John Rosevear

Bacardi 151 is pretty one-dimensional, and I suspect most of it gets torched for Bombe Alaska and flaming shots rather than being made into actual cocktails for anyone over the age of 25 or so. If you really want to wade into overproofs, try Lemon Hart Demerara 151 for some more sophistication... or Wray & Nephew Overproof (the bestselling rum in Jamaica) for something more in the white lightnin' vein. Gosling also does a 151 that's worth a taste -- and it's a much better choice than Bacardi for most of those flaming desserts.

Seconded. And while I'm not sure the science actually holds for this, I have noticed that if I don't have used fry oil handy, a glug of bacon grease in the fresh (I use corn or peanut) oil seems to do the job.

Why? Because plain properly-seasoned carbon steel works better than either and costs less.

I have a deep and abiding love for nearly all of the (non-baked, non-"natural", non-"lite") products of the Frito-Lay Company. This was only reinforced after I was diagnosed with celiac last year and discovered that most of my favorites are reliably gluten-free. I have been known to start days with a breakfast of good coffee and Chee-tos. I have been unable to produce homemade fries that taste better to me than Ore-Ida Shoestrings fried in corn oil. (I do add a little bacon grease for that food-snob touch, though.)

Okay, here's my rant for tonight: Electric woks are a total waste of money. After complaining about the futility of using a real wok on the (ostensibly very nice) ceramic-top stove that came with my new house, I was recently given a new Breville, considered the best (read: hottest) one available in the US according to multiple sources. It certainly has a lot of impressive-sounding engineering incorporated into it. But it is barely adequate for small sauce-based dishes and completely hopeless for anything requiring real heat. My battered 19-yr-old Taylor & Ng wok on my Weber grill's cheesy 12k BTU side burner completely blows it away. That Taylor & Ng wok, a 14" flat-bottom spun carbon steel model that came packaged with lid and accessories, cost me $28 new at Crate & Barrel back in the day, and it is the best money I have ever spent on any cooking-related anything ever. C&B still sells it, or a very similar one, for $50 now. Any wok over $70 or so is a total waste of money. Any wok with any sort of nonstick coating is a total waste of money. Any stainless steel wok is a total waste of money. Any wok made by a big-name high-end cookware or appliance company is a total waste of money.

Great choice. I've done as many as five 4 lb chickens on my 670's rotisserie. Good luck with it!

Chris, did your burner come with a wok? I know they used to sell the burners without woks, but I wasn't able to find one when I searched recently -- all I see are the burner-plus-wok kits, which seem a little overpriced for what they are.

nextguy, I feel your pain. Even used ones are pricey.

If I'm having a steak (almost always a strip or porterhouse), odds are that my kids are having burgers, and they love it when I make fries. I enjoy the whole steak frites thing so that works for me as well. Generally I'll add a salad or any of several roasted vegetables (asparagus is popular, in season), but there's no set specific routine.

I hear anecdotes about a lot of those big shiny Chinese-made grills from places like Sears and Target... most of the stories go the same way -- something broke or rusted a year or two in, and nobody could figure out how to get a replacement part for it. Your mileage may vary, but I suspect you'll find they have a lot more in common with Char-Broils than with Webers.

Crud washes off with a hose. Grates rust, but replacements can be bought inexpensively at most hardware stores. If the bowl and lid are not out of round, not rusted through, and not showing any spots of heavy bubbling under the finish that suggest rust problems, and the stand is stable, it's fine.

Around here (New England) they go on sale in September. Weber charcoal grills range from $29 to over $1000, last I checked... which model were you considering? A 22.5" One Touch Silver, which is an excellent charcoal grill for most folks' needs, can often be found for $65-$70. I have one that was made in 1994 and it still works just fine.

I'm not new to woks and not new to outdoor cooking, but I am new to wok burners. If I'm looking to buy soon, is the Big Kahuna (presumably with carbon steel wok, not stainless) the general-consensus choice for serious outdoor wok cooking nowadays? Are there other models I should be looking at?

If you're looking for an online vendor, I can recommend these guys. A lot of the online places advertise low prices and clobber you on shipping charges, or their "free shipping" takes weeks... I ordered my Summit S-670 (the replacement for my old Genesis) from these guys last fall and it was delivered 48 hours later -- best of all, they put it right on my deck, no extra charge. A lot of folks on the BBQ forums recommend them, which is how I found them. Call and ask if they don't have the model you want listed on the site. Good luck!

Or four, or six. (But not two! Though the two-burner Webers won't meet your size requirement anyway.)

Takeout Chinese soup seems more likely to be thickened with cornstarch (or potato starch) rather than arrowroot. Try whisking it while warming it over low-to-medium heat on the stove. The lumps will break up and melt back in as it heats.

One more thought -- if you really need something bigger than a Genesis, look around for a Weber Summit E-620 on sale. The Summits -- particularly the natural gas models -- often get heavily discounted in the offseason, and you might be able to get one for not much more than $1,000. Excellent grill.

If you want to keep it under $1000, you want something that will cook consistently and evenly time and time again, and you want something that will last for more than a couple of years with some assurance that you'll be able to get parts for it 5 or 10 or 15 years down the road... I'd love to be able to recommend 2 or 3 different options for you to compare, but I can't even think of a reasonable alternative to a Weber Genesis. As far as I'm concerned, nothing under $2500 or so even comes close. I've owned 5 Weber products over the last 20 years and 4 are still going strong -- the 5th was retired after 10 years of hard year-round (in New England) use. Great company, great products, buy without hesitation.

Massachusetts. A good Empire is a glorious thing, an exquisite balance of sweet and tart, and possibly the finest idea ever to come out of Cornell University. Sadly, many are mealy-textured and not particularly flavorful, and if that's all that's available, I'll happily take a McIntosh (ideally from the orchard down the street) instead.

I know very little (beyond the obvious) about Spanish cuisine, but my wife is a big fan of the Boston area tapas restaurants and I'd like to learn how to play some of those tunes at home. Thus, I'm looking for a somewhat traditionalist English-language starting point to cooking tapas -- something that will help me duplicate the classics one sees at most US tapas places, but with good guidance around authentic ingredients. Penelope Casas's book Tapas: The Little Dishes of Spain seems to have been the gold standard at one time; is it still? If not, what is?

I make vanilla syrup that way -- 2:1 simple, boiled, then left to steep with a vanilla bean for a while. It is absolutely brilliant when used in place of simple syrup in a Mai Tai.

Oh, and re the Barbancourts... the choices will reflect more or less aging. For making Mai Tais, the basic one (three stars on the label) is probably just fine.

Tammy, my two cents on curacao is that I think Marie Brizard makes a superb one and that the Bols is a fine substitute. But if all you can find is Hiram Walker or Dekuyper or whatever, giving the Cointreau a try isn't a bad idea.

I would argue that, in a pinch, you could substitute Barbancourt. Others might disagree. Given the choices on that list, I'm inclined to agree. It won't be quite right, but it'll be decent, and still considerably better than any Mai Tai most of your guests have ever had.

Joe, what brand of curacao were you using?