Word: chefs
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Thomas Keller, who is often referred to as the best chef in America, is a devotee. So are many of the chefs on TV. Sensing the curiosity of home cooks like me, appliance makers are reaching out to both high- and low-end consumers. The very basic SousVideMagic ($159) works in conjunction with a rice cooker. The SousVide Supreme ($450), which came out in November, is a self-contained unit about the size of a microwave. I decided to test-drive the top of the line: an immersion circulator from PolyScience ($1,129), which, unlike its less expensive brethren, ensures...
Midway through my week, I called Keller for tips. And the greatest chef in America kindly commiserated. He mentioned that he had tried for a year to perfect hamburgers, but they always came out tasting like liver. The technique is hard to master, and the current crop of machines do little to help the home chef get it right. But Keller still believes sous vide cookers will one day become as common as microwaves...
...experience is one that Batali's peers have to find enviable. He can afford to take mega-risks, with mega-rewards; that's what being a superchef does for you. There's always a Mr. Moneybags lined up to finance or partner with for the next project. But a chef has to follow through, and it's to Batali's credit that he is moving forward, instead of just whining about how much he misses the kitchen...
...kitchen, not the TV studio, is where chefs belong. Harold Dieterle, winner of the first season of Top Chef, who has since spent his time producing great food in his restaurant, Perilla, explains why. "You can do wine and food festivals every weekend of the year if you want to. But it's not really sustainable. What are you?" he says. "And it gets boring not cooking. You miss cooking. Cooking's great. Managing people sucks. You feel incredibly detached, because you're not getting your hands dirty...
...least, they do if towns have their own homegrown Marios. The James Beard Foundation Awards announced this past week their list of semifinalists (see a PDF) for their regional and national chef awards, and there are no more than a handful whose names would be familiar to most diners - even to people who eat out a lot. The truth is that whether in Peoria, Persia or points in between, the most influential chefs aren't the ones who periodically descend to restaurants they've created and then leave again; they're the ones who actually run the kitchen every night...