Food Geekery

[mamadeb]

Alton Brown on poaching, from his book I'm Just Here for the Food.

"I like to poach in an electric skillet, which I calibrate by filling with waters, dropping in the probe of one of my many thermometers and taking the thermostate for a ride. I found that the temperature gauge was way off, so I re-marked it with white tape and a pen. Then I went one geeky step further and wired in a dimmer switch so that I could maintain temperatures well below the "simmer" level."

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My own reactions? One the one hand, yes, that's very geeky. On the other hand, how cool is that? And useful, too.

But then. I am a speaker-to-geeks.

Comments

[naomichana.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that the dimmer switch is even so much geeky as Technically Competent. The bit about recalibrating the gauge on an electric skillet is simply good sense. (What I need is a good thermometer. I do own one of the standard metal clip-on candy thermometers, but its gauge shows nothing even remotely useful, so that I wind up testing my sugar syrup the old-fashioned way.) On the other hand... does not finding that especially weird prove that I'm a geek?

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

He uses electronic probe thermometers with digital readouts. And it not only sounds like good sense, it even sounds *fun*.

Of course, I'm such a kitchen Luddite that the only electric equipment I use more than monthly is my thermal hot water urn, so.

My instant read thermometer is currently in my bathroom window, reading air temperature. My husband put it there.