Sometimes invades other facets of our lives…
And other times, non-culinary passions influence out cooking…
The quest for precision…
Modernist Cuisine at Home
I’ve heard a lot of questions about the newest offering from Nathan Myrvold and team, Modernist Cuisine at Home. A few people have asked me, “I already have Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, should I buy the new, mini version?” 0r, “Are the recipes in there really attainable for the average home cook?”
Last month, the Modernist Cuisine team was nice enough to grant me a reviewer copy of the new book. Cutting to the chase, it’s every bit as exciting as “the big book”- breathtaking pictures, great recipes, ideas, techniques, and information. Speaking of pictures: here’s one of my favorites:
I’ll first say, that it is not a scaled down version of the 5 Volume Modernist Cuisine tomb. It would, make a great companion to the big set if you already own it. If you don’t own the big set, Modernist Cuisine at Home will suffice for a while, but overall, it will make you want the full set even more.
3 Courses, 1 Hour
07.18.2012
Last night I was hungry- it happens to me most nights. I couldn’t decide what to make. After a lot of going back and forth, I decided to use up some fresh basil from my garden to make a fresh spaghetti in a simple olive oil sauce. I went to the store to get a few ingredients. My trip to the grocery store was uninspired. I returned home un-excited to cook. I thought that maybe cooking in real-time “against” the contestants on MasterChef Season 3 would be fun… Could I pull off a fresh extruded pasta in an hour? The question was exciting, but the more I thought about it, I just didn’t want to cook.
I had tweeted about live tweeting an hour of cooking and there seemed to be some interest so I thought it would be fun to do eventually. But not that night… I ate leftovers last night.
Tonight I was ready to cook. A long day at work and I wanted to unwind- cooking relaxes me. I decided to up the ante and shoot for three courses in one hour. They would be simple(ish) courses, but all three in an hour from scratch would be aggressive to say the least. Spoiler: Dinner was excellent. But it wasn’t smooth sailing, here’s what happened along the way (and a few tips that can help speed up your cooking).
PolyScience Sous Vide Tool Box
07.11.2012
If you haven’t heard, PolyScience has a new iOS app called Sous Vide Tool Box. The app calculates cook and pasteurization times based on thermal coefficients for common proteins.
Polyscience president/founder Philip Preston walks through using the app here, and click the jump to read my thoughts/experiences using it “in real life”.
Alinea!
04.24.2012
30 days before my trip to Chicago I got extremely excited. I had scored a reservation for two at San Pellegrino’s best restaurant in North America (#7 in the world) Alinea. A meal at Alinea is one of the few things that were truly on my bucket list. I had followed just about everything that Chef Grant Achatz had done in the past few years. From his lectures at Harvard to you tube videos to reading his (auto)biography Life on the Line. I was more than excited to experience this ground breaking restaurant for myself.
What do you say about eating at Alinea that hasn’t already been said?
Suffice to say, I had high expectations for the food, service, and experience. In fact, I had concerns that. O matter how good everything was, that it might not live up to the hype I had built up in my own head.
SPOILER: I was blown away.
The life of a chef…
03.01.2012
Wanna know what a chef does every week? (No you don’t!) There is a tremendous amount of work that goes into creating high quality meals for you to enjoy. A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of serving two couples my first tasting menu. It was a meal that I was incredibly proud of. Here’s what went into its creation.
Months before the dinner I started brainstorming courses for the meal. I probably tossed around thirty to fourty ideas. I settled on 19. Those 19 courses had to be organized into an order that made sense and was executable…. that was quite a task.
How to Eat Chicago.
01.22.2012
Last weekend I had a ridiculous food experience in Chicago. You already know I spent a couple of days in one of the best kitchens in the country, but here’s what I did when I wasn’t working…