rustwood

Thanks. I went back to the sale and picked up Eric Ripert's On the Line. I am not sure how much of it I will read, but it will certainly be well worth $1. First I really want to finish Peter Kaminsky''s Pig Perfect before I dig into Meathooked. Host's note: the next installation of this topic may be found here: Yard Sale, Thrift Store, Junk Heap Shopping (Part 3).

Good scores at a community book sale this morning... Keller's French Laundry & Ad Hoc at Home plus McGee's Keys to Good Cooking - all for $1 each! The one I am most excited about is Meathooked: The History and Science of Our 2.5-Million-Year Obsession with Meat by Marta Zaraska. I was surprised to see it was published just this year. I am really looking forward to reading it. I may have to go back to the sale tomorrow just to be sure I didn't miss anything.

I am not sure if this is on topic, but I have been enjoying frozen gin and tonics this summer. The only tonic syrup I could locate was Jack Rudy. I also use the orange bitters, although I am not sure they aren't completely lost in the lime juice.

Good ideas from both larryroohr and Shelby - Thanks! I do not have a steam oven, but I could try putting them in the steamer for a while - if necessary after I freeze them with the skins on. I am sure come March or so I will be willing to put in more effort. For now I can just enjoy the bounty. I probably will use some the blender too since I have a couple of sauce and dressing recipes I will be blending anyway.

I am hoping someone here can help me decide what to do with some of the hatch chiles I bought. About 30% of them are kind of leathery, thin-fleshed, and have skin that is very difficult to remove. Part of the problem might have been the roasting. I had pre-ordered them and, unfortunately, they were already roasted, sealed and packed into a box from Young Guns Produce when I picked them up. I could only remove the skin from about half of the ones in the first container because they weren't roasted very well. There was almost no char at all. I took them back and the manager explained that they had complaints from people who said they were burned so they are careful not to roast them too much. I ended up having them roast them all again and that helped a lot, but it was less than ideal. It also seems like I got 2 different types of peppers: The one on the right is a little riper than usual, but generally the ones I expected and the ones that peeled without issue were similar to it - bigger, a lighter shade of green and with meatier flesh. I'm not sure what to do with the other ones. I guess I could try to roast them again and see if that makes any difference, although some of them ended up being fairly well charred and the skins still didn't want to come off. I tried eating some with the skin on and that might be OK (although not ideal). Any thoughts? FYI, here all all 25 lbs of the peppers: The container on the right is 2 quarts (with stems and seeds) so I am guessing there will be around 4 quarts or so in total (~10 lbs of fairly wet peppers).

Maybe this has been too long of a day for me, but I don't follow. Your previous post clearly wasn't implying that there is a problem with using mayo instead of miracle whip, but rather that a proper hoagie should be made with oil (certainly an Italian hoagie). Don't even get me started on the fact that for some reason people in every other region seem to think a Philly cheese steak is made with bell peppers. Also, isn't "Philly" cheese steak redundant? Is there any other kind?

White House subs gets a lot of mentions, but if I had the chance my first stop would be Pancho's: "Pancho’s Taqueria is the best Mexican food on the East Coast"

Last year I made pomme puree for the first time. The recipe was in grams and until I was actually making it I didn't realize that it called for a pound of butter. It was for a big holiday meal with guest so I really hesitated to deviate, but I ended up using about half as much. It came out OK, but not great. Afterwards I was trying to figure out where I went wrong and found this quote in a post here about the recipe: "..the amount of butter Robuchon uses is up to half the weight of the potatoes. No, I'm not kidding. Obviously you'll use less (everone does)." I am sure it isn't nearly as funny if you haven't found yourself in that exact position, but it was priceless for me. I laughed out loud. After reading that, I decided my mediocre result probably didn't have anything to do with the reduced amount of butter (plus it tasted very buttery).

FWIW, it seems like our local roasting dates are running about a week behind. Also, we have a small chain of grocery stores call the Fresh Market which is also doing hatch chile roasts far from New Mexico this year. I pre-ordered a 25lb box for $35. They aren't on Melissa's list so I guess that isn't the only game in town. I tried to find out if they were associated with another roasting outfit and failed, but I did find this resource for roast locations: http://www.ihatchchile.com/in/

I succumbed to the Joule "while supplies last hype". I guess in a month there will be a lot of used Anova's for sale so I'll probably just keep it. It will be interesting to see if Anova drops their price at all.

My Anova has served me well and I have no real need for a second immersion cooker, but I am very tempted to get a Joule at this price.

Thanks for posting this. I think this alone may have been sufficient to justify my new Blendtec. They are almost too good in this hot weather.

You might be interested in comparing your results with this article - http://www.cocktailians.com/2012/08/tonic-water-shootout-part-2-the-results.html I can't find it now, but I saw another article where they did a bunch of pairings between high and low end gins and tonic waters. The overall consensus seemed to be to either go with a high end gin and cheap tonic water or the reverse. Using both was apparently too much of a good thing. I've been going with the high end tonic water route, but I am thinking it might be cheaper and easier to do the reverse. FWIW, I am also using Bittermens Hopped Grapefruit bitters - because I have them. I think they are probably sufficient to "dress up" garden variety tonic water.

This Anova discount code still seems to be good: anova-tbca6bce Sorry, it has apparently expired already. I know at least one person was able to use it today. Perhaps the codes are only good for one use each - either that or other people already jumped on it this morning.

Look here: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://modernistcuisine.com/docs/*

Correction: I just put something in on convection and realized that my fan is fairly noisy and not even in a steady way. Before I turned it on I noticed the over really doesn't hum noticeably. I must have been thinking about my old toaster over. Mea culpa.

Thanks for the input on the ramps. I ended up just sort of figuring it out as I went along based on how intact the clump was, how big the bulbs were and how the greens looked. I got some of them planted this evening, but the remainder will have to wait until at least tomorrow morning. I definitely have a new found appreciation for the additional cost charged for fully cleaned ramps. It isn't difficult, but it does take a while to get through a pound of them.

Are you going to cut the bulbs and just plant the roots or are you planting the whole thing? I just got a box of them yesterday and have saved the roots to plant, but there are some big clumps with all of the roots entangled and still covered with soil. I am debating whether I should just plant them as they are or try to separate them to some extent. Also whether or not to at least eat the leaves. They weren't cheap so I'll be doubly bummed if I plant them whole and they don't come up again.

Agreed. I think pork prices are way off of the highs they hit a while back (2 years ago?). I just paid $1.39 lb at my local Wegman's for a bone in boston butt and that was their current regular price. A day later I was at Costco and saw that they are still charging $1.99 lb for a package of two huge butts. I asked a buddy and he has also been paying less than $1.50 lb for butts.

Recognizing that this may not be an option for Franci right now, I recommend the Blackstone for anyone else who might be considering it. After years of trying other methods, it worked so well for me that for the first month or two I got a little giddy whenever I used it. I am still working on how to get the very best results with various doughs/recipes, but it doesn't take long to learn how to turn out pizzas that are much better than what you can typically make in an oven or grill.

I should add that except for very long cooks, I generally use ziplock freezer bags. Like Kayb said, it is just easier not to have to pull out the foodsaver. I don't actually know that ziplocks wouldn't work for a long cook, but for a big 72 hour brisket I am not going to take the chance. In any case, I generally keep the zipped end out of the water, but that isn't hard to do. I use big binder clips to hold the bags to the side of the bath.

There are many others here with far more experience, but I just did a 72 hour brisket cook with circulator and I was amazed by how little evaporation there was. It was a full packer brisket in a cooler and although I covered it with plastic wrap, it definitely wasn't air tight. If evaporation is any concern at all, I think it is far outweighed by the portability and flexibility of an immersion circulator. As for vacuum machines, I just have a food saver and it works well enough for me. I do occasionally wish I had one that can deal with liquid, but not enough to give up the space and money for a chamber style unit.

A while back I watched a different star bread video and was delighted with how my first try came out. It wasn't up to par with Patrick's beautiful work, but it was pretty darn good for a first try. Everyone was so impressed by it - even though it was actually far easier to make than it looked (to me at least). The second time I made it I got cocky and rushed through it. It definitely wasn't as nice looking to my eye, but it seemed to wow my guests just as much as the first one had. Of course it doesn't hurt that it is a very tasty recipe (cheese and herb star bread from Food52). I wish I had a whole menu of recipes like that one - tasty dishes that look impressive but aren't actually all that difficult to make.

I had this at a party recently and it was delicious. I am not a whiskey drinker but I will be keeping an eye out for this one and will happily shell out for it if I get the chance.

After I made them I found this quote in another thread and laughed out loud: "..the amount of butter Robuchon uses is up to half the weight of the potatoes. No, I'm not kidding. Obviously you'll use less (everyone does)." I don't think anyone can fully appreciate that unless they have made the recipe and struggled with the prospect of using so much butter.