Chris Amirault

Peter, a question from earlier in the topic. Isn't the bottom pile galanaga and and the top ginger? That's what someone explained to me in Chiang Mai. I think.

Welcome, Davetender. You'll find lots of Pegu Club fans around here (drink and bar both). I'll offer a Thai version of a Cuba Libre, using Mee Khong whiskey. I've seen a few different variations on ratio, but the stout of heart can go for 2 coke : 1 whiskey, built over ice. As I mentioned in the topic, the whiskey has a flavor that evokes both rum and shaoxing wine, so the resulting drink is actually pretty complex.

But there are big flaws in this analogy. As Starr points out, much of the transformation was driven by the political activity of the American Medical Association in the early part of the 20th century. Back then, the AMA was one of many organizations trying to get its version of medicine (allopathic, if you care about such things) legitimated as the "real" one. Just ask your osteopathy doctor, midwife, or chiropractor to learn how that all unfolded; suffice it to say that the AMA had a battalion of adept lobbyists wielding great elevator speeches long before elevators existed. The basis for their political claims was, of course, that the AMA was an objective, scientific organization that had the health interests of the populace at heart. It also worked hard to turn the populace against other systems of medicine, to great success; traditional medical practitioners were suddenly quacks. Whether you buy that or not isn't really the point: it worked. Given all that, I can't really see any equivalent culinary organization being able to make a similar claim or wield political power to similar ends. In addition, the AMA's actions helped to define the very notion of "profession" (the truly wonky will want to read both Starr and Eliot Friedson's Profession of Medicine for details on that). The culinary field enters a world in which such professional criteria have been largely established. Finally, I can't really understand how any culinary organization could make the epistemological claims needed to stake out "the truth of cooking," whatever the heck that would be.

Restauranteurs I know in Providence are griping about rising energy costs (among many other rising costs). Seems like "outdoor seating" and "fresh air" might be a nice way to spin "lack of air conditioning." Do these places have units that just aren't on? Or were they designed to be open-air?

OK, right. I had been presuming that. I guess I have three questions, or really one main question. So the question I have is, what are these other flavor qualities for each item? I've tasted lots of quinine and, lately, gentian, so I have a sense of the differences there. But I have no idea about how to make decisions based on flavor combinations involving these other bittering agents.

That's where brining is so fantastic. I didn't season those wings at all after the brining, and we all could taste very powerful flavors throughout the wings. They're such slender things that you can get very deep penetration in a short time.

I guess I have two questions. Do these bittering agents lend other flavor components besides "bitter"? And is "bitter" just, well, bitter, a one-note flavor? I mean, "salty" has lots of different components; doesn't "bitter"?

I've been fiddling around with the Mikado, which has no citrus: 2 oz brandy 1/2 oz orgeat 1/4 oz curacao 2 dashes bitters This is one (of many, many) drinks where the Fee's whiskey barrel aged bitters really shines; Angostura is a fine choice too.

Both sound like interesting approaches! Why the slashes? I'm direction-impaired: do you mean from joint to joint on the non-drum part? Or perpendicular to the bones? And why do you do this? Does it penetrate the meat as a brine does, or does it just penetrate the skin? For how long do you marinade them?

Can someone with more experience than I have talk a bit about the different characters of readily available (mail order is fine) bittering agents? I'm not talking about citrus pith here, btw. I've been using gentian, and reading old receipts I'm not sure how to separate the no-longer-available from the here-and-different. So what else is there besides gentian? What's it taste like? Do proportions change?

Dave the Cook's post here about chicken wings got me thinking. I've always loved a good grilled wing but have been annoyed at ones that have flavor only on the charred outside. So his method -- brine, dry, smoke, rub, and roast -- seems to have applications that could be tweaked for grilling. For my first attempt, I brined the wings in a basic salt and sugar brine, and I also added thyme, bay, black pepper, and some toasted dehydrated onion from Penzey's. I overnighted 'em, which allowed the flavorings to permeate nicely, but it also oversalted them. I grilled them very simply -- no rub -- and they turned out very good indeed. I'm wondering what some other approaches are. Ideally, this would be something that could be done in one evening, but that's pushing it if you want good wings, I think. I'm currently thinking about creating a brining solution at work so that I can do that deed after a quick lunch-break shopping trip, then carry the drained wings home to finish. Finally, I'm game for saucing ideas.

There's a huge Cambodian population there, so I'd target a Cambodian place. (Avoid pan-Asian, that is to say.) I have no personal recommendations to share but I've heard that Tepthida Kmher is pretty interesting -- and that website menu is worth a spin.

If you're going for my dad, stick to tried-and-true and leave playful out.

I've been using agave nectar in a few drinks since picking up a bottle, and it's intriguing. For your basic daiquiri and sour ratios, it's an interesting choice, a bit more subtle than 1:1 simple and 2:1 demerara, but lending a mouthfeel that's pretty silky. I've not had any definitive breakthroughs, but I think that things like Hemingway Daiquiris and Pisco Sours might work very nicely with this.

As Arne's posts above indicate, beer has magical stimulant properties for overnight smoking. Seriously, I get up a couple of times, check my Bradley, and go back to bed when I'm smoking butt. That way I'm guaranteed a great pull for dinner the next day. Beats the dinner-time anxiety caused by a prolonged stall -- which we've all experienced many times!

Time to take it to the next level, Lisa, and go for an overnight smoke!

Some quick pointers if you go with the butter-sauteed version. Be careful not to reheat the lobster in the butter too much. You can toughen it up very easily if it's in there too long. Get good butter: it makes a big difference. Salt it yourself, perhaps a bit more than you think, to bring out that lobster sweetness. You can get a bit of Cain's mayo for a dollop, and if you're feeling all experimental, whisk in a bit of lemon juice before dolloping. Holly's roll idea is a very good one. That textural contrast is crucial, and the browning on the bun also brings out the lobster sweetness. Keep the lobster chunks nice and big. Think one per bite, and remember that people love to see those chunks. Vegetables are a sign that you're trying to pull one over on your guests with "fillah."

Holly's not fanatical. He's just right. You want to be brave and daring, grind extra pepper on it.

Did a skin-on 9# butt this weekend. It was the first time I did a non-brined butt. I picked it up Saturday afternoon on a whim, scored it on both sides about 1/2" or so, and then rubbed a ton of a salted, cajun-y rub into the thing. Overnight in the Bradley with hickory, finished off without smoke in same at about 225F. It was excellent. I'm prepared to state definitively that, for pulled pork, a skin-on, bone-in butt (which includes, of course, a good fat cap) from Your Average Pork Supplier is superior to a boned Niman butt with barely any fat on it. (This is not true for other applications, especially sausage, and if anyone has connections at Niman and can get me a skin-on, bone-in butt, drop me a PM.) I am also wondering if brining is worth the trouble with said skin-on, bone-in butts. Thoughts?

I can't quantify how much flavor I'm removing by filtering, but I don't think it's much. Certainly the bitters and pimento dram aren't suffering from lack of flavor, and the pineapple-infused liquors are both still wonderful. As for the stuff filtered out, my guess is it's not going to have much flavor left, especially the fruits. I tried a few strawberries after infusing some tequila with them and straining out the hooch, and they were devoid of any strawberry flavor; the pineapple was better, but I think it's because some of the chunks had been pretty large. Next time, it would be interesting to scrape up some of the filtering residue, rinse it off (no fair tasting the liquor left on it), and see what's what. I think stuff with volatile oils may still have some flavor left, unlike the fleshy, giving fruit.

What color was it?

That's very useful. I think I managed to nail it the first time around, flying blind, and this time I was careless.

In the northern part of the city, in an area bounded by Ths Dechanuchit, Phetkasem, Chomsin, and Sasong, is the massive Chatchai market. There are a number of stalls along small alleys, others in two large buildings, and then more on the streets. As someone who had never been to a Thai outdoor market before, I was overwhelmed by the variety, quality, and sheer size of the market -- in the middle of a city of fewer than 50,000 people. I'll do my best to describe what I saw there, using my decent (for a farang) understanding of Thai ingredients, but I urge any and all other members to chime in, correct, and answer the inevitable questions. I got there fairly early (7a I think; thank you, jet lag) and discovered a collection of northern and southern Thai and Chinese items. This is a typical alley view: There were several items that were, without question, the most amazing specimens I'd ever seen. For example, for okra lovers like Brooks, here's what heaven looks like: I wasn't sure, of course, but I'd bet that this okra, like lots of the produce and fish, had been picked, harvested, or caught that morning. We saw lots of fishermen (no women) on the beach catching squid, for example, some of which must have wound up in markets like this one. Here's are three typical stalls, with several kinds of eggplant, water spinach, peppers, various alliums, cabbage, okra, long beans... all of it in remarkable shape. Note as well the tomatoes, which I saw throughout Thailand: Here's one of my questions. I think that this is very young ginger, but I'd like more opinions: Chives, bitter gourd, and something I couldn't identify. Again... help? Different zones of the market are devoted to different items. It seems that the main reason is infrastructure: you want good drainage for meat and fish, for example, which you don't need for produce or dry goods. Here's part of the fish market: Adjoining the fresh fish stalls are many dried fish and shrimp stalls: I spent a while watching folks prepare coconut in three forms, all of it as fresh as can be. The coconuts are shelled and peeled, then processed in one of two machines. This one produces shredded coconut meat that hasn't been dessicated, so it's still most, even creamy: This machine produces two things: coconut milk and the resulting dessicated coconut: Everything is packed into the ubiquitous clear plastic bags for the trip home or elsewhere. This vendor nearby apparently gets his stash early in the morning for the day's khanom krok or coconut pudding: These were the items primarily responsible for my weight gain while away. Every chance we got to get some fresh we did so, biting into the not-quite-searing disks to crunch through the thin crust into the creamy pudding. After 15 minutes they're pretty soggy, so it's worth it to wait by the stall to get the disks fresh off the dimpled cast iron pans.

Great serving idea. Did the grapefruit and dill play nicely together?

Just wanted to report that, out for a drink this past week, I couldn't find a good scotch for this combination, so I asked for slightly different version, using what was on hand: 2 oz Power's Irish whiskey 1/2 oz St. Germain dash Angostura Still a great drink, and, again, the St. G brings out the peachyness lurking in the whiskey.