of course you need to be careful... but I jumped in when you were talking about sous-vide.. so I thought I'd give my two cents.
The stuff he made was dynamite, it was so tender and tasty that I can't find words to describe it. When it came out of the cooker though, it looked like some stuff that would poison me. After he hit it with the torch, I thought he was the best chef on the planet.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around that and I'm sorry that he's gone so we can't continue the conversation. The dog I inherited doesn't talk but I think she's pissed at me because my table scraps suck compared to his.