Syzygies

That's by accident, not by tidy impulse. The KK survives high temps better than other brands, but it's not an ideal habit to get into. For example, I need to replace my main gasket. Was it the high temps? The liberal use of steam as a bread oven? Who knows; I'm not the easiest owner.

The classic magnum quote is "A difficult size. Too much for one, not enough for two." Of course, an argon tank renders the question moot: The wine drinks the next day like you just opened it. Shown is a "40" tank, which costs the same as a "20" for refills, but lasts twice as long. Our "20" lasted a year and a half. "Argon" as in "Did you argon the wine, honey?" has become a verb around here. If one prefers systems vetted by the consumer supply chain, there's always Coravin or other systems. Look at the size of their cartridge, and look again at the size of my tank. Huh. Reminds me of the Thomas Keller recommendation to use 350ml of water for steam, rather than 10ml of water from a plant spritzer. Someone is confused about scale, here, but I don't think it's me.

The best smen there was certainly aged, but very clean in fragrance. Its scent was roughly blue cheese, which Jeff Koehler recommends mixed with butter to approximate the taste.

Oh, I crave a set of donabe pots. The best source I know is Toiro Kitchen, as recommended by Donabe: Classic and Modern Japanese Clay Pot Cooking. From what I've seen, donabes are very advanced to make. Either decades of practice, or use mold supports while spinning. Of course, there's a contemporary world of pottery merged with 3D printing now, either for slip casting or to directly fire the 3D results. This is in its infancy, but I'd like to have a traditional formulation.

Pottery takes lots of practice. One hears music, or eats food, and it's gone. Pottery needs people willing to pay postage, or else I'm going to end up with a clay pot graveyard in the corner of my garden. Just describe what you want, and don't expect it to last forever in use till I move to mica clay. In Morocco they use high flames, expect everything to eventually crack, and go out and spend another $2.

I'm just back from a terrific two weeks in Morocco, keen on new ideas for using my KK. Tangia is a specialty of Marrakech. The pot shown has a two quart volume, but is intended for only a half kilo of meat. The idea is that others will handle the pot, not knowing the contents, but trusting that the pot can be placed at an angle. For example, the top photo shows tangias being reheated over charcoal for serving, at stall 97 in Jemaa el-Fnaa square in the Marrakech medina. A typical recipe that fits nicely, if one isn't going to tip the pot shown (two quarts capacity), is: 4 cloves crushed garlic, 1/4 preserved lemon seeded and finely chopped, 1/2 tsp ginger, 1/2 tsp ground cumin, 1/4 tsp turmeric, pinch saffron, 1 Tb butter, 1 1/2 Tb olive oil, salt and pepper, 800g beef (chuck roast from the end that becomes rib eye?), 1/2 bunch tied cilantro, 3/4 cup water. Mix all but the cilantro and water, marinate in the fridge overnight (I vacuum packed), then add the rest and cook all day till melting and sauce reduced. One will surely need to adjust the water to one's technique. Tangia is traditionally made by men. The idea is that they own the pot (or they buy a new one for $2). A butcher that provides the beef or lamb will also include the rest of the recipe, in a matter of seconds. One then takes the pot to a bathhouse, where for 10 cents the person handling the bathhouse fire will also tend these pots in the ashes for the day. This is in the same spirit as the communal ovens I saw everywhere (and where I baked the bread from one of my classes), except at a lower temperature. My KK was still 200 F from last night's chicken. It was easy to add more lump charcoal in a pile against one side, set the guru to 275 F for now (to turn down once the pot heats), and leave this for tonight's dinner. In the footsteps of Dennis our spiritual leader, who teaches us by example the confidence to embrace life and see everything through to its logical conclusion, I'm signed up for pottery classes nearby in Concord, CA. If one isn't going to tip a tangia, one would prefer a modified form to use in a KK. There are many other shapes I'd need to commission if I didn't learn how to make them. Earthenware in the KK is a great way to invoke the holy trinity that birthed our species of food, clay, and fire. After learning partially glazed earthenware I hope to move to New Mexico mica clay, which is close to indestructible. This is the same clay as La Chamba pots, or Moroccan Souss tagines. The Pueblo people of New Mexico perfected this form of pottery, and the clay is available now.

There was a lot of Italian migration to Australia, and some backwash. I'm most aware of Calabrians, but Padova, why not?

Our Fogo charcoal arrived, and I used a chimney's worth in my KK to first grill burgers on a baking steel, then to roast a Spanish potato, onion, salt, black pepper, pimenton mixture in a cazuela with the residual fire. Like pool; always have a plan for what to do with the white ball next. The Fogo did spark, especially when I fanned the fire with a Milwaukee M18 blower tool. Fun to watch, but no need for a welding helmet. Very dense, not very smoky at all, hotter perhaps than other fuels. No objectionable flavors at all, and a very mild pleasant flavor imparted to the potato mixture. More like "Of course we cook with fire!" than "Can you pick out those hickory notes?" (I'm notoriously fussy, the guy who came up with the cast iron smoke pot whose wife won't let him use smoke any other way now.) As I mainly wanted to cook outside, I like this subtle profile. Recommended? Yes. I prefer coffee charcoal from Dennis but we can't get that. Worth the price? Depends on your other options. Worth a try. Of course we cook with fire!

Fogo Charcoal

A contender for our favorite use of sous vide is to cook plain peeled, quartered potatoes sous vide > 85 C for 75 to 90 minutes starting cold. Then dry on a rack, perhaps involving a fan. Then pan fry with attitude in ghee. My intuition runs against using fat in the sous vide step. They certainly won't dry the same. Have you tried this both ways? I see how this could be your best opportunity to introduce fat, using an air cooker later. For anyone not using an air cooker, one should at least ask the question. Tonight I made Niçoise Stockfish, and the recipe called for cooked potatoes. I did this, making a second packet at the same time to chill in the fridge for a different meal. (Ok, I misread the recipe.)

It depends on the wrench. If the curve matches the grate, then nothing else comes close. (Old-timers will confirm I try everything.) If the curve is more square, this isn't your tool.

Looks spot on to me, from my time in Georgia.

I have perhaps eight in two kitchens, and I always choose best fit. I do like the 4 qt as a good starter.

Are the aluminum foil ear muffs so the United States CIA can't hear their thoughts about being roasted?

Wine? That's interesting. I've used distilled water before. I've kept some batches and discarded some batches where there's a bit of mold. On one hand I don't believe there's a health risk. I can imagine I can taste the difference, but this could be psychological. What I certainly would bet a massive sum on is this: By the time one sees a bit of visible mold on top, there are mold spores that would show up under a microscope, throughout the mixture.

I love fermenting hot sauce; I've been doing it for years. I do struggle with the ideal technique. You don't get mold, exposing the jar contents to air filtered through cheesecloth? I've always used some sort of one-way fermentation valve, like making beer. Now I have an argon tank (for saving part bottles of wine), I'm curious if a layer of argon is as easy/effective as those who use a layer of oil.

Good eye! I totally missed the lighter fluid, looking through the photos.

"Cracking" grains is a separate problem; one can buy dedicated devices. Or improvise, e.g. an industrial blender or a Thai mortar and pestle. I like to get the grain size down on something like corn, whatever they say. Or, were I to dare using just the KoMo, I'd do two passes, starting very coarse. My first grain mill was completely manual. Enough flour for pasta required twenty minutes and a shower. I keep it for exactly problems like turning corn into polenta. A related problem: If one cooks with turmeric, there are actually several varieties available dried e.g. at Kalustyan's. North India favors one, the south favors another. There is a spectacular difference grinding turmeric in a spice grinder, even to save months at a time. However, one needs to smash the turmeric down to a manageable size or it destroys the grinder. I use a mortar and pestle (and find pieces 30 feet away).

I've had a burger every day since. I just ruined another dish I used to be able to eat out. "Chopped" is a misnomer. At first I'd slice as far as I could, then some final mincing with a chopping motion. I've come to think of even that as mashing the meat. After slicing along all three axis, one can wad together the meat and slice another pass or two, as if slicing salumi. No thwacking the knife on the board, all careful drawing the knife past the meat. It is worth a try. Nevertheless, one of my favorite scenes from "Being John Malkovitch" is the documentary clip where Sean Penn struggles with whether he should follow John into puppetry. Being John Malkovich (10/11) Movie CLIP - John Malkovich Becomes a Puppeteer

I've been aware most of my life of the idea that the best "ground" meat is hand chopped, and I classified this as a bit over the top. While I'm no stranger to "over the top" (we grind our own flour, well worth it), I'd been blocking out this idea out of some misguided sense of self preservation. Nevertheless, I do have some amazing (Shapton Glass) sharpening stones for my knives. On Sunday, I bought a 3 1/2 rolled beef roast from one of my favorite butchers. A non-standard name, but the end they cut me was from near where rib eye steaks come from. I cleaned it up completely, removing all fat that wasn't marbling, saving 2 1/2 lbs of "steaks". These I cooked sous vide, then finished over coffee charcoal from Dennis, then sliced against the grain keeping the four distinct cuts in separate piles. It was a contender for the best steak of my life. Aside from the discarded fat and tissue, I salvaged bits of meat to make one hand chopped burger. It too was amazing. Remember that one simply needs a burger to hold together as it cooks; the juices congeal, so this takes less than one would think. In comparison, any grinder (even working with partially frozen chunks and a prechilled grinder) makes a massacre of the meat. Hand chopping has a lightness impossible to realize with any grinder. My protocol, moving forward, will be to plan for burgers and steaks, from one purchase of a hunk of beef. We were at a ranch party near Mariposa, CA two weeks ago where they served rib eye steaks to 80 people. How much reinforcement does it take for the idea to stick that ribeye steak is two cuts, and one is actually spectacularly better than the other? This was a big enough pile of meat served for anyone who wanted to get this idea straight. The dream scenario would be to rob this cut for steak night, and hand cut the rest into great burgers.

About 110,000. My mechanic is awesome, he's hoping for 200,000 despite it being German, but I don't drive that much.

Here's my 2000 VW GTI VR6, back when it was new (and I was newer). Still driving it...

Looks great. Here's a plug for Mastering the Art of Japanese Home Cooking by Masaharu Morimoto. For the most part easy authentic, with noted improvisations one can use as models. His teriyaki sauce is good bang-for-buck to make fresh. One could swap in a more interesting sugar, or add homemade Sicilian tomato paste, or a bit of good fish sauce, to vary the flavor. For chicken teriyaki, he fries the chicken bits golden, adds bits of sauce along with a bit of cornstarch/water slurry, in a few stages. I'm finding this sort of thing a very quick dinner, working alone away at my Manhattan apartment.

Do explore what charcoals you can find. If Relae in Copenhagen can taste the different sources for water they use in stock, you'll certainly distinguish between each charcoal source. Do you happen to be rich? Find some Japanese bincho. There are two poles to charcoal handling with a KK. At one extreme, the fire burns like a fuse. This is your only option for a low and slow, hence the importance of your charcoal choice. At the other extreme, you uniformly burn down all of your coals, in the process thoroughly heat-soaking the KK. The KK is in a different league here from other ceramic cookers. I thought I was already an expert, but the feel was akin to landing a jet after practicing on a prop plane. The KK is very well insulated, with considerable thermal mass. You could probably remove the charcoal fire before roasting, and just coast on the radiant heat in the KK walls, if you wanted to run a bizarre experiment. Many of us are hooked on leaning that way for our hotter cooks. There are many advantages; one is the cleaner taste from fully developed coals, akin to the separate fire box of every dream rig if space is not a constraint.

I love Argentinian grilling. I used to frequent a Kismet, Fire Island beach house where three Argentinians showed up one weekend to grill. They had bought the meat at an Argentinian butcher (different cuts). They were throwing elbows like an aggressive masseuse, spitting and prodding, very hands on the whole cook. The results were fantastic.