The Hersch

Thanks for the suggestions. Legal Seafood is no longer a local chain, by the way. They now have...er...outlets up and down the east coast, in Florida, Virginia, Maryland, DC, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island, as well as Massachusetts. They have a restaurant at National Airport in Washington, where I have had a plate of their fried clams (which were pretty good). Since I'll be flying from that airport to Logan on Saturday, maybe I'll just have some fried clams before boarding and after I land, and get it out of the way.

Does anyone have any suggestions for superb fried clams in the city of Boston (price no object!)? I'll be in Boston for a week starting this Saturday, but will be pretty much confined to the city.

I only rarely have multiple brands of vermouth on hand simultaneously, but last night I found myself with Noilly Prat, Boissiere, and Gallo (all dry, white). I bought the Boissiere the other day, prompted by some of the praise it's received here lately. I used to buy it all the time, and didn't really remember why I switched to Noilly Prat as my standard brand. So anyway, I did a side-by-side taste comparison (not blind), and here's my opinion: Boissiere has more botanical character than Noilly Prat, but it's also much sweeter. It was, indeed, easily the sweetest of the three. Gallo has the least botanical accents (hardly any, really, compared with Boissiere), but a clean, fresh, straightforward style that I think makes it very well suited to cooking, and the price is certainly right. Noilly Prat is more subdued in the botanical department than Boissiere, but, again, much drier. And it does have some nice floral notes. I think it will remain my preferred vermouth for Martinis, at least until I try Vya.

Mmmm...bacon. That sounds really good; I'll try it next time I have a rabbit. For those anywhere near Raleigh NC, there's a farm that sells meat, poultry, and eggs at the Raleigh farmers' market (I don't remember the name of the farm), and they usually have very nice fresh rabbits at really reasonable prices. Organically raised, too. Last weekend they were only asking $5 apiece.

To me, there's just no getting around the fact that the rib section and the front legs are basically good for the stock pot and not much else. Rabbit does make a lovely stock, though. I cut the hind legs off, and then cut the loin section in two cross-wise, which gives me four serving pieces, or two servings--a leg and a piece of the loin each. For four people, I'd need two rabbits, and would get a beautiful stock to boot.

There's a place at Willston Center (in the same strip with Mark's Duck House) called simply (I think) Peruvian Chicken and Steak, which I used to go to now and then when I worked in the area. I think the location used to be a Boston Market. Anyway, the chicken and the yucca were both always really good, and their green sauce is terrific. They'll give you extras at no charge. They also serve various steaks and sausages (and I think a big pork chop thang), which always looked good but I never tried anything but the chicken.

But at least it also ruins their texture.

I was in the mood for an Aviation cocktail yesterday evening, but realized I had no lemons in the house. Plenty of limes, though, so I decided to substitute. Then, since I was already being untraditional, I figured what the heck, and added a dash of Peychaud's Bitters. It was a very good cocktail, although no longer an Aviation. The fact that it looked like a Cosmopolitan left me with mixed feelings. But I shall certainly make it again.

Yes. Actually, they say both "Product of France" AND "Produit de France" on the bottle. But thanks to all who have weighed in. So there's a "regular" and a "super-duper" NP in France? I'll have to check that out next time I'm over there. I don't know if I'd be up for using up my alcohol allowance bringing vermouth back, though. As to Vya, if it really tastes strongly of cassia, I'm pretty sure I won't like it, although I'll keep an open mind until I finally taste it.

Hey, I was trying to be funny too! Cheapness is not my first concern, but twenty bucks or so is an awful lot to pay for a bottle of vermouth, especially since I find Noilly Prat completely acceptable for both martini and cooking purposes (my only uses for vermouth, usually) and it costs me eight dollars for a litre. My real concern was the supposed differences between Noilly Prat found in the US and that found in France, but I guess no one has any information on that.

Gee, I hadn't considered the chauvinism angle. I haven't tried Vya vermouth, but it should be borne in mind that it's close to three times the price of Noilly.

I am told that Coleman's Restaurant, which used to be in the wide-place-in-the-road called Basye, VA, is or was good. I never ate there, but I looked at their menu once and it looked pretty ambitious. That could be good or bad. They recently relocated from Basye about a mile-and-a-half onto the Bryce Mountain Resort property. I haven't heard whether the new incarnation is supposed to be any good. (The nearest actual town to all of this is Mt. Jackson, VA, which is just north of New Market, somewhere in between Harrisonburg and Winchester.) The best eating in the area, though, is what comes out of my kitchen when I'm in residence at Bryce Mountain, which unfortunately is not often enough. If you're planning to be in the area, though, PM me and maybe I'll meet you there and rustle you up a mess o' pork belly or some such.

Does anyone know if there is any truth to the claim made in this morning's Times that the Noilly Prat vermouth one gets in France is different from (and better than) what one gets in the US? The author, Melissa Clark, avers: "It is made differently there, and flaunts a more assertive and complex personality than its blander American counterpart", which seems to imply that the Noilly Prat in the US is produced domestically, which the label on my bottle ("Produit de France") clearly contradicts. But is there a difference? And if so, why?

That sounds good, but what about pot-roast, or stews, or things like that? They not only are okay when reheated, they're usually even better.

An excellent use for roast beef. In my experience there really is no way to reheat dry-roasted meat (not just beef) and achieve an acceptable result. Both flavor and texture suffer considerably. I have no idea why that is, but it seems to be true. Luckily, roast beef, roast chicken, roast lamb are all excellent cold, or brought to room temperature.

Your taste in hotdog brands is impeccable. Have you ever tried Usinger's veal wieners? They're magnificent. As are their Bavarian wieners, although I don't know what's particularly Bavarian about them. On the other hand, while there is no quarrelling with taste, the idea of putting ketchup on one of these...well, I will say no more. Another excellent source of all kinds of sausages, including wieners but also wonderful things like Nürnberger Bratwurst and Münchner Weißwurst is the Bavaria Sausage Company, whose website is HERE. In the backwater where I find myself at the moment, the best hotdogs to be found locally are at Harris Teeter, the Dietz and Watson wieners with natural casing. These are beef and pork. I know many prefer an all-beef product, but the Dietz and Watson All-Beef New York Franks they also carry don't have a natural casing (I think they're skinless), and to me excellence in a hotdog requires that it pop when you bite into it. I was home for lunch this afternoon and had two D&W wieners, boiled, on soft rolls with good strong Dijon mustard and some of my own home-made bread & butter pickles. In my view, the hotdog/wiener/frankfurter is a classic boiling sausage, which wouldn't be grilled or fried in Germany (the fatherland of sausages).

I don't know how old the shaker is, but I do know I don't want to spend any more money on it! At any rate, after practicing on a few cocktails last night, I can pour from it fairly well. Slightly awkward, and certainly from a utilitarian perpective this is not a good design at all, but good looks sometimes persuade us to overlook character flaws.

Your second suggestion had already occurred to me. As to your first: Despite my elaborate education, when it comes to things mechanical I'm pretty much a total idiot. Thus, it had not occurred to me that a large part of what was going on was the lack of air intake. But you are absolutely correct! I went home for lunch and experimented, following your plan of attack. (Although a cocktail at lunchtime can be nice, I used plain tapwater for my testing.) Success! Well, of a sort. Striking the balance between allowing air to flow in and preventing liquid dribbling out the wrong way is a little tricky with this shaker, which doesn't have the little air-hole you mention. Perhaps I can perfect my technique mixing a few Pegu Clubs this evening, although the practice of mixing each cocktail will probably be pretty much offset by the act of drinking it. Thank you very much indeed.

Well, I've tried holding the thing at just about every conceivable angle, and I think the "this design sucks" assessment pretty much covers it. If you hold it sort of upside down and shake vigorously, it does sort of kind of dribble out a little of the cocktail. Not quite the suave effect I was going for. My gosh it's pretty though. Fortunately, I have another silver cocktail shaker that actually works. Thanks for the suggestions.

I will when I get home in about twenty minutes.

I recently acquired a beautiful silver cocktail shaker. Beautiful to look at, frustrating to try to use. In fact, it seems to be damned near useless. Here's a picture of the lovely little thing: And another: The problem is that when you mix a cocktail in it and uncover the little pouring spout, as you attempt to pour, the ice falls against the inside of the strainer and completely blocks the spout. I've tried both whole ice cubes and cracked. No crushed ice, but I don't want to use crushed ice. Now, I've seen (but never before tried to use) many shakers built exactly like this, and surely they wouldn't have kept making them if they were all completely useless. What am I doing wrong?

Apparently the pinky-orangey "French dressing" dates to the 1930s, at least according to www.foodtimeline.org: This website has a lot of cool information desperately in need of a copy editor/proofreader. I make no claim as to its reliability.

This called Paste Cacio e Burro. Alfredo adds a little cream. ← Yes, annanstee, that is the familiar current usage of "Alfredo," in the Americas anyway. But per earlier in this thread, there are some indications that the dish has changed, under that name; that was the question. Just as, for instance, "French" salad dressing in the US no longer means what it did until the 1970s or so (and still does in other English-speaking countries.) When you see "French dressing" in a US cookbook from about the 1960s or earlier, it normally meant some kind of vinaigrette, not something sweetened and flavored with tomato. The term was appropriated. ← Mario Batali's fettucine Alfredo recipe in his new book is pasta, butter, cheese, and a little of the pasta cooking water. No cream. That pretty much settles it as far as I'm concerned. As to "French dressing": This certainly meant the sweet orange goop back in my 1960s childhood, at least in my part of the US. Maybe not in cookbooks, but in restaurants and supermarkets. I would speculate that it already meant that in the 1950s.

There's a nice brief history of Burger Chef HERE. Back in the days when Burger Chef was the principal competitor to McDonald's, they certainly had the better hamburger. And they gave us, through their TV advertising, the deathless "Incrediburgable!"

What happened to Popeye's onion rings, and when? Do they not offer them any more, or did they replace them with the extruded-onion-derivative-coated-with-wallpaper-paste that other fast food joints serve? I haven't been to a Popeye's in several years and was unaware that their astonishingly good onion rings were no more.