I'm with ya Patrick. I work in high end fine dining, then I come home and watch our local PBS3, packed with all kinds of great cooking shows and travel shows. They overdo it here with "Martha Bakes" and "America's Test Kitchen". Nick Stellino is awesome but they never program his shows, nor "Fish, Lies and Alibi's" from that cool Cajun dude. They kicked Christopher Kimball off ATK, and now they've really dumbed things down. He's now got his own show, "Milk Street", and we rarely get it because Martha. Very vanilla programming here. I've always fantasized about a show called "Martha's Baked", where she'd hit a bong and have guests like Snoop Dog on, then get to cooking. She's so Stepford Wife, she'd benefit from a little KB. I really enjoyed the movie "Julie/Julia". Julia Child pioneered forward thinking/French cooking for Americans, did it with Jacque Pepin and a fair amount of great wine lots of times.
I learned 7 different omelet recipes from Cooks Illustrated & Cooks Country magazines, including the insane version where you separate the yolks, whip the whites to a soft peak, fold the yolks in, then cook.
Sure, fluffy, but bite me.
My composite "perfect omelet" is simple, Cut a pat of butter into less than 1/8" cubeoids. Add to eggs and flavoring as desired. ( hot sauce, pepper , whatever ) Any add ons to fold in should be hot, or room temp for cheese. Whip eggs and butter 80 times with fork. More is a waste of time, less is less fluffy, up to you. Cook.
The fat in the butter coats the protein and reduces the tendency to get rubbery. this opens the critical time window, and keeps it tender. Plus adds flavor. Technically heavy cream works as well, but dilutes the egg flavor. And I don't keep any, so... Butter.
This is an American Diner style if you fold it, and/or add extras like bacon & cheese. But it also works French style rolled.
I bought a coffee maker about a decade ago, based on the American Test Kitchen test.
Basically, the important thing is the water temperature. 203.65 F. Or something like that. ( I forgot, you can look it up and argue )
They tested 15 machines, and only 2 got the temperature right. The Technovorm Mochamaster $300 ( now only $250 ) and the Black & Decker $29 ( $23 at Wal-Mart a decade ago )
The Technovorm Mochamaster is a lovely sculpture for your kitchen. I didn't get that one.
For about ten years, the B&D has sat on a shelf. I wasn't really a coffee guy, I drank Coke. If I wanted some, or had guests, I used my French press, which I use for camping.
Life happens. Diet time. & diet pop is horrible. So I gave it up cold turkey. But wasn't willing to do caffeine withdrawal too. So out comes the B&D, I bring home some decent coffee, and, yep, it makes really good coffee. Win! The minimum amount seems to be "4" which is 2.5-3 regular mugs or 2 big ones. Less than that, and there isn't enough coffee in the basket to get a proper brew. Just my opinion, but everyone I ask agrees.
The "pull the carafe during the brew cycle like an impatient child idiot" shut off thing leaked badly, but I figured it was dried out rubber and didn't care. I'm not an impatient child idiot. Other kinds, sure.
Been happy with the B&D for months. Then, yesterday, I dropped the basket. The impatient idiot...I mean, mid cycle cut off lever popped off. It's 5:45 a.m., & I simply pick up the pieces, unthinkingly apply my machinist/machine design sensibilities, and reassembled it in the way that made sense to a sleeping me. Worked fine.
Much later in the day, it occurred to me, that the memory of how I reassembled it, didn't match the memory of how it's looked every day for four months. ??? So I really looked at it. Took it back apart. And figured out the silly thing was put together wrong at the factory a decade ago, that what I assumed was age was poor QC, and my semi conscious repair was correct.
Go figure!
I'm going to choose pride in my intelligence, instead of shame for not noticing it was wrong. You can have your own opinion.
I just purchased a B&D Toaster Oven, and as an engineer, there is always a wtf about appliances. This is a toaster, and oven, an air-fryer and a broiler. as such it has a thermostat, a heating element, a fan , and a timer (that clicks and dings!). The combinations of these items allows for the different functions but only if B&D decrees it. For example, the toaster function has a separate timer and knob with cryptic heiroglyphs for darkness and light, and lights up the upper and lower heating elements. Makes sense, I guess, but you have to calibrate what they consider dark with your typical break or English muffin. YMMV... Now it gets wonky: As an oven, there is a thermostat for temperature, and another timer and knob. There is a selector to go beyond the oven to select Air Fryer. Broiler, and Toaster. Air Fryer turns on a circulation fan, turns on the upper element, and it's timed. Broiler is the same without the fan, and Toaster is the second timer and both elements. Now, 'splain me this: If each function had a different selector switch, you could have temperature control for your 'Air Fryer" or "Broiler", and if you could select the circulation fan when you wanted to bake something, you could have a convection oven. But Nooo... you airfry at full throttle, and torch the surface of your chicken or tater tots, and just bakes like my old, failed, Hamilton-Beach toaster oven. As my wife is So fond of hearing: "with a little modification..." The fact that the controls are electromechanical instead of solid state allows for that possibility...
I think you just need to re-wire it to do what you want it to do the way you want it to do it. Some people aren't smart enough to have all the options. If you give a man enough rope, he will burn his own muffin.
So, do you ever watch something then go, "Why did I watch that?" Well sometimes we Americans do this thing when stuff tastes bad.....Hey, Taste this. No, just try this. Does it taste funny to you?:
I wish one of you aero-nuts had told me that ice likes to accumulate on the lead edge of aircraft wings... and it's apparently a really big deal. had a close call with the drone this morning.
That reminds me, Tom- years ago I met a guy at the corner of Broadway and 2nd Avenue in downtown Nashville burning amazing images into wood panels with just a magnifying glass. His detail was stunning, and he was going totally freehand, no prior sketching! We talked for a bit, he'd spent a good amount of time in Florida doing his thing. He had an unusual name, I tried to gargle it, no dice. Super cool dude.