vice

I'm old school (and a wee bit cheap), thus all hot smoking is done on my Weber kettle. I did just pick up a ProQ cold smoke generator, and am eager to give it a whirl. If memory serves me right, Chris, you've mentioned cold smoking items in other topics (and likely that cheese today). Are you doing that in the Bradley?

Maggie, if the governor calls at the last minute, will you marry me? (I'll have what she's having)

There are taquerias in your future: Lilly's: adobada, lengua, cheek (cochete?), and cabeza La Colmena: adobada, rajas, lomito, chorizo, and cabeza. Do not miss out on the absolutely phenomenal pumpkinseed salsa (the orange one). La Super Rica: chorizo especial, rajas, tamales I'm afraid I can't recommend anything on lower State St. If you see a crowd, you should be eating somewhere else. The Tee-Off on upper State puts out a mean prime rib and a very serviceable Martini (best in town, IMO, but that ain't saying much). Dutch Gardens, even farther up on State, is your source for schnitzel, bratwurst, and beer (and an insane chocolate cake). Now that I've said all that, by "recent recommendations to good restaurants", do you mean you're somewhat familiar with the area, and if so, when were you last in town?

I'm a big fan of the Macallan cask strength. It's great in cocktails.

Welcome to eG Dillon, "Innovating, interesting and historical beverages" cuts a wide swath across current beverage writing. Are there particular aspects of or types of beverages you're interested in? It might help us narrow down the options some. Off the top of my head, you'll definitely want to look into Imbibe Magazine, certainly the foremost serial publication in the cocktail realm (although it covers a broad range of beverages). Honestly though, a lot of information transfer these days happens in the blogosphere, so a good bet is to find a couple sites you like and check out their blog rolls. There are also print publications and online forums devoted to the subject of spirits proper (as opposed to cocktails), but I'll leave it to others to comment on those.

Why exactly are some gnocchi leaden and others as light as pillows? Recipes differ notably in the ratio of flour to potato, eggs or not, etc, but I suspect that technique plays as important a role.

I wonder if you could safely speed that up by stashing it in a low oven.

Out here along the Central Coast, tri tip sandwiches are the thing. The specimen at Cold Spring Tavern is particularly fine, though I haven't fully explored the northern counties for other serious contenders.

Just to hammer home that taste is, as always, personal, I'll disagree with daisy: I find Averna very syrupy and only use it in cocktails whereas I rather enjoy sipping Ramazzotti (either neat or with an ice cube). That said, I might still give the edge to Averna as it's more commonly called for in cocktails.

Nope. That was the suggestion Chris Amirault gave me as well and it's a good one but not an option where I live. As I told him, my home bar is far better stocked than any bar within at least 5 hours of where I live. It's better stocked as far as range of booze types go than the liquor stores in my area. I accomplished that through careful special ordering and people bringing me things from other areas when they visit. I live in a very small, remote town in Ontario, Canada, a true cocktail bar doesn't even exist for hours in any direction. I'm open to eventually getting them all, I just didn't want to get them all just to find out they were different labels on the same thing. You've answered that question for me. Bummer. I expect I know the answer, but I'll ask anyway: have you looked to see what's available at Italian restaurants? We can be a surprisingly resourceful people. Stuff shows up at a little mom-and-pop market in my town that I'm amazed by.

How could I forget that. Über zen!

Amari--unfortunately or not, depending on how one looks at things--are as quirky as the rum category. Many recipes calibrated for one will fall apart with another. Is there any way you can try a few in a bar to gauge your palate before plunking down on a whole bottle? At least that way you'll know if you like a given amaro straight (best to get to know each other before you're married, and all that).

Heidi, I think, has hit upon something. I submit that there are two schools of Zen cookery: The first involves the repetitive, monotonous kitchen tasks that are, of course, unavoidable: Heidi's shrimp, shelling fava beans or, god forbid, removing the skins from pistachios. You must empty your mind and find the Rhythm with these tasks. Time collapses to a point. The other school is for infinitely complex tasks where considerations multiply geometrically: the last moments before service; cranking the handle of the sausage stuffer whilst sliding the casing off the horn and feeding away the stuffed sausage so the casing tension is *just* right. You must also empty your mind with these tasks. Product and Process become One.

A woman I used to work for got all of her silver flatware from the Nantucket landfill. I think they have a similar setup there.

I don't think so. As Erik and Eric intimated upthread (eje and eas, respectively), the big attraction of eaux-de-vie is the the way they capture the aroma of a fruit. As aromas are considerably diminished at freezer temperature, serving an eau-de-vie ice cold is not advised.

My mind, too, instantly went to Campari and the Negroni. Perhaps an indication that direction is too on the nose? Then how about one of the many fabulous riffs: Tiare's Signora Rossa subs out gin for mezcal, yielding a potion redolent of scorched hearts and burnt bridges (incidentally, I'm on the fence about her coup de grace--a squeeze of lime. Just doesn't sit right with me, but YMMV).

I like white, simply because I own relatively few plates and white ones are the most versatile. I certainly couldn't justify full place settings of a variety of colors/patterns.

Agreed, my memory--some 2 years ago now--was that it wasn't particularly distinctive as a *rye* whiskey. campus five, I'm deeply and personally offended that I wasn't invited to this event (that's an awesome list!)

I was thinking either to pre-salt and drain well or some sort of preliminary cooking. Seriously, I've got a lot, so this is probably going to happen. David - yours sounds good too, and I'd certainly classify it as a gratin. It actually reminds me that I also wanted to braise some with my stash of trotter gear.

Smart & Final was my store! They switched to the dark (blue) side.

Napa cabbage, gratin-able? I would prefer Savoy, but I'm chock full of Napa.

Oh yeah, hadn't thought of that. If I had a full-size fridge that totally wouldn't fly.

When I'm cooking pasta just for myself, I'll use half a pound and split the finished dish into thirds, two of which become lunch later in the week. My math skills work this out to a bit less than 80g of dry pasta per serving.

Thanks Jason, I figured that I could manually do a slow ramp down just by tweaking the controller knob every few days, although such a gradual change might well be swamped out by the shorter period humidity swings in my chamber.

I've been freaking out all week because the one store in town that used to have Diamond Crystal seems to have stopped carrying it. My #1 weekend project is now to drive around to the various grocery chains and stockpile what I find. I hereby solicit donations for any of your unused/unwanted stashes of DC - I'm on edge here, people!