AaronM

Just that you'd have to have one on hand if you wanted to take it somewhere. I prefer the Sous Vide Supreme to something like the polyscience for home use since it's a closed system. But that's just me. There's nothing wrong with the polyscience product.

If you don't mind using a power adaptor, look into the Sous Vide Supreme. You can get one for 300 USD. I have one I use for my home and take to catering gigs.

I'd pay the price Amazon is charging and just wait for my copy to ship like a rational human being with dignity and self-respect.

I don't think it's a spoiler when it's so blatant. I wasn't even watching it very closely. When it was over, my wife asked me who I thought will win, and I said I already know Blaise wins, and rewound it for her.

She was thin slicing them. If that was how they wanted them she should have busted out a mandolin. I'd just cut em into chunks and throw them in there.

When Padma was saying "You are Top Chef" on the Next Time On Top Chef at the end. She was looking to her right when she said it. Blais was on her right. Just sayin'...

When he was working the mozzarella in the hot water and his friends were all, "Damn Marcel, you're a fucking animal!" I just wanted to punch him in the face.

I see what you did there.

Yeah, I don't think The Ripper's doing a whole lot of hands on these days.

I suppose that's what we all do. But some of us do it over low heat and dry, some over medium heat with oil, and some even over high heat. That's kinda what I was asking in the OP. Oh, I wasn't being snarky. I just heat it like any other pan I have. No care is put into it.

Jesse Schenker, Recette, NYC I dated his wife back in highschool.

I put it on the stove and heat it to the necessary heat level.

This strikes me as, "Nice for Mr. Ripert." Why was an article written about it?

Got the email too.

Truffles. I know. I just don't like them.

This show is SO bad.

I need to find exactly how much of a vacuum is required for this. Is it just relatively low pressure, or a near total vacuum? The quest continues!

I like it though - we're getting somewhere. Thanks for that link. The problem with that one for me isn't a couple hundred bucks for the pump, it's that I live in an apartment and that pump is loud. And your restaurant looks really cool btw.

How bout that "rare beef broth" recipe? Very interested in how they got that color.

As a chef, I wish there were more books that were far beyond the reaches of the home cook. We get precious few, and the media seems to hate on this collection for being advanced. Well good, don't buy it.

The purpose of this is to dry apples and watermelon cubes for use in a watermelon soup. I know this'll taste good, but I see other culinary applications that I'd like to try - and I don't think people are freeze drying all the stuff I'd like to try. Normal dehydration ruins the texture I'm looking for in the cubes. Is there a way to achieve freeze dried texture without going all the way? As in, not meant for long term storage, but mostly dried?

Negating the vacuum issue for a moment: What about a cooler with some dry ice in it to freeze the food, and 2 holes drilled in the sides, with an aquarium pump to allow airflow over the food? Sort of like a turbo-charged version of the plain freezer method. Maybe something would happen? A lyophilizer is just way too expensive!

I'm extremely interested in freeze drying food. The process involves freezing food and then placing it in a strong vacuum. I know you can do a work-around by freezing slices of things and placing them on a perforated tray in your freezer for about a week. The idea being that the water sublimates without passing into the liquid state.This takes way too long and can only be done practically with very thin slices. The question is: Can something be worked out with a chamber vac? Holding it under pressure for awhile perhaps? Is the vacuum strong enough? I don't have a chamber vac, but I know a few of y'all do - are you interested in trying out an experiment?

I've been making a bunch of fizzy ice cream at my place lately with dry ice. We all seem to know the dessert side of dry ice 'cooking,' but what about savory applications? Anyone using it to do interesting things with meat? Not sure what'd really happen other than a 'frozen sear' so to speak. Maybe a carpaccio seared on a block of the stuff?

As always, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.