FrogPrincesse

A deconstructed salade parisienne! How fun, and much more appetizing than the orginal. I think I am going to steal this roasted grapes and pancetta idea. I have a slab of homemade pancetta that I need to use! Tonight, we started with an appetizer shamelessly "borrowed" from Nancy Silverton (Mozza): slow-roasted tomatoes with burrata, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, with country levain bread. Then we had pot-au-feu, leftovers from a giant batch (7 lb of meat including oxtail, flank steak, veal shank, and short ribs!) that I made this weekend.

I made a couple of Batavia Arrack-based cocktails tonight. For me, it was Dan Chadwick's Arrack Attack. I found it refreshing with grapefruit flavors, and some really cool herbal notes from the Cynar at the end. This drink really seems to highlight the flavor range of the arrack. He is not a big fan of Cynar or ginger, so I made him the Alicante. On paper it's an intriguing mix of Grand Marnier as the base with Batavia Arrack, dry vermouth, orange and mole bitters, expressed orange peel, and a pinch of salt. It is a great drink, full of interesting flavors. He could not guess what was in it- he initially thought that the base liquor was a white rhum agricole.

You really need one... It's great stuff!

For me, a Martinez with Hayman's old tom gin, Carpano Antica sweet vermouth, Luxardo maraschino, and Dr. Adam Elmegirab's Boker's bitters. For him, a Black Walnut Manhattan with Rittenhouse rye (2oz), Averna (1/4 oz), Charbay black walnut liqueur (1/2 oz), and Bittermens mole bitters. For the black walnut Manhattan, I was trying to recreate a drink that we had years ago at Modus supper club, a now-defunct San Diego restaurant. It worked quite well.

Lovely salad. I riffed on a similar theme last night, with grapefruit, oranges, avocado, and thinly sliced fennel. The dressing was champagne vinegar and a little lemon juice, and blood orange-infused olive oil. Citrus-based salads are just wonderful. That blood-orange infused olive oil sounds great as well. I had spinach and English peas in my CSA, so the Baby Spinach, Fresh Pea and Feta Cheese Salad from The Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver immediately came to mind. I blanched the peas very briefly. The dressing is simply olive oil (I used a very aromatic arbequina oil) and lemon juice. I think that this was the first cooking book I bought after moving to the US and discovering his show more than 10 years ago, and I still make some of the recipes.

With persian cucumbers, and sorrel that I am growing on the patio, I made this Cucumber Gazpacho from Russ Parsons' How to Pick a Peach. There is no cooking involved; the cucumbers and sorrel are blended with yoghurt, garlic and bread for thickening. Not exactly a winter dish, but we had a beautiful day in San Diego today!

Local halibut with preserved lemons, green garlic and fennel fronds from my CSA.

Local halibut with preserved lemons, green garlic and fennel fronds from my CSA.

Local halibut with preserved lemons, green garlic and fennel fronds from my CSA.

The Search for Delicious It's interesting how the salt changes the taste of the Cynar. I like it a lot.

On the Cynar thread, Kerry Beal mentioned the Little Italy and I don't remember ever having one. So I decided to try it tonight. What a beautiful cocktail. Smooth like a great Manhattan, with some wonderful herbal/bitter flavors from the Cynar at the end. A new favorite for sure!

Chris, The rogue/beta cocktail book has quite a few Cynar drinks so you may want to look into that. The Art of Choke (already mentioned in this thread), The Bitter Giuseppe, Eeyor's Requiem, The Italian Heirloom, The Search for Delicious, Teenage Riot, Transatlantic Giant, The Last Mechanical Art, The Warning Label, etc.

Leap Year Cocktail: gin, grand marnier, sweet vermouth, lemon juice, lemon twist

I really like the meatballs and make them regularly. The recipe uses ground beef, eggs, bread, garlic, pecorino, plenty of fresh parsley, and roasted pine nuts (recipe here). The meatballs are browned first and then simmered in the sauce. They are very tender. The best part is the pine nuts inside - a delicious surprise! Neapolitan Meatballs (Polpette alla Napoletana) They are delicious with homemade tagliatelle (purists, please avert your eyes), or on their own.

I agree with Zachary; there are both excellent examples of rhum agricoles. I love them both with a slight preference for La Favorite.

Classic? Where's the Campari? The Campari is a given! It is hiding in the back between the bottles of gin and Carpano Antica.

I made him a Lion's Tail: bourbon, allspice dram, lemon juice, simple syrup, Angostura bitters.

That looks good, mukki. How do you like the Charbay meyer lemon vodka? I really like their blood orange vodka. After all this talk about Negroni variations, I decided to take the classic route. Junipero, Carpano Antica, Regan and Angostura orange bitters.

Thanks for taking one for the team and reporting your results, I really appreciate it. Based on your findings, I may give this drink another try. It's funny but I liked the bourbon version right away, it just worked for me. In general, I seem to have a hard time with rum + Campari combinations that also show up in some tiki drinks, for example the Jungle Bird, another drink I really don't care for. That puzzles me because I really like Campari and the Negroni happens to be my favorite drink!

How does Luxardo Bitter taste compared to Campari, Aperol, Punt e Mes, etc? I am looking at my notes and there is a rum negroni that I liked much better recently. The recipe was from Matt Robold/rumdood. "Damnably Delicious" 3/4 oz each of La Favorite blanc, Dolin rouge, and Campari, 1/2 tsp petite canne syrup. Stir, strain over rocks, orange twist. La Favorite is extremely distinctive so it worked pretty well.

I was surprised too. The recipe on the Bittermens website only calls for 1.5 oz of rum so that's what I used. Maybe increasing the amount of rum would help, as in the version you posted.

I had a nice pork belly banh mi from MIHO today, it's one of their specialties. I really liked the fact that they used high-quality bread. PORK BELLY BANH MI all natural pork belly, house pickled local carrot & daikon, local cilantro, local jalapeno, sesame aioli, baguette {7.95}

I never thought of a labne wrap as breakfast food, but now I want one! It looks delicious.

After the trying (and liking) The Left Hand, I tried The Right Hand. It's another Negroni variation with aged rum (1.5 oz), carpano antica sweet vermouth (0.75 oz), campari (0.75 oz), mole bitters (2 dashes). I used a nice rum - El Dorado 12 year. But I was disappointed as the rum got lost in the drink. The campari really dominated with the other ingredients only providing some (good) undertones. mkayahara suggested, and I agree, that an aged rhum agricole or Smith & Cross may work better in this drink. The El Dorado 12 that I used is excellent, but simply not assertive enough for this drink.

Picked up a few goodies at Hi-Time Wine Cellars yesterday. I noticed that they had the Buffalo Trace "experimental" bourbon that was mentioned upthread, along with a large number of other things that I decided to pass on, at least for now...