An open thread to Peter Hertzmann

Peter, I wanted to openly and publicly say that your web page á la carte, is the best recipe web page on the internet bar none! IMO of course. you are so through with everything you do that ist is almost like Christmas morning at 4 years of age. I keep wanting to know what is the next neat thing that will make reading and understanding you even more easy. Congratulations! and keep it coming.

Thanks Bob for your kind remarks. I should warn you, though, that the "next neat thing" is truly offal (and will be available on October 1st).

On Sunday, I head to Toronto to work in a butcher shop for a couple of weeks. The largest animal I've butchered to date is lamb, and I want to learn about working with larger carcasses. While I'm there, I'll also be doing some book promotions. Between the two activities, hopefully there'll be a few new ideas for articles.

Thanks again for your words of praise and your support through the years.

And in the "more kudos for Peter" category, the Sacramento Bee ran a nice little column today on Peter's book on knife technique.

It has been incredibly strange to see what little factoids various reviewers, commentators, and interviewers pick out. In this case, putting in exact sizes for various shapes was my editor’s idea, and the numbers are based on a model set she bought from, I think, the American Restaurant Federation. In my restaurant experience in France and Switzerland, instructions to produce a julliene always included a size specification—there wasn't just one size of julliene. This commentator picked one small, insignificant paragraph out of the entire book to include in her article. (Some battles you win, and some you lose.)

And as a wise person once said: All publicity is good publicity.

Yeah, I thought that was a strange angle for the reviewer to pick. But she did use it to make the point that having your vegetables cut to a consistent size can make for better results. That would seem intuitive but I'm not sure it is for a lot of people.

It wasn't for me, Mike. I learned that at the CIA during Boot Camp several years ago, and it greatly improved my cooking.

Video from Peter's segment on "View From the Bay" this morning is here:

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?sectio ... id=5654585

I found the hosts supremely annoying, but Peter, you kept your sense of humor! Kudos!

It has been incredibly strange to see what little factoids various reviewers, commentators, and interviewers pick out. In this case, putting in exact sizes for various shapes was my editor’s idea, and the numbers are based on a model set she bought from, I think, the American Restaurant Federation. In my restaurant experience in France and Switzerland, instructions to produce a julliene always included a size specification—there wasn't just one size of julliene. This commentator picked one small, insignificant paragraph out of the entire book to include in her article. (Some battles you win, and some you lose.)

And as a wise person once said: All publicity is good publicity.

I watched the video. Good job.

Yes, the hosts always want to play, too, don't they?

Sound technique throughout on your part.

But, I was a little nervous and thought we might see a reprise of the Dan Ackroyd/Julia Child skit on SNL - when I saw them both splaying out the fingers of the hand steadying the food.

I would humbly recommend the next time hosts want to wield weaponry that you include a brief mention of getting the fingers of the off hand curled up and out of the way.

Teaching how to hold the food was part of the plan for the run-through, but that started 45 minutes late and there wasn't time to teach everything. This was live TV—no script—no true rehearsals. I was happy that they got the grip at least.

The hosts are good people. They have to learn a lot every day, and I'm not sure if the producers really do all that they should to help prep them for each segment. I sure that guests like me with snide remarks and quick comebacks doesn't help too much either.

BTW, my experience from knife-skills classes is that for many people, learning how to hold the food, and develop the muscle memory for it, is harder than learning how to how the knife.