Chris Amirault

Yep, I have a lime tree and have been wondering about this myself....

I had a job interview at Embry Riddle in Prescott about 15 years ago, and the destination restaurant was Applebee's. I hope that you have more options now!

If I may suggest: Dale DeGroff's books are a treasure trove of customer-friendly libations, and his sour ratio (2 booze, 1 sweet, 3/4 sour) is a good base for experimenting. In addition, few collegians, I suspect, have ever had a good Sidecar: 2 oz. brandy 1 oz. Cointreau 3/4 oz fresh lemon juice You can do the sugar rim and make either cute (sweetie) or winky-winky (rimming) jokes, depending on the mood.

Just to clarify, this -- -- was intended to parody the Manichean dualisms (deadly/healthy; corporate/homespun; you can add more I'm sure) that structure most discussions of food and the ways that branding takes advantage of same.

That's not horrible industrial high fructose corn syrup. That's good ol' corn sugar, hon!

Nice job -- though the Sazerac taste-off to end all taste-offs has to be Erik Ellestad's over at Underhill Lounge (starting here), as part of his Savoy project.

At home you can't duplicate the "any port in a storm" mentality that institutional food creates: the tastiest condiment you'll ever have.

I'm getting ready for the fall's stuffing, curing, and smoking, and I was wondering where people are getting their supplies lately. I had been using some eBay suppliers for Bradley pucks, but this Amazon deal is as good as I can find -- plus the link makes a donation to the eGullet Society (at no cost to you). Should be getting those any day now. As for sausage makings, I have consistently used Butcher Packer, but I'm interested to know what other sources there are out there these days, particularly for casings.

Very eager to hear back, Dan.

Damn you, Kayahara! I was trying to figure out how to make that joke in the OP....

For a good while now, Paul Clarke over at Cocktail Chronicles has been organizing a monthly online cocktail event he calls Mixology Mondays: The next MxMo takes place Monday, September 20, hosted by Doug over at Pegu Blog. The theme? Lime: A capacious MxMo topic, I'd say! I'll email everything posted here by Monday, September 20 at midnight to Doug. I am assuming that anyone reading this post has at least three dozen limes on the counter already and thus should be well-prepared. Me, I'm wondering about the leaves on my lime tree....

I run a school, and we have our school meals catered by a good company. Still and all, it's institutional food, not the sort of thing I'd make for myself at home at night. But I have a favorite, and it's on for today: meatball sandwich. The bread is just ok, and I wish the meatballs were a bit more tender, but the sauce has that over-reduced tomato-i-ness that I really like. I can doll up just about anything with sriracha or homemade habañero sauce, and you probably can too. So what's your favorite, unadorned institutional meal at work or school?

Yes, all three are in my regular rotation now, and I like them quite a bit. That Yi Ji, though, is right up my alley.

Which DM mezcal?

That sounds pretty accurate, Matt, given that drink. Hrm. On a very different note, thanks to the generous Alon Munzer at Hungry Mother, I had the great fortune to try the Templeton Prohibition rye. Without question, it has the most pronounced rye aroma and flavor of any rye I've never tried. I loved it -- and longed for some Katz's pastrami.... Anyone else try this?

Recipe?

Had a great dinner at Hungry Mother Saturday night. Terrific booze -- Pappy Van Winkle bourbon for my dinner partner, Handy rye for me -- lovely paté, quail, and rice pudding. Got seconds of the shrimp & grits; that housemade tasso is to die for. Great service, too. You paying attention to this southern hospitality thing, smug, austere Yankee servers? Got a new favorite in Cambridge.

You don't think habaneros smell like a wet dog? It might be just me. I have a coonhound, and I'm very thankful that nothing else on earth smells like him wet. However, that's a component I've never picked up in habañeros even for less, shall we say, odorous canines.

I think -- sorry! -- that depends. You chose an interesting example in garam masala, the spices of which are toasted prior to grinding but, in my experience, is usually added at the end and not toasted beforehand. Other spice mixes could certainly be tossed quickly in a pan or heated in the oil of, say, the onions you just sautéed.

I don't think that's a generalizable statement. Cumin needs to be slightly browned; otherwise it doesn't toast. Which is brown, I'll add.

Wet dog? Come again?

I toasted some cumin yesterday and snapped a before (left) and after shot: The shift in odor several people mentioned above was evident as the seeds browned slightly, but I'd describe it differently. At first, the odor is pungent, even gasoline-y; when it consistently smells toasty, I take it off the heat -- dump it into a cold Pyrex bowl, in fact, to slow the cooking as rapidly as I can.

Got my first bottle of Valentina this week and had some with fried chicken tonight: it's excellent, rich, smoky, and much thicker and less acidic than I expected. Also tried Tapatío, which was good, too -- more spice, but less chile complexity. Both are better than Cholula, I think, which costs about five to ten times more around here, so...

First cool fall night here in New England, so I made a Rum Toddy with Inner Circle green, Plantation Jamaican, Cruzan blackstrap, some demerara syrup, Fee's OF bitters, and dashes of cinnamon and allspice tincture. Slice of lemon on top.

Keller does mention fruit: in the chart in the back there are fourteen different preparations. The one that seems most appropriate for you are the Granny Smith apples (p 148 of UP), which he poaches in a white-wine liquid at 85C for 30 minutes. I think they're 18 mm balls, so your slices are quite a bit thinner.