Plan to leave work at 6:00pm. Actually leave at 6:30. Sit in car and make grocery list for both recipes. Drive to Berkeley Bowl West.

Complete shopping and arrive home. Unpack and store all groceries.

8:30pm

9:00pm

Bring milk and sugar to simmer, add toasted pine nuts, chill in ice water bath. I do this is because putting hot/warm things in my crappy fridge makes it freak out and beep loudly all night because it can't recover temperature very well, which is just so great.

Watch episode of Arrested Development with Sarah.

9:30pm

Refrigerate pine nut milk overnight in fridge.

Put fenugreek seeds in a bowl and cover with water to let steep overnight. The aim is to let these sprout for use in a couple of days.

8:00am

8:30am

Drain fenugreek seeds. Moisten paper towel and place in container, scatter fenugreek seeds on towel, cover with another moist paper towel. These are placed on my fridge to stay warm, and I repeatedly spritz them with a water bottle from time to time through the weekend to keep them moist.

9:00am

9:30am

Drive to East Bay Restaurant Supply. I'm interested in buying a boning knife, because I need to butcher a whole lamb saddle, and learned last time that doing this with a nice Japanese chef's knife isn't awesome: the blade is too fat to negotiate the abrupt turns the bones make, and it's very easy to ding up the blade. In my butchery class last year, we used thin, flexible knives when we butchered a goat and it worked much better.

I end up buying a $25 Wüsthof knife, largely because the handle feels comfortable.

10:00am

Arrive home. Setup photo gear; this will remain up for the weekend as I work.

Make coffee.

Finish cleaning kitchen; all dishes put away, all surfaces cleaned and ready to be worked on.

10:30am

Start work on elements for Beef dish that will be dehydrated for several hours: tomato chips, garlic chips, ginger chips, orange zest, red pepper dice and onion rings.

Slice elephant garlic cloves on mandoline into very thin slices. Put garlic slices into small saucepan with skim milk and bring to simmer; this is done to remove bitter compounds from garlic. Once milk simmers, garlic is strained, rinsed, and blanched in milk again twice more.

In another saucepan, simmer water to blanch tomatoes to remove skin. Once blanched and skinned, tomatoes are cut with knife into very thin slices and placed on a dehydrator tray that's been sprayed with cooking spray. This is to help keep items from sticking to tray and tearing apart as they contract while dehydrating..

All items will dehydrate for several hours until they're completely dry and brittle.

11:00am

Using vegetable peeler, I peel an orange, trying to keep peel as long as possible. This peel is sliced into thin laces and simmered in simple syrup to candy it.

Complete garlic blanching cycles. Resulting garlic slices are laid in a single layer on a prepared dehydrator tray.

11:30am

Finish candying orange zest laces; place on prepared dehydrator tray.

Dice a red bell pepper, removing seeds and ribs. Arrange dice on prepared dehydrator tray.

Slice an onion very thinly, and separate into rings. Place rings in simmering simple syrup, then let cool.

12:00pm

Thinly-slice ginger, simmer in simple syrup, let cool.

While ginger is cooling, I drain onion rings and place on prepared dehydrator tray.

12:30pm

Finish laying out all ingredients on dehydrator trays; turn on dehydrator.

Begin work on Raisin Puree: in saucepan, bring water and raisins to a simmer. The raisins are treated similarly to the garlic (in that they're blanched thrice); in doing this, they become increasingly tender.

While raisins are blanching, I prep some anchovy filets; this just means cutting them tidily and storing in nice olive oil. It didn't occur to me until I was doing this to question whether Alinea uses tinned anchovies or fresh (is that even a thing?); I used tinned ones.

Blend now-very-soft triple-blanched raisins into smooth puree; store in fridge.

Preheat oven to 400F.

Begin breaking down whole lamb loin.

The cookbook calls for a "whole lamb saddle", which is what I asked for at Berkeley Bowl...to the confusion of the butcher there. In my head, I was after the same cut I'd bought for a previous lamb dish, but it took me a few minutes to remember to call it a "whole lamb loin". I don't know what makes these two different; the butcher seemed to think the saddle included the rear legs (maybe that's true). From what I've read, the two are the same.

At any rate, when I said "whole loin" he recognized what I was after, and brought out a whole lamb loin with the side/belly flaps still attached. He was a little puzzled when I asked for the whole thing, not wanting the fatty, usually-not-very-useful belly flaps to be cut off and discarded. I asked him to split it down the spine on a bandsaw into two.

The timeline goes a little dark here because it took me a solid hour to figure this out. Using my totally-useful new boning knife, I removed the small tenderloin from each half. The tenderloin sits below the spine and is a long, thin, lean muscle that gets to be about as big around as the mouth of a wine bottle at its thickest point. This was my most confident maneuver.

The next step was to remove the loin, a much larger muscle about the diameter of a beer bottle that runs along the top of the spine. There are some tricky angles to negotiate here, and I was meant to leave the long belly flap attached to the muscle and trim it down to a very thin 1/8" thickness, and remove the skin. The bulk of the flap is fat, so working with it gets a little slippery if you don't go fast.

The first half I felt like I made a bit of a mess of; I was hesitant with my cuts and so the meat was a little ragged and clumsy. I paused after finishing it to do a bit of research to see if there were some examples I could refer to.

It turns out that what I was doing is very traditional; the loin-with-attached-flap and tenderloin would ultimately be rolled into a big meat log, to be cut into "noisettes". After finding a very helpful video, I realized my initial attempt wasn't far off the mark at all. I just needed to move with a bit more confidence. I went back to the second loin and finished preparing it in about a third of the time, and it ended up looking a bit prettier.

The hardest part was trimming the flap as thin as I was meant to; ultimately I'm going to be rolling the loin and tenderloin together, using the flap to secure everything. Then I'll be cutting this log into discs, so the flap of fat should be thin enough to be pleasant to eat. Alinea gets this REALLY thin, so it turns into a pretty crispy shell by the end of the cooking/searing process. I didn't have quite the same luck, but I think that could come with more practice.

Complete boning and rolling lamb. I vacuum-seal these and store them in the fridge until the next day, when I'll cook them.

The lamb bones are put in a roasting pan and roasted in the oven for an hour or so, until they're browned. The bones will be used to make a lamb stock.

Begin trimming scraps from loin, for making lamb rillettes.

Finish trimming meat for rillettes.

Prep onions and carrots for lamb stock. Bring roasted bones and water to simmer, add carrots and onion and some tomato paste, and begin simmering stock. This will take about 6 hours.

Begin making Bitter Orange Puree. I place some halved bitter oranges into a vacuum bag with some simple syrup and grapeseed oil, seal, and put in water bath to cook en sous vide for 3 hours.

Make Anchovy Butter. This involves whipping anchovy fillets with room-temperature butter in a food processor, then pushing the mixture through a tamis so that it's smooth.

Juice 6 large red bell peppers. The yield is about 800ml of red pepper juice.

Complete mustard seed braising; reserve seeds in container.

Make Rillette Spice mixture. I mix together some coriander seed, cardamom, cumin, cassia buds, fennel, black pepper, and several other spices in a skillet and toast until aromatic.

When I swipe a spatula across the bottom of the pan the Red Pepper reduction is cooking in, it leaves a trail. I can tell the reduction is getting close.

Red pepper reduction complete; I strain it into a container and reserve it.

I clean the saucepan and combine spiced vinegar and agar, and bring the mixture to a boil to dissolve the agar, whisking the entire time to keep the agar from settling to the bottom and burning before it's hydrated. The saucepan is then set in an ice water bath so the gel wil set.

I remove the bitter oranges from the sous vide bath, and transfer them to a blender to puree them until they're smooth.

Cut spiced vinegar gel into cubes, blend in blender to smooth puree. Reserve in fridge.

This is kinda interesting: I halve two eggplants, score the flesh into a grid pattern, then sit the eggplants facedown in a 50%-50% mixture of sugar and salt to cure them for a few hours. I've never seen this before; I presume what's happening is that I'm concentrating the eggplant flavor, but I've never seen a vegetable cured this way before.

Francisco texts me asking if I want to go get drinks. This is my public apology/explanation for why I regretfully declined.

Check all items in dehydrator to confirm they're completely dry and crisp. Remove items and store in airtight container.

Lamb stock is finished; I remove it from heat to let it cool.

The eggplants are removed from the salt cure, rinsed, and vacuum-sealed with olive oil and thyme and left in fridge over night; they will be cooked en sous vide the next day.

Wash, dry, and put away all dishes. Clean all kitchen surfaces, ensure all non-refrigerated ingredients are sealed and kitchen is clean and ready for work the next day.

Store lamb stock in fridge.

Drink a beer.

Fill large stockpot with water and bring to temperature for sous vide.

Remove eggplant from fridge to let warm.

Begin making lamb rillettes.

Rillettes are a cousin to confit, a preparation technique that's rooted in a desire to preserve (usually very cheap cuts of) meat. The basic idea is that the meat of choice is cooked in spices and either stock or fat until it's very tender, then it's shredded and refrigerated, usually in ramekins or small pots, and served sort of like a pâté. Traditional rillettes meats include ham or rabbit.

Alinea, of course, takes a slightly different tack.

To begin, I combine the trimmings from the lamb loin from the day before with a healthy dose of the Rillette Spice mixture (also made the day before). The trimmings are tossed so that they're coated in the spices. I then sear them in a saucepan in some oil at very high heat until the trimmings are nicely browned. The fat is poured off, the lamb stock from the day before is added, and the mixture is reduced to a very gentle simmer for several hours to cook the meat until it's extremely tender.

I start making several 'sauces' that will ultimately be spread onto trays and frozen. The frozen sauces will be broken into shards to form the 'cubist panels' of the lamb dish.

I begin by making Date Puree: I combine some pitted dates, black peppercorns, lamb stock and sherry vinegar and bring to simmer.

Eggplants are put in sous vide bath.

While dates simmer, I cut sheets of wax paper and use to line several trays. The Alinea cookbook says to use acetate and sheet trays, but I have no acetate and my freezer is tall and narrow, so sheet trays won't fit. The wax paper works just as well for me.

Dates are finished simmering; I transfer them to a blender, add some olive oil, and blend into smooth puree. The puree is thick, so I decide to add more olive oil to loosen it up. It's still very thick and sticky.

Next I make seasoned yogurt: I combine plain yogurt with some sugar, salt, and Ultra-Tex 3, blending to thicken.

I combine pomegranate juice and Ultra-Tex 3 to yield a thick pomegranate pudding.

Next I quarter and seed several meyer lemons to prepare for making Lemon Puree.

Lemons are pureed in blender with simple syrup and grapeseed oil.

I bring large pot of water to boil for blanching.

Picked leaves from a lot of mint, blanched in water until tender.

Combined mint with Ultra-Tex 3, water and simple syrup and blended to yield a thick pudding.

Eggplant is removed from sous vide bath and set aside to cool slightly.

Water bath temperature is adjusted, and lamb roll is removed from fridge and repacked in a different vacuum bag with olive oil before going into the water bath.

Check rilletes; it smells awesome.

11:30am

Eggplant is pureed in blender with some gelatin and sherry vinegar until it's smooth.

Started Saffron Goat's Milk Pudding: brought goat's milk and saffron to a simmer, set aside and let steep.

Rillettes finished cooking. I mix in some shallot, butter, and olive oil, and shred the meat with a couple of forks. I set the mixture aside to let cool and thicken. I need to be able to roll this mixture in plastic wrap tightly into a log shape, so it needs to be thick enough not to run.

I think traditionally, the rillettes meat is shredded or pounded very finely so that you end up with a meat paste. The book says "Shred meat with a fork", which is what I did, and so I ended up with meat that's a little stringy and the consistency of pulled pork BBQ. Which is still totally fine and delicious -- but it occurs to me after finishing this that Alinea probably aims for a more refined consistency.

3 months ago, I preserved some lemons in salt and sugar in my freezer for this recipe. Now I remove them from the freezer and use a paring knife to remove the zest. I trim this zest into thin laces and reserve them.

The rillettes is now cool; I spread plastic wrap on the countertop and spread the mixture onto the wrap, then roll it tightly into a cylinder and put it in the fridge to firm up.

Saffron milk is strained, mixed with Ultra-Tex 3, and blended until it's a thick pudding.

All "cubist" sauces are complete; I spread them each on prepared trays and transferred them to the freezer.

Lamb noisette is removed from sous vide bath and chilled.

Water temperature of sous vide bath is adjusted, and several portions of trimmed ribeye are vacuum-sealed and placed into bath.

I also needed to render some beef fat. Rather than buying a whole ribeye (in addition to the whole lamb saddle) I bought pre-portioned ribeye cuts and some beef fat. I sliced the fat into cubes and put into a saucepan over low heat to render out the fat.

While the beef cooks, I take some time to clean all dishes and wipe down all countertops.

Measure out an obscene amount of chives and blanch these in boiling water, to make Chive Puree.

Chives are blended in blender with ice water, then strained through chinois into chilled bowl and refrigerated immediately.

Ribeye is removed from sous vide and chilled.

I begin making Potato Puree: two potatos are vacuum-sealed and put into sous vide bath.

At the same time, I remove some veal stock I made a few months ago from the freezer and bring it to a simmer in a small saucepan. I need to reduce it to a syrup.

Beef fat is nearly fully-rendered.

I remove beef fat from heat, strain once through a chinois, then again through a coffee filter. I place this near the output vent of my oven to keep it warm.

Finish reducing veal stock, whisk in some of the Anchovy Butter made the day before to yield Anchovy Sauce. I sit this near the output vent of my oven to keep it warm.

I use what the book calls a "Japanese Rotary Slicer" to peel a potato into long, thin potato sheets.

There are two types of "Rotary slicers" you might find from searching; one (very cheap) peels items from the end into a spiraly sort of shape. Another (not cheap, and hard to find) lays a blade alongside the item and peels it into one big sheet when you rotate the item against it. The latter is also called a "vegetable sheeter".

I ordered a "Bron Vegetable Sheeter" from JB Prince because it seemed the most likely thing Alinea uses. When it showed up in the mail a week later, it didn't seem all the way awesome. The variety of blades available for it are very few, and there was one blade in particular I'll need for a future dish that doesn't seem to exist for this device. This -- plus the fact that JB Prince's customer service over email is non-existent -- didn't give me warm fuzzies about having bought this thing.

I emailed Alinea itself, asking the Culinary Liason what they recommended for this. They responded that they use a Chiba sheeter, available from Korin and made in Japan. It's roughly the same price, but has the advantages that it has lots of other blades it can use, is plastic (so easier to clean), and is sold on Amazon (so is easier to leverage credit card discount points with). I sent the Bron sheeter back and got the Chiba one.

This thing is peculiar as hell. There's a rotating handle that both rotates a vegetable in the device and -- by way of a funky little mechanism -- also shimmies the blade back and forth quickly to aid in smooth cutting. It takes a little getting used to and took me a few tries to get a sheet from a potato that was uniform and long, but I eventually got it.

What I ended up with was what looked like long lasagna noodles.

I trim the tips from some fresh chives, and reserve these on a moist paper towel.

I cut a red fresno chili into discs and reserve on a moist paper towel.

I go check our garden for what's currently flourishing, to use as garnish.

I begin plating Beef: Elements of A1.

I sear ribeye portions on both sides to char the outside, and season with salt.

While beef is resting, I heat a small pot of canola oil, and dip one end of the potato strips in the oil to fry them quickly.

I place three spoonfuls of the potato puree onto a plate, then drape the potato sheet over them, pressing down in the center of each mound of puree to create a little well. I spoon anchovy sauce into one well, red pepper reduction into another, and chive puree into a third. Around the place I dot spoonfuls of raisin puree, vinegar sauce, and bitter orange puree. I arrange dried ingredients around the plate, trying to get as many as I can to stand up vertically. The fried end of the potato strip rises up off the plate and leans against the ribeye. Atop the ribeye portion is an anchovy strip and a chive tip.

I spend about 45 minutes plating, eating, shooting, plating, shooting, eating, etc.

Prepare rillettes: remove firmed rillettes cylinders from fridge, unwrap, cut into discs. The discs are dipped in flour, then egg, then panko to bread them. They are then panfried in oil until golden brown and crispy.

These things are the most delicious meat-based thing I've made from the book so far. Sarah -- generally a borderline vegetarian and decidedly not a fan of lamb in any way -- agreed.

While searing the rillettes, I cut squares from each of the frozen trays and arrange them on a plate in as Cubist of a fashion as I can. A spoonful of Dijon mustard is smoothed onto the plate in roughly the same shape. These are left to warm on the plate as I cook the lamb.

The boned/rolled lamb is seared in a skillet until it's warmed through, then cut into noisettes.

The noisette is garnished with a chili ring, a chive tip, braised mustard seeds, preserved lemon zest, a fenugreek sprout, a pomegranate seed, several threads of saffron, and a fennel frond and fennel flower form the garden.

Plate dish, eat, photograph, etc.

Break down kitchen. Wash, dry, put away all dishes, clean all surfaces.

Break down photography gear.

Drink a beer.