Chef Wylie Dufresne & Meat Glue

This past Monday I had the pleasure of attending one of the Science and Cooking Lecture series at Harvard. The featured speaker was Chef Wylie Dufresne of wd~50 in NYC and his lecture was entitled "Meat Glue Mania".

Transglutaminase, a.k.a. meat glue, was the star of the lecture, an enzyme that opens up a world of possibilities to individuals who are one part chef and one part mad scientist.

Though you wouldn't know it, meat glue has been applied to the delicious looking dish above: Wagyu flap steak, barley, malt, turnip.

Flap steak is typically reserved for fajitas and other applications for flat cuts of meat. With the meat glue, he's able to stick together multiple flap steaks, and after its been bound together in plastic wrap in a cylindrical shape and set over night, you can recut the meat and get a nice sear on the outside of the meat yet retain a medium rare center.

What's more amazing is that they're finding non-meat applications, as is with the barley cake accompaniment above, and wd~50 is currently experimenting with gluing together vegetables. All in all, a truly fun and inspiring lecture.

Click here for more wd~50 food porn.

Good Eats TV & Drunk History

Fellow "Good Eats" friends, they've made a large chunk of current and past episodes available on a YouTube channel called Good Eats TV. The episodes are split up into two parts, so it makes for easy watching and easy tracking if you have your computer close by while cooking. Here's one of my favorite episodes from this season covering the Porterhouse steak:



And because its Monday and who doesn't need a good laugh, I bring you Drunk History Vol. 5.
*Warning: Contains strong language, vomiting, and pure awesome.

TV update

I don't really hit the movie theaters anymore, but still a big fan of TV. Figured I'd share a little update about what I've been watching.

• Modern Family is a hilarious show. Glad so many friends recommended it to me.
• Decided to power through and finish the 6 remaining episodes of Battlestar Galactica I have left. Figured I made it halfway through the final season, might as well finish the journey despite the negative reviews I heard of the Finale. At least the first two seasons were awesome.
• Dropped How I Met Your Mother. Episodes were less and less interesting and I'm just not a fan of Ted, who's got to be one of the least likable starring characters in a tv show.
• My wife and I have been slowly making our way through the series Bones, thanks to Netflix and their extensive library of streaming content. It has a great blend of darker comedy and mystery, but ultimately, a very interesting and endearing cast.
• Still bummed that Lost is done and gone. Next on deck for my drama/sci-fi fix is Fringe.

Tuesday's Tunes: Oatmeal Song

This week is a 2-for-1 of music and laughter with comedian Mike Birbiglia's "Oatmeal Song." I first heard his material on an episode of NPR's "This American Life" where he had a hilariously tragic recounting of his struggle with sleepwalking.



And now for your listening pleasure, the Oatmeal Song:



If you'd like more of Mike Birbiglia, check out his site My Secret Public Journal.

One Year Anniversary

This past July, Taryn and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. Now being a practical, game-loving couple, we thought it'd be nice to start the tradition of getting each other gifts on this special day that will promote new shared experiences. So what'd we come up with for this year?


His and her bowling shoes!