slkinsey

I just wanted to step in here and flog for one of my pet peeves. Most people totally misuse the word "nutritious." Something that is nutritious is full of nutrients, it is something that furnishes or sustains with nutriment. Calories would qualify as a nutrient. In other words, fat is very nutritious since it is full of calories and other good things our bodies need to run. Most foods that people say are "nutritious" are actually not particularly nutritious. A perfect example is raw vegetables. They do not provide many calories and many of the vitamins and minerals are made unavailable to us by the plants' natural defenses. Another example is wheat bread versus white bread. Everyone knows that wheat bread is more nutritious, right? Wrong. There are actual documented cases where cultures which subsisted mainly on bread developed widespread diseases of nutritional deficiency due to a switch from white to wheat bread. In most "first world" countries, getting enough nutrition really isn't the issue. Our problem is that we get too much nutrition. And the body has this neat thing that it does when it finds itself with an excess of nutrition... it stores the extra nutrition against a rainy day in an efficient biological battery called fat. Really what most people are saying is "healthy" foods, not necessarily "nutritious" foods. For most of us, healthy foods are precisely those which are not particularly nutritious, since this helps us avoid the health problems that come along with the chronic overconsumption of nutrients.

You're right. The reason that there is no difference between "ristretto" and "a short shot" in Italy is that they are the same thing! Ristretto is the past participle of restringere, which means "to reduce; to make smaller." Therefore, un caffè ristretto is nothing more than "a (regular) coffee that has been made smaller." Functionally, this is saying the same thing as "give me a little less than the usual amount" or, if you like, "run me a short shot." With all due respect to the CoffeeGeekers, the idea that a ristretto shot requires an adjustment of the grinder and is somehow fundamentally different from simply stopping the machine at 3/4 ounce instead of 1 ounce is patently ridiculous. Hello? We're talking about something they do in Italy. What they do not do in Italy, in my experience, is grind their coffee on a per-shot basis or make grinder adjustments when someone requests caffè ristretto. That said, I do tend to agree that people in America who specify "ristretto" most often do so to avoid getting the typical caffè lungissimo that most places seem to serve over here. That said, I have found that the places likely to serve you something like this will only get confused if you say "ristretto " to them, not having any idea what that word means. In those cases, one is more likely to get something approaching the desired effect by saying "only fill my espresso cup 1/3 of the way when you run my shot."

Sounds like fun... and of course you get to eat the results! What's not to like? If you can get me some measurements, I could probably get some of my science geek friends to figure out the thermal capacity of the two pans for comparison and also offer some advice on how one might do a fair comparison of the two in use. For example, you would have to decide whether or not to leave the two empty pans on the heat for the same amount of time (which might favor the copper pan) or until they came up to the same temperature (which would make the experiment a lot harder to conduct). Question... do you know how thick your Mauviel is? There are three different copper lines at something like 2.5 mm, 2.0 mm and 1.6 mm in thickness.

It is a common misunderstanding that meat products are full of extra hormones. First of all, hormones are only allowed to be used on beef and lamb. This is why the USDA does not allow the use of the term “no hormones added” on labels of pork or poultry products. Second, AFAIK, all farmed animals must be taken off any antibiotics or hormones prior to slaughter for a period sufficiently long to cause any residues to fall below federally-mandated levels. As to milk... I really don't know much about that. I do know, however, that there are a lot of screwy things having to do with milk in this country (like the federal milk pricing system that sets federal price subsidies based on distance from Eau Claire, Wisconsin).

I put my pans on the stove full blast before I even start my mise en place! No, seriously, I just don't use Calphalon for that application. That's what super-heavy vintage Griswold cast-iron is for. Yea... See, I probably warped most of my Calphalon stuff back when I didn't have a lot of other options. That said, I have issues with cookware I can't crank up all the way unless it is an occasional-use pan with special properties (e.g., nonstick) or would never really be used that way (e.g., enameled cast iron French oven). For me, something like a fry pan or a skillet needs to be able to go all the way up. Why would you want a saute pan you couldn't preheat this way? I get your point about the cast iron, although as discussed in other threads I have found that heavy copper seems to be able to soak up more heat than the cast iron that I have experienced. Of course, YMMV if your cast iron is thicker than mine. I have all my grandmother's and great-grandmothers' cast iron, which must be around 75-100 years old at this point. It's all Griswold and Wagner. Maybe Griswold made other designs, but mine don't seem all that heavy to me and experience has shown that they don't have the same thermal capacity as my copper pieces. I am also a little reluctant to subject these pans to too terribly much high heat when empty, as that would tend to burn off or otherwise damage 4 generations of seasoning. If someone made a cast iron skillet that was 5 mm or 7 mm thick... I'd totally get it. That would be a piece to leave on the stove for ten minutes at full blast. Anyway, and more related to our discussion on a different thread... I'd be interested to hear what your experiences would be if the next time you wanted to sear a steak or something you massively preheated your copper skillet instead of doing the same with your cast iron.

Interesting... I guess my main obsession is that I must make everything from scratch. I really don't like using any premade food products at all, with the exception of condiments and specialty items like kimchi. This doesn't mean that I won't go to a bakery and buy bread or cookies... just that I won't buy premade frozen bread dough or a tube of cookie dough. I don't look down on these things or people who use them, I just can't use them myself. It's interesting that you bring up spaghetti sauce. I'd guess that I haven't eaten a jarred tomato sauce in almost 20 years -- except once, at the home of some friends who were living in Indiana at the time. It was one of the most horrible things I can remember eating in years, and they were using one of the "high class" mass-produced brands.

Do you ever let it sit empty on a full flame for a few minutes to get really hot before you throw something in?

I would guess that you're talking about the Percy Schmeiser case. His canola fields were contaminated with Monsanto's Round-Up Ready canola and he was forced to pay a licensing fee to Monsanto when he reused seed the next year and began growing what was pretty close to 100% Round-Up Ready canola. Schmeiser's claim is that he is being forced to pay for something that he didn't do on purpose, because he didn't try to get his crops contaminated. This does indeed seem a reasonable assertion on its face, but it gets more complicated once you do some digging. It is worthy of note, for instance, that the Canadian court found that Schmeiser had deliberately selected for and multiplied Monsanto's GM seed (see paragraphs 39, 40, 102, 103, 104, 119, and 125 of the decision). This is a different story. As far as I can tell, he did indeed try to rip off Monsanto and is now trying to make it political. rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone) is given to milk cows to make them produce more milk. According to the FDA, neither BGH nor rBGH has any biological effect in humans. It is not clear to me whether any rBGH finds its way into the milk, although there have been some findings that milk from rBGH-treated cows is higher in certain hormones that are created as a result of the rBGH. Cows that are given rBGH develp udder infections and other such things at a higher rate and that this means that these cows must be given more antibiotics and the like. Again, whether or not these antibiotics are present in the milk is not clear to me, but the negative effect of (over) using antibiotics in food animals seems very clear (i.e., drug-resistant bacteria, etc.). Yes, I'd say you are OK with organic milk. The companies that sell organic products would lose their markets if they used rBGH. As for a "mass-marketed, available-to-everyone milk" -- that's harder to say. Can one even get organic milk in the middle of North Dakota? Anyway, forgetting the health issues and looking just at the taste, it is quite clear to me that there is a huge difference between rBGH industrial milk and the real thing. Ronnybrook Farms' milk and supermarket milk are so different from one another that one can hardly call them the same kind of food.

Yea. You're probably right. A little too much sesame oil can sometimes impart a kind of off-flavor. Also, maybe the sesame oil had turned a little?

I enjoyed the article. As chance would have it yuk gae jang is my favorite Korean soup (along with kalbi tang, which is probably its polar opposite). It sure is spicy, though. Most times I have had kimchi chigae, it has come to the table at a rolling boil with an alcohol burner underneath it, which makes it a little difficult to eat. One thing I've noticed about most Korean places around NYC is that they seem to take "piping hot" very seriously -- we used to joke that they ran everything through a blast furnace before taking it to the table. Here is another interesting page on kimchi chigae. Also... although I know the names of the dishes I like, I am sometimes confused as to what some of the terms actually mean. I searched for a glossary of Korean food words, and found this and this,which may be of some usefulness to others. Monica, how would you describe the aftertaste? And what about it was "uncharacteristic?? Are you saying that it is not an aftertaste that you have sensed other times you have had Korean food?

I guess I tend to think this way, with some limitations, and this is why: 1. Anodized aluminum is, IMO, a crappy cooking surface. I don't like the dark color and, unless one keeps it scrupulously clean, it quickly becomes sticky. 2. Every single Calphalon piece I have used that has a large cooking surface (i.e., fry pans, saute pans, roasting pans) has eventually warped from high heat cooking. Due to the above, I will never buy another piece of Calphalon. All-Clad has neither of these problems. Now... this is comparing "regular" Calphalon to "regular" All-Clad. When you start getting into some of the other Calphalon designs -- specifically those with an interior lining of stainless steel -- the cookware starts to become more or less equal. Of course, the prices start to become equal as well. My one exception has to do with the nonstick lines. Calphalon Commercial nonstick reportedly has a great surface (certainly equal or similar to All-Clad's) and nonstick cookware is not used at temperatures that would cause the pans to warp.

Barbeque spaghetti doesn't sound all that weird to me. If it was pulled pork, it would be fairly close to what I might call a smoked pork ragu. What does seem weird to me would be using barbeque sauce as lubrication for the sauce. None of the sweet, spicy, vinegarey or mustardey sauces strike me as anything I'd want to have with pasta. On the other hand, pulled smoked pork, herbs, garlic, tomato, chili flakes and evoo tossed with some penne sounds pretty good to me. Pulled smoked pork with garlic, chili pepper, mustard greens and orecchiette would be way tasty too... The pasta attached to the picture is criminally oversauced (and is apparently criminally overcooked as well) but that's another topic entirely...

The Mushroom Man!

Then I definitely support the double-o spelling! I can't stand that mushroom council with all its mushroom politics! Isn't that just like them! Well I, for one, am sick and tired being hassled by the Establishment about what I call my mushrooms!

Just to be nit-picky... it's Limonata with a "t" not Limonada with a "d." Anyway... It's great stuff. Fairway always has Limonata and Aranciata. Better yet, IMO is Chinotto (also called Chino), which has a flavor I can't quite describe.

I'm pretty sure FG just said you get to decide. OK then I choose Big-Ass Mushroom. Perhaps the culogrande mushroom?

Why would a flame-tamer be needed when using a gas stove? I would think that the heat would be pretty much even. I wonder if this is mostly a need for electric stoves... Also, I find it interesting that the site recommends not preheating the dolsots, which seems to go against other instructions I have seen. According to the writer preheating can cause spalling (the breaking off of chips, scales, or slabs). I've preheated mine in the past, but perhaps will try doing it this way instead. Thoughts/experiences?

Hee! Strangely, the scientific names seem most mushroomy to me. When I was growing up we used to spend all our summers in my Grandfather's house way up in the mountains of Western North Carolina. We were literally in the middle of the forest on the side of a mountain. Anyway... it is very damp up there and mushrooms are literally popping out of the ground all over the place. My parents wanted to be able to pick and eat the mushrooms growing there and, being the scientists that they are and not wanting to kill the whole family, decided to learn everything there is to know about North American wild mushrooms. There are still some mushrooms that I mostly know by the scientific name (lost of tasty boletes about). I knew Boletus edulis before I knew porcini, and I always knew to stay away from Amanita virosa (not that "Death Angel" sounds particularly tasty either).

If one is going to make a stab at some kind of Italian spelling, only two of the permutations would work. porto bello = beautiful port porta bella = beautiful door porto bella and porta bello = grammatically incorrect The main point is that the As and the Os have to agree.

For the next one, I want to read wine-style reviews of different vintages of pruno!

Man, the Tea looks like a super-sweet machine. Some day I want a plumbed-in La Marzocco commercial machine. But then again... some day I want a lot of things.

This makes sense to me. Most TDG submissions strike me as being much closer to editorial writing than they do to regular news reporting. I don't know anything about the newspaper business, but my guess is that the NYT doesn't really care what sources Bob Herbert uses when he writes his editorials. Editorials are opinion pieces trying to make a point. There is no presumption that the writing will be free of bias or solidly supported (although the presumption must be that there is some support, as Mike Barnacle was fired from the Globe for inventing some things in his columns). I assume the Times feels that Bob Herbert will be called to task by his colleagues/adversaries and the reading public if he relies on questionable sources to support his editorials. This is why these pieces are confined to the editorial pages, and why Bob Herbert's columns aren't included among the regular news reporting.

Doesn't eGullet have a well-paid staff of fat editors and fat fact-checkers for this kind of thing?

Oh, I totally agree. For many of us (and I count myself as one) it becomes a hobby as well as just a way to get a good cup of coffee, so going the extra mile is all part of the game. This is one reason I want to get the doserless Rocky. That said, of course, I highly doubt that I'll be able to taste a clear difference once I do get one. Sometimes I sweep my doser out and sometimes I don't. I have been able to get such a drastic improvement in cup quality merely by switching to home roasting, that I just don't feel a pressing need to do it. That said... I do tend to sweep out the doser when I've been away for a long time. I guess my main point was simply that the presence of a doser in the Rocky (or the Mazzer Mini for that matter) isn't exactly a fatal flaw in terms of cup quality.

Hee! Looks cool! I have to say that, in terms of blasting off the skin while cooking the flesh as little as possible, I have not been able to beat a big old blowtorch from the hardware store.