Chris Amirault

Thanks, Tony. It's a Wusthof Classic 3.5" paring knife. Let's track its travels and replacement here.

Heh. Easy to ask if you're in CA. If you had to break it down into CA, w/in 100 miles, w/in 50 miles, what would it look like?

Very eager to hear back the results, Tracy -- I was stumped by your question myself.

Shalmanese, I'm eager to hear back to learn how it went, and especially if people felt that they had "a great meal."

Over in the All about Bitters topic, I posted last spring about a batch of tincture experiments. I was hoping to do some bitter-making but the summer... and most of the fall... got away from me. However, today, as I was preparing straight-up simple syrup for a cocktail class I'm teaching tomorrow night, I found myself with about 250 ml of extra simple, and I thought I'd take a crack at making a spiced syrup using the tinctures. I didn't measure -- this was a dash 'n' taste 'n' dash affair -- but kept track of rough amounts. I used cinnamon, allspice, and clove, of course, but also combined a few hefty dashes of pau d'arco and sassafrass. I used less costus root and wild cherry bark proportionally, as they are quite a bit more bitter than the other ingredients. The finished syrup is layered and complex, with different elements revealed over ten seconds or so. Next up will be figuring out some applications, starting with Old Fashioneds, Milk Punches, and Toddies. Given that the holidays are on the way, surely I'm not the only person making spiced syrup. How do you make it? What do you use it for?

What do the bulbs look like? (That's what I was talking about above when I posted about the salad: slicing the bulbs thinly.)

Will follow this with interest! Can you describe it in greater detail? Is it a Cajun garlic sausage with a lot of scallions? Or...?

Where do things stand, Saara?

Let's see.... Produce: I'd guess that, at best, I buy 50% of the produce locally. That means in season and hitting the farmers markets. Consistent outliers include bananas, citrus, fresh herbs, and specific produce that's in season but not local (yesterday, e.g., artichokes). Late spring and that percentage drops below 20%. Meat, Poultry, & Fish: At best, 50%, and that's counting local eggs. Most of the beef and pork is from New England, as is the odd slab of fish. But the family loves salmon, shrimp, lamb, and chicken, and they ain't local. Starches: We go through a lot of rice, pasta, flour, cornmeal, and so on, and no more than 5% of it comes from New England, if that. Baked Goods: 90% made locally (but who knows where they get their flours...!). Drinks: fuggedaboutit. Since Medford stopped distilling rum in the late 19th century, the prospects are grim. 5% here, max, thanks to Polar seltzer. Dairy: 100% local, thanks to Rhody Fresh, VT butter, etc. Miscellaneous: cooking oil, soy sauce, sugar, dried mushrooms, salt, spices... 0% local. I'd guess that, for each dollar I spend on groceries, liquor, and other comestibles, $.40 goes to local products in September when I get to the farmers market and feel flush. Dead of March, however, and that drops to $.25 or lower.

I'll second anchovies and celery, and add rutabagas, chicken thighs, and the lowly onion, without which I'd venture 90% of my meals would be woeful.

After much hemming and hawing, I decided this year to forego the one-way hour-long trip into eastern CT to get my turkey for Thanksgiving and instead ordered a heritage breed bird from a farm in PA through Whole Foods. That got me calculating the difference in miles between the two farms, and then the effects of one refrigerator truck carrying a few hundred birds versus my car going to CT, and then the provenance of my sweet potatoes, and then.... You get the idea. I was quickly losing altitude in a Michael Pollan-induced locavore anxiety spin. When I recovered, I started wondering about this strange consumer guilt. By most standards, I'm a pretty conscientious local shopper, try to buy things in season, note provenance on the produce signs, hit the farmers markets regularly. But I also buy ingredients for everyday eating and drinking in my house that aren't local by any stretch, and my family budget requires that I occasionally substitute cheaper non-local items for more expensive local stuff. Finally, there are certain ingredients from faraway shores -- coffee beans, anchovies, rum, cheese -- that you'll have to tear out of my cold, dead, remotavore hands. Perhaps there are a few true locavores out there; perhaps, if I were Dan Barber at Stone Barns, living a life that's complete with produce, livestock, abbatoir, and staff, I might be an exception too. But I'm starting to wonder whether we all are, on balance, remotavores these days, even when we try hard to be Pollan-esque consumers. Thus this topic. What percentage of your food and drink dollar goes to things you could legitimately designate as local? Feel free to define that term any way you'd like; just share your definition here. Living in RI, I'll be using "New England" as my locality. Then grab a few shopping lists and let's see where we stand. After all, if the vast majority of Society members aren't locavores, I'm not holding out much hope for the general public.

Rancho Gordo has had NM chile powder in the past, and it's excellent. I've also been happy with the chiles and powders at Penzeys.

Dashes, I believe, if that. Very small amounts.

Do the NYers feel that his "we're NYC, not Las Vegas" thesis is apt?

Welcome, della206! Grab a head and cut it into very thin slices. Toss it with flat-leaf parsley, some shaved parmigiano reggiano, olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. You've got what is probably my favorite salad!

I like today's Aureole review quite a bit, including my favorite line of the year so far:

Looks great. What kind of noodles are those?

So a perfect martini with a mint garnish? I'm not sure I want to be taken out to that ballgame....

What, pray, is the Cooperstown Cocktail?

Big article in Nation's Restaurant News today, with the expected organizations coming out against the bill:

What are the basics of the recipe?

Thanks, everyone. IIRC, that little guy is either marzipan or some quasi-edible sugar creation. A few months before the proud papa, Jith, was born, the figurine adorned a cake at his mom's ceremony. Mom saved it, and, three decades later, he's again waving his candy-ass in joy.

I usually go about 3:2 lime to fish sauce, but it really depends on the other ingredients. More lemon grass tonight, for example, so it was more 1:1. Speaking of which: the last time I ground up and blanched chicken thighs I decided to do a double batch, and I froze half of the cooked chicken in a FoodSaver bag. Afer defrosting it tonight, I used it as the base for a larb, and it turned out great. Since the biggest hassle of larb is grinding and blanching the meat, seemed like a tip worth sharing.

Yes, that's right: you oil the surface and then ladle batter onto the top. Seems like there are two methods. The one in the video to which I linked above calls for rolling the noodles out of the pan one at a time, whereas the text recipe in the link does the mille crepes thing. Not sure which is better; might give the other one a try next time.

Fresh rice noodles today: click. Worked like a charm.