Havard SEAS lecture, 9/19/11, Ramon Morato

I’ve been hearing that SEAS has been posting the new lectures on iTunes if you’ve missed an evening. I haven’t personally looked it up yet. I can tell you that their youtube site does not have any of the Fall 2011 lectures up yet. I didn’t post last week because I did not attend Joan [...]

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Harvard SEAS lecture, 11/15/10, Dan Barber, part 2

[Whoo-hoo! Part 2!] After biochar and lobster charcoal, Dan talked about the Stone Farms greenhouses. The Northeast is on the same latitude as Spain and southern Italy. Yes, it is colder here but we get the same amount of sunshine. During the colder seasons, their greenhouses are filled with sun-determinate plants instead of temperature-determinate plants (like tomatoes [...]

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Harvard SEAS lecture, 11/15/10, Dan Barber, part 1

[This particular write-up is taking me time, so I'm going to split it up.  Here's part 1. ~Mikan] Last night’s lecture with Dan Barber of Blue Hill/Stone Farm was very different from the previous lectures.  Whereas the lectures so far have been about manipulation of ingredients and cooking technique, Dan was there to talk to [...]

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By the way…

The first three lectures are now available on Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/user/Harvard#g/c/546CD09EA2399DAB

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Harvard SEAS lecture, 11/8/10, Wylie Dufresne

Last week when Professor Mike Brenner said that the students would be making shrimp noodles, I thought he meant noodles with shrimp. I was apparently very wrong. Last night’s SEAS cooking lecture was with Wylie Dufresne (wd-50) and the topic was “Complex Chemistry: Transglutaminase.” What is that? Don’t worry, I’ll get to it.  I was [...]

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Harvard SEAS lecture, 11/01/10, Carme Ruscalleda

This week’s lecture with Carme Ruscalleda (Sant Pau, Sant Pau de Tòquio) was about complex chemistry – browning reactions and beyond. (Specifically, the talk was mostly on caramelization and the Maillard reaction.) Recipe of the week? Shrimp noodles and salty caramels. At this point, I feel the need to reinterate “Why weren’t my lab classes so interesting back [...]

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Harvard SEAS lecture, 11/01/10, teaser

I totally forgot to write up my summary of last night’s lecture during my lunch break today. Ooops. So, I should have it tomorrow. (I would promise tonight except that I’ll be away from my house pretty much all day.) So, I’ll leave you with this: if I were into charcuterie, I’d be tempted to make [...]

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Harvard SEAS lecture, 10/26/10, José Andrés

Overall impression of José Andrés? He is a wonderfully animated man and I really, really enjoyed his lecture. Anyway… Dave hosted the lecture last night. I missed last week, but apparently the Recipe of the Week was aioli (last week’s theme was emulsions). Tonight, the theme was “gelation and spherification” and the Recipe of the [...]

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Harvard SEAS lecture, 10/26/10 teaser

José Andrés is awesome. Like… really awesome.  ^_^ ~Mikan

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Harvard SEAS lecture, 10/11/10, Grant Achatz, part 2 of 2

Continuing with texture… Grant wondered at the audience “How do we manipulate ingredients?” For example, temperature contrast. One of the dishes served at Alinea starts with a bowl of paraffin wax made in the kitchen. Cold potato (or was it pea?) soup and hot potato gnocchi-like but spherical dumplings are prepared separately. A pin is [...]

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