ChrisTaylor

I assume you've thought about something as simple/classic as Larousse Gastronomique? I mean, if the idea is to remain unfashionable, I assume we're not talking some sexed up, deconstructed beef Strog. As for the chocolate one, though, I'm reminded of the recipe in Marco Pierre White's White Heat. He condescendingly refers to his own dish as 'chocolate suburbia'. Of course, that is a sexed up version of an older concept, so maybe that'd be against the rules.

I have a copy of Three Star Chef on hand. He provides a recipe for a sweetcorn puree. Puree, yes. Not soup. Do you want it, though? Might be a starting point/have something in common with his soup recipe.

I knew I'd seen something similar to that hand-operated coffee grinder at a local shop so I went hunting. I came back with this: This is not an antique hand-operated coffee grinder. This was cheap. It's not the best quality, but I figure it'll do the job.

I can get my hands on 'broken' dried white corn kernels. I have designs on using these for a couple of dishes: sadza and its southern equivalent, grits. Accessing grits locally is difficult unless you're happy to settle for the flavoured instant kind. And sadza? Impossible. South African mealie, ja, but nothing as coarse as grits. Anyway. Dried corn kernels. Do you reckon a coffee/spice grinder would be able to handle them? My objective is not corn powder but something with a fair bit of texture to it. Rustic, if you will. I'm also dealing with a small quantity of corn. I don't mind if I have to grind it in several batches.

Ever since I bought The Nobu Vegetarian Cookbook I wanted to make the cover dish: nigiri of kombu-cured vegetables. I've made nigiri sushi only a couple of times several years ago and I think it shows. The rice is a work on progress: I could do with a lot more vinegar. I need to figure out how to get my fuzzy logic rice cooker to behave itself in the presence of sushi rice (I used 2 parts of brown rice to 1 part of sushi rice as my partner has a preference for the former). And, too, shaping the fingers of rice ... yeah ... The cured vegetables were a mixed bag. I liked the carrots a lot. They're a keeper. The tomato was interesting. I expected it to be miserable and soggy, and tomatoes are out of season too, but I threw one in because Nobu recommended it. With a nice ripe tomato I think it would work nicely. The capsicum was a little weird. The baby turnip wasn't so good. The radish was okay, although I think I sliced it too finely. I think cucumbers could work well in this context. The Napa cabbage didn't work as well as I thought it would. Maybe it needs less time than something carrot.

A new one for me: 1 oz Smith & Cross .5 oz Havana Club aged .5 oz Dictador 12 .5 oz Cointreau .25 oz orgeat .25 oz simple I thought it was okay. The Dictador added something.

Do you have quantities on this beast?

More Moa. Moa Southern Alps White IPA. Blurb is spieling something about a wheat-based IPA. I don't know. After a looooooong day it is workable.

Sessioning some Hokkaido 'Nature on Tap' while burning through Mind of a Chef. It's a very generic beer in the Japanese sense of the word: accessible, light-tasting (even though it's not lower in alcohol content than your everyday Aussie or American drop). A bit watery. It's ... utterly unremarkable without qualifying as either good or bad. Generic wherein 'generic' is an objective descriptor, free of positive or negative connotations.

Frozen occy isn't a bad thing. The process of freezing/thawing helps tenderise the meat. I've seen multiple recipes--heck, I think Keller's mentions this too--that advocate freezing/thawing before cooking if you purchased fresh occy.

You do need to clean it, yes. I get the fishmonger to clean it beforehand. After the cook the outer layer of the tentacles just fall off. And the way you plan to finish it is the way I finish it. Just ensure you don't overcook it during the searing process.

Bump. Started working from Nobu's Nobu Vegetarian Cookbook and have had some mostly positive results. Admittedly, I went for two of the less ambitious dishes in the book (not that anything's too crazy for a fine dining cookbook--we're not in Alinea territory here) because it was a midweek meal. I do have some concerns, though. The stated roasting times for the vegetable pintxos and onion 'steak' were way off. My onion steaks took twice as long, easy, as his. And I reckon I could've given them another 5 minutes. There's no way 7 minutes is enough at 220C. No way. Not at 3 cm thick. Not if you want the onion caramelised as described in the text and shown in the picture. The one dressing I made for the pintxos was perhaps too heavy on the sesame oil: not bad, but clearly in need of something else. I wonder if that was my fault, though, making only one of the four sauces. Still, the book clearly holds promise.

I like your idea of a picnic, Froggy.

Wash and dry them with a good shake some time before you chop them. Just let them sit in a colander or on some paper towel.

Mood, mostly. It might be the kind of day when I want the bracing crispness of a Daiquiri. Other times something here--a post, a mention of a specific ingredient--might inspire me.

4 Pines Hefeweizen. Fruity. Tropical fruit. Mushy fruit. Some weird lactic notes to it that didn't sit well with me. I dislike the flavour of milk. Heavy carbonation. This one's just a no.

A few months ago I took a boneless pork leg roast and packed it in salt. This was my attempt at the dry-cured country ham. I left it hanging in the 'granny flat' at 'room temperature' (Melbourne autumn and winter). And today, about four and a half months down the road, I decided to give it a shot. I mean, any more, it's not like we'll have too many days at or below the temperature Ruhlman wants you to keep the ham at. I was, to be blunt, shitting myself about tasting this thing. It didn't look nasty. It smelt like dry-cured ham. Indeed, at no point in the curing process did it smell much of anything: certainly not rotten meat or anything nasty. After getting rid of the fat and digging into the ham's interior, it looked a little pink. Not as dark as the dry-cured hams you buy at delis. I was unsure whether or not this was a product of time, the meat or some sort of additive commercial ham producers use. It tasted okay. Very peppery. Very salty. Okay. It wasn't good but it was within the bounds of ham. Fairly soft. Almost as if it could have done with more time, even though the weight was within fifty grams or so of where Ruhlman wanted it to be. I was too nervous to go beyond putting the tiniest of slivers on my tongue.

What's the expected time gap between you leaving home and dinner being served? I'm fond of searing a rib eye roast over/under intense heat and then roasting it in a very low oven until it hits medium rare. I then rest it, wrapped in a few layers of foil, for about one hour. If you kept it in a cooler (without ice, obviously) I reckon you could keep it warm a while longer. A piece of meat that solid is going to take a while to lose heat if it's kept in insulated packaging.

I think this depends hugely on your starting point. If you're a good lover but relatively new to cooking I'd steer you in the direction of Jamie Oliver's books: particularly Cook with Jamie. If you have more experience and you're looking to elevate your technique to the next level, though, you'd be better off with Modernist Cuisine at Home or Heston Blumenthal at Home. The afore-mentioned Pepin is good if you're looking into knifework and basics as defined by the French--omelettes and so forth.

Another Birra del Borgo offering. Cortigiana. Fruity. Tropical fruit. It's okay, I guess. And that, I guess, is a bit of a Birra del Borgo theme.

Birra del Borgo Duchessa con Farro. Yeast. Fruity breakfast cereal. It's okay, I guess.

More Moa. 99 Not Out Pale Ale. For people living in dark places the name refers to a boring sport called cricket. Supposedly this beer was developed in partnership with Shane Warne, a cricketer famous for being a cricketer and for smoking when he shouldn't be smoking and for shagging Elizabeth Hurley. The beer itself is unremarkable. The flavour profile reminds me a whole lot of the flavour profile of generic, mass-produced Australian ale.

A drink brought to you by 20th Century RafaTM: Choke Me Like You Love Me. Rye/Cynar/PX with a dash of absinthe. I used the last of my Wild Turkey 101, which is maybe very close to the last of the Wild Turkey 101 that exists outside the confines of random suburban bottle-os. I used Herbsaint. This one ticks all the boxes.

Purchased a few beers today. The first one I cracked open was Crown Golden Ale. I'm not fond of Crown Lager: a mass-produced beer that is marketed as something special (gold label, 'royal' name). The Golden Ale is a little better. Unremarkable but drinkable. Can't see myself throwing down the cash for a case any time soon, though. It's just ... plain. Murray's Rudeboy Pilsner. Bready. Crisp.