Farmer Dave

Going strong up in Ontario, Canada as well... Taxes y'know.

The mandatory trumpet mute bag.

One of the best threads on eG for sure...I am going to read it again but checking in the last year has got me thinking to pull out the "hot well" in the corner of the kitchen and play around. It has settings for water between 75f and 220f so I think it is time to be plugged in.....anyone done sous-vide using a hot well......? Does the water bath need to be agitated or circulated...?

Absolutely......stress contributes to flavour.(in most vegetables)....they need dirt,wind,have to fight for water sometimes, and look for nutrients.....it all slows them down and seems to give them time to develop a deeper flavour. (with exceptions like radish and lettuce)....just think of hydroponics....lots of water and nutrients...look perfect...but.....taste flat most of the time.

Were you hungover Ling?

Gareth if you get a minute could you describe that bouche again in detail, that jacket potato jelly ...I just can't get it out of my mind.....did it look like it tasted?

Thanks for posting that Andy. More Alice Waters and less Rocco DiSpirito.

Back to the live chicken part of the discussion, the guideline for space is at least a square foot per bird.....but typically much more than that for healthier flocks...sounds small but when you picture 2 chickens in a cage smaller than that with nothing to do for a year but look down at a food and water trough....so cage-free and free run are basically describing the same thing...

chefswartz is right........the difference can be quite small in the different living conditions for chickens..... Caged- self-explanatory, but I will add that if you ever saw the operation you would think twice.....I saw the same breed we have here "living" 2 to a cage once and, well, it was sad..(almost to tears kind of sad) Free Roam- thankfully out of the cage and running around in a big open building...like an indoor soccer field with shavings on the floor and lots of feed and water to get free will........ Free Range- access to the outside world......a technicality sometimes as you will possibly see a 12" x 9" door at the end of a huge building with 20 K young birds who might just by chance wander out the door into a fenced area.... A real free ranger will be wandering outside eating a lot of grass...chasing bugs...finding grains...trying to fly, running a lot........these birds definately taste different.....I'm not sure better for some applications...but as far as stock goes...unsurpassed.....and the feet...! make chicken jelly if you wanted to... I think the taste really has a lot to do with diet, age and processing (lack of added water especially).... Eggs are a whole other story.

is there a brain in the packet...?

Good point......and since all of the organs are removed in a conventional chicken that would leave the problem of an organ remaining in the carcass of the chicken with the head on.....namely the brain.........which we probably agree is not a large organ with chickens..

Maybe something to do with the regulations of processing....it is very automated and the birds are decapitated after a shock I believe.....the method for killing them and keeping the head on involves a knife into the back of the beak severing the spine and an old timer told me this is actually more "humane" (sorry about all this graphic description) if it is done "right"........(can you tell we just use our chickens for eggs here..?) The regulation of anything to do with a food process has been targeting a lot of what could be called "artisinal" methods...a knee jerk to mad-cow possibly...but I can't see why the dangerous decisions a huge corporate system using animals as a commodity driven by profit should blanket the creditability of someone milking a few goats for cheese, stuffing a sausage to taste like the "old country", making sushi using un-frozen fish, or butchering a chicken head-on for luck or taste... Oh yea, taste, good taste.....now there's a concept the government could consider.

That is odd......you crush a few and it should fill the place with aroma... Did they have a bit of "give" to them...meaning not hard like a peppercorn... PM me ....we might have to send up a care package

Seared Foie Gras. I've seen a lot of fruit elements on the plate with it the last few years

Chopsticks are optional in restaurants in this area. I was taught about them years ago and there were a few things that were "no-no's"...(like the stabbing, pointing etc)....one that I remember is always resting the chopsticks across the bowl or the rest pointing to the left..anyone know the reasons for this (I was taught by a Buddhist if that is a factor)

Sorry itch......a bit vague on that....juniper berries are the real deal....don't substitute on those....but they are easy to find...I went out and looked today and there are some here...that's how easy....same bush Paul Boehmer used on a venison dish in fact.......spruce tips are another easy to find spring time ingredient (another Boehmer in fact....but he was using Stadtlander's syrop recipe ) Amazing what is out there.....and what can be done with them once picked..

Juniper (there are several types) grow in most of the Northern Hemisphere.. Probably don't have to look much further than a sub-division as the older "foundation plantings" bear berries that are suitable...like spruce tips...check out the white spruce trees in April......in those same suburban lots...

Probably Forbes Wild Foods on the Danforth.......a little goes a long way... Best source is to go out and pick some.....you sure would appreciate why they cost so much........just look for the dark purple-black ones....the green and light blue ones are unripe....they take a couple years to ripen and each bush will have all stages going at once........

Think Little Italy Gordon.........should be there or an Italian grocery for 9-10#/lb.

My wife uses it to make chai latte every morning......cold low fat milk frothed up and then "set" by the microwave for 30 seconds....it stiffens the mixture enough to hold the bubbles.. That is pretty much the only use besides the odd defrosting.. The one at the restaurant is for melting chocolate...although a few months back the sous-chef was making a foam for a tasting menu being assessed by the owners who after seating and plating started decided to wait ...the foam ended up in the microwave and held just fine for the delayed plating....the sous chef said he didn't want to know where I learned that "method"...I didn't tell him...

Short answer would be that agar is a gelantinizing agent using a carb called glose. Longer answer:Agar is a compound in its own right. It is a polysaccharide found in the cell walls of some red algae and is unusual in containing sulfated galactose monomers. It requires nothing but extraction and purification to become agar, but is sometimes chemically modified into agarose for special applications. Agar added to media simply gels them into a convenient solid form. Laminaria has various oddball polysaccharides like laminarin (a storage polysaccharide) and alginic acid (from cell walls). They are chemically different from agar and, to my knowledge, not widely used. Gelatin is not a polysaccharide at all but a mixture of peptides derived from the structural protein collagen. Collagen is the major component of connective tissue, which is why gelatin is derived from animal by-products. As a protein gelatin has considerably different chemical properties from agar. Welcome to the realm of molecular gastronomy.......

Aboriginal Chef David Wolfman

Considering the height of Stadtlander....I would be out of breath keeping up with him....(picture Bilbo Baggins beside an elf......on horseback..!!)

Thanks so much for making very important points slbunge and Darcie B. You both have good understanding of the forces at play ...there is more under the surface as well but it boils down to "voting with what you buy"....global economics are going to kill off agriculture in North America as we know it....it simply costs too much for labor when the same crops can be grown in third world countries that are desperate for any kind of stable economy...the whole mentality of getting cheap food whenever we want , whatever the season, from where-ever is becoming the norm... medium to large producers sell to the corporations and retire...corporations might sell the farmland which is worth a hundred times what the same acreage is in another country...it all comes down to economics and on a global scale just to make it more abstact...(I am like Darcie B.....1/1000 knowledge in the big picture)..... There is hope with small producers growing "alternative" products (the list of alternative is getting larger every year as the world list of core crops shrinks)..and demand for these products will be the factor that will save the traditional small farm IMO........the provenance and pedigree of produce becomes the basis on what is purchased....not just how cheap it is....

That hour of him walking around Eigensinn with the reporter in tow...? Oh yea........a chef enroute somewhere called me at home when he heard it on the car radio.......it was very interesting......I think not only for people immersed in the sustainable food part of the business but just anyone who cares how and where and why they put together either a menu or just a dinner for their family.