Martin Fisher

Reasonably priced vintage cast iron from a thrift store or yard sale and the like is the best value. I've bought nice pieces for as little as $3.

I like stainless steel cheese shakers for kosher salt, especially the type where the opening can be perfectly adjusted to fit the size of the salt and closed off to slow caking. I put a one inch square piece of hardwood in the shaker to absorb moisture and as an aid in breaking up any caking. Looks like the particular shaker that I have is currently unavailable but I'm sure that there must be others that are similar.

Thanks for posting that link. It's a great site! I've just spent more than an hour browsing videos. Yes. Indeed it is.

It's made for folks with lots of dollars but no sense!!!

Yes, definitely look for Griswold, it's much more refined than, say, Lodge...the casting is much smoother and the iron finer-grained yielding an all around better product. I had some ideas for cast iron cookware design back in the 80's and actually built a small iron melting cupola in anticipation of pouring some castings but I got scared off because of the potential risk of utilizing cast iron scrap in the production of a cooking utensils. In addition, Petrobond sand will produce a smooth casting with a finish that's close to machined, much the same a Griswold's castings, but I could not determine if it was safe to use for that specific purpose.

I quite like the diamond design of the old Griswold No.768 in terms of pouring.

I'm not overly excited about the octagonal part of it either but a square cast iron pan has "corners" so it's nothing out of the ordinary.

This looks like a cool idea....especially the CNC machining of the cooking surface. He's wrong about the cast iron skillet handle being unchanged for ages. Burough Furnace has designed a forked handle to disperse the heat (a much simpler design), but the price of the skillet is insane, IMHO.

ChefSteps sous vide carrots.

Something like this?

I agree, as an example I specify Bragg or Eden Organic Apple cider vinegar in recipes when homemade isn't available, not because it's organic but because it tastes FAR better than Heinz or other pedestrian apple cider vinegars. As far as butter goes and IMHO, I don't think that there's a product that is as remarkably different from it's commercial counterpart (no matter how fancy or organic or whatever) as raw sweet cream butter from pasture-fed cows (cattle eat far more than grass), especially made from Jersey cream or the like. It's the one product that I wish all folks could try.

Botulinum growth is inhibited or eliminated below 38 degrees F and/or if the pH is below 4.6

If it looks like a good recipe, I ignore those types of particulars....I don't get worked up over it. You see it a heck of a lot in some cookbooks, I just look past it.

Yeah, cross-contamination aside, it's a pretty good method.

That's what I like about emailing to gmail....the more detail in the subject line better....it makes searching easy. You can also organize into folders. Google Drive is also easy to search.

Chefs as tough as elite athletes? The title of this thread brought to mind visions of Mario Batali pole vaulting!..... Nah!!! No way!!! Most chefs that I know tend to be quite ambitious...some are tough....some not so much. None pole vault!

Since I suffer from extreme ADHD and OCD and I'm the world's most disorganized person, I find it extremely difficult to stay organised. I try to keep everything in folders in either Google Drive or Ubuntu One. Critical information that I want to have easy access to without a lot of searching I'll email to myself via my gmail account.

Like anything, it's done when it's done....the times in the recipe are just a rough estimate.

They say 1 hour and 20 minutes to 1 hour and 50 minutes for a 4.5 to 5 pound chicken, so that's about right. Roughly 20 to 25 minutes per pound. FWIW, the recipe is available online....... http://www.wnyc.org/story/70603-americas-test-kitchens-french-chicken-in-a-pot/

If you want to roast a chicken real fast try Jacques Pépin's Quick-Roasted Chicken method where he splits the bird and cuts into the joints before giving the bird a head start in a skillet over high heat. It's one of my favorite methods. Also detailed in the following video starting at about 5:18.......

Those times sound about right to me for a chicken in a heavy cast iron Dutch oven. I've made that recipe several times. You are browning the bird for 10-15 minutes and then placing the Dutch oven on the very bottom rack of the oven (that's the critical detail.) Preheating the lid won't hurt.

I use blanched almond flour the most. I get that from Honeyville Grain. They fairly frequently offer 15% off an entire order if you get on their email list. There a big difference in the quality and consistency of blanched almond flour....much of it, including Bob's Red Mill's, is more of a meal than a flour while Honeyville's is consistently finer. Other nut and seed flours I either make in a Krups electric coffee mill or buy from Netrition.com or Vine.com. Typically, it's cheaper to grind your own.

I forgot to mention that Peter Reinhart has a relatively new book out titled The Joy of Gluten-Free, Sugar-Free Baking: 80 Low-Carb Recipes that Offer Solutions for Celiac Disease, Diabetes. There are a lot of great low-sugar/low-starch recipes in the book, especially if you like nuts......there's a lot of nut flour used in the recipes. I'm not much of a dessert fiend either, but I do get the desire to binge of a dessert or two from time to time.

I think a microwave is great for many things if you pay close attention to cooking times and power settings. I know a lot of folks who cook everything on high and them complain about the bad results. Microwave tater chips were a big surprise, they're actually quite good if you pay attention to detail.

I make 'sous vide' soups all the time via a bain-marie. Quart or half-gallon Mason jars work well because they can be sealed if your method will benefit form that.