Phantom Of The Op-Ed

Unless god is evil…

A Chef At Large — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:55:55 +0000

I woke to an email from my beloved mother today, a long forward, about the greatness and successes of generations passed, with a final quote allegedly by Jay Leno about taking god out of the pledge of allegiance. I think it is a good idea. The pledge was only added in 1954, so most of the success listed happened before it was added, therefore it appears to have had no real benefit. And, doesn’t the fact of all these natural evils: hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another along with the threat of swine flu all killing many innocent people; and terrorist attacks inspired by Abraham’s god; give good enough reason to doubt this bronze-age tribal sky daddy even exists?

Hundreds of years before Christ is said to have walked the earth Epicurus asked:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

It is not that I prefer to think god doesn’t watch over us (actually a horrible thought in itself) but there is no evidence for that hypothesis and a striking amount of evidence to suggest that it is untrue…unless god is evil.

Apple Sauce

A Chef At Large — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:27:08 +0000

Son, see that apple cart over there? Piled high, with gloriously colorful, fresh, ripe, vibrant, fruit? Someone, long-gone now, took significant time to meticulously arrange every apple. Row by row, level by level they built that fruit pyramid until the cart was as full of fruit as it could possibly be.

Right in the middle of that mountain of produce reside a couple of fruits which, contrary to normal laws of physics, have continued to grow in size, but may have decayed a bit at the same time. Those fruits have got to go, they threaten to break the back of the cart (it was never built to hold them), and may well cause the other fruit to rot at the same time.

Son, your mission, is to ferret out those few fruits and dispose of them quickly. But…don’t upset the apple cart.

A Chef At Large

A Chef At Large — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:48:17 +0000

In order to better organize my consulting and lecture work, I have set up a web presence under achefatlarge.com
Currently I have two blogs running: Phantom Of The Op-Ed and A Chef At Large: Travel. To keep things tidy I am creating a new blog: Thought For Food. The new organization of the three will be as follows:
Phantom Of The Op-Ed: General topics and opinion bog
A Chef At Large: Travel: Travel Blog
Thought For Food: F&B Related News and Opinion
I will be moving some of the posts in the current two blogs around to tidy things up a bit, and all will be linked through the master site achefatlarge.com which will be consulting related, but also a portal for all my web pages.
Any questions?

Old Shoe

A Chef At Large — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 00:36:51 +0000

I see on my CNN web page that another shoe has been tossed…”in protest.” This one aimed at Chinese Premier Wen Jiaboao. In case you forgot the last most recent shoe was cast at George W. Bush.
I was just commenting on episode 91 of Skepticality regarding a couple of inebriated foul-mouthed girls-gone-wild who tried to storm the Discovery Institute to hurl scorn and disdain at ii and it’s occupants.
I am often one of the first to chirp up, in Post-man-esque (Costner not Troisi) rhetoric, that “stuff’s gettin’ better, all the time.” But these recent events disappoint me.
What has become of the legacy of non-violent protest that has this year gained us such a remarkable victory as Barak Hussein Obama, as president of the United States?
To me the shoe throwers only hurt their own position by resorting to violence, as the drunken frat girls only damage the reputation of the skeptical community by being such boors. The first is clearly assault and the offenders should be punished for such. The second, is harder to file, but is disdainful none the less.
If you have better ideas, really better. Ideas that will prove to improve the world, life for humankind, that should be enough. You need not and should not muddle them up with bad behavior.

Episode 8

A Chef At Large — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 06:49:41 +0000

In this weeks episode I show you how to make fresh pasta and try not to make a fool of myself at the same time.
Some of the music provided tonight from the PodShow Podsafe Music Network. Check it out at music.podshow.com The music in this episode is all used with permission and was as follows.
Track 1. Cookin at Home – The Gas House Gorillas
Track 2. Tu Cha Cha Cha -Antonin

Hong Kong Chefs on RTHK

A Chef At Large — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:03:42 +0000

Christopher Wong, one of the HKCA Culinary Olympic team members, and I had a chance to be interviewed on RTHK today to explain our teams upcoming competition in the Culinary Olympics at Erfurt Germany.
Morning Brew – Program page link:
http://www.rthk.org.hk/rthk/radio3/morning_brew/20080918.html

Audio Link:
http://www.rthk.org.hk/rthk/radio3/morning_brew/clips/radio3_2505_80816_2010.asx

Episode Seven

A Chef At Large — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 09:51:33 +0000

In this weeks episode I take you through the Hong Kong Restaurant & Bar Show, into the Tabasco Hot Chef Competition, and finally show you how to make Tabasco Hot Wings; and try not to make a fool of myself at the same time.
Some of the music provided tonight from the PodShow Podsafe Music Network. Check it out at music.podshow.com The music in this episode is all used with permission and was as follows.
Track 1. Cookin at Home – The Gas House Gorillas
Track 2. Dippin’ Sauce – The Two Man Gentlemen Band
Track 3. Chili Relleno – Richard R. Hernandez

Episode Six

A Chef At Large — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 06:46:48 +0000

In this weeks episode I try to show some fish techniques and try not to make a fool of myself at the same time.
Some of the music provided tonight from the PodShow Podsafe Music Network. Check it out at music.podshow.com The music in this episode is all used with permission and was as follows.
Track 1. Cookin at Home – The Gas House Gorillas
Track 2. Fish Dreams – brookeandjer
Track 3. Fishnet Sailor – Robert German

Episode Five

A Chef At Large — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:22:59 +0000

In this weeks episodeI try to show how to be skeptical of restaurant nutrition and quality claims and try not to make a fool of myself at the same time.
Some of the music provided tonight from the PodShow Podsafe Music Network. Check it out at ‘music.podshow.com The music in this episode is all used with permission and was as follows.
Track 1. Cookin at Home – The Gas House Gorillas
Track 2. Skeptic – George Hrab

Episode Four

A Chef At Large — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 10:59:59 +0000

In this weeks episode I show you how to dry age steak as well as give some steak cooking tips and methods.
Some of the music provided tonight from the PodShow Podsafe Music Network. Check it out at ‘music.podshow.com The music in this episode is all used with permission and was as follows.
Track 1. Cookin at Home – The Gas House Gorillas
Track 2. Fat Man Dance by OneManBand
Track 3. I Wanna Fly by Tobin Mueller
QUOTE (sailingsoul @ Aug 29 2008, 12:30 AM) *
I’ve wondered about aging beef and how its done. Most people are unaware how much the temperature varies inside a frig’, depending on the placement inside. It can be as mush as 20f / 11c from bottom back to the top front locations. Commercial frig’s are better than poor quality residential units.
Do you know what the actual temperature the steak is kept at, measured with a thermometer? I’m guessing just above freezing, 33f / 1c. That would provide slowest bacteria growth, yet prevent the damage caused by ice crystal formation but there maybe other factors. What is done with the meat you trimmed? What are the signs of the aging process going wrong before the meat is a loss? Very well done! Emeril?, get out da way, your being replaced. SS
Yeas residential refrigerators have some variance which is why I said place the meat on the bottom back just above the vegetable crisper, this is the coolest most stably cook, place. And you want the temp below 4c but not below 1 (No freezing allowed). And part of that home-fridge variance is a bit mythic. The high variance is only true when taking the various component storage bins into account (Vegetable crisper and what not). The variance of the main storage area of a home fridge is not that big, few degrees from back to leaky door is most likely. If you have a newer (past few years) unit you will find it is on par with commercial in many ways.
Your concern is not bacteria growth, which is surface and will be dormant long before you trim the steak. Your concern is rancidity. The aging comes from enzymes in the meat and those enzymes are more active the warmer it is until about 60C when the cell activity stops.
To put both in perspective, we have been aging meat for thousands of years but we have only had refrigeration for what a hundred? As Careme said of the French technique of mortification Hanging whole joints at room temp for weeks on end: "it should be taken as far as possible."
The real reason we control time and temperature is to reduce the strong and pungent flavors, especially the rancidity of the fat. And as I note you can age for much longer than the 20 days.
I find the 20 days to be a reasonable loss of yield (about1/3) and improvement in taste and texture.
I bin the trim, but it could be used for animal feed.
Significant spottiness or worms would be two signs that I would say things went awry. But unless you have very uneven temp of direct air blowing on the meat, or have bad meat to begin, I can’t imagine that would happen.
- Chris
QUOTE (normal abnormal @ Aug 29 2008, 06:54 AM) *
So yer sayin I should use a ball peen hammer huh? Its rounded so I figure it should work well, maybe use a hubcap? I’m all set then I’m goin to be smashing me some pesto!
Take a video for me!
So can you dry age meat you get in the regular supermarket since it has already been wet aged or should I try to get it from a regular butcher shop them try it? I’m going to give it a try on the aging but don’t want of pick the wrong kind of beef.
Yes supermarket meat. Actually it is unlikely that they actually wet age it at all, as that takes storage. A wet age is basically any time the meat has spent in a moist environment (its own bag) after slaughter. So many supermarkets like to count the shipping time and market as wet aged. Wet aging sucks, and in any event will not hurt your dry aging process.
If by some lucky freak supermarket accident (it is Jackson after all) you find the first aging a bit too heady for your taste, take two or three days off you’re aging time and try again.
Finally you up in elk country can also be aging sides of elk, or even lamb, foul and pork. Pork is the one where worms could be an issue, but in modern American pork (unlike the fresh slaughter stuff we still get here) that is probably not going to be an issue.
- Chris