Chris Amirault

Fred, do you have anything in there from the Brick & Mortar gang? I had a couple drinks there a bit ago that were superb. Very interested to see what you've turned up.

Thanks to a remarkably generous gift of bottle #2, I'm no longer hoarding my first bottle of Marteau absinthe. Just made Harry Johnson's Turf Cocktail: 2 oz gin (Plymouth) 3/4 oz dry vermouth (NP) 1/4 Maraschino (Luxardo) dash orange bitters (Regan's) hefty dash absinthe (Marteau) Stir, strain, lemon twist. Might have to have two.

By now, APdC is de rigueur, perhaps even passé, but I still think it's one of the most remarkable places on the planet. Went with my daughter, Matt Kayahara (a Society member), and his husband last night, and we slew many dishes, most notable for me were the tomato salad, fried zucchini blossoms, bison rib, and - of course - the foie poutine, which I will have when, on death row, I'm asked for my last meal. (With a mouth-expanding cotes du rhone, natch.)

Inspired by the new issue of Imbibe, I made a Casino with Ransom, but felt that the maraschino component was insufficient. This made more sense in my mouth: 2 oz Ransom Old Tom gin 1/2 oz Luxardo maraschino 1/4 oz lemon juice 2 dashes Regan's orange bitters Stir; strain over rocks. I added a lemon twist, though Harry Craddock calls for a brandied cherry. Perhaps that cherry brings a bit of its liqueur, obviating the need for the added maraschino? Further research is needed, clearly....

I think that if you're planning to use them in cooking -- that is to say, you're planning to break down the flesh with heat, mincing, etc. -- then it should be fine. But if you want to drape them over potatoes in your salad niçoise, I'd be afraid they'd fall apart upon thawing. Why not just repack in fresh salt, vacuum seal or just cover, and stick in the back of your fridge? I've done that and they keep indefinitely.

Not sure what happened there -- I can't even find the NH model I linked above -- but the second link is correct, and we absolutely love it.

Imbibe just posted a version of that drink: 2 oz. white rum 1 oz. fresh lime juice 3/4 oz. simple syrup (1:1) 1 tsp. maraschino liqueur 1 tsp. fresh grapefruit juice 1 spent lime shell

Well, assuming you'll have a hungry crowd looking for a meal, not a snack, I'd go safe and aim for about 4 oz dried pasta and 6 oz of uncooked ground meat per person. If you're not using breadcrumbs, egg, onions, garlic, etc., you could bump that ground meat up a bit. Are you making sauce/gravy as well?

A few questions. Is this to be a meal? Or a midday snack? Or...? Will there be any other food, or just meatballs and pasta? (Nothing wrong with that -- but it affects portioning.) When you reply, I'm sure you'll get a lot of precise feedback.

I have extended grilled vegetables into side dishes for two or three additional meals with a decent vinegar (I like sherry vinegar with grilled stuff) for western food and a bit of Vietnamese dipping sauce (garlic, bird chiles, fish sauce, lime juice, sugar) for Asian.

Yup. Steel-cut? I've used basically every kind to good effect, but we've settled on the cheap old fashioned oats from the bulk bins. BTW, I left 1-2 T honey off the ingredient list, which others in the family prefer.

Standard old fashioned, not quick.

We consume massive quantities of Del's frozen lemonade all summer here in RI, and this is our take, a family affair that the kids are calling "Better than Del's": the rind -- no pith -- of one lemon (~5g) 100g lemon juice (~3-4 lemons) 10g citric acid 125g sugar 300g water 600g ice Finally, we make these smoothies nearly every morning: 1 ripe banana 8 oz milk 1 cup oats dash salt 2 T peanut butter 4-6 ice cubes

I'm nearing the 50 cycles point with the Blendtec -- which I'm very happy with, I'll add -- and feel like I can offer three recipes. The first is a flavoring paste that I used for grilled pork meatballs as part of a SE Asian meal. I dumped the following into the blender, all amounts approximate: 6 stalks lemongrass* 6 shallots* 4 garlic cloves* a one-inch knob of galangal* 12 kaffir lime leaves ~25g salt ~40g sugar ~1/2 cup cream off the top of a can of coconut milk ~1/4 cup fish sauce a few grams of roasted thai chile pepper (to taste) Roughly chop the rough* stuff and dump it all into the blender. Pulse until it's ground thoroughly; scrape sides if needed. Combine with ~500g of ground pork and form into patties. Put into fridge to firm up. Grill.

There are a few stray bottles around these parts -- Joyal's, at least, RI locals -- but, no, no source besides the shelves. Yes. Exactly. My apologies. Agree with Matt here -- without absinthe or pastis the CR is like an Old Fashioned (that is to say, a Cock-Tail) without bitters: makes you wonder what all the fuss is about. Just had one with a meaty gin: 2 oz Death's Door 1 oz Cocchi 3/4 oz Suze It's fantastic, much better than with Lillet, methinks. And -- sorry again -- I shlepped the Suze from Tokyo two years ago.

Does anyone use their blender as a spice grinder?

Another combination that's pretty damned skippy is bacon. (Insert "bacon makes everything better" joke here.)

My guess is that it's the juice of a sour/bitter/Seville orange, easy to find hereabouts at Latino mercados and essential to several old-school punches.

The press is less effective than a small rolling pin with flour tortillas due to the gluten content.

As I did two nights ago, when I grill chicken and vegetables (red onion, red bell pepper, summer squash, mushrooms) I usually make double in order to have a chopped-up salad the next few days. Made a rub this time with hot smoked paprika, black pepper, anise seed, thyme, garlic powder, and salt that was particularly tasty with some olive oil and lemon.

More fiddling, this time with Black Maple Hill Small Batch bourbon, a gift I received today. This stuff is corny, funky, and high proof (95), and its sweetness got me thinking about using Cocchi Americano as a sub for dry vermouth. Used the bitters to offset the sweet and added a hefty lemon twist: 2 oz Black Maple Hill SB bourbon 1/2 oz M&R rosso vermouth 1/2 oz Cocchi Americano 3 dashes "house orange bitters" (half Regan's, half Fee's) Stir; strain; lemon twist. The corny mash bill makes it sweeter than I might usually like, but with the adjustments above, damn, it's tasty.

The look great, Matt. What fat did you use in the dough?

Can anyone see those benefits?

A walnut is another good combination to try out. Have you tried gorgonzola dolce? Good gateway blue.

So the two solutions to cavitation are (1) stop the blender, tamp stuff down, and restart, and (2) insure that whatever you're blending is viscous enough to keep sliding down the sides, yes? Do you have to adjust your recipes to account for this? I guess I thought that a $400 blender figured this out for me....