slkinsey

Wait? You're saying you do this in plastic wrap?! Dude, there's no way that builds up any pressure. And yes, I've done that before! I don't care how much string you tie around the package, there is no way any pressure builds up. I mean, how strong do you think the plastic wrap is? Does it not occur to you that any significant internal pressure would easily burst multiple layers of plastic wrap? For that matter, you could wrap the whole package in duct tape, and any significant internal pressure would burst that too. (My apoligies if I am misunderstanding your technique and use of materials.)

That's where one cooks in the steam created by the application of my hot naked body to a mixture of aged spring water and dutch process cocoa. Delicious, if a little sweaty.

I have a hard time believing that any significant pressure is created this way. There is no way that bag isn't going to swell and reduce the pressure. Even if you took the sealed bag, poured concrete around it, allowed the concrete to harden and then raised the whole thing to 135F, I still think the pressure created by the expasion of the duck leg, etc. would be insignificant. You have to try it and see it to believe it. Dude... I've cryovac-ed things and cooked them in a water bath before... and I still don't think it builds up much pressure inside the bag.

Your faucet must be like mine. I'm sure it is. And I am also sure that the steam coming off of our faucet water is not one bit hotter than the water (and within fractions of a second is actually cooler).

I have a hard time believing that any significant pressure is created this way. There is no way that bag isn't going to swell and reduce the pressure. Even if you took the sealed bag, poured concrete around it, allowed the concrete to harden and then raised the whole thing to 135F, I still think the pressure created by the expasion of the duck leg, etc. would be insignificant.

There may be better, more scientific definitions of steam (which I would welcome). Until such time as that definition is offered, this entry from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary may be of some use. According to my reading of this, the visible vapor rising from a hot faucet is, indeed, "steam" -- as is the breath that comes our of your mouth at cold temperatures.

McDowell's definition of "steam" is a very certain kind of definition, and one that does not fit your use. Let me give you another example: I am playing (American) football in Wisconsin in January. It is 4 degrees F outside. When I come to the sideline, I take my helmet off. Steam can be seen rising from my scalp. Are you trying to tell me that the sweat on my head is 212F? That I'm boiling water with my head? Not only that, but I think we can say that the steam rising from my head is demonstrably not hotter than the water on my scalp.

Inventolux, you didn't really address Dave's question, which is: please explain why keeping poultry at 120F for an extended period of time wouldn't tend to grow a lot of bacteria. Also... I'm not sure that I agree with you that "steam is amost always hotter than boiling water." There are many things that can cause water to undergo a phase shift from liquid to gas that do not necesssarily include mean that the water gas will be above the boiling point of water. I think we can agree, for example, that the water mollecules in a 70F room are at 70F and not at 212F. How exactly do you think it would work so that the water inside of a duck leg in a 135F water bath could possibly reach 212F? In fact, I'd be interested to hear an explanation that obeys the laws of physics for how any part of that duck leg could possibly reach any temperature above 135F (assuming that the duck leg was below 135F before being intriduced to the water bath).

AFAIK, Delmonico's is not continuously running, per Holly's question #1 above. My understanding is that it was open from 1834 to 1923, closed for some number of years, and then reopened -- possibly not even in the original location. The new place is a rather pedestrian steak house wanna-be, and not the ultra-fine-dining establishment of the old days. Interestingly, Delminico's at one time issued its own currency. Delminico's is credited with the first examples of Baked Alaska, Chicken a la King, Eggs Benedict, Lobster Newburg, and other famous dishes.

Somehow I think I'd need something larger than a roasting pan if I were going to roll myself in it. Sounds like something to try with the girlfriend, though...

This article has the following to say, which I have never heard before:

Thanks, Sam. The fact that you spent your formative years *in* ice cream & syrup explains a lot. Jeez.. you leave out one comma... On the other hand, maybe you are commenting on my good taste and deliciously cool personality?

During my formative years in New England vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup (or chocolate ice cream and vanilla syrup -- or, if you could get the guy to do it, a little bit of all four) was called a "black & white." A vanilla was vanilla ice cream/vanilla syrup; a chocolate was chocolate ice cream/chocolate syrup. Of course, for those of you who are not from the region with the highest per capita ice cream consumption in America, we're talking about frappes and not milkshakes. Ask for a chocolate milkshake in Boston and you get a glass of whipped chocolate milk.

Then, Mr. Kinsey, it's only because you haven't noticed. We've eaten together countless times, and I always do the switch. See... that must be why it always takes you two times longer to finish than everyone else at the table! You're eating inefficiently. On the other hand, given that you can put away an alarming amount of food and still remain slender, maybe there's something to this hand-switching thing.

Just for another point of reference... I grew up in Boston, have lived or spent significant time in Texas, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Arizona, and now live in NYC. I have never switched my fork from my left to my right hand and furthermore can't think of anyone I know who does. No one ever gave me any crap about it when I was a kid and no one has ever commented on it now that I am an adult. Camp is, of course, supposed to be a character-building experience. So, if you want to guarantee that your kids will be teased in summer camp, you can't really count on the knife and fork thing to do the trick. I suggest getting a permanent marker and writing your children's names on the waistbands of their underwear (it helps if the underwear is from Sears). That really did the trick for me back in the 70s anyway.

Hmmm... Does that mean that my body utilizes spicy Indian food incredibly efficiently? Because it certainly seems to come out completely digested in about 1/10 the normal amount of time...

As promised, relevant excerpts from On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee, pp 282 = 284.

If you read the section on bread, I'm pretty sure you'll find it all there. Keep in mind, however, that the 12 calories/pound/day counts whether or not you do any activity whatsoever. You burn those calories every day, even if you spend the whole day in bed.

Yes I would consider this unhealthy but as long as you burned 2500 calories a day through activity . You would not gain weight. You would be malnurished but not fat. Show me a day (besides hiking in the mountains on snowshoes or a marathon runner) when you burn 2500 calories. The human body burns around 12 calories per pound per day at rest. Take myself, a 200 pound male. 200 pounds X 12 calories/day = 2400 calories burned per day just keeping my bodys metabolism going. Walking around every day burns at least an additional 100 calories. There we have 2500 calories. Maybe for you it does. I burn right around 500 calories in 1/2 an hour on the stairmaster. When you weigh more, you burn more calories doing the same task. I don't have the book in front of me, as per the above post. Will provide page number in ~2 hours, if someone doesn't beat me to the punch We're not talking about colon health or diabetes... we're talking about nutrition and weight gain. There may be many good reasons to eat whole wheat bread (it's delicious, for one) and some of them may be health-related in certain circumstances. However, it seems clear that white bread is more nutritional and if I were in a situation where I had to rely on bread as my main source of nutrition, I would definitely choose white bread. That said, and as I pointed out earlier, none of us are exactly in a position where we are in danger of not getting enough nutrition -- quite the opposite, in fact.

Seriously? What nutrients are in white bread and not in whole wheat bread? And could you please elaborate on the instances of malnutrition due to a changeover from white bread to whole wheat bread? Times and places would be most welcome. Not every nutrient that is present in a given food is capable of being utilized by the human body. For instance, the oxalic acid in raw spinach binds up the iron so that we are not able to absorb it. As it so happens, some of the nutrients in whole wheat flour complex with the indigestible carbohydrates from the bran and pass through the system without being absorbed. There have been epidemics in Dublin, Egypt, and Iran which have been tied to nutritional deficiencies brought about by a switch from white bread to brown bread. My source for the above was McGee's "On Food and Cooking." I don't have my copy with me at work, but I can give you the page numbers later on if you like.

No. This is a common mistake, but you are absolutely and completely wrong on this. I know some people with letters after their name that disagree with you. I know some people with letters after their name who agree with me. So? What does "bioavailability" mean? Bioavailability refers to the extent to which the calories or other nutrients in the food are available for digestion.

Do you also think a pound of lead weighs more than a pound of feathers? Let me paraphrase myself: If you eat a spoon of lard that contains 500 calories and a bowl of kale containing 500 calories, how many of those calories will actually be digested? Some of this is dependent on idiosyncratic physiological differences between individuals, the extent that the food is chewed, and other factors. I know that if I swallow 500 calories of corn without chewing, tomorrow's potty will serve as evidence that I didn't digest/absorb many of those. Any meaningful comparison of the relative caloric composition of kale and lard would have to take into account the bioavialability of the calories in those two different foods. Thus, your point is moot. For the purposes of this fork of the discussion, 500 calories digested is 500 calories digested. I think we all understand that you have to eat a lot more kale to get 500 calories than you do lard.

Certainly it does have meaning. It is a fact that you will gain one pound of fat if, over a certain period of time, you consume 3,500 more calories than you burn. What else could possibly have more meaning than that. Anyone who tells you that you can consume excess calories of certain "special" foods without gaining weight is lying and probably trying to sell you something. Take a look at this page and this page for a good explanation of how these things work. No. This is a common mistake, but you are absolutely and completely wrong on this. If you burn 2,000 calories a day and cosume 2,500 calories of broccoli a day, you will gain one pound of fat for every week you continue this behavior. If you burn 2,000 calories a day and consume 2,500 calories of bacon a day, you will also gain one pound of fat for every week you continue that behavior. Of course, eating the bacon calories may have other adverse health effects if you eat enough of it, but it will not behave any differently than the broccoli calories in terms of weight gain. What makes broccoli supposedly more "good for you" than bacon in terms of weight gain is that you have to eat a shitload more broccoli to reach 2,500 calories than you do bacon -- bacon has a much higher density of calories. Since less calorie-dense foods take up much more room in your stomach on a per-calorie basis, it makes it much more difficult to consume excess calories from eating these foods.

So, what you're saying is that the body will burn 2,000 calories from kale faster than 2,000 calories from refined white sugar? Totally untrue.

And in absolute terms vis-a-vis weight loss/gain, completely untrue.