Brown Hornet

For having a lot of potential -- head to head matchups, good ingredients to work with -- last night's episode was a bit of a snooze. Stefan's banter is the best thing going this year. Maybe it's just that we're at that dreaded part of every Top Chef season where you pretty much know who's going to be in the top -- right now Kristen, John, Stefan, Sheldon, look like the front runners -- but are just waiting to weed out the lesser likes of Micah, Josie, & Josh.

This thread continues to be both an inspiration and quite humbling. Amazing dishes all! Some southern staples. Braised kale with madeira glazed mushrooms Shrimp and grits And a straight up late night guilty pleasure a BLT topped with a poached egg and hollandaise.

Those are some pretty spectacular Christmas dinners! We have a relatively standard Christmas dinner menu that we tweak a little each year. That said, it makes things a bit easier to have a somewhat standardized game plan. The 2012 menu is still coming together, but right now is: 1. Salad w/ braised leek, roasted beets, goat cheese, bacon, vinaigrette. 1.a. Probably will whip up some gruyere gougeres to go between salad and soup. 2. Soup will be caramelized carrot w/ curry or cauliflower/sunchoke. 3. SV lobster tails with beurre blanc. I'm not sure what I want to serve this with but I was thinking of making a beurre blanc with something citrus and some saffron. I don't have a specific idea in mind but that combo sounded good. Would love any suggestions! 4. Standing Rib Roast w/ traditional jus and horseradish sauce. For fixins I'll probably do roasted brussels sprouts. For potatoes, there's a french potato dish I like to make (but can't remember the name) where you layer thin potato slices like a gratin but instead of layering with cheese and/or cream you layer with stock, caramelized onions, shallots, thyme and butter. Anyway, it's yummy. 5. Desert is completely up in the air but my wife makes a great coffee/rum ice cream so something with that. Maybe an apple tart to go with the ice cream. Any suggestions would be awesome!

I suspect this was part of a deal with Schott Zwiesel to get a better price for glassware. If not, then yes highly pretentious and irritating.

Yup, Puck's casual dining restaurants aren't any better. I'd rather save some bucks and eat at a McDonalds. On the other hand, my meal at CUT in Vegas was one of the best steakhouse meals I've ever had with dare-I-say a fairly inventive menu. Regarding Colicchio, his short-lived Atlanta Craft/Crafbar was actually very good, albeit overpriced in comparison to comparable Atlanta restaurants. I give Tom lots of credit for outstanding quality control if the Atlanta branch was indicative of his other restaurants. The former chefs at Craft Atlanta have moved on to other very successful Atlanta restaurants which again speaks highly of Tom's eye for developing a strong culinary team.

I'm with you on eggplant which I find completely digusting on its own. On the other hand, mix it up well with other ingredients -- ratatouille for example -- and it adds a nice earthy richness to a dish.

Insulting overweight patrons is probably not a sound marketing strategy for a restaurant called "Chilly D's"

I agree with Holly. Although the quality of chefs doesn't seem to be any better (excepting the ringer Tesar), putting more focus on actual cooking than gimmicks in the elimination challenges is a vast improvement. Plus no catering elimintations yet -- Yay! So far I'd rank this season above Seasons 9 (Texas), 5 (NY) and 7 (Wash DC) but still well below the series high points of seasons 3, 4, & 6 (my favorites). At this point, I'd settle for a solid season.

Chitterlings -- I enthusiastically tried them figuring that I liked to eat every other part of the pig. Wrong! A popular food that I generally do not care for is lamb. Every now and then I will enjoy a particularly good lamb dish, but it's usually despite the lamb not because of it.

Menus with cute names for dishes in quotes. I blame Thomas Keller for this aggravating trend. The current TFL menu is a horror show of ill-conceived quotation marks. Oysters and Pearls is elegant and provocative. "Oysters and Pearls" is insulting -- no I did not expect the to include real Pearls. To what end do you call a dishes Mushrooms "a la Grecque" or Blood Orange "Mimosa" with Champagne "Granite"? I can only assume the quotes are intended to communicate the obvious point that these are merely TFL's interpreations of traditional dishes -- a point which a TFL patron need not have clubbed over their head.

Glad you enjoyed OES, it's kind of flown under the radar a bit here. Since I posted, I've heard from several folks that Optimist has struggled handling the post-Esquire crowds -- hopefully they get it back on track since it was really outstanding the first few months after opening.

I have mixed feelings about the NYT review. On one hand, the disturbing menu descriptions certainly make the restaurant sound like a hillbilly Applebees with a raging meth habit. On the other hand, why would the NYT review what is clearly a tourist trap aimed at patrons who are looking for a hillbilly Applebees with a raging meth habit? Personally, I find the 2.5 star average for Yelp reviews far more damning. There's a disgusting all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant (think about that for a minute) near my office that managed a three star average on Yelp.

The overcooked halibut actually made me mad. Why on earth would you pan saute Halibut -- on both sides no less! -- 15 minutes before service? With 47 minutes to cook, oil poaching was an option and I was surprised only one team went that route.

The Good: I really loved the first episode challenges -- all were solid tests of a cook's skill and no b.s. gimmicks. The Bad: Still seems like the caliber of cooks is down a little from prior years, and with some irritating personalities thrown in for extra flavor. Did I actually hear one of the losing chefs refer to his Asian competitor as "origami." Classy! The Ugly: Team omelette. If they only had 15 minutes I might understand, but 45? I particularly loved the steak omelette which consisted of a burnt omelette with a steak slapped on top and looked like something I'd whip up as a hangover cure. Even Puck's omelette looked sketchy. Lastly, I'm really tired of Top Chef completely ignoring the Southeast, other than the insult of holding the Season 5 finale in New Orleans. What gives? No offense to Seattle, which is one of my favorite places in the world, but to not have a season based in New Orleans or somehwere else in the Southeast after 10 years is insulting.

First, welcome to the SV club! With a pork loin, I would recommend searing it whole in the pan before slicing instead of searing each piece. Like others have said, the blowtorch is a probably your best bet for individual pieces. Another idea would be to chill the vacuum sealed loin in an ice bath immediately after you finish SV, then slice it, and then sear it. The chilled slices should withstand a hard sear a little better while still coming up to temperature. FWIW, pork loin is one of my least favorite cuts of meat to cook SV and I actually prefer roasting pork loin in the oven with a temperature gauge to ensure it is not overcooked. For me, where SV really shines is cooking tough flavorful cuts like beef short ribs, or smaller poultry and fish cuts that can overcook quickly. Cooking your first perfectly medium rare but meltingly tender beef short rib will change your life!

I've only seen the first two episodes (Noodle, Pig) but I think you hit the nail on the head, it's exactly like Lucky Peach. While I am a happy subscriber to Lucky Peach, I'm not sure that what works for a quirky and literary food quarterly makes sense for episodic television. I think the idea is that each episode covers a food, technique, or experience that influenced Chang but the execution is a bit baffling and disjointed. The "Noodle" episode was relatively straightforward in using ramen noodles as an organizing structure for an eccentric mix of shorts. The second episode "Pig," however, almost felt like a completely different series by primarily focusing on Chang's demo at the gastronomica(?) convention in Spain and dropping some of the quirkier elements of Noodle. I really do like the concept and creative potential of this show, but I think it could use a bit of tightening. For example, in Noodle I could've done with a lot less of Meehan not finishing a bowl of noodles (apparently some kind of inside joke between Chang and Meehan) while more interesting subjects - the masked ramen maker! -- were rushed. Minor gripes aside, I love the fact that someone is trying to go in a different direction with food programming and I hope the show proves popular.

Personally I've never had any problems with Canola oil, it's my standby cheap generic oil and I've never experienced the rancid/fishy smell others mention. I wonder if it's something that some people, like me, lack sensitivity to perceive. Maybe I've become so accustomed to the Canola nastiness that I don't notice it. That said, I don't really use Canola for much beyond mayo and some basic baking uses. Typically I saute with a combination of olive oil and/or butter, I deep fry with peanut or corn oil, and use variations of olive oil or sunflower/grapeseed oil for dressings and the like.

Sorry to be a little late to this post. If it's not too late I've got several suggestions in order of my recommendation: Holeman & Finch -- For lack of a better word it's a gastropub, but that's selling it short. The best cocktail program in Atlanta as far as I'm concerned and the food is outstanding and right in your price range. Also an amazing burger that they sell in limited quanities nightly. One Eared Stag -- A funkier and more creative take on southern farm-to-table. This is what modern southern cooking is about. The Optimist -- Seafood/Raw Bar -- I'm a reluctant to recommend a seafood restaurant in Atlanta to a Rhode Islander, but it's outstanding. The main restaurant may be a little over budget but the raw bar, which has a separate menu from the restaurant, is also very good. Oh, they also have a small putting green outside in case you want to practice your putting stroke after dinner. Local Three -- Another take on southern cuisine, similar to Empire State South, but a bit looser and less expensive. The bar offers a great selection of bourbons/ryes. Lastly, the Decatur suggestion is a good one -- lots of bars restaurants within walking distance of each other. If you head out that way, I'd recommend No. 246 which has some of the best pasta dishes in Atlanta. Hope you have good time while you're here.

My understanding and experience has always been that maximum flavor extraction from vegetables takes about an hour. After that, they're only contributing cloudiness and mush to your stock. My standard stock procedure for years was to add the vegetables the last hour of simmering. I have now largely moved to pressure cooking stocks per the MC method. Aside from using a pressure cooker, my big takeaway from MC was that the size of the bones and vegetables primarily determines the length of time needed to fully extract flavor and gelatine. I guess this is pretty obvious, but the standard 6-8 hour timeframe for making stock was so engrained in my head that I never really thought of using smaller pieces to shorten the stock cooking time.

Momofuku 48 hour braised short ribs with dashi braised daikon, pickled mustard seeds and braised cabbage.

mskerr, I sympathize with your concerns -- always trade offs with food quality v. cost. I think part of your problem is the assumption that one would use an $18 whole chicken simply to make stock. When I'm not being lazy (which is most of the time) I buy whole chickens instead of parts so I can make full use of all the chicken parts including the carcass and wings tips for stock. After you process 2-3 whole chickens you should have most than enough parts to make plenty of great stock. You can also re-use the carcass from a roasted whole chicken for stock as well. If you can get in the habit of always buying whole chickens, you'll never be at a loss for stock fixins'.

As others have noted, I think scrambled eggs preferences are some of the most subjective in cooking. For whatever reason I just don't care for the French style -- although I do like runny yolks. I like to whisk the eggs vigorously, use water and salt. I do not like to use cream or milk as it mutes the egg flavor. Instead, I melt a lot of butter in a pan at medium-low heat which, in my opinion, adds the same benefits of cream but with a far superior flavor. I like larger fluffier curds so I do not over stir the eggs in the pan. I take them off the heat before they are completely set and let the eggs finish cooking off heat. I use a very high butter to egg ratio, so in some ways my eggs come out somewhat similar to Andie's albeit a bit firmer but still moist and fluffy at the end. My all-time favorite scrambled egg dish is one that used to be served at a now-closed restaurant here in Atlanta called Agnes & Muriel's called the Catskill Scramble. Closer to a comfort food/guilty pleasure than anything but for those interested: Carmelize one diced onion in butter on medium-low heat, Add about 6 whisked/stirred eggs to carmelized onions adding more butter if needed, while eggs are still cooking add smoked salmon pieces to taste (I like a lot), when eggs are cooked (to your preference of doneness) remove from heat and add some knobs of cream cheese -- again to taste. Serve on toasted bagel slices and season to taste. It's not pretty, but it's all the way yummy.

We do this all the time at home and it works very well -- but we do have an electric oven. We usually preheat to 400, butter the bread slices with melted butter and put them on the cookie sheet. We also normally flip them over after about 2-3 minutes to make sure each side browns evenly. Works great for toasting bagels as well. You do have to keep an eye on it as the bread or bagels can go from perfectly toasted to burnt fairly quickly if you're not paying attention. For what it's worth, I think brushing the bread with melted butter before going in the oven helps even the toasting/browning process.

Depening on the rye, it may be a little too agressive for a peach pairing. Personally, I think the peppery/spicy rye notes pair better with blackberries or cherries. I'd still give it shot and see how it works.

I'm also not really guilty about any particular foods I like and I really have no qualms admitting that I like things that are a bit disgusting to other people, like scrapple. My true guilty pleasure, something that I am honestly embarrased about, is my love of burnt bits, what I affectionately call the "burnies." You know, the little bits of burnt cheese on an overcooked pizza or casserole, or the black bits of burnt bacon, or onions that have crossed the Rubicon from carmelized to blackened. I'm coming out of the closet as a "burnie" lover -- I know I'm not alone!