Chris Amirault

Hmmm.... The wine cabinet I've been using for curing meats sits unused when I'm not doing so. Perhaps this is a way to keep it used. Thanks!

Masa is Spanish for dough, but in this situation it usually means the hydrated, limed, ground corn that you use for corn tortillas. (Whole corn that has been limed is called nixtamal.) Maseca is a corporation that makes corn tortillas, masa harina, and other stuff. Masa harina is the corn flour that you use to make masa/dough, hence the name (harina is Spanish for flour). Corn flour is a category of products that include masa harina. However, most "corn flours" in the US and Europe, AFAIK, do not include limed corn, the key step to creating nixtamal, the basis for Mexican masa (and thus masa harina). In addition, in the US, corn flour does not mean corn starch, but I've seen corn starch from other places labeled as "corn flour." So: Masa can be made from masa harina (which is a type of corn flour) or from nixtamal. Maseca makes a brand of masa harina. Most corn flour isn't limed, but masa harina is. Phew. I think that's more or less right.

I just sharpened the two nakiris I have and noticed that the new one is a much softer steel. It's now as sharp as any knife I've ever had, too. Makes me think I want to stick to very strict vegetable, fruit, and boned meat use. Does anyone have any information about the steel in it?

Gotta have noodles of some sort. You can replay the great spaghetti lesson in Tampopo:

Maybe kinda malty...

I took the sous vide approach with some chicken thighs using some chile powder, smoked salt, cumin, cilantro, lime, that sort of thing, slathering in a bit of chicken fat. Got them going, prepared the sides, fired up the grill, and by that time the thighs were perfectly cooked. Dried 'em off and finished them on the grill. They were fantastic; eager to do the same with some whole chickens soon.

Whenever I do side-by-sides with Plymouth and, say, Beefeater or Tanqueray, the Plymouth seems a bit earthier, with a richer mouthfeel. But I've never really understood the "two different styles" distinction very clearly, and I couldn't articulate it to myself in such tastings. Seems more a matter of degree than category.

Not at all a genever: Bols has one of those already. As far as I can tell, Bols is marketing it as a substitute for Plymouth, and in the mouth it does lean more Plymouth than London, but ymmv. I've been thinking a lot about Bluecoat as a "botanical spirit" since reading this, and last night at work, spying some very good looking kirby cucumbers, I threw together this Kirby Smash for the night's special, based on DeGroff's Whiskey Peach Smash, based on Jerry Thomas's, based on... 1/2 kirby cuke, diced 2-3 sprigs of fresh thyme 2 oz Bluecoat 3/4 oz lemon -1/2 oz simple 5-6 drops Angostura Muddle cuke and thyme; shake; fine strain. Lemon twist. Following a Negroni, I sold it to a big Tanqueray fan as drink #2 to go with her fried hake. "Damned refreshing," she says, "But that isn't gin." I shrugged.

Until now, I've roasted them and then frozen them after they cooled. Some interesting twists here to consider, though.

So, Janet: does it work? Dying to know...

So it kinda happened. I used too much ice, so the cubes only melted by about 30-40% or so, and they remained atop the block in a layer. However, below that layer was a pretty damned clear section of ice. I'm going to try it with less ice and see what happens. Very interesting....

I'm going to give this a try tonight. I don't have crappy shell ice, though, only Tavolo cubes. I'll break 'em up a bit and see what happens.

Hi Jane, and hi runwestierun! Jane, glad to see that the old chestnut Escoffier is rising up the indexing list. That must be a fun indexing project -- similar to reorganizing eG Forums... but I digress.... That's a great touch. Want to keep things calm across the mighty oceans. Also excellent. I didn't realize that when I was entering my titles, and so I was pretty persnickety about editions, a pita for things like the Culinaria books. Perhaps you can mention that on the site itself when users are getting their collections entered? Or did I miss that? And a great way to check out a cookbook you haven't got via that friend. I'm game if anyone else is (username Chris A). Fantastic! Um... Hey, Jane? How long does it take to index, say, 200 recipes? Oh, I'm a lifer as of yesterday.

It is precisely! "Sweet with a heady, herbal aroma and a light flavor of pine" is right up my alley....

It's a bit like having your own Flavor Bible on demand -- and from cookbook authors and chefs you trust.

Thanks for saying that! I felt the same way. I dunno what to say except, well, it lacked any harmony or character that wasn't... turpentinian.

Does anyone have any information about mastika/matiha, the Greek liqueur made from mastic?

Here's my list of index requests, all of which are, imho, utterly necessary. Also, I pitched all cocktail books by Dave Wondrich, Dale DeGroff, Gary Regan, and Ted Haigh. Fingers crossed.

Saw Greg Seider's Kentucky Fix, with a base of coffee-infused bourbon, in this month's Imbibe. Infused some rye with a few beans, smelled nice, and tried a Manhattan with that, Carpano Antica Formula, and Jerry Thomas Decanter Bitters from Bitter Truth. Splendid in my brain; tossed it down the drain. About the worst thing I've had in months. Recovering with Talisker on the rocks. Yikes.

I can't find page numbers, either -- a strange omission. So far, I'm really liking it. The shopping list feature is pretty cool, too.

My 157 cookbooks and 31,479 recipes are all in. (Those are mindblowing numbers, even without the 30 or so that weren't in their database.) Guessing now, but I think that about 10% of my cookbooks aren't indexed, and most of those are ones I use pretty infrequently. Indeed, one of the (many) great potential benefits of this service is that, unlike a google, eG Forums, or epicurious search, I'm far more likely to find recipes that correspond to my tastes, equipment, skills, and so on. I just had an amazing thought: what if they index all of the cocktail books? Or even just the books of DeGroff, Regan, Wondrich, Haigh, and a few other authors?

Plowing through my collection and noticed the first, I'm sure, of many ironies in this project. One of the most important indexes of cuisine in the history of publication, Escoffier's Guide to Modern Cookery, is not itself indexed in any edition.

Holy crap. This is a dream come true. I just joined with the free 30 day registration, and if this is as good as it seems, I'm a lifer. First impressions: the book search is a bit clunky and slow. Not having visuals of most of the books (especially of the spine labels -- I'm sitting in my study looking at books on the shelves while I'm doing this) is a drag. You should also be able to tick boxes in your "My Bookshelf" screen and request indexes in bulk, instead of having to do it one at a time with a clunky mailto interface. But this is quibbling. I'm more excited about this food-related technological advance than I have been about anything since, well, since I discovered the eGullet Society.

What sort of book is it? A local "meet chefs in our community" sort of thing or a book targeted at a (multi)national audience and backed by big capital and a publishing corporation?

No idea about that symbol, Kake. menuinprogress, that curd looks fine. Your jar may have lacked the red food coloring -- and included chili. That seems like a fine idea.