to which Fenris replied
Fenris, am I misreading your post, or have you confused the ATC guy with the Frugal Gourmet?
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Just did ATK’s Italian braised chicken and polenta this Sunday. Mmm mmm goooood.
I like Chris precisely because he is the bowtied geek rather than the dickhead executive-chef type. The show also lays some science on you in an accessible way now and then, such as with last week’s discussion of baking soda’s effect on starches (a pinch wards away lumps). All this may be a little too demystifying for lovers of the tradition, of course.
BTW, Julia (the big blonde) and Bridget (the little blonde) are neighbor-lady types compared to Becky (the toothy one) and Yvonne (the petite brunette, yow!)
No–just piling onto the ATC guy in light of FG.
D_Odds–it’s not prudish, I’m fine with male/female banter. His is (to me) way, way off. And he stands too close. Again, it may be a gag but in his case, ick.
Your OP was so wrong, it’s frightening.
You are wrong about Denver omelettes.
You are wrong about smoking wood.
You are wrong about briquettes.
You are very wrong about skillets.
Sorry, I have a bit more time now.
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Denver omelettes are traditionally not made with hot chiles. They are made with green peppers. This can be verified by running a simple search. Does someone somewhere do it that way? Yes, probably. Is that customary? No.
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if you’ve never had “real” sausage and peppers with red peppers, then I don’t think you’re particularly knowledgable about the subject. Again, run a search for recipes.
(Disclosure: I smoke with lump and dry wood.)
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Again, if you’ve never heard of soaking wood for an hour or two before smoking, then you just haven’t spent much time around barbecue enthusiasts. At all. It’s one of the great debates, along with…
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Briquettes vs Lump. Briquettes burn cooler and slower than lump. This is easy to prove. Can you do 20+ hour smokes with lump? Yep. Doesn’t change the fact that it burns hot and fast, relative to briquettes.
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When I was a professional chef, we used commercial grade aluminum pans on the sautée stations. Most professional kitchens do. They run about $40, are extremely durable, and do an excellent job.
That may or may not be true. But why did you quote him about one thing he IS certainly right about? A red (or other colored) bell pepper ain’t the same as a green one.
I was quoting the part where he claimed that all of the “stuff that he mentioned is simple fact.”
He is right about ripe vs unripe peppers, yes.
Sorry for the confusion.
As far as I’m concerned, there’s no debate about soaking wood. Those who do are just plain wrong! 
Got it.
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From what I remember, he was talking about how you’d be crazy to do it the old way. But the “old way” is a completely different dish and surely he must realize this now. I think he was being a little expansive on the TV show.
I agree Christopher Kimball may be the least telegenic person to ever have stepped in front of a camera - but I’ve generally found the quality of the recipes and information in the various Cook’s Illustrated publications to be consistently high.
It’s him, definitely him. I’ve met him. I’ve been in the offices, I’ve been to his home. He’s always like that.
OOOOOOOOOO! what did you have to eat there???
I have found that ATK recipes are good but light on seasonings and sometimes they miss a way to (borrowing a phrase) kick it up a notch.
One example is the apple pie recipe out of Cook’s Country (I think). I made it it was excellent and not soupy as promised but everyone agreed it needed more seasonings. Next time I made it I doubled all the spices and everyone enjoyed it.
The reason it wasn’t soupy is they have you precook the apples a bit and drain them. But they never use the wonderful appley goodness that was drained. I made a port wine reduction sauce out of it and poured that over the ice cream that I served with the pie. To die for.
I want to know if he fwowed up.
I ate A LOT of test versions of items, most of them chocolate so I’m not complaining.
And?
I love ATK for the same reason as everyone else. They are consistently good. And for those of us who don’t live in urban areas with good grocery stores, they are fabulous. I can’t make at least half the recipes in the average Gourmet magazine without special ordering something over the internet. It just doesn’t exist here. I’ve looked. I also can’t afford a lot of recipes in the standard foodie world. We don’t spend $20 on dinner. I try to average $5. I can do that with ATK recipes. ATK’s focus on foods the average home cook can make is perfect for me. I can find the ingredients, I can afford to make food that tastes good, and I can get the most out of the quality or ingredients I can find.
I’ve had very good luck with every recipe I’ve made.
I do have to agree that Kimbal is on the smarmy side. 
But since he’s the guy in charge there’s no getting rid of him.
BTW, the whole “why spend longer than 20 minutes making pasta sauce?” was a line just for that episode. The magazine and the tv show have done more than one version of long cooked Italian meat sauce wherein they do explain the reasons for a long cooking time.
Except for his ‘cooks three ancient cuisines’, I came up with over 100 errors, listed them and then provided primary or secondary documentation as to why they were wrong, and what the correction should be. Sent them to his publisher, never heard anything back, never saw any corrections issued. His historical tidbits tend to be the same old crap that Snopes keeps correcting.