Be Excellent To Each Other

I am aware of this.

My gut feel is that tables will be hard to come by, with the undoubtedly high cost offset by the exclusivity of a ten-day event and by California being a bloody long way away. Certainly, they were supposed to be so in California, although I found the experience painless. I called and said "I'd like a dinner reservation at any time on one of these three days" less than a month before my trip and was told they had no room and I'd be put on a wait list. I had a call back 20 minutes later with my reservation.

One of the partners here was not aware of their reservations only policy. They turned up at the front door, and were turned away, having left their number to be called if there were any cancellations in the next three days. They got 20 yards from the front door when the phone rang for a table available immediately - the front desk just had to make the reservations rule hold true.

I am aware of this.

The French Laundry is a shit name.

My wife is on board with this suggestion. Your move, curiosity

Having just had lunch with the wife, the French Laundry was discussed, and eyebrows raised disapprovingly.

That said, as I mentioned to Craster, the wife is indeed away until the Thursday of that week (the first week in October) so I would very much like to have some sort of nice meal out, even if it is ribs at Bodeans or steak at Hawksmoor or something else less starry and expensive than Mister Keller's Gastronomic Moneypit.

Boo to midweek Beex gastromeets!

It's going to be a struggle to get a table, so I have every intention of trying to book a table for two on absolutely any day they'll take us at any time they'll take us. If others want in on those terms, let me know.

Er. I appear to have gone from wishful thinking to planning. Not sure when that happened.

In. I should have the brownie points for telling Ali she could have gone to the french laundry.

Admittedly, she knows that planning too much into that would be comparable to if she told me I'm allowed to sleep with Isla fisher and I went and reserved a hotel room for tonight lest the antipodean minx called me asking for Riley sexy time.

Cool. Of course, whether or not I go to the French Laundry that week will have no bearing on also going out for steak that week - you wouldn't understand.



I have a permanent hotel room reserved on the off chance that I get a phone call from Isla Fisher wanting Craster sexy time.

Unless I'm reading that wrong, you book exactly one month in advance. So today, you book for the 1st October; tomorrow you can book for the 2nd Oct (or the 1st if -- HA! -- there are any tables left); and so on and so forth. So you'll be ringing them every day...!

I need to make similar arrangements. At a different hotel, obviously.

Why can't you share the room? There's only one of her, so you only need one room, unless she spontaneously acquires a clone or a twin sister. Or wants to be tag-teamed by you both shit now I need to bleach my brain.

The beteo cookbook. Successfully putting forumites off their food since half two this afternoon.

I am aware of this.

Food Clique thread derailment... SUCCESS!

That along with all the talk of wives not approving, I thought it was some kind of burlesque/strip club.

Where's Grim... with his spaghetti hot dogs or beans on toast?

Tonight's dinner:


Pan-fried smoked haddock with ratatouille and garlic bread. by PenLlawen, on Flickr

Tonight's dinner appears to be currently unavailable. Hope you weren't hungry.

2.5 kg piece of brisket, ready to become salt beef:

I'd unroll them. A week an inch is the general rule, and I don't think you have four weeks.

Oh yeah. I forgot. Oops, too late now.

Having said that, the first one I did was OK, and I didn't unroll that, and it only had a week.

Oh, I forgot. News received earlier, l'enclume has a two year pop up (so not really a pop up) in London.

I await confirmation regarding orca in the thames, but it's news to me.

Is that not Roganic, discussed at length in this very thread?

It's a fucking whale, man!

Experimenting with a industrial-grade "hickory smoke powder" food additive. 1/16th tsp in 2l of BBQ sauce was quite enough.

I bought a round barbecue with lid in the B&Q "oh come on, one of these summers has to be nice" sale for smoking purposes, because of the picture Craster posted.

Now I just need to know how to smoke stuff.

The chilli chutney I turned a kilo of chillies into before going on holiday is gert lush. The gherkins I pickled a while back are quite nice; very vinegary for having used distilled malt vinegar instead of the flavourless chemicals commercials use, and a bit too much garlic, but a little bit of chilli piquancy from the dried something or other and homegrown fresno and cayenne I put in.

I now have another kilo of chillies* needing preserving; I'm thinking probably a hot sauce and a chutney.

* Except these ones are approximately 4 or 5 times as hot, because of I HAVE NO IDEA ALL I DID WAS GO ON HOLIDAY FOR A FORTNIGHT.

Cheers. I will have a go at that pita recipe. Well, I'll wave the url in the direction of the Madame Fop and see how keen she is on assisting me in the kitchen.

Jambalaya Pro-Tip: don't reheat leftover jambalaya. You spend much of the next day on the toilet. And you also fail for not eating ALL THE JAMBALAYA in the first place.

You'll have the same problem you always have with rice dishes - you need to chill them fast rather than letting them cool to room temperature before putting them in the fridge.

And, in fact, all food. If you're aiming to put some of it in the fridge, get it down to fridge temperature ASAP - such as by putting it in a tub in a sink full of iced water.

I did reheat the jambalya, without problems. Because of what Craster said.

Oh look, Mr "ate a raw full English breakfast on a bet" is giving fold hygiene advice.

I can go into detail on why raw pork and eggs are no more likely to be harmful than raw beef, if you'd really like :0)

raw fried toast? You monster.

I made jambalaya a few weeks ago and re-heated it the next day and it was yum and neither of us was ill. Also biriyani a few weeks ago, reheated and enjoyed without problem the next day.

I know the normal advice is not to eat re-heated rice meals, but I've never had a problem with them the following day. I shall follow the advice of cooling them quickly next time nonetheless.

Also, jambalaya is food of excellence, so hi5 on that front.

hi5!

Really? Then why not put them straight in the fridge? Is that purely to stop the temperature in the fridge rising?

Anyway, I've always let stuff rice dishes cool in their own time, then fridged them, then reheated them and never had any issues.

Which is fine, but of the two methods, that's the 'dangerous' one. The food spends much more time at temperatures conducive to bacterial reproduction.

Your Mum spends time at temperatures conducive to bacterial reproduction.

Also, any luck with you and the missus and the French Laundry?

Why is rice so susceptible to bacteria?

I have vague memories of someone telling me that bacteria lies 'dormant' in all rice grains waiting for lively fresh water, but I'd have thought that all that boiling water wasn't so comfortable for a sleeping microbe...

Please explain, so as to make me afeared of the rice.

Not so far. Can't even get through on the phones. I suspect this will be a non-starter.



It's nothing more sinister than surface area. Grains of rice (and indeed, pearl barley, cous-cous etc) provide lots of lovely, lovely surface area for bacteria to colonise.

Because it's foreign muck.

I always thought it wasn't rice as such.. just that canteens or takeaways or whatever cook it and then leave it at 60odd degrees so bacteria can grow?

Or is that wrong

http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/vent/review4.php
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All the ones that'll give you the poorlies are rendered inert above about 42 degrees, after varying periods of time. At 60 degrees, 30 seconds is enough to pasteurise something (temperature of the middle of the food, rather than the water/oven). At 42 degrees I think it's 30 minutes.

Not that it's not always bacteria that does you in, of course. Botulism isn't caused by the organism, it's caused by the toxins the organism releases, which isn't denatured by heat at all. It's important to prevent botulinum spores from reproducing because you can't do anything about the toxins once they're released.

Technically incorrect. The toxins will break down at application of about 125 deg C for about five minutes; of course, this is high enough that any food you cook this way will be utterly destroyed by the process. However, you can reach these temperatures in a pressurised autoclave, which is how canned hot dogs are preserved.

Granted.