johnder

Depends on how you qualify immediate. The only one I can think of this year off the top of my head is Gordon Ramsey's place at the Righa hotel -- rumored to be this fall. He will definately be striving for 4 *'s that is for sure. John

So here we are a few months later and suprisingly this place is still around. Even more amazing, they have a 9.7 rating on citysearch. I guess this is the new tourist destination after Mars 2012 John

I would beg to differ ← Yeah, but you have, like, a hollow leg. I mean, I have a pretty decent tolerance, but Pegu can put me under the table pretty damn quick. Gets Mr. Deragon a little tipsy, too. Sorry, John (ducks and runs). ← I have no idea what you are talking about. I only drink water at Pegu.

Wow great blog Megan! I go away for a week and all sorts of exciting things happen. I am surprised you made it out of pegu with only 2 drinks!

When we did our kitchen we opted for subway tile as the backsplash. The nice thing is the grout line for subway tiles is very tight, and to be doubly safe we used spectra grout which is an 2 part epoxy grout that is stain resistant and never needs sealing. It is increidbly expensive, but well worth it. A quick wipedown with a spong, or a spray of 409 works great for any grease marks on the file. This is an old photo that shows the stove in, but before the tile was finished and the countertops installed. We needed to rush and get the stove installed so the countertop people could make their templates, hence it looking out of place.

Tonight before dinner I made a few drinks Phil came up with at Pegu, a last word variation based on Rye instead of Gin and lemon instead of lime. Sure hits the spot.

Man, I don't read the boards for a few days and all of a sudden there is this amazing blog going on. That will teach me to get sick. Actually the idea of food the past few days really didn't excite me as I was recovering from that nasty 4 day flu bug going around. The dishes look amazing so far! Good luck everyone! John

At a resturant nearby, applewood, they make a savory onion martini, in which they roast off some onions, then infuse vodka with them for a few days. The resulting brew is then mixed with some worcestershire sauce and a dash of tabasco and served up. It is very good.

An article over at MSNBC talks about how ... As far as what kind of "coffee" they would use in the vending machines... It should be interesting to see how this turns out. Obviously this can't be a drop in replacement for their existing vending machines as they obviously will need a water supply line. Unless of course they make the units totally self contained in which it has a supply of brewing water, along with a drain bin and waste canister for the "spent" pods. I would hasten to guess this machines will require quite a lot of service and maintenance. The cleanliness factor of these machines worries me as well. Granted the pods in theory wont be leaving grinds around, but there we definately be some residual brewed coffee in the mechanisms that will turn bitter quickly.

It is funny, I made this cookies a few weeks ago and realized the recipe shouldn't really call for 1 1/2 t of extra salt. The cookies I made we toooooo salty. I guess it may have been my complilation of various bacon drippings I used, but I should have realized 1 1/2t of salt would have been too much normally anyway. The cookie flavor was good, but they were salty enough that we had to turn them into savory cookies that we ate with cocktails.

Wow, little did I know I was starting such a debate. I merely was pointing out a nice new magazine. I guess I picked the wrong cocktail to highlight!

A jigger being how much? 1 1/2 ounces

I have definately been "burned" by this in the past. This was especially problematic when working at restaurants. You quickly learn to grab any handle you see in the vicinity of a stove or dirty/with food in it with a side towel. I still do this at home which has saved me many times. I too have had the "my god what died in here" moment. That was a bag of yukon gold potoates that fell behind the fridge. Nothing like cleaning up a fuzzy green puddle or putrid potato juice.

I should clarify that the listing aside from mentioning that is was tweaked did reference the name of the drink as: Alaska NEW It doesn't change the argument you made though that it is very confusing. They would have been better of doing something like Alaska Cocktail #2

I was at my local barnes and noble looking through the magazine rack and came across something called: "Diffords Guide to Cocktails #5.1 A-C" It is an interesting magazine, about 155 pages, full color, high quality paper. The first part of the mag goes through basic bartending equipment, then mixology and then reviews of some of the worlds finest cocktail bars. The majority of the book though covers cocktail recipes A-C. (D-F comes 2/2006) The recipes run the gamut from some pretty crappy drinks like a Apple & Custard Martini (god help us) to some time proven classics like the Aviation, Corpse Revivier (#1, but not #2) Given the price is only 7.95 it definatley is a nice guide to have handy, and the layout and photography is pretty amazing. If you see it at your local bookstore, I would say check it out. Tonight I made a Alaska Martini which had Pymouth Gin, Yellow Chartreuse, Sherry and some orange bitters. It says the recipe was adapted from the Alaska cocktail in the Savoy Cocktail book, and the addition of the Dry Sherry was David Embury's idea in "The fine art of mixing drinks" It was very tasty. edit: typo

There is a pretty good thread here on how to acheive good results on cooking fish. The general steps for good fish cooking is: Make sure the skin or flesh is very dry. Very Hot Pan Good Oil/Butter to grease pan. Don't touch fish until it releases from the pan, otherwise it will fall apart. Turn only once.

I have a batch of Hess' House Bitters brewing, it is currently in the steeping phase. Won't move onto the next phase until 1/29.

Looks like this years Big Apple BBQ Block Party will be June 10th and 11th 2006. I have updated the EG Calendar - more details to come soon hopefully. I hope they fix the issues with the bubba passes this year. The whole get your receipt and present it to the bbq stall was kind of stupid. Ideally they will give each of the stalls a card reader that will just deduct the price from your pre-paid card. *fingers-crossed* Previous eG Forums threads on BABBPs past may be found here: 2003 2004 2005

I would personally go for Gramercy/Union Sq. area. Great vibe, good places to eat, convienent transportation, farmers market. There are some amazing condo's and co-ops going up around Madision Square park as we speak. Don't forget the Big Apple BBQ that is in the park every summer too! John

I have to say I am both excited and scared. Excited because whenever I am visiting family out west they always have great trader joes products around. Scared because it is already a zoo with Whole Foods there, adding Trader Joes to the mix will be insane..

I have been keeping some form of food diary for the past few years, I religiously put in anything related to a dinner party. I write down the names of guests, menu, what dishes worked, what didn't. Recently (~6 months) I have been writing down every dinner I make at home when it is just the two of us. I do this not so much to keep track of what we ate, but more along the lines of keeping track of my cooking experiements and if they worked or not. I recently started using the notebooks to keep track of recipes I like from magazines as well. I used to keep every issue of every cooking magazine I got and it got to be a huge space hog. What I do now is read through each issue and transcribe any recipes that interest me into the book. Usually it is only 2-3 per issue. Hand transcribing the recipes although tedious, allows me to better remember the recipe type for those nights I am trying to come up with something for dinner.

Ah you are correct. I actually knew that and was referring to it more of from the sense of where I last had it, as opposed to the creator. You can find the recipe here. Good catch Sam. Sorry Audrey/Chad. :-) Just for the sake of accuracy, the Velvet Harvest on the menu at Pegu Club was created by Chad Solomon -- a talented young bartender shaking at Pegu Club and elsewhere. ←

Wasn't there some horrible invention that was created to replace egg whites? I vagely remember seeing it when I was working as a bus boy and had to help stock the bar. It was something like Foam-it, or Drink Foam. Can't remember the specifics, but it looked like a small plastic bottle that had a clear viscous liquid in it. It was supposed to be a 1 to 1 replacement for egg whites. I haven't seen it around recently and that is a good thing.

We had a few of Audrey's Velvet Harvest to start, I would have liked a second one, but ran out of egg whites. We ended up just having a sidecar after that. Very tasty.

I recounted this story to slkinsey and Megan B. a few days ago as we were enjoying quality drinks at Pegu... I was staying with relatives in California over Thanksgiving and was stuck in Blackhawk -- which for those that know, tends to be somewhat void of entertainment. I perked up when I found there was a high end tequilla mexican "cantina" that offered a huge selection of tequillas. When we got there I spied a nice bottle of Espolon Anejo that I fancied in a margarita. Unfortunately while I was looking at the menu I watched them crank out marg after marg using this florescent green sour mix. I couldn't believe people were paying upwards of 15 bucks for a marg made with this. What made matters worse is their house marg was made with Patron Silver and Gran MarnierReserve and this fructose sour mix. When the bartender came over to take my order I asked him if he could make my drink without the sour mix, at which point he told me it would be sour and I wouldn't like it. He kept persisting that there needed to be at least some sour mix for it to be sweet. Finally I convinced him to make it with the promise that if I didn't like it, I would still pay for it. I told him make it on the rocks, 2 parts Espolon, 1 part fresh lime, 1 part Gran Marnier. It was amazing -- slightly sweet, sour and the full flavor of the tequila coming through. He only checked in with me 5 times asking if it was too sour.