Chris Amirault

I spent a lot of time in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, before and after 2001, and it was a real trick to get anyone to take you into neighborhoods or restaurants frequented by the massive Indonesian, Pakistani, Syrian, Egyptian, Malaysian, etc. etc. community that built and maintained the city. You could swing a stick and have spaghetti carbonara with fakon far more easily than you could have Islamabad or Jakartan street food. You can guess which was better. So kudos to Tony for finding a few spots where, what, 75% of Dubai's population are eating. I ate a few of those places in Riyadh, and, trust me, you'd never be able to get footage of them out of the Kingdom (if you could shoot it in the first place).

You wanna stir juice, stir juice. Bought Carpano Antica Formula today for the first time in RI and have been eager to pop the cork. So I found this one over on cocktaildb.com, and with a name like this, I couldn't say no. Kill or Cure 2 oz Carpano Antica Formula 1 oz Fernet Branca Stir; strain. It's bitter, it's brown, and damn if it isn't delicious.

I've rubbed the blade in a circle on one of my EdgePro plates now and then, but I can't say I'm very confident that it did much. Eager to hear ideas.

I completely agree. Instead of personalities, you'd get fundamentals, techniques, ingredients.... Also agree that it ain't gonna happen no how.

When we were talking lamb ribs over here, a few of us agreed that halal butchers are a good source for fatty ribs.

Great write-up from Tom Siestema at the Washington Post on Providence restaurants, noting Persimmon, La Laiterie, and Cook & Brown Public House. I'm on the cocktail team, so I'm very proud of these two paragraphs in particular -- and of "secret ingredient" Hannah Kirschner!

Not at all! It's a great use of the UP!

Don't most protein pickles contain vinegar? Pig's feet, mini hot dogs, eggs....

Couldn't agree more, Andie! Click here.

I have a black & tan coonhound, and as much as I love Zeke, that EdgePro gets his bed ten times out of ten.

Yeah, I actually was wondering about a cobbler shaker. No. 9 Park in Boston uses 'em, and perhaps this is why.

I'll take one order of CR and a couple pounds of instant karma, please.

I think that this discussion goes to a core question: what do people value in cooking? Some people really enjoy trying new dishes or replicating ones they've had at restaurants, and the substitutions are often an inevitable part of that. Bacon subs for pancetta, even though it's smoked and pancetta isn't. Big whoop. Some people really enjoy striving for that elusive beast, "authenticity," and will hunt down ingredients to approach it, even going so far as to cure their own pancetta. Of course, then you get into finer and finer granularity defining "authentic pancetta," and it's turtles all the way down. Some people really enjoy considering the conceptual aspects of dishes and want to have the ingredients function in relation to those concepts. Erin's Hunnanese smoked ham substitution and Oseland's recommendations seem to do this, if I'm understanding her correctly. (FWIW, this is what the best cooks I know do regularly, like Channavy Chhay in this piece on Khmer cooking in the US and Ami Meganathan in this topic about South Indian food.) And some people just want to make something tasty for dinner, call it whatever you will. Last night, I made a green bean side dish with what I had on hand; when my parents asked me what it was, I realized I had made a nearly classical rendition of green beans almondine without realizing it. (Click for Saveur's take, which I just found this morning.) I almost put bacon in there, in fact. What strikes me in this discussion is the moral relativism many of us, including yours truly, have to this issue across these different value categories. The thought of using ketchup for tamarind paste in pad thai makes me go all Kurtz and think "kill... them... all...." But then I read StevenC getting POed about bacon for pancetta and think he's over-reacting and should chill out. Of course, I've never substituted ketchup for tamarind paste, but bacon for pancetta, now just maybe....

Looks tasty! The Toronto is a great base for fiddling. I shared this riff in a Daily Gullet article on the subject titled "Bitter."

A "Top Chef" made tuna tartare by grinding the fish. The day before. To be served in the hot sun of a ballpark.

No way.

Me, too!

I think that was Mitch's scheme all along.

Usually doesn't bother me, either, but I'm interested in centered yolks because, for particular applications like deviled eggs, it's a necessity. I usually throw away three or four halves because the egg white cup has a thin wall that breaks. I sadly believe that Dave hit the nail on the head above:

prasantrin, I'm having a hard time understanding your position here. Let's use some specific examples and I'll ask about substitutions. Then you can help me understand what criteria you use for determining what counts as a legitimate substitute. In your azuki bean shortbread recipe, can you substitute in any beans for the azukis? If not, why not? What should someone do if they can't get them? In your mango pudding, you specify Alphonso mangoes. What about other types of mangoes? Can I substitute those? How about bananas? Would substituting pinto beans for azukis and canned pineapple for Alphonso mango be trivial in the greater scheme of things, or would those substitutions so utterly transform the two dishes as to render them no longer worth making at all?

Centered yolks and all? No stirring?

I wasn't trying to refute that. I was responding to this:

Makes 'em taste alkaline? That sounds kinda... yucky.

I don't think that there's an internet conspiracy here. I bet that several of us will go home tonight and find some pretty specious suggestions in otherwise respectable cookbooks....

I am on a lot of press release email lists, and so I regularly get pieces of "news" that make me shake my head in disbelief. Following the "Signs of the Apocalypse" feature in Sports Illustrated (click here for a particularly tasty example, Reds fans), I propose that we share our own signs here. I have a good one to start: Interesting: I think that's also the Dalai Lama's mantra. You can read more on TMZ if that's your mantra as well.