Chris Amirault

It's been nearly two weeks since I started this odd experiment and I thought it'd be interesting to see what I've got going in those little jars. I worked my way through them alphabetically, using some soda and a bit of demerara rum as needed to cleanse the palate and a straw to deliver a few drops of each elixir to the tongue. Tastes and smells interesting: Allspice. Just what you'd think. Angelica, a caramel nose and a very woody, almost pine-y bitter flavor. Really interesting. Black haw smells and tastes like rich dirt, that sort of earthy character in Sazerac rye. Burdock has a sweet, buttery artichoke aroma and flavor. Slightly bitter. Fantastic. Calmus has an oddly sweet, cotton-candy nose -- and it's extremely bitter, with all sorts of weird, green, floral notes. Chaste tree smells like the pig nuts I used to eat as a kid, somewhat green and somewhat nutty, along with a nice woodsy nose. Another strange bitter flavor, with less green and more cedar notes, a mid-range flavor against the highs of the calmus. Cinnamon and clove. See allspice. Costus root with 151 proof Wray and Nephew rum is another clear winner. It's got a strong berrywine nose with some spicy roots behind it, and it's got a strong bitter flavor that's marked by the nose element. Weird and wonderful. Hawthorne is all mellow caramel and oak, nose and palate both. A great midrange element, I'm thinking, to balance off these more intense, bitter elements. Hops smell and taste like hops. Very bitter in exactly the way you'd expect, if a bit greener than in an IPA. Lovage is all caramel, cedar, and oak on the nose, and the same with a more pronounced woody bitterness on the tongue. Another winner. Myrrh is inexplicable if you don't know that savory, oily, spicy aroma; the taste is the same with a weighty, bitter edge. This stuff would take over virtually anything it touches, I fear, but it's pretty cool to have on hand. For what, I don't know. Pau d'arco (with Wray & Nephew 151) smells amazing, complete in itself. Vietnamese caramel, blackstrap rum, and vanilla on the nose, with all those and a slight bitterness on the tongue. This is a featured tincture at Teardrop Lounge and now I know why. Intoxicating. Prickly ash: as Brian Eno might say, another green world on the nose, with a bit of lemon added. On the tongue, it starts like that with bitter and cedar -- and then turns into a bizarre novocaine hybrid that made me realize I had forgotten something important.... Sure enough, prickly ash is another name for sichuan peppercorn. Hard to figure what to do with this one; a few drops atop an Earl Grey MarTEAni to serve with dumplings? Red sage root smells like sweet, wet, red clay and the tongue tastes like a less bitter version of Peychaud's. It's terrific. Sassafrass is terrific too, a rooty, sweet, spicy nose and palate both, with the bitterness coming through on the tongue. Wild cherry bark has an astonishing nose, with cherry, almond, and cedar wood all mixed together. The palate has all of those elements in a sweet and bitter brew. Remarkable. Wormwood smells like cut grass, dirt, and -- I swear -- raw beef. On the tongue it adds menthol and bitterness. Hard to explain. Tastes interesting, little aroma: Agrimony has a bitterish, rooty flavor that's not too compelling but might play well with others. Birch bark is a flatter, slightly bitter, woody flavor with a somewhat caramelly base. Blessed thistle has a very green and very bitter flavor. Cascara sagrada is another piney, bitter one, less green than the blessed thistle. Licorice has a sweet, caramel licorice flavor with very little to no nose, oddly. Yohimbe has no odor and tastes like dirt. Strange: I was expecting wood. Nothing happening: Bilberry. It's a purty color. Sarsparilla has a somewhat woody nose but it's weak. Flavor doesn't do much for me, either. Yosemite Sam was a dork. Vile: Cubeb smells and tastes precisely like a burnt petroleum product mixed with the stomach bile that prompts or follows vomiting. Not recommended. Grains of paradise have no nose and are weirdly spicy, with cedar notes that disappear behind the burn. Afterward I had to stop for ten minutes to regain my palate. Yikes. A last note: the cinnamon tinctures are all about the same, though the Everclear is significantly lighter than the other three. I think that may be a measuring error. Plotting my next move.

You don't have fewer shards because your original ice cubes suck less than my original ice cubes.

I'm not sure I understand the phrase in bold.

Went to Chinese Laundry last weekend on a date. It ain't Chinese -- you can get soju cocktails and sushi -- and I'm pretty convinced it doesn't know what it actually is. The food was utterly meritless: bland noodles, butchered sushi, characterless duck. I am not one to trash a restaurant based on one visit, but it's hard to understand what's going on there. Won't be back.

I usually don't even let it simmer. Following Barbara Tropp, I bring the poaching liquid to a boil with the bird in breast up and then just turn off the heat, cover it, and shred later. If I'm really trying, I'll pull the breast meat off as a chunk and shred it first while the thighs and legs finish cooking.

I'm not sure what you mean by "chicken like one gets in burritos," but you can get a decent poached chicken if you bring it and enough basic stock to cover to the boil in a covered pot (toss in more garlic, cilantro stems, and a few whole chile pods as you see fit) and then turn it off or waaay down low to sit for an hour. Then just shred the chicken roughly with a fork or two and moisten it with the stock.

Sigh... reminds me of that "Bewildering State Liquor Laws" topic... Here's the group of stores I visit most often: Joyal's Liquors, West Warwick: Best store in the state: huge scotch, rye, and whisk(e)y selection includes Rittenhouse, Sazerac, and Wild Turkey ryes, lots of rhum agricole and hard-to-find industrial rums (Lemon Hart, e.g.), plus Junipero and Boomsma gins, Taylor's velvet falernum, cachacas, lots more. Comparable to the best in NYC and elsewhere, and worth a special trip. Town Wine and Spirits, East Providence: Second-best store in the state. Rittenhouse BIB, Sazerac, and Wild Turkey ryes, Luxardo maraschino, some MB items, good sherry selection, titanic single malt selection. Oddly weak on rum and gin. IM Gan, Cranston: Peychaud's and Fee's bitters, some Marie Brizard items, Plymouth gin (at $14/bottle!), a few ryes (including Sazerac, JB, and Overholt lately). My local store. Gasbarro's, Federal Hill, Providence: The original store, it has Italian stuff, mostly, like Luxardo products (including maraschino), Punt e Mes, Fernet Branca, Aperol, etc. Be warned: like many wine-centric places, they think cocktail people are weird, but the staff is fantastic nonetheless. Quisqueya Liquors, Providence: La Botija piscos, decent selection of low- to mid-range rums (esp Brugal and Flor de Cana). Not worth a trip but interesting if you're on the south side. Campus Wine & Spirits, Providence: Punt e Mes, good sherry and port selection, most of the basics but few select items. If you're on the east side and need something fairly common, it's here.

There's no question that balance is a matter of personal taste, in at least two aspects. The first is that we all would have different notions of what a "balanced" drink would taste like in our mouths. After spending time drinking cocktails made by some of the great bartenders in the country, I know that I like some people's notion of balance more than other's. That goes not only to spirit/sour/sweet but also to bitter, funk... all that. The second is whether and when we seek balance at all. bostonapothecary wants his cocktails "direction driven," which I take to mean that there are a lot of drinks in which balance isn't even sought -- it's avoided. I wrote about bitter cocktails a while back and think that the examples there are the sorts that illustrate the pleasures (or horrors -- your call) of drinks that don't seek balance. The Corktown Cocktail listed there is a great drink if you like your Fernet forward, and that Black Trident is a bracing mouthful of European herbs, bugs, grains, and thistles. It would be idiotic to claim that either is balanced, and I don't like them all the time. But when I want one, they're just the thing. I do think that those drinks are harmonious, in that the pieces are all moving in a particular direction without losing complexity and interest. (Sub in Aperol for the Campari and a pastis for the aquavit in the Black Trident and you have an unharmonious, unbalanced mess.) Many nights, though not all, that makes sense to me.

← Sigh. We've been down this road before.

As a RI resident with retired parents in MA who like going for drives, I want to hear the complicated, stupid story, Marty.

To my horror, the metal jar of my vintage Oster blender fell on the floor this morning, breaking the hard plastic (bakelite?) base and crushing my belief that every part of this tank of a blender was indestructible. After I dug my crappy Cuisinart "blender" from the back of the shelf and listened to it wheeze through some peanut butter, oats, milk, and a banana to make a not-very-smooth smoothie, I pledged to buy the missing base this morning. Not so easy, that. The base itself has three extended grips on the outside, unlike the more current model shown here with five. The patent number on the base is 2,530,455, but searching patent databases doesn't get me anything useful (though it's fun!). On the blender itself, it says that I should order part number "352-61F" for the "base and jar," but I had a hard time figuring out what to do with that information, if anything. I lucked out on eBay: the exact part with clear photos and for only $12. Still, I know I'm not alone around here in owning and treasuring vintage kitchen equipment, so I'm hoping someone out there has some ideas about how to find replacement parts for these great machines.

As I stated somewhere around here, I've been suffering with lousy half-moon junk cubes from the automatic ice maker in my freezer, and finally said I'd had enough. Not having the wallet girth to grab a Kold Draft machine (don't think I haven't considered it), I went with the recession plan and grabbed these "Perfect Cube" silicone trays from Sur Le Table. I'm already in love. For about $20 (shipping included) I have big cubic cubes that are perfect for rocks drinks, perfect for high balls, and really great for cracking into chunks. Best of all, they are taking my shaken drinks, which are now missing the shards I'd grown to hate, to another level.

After a 90F day I was looking for a new summer cooler and came up with a decent cachaca sling: 3 oz cachaca (Boca Loca for ten bucks a bottle -- I'll tell not whence) 1 oz lime 1 oz 2:1 cane syrup 1/2 Cherry Heering 2 dashes Angostura top with soda

I dunno. I kinda like rum that tastes somewhat like rum.

I used to find it a decent option a while back, but lately I think that something's changed at Cruzan, especially with that light rum, which may as well be vodka. Hrm, maybe that's the plan....

Lots of possible issues here (temp, working the meat or not, size) but I think that you should try the old "poke a hole" method: just create a deep indentation in the center of the meat patty to allow for expansion in the middle.

No muddling at Serb Hall in MKE, Katie.

I spent four years in Wisconsin for grad school, and the Brandy Old-Fashioneds there were awe-inspiring. There's a representative recipe in the Sept 2006 issue of Saveur, in an article by Daphne Beal on the hallowed Milwaukee fish fry. (Great cole slaw recipe there, too.) First you make a mix using a 1:1 simple (1c each of water and sugar) and 5 T of Angostura. To assemble, fill an OF glass with ice and then add: 2 oz brandy (Korbel or J. Bavet) 1 oz mix 2 additional dashes Angostura Stir, garnish with the cherry/orange spear, and top with 1/2 c 7 Up. Yes, you read that right.

The server isn't the manager, owner, or chef, so these sorts of "How's everything?" questions misrepresent the server/diner relationship. Given that relationship, why doesn't the server just say, "Is there anything I can do for you?" Then I get to say, "No, thanks," or "Yes, please do this." Fill my water, usually.

Ever since Dave the Cook (and Eric Felten over at the WSJ) turned me on to the Omar Bradley, I've been intrigued. The inherent complexity of a good orange marmalade is a swell foil for the liquor (bourbon in particular), and it's a drink that demands a taste or two to adjust sweetness or another element. Here's the base recipe with my tweaks: 3 oz bourbon (Wild Turkey 101) 1 heaping tsp bitter orange marmalade 1 squeeze fresh lemon juice (go easy) 1 dash simple syrup (if the marmalade is truly bitter) 2 dashes Angostura bitters Shake, strain and sieve, cherry if you're feeling the need. Tonight I realized that the marmalade I have had crystallized, so I created an Omar Bradley base, adding to the jar some simple and a bunch of bitters plus a bit of booze to the jar and shaking hard. It's weird and good.

Indeed, if "most food not cooked to order" is a significant criterion for a fast food joint, then Alinea, home of the five-hour meal, is fast food.

Underdone pizza is also due to dough that's too thick. I regularly order my pizzas well done for the reasons Steven describes above, but they often still have a layer of raw -- not merely underdone -- dough due to poor technique or insufficiently pliable dough.

"Sup?!?" "Just checking in..." "All set?" "It's delicious, isn't it?!" "You good?"

I've traveled to Europe and back with knives and other kitchen equipment several times. You don't need to worry as long as you've checked the bags that the knives are in. It's carry-ons that present a problem.

Bay area, cute hats, Friend of the Suddenly Powerful, boutique school lunch programs: they are easy targets indeed. But whatever her foibles, Waters doesn't make pronouncements that are any more laughable (or preachy) than lots of other food folks. And anyone who gave Paul Bertolli his first gig is good peeps in my book.