Swans Return

Today marks the 26th year of the return of the swans to the Boston Garden. Romeo and Juliette winter in Franklin Park Zoo. For a full story visit City of Boston Web Site. As with all things in this city there will be a parade today celebrating the return of the swans.

Photo courtesy of the Boston Patch.

St. Germaine Pears

Sous vide in St. Germaine

Cafe Sous Vide

Most relaxing cooking ever, if you are off by 20 minutes, no worries. Eggs cooked at 135, perfect. Carrots at 185 good, perhaps a bit higher.
Coming soon to a cottage near you.

Just like last year

Substitute your favorite neighborhood

Never knew

Cooking Class

Today we took part in a cooking class at a cooking store in Copley Center. This was an introduction to sous vide cooking. The method has been around for sometime, but until recently the cost of the equipment has kept it off limits to the the home chef.

Sous vide (French for under vacuum) is a method of slow cooking at a highly regulated temperature for long durations. When cooking a piece of meat on a hot surface (grill or sauté pan) you are basically overcooking the outside , and then trying to determine what time you should remove it so the inside is your desired doneness. The result is a gradient of doneness, with the outside overcooked and the inside under cooked. In contrast, the sous vide method, allows you to cook a medium rare steak to perfection. For example when you can cook sous vide at say 135 degrees, for well just about as long as you want, it won't overcook. The entire piece of meat is cooked to the same doneness.   Here is a picture from the web site of the sous vide cooker that demonstrates the difference.

Sous vide is accomplished by putting your vegetable or protein in a bag with seasoning, then removing the air from the bag, and cooking this is a bath of water at a highly regulated temperature. The result is a perfectly cooked item, but with no overcooked pieces. Of course the down side is there is no caramelization or burning of the outside. If desired, the meat can be finished off in a pan or grill to make it look pretty, and impart that crusty burned meat flavor we cavemen seem to crave.

Today during the class we tasted steaks cooked the traditional way and the sous vide method. Cindy liked the texture of the sous vide method, but preferred the taste of the traditional method. I preferred both the taste and texture of the sous vide method. We also tried asparagus, we both agreed it was the best asparagus we have ever had.

Of course the store was promoting a new sous vide for home use. The company Sansaire recently introduced a device that was funded by successfully raising >$800K in 2 days on Kickstarter. See this link for the details. For those not familiar with Kickstarter, it is one of many crowd source fundings for a starting company. Personally a big fan, as I been involved in the venture methods twice. It's generally not pretty. With Kickstarter everyone donates some amount of cash in which you in return get anything from a pat on the back to an early off the line product. You have no equity in the company, but think of it as donation to someone who will hopefully get their product out and start hiring people.

Tonight we will try sous vide salmon. Here is a video from Sansaire showing the process.
http://sansaire.com/2014/04/cook-fish-sous-vide/

If you are still interested, watch the video on the difference in temperature makes on salmon. We watched a similar demonstration on cooking eggs. There is 5 degrees difference in a hard boiled egg versus a perfect egg for egg's Benedict.

As my brother would say,"I love America!",  we take this French technique, apply some entrepreneurial spirit, and make it available to everyone.

Here is my setup. This pan is 3x as large as needs to be, but it is what I had available.

Next up we will try pears poached in apple brandy. Hmm yes, thats another project that needs attention.

Cindy's running path

The south west corridor is a beautiful 5 mile, car free running and walking path. Starts just around the corner on west canton street, pictured here as well.

1 dog, 3 cats

What could possibly go wrong?

Taj

And a side of lamb ribs.

Taj

Broiled oysters and short rib sliders.

Commonwealth Ave

Classic.

Happy Anniversary

Well it has been a year since we moved into Nemo. I encourage you to go through some of the posts from last year at this time. No photos for this post, no math, no recipes, just thanks for all those that have visited both physically and virtually.

We mainly do this so that when our memory fades we can go back to see what we have experienced.

Ciao
T&C

Coach Liz and the Hokies at BC

Doug Flutie

Outside the stadium of Boston College

Spring time in the city...

Success

After 100s of samples, finally a beer my wife actually enjoys. #winwin
Made by Belgian monks. No added yeasts, just what's in the local air, and of course raspberries.

Go Meb

Home of the free, land of the brave!
Photo from Washington post

Marathon

This is the crowd behind us, the blue dot on the map is our location, about a block and a half from the finish. They would not let us any further , but had a great view of the jumbotron and could see individual runners go by. Hearing the national anthem through the roar of the crowd and above helicopter rotors was goose bumpy.

Free Range Peeps

Dinner

Il punto, red mullet with a variety of sauces, A+

Great day

Travelled down to the big city to check out the NYC car show. Favorite car, audi s8. Least favorite, land rover.

Sir Copley in marathon colors

City filled with type A people

Spotlight: Pho Delat

My favorite pho place. Chelmsford, just around the corner from work. I can't describe how much I love this stuff.

All dressed up

In marathon colors

Precinct

In the building that once was the headquarters for the Boston police department, is now the Loews hotel. They have completely redone their bar and restaurant to have more outside seating. They have clambakes with all the fixings on the menu. We look forward to trying this out. Too many restaurants, not enough time.

First lunch outside

90 minute IPA

Found a Garden Store

Cindy is a Pro

Don't settle for the standard birthday cookie cake any longer. The Ace of Cakes is in the house.

Highly recommend

Braised short ribs with a Dijon and bread crumb coating.

Direct from this recipe.

http://saramoulton.com/2011/12/deviled-bones/

Centerpiece for sale

Officially not on the table.

Not your average bakery

Forget the German chocolate cake for my birthday, I would like a full size Star Wars storm trooper!

Bazinga!

America's First Sport Documentary

Absolutely nothing to do with Boston, but a great 55 minutes of free edutainment.