crankyyankee

Sure, Fifi! The style that I grew up with is to pour a few simple seasonings over the brisket, wrap it in foil and braise it for three hours. At least, I think it's braising. The brisket's all covered up, and there's some liquid from the seasonings around the meat, and I set the oven to 'bake'. That's braising, right? Can you tell I'm more of a diner than a cook?

For the first time since...well, ever, I got to make a dish I'd been craving during the cold snap: my grandmother's Jewish-style brisket. I begged her to mail me some of her better recipes, including that one, and I just made it last week for the first time. Rich, warming, comforting...and I hadn't tasted it for years. So heymish! Following family example, I made kasha varnishkes for a side dish. It mixes beautifully with the juices from the meat. And of course, the brisket is exponentially more delicious the next day. I was worried about the beautiful weather in Austin dimming the pleasure of warming my insides with the brisket, but fortunately it's been dreary for the last few days. Bad weather, good eating. Cranky Yankee

Billy Wilder films are always good for bourbon references. There are two great scenes that I remember off-hand: Double Indemnity -- In that great first scene between Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck, she serves him a glass of iced tea. In between hitting on her, he sips it, and suggests, "Maybe a little bourbon would get this on its feet." Some Like It Hot -- Jack Lemmon and a sleeper car full of attractive young women have a late-night party where they mix Manhattans in a hot-water bottle. Every time I see a Manhattan on a drink menu, I always secretly wish that it would come in a hot-water bottle.

The best dolmades I've ever tasted were, naturally, homemade. I once visited a friend in the Greek part of Cyprus. One night, her family and I went to a cousin's house for a party; I think it was out in the countryside, about an hour's drive west from Limassol. Among the other gigantic quantities of foodstuffs was a platter of dolmades, which my friend always refers to in English as "stuffed wine leaves" -- note that that's "wine" not "vine". They were pretty simple, stuffed with rice, spices and meat, which I suppose was probably lamb but could have been beef. They were awesomely good. I've never yet found any restaurant that makes them with meat, much less makes them as delectable as those dolmades. And of course, so many of my friends and acquaintances these days are vegetarians that it's hard to convince anyone to spend ages rolling dolmades with a filling that only a few of us will enjoy. Sigh.

We really are a weird city, aren't we? I'm only surprised that such a 7-11 isn't a) deeper into the boozhie northwest or b) out in Westlake Hills, where one expects to find things to bizarre extremes of consumption. The question is: are the snazzy baked goods high quality, or are they just convenience store decoration? Coming from Philly, I remember when people actually seemed excited by the thought that they could pick up a hoagie at Wawa. Took a while for them to realize how grody all of Wawa's prepared foods were. (I remember all too clearly how unappetizing that stuff was. I once worked in a Wawa.) Cranky Yankee

Hey all, thanks for the shout-outs. I apologize that I don't post more often -- living in Austin has made me hyper-aware of courtesy and good etiquette -- but I'm actually in Egypt for most of the summer, and it's tough to keep current of the e-mails from my immediate family, let alone the wider world. Thanks for the greetings, though, and I'll try to be a good member of the community. :) Cranky Yankee

Hey all, Allow me to indulge in a moment of shameless self-promotion. I've been working on an independent website that offers honest reviews of various cuisines in Austin, with an eye to those delicacies I and my fellow transplants from the East Coast -- in my case, Philadelphia -- grew up with and now miss. I'm always open to suggestions on other places to check out and cuisines to investigate. I'd especially like to call Austinites' attention to the pizza section; this town is long overdue to get schooled about pizza. A few caveats, for those who need them: 1. I like to swear. I indulge myself on my site. 2. With the collective exception of the very few places already reviewed for comparative purposes, I DO NOT REVIEW NATIONAL CORPORATE CHAINS. I love feedback, but please don't write to me saying, "Dude, you have to try the sausage pizza at Papa John's!" Don't you dare. I only review real food. 3. I am honest. I don't sugarcoat the unhappy fact that a lot of restaurants make lousy food in Austin and pass it off to the public as authentic; I also celebrate when someone gets it right. No matter how nice a person a restaurateur is, it won't help the review, if he's overcharging me for a sandwich. 4. Thus far, I've only covered genres that I consider part of my hometown milieu. Due to my seriously limited financial means -- ain't no newspaper paying for these meals -- and the sheer time committment of thoroughly reviewing any genre of cuisine in town, I haven't tackled many large projects yet. If you're dying to see me try to review barbecue joints, though, contact me privately to send me money to cover costs. ;) Hope you enjoy it! Cranky Yankee Cranky Yankee Restaurant Reviews

Yes they call it whisky!!. Well whisky is distilled from beer without the hops. Then there is bierschnaps which is distilled from beer with hops. Sierre Nevada makes one apparently. Never tried it myself. Sounds like something invented on a dare, doesn't it? To wax pedantic for a moment, the equivalent of bierschnapps is brandy (Brandwein = burnt wine). Brandy is distilled from wine -- usually really lousy wine. I don't know the details, but I'm told that the kind of wine that tastes good doesn't distill well, and vice versa. Can an errant wine expert help us out with this? If it's just a simple chemical principle of alcohol, sugar content, etc., then it might be that homebrewers would need to make (intentionally!) a crappy beer, then distill that into schnapps. I find the whole idea rather frightening. Dan

Pecan Street Brewing Company, right? I've only lived here for a year and a half, but I've never heard of them being around. Odds ar it either went belly-up, as a number of brew pubs and brewing companies in town apparently did. I think I've heard, though, that August Schell's company up in Minnesota actually brewed most of the beer for Pecan Street under contract. Is Mr. Schell still in business? Dan

Yo denizens, Not that I'll have much time to travel any time soon, but I like to keep tabs on the best brew pubs in any given place. I live in Austin, so I'm most interested in places within a day's drive of the Hill Country, but I love to hear about any place that can draw you in. In any given city (preferably in Texas), where are the best places to go to get a pint of something that they've brewed on the premises? (Please don't distract me with other bars -- I'm just talking about the ones that brew themselves. I love The Ginger Man, but it's not a brew pub, no matter how many taps they have.) To start off: in Austin, I recommend the Draught House and Lovejoy's. The first is a smallish English-style pub with lots of taps, but the bargain is their selection of homebrews. (They're all only a few dollars per glass from 7-11 pm.) The best I've had is their dunkel weizen. Lovejoy's is a punk-rock-inflected hangout for anarchists, kickers and pretentious grad students. (I'm one of the latter.) Their own brews are $2 a pint before 8 pm; the price goes up a scandalous 50 cents after that. Samson's Best Pale Ale is dependably smooth and hoppy, and their cask-conditioned ales can be amazingly good -- they never have more than one cask-conditioned at a time. I seem to recall that, now and again, the brewmaster tries his hand at a Belgian-style ale. What else ya got? Draught House Lovejoy's Cranky Yankee "In fermentum veritas"

Hey all, On the subject of rum, I've heard (from a thoroughly unreliable source, I admit) that Pusser's Rum, the British label, takes its recipe as well as its name from the old formula for Royal Navy Rum: the stuff they issued to sailors in daily drams up until a few decades ago. Sounds cute, but I smell a well thought-out publicity campaign. Does anyone know the facts on this brand? For that matter, does anyone know what happened to the British Navy's rum recipe when they stopped issuing rum to sailors? Dan Gilman