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Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Jul 11, 2007 by TERESA J. FARNEY Staff food columnist

Thomas Keller was introduced at this year’s Aspen Food & Wine Classic as “the best chef in the world.” It’s not hyperbole.

Keller is credited as one of the most inventive American chefs working today. He has eight highly acclaimed restaurants, including The French Laundry, Bouchon, Bouchon Bakery and Ad Hoc in Yountville, Calif., Per Se and Bouchon Bakery in New York City, and branches of Bouchon and Bouchon Bakery in Las Vegas.

He might also be one of the most stubborn chefs around. At the Aspen event, he wanted to show a film about the place where he buys lamb for his famous restaurants.

“But we had to tell him no because people are wanting to come and see him, not so much to see a movie about lambs,” Dana Cowin, editor- in-chief for Food & Wine magazine, told me at a reception.

So the persistent Keller cleverly circumvented that obstacle: He flew the Pennsylvania lamb farmer, Keith Martin, to Aspen to help preach the gospel about what Martin calls holistic lamb.

“This man has taken raising lamb to another level,” Keller said when introducing Martin. “We couldn’t do our job as chefs without our suppliers. They are the new culinary heroes. It’s all about product and execution.”

Martin doesn’t view lamb production as just a commodity. His philosophy is to focus on the animals and show them reverence and respect. On his farm, lambs are tracked from birth to harvest time. Keller gave an example of how closely Martin tracks his lambs.

“I had gotten a shipment of lamb shoulders and racks. The cuts came from the same animal, but the meat on the racks were not as tender as the meat from the shoulder,” Keller recalled. “I called Keith to find out what might be the cause.”

Martin soon had the answer.

“He called back to let me know that there had been a few days of very warm weather when that lamb was being raised,” Keller said. “When it’s warm, the animal will pant, causing the rib cage to exercise more. That is probably why the rib meat is less tender.”

So you see, it pays to get to know who is raising your food and how it’s being handled. And it was interesting to see how passionate Keller is about the source of his products.

About halfway through his 45-minute session, he finally got down to cooking. At first, though, it didn’t look much like cooking. All he did was alternately add hot water and ice cubes to a large, clear, heavyduty plastic tub of simmering water on the stove. In it were two bags of food, which we later learned were lamb loins.

“I’m showing you what I think will be the next wave in cooking technology: sous vide, which in French means ‘under vacuum,’” he said.

Sous vide (pronounced soo-VEED) started in the 1970s in France but has only recently been adopted by several Bay Area chefs, including Keller, who is writing a cookbook about it.

“Sous vide is cooking in a bag,” he said. “You remove the air from the bag with a vacuum-type machine. Then the cooking is done under controlled temperature at exact timing. That’s what cooking is all about — time and temperature. It reduces the risk of foodborne illness and allows for consistency.”

It’s not quite as easy as dropping a pouch of Success Boil-in- Bag rice into water. Using a water bath with an immersion circulator, a device that keeps the temperature constant, is critical. Professional vacuum sealers also make a difference because they remove air more thoroughly than home versions, prolonging shelf life.

Keller and other chefs use the method to speed up individual orders at their restaurants. Foods are precooked in the bag in water to just almost done. Then they are quickly chilled in an ice bath and refrigerated. When an order comes in, the chilled food is put back into the hot water and brought just to the temperature of the water. As long as the water is at the perfect done temperature for that food, the food will not continue cooking, it will just stay warm. The food can then stay in the water, at that constant temperature, till it’s time to eat.

“I was making the lamb dish for a birthday dinner for Michael Richard (a Washington, D.C., chef),” he said. “My course came later in the evening. I prepared the dish and kept it in the water bath for six hours, and it was served perfectly medium rare.”

Keller says home cooks can expect to see sous vide appliances in the future. In the meantime, Keller and several other famous chefs are using the sous vide method to prepare foods that can be shipped to your home