mkayahara

I'm not sure this quite speaks to the issue you're talking about, but when I lived in rural New Brunswick, Canada, none of the local grocery stores carried fresh herbs, garlic or chilies. And people wondered why I didn't like it there... if I wanted to make guacamole, I had to drive across a provincial border (about 25 minutes away) to get jalapenos! Lately, I've been on a quest to find poblano peppers. There seem to be signs for them at the local grocery stores, but none of the actual item. And, this being Canada, I don't have a "local Latin market." It's no wonder Canadians aren't familiar with real Mexican food.

I use my broiler for a few Japanese preparations: shioyaki, miso-marinated fish, sometimes even yakitori. I have plans for making dengaku soon using it. And we've been known to use it for chicken satays in the past. Basically, I use it for just about anything I would use a grill for anytime I don't feel like actually working the grill, or am unable to for any reason!

I raised the CO2 question based on some reports I skimmed and didn't fully understand around the internet, so I place no validity in my interpretation those. Meanwhile, I'll be the taster for the healthy gang here. IANAS, but I assume that it's the Lactobacilli that produce the CO2, which then dissolves in the brine. When you heat up the brine, solubility goes down, and CO2 comes out of solution. Voilà, fizzy brine. I've seen the same thing happen when I reboil the brine I use for pickles. The difference, of course, is that CO2-tangy pickles are a lot more palate-friendly than CO2-tangy meat.

Agreed. There's no need to get into a pissing match. He was rude to you, the food was bad: don't go back.

Can you elaborate?

The "original" I was referring to is the version from Beachbum Berry Remixed. 3/4 oz campari, 1/2 oz lime juice, 1/2 oz simple syrup, 4 oz unsweetened pineapple juice, 1 1/2 dark Jamaican rum. Try at your own risk! Ah, well I guess that explains why I couldn't find it by searching online. Thanks!

OK, I've been casting about for a couple of days trying to find the "original" you refer to here, but all the Jungle Bird recipes I can find seem to call for Blackstrap! In any case, I tried it this past Friday, and while it was good, I wasn't blown away. (The Montegomatica, on the other hand, was a thoroughly brilliant drink. I'll be revisiting that one soon.)

Finally - finally - got around to making a Broken Shoe Shiner tonight. Magical drink. Rosewater and pastis... who knew?

In a Wondrich recipe in Beta Cocktails, piloncillo (or maybe it's gula jawa?) sugar syrup is an ingredient, and there's a note saying that it must be refrigerated, as it will ferment on you. I imagine that these unrefined sugars are a lot less microbiologically stable than white sugar is.

I've had results like that too, usually when I've overbeaten.

Tonight's tipple was a Saratoga (of the "half-brandy-half-rye Manhattan" variety) with a couple of dashes of my recently acquired bottle of Bittercube cherry bark/vanilla bitters. A bit technicolor, but pretty tasty.

Interesting; keep us posted on how the trehalose works out.

Pardon me if I missed this, but are you saying you made the swizzle stick by supersaturating Campari with regular white sugar, and then seeding with the stick? I realize it raises the (no doubt already high) cost, but why not supersaturate with dehydrated Campari crystals? That way you should be punching up the flavours (including bitterness) and the sugars by roughly the same proportion, right? (Not to say that trehalose wouldn't work; I'm not really familiar with it.)

Just back from my last trip to the U.S. for the foreseeable future, and brought with me a bottle of Ransom Old Tom gin, my first (!) bottle of Punt e Mes, and a bottle of Cocchi Aperitivo Americano. Combined with the three Dolin vermouths I picked up in Montreal a couple of weeks ago, I've got enough aromatized wine to keep me busy for a while, I think!

Has anyone tried the Pierre Ferrand 1840 Cognac? Any thoughts? I'm toying with the idea of picking up a bottle, but would like an opinion before I commit.

A few days ago, I did lamb's tongues in my pressure cooker: I put them in chicken stock and garlic, brought them up to high pressure, cooked for 15 minutes, and let the pressure dissipate naturally. Not quite long enough to get them where I wanted, so I gave them another 5 minutes at high pressure. Once they were done, I peeled them, then proceeded with Fergus Henderson's recipe for lamb's tongues with turnips and bacon (except I substituted rutatbagas for the turnips, and kale for the turnip tops. Delicious!

Indeed, why not scrap the shooter and go with Eben Freeman's Bazooka Bubblegum Cocktail?

Interesting... how did you juice the supremes? Did you actually use a juicer, or just sort of put 'em in a mortar and bash 'em around?

Sounds nice, FrogPrincesse. Seems like tequila and orgeat aren't paired together very often.

I'm a big fan of the Spindrift Jr. from Beachbum Berry Remixed: orange juice, lemon juice, passion fruit syrup, vanilla syrup (simple + a small dash of vanilla extract works fine), and Demerara rum. Also, don't miss the opportunity to try a Hurricane!

There's a brief description of it here: http://jetcitygastrophysics.com/2012/04/23/jet-city-gastrophysics-goes-to-alinea/

FWIW, Hollinger & Schwartz's Art of the Bar gives a drink with rye, sweet vermouth, Campari and a couple of other minor fillips (dashes of Peychaud's bitters and Herbsaint) that they call the "New Pal." It's such a straightforward substitution that I'm sure it's been given plenty of other names, of course.

It's always easy to find anecdotal counter-evidence to lists like these. It would be nice to believe that every single plate coming out of a Top 50 restaurant is nothing short of transcendent, but of course everyone has an off day sometimes. So is it possible for a good day at a minor restaurant to be better than a bad day at a celebrated one? Of course. That's why the results for lists like these are tallied from hundreds of jurors, rather than being the work of a single critic. Mind you, the drawback to that is that when you're working with a large pool of people with limited resources (both time and money), fashion will dictate their choices to a large extent. That's why it's always interesting to see major moves up or down the list. And, of course, it's the root of my own frustration with this list: Canada is simply not seen as a fashionable fine dining destination today, much as Denmark wasn't seen as one until a few years ago. Anecdotally, I ate at Eleven Madison Park just last week, and it was one of the finest restaurant experiences I've ever had anywhere. As for the question of whether or not the most delicious food comes exclusively out of fine dining restaurants, I think we need to remember that it's intended to be a list of the "best restaurants" not the "restaurants serving the most delicious food." Innovation, service, decor and myriad other factors come into play in determining what the best restaurants in the world are. Food is one factor, and should be the most important factor, but it's not the only factor. None of this is to suggest that this list isn't flawed, of course. But there's no way to make such a list objective, or perfectly accurate. As always, the primary goal of any ranking is to get people talking about the ranking. In that sense, they've accomplished their mission.

Given the way voting works, I'm not that surprised by Next's absence: I can't imagine enough of the jurors were able to secure tickets for them to make it onto the list. I continue to be disappointed by Canada's complete absence from the list, though. I don't really understand what the problem is: the fact that we're lumped in with the US Midwest? The fact that we don't have a strong enough brand identity for jurors to make a point of visiting here? Or does every single one of our restaurants, nationwide, really suck that much?

OK, what is vegetable rennet? Are we talking thistle extracts here? I always assumed that "vegetarian rennet" was microbial rennet. Edit: My cheesemaking supplier, for instance, lists only calf rennet and microbial rennet.