Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Hello -- Wrong Dimension?

     Change sneaks up on us unannounced, sometimes unnoticed.  The gap between seniors and sophomores in my second year of High School, or freshmen and juniors/seniors in my first was exactly the change from the boys in button-down collars (and occasionally ties), the girls in cute outfits and everyone in nice, leather shoes to 80%+ of the kids in jeans, T-shirts and tennis shoes; most of my class and the classes after us moved through school in sloppy comfort, while most of the kids ahead of us "dressed for success."  At the time, we barely noticed, but a glance back through yearbooks -- especially at the "casual" photographs -- shows it.

    I like to think I'm a pretty fair short-order cook and I try to keep up with the changes and trends.  Reverse sear?  Got it.  I've cooked over everything from a wood fire to an induction range; I prefer gas, which puts me squarely in the majority of cooks, both professional and amateur.*  I have used food processors and consider them to be gadgets; even a blender is just a time-saver, not a sea-change (nevertheless, thank you, Fred Waring!),

     But while I was mastering the grilled steak and pan-fried bacon-and-eggs, they have snuck up on me with "sous vide" -- which seems to cook smarter rather than harder -- and the ThermoMix, which appears combine aspects of the mixer, the rice steamer, the electric skillet and the crockpot.  Will they catch on?  Sous vide has been a professional trick since the 18th Century; the clever self-heating mixer, not nearly so long.  They both came at me right out of left field.  Cook what how?  Are bananas blue in this odd new world, or are they still the normal bright orange color?
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* I do note that the chef at Gallery Pastry Shop prefers induction for omelettes and gas for everything else.   This seems sensible.

4 comments:

JayNola said...

That's something else. Kind of auto-kitchen-y.

Anonymous said...

I've heard good things about that $1,750.00 gadget, but I wonder how much of that is confirmation bias.

Back when I was a wee lad, mom made heavy use of the crock pot. Load it in the AM, that night dinner is done.

It does wonders with cheap cuts of meat...

New Jovian Thunderbolt said...

Thermomix? Learned about them things from Kate and Kate

Douglas2 said...

I was going to make a joke about thanking Fred Waring for his music as well, but the wikiwander revealed to me that the Blendor Fred Waring and the "Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians" Fred Waring were one and the same person.

I never quite worked out whether my high-school choir teacher was reallyinto "Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians", or if it was just a case of the school having no budget for new sheet-music and that was what was still left in the files in serviceable condition when he became the music teacher. At any rate, I became familiar with every FW&tP SATB choral arrangement ever published.

I didn't know that the singing group was actually formed (at Waring's direction) and trained by Robert Shaw, later better known for highbrow classical choral works rather than schlocky radio hit songs.