.

Squid Ink Ravioli anyone? I keep a very very tight control over food coloring when it comes to items that we eat at home and have noticed an increase in choices when it comes to natural dyes (turmeric, natural fruit and vegetables, etc) and a decrease in prices in said products. This of course feeds into the items that I choose for my customers..

Differences in the fat are also dependent on thing like the age of both animals, their diet, the specific breeds, etc.. http://www.goosefat.co.uk/page/home

Thank you.. This made my day.

I'm gonna say Mendes and Acheson in the finals.. Not to be a sourpuss but does everyone in the list really deserve the "Master" title?

I take full blame for some of my injuries.. stabbing the meaty area between thumb and forefinger 45 mins before service (only time I had to go to the ER since the sucker refused to stop "spurting" out), the four 5" burn lines on my forearm from my time spent working with a wood burning oven with a small aperture that are oddly somewhat evenly spaced, several odd looking fingertips that have been introduced to "The B*tch" (my Matfer Mandoline), etc.. But I blame the "mark" on my foot on the individual that opened the steam valve on a 60G steam kettle right as I was walking by and all the steam condensed inside my Birki (I had to go see the resort's nurse so it technically wasn't an ER) and the small notch on my ear on the idiot that forgot to transfer the vodka to a plastic container and poured out of the glass bottle while sauteing some scallops.

Awesome guy and awesome food.. A true loss for the Seattle dining scene.

Would using the metal bench scraper you mentioned help compress the watermelon even more? I'm wondering if sandwiching the watermelon between the chamber's floor and the scraper will exert some added pressure on it.. What about sandwiching the watermelon between two stiff pastry scrapers and putting the whole thing inside a bag? What about putting a weight on top of the watermelon?

Have you looked at pre-formed salad bowls? Cambro, Carlisle and a few others make clear polycarbonate salad bowls in different diameters. They also make lids that can be adjusted to size.

Baking soda is the same as sodium bicarbonate, bicarbonate of soda, etc, etc. My understanding is that it does affect vitamins B1 (thiamine) and C.

I'm torn between spending the next 20 minutes banging my head against my desk as a I bemoan my lack of the book and wonder what all those dishes would do to my awaiting palate and despising you for being surrounded by food and attractive women.

According to McGee, "That wonderfully intense, bright green that develops within a few seconds of throwing vegetables into boiling water is a result of the sudden expansion and escape of gases trapped in the spaces between cells. Ordinarily, these microscopic air pockets cloud the color of the chloroplasts. When they collapse, we can see the pigments much more directly." He then goes on to discuss the effects of enzymes and loss of the magnesium atom in chlorophyll and their relation to loss of color. He suggests using small amounts of baking soda in water with a pH lower than 7 and cooking the green vegetables in a large volume of water to dilute the acids inside the vegetable's cells. Are you wanting to SV the vegetables with the sauce to "meld" the flavors? IMHO, I would just cook and toss in the sauce since I don't think an application like this would lead to a "better" end-product.

Thanks for the link and double-thanks for giving me my newest go-to word.. I bloviate, you bloviate, we bloviate, they bloviate..

I'm not sure what temp the canned product is heated to when it's produced but I would venture to guess that it's higher than that needed to inactivate the bromelain and possibly higher than the temp where it's outright denatured. Looking at the application you're mentioning, I would personally go with canned pineapple since the commercial product will have a decent texture. Does pineapple heated to 158°F simply to inactivate the bromelain have a better texture than commercial canned product? I'd have to test this out to see..

Yes and yes.. Large-scale food production facilities do this by pumping the product through a series of heat exchangers to rapidly increase and decrease the temperature in order to retain the texture. Imagine pineapple chunks being pumped through a tube running through a super-heated waterbath and then an icebath. The thickness of the tube is determined by things like what type of product is being pumped and how fast you need it to reach the desired temperature (smaller diameter will reduce the time it takes the product to reach the temperature). The length affects how long you want the product to remain at said temperature. This is all part of the basics of thermal processing.. A certain Dr. Ian Britt of Guelph, CA is a leader in the field Worthwhile in what sense? I was doing more than one thing at a time when I wrote this (you should see me trying to walk and chew gum at the same time.. not good!!) and forgot to mention that the "set-up" I alluded to is something akin to what someone can attempt to do in their home. Large-scale production companies will combine the ingredients in a recipe, seal it in a retort bag/pouch or can and then heat the product under pressure to finish the cooking process.

Yes and yes.. Large-scale food production facilities do this by pumping the product through a series of heat exchangers to rapidly increase and decrease the temperature in order to retain the texture. Imagine pineapple chunks being pumped through a tube running through a super-heated waterbath and then an icebath. The thickness of the tube is determined by things like what type of product is being pumped and how fast you need it to reach the desired temperature (smaller diameter will reduce the time it takes the product to reach the temperature). The length affects how long you want the product to remain at said temperature. This is all part of the basics of thermal processing.. A certain Dr. Ian Britt of Guelph, CA is a leader in the field Worthwhile in what sense?

As soon as the product reaches 158°F, the protein is altered/destroyed and stops working as a "tenderizer". The texture is between that of fresh and canned and highly dependent on how fast the product is cooled down. To me, the biggest change is not so much in texture but in flavor.

Have you had a chance to look through Taste Buds and Molecules: The Art and Science of Food With Wine ?

What chart? Did I miss it?

I second the chicken glace suggestion..

My wife always asks if I'm experiencing didactical osmosis when she finds me dozing off with a book covering my face. How much does each of the volumes weigh? Someone somewhere must have an equation that deals with time and weigh of product on a subject's forehead.

You forget to point out that in some situations, kitchens are still run by people closely resembling Neanderthals and being able to temp meat by touch is still a “prized” ability. Line Cook: “I can tell if the meat is ready by touching it!!” *grunt*grunt* Sous Chef: “I can tell if it’s ready by smelling it!!” *grunt*grunt*grunt* Executive Sous Chef: “I can tell it’s ready by looking at it!!” *grunt* x 4 Executive Chef: “I can tell it’s ready by using my Jedi powers!!” *grunt* x 5 F&B Director: “I can tell it’s ready because if you serve it to me wrong, I’ll fire you!!!”

I just looked at the book page on Amazon.com and found this.. Usually ships within 1 to 2 months. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available. While Amazon.ca says this.. This title has not yet been released. You may pre-order it now and we will deliver it to you when it arrives. Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca. Gift-wrap available. Which is an odd segue into my $.015 comment regarding soul.. Amazon.com's soul-less system is telling me that the book "usually" ships within 1 to 2 months; but since it just came out (which apparently someone forgot to tell the soul-less system up in Amazon.ca's neck of the woods), it lacks enough data to determine a "usual" shipping time. I've been in the restaurant business for a number of years and have yet to come across a non-human apparatus that can mix-and-match flavor combinations, properly season each and every component of a dish (a tomato sauce, made with the products I purchased yesterday, will be different from the one I make with the products I purchased today) or choose the *perfect* tomatoes for said sauce. Whether I use a SV setup, an autoclave or present you with an edible menu, my “soul” is in every component of every dish. To me, it’s a little insulting to infer that a dish doesn’t have the same amount of “soul” because of the equipment I used since it sounds that I cared less for the ingredients that went into it. Where do we draw the line when it comes to the amount of “soul” that a piece of equipment or a “chemical component” takes away from a dish? Do we say that using a knife, a pan and a stove is the limit? Using sodium chloride is fine but sodium alginate is a no-no? Some of my mentors went as far as saying that you could only cook with certain pans and use certain knives (copper pans and carbon steel knives) and I won’t even repeat what they said about my mother or my commitment to the craft when I talked about my equipment preferences. Will your kitchen smell the same if you cooked your tomato sauce sous vide as opposed to cooking it over the stove in the same Le Creuset you’ve used for the last 15 years? Maybe, maybe not.. Will it taste the same? Maybe, maybe not.. But I want to test all the possible ways and make those determinations and as much as I love the smell of tomato sauce, I cook because of how it taste.

Why would he come talk to the "knuckleheads" here when he can keep hanging out with the "You're so brilliant, I hear angels sing when I read your work" crowd? I gave ruhlman's review the benefit of the doubt in regards to whether or not he was being lazy or condecending but his inane, insipid comments on his blog reminded me of why I've only bought one book with his name on it.