I just had a lightbulb moment! I decided to go for it in May for the milk and eggs, but after overindulging in luscious almond duck, and thinking how sad it was that there were meats I couldn't serve at my apps party, like almond duck, because of the prep/production schedule... LIGHTBULB! Sous vide! Cook and hold at constant temperature. Never overdone. And I have two coming... mostly because it was fun participating in their kickstarter campaign, even though I had saved Arley's DIY instructions. Okay. Sometimes I'm slow. I get it now. :) I bet I could even cook the chicken drummettes that way, then just coat them and flash fry. That would be so much easier than fry cooking that many, and they could go straight out, rather than taking oven space. Okay. Revolutionary. I get it... And I can still pasteurize eggs...

FOAS, I will always look at the name Thomas Keller and think of Hubert. Plllog, I know risotto is not a difficult dish to make. But I would love to tuck it in the SV and go on about my business until the timer rings. As I read the Modernist Cuisine chart I posted above, they cook many risottos (I was not aware that that was a generic term which did not apply only to an arboria rice dish) sous vide, but NOT arboria rice, which is the one I want to do. I am confused by terminology and exclusions. I can make spelt, oats, and pine nuts risottos sous vide, but not arboria rice risotto? I am confused (Yeah, well, that ain't unusual), but I am going to try the Sous Vide Supreme recipe for arboria rice SV. I'll report on it when it's in my tummy. And, congratulations on becoming a sous vide cook. I have really enjoyed my SV Supreme, which I bought years ago on a super special package on eBay (Er, actually, which I convinced DH to buy for me as a birthday present.) It was my introduction to vacuum sealing as well as SV cooking. Thanks to Dcarch, I think, I got in on the Anova innovative deal and bought two of their new units for a great pre-production price. One went to my brother and sister-in-law, who keep telling me how WONDERFUL chicken is in SV. Please post your experiences with SV cooking. And please, has ANYONE cooked risotto (with arboria rice, which I did not specify), in a SV setup? And if you did, how did it work, what would you do next time. . . all that stuff.)

Did you see that they've partnered with Kenji from Serious Eats for the app? That should be a big improvement. :)

The Anova box was on a promotional e-mail. I really didn't need it at all, but I'm very pleased with it. The e-mail was entitled "Hurry before they are gone", though it was a pre-issue promotion. Since it arrived immediately, I have to think they were already ready to ship. I don't know if the "hurry" was a marketing ploy or if they're not going to be keeping these in stock permanently. I just was in the mood, having just done the cheese. It's not like blintzes are daily, or even monthly, food. It'll just be so much easier to open the cheese, take its temperature, cut the curds, etc., if the whole deal is on the counter, and a roaster pan has too much evaporation and is too in the way... Anyway, sometimes I get all happy from having a new, mostly useless, toy, and I'm delighted. I think it's the blackest thing I own. It's like black hole black. Even white light doesn't bounce off it. Kind of beautiful and spooky. Here's the flyer: Anova Box Re blintz flavors, I think too much sugar overwhelms the distinctively blintzy flavor, though it does well for disguising having the wrong cheese. :) OTOH, nothing wrong with a sweet blintz with blueberries or mint. Or raisins. If you want traditional Northern European, they're served with sour cream and applesauce. You don't combine the two, but many will alternate bites, to maximize the tickling of the taste buds. My applesauce secret is to cook the apples down in TJ's sparkling apple cider rather than sugar and water. It keeps it very apple-y and has just the right amount of sugar, not too much. (The latter part is why I use that particular cider, but any would do. If it's too sweet, there's always water. :) ) On the blintz making, I can only hope for intelligible instructions. Do you have a hand crank rotary egg beater?