Chris Amirault

The "beer is off limits because it contains all kinds of animal-derivatives" declaration suggests that any prepared products are guilty before proven innocent (unless they have the vegan seal of approval, apparently). Is it possible to get her list of prohibited ingredients, and then confirm that so that you can assume that anything else is ok? Then you can be creative with the plethora (or paucity) of remaining items. I'll second the Madison and Jaffrey recommendations, btw.

Holy crap. Guanciale? What else? That's right down the street from Asiana, too, at the other end of Warren. Do you know who the pork supplier is?

I'm bumping this topic up because a group of us have been getting slabs of pork belly from Niman Ranch up Providence way (click) and are starting to fiddle around with it. I've already made this great braised pork belly dish from Marcus Wareing in The Cook's Book, and I think I'll tie up some of the 8 pounds I have for this. I also need to make some salt pork for beans and, of course, need more bacon. You?

What's going to be savory about that apple fritter?

Doc, a technique question. Did you get the scoop on boning that hamo fish? What was the method exactly?

Sorry -- I was cracking a joke. I can't imagine using anything but the Rocky ever again. (We only drink espresso or espresso-based drinks.)

I've got palm sugar in the pantry. Thanks for the rec! I'll report on how it goes.

Looks very tasty indeed! What is the condiment on the po' boys?

After making some corned beef the other day, I realized I wanted to be able to tailor the mustard to my cure. Thus, I have been following Andie's recipe above for mustard using the following: 1/3 c brown mustard seeds 1/3 c yellow mustard seeds 1/2 c mirin 1/2 rice vinegar 1 t white sugar After an overnight soak, I blended the seeds until the seeds had broken up. (I had to add probably 1/4 c water overall.) I did not add the fruit base at the next step, but instead pressed the mustard through a medium sieve to get out most (not all; I'm not going for dijon purity here) of the hulls. I'm now letting it sit in the fridge for a bit. After the thickening tomorrow, I think I'm doing to make two batches, one a sweeter one with more sugar and some roasted garlic and the other a sinus-clearing one with reconstituted horseradish powder. Results to follow. Is anyone else making condiments this season?

Well, I'm thinking about the recipe from In Pursuit of Flavor by Edna Lewis, which includes lemon juice, ginger, garlic, vinegar, sugar, mustard seeds, and sultanas. What happens to the consistency of the pie filling when you freeze it? Do you make any accommodations for those changes in the initial recipe?

Like a lot of us, I've got a glut of great apples that I need to put up for the winter. We eat what we can and what we can't, well... I've never really taken on apples in fall, so I'm trying to figure out what I can freeze without degradation and what needs to be canned. For starters, I'm thinking about a chutney or two, pie filling, and applesauce. I'd also be interested to know if there are ways to freeze slices for later use, or if that will just lead to mush. What are you making with apples, and how are you putting it up?

I dealt with a few of these issues a few months back here. Renting cocktail glasses is a great option; you can just stick them in the freezer and blow the Solo cup crowd away. Don't get disposable glasses. Please. For me. Manhattans are risky. A lot of people think that they're too boozy. Then again, given the number of times you say "drink," in your first post, maybe that's just fine. Sours are big hits. Sidecars, Applecarts, rum sours like Daiquiris and Beachcombers, even a real Margarita: they'll all be revelations if you use real juice. If you want to go with a Pegu Club -- always a good choice -- you can order the bitters from Buffalo Trace, Fee's, and so on. What would you want from a house drink?

I have been thinking about this in relation to my home town, Providence, where things are in dire shape. In this topic, I talk about the dismal mess that we have here, even at "cocktailian" bars like the highly touted bar at Temple. Despite an increasingly accommodating demographic, recent experiences around our little town suggest that we're a long way from establishing and sustaining even a single, true cocktail venue. Along with the issues addressed above, part of the problem is the resistance to small plate menu design at area restaurants, which I think really lends itself to cocktails. In comparison, all over Boston you can get interesting cocktails to go with your tapas (Ken Oringer's Toro has a good cocktail menu and a great bartender) or little plate (Chez Henri is another example). The only place like that currently in Providence, I believe, is Local 121, and on my last visit I was still on a mission to get bitters into that bar. In more amenable cities, I wonder if upselling in a cocktailian direction would also help. We here may think that cocktailian drinks are simply and obviously superior, but the tenacity of sweet, flavored vodka concotions suggests otherwise. What if a bartender or server said, "Take a look at this menu and let's talk. If you like an Appletini, for example, you might really like this Applecart Cocktail, a variation on the classic Sidecar with applejack." Maybe I'm being too optimistic, but I can hope. Cocktail menus are only as good as the bartenders building, stirring, and shaking the items on that menu. My cautionary tale in that topic about my "Sazerac" is a case in point; that menu had some interesting stuff on it, but failing to properly ice the drink suggests that even the most pedestrian drinks will flop. Forget about ordering a Ramos Gin Fizz. As for certificates and training, my experiences in many cities (Brooklyn, DC, Portland, Boston, and Atlanta, most recently) suggest that if someone who cares about quality is behind the bar, they'll appreciate discussion and suggestions, they'll take their time to do things right, and they're going to make damned good drinks, classic or otherwise. I had some fine drinks at a small restaurant in Atlanta last year with two Society members, having walked the responsive, thoughtful bartender through a few ways to use that bottle of Luxardo Maraschino gathering dust in the back corner. And if the bartender doesn't care about quality, well, here's an excerpt from that post on Temple: We all know that you can't teach pride in your work. Given what most of the folks reading this topic can do in their own homes, who wants to drop ten bucks on something you'd dump in your sink from shame if you made it yourself?

madtowner, I've added hooch to cures in a few recipes, including this recipe for lop yuk, discussed at length here. As far as I can tell, it acts as a flavoring agent in the same way other elements do. There may be some chemistry I'm missing, but I think you should forge ahead and see what happens.

I'm a bit confused, I guess. What's being tested here? RI calamari, clams casino, and burgers? That sounds about as anti-experimental as one can get in New England; you're just missing baked stuffed shrimp and white chowder and you've got Anthony's Pier 4. I guess just the high-tech tables are 21st century, eh?

One of my prized objects is Tropical Cooking in Panama: A Handbook of Tropical Foods and How To Use Them by one Gladys R. Graham, a cookbook given to me by two thesis students from Panama who convinced me that this was the real deal. Need to cook a parrot or armadillo? Give me a call. A more frequently used book in our house is Brazilian Cookery: Traditional and Modern by Margarette de Andrade. It's encyclopedic and a great read, with lots of interesting information about Afro-Brazilian cuisine, holiday cooking, and the importance of the coconut. I got it at a yard sale from a chef cleaning out the attic and have never seen it anywhere else. I've seen it called the standard in a few places.

The Rocky showed up the next day, using the free shipping. Go figure. It. Is. Remarkable. It's built like a brick house and has already gotten us amazed at its power, adjustability, and consistently of grind. Replacement parts for what?

Estimating very conservatively, I'd say it cost us about two cents per shot, at the very most. We figured out that we paid off it and the Racilio Silvia within 18 months just on cash saved by not buying swill -- er, by not buying restaurant or coffee-shop espresso. Just bought a Rancilio Rocky sans doser for $310, shipping included, from 1st-Line, where we purchased the Silvia and Solis and have had great experiences. Click here for the product page.

Their bisquettes only, I'm afraid.

The Amirault family expresses its sadness for the untimely death of their beloved yet troubled Solis Maestro, which came into this world in the spring of 2001 and departed this weekend after a long struggle with design flaws and inadequate cleaning. We got years of fine service for our 4-6 espresso shots per day household, but in the last year or so Solis began to demonstrate minor but noticeable performance issues related to the challenging cleaning routine. (A thorough clean demands careful removal of the bean hopper and top burr, both of which can become stuck or difficult to remove.) As cleaning usually followed a frustrating morning of poorly ground beans producing lousy crema, my rushed, caffeine-free labor was often sloppy. A few months ago, when I was trying to remove the bean hopper and twisted too hard, the two plastic tabs on the sleeve of the hopper base (which connect to the grind mechanism to determine coarseness) broke off. So we used a screwdriver to adjust the grind for espresso and leave it there, which seemed to work well enough until this weekend. After removing the hopper, I couldn't get the top burr to come off for about ten minutes, and I'm telling you, I worked hard. It finally came off with a pair of pliers, and -- remember, no caffeine yet -- in so doing I broke off a small piece of plastic that is part of the base of the burr sleeve, and I could never get the entire contraption back together again. I did mention that I dislodged the entire burr mechanism from the housing, didn't I? Of course, YMMV, but I really do think that routine cleaning shouldn't require force. I'm a lazy bum at times, I know, but it's clear that a machine that is built to crank out espresso-grind coffee shouldn't coat the housing with coffee dust that slowly adheres parts together permanently. Time for a Rocky.

John Talbott, host in France, passes the following along: Our congratulations to Sophie Brissaud (Ptipois) whose new book entitled La Table du Thé was just published by Editions Minerva, in Paris. It covers tea from Afghanistan to Turkey, the UK to the US, China and Japan and suggests accompanying dishes, for example, a darjeeling with apple tarts and ginger, an iced macha with buckwheat noodles and wasabi, a ceylon with sweet potato tart and a sweet milk tea with a caramel petit four. Well done, Sophie!

Just got a bottle of Fee's peach bitters and thought I'd fiddle around with a Flying Fish Cocktail. The cocktaildb recipe as is turned out too sweet by a long stretch, so I added a dash of Regan's orange bitters, and extra 1/4 ounce of gin. Much better, but still a bit off kilter and too sweet, with the Maraschino and peach bitters ending up very orgeat-y. Tried again, and the following worked nicely: 2 oz gin (Plymouth) 1/2 oz orange curacao (Cointreau) 1/4 oz maraschino liqueur (Luxardo) 1 dash peach bitters (Fee's) 1 dash orange bitters (Regan's) 4 drops Angostura bitters Stir and strain all but the Angostura bitters; float the four drops. In the end, it's the sort of drink that might, like a Pegu Club, be a good introduction to gin and bitters, but not in the sour family. Of course, it's a little odd to me that one needs to add extra bitters to make peach bitters bitter, but there you have it.

Bump. Went apple picking today at Hill Orchards in Johnston RI and got about five pounds each of Macouns, Empires, Cortlands, and Mutsus (a buck a pound -- don't you love fall?). The Japanese Mutsus were new to me, and they're remarkable. I think that there were only two trees in the orchard that were Mutsu, but there were no apples within reach from outside the tree; I had to climb into the center of the tree and pick them with a long-handled picker basket from there. Truth be told, all of them were remarkable, even the Yellow Delicious. They're still not my choice, but, boy, a Yellow Delicious right off the tree is a very different beast than the ones you get from the MegaMart. Wondering what to do with the wee Empires.

I think it's "deconstructed schwarma." If you know what I'm sayin'. The duck is skin-on. If I had to guess, it's slowly braised or maybe sous vide and then pan-seared to finish and crisp up the skin. Again, it's some fine protein, but the flavors of the duck aren't complimented well by the other items on the plate, save that wondrous pickle. It's just not a powerhouse dish, which it should be. As for the top-restaurant question, it really depends on what you're looking for. This ain't Per Se, but I don't know of any other restaurant doing such high-quality work with Arabic & Turkish influenced cuisine. Take that octopus salad: I think it's a great take on basic seafood/veg/bean salad, each individual item is done perfectly, and together they sing. But it's octopus salad with beans and cauliflower, dude.

Oleana was great, though with one less-than-swell dish: the duck schwarma, in fact. The generous duck itself was well prepared -- excellently crispy skin -- but most of the accompaniments were just ok to me, and all were sitting on an uninteresting flatbread. The pickled green tomatoes were outstanding and brought out the best in the duck, but there were only four one-inch wedges. Love those deviled eggs (though I always want more than one of two halves for $5), really enjoyed the octopus salad (though my dinner partner thought it was uninspiring), and, as always, I adore the lamb steak. Didn't see anything on the dessert menu that we wanted, so we got Turkish coffee.