Chris Amirault

Do you know that there's a distinct shared history between the fish stick and the chicken finger? Round these parts, fish sticks have been a fact of kids' school lunches for decades, whereas chicken fingers are a far more recent development. In addition, the companies that manufactured fish sticks (Gorton's of Gloucester, in particular) haven't ever been in the chicken business.

Excellent, Mr. Scantland. So here's the question, then: what does 5 seconds do to crushed ice in one of those immersion things? Spin it around and make it cold? Or does the ice significantly change texture? No opinions, meanwhile, regarding the question of sweetness?

Interesting. I guess the question is: what sort of blenders did Trader Vic's, Don the Beachcomber's, etc. have on their bars? I had assumed that it was professional steel-blade Waring-styled blenders and not immersion blenders. That'd sure be a big difference -- and it would suggest that the Slurpee texture of current frozen/blended drinks is way off.

As I suspected, chicken fingers are on mid-1960s menus at American Chinese restaurants. Click here for the Kowloon Restaurant's website, which I've been researching for an article; the "Nostalgia" link on the left will bring you to a 1960s menu with the fingers on it. If you click on the Mandarin House menu from the 1950s, you'll see shrimp fingers, which makes me think that an economical substitution of chicken for shrimp lead to chicken fingers. ETA: Can I just say that the menu collection at the Johnson & Wales Culinary Museum and Archive totally rocks?!?

I agree about the rye proof (and for that matter the apple brandy proof), and though orange makes the Averna step up, here I worry about muddling everything up. In an interesting development, I had the last sip of my drink after eating a dark-chocolate-covered marcona almond. That combination was very interesting indeed....

But how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln? Seriously, though, your list of complaints is largely about the front of house stuff, with only the desserts a real kitchen flaw. This makes me wonder about how the FOH/BOH teams are trained and handled. After all, if everyone's there to learn the line and become the next John Q. Foodstar, part of the problem might be whipping those sous into decent service shape, a process that may require more on-the-job attitude adjustment than skill development.

Just made a Quadratto Vecchio with WT 101 and all else as campus five suggests, right down to those luscious Whiskey Barrel Bitters. I grabbed one of the cherries I started down the path to righteousness two weeks ago, and added a cinnamon stick instead of grating. Very nice -- and you're right about the bite. I think that, without care, you can make these drinks too sweet if you're heavy with the Averna. Next time, I think I'd omit the Peychauds (criminal, I know, for a drink based on the VC) and stick to the Fee's, as the licorice in the Peychauds seems to compete with the Averna in my mouth. But, as always, my mouth ain't yours.

I like the ideas for the meats and the rice, but I don't get the staid veggie medley. If you're going for something Latin/Mexican with the starch/protein, perhaps your vegetable should follow suit or at least play on that theme. ETA: You could brine that pork before you get there and provide some interplay between the glaze and the brine: go spicy with the brine with mole tones, say.....

I can get pigs' ears at Portuguese and SE Asian markets throughout the area, and from what I've learned in chats with butchers they're provided by the big boys like Hormel. I don't think that they're banned; I saw a bunch on Saturday, in fact. As for recipes, I'm told that the crispy pig ears from Fergus Henderson's Nose To Tail Eating is definitive. Haven't made it, though.

Over in the Rums for Trader Vics (and others') drinks topic, Toby got the following exchange started: We've hashed well this issue regarding classic cocktails in a variety of topics, but we've never gotten past rum regarding tiki drinks. I'll start with some info and two questions that focus on a drink I've made a few times lately, (Don the) Beachcomber's Punch that Jeff Berry describes in Beachbum Berry's Grog Log. The recipe is simple enough: 1/2 lime 1/2 grapefruit 1/2 apricot brandy 1/2 simple dash Angostura 1/8 t Pernod 1 1/2 demerara rum Blend with 6 oz crushed ice for 5 seconds; add to tall glass and fill with more crushed ice. Here's two bits of relevant info. When I've made Beachcomber drinks in the past, I've used Pernod as indicated by Berry. However, in the note to this drink, he writes, I'd read before about the Angostura/Pernod "secret" before, but this was the first place I'd seen that the real secret was Herbsaint, and I made the drink with the NOLA tipple last night. The differences were subtle but notable: Herbsaint tends to show more restraint than Pernod does, giving the bitters/anise combination more subtlety. Given everything else going on in this drink, that's a plus, believe me. It seemed worth sharing this point given that Herbsaint is, at least around here, a lot more available nowadays, and thus worth seeking out by those interested in tiki drinks. The second bit of info is rather particular. If anyone else has actually made this version of the Hess house bitters, it is ideal as an Angostura substitute in this tiki drink, and in many others as well. If you haven't, well, now's your chance to use up that extra gentian lying around. Here are my two questions from last night's Beachcomber's Punch. First, what with the MB Apry and the Lemon Hart demerara, I cut back on the simple syrup, down around 1/4 oz or so. Adjusting the sweetness of this and a few other tiki standards made me wonder whether those drinks, when properly balanced by a tiki mixologist, tended to be more sweet on the whole than a lot of classic cocktails. Yes, I realize that they are primarily fruit-based punches, which always lean toward sweet anyway, but a lot of the 1930s and 1940s recipes demand that I cut back. For a while, making lots of Test Pilots, I had assumed that part of my problem were overly sweet falnerums or what have you, but now I'm not so sure. Of course, my Apry may be sweeter than Don's apricot brandy back in 1937.... So: thoughts? Second, am I the only person who tends to find the "blend with ice for X seconds" a depressing instruction? Even though I have a workhorse old-school Waring blender that makes remarkably smooth frozen drinks, I've taken to making a lot of tiki drinks calling for this step by crushing 2X the ice I need, shaking with half of it, and then straining the drink into a glass containing the other half. I find that the lower dilution produces a much better drink (on my tongue, anyway). Of course, I also am better able to avoid brain freeze. Does anyone else have this peccadillo? Do others want to talk the particulars of tiki ingredients?

Did you submit it? It sounds good -- I'd try it out if it weren't, you know, 7:00 am.

I'm not sure I even understand. Remove the gills how? And why? I've certainly never done such a thing.

Fans of Sara Moulton will want to read her great contributions to her Spotlight appearance here in 2006. There's also this review by yours truly of the book upon which the show is based.

So what's the ideal taste? Or texture? We've had a gazillion discussions, for example, about rib meat toothiness and the connection between bone and meat (fall off? just barely holdin' on? grasping tightly?). Are there guidelines to these more subjective criteria?

But does high-grade gelatin spook the kinder the way that those gnarled claws do? Seriously, for the home cook who has easy access to 'em, chicken feet are great. And if I stopped doing things in the kitchen that some have deemed obsolete I'd be a lot less happy a cook.

And how are different styles treated? If you're judging in a North Carolina contest, for example, how do you handle Texas cue?

What Susan said. I haven't ever had to burn off anything, but I do give 'em a quick wash. I think that they've been blanched and the outer rough skin has been peeled; occasionally I'll find some dark yellow, scaly skin sticking to one of them. I don't cut them up either. Just to state the obvious: the feet lend little to no chicken flavor, but they have astonishing amounts of collagen, which give your stock body. Since I don't always have feet available, I tend to have a larger ratio of feet to other chicken (usually thighs, legs, backs, and wings) than Susan suggests, probably in the 4:1 range by weight.

Interesting piece in the NYTimes this morning (click): I was particularly fascinated by this odd quotation: I guess that if you use a product that contains MSG, you can still retain plausible deniability on the issue of "cooking with MSG."

I think that you add salt so that your food tastes better. You don't want unsalted pasta sitting in salted sauce; you won't taste the pasta.

Just got it and it looks great: very useful illustrations, translations, maps, on and on. I'll know more about whether it's useful this summer, but, for now, I'm thrilled.

We'll be in Chiang Mai for a week in early June staying just south of the old city (at Tadkham Village, specifically). I'd be very interested to know what food stall streets, restaurants, cooking schools, and other food-related experiences in the greater CM area we shouldn't miss. Thanks in advance!

According to "He Seeks the Giant Squid," it was a massive cephalopod, something with which I have no familiarity. Sayeth the source of all knowledge, wikipedia: Compared to this, I showed remarkable restraint.

Attached you'll find a copy of the pdf file to which John refers in the post above. index.pdf

As I mentioned up here, I've used rye (Overholt) and vodka (what was on sale).

Fun? You wouldn't say that if you ever had sausage that looked like this: