Andrew Hall

Honestly, don't bother watching. The show is just sooooo bad. But read Eddie Huang's recaps which are epically (and NSFW) funny. Most recent ep A.

I did that prep yesterday just as a fun snack for hanging out with my friend. SV'ed the ribbons at 75C for several hours with some moscatel vinegar and a little demerara sugar. Made thinner noodles, tossed with the same stuff. The flavor was great, but the noodles themselves were still incredibly woody and fibrous. Enough that I did not enjoy it and didn't want to swallow them. Not sure if longer cook time would make a difference or if some pineapples are just woodier than others. A.

That strikes me more as an algorithim working backwards to leverage the relative power of the word 'art' over that of 'craft:' "What you are doing is not universal, so it can't be art." Ultimately the judgements of 'specific' and 'universal' become subordinate to the pre-conceptions of what is art and what is craft. A.

Cool! That looks awesome. (And so do the photos on your title page!) What extruder do you have? A.

I don't think that speaks to craft though. It is like saying you will take a Ford Escort over an Alfa Romeo. The former is a functional beast, churned out for that purpose. The latter probably won't get you to work on time, though is damn stylish and a treat when it works. OTOH, one would rather drive a well-crafted Ferrari that would accomplish both and better. A. PS - I think the craft is also in the system. If those bartenders are consistent, the spirit well-chosen, the glass chilled, the shaking thorough, etc, it is the result of someone having a craft mentality in training them and keeping them on-track. I don't think craft has to equal innovation and creativity. It is about the intent (not always from a single person) in the execution of the process. Each of those items represents a choice that was made and how those choices are made (chilled vs warm glass, eg) are where the craft emerges. Of course, it is possible to randomly blunder onto all the correct answers to those choices. I do think that is incredibly rare though.

While origin has an importance, I think the essence of a craft cocktail is in the care in the creation both of the recipe and preperation. A Manhattan is undeniably a classic cocktail. And the numbers of bad ones are legion. What define a craft cocktail Manhattan is where the bar has carefully selected the base spirit, the vermouth, the bitters and what other items (if any) go into it. Figured out the proportions which work best for those ingredients and then serve it with care and precision. Tiki drinks are another example. They became abominations, but Donn and Vic worked out recipes with precision and balance. A.

Columbus. Home cook. Been playing with sous-vide since Keller published a recipe years ago that was a play on sole veronique which called for poaching a sole packet with a raisin stuffing. Ordered my copy in July, got it at the very beginning of March. Mostly been using it to dial into specifics like exact time/temps for butter-poached lobster or veg. A.

Made the beef brisket recipe. Smoked ~5 hrs then sous-vide at 146 for 72 hrs. (Recipe called for 7 hrs of smoking.) The flavor was very good, albeit a bit bland. Plenty of smoke flavor. It did go incredibly well with the basic Kansas City Barbecue sauce (which was far better than I expected it to be with Heinz ketchup as the base.) But the texture was somewhat off-putting. We like our meat to have some chew to it and this was baby-food soft. We had it on baked potato (my wife is celiac) and the texture was about the same. The combo of sauce, meat and potato was outstanding flavorwise. What needs to be modded for a result which matches what we want? Lower temp for SV? Less time? A.

I used the mac-n-cheese method w/ pure pecocrino romano to make a second sauce to layer on top of a ragu (which was served on eggplant fries instead of pasta.) I did have a problem with some coagulation which I solved by straining. Suspect I either added to fast or the acid level was too high for such a dry cheese. The result though was exactly what I wanted - the strong flavor of the cheese with a creamy texture distinct from the tomato/meat sauce. It also provided a persistence of flavor in the mouth more than just grating cheese on top. A.

I placed my order in July and got mine in early March which was pretty freakin' awesome. I have not been able to cook much purely from MC due to other demands, but it has been fantastic for the details to dial into butter poaching lobster or veg sous vide. I am greatly inspired by seeing the people here going full tilt on the book. I do have a weird request : It would fantastic if there were sortable data for sous vide. I have one Sous Vide Supreme. I would love it if there were the ability sort by temperature the optimal temps for sous vide. If I have something going for 72 hrs (like a brisket now), I would love to easily find what else can be done at the same temperature. A.