Famous chef wants to open a Bay Area restaurant. A gas stove ban may prevent it | Hacker News Reader

Famous chef wants to open a Bay Area restaurant. A gas stove ban may prevent it

sfchronicle.com

17 pointstafda29 comments

1. The gas stove ban is for new buildings. He could open his restaurant in any of the thousands of other spaces available in the area. SF is badly under-leased for commercial space anyway.

2. If this is the worst thing we can find about the ban (a wealthy celebrity chef deciding not to open a chain restaurant in a shopping center) then it has no bearing on my opinion of the ban. We don't complain about bank regulations because they're forced to deny loans to people like this, do we?

Never mind that surely any chef worth their salt is capable of cooking on just about any range? I honestly don't get the gas-range fetishism.

I'm somewhat surprised everyone everywhere isn't ripping out natural gas as quickly as they can, like folks are doing in Europe.

In Europe we've been having this gas issue due to the Ukraine war and associated sanctions over and back. Gas went really expensive. A lot of people were wearing extra sweaters and using extra blankets this winter to save money.

From this we've learned that being reliant on Things That Run Out is not a good idea at all.

For all that, it seems like the lesson was only local. I guess people really don't learn lessons vicariously. :-/

More than 90% of natural gas used in the United States is produced domestically. In California, over 50% of electricity generation comes from natural gas. Supply is less precarious than just about anything else.

Even in a future where the electrical grid is fully nuclear + renewable, using gas for cooking would be a completely affordable luxury and not risky at all.

I'm honestly gobsmacked at the hn lovefest for banning natural gas. It's not rational behaviour. it's sociologically fascinating, but yuck.

It's old tech that lowers local air quality, gives kids asthma, etc, etc.

Not exactly sure what the problem with cooking with electricity is.

A lot of the hate is due to induction cooktops trying to look sleek with touch buttons which suck for use with wet hands for example.

Once they become more mainstream and proper dials are common they will likely be more liked.

You see no space between "I think electricity is more efficient" and "we should ban other options"?

There is no gas stove ban. It’s a ban for gas hookups coming from the utilities.

You can still buy and use a gas stove. You just have to get a cylinder to drive it. You don’t get to freeload off expensive infrastructure that the city and other residents pay for.

No Wok Hei for SF

What I hate about the Woke making gas stoves part of their fascist doctrine over others is I really like induction as a technology, now I have to oppose it.

All such cooking puts out harmful air particles. Gas is a fraction more. You need good rangehoods and ventilation to solve this problem. Ventilation should be happening for disease control anyway.

In a world were we showed there are no big plans for big issues, having restaurants being able to serve food in blackouts matter.

To the article, any good chef will adapt, sadly schadenfreude rarely happens.

If there's a big event California won't reap what they sow and everyone dies, Texas will help them out. It's more about death by a thousand cuts to everyone around them.

Wealth that could have been created to solve real problems, including in the poorer states won't happen, ventilation will stay an issue and Bay Area restaurants will keep the hipsters happy for decades to come.

Why do you “have to oppose induction” now?

Either a massive mental breakdown or incredible parody

The person you are replying to is shadowbanned, so their posts are usually only seen by those who browse with showdead enabled. Their comments show up as [dead] unless someone with karma vouches for the comment, which seems to be what happened to the comment you’re replying to.

I will let you draw your own conclusions as to the intent of the poster.

What a whiner. Plenty of pro chefs use and prefer induction heating because it allows finer control and better reproducibility, while greatly reducing indoor air pollution. Sounds like he needs to learn some new methods.

Electric stovetops do not work for all applications, try using a wok or any other round bottom utensil on an induction stove

https://www.amazon.com/Nuwave-Induction-Controls-Wattages-Au...

They do make induction stoves for woks, if you wanted to use woks in a commercial kitchen you would get a specialty stove much like specialty gas stoves are used for them now.

So use a standalone gas cooker (google 'countertop butane cooker'). Yes, I have seen professionals use them (granted, in a 'demo kitchen' setup).

There are now and have been for years induction wok cooktops with a concave base

https://maxima.com/en/induction-wok-wok-burner.html

If you see how asian chefs use their woks that thing is laughable.

I see chefs use these daily at the local food court to prepare Asian dishes. Your comment doesn't track with reality

Ok, I'll refine it to any decent authentic Asian restaurant not in a food court, ie. like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT8tQhovT0k

Flat bottom woks do exist.

If it has a flat bottom it isn't a wok. A flat bottom would make it a "cooking pan" instead of a "cooking pot".

Flat bottom woks have a flat bottom. not a flat inside.

Has usage is sensationalized, I cannot reconcile the purported claims of environmental harm with my mental model of the world.

Can you help me understand why depreciating natural gas is impactful? Isn't it just virtue signaling at this point?

Depreciating natural gas? Natural gas is a commodity, not real estate or a capital expense. It doesn't depreciate.

You can look up studies about how much indoor air pollution it creates for yourself. Google isn't hard to use. "natural gas indoor air pollution" should work. If you have mental trouble understanding how burning things in an enclosed room where people are living and breathing creates air pollution, I don't know what to tell you.

> You can look up studies about how much indoor air pollution it creates for yourself.

Vent hoods are mandatory in every single state in the US if you’re cooking on a range/stovetop in a commercial kitchen, no matter whether it’s gas or electric. This is paired with a make-up air fan or make-up air damper to draw fresh outdoor air into the cooking space.

Natural gas does cause air quality issues inside of a residence that doesn’t have a vent hood and provisions for make-up air, but this thread is about commercial kitchens which as I said, are required to provide a vent hood which takes care of the air quality problems from a natural gas range.

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