lancastermike

My wife did some deal to get a free i-pod by joining lots of things on a list. I thought it was a scam and kept telling her she would get a "hi-pod". She really did get it and I was stunned. Anyway, one of the things she had to do was join a cookbook club. The last book to fill the deal arrived yesterday. It is a cocktail book by Nick Mautone called "Raising the Bar". As an old bartender I find alot of cocktail books to be lame. This is a very nice exception to that. He is a New York bartender and the book is well written with nice photos and it does not spend time talking about things that are a waste of time. If you see this it may be worth alook. Nothing groundbreaking for the expert mixers posting here, but I did enjoy it and will use it.

No pictures, but I am very happy with how this turned out. I tasted it just after I mixed it and was not real happy. I thought it was not lemony enough. However, after I let it mellowin the freezer a couple of days it was great. Very happy with this and am already thinking of when to start another batch so not as to run out

My Limoncello batch just finished the other day and it is great. My wife is mixing it in her Scarlet O'Hara's. She loves Southern Comfort. I just got a new book called "Raising the Bar" by Nick Mautone. He has several receipies for drinks using Limoncello. One I want to try is called a "Maraschino Highball". He has a receipe for making your own Marachino cherries instead of using the things from the jar. It calls for equal parts Limocello and Marachino liqueur with twice the amount of both orange and lemon juice. A small amout of the juice from the cherries is added to the glass along with a cherrie followed by the Limoncello the marachino liqueur and the juices. Sounds very refreshing.

All this talk about butts has gotten me off of mine and I just ordered a Weber Smokey Mountain from Amazon. I used to do lots of smoking but switched to a gas grill a couple of years ago. I can grill ok with it but it is no good for smoking. So, you guys and your butts have me motivated to start smoking again. Should be here for me to smoke this weekend and I will post about my butt

We have been enjoying the Anderson Vallely Hop Ottin', too. Thanks for the mention of Hop Hog. I'm putting that on the next Going North Beer Shopping List. ← Lancaster Hop Hog is on tap at the new Lancaster baseball park. I had one during the game and it was great even out of the ballpark plastic cup. Worth the trip to the beer stand to get this as the vendors were hawking Bud and Coors light. I think this ia a good choice for your north country beer trip

I would think it would be fine. I have made it with different chocolates and it works well. I bet your friend is more looking for the frosting, that I believe, overwhelms whatever cake you would pour it over

After reading this thread for a little more than a year, yesterday I started my own batch using Katie's recipie. I used my microplane and a bottle of 100 proof vodka. I reached down to the bottom shelf and got the cheap kind. I have no pictures but sitting on my wife's Hooier cupboard is a gallon glass crock with my infusinon starting. I am sure by the time it gets hot I will have wonderful stuff. Anything touted by Katie, the co-leader of us Pennsylvanias is always aces. I will report back how it turns out

i had one this afternoon and I liked it alot. I do not care for diet coke at all. I adore coke classic. The new splenda sweetended DC tastes almost like the real deal. Not the same but a lot closer. I really never drank any diet soda until me recent reduced carb diet started. Splenda diet coke is a good thing

and brominated vegetable oil (the sketchier of the two- it's banned in lots of places): So it looks like they're both stabilizers. Like emulsifiers, only for sody pop. ← Thanks Andrew, I believe they sound worse than they are, or at least I hope so

I believe it has to do with any product with alcohol being classified as "potable". Over on the cocktail forum there is a place were Gary Regan talks about this. My grocery store sells vanilla extract and that is full of alcohol

I had a Fresca for lunch today. I have always liked Fresca. I commited an error by looking at the can and I discovered it has "glycerol ester of wood rosin" and "brominated vegetable oil". I may switch back to spring water for lunch.

Picked up a half-case at 1218 Chestnut Friday, on Corey's recommendation. *Tried* to drink it tonight, but I live in Philadelphia. 9pm is apparently past closing time for *four* different local restaurants with posted 9:30 or 10pm closing times. I'm a hungry, bitter man. But at least I own six bottles of a nice wine. ← I had a bottle of this last night myself. I'd seen it at 12th & Chestnut Saturday afterrnoon and also picked it up on Corey's recommendation. I'm in agreement with shacke and Capaneus. This is very tasty wine with a lot going on. Very BIG fruit and flavor. ← We were in the Lancaster store on Sunday and I got a couple of these before I read your comments. I am now even more anxious to try it. We did pour a bottle of the Foley PN last night with dinner. I really, really like this. In fact, Maggie and I wanted to go to a bourough meeting about a zoning issues last night. Instead we stayed home and finished the bottle. I believe we made a sound choice. I am anxious to try the Cosentino all all of your reccomendations ← On Saturday I made a simple grilled dinner of thick cut boneless pork chops, sweet potato wedges and asparagus. I decided to open the Cosentino. Holy Cow, what a wine. It was great, I believe the best complement with it was the grilled asparagus. I went back to the store Sunday and got a couple of more, also picked up the Houge Pinit Gris, and the Chateau St Jean Chardonay and a Kim Crawford PN. They were out of the Foley PN and I am kicking myself for not getting more of this the week before. The Laughing Magpie was there, but my wallet was not. If they still have any next week i will try it. I hate to keep sounding like a Jon Newman suck up, but what wonderful wine at what wonderful prices. I am drinking stuff all the time that i really should be having only as a special occasion wine.

Picked up a half-case at 1218 Chestnut Friday, on Corey's recommendation. *Tried* to drink it tonight, but I live in Philadelphia. 9pm is apparently past closing time for *four* different local restaurants with posted 9:30 or 10pm closing times. I'm a hungry, bitter man. But at least I own six bottles of a nice wine. ← I had a bottle of this last night myself. I'd seen it at 12th & Chestnut Saturday afterrnoon and also picked it up on Corey's recommendation. I'm in agreement with shacke and Capaneus. This is very tasty wine with a lot going on. Very BIG fruit and flavor. ← We were in the Lancaster store on Sunday and I got a couple of these before I read your comments. I am now even more anxious to try it. We did pour a bottle of the Foley PN last night with dinner. I really, really like this. In fact, Maggie and I wanted to go to a bourough meeting about a zoning issues last night. Instead we stayed home and finished the bottle. I believe we made a sound choice. I am anxious to try the Cosentino all all of your reccomendations

My local store had Coke products on sale this week. i went in and they had a pile of boxes just inside the door, ther must have been a thousand of them. But not one Diet Coke with Lime. So i got a Diet Coke with Lemon, which was only of, not as good as the lime, a diet coke with vanilla which is also only ok. Got one of my old standbys Fresca, and also something else. Diet Coke with Lime must be a hit, as I can't find it anywere this week

Katie, When I tended bar that was the only use I found for the Rose's. I used it to flavor my soda's mostly regular coke. I think this is the only real use for the stuff

When I made my living tending bar I wanted cash, cash and more cash. Credit card tips were only paid out to servers on paychecks. I always tip cash, unless I just do not have enough. If i tip, I want ther server to get it. I was in the business long enough to know that some managment simply cannot be trusted to pay the employees. Unlike some of my co-workers I kept record of everything that was mine. Others did not and had no backup when things got messed up. Tip cash if you can.

Oh Spring! Last Sunday it was sunny and 78 degrees and my loaves rose majesticly. Today it is cloudy, damp and 45 and there ain't much happening. I had to bring out my cold weather proofing rig again. A hot pad in an overturned cardboard box to make anything happen. Making a light wheat loaf today with a good amount of yeast that really does not need a long slow ferment. My brother in law is one of those guys who can make anything and is an electrician by trade. I may ask him to build me some sort of proofing box one day. He likes my bread, so it would be a good trade

Cakes from scratch are all I make. I like watching people eat it when I take one someplace. They know it is different, and some are not sure if it is better or worse. My scratch layer cakes are lighter and have a more open crumb than box mixes. I think beating the egg whites and folding them into batter at the last makes a differnce, though I have read cake books that claim no benefit is derived by this method

Mr. Newman, Thanks for taking our questions, and thanks to Katie for making the arrangements. I along with many others were pleased by your first ever post taking place on the Chairman's Selection thread last month. Do you see wine sales of all kinds, and in particular the Chairman's Selection program as the future growth leader of the PLCP sales? That is, is the future more tied to wine than to spirits? I imagine it would take an act of the General Assembly to allow this, but would you like to be able to advertise, as other retailers do, your products? Once again many thanks, and I can say that going to the LCB store these days is a pleasure, unlike the Stalin-like experience of the bad old days.

Over on Leffland someone posted about this and Ms. McCutcheon herself posts a reply. I certainly have not been to the new Bookbinders, but my wife and I are coming for a weekend soon and she would like to go. I am trying to talk her out of it in favor of Matyson, were I have never been. I will be anxious to see other reviews due to the fact that if she wants to go, I guess we will be going and I would like to know what I am getting myself into

Turkey Hill made a thing called "Y2Cake" in 1999 to celebrate the year 2000. It had real pieces of what tasted like cake in it. They no longer make this. I remember it because it came in a plastic container I still use for storage od my brown sugar

After a visit to my doctor last week I received back my test results. Blood pressure good, weight down 30 lbs., all test numbers great except my good cholestrol was a little low. So, I googled that issue and found that red wine consumption will help. I followed that advice and opened a bottle of the Toad Hall PN with some grilled salmon I made last night. Real good stuff. It went fine with the salmon and a green bean and grape tomato salad. I was happy and I felt the good cholestrol racing through me. I see the the Foley PN is now in stock at the Lancaster store, and in the interest of my good health, I am headed out there to grab some before Mike Volker and Katie Loeb get every bottle in the Commonwealth. Yeah, doc, I feel much better now and will be working REAL hard to pump up that HDL. If any of my wine drinking, bargin hunting, E-Gullet friends would like to send me a couple of bottles of red to help me live longer and drive that HDL up I would gladly accept. edited for spelling

Uh. I am flummoxed. Just checked the website, and the following is the case: the Arrowood is not in at all; the Byron PN and the D'Arenberg S/V are listed as SLO - and full price. The Chairman's Selections list does not mention them. Have things changed? ←

Have not yet gotten to ballpark this year. However that schmitter is one good sandwich, I am waiting to have one as soon as I get to a game. The Tony Luke line is out of control and I just won't wait that long

I keep forgetting to recommend Pat's and/or Gino's for breakfast. And an excellcent warning against provolone cheesesteaks. The bread's there to sop up all the juices and grease. Wiz with, all the way!!! ← Pat's is definately the breakfast spot.. I really dont like Gino's. However, i was surprised at all the interesting pork roll combo's being ordered at TL'S.. I think you misunderstood, I am a pro-provolone and whiz guy.. I like when the sandwich stays together intact.. And the grease falls on the paper which allows one to zupa di pane.. And control the grease. I also love the added cheesiness.. ← Control the grease? Holly LIVES for the grease