Chris Amirault

I read this with trembling anticipation. Repeat: you need testers....

That sounds fantastic, Nick. I have a question for the buttermilk brine crowd. What proportions do you use for your buttermilk and salt? And for how long do you soak/brine it?

What kind of noodles are those?

I do stovetop in an otherwise empty stainless steel pan; not sure, really, why I hit the "R" instead of the "T" initially.

As, is often the case, I think the culprit here is the English language as used in recipes. When my cumin (or cloves of cardamom or cinnamon) gets aromatic, it's time to shake the pan; if it stays aromatic (as opposed to producing less aroma because untoasted stuff is facing the pan now), then it's done. That's what I think toasted means. What do others think?

There's no question that roasted cumin, for example, is different from non-roasted. It's deeper, richer -- pretty basic characteristics of things that get browned. When you talk about "darkening" them, you seem to be describing burned, not toasted. Soba's thoughts about hot pans seems apt in this regard: if they're darkening quickly -- that is, if some are and some aren't yet -- then the heat's probably too high.

Long Trout Winery, "where the wine is cool and hippie chicks rule," offer bottlings they've named Swollen Member, German Helmet, and Old One Eye. ETA: Eat, Pray, Love, the pinot grigio.

I was reading this topic on grinding whole spices and noticed that no one mentioned roasting the spices prior to grinding. I don't do this with most spices, but I always, always do it with cumin, which we use more than probably anything else in the house. Now, if you asked me why I only do it with cumin, I wouldn't be able to give you a good answer. So I'm wondering: what spices do you roast? why those? how?

Well? What's cooking out there?

Thanks! Does the menu change daily/weekly/seasonally? Specials?

I have reservations for Hungry Mother in Cambridge this weekend, and I'm trying to sort out a lot of information out there about the place. Any recommendations for what to try/avoid?

I think what he means is that -- accounting for quality preparation up to the point of service -- recipes for the "classics" are particularly calibrated to support a wide range of temperature variation without going out of whack like his gin n tonic shot. A good Manhattan, for example, is tasty from around 28F up to room temperature and within a pretty wide dilution range, at least in my mouth, but it has to be well executed to begin with. Not sure if that works with all the classics, though. A warm Martini goes into my sink, for example.

It seems like this year's finalists all knew they were playing a game, saving their best, riskiest food for the last stages. Only Angelo seems to be falling apart at the seams; the other three seemed pretty cool, as if their strategy was working just fine. Should make for an interesting final episode -- but this strategy tends to produce a lot of middling TV until the final stages.

Kerry, did you run the UP 16 hours straight? Does that unit have a fan to cool the motor?

Holy cow. That's amazing. Can you say a bit more about the milkweed pods? I've seen thousands of those over the years, especially during summers with my grandparents in Waterville, and in a million years I would never have thought that they were edible. What did you do to/with them?

Over here I reported on a successful sous vide rendering project. Having used that lard a few times now, I also wanted to report that it's excellent quality. I'm sure that part of that involves the quality of the pork fat (which was, IIRC, Coleman shoulder), but I'm wondering if it's also related to the temperature at which it's rendered. After all, some compounds don't release at lower temperatures, and the lard is far less gamey than some I've had in the past. Any thoughts?

2 oz Inner Circle Red 1 oz homemade Swedish punsch 2 dashes Scrappy's grapefruit bitters 2 dashes Fee's 2007 OF bitters Not horrid but a big glass of blah.

Good call on the bottle of soda: that I understand. Does that effect happen in spirits as well?

An update on the Bar Bone -- which I type with a grimace: what a terrible name: Boy, ain't that the truth. By far, the biggest issue is pouring into the little slots. Having said that, pouring OUT of the thing isn't exactly smooth at times. I'm going to try to practice to see what's what, but the OXO cups are a lot better going in and out.... So I decided that devoting a few years to learning how to use tools that don't function properly isn't up my alley, and the Bar Bones are now stored for a few years until I find them again and donate them to Salvation Army.

I'm waiting to get copies of Paul Pacult's spirits tasting workshop, but I have an image of the first page, which includes a lot of useful categories for my nose/mouth/brain. I'll share when I get the whole thing. Meanwhile, though, I note that there are a few items listed as abnormalities that I don't quite understand: "CO2, SO2, H2S, Oxidized, Phenolic, Lactic." Anyone want to take a crack at providing a few words on those?

You could have two and sandwich the item like a panini press. I mean, we're talking, what, $1K a pop for an anti-griddle, right? Skip a mortgage payment or two.

Prepared a rack of St. Louis ribs as follows: Rubbed with this rub. Cold smoked (80-90F?) for two hours with a combination of apple and hickory in the Bradley. Bagged and cooked SV at 67C for 26 hours. Removed from bag and doused with =Mark's outstanding SC barbecue sauce, a house staple. Grilled over blistering coals for about 2 min per side. Best. Ribs. Ever.

Not sure I follow -- do you have examples? Pousse-cafés are about a century old, so unless you're referring to something else, it's going to fall into the category of prior art. I bring this up not to be a stickler but to suggest that nearly all of the creative cocktail contributions I can think of are either riffs on a classic principle or innovations driven by new ingredients like hydrocolloids or technology like anti-griddles -- and even those are about state manipulation more than anything else. At Someone recognized as a mixological innovator once told me about a "sous vide cocktail." Turns out he infused fruit with booze. I can think of a few thousand frat boys who might claim prior art.

I'm not sure that I understand. What sorts of comments are you finding so haughty and self-important?

Printing note for US residents: for proper printing of Pedro's "caliper chart," be sure to set the paper source as A4 and turn off page scaling. If you lack A4 paper, legal will do the trick.