Chris Amirault

+1. Just wanted to add a note that, at this stage, the stems are usually tender and flavorful, and the roots are to die for. If you've never ground up cilantro root for your pastes or sauces, give it a go!

So your recipe should be baking powder instead of soda? Yes.

Buttermilk: not so good. Baking powder: egad, that's a typo. You are right, sir!!

I have many strong opinions about this subject. First of all, johnny or jonny cakes are very basic: cornmeal, water, and salt. Growing up around our house (of parents from Nova Scotia and Maine), we all knew the rhyme, "Pea soup and johnny cakes will make a Frenchman's belly ache," and that's all you need to know about that. As for cornmeal pancakes, they are our house's favorite, and I have been working for years to get the recipe just right. They are not johnny cakes; they are pancakes made with cornmeal. Here's the receipt: 125g AP flour 175g fine cornmeal 4g salt 25g sugar 10g baking soda Combine those dry ingredients. 2 large eggs 260g milk 113g butter (4 oz, or a stick), melted If you're feeling fancy, you can separate the eggs, beat the white to soft peaks, and dump the yolks into the milk & butter with your stick blender running. Fold wet into dry until just combined, then fold in the whites if you've saved 'em. I think that the keys to cornbread pancakes are: 1. As Mitch says, getting the right cornmeal grind. The bulk cornmeal at Whole Foods is, as it turns out, perfect, right in the middle of the Bob's Red Mill thick grind and corn flour. There are probably other acceptable options, but this is our go-to. 2. Letting the cornmeal in the batter hydrate a bit. Do all the batter prep and then get out your griddle, heat it, etc.

I'd love separate pdfs for each volume that list merely recipe and parametric table corrections. I'd print each volume's pdf, stick it into the front cover, and have it available for a quick check whenever I get out the volume. Personally, I'm not too worried about the non-recipe errata. Thanks for asking. Really: thanks.

Matt, I think HSSS is precisely the book you should check out.

Well, besides focus (TF is about Thai food whereas HSSS explores southeast Asia broadly defined), I'd say that HSSS is the bunny slope whereas TF is the Olympic downhill. As with most Duguid & Alford books, you can usually toss together meals in HSSS pretty quickly, and, given their introductions, I think "toss together" is very much their personal cooking style. Thompson's obsessive TF attempts to be a research-based encyclopedic compendium with restaurant-complex recipes. (And imo succeeds: it's probably my favorite cookbook of all time.) Very little "tossing together" there.

Happy to chime in whenever I can; when I get home tonight I'll snoop through my (very stained) copy. One thing I can recommend from memory: the pomelo salad, a terrific introduction to the book's simple approach to complex flavor combinations. If you can get your hands on a couple of pomelos (or some good tart white, not sweet red, grapefruit), go for it.

FWIW, I disagree with catdaddy about reviews on social network sites (including this one). It's simply an inadequate way to communicate if you truly want to give the people at the restaurant effective feedback. When we were getting Cook & Brown going, we got lots of "reviews" on the internets and could rarely make heads or tails of them, particularly the negative ones. The ones that actually seemed honest, measured, and accurate still were not very useful because there was no context in which to understand them. Take your feedback above: Here's the list of possible problems I came up with: -- inadequate front of house/BOH staffing schedules -- lack of FOH/BOH coordination and team work -- one crappy/inexperienced/disgruntled server -- one crappy/inexperienced/disgruntled cook -- lack of training on FOH P&P -- someone in the FOH/BOH was out sick If I don't know your context -- who you are, when you came, what you ordered, what was going on around you, whom you interacted with -- it's nearly impossible to glean which of these apply and which do not, which makes it nearly impossible to use your feedback productively. And if I have no opportunity for dialogue with you (if, that is, you slap three sentences onto Yelp anonymously and be done with it), then I can't help you help me by giving you my context. Just walk into the place, ask for the manager or owner, and see if they want to talk. It's really that simple.

Around here, "start-up" means two years -- 24 months of 70-hour weeks, staff issues, supplier woes, insomnia, and the like.

These questions always seem to misunderstand the character of restaurant life at a fundamental level. Restaurants are places of work where human beings work as a team to exchange their goods and services for your cash. But, especially at start up, the kinks are nearly always a result of the first part (human beings learning how to work as a team), not the second part. So why not do what you'd do with any other human beings: ask them if they'd like feedback on their work? If they want it, then sit down and have a conversation grounded in shared appreciation and respect -- you for a restaurant that's struggling to get it right, and them for a customer seeking to help them succeed. If they don't want it, then take your business elsewhere. It's just a bunch of people. Treat them the way you'd want to be treated.

Thanks so much, kenteoh! Do you have any more recommendations to pass along??

Fiddling more with the Suze. I'm convinced that Ransom Old Tom Gin and Suze could have a liaison, perhaps illicit, if only I could play matchamaker. Meanwhile... While watching Lio Messi & Barcelona dismantle Zaragoza, I was snacking on some pecans and hazelnuts and decided to have a nightcap along with. Got to mixing and came up with this. Like most Suze drinks, it ain't for everyone, but if you like that long, long tail and have these ingredients on hand you might like this. The key is the Fundador, which is a nutty, rich foil for the Suze: 2 oz Fundador brandy 1 oz Suze 1/2 oz Benedictine dash Fee's 2009 WBA bitters Build over one big rock in a small OF glass. No garnish.

I can't vouch for Ciril's courses, never having taken one, but I have gotten to know him over the years and believe that he's a dedicated, organized, knowledgeable teacher with sacks of integrity. I talked to him just the other day about his new set-up, and it sounds spectacular.

Clean towel folded around the tortillas and put on a plate here. Can everyone specify whether they use nixtamal or masa harina? I'm interested to know which techniques are better suited to which masa.

Can you tell us more about the project? What are you trying to accomplish that hasn't already been covered elsewhere? And why a book, of all things, given the rapidly changing nature of this information?

Just bumping this up to report that my SodaStream Xmas gift has been used since it popped out of the box, typically charging it once or twice every day. The flavors taste like junk to me, but that's not what I'm using it for: we have seltzer with dinner every night and often make our own tonic, or scotch & sodas, or... you get the idea. I was wary upon opening the gift bc I worried that the CO2 refill would be costly. However, the Staples down the road exchanges cartridges for less than 20 bucks, which means that we're spending significantly less on seltzer than we used to, even when buying cases of cans on sale.

danielito, please thank your source for me and my family. I made a few adjustments this round: a. heated the comal up to around 575F (can't tell exactly bc my Thermapen maxes out at 530F), which was a good bit hotter than my previous attempts; b. ground the masa to a finer consistency -- really pushed the limits of my UltraPride, in fact -- and kept it a bit wetter than on most previous batches; c. applied a thin coating of oil for every other tortilla (instead of once at the start); and d. religiously did the two-flip routine: apply on one side, turn to the second side, back on the first to finish. And so, for the first time, I consistently got the puff: Best tortillas ever.

Bumping this up to confess that I've taken up the gauntlet thrown by bostonapothecary's post and have been exploring perfection. I must say this is pretty close, a big, boozy Manhattan that's spicy, dry, and got a tail a mile long: 2 1/2 oz Henry McKenna bourbon 3/4 oz M&R sweet vermouth 3/4 oz NP dry vermouth 2 dashes Angostura bitters 1 dash Regan's orange bitters 1 dash Fee's orange bitters Stir, strain, lemon twist.

Phu Lam has looked like that for as long as it's been open. Seemingly random dry goods selection, mediocre to bad produce, and sketchy meats in warm "coolers." I've asked around about it, but can't get any information. I don't get the sense that they have the volume of regulars that Chinese American, Narin, and the other quality Asian markets have -- and, probably, need to keep quality high....

Lifehacker just posted a piece about this Food Network list of the 100 Greatest Cooking Tips. A few are predictably mediocre (put a cork on the tip of your knife before sticking it into a drawer -- ouch), but there's a lot of good stuff in here. I, for one, am interested, to try tip #15 from Joanne Chang: "When chopping herbs, toss a little salt onto the cutting board; it will keep the herbs from flying around." Anyone else find some useful tips on the list? Which ones?

Bumping this up as the trip approaches. As I was making tea this morning, I realized that I might well be able to pick up some high-quality Chinese tea while in Hanoi. Is that true? Not true? Any thoughts on where?

Nope. For a while I tried 'em here and there, but the usual suspects use mixes. What we really need to do is convince one of the true cocktail haunts to do a tiki night.... Egad. Please, please don't.

Really enjoying this Statesman, with the only modification being the gin (instead of Beefeater 24): 2 oz Junipero 1/2 oz R&W Orchard Pear barspoon green Chartreuse dash Regan's orange bitters Stir, strain, lemon twist. It's sublime (unlike most statesmen I know).

Very eager to try this out! Thanks for this information. Any advice about the texture of the surface of the comal? I have one very smooth one and another that's rougher.