vice

While I don't hesitate to use eggs in cocktails, I do have to wag my finger at Darcy for his sloppy use of statistics here (and I suspect he probably knows better): The probability of a given egg having salmonella is not directly comparable with probabilities of death from other factors. Apples and oranges.

Along Andy's line, a Rob Roy with Macallan cask strength and faux Carpano (1:1 PeM and M&R). Just about any cocktail with the Macallan seems to be a 'sit down' drink in that you sit down and don't do a damned thing else until it's done.

Vacuum-sealed in the freezer for long-term storage. Once thawed, cured and dried products should keep fine for a few weeks if wrapped in plastic and stored in the refrigerator.

bacon maple ice cream

That's probably the NY Brown and Stirred: 2 oz laphroaig 3/4 oz punt e mes 1/4 oz averna orange twist

I started a batch on Sunday and just transferred them last night from fermenting chamber to curing chamber, so I can comment in a couple weeks. I used beef chuck, keeping the fat, and 42-45 mm hog casings. It will certainly be fattier than Ruhlman intended, but everything else was as written.

yep, you're going to have to render it

Paul hit on the point that I think is most important for me, and it's one that comes up again and again: have your mise ready to go before anything starts cooking. That way you can afford spare moments to clean as you go. If all you have time for throughout the cooking process is ingredient prep, you're left with the whole mess at the end.

How do you get the ice out if the mold isn't flexible?

San Simeon is beautiful, but still brown from at least, what, June through December? I just don't see that big a difference in the length of the growing season between California and eastern ranching areas.

Green grass year round in southern California? Where exactly? We have far, far fewer green months than the Hudson Valley (and if there's an exception to that I'd bet the water certainly isn't local). The rest of the year cows get hay, either baled or dry but still in the pasture, like everywhere else.

while on the topic of nightcaps, I've been digging phil ward's chocolate martica since I finally acquired the bittermens mole bitters I also subbed in Smith and Cross for the rum while I was going all out with new ingredients. Awesome.

i love to go to sleep, and thus have a serious soft spot for 'goodnight' drinks (both chris and irene). hankering for something along those lines tonight, i decided to go for equal parts brandy (Dudognon) and Ramazzotti amaro over cracked ice. I'll be damned if on the nose and first sip isn't eerily similar to coca-cola. while just as integrated as its brethren, it's a tad smoother (thank the cognac). to whom should we say goodnight with this one?

Crush a few spoonfuls of corn flakes by hand. Microwave for about 30 seconds. Add some honey and cinnamon, then a couple scoops of vanilla ice cream, and toss to coat.

If you've cooked them in a pan, it's really simple. While the chops are resting deglaze with white wine. Add whatever other flavoring you want (a dollop of mustard, herbs, etc). Mount with butter. Adjust seasoning. Done.

Doesn't it call for overproof demerara? Would end up a very different drink, I imagine.

Lobsters are crustaceans in the phylum Arthropoda

Croutons (the ones you've just browned in garlic-seasoned butter, of course). I feel compelled to add that the appeal of crunchy bits extends far beyond salads. Some fresh breadcrumbs browned in olive oil and tossed with pasta, butter, and cheese. Oh yeah.

I've only see them in my freezer at work (and with some frequency), but then there is a confounding variable because I tend to use DI water rather than tap there. Don't know if that might have any effect on the likelihood of their forming.

Yep, works fine. I first tried it because I once didn't have quite enough yogurt left to start the next batch, so I stirred in some of the whey. I've since found that all whey works just as well.

With the reference to the Japanese, I assume the chestnut cream is an orgeat analogue?

I've been thinking about this for a while now. The conventional wisdom when creating an egg white foam is that not a drop of fat should come in contact with the whites, lest the fat prevent formation of a protein scaffold that traps air bubbles. Yet what of drinks like flips or the Ramos Fizz that combine egg white with fats (egg yolk and cream, respectively)? Now, the foam in these drinks could certainly be formed by the fats themselves. Cream, of course, foams quite nicely on its own. This warrants the question: what exactly is doing the foaming in drinks with both fats and proteins in the tin? I see several follow-ups as potentially relevant: Will fats create stable foams in the presence of additional liquids, especially those containing alcohol? The foam coating my now-empty glass that contained a Carpano flip may be a sign pointing to yes. If the foam in a Ramos is fat-based, are there other textural qualities imparted by the egg white or is it superfluous? How are such cocktails reconciled with the established dogma that fats prevent proteins from foaming? Thoughts?

I've always noticed that with Averna, to the point that I don't much care for it on it's own but really like what it does when mixed with spirits.

Neither one strikes me as particularly necessary, unless he's pureeing avocado pits in some recipes. A standard kitchen blender (or food processor, in some cases) should work in place of the Vita-Mix. He cites the Vita-Mix specifically because it's more powerful than other blenders and yields purees with smoother texture. If you puree with whatever you've got handy and pass it through a fine sieve, you're probably close enough.

I was hoping that the subject of alternate trajectories in food industry would come up. Like the some of the others who've posted above, I've recently been pondering the idea of leaving my current career to work with food again. I'm at a point where I'm young enough (mid-20s) and with few responsibilities tying me down, so such a change is relatively easy now to how it might be in a few years' time. And yet, while it's been about a decade since I worked in kitchens, I still remember what life can be like as a professional cook, and am thus proceeding cautiously. But what of the alternatives? How does one get a job producing charcuterie, say, or testing recipes? What are the paths to get there: culinary school, apprenticing, starting out doing something distantly related and hoping to cross over at some point? Are there different steps one should take in pursuing a restaurant career vs. other aspects of food production? Those of you out there working in the food industry but not behind the line, how have you done it?