haresfur

Great name!

Ramping up from the Jersey. Stone Fence 2 oz Inner Circle Red over ice top with Duck and Bull cider. The Inner Circle beat the cider into the background. I think 1 or 1 1/2 oz would balance better. When in doubt add bitters - a few dashes of Peychaud's helped as did a side of Camembert and biscuits.

Wouldn't most of these affect the taste of your drinks? Especially bag balm

Jersey Cocktail: Henry of Harcourt Duck & Bull Cider (hard sparkling) 1 tsp simple syrup 6 dashes Fee's Old Fashioned bitters The bitters' spices go very well with cider.

Thank you for the hints. I'm new to making risotto and was wondering what to do with leftovers. I experimented and made these for the first time using an egg but they still didn't stay together very well. I guessed that I probably wasn't the first one to fry up rice cakes and am glad to learn the name - Riso al salto. I'm really enjoying the blog.

I pretty much agree with Andy and Dan. There is a place for rum that's a little ragged around the edges (other spirits, too). But that doesn't necessarily relate directly to price. I take it as a personal challenge to figure out how to get the most out of different bottles. However, if it improves the drink to use the expensive stuff and you can afford it, go for it. Would you rather drink more or better? Look at it this way, in the US you can buy really good rum for the price of plonk here.

I've mostly given up measuring water accurately. I let the fuzzy-logic work its magic. I almost always make brown rice and find that a bit more than 2:1 works best to balance the tooth of the bran. Particularly for short grain, that I like a bit softer. True, the rice won't end up soupy but the cooking time affects how much of the water is absorbed vs. boiled away. My Sanyo cooker has a bunch of white rice settings and only one brown rice so I add more water to get softer rice. But the cooker tries to compensate so its pretty inexact. ... and I still want to know why "fuzzy logic" sounds attractive for a rice cooker but unsettling for a nuclear power plant.

Does today's Canadian Club resemble yesterdays?

Anyone else watch Alessandro's Italian Food Challenge? Big city chef Alessandro Borghese goes to various regional areas to learn how to make local specialities. He shows up in town and finds a housewife to stay with for a few days (and flirt with) as she teaches him how to make a particular dish. He makes a modernised version and they invite a small group for dinner. It's rather contrived, but good fun and has given me a few ideas. Today they were making stuffed eggplant. Coated them in egg white before cooking - to, which supposedly keeps them from splitting.

I like cocktails with whiskey, orgeat, and Fee's old fashioned bitters (you could use Angostura). But it looks like a coffee cocktail and not exactly festive. You could fake up something tiki with orgeat, rum, orange juice, cranberry, and maybe some triple sec. Research would be required but it would be approachable for the masses (i.e. sweet as heck). Lime would help.

haresfur's corollary to Godwin's law: As an online food discussion grows longer, the probability of someone claiming a particular pizza is the best approaches 1.

I don't think so. Well the price. I haven't compared the cost per standard drink. But Green is easier to mix because you control the dilution - especially for drinks with a lot of non-alcoholic ingredients that may need a bit more strength.

I (tragically) can't speak from experience but by all accounts Inner Circle Green would be an acceptable analogue. I use Inner Circle green or red (depending on how frugal I was feeling last time I was at Dan Murphy's) whenever Smith and Cross is called for. If a recipe asks for Jamacan rum I consider the source in chosing between Inner Circle or Captain Morgan's Dark (not spiced). But I'm not sure Chris is an Inner Circle fan. I'll work on him while he works on getting me to appreciate peaty scotch. While on the topic of Australian rum, a splash of Bundaberg in instant coffee just after dawn on Anzac day is actually drinkable. I guess the whole is greater than the parts.

Well if you really are worried about the sand but really want to use it you can get washed sand with very rounded grains and uniform particle size. See if your local water well driller will let you have some. I like the salt idea, though.

Ti punch. Barbancourt 5*. About perfect.

I think there is a bit more to it than this. I assume by "blending" you mean chopping or liquifying - reducing the solids to smaller bits or to muck. Blenders also blend - or stir stuff together. Counter top blenders needs to blend the material together and pass it through the blades and that's their Achiles heel. The blades are designed to try and do both things. With a stick blender you do the mixing bit so the blades are more knife-like. It seems to me that helps them make up in part for the wimpier motors. But the real difference in tip speed is both the rpm and the blade diameter. For a given rpm a large blade will have a higher tip velocity than a small one. I have no idea what the difference in rpm is, but a small motor can drive a small blade pretty fast and I think it takes a lot more oomph to move a large blade at high rpms. That doesn't mean that your average stick blender isn't underpowered for the task, but so is your average counter top blender. Then there's an inertia effect. If you try to make a smoothie with a stick blender (as my DB does since I blew up the Kitchen Aid) it is pretty hard to whack apart ice cubes with a light blade, no matter how fast it is going. Can't be too good for the motor. I find that with reasonably soft materials just moving the stick blender slowly through the soup works pretty well, although I do use the plunge technique sometimes. If only my Dalmatian had wings so she could clean the ceiling as well as the floor...

Yes. Forgot to quote.

I think about a tablespoon of pimento dram in addition to the rum works. But my favourite addition is a splash of Fernet Branca.

Actually it was a Campari Boulevardier, I wasn't clear due to my attempt to tease our favourite alcohol scientist. Sometimes adding an ingredient seems to help the flavours blend together in a drink so you percieve one integrated taste. In this case, for me, the lime seemed to provide another focal point so my awareness went, "Oh, Campari. Oh, Bourbon. Oh, lime. Oh, some of each." Repeat... Very nice. I wonder also if the lime tempered the bitter more than the sweet. It seems to me it tasted sweeter after adding the lime. More research is in order. Need to try a Cynar version, too.

... because no child should be left behind when it comes to Campari high balls. I made a Boulevardier last night, without the genetically modified Cynar. I used Old Crow bourbon and Cinzano bianco vermouth, built on rocks. Started with 1.5 bourbon: 1 vermouth: 1 Campari but found it significantly improved with an extra splash of bourbon and vermouth, keeping in mind this is 40% bourbon. I also found that a wedge of lime significantly improved the gustatory proportions while maintaining the aromatic tonality. . Nice morphing of taste as the ice melted without falling over into too watery. The best use for the lousy bourbon that I've found.

I was thinking Minoan because of the bull but the falcon looks Egyptian so I'm guessing Egyptian or that someone just thought they looked nice (and they do). The veggie chips look great, too!

Oh yeah, I keep forgetting your cultural deprivations. And fairly easy to obtain in the rest of the world. Certainly worth sampling if you haven't before.

In my experience, airports tend to cater to the high volume sales so it is hard to find unique items. Even Scotch tends to the recognised brands or at least the ones that attract attention through a really high price tag. So your best bet may be to look for something that's a common sip in some part of the world but not the US. You might look for overproof rum. For that matter, in Australia you can get Captain Morgan's dark rum (not spiced) that I haven't seen in the USA for some reason. Even duty free, it's expensive compared to US prices for similar quality. I'd say just look for something you don't recognise and then buy it. You'll probably see it all over afterwards but that's part of the fun. Oh, if you are into bitter, you might look for the real Unicum.

I really like the GoldenVale Muesli especially the blueberry.

Glad it isn't just me. So I guess I need to take my reading glasses along...