[geeks] food geekery question

[gsm at mendelson.com]

On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 10:40:11PM -0500, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:
>OK,
>
>So I am trying to prepare more meals at home rather than eat out as much
>(sort of a New Year's resolution / saving money thing; plus I want to
>cut down on sodium intake).
>
>One of the problems is the food preparation stage:  cutting, slicing,
>dicing, kneading, etc.
>
>As a result, it seems that there are mixers, like the well-known US
>brand Kitchen Aid, but recently there seem to be high-end blenders with
>2+ HP motors that claim to be able to do everything a mixer can do,
>including mixing / kneading the bread (plus usual blending tasks like
>making smoothies, puree soups, etc.).
>
>So the question is:  high end mixer, or high end blender?

There are several, such as the Electrolux Assistent, the Blendtech, and Bosch
Universal, but one stands out, the Kenwood. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikZEcvmJQLk

Compared to the Kenwood, the Kitchen Aid is a cheap knock-off of a wonderful
(but underpowered) mixer sold until around 1993 then sold off to another
company.

You could also get a Hobart, which is what the Kitchen Aid orignally was, but
their cheapest units sell for $2k on eBay. You may be able to get one used
at a restaurant supply, they last almost forever.

Kenwood units are sold in 120v by Delonghi. They first imported a 600
watt unit comparable (but twice as powerful) to the KA, then they
imported a batch of 1000 watt units. There were hardware problems with
the switch on the 1000 watt units, so they stopped importing them, but
there should be a new batch by now.

If I had to return to the US, with anything more than the clothes on 
my back, two things I would be taking are my Dyson vaccum and my Kenwood
mixer, athough I would need to have 240 volt lines run around my house
to use them.

I'm half asleep at the momement and my memory is still fuzzy, but you
can also buy under another name (is it MagiMix?) a RobotCoupe made
food processor. They were orginally imported into the US by Cuisinart
until the early 1990's when Cuisinart replaced them with Pacific Rim
made junk.

I don't use a food processor, I went to school to cook Chinese food 
professionally and cut the small quantities I use now by hand, but if I
were really going to buy one that's what I would buy. I have a Kenwood that
came with my mixer I use for dairy, and a Kenwood stand alone that I use
for meat that was a gift, but I have used neither more than 2 or 3 times
in the last year.

IMHO if you were really smart, you would learn how to tell a Sunbeam 
mixmaster bowl from any other, go to Goodwill or the Sally Anne (Salvation
Army) and buy a bunch of Sunbeam mixmasters (the bowls always get separated)
at real cheap prices, and Oster blenders or Waring Blendors. While you are
at it get any made in France (and therefore by RobotCoupe) Cusininarts.

Use them for everything, except bread, you can, until they burn out and 
then recycle them. 

If you want to make bread, buy bread machines that people have bought,
used once or twice and have not figured out how to make work. They should
be pretty cheap and make great mixers. If you understand how they work
which I will gladly explain when I am fully awake, they also make decent
bread, one loaf at a time, but are much more versatile as mixers for bread
baked elsewhere (e.g. an oven).

IMHO if you really want to cook for yourself, get a good set of knives
(not stainless), a good sharpening steel and learn how to use them. 

Interstingly enough, I'm listening to an audiobook by David Kessler, the
former head of the FDA about overeating, and how food in the US has gone
from nutritious food you desire because it is good, to manufactured products
that hit all of your "desire" buttons, but contain mostly fat, sugar and 
salt (which happen to be things you desire when you eat them).

Keep it simple, keep it real, and don't spend a lot of money on new 
gear because it is flashy.

Do buy a pre-2000 edition of the Joy of Cooking, and Carla Emery's book
on country living. There are very few TV chefs who actually can cook, or
produce things that you can cook. 

Gordon Rasmsay has a show called Kitchen Nightmares, where he goes around 
trying to rescue failing restaurants. One place the chef had a shelf of
cookbooks by famous TV chefs including Ramsay. 

Ramsay made him get rid of them because they have no place in a restaurant
kitchen. They all, including his, are filled with complex dishes with long
ingredient lists, long preperation time with lots of steps, and so on.

Something you do at home to impress yourself and your relatives, but
not something you do when you want to make a meal, eat it and go on
with your life.

There are a few TV chefs who are worth watching, Ramsay (but most of his
shows are about teamwork and managment, not cooking), Rick Stein (food heros),
Kylie Kwong (from Oz), Justin Wilson (the "I guar-un-tee" Cajun guy),
Emiril from his "how to boil water" days, and if you can find his old shows
the Frugal Gourmet (but he was a little too preachy and not really very 
frugal). 

Read Paul Purdomes (sp?) books, "Fork in the Road" first.

Avoid anyone whose shows are really long infomercicals for dishses you
can't make at home without either going to the chef's school, restaurant,
or buying their cookbooks or expensive kitchen gear.

Learn how to make your own bread, your own pickles, and so on. Someone
I know has several food dryers in his kitchen and puts all of his leftovers
in them. He then uses the dried foods as additives to other dishes to add
flavor with low calories, etc.

Geoff.


-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM
New word I coined 12/13/09, "Sub-Wikipedia" adj, describing knowledge or
understanding, as in he has a sub-wikipedia understanding of the situation. 
i.e possessing less facts or information than can be found in the Wikipedia.