Chris Amirault

I got another round of lop yuk curing today, and I decided at the store that it would be a good time to test a cure that included some aromatics. As I was trying to figure out what those aromatics might be, I spied this package at the store: The ingredients listed "red prickly ash, cinnamon, anise, star anise, lilac, dried ginger, cattail, licorice root, dried orange peel" -- and I'm pretty sure that there were szechuan peppercorns in there, too. I ground them a bit: Then I sprinkled them into one of the two bags: Reports soon on results.

Just made a killing at Home Goods, and when I searched I found this question: I just bought a 28 cm Sitram fry pan with a copper disk that is clearly identical to the Catering fry pan on the website and is labeled "Collecitivite": $16 at Home Goods if you can find it, friends -- a cool Benjamin below retail.

That's useful, Jack. At 82-3C they weren't quite at a simmer. As I'm convinced that this is user error, I'll try a hardier temp next time. Thanks.

Before dinner yesterday, while serving some Chinese five spice roasted nuts, I handed out some Applecarts using Dave Scantland's recipe (2 oz applejack -- used Laird's 7 1/2 -- 1 oz Cointreau, 3/4 oz lemon juice), with rims dusted with vanilla cinnamon sugar. They were a big hit and earned their place in our family's regular routine. What did y'all serve?

Bah-THUMP. It happened again. I followed Jack's recipe to the degree. In fact, my devotion to the recipe cost me a Polder thermometer, which fell into the 82.5C water while the potatoes were doing their final "cooking." Why the quotation marks? Well, the exact same thing happened: 35 minutes in that water, after the initial starch-setting and cooling (which clearly worked), didn't cook them. Not nearly. I think I need to experiment more here -- perhaps more often than once a year, on Thanksgiving, when everyone's waiting at the table for spuds.

Yet another reason to get a Bradley smoker: I woke at 9a, stuffed (using this Gourmet recipe), tied, and then smoked a brined 17-pound free range turkey that had been sitting a day in the fridge to develop a pellicle from 10a-1p at 250F with apple pucks, then finished it off in the oven from 1-3p at 375 (thigh to 165F). It was fantastic.

A Sazerac.

Didn't catch his name, but the gentleman behind the bar at Repast (620 N Glen Iris Dr) is a cocktailian, and the bar at The Glenn Hotel (110 Marietta NW) is stocked for one. Bring a few recipes and take advantage of their Maraschino, Chartreuse, and the like.

Another good flame source is a bamboo skewer, which will burn steady and long and can be lit on any gas burner. Good for the dorks who can't get it right the first time, and have to line up a few twists while they fumble through the process. Not that, you know, that's how I learned this trick. Ahem.

Report on Hisop from 9 October. There were two of us at the table and we got the tasting menu. Somewhere during the meal I mentioned to the servers that I was associated with the eGullet Society, and I think that may have accounted for an extra course at the very end (see below). Because we knew we were doing the tasting menu, we didn't look at the printed menu much and failed to ask for one at the end, stupidly. So apologies in advance for errors, which, due to language issues and alcohol consumption, may be legion. The first amuse was sardine, brined pumpkin, bitter orange marmalade, gray salt. An excellent start, with the pumpkin and sardine playing off the marmalade. Fantastic. Next came (the aforementioned) cepes ice cream, buffalo mozzarella, red vermouth gelée, pine caramel. Welcome to the autumnal forest floor. I found this round fascinating not only because of the remarkable ice cream but also because of the appearance of two items that evoke low-end flavor profiles: the omnipresent vermouth, homemade versions of which are a staple of the Barcelona bar scene, and pine caramel, which brought back memories of my grandfather's pine gum. Excellent dish and the highlight of the evening. Fish course the first was scallop with ham, almond, and hazelnut mince, fig, sturgeon, greens, and a bitter foam. Well done, with the highlight being the mince. Fish course the second was hake, vanilla potato, peas, cacao, foie gras sauce. Another well executed plate, but the vanilla tended to overpower the potato and the peas were unremarkable. The foie gras sauce was fantastic -- but you knew that already, didn't you? I'm not sure what to make of the appeal of hake, which was sweet and delicate but not particularly memorable. Beef course had a wine reduction of some sort, mango in rose water, turnip sauce with a foie thread running through it, squash flower. This could have been a real winner save for a few basic flaws: it was a bit underseasoned and the small cut of beef had been poorly butchered, so we each had a thick piece of sinew running through the meat. It was a strange error, to be sure. I thought that, overall, the plate worked; my companion, not a fan of rose water, felt that it dominated her nose and tongue. Cheese course was excellent, the highlight being a llavina blue cheese. Next was a mojito infusion with, of course, rum and mint. Nothing much there. The first dessert was an astonishing pistachio soufflé with candied pistachios, arugula sauce, and a kaffir lime sorbet. Excellent in every way. The second dessert (with espresso) had two sorbets: passion fruit, raspberry, mint, and menthol; white chocolate, white truffle, and almond. While they were perfectly executed, they both felt a bit busy, and the complexities in each competed instead of allowing one to refresh the palate for the other. Still and all, they were damned tasty -- they just might have benefited from being served one then the other, not at the same time. We wrapped up with sugared olives (I loved them; my wife thought that they were too rich to wrap up the meal) and alcohol-free gin and tonic (neither of us thought this was great shakes). Oriol came out and chatted with us, and he seemed to take both my praise for most of the meal and my criticism for a few little things in stride. The uniforms staff wear are a bit Next Generation, and I could do with a CD playing that isn't Sade's Promise: hearing "Sweetest Taboo" four times doesn't aid the digestion, it turns out. Staff were perfect, and seemed energized by our obsessive deuce instead of annoyed (which would have been perfectly reasonable). This was our one high-end meal on a ten-day trip to Barcelona, and we really enjoyed it in every way. Considering the tasting menu is €48, I'd say it's a remarkable value and a great experience.

It took a month to get these notes typed up from a variety of sources (business cards, scraps of paper, a little notebook), but here's a complete list of stores that we hit in Barcelona in October: Vila Viniteca Agullers 9 933 10 19 56 www.vilaviniteca.es Vila Viniteca is actually two shops, one across from the other. The wine shop is titanic: two floors of primarily Spanish wines with a very good selection of liquor and other wine to boot. The staff was great: even with my nonexistent Spanish and Catalan, they were able to help me find a Campillo 1998 Rioja Reserva for a meal I was making that was perfect. Across the street is a provisions store that has a wide range of excellent items that are both easy and hard to find. This was one of the only places that had butter that we found, for example, but you can also get lots of different cheeses, crackers, oils and vinegars, fresh produce, dairy -- you name it. In the back of the store is a curing area next to the cheese case. There are a couple dozen different sausages and as many hams on display, and the keeper of the meat carefully and firmly goes about his business, rubbing down the sausages or trimming the hams. One additional note of interest. One of the folks working there is Juan Carlos, a young man from Boston who had worked at Formaggio Kitchen in Cambridge and who had come to Barcelona a few years back. He was fantastic: friendly, helpful, and willing to talk about anything. I'd seek him out if I were in Barcelona again: I'm sure we barely plumbed the surface of his knowledge. E & A Gispert Sombrerers, 23 08003 Barcelona 933 19 75 35 www.casagispert.com info@casagispert.com The tourist-filled nut shop with the "oldest continually functioning wood-fired nut roasting oven in the world." Excellent roasters with a massive, quasi-attentive staff. We picked up a bunch of outstanding pine nuts here. You can also get touristy tchotchkes of various kinds here. La Carte des Vins Sombrerers, 1 932 68 70 43 www.lacartedesvins.com born@lacartedesvins.com La Carte des Vins is a small wine shop just up the street from Gispert run by Gareth York, a sweet ex-chef who fell in love with wife and the city and now lives in Barcelona. A relatively small but excellent selection of wines -- and one of the few places in the city where you can buy Colman Andrew's Catalan Cuisine (ours was stolen 47 seconds after we arrived in the city by cab...). Get him started on his culinary history and sit back for an hour or two. Forn de Sant Jaume Rbla. Catalunya, 50 Go to this bakery, one of a dozen we visited, for their remarkable sugared donuts. Ask if there are any being prepared and, if so, wait it out. Trust me on this one. Il Tinello Flassaders, 44 932 68 82 21 This "Italian deli" apparently sells fresh pasta; we built an entire meal around the pasta and when we returned it had sold out, so we settled for solid dried tagliatelle. Another ex-pat here running the show. Bubo Caputxes, 10 932 68 72 24 www.bubo.ws bubo@bubo.ws The address above is for one the high end shops of Carles Mampel, who does lots of interesting avant-garde chocolate and sugar work. We never ate anything there, though, in part because they were never open when we were hungry, and when they were open, well, I guess we weren't hungry from expensive chocolate sculptures. Olis D’oliva Verge Extra Av. Francesc Cambó Mercat Santa Caterina 932 68 14 72 www.olisoliva.com This small but jam-packed olive oil stall in the Santa Caterina market that was suggested by the folks at Hisop. The shopkeepers were extremely friendly and insisted that we try just about everything there. We left with a bottle of arbequina olive oil that we loved. Born Cooking Corretger, 9 (off Princesa) 933 10 59 99 www.borncooking.com Born Cooking is a small shop with odd American goods -- Crisco shortening, for example -- run by a Greek American woman who operates a catering facility for restaurants and private customers. She's busy trying to bring down-home US cooking to the Catalan masses, so she's good for an entertaining chat, if she's not too busy cooking in the back! Mauri Rbla. Catalunya, 102-3 Mauri is a high-end specialty item shop on one side and a bakery on the other. We got three kinds of entrepá, two of which (anchovy and sausage, both with cheese & mayo) were mediocre, plus a ham sandwich that was great. The mushroom tart was also excellent. A Casa Portuguesa Verdi, 58 677 04 29 85 www.acasaportuguesa.com This little shop in the Gracia sells lovely-looking Portuguese baked goods -- but the pollo empanadas we packed for a walk up to the hoards at Park Guell were unremarkable. We went to both Escribá bakeries, visiting the Ramblas shop quite a few times and the Gran Via shop once, and were impressed every time. Highlights included their cremadet (a cream “croissant”), a fine empanada toyina (tuna), ferradura (crown-shaped pastry with a filling we couldn't identify), and remarkable plain croissants. The bread, oddly, was nothing to write home or here about, a fact that seemed true throughout Barcelona. Among the dozen shops in the Boqueria, I visited twice the famous mushroom stall of Llorenc Petras, in the back, and managed to score some camagrocs (smallish, with a yellow hollow stalk, brown edges, and a squeakiness to them), ceps, rosnyoc (yellow chanterelles, I believe), girolas (white and thick, with solid stalks; a bit like meatier oysters), trompetas de la mort, llengua de bou (chalky, with lumpy form), and the rovellons, green-flecked brown mushrooms that had filled the market stalls when we were there in October. We also visited the mercat on the Plaça del Pi, which was selling artisanal products of various kinds. We didn't try any of the honeys, but we bought some fantastic hard goat cheese from the La Pastora stall and beautiful secallona (hard flat salami) from the BioMas stall, run, if I understand correctly, by Más Seralló.

Chef fiddled around with some beef cheeks, Some honey, foie gras, quince, and green leeks, Szechuan peppercorns, And prune foam -- thus 'twas born A dish buried quite deep in his prix fixe.

Ditto about the WF 365 -- though I'm going to grab a bottle of the Goya next shop.

Saute some bacon until crispy; add some sliced onions and saute until translucent, not brown; add a bit of pepper and the mustard greens; saute (add 1/4 c water if needed) until tender.

Fantastic as always, Ah Leung! Can you post up a photo of the fish maw packaging?

In Paul Harrington and Laura Moorhead's Cocktail: The Drinks Bible for the 21st Century, there are four lists for stocking the home bar: three: rum, gin, Cointreau six: above plus whiskey, sweet and dry vermouth nine: above plus vodka, bitters, and Maraschino twelve: above plus bourbon, brandy, rye Seemed like an interesting question to pose here: what would you select? A fan of the decimal system, I thought I'd suggest ten as a base list -- which I think one could set up with about $200. My own list would look something like this: rum gin bourbon rye Cointreau Maraschino Campari sweet vermouth dry vermouth bitters You?

This topic has run its course, so I'm closing it here. Thanks, all.

I nearly always boil down the schmaltz, but this time there was a lot of quatre epices in it (this stock included some roasted chicken that had the spice on it), and I didn't bother. But when you say "pressing on the solids is not normally recommended," that runs directly counter to my experience. I found several references to it this morning in a variety of cookbooks. (I'm at work now so I can't cite, I'm afraid.)

I just strained out about a gallon of chicken stock that I made in preparation for next week's turkey gravy. After the stock spent three hours of simmering and then an overnight stint in the refrigerator, I skimmed off the mucky schmaltz and then started to ladle the stock through a fine sieve into a few tupperware containers. When I had filled first container, I prepared to do what I usually have done: press down on the solids (in this case, some chicken meat and bones, a rouugh mirepoix of celery and onions, and a fistful of peppercorns) with a wooden spoon. I've read this direction so many times that I won't even bother to cite it, as I'm sure you've read or heard it a few dozen times as well. But this time around I decided to experiment a little. First, I pressed a few bits of onion, chicken, and celery into a cup of the nice, clear stock and... well, it wasn't nice and clear any more. Wondering whether this cloudiness was a fair trade for added flavor (remember, I'm making stock for gravy, so the clarity isn't a big issue this time around), I tasted each of the elements. The onion and celery bits were essentially tasteless; they had a faraway hint of their original flavor, if that. The chicken had a bit more flavor in it, but when I pressed that, little of the meat actually went through, and the tiny amount of liquid that I pressed out of the dry shards seemed no more flavorful than the stock itself. It made me wonder if one of the canonical steps in stock making was just busywork at best. There have been a few brief mentions of this here in eG Forums (here in the Q&A for the eGCI stock course is the longest exchange I can find, at two), but no sustained discussion. Harold McGee limits his discussion of extraction to temperature and time concerns, not force, so he's no help; however -- and interestingly -- Shirley Corriher doesn't say to press the solids in her base recipe in Cookwise. I'm imagining that a lot of folks are going to be making stock this next week. Anyone want to try out this experiment? And if there are any folks with sufficient scientific background to help us understand, well, chime in!

One quick point about tours of markets. I've taken a few friends and family on driving tours of Providence markets, but the one that was most interesting for both me and the person I was taking around (my MIL) was a walking tour of a particular neighborhood (Rolfe Square in Cranston RI, for those in New England) that included visits to a series of specific shops (Armenian shop, Chinese/Phillipino shop, halal butcher and Middle Eastern shop, Russian/Eastern European shop, "Asian" seafood shop) in which we'd go through and talk about what was there, what wasn't there, what you do with this and that, and the like. We spent about 20-30 minutes in each store, going for depth instead of breadth. I have done the same myself when I have been visiting other countries, and I find I've learned more about Barcelona, Paris, Riyadh, London, Tokyo, and a few other places spending an hour in a specific store rather than trying to hit ten in the same time by car. Makes me think that selecting a particular store and focusing on that might be a good idea....

We put in our order for Ekonk Hill a couple of weeks ago, but I don't think that they kill them to order, so to speak. It's more of a reservation system. And I can't speak for any other farms, but the turkey we've had from there has been a very different bird than other places. They've tasted better than the local Whole Foods, frankly.

Catherine, what's the season?

I feel like johnsmith45678 hit the nail on the head. You don't need $40 mixing bowls; the cheap stainless steel ones at restaurant supply places are perfect, as are the whisks, cutting boards, etc. Intelligent signs would be a nice touch. Not everyone can afford to buy an entire line of high-end cookware, but knowing the practical differences between Shun, Wusthof, and Chicago Cutlery, or between Mauviel, All-Clad, and Sitram, say, would be a boon. If someone is getting an entire line of Mauviel, they're doing it for a variety of reasons that will not be deterred by a sign indicating that a Sitram saucier makes sense for someone who mainly boils potatoes.

Abra, the reaction of your diners reflects that of those who ate the exact same daube at my Christmas dinner last year, who all said that it was the best beef of any kind they had ever eaten.

The last two years, we've been fortunate to find a good turkey within an hour's drive, at Ekonk Hill Turkey Farm. But now there's a new way to find turkeys near you: MapMuse's turkey farm locator. I used this and immediately found Ekonk Hill, which is in eastern CT, on their map. Are your farms here? Do you find this a useful tool?