Yiannos

Thank you @blue_dolphin, I am flattered, I totally agree on the combination of flavors as I just flipped to that page went OOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH. I should have mentioned that I think the 8oz size is a bit much, it is really decadent with all those eggs and cream sugar etc, and I think it would be better scaled and served as 8 6oz servings as opposed to the 6 8oz portions in the recipe.

Though I feel like I am cooking constantly, I haven't contributed a ton here yet and all of the beautiful (!) dishes in this thread inspired me to give the Blueberry, Buttermilk, and Lime Parfait a go, so I thought I'd share it with you nice people. I was thinking it might make a good 4th of July dessert and some pretty much OK Mexican blueberries on sale made the experiment seem worthwhile. For the blueberry layer the flavor is great, but I believe I didn't quite cook the blueberries down far enough as they didn't quite set fully, I'm thinking due to lack of pectin release but not positive. I imagined it almost like a jelly, but it is more like a very thick syrup, even after setting overnight. The book says nothing about the texture (just calls it a layer) so I guess it is possible it's correct, but either way it tastes good. I also really enjoyed the buttermilk panna cotta layer, only fiddly part was maybe adding the lemon juice towards the end of the step where Ms. Howard says "things will curdle up a bit". They do, just a bit, and I believe my strainer was not quite fine enough so the texture is not 100% smooth like I would have liked, but again great flavor and contrast to the sweet blueberry below. I was most happy with the lime curd, I am not a fan of overly tart/tangy curds and this one has a nice balance of the citrus and sweet. Would make a great filling on it's own I would think. Finally, the buttermilk whipped cream on top, sort of a hint of the panna cotta waiting below, with just a touch of the buttermilk tang found deeper in the dessert. The only deviation I made was the crumble, her recipe suggests her Spiced Pecan and Pumkin Seed, but I used some granola I already had that I got with a bread order from Manresa Bread. Her crumble has some savory notes (fennel, cayenne, Worcestershire), but the Manresa stuff is not overly sweet, with some cinnamon and ginger, so it filled that texture vacuum while complimenting the other ingredients well IMO. Probably use some Mason jars or something if I was going to put it out for actual humans to eat, but the random glasses I found in my cabinets worked fine for this try.

I can chime in here a little, I have used compressed air for year working on old audio equipment etc. The problem I think with an airbrush designed around a can of air vs a dedicated compressor is the consistency of the air pressure. The pressure you get from a new can vs 3/4 vs 1/2 and so on is so different, I would think whatever nozzle you were using would only work well for a very specific volume of canned air. It also seems to vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. If I were just starting out and experimenting with this kind of thing, I'd look at a small compressor from Harbor Freight if you have one nearby. I know they sell small airbrush kits, but to be honest I am unfamiliar with what kind of nozzles and things you might need that are food safe/easy to clean to make it so, so maybe just a small inexpensive compressor on it's own to get you going. To be honest I am not a fan of Harbor Freight, their stuff is the cheapest of the cheap, and any tools I need to last I always spend more on something more durable, but for giving things a try that I don't normally do (i.e. welding, airbrushing like you, basic woodwork etc) I think their cheap stuff gives you an opportunity to dip your toes in the water without spending an arm and a leg.

Not sure about how rice flour and those other starches would do, but anything I fry at home goes into a 175 - 200 degree oven on a cooling rack set into a sheet pan until I am done frying the entire quantity of fries onion rings etc. Everything stays nice and crunchy until I am ready to serve but again not 100% positive about how your particular ingredients would end up.

It's actually an ARM processor, which I believe does allow for USB programming.

I recently had a fellow member's Anova here on my bench for repair, and I was a little surprised to find a USB port tied to the PCB along with the usual headers and things. I can't help but wonder if that will allow some communication with the unit? You can see it in the upper right corner of the pic below. I wasn't too keen on experimenting with someone else's stuff, but maybe someday after that extra glass of wine or something I will crack open my own Anova and see if there is any I/O capability in there. Might just be to allow for firmware revisions or something too...

No I hear you, and I'm not saying I disagree. I'm sure there are loads of great things we are unable to get because of bureaucracy/ignorance/unfounded science, but I think that some, like pasteurization discussed above, are probably the right thing to do in the long run.

Like cigarettes?

So plutonium? Lead in baby formula? Farmed human meat? I think there has to be a middle ground somewhere...

This is brilliant, thanks for the idea!

@weedy man you should have just packed that sucker up and sent it to me for repair .

Then there is more work to be done, I guess.

Where I live, these programs are available at public schools all year long.

There are children out there who, without these programs, would go hungry on a daily basis. So do we just let them starve? Or starve until we can educate people so that this problems goes away (never)? There will always, always be hungry children out there and like it or not these kids are our future. Maybe I'm just a stupid hippie or something but it takes a village...

I would think it is not the motor making that sound, but rather whatever kind of clutch setup they are using to engage/disengage the motor from the transmission. I find it sort of weird that they are saying the motor and it's "magnetics" are what is making the sound, induction motors are inherently silent as you have a core/shaft essentially floating inside a larger coil whose magnetic field induces the rotation of the inner motor shaft.

I can hear my dad now, in his heavy Mediterranean accent, "ah, this is just the Greek disease". OPA!

Ah OK gotcha, just misunderstood what you were saying!

This will tell you nothing assuming the oven is on the 220V side of the breaker box. If 220 was "leaking" into the 120v house wiring @GlorifiedRice would most definitely know.

Some almost too ripe bananas and a few pantry items led to Mary Berry's banana and honey tealoaf:

Oh yes totally agree, and I have no idea how these taste, but looking at them all I can think is "neat!" but I really want to think more "yum!" I guess. All that fine sugar and detail work just looks very dry and crunchy to me, but incredibly creative and artistic nonetheless.

Yeah I see what you are saying, time will tell I guess...

I disagree, looking at the pictures of the old style with the metal rivets, it looks like the rivet material is much harder than the metal used in the blade and the rivets won after years of use and abuse. Having the softer plastic posts helping to secure the blade should prevent that cracking as the plastic will give long before the metal in this new design. You saw the same kind of thing years ago when KitchenAid replaced the metal primary gears in some of their mixers with a fiberglass type of material. The metal gears worked fine until something jammed up during use, in which case the toughness of the gear helped destroyed the other transmission innards. The fiberglass gear is designed to break before the damage is done, is easy to replace on it's own, and in this way acts as a fail-safe protecting the more expensive parts of the machine.

Like most places, there are all kinds of items of really incredible quality coming out of China, along with the duds. And not every product I have purchased that was made here at home has been the best, though I do feel better about keeping the work and money here.

I have no problem with the winning/losing aspect of competitions. My children play sports and understand pretty well that sometimes in life it feels like you spend a lot of time losing in the name of winning. My problem is with letting this all play out on a national (arguably international) stage in the name of keeping a flailing conglomerate like Food Network alive. I was flipping through the channels the other day and there was a kids episode of Beat Bobby Flay on. After the competition was over, three child "judges" came out and gave their critiques of the food. They spoke almost identically to the food critics and restaurateurs they have on these shows every single day, like they had been placed in front of a set and forced to absorb the mannerisms and lingo. Again competition is fine in life, necessary I think sometimes even. But when I see a kid bawl their eyes out on national television, telling the world about how they don't think they will ever be a good cook, followed by a commercial for Sargento cheese and Ritz crackers, I have to wonder who is really winning and who is really losing in all of this... Edit: I guess I should say too that I wasn't responding to you directly above, just to the grumbling about these exploitative shows in general...

I agree about the kids shows, very exploitative if you ask me. So many young tears shed and hopes crushed in the name of advertising and entertainment...