Chris Amirault

Well, that's a pretty interesting interpretation of his critics and an example of the fundamental problem. I can buy "There are lots of rights," but it's downright bizarre to say, "There is no 'wrong.'" Perhaps tonight we can all toast to this principle by raising some Not-Wrong Margaritas (2 oz tequila, 1/2 oz simple syrup, dash Grey Poupon mustard, two dozen egg whites, with a garlic powder & cardoon garnish). Don't forget the salted rim.

Doesn't that require pancetta, guanciale, or plain ol' bacon? (You see my problem.)

When I cook for vegetarian friends, I usually lean on dishes that take time to develop the sorts of full, savory flavors that I miss when sacrificing meat and seafood, long-simmered curries and tomato sauces in particular. However, I'm often in the bind I'm in today: I've got a pal coming over at 7p for dinner tomorrow but will have only an hour or so to prep. Right now I'm thinking about grilled vegetables over couscous. You got anything better?

Using some flavored simple syrups would help. I also think that a few dashes of bitters, while containing alcohol, probably wouldn't dismay your third-trimester friends too much, and they'd add dimensions that would make the drink taste more like a cocktail. I'd give ginger beer, lime juice, a good dose of Angostura, and ginger syrup a whirl with some ice and garnish it with mint.

I've got to agree: I just don't get it.

Wow.... I've been eager to get my hands on one of these for a while, and now I can choose a stack. I'm thinking of starting with Thomas, Craddock, and Embury, then I'll save up another benjamin for round two. I can't get find any readily available information about the Hess book on the site or at Amazon. Anyone care to share?

I worked long and hard to establish a good relationship to the "Meat Team Leader" (I'd kill for a job title like that) at one of the stores here. Just start by asking them about availability, suppliers, and so on. They have been given greater leeway by corporate to do those sorts of orders, so it's a matter of people taking the time to support a good customer.

Today the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts and Letters announces a new structure for its regional food discussions in eG Forums, designed to make reading, searching and contributing to these forums more straightforward and intuitive. After the coming weekend, all regional forums will be divided into two subforums: “Dining” and “Cooking & Baking.” The Dining subforum contains topics that discuss restaurants, chefs and menus; restaurant recommendations; media coverage of the local dining scene; and topics regarding Society events. The Cooking & Baking subforum will include topics that discuss regional recipes and techniques; local sources, including specialty stores and farmers markets; and regional foodstuffs and ingredients. This new arrangement clear guidelines for posting cooking topics either in the regional forums or in the Cooking or Pastry & Baking forums. Topics that discuss general concepts and techniques -- poaching an egg, making macaroni and cheese, perfecting puff pastry, choosing the freshest fish -- will remain in Cooking or Pastry and Baking. Identifiably regional topics, however – finding Italian basil, preparing pad thai, locating a farmers' market in Philadelphia – will go into the regional cooking subforums. In addition, streamlining the forums will make them easier to peruse and to search, and we hope that moving regional cooking and baking topics from the Cooking and Pastry & Baking forums into the new subforums will encourage members to visit topics throughout eG Forums, learning and contributing more broadly. In addition to create new subforums for regional cooking and dining topics, eGullet Society volunteers have used this opportunity to further streamline the forums by merging related topics and deleting topics which, over the years, had become outdated or irrelevant. Our volunteers are committed to ongoing improvement of eG Forums accessibility and usability. We believe that this new organization will help both committed cooks and determined diners get more from eG Forums with less effort -- and make it easier for them to give back, through their insights and contributions. You will find a list of Frequently Asked Questions below. Should you have an infrequently asked question, you may do so in this moderated topic. We look forward to hearing your response -- and especially to reading your posts in our new cooking & baking and dining subforums. FAQs Why did you split the regional forums? We split the regional forums to make the eG Forums easier to use and easier to search. Before, someone wishing to discuss techniques for dried octopus, for example, faced a dilemma: post a topic either in the general Cooking forum or in the Japanese forum. Where would they most likely get the best response? Similarly, someone searching for a topic on that subject would be unsure where to look. Now, anybody interested in Japanese cooking knows where to look or to post. We’re also hoping to encourage cross-pollination, to get people who spend most of their time in the cooking forum to read and contribute to the regional forums, and vice-versa. Finally, it just seemed that the forums were divided between two fundamentally different tasks: helping people decide where to eat out, and helping them shop in their communities and cook what they bought at home. We wanted to put apples with apples and oranges with oranges. When will this change occur? We'll be closing eG Forums down this weekend (June 27-29) while we create new forums and move topics. You'll see the new organization on Monday the 30th. I want to start (or search) a regional topic but I’m not sure what subforum I should be using. In brief, if the main theme is home cooking, you should use the cooking subforum; if it has to do with restaurants, use dining. How do I know if a cooking topic should be in a regional forum or the Cooking forum? Trust your common sense. Most topics are easy to place: one on Vindaloo will go in India and one on fish sauce in Elsewhere in Asia. If you’re talking about a dish, a technique, or an ingredient in the context of a particular area (Clams and Cheese in Italian Cooking & Baking) or style (Southern Fried Chicken), that topic also belongs in the regional subforums. Topics that involve multiple countries or regions -- Olive Oil in Mediterranean cooking -- would go in Cooking, as would general topics focused on food and its preparation. What about beverages? All topics devoted to beverages will remain in the Beverages and Libations forum. And cookbooks? If a topic is dedicated to using a regional or ethnic cookbook, then it goes in the appropriate regional cooking subforum. If the topic is dedicated to cooking from a general cookbook ("Cooking from The Joy of Cooking" or "Baking from The Cake Bible"), it will go in Cooking or Pastry & Baking, depending on the book. Otherwise, the topic would belong in Cookbooks and References. A topic I started or contributed to seems to have disappeared. What happened? In the course of preparing for the split, Society volunteers looked over every existing topic. Where topics overlapped, they were merged -- the site is more helpful if all the information on a single subject is in one place. We discovered some topics in the regional forums that fit better in another -- Kitchen Consumer, Ready to Eat, or Cooking. Some topics, which had become irrelevant or outdated, were removed entirely. These topics have been saved, however, in a holding area. If you think there has been a mistake, please contact a host with your concerns and we’ll give the topic a second look and, if appropriate, restore it to the forums. Have there been any changes to the regions themselves? Yes! Correcting an unintended oversight, Mississippi has joined the South. In addition, topics formerly in “Southern Food Culture” will now be found under Southeastern United States. Why do a lot of older topics have posts with 'user posted image' tags? A recent server change prior to the reorganization produced some database errors with older ImageGullet photos. We are working with Invision and hope to correct this in the coming weeks. My notifications aren't working. What gives? The rearrangement of some forums and the creation of others may have disabled your forum notifications. (Notifications for specific topics should be unaffected.) Simply finding the forums you want notifications from and resetting them should solve the problem.

Though butchers at Whole Foods, I've gotten both Niman and Coleman (they're changing their name, but I can't find out what the new one is from their website), and while I prefer Niman, Coleman is significantly better than the Swift et al I can get at my local carnicarias.

Can one smear for plate coverage? Or do you need 1/2 lb of sweet potato fries?

But why bother freezing at all?

That looks like a drink wherein the floral nose of the Fee's orange bitters might work very well.

I asked because your post came just after I'd finished fiddling around with a drink that uses that Beachcomber Angostura/Herbsaint "secret ingredient" (click). Ode to Don 2 oz pineapple-infused rum (homemade) 1 oz lime 1/2 pimento dram (homemade) 1/2 oz falernum (Taylor's) 2-3 dashes Angostura dash Herbsaint egg white (optional) Shake and strain. It works without the egg white, but with makes a supple, beautiful drink with a massive, meringue-like head. If you go with the white, be sure to do a strong dry shake before adding lots of ice for the second shake.

I wonder what'd happen if you dripped in a few drops of that Herbsaint you've got there....

I have been reading Nations Restaurant News a bit lately and have become fascinated with the concept of "plate coverage." Heretofore merely a baseball term in my brain, I'm starting to learn that this refers to filling, even overfilling, a plate with stuff so that it looks abundant to the diner upon delivery to table. If that's about right -- and please correct me if it's not -- it seems that plate coverage is a desire that only particular restauranteurs seek to fulfill. Is this a family-casual concept only, or do prime steak houses toss parsley on for a similar effect? Do you seek plate coverage? Don't you? Do tell.

I'd pull then just vacuum-seal them. That way you don't have to deal with defrosting them (and thus with even the slightest degradation from freezing -- and I know the degradation is slight) and you also get the pulling done earlier in the week. If it were me, I'd be running around like a nut Friday night and would be grateful for sealed bags that just need to be reheated in boiling water.

I'm not seeing New England hot dog brands on that list. Saugy's, at the least, should be in there....

Hua Hin is in a massive transition in certain ways; we spent most of the time listening to the noises in the construction sites near our hotel, and there have been a slew of new resorts built in the southern half of the beach, stretching down toward Takiab. However, the food scene seems pretty stable throughout the area. I'm not sure what you mean. Was it a coconut pudding?

What good cold pea soup recipes are out there?

OK, I'll start. I present the Gloom Lifter, sort of a Pisco Sour with Irish whiskey. This recipe doesn't list bitters, but I dashed in some Angostura to good effect. Very nice; might benefit from a bit of grated nutmeg atop.

There's Cameron's Kick and The Tipperary. What else? Andy, you say you love you some Irish whiskey cocktails: what are they?

In the last few weeks, Nation's Restaurant News has been reporting on businesses seeking to maintain relationships with customers if for smaller portions and lower prices: $1 coffees at Starbucks, smaller plates at Au Bon Pain and Friday's. There have also been stories on delivery services, renegotiating leases, and other approaches, all of which feel a bit like suggesting umbrella use during a hurricane....

What exactly is it that you want to compress, and to what ends? I've fiddled around with compressing a few simple things (fruit in particular) using a Kenmore food sealer, a FoodSaver bag, and a folded paper towel at the top of the bag for excess moisture. You don't get the compression you would with a more powerful adjustable machine, and because it's automatic you can't adjust the vacuum level and the sealer kicks in before you really flatten stuff out. However, it's possible to get started with the process using the cheap-end stuff until you spring for a new Cryovac system.

Stash, what pea flan recipe do you use? I once had a fantastic one at Olives but haven't tried the recipe in the book ever.

Inspired by Erik's revisiting the Porteño, I made it according to the original formula: It's freaking fantastic. Truly. Make it now, Fernet fans.