FrogPrincesse

There are more actually! There is at least a third place that I know of that claims to be tiki, and I should also make sure to mention the rooftop bar overlooking Petco Park (Fairweather) that doesn't have a tiki décor but has a very tiki-esque menu. And Bali Hai, of course, which is our historical tiki restaurant & bar. Tiki has infiltrated most places here! And I won't complain. I am not sure about what they use in their Grass Skirt Daiquiri, but I will find out! (As a side note Stiggins makes a great Daiquiri, of course. I had one at Rumba in Seatlle before I owned a bottle.) I will be back for sure. And the food was pretty great, a nice eclectic mix; I am always happy to find bars that serve good food. I did go back to False Idol but it was a busy night. I will have to see if I can dig up my notes/pictures.

Wow. Scaling up these braised sous vide short ribs was harder than I thought. First I double bagged my 10 lbs (!) of short ribs into 2.5 gallon Hefty bags (which have very poorly sealed corners as shown on the left in the third picture). Believe it or not, I got a (slow) leak right away. So I had to quickly transfer everything into 1 gallon ziplock (slider) bags. Then I had upgraded from a large stock pot to a cooler and thought that I would have plenty of place. Not really... the three bags barely fit in there. Not the most practical setup! Hopefully my water level won't check too much and the bags will stay submerged (I plan on checking regularly of course).

I think you could try substituting part of it like in a Hemingway Daiquiri.

Thanks for sharing. Nothing much was new to me in the article, but I enjoyed it anyway. Especially this part:

Did anybody notice Tom Colicchio criticizing the use of sous-vide as a technique to cook pork tenderloin on Top Chef recently (with Sean Brock approving)? He claimed it gave the appearance of medium rare but drew the juices out. I am not a big fan of pork tenderloin personally, but I was surprised as this technique seems very popular here on eGullet for this cut of meat!

Pickled celery with mustard seeds (& clove, peppercorn), 60C for 150 minutes, using the brine from Babbo. Very crunchy!

Nice looking drink. You substituted an aged rhum agricole (Neisson eleve sous bois) for an unaged one (Clement premiere canne), correct? That is a rather major substitution. What you did probably deserves its own name because I imagine the result to be quite different!

Kumquat marmalade day 2 - cooking with the sugar, and the finished product. I added 1/2 tsp of kirsch from Basel at the end as a little flavoring boost.

It depends on the amount used. I linked to the rules. I was an indexer so I had to refer to them all the time! http://support.eatyourbooks.com/customer/portal/articles/1034887-store-cupboard-ingredients-table

Here is a previous and equally delicious of the Howl on the Hill with with El Dorado 12 & Havana Club 7 rums, Dolin sweet vermouth (+ Fernet-Branca, yellow Chartreuse, St. George absinthe).

Howl on the Hill (Jessica Gonzalez) with El Dorado 8 year demerara rum (substituted for the 15 year), Flor de Cana 12 (substituted for Santa Teresa 1796), Margerum amaro (instead of Carpano Antica - they are very different but I still loved the result), Fernet-Branca, yellow Chartreuse, St. George absinthe (instead of Vieux Pontarlier). This is a bit like a rum cousin of a cocktail I love, the Hanky Panky (gin + sweet vermouth + fernet-branca).

Brian Miller's Bumboo again, this time with Flor de Cana 12 (and demerara syrup, vanilla syrup, Peychaud's bitters, Abbott's bitters, Jerry Thomas' bitters, grated nutmeg). This rum strikes a good balance between sweetness and spice. It should work great in tiki drinks (and was recommended in Smuggler's Cove cocktail book).

I've had this Negroni variation, the Fancy-Roni, at Soda & Swine, and it's very tasty!

The Batiste makes a very nice Ti Punch. Flavorful but less intimidating than higher proof rhum. Also a great Daiquiri No. 3 (I forgot to take a picture of that one).

Improved Whiskey cocktail (Jerry Thomas via David Wondrich in Imbibe) with 2 oz Bulleit rye whiskey, 1 barspoon homemade gomme syrup, 1/2 barspoon Luxardo maraschino liqueur, 1/8 barspoon St. George absinthe, 2 dashes Dr. Elmegirab Boker's bitters, expressed lemon peel. This is quite amazing, with a very luscious mouthfeel from the gomme.

Very reliable. But keep in mind that basic pantry items (salt, pepper, sugar, etc) are typically not included. Also, they are very quick to make corrections if you report mistakes. Just send them an error report by email!

Setting things on fire melts the sugar, extracts the oils from the lemon peel in the hot alcohol, and gives a caramelized taste. Plus it's quite a show. I don't think much alcohol is burned during the process anyway.

I bought a pound of Arabic powder on amazon for $18 (Frontier brand and it comes as a fine white powder) and made a batch of gomme using the recipe from Morgenthaler (I only had to wait for 24 hours for the gum to hydrate). Easy and a lot less expensive than the little bottles of Small Hands (which are impossible to find anyway).

Cream of (orange) cauliflower soup with parmesan (recipe from Rockpool in Sydney, found on Eat Your Books). I love this soup! Very tasty thanks to the browned cauliflower, and a bit of Dijon mustard & parmesan cheese.

@rarerollingobject Beautiful as usual! (and I have to point out that this is not "my" ginger pie, it is Matt Rowley's recipe, a fellow San Diegan)

Charles Dickens' Punch (from David Wondrich's Punch book). I love that recipe; it's simple, doesn't even require an oleo saccharum (which is easy enough but needs to be done in advance), and it's so much fun to set everything on fire! I used Plantation pineapple rum and Landy VS cognac. Setting all the booze on fire was achieved by setting a spoonful of Smith & Cross on fire, and gently transferring it to the bowl containing everything else. At first, I didn't think I had been successful, but then I realized the metal bowl I was using was getting quite hot! So this is better done with the lights out so the flame is visible, and for full dramatic effect of course... I served the punch cold and diluted with cold water, and freshly grated nutmeg.

Penicillin (Sam Ross) with Glenlivet 15 years French oak reserve, Laphroaig 10, lemon juice, Canton ginger liqueur (substituted for the ginger syrup), honey syrup. I love that one in winter!

A Painkiller and a 3 Dots & a Smash at the Grass Skirt, another new tiki bar in San Diego.

The seeds! It's fairly quick to slice the kumquats but then they have to be deseeded, and that is a rather slow process as they are full of seeds! In the first picture, the top pile of slices still have their seeds, while the bottom pile has been deseeded. All the seeds go into a piece of cheesecloth so their pectin can be extracted.

What to do with all the green tops from the vegetables in my CSA? Soup of course. Beet greens, turnip greens, and French sorrel from the garden. I added a bit of feta for a pop of flavor.