On Eat All About It, Rebekah Denn writes that the King County Health Department is cracking down on bistros using a now-common cooking device called an immersion circulator to do sous-vide cooking. The method involves vacuum-sealing ingredients in plastic bags and cooking them at low temperatures for long periods of time. Seems that restaurant inspectors are concerned that this method leaves ingredients within the temperature danger zone for bacterial growth for longer than they’re comfortable. Since 2005 they’ve formally required restaurants practicing sous-vide cooking to obtain a special variance (basically, making 50-seat restaurants file the kind of hazard-control plans that large industrial food processors must complete). However, reports Denn, that wasn’t common knowledge among local chefs. The department recently realized that massive numbers of local restaurants above a certain price point are doing sous-vide cooking. Now both sides are scurrying to educate each other on the fly. In the meantime, all of those slow-cooked carrots, black cod fillets, pork bellies, and god knows what you’ve been loving for years now? Officially illegal.