JoNorvelleWalker

Tonight was an anti-Kenji smashed burger. I formed a patty about an inch and a half thick. I was diligent with the Thermapen. I got it crusty on the outside with a trace of pink at the center. And now I am done with hamburger for another lifetime.

These are alpine strawberries. As best I remember: https://www.burpee.com/fruit/strawberry-plants/strawberry-alpine-fragola-di-bosco-prod002415.html

My first strawberry is red.

I realize Parma is not in Virginia but I am minded ParmaShop has some lovely looking Parma hams on sale.

I didn't know Dave's Booker and Dax had closed. I thought it just recently opened?

By real buttermilk I mean what's sometimes called traditional butter milk. The "buttermilk" in the stores here is made by adding microbial cultures to skim milk. I believe this product used to be known as imitation buttermilk. Anyhow, I haven't tasted it yet but my crème fraiche came out nice and thick.

The local market has family pack ground beef on sale this week. I am a family of one, at least at this location. So I decided to revisit Kenji's smashburgers. Other than being far more meat than I would eat, they were pretty good. Kenji calls for a pan temperature of between 600 and 700 deg F. My surface thermapen goes up only to 572 deg F. What is one to do? I let the thermapen go to overrange and waited another minute or so. Not very scientific. This is with my big Falk pan. The air was like an opium den. Not that I have visited an opium den but I have read Sherlock Holmes. Thanks to the recent Thermoworks sale my heavy duty surface probe, good to 1000C, should arrive tomorrow. But this is today. Kenji recommends stainless over cast iron because cast iron is a good black body radiator, and for burgers one wants heating by conduction: http://www.keatingofchicago.com/miraclean_griddle.html

I use Lightroom only for moving raw files from my iPad into Photoshop on the computer, but for the purpose it works really well. I doubt there is much of a difference among processing raw files in Lightroom, Photoshop, or Bridge.

How do you get your tortillas to hold that shape? Never mind, I think I see. Cheater. Where can I buy those?

Which culture do you use? I thought a salient feature of crème fraiche was that it was not too tangy? (I knew I'd eventually find a need for a centrifuge.)

Thanks! For better or worse I shall probably be a Prime member till I die or starve, whichever comes first.

I found some lovely figs so I'm trying my hand for the first time at crème fraiche. I saw the recommendation for New England Cheese Making Supply up thread but their culture is on "Final Sale, while supplies last." Real buttermilk is not available in these parts either, so I am using the same culture I use for yogurt: https://www.yogurtathome.com/product-page/yogurt-starter-for-bio-yogurt I know the bacteria are probably not the same and that crème fraiche is properly cultured at room temperature. I've worked out a very satisfactory method for yogurt that involves cooking the milk and cream at 70C for half an hour, cooling to 45C or so and inoculating. Then after homogenization* holding the mix at 45C for two hours then slowly cooling to 30C overnight. This is how my crème fraiche is cooking at the moment. It may end up more like sour cream but such is life, I like sour cream as well. I'd be interested in any information on how crème fraiche cultures differ from yogurt cultures, beyond just the names of the bacteria. *in this case my cream is neither ultra pasteurized nor homogenized, which means a knife to pry it from the bottle.

Sorry, I get tired of typing out Precise Heat Mixing Bowl.

How does Fiddyment compare to fresh ground? (And did anyone ever ascertain what the PHMB was for?)

I picked this up with PrimeReading for free. Can anyone explain to me how PrimeReading works? Do the books expire?

Parmashop https://www.parmashop.com/english/ Ten percent off everything through 5/27 with code "Parma2018". I'm not sure if that's an additional 10% off items already on sale or not. Guess I'll find out. Note there is no mention of this coupon code on the site. Funny thing, I almost put in an order yesterday. Rather glad I hesitated. Now if I only had somewhere to hang a ham...

Don't get too excited. At my age it doesn't take much to wet my pants. Still, I had to study the whole thing. At first I thought the chef was going to throw the skin away.

I almost wet myself for that chicken skin.

It has been a wretchedly cold day, and a good candidate for beans. I made a batch of Georgian lobio -- beans stewed with herbs. But then I got to egulletting and they burnt. I ate them, mind you, I've had worse. But the leftovers didn't go to the refrigerator. Bar Keepers Friend is my friend.

This intrigues me. As a replacement for Donn's/Don's mix I've been using equal parts white grapefruit juice and tincture of cinnamon (W&N Overproof). While I suspect mine beats yours alcohol-wise hands down, white grapefruit is all but impossible to source. Have you tried your combination in a zombie?

Prep bowls have been on my mind. I seldom use large mixing bowls, except on the KitchenAid, but I never have enough small bowls on hand. My favorite are a set of chartreuse pyrex from a garage sale in the 1970's. Perhaps my finest culinary bargain ever (not counting possessions pulled from the dumpster). Anyhow I just got a couple Vollrath small mixing bowls from JB Prince.* https://www.jbprince.com/utensils/heavy-weight-mix-bowl-0.5-qt.asp Normally I avoid Vollrath like the plague as they have no warrantee. But what could go wrong with a stainless steel bowl, right? I probably will order more. *the real reason was to pad the JB Prince order for free shipping.

This afternoon I finished off the batch of batter. Such a sad sigh the iSi makes as it runs out. By the way these beautiful berries are actually from Georgia (not the walnut one).

Since no one else is jumping in to answer, it is a Premier: https://www.melangers.com/collections/table-top-refiners/products/titling-chocolate-refiner Ask me how I know.

The name Kosher salt may be more or less American, but the salt is not misnamed. Kosher salt is coarse salt used for Koshering meat. I use Moroccan pink salt myself.

Making my way through Six Seasons after some recent litero-cullinary diversions. Rant One: "Super hot" as applied to flat bread (p 48). Is "super hot" how McFadden instructs his baking staff? Assuming one just wandered in from the Oort cloud, what is "super hot" in Celsius?