shogun

Any specific reason you don't like her?

I love Chef G, and I say that having melted off the side of my hand in her class (Cuisines of the Americas)! Was still a great class.

Just found out about this whole "Chef G on Top Chef" thing today, so have to try and track down the premier. Sounds like it didn't go so well?

Happy Fifth, DR.com! Had some awesome times! Still can't believe some of the meals we've had. Really miss having such a dynamic, eclectic group to hang out with! It's boring up here in Connecticut! Thanks again, Don, and everybody who made (and makes) this community great!

Thinkgeek again

Maybe I've fallen behind, but $100 seems pretty good for a tabletop induction burner, but also seems like for $100, how good can it be? Good enough, probably. See using it a lot for holiday cooking when the stove is already packed.

All Edges Brownie Pan

See what they're getting at, but I prefer the centers.

In case anybody should accidentally watch "Bobby Flay Throwdown" tonight, you can see me look like a dork pretending to be irrationally exuberant. Yes, everybody strongly suspected what was coming, but I still went to the taping.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, but everybody expected the Bobby Flay Throw Down, I don't care what the lead-in is going to

say. See me (Just in audience shots; it's the bakery my sister works for) doing my best impression of irrational exuberance somewhere around Thanksgiving.

Yeah, I miss the heck out of you guys, but I'm up in Connecticut, so a lot of this is pretty academic to me, plus I'm completely boring now (seem to remember there being snow on the ground last time I made anything interesting (astonishingly good brisket-based chili)).

Still though, 'Hi!'

About $20 entrees I think should do it. Kind of leaning towards this place Tratorria del Arte. Hear good things, and it's right around the corner from where we'll be.

Ok, needing some help on this one: Been asked to make reservations for ~6 for my sisters graduation dinner. Looking for moderately priced, somewhere around Lincoln Center for Thursday night. For my part, I've been wanting to head back into the city for some Dumpling Man but I think they want a more sit-down sort of affair.

Thanks!

What time you thinking? (so I can show up an hour or so later, when you actually arrive )

No way, we're not doing that again. I'm taking the Metro in this time (incidentally, I'll be with the same friends as last time, but we're STILL taking the Metro.)

Was thinking 6.

Ahem, is this thing on?

Anybody want to do a happy hour at Corduroy Friday?

Why didn't somebody think of this before?

The Plague.

I mean can you believe it? The plague!

"Oh no way!!" --what I said, out loud, when I saw the heading

Congratulations!

Miracle fruit in tablet form, from none other than Thinkgeek.com (by way of Japan, not China like I said first).

Looks clean to me. They're oven searing and not pan searing so there wouldn't be much fond to deglaze for the gravy (though the drippings should be sufficient)? They didn't capitalize 'Yorkshire'?

I'm with Dan on this and imagine most of us do not have a copy of Saveur, no. 111. Even so, it would have been helpful to do something like this and give us a little exposition.

I looked at this last night for clues, since I saw the post AFTER I had returned from Barnes and Noble where I could have checked it out. My guess would have been they're blowing up his Rumaki spot. I know it's not the cornbread (Ain't nothing wrong with that.)

_{....the bees are coming.} The BEES are COMING!

paging doctor shogun...paging doctor shogun...

I have a ton, but it's only a fraction of what they released in the US, which in turn is only like half of what they had in Japan that they didn't license for the US market.

I am probably one of the three on this board that got this one.

Hey, my pager went off. What's up? Yes, I don't get pages for two weeks.

With the cooled jiggly stock, I then tried the protein raft thing: used 1/2lb ground beef, 4 egg whites, and some chopped onion and celery. I blended that in the food processor, then stirred it into the cool stock and put it on low heat. Even after it got to a simmer and stayed that way for a good 20 minutes, it never really solidified into the expected solid raft of protein. I ended up just straining it through some cheesecloth and a sieve. It wasn't as clear as I'd hoped, but it still tasted real good.

How much stuff you use in the consomme clarification is a function of the volume of the stock you want to clarify. For a gallon, you want a pound of mirepoix, three pounds meat, TEN egg whites, and acid (tomato or whatever). I don't know how much you made, but four egg whites sounds pretty light. The whites probably coagulated, but there just weren't enough of them to capture everything else. The acid really helps, too. The meat is mostly for flavor (which is also why you tend to simmer for an hour. The protein in the raft coagulates and rises 30 degrees before the stock reaches a simmer), since you're filtering out most of the flavorful bits in the soup. It's also possible that the pot you used was too wide. I love consomme, it's so technical!

Fun Fact: For garnish-strength gelatin/aspic, use 0.5 oz by weight of powdered gelatin (or 3.5 sheets!) per pint of liquid to gel.

It could have been worse, imagine finding half a mouse.

Yeah, if you've got half mice running around a dining room, you've got bigger problems. The kind summer blockbusters are made of.

And what's the deal with Ovaltine?

I just got out of Garde Manger so I've been all into this stuff the last three weeks. Just wish I had any reason to believe my family liked rillettes, terrines, etc. Maybe hit them with some and see how it goes. Grand Buffet pictures up on the blog (Which....I notice is down, so I'll have to see about) maybe this weekend.

shall i taKE THAT AS A COMPLEMENT???!!!!!!!!!!

Morning, chef!

My first attempt at making mozzarella earns mixed reviews. I used a recipe that called for heating the curds in the microwave, and I think I didn't quite get it to the right stretchy point. As a consequence, my mozzarella balls are more like compressed farmer cheese. They taste great, and melted nicely on some refried beans, but I need to use the hot water method next time.

Hey neat, I just did my first mozzerella too. Used the hot water method. Think the water was a little TOO hot, because it went a lot quicker than I expected. The range is apparently 135 to 180, which seems like a pretty big range, and I was told slower is better. Might have gone too fast, because when I went to stretch it into a sheet, I noticed the lumps were actually unmelted curds so I had to go back into the water once or twice. Pictures of the resulting roulade tomorrow (Day Three, Garde Manger reception).

Where do you get cheese curds, other than a cheese shop or Minnesota...Trader Joe's?