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Awesome, Mr. Wang.

There are so many goood wings here in Western NY but the best are from a BBQ place that only smokes them then they put the sauce on, they fall apart!!! The best wings around, no guilty feelings not fried.

Another winner Nick!

@ kobetobiko: I agree with you somewhat, but I must say, I love ViVi's and Quickly's (on Grand St.) Bubble Tea equally. If you haven't tried Quickly's, you gotta get over there! My fave: Bubble Milk Green Tea

@PerkyMac, intheyearofthepig, jlbrach, Kerosena, dikaryon: Thanks for the kind words. Cooking with sous vide does bring to mind those halcyon days of chem lab practicals ;).

@ gastronomeg: Indeed! Alinea, The Big Fat Duck Cookbook, and Under Pressure seem to be competing for the same readership. These are all beautiful, expensive, and almost impenetrable books.

@sailordave: We do our more ambitious entertaining at Al's. The kitchen is roughly 100 square feet. We have a length of 6 feet of usable counter space and a folding table set up for appliance-spillover. The immersion circulator sits on top of the folding table; the FoodSaver sits on top of the microwave which sits on top of the folding table. The Vita-Prep is on the floor more often than not. A tight squeeze for sure but it could be worse ... We could be cooking from my kitchen!

The breakdown of big-ticket equipment used in these recipes is roughly:

Immersion circulator ($300 from eBay)
FoodSaver (more recently priced around $100)
Vita-Prep (roughly $500-600)

Groceries ran about $40-60 (the buffer is for the cooking alcohol). Items on the shopping list included octopus, almonds, navel oranges, fennel, fingerling potatoes, basil, bay leaves, rosemary, tarragon, thyme, cilantro, baby watercress, flat leaf parsley, Spanish chorizo, and Pernod. We subbed 2.5 pounds of baby octopus for the Mediterranean/Japanese octopus, and subbed Marcona for green almonds (the latter are only in season in spring).

@dikaryon: The PID type of device you mention is what we use when the larger immersion circulator is in use. For this write-up, we used it to poach fennel. It doesn't actually circulate water in the bath and you can only sous vide items as large as the capacity of your cooking vessel (e.g., rice cooker, crock pot, etc.). It is a reasonable alternative though, especially for people looking to try it all out. We've managed to produce pretty good seafood dishes with it.

@Veron, simon: Noted food scientist Harold McGee discusses the safety of cooking with various plastics on Ruhlman's own post of 'Under Pressure': tests show standard cling film, Saran wrap, and commercial wraps in general aren't likely to release chemicals into foods.

@NCthenNY: You've brought up an interesting point. Very little seasoning is required in sous vide cooking and a little spicing goes a long way. With groceries from the local Wegmans, we've surprised ourselves by cooking dishes rivalling what we've had at some well-regarded restaurants. Though I'm not sure ingredients need to be quite so pristine, flavors are improved with the use of fresh and seasonal ingredients.

@dbcurrie: I like your sense of adventure.

@alwang: Hallo, Handsome.

@passionateeater: Hello, fellow Meat Whore!

@GoodEaterKenji: As Al mentioned, we've learned to be more attentive to thickness, time, and temperature when cooking delicately textured items like seafood. I can't tell you how many dinners through which we've suffered, gnawing on cottony, over-poached fish ...

I PSSSSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTT....
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They have some pretty good thick toast *cough* garlic-flavored *cough*, but they are always running out :(