syoung68

I got my shipping confirmation email today. (I bought through the site). If only it would be here before this weekend, but I doubt the USPS can get it here in one day.

It is true, we rarely see them with the roe in our markets. I am sure restaurants can get them with the roe, but given that the general public cannot, the restaurants may be hesitant to include it for fear of turning off said public.

I just watched Alex and Aki make ice cream with dry ice in a stand mixer on Monday. It was delicious. They used pretty big chunks of ice as opposed to finely crushed so they could see any remaining ice and avoid it. KennethT: I understand that you do not have a stand mixer, it might be time to invest. Coincidently, the guys over at Hungry in Hogtown just did some icre cream comparison taste tests including LN2 made. The interesting thing was that the Kitchen Aide attachment not only came in second to LN2, but some tasters liked it better. You can check it out here: http://www.hungryinhogtown.com/hungry_in_h...d-nitrogen.html

Not that it is small by any means but it is something I would love to think ... "one day" Simon Difford's Cabinet Room http://digital.diffordsguide.com/1/Home/En...binet_Room.html Seriously though, having it be a wet bar is huge. I move everything I need from my cabinet to the kitchen to make drinks solely because of the sink. I have a relative that built a beautiful home with a great bar off the dining room. They did not put a sink in and have regretted it ever since.

you can download it here http://www.archive.org/details/standardcycloped00browiala

iDrink has been around in one form or another for a long time. It was (may still be) written in an early cold fusion competitor called iHTML to show off the language. I think the site (I have not downloaded the iPhone variant) is a fantastic program, but I agree that the cocktails in it are not as good as CocktailDB. There are plenty of bad cocktails as well as duplicates. This is partially b/c anyone could add anything in the early days. I also think the site has warped into a bad design that is all about presenting Ads. **Edited to add So I just looked up the iDrink iPhone app and it has nothing to do with iDrink.com as far as I can tell. I may be wrong.

Having purchased a bottle of Luxardo Maraschino and being too cheap to get a bottle of Chartreuse (For a Last Word) I searched CocktailDB for a new drink to try and came up with the Lord Suffolk. .5oz Maraschino .5oz Sweet Vermouth .5oz Cointreau 2oz Gin (Bokers) Very tasty. On another note, last week I made lemon balm simple syrup. I steeped about a cup of tightly packed lemon balm leaves in 1.5 cups of water. Then measured out a cup of the "tea" and made a 1:1 syrup. My first concoction: 2oz Gin (Bokers - it is what i currently have) .5oz lemon juice .5oz LB Syrup Dash of Peychaud's shake/strain/up Garnished with a lemon twist. It was pretty good if one dimensional.

I was at the Country Club as well, and Sarabeth's description is right on. Our table had a few misses (our fish was overcooked) but the highlights more than made up for it. The Tamarindo Surf & Turf was F'n fantastic and the two pork dishes were equally awesome. I too am not sure if I have had a better pork belly dish. This city can not afford to lose Chris. He is one of the most progressive chefs in town. Jeff and Wayne were great and served some mighty fine drinks. The drink in the coconut... ridiculous. One of the many great things about this meal was the livelihood of the crowd. We had a really good time and met some interesting people. It was certainly more of a party atmosphere than just a bunch of folks having the same food. I have read that some of the dinners last year were mediocre and there was limited interaction with the bar chef's. We had plenty of access to Jeff and Wayne - not too mention Chris and Miles. Here is Chris' take on the evening. http://chefcdb.livejournal.com/2008/07/20/

no, this one...

I saw it and bought it - while on vacation no less. For $7 how bad could it be. Though I have not cooked anything from it, I flipped through it in my hotel room and I actually like it. I should note that I rarely cook from a recipe and usually use books as inspiration. So asking me if the recipes are doable at home is probably not a good idea.

Hi, It has been documented that a vacuum does not speed up the marination process. Time matters when it comes to infusing flavor. Tim ← Can you share this documentation, because after having a 1 inch thick piece of watermelon in a vacuum with a liquid then releasing the vacuum and repeating twice, the watermelon was infused. The liquid had penetrated the watermelon. I purposely cut away the outside and simply tasted the interior. I did it with fish sauce. While it is not a tasty combination, I wanted to make sure that the liquid I used was a VERY distinct flavor from the melon. Now, I have read the article on vacuum marinating chicken breasts and realize that it states that the yield between a vacuum marinate breast and and a traditional marination was virtually the same, but by their own measurements the marinade absorption was greater under vacuum. As this article was geared toward commercial marination, it never talks about flavor differences in the cooked product. Not too mention that info would be subjective. I am sure there are other articles out there that will have similar results on cooked proteins, but I do not think readers here are only interested in marinade left in a cooked piece of meat. Does a vacuum increase the marinade absorption in the same amount of time? This article seems to think so. I would say that is more important since we are primarily concerned here with flavor not yield.

So I did some experimentation this past weekend. I wanted to see if I could replicate what happens in a chamber vac. I am not sure how sound my thinking was, but I bought the food saver canisters and the ZipLoc Ready Vac bags. The Ready Vac bags have a valve that you press their vacuum device to in order to suck out the air. I thought I could use this IN a canister. This setup was discussed in the sous vide thread. First, I used the food saver to vacuum and seal watermelon in a bag and then placed it in the canister. I vacuumed out the canister and then upon release the vacuum my hopes were that I would get a better compression than just using a normal food saver bag. Unfortunately, this was not the case. the watermelon compressed this way was no more dense than that simply done in a bag. I am wondering if a real check value would be better. Check Valve Install in the sous vide thread. Now the canister does work well as a marinator. When I put the watermelon directly into the canister with liquid and then vacuumed out the canister, the melon was infused with the liquid. Incidentally, my kids were VERY amused with marshmallows in the canister.

I think it is delicious to butter bread with, but I am not sure I would actually cook with it as I think the underlying flavor would over power things.

boag, I am sorry the some of the folks you hang out with are the type who want to itemize the bill in a cheap restaurant. I think we all agree that the service was not exemplary, in fact it sounds like it sucked, but what gets everyone's goat is the 87 cents. SOMEONE in your party had an extra $1. And no, you should NOT have gotten attitude from the server when you were short 87 cents - as stated, I would have let it go. But the fact that your server brought it up proves my point that an extra buck means way more to her than it does to you. If indeed the menu stated 15% would be added and then 20% got added, you guys should have been brought it up to the manager. Short of that, you should have paid the presented bill. Added: In reality, if it was as bad as it sounds, the lack of service should have been brought up to management along with the added gratuity be it ANY percentage. Again, if you guys did not say anything to management, you should have paid the bill.

In boagman's defense, 20% added to a bill seems high, and if the menu stated 15% for larger parties, then getting hit with 20% is outrageous. As for not paying the $.87, someone in the party had another buck you can be sure. That being said, as an ex waiter, I would not have said anything about the missing change. Quick story, when I first start waiting tables it was in a chain restaurant (TGIF). I was 18 leave it alone. One Saturday night, after the first shift was cut at about 10:30, a group of 20 prom kids came in. Needless to say, nobody wanted to take them, so I did. Turned out a couple of them could drink (at the time 18 was legal in New Orleans) so that helped the mostly apps bill, and more importantly, the kids were pretty cool overall. Given that I had a decent rapport with them, at the end of the meal I actually said to one of the guys, "It is the restaurants policy to add 18% to large parties. I can do that so you guys do not have to figure out the tip etc, or I can leave it up to you." Naturally he chose the "leave it up to him" policy. I got a 25% tip. The moral is, good servers get good tips. It was a moment that stuck with me through my restaurant career. NOW on the flip side, 87 frickin cents - really? A buck makes NO difference to you, but a buck is a world of difference to a server. On a $100 bill, I tip $21. Again a buck is no difference to me, but that one extra buck lets a waiter know that they did a good job. Yes, it sounds like you did not get the best of service that night, but I am not sure what kind of service you expected in what you yourself called a low end Mexican joint. Big parties are a lot of work no matter what a customer thinks. Do not say that you would have tipped more, because if coming up with the 87 cents was a problem, why would you have tipped more. You also made a comment about tipping out the bar, what do you think a server has to do. At the end of the night, your server tips out the bar and the bus staff. Another pet peeve is the fact that you mention tipping on tax. Again, the extra buck won't KILL you. When I worked in Massachusetts where tax is 5% the worst tip for me was when someone would simple triple the tax 15% on the subtotal. To me, it was more of a slap in the face than if they left less. It was tipping because they had to not because I did a good job. That is just a personal rant of mine - it is really a different debate - like tipping on expensive wine..

You are preachin' to the choir.

phlox, do not be too hard on jackal, the European system is much different from the US. Waitstaff actually make a salary and tips are for exceptional over the top service. What you describe is a typical night for ANY server anywhere. People, waiting tables is harder than most folks think. I have always said that a month waiting tables and a month of retail clothing at the Gap should be mandatory before you can get any other job. It would make for a friendlier more compassionate world.

Jay has a pretty good write up on orange liqueurs over on Oh Gosh. I agree with the Luksusowa it is a relatively cheap vodka that easily compares to the high dollar ones. My Vodka snob (if you can believe it) friends who only buy Chopin never have a problem going through my bottle. I have not been able to find the Rittenhouse or Goslings in the New Orleans (north shore) area. Brooks or Todd, if you know who has either please pass it on. The real question is when a bottle of the green fairie will be less than $55

HungryC, having lived outside of Boston for 6 years, I can say that right off the boat is better. What makes it even better is $3 a pound!!!!. But the funny thing is, in 6 years I bought lobster MAYBE 6 times and usually when a friend was up visiting. Once my uncle visited and we boiled lobster in crab boil. It did not really work. I don''t get the lobster thing. Maybe because growing up in southeast Louisiana has spoiled me for really good seafood. I like OUR oysters and shrimp better than any others and I will take a crawfish boil over a lobster dinner any day.

Has anyone been to The Left Bank recently. I know that it was overrated in the past, but I have heard that the new(ish) chef is fantastic. I think he took over in late 2007.

Not sure if any of you have seen this but it may meet all of your needs and is relatively cheap... http://www.pracx.com/bargenie/

I have used crushed wasabi peas plain and blended with panko as breading. It is pretty good. The peas by themselves do not really crisp up, hence the panko on the second time around.

Thanks for the input. I will check when I get home, but I think the only language options I have are Spanish and Catalonia. Catalonian?

This is going to bring in the cajun/creole debate. I think the chefs that Dave has named are all creole - not cajun. In fact, I would classify Leah Chase and Austin Leslie as soul food or southern chefs not cajun. Of all of them I might put Emeril in the cajun mix eventhough there is not much cajun in his restaurants, he has put out some cajun styled cookbooks. One of the problems is that real cajun food is home cooking - jambalaya, gumbo, pork (delicious pork), etc. There are not that many famous cajun chefs. You could look in the Lafayette area but then I am not sure how "famous" they would be.

Not a rumor http://nbcumv.com/bravo/bio_detail.nbc/top...4-richard-.html