Chris Amirault

What's the rest of the content like?

In the last few months, as our family goes through about a gazillion major changes, I've been finding myself sitting at a local diner (OV's on Allens, for the locals -- "Can't spell 'love' without 'OV'!") and ordering a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich on a well-toasted English muffin. Got my preschool daughter hooked, too. Last week, as yolk dripped down her chin, her teacher said, "Hey, Bebe. Your initials are the same as 'bacon,' 'egg,' and 'cheese'!" It's an omen, I tell you.

Perhaps we need to start a movement or something to be smarterer.

Here's that interactive NYT map.

My MIL came up with a recipe using AP flour after years of frustration trying to replicate her (Mexican-American) MIL's recipe. We've got it at home; it's also in Joan Nathan's New American Cooking, as it turns out! I will add it later today.

I think that you could create a smoked-apple base that's intensely smoked and add small amounts of that to your standard apple sauce recipe. That would allow you to adjust the potency of the sauce more easily, I'd think. As for wood, I'd go with apple.

Well, last night at home, I built a mezcal Old Fashioned but had a devil of a time getting the demerara syrup to combine well in the small glass. If I had stirred it in a tin first and poured it over the rocks once it was combined, I wouldn't have had a 1/4" layer of syrup at the bottom. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, given Andy's description of the technique: mix in the glass and then add ice. I've always thought "build" implied "over ice." I'll have to see what my books say.

Now that I actually take a shift per week behind a bar, I can see the appeal of building a drink, counting out the speed pours as the booze splashes atop rocks ice in the glass: speed, speed, speed. But, really, an Old Fashioned glass does not a mixing tin make: you can't get the rotational velocity in a stumpy glass you'd like, and invariably you're going to sacrifice quality. A quick stir in a mixing tin, strained over rocks ice: that gives a superior drink every time. Or am I missing something? Save for "X on the rocks," is there a drink that justifies this short cut?

So here's a good video to prompt discussion: That's a full 20s of shaking, about double, give or take, the usual US cocktailian shake. Uyeda also uses only the cobbler shaker and doesn't measure using jiggers or measuring cups: it's all by eye. Finally, he doesn't taste to see if he needs to adjust. Gordon's, lime, and simple. Every time I watch these videos I think, "I'm really eager to taste this man's drinks and see how that all adds up." I have to wait until I'm in Tokyo in June; I hope that participants in this event can weigh in before then.

We eat probably three or four pounds of gulf shrimp each month....

Boy, have I appreciated the adjustable shelves on this bar design over the last month and a half.

We can definitely get Four Roses around here. I'm going to be very interested to learn what this "backbone" or "strength of character" is all about. I think that my two consistent house gins -- Beefeater and Tanqueray -- fall into that category, whatever it is.

Todd, what sources are you using to track the oil spread and effect?

I'm terribly disappointed that I can't make it to the seminar myself -- though very glad Sam has agreed to step in and report on behalf of the Society. Another question that's been on my mind: why in representations of craft Japanese bartending do we so often see spirits, liqueurs, and other products that, in the US, we generally consider to be of middling quality? Is the quality of those same products higher in Japan than in the US? Is ingredient quality less of a concern in craft Japanese cocktail culture than in craft US cocktail culture?

Tough stuff, cocktail and food pairings.... I've always thought that gin was a good pairing for blue cheeses of various sorts. I had some tangy Maytag with an Atty a few weeks ago that worked quite well. (Not stuffed into an olive though. Ugh.)

See above. For now, we'll just be using the one for baking and the other for broiling, I think. Then, any day now......

At home, I consider the few drops of Marteau to be the "angel's share" -- me being, in this rare case, the angel in question. Evergreen, where'd you get those bottles?

I dunno. Right now, 2 max.

Someone's gotta score some and tell us what's what!

Yeah, I know. But they fit in the space they're in, I unhappily add. That's one of the issues with replacement....

I've been using both standard jiggers and the OXO measures, the latter more often, but I'm not satisfied yet. One tool for many measurements that's also easy to see in the dark: I'm gonna try it out.

Yes, they're all adjustable.

It's a blurry shot, but as I'm moving soon my days and nights of bottle clanking and fruitless searching are nearing an end:

Anyone got any thoughts on this Thermador problem?

I make this loosely SE Asian salad with skirt steak, shiitake, cucumbers, shallots, mint, cilantro, lime, fish sauce, and whatever else I want to throw in there. Usually the main crunch is provided by some Chinese cabbage or another. Last night it was bok choy.