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eugenep

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Everything posted by eugenep

  1. I wanted to see Angelo Sosa and Kevin Gillespie Angelo: "I made luuuv to that duck. I basted it, caressed it, massaged it etc. etc. It's so sexy" [paraphrasing] Anthony Bourdain: "I have no idea what you are talking about. But it tastes great." [paraphrasing]
  2. I tried to find the same things but ended up just googling images of food and seeing how others plate it. E.g., if I'm serving short ribs, I would google image Thomas Keller short ribs or maybe "fine dining short ribs" and get ideas and try to plate my own dish in a similar way that makes sense
  3. I think there are online classes if you want to avoid travel. But if you want an excuse to travel, there was an American business women who went directly to France at the Le Cordon Bleu. She wrote a book about her experience - not a bread specific school but sounds like a good excuse to travel, learn, see new things before getting too old to leave the bed
  4. eugenep

    Popeyes

    I luuuv Popeye's fried chicken (legs only) and fries I thought their breast meat is super dry The breast in the chicken sandwich wasn't super dry when I had it but I do agree that it was cut too thick - like a giant chunk of meat without the needed juice and seasoning and not that good texture If they cut the slab of meat thinner and pound it out - maybe have more than 1 thin slice of course - then it would be much better But it's so popular that it created lines at the one near me
  5. . My memory of Modernist Cuisine book, was that french fries won't be oily because the water leaves the potato as it gets soaked in hot oil. As long as water is pushing out the oil can't have a chance to get in. So the fries won't be oily if you take it out before it loses the water. I also read that oil based marinades don't really work on proteins that well because the water in the protein will keep oil out. Because water and oil do not mix and if there is water in the fish protein, then the oil won't enter the fish and oil poaching might work (my guess?)
  6. It seems like the top chef was insulted by Michellin's selection of stinky fermented foods, offal, and other things as representative of Chinese culture and didn't give any play to Chinese haute cuisine - like banquet food etc. I do notice that the difference between East and West is that the West uses milk products - cream, butter, cheese (parmesan etc.) - to give flavor while Chinese dishes uses fermentation and little milk products - e.g., soy sauce, chili bean paste, hoisen sauce, black bean etc. There's an excellent quote from the chef and his theory of how the fermentation technique was developed and what the technique is trying to do: "In the process of spoilage, protein is not completely decomposed and fermented. As long as 1/1000 of the protein is present, amino acids will be delicious. Primitive humans have a very sensitive sense of smell in order to fill their stomachs, and are able to find out the information sent by this weak amino acid. The tiny, delicious flavor is wrapped in rot. In the process of searching for these relatively fragrant substances, humans have also devoured a large amount of stench, forming a genetic memory of taste... ....But in general, the evolution of cuisine is to extract fragrant beauty from the dregs, and try to remove its residue and gather its essence. As a result, rancidity is locked in folk snacks, making it difficult to be elegant. To enter Daya Hall, you need to carefully control and adjust the dose and range of its smell and deliciousness."
  7. I read in Tom Wolf's novel that Virginia is supposed to represent some kind of old aristocratic South. I wanted to see it myself when I was younger and did an internship in Charlottesville, VA, one summer. The place was beautiful. A college professor told me when she was living there, the culture was kind of snobbish and you had to have money etc. or else people will see you as less. But I do wonder if maybe that exclusivity you mentioned had something to do with that old aristocratic Southern culture
  8. For thanksgiving this year, we are dividing the duties because a lot of people want to contribute and eager to cook I didn't want to be rude and volunteer for the interesting things - dessert and turkey - so waited for others and take whatever is left Dessert was taken first, followed by turkey, then the sides, the only thing left that I could do was alcohol So I'm doing alcohol this year - 3 bottles of sparkling wine and 3 bottles red Sparkling will be prosecco, cava etc. no champagne from the champagne region of France bc it's too expensive at $60 a bottle for Moet etc I thought sparkling a good choice bc it'll be celebratory and festive (like a party) The person cooking the turkey is planning to put the stuffing inside the bird - traditional style. For the inside to cook through, the outside breast would need to reach a super high temp thereby drying it out completely. So I am curious how it will come out (maybe successful?) But it's better to eat other people's food, something new, rather than my own cooking since I eat my own cooking all the time
  9. to tell you the truth, I've read the entire set but the only recipe I used was for melting cheese with chemicals (sodium nitrate i think?) for mac and cheese. A lot of it was more like Harold McGee's classic, On Food and Cooking or Kenj Alt Lopze "Food Lab." But the level of research and detail was super thorough and they have beautiful pictures to keep you entertained. I didn't read all those volumes straight through but instead did it on and off over a 2 year period. But it did provide me with these background models on how to think about food and cooking and what's going on inside the process while we cook
  10. thanks - hoping to one day read Modernist Bread. I wish I could rent it to read and then return it when done. Library doesn't carry the bread version. please let us know if a sale or rental comes on the market. best,
  11. thanks for the info. I'd like to know how the probe for oil versus water mode differ as well (always wondered myself)? Or is it like trade secret of theirs? nice pic of mandible you have in your profile - reminds me of archaeologists-anthropology
  12. eugenep

    Breakfast 2019

    I agree with you blue_dolphin and I think it must ultimately be unpleasant to eat. But I was wondering..like the only obvious flaw I could think of is too much heat on the eggs? Maybe the ingredients are also terrible - like stale bread, fake cheese, etc. (but can't be sure?). I was a little curious though.
  13. eugenep

    Dinner 2019

    it looks really good and very nice. Is this for a banquet or house party? It seems like elements from both Chinese and Western cuisine. I'm guessing you are writing from Asia? Looks great!
  14. eugenep

    Breakfast 2019

    hmmm....like...what's wrong with the eggs? they look kinda nice to me. Was the yolk over-done? I couldn't tell from the surface pic. But no high heat sear on the outside so maybe protein came out okay too?
  15. I think goose might be an Asian delicacy also just like duck. Maybe there is a lower price at Asian supermarkets where the sale volume might be higher (so price could be lower)?
  16. gin + tonic + lavender bitters (Scrappy's) super easy fast and tastes great anything added like lime etc might just block the lavender taste
  17. What is your first impression of the product? wow. that's beautiful, modern design that's very urban How much do you think this lemon squeezer would cost? In the teens $15-$18 Might you be interested in such a product? I would get something like that if my kitchen tools were visible in my kitchen (and not in a cupboard) It looks very bulky in photo (but maybe actual size or post-prototype version would be smaller) I think I would get it if it were small, compact enough to not take up too much space in the house or cupboard ***the photo makes it look big like a bowl but it looks like it's the size of 2 lemons which is smaller than it appears so there's a chance people might buy it once the dimensions are clear (place person next to it in an ad)
  18. cooking through one of her books right now. solid flavors all the time very healthy food - I think the flavors depend more on fermentation, drying (to concentrate flavors), and meat is used to garnish the main (which is a vegetable) rather than the reverse. like..it seems like American French / Italian depend a lot for flavor on: heavy cream, butter, cheese or something very heavy a lot welcome contrast for healthier diet sometimes
  19. thanks for sharing. what does the photo of the man with the turban and beard mean? I wonder if the clothes means he's from the Muslim western region of China?
  20. maybe I added too much water too? I didn't want a thick puree but a soup so I added that much water and no access to food process or blender so I needed a watery texture and added the water and hoped to boil the heck out of the veg until it broke up on its own the texture actually came out okay after 1.5 hours of boil (don't know if it lost flavor from the prolonged heat) but - yes - maybe I should have browned the veg all over to get a sweet flavor from the carmelization or even browned the butter and added the thyme to "bloom" the flavor of the spice I was hoping to not add heavy cream and butter to make the soup taste good (very heavy)
  21. I was at GF's parents house and she had a butternut squash that was lying around that her co-worker gave her. I read from Charlie Trotter's book that you can turn any fruit or veg into a puree or soup I didn't make a butternut squash ravioli but turned it into a soup in a blind, no recipe way 1 butternut squash 1 stick butter 4 cups water thyme, salt pepper I just chopped the squash into pieces and boiled for 1.5 hours and mashed it in the middle to create a puree soup it tasted kinda bland But I guess Trotter was right I guess you can "cook" any food but the difficulty is getting it to taste really good
  22. it's like there's this pleasure from drinking beer that's similar to eating food but there's not just that it's like this second feeling of pleasure that you get from alcohol - almost like it makes things brighter and much more exciting than they otherwise would be and more beer does increase this but - here's this strange part - I know having more beers or alcohol after a point doesn't increase pleasure but makes you feel worse but that pull for more is still there. I always thought it was strange - that pull for more - even in the absence of pleasure or anything positive It's like I have this self awareness about it and then I stop but that pull is strange like I wonder what it is? I think some label it as "addiction" but it doesn't really explain things
  23. thanks for the book recommendation will likely download and check it out over the weekend the author doesn't seem to be a professional cook / bartender but is this MIT engineering graduate with both BS and MS degrees I wonder if he learned drinking in college after studying like 10-12 hour a day or something and needed to relax
  24. me too - but it's like we poach for 20 - 30 min and braise for 1 - 3 hours. so since we wait this long for other proteins, why can't we wait for this long during a saute ? I think it's because we are used to the saute method as quick and fast at high fire so sauteing for like 1 hour seems so foreign, weird, and alien to do like it's not the way we normally use the saute method (some kind of human bias)
  25. I do have a question: what temp do you set the pan temperature for hollandaise? I tried to find it on the CF youtube videos but nothing and google can't give me a straight answer. I found 167 at one website. Eggs curdle between 160 -170 so I mean it's like curdling temp - not sure if real chefs keep the temp lower when making hollandaise
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