Dave the Cook

It's probably worth a new topic, but do they work?

If peeps are lucky, Dean and I will reprise our duet of Spinal Tap's Big Bottom. I'm sure attendees of the past Pig Pickin' recall it as one of the event's high (or maybe wide) points.

Dude. Ten dozen eggs is nothing -- that's one egg (two halves) per person. Brooks, in his ultimate sorrow, will likely consume two dozen all by himself.

If this is the kind of thing that I can expect, I may be busy that weekend. ← Oh, I assure you that you'll be very busy. ← Seeing to the every need of Marlene and your Dad. I know which side my bread is buttered on. ← That's only necessary until you've lost the throwdown. On Sunday, Chef Varmint will doubtless have a whole 'nother list of responsibilities for you.

Sorry, Lisa. The event has been postponed. Information here.

It's true that Brooks needs the practice. And the bribery. ← I'll be needing your parent's address. ← Do you need the address of the nearest Popeye's, too? ← For those of you who are unaware of the chicken frying situation, there is some information that might make things clearer, as Dave seems to be using subtle and not so subtle methods to take the world's eyes off of his recent and somewhat murky past: People are still talking about the "frosted flake" episode at the World Fryoff in Demopolis, AL last year. Apparently, in a last fit of panic, Dave ground up Frosted Flakes and used them as his flour mixture-thinking that any group of people that liked sweet tea that much would really enjoy sugary, crunchy chicken. There was a short supension after this episode . . . ← There was indeed a short suspension. What Brooks fails to mention is that he was the one suspended, not for an innovative technique that was merely a riff on John T. Edge's Sweet Tea Chicken, but for spiking his cooking medium -- by law it is limited to shortening, peanut oil or lard -- with horse fat. I have a photocopy, if anyone is interested in the truth, of the citation, which clearly shows Brooks's name in the "offender" slot, and, in the explanatory remarks section, the colloquial description of the offense itself: Belgianizing the bird. ← They never proved anything. The panel made their decision based completely on rumor. ← True. Though the fact that it was really good fried chicken, and that you had fried it, certainly affected the decision. How else to explain such a rare occurence?

We used rabbit in the stew for the first Pig Pickin'. (The development notes are here.) In preparation for this year's stew, Dean and I made the executive decision to leave the rabbit out. Domestic rabbit simply doesn't hold up flavorwise, and it didn't make much of a stock, either. If you have access to wild bunnies or hare, however, I think you'd have different, and probably better, results.

It's true that Brooks needs the practice. And the bribery. ← I'll be needing your parent's address. ← Do you need the address of the nearest Popeye's, too? ← For those of you who are unaware of the chicken frying situation, there is some information that might make things clearer, as Dave seems to be using subtle and not so subtle methods to take the world's eyes off of his recent and somewhat murky past: People are still talking about the "frosted flake" episode at the World Fryoff in Demopolis, AL last year. Apparently, in a last fit of panic, Dave ground up Frosted Flakes and used them as his flour mixture-thinking that any group of people that liked sweet tea that much would really enjoy sugary, crunchy chicken. There was a short supension after this episode . . . ← There was indeed a short suspension. What Brooks fails to mention is that he was the one suspended, not for an innovative technique that was merely a riff on John T. Edge's Sweet Tea Chicken, but for spiking his cooking medium -- by law it is limited to shortening, peanut oil or lard -- with horse fat. I have a photocopy, if anyone is interested in the truth, of the citation, which clearly shows Brooks's name in the "offender" slot, and, in the explanatory remarks section, the colloquial description of the offense itself: Belgianizing the bird.

Here's what Maggie has published in the Daily Gullet: The Bitter End: Our Cravings, Ourselves Desperately Seeking Edouard The Bitter End: Into the Mouths of Babes The Lost Worlds of Ali-Bab Man. Machine. Magazine. with Dave Scantland OTOH: How to Cook a Wolfe - Part 1 OTOH: How to Cook a Wolfe - Part 2 OTOH: How to Cook a Wolfe - Part 3 OTOH: How to Cook a Wolfe - Part 4 OTOH: How to Cook a Wolfe - Part 5 The Birth of the Blender

It's true that Brooks needs the practice. And the bribery. ← I'll be needing your parent's address. ← Do you need the address of the nearest Popeye's, too?

It's true that Brooks needs the practice. And the bribery.

Not that there aren't a lot of good suggestions here, but I think Chris's cheese ideas especially are well worth exploring. I'm apprehensive about being able to maintain a worthy selection in Flowery Branch, but you don't need the very best and most rare, you just need good matches. One nice spin-off is that you can create tasting events, for which you can charge a premium, as well as gather data on what your customers like and want. Something else you might consider is sous vide: tender cubes of short rib, salmon, lobster; infused baby vegetables; exotic meatballs. Sous vide doesn't require a hood, and the medium is water, hence no fume or disposal issues.

34 48' 41.23" N 78 40' 41.23" W Dean is looking up and waving. Be polite and wave back. ← Dean, please go back inside and put on something reflective. I can't see you at night. ← Wait a minute, I can just take my shirt off, and that should do the trick! ← If I were there, I could just take off my Krispy Kreme hat.

34 48' 41.23" N 78 40' 41.23" W Dean is looking up and waving. Be polite and wave back. ← Dean, please go back inside and put on something reflective. I can't see you at night.

I can't believe you didn't nail down the whipped cream clause. ← I second that concern. Question for VaNC: If whipped cream is considered blasphemy, what is Cool Whip considered? ← Excommunication is the only course.

I'm not saying that this is my final entry, because I'm still messing around. Let's say it's an entry. I went through a series of really awful experiments with tea infusions (alcohol extracts tannin from tea at an alarming rate), including ways to mitigate the astringency: egg white (it works, but I kept coming back to Audrey's MarTeani); and cream (I rarely actually spit things out, but I made an exception). I tried washing the leaves it in both water and vodka before infusing, but these steps diminished flavor along with the tannins. Finally, I dosed the infusee with a bit of lemon juice, having read on a brewing site that acidity (< pH 5.4 or 5.6, depending on whom you listen to) reduces the extraction of tannin from hops. I doubt that this is how Nestea makes their canned product, but that crap is practically indistinguishable from what I got. So I gave up on tea infusions. I know one or two others are working on this approach; I hope they do better. Last week, I made my occasional cookware-glassware foray into TJ Maxx. They're always rearranging the product, so I wasn't surprised to find myself confronting the edible cast-offs instead of the gleaming $23, 9-quart Sitram Profisserie that I always hope to encounter. Most of what's on these shelves is crap; face it, most of what's in the cookware section is crap, too, but I keep going back, because every once in a while there's a jewel nestled among the cowflops. Not this time, but I found a bit of helpful spoor; a map: a bottle of green-tea concentrate. Green tea wasn't the direction I wanted to go, but it reminded me that black teas come in concentrate form, too, and some of them are decent. Sure enough, on the shelf at Kroger, between the Country Time lemonade mix and the Lipton orange pekoe bags, was a bottle of Pappy's Sassafras Tea Concentrate. As often happens when one is smacked in the face by serendipity, I found myself propelled in a new direction. Instead of a grown-up iced tea, a sort-of grown-up root beer (and an excuse to use those stupidly over-sized martini glasses). It's even got a slightly hot finish like a robust root beer has. Sweetie 1.5 ounces white rum 1.5 ounces sassafras tea concentrate 0.5 ounces Velvet Falernum 1.0 ounce lemon juice 2 t rich mint syrup Shake with ice (really hard; something in here doesn't want to let the lemon juice combine easily). Strain into a 9-ounce martini glass containing 1/4-C finely crushed ice.

I can't believe you didn't nail down the whipped cream clause.

It helps that I've gotten a little distance on this (having had the pleasure of editing it) because it is indeed lovely. But: - This bacon-basting , snot-coagulating, egg-frying method: has anyone tried it? I did, within hours of learning about it. Given a choice, I haven't had eggs any other way since. - Is Maggie right about the best bread for toast -- day-old artisan boule? - How many other food references can we pry out of A.A. Milne? (Maggie already found my favorite.) - Given Maggie's well-documented Anglophilia: no broiled tomato? Discuss. - Breasts and egg yolks. Compare and contrast (but stay on topic!) - Precisely how many Glenfiddiches does it take to induce temporary amnesia? More important, at least to the Daily Gullet, she gives Laurie Colwin the same.

Another problem I've encountered with 2:1 syrups (if they hang around long enough) is that contaminants, even if they don't cause spoilage, can cause crystalization. I've been pretty good about using perfectly clean glass to store syrups, but the one time I poured a cup of syrup into a plastic container, I came back a couple of days later to some really pretty rock candy. It had gotten a start along an edge roughened by microwaving and dishwashing. I might not have been clear on my technique. Like mumkin, I just shake like crazy. No stovetop.

I try to save the POM for kids' cocktails. Otherwise, they go through the grenadine. Welcome, mumkin!

I use POM and sugar 1:1, too, to make 8 ounces of grenadine. Then (I'm not sure where I read it -- either in Killer Cocktails or on the drinkboy site), I add another tablespoon or so of sugar, and a half-ounce of high-proof vodka or rum as a preservative. I've kept a batch as long as two weeks (in the refrigerator) without a problem. It might last longer, but I run out by then.

I'm working on a tea-infused gin to be a component in a proposal for the Pig Pickin' Signature Cocktail. I hadn't read about Audrey's Earl Grey-infused gin for her MarTEAni yet, so I just guessed. I started with 16 ounces of 80-proof gin and one half-ounce of tea (technically, six bags of Twinings Afternoon, a black tea blend). I let it infuse for 12 hours. It smelled great, and the color was beautiful. The taste is good, too, except that it has a Sahara-inducing quantity of tannin. Now that I've read Audrey's formula, it seems that I went the wrong way. More tea, less time seems to be a better direction. But I wonder: - How much tea can a given amount of alcohol handle in a given period of time? - Presumably, short infusions extract the pleasant flavor compounds earlier (granted, this theory is based on Audrey's forumla, plus what is known about coffee extraction). Other than trial and error, is there a way to zero in on the tipping point? - Besides short infusion times, is there a way to reduce tannins while maximizing other flavors? Maybe there's some combination of water and alcohol that would work better? My first thought is that a higher-proof gin would extract more from the tea, but it must depend on the solubility of the various flavor compounds. Are tannins more or less soluble in alcohol than other tea-related flavors? - Moving beyond tea: other than tradition and trial-and-error, is there a way to predict what's better infused with water and what's better done with alcohol, and a way to establish timing before starting out?

Again, given the imminent release of Turning the Tables, one must ask: coincidence?

Nice! How do you manage a drink like this with so many 1/4 ounce pours? It seems like it would be a terrible pain in the neck to make... ← Just make four at a time. That seems appropriate to the occasion, and to the cocktail. At least a 1:1:1:1:1:1 formula is easy to remember!

Steven beat me to it. If you only get to have one, melamine is great -- something like this. I don't recommend them if you do a lot of microwaving, though.