roygon
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Posts posted by roygon
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Here is the latest news on the shipments! Canadians rejoyce, your books are actually in Canada (but on a train for a couple more days).
Thanks for the update. Do you happen to know if the 250 copies sent to amazon.ca will cover all orders made up to and including all of October?
Thanks,
rg
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Regarding my post about amazon.ca, as far as I know they haven't shipped out a single unit and based on Nathan's blog post saying that retailers would be sent a number of copies roughly equivalent to their share of pre-orders I came to the conclusion that they don't have their act together. Maybe things are still out of their control still but it has been 3 weeks since the first copies shipped. I'll try to wait patiently
Nathan commented upthread that Canadian orders should start shipping at the end of the month or early April. I assume that all the copies that have landed so far have been distributed in the US only.
Thanks for that, I missed that post.
rg
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Good video with the authors answering a bunch of questions
Regarding my post about amazon.ca, as far as I know they haven't shipped out a single unit and based on Nathan's blog post saying that retailers would be sent a number of copies roughly equivalent to their share of pre-orders I came to the conclusion that they don't have their act together. Maybe things are still out of their control still but it has been 3 weeks since the first copies shipped. I'll try to wait patiently
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Anyone know when amazon.ca will get their act together and begin shipping??? I'm one of the many who cancelled their summer order through .com to save $100 through .ca in October...
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There's a healthy amount of wine material in there. I think the one big omission, which was intentional, is pastry. The pastry arts, always the first to embrace modernism, could easily fill an additional volume. Unless you go very esoteric, I can't think of another big area that feels like it could someday need another volume.
I agree with you, Fat Guy. After Nathan gets done with Pastry if he has any energy left he could do his 3rd opus on fermentative processes, including wine, beer, cheese, dry cured meat products...
Just kidding, Nathan!
I for one would love to see a volume on flavor combinations. I think their team, probably better than anyone else, is capable of taking this field and blowing it wide open.
rg
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P.S Anyone else seen the rather ridiculous and somewhat tasteless 1-star review on Amazon now?
It's kind of ridiculous that Amazon let's you review something that you have never purchased
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New multi page Modernist Cuisine article in new yorker
Edit: more accurately it is an article on modernist cuisine in general, not just the book
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This still leaves me with the dilemma of deciding how many books to print for the second printing. Is the sales spike today a harbinger of things to come, or a temporary uptick?
Do you think you will be able to have a third printing in the channel in time for the 2011 holiday season? I'm sure there will be a spike in demand for gifts at that point. If you increase the size of the second printing you can lessen the risk of missing that demand.
In his blog post at MC Blog he mentions accounting for 2011 holiday season demand for the second printing and they were figuring 20K+ units for the second round
rg
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It sounds to me as if you are keeping the heat too high. Once it has reached pressure it should need very little to keep it there.
I think that's at the core of the problem. If I drop the heat below medium-high the pressure drops almost immediately so i need to keep the heat cranked up to keep high pressure which then evaporates the cooking liquid making it even harder to keep pressure. Difficulty holding pressure sounds like a leak problem I guess? I wish I knew more about these things but I think I'm getting closer to a solution.
One other thing I noticed is that under the protection cap there is a lot of liquid accumulating. I tried the pressure cook water test again but with the cap off to see if I could spot the leak and the water and steam is escaping through the small holes all around the metal casing (valve socket) well before the pressure cap even gets to the first red line or even starts moving.
Thanks for all of the help and info
rg
Turns out the main valve was damaged right out of the box. I recorded a video and sent to Kuhn Rikon so they could see it and they had me send it back and took care of it right away. I'm loving making quick stocks, ribs, soups etc in the pressure cooker and can't wait until Modernist Cuisine arrives so I can broaden my PC repertoire
rg
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On the Egghead forum (for Big Green Egg owners) they talk about 'hot tubbing' their steaks before cooking in the BGE - I guess technically they are foodies, but certainly not along the lines of eG foodies.
That's interesting. I wonder if it comes from sous vide or from something like parcooking bratwurst in beer and onions.
That Big Green Egg 'hot tub' steak was actually my first attempt at sousvide-like cooking and the excellent results is what made me look for more information and ending up here. You aren't likely to hear a serious BGE'er say "sous vide" which is why it is named "hot tubber" but the method is very similar.
If I recall, the temperature for that method was much lower than typical - around 45C or so to get the internal temperature up a little and then you sear it for quite a bit longer than you would with a traditional sous vide steak - obviously less time than a non hot-tubbed steak but more than the minute or so per side you generally sear post sous vide.
rg
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I ordered the VP210 through Amazon for about $900 and shipping was free for me.
rg
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I cancelled my .com order and changed to .ca - should have kept both I guess.
Amazon.ca has been disappointing... I cancelled my .com order from the summer and switched to .ca in October to save $100. Just received my second shipment delay email so it's now shipping on April 14. The first delay I could see as being a wild guess but a second one seems like it is probably reasonably accurate.
rg
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But computer programming is inherently a product of technology. The issue here is the comfort level of removing the line that separates technology and creative expression. It's about personal preference.
I perfer to listen to a piece of music by a symphony orchestra with real acoustic instruments, than a synthesized version, even if they might sound identical to the ear. Or especially if the synthesized version is even more perfect than the authentic one. Others who have embraced synthesized music find classical intruments to be woefully limiting.
Well, you could make the point that cooking is also a product of technology. Just about every piece of equipment and most dishes at one time were "modernist". This book doesn't try to tell people that everything they are doing should be replaced with some new approach, it just tells them that there are a bunch of new things they can decide to use to improve their dishes. Learning about them, trying them and deciding that there is or isn't a place for those techniques on an individual basis in your cooking is what's important. Having a chef blindly making blanket statements that it is soulless and they have no interest in it is terrible. Taking the time to try the techniques and deciding for themselves what to do with the new information, even if they decide at that point to not incorporate it, that is empowering.
I just can't see any reason to dismiss it especially if this is your passion and / or livelihood.
rg
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A statue of David could be created with a computer controlled 5 axis milling machine, but could such a process create a Michelangelo?
Absolutely not, and I think this is one of the points: a computer-controlled 5-axis milling machine does not make a Michelangelo, but what could a Michelangelo with a computer-controlled 5-axis milling machine accomplish? Tools don't limit creativity; they blow the limits off of it.
I love this quote and it's something I try to convey to people I know who can cook extremely well when they question the techniques. They are offended that someone can press a few buttons and produce a piece of meat that matches or exceeds what they have trained to do for many years. The point I try to make that you captured there is that imagine what they could do to further enhance the overall dish with this extra knowledge.
I'm a computer programmer by trade. Imagine how silly and damaging to my future career it would be to ignore new advances in technology. Forget visual studio, I'm going to stick with my Fortan. Internet? Just a passing fad, I'll ship you my program on some 5" disks. Do programmers feel threatened when new technology arrives? Well yeah, some do but the good ones embrace it realizing that yes, it will lower the learning curve and make things easier for beginners allowing them to duplicate things I spent days on with just a few lines of code but wow, imagine what I will be able to do now.
It's an exciting time in cooking, I for one am glad that I stumbled on to sous vide cooking and egullet a year or so ago so that I can be part of this
rg
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Thanks for posting. I've got a question about the stock, does MC indicate a preference between standard stock pot vs pressure cooker vs sous vide or a combination of them for the creation of stocks? That review by Ruhlman had an adapted chicken stock recipe from the book that was pressure cooked and he said it was amazing.
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I bought a whole bunch of 4oz and 8oz square containers from this place:
http://www.specialtybottle.com/index.asp?PageAction=Custom&ID=47
Under $1 each and they are food safe and block out light plus stack nicely. I'm not a big fan of tall, slender, glass spice containers. A pain for measuring and grabbing a pinch of something is easier when you can actually grab it...
This is all in theory though... I will be picking them up from the postal outlet this week. Will post a before and after pic
rg
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The wait is killing me... a week or two ago we had lots of pictures and updates but now that more people have the book there is very little being posted about it. I'm being really hypocritical because I'm sure when I get my copy I'll lock myself in a room for a while but please, post some pictures of the magnificent dishes you've been able to put together either directly from recipes / tables in the book or by using things learned from the book. I hate to beg but come on, throw a dog a bone!!!
rg
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Since i am killing time waiting for delivery of my book
I have taken to reading reviews of the book. I came across an interview with Alton Brown who had this to sayOur 20-minute-limit phone call was going by quickly, but I asked Alton about the six-volume, 2,438-page Modernist Cuisine book by wealthy entrepreneur Nathan Myhrvold, which will be ready for your home library on March 14 at a cost of about $600.“I can’t afford it. I haven’t read it,” he says. “It uses tools you can’t get, the practical applications are nil. … It’s the difference between what a billionaire would cook and a thousandaire—what I am—cooks.” (There’s that sense of humor again.) But he adds that he appreciates anything that furthers the knowledge of food.
Over at Baltimore magazine
While I have enjoyed Alton's view on cooking in the past, I find this blanket statement about a book he hasn't read yet to be very dissapointing and wrong. While I have only seen bits and piece of the book, I know that while some parts of the book are out of the reach of people to recreate at home,, the science and practices in the book are applicable to everyone.
While he did have the saving line at the end that he appreciates anything the furthers the knowledge of food, there is definitely a contradiction with the previous sentences.
I think there is a broad misconception about Modernist Cuisine in much of the media right now. I'm sure his opinion will change once he speaks to people who actually know something about the book or sees it for himself. His comments are pretty disappointing though and I have always been a big fan of his.
rg
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Sorry I wasn't really clear. I meant that if you had a 5C steak in a 62C bath it is faster to get from 5C to 55C than it is to get from 55C to 62C (although my math was off a bit now that I recheck it). I know that the rate of heat increase will decrease as the temperatures get closer but didn't think it was that dramatic of a difference.
edit: Actually just re-read what I said in the previous post and I was totally wrong. I was thinking in my head one thing and writing another
Can't wait for Modernist Cuisine to land on my door step with a thud!
rg
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Thanks all for the feedback on the steak issues. It sure isn't intuitive to me that it takes about half an hour to take a 1.5" stake from 5 to 55C and then another hour to raise the heat and then get it to 62 so thanks for that info.
rg
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You can run your vp210 for a minute...I thought it would only do 45 secs ...can I over ride that setting?
Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
You can set a bunch of settings and the initial vacuum time can be set up to 99 seconds although not sure if numbers above a certain point are ignored
rg
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Wouldn't it work better the other way around? That is, cook her steak at 62C until it's done, then drop the temperature (i.e., add cold water), add the other steak and hold them both at 55C until the second one is done? The first steak won't become "uncooked" this way, but will stay warm. I'm not sure if there's a mushiness risk.
Main issue I can see with that approach is that it would double the total cooking time. Not the end of the world but I figured taking a steak from 55C to 62C would be pretty quick in comparison
rg
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My wife likes her steak Medium, maybe even Medium-well (I know, so sad) and I like it medium rare. We only have one SVS so what is the standard approach here? Can I cook both steaks at say 55C for the appropriate time and then take mine out, leave hers in and raise to 62C and cook longer? How long would it take for the 55C steak to reach 62C assuming it's a 1.5" ribeye? Is there a better way to do this? I've tried cutting her steaks thinner and searing a little longer but not the most elegant or precise way to deal with this problem.
rg
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It looks like the VP112 is the exact same machine as the SVS one right?
So basically the decision is between that and the VP210.
The comment about 90% air kind of worries me. I have done sous vide with both the ziplock hand pump vacuums and one of the standard counter top ones. Both have the same problem when I do something at high temp (like confit at 176). After a while the air that is in the bag starts to puff up and the bag starts to float. With the ziplock system I can just pump that air back out and then things are fine, with the sealed vacuum bags I don't have that option and they just float and the meat doesn't get equal exposure to the water.
Can anyone with the VP112 or VP210 comment on this? Is the vacuum they create enough to avoid this problem and do all the fun things that (I assume) are in the Modernist Cuisine book (like the watermelon chips they featured on their blog)
VP210 seems really good. I easily compressed watermelon into dense cubes and packing meat with liquids for sous vide has been really easy - not sure about making watermelon chips but I'll try as soon as the books arrive or if someone gives me some instructions. I'm not sure of the vacuum % level but it must be close to 99% if you let it run for a minute. Everything I've tried has been packed very tightly.
rg
Converting Favorite Recipes from Volume to Weight Measurements
in Cooking
Posted · Edited by roygon (log)
One good source is
http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php
It's meant for something else but it has a huge database and it's easy to get what you are looking for. Under ingredients just put in the amount and the type of one ingredient and then analyze and from there you can look at the serving size weight in the results. Click on edit recipe to change the ingredient and obviously only do one at a time. So,
1 tbsp sugar = 13g
1 tbsp salt = 18g
1 tbsp baking powder = 15g
1 tbsp molasses = 20g
3 medium potatoes = 639g
etc
rg