Chris Amirault

Had a few drinks with friends at Passenger, which is immediately managing to feel very neighborhoody out of the box. Heck, a friend I hadn't seen for a while walked up to me and slapped me on the back, a surprise that rarely happens when I'm going to conventions.... It was my understanding that Derek wasn't there but Tom made me a tasty Perfect Martini with Hayman's Old Tom, Dolin blanc, Carpano Antica Formula, and Peychaud's, and then later a tasty concoction with scotch (didn't get the bottle), Plymouth sloe gin, lemon, and apricot eau de vie. A friend asked for something "sweet and rich," and she had a cocktail combining amaretto, creme de violette, and rum: sweet and rich indeed. I'm staying with friends right around the corner, and when I visit them, I'm visiting here. Thanks, Charles.

People aren't mentioning condiments and sauces as much as I'd suspect. When I get back home (in DC through Sun) the focus of my Don't-Shop stretch will be, undoubtedly, finding ways to start making my way through that stuff.

Yes! That's it. Thanks, Sam.

I'll throw another motivating tip for clean as you go: it's easier to clean that pan you just used to sauté something now, before everything hardens into crust. Hot water, scrub brush, soapy dish cloth, rinse: a process that can take five minutes tomorrow takes 30 seconds today. I can't keep a sink full of dishwater. One of our two side-by-side sinks has the dish drainer in it, and I need the other side for different sorts of prep and cleaning. So I keep a sauce pan or other straight-sided container (more on that in a sec) on the edge of the sink or stove filled with hot soapy water. Except for big pita wash jobs -- the roasting pan that I made gravy in, say -- or pans that I just used to finish something I'm serving and eating immediately, I try to wash everything as I go. It's also useful to pull out three dish rags or towels at the start: one for general use (wiping your hands when you've washed them in particular), one for washing things, and one for drying clean items. Otherwise I go insane: once I've used the dish drying towel to do anything else, for example, I can't go back to use it as a drying towel and have to get another one. This last tip is more about keeping the kitchen orderly, which I find is crucial to my ability to keep it clean: if I'm disorganized, the last thing I'm thinking about is doing dishes. So I'm here to give propers to straight-sided hotel pans and other similar containers. Most people use concave bowls for prep, which means that you're using up as much room as the area of the circle at the top of the bowl. Taller, straight-sided containers minimize their footprint and thus maximize your counterspace -- and the amount of space they take in the sink, dishwasher, drainer, etc.

I seem to remember that someone figured out an alkaline solution that did precisely this. Googling around revealed a patent description that included this sentence: I thought I'd find it at Ideas in Food, but, alas. Does anyone else remember this?

I'm hitting Passenger tonight around 9p, in fact. It's down the street from where I'm staying. Eager to give it a go!

Has anyone here been using the Henry McKenna BIB? Very big and spicy, great for mixing (unless you're a Maker's fan).

Andy, do you steep the spices directly in the syrup? Over heat? Over time?

After a few experiments, I've been finding that a quick douse in boiling water followed by careful wiping with a paper towel and is, by far, the most effective method for removing the wax from citrus fruit. I did a comparison between the surfactant method and the boiling water method, and the results were pretty spectacular. I suppose you could add some soap to the boiling water but I don't think it's needed. The trick is wasting an entire paper towel per lemon and then using the lemon within a day or so. Otherwise, the damn things start turning brown very quickly -- proving the utility of the wax in the first place....

I had to crack about one hundred cubes (made with these Tovolo trays) for class yesterday, and after freezing cubes to skin a bit too often I learned that the following approach is an efficient way to crack these big cubes. Perhaps it's obvious to some but it was news to me, so I'm sharing it here: Fold a clean dish towel into a 6"x6" square. Place five or six cubes in two rows onto the towel. Whack the cubes with the convex back of a tablespoon (more effective than the handle of a barspoon, I found). Dump into a bowl. There's something about the towel that allows you to keep the ice relatively dry and cold, making the dump less sticky. In addition, the rate of effective cracking was nearly 100% using this method, as opposed to 50-60% when in my bare hand.

Taught a course on gin last night and several in the class chose to make Aviations (2 oz Damrak gin, 1/2 oz lemon, 1/2 oz Luxardo Maraschino). People added a range of amounts of R&W CdV, and by general consensus about 3/4 teaspoon was the right amount. Less than that makes it all silvery and nice, but you don't get enough of the liqueur to change the balance in the drink.

I admire your McArthur-like preparations -- but I fear for those salads. Do the cut vegetables stay fresh over time?

Snipping the roots and ends off of spinach.

Many good points, tomdarch: When Derrida took on continental philosophy, many continental philosophers argued that was he was doing "wasn't philosophy," a comment echoed in accusations that what Adria, Blumenthal, Achatz, et al are doing "isn't cooking" or that they "aren't making food." Of course, in the sense that deconstructivist approaches to philosophy and food turn them into objects of critique and not homage, those comments aren't entirely wrong -- not that Adria et al would be too troubled by that. In addition, the questions that Derrida proposed were dismissed as tricks by those who felt that Derridean concepts of play and slippage were merely clever jokes and insufficiently serious about the traditions with/against which he wrangled. How many times have you heard that critique levied against this crowd, by the likes of Marco Pierre White, among others? This comparison makes no sense to me whatsoever. Surely dinner at Alinea, however rigorous it may be intellectually, is not a series of studious homework assignments. Quite the opposite: I think that one could characterize a meal at Alinea as symphonic, though perhaps more Arnold Schoenberg than Johannes Brahms.

Boy -- I'll say! Where do you live?

I have two kids, 12 and 4 1/2, and they loves them the spaghetti and meatballs. I usually make them a pound of pasta, thinking that I can get another meal out of it, but I often overshoot and have extra pasta that's lightly sauced. A couple of days ago, I got an idea. I chopped up some homemade pancetta and sliced two garlic cloves. I sauteed the pancetta in a bit of olive oil until it was crispy, added the garlic, threw in a handful of red pepper flakes, got everything aromatic and then added the old spaghetti. Tossed it for a while, adding water toward the end to get up anything that had browned, and ate it with some parmigiano reggiano. It was a fantastic home alone dinner. What other ideas do you have for leftover pasta in its various states?

I've always got a pound or two of homemade tasso in the fridge just for this reason. It's very simple and terrifically good.

As a hoarder of IC green (can't find black around here, even when IC was being distributed), I can say that it would make a fine, fine base for pimento dram. Not precisely a Jamaican style but close enough and a remarkable product in general.

What are people making for holiday punches this year?

Parmigiano reggiano.

It went great! Suffice it to say that all attendees had not enjoyed a real punch, Daiquiri, or Mai Tai before. In re the rum tasting, I wanted to provide a selection of rums that included those provided by MS Walker, the sponsors, but also some of other styles that would be new to the group: blackstrap, overproof, rhum agricole, etc. Most people only tried four or five rums. Tomorrow night is gin night. We're starting with an Improved Holland Gin Cocktail with Bols genever (bottled prior and stirred to order), then moving to Martinezes, and finishing with Aviations. We'll have a few things to taste and smell, including a wide array of bitters, and they'll be making their own Aviations. Given that list, I just realized it's also Luxardo Maraschino night....

From the number of dishes you list here, I'm assuming most of these are fast prep recipes?

In general, I agree that the consistently of the sweetness is a limitation. In this case, I was using up some simple and trying different combinations of existing tinctures for fun. There was an added benefit, though, which is that the syrup medium allowed me to sample as I went, instead of dashing the mixture into another liquid to taste it.

Not a lot of time to prep this year, so I'm having to cut back a bit. As always, I have to go trad. root vegetable chips roasted spiced nuts some Thanksgiving cocktails using this spiced syrup -- working on those roast turkey with gravy (again, using the Gourmet Nov 2001 recipe) pecan sage stuffing mashed potatoes rutabaga with browned butter quick waffle-cut bread n butter cuke & onion pickles carrots and scallions bacon & white pepper brussels sprouts spiced cranberry sauce I got asked by a local editor for a Thanksgiving side, so I wrote up the cranberry sauce I use. I like a tart sauce to counterpoint the heavier main dishes, so feel free to increase the sugar if you'd prefer, especially if you plan to serve it cold. Spiced Cranberry Sauce 2 Mutsu apples, peeled and cored* 12 oz bag of cranberries, cleaned and picked over 1/2 c apple cider 3 T sugar 1 cinnamon stick 3 cloves 5 allspice berries 2 poker-chip sized slices of peeled fresh ginger 2 oz aged rum** 2 dashes Angostura bitters** Cut the apples into large dice, a bit smaller than the cranberries; you should have two heaping cups. Put the apples, cranberries, cider, sugar, ginger, and whole spices into a non-reactive sauce pan and heat on high until bubbling. Turn the heat to low and let the sauce simmer gently. When most of the berries have popped and the apples are tender but retain their shape, take the sauce off the heat. Remove the ginger and whole spices; add the rum and bitters. Serve warm, room temperature, or cold. *I get my Mutsus from Hill Orchard in Johnston RI. If you substitute the easier-to-find, similarly firm Granny Smiths, add 1 T sugar for the tartness. **I use homemade pimento dram, which is an allspice liqueur, but the rum & bitters subs in fine.

FotF, I'd try to find the Henry McKenna single barrel, which has a ton of spice that would match well with the pimento dram. Hell, most bourbons (and rums, and ryes, and...) do, too. Andy is right, btw: the above batch is the best I've ever done.