Gratuitous pork butt/meteor, since I was talking smack about that poster's bark in the steak thread

concur! currently reading this book and trying the recipes, really enjoying the shirred eggs. made the french onion soup this week, took about 3 + hours to caramelize the onions

Always loved cooking, so I took a sabbatical and started culinary school, then i got a job working for some talented chefs one of which was the executive chef at Craft Dallas b4 moving on to the place I'm working now. We do lots of sou vide and use the Cryovac to press all kinds of stuff. I get to help prepare a weekly 5 course dinner and they make stuff like this:

roasted monk fish wrapped with prosciutto with ricotta filled ravioli, leeks, lima beans, corn puree, gypsy peppers & lime zest



chocolate terrine with cherry sauce & pistachio ice cream:



Salmon tartare with fried sweet breads w/avocado fennel puree:



Heirloom tomatoes, pressed cucumbers, shaved fennel, avocado, feta & sumac:



Roasted hen of the woods mushrooms, olive oil mashed potatoes, capers, spring onions, asparagus & red wine reduction:



Confit of rabbit with country ham, leeks, heirloom peppers, mustard greens and peach gastrique:



I thought I could cook until I started working for these guys. I never realized the depths taken to construct a dish full of wonderful flavors until I worked for these guys.

If you're ever in Dallas and you want to try the weekly dinner, pm me. Its $75 pp & includes wine, tax and gratuity, pretty good $ imo.

great thread op, keep em coming!

ya i've come to the realization that reading recipes and looking at pictures isn't gonna help me cook. I think taking some courses at a culinary school is the best way to get started with this. really excited

Gonna be very honest.
A) I got very excited reading this post (in an appropriate, not an adult way)

B) I'm very, Very, VERY jealous of you. Just being around people with that passion for food and experimentation is really fantastic.

C) Really hope you post more stuff here. Getting some pics / words about stuff you're doing would be great. I've worked in 2 restaurants in my life, but was too young to appreciate anything but my own positional idiosyncrasies. Again, just hearing about some day to day goings on would be great for a guy like me who keeps fantasizing about getting involved in the food industry (but will likely never do it for various reasons).

D) My work has an Austin office, and I will DEFINITELY come down next time I'm down that way

yim: Welcome to the thread / thanks / awesome.

Jack: Awesome, that is why you can talk **** to that dumbass in the steak thread.

All: Just had an outstanding heirloom tomato + mozzarella salad @ Zero Zero in SF. Recipe: awesome tomatoes + awesome mozzarella + salt/pepper/olive oil/basil:

It would be cool if 2+2 had a cooking subforum. Not that I mind invading OOT with cooking threads. It's just that condensing everything into only a few topics can quickly become unwieldy to read through.

+1,735,629

this thread already. Will be checking it often.

Don't forget the quality of the olive oil. That stuff that's $7 a bottle at Safeway is not going to get it done. Do some internet searching for quality EVOO.

This looks fantastic. Any secrets you care to share? May have to give my PID a trial run on my flower pot smoked today (though unsure - was also considering making some ramen broth).

Also got some ideas from dinner last night at Baker and Banker last night, where I had duck confit, octopus, and quail, but my favorite dish of the night (as one might expect after my fennel rant and posting pictures of pickled shallots) was:

Brokaw's avocado, burrata, housemade fennel seed crackers, pickled shallots, Villa Manadori balsamico

Took a pic to share, but it was a dark iphone pic that came out pretty bad.

As a note to my above post: not saying ElD is using cheap oil or anything like that. Just advising those who don't know, with EVOO, you definitely get what you pay for.

How much would you estimate you spend per month on olive oil, findingneema?

hahahahahahha

I have no ****ing idea

Fwiw, the good people at Plato's sent me a bottle of their habanero infused olive to review, and I've been using it on everything ever since. It's pretty reasonably priced at <$12 for the 375 ml, and I expect to buy more soon as I'm about halfway through the bottle after 2 weeks.

Also, while they were kind enough to give me a bottle, I have no vested interest in the company. Just like the people and product.

You don't always have to use the most expensive stuff. I pull out the good stuff for, well, good stuff, like an heirloom tomato caprese salad with fresh mozzarella.

Wrong. Google olive oil scam, olive oil fraud.

I don't think any of the oils on the list that my google search brought up are on any foodies list of go to olive oils for their heirloom tomatoes.

I read those articles long ago. Do blind taste tests. Which oils do you think are most likely adulterated in some way? The more expensive ones, or the cheapest?

Grabbed some assorted heirlooms today, but my wife made an insane Farmhose Chicken and Corn Chowder so it will have to wait for tomorrow. I'll try to take a picture of my third bowl tonight later but here is a stock photo



I also had a friend turn me on to California Olive Ranch, which is domestic but real.





Probably going to make a bruschetta as well tomorrow with garlic-rubbed sourdough crostini.

I have tried to get a cooking subforum before, please voice your opinions if you guys want one as well.

no cooking subforum please. keep it here, not enough volume, would become dead forum and kill threads like this.

They make great olive oil. Trader Joe's sells COR's Arbequina olive oil under the TJ's label as "California Estate Olive Oil" -- it's a steal at $5.99 for 500ml.

agree that a cooking forum is a bad idea.

I think a cooking subforum would do about as well as a musician subforum would do (if not better), and The Studio seems to be doing pretty well. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just see a lot of parallels in terms of the kinds of threads that would be done, and don't really see why a cooking forum would fail while The Studio is succeeding.

I do think, however, that if you made it a general food subforum it could quickly become one of 2+2's more trafficked forums. thinking everything you would have in a cooking forum + city threads a la EDF forum only limited to food recs + general food porn thread+ whatever else = an awesome forum. I understand and generally agree with the "subforums take away from OOT" mentality but think having a food subforum would be so awesome it'd be worth it.