Medellitin

Kyocera makes ceramic knives.  The advantages of ceramic knives are that they remain sharp for a lot longer than their metallic counterparts.  They are also significantly lighter (which some people prefer, but I prefer heavier knives), and they are a little more delicate (meaning, you don't want to use them on product that could potentially damage the knife (meaning frozen foods, or anything with bones).   I say all of this, only because I was recently reminded of this knife, and I wanted to hunt down the original FAQ , which included something that I find very entertaining: Q: The peeler is great! How come you don't make a shaver? A: Too dangerous! A metal razor blade has a relatively "rounded" edge (under the microscope) which prevents the blade from cutting into the skin. A ceramic razor blade, however, does not have a rounded edge and slices into the skin. Thus, a ceramic shaver would be too dangerous to use. Several engineers in Sendai who tested prototy...

A quick disclaimer: I don't much care about the morality of sound judgement of comparing bankers/customers/anyone to Hitler or Stalin. A bunch of online outlets are linkbaiting the crap out of this Bataligate bullshit.   It's lazy, layup blog-o-journalism, taking advantage of the current political climate along with riling up the primary readership of financial trades. Let's dissect Eater's  coverage : Despite having apologized for comments comparing bankers to Stalin and Hitler, the internet backlash against Mario Batali rages on. Yelpers have been dropping one-star reviews for his New York restaurants; the #BoycottBatali and #BataliGate hashtags on Twitter are blowing up; financial types are trashing his restaurants on Bloomberg terminals; and bankers are bad-mouthing the chef in the Wall Street Journal: "I must have spent more than $5,000 on his stupid black truffles over the years, and now he says I'm Hitler?!" They reference four sources: Yelp...

I don't really share recipes on this blog.  It just isn't what I do.  But, today is different.  Just like the last time I posted a recipe.  But this time, I blame a providence of Michaels.  I read Michael Ruhlman's post on french onion soup , and Michael Nagrant tweeted  about reuben soup.   The trick with doing a dish like this is honoring the souls of these iconic dishes without being constricted by them.  So... What is french onion soup? How can anyone forget the first time they had french onion soup?  Molten cheese bubbling on top of crouton floating over a rich, deep caramelized onion broth. The flavors muted only by the burning sensation in your mouth, not realizing that this soup was just sitting underneath a jet-engine-hot broiler. How about a reuben? The reuben is an iconic sandwich of the jewish deli (*).  Corned beef, swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and russian dressing layered between two slices of caraway...

First of all, great article in the Boston Globe on the pervasive mislabeling of fish.  My one criticism with the piece is the following sentence: The Globe found escolar being sold as white tuna, super-white tuna, or albacore at merchants such as FuGaKyu in Brookline, Kowloon in Saugus, H Mart supermarket in Burlington, and Oishii Sushi Bar in Chestnut Hill. While it is true that the FDA's Seafood List says that you can't sell escolar as white tuna, it is unfair to single out out places for selling escolar as white tuna or super white tuna when it is a pervasive industry practice.  Now, selling it as albacore tuna is more dodgy, because as I have written about before, there is a genuine sushi bar distinction between albacore and escolar . Anyhoo, good article.

The noble frodnesor  tagged me in to the link-baity "My Seven Links" internet cage meme.  And while the speed of the internet is light-speed, the speed of a Pablo post is still all USPS baby.  So while I am pretty sure this meme is dead, I am a sucker for the lay-up blog post.  Of course, this took two hours to write.   Why?  Because I just reread a lot of my posts.  Which I think is why this meme worked.  It was really nice to stumble down memory lane, I definitely saw some posts that are totally horrifying, but then I also saw a lot of posts I had forgotten about, and were surprisingly, not shitty. My Most Beautiful Post This is a tough call.  Like the aforementioned frod, I am pictorially-challenged.   At first I was thinking that some of my travel posts like  Taco ,  Epoisses  or  Paris , where  I managed to take some quality shots.  Of course,  Ultimately, I think I have to give it to...

This is probably indicative of my state of mind, but I got super furious when I saw the following ad on epicurious: A $200 fennel braiser.  Questions like:  Who the fuck would spend 200$ just for the task of a fennel braiser?   What unique qualities of fennel could be coaxed with a special braising device?   Why would anyone think they could get away with this scam? Where did epicurious get the gall to sell such a ridiculous item? I had to research this further.  Within seconds my rage converted into amusement.  With myself.  At myself.  For within two clicks, I found the following:

Coffee has been top of mind  lately .  With the rising price of coffee in NYC (I think I pay $4 for a thimbleful of iced americano), being able to make an excellent cup of coffee at home is becoming a priority.  I haven't made coffee at home without the guidance of Mr. Coffee himself, so this is going to be a learning process. To further complicate things, I really only like iced coffee.  Oh sure, I'll tolerate the hot stuff when it is freezing out, but give me iced coffee  anyday . Wisdom of the interwebs says that cold brewing coffee is the way to go.  Ratios and tools change, but technique pretty much remains the same.   Once I get a handle on making a good iced coffee, some variations I want to try are: Seasoning.  A  little  bit of  salt  can go a long way. It just makes sense and will supposedly cut bitterness. Cavitation.  I won't be the  first  to take  Nitrous cavitation  to cold br...