Greetings from Philadelphia, PA

[PhillyWill]

My TM-31 arrived yesterday and turned out a tasty batch of hummus last night.

In the event anyone's interested there will be lots of Thermomix fun on my "el Bulli At Home" blog: http://elbulliathome.blogspot.com/

Cheers!

-bill

[Cornish Cream]

Welcome to the forum PhillyWill.How exciting for you to take delivery of your TM31 and to start your cooking adventures.Have fun

[Cuilidh]

Good to hear from you and glad your TMX has arrived.  Enjoy your cooking adventures.

[mab19]

Welcome to the forum PhillyWill

[obbie]

Hi and welcome to the forum

[Aussie Brenda]

Hello Bill, welcome to the forum,  lots of new cooking experiences coming up for you.

[judydawn]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

[trudy]

Welcome to the forum Bill.

[cookie1]

I look forward to hearing about all your thermomix adventures Bill. Welcome to the forum.

[gertbysea]

Welcome to the forum Bill . You chose a pretty interesting name for your blog.  There are a few roving chefs in your part of the world owning Thermomix. Several former chefs from el bulli in fact.  Keep an eye out. Don't know if Vorwerk will be pleased with your tracking of  your TMX from Winnipeg. LOL! Others might get the right idea.

Anyhow pleased you have joined us and I found it interesting that one of the first things you cooked was chickpeas for hummus.  Lazy me I just open a can and whizz it in the TMX.

By the by my hometown is Syracuse. Not so far from ya. Well closer than Cairns.

Hope you post  some recipes as you use your TMX.  What do you like to cook?

Gert

[PhillyWill]

>Don't know if Vorwerk will be pleased with your tracking of  your TMX from Winnipeg. LOL! Others might get the right idea.

I can only hope! The home demo approach they use has a poor reputation in the USA where it is generally associated with what tend to be over priced, low end products and occasionally "adult toys". I think the TMX could be sold successfully here by moving the demos into carefully selected high end kitchen stores. Sub-Zero Wolf have demonstration centers in affluent areas that would be a perfect fit.

Yeah, el Bulli graduates are everywhere. Last summer we had lunch at Curate in Asheville, North Carolina and we've eaten at Jaleo in Las Vegas though for some reason we've never hit any of the Jose Andres places in DC. 

Anyway...

I used to use canned chickpeas too. Then one day we were shopping at the Italian Market where one of the stores has all kinds of legumes available in bulk so I gave 'em a try and haven't gone back. Apart from any questions about packaging and preservation, working with dried chickpeas gives you flexibility to manipulate texture. That makes a huge difference for things like falafel and anyplace you'd use them whole.

My cooking is probably best described as "Modernist Mediterranean" (all the way around) with a healthy dose of east Asian thrown in. There'll be TMX adapted recipes on the "regular" blog and I've got a batch of the el Bulli stuff lined up for the near future. I don't normally put the recipes for the el Bulli stuff up since it's not mine to publish but if anyone wants one to try themselves I'm happy to email them a scan of the relevant pages.

Cheers,

-bill

[achookwoman]

Hi and welcome to the Forum Bill.  Would love you to post some of your recipes here.  Would be best if you could use mil and grams as we Aussies have problems with American cup and spoon measurements.   If this is too difficult we will love whatever you post.

[PhillyWill]

>Would be best if you could use mil and grams

No problem - I've been working by weight since I started baking seriously a couple years ago.

[gertbysea]

Bill I really enjoyed your review of Zahav. What fun and as I was hoping you did tell the price at the end. In my opinion and no doubt the opinion of others in Australia, by our standards that was a cheap meal for a top restaurant. I doubt you would find a degustation meal at that price anywhere here but it is all relative.

The meal was interesting but more interesting to me was the selection of booze that went with it. I found the cocktails a bit of a folly but interesting none the less and no doubt it all worked. One of those you just have to be there moments when drinking a
"Smashing pumpkin"  with your soup.

I am now really looking forward to your creations now you have that TMX. One of our members used hers to make Heston Blumenthal's fruit meat. You might know her web site.  superkitchenmachine.com   http://www.superkitchenmachine.com/2011/11213/heston-blumenthal-meat-fruit-recipe.html. I think Valerie has also been lucky enough to have dined at The Fat Duck. Heston spends a lot of time in Au by the way. Sadly he is flogging prepared meals in a grocery chain.

Gert

[PhillyWill]

Thanks! Zahav was a lot of fun.

The usual base price for that sort of thing here in Philadelphia is in the $150 range. But that's typically for a more or less standard set menu that might change only a little over the course of a month or two and only see big changes seasonally. Zahav's is much more experimental - they're basically trying out almost finished dishes before they go on the menu (or not) so they've priced it as a "good value" experience rather than the restaurant's main offering as they do at places like Vetri ( http://vetriristorante.com/menu/ ) another place we absolutely love - about once a year.  The Zahav Kitchen Counter is just 4 seats, one a week.

I do know http://www.superkitchenmachine.com - that's where I first started to track down the elusive Thermomix. Hadn't seen her version of the Meat Fruit though. I've read several places that none of the "3 Stars" are consistently profitable.  It's kind of a bummer that guys like Heston Blumenthal and Ferran Adria can't actually make a living from their restaurants. (Though I must admit I don't have much sympathy for Gordon Ramsay's various troubles.)

BTW, we made the TMX Egg Nog tonight. Here in the USA it's usually consumed cold, so the hot version was new for us. There's almost a liter left in the refrigerator so we'll see how it tastes cold at breakfast.

Cheers,

-bill