Chris Amirault

You mean it's not the next Momofuku? Damn. I guess I won't drive down from New England so I can post about it here. Sigh.

Thanks! I just made a modified Racketeer from the terrific, and defunct, Rogue Cocktails book. I spilled too much Talisker in and, well, it was a happy accident. Not sure if, with 1/2 oz of scotch, it counts as a scotch drink, but, well, the mezcal and scotch play nicely in their smoke. You make the call.

Revised Racketeer: 1 oz rye (Rittenhouse BIB) 1 oz mezcal (San Luis del Rio) 1/2 oz Benedictine (ancient bottle with lots of funk) 1/2 oz Carpano Antica Formula 1/2 oz Talisker 1/4 oz yellow Chartreuse (another ancient bottle with lots of funk) 3 dashes Peychaud's bitters The Talisker was supposed to be a rinse, but I spilled out half an ounce, and, at $60 a bottle, it wasn't going into the sink. Hell, I think it works. It may be that those two old liqueurs are bumping up the funk enough that the extra scotch is just fine.

In this context, what does the wattage mean? Feel free to explain it in other contexts as well, btw.

As noted in another eG Forums topic, I'm renovating and updating a 1950s kitchen. While there are a number of projects I can handle involving screws, duct tape, and the like, I'm facing my fear of electricity and other kitchen sciences with two big projects: an overhead four-bulb fluorescent lighting fixture and -- the biggie -- replacing the vintage Thermidor ovens. The current contender for replacement is this Cadco oven, and I am overtaken by awe and fear every time I look, longingly, at the thing. I know, I know: it's pathetic. I'm turning to you for help. My questions run the gamut. Right now I'm running all my appliances and gadgets through two-prong outlets with adaptors: what risks does that pose? What the heck do these things mean?!? Oven cavity wrapped in high ”R” value insulation ... NSF, UL (through CSA Standards) 208-240 volts 5600 watts 24.4 amps Single Phase /NEMA L6-30 Plug Are there any reliable resources out there on electrical know-how for kitchen renovation? What sorts of basic information on electrical systems should someone know to tackle home improvement projects like this?

Doesn't feel that quick to me, but yes, it seems a possible provocation. But it's not overheating, as far as I can tell.

I've been getting out the FoodSaver quite a bit recently and have tweaked the method shown below: Seal and cut the bags so that you'll have about 4" of room at the top. Fold over 2" of the bag so that you create a cuff. This will be useful in case you spill a little liquid: keeping the cuff out of the interior allows the seal to stay drier. Stack fat books under your unit so that the height of the liquid in the bags you'll be using reaches the mouth of the machine (up to the line marking the last 4"). Using a funnel (I use a Leifheit "filling funnel"), fill the bag with liquid up to about 2" from the top. (With the cuff, that means you're leaving 4" at the top.) Rest the bag in front of the machine and place bag edge into the machine, get as many air bubbles out as you can, and lock the bag into place. Using the normal and moist settings, turn on the machine, but have your finger on the seal button. As soon as you see moisture moving from the initial liquid level up through the textured grid of the bag, press the seal. After the seal is finished, make a second seal further up on the bag. I wanted also to ask a question for FoodSaver users. I have been getting the flashing red light a lot lately and wonder what it means. Online all I can find is that it's an "error," but it doesn't say what the error is. Any ideas?

Yours look terrific (as always ). Mine have, without fail, sucked, both as cheese knives and as knives in general. Sigh.

Do all classic steakhouses have those clunky, plain white dishes in which they plop whatever's been ordered?

Ditto here. All summer long there are spatchcocked chickens in the case at Whole Foods, both seasoned and unseasoned. They use those titanic bamboo skewers.

It depends on what you're infusing, as different compounds release at different temperatures, and different ingredients will cook in different ways. You get a very different chile oil, for example, if you infuse the garlic and chiles at room temp than you do if you infuse at 250F/120C or 350F/175C. If you say a bit more about ingredients, I'm sure we can all weigh in. Following Baldwin's instructions and using this spice rub, I brined for 12h then cooked St. Louis pork ribs at 155F/68C for 28 hours. (I went a bit over the 24 recommended because of cooking logistics.) Finished them on a hot grill with no sauce. They were excellent if a bit salty, as I usually don't brine and then rub with this particular rub. More "best ribs ever" around the dinner table.

It's been Dale DeGroff Whiskey Peach Smashes all weekend with Bulleit bourbon. Yum.

What are the basics of it?

I must step in to defend two desecrated items. I'm not sure if you mean this Vacu-Vin pineapple corer, but I use mine all the time to great effect. If you line up the corer effectively and have the fruit inside a bowl to capture the juices, it works great. At least, for me. I don't think the model is still available -- Amazon lists a DF250 now -- but the Waring Pro DF200 is a staple in my kitchen. I easily get it up to 375F and it recovers quickly. More information over in this topic. One man's ceiling is another man's floor. My nominees are every cheese knife I've ever owned.

My Swing-Away can opener and my generic church key opener.

You can call anything artisanal, can't you? From Tuthiltown spirits to Wild Turkey, depending on your perspective. Artisanal has become such a broad term that anyone can use it for just about anything. The problem with spirits is that the products used to make nearly all of them are among the most industrialized. Society member brinza shared this information recently: Makes you wonder what "farm fresh" realy means. I understand the appeal of marketing spirits as artisanal or whatever else, but an few thousand acres of ADM grain fields do not a backyard victory garden make.

I was about to make the same joke as IndyRob: http://www.thecapitalgrille.com/

Society member evo-lution has pointed out, elsewhere and correctly, that the cocktail recipe I cite in the initial post is from a different venue than Bar Agricole. Mea culpa. I look forward to learning about the spirits artisanally distilled from the biodynamic grain crops grown by the bar in question.

Strange shopping trip, as I didn't grab any protein to focus the meal around. Got to the store and saw some beautiful artichokes and shiitake mushrooms, and I remembered I had some homemade pancetta in the fridge. So I grabbed those two things, some eggs, and some shallots, and made fresh pasta with the mushrooms and pancetta and steamed the artichokes to serve with butter. The idea of going to the store with a preset plan just doesn't work for me, I think. I need to react to what's there.

I certainly hope your Boston baked beans aren't vegetarian, what with the required salt pork and all.

I have reached the limit on marketing ploys that are trying to convince me that a restaurant or product or store is somehow biodynamic, sustainable, local, whatever, when in fact they are nothing of the sort. I think it's time we start exposing these sorts of scams for what they really are. You with me? I'll start with this carp in a whiskey barrel. I call BS on the "farm fresh cocktails" being touted the folks at "Bar Agricole". From Liquor.com: Give me a break. Those spirits that make up 99% of the product aren't made from local, sustainable, biodynamic grains, sugarcane and fruits, and most vermouth recipes require a bit more than a few herbs, including such things as spices from faraway lands. Take the sample drink, Off to the Races, featuring agave nectar, Fee's peach bitters, and Buffalo Trace bourbon. If those three familiar products are genuinely artisanal and biodynamic, well, I have a sustainable few acres of land to sell you. Surely you've spied some of these cynical schemes.

Funny, I was wondering what I could deep fry....

So how do you tackle the market? Do you head for proteins or produce or home-replacement meals or what?

My recent move to the suburbs coincided with a very busy stretch at work, meaning that both weekdays and weekends have been full, and it's thrown me out of my shopping rhythm. Thus I have found myself repeatedly in the position of leaving work on a quick break or en route to home, shopping for the night's dinner. With two kids, I'm often looking for something I can make in under an hour when I get to the house. Tonight's no exception: I'll stop by the Cranston Whole Foods, hit the store, grab a few things, and zip home to get food on the table. Nothing is prepped at the house. My methods are pretty rudimentary. I typically aim for meat and fish to find a protein on sale that I can cook quickly, then double back to produce thinking about sides. The kids are big on rice and bread, so I'll either get the rice cooker going as soon as I hit home or pickup a baguette. This routine is getting pretty stale, though, and I'll bet that there are some Society members who can school me in new tricks. When you're hitting the store for dinner that night, what do you do?

Interested in those Indian Assam teas. Any specific suggestions/links?