Alcuin

I think there's one basic key to successful teaching: excitement about the material met with the perspective that everybody's on the same road to greater appreciation of the material. I try to focus not on the fact that I'm conveying material (though I often am) and more on what the students are doing to engage with the material by asking questions and floating ideas or, if it's primarily a lecture format, what I imagine they might be thinking (that's the trickiest part, but there's always a common denominator).

That is a cool bottle. Have you seen the 1.75 version though? It's a gigantic version of the regular bottle and I imagine it would take two hands to wield it easily. I want to buy it just for the oversized bottle.

For what it's worth, I use Lan Chi toasted sesame paste. It took me quite a while to discover this ingredient in my local Asian grocer though, because it's actually labeled "Chinese Salad Dressing." The listed ingredient is sesame seed. They also have black paste called "Black Sesame Seed Sauce." I tasted them both along side my jar of Tahini--the textures are similar but the flavor is completely different. The aroma of the Chinese sesame paste is actually similar to peanut butter and they share more with it than they do Tahini. I would say based on this crude comparison that unsalted smooth peanut butter could be a sub for the Chinese sesame paste, but not Tahini.

I'm not big on braising in the summer (though I do make Pozole now and then). But here in WI, it's August and my apartment is cold (high of 65 today and it's been down in the 40s over night). Nothing will satisfy but a braise tonight even if most of my tomatoes haven't even turned red yet.

I've used and enjoyed Ah Leung's Sesame Chicken Noodle Salad. It uses Chinese sesame paste (which is quite different than tahini) and some sesame oil. It's quite good.

I don't usually think that far ahead I guess. Plus, I'm happy with the results I get from one or two days. I keep on trying to simplify bread making to isolate what really works for me as efficiently as possible and cutting back on hydration and working on things like shaping for instance have made it much easier to handle the dough and get good results. What temp is your oven? ← I could get my old oven to 650F but my new one only goes to about 600. It's fast enough for decent pizza I think. For what it's worth, I do 1/4 tsp yeast to 500g AP flour and retard for 5-7 days in the fridge, with no overproofing issues. ← Yeah I think that the longer you're going to let it go, the less yeast you can use initially. If you play you're cards right, it'll all be the same in the end if you hit the sweet spot between giving the yeast enough to feed on and getting enough activity going. I have nothing against super long fermentation or high hydration, they're just two techniques among many. It's common though to put one element of the rich tapestry that is bread making above others (I certainly have and probably continue to). Ultimately though, the result's the thing and there are many ways to get there.

I realize that high hydration doughs are very popular, but for pizza I usually stick to 66-68% depending on the weather. I get a crispy crust with a light crumb and its easy enough to handle. There's a lot more to the picture than hydration though. KennethT's dough does sound overproofed to me too which affects both crust and crumb. With doughs that get retarded, especially that long, it's important to use very little yeast. If I'm going to retard my pizza dough, I usually use a half a teaspoon (or a couple of tablespoons of starter) for 600g of flour. I also don't let it go beyond a day or two.

The thing about rums is that there's a ton of variety, even among rums that you might label "light" or "dark." Talking about rum based on color is the best shorthand we've got, but there are lots of different reasons a rum might look like it does and its color doesn't always tell you what you're getting. So you have to learn by tasting and that's the good part. The bad part (for your bank account) is that you have to buy a lot of bottles. I'd definitely recommend a light rum. I don't think you can sub out a light rum for a dark rum either--you'd be making a different drink if you did. You said you wanted to make Daiquiris and Mojitos so light rum's the way to go. Drinking a perfectly balanced Daiquiri (the likes of which are, sadly in my experience, difficult to find in a bar) is one of life's great pleasures. There are also a lot of drinks that use light rum. Try a Floridita Daiquiri or its cousin the Hemingway Daiquiri. For something very different with your light rum, try this: El Presidente 1 1/2 oz light rum 3/4 dry vermouth 3/4 orange curacao 1 dash grenadine stir/strain/up orange peel garnish

I can't remember when or how I heard about doing this, but I've done it almost as long as I've been cooking and have never had a problem. I use a teaspoon and usually grip the ginger with my left hand and peel with my right. You have to dig in a bit, but not too much and it comes right off. I figured youtube would come through et voila: . This is one of many videos on youtube and it's exactly how I do it.

My favorite new gadget is a milk frother I picked up for $5. I don't froth milk with it though, but it makes emulsifying a vinaigrette or a cocktail with egg white lincredibly easy. My salads have never been better dressed. All I have to do is measure the acid and oil out using teaspoons or tablespoons and let it sit on the counter until I'm ready to dress the salad: 10 seconds of emulsion, check for seasoning, then dress--it couldn't be easier. And no more shaking that Ramos gin fizz until my arm feels like its going to fall off or my hand feels so cold it could be shattered. It's made these crucial and somewhat difficult tasks easier to do and with better results.

I think there's some confusion between being "food-focused" and having to cook as a necessity. My great Grandmother cooked as a matter of course (she had chickens, goats, a gigantic garden, etc.): that's what she knew, having struggled through the Depression. But she wasn't a great cook and wasn't food-focused, she was a subsistence cook. I'd like to see some evidence that 100 years ago people were in fact more food-focused, because I'm skeptical about that. On the other hand, the effects of the turn toward more processed food are real: an increase in obesity as a result of these things is real and the decline of the centrality of the dinner table in the home has consequences. Civilization has always been about technology: the origin of the word come out of the city, not the country. Civilization will, I'd wager, always seek to provide the best comforts at the cheapest material expense. This kind of progress is often blind to the intangible expenses being paid, because these fall within the realm of traditional culture (foodways being an example). I guess I'm optimistic though because I don't see culture being completely destroyed by civilization and I don't imagine a time when everybody participated equally in keeping traditional food alive. I just think that the real thing in this case will always have some kind of privileged status and that people will be attracted to it. Some people, like you and I perhaps, will be bitten by the bug when that happens, others will not.

I'd have to say that even though, according to some, our food culture is slipping precipitously away, I've only seen plenty unusual (to some) ingredients in local grocery stores. Baby artichokes and banana leaves are not self explanatory, but they're sold in supermarkets where I live. I think the idea that "recreational" cooking spells doom for traditional foodways is a bit off the mark. We do have to face the fact that for most people, hunting is not about subsistence. Neither is curing your own meat or even cutting up your own chicken that you bought dead and plucked from the store. When I cure meat, it's for fun since I don't have to do it. But I guess I'm just optimistic: I just don't see the importance of real food disappearing. It's very common for people to look at the past as a golden age and see the present as corrupt and decadent (from Homer to Marx and beyond) but it's never really turned out that way. In many ways, thanks to things like eGullet and other internet resources, the information needed to cook something new is that much more accessible. If anything, instead of decrying the emergence of "recreational" cooking, it might be better to take advantage of the flood of information available to get people back in the kitchen. But cooking will always have to compete with other things--it certainly does for me, but I choose to cook.

Being in the demographic I and many of my friends are in (late 20s/early 30s), many of them are trying to learn how to cook for themselves seriously for the first time. Almost all of them suffer from a lack of a good traditional background that might help them along. Growing up, my mom was a restaurant cook and I learned from her how to dice an onion or bell pepper rapidly, how easy it was to make stock, and the importance of proper temps for proteins. Few of my friends have this background, so it takes forever for them to cook and they often feel defeated by their attempts. They also think I'm some sort of cooking wizard with magical abilities. This mentality is not encouraging for them--I tell them over and over that something like knife skills or the bounce of a properly cooked steak takes practice. But they're busy and don't want to devote so much time to it and really I can't blame them. For many people in general, I suspect its not that they're not curious or that they don't want to cook, I think many people feel intimidated by the enormity of the task of making potato salad even as easy as it may seem to someone who's made it a million times or has good guidance (most cooking tasks, it you break them down step by step are incredibly complex and require a lot of active mental energy). Add to this the fact that many people tend to have really crappy equipment with dull, cheap knives and junky cookware and that they have no idea what good stuff is and might be afraid to buy good stuff because they think they aren't good enough to need it. People still try though, even if to their minds they fail more often than they'd like (many people, it seems, resign themselves to a repertoire of "specialties" they make and don't see cooking as a constant quest for new avenues of flavor and a drive to hone technique, like I do). I'm really surprised that someone living in the same world we live in wouldn't know that fire cooks food and though this is a shocking anecdote, I wonder how representative it is. Also, I reject the notion that cooking isn't a hobby. Sure, its a life skill but it's also a hobby. When I make pasta during the week, maybe it's a life skill; when I make my own sausages over the weekend, that puts it over the line into hobbyland.

I've eaten uncured ham before--as you can imagine, it's not good. My gf saw it and I guess she was intrigued (she refused to eat it after tasting it) so she bought it. It seems to have been poached or otherwise cooked in some way, but it seemed to be completely unseasoned. I threw it out.

The session went pretty well--I was spot on with my expectations for what the audience would want to do. It was small, only about 10 people so it was easily manageable. They were not trying to learn to make drinks and set up home bars--their interest was mostly "academic." There were no serious drinkers there. So I introduced them to different drinks from different eras, talked about what kinds of drinks there are and the history behind the drinks. I did an Improved Whiskey Cocktail, Aviation, Negroni, Daiquiri, and Pisco sour. Everybody liked most of them, but the room was split between fanatical supporters and haters of the Negroni (as you'd expect). They were shocked to find out what I considered an Old Fashioned or a Daiquiri to be. They were really into bitters too, so I had them put drops on their arms, rub in, and sniff to catch the flavor profile and they were excited about that. Really, it was very improvisational--I ran it like I run a classroom and they responded to that kind of atmosphere. It sounds like you'll be doing something quite a bit more advanced though, right? Are you doing multiple sessions?

Well I often drink an ounce and a half of Fernet Branca on its own after dinner, but then again I have a high tolerance for bitterness equal only to my love of it. De gustibus non disputandis I guess.

I wanted something that was orangey, very bitter, and that packs a punch. I didn't have any oranges around the house to make a fat twist, so I subbed a cognac based orange liqueur for the sugar in a Toronto (I used a half teaspoon of Mathilde's Cognac based orange liqueur--I would have used GrandMa if I had it). It's what I wanted: punchy, orangey, and suavely bitter thanks to a little smoothing out from the liqueur.

Yes, I would think chrisamirault's drink would pick up just a bit of that flavor profile from using the Luxardo Maraschino cherries. If Punt e Mes is your preferred sweet vermouth, the result is not a 'true Manhattan'? Are types of rye that may be more robust than the norm also verboten? ← Luxardo cherries don't share much with the eau de vie funkiness of the maraschino liqueur, but they are like the Sangue Morlacco which is a cherry brandy. Also, I don't buy the notion that using Punt e Mes should change the name. PeM is just bittered sweet vermouth, but it's sweet vermouth alright just as much as M&R or Cinzano or Antica. It changes the character, but so does Antica as opposed to M&R. Adding orange bitters instead of aromatic: that calls for another name.

For a roast or brisket you want to slice, I think it makes sense. But if you braise the meat just enough then let it cool, carryover cooking shouldn't hurt the texture though. It seems to me to be simply a matter of what feels right to the cook. I'd like to see some evidence that, all things being equal, storing meat and liquid separately has a better effect on flavor/texture.

Exactly what I'd always thought but these two comments made me wonder: ← Huh. I went back and took a brief look at both of those comments but got nothing new out of it. Maybe there's more somewhere that would elucidate this, but I still don't understand why separating meat and juices would enhance texture or flavor. I get that it's easier to degrease a sheet of fat without having to scrape off the meat, but I don't get the flavor/texture part. It seems counter-intuitive to me. At the very least, the flavor/texture of meat stored either way should be the same. What's the liquid supposedly doing to the meat? Well, when colder weather rolls in, I'll have to do some experimenting.

I don't see why you'd want to store the meat separately if you were going to use it with the sauce. Usually I braise, degrease, add the meat back in and refrigerate. You could also degrease the next day. Either way, I don't see why you'd store separately, but I may be missing something.

Not entirely all. If you'll forgive an ignorant question (ignorant because I haven't tried it), other than evident novelty, why use "no-knead" dough? I ask because (1) fine pizzas can be made with relatively little kneading (compared to bread), (2) the kneading is a tiny part of the total dough-making time and (3) based on this thread, even if the no-knead method eliminates one issue, it adds others. (For many years I've just made a simple pizza dough, as described in Italian cookbooks for generations. I'd often slow-rise it in the refrigerator, in an oiled metal bowl, and make plenty of extra, freezing one-pizza portions, which works out fine -- they can stay frozen for weeks or months and then "revive." With the right amount of water, and the resting that rising implies, the dough is soft and elastic and easy to shape.) ← It's of course firstly a matter of preference. But if you want a high hydration dough for the reasons mentioned above, they can be quite difficult to knead. Plus, if you're fermenting and retarding for a long period of time, the dough doesn't need to be kneaded because the gluten will come together as if it were kneaded over that period of time anyway. As I understand it, kneading is a time-saver: it speeds up a process that will happen naturally. Many people these days like the flavor that comes with doughs that have been fermented/retarded for a long period of time and the texture that comes with wet doughs, so its a win-win.

That's the one recipe that caused me to do a double-take. It's not exactly your standard rum & coke, though. I quite enjoy the particular formulation, using dark rum and Mexican coke (just returned from lunch at a taqueria with a medio litro which will likely be put to this purpose tonight). It's probably the least 'earthshaking' drink of the 40 in the book, so I wouldn't damn the endeavor based on its inclusion. ← Even if all the drinks aren't completely revolutionary, they're pretty cool for their interesting combinations of ingredients. I might pick it up when I can--it looks like it's up my alley.

I haven't read anything more than their few blog posts linked above, so take what I say with a grain of salt. As they themselves acknowledge in their post about stirring, the basics are still very important. If they're blown away by a shaken Manhatten with no bitters, they should come to my town (Madison, WI) where if you're not careful, your "Manhattan" may very well be unbittered, shaken, served over rocks, and (here's the kicker) use brandy as the base spirit. That's right, a glass of watered down, shaken brandy with a dash of musty old vermouth called a Manhattan. And I'm not talking about a dive bar drink here either. Technique is very important and the idea of breaking the rules seems to have been around forever. I don't think their project suggests leaving technique behind though or that "breaking the rules" is new. The project seems to want to be a kick in the pants to the tradition of writing bar books by beginning with the basics and assuming little to no technical proficiency with the craft. This is cool and valuable, but their rhetoric seems to me a bit overblown. Bar books have been evolving quite a bit, emphasizing history, understanding of drink structure, technique, etc., over a dizzying multitude of recipes. Anyway, even if this book isn't Paine's Common Sense for the cocktail "revolution," I'm still interested in checking out some adventurous recipes. Philosophy or no, that's enough for me.

I've always thought that walleyed pike are so called because of the special character of their eyes. They reflect light and look like a moon and can be very striking. I imagine this name came to differentiate wall-eyed pike from northern pike, etc., through analogy with wall-eyed humans. It's a fine way to distinguish between northerns and walleyes. These are also the accepted local names where I've lived.