Dexter

I'm in the "save the carcass" camp as well. I buy whole birds and break them down when I get home with them. Backs, wing ends, etc all go into a bag in the freezer until I've got enough for a batch of stock. Yeah, if you wanted to buy a fresh bird for nothing but stock, you'd spend a fortune, but that's not at all necessary. And, while it's probably got its uses (never tried, so can't really make a call), I noticed that the Better Than Bouillon products are not made with organic meats or veg... So if you are really trying to keep organic, it's not helping.

Totally agree with the above. I'll toss in, for your consideration: 100 point rating scales, and Robert Parker's influence.

Culinary schools are a significant investment, and from what I have seen of colleagues who have gone, they don't pay for themselves readily. Yes, you are quickly exposed to a broad spectrum of styles and techniques, but coming out of those schools (with a debt load of close to $80k, for many of them), you don't see much of an increase in pay off the bat. What it does seem to get you is a shot at the fine-dining set right out of school, assuming you have worked hard at making appropriate connections while you were still a student. I personally didn't have the money to do school. So I worked in kitchens. Got a part time at a commercial franchise that paid the bills, and after a couple of months, I started making cold calls to other restaurants, and set up stages. (If you aren't familiar, that's basically a very-short-term apprenticeship in another kitchen, often for just a couple of days to a couple of months, working for free) I did that for about 6 months, busted my butt, showed up early with clean whites and sharp-as-I-could-get-'em knives, and eagerly absorbed anything and everything the chefs felt like showing me. Some of them were true grunt work - peeling carrots, chopping mirepoix, washing potatoes, one was even to cover for a dishwasher that was out for a while. Most were excellent. I learned how to open fresh sea urchins, tell the difference between male and female lobsters, what pastas should feel like when they are ready, etc, all by staging. One of the places that I staged at made me an offer for what was essentially the same pay, but in a much smaller kitchen and with a whole lot more responsibility than I did have, and I lept at the opportunity. I didn't have as much time to stage, but I was learning massively more, and the chef involved all of the team more directly in menu planning, specials, etc. Two years there, and she put in a good word for me when I was ready to move to a new city. Point of all this is, schools are a relatively recent development. Most cooks learned to cook by cooking. You learn to get better by demanding better of yourself and your products, and you learn everything you can from the people around you, weather or not you are in a formal program or hold a diploma. My last comment, then I'll shut up. Tom Coliccio's book "Think Like a Chef" was one of the better primers for thinking about how things come together that I've read. Not technical, pretty short read, with a handfull of recipes thrown in for illustration, and it provided a lot of late night rumination. Of course, not everyone is going to get the same things out of this kind of book, so your mileage certainly may vary, but I'd suggest seeing if the local library has it. All the best!

It appears to depend on what you are cooking, how you are doing it, and when you are going to be serving it in relation to when it is cooked. Dave Arnold took a fairly studious whack at the question over at Cooking Issues.

Any suggestions for somewhat more specialized things, like vanilla beans / paste, or saffron? And, I know it's not exactly spices, but I've been pretty happy with Modernist Pantry for some things that I keep in the same part of the cabinet with my spices. They've been decently to competitively priced, and I haven't had to buy kilos of stuff to experiment with. Chris over there has been more responsive and attentive than the people at Le Sanctuaire were, and I have been really impressed with their honest attempts to source things that I've asked for in the past.

I've been wondering about peoples opinions and preferences for some of the on-line and mail-order spice purveyors around. I've been a long-time Penzey's fan, and the local stores have stocked my pantry for years. Much beyond them, I find myself more or less just searching by single ingredient, and have had mixed results overall. So, gulleters: What are your go-to spice retailers? And, equally importantly, are there any that you'd absolutely avoid?

Can't be raw, not if they are saying that 5 minutes in the microwave is "cooked." Still, really good to see that people are recognizing the expanding list of useful tools for the end consumer. Would love to see more of this.

Actually, now that I've gravedug this particular thread, I might as well drop this question in here as well: Does anyone know of a good, smallish (2 person household, guests on occasion) Dewar they'd recommend, and a place that sells them? Getting it filled up isn't as much of a problem, but I'm hesitant to going the Ebay route for this kind of equipment.

I know this is super late, but a professor of mine in college called it the Leidenfrost Effect - basically the same thing that makes droplets of water skitter across a hot surface without just sitting down and boiling away. A layer of rapidly forming vapor insulates the warm and cold bodies, and keeping them slightly apart. He demonstrated it by holding his hand out, fingers together, like he was sticking his hand out to shake someone elses', the poured LN2 over the top. Did it to a couple of students too. Made the point stand out in my head, even 20 something years later.

Thanks for the clarification, Nathan. Looking forward to seeing the new book, even while I'm still working my way through MC. Any plans for demo dinners for this one?

Frontera was among the best meals I had in Chicago, and I've been a long time fan of Bayless' projects. That said, the sauces that I enthusiastically purchased at Whole Foods were uniformly unimpressive. The consensus among my friends (all in the food industry) was slightly-above-average grocery store mass-market sauces, and not really worth trying to keep on hand. Just my $.02.

Ed, I thought that the recipes are largely from the original set, just selected for their approachability for home kitchens? Trying to find more, I read this: http://seattlefoodge...-at-home/ from a guy that is evidently part of the group that put this together, and it does sound like new recipes. Anyone have more definitive info on this? [Edited to fix broken link]

It is pretty. If you want it to be something that'd be useful, I'd suggest making the thin end perforated (just a few holes, nothing extravagant), and the other end with a slightly heavier back for cracking ice (it may already be good - I'm reading this on an iPhone so can't see terribly well). Might want to make the heavy end a proper teaspoon measure as well. But if you are just looking for a stirring stick, then you've got something that is more than adequate already.

Mondays are definitely the easiest day to get to something like that. Where it's held is massively less important than when, at least in my experience. I'd also pitch in a vote for liquor laws and permitting. That's an area that lots of people get just buried in, sometimes delaying opening of their restaurants or bars by months.

Rob: I make sure the entire bag is inside the chamber. That shouldn't be the problem at all. Paul: Their bags, their instructions, and it's not a problem I've ever had with any other chamber system. Yes, things are boiling like mad at 50 s. No, I don't want that. Even when packing dry items, I have air problems - so it's not a faulty seal caused by grease / food / etc inhibiting the heating bar.

I bought a 112 a while ago, and I've got to say, I'm not in love. I only get a good pack about 1 out of every 5 bags, even with the vacuum set to 50-60 seconds. While it allows me to use liquids, it's such a colossal pain in the rear to seal, rip open the bag, transfer to a new one, try again, (repeat entire process 3-4 more times), I barely use it. I actually still use my foodsaver, and when I'm trying to add liquids to it, for the most part, I just freeze them into icecubes and drop them in the bag with whatever else I'm cooking with them. Not ideal, but it's a workaround.

Hey guys - thanks for the replies, and for the warm welcome! Very helpful, and I really do appreciate it. I'm currently in Seattle, and (should be) packing my things to move to what appears to be the "Central Phoenix" area, around the Central Ave / Indian School Road area. Have only been to Phoenix a couple of times, both on business, so really looking forward to getting to know the area. Ethnic markets are typically my answer to shopping, so this is very encouraging. Are there specific asian markets that you'd recommend? Good butchers are almost impossible to find outside of basically NYC and Chicago (and even there, not trivial), so I can't really complain there. Mail order is taking over for that with the purchase of primal cuts, I suppose.

Hate to be a grave-digger here, but I've been giving dried morels a lot of thought recently. That said, two questions: 1. Any progress on good cultivated morels, or are they still the insipid bits of foam they were a decade ago? 2. Does anyone have a good online source for dried morels (and other mushrooms)? I've found a couple of places with a very cursory google check, and not been particularly comfortable with placing an order for upwards of $200/lb for these guys without someone or something to recommend them...

Perhaps tangentially relevant to this thread: Maxime Bilet is going to be on Cooking Issues (Dave Arnolds' radio show / podcast) tomorrow (3 April) at noon EST. 718-497-2128 if you want to call in with questions for them.

How about just getting this guy to cook? If he's scoffing at what you have been making, then it'd be very interesting to see what he decides to put together. Doesn't even have to be anything "fancy" - bistro fare is rustic, relatively quick to put together (if slow to finish), and it's peg easy to spot someone who isn't comfortable in a kitchen when they have to put together a dozen servings of anything on the spot.

I hate to admit it, but I sort of bristled at putting Paula Deen, Guy Fieri and some of the others in (and, indeed, in front of) with Alain Ducasse, Francois Payard, Jose Andres, Laurent Gras, Eric Ripert, Grant Achatz...

FatGuy, You don't sharpen the flat side, obviously, but the coating does go all the way down to the beveled edge that is sharpened. When some of that metal is ground away, it grinds off a bit of the PTFE as well, essentially creating a scratched / damaged ridge along the side of the material that sees the most abrasive activity. From there, every slice made peels up a little more of the coating.

My brother had a similar knife (not the melon version) from Kuhn, and indeed, the PTFE started coming right off with the first sharpening. He told me that the knives were priced at a level, and performed essentially where they are essentially disposable.

Hey GlorifiedRice - sorry, I guess I misread your original question. I haven't found any chemical kits that have "everything," but there are two offered by Modernist Pantry that are fairly decent for starters, and they also sell 50g portions of pretty much everything else for between 6-15 bucks. If you are just getting into this stuff, I'd recommend a downloadable book called "Texture - A Hydrocolloid Recipe Collection." I've had a copy for several years now, and honestly don't remember where I originally found it, but it's essentially a primer on 15-20 of the most common and easiest to find components (agar, carrageenan, gelatine, lecithin, xanthan, etc). There's a good discussion on textures and what agents you'd want to use, some decent discussion of interactions between elements, etc. Just checking, my version is from June of 08, so there may well be newer versions out there. I'm suggesting this book mostly because it's how I got into building up my "modernist pantry." I read through, and figured out what sounded good, and what I'd be comfortable trying, then picked up what I needed for that. This, for example, has a lot in it, and is easily supplemented with anything else you might want to add: http://www.modernistpantry.com/premium-experimentation-kit.html Hope that helps!

I am going to be moving to the Phoenix area in late May, and naturally my first thoughts fall to food and drink. There are a couple of threads devoted to restaurants or specific cuisines, but I am hoping to get recommendations for the broad "tool kit" here. I'm the kind of cook that loves things like braised beef cheeks, porchetta and guanciale, and will happily dig a pit in the yard to roast a suckling pig. This basically translates to "Safeway / QFC / Albertsons / etc. are mostly useless to me" beyond milk, eggs and flour. Where's a food geek to go? Farmers markets? Butchers? Outside of BevMo, any beverage shops worth exploring? Restaurant / kitchen supply shops that stand out? [Edited for spelling]