haresfur

Trifecta of spousal abhorrence: Mezcal, Spanish brandy, Fernet Branca. We're having it tonight.... Delivery of Cynar just arrived. Will the drink produce the same effect if using Vida Mezcal and PF cognac? (I know, I know... but I am completely maxed out with respect to my home bar inventory) Chris Taylor made this for me using my cheap French brandy and even cheaper rotgut Mescal. I thought it was alright but Chris would be able to give you a better opinion of the substitution.

No shame there. IMO the interesting challenge is to make the most of whatever ingredients you chose.

Can you tell me more about the tart? It looks a lot like one of my family recipes that we call plum cake - although the crust is more like a cookie dough than a cake or pie crust.

My experience in Europe of this time frame is much more sparse and punctuated than yours. I'm really interested to hear your perspective on the changes over time in different countries.

Shoreditch House has got very WankMixology since I was there. Funny.... I've been a different bar and had the waiter tell my female companion a drink was "strong". I put it down to staff training, really. I trained my staff previously to refer to drinks as either "spirit forward" or "easy drinking" rather than "strong" and "light". I really would like to see more effort put into training floor staff at decent cocktail bars. Wrong on many levels. Did the waiter look at you and think you were not to be trusted? Then again the dangerous drinks are strong and easy drinking.

I think ginger wine is probably more like Domain de Canton than anything. Stones is a currant wine flavoured with ginger. Ungodly sweet and not really at all like ginger beer. I use it in things like whiskey mac and a Ginger Envelope. More discussion on ginger wine in the posts below the link.

Here's Frank Camorra's take on a great parma. I've been playing around with SV vs no SV and I think my conclusion is that it depends what you are after. Pounding thin and no SV gives a texture with more bite that isn't bad. I find that even pounded flat breasts bounce back some in the SV step and the end product is a bit thicker but still softer and moister. I like the way I can get herb flavour into the chicken with the SV. But overall it is basically a style difference and I can't say one way is clearly superior (yet). Obviously skipping the SV step is easier.

Sounds nice. To paraphrase WC Fields, "Take the lion by the tail and face the situation"

One approach is to beat the Aperol into submission with a lot of spirit. I kind of like this Aperolitini. TOK is right, bitters help. I've tried cardamom but use a light hand with that one.

I bought it at the big chain supermarket. I suspect most of them are used in soup.

I made a pot of baked beans that turned out nicely, I kind of hate to say it, because they weren't vegetarian. Took most of the meat off a smoked pork hock and set aside. put the hock and skin in the PC with white beans, cooked on high for 20 minutes. Natural release then drained reserving the bean stock. Then made a seat-of-the-pants bean recipe with tomato, dry mustard, about 1/2 the ham, a bit of the stock, and not too much molasses. The bonus was that the bean/ham stock was fantastic. I could have drunk it with a straw, but used it in split pea soup with the rest of the ham. I also discovered that my cleaver was not up to chopping through the ham bone. Oh well, in a few years I might have the knick sharpened out.

In general, yes, but there is often room for some atoms of different types to squeeze into the crystal structure. Sea salt is really quite pure but if salt was absolutely pure it would all taste the same.

Conversely I use my cast iron skillet mostly for baking. Is there any other way to make pineapple upside-down cake?

All salt will be slightly radioactive but not as radioactive as "light salt". I wouldn't think Japan has a great climate for evaporating sea water and certainly not as far north as Fukashima. It's all a bit complicated because you have to consider the half life and how various isotopes could fit into the crystal structure in trace amount or fit into other trace minerals crystallised during the evaporation.

Good advertising and good publicity help make me want to buy a product. Bad advertising and publicity has the opposite effect. People don't have to share all my views for me to do business with them but I would much prefer to do business with someone or some company with whom I have a positive relationship. And I don't hold to the idea that money (or food) is amoral. I make no apologies for that. So I wouldn't say I'm boycotting their products but I would be more inclined to spend my money on someone with a positive message. I'd buy Garofalo pasta just for teaching me some Italian slang.

Congratulations. But I am sorry we won't be getting more stories.

You could do worse, but if you are brewing from malt extract, don't expect to get a very light coloured beer. I recommend starting with a porter, though.

Hope you didn't get rid of your tarragon. My French tarragon dies back completely each winter but comes back and is looking really good this year. My sage seems to be coming back, too, and the mint might. Chives seem to go forever and I hope some of it flowers. Once you get one plant going you can easily divide chives and get as many as you care for. The herbs are all in pots. I have had pretty poor luck growing vegetables here but my DB managed to get some broccoli to grow in a raised bed and we are harvesting now. Tomatoes seem to get some nematode or virus or something - start looking great then just die. The garden area that was here when we moved in probably gets too much shade and could use some serious organic material. I have a raspberry and a strawberry plant back there and they seem to be hanging in, but I didn't get much in the way of fruit last year. We are going to try artichokes again. Last time one withered away and the other was too close to the slobber-ball pitch and got run over too many times by the Dalmatian. I just put in a 22000 L rainwater tank but it was probably delivered too late to do much for the garden this year because I want to reserve some water for CFA in case of bush fire.

Maybe try squirrel instead of the marmot.

Haven't been making anything worth writing about recently but, having some grapefruit still, I made a Blinker out of Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails. I enjoyed it. I think the trick is to go light on the raspberry syrup so it doesn't dominate.

I was bequeathed a bucket of grapefruit so I used my last lime for a Hemingway Daiquiri using the Kindred Cocktail ratios with 1/4 oz. simple and Cuban rum. I could really notice the maraschino at first but it faded into the background. I didn't think it tasted very boozy for the 2 oz of rum so I expect these could be dangerous on a hot day.

I know quite a few people in Australia who do preserves but not as many who put up veg. It is too bad that they don't have mason jars here.

FWW, I believe that Australia has the most stringent olive oil standards and it really pisses the Europeans off. I think there are still institutional problems there, not that I'm an expert.

St. Germain hasn't been in my stock either. I am happy to cheat and have used Ikea elderflower syrup as a substitute - that's why I asked. That being said, I haven't really been drinking SG cocktails much. There are quite a few in the archives from a few years ago when it was all the rage. I did have a decent one at a wedding last week, sort of a gin-gin mule with SG. Too sweet but that was fair enough given their clientele (as an aside they made me a very good Negroni and Margarita). I thought I posted a taste comparison at one point but can't find it. The syrup tasted a touch sharper/more acidic IIRC, but it seemed to me that there wasn't so much difference a direct substitution wouldn't be about right.

How different is it from St Germaine, aside from the alcohol?