>>713
yeah i'll say it sounds like we have different goals and you spend more time on it for sure.
but back to my point about the restaurant books! you may have changed my view slightly.
first, as far as i can tell the steam-jacketed kettle is not a workaround, but actually saves time because you can throw liquid in there and not worry about it scorching. so you don't have to actively baby whatever's in there, you can go work on something else while it's warming up. perhaps i misunderstand how they work; i have never seen one IRL. but more importantly, obviously the recipes in the book are written in such a way not to require such specialized equipment, but i think still they formed an integral part of the refinement of the recipe in the restaurant setting, and therefore you're getting a recipe that looks very different from what might have evolved in a home-cooking environment. it might be adapted in the obvious ways (no kettle), but it's not optimized and i have to do that optimization myself (perhaps the recipe is written such that A is prepared before B, but preparing B before A is easier in the home kitchen because keeping A warm is easier than keeping B warm. so first i have to notice that, and then second switch it).
i opened up the french laundry, per se (because i know the meaning of the phrase 'per se', i assumed this was the only french laundry book. 'per se' is such a stupid name for a restaurant. anyway tell me if i dun fucked up and the other book is better or something) and i looked at a few recipes to see if i was being a total asshole. it wasn't completely terrible. i read the section on liaisons and yeah, the usual suspects like agar, gelatin, cornstarch, found out there's another term for roux, beurre something. unfortunately nothing interesting about tapioca. but, the ratios are very informative and i might consider adding something like that to my personal cookbook someday. an interesting fried eggplant; some salmon aspic thing that i have absolutely no interest in.
anyway, i found an interesting recipe about 2-1-1 little onion pickles. but it requires a chamber vacuum sealer. well, to be clear it says this is optional, but it is clearly the most interesting part of the recipe. vacuum-sealing the pickles makes them crisper. this is interesting, i'd like to try it, and i probably will try it someday, but it's gonna cost me $600 and i'll have to reorganize half my kitchen to fit a vacuum sealer in it. that's not too much money for me to consider, but unlike a stainless saucier, a vacuum sealer might break someday, so not at the top of the list either.
contrast: from the iyer book, lime pickles! and all you need is a glass jar, salt, spices, sun, and mustard oil. (canola a reasonable substitution if i'm scared of mustard oil). lime pickles??? that's pretty fascinating i'd like to try it. asked my buddy and he says yeah it's a pretty common thing in india. and i can do that one tomorrow if i want. life is unfortunately all about opportunity cost and i can try three recipes of this type in the time it takes to do one recipe from keller's. maybe when i move apartments and get a vacuum sealer set up it will be different, but until then. (i do have a sous-vide circulator from ebay, incidentally)
i keep forgetting words recently, "little onion" pickles. i think you know what i mean. the word for the wooden stick lime juicer is "reamer", god damn that was annoying to forget
>>730 i tend to think of the chronic as a pretty angry album in contrast with doggystyle which is all about partying, but you're kinda right, 'let me ride' is self-referential and that was on the chronic. a song about riding in your car to play while riding in your car. for contrast, 'nuthin but a g thang', not self-referential, just braggadocio. all great songs tho