Raamo

That was a very interesting ted talk, my brother currently works as a waiter but he's doing it as a transitory activity. The topic of tipping comes up often on cruise ship discussion boards but there it's tip sharing all the way around so even the cooks get tipped (granted pay is WAY lower then minimum wage in the USA so there's a whole lot more to go with that topic) I to tend to notice a much better experience at the resturants on the top end so I can justify paying them more but less so on the mid tier, there's a chain we went to where it's easily $30-40 a head not including liquour and the service was worse then a place like applebees. I do adjust my tip in those situations so I guess I'm not a straight 15% all the timer The topic of cooks pay is one I never thought about. At a fine resturant where the cooks are actually cooking I've no idea what those cooks make but I know the servers are doing very very well.

Maybe...However, I am sure the 2/3 day response as absolute and arbitrary rubbish and I would ignore it out right. I agree, I don't think that alone should push me to the $800 model over the $500. Why would they put their name on it and have a warrenty if it's that much worse then it's older brother which is fine for full time professional use. Also it's still the sous vide professional creative series.... not the sous vide home user

The professional is +/- 0.07 so that's not that much difference then +/- 0.10 I don't even own a thermometer that's that accurate as my thermapen is old and doesn't do .1's That's kinda scary, but I expect it's over engineered for that... or else they'll have a lot of complaints from active home users. What is the other unit you went with?

The Chef is made in USA, the Creative is made in China... I think that explains the $300 right there. I can't find anything on the web about PolyScience bullying a smaller maker. Doesn't mean it didn't happen, but there's the SousVide Supreme which they don't make and uses SousVide right in the title.

I recently "read" MC@H, but it's more a cook book then a book... Thanks to jumping on the MC bandwagan I picked up On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen for my nook and figure it'll take me a while to read all ~1236 pages. Not exactly a new book, but so far it's excellent and I've learned a few things and I'm only in the milk chapter.

Has anyone looked at or used the Polyscience Sous Vide Professional Creative Series? It might be too new, I'm having trouble finding reviews of it that aren't very much marketing. On the William Sonoma site there are a few very positive reviews and it's not shown up at Amazon yet. It's not cheap, but this company comes reccomended by MC and I like the fact it's a single unit I can use with existing food service containers I got some time ago to brine in from Amazon.

I've now made 5 things from MC@H, my wife gave me the book for xmas. Alas I've not taken pictures of any of the creations, but after reading this thread I might try to change that. The 1st was the Green Romaine Salad, I'll agree with other posters that it's good but not great. 2nd I made the Apple-Parsnip soup that others have talked about, I forgot the baking soda and had to open the pot after 10 mins to add it, the puree turned out darker then others have posted but otherwise excellent. Considering the large amount of butter I don't think I'll make this too often, but it was the first pureed soup I've actually liked. My wife commented after seeing how it was made she's going to cut down on the pureed fruit soups she has on cruise ships 3rd I made Vegtable Stock, I did a double batch in the 3.5L pressure cooker and only was able to fit it all in by cutting down the amount of onions. It turned out very strong, I will likely dilute it in the future if I'm not looking for a strong vegtable taste. But if you want a good veg taste in your stock - this one is a winner. 4th I made Polenta which is why I did the stock (since corn on the cob is out of season), I thought it taked too much like the vegtables but my wife and guests really enjoyed it. Next time I'll dilute the stock or make it with corn stock. 5th I made the chicken meatballs since it was the one option from the chicken skwers page that didn't require sous vide. I made it with Honey-Ginger Teriyaki sauce since I couldn't get dried fish flakes (I'll find a asian store and try the other sauce later) it was very good! Likely a new favorite. Also it's amazing how easy it is to grind meat in the food processor (the book didn't say how I should grind the meat, and I don't have a meat grinder ) I'm planning on ordering a Sous Vide set up this week, I tred both stove stop (for the egg for #1) and in the oven (as reccomended by #1 for a beet) and will never attempt that again! Some point later this year I want MC but that's a spend set of books so I'll work on gear 1st. All this started when I saw the Nova episode last year which had a segmant on MC.