Rachel Perlow

Never mind.

menton1 - There are several points needing addressing in the original post of this thead. First, if you are going to mention that a conversation started in another thread, it would be helpful if you provided a link to the original thread. I did a search and found it, Blue Sky in Montclair, NJ, for those that are interested. I thought your original post was very telling. You were annoyed by the pitch for bottled water, and then asked for fresh bread to be rewarmed. I have a feeling you were at that point labeled as trouble to the waitstaff. Second, while I would consider this restaurant to definitely be "above average" when you cryptically describe it as "one of the 'better' restaurants in the state" and that "good bread always tastes better warmed, and should ALWAYS be served that way at a 'finer' restaurant" I assumed you meant one of the really upscale places like the Ryland Inn or something, not an above average bistro. What I find is that warmed bread, wrapped in a napkin and served in a basket, is most typical of very "average" places, especially Italian-American pasta joints, like the Pasta Pot in Hackensack (not that there's anything wrong with that, of course of course, etc.). The typical 24-hour (or not) diners tend to serve an assortment of rolls, muffins, and plastic wrapped crackers & breadsticks, unwrapped, usually not warmed and in a basket. Places I consider "above average" will tend to have decent bread, served room temperature, frequently on a plate. "Finer" places usually serve bread individually and this is definitely not warmed over, but must be very fresh. An interesting variation on this is a better restaurant that serves an unusual assortment of bread in a vessel that is not a basket. America Restaurant in Tenafly, NJ, does this. Their bread is served in a metal bucket and includes spicy cornbread and homemade looking flats & breadsticks. My conclusion? 1) As long as the bread is fresh, serve it at room temperature. 2) If the bread is not fresh, please don't warm it and to pass it off as fresh. 3) If you send back fresh bread and ask it to be warmed and are clearly doing so at a restaurant that doesn't typically warm its bread, you shouldn't be surprised that the staff may become distracted and forget to bring it back to you.

Well, since I have some rendered bacon fat I can do a side by side comparison. And, since we know it is not necessarily better, maybe Jason will be willing to part with some of the rendered product when we meet with some fellow egulleteers over the weekend. Camp is boring, please send duck fat.

Just to clarify - since I just got our package - I should render the pork fat in my cast iron skillet on low, with nothing else? No water? Skin or fat side down? How low? Our range as a low - which would probably be medium on most ranges and a small simmer burner which produces a flame about the size of four candle wicks.

Yes, literally eating penises is on topic.

LOL, where's the rim shot? As for the gratitude business, I'll do some more connections... I'm grateful to Arthur Schwartz for having Leff on his show about 5 years ago, so I heard about Chowhound. Then I told Jason about Chowhound, where he "met" Steven Shaw and formed a friendship that led to eGullet.com.

Was calling your now husband "Mr. Latte" in your column and upcoming book, Cooking for Mr. Latte, inspired by Candace Bushnell referring to her beau as "Mr. Big" in her column and book, Sex and the City?"

So we did. Here's what I did: I premixed (at home) the freshly squeezed OJ, lime juice, liquer & bitters, and brought with me both the commercial and homemade Velvet Falernum Syrup, ice, and a citrus stripper like this: . Since we were serving the drinks in plastic cups I decided against flaming the zest and instead stripped long pieces of peel from a navel orange and dropped the peel into the drink as garnish. I also forgot the nutmeg, oops, I hope Dale can forgive me. We mixed up some drinks with the commercial syrup and some with the homemade. The commercial syrup produced a drink that was way too sweet, the zest infused homemade syrup was definitely preferred by tasters for its bitter edge. It also is less sweet than the commercial syrup, which appears to be a 2:1 simple syrup vs the homemade's 1:1 sugar to water ratio. Therefore, it is definitely worth zesting all those limes to make your own Velvet Falernum. Either that, or add a spritz of lime zest to your drink before flaming the orange zest if you use the commercial syrup. Of course the ratios I'm talking about above are just sugar to water for the simple syrup. As for the ratio of marinated rum to simple syrup that is 1 part marinated rum to about 4 parts simple syrup. I suppose if you wanted to use it as an cordial to drink straight that ratio could be increased to about 2 or 2.5 parts out of five.

Try getting some chocolate mint next time you pick up seedlings. One year we got all sorts of mints: chocolate, pineapple, ginger, etc. in addition to spearmint and peppermint. The aromas were great for iced tea.

Actually, that sounds like they are less knowledgeable and limited if they specialize in single neighborhoods or buildings.

First, a clarification - a broker is generally the person that owns the agency. This requires much more extensive training and testing than it does to get a real estate agents license, so you are really speaking about agents not brokers. Second, this is the General forum, not the Manhattan forum, so I was explaining based on a broad audience. Of course, I am only licensed in NJ. Most people who initially seek a Realtor's help get annoyed by the financial questioning that an experienced agent insists upon. An inexperienced agent would then be intimidated into going out and showing houses before they know how much their buyer can afford. Most buyers want to go right out and see houses. I wish they could see that it is to their benefit to be properly qualified before doing any actual shopping. For the most part, they would save themselves a lot of time and heartache if they did so and only shopped for places in their realistic price range. Why would they need to send you to a different agent? In my area, all agents can access all listings, except for a small minority of exclusively listed properties (once again, my experience does not include Manhattan - anyone know if they use an MLS?). Once again, a Realtor only gets paid when a property sale closes. Usually, this is 60-90 days after the contract is initiated. And a contract may not happen until you've been searching for a while. Of course, there are agents that are stupid and think they can push someone into a higher prices property. But there's a big difference between suggesting a higher priced wine or pushing an appetizer and trying to get someone to spend an extra $250,000 on a house.

Actually, showing people houses that are listed slightly higher than they are planning on spending is completely appropriate and not upselling. This is because historically most houses sell for around 10% less than list price. Real estate sales is still a negotiation business. People expect to pay less than list. If a real estate salesperson showed a buyer houses that were "significantly" more than the buyer stated they wanted to spend would be doing themselves and their buyers a disservice on several points. First, the buyer may literally not be able to afford the house in question (as opposed to those who could spend more but choose not to) and you are wasting your time, your customer's time, and the seller's time (if they have chosen to be home whenever their house is shown). Second, your customer will become disenchanted when they realize they can't afford the house in question. They may fall in love with a house and be dissapointed when they don't qualify for the loan for it. Or, they may get annoyed with you as a salesperson and go to another Realtor (remember, Realtors get paid on commission and don't get any payment until the sale is closed). A Realtor prevents showing a customer a house that it too expensive by completely qualifying them before ever bringing them out. The best route to doing this is to have them pre-approved for a mortgage. This way you know exactly what they want and can afford to spend. You can show them houses that fit in their budget and they don't get hurt by falling in love with a house they cannot afford. What is upselling in real estate is the other items that the agent may try to sell you. Typically, this includes various types of insurance, or pushing their in-house mortgage company, moving company, etc. Just like in other upselling situations, these are value added items and may or may not be to your benefit. However, if upon shopping around you discover their prices are fair, they may very well be worth the cost to you.

Wraps.

I admit that while I do like tofu and soya products, I'm a complete neophyte in the understanding of their use. There are so many of them on the market today, and its easy to get confused. We like to cook stir fries, curries and other asian dishes at home -- what type of tofus and soya products should we add to our pantry to prepare the widest range of vegetarian asian dishes?

It's not the exterior electronic component or the probe itself that can't seem to go above a certain heat. I'm pretty sure it's the flexible wire between the probe and the plug that can't be exposed to excessive heat. I learned this the hard way when using it in conjunction with my grill, which gets much hotter than a home oven.

We've been singing this small restaurant's praises for a while now on the North Jersey Mexican thread, I can't believe we never gave it it's own. Here's some pertinent quotes from the previous thread: "For a basic taco stand El Gran Mexicano in bogota is great." - finker99 "The chimichangas were actually fried much more lightly than I'm used to and it was a welcome change....perfect Mexican rice and black beans." - 201 "I will also add that their mole ... is some of the best I've ever had -- very powerful, bitter taste, like good mole should be." - Jason Perlow "I love those tacos too much, esp. the chorizo and flank steak versions." - jhlurie Then there were a bunch of posts about how the place closed for renovations and made everyone very nervous that they would never reopen. Fortunately, on November 22, 2002, they did. Yippee!!! "El Gran Mexicano has reopened! .... I hope you will all head out there and show them how much you missed them." - Nick Reingold "that mole is really something special." - pnapoli We went back again last night, all is still yummy. I particularly noted the flavor of their corn tortillas. I don't think they are made in house, but are still a worthwhile wrap for the tacos and other dishes. We also tried their stuffed jalapenos, just for the heck of it. They are the same poppers you can get anywhere, but an excellent version of them. For some reason we thought the black beans were new (like they previously served refried beans), but after reviewing the previous thread, I saw 201 mention having them months ago, so I guess not. Also, they now have a website in the works, El Gran Mexicano.com.

The importer sent us a sample bottle (non-alcoholic version) of the Velvet Falernum. Compared to the homemade version there are several differences. First, the commercial product is more viscous. Perhaps the simple sugar ratio is closer to 2:1, rather than the 1:1 ratio I used. It also has a "juicier" flavor, due to having lime juice in the list of ingredients and no lime zest. So it is more tart, while at the same time less bitter. Apparently they will be importing the regular (alcoholic) version of the cordial soon. I am curious why Dale's recipe has us using lime zest and no juice, if that is different from what is in the commercial product? Would using lime juice affect the storage time allowed for the homemade version? Since there is already lime juice in the finished drink, the zest in the homemade VF adds a sophisticated flavor that would be less apparent if you used the commercial VF, where the only zest flavor would come from the final spritz of orange peel. Maybe we'll have a taste test at the NJ Potluck next week and take notes.

Did you try the peel spritz without flaming it?

Someone had to ask... From the New York Post review of Otto: What is the "Italian word for pigs" and how do you pronounce it?

The primary taste of the Velvet Falernum (that we made, still waiting for the commercial stuff) is lime zest with a hint of the pumpkin pie spice taste that the cloves add. The almond flavor was completely imperceptable in the Velvet Falernum at first, so I added 1 more drop to the cordial (about a quart), which very slightly boosted this flavor. As for the Flaming Orange Gully, my immediate thought was it tasted like a Cosmo, but really the flavors are more complex than that. The pie spice flavor was emphased in the finished drink by the grating of nutmeg. Actually a very complex drink. Next time I prepare it I want to make one without the spritz of orange zest, one with "raw" spritz, and one with the flamed zest, just to see what that element really adds. Then finish them all and get completely plastered.

I think I finally got what Nina was talking about when she said we (Americans) don't have the same O sound. The long O in Otto is actually a short hard O (I'm sure I'm recalling the name of this sound wrong; college linguistics was about 12 years ago ). What this means is this: The long O in toe, tow, hoe, etc., has a little bit of a W sound to it at the end of the vowel. Try to say these words slow and you'll hear what I'm saying, that brief moment when your lips purse & release slightly as if about to pronounce the W sound. Instead, the O sound in Otto is the beginning of the long O sound, but without the W sound at the finish. Here's the website for The International Phonetic Association, which has charts of the phonetic alphabet, if you are interested in learning more.

I started on my Velvet Falernum last night. Here's a complicated post on how I am adjusting the Velvet Falernum recipe to make only one bottle of the finished product (since we now know the marinade is based on a 1000 ml bottle): 8 oz white rum 3 limes' worth of zest (peeled with a peeler then finely chopped) 3 cloves 1/16 tsp almond extract (measured out a 1/4 tsp and then counted the drops. Basicly a drop is a 1/16 of a tsp, I suppose I could add another drop to the final mixture if the almond is undetectable.) Now 8 ounces is 0.23658823650400001 liter. So, I really needed 2.365th the amount of lime zest and cloves. Since I already started this last night, around 8:30 PM, I will adjust the time of marination as follows: 2.3658823650400001 divided by 3 yields 0.78862745501333336666666666666667, rounded off to 78.8% of 24 hours, or around 19 hours. Therefore I will strain the solids from the rum at 3:30. Here's a picture: 1:1 ratio Simple Syrup (Domino pure cane sugar) with marinating rum. The cloves have already given it a brown tinge.

I propose that there are two different situations being discussed here. One is where you are doing the cooking and guests are trying to be helpful. Blech. Eek! Get out of my way! The second situation is when someone else comes to your kitchen to cook. That, I'm fine with. Recently, several friends came over to cook, one being a professional chef. They brought the ingredients with them. The Chef was the head cook and one of the other friends and I were the sous and prep, respectively. I peeled veggies and stayed out of the chef's way - except to say "instead of looking for stuff, just ask me where it is" when he needed a bowl or other cooking implement. At the end of the night, I was happy to clean up because I wasn't worn out from preparing the entire meal. The other situation is when my dh is cooking. Really best for me to get completely out of the way - even though the kitchen is a disaster area when he is finished.

Also, have we answered the "how big is a bottle of rum" question yet? I am assuming 750 or 1 liter and approximating by just making 1 cup of the marinade (do I really need a whole bottle of it?) to mix into the quart of simple syrup. In other words, 1 cup white rum, a drop of almond extract (1/16th tsp!), 3 cloves, zest of 3 limes. The distributer is sending us a bottle of the syrup so we can compare my experiment to the commercial stuff.

Can you flame apple peel?