Toronto didn't happen this week. I got sent to Phoenix instead, which my boss described as being "almost the same city". Actually, as disappointed as I am that I didn't get to visit the Great White North, I'm still pretty happy with this week's assignment. I've always liked Phoenix. But then again, every time I've ever been here before, it's been either November or December. The difference in temperature is immediately obvious, but does not detract from my enjoyment.
About a month ago I had a student tell me that Salt Lake City was the cleanest city he'd ever been in. While I agree that it certainly is cleaner than, say, Edison, New Jersey, I'm also guessing that he'd never been in Phoenix. Never before have I seen a city that is so neat, clean and organized. Other than the travesty of Grand Avenue, Phoenix is laid out in a grid format that makes Salt Lake look like it was patterned after the streets of Boston. It's difficult even for me to get lost in Phoenix.
My hotel is within walking distance of the training center, even in the blazing Phoenix sun. In fact, it's within walking distance of several restaurants and, as near as I can tell, even a couple of hospitals (United Healthcare and some Catholic thing). The optimist in me believes that these things (sun + food + hospital) are not related. There's also a Staples and a Walgreens on my block.
I'm two blocks from Central Ave, and glad that I don't have to drive on it. They're putting in light rail there, and while I'm excited to see it finished, I'm not excited to deal with it during construction. It reminds me a lot of what Main Street in Salt Lake looked like when they were putting in light rail there. Actually, a lot of Phoenix reminds me of Salt Lake. The grid, the light rail, the desert. Of course, you won't be finding hard liquor in the grocery store in Salt Lake, but that's a minor difference.
There have been other coincidences. When I flew into New Hampshire recently, I discovered that I was in the middle of the primary democratic elections. I then found my way into Ohio, during the primaries. I did manage to miss the primaries in Maryland by a month, but this morning I discovered that President Bush was planning to share Phoenix with me today. I hate politics. Why must politics stalk me like this?
Anyway, Phoenix has been otherwise enjoyable. I seem to have a good bunch of students this week, and thanks to the holiday yesterday, class is only 4 days long. Maybe I'll go out and look for a nice restaurant, just to throw my boss off. Then again, maybe that's just what he would expect. I need to stay ahead of him.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Alton Brown does Hotel Oatmeal
I don't usually click on YouTube videos that people send to me (in fact, I almost always ignore them entirely), but when somebody that never sends me one sends me one, I figure I'd better look. And it's a good thing I did.
It looks like Alton Brown has been playing with hotel cookery too. Specifically, he's been playing with oatmeal, which was my first foray. His version is somewhat different from mine, but it does have some similarities.
First off, he uses standard oatmeal packets, the very same ones that had become my goal to avoid, largely because of their excessive sweetness. Then he adds a packet of honey, and since it apparently wasn't sweet enough for him, he adds some jam. This is all added directly to the carafe, rather than just using the carafe to heat water like I do. He then adds an herbal tea (he uses orange in the video) to the water reservoir, along with the water.
It's a fine method, but in my ever so humble opinion, it has flaws. The biggest one is having to clean the carafe. I suppose you could leave it for housekeeping, but if you do, you'd better make sure you leave a big enough tip to compensate. There's also the issue of using the reservoir. Mr Brown loves his coffee, but I can't stand it. Unfortunately, many of the coffee makers I've seen in hotel rooms seem to have been used to double-brew coffee, meaning they brew it once with one set of beans, and then use the resulting coffee to brew a new batch with a new set of beans. If Feasting on Asphault is any indication, Alton is apt to do such a thing himself (he apparently likes his coffee extra-strong). He make like a hint of coffee in his oatmeal, but I would rather avoid it altogether.
And geez, AB. Excessively-sweet prepackaged oatmeal plus honey PLUS jam? I'm guessing you're the type of southerner who likes his iced tea extra sweet. Besides, have you ever looked at the ingredients on the side of a honey packet? The last one I looked at was more high fructose corn syrup than honey. I don't know whether Alton or I travels more, but I can tell you I spend a lot of time in airports as well. In fact, I find myself at the Cincinnatti airport a lot, since it's a Delta hub. And since Delta prefers me to fly on their connection partners rather than their own planes, I find myself in Terminal C a lot. One of the stores there sells mini-bottles of "straight kentucky honey", plenty small enough to fit into my quart-size plastic bag for TSA review, but still large enough to last me a couple of trips.
"Jeez, Mr. Brown, for a guy on TV you don't know very much." - Chuck, Chops Ahoy (EA1F07)
Okay, so he knows a few things. But he's really gotta learn to explore his world a little better, even including airport gift shops. That whole honey packet thing, that's just not right. There are better ways to do things. In all fairness though, that herbal tea thing was brilliant. It was so good, it should have been mine.
It looks like Alton Brown has been playing with hotel cookery too. Specifically, he's been playing with oatmeal, which was my first foray. His version is somewhat different from mine, but it does have some similarities.
First off, he uses standard oatmeal packets, the very same ones that had become my goal to avoid, largely because of their excessive sweetness. Then he adds a packet of honey, and since it apparently wasn't sweet enough for him, he adds some jam. This is all added directly to the carafe, rather than just using the carafe to heat water like I do. He then adds an herbal tea (he uses orange in the video) to the water reservoir, along with the water.
It's a fine method, but in my ever so humble opinion, it has flaws. The biggest one is having to clean the carafe. I suppose you could leave it for housekeeping, but if you do, you'd better make sure you leave a big enough tip to compensate. There's also the issue of using the reservoir. Mr Brown loves his coffee, but I can't stand it. Unfortunately, many of the coffee makers I've seen in hotel rooms seem to have been used to double-brew coffee, meaning they brew it once with one set of beans, and then use the resulting coffee to brew a new batch with a new set of beans. If Feasting on Asphault is any indication, Alton is apt to do such a thing himself (he apparently likes his coffee extra-strong). He make like a hint of coffee in his oatmeal, but I would rather avoid it altogether.
And geez, AB. Excessively-sweet prepackaged oatmeal plus honey PLUS jam? I'm guessing you're the type of southerner who likes his iced tea extra sweet. Besides, have you ever looked at the ingredients on the side of a honey packet? The last one I looked at was more high fructose corn syrup than honey. I don't know whether Alton or I travels more, but I can tell you I spend a lot of time in airports as well. In fact, I find myself at the Cincinnatti airport a lot, since it's a Delta hub. And since Delta prefers me to fly on their connection partners rather than their own planes, I find myself in Terminal C a lot. One of the stores there sells mini-bottles of "straight kentucky honey", plenty small enough to fit into my quart-size plastic bag for TSA review, but still large enough to last me a couple of trips.
"Jeez, Mr. Brown, for a guy on TV you don't know very much." - Chuck, Chops Ahoy (EA1F07)
Okay, so he knows a few things. But he's really gotta learn to explore his world a little better, even including airport gift shops. That whole honey packet thing, that's just not right. There are better ways to do things. In all fairness though, that herbal tea thing was brilliant. It was so good, it should have been mine.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Water Storage Thoughts
A lot of Utahns spend a lot of time thinking about food storage. There has been a lot of press lately about various emergency situations, and a lot of people have been caught unawares. In a worst case scenario, the house or other building that stores the food may become unsafe or impossible to enter (to say the least), making the food storage inside worthless. Still, there are other situations where food storage is important. When I was laid off last year, we spent about six weeks without me bringing in a paycheck. My wife was still employed, and her meagar paycheck combined with my severance pay and any money we had stored in savings kept us afloat, but we managed to stretch things quite a bit with the food storage that we had built up. It doesn't take a natural disaster for food storage to become important.
There is a recommendation that where possible and legal, each family should store a year's worth of food, and at least two weeks worth of clean water. I don't know what the recommendation is for actual amount of food, but the water estimate is at least a gallon per person per day.
Where they came up with that number, I don't know. I've heard that everyone should drink X cups of water per day, and I've also heard that the X amounts of water per day recommendation is largely unfounded. Even so, a gallon seems like a lot. If you consider that the water might also be used for things like washing and so on in an emergency, it suddenly seems like a woefully inadequate amount. Either way, the whole gallon per person per day thing is still better than anything than I can come up with, so I'm going to go with it until I see something better.
How does one handle water storage? Our last attempt involved cheaply-purchased gallon jugs of water from the grocery store. Unfortunately, storage space was limited where we were, and the little water we had was "out of sight, out of mind". When storing consumables, even water, rotation is important. Even water jugs from the grocery store have expiration dates (typically about a year from the purchase time). When we remembered the water, it seemed strange to tap into our water supply for a drink instead of just getting it from the tap. And tap water doesn't seem to taste that great when stored for long periods of time. It seemed to be a poor solution.
I have a new solution in mind. Our local grocery store sells 5-gallon jugs of filtered water, as seen at office water coolers. Three jugs per person easily achieves the "at least a gallon per person per day for 14 days" goal. In the case of our 3-person family, we should be able to get by with only nine jugs. To dispense the water, we would of course need a water cooler-type dispenser. The main requirement here would be that the cooler can still operate with no power. If there was power, then the water could be chilled. I don't know how much such a thing would cost, but I'm sure it's out there, and I'm hoping its price doesn't put it outside of our means.
Rotation is still an issue. Our local grocery store also provides reasonably cheap refills for said 5-gallon jugs, assuming we don't just buy our own water filter to refill it ourselves. We have even more of an incentive to use this water than before, because the town that we've just moved to isn't known for its high water quality. In fact, Magna water is known throughout the region for its poor taste. Having a water cooler nearby gives us a way to rotate through the water, and keep from having to buy bottled water to avoid the taste of our tap water. I figure if we toss another jug or two in for a buffer zone, we should be able to rotate through our water supply without a problem.
Obviously, this is not a solution we have implemented yet. We need to look into water coolers that meet our small requirements, so if anybody has a recommendation, it would be appreciated. We also need to pick up the water jugs. It's not reasonable for us to buy it all at once. But we can buy one or two a week until we're up to our full requirements. Does this seem like a reasonable idea to you guys?
I have some thoughts on food storage too, but this is a long enough post for now. I'll write up some food storage thoughts later. Let me know what you think.
There is a recommendation that where possible and legal, each family should store a year's worth of food, and at least two weeks worth of clean water. I don't know what the recommendation is for actual amount of food, but the water estimate is at least a gallon per person per day.
Where they came up with that number, I don't know. I've heard that everyone should drink X cups of water per day, and I've also heard that the X amounts of water per day recommendation is largely unfounded. Even so, a gallon seems like a lot. If you consider that the water might also be used for things like washing and so on in an emergency, it suddenly seems like a woefully inadequate amount. Either way, the whole gallon per person per day thing is still better than anything than I can come up with, so I'm going to go with it until I see something better.
How does one handle water storage? Our last attempt involved cheaply-purchased gallon jugs of water from the grocery store. Unfortunately, storage space was limited where we were, and the little water we had was "out of sight, out of mind". When storing consumables, even water, rotation is important. Even water jugs from the grocery store have expiration dates (typically about a year from the purchase time). When we remembered the water, it seemed strange to tap into our water supply for a drink instead of just getting it from the tap. And tap water doesn't seem to taste that great when stored for long periods of time. It seemed to be a poor solution.
I have a new solution in mind. Our local grocery store sells 5-gallon jugs of filtered water, as seen at office water coolers. Three jugs per person easily achieves the "at least a gallon per person per day for 14 days" goal. In the case of our 3-person family, we should be able to get by with only nine jugs. To dispense the water, we would of course need a water cooler-type dispenser. The main requirement here would be that the cooler can still operate with no power. If there was power, then the water could be chilled. I don't know how much such a thing would cost, but I'm sure it's out there, and I'm hoping its price doesn't put it outside of our means.
Rotation is still an issue. Our local grocery store also provides reasonably cheap refills for said 5-gallon jugs, assuming we don't just buy our own water filter to refill it ourselves. We have even more of an incentive to use this water than before, because the town that we've just moved to isn't known for its high water quality. In fact, Magna water is known throughout the region for its poor taste. Having a water cooler nearby gives us a way to rotate through the water, and keep from having to buy bottled water to avoid the taste of our tap water. I figure if we toss another jug or two in for a buffer zone, we should be able to rotate through our water supply without a problem.
Obviously, this is not a solution we have implemented yet. We need to look into water coolers that meet our small requirements, so if anybody has a recommendation, it would be appreciated. We also need to pick up the water jugs. It's not reasonable for us to buy it all at once. But we can buy one or two a week until we're up to our full requirements. Does this seem like a reasonable idea to you guys?
I have some thoughts on food storage too, but this is a long enough post for now. I'll write up some food storage thoughts later. Let me know what you think.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Using Forte Agent in Linux
I'm going to catch a lot of flack for this, I'm sure. But I'm going to post it anyway. Maybe it'll help out some other poor Linux user in a similar situation.
I've been browsing the newsgroups for years. I first subscribed to alt.music.tmbg way back in the early 90s, and while I don't read that particular group anymore, I still spend a fair amount of time in the newsgroups. It wasn't long before I picked up a program called Forte Free Agent, and eventually I decided I used it enough to justify buying a registered copy. That was back in the 1.x days. I've kept up my registration since, and despite my move to Linux, I still use Agent. I'm a little strange in the Linux world in that I don't mind paying for software that I actually use, particularly when it's a reasonable price.
You see, there are no newsreaders that don't suck, in any platform. Agent just happens to suck the least. I tried out a Linux-based Agent clone called Pan at some point, and it was nothing short of horrific. Okay, in all fairness, it really was a decent piece of software, regardless of platform. But it pales in comparison to Agent.
Agent isn't technically supported in Linux, but it is reported to work quite nicely for many users, such as myself. There are just a couple of tricks to keep in mind if you want to use it with WinE.
Launching Agent
Agent will install just fine through the regular WinE interface, and run properly the first time. The second time you try to open it, you might get an error that says "The share directory does not exist." This is probably because you tried to run it like this:
Try this instead:
I don't know why the dot slash helps, but I found it on Google a few years ago, and it seems to help me out.
NNTP over SSL
Yes, you can browse the newsgroups securly over SSL. This is often referred to as NNTPS, and is supported by a variety of news servers, such as Giganews (yes, I pay extra for a decent news service too).
Unfortunately, Agent doesn't seem to handle SSL too well in Linux. In fact, I've been having difficulty getting another usenet program, nzbperl, to handle SSL. I don't know what the problem is, but I do know it doesn't work so well. Unencrypted NNTP still works fine.
Launching Images
Back in my Windows days, if I came across a message with an attachment in it (mostly images, and no, not THAT kind of image), I would just hit 'L' to launch the viewer. This doesn't work so well in Linux, because of the way that Agent passes the filename to be launched. WinE tells its applications that / (the root directory in Linux) is the same as Z:\, which is almost enough... but it still passes a filename to the viewer that looks like "C:\Windows\temp\someimage.png". Since Linux apps don't know what to do with drive letters, this command fails.
With images, I found an easy workaround. Create a file in ~/.wine/drive_c/ called eog.exe (the .exe part isn't necessary, but I thought it was a nice touch) with the following three lines:
Set the execute bit...
...and add it as the default file type for images. The error will still pop up, but the Eye of Gnome image viewer will open the image successfully. Feel free to substitute your own image viewer as necessary if you don't like the Eye of Gnome. Also, this is a quick and dirty script that doesn't handle spaces in filenames very well. But in general, it does seem to work pretty well.
I don't use Agent to its full extent, so I'm sure there are other oddities out there. These are the only three that I've come across. Let me know if you find any others.
Update:
I don't know why I didn't think of this. Maybe it's just late. The following code should handle files with spaces in their names just fine:
I've been browsing the newsgroups for years. I first subscribed to alt.music.tmbg way back in the early 90s, and while I don't read that particular group anymore, I still spend a fair amount of time in the newsgroups. It wasn't long before I picked up a program called Forte Free Agent, and eventually I decided I used it enough to justify buying a registered copy. That was back in the 1.x days. I've kept up my registration since, and despite my move to Linux, I still use Agent. I'm a little strange in the Linux world in that I don't mind paying for software that I actually use, particularly when it's a reasonable price.
You see, there are no newsreaders that don't suck, in any platform. Agent just happens to suck the least. I tried out a Linux-based Agent clone called Pan at some point, and it was nothing short of horrific. Okay, in all fairness, it really was a decent piece of software, regardless of platform. But it pales in comparison to Agent.
Agent isn't technically supported in Linux, but it is reported to work quite nicely for many users, such as myself. There are just a couple of tricks to keep in mind if you want to use it with WinE.
Launching Agent
Agent will install just fine through the regular WinE interface, and run properly the first time. The second time you try to open it, you might get an error that says "The share directory does not exist." This is probably because you tried to run it like this:
cd ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Agent
wine agent.exe &Try this instead:
cd ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Agent
wine ./agent.exe &I don't know why the dot slash helps, but I found it on Google a few years ago, and it seems to help me out.
NNTP over SSL
Yes, you can browse the newsgroups securly over SSL. This is often referred to as NNTPS, and is supported by a variety of news servers, such as Giganews (yes, I pay extra for a decent news service too).
Unfortunately, Agent doesn't seem to handle SSL too well in Linux. In fact, I've been having difficulty getting another usenet program, nzbperl, to handle SSL. I don't know what the problem is, but I do know it doesn't work so well. Unencrypted NNTP still works fine.
Launching Images
Back in my Windows days, if I came across a message with an attachment in it (mostly images, and no, not THAT kind of image), I would just hit 'L' to launch the viewer. This doesn't work so well in Linux, because of the way that Agent passes the filename to be launched. WinE tells its applications that / (the root directory in Linux) is the same as Z:\, which is almost enough... but it still passes a filename to the viewer that looks like "C:\Windows\temp\someimage.png". Since Linux apps don't know what to do with drive letters, this command fails.
With images, I found an easy workaround. Create a file in ~/.wine/drive_c/ called eog.exe (the .exe part isn't necessary, but I thought it was a nice touch) with the following three lines:
#!/bin/bash
IMG=$(echo $1 | sed -e 's/\\/\//g' -e "s/c:/\/home\/$USER\/.wine\/drive_c/i")
/usr/bin/eog $IMGSet the execute bit...
chmod +x ~/.wine/drive_c/eog.exe...and add it as the default file type for images. The error will still pop up, but the Eye of Gnome image viewer will open the image successfully. Feel free to substitute your own image viewer as necessary if you don't like the Eye of Gnome. Also, this is a quick and dirty script that doesn't handle spaces in filenames very well. But in general, it does seem to work pretty well.
I don't use Agent to its full extent, so I'm sure there are other oddities out there. These are the only three that I've come across. Let me know if you find any others.
Update:
I don't know why I didn't think of this. Maybe it's just late. The following code should handle files with spaces in their names just fine:
#!/bin/bash
IMG=$(echo $* | sed -e 's/\\/\//g' -e "s/c:/\/home\/$USER\/.wine\/drive_c/i")
/usr/bin/eog "$IMG"
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Chicago Lifts Foie Gras Ban
An interesting item found its way into my news reader this morning. Yesterday the city of Chicago lifted its foie gras ban, by a vote of 37 to 6. The ban was in place for a couple of years before city officials realized what gourmets all over the country were thinking: it was just ridiculous.
Why did they put the ban into place? I would bet that most Americans don't even know what foie gras is, and why it's so controversal. Allow me a moment to inform you. I'm told it literally translates to "fat liver", an accurate name considering that it's nothing more than the fattened liver of a goose, or more commonly these days, a duck. The traditional methods used to fatten that liver are what are under attack, and understandably so.
For those of you who may be squeemish about animal treatment, this is a good time to stop reading.
The centuries-old method of producing foie gras generally involved restraining the bird, sometimes by locking all but its head in a box too small to move in, and even nailing its feet to the bottom of that box. The grower would then force-feed the bird, who's liver would fatten as it had no opportunity to work off the excess calories. Come to think of it, it reminds me of my past life in the tech support world, minus the nailed feet.
To say that this method isn't really common anymore would be an understatement. In fact, I don't think it's even been legal for a long time (citation needed). Certainly, quality growers in the United States decry such abuse and have opted for far more humane methods. Birds now are free to roam around, and when feeding time comes, I've been told that most birds actually look forward to stuffing themselves beyond belief. Reminds me of being in cooking school, except for the part about being free to roam around.
Whether or not this still qualifies as humane is left to the consumer. Personally, I think it's far more humane than, say, your average chicken farm. Why not attack chicken farms instead? Let's face it, delightful as it may be, foie gras is still a niche market. It's an easy target with far less legal power to fight back than, say, KFC. If somebody were to fight against animal cruelty, there's much less risk in picking on the little guys, twisting facts into misinformation for their own self-righteous purposes. In truth, it's the same tactic the big guys would probably use if they had to, but it's apparently okay with smaller special-interest groups, because they're doing it all in the name of humanity.
Anyway, I'm okay with Chicago lifting the ban. My wife and I are planning on heading out there towards the end of summer for a friend's wedding. We're hoping we can save enough money to dine at Alinea while we're out there. Maybe if we're lucky, Grant Achatz will have added foie gras to his tasting menu.
Why did they put the ban into place? I would bet that most Americans don't even know what foie gras is, and why it's so controversal. Allow me a moment to inform you. I'm told it literally translates to "fat liver", an accurate name considering that it's nothing more than the fattened liver of a goose, or more commonly these days, a duck. The traditional methods used to fatten that liver are what are under attack, and understandably so.
For those of you who may be squeemish about animal treatment, this is a good time to stop reading.
The centuries-old method of producing foie gras generally involved restraining the bird, sometimes by locking all but its head in a box too small to move in, and even nailing its feet to the bottom of that box. The grower would then force-feed the bird, who's liver would fatten as it had no opportunity to work off the excess calories. Come to think of it, it reminds me of my past life in the tech support world, minus the nailed feet.
To say that this method isn't really common anymore would be an understatement. In fact, I don't think it's even been legal for a long time (citation needed). Certainly, quality growers in the United States decry such abuse and have opted for far more humane methods. Birds now are free to roam around, and when feeding time comes, I've been told that most birds actually look forward to stuffing themselves beyond belief. Reminds me of being in cooking school, except for the part about being free to roam around.
Whether or not this still qualifies as humane is left to the consumer. Personally, I think it's far more humane than, say, your average chicken farm. Why not attack chicken farms instead? Let's face it, delightful as it may be, foie gras is still a niche market. It's an easy target with far less legal power to fight back than, say, KFC. If somebody were to fight against animal cruelty, there's much less risk in picking on the little guys, twisting facts into misinformation for their own self-righteous purposes. In truth, it's the same tactic the big guys would probably use if they had to, but it's apparently okay with smaller special-interest groups, because they're doing it all in the name of humanity.
Anyway, I'm okay with Chicago lifting the ban. My wife and I are planning on heading out there towards the end of summer for a friend's wedding. We're hoping we can save enough money to dine at Alinea while we're out there. Maybe if we're lucky, Grant Achatz will have added foie gras to his tasting menu.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Tinkering with Hotel Cheesecakes
I decided to play with my hotel cheesecakes again this week. This time I had some new equipment in my arsenal, and a couple of new ideas for proper cooking.
I've started carrying various cooking utensils with me. Most are either plastic or rubber, with the exception of my Oxo mini-whisk. I also have a small rubber spatula, some plastic measuring spoons, and a small stack of silicone muffin cups. Most of these were purchased with the intent of not getting into trouble with the TSA. The muffin cups were supposed to save me from having to buy new paper cups all the time. When I opened the package, I discovered they had the added bonus of being more stable, so that they don't collapse from the weight of their own filling when unsupported.
My last experiment involved using just the yolk, rather than a whole egg. This succeeded in lowering the water content which was making the batter too loose, but it unfortunately lowered it too much. The resulting cheesecakes bore more resemblance to over-cooked scrambled eggs. Obviously, I needed to loosen up the batter again. I had considered using heavy cream, but the idea of sour cream appealed to me. It's a common cheesecake ingredient which I had scarcely considered before. I was also short on sugar packets this trip, but had managed to pick up a tiny bottle of Kentucky honey at the Cincinnatti airport. Perhaps an invert sugar would help, as well as providing an interesting flavor profile.
I started with about a tablespoon of honey and 4 oz of softened cream cheese in a paper bowl. I mixed them together with the spatula, adding in about a tablespoon of sour cream. When it seemed liquid enough, I switched to the mini whisk and added the egg yolk. When it was nice and smooth, I poured it into two silicone muffin cups, foolishly ignoring the fill lines that the manufacturer had so graciously provided for me.
This microwave had a manual knob with no power control or turn carosel, so I knew I had to be careful. I cooked them in bursts of 15 to 20 seconds, manually switching their places with each burst. After 3 or 4 bursts I got brave and did a 30 second burst. The cheesecakes, which were undoubtedly slightly aerated from the whisking, had started to rise over the tops of the muffin cups. I put them in the hotel mini-fridge to cool and waited till morning.
The next morning's taste test revealed what I expected: an overcooked, grainy center. Interestingly, the outside was slightly undercooked, mostly silky smooth with the occassional graininess. This, I surmised, was because I hadn't given them time to cool properly by themselves. The shock of the icebox had stopped the carry-over cooking, and possibly forced some of the proteins to prematurly coagulate. The flavor was decent, but a little bitter from the honey. Also important, I noticed that even though I was nuking these at 100% power, the over-coagulation was not nearly as bad as with earlier attempts with lower power. I decided that the added mass (cooking two at once instead of just one) had a part to play here.
I had one more night to experiment with the other 4 oz. I added a tablespoon and a half to it, along with two packets of sugar to counter the slight bitterness of the honey. After mixing with the spatula, I added in two tablespoons of sour cream, mixed a little more, and then switched to the whisk. I added in my egg yolk, and just for kicks, a packet of True Lemon powder. Honey lemon is a pretty classic flavor profile, right?
Because of the extra sour cream, I had enough batter to fill three muffin cups right to their fill lines. I hoped the extra mass would help even more, but I had another trick up my sleeve. I added a cup of ice water to the center of the microwave, and placed the filled muffin cups in a triangle around it. Water has a very high specific heat, meaning it has to absorb a lot of energy just to raise it even one degree farenheight. My hope was that ice water would absorb even more of the microwaves in the oven, effectively limiting the power attacking the water molecules inside the cheesecake. I was careful not to overfill the water cup, just in case it absorbed enough energy to actually boil.
I went with 20 to 25 second bursts this time, each time rotating the cups with each other manually counter-clockwise one position. It took 6 or 7 bursts before I noticed that the centers of the cheesecakes had sunken in slightly, and the sides were starting to climb the muffin cups. They were overdone, I just didn't know by how much. I let them cool for about 45 minutes by themselves and then moved them to the mini-fridge.
In the morning, I tried all three. They all ended up pretty much the same, just slightly overcooked and grainy in the center, but almost perfectly cooked on the outside. I'm thinking that had I ditched the last burst of cooking time, they might have been perfect. The flavor was better, not too sweet, but not bitter either. I wish I had added a second packet of True Lemon. There was a slight hint, and I think just a little more and the flavor would be perfect. I noticed something else interesting though. The edges of the cheesecakes seemed to have pulled slightly away from the cups, and from the looks of it, I'm wondering if it's not because of steam from the cup. Would hot water have been a better way to go about it? How about a cup of hot water in the center to provide steam, and a couple of cups of ice water elsewhere to soak up excess energy?
I'm a few steps closer to hotel cheesecake perfection. Extracting the first two cheesecakes from their cups was a pain because of how rigid the cups were. I had already decided to try putting paper cups inside the silicone ones next trip, but now I'm reconsidering. Perhaps if I swiped some pats of butter from the breakfast bar, and brought a small brush with me to paint it to the sides of the cups. Since I'll be using butter for the crust after I get the filling figured out anyway, maybe it's not too far of a stretch.
From what I hear, my next class is tentatively scheduled in Toronto. Will Canadian cream cheese behave differently? They do have cream cheese, don't they? Will I even have a microwave in my hotel room? Or will I be so totally entranced with Toronto that I don't even bother with hotel cookery? Only time will tell.
I've started carrying various cooking utensils with me. Most are either plastic or rubber, with the exception of my Oxo mini-whisk. I also have a small rubber spatula, some plastic measuring spoons, and a small stack of silicone muffin cups. Most of these were purchased with the intent of not getting into trouble with the TSA. The muffin cups were supposed to save me from having to buy new paper cups all the time. When I opened the package, I discovered they had the added bonus of being more stable, so that they don't collapse from the weight of their own filling when unsupported.
My last experiment involved using just the yolk, rather than a whole egg. This succeeded in lowering the water content which was making the batter too loose, but it unfortunately lowered it too much. The resulting cheesecakes bore more resemblance to over-cooked scrambled eggs. Obviously, I needed to loosen up the batter again. I had considered using heavy cream, but the idea of sour cream appealed to me. It's a common cheesecake ingredient which I had scarcely considered before. I was also short on sugar packets this trip, but had managed to pick up a tiny bottle of Kentucky honey at the Cincinnatti airport. Perhaps an invert sugar would help, as well as providing an interesting flavor profile.
I started with about a tablespoon of honey and 4 oz of softened cream cheese in a paper bowl. I mixed them together with the spatula, adding in about a tablespoon of sour cream. When it seemed liquid enough, I switched to the mini whisk and added the egg yolk. When it was nice and smooth, I poured it into two silicone muffin cups, foolishly ignoring the fill lines that the manufacturer had so graciously provided for me.
This microwave had a manual knob with no power control or turn carosel, so I knew I had to be careful. I cooked them in bursts of 15 to 20 seconds, manually switching their places with each burst. After 3 or 4 bursts I got brave and did a 30 second burst. The cheesecakes, which were undoubtedly slightly aerated from the whisking, had started to rise over the tops of the muffin cups. I put them in the hotel mini-fridge to cool and waited till morning.
The next morning's taste test revealed what I expected: an overcooked, grainy center. Interestingly, the outside was slightly undercooked, mostly silky smooth with the occassional graininess. This, I surmised, was because I hadn't given them time to cool properly by themselves. The shock of the icebox had stopped the carry-over cooking, and possibly forced some of the proteins to prematurly coagulate. The flavor was decent, but a little bitter from the honey. Also important, I noticed that even though I was nuking these at 100% power, the over-coagulation was not nearly as bad as with earlier attempts with lower power. I decided that the added mass (cooking two at once instead of just one) had a part to play here.
I had one more night to experiment with the other 4 oz. I added a tablespoon and a half to it, along with two packets of sugar to counter the slight bitterness of the honey. After mixing with the spatula, I added in two tablespoons of sour cream, mixed a little more, and then switched to the whisk. I added in my egg yolk, and just for kicks, a packet of True Lemon powder. Honey lemon is a pretty classic flavor profile, right?
Because of the extra sour cream, I had enough batter to fill three muffin cups right to their fill lines. I hoped the extra mass would help even more, but I had another trick up my sleeve. I added a cup of ice water to the center of the microwave, and placed the filled muffin cups in a triangle around it. Water has a very high specific heat, meaning it has to absorb a lot of energy just to raise it even one degree farenheight. My hope was that ice water would absorb even more of the microwaves in the oven, effectively limiting the power attacking the water molecules inside the cheesecake. I was careful not to overfill the water cup, just in case it absorbed enough energy to actually boil.
I went with 20 to 25 second bursts this time, each time rotating the cups with each other manually counter-clockwise one position. It took 6 or 7 bursts before I noticed that the centers of the cheesecakes had sunken in slightly, and the sides were starting to climb the muffin cups. They were overdone, I just didn't know by how much. I let them cool for about 45 minutes by themselves and then moved them to the mini-fridge.
In the morning, I tried all three. They all ended up pretty much the same, just slightly overcooked and grainy in the center, but almost perfectly cooked on the outside. I'm thinking that had I ditched the last burst of cooking time, they might have been perfect. The flavor was better, not too sweet, but not bitter either. I wish I had added a second packet of True Lemon. There was a slight hint, and I think just a little more and the flavor would be perfect. I noticed something else interesting though. The edges of the cheesecakes seemed to have pulled slightly away from the cups, and from the looks of it, I'm wondering if it's not because of steam from the cup. Would hot water have been a better way to go about it? How about a cup of hot water in the center to provide steam, and a couple of cups of ice water elsewhere to soak up excess energy?
I'm a few steps closer to hotel cheesecake perfection. Extracting the first two cheesecakes from their cups was a pain because of how rigid the cups were. I had already decided to try putting paper cups inside the silicone ones next trip, but now I'm reconsidering. Perhaps if I swiped some pats of butter from the breakfast bar, and brought a small brush with me to paint it to the sides of the cups. Since I'll be using butter for the crust after I get the filling figured out anyway, maybe it's not too far of a stretch.
From what I hear, my next class is tentatively scheduled in Toronto. Will Canadian cream cheese behave differently? They do have cream cheese, don't they? Will I even have a microwave in my hotel room? Or will I be so totally entranced with Toronto that I don't even bother with hotel cookery? Only time will tell.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Sous Vide
Does anybody else remember "boil in a bag"? No? Am I the only one that recalls with fondness picking up a plastic bag of frozen turkey and gravy from the bachelor aisle at the grocery store, taking it home, and dumping it in a pot of boiling water? Seriously, those were the instructions on the side of the package. But actually, now that I put it that way, it seems kind of dumb, especially with the popularization of microwaves. And I'm sure the salt content contributed to my current blood pressure level. But I still loved that stuff.
Well, boil in a bag is back. Well, kind of. In truth, it never went away. And the stuff I'm talking about doesn't actually involve boiling water. In fact, it seems that the popular means of cooking something sous vide is barely above 140F, and often lower. Temperature control is critical, and some of the recipes that you see don't just border on geek levels, I think the creators beat out a lot of geeks in their experiments and fanaticism. No wonder I've been obsessed with it for so long.
So why haven't I blogged about it? It all comes down to one thing: price. But before I get into that, I'd better tell you a little more information about what sous vide is. I'm told that the translation from French is "under vacuum". A standard example might involve a chef placing a piece of protein (beef, fish, etc) inside a plastic bag, along with some sort of flavorful liquid, removing all of the air from the bag (via a vacuum), and placing that bag in water of a very carefully controlled temperature for anywhere from half an hour to a day or two.
That's right. Some sous vide recipes take over a day to cook. Think about the last time you had a piece of barbecue that was slow cooked over the course of a few hours. Those of you in Utah who have never had this, there is still time to repent. The slow cooking tends to make the colagen break apart, leaving the diner with a flavorful protein that literally falls off the bone. What if one were to lower the cooking temperature so that the food would have more of a chance to soak up flavor, while reducing the chance of overcooking and ruining the meat? That's what sous vide buys you.
There is a lot of controversy surrounding sous vide. Hotels worldwide have been using it for years (since the 60s, I've been told) for a completely different reason that I described above: convenience. They can prepare plenty of food in advance, allow it to cook for long enough to get that slow-cooked flavor, and then keep it in the chill chest for hours or even days at a time until you, the unsuspecting hotel guest, calls up room service and orders a plate of ribs. It arrives 20 minutes later, tasting as if it had been cooked for hours. Because it had.
This technique has met with sneers from high-end chefs, who would claim that such a method cheapens a hotel or restaurant's offerings, and that such a trick is only a trick which they, the snooty high-end chef, would never stoop to (or at least admit to stooping to).
I don't know who officially started the recent popularity, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were one of modern sous vide's pioneers, The Great Thomas Keller. It was discovered that starting the cooking process at an extremely low temperature and then keeping it that low revealed what was probably unexpected results at the time. A piece of meat could have the texture of its raw counterpart while still being fully cooked, and having even more flavor than traditional cooking methods. I remember hearing a story of somebody dining at The French Laundry being served a piece of watermelon that had been cooked sous vide. The texture, he said, was amazing.
These low temperatures have led to bans by some cities. Food safety principles tell us that hot food should be cooked to a certain temperature, and then remain at above 140F until it is served. If it spends too much time below 140F, it cannot be served and needs to be thrown out. One can imagine that as the pros (Keller and his kind) find new and exciting (and safe) ways of using sous vide, imitators will rise and ruin everything for everyone else. How many chefs with poorly calibrated thermometers does it take to cause a foodborne illness outbreak? Apparently just the threat was enough for New York City, who recently banned the technique outright.
Unfortunately, proper sous vide equipment isn't cheap, either. Some of you are probably already thinking, "hey, if all you need is vacuum bag sealing thingy, my Food Saver will work!" And yes, your Food Saver will work. I'm certain that they've seen an increase in sales just from the popularity of sous vide alone. But that's only part of the equation. If it was all of it, I would have been using mine for sous vide long ago. But the piece of equipment that I don't have, that all of the big guns seem to, is an immersion circulator.
This device will suck up water, heat it to the proper temperature, and spit it back to whence it came. It's like turning your sink into a low-temp, underwater convection oven. And the good models start somewhere in the neighborhood of $600-900. Try as I might, I have not yet been able to convince my wife that it needs to be moved from the "want to buy" list to the "need to buy" list, especially after buying a house.
I've looked at some cheap options. The maker geek inside of me wants to combine an aqaurium pump (for the circulation) with a crock pot (for the heat), but modern crock pots are now set to cook much higher than 140F, for food safety reasons. The solution is to plug the crock pot into a potentiometer to lower the voltage, which would require lengthy periods of calibration using more accurate thermometers than I currently own (and I own a couple of pretty nice thermometers). Even worse, calibration will be different for each bag of food that I cook, since it depends on the volume and shape of the food, as well as the internal temperature. Constant temperature monitoring would still be required, and I have not yet found a decent digital thermometer (within my price range) that I can plug into my USB port to kill the power to the crock pot or turn it back on as needed.
Things are looking up. Following the rise of sous vide in the professional kitchen, there has been a surge of home cooks with more time and resources on their hands than me. One that I saw today was Chadzilla, a professional cook who has now managed to get sous vide going at home. Rather than a crock pot, he uses a rice cooker. His model is known to produce good results, and even better, is pretty cheap. He uses a Food Saver such as mine, which is not cheap, but isn't terribly expensive either (until you have to buy refills, at which point it suddenly seems incredibly expensive). He also uses something called Sous-Vide Magic, a device that runs just over a C-note. I'm still not entirely sure what this device actually does. As near as I can tell this is not, in fact, an immersion circulator. It seems that many a blogger and message board poster has gone into a good deal of enthusiasm about this device, noting at the end that it's not an immersion circulator, but it does the job. Thanks guys.
My best guess is that it's a thermometer with a built-in voltage regulator. You plug your crock pot or rice cooker into it, presumably plug one end of a prober thermometer into it and the other end into the water inside the cooking vessel, and set the time and temperature. The text on their website seems to support this. I suppose if I really want to set up convection, I could probably still employ an aquarium pump, which comes at a price that is negligible, especially compared to the other components.
So it seems that sous vide is finally available to the home cook who hasn't just sold his soul to the mortgage company for the next 30 years like me. Next tax return, maybe. In the meantime, maybe it's time to pull out the old crockpot and my custom voltage dial (it's a power outlet + a power cord + a light dimmer in the middle) and see what I can do with it.
Well, boil in a bag is back. Well, kind of. In truth, it never went away. And the stuff I'm talking about doesn't actually involve boiling water. In fact, it seems that the popular means of cooking something sous vide is barely above 140F, and often lower. Temperature control is critical, and some of the recipes that you see don't just border on geek levels, I think the creators beat out a lot of geeks in their experiments and fanaticism. No wonder I've been obsessed with it for so long.
So why haven't I blogged about it? It all comes down to one thing: price. But before I get into that, I'd better tell you a little more information about what sous vide is. I'm told that the translation from French is "under vacuum". A standard example might involve a chef placing a piece of protein (beef, fish, etc) inside a plastic bag, along with some sort of flavorful liquid, removing all of the air from the bag (via a vacuum), and placing that bag in water of a very carefully controlled temperature for anywhere from half an hour to a day or two.
That's right. Some sous vide recipes take over a day to cook. Think about the last time you had a piece of barbecue that was slow cooked over the course of a few hours. Those of you in Utah who have never had this, there is still time to repent. The slow cooking tends to make the colagen break apart, leaving the diner with a flavorful protein that literally falls off the bone. What if one were to lower the cooking temperature so that the food would have more of a chance to soak up flavor, while reducing the chance of overcooking and ruining the meat? That's what sous vide buys you.
There is a lot of controversy surrounding sous vide. Hotels worldwide have been using it for years (since the 60s, I've been told) for a completely different reason that I described above: convenience. They can prepare plenty of food in advance, allow it to cook for long enough to get that slow-cooked flavor, and then keep it in the chill chest for hours or even days at a time until you, the unsuspecting hotel guest, calls up room service and orders a plate of ribs. It arrives 20 minutes later, tasting as if it had been cooked for hours. Because it had.
This technique has met with sneers from high-end chefs, who would claim that such a method cheapens a hotel or restaurant's offerings, and that such a trick is only a trick which they, the snooty high-end chef, would never stoop to (or at least admit to stooping to).
I don't know who officially started the recent popularity, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were one of modern sous vide's pioneers, The Great Thomas Keller. It was discovered that starting the cooking process at an extremely low temperature and then keeping it that low revealed what was probably unexpected results at the time. A piece of meat could have the texture of its raw counterpart while still being fully cooked, and having even more flavor than traditional cooking methods. I remember hearing a story of somebody dining at The French Laundry being served a piece of watermelon that had been cooked sous vide. The texture, he said, was amazing.
These low temperatures have led to bans by some cities. Food safety principles tell us that hot food should be cooked to a certain temperature, and then remain at above 140F until it is served. If it spends too much time below 140F, it cannot be served and needs to be thrown out. One can imagine that as the pros (Keller and his kind) find new and exciting (and safe) ways of using sous vide, imitators will rise and ruin everything for everyone else. How many chefs with poorly calibrated thermometers does it take to cause a foodborne illness outbreak? Apparently just the threat was enough for New York City, who recently banned the technique outright.
Unfortunately, proper sous vide equipment isn't cheap, either. Some of you are probably already thinking, "hey, if all you need is vacuum bag sealing thingy, my Food Saver will work!" And yes, your Food Saver will work. I'm certain that they've seen an increase in sales just from the popularity of sous vide alone. But that's only part of the equation. If it was all of it, I would have been using mine for sous vide long ago. But the piece of equipment that I don't have, that all of the big guns seem to, is an immersion circulator.
This device will suck up water, heat it to the proper temperature, and spit it back to whence it came. It's like turning your sink into a low-temp, underwater convection oven. And the good models start somewhere in the neighborhood of $600-900. Try as I might, I have not yet been able to convince my wife that it needs to be moved from the "want to buy" list to the "need to buy" list, especially after buying a house.
I've looked at some cheap options. The maker geek inside of me wants to combine an aqaurium pump (for the circulation) with a crock pot (for the heat), but modern crock pots are now set to cook much higher than 140F, for food safety reasons. The solution is to plug the crock pot into a potentiometer to lower the voltage, which would require lengthy periods of calibration using more accurate thermometers than I currently own (and I own a couple of pretty nice thermometers). Even worse, calibration will be different for each bag of food that I cook, since it depends on the volume and shape of the food, as well as the internal temperature. Constant temperature monitoring would still be required, and I have not yet found a decent digital thermometer (within my price range) that I can plug into my USB port to kill the power to the crock pot or turn it back on as needed.
Things are looking up. Following the rise of sous vide in the professional kitchen, there has been a surge of home cooks with more time and resources on their hands than me. One that I saw today was Chadzilla, a professional cook who has now managed to get sous vide going at home. Rather than a crock pot, he uses a rice cooker. His model is known to produce good results, and even better, is pretty cheap. He uses a Food Saver such as mine, which is not cheap, but isn't terribly expensive either (until you have to buy refills, at which point it suddenly seems incredibly expensive). He also uses something called Sous-Vide Magic, a device that runs just over a C-note. I'm still not entirely sure what this device actually does. As near as I can tell this is not, in fact, an immersion circulator. It seems that many a blogger and message board poster has gone into a good deal of enthusiasm about this device, noting at the end that it's not an immersion circulator, but it does the job. Thanks guys.
My best guess is that it's a thermometer with a built-in voltage regulator. You plug your crock pot or rice cooker into it, presumably plug one end of a prober thermometer into it and the other end into the water inside the cooking vessel, and set the time and temperature. The text on their website seems to support this. I suppose if I really want to set up convection, I could probably still employ an aquarium pump, which comes at a price that is negligible, especially compared to the other components.
So it seems that sous vide is finally available to the home cook who hasn't just sold his soul to the mortgage company for the next 30 years like me. Next tax return, maybe. In the meantime, maybe it's time to pull out the old crockpot and my custom voltage dial (it's a power outlet + a power cord + a light dimmer in the middle) and see what I can do with it.
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