Dave the Cook

At the Tales of the Cocktail seminar on aromatics in cocktails, Audrey Saunders was asked this question. Her answer was 80 proof (I think she said she uses Stoli). Her reasoning was that a higher proof spirit simply resulted in a harsher, hotter product, and that all the flavor (or aroma) you want can be infused into an 80 proof base.

During the seminar, two samples of violet liqueur were passed around to the group. One was a true blue; the other more purple. Of the two, it seemed to me that the latter was more interesting as a cocktail ingredient (though I much preferred the pure blue color). Unfortunately, this was my third session of the day (which means six to eight drinks), and I lost track of which was which. It was unfortunate that Paul Clarke's falernum didn't make it to the session. Later, I got a sample, and it's very good -- good enough to be used at several west-coast bars. I also found the pimento dram very interesting -- similar to Becherova in profile. Of course, pimento dram's tiki applications make it more versatile and welcome. The Martini was presented between Ice and Lost Ingredients. After ascertaining the audience's interests and expertise, Robert Hess spoke almost extemporaneously. The first cocktail he presented was the "original" martini: 1 oz. gin (Plymouth) 1 oz. sweet vermouth (Martini & Rossi) 1 dash orange bitters (Fee's) I can't explain why I haven't seen this recipe before. It's not just a great introduction to the Martini, it's a great drink to introduce people to gin: balanced, with no hint of ginny harshness. (For that matter, it would be great introduction to vermouth for people locked into sours.) Along with some observations about gin (Hess was the first of several presenters to reinforce the notion that among the base spirits, only gin is specifically formulated for mixing), Hess described the Martini as the offspring of the black widow Manhattan mating with the Martinez. The unfortunate husband Martinez died, survived by the Martini. Hess also offered his explanation for the popularity and acceptance of the ultra-dry ("pour the gin and look at the vermouth") martini: every example of its expression can be traced back to a famous alcoholic: W.C. Fields, FDR, Winston Churchill, etc. I find this compelling, if slightly lacking in accommodation of the machismo redolence of 50s and 60s rat-pack phenomenon: only unsophisticated wimps used vermouth. It seems to me that Robert also explained the switch from sweet vermouth to dry, but it's not in my notes. I'm not going to diss Plymouth Gin -- who sponsored the seminar -- but each attendee received a very nice Parisian shaker. Consequently, the "shaken vs. stirred" issue came up. Hess shook up a 3:1 martini (with bitters), and concluded his presentation. By the end -- twenty minutes later -- the drink had almost cleared.

For me, Tales of the Cocktail started with dinner at Cochon with several other members; I'll post about that elsewhere. The first seminar I attended was On the Rocks: The Importance of Ice, presented by Chad Solomon, Christy Pope and Sasha Petroske. The first half was interesting; had I not read Audrey Saunders' article in the most recent Mixologist, it would have been down-right fascinating. Still, Chad and Christy had a number of photographs that were very helpful, especially in illustrating how ice was cut and stored for commercial distribution. Besides, getting a second run-through of this material helped it find a secure place in my loosely-organized brain. Also, I don't have a copy of Audrey's article in front of me, but I don't recall the physics of ice formation being part of that piece's scope; this (and learning about how the Kold-Draft icemaker mimics the process to create perfectly clear cubes) was great stuff. The second part of the session was an epiphany. I've tried "big ice" in cocktails, and not been impressed. It turns out that I wasn't going nearly big enough. Sasha not only demonstrated how they use it at Milk & Honey, he had photos of M&H's big ice production, including a gruesome evisceration of a silicone ice tray, and specifics of how they break down massive chunks into drink-specific sizes. Then he invited several attendees to come up on the dais and shake drinks with the stuff. I didn't partake, though I had a nice daiquiri as a result. Later, I talked to Paul Harrington, who had not been convinced of big ice's efficacy prior to the demo (Paul was one of the volunteer shakers), but had been converted. Finally, the panel's emphasis on ensuring a quality customer experience, and the role that ice plays (or, in the right hands, with the right ice, can play) in that as an ingredient, an insulator and an aesthetic component was reassuring to this consumer.

Ryan Magarian, one of the developers of Aviation, gave a short talk about the product in yesterday's gin seminar at Tales of the Cocktail. A couple of interesting points: Aviation was formulated, among other things, to be a sipping gin -- as far as I know, the only gin to make this claim. This accounts for the slightly sweet flavor, especially in the finish, where the sarsparilla shows up. (Nearly everyone else noted lavender first; maybe I'm flower-imparied, but to me, the cardamom was predominant -- after juniper -- and then the nice root-beer aftertaste.) As for the Aviation cocktail, Ryan was insistent that this gin required Maraska, not Luxardo, maraschino. Then he gave this formula: 2 oz. gin 3/4 oz. Maraska maraschino 5/8 oz. Lemon juice

Roasted red-pepper aioli: Get a jar of roasted red peppers, and give one of them a ride in the food processor until mostly smooth. Add some of that mushed-up garlic and a healthy dose of decent store-bought mayonnaise. Salt and pepper to taste, and maybe a bit of lemon juice.

I'm sure Blais is disappointed, but I'm also pretty sure this is as good a review as he could have hoped for. It seems early for a major review on the part of the AJC, given that he's only been at the place for eight weeks; on the other hand, it's a testament to the chef's talents that Ford thought it important to get something in print quickly. I'd quibble with some details, but over all, I think she's mostly on the mark with respect to the food and the service; it's unfortunate that Element apparently missed a fourth star due to the decor, and because Ford doesn't care for meat cooked sous-vide. If I have a substantial problem with the review, it's that Ford (and of course, she's hardly alone in this) is preoccupied with the sizzle of molecular gastonomy and misses the steak: a discussion about what's going on at the leading edge of restaurant concepts. Blais is one of a handful of chefs who are in the midst of just such a dialogue -- a direct conversation conducted in the language they know best: ingredients, passion, gustatory pleasure and exemplary technique. When the food hits the table, nitrogen doesn't matter, nor do water baths or lecithin; what matters is tasty food, on the plate. Ford concludes with "Innovative artists are always misunderstood." I don't think she's helping.

Langoustines have claws, and they're usually presented with them still attached. Langoustines also have a proportionately smaller body in comparison to the tail, and the tail is flared. I think what you've got there is just a nice big shrimp -- a 10-15, most likely, which I've often seen in Florida fish markets. Since shrimps aren't usually sent out with the head on, the size is deceptive. But mentally remove the head, and you've got a tail that's about 2-1/2 to three inches -- a great size for grilling.

I tried this years ago after seeing Alton Brown do it on his show (A Grind is a Terrible Thing to Waste; find the transcript here). His technique is almost identical to Bittman's; my results were almost identical to Janet's. All of this advice is good, I think, but I have to wonder why neither Bittman nor Brown, both helpful and usually thorough types, mention any of it. This leads me to conclude, initially at least, that a sharp blade is essential -- it's not something that Bittman and Brown would need to worry about, or even think to mention. I give credit to Bittman for making me want to get out my hand-cranked meat grinder.

Well, yeah, the recipe I listed was the classic. I bump the lemon a bit (though I'm going to try some lime, based on the recommendation here), and admit to a slightly elevated sugar level. A mint-leaf garnish is good for additional refreshment -- leave it in the glass as you sip.

It seems entirely likely that your grandfather did have vodka and collins mix, and if that's what you're after -- classic appurtenances notwithstanding -- you're entitled to drink whatever tastes good to you. But a true Tom Collins is built from -- as stolincuervo alludes -- gin, lemon juice, sugar (or simple syrup) and soda water. It's an elegant summer cooler, and it's never been out of style as far as I'm concerned: Put four or five ice cubes in a 9-oz. glass. This isn't as big as you think, so measure. In another container, mix until the sugar is dissolved: Two ounces gin One half-ounce lemon juice One teaspoon superfine sugar or double syrup Pour into the first glass and top with soda water. If you have the right-sized glass, you'll only be able to add about an ounce, and that's pretty close to perfect. After your first, adjust the proportions to suit your taste. Substitute a half-tablespoon of Maraschino for the sugar, and you've got a John Collins (though technically, you're supposed to use Genever rather than London dry gin). It might be even better than the Tom -- it's basically a fizzy Aviation.

I was in Orlando last February handling a trade show. After working my way through about half the menu, I sent our sales staff to Salt Island. Good chop-house stuff, with an open grill. The pork chops and fresh fish (ask) are better than the steaks, which nevertheless beat what you'll get in most Orlando restaurants. Don't bother with Maine Lobster or Dungeness crab, but you know that. According to an Israeli colleague, there's decent Lebanese at Cedars, but I didn't try it myself. We found a good Indian place; I'll see if I can dig up the name. Finally, don't miss Bill Wong's Famous Super Buffet. According to recent reports, the food is not what it used to be, but the entertainment value (especially the actual buffet line) more than compensates for an average meal.

I think it's broader than unexpected events or compensating for an intense work environment. Twenty-five years after leaving the life, I've recently been spending a lot of time in restaurant kitchens, and I think Steven is on to something when he suggests that certain personality types are attracted to restaurants and restaurant kitchens. I think this because I'm terrible about appointments -- it's been a lifelong struggle to figure out a system that works -- and I miss working in a restaurant kitchen to this day. (Hardly conclusive, of course.) It's not just social commitments. When I set up an interview -- in person -- with a line cook or chef, I have to make the date, then confirm about three minutes later. The cook -- if he's on his game -- will confirm about five minutes after that. I've also found it helpful to reconfirm before leaving, because he's almost certainly forgotten that I've even been there. All the while, my future interviewee is furiously spooning molten butter over three-inch dayboat scallops, with an immutable mental timer counting down inside his head, or carving a filet of 24-dollar-a-pound Yukon River salmon according to a topological algorithm that would defy Stephen Hawking. Therefore, a reminder email that evening is a good idea. Finally, the day of the appointment, I try not to forget to call ahead before I leave home, just to make sure. If I'm lucky, the worst that will happen is that the subject will remember our date before asking me to stop and pick up some organic beet juice on my way.

Two possibilities come to mind. The first is Houston, which, while having several decent downtown restaurants, probably falls short of "culinary destination" in the same sense as SF, NYC or NOLA. There is, however, an cumulative magnet of urban, suburban and exurban places sufficient to make the area as a whole worth a visit. The second is the Florida Gulf coast, particularly the stretch between Destin and Panama City Beach (or maybe even to St. George). There's not a white-tablecloth place to be found on US 98 or C-30A, but if "good ingredients, well-prepared" is your mantra, you could do much, much worse. Urban center, you ask? Well, in this case, it's Atlanta, Birmingham, Chattanooga, Nashville, Knoxville, Cincinnati . . .

Unlike most German knives, the Shuns actually come from the factory with a sharper angle than that. Aim for 17- 18 degrees. ← So . . . an empty matchbook? A matchbook with the front row of matches missing?

Yeah, I think this is essential for both flavor and safety. By the time I got these guys, the corning step had already been done: a couple of days in a brine of salt, sugar, DQ-2 (very similar to Tender Quick), coriander and cloves. This is pretty close to what I'm doing. I'm going to stick to a more traditional pastrami coating of toasted-then-crushed black pepper and coriander, but I like the garlic and allspice idea. Thanks for the temperature guideline -- that was something I couldn't find anywhere. I'm not following you -- are you suggesting this as a pre-smoke treatment? Might be a good idea.As for the smoker, it's a Bradley, as you can see here (those are some no-so-great tomatoes -- another experiment -- on the shelf below): These were on hickory for about eight hours at 85 F (hey, he said "hard smoke," right?). I ramped up the heat element to bring the internal temperature up; it's at 125 F now, so I'll pull them shortly and peel as soon as I can handle them. Then I'll pack with the spice mixture and do a hot smoke to 170 F.

First, allow me to introduce the subjects of this exercise: Tongues. Well, not just tongues, but Kobe beef tongues (who knew there was such a thing?) They're no more mine than they are the cows that used to own them. You know this is true, because if they were mine, the first thing I'd do is wonder why I had four beef tongues, and the title of topic would be something else entirely. A friend gave them to me for safekeeping -- and for smoking. He had already corned them (look close and you can see peppercorns and cloves strewn about the profuse and protruding bovine taste buds). "I want a real hard smoke on them," he said. "What, like pastrami?" I asked. My friend knows what he wants but isn't necessarily great at the specifics. "Like with black pepper and coriander? Yeah. Awesome." A beat. "But we're gonna peel it before we serve it. I guess some of the spice will get through, won't it?" My guess is no, or not enough to be worth the trouble. And you can't -- well, shouldn't -- peel a tongue when it's in the raw state; at least that's my understanding. Maybe someone can confirm that, or has better information than I do, but until that better information comes along, I'm going to press on. My plan: Cold smoke for several hours, then gently increase the temperature until the meat hits 130 F. Let the meat cool and firm up just a bit. All I care about is the outer meat at this point, but I'm minding Joy of Cooking, which says, ". . . allow it to cool just enough to handle comfortably. It skins easily at the this point, but not if you let it get cold." Peel and apply rub. Hot smoke to 170 F internal. A friend suggested looking in Mastering the Art, which seems like a good idea. Unfortunately, I don't have it. Another cohort suggested injecting an infusion of pepper and coriander. I could be wrong -- I haven't had tongue since I was a kid -- but I recall tongue as basically undifferentiated muscle. I can imagine the infusion just pooling up in pockets and not flavoring much of the meat. Has anyone else done anything like this? Any tips? Who knows tongue? I'm also open to sympathy for having taken on the awesome responsibility of caring for someone else's offal.

It seems to me that the easiest starting point for learning the ravioli technique is something I picked up from Jeff Sigler at Element, here in Atlanta. They make yogurt ravioli to go on lamb prosciutto (made by Society member jmolinari, but that's for another topic). What's nice about this is that with high-calcium raw ingredients, you can skip the calcium chloride step, thereby eliminating one possibility for failure. Use a demitasse spoon to scoop out a bit of yogurt. Drop it into another demitasse, or even better, olive spoon submerged in the sodium alginate. Swirl gently to encourage coagulation (is that the right word?) and a roundish shape. Drain gently (this is why an olive spoon is helpful, since the excess just runs out the bottom): yogurt ravioli!

In the US, you can be almost certain that if the package doesn't claim to be cane, it's beet. There's just no PR advantage in saying "made from real sugar beets" on the bag; packaging requirements simply allow flexibility in case the price of cane-derived sugar in the US drops below that of beet sugar. Not to cross John -- who must have done some digging to find my old column, and pays me a great compliment by posting a link to it -- but most of the refined white sugar on the shelves in the US (unless it's labeled otherwise), and especially in Europe, is made from beets. The situation in Canada is not so clear. Canada has a national alliance with Australia, economic relationships with Cuba and Brazil, and ongoing negotiations with Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua. All of these countries produce cane, and despite significant sugar beet production, Canada imports about 90% of its sugar (a lot comes from the EU and the US, too).

I know it's out there, and for sure it would take some practice, so maybe it's not appropriate for Peter's immediate needs -- but liquid nitrogen can freeze alcohol. There's a restaurant here -- Element -- that's employing it on a regular basis. For examples, look here (first and eighth photos). Anyone interested in pursuing this?

I started with the recipe for the Paradise on the back of the bottle: 6 parts gin 3 parts Apry 1 part orange juice It was way sweet. So I turned to Killer Cocktails, from which I extracted the Mike Romanoff: 2 ounces vodka 1 t Cointreau 1 t apricot brandy 3/4 oz lime juice 2 dashes Angostura bitters Better. A lot better, but very tart. I liked it better at 1/2 oz. lime, though I agree with Wondrich that the bitters make a big difference (the original recipe didin't include them). I then abandoned research. None of these are terribly sophisticated -- they're all derived from other cocktails -- but they're all tasty. The second is surprisingly complex. Paradise Regained From the Brizard recipe, I first went to lemon juice. It wasn't quite sharp enough, so I added bitters -- peach at first, then Peychaud's. Then one day, I had a half a lime and the bottle of Apry was already on the counter. No bitters necessary. 2 oz gin (Beefeater) 1/2 oz Apry 1/2 oz lime juice I was on a roll. I'm still learning cocktails, and I decided that I could do worse than do what I did when I was learning how to play guitar: mimic the masters, and hope to find my own way eventually. Hence, the Apricart sugar-cinnamon rimmed glass (optional) 2 oz cognac (Landy) scant 1/2 oz Apry 1/2 oz lemon juice dash peach bitters (optional; I can't decide) Then, maybe the best hard cider I've ever had. Paracide 2 oz Applejack 1/2 oz Apry 1/2 oz lemon juice

A good cookbook for me is not necessarily a good cookbook for you (or anyone else) and vice-versa -- although we share a fondness for Ferguson. I encourage you to look through the Cookbooks & References forum; you'll find tons of recommendations there, for all kinds of books, and discussions about them. But this is about McLagan's Bones. (I admit that the photography is very good.) Tell us more about what appeals to you -- have you tried any of the recipes? How did they turn out? Have you learned anything from the text?

Here's a couple. To sell: complete the current order for a table. Often used by an impatient expediter or FOH manager who's waiting for one last dish, as in "Where's the sea bass? I wanna sell this table," or "If we could please get the hash on this plate, chef, I can sell it." Deli: unit of measurement roughly equal to one quart or one pint, depending on the size of the deli container employed. Example: "I had a deli of carrot brune right here! Who took my f-ing carrots?" or "You! Dishwasher! There's a deli of chicken stock in the walk-in. Get it, stat!" "Yes, chef. Big deli or little deli?" "Just get the damn stock!"

By no means are you too odd! I have to say that I was disappointed in this book. I found the recipes ordinary for the most part. The sections on stocks were repetitive -- after the third one, it seemed like padding -- and the anatomical diagrams lacked detail. Having said all that, I hope you'll share more of your enthusiasm. Maybe you can change my mind!

As a class, decent rums are very affordable. Thirteen dollars or thereabouts will get you a very good white rum -- at least in my area, Cruzan 2-year old, Flor de Cana 4 and Appleton white are all less than $15. If you can find Montecristo Premium Blend, it will be about $20, and might be worth it. But $13 for a good anejo seems suspiciously cheap. I'm not familiar with Cartavio, but Brugal is usually $17-20, as are Bacardi 8 and Cruzan Single Barrel. And like anything else, when you get into carefully-tended limited-supply products, the sky's the limit.

There's no question that the Ken Onion knives are idiosyncratic, but I wouldn't dismiss the chef's knife out of hand (so to speak). I also disagree that it hasn't been designed in a functional manner. The handle works perfectly for me (I have pretty big hands); the half-bolster protects your fingers while allowing full-length sharpening (Messermeister has a similar bolster on its Meridian Elite line); and I suspect that the dip the blade takes is responsible for better balance than most of the German knives, which, at comparable lengths, tend to be blade heavy. For more discussion, see this topic.