More often than not, of course, disaster follows. What is it about the industrial ice cream machines on Iron Chef? They never, ever, ever seem to produce the desired result. You can always hear the excitement in Alton Brown's voice as he anticipates another misadventure with calves' liver gelato or sorbet of romanesco. I find these fiascos satisfying because, admiring as I am of toys in the kitchen, I have very few myself, which deficit would breed envy and dissatisfaction if I thought such gizmos might actually be useful. So when the vacuum sealer goes phoom and a snarky cheftestant finds his salmon ruined, I chortle complacently and tell myself it served him right for trying to be too tricky.
There is one device, however, for which I have always hankered but never got around to purchasing - despite its ubiquitousness in the domestic kitchen and prominence in every chef's catalogue that comes to my door.
A blow torch.
Now before you get up in arms and say, 'What on earth do you need a blowtorch for, you have a perfectly good broiler in your oven?' let me defend my position. First of all, I think of my broiler as an upside-down grill. Would you grill a meringue? Would you grill pulled sugar in order to achieve pliability and workableness? Of course not - your project would fall through the holes in the grate and disappear forever.
In addition, the broiler in the larger of my Wolf ovens isn't really up to the job of caramelizing delicate sweets. Although my beautiful cooker is perfection incarnate in many important respects, its broiler (being gas) has hot spots and warm spots and cold spots, which means forever moving things around and switching racks from top to bottom. It's a pain for anything other than general browning and (yes) grilling - which it does admirably.
As a result of all these shortcomings in my kitchen, there has been a dearth in my repertoire of intentionally-burnt desserts. It so happened, however, that right before the last big storm I dropped by our local restaurant supply emporium for cans of butane for our portable stove. When the electricity goes out (as often happens on our hill when the wind gets up), it's good to know we have some way to scramble eggs and heat up cans of Heinz baked beans - not to mention boil water for tea, without which we would surely expire.
On the well-stocked shelves next to the butane what did I spy but ...
What fun!
On impulse, I bought one. How could I resist? It was huge, flaming, and cost less than $25. And there aren't a lot of things you can say that about.
I don't know how I've lived without one for so long.
Next up: I tackle creme brulee, the easiest dessert in the world, and discover a profusion of pitfalls.
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