tryska

and now for your moment of zen..... imagine a bunch of gay men in matching western outfits doing a line-dancing exhibition in the midst of a crowded rush hour gym in Atlanta. No Rhyme or reason...just line-dancing. vikram - that was an excellent post. I'm glad Koshy's is there too.

yay pi!

i like both, but my prference i think for the most part is for strongly flavored food.

I am now completely confused. Amla is "Aamloki" is Bengali, which I *thought* was the same thing as Phyllantus Acidus: http://www.tropilab.com/phyllantus-acidus.html Isn't Nellikai the same thing? Isn't gooseberry the same thing? Phyllanthus emblica and phyllanthus indofischeri are what's generally knowm as amla/nellikai. http:// www.ias.ac.in/currsci/jun252003/1515.pdf (problem posting link). the other one phyllanthus acidus(and one very like it with fruit along the branches)are less astringent,more succulent-a bit like a carambola. yeah - here's a better picture of what grew in my grandmother's frontyard: http://www.tradewindsfruit.com/otaheite_gooseberry.htm http://www.uog.edu/CALS/site/POG/phyllantus.html

also just researched buerre noire: ghee is properly done when it's buerre noisette actually. if you took it to black it would taste charred. i think the main difference here is that with the french styles - it's not clarified (at least not according to the aforementioned definitions) so you don't just get the fat, you get the milk solids too, and it gets incorporated with other flavors to make a sauce. ghee is just the oil separated out after you've gotten to buerre noisette.

Use ghee as a condiment? Like a spread? Dip? To me, ghee has one purpose that follows its form; to be able to handle the high temperatures that are necessary in the cooking of Indian food. Ghee is highly clarified butter (unsalted) with a very high smoke point. If its nutty its wrong, nutty is beurre noir or black butter, French not Indian. imo, ghee is a must have, if you are having rice and dal. or kidgeree as edward said. and you can use it pretty much how you would use butter. spread it on bread (my mom used to top bread or roti with ghee and some sugar for breakfast). it's good over just plain rice too. and i would have to disagree with you on the nuttiness. to me, any melted butter that hasn't had the milk solids browned is jsut melted butter. not quite cooked yet. it's one of the main reasons i don't like getting bottled, pre-fab ghee. it's smells funny because it hasn't been browned.

i was thinking Woodfire also.

i feel like we've had this discussion before. *lol* the picture on that page looks liek the nellikai tree in my grandmother's front yard, however the berries have ridges like little tiny yellow pumpkins (american pumkins) not smoothish like other people's amla looks. also it's a large trea that bears fruit downward and in clusters like cherries.

now i thought gooseberry was nellikai, which looks nothing like amla. hmm.

i've always had a tought time wrapping my head around cinnamon as "sweet" as opposed to "savory".

mm...me and madhur have to disagree. My mom always used salted, and i prefer the wee bit of saltiness that stays, to plain unsalted. then it just tastes like grease. then again i use it like a condiment too, not an ingredient.

yay for the butter sculpture!!! I'm gonna add a few of my favorite NY memories, for the hell of it: -coffee regular and a buttered roll for breakfast from any cornershop. -broccoli and garlic sauce and an awesome vegetable fried rice from a specific Forest Hills Chinese joint on Queens boulevard who's name i can't remember. -doubles, pulouri and beef roti from any of the joints on Liberty Ave. -A&S Bagels in Hempstead at 3am, especially an everything with butter, a plain with cho chip cc, or a pumpenickale with onion cc. -salt potatoes and real buffalo wings - sausage and peppers and pizza frite.

hmm..andiesenji - rau ram looks much different from coriander - can it really be used the same? i might have to get some garden boxes for my porch and start trying different herbs. (gingerly's gotten me motivated) jschyun - "sexed up keilbasa" love that phrase!

omg Packo! i was at your site just a couple of weeks ago, when i was researching roti canai! very nice website, and very helpful too. :-)

*lol* i guess the more things change, the more they stay the same.

i think it was bedekar's we used to get. now it seems everywhere only carries pataks brand. I'll have to check the larger indian stores here in atlanta. i'm sure i'll be able to find it somewhere. i remeber one time when i was growing up, my mother made an unfortunate attempt at making fish pickle. she didn't pickle ever again after that.

crescent is trendy now? back in my day, crescent was where the yanks hung out and got pissy.

hmm..good question. i guess to be precise one would have to go back and look at the research for the latin name of the herb they used, and decide from there. but to be strictly empirical, the people i know who use it and are getting results from it, are using plain old grocery store cinnamon, which is cassia.

well you did a fine job with your write-up crazyc. i'm thinking that would make an excellent egullet competition, actually.

wait..how are you making your ghee? i always take a saucepan, drop a stick of salted butter in it, and boil it off on medium, until it get's brownish and nutty smelling (not melted butter smelling). then i pour it into a cheesecloth covered pyrex measuring cup. it takes all of 10 minutes, i think.

speaking of tea biscuits - my mother introduced me to cake rusk my last visit. what fabulous stuff.

wow. learn something new everyday. i'm surprised Atlanta didn't chime in on this thread, so i'll get right on that. Off the top of my head i cannot think of any place - bar/club/restaurant that has turned away straight people. (even the leather bars, as long as you abide by dresscode) But restaurants which i guess would be considered "gay" are: einsteins, joes on juniper (both owned by the same group) - burger joints. red chair, nickiemotos (do drag queen hostesses count? - if not then maybe not). there are others, but i don't eat gay so much as i drink and dance gay.

*lol* the initial post sounds like an article by Carrie Bradshaw in her new gig as a restaurant critic.

yes. anythign from 2 tsps to a 1 tablespoon of ground cinnamon throught the day does wonders for blood sugar and insulin levels...

I'm actually surprised that there isn't a GLBT group for restaurant workers. especially in New York. think of the Benefits y'all could give.....