mongo_jones

you guys are all cheating. i demand to be able to go back and put guinness and boddington's on my list.

out of curiosity: just how little of an object is money with these labels? are there bourbons that command the super premium (>$1000 per bottle) that some scotches do?

traditionally women in india have grown long nails, and sharpened them, to slice garlic in a particular way.

okay, you, and the $11 price-tag, have convinced me. i'm getting a bottle of the evan williams 10 year old. by the way, what is it about bourbons and men's names? vodkas don't seem to be named after people (except perhaps the russians), most single-malts seem to be named after places etc. etc.

i wonder how the gits brand does in england. would be like an english company selling "ch..iya" brand jams and jellies in india.

certainly pirates would eat a lot of aar maach...(a type of bengali carp).

some swear by something called old grand dad? never encountered it myself--thoughts? what price class does it fall in?

in the words of homer simpson: i would kill everyone in this room for just one alphonso mango

drank more makers mark on the rocks than i should have, much earlier in the evening than i should have tonight. that's good whiskey. this thread is interesting, and i'm glad to see makers mark is on so many people's top 5 lists. can i ask people to sort a little differently: 1. favorite bourbon <$20 2. favorite bourbon <$30 3. favorite bourbon>$30 all for 750 ml bottles. i'm guessing some here drink bourbon and scotch. i have encountered scotch aficionados who sniff at bourbon (no, not before taking a sip). personally, since i cannot afford to drink a lot of expensive single-malts i find the bourbon i can afford to be much better than the scotch i can afford.

One of the recurring themes in my experimentation with food is trying recipes that I find for Jewish versions of regional/ethnic (oh, how I'm trying to avoid these labels) cuisines. Some years ago, I found a recipe for gulab jamun, as interpreted by the Bene-Israel in India (in The Jewish Holiday Cookbook, by Gloria Kaufer Greene). It was enticingly described as fried pastry balls soaked in cardamom syrup. The recipe, unfortunately, was pretty awful. But ever since, I've hoped to learn of a good one. So, once again... could you share a recipe? i don't even try to make gulab jamuns--i am resigned to eating otherworldly ones on my trips home every couple of years. but here's a plausible site on making indian sweets (including the gulab jamun): http://kurma.net/essays/e16.html the rest of the site seems interesting too, though i haven't browsed it all: an english hare-krishna devotee of apparently indian descent who emigrated to australia and made it big (?) as a vegetarian chef.

this simon majumdar person actually passed himself off as an expert on indian cuisine and food practices on this site? the mind boggles. first i came across a thread in which he said shondesh was a kind of gulab jamun, and now this. this forum has really come a long, long way.

I'll take the Michelin Man in a 2-round knockout. do the zagat's get to tap each other in? if so, my money's on nina--she looks like she'd execute a mean pile-driver. and let's face it, the michelin man's eaten a little too much butter.

Lord knows I love ADNY, but it has not resonated with the New York fine-dining population at large. Nor is it selling out every night. i stand corrected. or rather, i sit. much closer to the monitor than is recommended, but in an ergonomic chair.

i hope naming one's children "stardust" is a fad or cliche that won't last. reminds me of grace slick, who named one of her children god (but with a small "g" because "we have to be humble")

first of all, chicken jalfrezi is not an indo-chinese dish. secondly, if it has paneer in it that's a wrinkle, not a traditional ingredient. relying on indian restaurants in the u.s for information on these matters is, sadly, not a safe thing to do.

do you really like jalebis more than gulab jamuns? good g-j's have that great combination of sweetness, almost-bitter caramelization and that great texture. i love jalebis too but there's something far more comforting to me about gulab jamuns. to each her own.

yo mama

i've probably said this multiple times on these forums--who can remember?--but i say only half-jokingly about fusion cooking in the u.s that involves asian cuisines that it is largely meant for people who don't know much about or have much interest in those asian cuisines to begin with.

not to suggest a new way to cling to your cliche but have you tried this variation? take halibut fillets, douse them with that salsa and cook en papillote or en aluminum-foilote till done, or alternatively bake them.

i don't think this is such a huge handicap. i think it would make for a different kind of thing than skchai would write (i'd love to read him on korean food too) but it would still be better than gold. by the way, gold is going off of even less experience than you--except he makes it sound like he "knows". arrogant bastard.

piping hot gulab jamuns

i will say that some things i have learned from making a limited number of italian dishes at home for the last 5 or 6 years have leaked into my preparations of indian dishes. for instance using herbs/leaves to scent tomato based sauces. usually in bengali cooking some chopped cilantro is just used as a garnish at the end--i've found that adding a little basil or curry leaves 5 minutes before finishing an alur-dom makes for a nice change. also instead of making my standard garlic paste to be added after onions for some dishes i'll sometimes saute a lot of chopped garlic beforehand and add those to the onions. i wouldn't call this fusion though--it is not the cuisines that have fused here but to a limited extent my cooking habits. this has happend with my preparations of dishes from different indian cuisines as well. i feel like i cook with a bengali accent sometimes and with a punjabi accent at other times. occasionally a little italian sneaks in.

yes, you'd think keema curry (ground meat curry) would go well with any pasta shape that goes well with a bolognese sauce, but usually it tastes repulsive. strange since italian is the western european cuisine that looks the most like indian. on the other hand, i can imagine some italian dishes--cacciatore etc. tasting quite good with steamed rice (not basmati though).

was it a wine so saucy that you had to slap the sommelier?

well, i don't think there's anything wrong, per se, with being lazy and/or wanting a "guide" of some sort. i just don't think gold is the guide he says he is--the fact that he is accepted as one says a lot about the cultural narratives in place, but if i go on i'll once again repeat my entire long essay about him. sometimes i wish food-writers would step aside once in a while and make room for other people who know more/differently about the things they claim to represent. wouldn't you rather read jschyun on koreatown? i'm not saying only people from a particular ethnicity should write about it (this would apply equally to someone like eddie or gary soup on the chinese food forum or edward and scott on the india forum)--but that it would be nice in this day and age, and that too in an allegedly counter-cultural publication like the weekly, to not have elected one uber-translator to explain the "other" to us. if we're all in this together it would be nice to read things that present all the "this" from the inside as well.