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jrshaul

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Everything posted by jrshaul

  1. Inexpensive Brazilian clad cookware is good value for money. My mother owns a Tramontina saucepan that works very well; the same factory produces under a wide variety of brands.
  2. An important issue is power versus torque. A powerful but cheaply made lacks the force to actually turn the blades in viscous liquids, and the speed of the rotors under actual use will be lower than a motor designed for lower speeds and greater force. There's also the issue of duty cycle. A motor turning at half its' unloaded RPMs is turning more than half its' power into heat, and is often designed to be used only a few minutes at a time to avoid overloading the motor. A more robust device will operate more efficiently and have the heat dissipation and cooling required for constant use. A pro unit can be left running for some time without risk; a consumer unit cannot.
  3. These days, almost all engine blocks are aluminum. The only exceptions are relative dinosaurs. I suspect that there's a large difference between the best and worst of the lot. There are quite a few different alloys, and there's a tremendous difference in the quality of construction between brands. All-Clad is a lot better than the junk from Wallgreens.
  4. jrshaul

    Recipes with Dates

    Thanks for all the suggestions! I especially like the pork with dates - the shoulder cuts are highly economical.
  5. I'm in Madison, Wisconsin. You can get acceptable fish from Whole Foods and the ethnic markets, but the cost of decent pescatarian cuisine in restaurants is loopy. An overcooked nibble of salmon would otherwise get me a steak.
  6. jrshaul

    Recipes with Dates

    I have no real experience with chopped dried dates, but at $4/lb at Aldi's, there's strong incentive to change that. However, outside perhaps of a modified plum pudding, I'm short for inspiration. I've had some lovely fig jams made with black tea - perhaps I could finagle something similar?
  7. I live in the Midwest. Aside from small flat things that live in the lake, there's only two kinds of fish: "Salmon" and "Other." I'd given up on eating fish in restaurants years ago on the basis that my limited palate and the long shipping involved made everything seem like cheap tilapia. But now, I wonder...
  8. Isn't this just massively illegal? I'd report it, if only on the grounds that reporting larceny means dinner is free! "Contribute to the common good, and the common good will contribute to you!" "Hug your children!" "Have you picked up your doggie-doo?"
  9. Can you elaborate further? I've been treating caramel as per any other sugar operation wherby temperature matters and time is largely immaterial.
  10. Apparently I didn't win the Vita-Mix. eBay's notifications appear to be buggy. dcarch, can you elaborate further on sharpening the blades?
  11. Do you use pectin in your caramels? Mine flow like liquid over a period of days. It's actually quite surreal - like water in slow motion.
  12. I just bought a nearly - new Vitamix for $150 on eBay. Thank you all for the information.
  13. I have a long and storied history of annihilating blenders. Any appliance unrated to puree cooked carrots will be abused until it functions or expires. My current unit - designed for frozen margaritas and found, discarded, in front of a frat house - has held up remarkably, but the blade assembly is poorly designed and cleaning uncooked cheesecake from the drink spigot is rapidly wearing tiresome. I'd like something that can produce a really smooth fruit puree or grind nut pralines without releasing the magic smoke inside. As can be guessed from the curbside appliance acquisition, I'm on a limited budget, and the options are as follows: 1: Oster BVCB07 blender http://www.amazon.co..._pr_product_top This is, for the most part, a conventional consumer blender from a popular consumer manufacturer. Its' only unique attributes are the motor - rated at a respectable 600W - and the rave reviews, including several from self-described appliance eviscerators. That said, while functional, I question the proximity to the level of function of a professional unit. Blending smoothies is one thing; pulverizing pralines quite another. 2. eBay Blendtec ICB3 + new or used carafe http://www.ebay.com/...=item1e759e73cc Someone's clearing out an awful lot of Blendtec products on eBay, and $116 shipped for a Blendtec base is very reasonable. Pitchers are about $40 shipped; a new blade, if required, is not much. I don't know much about Blendtec products beyond that they're considered the less expensive counterpart to Vita-Mix and this one is exceptionally affordable. Finding a Vitamix below $200 is very difficult. There are some reports of inferior results due to factory dull blades, however. So - do I go for the cheap option, buy the questionable Blendtec, or save my pennies for a vita mix?
  14. I have the rather poor combination of an electric range and no place to grill, so this has some appeal to me. Thanks for the identification!
  15. While watching the delightful but unfortunately named "Cooking with Dog", I noticed a novel sort of stovetop grill. (Link is to specific time in video where grill appears.) [link] [/link]What is this, how might it be used, and where can I obtain one?
  16. I looked at those. The price of butane would bankrupt me. The major issues I have with electric stoves - specifically, the slow variance in heat combined with poor contact area and limited variability - appear to have no good solutions. Would a really high grade electric hot plate function better?
  17. I may be making a severe malapropism: I've seen the single-burner induction hotplates described as cooktops on vendors' pages, and was using the term as such. I do, in fact, mean the portable single-burner devices. I've heard a lot of good things about induction, especially with respect to efficiency. (The effective ~1.5kW limit from American sockets is a nuisance.) One of the more reputable American TV chefs comments that he prefers them over gas for making dry caramels. I've also yet to see any good non-induction hotplates in American (120v) format. I don't even need the glass surface - it just has to have better contact than my cheap electric range. I've resorted to lidding my saucepans with a massive cast-iron skillet lest the hotspots destroy their contents. That said, I'm all for cheap and durable function - if you've found something I missed, link away!
  18. One of the Eurodibs is on sale for $82 online. I'd rather not pay the shipping, but Eurodib appears to be a more foodservice oriented brand. Any thoughts?
  19. Recipes share the same fundamental problem as software: If the instructions are flawed, the process will produce rubbish. The organizations that produce software (including the Unix core of the Macbook I'm typing on) are therefore based very heavily on peer review. Code from all sources is screened through both preliminary testing and the watchful eye of experts before actually being used to run, say, the New York Stock Exchange. Overall, it works quite well. While there's no admissions organization for potato spaetzle, it's possible to obtain very similar function. Many authors proudly link to others who document their recipes, and any comments are frequently filled with such references. Even in the case of more baroque configurations, it's trivial to google the URL to see if others link to it. I've found some of my favorite recipes by reviewing the results of others with similar preferences to my own. The combination of peer review and multiple documentation I find very effective indeed.
  20. I do! Of what brand? I have been warned some of the lesser brands are prone to "hotspotting" due to small coils or poor design.
  21. After the ruin of too many potato latkes, I'm giving in and buying an induction cooktop. My current stove has effectively maybe three temperature settings, and deep-frying or the preparation of dry caramels is a nightmare. I'd like something with easy temperature adjustment - perhaps a knob? - and a price of not more than $100. If anyone would care to offer me one secondhand, that would be fantastic. (Is this appropriate for this forum?)
  22. Cookbooks are the new luxury supercars. You don't purchase them for use, to be thrashed for all of their worth; you purchase them for the simple sake of having them. Hence the prevalence of gorgeous cookbooks with dysfunctional recipes. It could be worse. Apparently, Ferrari's latest effort sometimes spontaneously combusts if you actually take it to a track and thrash it. The brake rotors light the glue on fire.
  23. I will on occasion buy a cookbook, but the frequency of unreliable, undesirable, or poorly explained recipes has lead me to simply copy out what I want from borrowed volumes. I can't justify retaining two kilograms of dead tree based on one really good recipe for tagiatelle. Works on technique are more valuable to me; the variability in ingredients and conditions makes the "why" frequently far more useful than the "what." What I do purchase is used. I appreciate the thought of supporting an author, but given that I purchase 90% of my non-food household goods from Dollar Tree, I can say that they would not have received the royalty regardless. I move often enough to justify not owning a significant collection of books. The low cost of secondhand scanners has made it increasingly tempting to hacksaw off the binding off of my favorite texts, feed them through, and run OCR software on the result to create a searchable PDF. (A cheap keyboard with a sanitary membrane connected to a laptop perched atop the refridgerator is an efficient solution to computing in the kitchen.) As for digital texts? I'll buy them, but only on the condition I can strip the copy protection and use them as I wish. Ownership rights are meaningless as long as there's someone publishing how to moot them. Is this such a bad thing? The wonders of hyperlinks and Google make it trivial to achieve what was once the most expensive and significant element of a good cookbook : Validation. My mother spent good money on the Silver Palate cookbooks because she knew the contents would not be without merit; I can say the same of many online recipes by finding others who have used them. Open Source has done wonders for software. Ten thousand eyes are almost invariably better than two. Why not open source our cookbooks as well?
  24. I've heard Callebaut sells these a bit cheaper than $200 for a set of 3.
  25. I'm kind of embarrassed to admit it on a website full of people much more competent than me, but a friend is starting a bakery, and wants me to work there doing truffles and confection. (To be fair, I'm cheap. And much, much better at some of the other tasks required.) After having a batch of (not production-appropriate) cayenne truffles go fungal after just two weeks, I'm not questioning to shell out the cash. Any chance you'd sell your copy? The library doesn't go in for $70 cookbooks...
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