balmagowry

Not a mispronunciation, but almost certainly the result of one: a small deli/grocery in midtown NYC with a big sign advertising a SPACIAL price for PEPORNI. To me, of course, pepperoni has been Spatial Peporni ever since.

NEWS FLASH!!!! Oh oh oh Carolyn you're not going to believe this. At this very moment, I may actually be drinking the coffee grail itself. I was in Pathmark, and a bottle of Fox's U-Bet happened to catch my eye, so I bethought me - hey, let's see if there's anything coffee-syrup-ish here. And... there was! Not a brand I recognize. Bottle shape (16 oz) suspiciously similar to the U-Bet. Name: Coffee Time. Slogan/subtitle: FOR DELICIOUS MILK DRINKS. Recommended proportions as discussed. So of course for the sake of the Gullet I dared all - plunked down my $2.49 and hied me home with the bottle clutched in my grubby little fist. Mixed some up. Am drinking it. Have no way of knowing whether I've got The Real Thing or merely some Old Pretender. But... it's pretty damn good. Viscosity is lower than I had expected... but that doesn't make any practical difference that I can see. While at Pathmark I also noticed in passing that Nescafe has come out with something it calls Ice Java, apparently meant for similar use. This I did not buy, because it came in three rather high-falutin', almost Starbucks-y, flavors and just gave the impression of being too... modern, too flashy, too potentially with-it. Too Marketing-Gimmick-y. Whereas the Coffee Time bottle is comfortably homely and old-fashioned - if only it had a little dust on it you'd think it had been sitting on that shelf since the 50s. What do you think? Have I stumbled into it? :sip: ... :glug: ... damn, this stuff is growing on me. You may have created a monster.

But I still want to know WHY. Has anyone, in stating this policy, given anything resembling a reason for it? It seems so utterly arbitrary.

Decisions, decisions. It'd be so easy to make some up NOW... whereas ordering it means waiting. Seems to me it makes more sense to do both. Thank you, yes, I did, and as you may have seen by now I replied. And trust me, I can get a LOT weirder than that. (I just did a you-had-to-be-there on the Key Lime Martini thread which is so obscure I bet no one will even notice...)

That's got to be something of a nomenclatural tin can on the tail of its self-respect... but thanks. Maybe I'll just switch back to gin. Kangaroo - I wonder why.

Well, like I said, 'tis but a Google away. Course, I have no idea whether these prices are reasonable, but - Famous Foods Vermont Country Store Torani And for recipes: One Another A third, which calls itself an old New England favorite. (and this is only from the first couple pages of hits.) We can do this.

Sigh. Add another 10 for me. I got all fired up about the Bitters thread and it immediately made me greedy. EDIT: Sorry, make that 12. I don't count so great.

Oooh, what a treasure! It may not get eGullet closer to the moon (or was it Mars?), but its value is inestimable.

Watch what you say! Next time they might do just that! BTW I certainly feel you have every right to exclude the kids from your invitation; the difficulty is that the parents have already set a contrary precedent. No, the difficulty is that no matter how delicately you do it they may still choose to take offense. The trick is to frame it in a positive way, to make the idea of an adults-only gathering seem enticing. That said, of course no one but you can gauge the nature of your relationship with them and the degree of risk, or perhaps the risk/reward ratio. And though you are the only one who can do it, it doesn't necessarily follow that you can do it successfully! Tricky tricky tricky. Depending on how you assess that intangible aspect, you may fiind that the best thing to do is to level with them, exactly as you did with us. Only do NOT bring the dog into it. P.S. If you're going to level with them, chances are you should only level with ONE of them; pick the more rational of the two, and do it in person, not over the phone.

If you do, so do I - and I am a martini drinker. At least... I thought I was... but I have to confess that I do sometimes drink the vodka (per)version and had quite forgotten it wasn't orthodox. At any rate, though I too am fanatical in proofreading mode, I have tried to learn to pick my battles; which is why I kept mum on this point. As someone said up-thread (and perhaps down-thread as well - when will I learn to hold off until I've seen the whole thread? ), it's gone and gotten itself too prevalent to be fought down; I figure if I keep my own utterance pure, and clear of my own pet peeves (and I got plenty of 'em), then at least I'm doing some of my bit. Of course, there are a few howlers that will spur me to riposte. BTW, the split infinitive ain't among 'em; there is nothing intrinsically wrong with a split infinitive. That is one of those arbitrary artificial rules that were imposed in the 19th century by old what's-'is-name (damn, what IS his name? my mind is slipping) because he felt there weren't enough grammar rules to fill up a curriculum. Of course, now we all avoid them - even I do - because we're not used to considering them OK, and they sound weird to us. But wrong... they ain't. And while I'm at it (oooh, look, Ms. Pick-Your-Battles is ranting after all!), here's the one I resent most: Just where does old what's-'is-name get off outlawing ending sentences with prepositions? That one really frosts me. Go read Samuel Richardson and Jane Austen amd Henry Fielding: their work is full of dangling prepositions, and they are one of its greatest charms. Well, the hell with it. If it's good enough for Richardson, it's good enough for me. I'll go ahead and dangle my prepositions whenever I damn well please. Whew. We now return you to... where were we? Oh - yes - if it really doesn't bother you to do so, go ahead and call it a Martini. I couldn't do it, meself, but that's me. Um. Now, about my own sin... what SHOULD I call it if I make it with vodka...? EDIT to add: There. I knew it. Coulda saved myself the trouble: JAZ has already said most of it - more succinctly, too. (But I stand by the grammatic rant. )

It may not be your place to correct other peoople's children, but you are perfectly within your rights to establish with them, as individuals, how you wish to be addressed. Addressing you by your given name alone is a privilege which is yours to bestow or withhold, with anyone. I don't allow strangers (salespeople, especially! ) to address me by my first name; I consider it an unwarranted liberty. They, of course, have never encountered such standards, so they think I'm dotty. Let them. And no doubt I am. But I still think that addressing anyone by given name only (anyone, that is, other than an acknowledged social peer who has introduced himself, or been introduced, that way) is forward; improper; infra dig.

We had a kind of middle ground for this when I was little; of course I was taught NEVER to call grown-ups by their first names, but there were quite a few people who were such close family friends that being Mr. and Mrs. seemed awkward to them. Many years later I was surprised to learn that I didn't really have quite as many aunts and uncles as I thought.... Of course all this "courtesy" nomenclature was discussed and agreed to beforehand by the adults involved - I just called people what I was told to call them.

So order it from Amazon: Maiden attempt at making eGullet Amazon link. EDIT to add: and it worked.

Maybe you can pick it up at your local Borders....

This can mean only one thing: I take it the Blue Strawbery is no more?

Oh, I'm glad you mentioned that - I was just thinking about Cynar and its relationship to the bitters category. I have a thing about artichokes (working on a monograph sort of thing about them, tentatively titled "Blessed Thistle") and am fascinated by their influence on taste-buds and how Cynar makes use of that. Any comments or reflections on that, all you pros? This amateur's enquiring mind certainly wants to know.

Well, go know - it's a new one on me. I have always heard "burnt sugar" used to refer to... burnt sugar, and have used it that way too; it is useful only for coloring, and its virtue is that it doesn't affect flavor in cases where one doesn't want it to. Deeply caramelized is a whole nother kettle of fish, and in my book it's always specified. But I think I need to go look in some of my other books....!

I guess it depends on the degree of burntness. (First-degree burn?) Caramel is one thing, burnt sugar quite another. When I said it didn't taste of anything, it wasn't because I'd read something to that effect; it was because, having read something to that effect and not believed it, I tasted my burnt sugar once I'd made it, and sure enough it didn't taste of anything much. Didn't taste anything like caramel, that's for sure. If anything, it has a hint of bitterness in itself, which is one reason I couldn't quite grasp the idea of it controlling bitterness.

Hear hear! And meself, I like a little fat, and also a little fat, with my fat - there's nothing on earth quite like a whole foie gras wrapped in bacon and then in puff paste. (There's also nothing on earth quite like its effect on appetite and digestion, but what the hell....) OTOH, if you're really wedded to the apricot thing and you can't get frozen apricots (I second the notion of dried for compote), here's my favorite quick-and-dirty sorbet trick. Sounds nasty, but works brilliantly. Get canned apricots in heavy syrup. Stick 'em in the freezer - can and all. When they're good and frozen SOLID, take 'em out and toss 'em in the food processor. Zap! Sorbet. Ideally, if there's enough lead time, re-freeze and re-process for a better texture. You may also want to add a little lemon juice (I usually do) to cut the extreme sweetness. (This works well, BTW, with any number of canned fruits - anything that comes in heavy syrup is fair game, and often a combination of two will come out greater than the sum of its parts. Strawberry with pineapple. Grapefruit with mandarin orange. Peach with - you get the idea. It's been some time since we've been able to get raspberries frozen in syrup on this coast, alas, but there are ways around that. I've gotten into the habit of keeping a few cans of various things in the freezer all summer for impromptu dessert purposes - you never know....)

Funny, I was thinking much the same, a propos of the relative lack of bitterness in the Baker recipe. Course orange pith is a lot less bitter than grapefruit pith, and there's proportionally less of it, so I'm not sure how much difference it would make with orange (in fact, as it is, I'm already using most of the pith - I always figured that was what made it as bitter as it is). Unless one had Seville oranges, where the fruit itself is bitter. Maybe a little artemisia? Rue, perhaps? That's bitter as all hell, and I have all too much of it growing. With rue my yard is laden.... Hang on a sec there, Doc. Burnt sugar? burnt sugar to affect flavor? Last I looked, burnt sugar doesn't taste of anything, to speak of. I use it for color - for darkening gravy - and orange bitters too, of course.

And besides, peach and almond are pretty much the same thing, as discussed in - oh no, that was via PM, wasn't it - anyway, as you probably already know, they and plums and apricots and cherries are all part of the prunus branch of the rose family. One big happy... yes, well, anyway. Actually, I am within easy reach of NYC - and so far as I know their site doesn't support on-line ordering. And what really got me going was when JAZ referred to happening to spot it at her local store.... So... anyone know where?

That's exactly what I'd like to know. Why? WHY???? The whole thing is simply surreal. Insane. Cui bono? I just don't get it.

Lucy - a couple of other thoughts on this. It so happens that just the other day someone mentioned a rather nice-sounding aperitif on this thread... someone named bleudauvergne I do believe.... Don't know how well such an infusion would keep, long term, but it might be an interesting experiment on a small scale. Also, Ludja posted up-thread about cordials and ratafias. I've done a fair bit of that sort of thing; for our book we wrote and tested recipes for Lemon Shrub, Raspberry Shrub, a couple of different types of Bitters, and an ersatz Arrack-Punch. The one we kept "re-testing" was the Raspberry Shrub - it was so good that we could never have too much of it on hand. It's rather a lot of work, and a relatively low yield... but it's worth it. And let me join the chorus of thanks for the vin d'orange recipe. I may just have to join the crowd making it, too.... EDIT to fix link

That is so cool! What a great story. So where does one buy same? Remember, at the time of my original heartrending bitters quest (would have been just over 10 years ago, I think), there was nothing to be found ANYWHERE in these parts - except Angostura, of course, which you can get at any supermarket. Peach Bitters! I can hardly wait. EDIT to add: and thanks, JAZ, for breaking out the thread - very wise and efficient. I was concerned about getting so far OT, but just couldn't quite drop the subject....

Oh wow - amazing! Will have to try them. But... call me perverted, I don't care... I still yearn to see the vending machine (or one like it) too. If anyone has spotted such a thing in the recent past, PLEASE let me know!