Testing new Windows live Writer (windows)

Just writing from Live writer.. look like a great program to post a message on my blog and add pics

How to view HD movie from computer to the nice LED TV you just bought?

I was able to view my HD movies (MKV files) from computer using the samsung share manager.

The decoder on the LED TV was able to work with most of the files but got some problem trying to read DTS files (proprietary codec).

So I needed to separate the audio from the video, reencode into AC3 and finally, put back together all the files.

1st step, download mkvtoolnix, it will allow you to demux (separate video and audio channels)
2. convert to AC3 with DAudioK
3. remux all the files back together using mkv toolnix "mkvmerge"

that's all folks

Thomas Keller new Cookbook "Under Pressure"

From amazon.com:

A revolution in cooking

Sous vide is the culinary innovation that has everyone in the food world talking. In this revolutionary new cookbook, Thomas Keller, America's most respected chef, explains why this foolproof technique, which involves cooking at precise temperatures below simmering, yields results that other culinary methods cannot. For the first time, one can achieve short ribs that are meltingly tender even when cooked medium rare. Fish, which has a small window of doneness, is easier to finesse, and shellfish stays succulent no matter how long it's been on the stove. Fruit and vegetables benefit, too, retaining color and flavor while undergoing remarkable transformations in texture.

The secret to sous vide is in discovering the precise amount of heat required to achieve the most sublime results. Through years of trial and error, Keller and his chefs de cuisine have blazed the trail to perfection—and they show the way in this collection of never-before-published recipes from his landmark restaurants—The French Laundry in Napa Valley and per se in New York. With an introduction by the eminent food-science writer Harold McGee, and artful photography by Deborah Jones, who photographed Keller's best-selling The French Laundry Cookbook, this book will be a must for every culinary professional and anyone who wants to up the ante and experience food at the highest level.

From the Inside Flap
Under Pressure, writes Harold McGee in his introduction to this, the first book written in English on cooking sous vide, “introduces cooks to one of the most important culinary innovations of modern times.”

An uncommonly grand claim coming from so precise a scientist and writer, but such is the power of this controversial method. “Thomas Keller and his chefs,” McGee continues, “illustrate the powers of precision heating with dozens of dishes that wouldn’t be as fine, or even conceivable, without it.”

Sous vide method comprises a group of techniques that allows the cook to realize flavors and textures that no other cooking method can. By sealing food in plastic and submerging it at exact temperatures for minutes or for days—food that is traditionally braised, sautéed, roasted, or poached—we can attain astonishing results. The tough cuts of meat we once braised in simmering stock can now be cooked sous vide to a medium-rare pink, juicy and meltingly tender. Lamb loin, veal tenderloin, and other larger cuts of meat, difficult to cook evenly, emerge uniform throughout. Delicate fish is enhanced and the margin of error reduced. Vegetables and fruits, cooked in an oxygen-free environment, remain vividly colored. And, because the food is sealed in plastic, its flavor is never lost to the cooking water or the atmosphere. Carrots taste more like carrots, apples more like apples. Small amounts of herbs and other aromatics can have dramatic effects. Cold techniques are valuable as well. Marinades used with meats en sous vide are powerfully effective. Various fruits and vegetables, such as melons, cucumbers, and pineapple, become new when compressed.

Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide is an invaluable contribution to our culinary world at a time of unprecedented interest in food and cooking, both in the restaurant kitchen and at home. The most critical aspect of sous vide lies in discovering what combination of time and temperature achieves the most sublime results. The answers, as discovered and practiced during the past decade by the chefs of The French Laundry and per se, two of the most respected restaurants in the world, are all here, within the innovative recipes from Keller’s landmark restaurants.

Under Pressure is a source of instruction, technique, and recipes for anyone who wants to experience the new ideas sous vide makes possible, inspiration for what is possible and what might be.

Pierre Gagnaire in Korea

Article from the Korea Times

Pierre Gagnaire, who holds three Michelin stars for his flagship establishment in Paris, has opened his new restaurant, PIERRE GAGNAIRE a Seoul, at Lotte Hotel Seoul.

The French chef does not easily lend his name as he has a strong commitment to maintain a high level of quality at all the restaurants under his name. He owns restaurants across the globe, but only four bear his name, these are in Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Dubai and now Seoul.

Although Gagnaire follows genuine French cuisine regarding food ingredients and basic cooking methods, his cooking style is known to be modern, innovative, and diverse.

To open the restaurant here, he long prepared dishes featuring Korean ingredients such as abalone, sesame and rice.

With the opening of the restaurant, Lotte Hotel Seoul's long dream seems to have come true.

The hotel had long sought to open one of Gagnaire's restaurants and it took more than two years to realize the project. The preparation involved eight months of large-scale renovation, investment of about 7 billion won in Pierre Gagnaire's brand import, design, recruiting staff from Paris and menu consulting.

For his part, Gagnaire promised to have his flagship French cuisine available at the hotel. He has also personally selected 270 different wines to match his dishes, of which some 130 wines have never been introduced in Korea before.

Gagnaire has even made up a comprehensive service manual regarding reception, service technique, food and wine pairing; and a multi-concept bar in his name opening for the first time in the world.

The launch seems to be pretty successful or at least it proved the high expectation on him and the restaurant, given that it has already received more than 300 reservations before the opening on Oct. 1.

At PIERRE GAGNAIRE a Seoul, he offers an a la carte menu of three to four dishes, course menu of more than 15 plates, and dessert menu.

Prices of a la carte menus range from 100,000 won to 150,000 won. Lunch course menus are priced at 120,000 won and 200,000 won with dinner course menus at 220,000 won and 300,000 won.

The restaurant opens from noon to 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. to midnight on weekdays and from 6 p.m. to midnight on Saturdays.

Hoengseong hanu beef festival is...

The largest festival event in Hoengseong-gun succeeding previous "Hoengseong Typhoon Cultural Festival",? which was held to pray for the prosperity, good harvest and welfare of our nation as well as promoting the good health of our people. The name of the festival has been changed from 2004 at which the new objectives and topics for the celebration have been introduced.

Hoengseng Hanu Festival attempts to advertise the superiority of Hoengseong Hanu, which is well reputed throughout the country, to the world outside and prepare the opportunity for publicizing our town as the origin of this magnificent product. It will continue to develop the festival to represent Hoengseong-gun and all events will be organized with a special focus on Hoengseng Hanu.

Hoengseng Hanu Festival offers the opportunity to experience the real taste of Hoengseng Korean beef cattle and the agricultural culture that cannot be seen in the cities, in order to elevate the brand value of Hoengseong Hanu and promote the development of the local area through the revitalization of the local economy and the enhanced local image.

Hoengseong Korean Hanu Festival is the experience and participation program for every citizen of our country, through which you can meet the famous indigenous products such as Hoengseong todok and Anheng steamed bread.

Hoengseong Hanu (Korean beef cattle) are raised in the optimal breeding environment where daily temperature range is distinct and the pollution of air and water is rare. This is why Hoengseong Korean Beef Cattle can boast its unique superior taste to anyone who tastes it.
Furthermore, excellent calves are selected and castrated between 4~6 months after the birth. The breeding period of longer than 27 months is followed under the strict quality management so as to maintain the superior quality of Hoengseong Hanu. For this reason, Hoengseong Hanu is incredibly juicy, savory, soft and tasty once you chew it. It is also good for health because of its richness in unsaturated fatty acid that do not only help the blood circulation and but also prevent adult diseases. It is high-quality protein food product that contains essential amino acid insufficient in other ordinary cereals, and abundant glutamine making the great taste.

Joan roca and salvador brugues, Sous-vide cooking.

I bought this book last year and have no regrets. If you are looking to improve your knowledge about sous-vide cooking, I recommend this book.
You can find it here but priced at over 200 british pounds.

Sous Vide Cuisine
by Joan Roca
Salvador Brugués
Foreword by Wylie Dufresne

Now available in English, Sous-Vide Cuisine is a first-class, practical manual for the professional chef.

Sous-Vide Cuisine combines the artistry of the chef with the science of sous-vide.

In Sous-Vide Cuisine, Roca and Brugués not only illustrate every technical aspect of sous-vide cookery, but also demonstrate the potential for creative applications in the recipes. This book will help chefs to better understand and employ sous-vide as a means to improving the way they cook.

Contents

Introduction
Low temperature cooking, mastery of an ancient technique, by Hervé This

Joan, Salvador and El Celler

Chapter 1: Sous-Vide Definition and Uses: Storage, Cooking, Cuisine

How Sous-Vide is Applied to Foods: Techniques and Materials
Types of containers
Gases
Vacuum packaging equipment
The vacuum sealing process

Chapter 2: Sous-Vide for Food Storage

Introduction
How long is the shelf life of vacuum-sealed foods?

Factors That Alter Foods

Temperature and Sous-Vide Storage
Cold
Cooling equipment
Heat

Complementary Processes for Sous-Vide
The MAP tecnique (Modified Atmosphere Packaging)
Sous-vide as a complement for other traditional cooking methods

Chapter 3: Sous-Vide Cooking

Advantages

Types of Sous-Vide Cooking
Indirect cooking
Direct cooking

Double Cooking
Complementing sous-vide with traditional cooking methods to improve the product’s final result

Concept Recipe for Indirect Cooking
Suckling lamb shoulder with ewe’s milk

Concept Recipe for Direct Cooking
Warm cod with spinach, Idiazabal cream, pine nuts and Pedro Ximénez reduction

Concept Recipe for Double Cooking
Foie gras with honey, citrus and vanilla-saffron infused milk

Foods and Sous-Vide Cooking
Chemical alterations
Physiological alterations
Other alterations

Technical Fundamentals
The oxygen free atmosphere
Airtight containers and the effects of pressure
The time/temperature relationship
Factors that determine correct time/temperature values
Cooking times for various ingredients

Cooking Equipment and Thermometers
Cooking equipment
Thermometers

Chapter 4: Sous-Vide Cuisine

The Process
Stages

Sous-Vide Cooking Step-by-Step
Fish
Meats
Vegetables

Plan for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP)

Organizational Benefits and Complementary Applications of Sous-Vide Cuisine
Organizational benefits
Complementary applications

Recipes
Fish Sous-Vide
Meats Sous-Vide
Special Sous-Vide Cooking Applications and Sous-Vide Without Cooking
Desserts Sous-Vide

Seoul restaurants to give calorie counts for meals from July

Health-conscious diners in Seoul will soon be able to consider waistlines as well as taste after restaurants here start listing the number of calories beside menu items from July. According to the city government on Wednesday (Feb. 22), about 250 restaurants in Seoul's main centers will inform guests of the number of calories in their dishes in a trial run.

The restaurants will be required to list the total number of calories in each meal as well as the calories per ingredient. “People are becoming a lot more interested in developing a healthy diet for themselves than in the past, and by encouraging restaurants to reveal the health content of their foods, we can allow diners to have better control over what and how much they eat,” a city official said. “I'm sure the pilot program will generate a good response from diners as a growing number of people are suffering from obesity or diabetes,” he added. “Every restaurant has its own cooking style, use of ingredients and quantity.

The calories in a bowl of seolleongtang in one restaurant will be different from seolleongtang in another restaurant,” he added. The chosen places serve dishes from the seven food items designated by city authorities as the most frequently consumed by Seoul's restaurant-goers. The list includes seolleongtang (beef-bone soup), jajangmyeon (Chinese black-bean noodles), jjamppong (chili soup with stir-fried seafood and vegetables), kalguksu (hand-rolled noodles in beef or chicken broth), samgyetang (chicken soup with ginseng), bibimbap (rice with red chili paste, meat and vegetables) and naengmyeon (noodles in cold meat broth). After studying the response of restauranteurs and diners during the trial run that extends until the end of the year, city authorities plan to eventually encourage more restaurants to reveal nutrient content on their menus.

Among the considered incentives are providing the restaurants with up to 1 million won ($1,000) in subsidies when they add new washbasins. The restaurants will also be given a framed sign indicating their participation in the city's campaign to list calories and have names listed on the city government's Web site (www.seoul.go.kr). The city recently organized a nine-member panel of doctors and nutritionists, who will review the dishes of restaurants willing to participate in the campaign starting next month.

Mission Tremplin Coree

The visit to Korea of Mrs Anne-Marie Idrac, Minister of State for Foreign Trade, from June 15th to June 17th 2008 was the first bilateral visit of a member of the French government in Seoul, since the election of President Lee Myung-Bak.
The Minister of State for Foreign Trade went also with a delegation of 100 innovative and creative French Small and Medium Entreprises.

At this occasion, the French Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FKCCI) and the Economic Mission of Seoul (French Embassy) organized personnalized matching meetings for each SMEs, seminars, conferences, networking events and a French Evening with a cocktail and a Gala Dinner.
The delegation arrived on June 15th, 2008. A briefing and reception cocktail were organized. Briefings were made by Mrs. Anne-Marie Idrac, Minister of State for Foreign Trade, M. Philippe Li, President of the FKCCI, M. Antoine Chéry, Economic and Commercial Counsellor at the French Embassy, M. Philippe Reynieix, President of the French Foreign Trade Advisors in South Korea (CCEF), two testimonies of French SMEs established in South Korea, with M. Laurent Cupiti, President of Lobel Korea, and M. Vincent Frambot, Representative Director of Hydro Aluminium Automotive Structures Korea.

On June the 16th, the French SMEs began their personnalized mission (meetings with Korean companies), several conferences and seminars were also organized in parallel. At 06:00pm started a Cocktail "à la française", prepared by French Chefs, all gathered for the first time by FKCCI, from Le Cordon Bleu (Philippe Bachmann, Laurent Beltoise, Franck Colombie, Jean-Pierre Gestin), The Bistro of Novotel Ambassador Gangnam (Didier Reibel), Le Saint-Ex (Franck Lamache), Café de Chef of Sofitel Ambassador Hotel (Philipp Zurbuchen), Paris Croissant Café / Lenôtre Paris (Jérémy Juanchich, Lee Young Sun), Champagne Veuve Cliquot and Aperitif à la française (Sopexa).

After the Cocktail "à la française", the FKCCI organized a French Evening Gala Dinner, gathering more than 300 guests, supported by the Economic Mission of Seoul and the French Foreign Trade Advisors, and sponsored by Aircalin, Dongwon Wineplus, Evian, French Chefs from Le Cordon Bleu, The Bistro of Novotel Ambassador Gangnam, Le Saint-Ex, Café de Chef of Sofitel Ambassador Hotel, Paris Croissant Café / Lenôtre Paris, Champagne Veuve Clicquot, Aperitif à la française, and Sopexa Coree. The evening was warmed up by different events: Wine Breathing Demonstration, National "Jeunes Commis Rôtisseurs" contest in French Cuisine Awards, Grand Prix of CCEF for VIE 2008, and a lucky winner of an airflight ticket Seoul-Noumea offered by Aircalin.
On June the 17th, the FKCCI, the Economic Mission of Seoul and the French Foreign Trade Advisors, organized a breakfast "Business Match Meeting" gathering 150 guests. This breakfast was a great opportunity for the delegation of 100 SMEs to meet French and Korean experts of each sector in Korea: Human Resources, Finance and Risks, Pharmaceutical, IT, Logistic and Transports, Law, Communication and Press, Distribution, Banking, Industry, Food and Trade Fair, CNCCEF, and Services.

This Tremplin Coree has been a great success for all companies. Most of them are already interested in investing in South Korea and developing their business with Korean companies. From the 18th to the 20th, the delegation went to Japan for the same kind of program (rendez-vous, seminars, etc.).

French Evening Cocktail Party & Gala Dinner

June 16, 2008:

In the presence of Mrs. Anne-Marie Idrac, French Minister of Foreign Trade, and a delegation of 100 French SMEs, the FKCCI organized a party involving the preparation of canapes for the dinner cocktail. With a team of french chefs from le cordon bleu, Lenotre, Paris croissant, Novotel ambassador, Sofitel Ambassador and Le St ex in Itaewon, we prepared two different canapes each for a total of 300 per team. On the picture from left to right: Mr Chang, Production manager for Tamati and Paris croissant, Mr Jean-pierre Gestin, Chef patissier au cordon bleu Sookmyung, Mr Lee Young Sun, Production manager for the bread and cake part.

** Lenotre Korea and Paris croissant: Chef, Jeremy Juanchich

Tuna tadaki on parmesan sable, Sweet & sour tomato salsa, wasabi dressing.
Parmesan sable was too sweet but overall taste was simply fantastic. A keeper

Mini Feuillete au crabe royal and fennel, flying fish egg roe, chervil.
Classic, but a favourite at party.

** Le cordon bleu Sookmyung: Executive Chef Philippe Bachmann

Carrot and coconut jelly with Vanilla lobster. Maltaise sauce.

Elegant presentation, fresh and clean taste. Sadly the jelly was too "gelified" so was impossible to eat properly.

Scallop tartar with foie gras. Fava beans and pineapple dressing.
Feuilletage too thin, was difficult to pick up with fingers. Taste was ok, but foie gras flavor was overpowering.

** Sofitel Ambassador: Executif Chef, Phillipp Zurbuchen

Scallops on horse radish- potato galette drizzled with wasabi cream sauce

Nice presentation, good flavor. Where is the wasabi?

Blue cheese and honey mousse with yogurt --nut cream in china spoon

Simply delicious, for blue cheese lovers

** Novotel Ambassador: Executif Chef, Didier Reibel

Square of toast bread with mango and a cube of Foie gras. small triangle of diced mango

Sweetness and acidity of fresh mango makes a delicate marriage with the foie gras. Visually delicious.

Cauliflower cream with a piece of Yuzu custard in it, on top brunoise of salmon ceviche with green pepper corn & shallots, garnish caviar avruga
Cauliflower cream was outstanding. Delicate balance of taste with salmon and caviar. The verrine presentation was perfect.

** Le Saint Ex: Executif chef, Franck Lamache

Small warm potatoes stuffed with home-made smoked salmon and cream
Classic but tasty canape. Home smoked salmon had a delicate flavor and texture


Chou stuffed with fourme d'ambert blue cheese and avocado
Great idea from a great chef. nice mixture of flavor and appealing visually.

King crab preparation

Peeling and tasting the king crab from Russia.

Bike for Sale !! **SOLD **

For sale:
Scooter 125 NS (DAELIM)
Year 1998

Selling price: 650.000 Won ono

spend over 200.000 won for:

- New carburetor (150.000)
- New rear tire (35.000)
- New shock absorber (30.000)

It has 9600 Kms (5,800 Miles) and is in reasonably good condition. I have always changed the oil and spark plug regularly (500 km) and it runs well.
The seat is perfect. It is fairly quiet. It mostly starts first time.
There are a number of scratches on the sides like most scooters in Korea.
It simply represents good honest cheap motoring
Insurance, license and registration documents available

Reason for sale: upgrade to a 250cc probably freewing 250
Waiting for your offers.

** SOLD **

Rafting day in chuncheon

It was not a beautiful weather to do rafting but the spirit was there. We had a wonderful day in chuncheon area for the yearly company pique-nique.

The river between the mountain was simply gorgeous.
Here is a training before jumping onto the boats













My boat members












Look who is crying !




















A family picture !!

Amelie pics

Rafting