I have always dreamed of cooking in the French Laundry.
Well, my dream has finally come true.
Here it is.
Come on in, I’ll give you a tour.
I know this one is not as impressive as the one in the Napa Valley, but it’s perfectly
functional.
That’s where I am cooking while my kitchen is under construction.
It is indeed a Laundry and since I made ratatouille last weekend, I think it’s only fitting
to call it the French Laundry, don’t you think?
So the most important part of any kitchen to me is the sink.
I love big sinks and luckily this one is big enough for all my cutting boards, pots and
pans.
In a kitchen remodel, I would never trade off a big sink for more counter space.
Counter space is so easy to add.
You can always buy some little island at IKEA, but more sink space is not gonna happen.
Whatever size sink you have -- that’s it.
Same goes for drying racks.
I like big ones.
Especially now that I don’t have a dishwasher.
Most home drying racks are small, flimsy, and expensive.
My favorite dish rack is a commercial dishwasher rack.
I got this one on Amazon and it’s now sitting on my clothes washing machine.
The clothes dryer is my place for the knives, salt, compost, and utensils.
Here is a shelf with my wonderful salad spinner, colander, and cleaning supplies.
Here I have my vitamix, my electric kettle, and the instant pot.
Oops, it looks like I have an American flag sticking out of this box.
That’s the wonderbread that I bought for all the stove experiments.
Let’s remove that so that we can look more French.
That’s better.
This is my box with oils, vinegars, and other condiments.
This little island is where I do all my chopping and cooking.
Obviously we’ve been doing a lot of grilling outside, but the real cooking workhorse of
my French Laundry is this little butane burner that I got on Amazon for a bargain price of
only 50 dollars.
This burner has the same power as my Wolf burners -- 15,000 BTU and it performs every
bit as well.
The only difficulty I’ve had with it is using it on low heat outside.
If there is any breeze, the flame goes out.
Otherwise, it’s really unbelievable.
I can’t tell you how much I love this thing.
I have considered induction and electric burners, but after trying a portable induction burner,
I changed my mind.
It only cooks in little pots and makes terrible noise.
But this little guy cooks like a champ.
I’ve made a paella in a 12 inch skillet with straight sides on this burner and it
came out as good as on my Wolf gas range.
Just be aware that this burner is technically only approved for indoor use by professional
chefs.
That’s what the caterers use.
For the home cooks, it’s suggested that you only use it outdoors.
I am guessing that’s because some home cooks do really crazy things.
One viewer once told me that I almost burnt his house down.
He tried to cook one of my braised recipes on the grill.
My recipe said to put it in the oven for 4 hours, and he put it on the grill for 4 hours.
Since I mentioned in the video that I don’t necessarily stay home the whole time -- I
might go for a run or do some errands -- he thought he could do that while his pot with
short ribs was on his grill.
And then he came back to his grill on fire.
All I am saying is be responsible.
Just because someone does something on YouTube, doesn’t mean that you should do that too.
If you do get this burner, keep in mind that whether I use it inside or outside, I don’t
leave it unattended even for 10 seconds.
And I don’t suggest you do either.
The little fuel canisters of butane don’t last very long with this burner because it
is very powerful.
So fuel costs do add up.
This is definitely not a long term replacement for having a real stove.
But if you are having company for thanksgiving and need an extra burner or if you are doing
something very smoky like searing a steak and you don’t have a good hood, you could
do it outside on this burner.
It’s way better and cheaper than those tiny electric or propane portable grills that city
dwellers like to buy if they don’t have room for a large grill.
Let me show you how well this thing browns.
This is the biggest pan you could put on a home stove.
It’s 12 inches with straight sides and my bread is brown on the periphery of the pan
almost as much as in the center.
Some of the lighter patches are where the bread didn’t make good contact with the
pan.
Other than that, it’s pretty good.
I can’t believe it took me this long to discover this burner.
It will make shooting videos so much easier since I won’t have to move the camera and
lighting as much from the counter to the stove and back.
Are there any Steve Levitt fans among my viewers?
He is the author of the Freconomics books and the People I Mostly Admire podcast.
It seems to me that if you like my content, you’d like Levitt and vice versa.
Levitt is a huge fan of change.
He noticed that people have a serious status quo bias.
As Shakespear said in Hamlet, “We’d rather bare those ills we have than fly to others
that we know not of.”
I am terrified of change and I almost never rock the boat myself.
But when life sends me some change, I almost always learn something interesting from it.
If I wasn’t without a kitchen right now, I would never have tried a portable butane
burner, and I wouldn’t realize how useful it could be with filming.
Here are more thought provoking culinary videos for you to check out and if you are ever in
the Boston area, maybe I’ll see you in one of my classes.