Chris Amirault

Found three bottles on a local liquor store shelf: Skane, O. P. Anderson, and Herrgard. Any of those worth getting as an improvement over the Aalborg?

While we have no idea where this would be (perhaps where the member vacations, say!) the relevant points still stand. Tourists living away from home have greater amenity requirements than regulars on lunch break or stopping on the way home.

A few thoughts. First, the question of eat-in/take-out. Will you do both? If you're in a tourist area, you'll probably want to have seating for the families in particular who don't want to eat in their car or hotel room. If you're the only sandwich place that offers seating, then that might be a useful design and marketing element. You'd also want to have full amenities that you don't need at a Subway, especially if people are going to be trudging in with the kiddos and a bunch of wet snow needing to pee, change a diaper, and hang up their coats. For both the out-of-towners and the regulars, you'll want a smooth take-out operation. Will you offer drive-through -- big demands on site, building, and staffing if so. Or do patrons have to come into the building (with their kids and snow and so on) to order? The second thing that I'm wondering about involves the staffing expectations and related training. Are you going to have a Subway system model in which the patron establishes contact with the server/cashier and walks through the line building the sandwich with the person? That role requires terrific skill to pull off well and is easy to do poorly -- think of all the disaffected teens slapping portioned ham across the country. Or is someone going to be taking orders and cash and then others making the sandwich? One of the benefits/drawbacks of the Subway approach is that you see everything that's going into your sandwich. I find that depressing at Subway, given their quality, but if you're going to have quality ingredients, it makes sense to showcase them. (Label the bins, too, instead of making people guess what's in them.) The Subway approach also, obviously, encourages patrons to believe that they've made the sandwich "their way," and that sense of power is probably appealing to many people. I'm also a believer in signature sandwiches. My favorite sandwich shop around here (the Sandwich Hut on N Main in Providence) has what most believe to be the best Italian sub in town, the Alitalia with prosciutto and capicolla. Now, you can get an Italian sub at every pizza joint, sandwich place, and deli counter in town, but if you took a poll about "the best," they'll send you there. It's a great sandwich, but "the best"? I haven't had every Italian sub in town, but if someone asks my opinion... you get my point. I'd go to those subpar places, do some research on sandwich types, and find one or two that you can make your own and that your clientele will want to try. What do people order there? How do they order it? When they complain, what do they complain about? What are the "favorites" or "bests"? ET clarify a few sentences -- CA

My wife, who has struggled with shaping these cookies for years because they are a family favorite, says the following. Dorie Greenspan was smoking crack when she said that one should use a paper towel tube to shape them. My solution is to pour the crumbly dough onto plastic wrap in a long, narrow pile, wrap the crumbles into a rough tube, and use the warmth of my hands to firm up the log. After at least an hour in the fridge, I cut them into disks -- and they fall apart again -- and press them together as best I can. ETA that those cookies in that image must have had way more moisture in the dough than the ones in the recipe, which has the consistency of the barely moist sand you used to make a castle. Adding more moisture sacrifices the fantastic texture of the finished product, which is a gift to humankind.

Society member Dave Wondrich made the case for sherry cocktails in a recent issue of Saveur. Here's the online version.

Was at my favorite carnicaria buying bellies and hocks for cassoulet, knew I had to do some smoking of the hocks, and figured, what the heck: time to do a butt. I'll try to document a few of the steps I've been using lately. Here be my fine skin-on, bone-in fanny: As noted a few times above, I scored the butt skin a cross-hatch pattern: I then applied the basic rub I've been using, just a riff on several others out there. It's not too hot and has a variety of spices in it. Anything whole was weighed and then ground: 40 g salt 40 g sugar (turbinado) 10 g black pepper 8 g powdered mustard (Coleman's) 8 g ancho chile 8 g New Mexico chile 8 g zataar 5 g white pepper 5 g cinnamon stick 4 g allspice 4 g nutmeg 2 anise seed 2 cloves With such a big butt -- it's 10+ lbs -- it's a bit of a trick to wrap it with standard plastic wrap. I use my roasting pan to lay out six or seven sheets of wrap both horizontally and vertically, leaving plenty of extra, and then put the butt into the pan before I season. Then when I'm done, I just wrap it up one sheet at a time, leaving a well-sealed butt: A lot of those tips are old hat for the butt smokin' crowd, but I thought they might be useful to nudge the novices into our little circle.

Update: completely unavailable down here, and there's nothing that I can sub in that's relatively inexpensive.

All righty then, I'm off to find a bottle of the Capanna Moscadello di Montalcino. Any tweaks to the recipe above to suggest? How do you make yours, bostonapothecary?

What's the protein in the sausage?

Is it precooked? Or raw? In either case, you want a preparation that cooks it as little as possible -- heats it through in the case of precooked. Butter, chives, S&P, and lemon zest makes a good pasta sauce. And there's always the classic lobster roll.

Yeah, this ended up more like Dubonnet rouge than a vermouth. I think a Muscat or Trebbiano would help with the mouthfeel and tannins, among other things.

I need a hand. I'm having a bean emergency. I thought that I had two pounds of RG flageolet, but -- alas! -- I have only one. The kind folks at RG tell me that getting another pound here overnight is possible but costs an additional $40. That leaves me with few options. I'm going to scour the stores here for more flageolets, but so far I'm out of luck. What are the best beans that people have used from supermarkets? Fresh from the WF bulk bins is probably what I want, I know, but great northerns? navy? canellini?? Help!

It's the holidays, and in my world that means I'm likely to get a bottle or two of wine that I'd rather experiment with than drink. This year it was a bottle of Orleans Hill Cote Zero, and the project was sweet vermouth. I know that there are several Society members who have made their own vermouth, but there currently are no discussions or recipes for same. Time to get cracking. I started by using the most basic recipe that I found out there, from the gang at Cocktail Virgin Slut's blog. I started by simmering, covered, 200 ml of the wine for 15 minutes with the following items: 2.5 g gentian 2.5 g cinnamon stick 2.5 fresh orange peel (no pith) 1 g lavender 1 g anise seed 1 g star anise 1 g mahlab 1 g white cardamom 0.5 g chamomile 0.5 g fennel seed 0.5 g allspice berries 0.5 g mace 0.2 g thyme 0.2 g oregano 0.2 g basil 0.2 g white pepper 0.2 g black pepper 2 whole cloves I then made Vietnamese sugar syrup, which isn't very sweet but has a bitter caramel edge, using 60 g of turbinado sugar caramelized until it was very dark brown and then adding 60 ml water to make the syrup. I also added 60 ml demerara (2:1) syrup, 120 ml of Landy VS cognac, and the rest of the wine (about 400 ml, with 150 ml keeping the cook happy) to refill the bottle. It's not quite there. At first, it tasted like, well, "organic red wine with stuff in it," as my wife said. This morning after a night in the fridge it's much more approachable. It doesn't have the mouthfeel of, say, the Punt e Mes sitting next to it, nor does it have an appreciable raisin-y flavor that I really want. (Add raisins to the spice mixture?) I can also tell that getting a more appropriate wine like a Trebbiano would help; the Rhone-esque edges of the Cote Zero really kill the finish. However, it's a great new project, I think, and I'm dying to hear what other people have done or are doing.

Flageolet.

Zora, reading your comments, I wonder if part of what is happening is that you're cramming the cassoulet into one day of prep. That seems nearly impossible and definitely unpleasant. I break the process down over several weeks: confit made and aged, sausages made, hocks brined, smoked, cooked, and deboned, stocks made, and so on. Day before, you assemble everything in the pot and cook it through; day of you reheat it and get that wonderful crust on it. The only thing you smell that day is the wonderful final product, not one of the ingredients that you can't get out of your sheets! Also, Ptipois puts it well (as usual) by saying that you want beans Fresh, high quality beans are the key, or else you have split bean soup or dry wall plaster.

I've been happy with this Silver Lavender drink I've been making with the R&W lately: 1 1/2 oz gin (Plymouth) 1 oz Lillet 1/2 oz CdV (R&W) 1/4 oz lavender honey syrup dash orange bitters (Angostura)

There's no accounting for taste, to each her own, one man's ceiling... and so on. Now that I've got that relativism stuff out of the way: cassoulet is one of the most fantastic things in the world. When you get it right -- and that's a trick, to be sure -- it's remarkable. I got started on my serious cassoulet jones at a restaurant in town (Al Forno) where they served a "fast" version. I liked it enough to know it wasn't as good as it could be. What turned out to be the first eG Cook-Off is devoted to cassoulet, and my experiences making it that first time lead to my incorporating the dish into our family's holiday traditions (it's our New Years lunch/dinner, to which all friends are welcome). It is, of course, "just" baked beans with meat. As such, there are a lot of versions of it that take shortcuts, try to keep it lean, and use inferior ingredients. But those versions will tend to suck, and even passable cassoulet doesn't explain why people go gaga over it. A great version, though, does. The meats and fat are braised within the cassoulet to a velvety tenderness; sausages in particular are amazing after being cooked with all the rest. The meats all remain distinct but, as in a stew, contribute flavor to each other. The right beans prepared the right way become smooth, flavorful, and redolent of the meat and fat. In particular, the beans have a creamy consistency that is no doubt a result of the rendered duck, pork, and other fats. Everything should be moist, neither wet nor dry. If I make it to heaven, St. Peter will hand me a bowl of steaming cassoulet. If I end up in hell, I'm going get be forced to eat hundreds of bad bowls, which outnumber the good ones by several orders of magnitude. Bad bowls are bad because the beans are dry or have disintegrated; the meat is overcooked; the dish is not cooked throughout. It's a dish that reveals ingredient and process flaws. If the smell of duck fat makes you queasy, it's a good bet that no version of this dish will truly satisfy you. (Do you like duck confit?) But I'd urge you first to head on over to the Cook-Off and try making it with fresh, quality ingredients (especially the right beans, good confit, and well-made sausages) before you write it off. Or try a variation that uses another meat. Or just try Busboy's, at the very least. As for the texture between the beans: that turns into a thick, liquid mush comprised of bits of this and that moistened by the stock(s) you've added. Best to add hot stock to the beans half-way through and not just at the beginning, and then to adjust with more later if needed. It's easy to make dry beans, especially with enameled cast iron cookware, but more difficult to make beans that are soupy, unless you're taking shortcuts. ETA: kitwilliams hit the nail on the head.

Salmonella is in 1 in 20,000 eggs, iirc, right, Sam? I like those odds.

It was too greasy when I had it two years ago, but in Portland they make oyster hash that has great potential.

If you're having trouble with the link, rest assured that scientists at Rockefeller University using an egg nog recipe with 20% alcohol found zero salmonella after weeks in the fridge. And with a cup of cheer, indeed!

I've been making rum, brandy, and rye toddies for weeks, and vary the spices and citrus slices I float. If you have any white cardamom around, I recommend it.

Ours is nearly 10 years old, is used at least twice a day, and will clearly outlive me.

I think that JAZ's eGCI Taste course is outstanding, myself. I particularly like the experiments.

I made Dale DeGroff's recipe from his new Essential Cocktails: six eggs, separated, quart of milk, pint of cream, cup of sugar, 8 ounces of booze. I used bourbon (Wild Turkey 80 -- wish it had been 101) and rum (some Cruzan blackstrap and amber). I also added a couple of ounces of homemade pimento dram, which was just the thing.

I recently bought a FoodSaver V2830W to replace a Kenmore machine that I had been using for a while. It was on sale for $60 in a direct-mail email I got from the FS people, and I got a few free bag rolls thrown in for good measure. It lists for $170 but can be found easily for $100 or so. I got it primarily for one reason -- sealing liquids, especially stock -- but there are some features that I really like and didn't expect. This is likely all obvious information for anyone with a machine that's a mid-range home model or better; if you've been toiling away with a starter machine like my Kenmore, this may help you see why an upgrade is worthwhile. I got it out today for the first session, which included both dry (chopped pancetta in 4 oz portions) and moist (gumbo, rendered duck fat) items. The first thing that I learned was that this machine is activated by a lock on the side that secures the bag. (The Kenmore had to be pressed down to work -- no lock.) This is very useful for a bunch of reasons, most notably that it allows you to worry about something besides keeping the bag in place. The machine has both normal and fast seal speeds. I used fast for the pancetta and it was very speedy; the normal is useful for anything moist. Unlike the Kenmore, which is basically impossible to use for wet stuff, this worked like a charm. You can simply trust the automatic button and walk away, or you can watch for the air to evacuate and the liquid to start leaching up and then hit the seal button. I think that the heating strip (wider than the Kenmore by 50% or so) gets much hotter, so that even if a bit of liquid makes it into the (removable and thus cleanable!) reservoir before the sealer starts, the heat seems to burn off the liquid. I double-sealed just to be sure and did the duck fat manually, but I have far more confidence that these seals will stick than I have in the past. One thing that can take some adjusting is the height of the bag or machine front. I had to prop up one or the other up, especially with the wet ingredients, but that was easy enough with the lock and auto settings. In short, I'm thrilled.