melkor

Whatever you decide, don't get a glass cutting board. Glass boards destroy knives, wood or plastic are your only real options.

It's true that you can eat the seed garlic, but it's usualy a full season old when its shipped so that it will sprout easily when its planted. Garlic gets bitter once it starts sprouting - which it most likely will have done by the time you get it from a seed catalog, just expect the stuff you grow to taste better than what you stick in the ground. Garlic grows well in containers if they are deep enough, I use a large rubbermade tub with a few holes in the bottom. Each will grow two dozen heads or so. It thins down to 12 or so full sized heads, but there is an endless supply of green garlic while its growing, just don't eat the green garlic from the plants you want to bulb out.

What makes good garlic depends on where you live. If you have a cold winter then the farmers near you will grow different kinds than if you live somewhere that never gets cold. The hardneck varieties are almost always the best tasting, and they are definitly the easiest to peel. If you've got a farmers market near you, buy one of everything offered and figure out what you like best. A lot of the sweetness and heat in garlic comes from the soil its grown in, so different farmers growing the same kind of garlic will produce vastly different products (same with sweet onions). Your just going to need to eat a shitload of garlic to figure out what you like best.

Hopefully it won't use those awful meta-cork things CdB is starting to put on their wines. Corks for people without a cork-screw, that's clearly a much better plan than a stelvin screw-cap.

You should have waited to get a table so they could sarcastically point out the value section of the wine list and then provide the worst wine service I've ever experienced in the valley.

scotch tastes like burning...

Packaged chocolate/plastic coated donuts from Entemann's... Yick.

What wines were served at the tasting?

It's still a work in progress but so far: Mighty Duck (Alton Brown) - excellent way to render the fat, good crisp skin, very overcooked duck. Braised Duck with Glazed Shallots and Honey Sweet Potatoes (Jacques Pepin) - great sauce, legs/thighs were excellent, breast meat dry and somewhat boring. Shallots were very very good. Used butternut squash instead of sweet potatoes - also very good. Breast of Duck with Port Wine and Figs (Sara Moulton) - Great sauce though it would be better suited to quail, overall the best so far. Duck Confit is still in the fat in the fridge, I'll probably have it over the weekend.

There are a lot of foods I still can't stand to eat, but duck and wild mushrooms have definitly moved from the yuck category into the yum category. I've been buying ducks at the farmers market each weekend for the past few weeks and cooking them every way possible, it's my new favorite food. I changed my mind about morels after finding them at the farmers market and deciding they really couldn't be that bad - I still can't stand most mushrooms, but damn are morels good.

Before or after the 50% eGullet member discount?

Is the stinking rose any good? There is one in SF that I've never had any interest in visiting. It seems like a shithole tourist trap, but maybe I'm wrong.

I'm a big fan of marinating the meat before its ground. You can get the steak sauce flavor or whatever else your looking for in there without all the goopy-wetness that you get from adding A1 or something else in with the meat mixture.

La Toque is definitly spendy - it's not as good as the french laundry but it is definitly better than a lot of similarly priced options in the bay area (the crusty Fleur de Lys comes to mind). If you want to eat at La Toque wait until Jaunary/Febuary for them to do their black truffle menu - that is definitly worth the visit.

I use a steel almost every time I use a knife, and I use a $3 water stone when the knife loses its edge, which happens monthly with the knife I use for all things (10" chefs)

I think the consensus sharp blade, handle that fits your hand, and the curve of the blade should match your cutting style. It's definitly too personal to give advice to someone without them trying several knives first.

english translation.

This is very cool. I think I'll need to have burgers, fries, and a shake for dinner tomorrow. I've found for french fries that if you toss the once-fried potatoes in salt and whatever other seasonings your using before the 2nd fry they come out more evenly seasoned. You can also make a lower fat version by blanching the potatoes in boiling water rather than oil for the first cooking. For the milshakes if you've got a cash & carry near by you can get half and half for $0.99/qt, definitly the way to go for the best milkshakes and hot chocolate. Do you think the Hamilton Beach mixer is worth the counter space? Is it good for anything other than shakes? Can it make salad dressings or mayo or anything? I'm not thrilled with the shakes my blender produces but I'm figuring I'll replace the blender with a waring or vitamix or something though I've got no idea what their milkshake making abilities are. Thanks again for the great class, I think I need to make a hotdog for a midnight snack.

In this case, they're not formal at all. I'm trying to give them that experience. I'm surprised at all the iffy reviews of Tra Vigne and CIA. I've always heard such great things about them. Don Giovanni isn't at all formal, it's just good food in a very comfortable space. Terra, Jeanty, or La Toque are your best bets for formal (other than tfl where your already going). La Toque will set you back almost as much as the french laundry. CIA here is better than the CIA in NY, but that's not much of an accomplishment. As far as Tra Vigne goes, it's a tourist trap at this point - if you usually eat mediocer food you'll find it amazing but it doesn't compare well to its neighbors.

Go to Terra or the Martini House. Terra is more formal of the two. If you go to Tra Vigne, get the short ribs - it's the only reliably good thing on the menu. But, you can get the same meat they use at the ferry building farmers market and its awfully easy to make good shortribs.

It's wine. Some of it is better than others, none of it is great and some of it is awful. In general it kicks ass for coq au vin or braised short ribs. edit: typo

I'd second nutcakes rec on L'Osteria, its a great place for a bite to eat. A few blocks away you can get some excellent coffee at Caffe Trieste.

My absolute favorite butter for spreading on bread is straus salted european style. More info about it can be found here.

I always render chicken/duck/etc fat in the oven, I just toss all the skin and fat into a baking dish and leave it in the oven for a few hours at 300 or 350.

For things that are extremely hot I use a pair of Nomex gloves inside welders gloves, otherwise I just use the welders gloves. I agree with Dave the Cook on the welders gloves they are good for things like reaching into the smoker and moving hot coals around but they heat through too fast to hold anything really hot for any significant amount of time.