Chris Amirault

No bubbla.

Breaking out the SVS today for two dry-aged steaks (NY strip and porterhouse). Aiming for about 4h at 55C per Dave & Nils at FCI/cookingissues.com, minimal seasoning. I'll be taking pictures and notes as I go.

Like Hennes said. I have to say that these wooden strips are among the best things I've ever gotten. Perfectly manufactured, great, simple design, and beautiful. The old metal strips are being relegated to the basement tool dump zone work area.

Finally settled in enough to get some photos up. Things are in a state of flux still, so please make any suggestions you have. Here's the cooking "U" zone. The shelving over the ovens. (The shelving over the range has serving platters.) The shelving under the range. And -- yes, more -- the shelving under the ovens. The coffee station to the right of the range. The little extension on the main counter. That's where our 5-year-old usually sits. I kept the garbage can in the picture because, as always, it has no real place to go in this kitchen. The KA station and cupboard of measuring stuff. Bought some Vance Spice Drawer Inserts from Amazon: These shelves are a bit of a conundrum for us, as they're located at a tough spot for reaching. After much thinking, I decided to install two 12" magnetic knife strips above the sink, on either side. I found these fantastic Mag-Bloks from Bench Crafted, which maintain the look of the wood and protect the knives at the same time. Lazy susan on marble and thick cutting board, both of which we use often enough to have them handy. Sliding doors to shelving under main counter. Ikea drawer inserts for flatware. One clear problem are the gadget drawers, of which there are three in various states of disorder.

Two bowls, one with the thighs and Aleppo/black pepper rub, the other with the mustard/thyme marinade. Grill set-up, with the aged Char-Broil kettle and the double grate required by rust on the over-sized original grate. And the cold drink, also required. After searing the chicken, working through the croutons and vegetables on high heat while the chicken finishes. I let the chicken rest on the croutons, which absorb their juices and soften up a bit. Served with grilled red bell peppers in balsamic, grilled zucchini, mint, and lime, and some sliced peaches and nectarines. I prepared the chicken without brining because I did the prep prior to work; an all-day brine would have been overkill. I missed it here, though, as the chicken tasted seasoned only on the outside, despite the rub and marinade.

I know jack about my new municipality's water, but on a trip to Home Depot tonight I grabbed a free water testing kit. Just filled a vial so I'll have answers a bit down the road.

Thanks -- glad you liked it. A "Ti Punch slice" is an oval cut from the side of the lime running from stem to stern. It had a large proportion of skin to flesh, providing a tasty dose of lime oil to the drink.

As I mentioned above, there are two rooms: the tasting room and the mixing room. The mixing room is set up with a small cocktail station for each participant: Boston shaker, Hawthorne strainer, fine strainer, knife, cutting board, muddler. Virtually every other tool you might want is also there. (Then there's the tools you really want: an anti-griddle, Robot Coupe, tank of liquid nitrogen, cotton candy machine, immersion circulator... you name it, he's got it.) Surrounding the room are industrial shelves of booze. More booze than you can possibly fathom. It's like standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon: you can't quite take it all in, it defies your expectation so. While the selection is amazing in virtually every category, the tequila and mezcal shelf is mindblowing: "Largest collection in the country," said Junior, and I believe him. After a while, to adjust to your surroundings you start playing "Can You Find It?" and always find whatever you're looking for. In addition to the booze, the room is stocked with just about every fruit, herb, spice, and vegetable you can imagine might go into a cocktail -- and then a few dozen more. Before you get to the spirits, you have a marathon tasting session with those items. Here's the list of herbs: apple mint, delicate mint, micro orchids, "ice plant," orange mint, lime mint, chocolate mint, "hearts on fire," lemon mint, pineapple mint, cream basil, tricolor sage, purple basil, arugula blossom, licorice mint, tangerine lace, tarragon, atsina, borage, dill, peppermint, shiso, lemon basil, oregano, Italian basil, micro cilantro, dulce leaves, stevia. I won't list the spices and fruits -- you get the idea. After each spirit tasting, you develop two recipes using sponsors' spirits and, as noted, sponsors' liqueurs. Junior had infused at least two or three bottles of each spirit with interesting things -- raisin bread, habañeros, Buddha's hand, ginger, tobacco -- and those were often the most fun items on the table. The spirits were damned fine stuff -- Compass Box scotches, Ilegal mezcal, Macchu Pisco, and more -- and I would have loved free reign to build drinks with them and the amazing stock surrounding the room. However, the rule requiring use of the sponsored liqueurs before any others really ties your hands. Since the cherry liqueur wasn't any good, and the Castries and Canton tend to dominate any drink they're in, I ended up using the Royal Combier all day long, with few exceptions in which I used the Castries or Canton for the heck of it or avoided liqueurs entirely. It's a minor complaint, though, given the astonishing selection. I got to play with dozens of items I'd always wanted to try: Damiana, a Mexican herbal liqueur; about a dozen mezcals; Old Monk rum; Amargo Chuncho (etc.) and Scrappy's bitters; on and on. In addition, I got to taste other people's experiments, which allowed us to talk about hits and misses. (Yes, that's right: you taste everyone else's drinks -- adding, what, about 90 drinks to the 50 spirits and countless other ingredients.) The emphasis around the room was squarely on what you might call "tropical sours" -- spirit; citrus; floral, fruit or herbal accent. That also seems to be Junior's wheelhouse, and the man has a genius for combining tricky components with ease. Cucumbers and other melons made multiple appearances over the course of the day, the round, clean flavor carrying and blending a lot of otherwise disparate elements. After Junior mentioned the role of salt in drinks, it started popping up quite a bit, making it clear that one needs to temper the heavy hand when pinching away.

Definitely not. For years my go-to addition to smoked chicken was an apricot/habañero glaze. I also think that mustard is a particularly good ingredient for grilled chicken, particularly dijon mustard, which seems to have an affinity for the smoke and char.

It was all aged stuff, but within the categories there were a variety of sub-categories. One was tequila/mezcal; one brandy (including pisco); one rum (including cachaca); one whisk(e)y. Hrm... that's four.... I'll add the fifth when I get my tasting notes back. I probably used the beans three or four times per round, not just between rounds. I can't really say it worked to the extent I'd have liked.

A potent, smoky improved bourbon Old Fashioned tonight: 2 1/2 oz Bulleit 1/2 oz Peat Monster -1/2 oz gum syrup dash Luxardo maraschino dash Kübler absinthe 2 dashes Fee's 2007 OF WBA bitters

I've had many, many fantastic things at Cook & Brown Public House -- where (full disclosure) I'm on the bartending team -- and urge anyone interested in great food and drink to stop by. If you want a cocktail made by yours truly, stop by on Tuesday nights. Tonight we decided to explore eateries in our new suburban neighborhood (Coventry/West Warwick). So it was evening dim sum at Silver Crystal (289 Cowesett Ave, West Warwick) -- which was pretty darned good. We'll have to select carefully: the har gaw, baby bok choy, and lotus leaf rice were the standouts, but there were some weak notes. Thankfully, the misses were mostly 5-year-old fare, like crab rangoon and scallion pancakes.

Thanks. From reading around, I've learned that there's apparently a lot of stress fractures that are caused when that last 10-20% of water freezes: cubes run out of room as they expand and... crack. Experiments to follow.

They sure can be lovely, though.

That crosshatching has me envious. Are you searing first and then pulling it off direct heat, or the other way around?

Say more about your glaze. I rarely do anything after they come off the grill and are resting save toss salt and squeeze citrus. But that's intriguing -- as was Erin's "Amalgamation" step with the African chicken. Tonight I'll be grilling a broken-down bird plus four additional thighs. All the thighs are getting my latest favorite rub, using a black pepper & Aleppo pepper base, whereas the other parts are in a mustard & thyme marinade. Photos to follow.

Welcome to eG Cook-Off 53, grilled chicken! (For previous Cook-Offs, check out the eG Cook-Off Index.) For such a ubiquitous summer protein, there have been few eG Forums topics on the subject. CDRFloppingham asked us to consider his grilled chicken dilemmas over in this topic, and there have been a few discussions about par-cooking chicken prior to grilling, a recent long one here and a brief excursion into the topic here (during the Cradle of Flavor topic). But parcooking is just the tip of the wing. Rubs or marinades? Gas or charcoal? Direct or indirect? Whole, spatchcocked, or parts? When do you add salt? Acid? Anyone want to drag the grill out and throw a few birds on it? Just keep your hands off the charred skin I "accidentally" pulled from that stray thigh....

OK. I'm in. Preordered.

Welcome to the Society, zavodny! To Chris H's point, it's always worth remembering that this particular art started in caves, basements, and kitchens. (Let's not even talk about Arthur Ave store fronts.) Tossing in some slight temperature variability is probably not worrisome for the home charcutier.

And which are smoked? Just the bratwurst?

Gotta cook 'em in the cakes. How else do you get that heated intensity you need? I don't get the problem with incorporating berries into the batter, either. However, I always beat the whites separately and incorporate them into the batter for the extra loft that Katie mentions above.

Made a Caipirinha last night, muddled Thai palm sugar with the lime. Actually, I was forced to make a second one because of deliciousness.

Oh, and is there any benefit to pre-ordering through Amazon now -- or waiting until later this fall? For example, will the price drop? Will I be guaranteed a copy if I pre-order now?

Decided last night that this is my likely 2010 Xmas present. A few questions: Are the illustrations both of finished dishes and of methods? Are we talking Cook's Book or something less/more detailed? I'm assuming that this is aimed at home, restaurant, and industry cooks. How are those various audiences handled? For example, for how many servings are most recipes scaled? The Amazon page suggests that the techniques are not merely molecular but encompass traditional techniques as well. Does that mean that there are recipes on those traditional techniques or just research, insights, tips, and that sort of thing? What's on the cover? I'm really dying to see a table of contents....

When I was in Portland OR, everyone strained their shaken drinks because, they said, "their ice was bad." Now that I've moved from Providence to the suburbs, my ice is bad, too: instead of solid chunks that hold together well while shaking, I get much larger percentage of shards. The only change has been water; everything else (freezer, trays, methods) remains the same. So what sort of water makes for solid ice? Given my problem, what is a workable solution? Filter or bottled water for ice?