Bill Klapp

They blew right past their funding target, and are now offering a 220/240V version, with only $20 delivery outside of the U.S. I signed up for that in a heartbeat. I understand that there are never any guarantees with Kickstarter, but Scott's connection to Modernist Cuisine gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling about this one. Also, I like it that the machine has no bells and whistles like a fancy timer, etc. Their philosophy of doing one thing right and uncomplicating seems right for this technology to me...

If true, I probably need to book a trip to Bangladesh, as I clearly prefer Bangladeshi Indian to Pakistani Indian!

I have had great and mediocre, but in both cases, it could never really justify the price versus other luxury foodstuffs, and while you might say that I am the product of historical bias, the stuff is not beef to me, in taste or in texture, as some have suggested above. Given the apparent worldwide tendency away from red meat (at least eaten in the huge quantities that a majority of Americans once did), I am no longer sure what the point is. Give me carne cruda (hand-chopped raw veal) covered with white truffles, world-class smoked salmon, oysters, clams, scampi or possibly even caviar...with change back, vis a vis waygu. If I want to eat fat instead of protein, let it be the perfumed pork fat known as lardo, raw pancetta or that beautiful half-inch ribbon of pure white fat encasing a great prosciutto. And as for beef, a few times a year I can treat myself to a nice prime, aged steak or roast from Flannery's, Lobel's or one of the other high-end purveyors...

Great to hear that the process is being managed responsibly. And that the farms are apparently producing such a high quality...

I have to admit that I'm another who is confused by this sort of generalization. I've had a lot of Indian curries, and although some have been murky/harshly-seasoned, with a dog's-breakfast sort of texture and appearance, others were cleanly, beautifully rendered, with a luscious texture and seamless, velvety seasoning. The basic seasoning palette was recognizably similar at both ends of this spectrum, so the handling of the ingredients is obviously key (along with personal feelings about them; if you don't like X, any detectable presence of it is going to be disliked). I once had a boss who was from Northern india, and his contention was that (at least in NYC) the majority of of Indian restaurants served a lot of Northern Indian dishes, but were staffed by poorly paid workers from Southern India, who did not have a good feel for what they were cooking, and were too underpaid to care, anyway, the result being what my boss described as '...disgusting food, don't eat it'. I have often heard something that could be true in some cases, perhaps urban myth in others, which is that much of the "Indian" food found in run-of-the-mill U.S. Indian restaurants is actually Pakistani, because the Pakistanis are prolific restauranteurs in the States. And I ate my share of Indian in America that was surely tailored to the American palate, as many foreign cuisines are. On the other hand, I will travel from Italy to London just to go to the great curry houses. Maybe the problem is simply worldwide inconsistency of quality with curries...

In northern Italy, we are seeing increasing amounts of fresh fresh fish and seafood from Ecuador. In particular, high-end importers bring in shrimp that are cooked on the boat in Ecuador in sea water, vacuum-sealed and shipped refrigerated, but never frozen, to Europe. The quality is quite remarkable, and much of the time, they are virtually indistinguishable from fresh shrimp that you cook yourself, especially when used in dishes. They are also not overcooked, so that they will stand further brief cooking in stir-fries and Chinese, Thai, Indian and other dishes. We also see fresh raw scampi and langoustines from Ecuador and sometimes Peru. When I consider the quantities involved, I have to wonder whether this is sustainable fishing and/or farming, or whether two poor countries are mortgaging their futures so that the first world can eat well when its favorite fruits de mer are out of season...

Perhaps we need some ground rules here. It is OK to post your unfortunate booze memories, but not your cheap motel memories. Unless, of course, the two are part of the same memory. So often the case for so many people, I suppose!I am with Tri2Cook on getting to the bottom of the curry hatred. I hear Annabelle on the muddied flavors argument, and I also get the cheap motel lobby smell. As a curry lover, I can tell you that, with a really well-made curry, I can detect and enjoy many, if not all, of the flavors involved, but the smell is what it is, and either you like it or you don't. Also, I think that the dishes that lay on the curry with a heavy hand far outweigh the ladies' bridge club curried chicken salad of the 1950s, which did not smell of curry at all, either because the curry powder had been sitting on the shelf in the A &P or Kroger for 3 years, or else there was only 1/4 tsp. of curry powder in the salad. I suspect that the smell could be at the root of all curry evil, even more than the taste. What say the assembled crowd?

It could be that the "Unfortunate Booze Memories" may already exist under other titles in some of the barkeep-driven threads. You know, like when somebody threw a shot of Cynar in a drink with 43 other ingredients without knowing what Cynar tastes like...

And while not apparently anyone's complaint here, there is also the time when you were a child, ate something, became violently ill (which may or may not have been the food's fault) and have never eaten it since, due to the power of the negative memory. Don't almost all of us harbor at least one of those?

There has to be an aversion to the word going on. I'm not trying to convince you to like curries but there are so many different curries that have so many different flavor profiles and textures from different parts of the world that there is no possible way they could be lumped into one dislike category. You're absolutely right. What I should have said is that though I've had many, many curries, I've never had one I liked. By now, I just "pass" on curry. There's an undercurrent I can't place that I just don't like. I could add: cilantro. I tried & tried to learn to eat cilantro, and then finally heard about that gene that makes one either love or hate cilantro. Whether that's true or not, it relieved my guilt about hating cilantro. ;o) I could believe the gene thing with cilantro. I have a few friends who love Mexican food and cannot abide even a touch of cilantro, which makes great guacamole and great authentic tacos a bit difficult for them. I have had more than a few people experience something similar with white truffles, maybe not so surprising when you consider the role that chemistry plays in the white truffle's flavor and aroma.

That is where I come out, too. Specific ingredients whose flavors and/or textures I simply do not like, in any incarnation. I love scrambled, fried and poached eggs, hate hard-boiled eggs (except chopped up and used as a condiment to add richness). Love calves' liver and chicken liver, hate rabbit liver (the flavor being far too intense). That sort of thing. The beauty of ingredient-based dislikes are that the ingredients are easy to avoid in most contexts...

There has to be an aversion to the word going on. I'm not trying to convince you to like curries but there are so many different curries that have so many different flavor profiles and textures from different parts of the world that there is no possible way they could be lumped into one dislike category. Indeed. I am not here to convince anybody, either, but surely there are hundreds of Thai curries, or Thai dishes with a dollop of curry paste added primarily as a seasoning, that a majority of people familiar with the flavor of typical curry powder would not even recognize as curry. I can, however, understand an aversion to the taste and smell of common grocery-store curry powder and foods laced with it...

Servers, usually reciting from a management-prepared (and programmed) text, who assume that I know nothing about food and begin to explain to me, without me having asked, what chicken cordon bleu or some such dish is. Also, I am not big on knowing my server's life story or opinions unless I start that dialogue. And yes, the compulsory overfilling of wine glasses in an attempt to move more product, and the premature wisking away of plates without asking first, both noted above, are incredibly annoying. (There is the idea that when one diner finishes earlier than the others that he or she might prefer to have his or her place setting cleared, but it should not ever be done without asking.) I do not automatically blame the server for the late check. In watching closely, I have found that it is often mismanagement rather than the individual, when servers are required to cover too much territory. I find all of these problems to be dominantly American, in part due to chain restaurants using low-paid, transient help with no commitment to the enterprise or otherwise due to poor training and supervision. In Europe and elsewhere, especially in smaller restaurants, you are often being served by family members who have a long-term economic stake in the enterprise. Also, it is possible to make a good living as a professional server in many cases, which can kick up the quality of the service dramatically. Although a dying breed I fear, career servers in high-end restaurants in America generally offer an comparably high level of service.

Even all gussied up in a sandwich? If you put enough salad and sauce on falafel, there is nothing but crunch left!

The pulled pork idea is a winner, but I think less is more. Rather than a sweet sauce with a tomato base, think eastern NC vinegar-and-pepper sauce and how it enhances the flavor of the pork. Fish sauce does the same. The classic pork larb (or laab) has shallots as a dominant ingredient, and while that obviously works well with pork and chicken, in the spirit of BBQ, I might omit the shallots and check a few larb recipes to come up with an interesting sauce. Fish sauce and dried Thai chilies is a strong start. Maybe a little palm or coconut vinegar. I would soft-pedal sugar for this purpose as well.

No. Whatever PD gets is of her own doing. It's all about what she's said or didn't say. If her employees or former employees speak out about how good or bad she is, I'm not going to get all pissed. It's expected, isn't it? She doesn't need to shutter her restaurants. We'll see if people continue to come. I think that they will. I think that they already did after the first go-round on this. There were photos of seemingly endless lines outside of her Savannah restaurant...

agree. Growing up in NJ spoils you for bread, and things made with bread (pizza). Yep. Ate it the last time in 1968, and never found anything truly comparable until 2008, when I discovered a panetteria in Alba, Italy that makes a loaf they call "monaca" that is indistinguishable from classic Jersey Italian bread. Ironic, but it was the first time that I had eaten what I grew up knowing as "Italian bread" in Italy. I talked them into making me hoagie rolls out of the dough. Speaking of which, what about the stuff that inhabits that bread? Sausage, meatballs, hoagie fixings, cheesesteaks, pizza steaks. All of that just "meat" without the bread...

Stop in Recco for the famous foccaccia col formaggio at Manuelina or Da Vittorio. It is not really foccaccia, but it is really delicious!

Silver Queen corn off the cob, a little chicken or seafood stock, a little heavy cream, pinches of salt, white pepper, cayenne pepper and/ or sugar, as you like, and jumbo lump blue crab. The end. Make clam chowder with the potatoes. Second choice, substitute milk for the stock, drop the crabmeat and substitute julienned fresh basil. Despite the dairy, rich but light in both cases. Best not to overthink this one...

This thread seems to balance things nicely. I agree with whoever observed that it is often about the personality, and not at all about dietary choices. I have known more than a few vegans who were neurotic and desperately seeking attention, and using a dietary trend to further both, rather than for any legitimate philosophical purpose. Conversely, several of my former law partners and their families quietly opted to move from vegitarianism to veganism with no fanfare and always with sensitivity to those who o not share their dietary choices. That said, I will not abide, as friends or otherwise, those who are intent upon arrogant and obnoxious pressing of their food agendas., and that includes a goodly handful of celebrity chefs who know better than the diners who made them celebrities in the first place. (They all need to be sent to one of Alain Ducasse's temples of fine dining to be shown how culinary genius is supposed to comport itself in polite society, rather than being allowed to penalize their clientele several courses if they get stuck in traffic. It is DINNER, people, not theatre or opera...)

I think this is more likely, rotuts. Paula Deen has outlived her useful life on Food Networkand they have used the deposition to not renew her contract. Her husband is wealthy in his own right. They won't go barefoot. Herein lies the truth. This has nothing to do with racism, let alone outdated remarks, not even certain to evidence racist intent even if politically incorrect, much milder than those any number of U.S. politicians and international celebrities have uttered. (Anybody remember Jesse Jackson calling New York City "Hymietown"? Or how many blantantly racist strikes the Nixon-Ford Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz got before being canned?) This is about cynical, amoral, what-have-you-done-for-me-lately capitalism. If we could look behind the curtain, we would no doubt find that the PD brand does not sell like it used to. She has type II diabetes from eating the garbage that she pimps. Her constituency is Walmart shoppers in the rural South. Her aw-shucks act has no doubt worn off with the rest of the country, and she never had rational, healthy eaters among her audience. Food Network dumped her in favor of its next new thing (and let's hope that it is not named Batali or Fieri!). Walmart and other sponsors are dumping her. Walmart is guilty of sexism, racism and God knows what other high crimes and misdemeanors, on an international level. It has no room to cast stones at anyone, except maybe Enron. And yet, corporate America, who should have done its due diligence on Ms. Deen's non-PC past before hiring her, is now seizing on the opportunity to ditch a used-up commodity with no economic upside for them. And here we thought that only NFL owners did that kind of thing! Who knows, could be a mistake. Look at convicted felon and jailbird Martha Stewart!

I am with you, rotuts. Paula Deen is not even close to the worst racists that you will find in Savannah or Boston. She is merely highly visible, that's all. And, as noted above, clueless. She is a Southern charmer, but not a bright person. Her boys are great-looking and personable, but I do not see either of them in line for the presidency of Harvard, either. No excuses, but in the history of racism in America, this woman could not even register a footnote...

The polarization above surprises me a little, too. To be sure, great bread can sometimes rise to art, and to learn to bake even a basic loaf requires the acquisition of new skills by those who have never done it before. That said, bread is a role player, not the star, and can easily become the subject of fetishism among passionate foodies. South Jersey hoagie rolls and New Orleans French bread hardly qualify as great bread (the famous New York Times quick bread recipe yields something far more sophisticated and interesting), but the hoagie and the po boy would not be worth eating without them. That is what I mean by bread as a role player, a pleasure-giving part of every fine meal, but never the meal itself. BAKING, on the other hand, seems to me something far broader and a true art form, with bread baking merely a rich and rewarding subset. I have most of the books mentioned above, used to greater or lesser extent, and I can understand why purists might favor some of the more involved and esoteric books over those of Reinhart. However, while I love good bread more than any other foodstuff, bread only gets so good, and unless your only friends are the greatest bread bakers on earth, Reinhart will not disappoint. You can quibble with his techniques, but rarely with his results. As an aside, his sticky buns and cinnamon rolls are as good as can be made by anybody...

Think about that first croissant that you had, maybe on your honeymoon in Paris, with the butter from Brittany or Normandy and the exceptional strawberry preserves. Then think about the first truly great, freshly made doughnut that you ate (the now defunct Spudnut, if you were lucky, or maybe your mom's or grandmom's, right out of the grease and dumped into a paper bag full of sugar or powdered sugar and shaken gently). And then understand that, without even tasting one of these cronuts (and not denying that it could be quite tasty), it has no chance of equalling or exceeding either of the other two experiences, not for $5 and sure as hell not for $20, $30 or $40! Sometimes you just gotta draw the line in the sand. Innovation has its limits...

For fans, find a copy of Marcella's autobiography, "Amarcord: Marcella Remembers". It explains many things, including how she became so dictatorial about certain foods and preparations. I love her style. For example, "black truffles are something to be eaten ONLY when white truffles are not in season" seems to me to be one of the greatest food truths of all time! For those who aren't fans, what are you using for authentic Italian recipes, the Silver Spoon encyclopedia (the Italian equivalent of Joy of Cooking, not the cookbook from the New York food shop)? Surely not the phony foolishness that the likes of Troppo Mario are serving up...