Chris Amirault

Two sets of questions are arising, both of which may become obvious when I'm actually using the thing. 1. What is cavitation? Why is it a problem? What specific methods do you use to avoid it? 2. Is the difference between gazpacho and hot tomato soup simply time, or are there methods/settings that one adjusts to account for temperature?

Drinking just that right now, with Redbreast as the spirit: marvelous.

Give me a few sample recipes that you've used to good effect. You can assume I have, you know, a couple of books here and there.

After decades of feeble power, leaks, and mediocre to lousy results, I finally found a way to get a Blendtec blender into the house. (Mom, Dad, and Bed, Bath, & Beyond 20% coupon: thank you.) It should be here next week. It's my understanding that I'm receiving a machine that prepares everything from ice cream to soup, shaved ice to fondue, with the push of a button. But surely there's more to it than dumping stuff into the container and pressing "start." So who's making what with their high-power blender? I want details: ingredients, times, temps... What works and why. What doesn't and why. Who's on first?

No. Should I?

Update: A nice fellow named Alex sent me a link to his company that makes, lo and behold, straws for hot beverages. Yes, it's the Hot Straw! Dentist recommended!

I think the new Pierre Ferrand dry curacao is absolutely amazing, and I built this drink sitting at the bar of Cook & Brown with the intention of creating a very dry tribute to it. [square bracket marks an addition for the less adventurous crowd, for whom you could also sub in a less dry brandy like Hennessy VS.] Arid, Extra Dry 1 oz Marie Duffau Napoleon Bas Armagnac 1 oz Ransom Old Tom gin 3/4 oz Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao Ancienne Methode [dash simple syrup] dash Bitter Truth Jerry Thomas Decanter bitters Stir; strain. Glass: coupe. Garnish: orange twist.

Emphasis mine: That's the spirit!

Matt's right. Standard dilution is 25% -- which is to say, you add a third to the original three thirds to get 4/3s. Also, many "martini glasses" are more than a 4.5 oz size, which many bars use. Libbey, for example, has a great coupe that's 4.5 oz -- and a bird feeder martini glass clocking in at 10 oz.

I sure haven't.

Very interested to see how this turns out.

Branca Menta.

It was indeed, by unanimous decision of all four family members, great. I didn't take photos as we were too busy scarfing it down. All I did for post-SV prep was to wipe off as much of the rub as I could from each piece -- the meat was redolent with both cure and rub flavor without it -- and put them on a plate. They were fork-tender, like braised, fall-apart short ribs are, and only a hair too salty. Nathan, I'd be interested to know your take on why the ribs were less (not, as you suspected, more) firm with the long cure. Given that we all awoke hale and whole, I think the "overcure" method is safe as houses. It's good to know that a few extra days or weeks produces results that are consistent with the remarkable original method, albeit within goop that could star in a 1950s sci-fi B movie.

Thanks, everyone, for the responses. Very firm, a bit salty, but undeadly: I can live with that. With salt, sugar, and pink salt: coriander, black peppercorns, mustard powder, fennel, cloves, red pepper flakes, bay -- and, yes, cinnamon. I raised the CO2 question based on some reports I skimmed and didn't fully understand around the internet, so I place no validity in my interpretation those. Meanwhile, I'll be the taster for the healthy gang here.

I'm in the midst of what seems to be either (a) a remarkable breakthrough in the production of MC pastrami or (b) a horrific, perhaps explosive, disaster. Your opinion is requested. About a month ago, I was at Whole Foods shopping for the last couple meals before a trip to Vietnam, and I saw stacks of remarkable boneless short ribs: thick, well-marbled, and on sale. I bought six pounds, brought them home, and two days before I hopped on three planes for SE Asia, I prepared them precisely as described in the MC recipe. Having asked my MIL every day or two to overhaul the SV bags with the brining beef at the cold fridge bottom, I figured that I'd return home in two weeks and continue with the recipe posthaste, no muss, no fuss. Well, things didn't work out that way, and perhaps food science will be the beneficiary. Upon our return from Vietnam I had to deal with a stack of issues that prevented me from catching my breath, let alone embarking on a multihour smoking project, for an additional two weeks. So, today, I finally got around to dealing with the brined short ribs. There was, indeed, muss. First, the meat itself. Because I had to trim some of it and cut other pieces in half, I discovered that I had produced what appears to be remarkable meat, a beautiful, rich red color, each piece redolent of the sweet, spicy brine ingredients and beefy goodness both. Without the spice rub, smoke, and 72h cooking, it was so astonishing that I was tempted to slice off a piece and eat it raw. However, having removed the short ribs from their four-week-old brine, I did not succumb to that temptation, because the brine had become a bizarre, ropy goop. The color was consistent with superb past efforts, but the consistency was very thick and viscous, as if someone had dumped a couple hundred grams of gum arabic into each bag while I was away slurping pho. I tried to bring it to skim the scum, but the brine started to stink a bit after boiling a while, and trying to skim was an exercise in futility. I discovered this after I had made the spice rub and fired up the Bradley smoker, so I decided to take one for the team and proceed with the recipe. I tossed the brine down the drain, rubbed & smoked the short ribs, bagged them with no liquid at all, and they are now in the SV Supreme, in their first of 72 hours at 62C. Thus I turn to the collective wisdom of the Society. From reading around, it seems clear that the culprit here is lactic acid, which turned the brine into ropy slime. Lactic acid is not necessarily a bad thing in anaerobic environments (think pickles, etc.), but with SV meats it seems to produce CO2, greening, and all sorts of off flavors. So I'll keep an eye on the bags to see if they bloat (FWIW, the short ribs did not produce any gas while in the brine for a month), and will hope to get some advice/information from y'all about what to do if something notable happens -- or doesn't happen. Your thoughts?

What are "Atkins" clams? Flo's and Evelyn's still have good clams. Lame attempt at a joke about the Atkins diet. I want clams with beer bellies, not six-pack abs.

Can anyone personally vouch for quality, large-belly clams on the NE mainland, preferably close to RI? I'm so sick of those Atkins clams I don't know what to do.

Just now getting pix and notes in some semblance of order. Thanks again to everyone who posted information, much of which we used. I must say that we agreed, on the whole, with kenteoh about the pho, which was merely ok-to-good in most of the many, many stalls we tried. There were two notable exceptions: the post-spa pho at our hotel (Hanoi Elegance Diamond), of all bowls, was very good indeed. The other exception I'll write about in a bit. Ninh Binh was utterly unremarkable in terms of food and drink -- nothing to report. Sapa had a few decent joints, and we returned repeatedly to one, Nature View Restaurant on the Fansipan Road heading down toward Cat Cat village, that consistently had very good Vietnamese standards. On Halong Bay we were at the mercy of the Dragon's Pearl junk cruise chefs, who, thankfully, were quite consistently great, though the final evening meal (grilled meats and seafood served in a spectacular cave) was an overcooked bust. That having been said, we did have dozens of interesting food & drink experiences in Hanoi, and I'll do my best to recap them here. A few quick notes: the Metropole is worth checking out if for no other reason than to see the interior, some amazing photographs of Colonial-era Hanoi, and the Bamboo Bar, where some wag announced in the 1920s that it was the only place in Hanoi where you could get any drink you wanted -- sans water, of course. We also had a few drinks, snacks, and lunch at the Intercontinental Hanoi West Lake, all of which were terrific: a quality caipirinha, an icy Asahi, housemade sausages, killer croissants, and a pricey but lavish buffet the day before our 32-hour return travel. No pix for those, but I did capture several of the other Hanoi eating experiences, so: more soon.

Excellent. A quick internet search does indeed confirm that the last stall is the one to hit. Thanks!

rarerollingobject, can you shed some light on "Grilled Chicken Street"? kenteoh, thank you very much! I'm eager to try the herbal chicken in particular.... Leaving in less than two days!

IIRC, I've seen a SE Asian sauce that includes these two ingredients with chile....

I would agree -- I love Punt e Mes in general. Poor man's Carpano Antica Formula.

Toiling away on perfection: 2 1/2 oz Rittenhouse BIB rye 3/4 oz M&R sweet vermouth 3/4 oz NP dry vermouth 2 dashes Peychaud's bitters 1 dash Angostura bitters Stir; strain; very big lemon twist. Very, very tasty -- and purdy to boot.

Welcome, Dele. There are quite a few people around here (including me) with varying levels of experience and differing perspectives on this subject. However, I can say with confidence than anyone who has been through a restaurant start-up process will agree that it is an enormous amount of difficult work. You'll need many different types of expertise, tolerance for inevitable but unpredictable delays and problems, a fantastic, dependable core team, and the ability to build a network of relationships throughout the different sectors upon which you'll be relying. Finally, you need an awesome amount of confidence, enthusiasm, and grit. A well-known restauranteur here in RI told a chef friend of mine that chef/owners need to work 70-80 hour weeks for two years after the doors open -- and the lead-up to opening night typically requires months of even longer days. Even if you love this industry, it's an exhausting process. And if you see this merely as an investment -- and thus you don't want to eat, sleep, and breathe this restaurant for 2-3 years out of a sense of devotion and care -- get out now. I'm happy to share whatever information I have, but, like Mitch, will need at least a few bare bones to comment with any detail.

The example you give here seems more a matter of nomenclature -- is you is or is you ain't a soufflé -- than a matter of authenticity -- whatever its name, is the cheese-n-grits dish "authentic" to a tradition or culture.