Baselerd

You need to make sure your torch is fully combusting the fuel, or you are essentially spraying your food with fuel. I believe this generally means you should only have a blue flame, not red/orange.

The Momofuku cookbook has a section on Ramen, including several broths, meats, noodles, and other condiments. I've never cooked any of them, but it looks pretty good.

Personally I always have felt their products don't taste very good - very artificial tasting.

Seconded. After using SV for 4-5 months without a torch I finally coughed up the $25 to get one. Definitely results in a crispier / more browned exterior with less overcooking beneath. Pan searing, braising, or grilling for a nice exterior will sometimes nullify the benefits of sous vide if you are cooking relatively thin cuts of meat.

After reading through the MC books I've virtually stopped using roux to thicken sauces. As the books put it, the flavor release is just so poor in comparison to some of the fancier stuff nowadays...

I've made two of MCaH carnitas variations: the chinese duck w/ hoisin sauce and the Korean short ribs with fermented chili sauce. Both turned out excellent - it sounds like you did not reduce the cooking liquid enough. Once you pressure cook the meat & stock for 30 minutes, you simply strain the meat (reserving the liquid) and mix the liquid with your chile paste at that point. Reduce the chili paste/cooking liquid mixture until it is very syrupy. If it is still thin then the flavor will be pretty weak. I also think it helps a lot to shred the meat, it gets the flavor mixed in a bit more. It is true that the meat tastes like cardboard after the PC step, so shredding it helps to distribute the glaze better.

I'm pretty sure for the husk (the least interesting part) they just blanched it (preserve color), dredged in strawberry liquor (for adhesion), sprinkled with isomalt/sugar, and dehydrated. The MC has a similar recipe for crystallized rose petals using egg whites and gum arabic instead of strawberry liquor. That powder filled ball is pretty awesome though. I'll leave that to the professionals to guess at...

Was this the torchon recipe from the Modernist Cuisine as well?

Modernist Cuisine states that the purpose of brining is to cause muscle fibers to swell and absorb water (and better retain water during cooking) due to the ion deposition onto the individual muscle fibers - causing them to repel and make room for more water. Other factors mentioned include the denaturization of proteins in high salinity, changing their water affinity. They also mention brines do effectively season the meat with the added salt. I always add some amount of sugar to brines as well.

I feel your pain - I've found that the problem is usually with the pectin formulation. Many recipes don't specify the brand, type, etc; which is unfortunate because from my experience different brands and formulations produce dramatically different results. Some require certain calcium ion concentrations to gel, others are sensitive to pH, and most require a specific amount of sugar. So instead of following recipes that call for "pectin" or "apple pectin", I've found that I have MUCH better luck just following the recipe cards that come with the different brands of pectin. If you want blueberry pate de fruit, just buy some pectin and use your blueberry juice according to the recipe card that comes with the pectin. Also, it's usually best to figure out if you want high or low sugar content though, because low-sugar pectin is usually low-methoxyl and comes with a separate pouch of calcium salt to induce gelling. High methoxyl pectin gels in the presence of sugar within certain pH ranges.

Here's the Alinea-inspired bacon chips with apple leather, thyme, and butterscotch. Slightly tweaked it by adding some fresh apples and accidentally turning one of my apple leather batches into apple crisps.

Just finished the Chinese duck variation on the carnitas - once again some amazing results. The texture was tender and creamy, I'm probably going to try the Korean short rib recipe in a few days since I bought way too many frozen buns. I also paired this with the Chinese noodle soup variation on the infused chicken soup, using Chinese banquet broth from the original MC books instead of the MCaH duck broth.

I used some rose petals and rose water in a curry dish recently, out of the Modernist Cuisine. It was pretty awesome...

How is the photography? I am pretty interested in the book, but I'm superficial and like my books to have nice photos...

I think the main reason for the addition is to help to stabilize the cream, since thin emulsions usually have a tendency to break faster. Keep in mind that carageenan is simply extract from red seaweed, probably not much less "natural" than the cream itself.

I wonder if a pressure cooker could make pumpkin seed shells more tender, similar to the pressure-cooked mustard and sesame seeds that are so popular nowadays.

1" and 1/2" cube flex molds are very useful for a lot of their recipes, such as the fried custards, puddings, and sauces. Most of the set gels and foams can be done in whichever mold you want, it's really just for aesthetic value. I would note that a lot of the recipes are fragile and I've damaged more than my share of set foams trying to remove them from non-flexible molds.

I've had a handful of minor cuts on my fingers, but the worst is when I ate a hot pocket right out of the microwave

Why is this so? Using Scoop KW's example with the ketchup, how would you handle the situation? Well to that end I was more referring to the restaurant's target audience. I suppose I would extend my statement to any restaurant that takes pride in its food and how its composed, regardless of cost or atmosphere. What I was getting at is if someone goes to an IHOP (or similar restaurant that is not so much about the creativity and masterful cooking) and wants to swap their bacon side for a fruit, then I don't see a problem with that. In the specific example of the onion-laced ketchup, I would say the customer is still out of line. That person has no right to walk into any establishment and demand onion-free ketchup, and they certainly are unreasonable if they find that offensive. Any given restaurant is offering their food as is, and it's the consumer's choice whether or not to go, eat, and pay for the food. If they don't want it, they can go somewhere else. They are not entitled to walk into a restaurant and tell them how to make their food. That privilege is reserved for especially affluent individuals who can afford personal chefs. It's almost comical some of the fits I've seen people throw when restaurants don't have a vegetarian option, or vegan options, etc. Do these people seriously expect the world to cater to their personal preferences?

I think it really depends on the restaurant. If it's a casual diner or similar place, it seems silly to refuse substitutions, requests, etc. However, at high-end restaurants I can understand chef's frustrations. A lot of high-end cuisine is carefully conceived by the chef as an arguable form of art. People who go to restaurants like these should have this expectation. If you have special dietary preferences, it is your responsibility to do the research. If I owned my own restaurant and had put so much love and effort into composing a "perfect" dish and someone wanted to sub one of the components for another, it not only breaks the composition - it would likely make the flavor combinations less appealing because they were not designed. It seems likely in this situation that the result would be sub-par and not representative of the quality of the establishment in the first place. This obviously doesn't hold true for every scenario, but I think this should especially for haute restaurants that serve plated dishes. It's also offensive from a point of view as well. I can see how much effort goes into the creative process in high end kitchens and its disrespectful to all those involved to impose your own demands on them. People have too much of a sense of entitlement these days, some people need to be told no from time to time... even in the service industry.

Sea bass is nice, albeit expensive.

I have one ceramic knife - it is extremely sharp and seems to hold its edge very well. With that said, it's so much lighter than metal knives it takes some getting used to. In the end I would go with metal knives just for the mental reassurance that I can sharpen them without requiring manufacturer's assistance, etc.

The central market at Westgate usually has it stocked (about 3/4 the time), but they have never had it out on display for some reason - just ask the meat counter peeps. I don't know what market you go to, but the pork belly I've gotten at Central Market has consistently been much better quality than most of the meat markets I've been too (usually have too much fat to meat ratio, I like mine about 1:1 ratio).

I think that falls under the "best practices" category. It would be pretty ill advised if the FDA were to clear the use of infected materials as long as they were boiled before sale...

Pork belly is generally widely available from my experience, but some of the larger non-specialty supermarkets don't stock it. Around here in Austin you can buy it at a lot of the more high end supermarkets (Whole Foods, Central Market) or any number of the dozens of Mexican Meat Markets.