Exploring Sous Vide

Today is a very special episode as we go international. Usually on Exploring Sous Vide I bring on a sous vide luminary and we dive into their technique, their influences, and how they approach cooking.

But today, the always amazing people at Crea and Cuisine Solutions asked us to put together a global podcast to help kick off International Sous Vide Day. To help with that, I'm going to welcome some great chefs and cooks who are regular contributors to the International Sous Vide Association's conferences and showcases that we run. 

These cooks span 4 countries and represent 6 different cuisines. And in addition to the questions I'll be asking them, we've had questions come in from around the world for this global event.

Sous vide is just a method of cooking, but the real art comes from combining the flavors. And today's guest is the perfect person to help us figure it all out.

He is a chef, author and Food Network personality who is a featured chef on the new Food Network Kitchen app offering live and on demand cooking classes. He is also the first-ever two-time Chopped champion and regularly appears on television as a host and judge including on Chopped, Beat Bobby Flay, The Kitchen, The Dr. Oz Show and he was named one of People Magazine’s "Sexiest Chefs Alive."
 
Together with his wife Brooke Parkhurst, he authored 4 cookbooks, including the best-selling The Flavor Matrix, a revolutionary new guide for chefs and home cooks about understanding and creating amazing flavor with everyday ingredients. Their follow up cookbook, Flavor for All, will be published in Fall 2020. 

He has long studied the science of what makes food delicious. For 10 years, he served as Director of Culinary Research at The Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. While there, he lead the school’s collaboration with IBM to create and operate the ground breaking project ‘Chef Watson’, placing him at the forefront of culinary education. He also served as a culinary and innovation consultant for numerous clients ranging from IBM to Monogram Appliances.
 
He and his wife recently opened their first restaurant inspired by their home on the Gulf Coast and travels through Italy, Angelena’s Ristorante Italiano in Pensacola, FL. And most importantly, obviously, is he'll be doing a keynote talk at the Sous Vide Summit next week!

I can't wait to learn from today's guest, James Briscione, executive chef Angelena's Pensacola and Food Network personality.

Sous vide has a place in both home and professional kitchens, but sometimes it can be hard to bridge that gap. Luckily today's guest is the perfect person to show us how.

She is a 2005 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America. She worked at Restaurant Daniel and Daniel Boulud’s Dinex Group for ten years, starting as an extern. After a series of promotions, she finished with the title Culinary Manager. 

The position included work on restaurant openings, testing recipes, cooking for events, producing cookbooks, food styling, and managing health department matters - including writing HACCP plans for Sous-Vide. 

In 2015, after a stint at Corkbuzz as Head Chef, she took the opportunity to work under Bruno Goussault as Executive Chef for the Culinary Research and Education Academy, better known as CREA. 

She has also been name dropped more than anyone else from guests appearing on this program.

I can't wait to learn from today's guest, AJ Schaller from CREA.

Sous vide is for more than just meat. Don't get me wrong, I love me a great steak, but many people never move beyond that. Today's guest uses it for everything from making cheese  and limoncello to proofing dough and cooking vegetables. As he says, it's not a cooking method, it's a life style!

He is the award winning chef, restaurateur, cookbook author, television and radio personality that has done more than any other culinarian to introduce the country to the regional and local foods of his beloved Michigan and the Great Lakes. He's also the chief sous vide expert for VacMaster, one of the largest sous vide and vacuum sealer companies in the world.

Please welcome today's guest, Chef Eric Villegas!

Cooking is a vast and complicated subject, and many people spend their entires lives trying to per-fect their craft. So it's no wonder that for someone new to cooking it can be incredibly intimidating. However, sous vide can make that experience go much more smoothly, and today's guest is the perfect person to show us how!

He is a home cook that started from having zero skills in the kitchen to now having a passion for cooking and photography. This passion built naturally by having a technique that allowed him to easily succeed over time instead of relying on traditional methods that would have, as he likes to say, thrown him into the fire. 

I can't wait to learn from today's guest, James Beshada, from JBSousVide 

Sous vide is many things to many different people.  Some people love the precision control, some love the gourmet results, and some love the convenience. And today's guest is the perfect person to help us explore the last one.

He started researching and developing Figo about 3 or 4 years ago. Then stopped when mellow announced their product. But after using Mellow's device and cooling system for 4 hours, he felt like they had a better device and started working again on his own machine.

I can't wait to learn from today's guest, Robert Nappi the founder and CEO of EatFigo.

Today we talk about adding smoke to cocktails, how to figure out sous vide times, and why tacos are absolutely the best.