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FWD

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    http://www.ambiencechaser.com
  1. Ooh, you have ginger beer? Then you could do a Shady Grove, which is a great porch cooler. It's like a modified Tom Collins: 1.5 oz gin and 3/4 oz fresh-squeezed lemon juice in a Collins glass with ice, then fill with ginger beer. A lot of recipes call for simple syrup or a teaspoon of sugar, but I tend to like drinks less sweet, so I leave it out.
  2. Ack, I know the feeling! I once got eight beets and was completely at a loss for what to do with them. My husband loathes eggplant, but there are some Chinese eggplant recipes that he eats gleefully. I think they benefit from the cutting into small chunks and cooking long enough that they sort of melt into the dish, like heidih said. Fish-fragrant eggplant is my personal favorite, if you can get pickled chili peppers. My eggplant-hating husband's favorite is Di San Xian ("Earth three fresh"), which is potatoes, green peppers and eggplant, it's pretty simple to make and the eggplant sort of goes from being an eggplant to being some kind of savory bonus that complements the potato and peppers. But, you know, if all else fails, maybe you could give them away. (I also like pastrygirl's suggestion of using them for decoration).
  3. How disappointing! I'm a real sucker for a great space, but it's always such a letdown if the food doesn't measure up. I'd heard they weren't very innovative with their menu, but I had hoped they were good for classics at least. Le sigh.
  4. What do you think of The Campbell Apartment? I haven't been there, but it's right by my friend's office and he's been wanting to give it a try.
  5. You can still get the Staggerac if you ask for it., at least for now. But that one slows me down considerably. Last time I went, my friend received her third drink just as I was ready to order my second. PDT is my go-to place when I have out-of-town guests. It's quiet enough to talk, and they always get a kick out of the "Bar in a hot-dog joint" thing. Particularly when they find out it's a particularly upscale bar. My jaded old-school restaurant guy father was visiting from Chicago, and he thought the phone booth was a neat trick, but he was really impressed when his Macallan 18 showed up with one big ice cube. That's his drink of choice, but he's used to places not stocking the 18, so it was fun to watch when he said, "I'll take a Macallan 18 on the rocks, if you have it. If not, the 12 is OK ... " But the waitress said, "We have it." And my dad got this little look like, "What's up with this little hot-dog bar?" Apparently he's been telling everyone about it back home. FWD
  6. FWD

    NY in 30 hours

    Holy cats! You win Manhattan. I was just thinking about going to get a snack, but then I read your post and now I think I'm having sympathy fullness. FWD
  7. Here's a little trick -- get a showercap and put it over the smoke alarm while cooking something prone to smoking. Just remember to REMOVE THE SHOWERCAP when you're done! (Maybe fix a little string with hang tag to the cap so it's hard to ignore.) Also, when I lived in NYC and had a tiny little kitchen with no ventilation, I did the following: Close the bedroom doors, open up all of the windows, put a fan in the kitchen window blowing out (i.e. exhausting), and run a HEPA air cleaner during and after the whole process. ← That's fantastic! I'm going to try the shower cap tonight. So far nothing has worked for us. If we cook anything at all on the stove, the alarm goes off. We open all the windows and use the fan when we cook in our tiny NYC kitchen, but it's not enough. My husband always winds up standing underneath the smoke detector flapping a towel at it and cursing. I hope this shower cap thing works! FWD
  8. I got married almost a year ago, and we registered at Bloomingdales, Amazon.com, and Barneys. (Barneys was at my mom's insistence. She got a bee in her bonnet about china.). My parents' friends shopped almost exclusively at Bloomingdales because it had an online system they could handle, and if they got freaked out by it they could just go to the store. Almost no one went to Barneys. Our friends shopped mostly on Amazon, and it was great because it offered such a crazy range of prices. Our starving artist friends maybe got a couple books or a cupcake pan. And Amazon has deals with both Target and Williams Sonoma, so you can get plastic measuring cups and Le Creuset on the registry. It's a good option if you have tech-savvy friends. But older people like my parents couldn't even find the registry when I sent them a direct link to it. My friends got married and used Williams Sonoma. As a shopper, I found it very easy to use, but that couple did not put a wide enough range of prices on the registry. FWD
  9. The most reliable way I've found is to show up right at 6 and get spots at the bar. But it has to be right at 6. Last week my coworker and I showed up at like 6:15, 6:30 and couldn't get in. In that case we went over to Death & Co for a drink, then went back and hung out at Crif Dogs till seats opened up. (You know how they say as soon as you light a cigarette at a bus stop, your bus will show up? I find the same works for hot dogs. As soon as the Crif Dogs lady hands you your order, bar seats open up at PDT.) When I have a bigger group of people, I just call right at 3 and keep trying till I get through. I've usually been able to get something if I was a bit flexible about when I could make it. FWD - possibly getting too intimately acquainted with that deer head at the end of the bar.
  10. I'm totally with you. I had to grab a friend and cut out of work early to run down and get one while they're still around. On the plus side, we got to try something off the new menu, and it was fantastic. Can't wait to see the rest of it. FWD - I'm hoping at some point the weather will decide to play along with this whole seasonality thing. It takes some of the fun out of fresh spring vegetables when it's wet and freezing outside.
  11. Haha, I'd take Gael Greene any day! At this point I'm seriously going through my phone asking people I haven't seen since high school . Le sigh!
  12. *headdesk* I have a reservation for tomorrow at 6:40 and now my husband says he can't go ... I think God just doesn't want me to go to Ko.
  13. This is pretty cool, I can't wait to see the rest of the story. Do you know what you'll do with the heads yet? FWD
  14. FWD

    Wildebeest pate

    I’ve just been given 110g of wildebeest pâté. (I believe I can acquire more if it turns out to be tasty). But I’ve never tasted it, so I’m at a loss. Would anyone have any interesting serving ideas besides putting down some crackers and hoping for the best? Thanks! FWD
  15. Excellent! I love your story. For me, I love the Food Network. I think it's important that it exists. The FN debate though reminds me of when I was in grad school a few years ago when the movie Troy came out and the Classics department went *insane*. A bunch of professors almost came to blows over whether the movie should be encouraged or banned from even being made. My opinion on the matter was sealed when I went into the bookstore and the first thing I saw was a gigantic rack of copies of The Illiad and The Odyssey. Yes, they had Brad Pitt on the cover, but the content was right, and people were buying them. Sure, there are going to be some people coming away with the wrong ideas, or people who just want to watch and don’t want to cook. That’s fine with me. But others are going to be inspired. Back when Iron Chef first came on the air I knew at least one professor’s son who said he wanted to be a chef when he grew up because he idolized Morimoto. FWD
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