scubadoo97

Some I think are good values are Wild Turkey 101 and Old Grand Dad 100 or 114 but the 114 is better for a few extra $. The OGD has a bit more rye spice in it. I personally find EW single barrel a little thin and light on flavor. If you like 4 roses the small batch is pretty good and still under $30 by me. The 4 roses Yellow label is a pretty good bourbon but it still is just under $20 where I shop. I will Jim would push the proof up a bit but he is determined to keep it just the way it is.

Good selection Of your selection the ones that I drink neat are Mount Gay Extra Old Pyrat XO. Not a big fan due to the orange flavor that is somehow infused Barbancourt 8 (5 star) Ron Zacapa 23 I will advise to look for El Dorado 12 and 15. In my neck of the wood the 12 is like $20 and the 15 is $25. Excellent rums for the money. Your prices look about the same as what those go for by me.

Not condoning the action but... Since blind taste tests routinely score Smirnoff better than Grey Goose I don't think the patrons got a bad vodka. Just paid too much for it. Then again if they got Grey Goose they paid too much for it.

I haven't done scallops on my smoker but I don't think you are going to eat them raw so cold smoking isn't needed. I would set the temp low like maybe 150 and get them in there while they are very cold and when the smoker is cold. You will get good smoke until you reach your set temp and then the element will kick off and you you can coast with your wood giving you thin blue smoke at that point. Pull them when ever you want and you should have some definite smoke flavor at that point.

EOR makes some good beef jerky

Why mix with anything but good rum? I don't want to mix with rum I don't think is good. I realize in the world of spirits there are degrees of good but I'm not sure where I would set the bar for deciding something is too good to mix with. Nothing I've purchased up to this point has been above that bar but I don't have any $100+ bottles on the shelf. Maybe that would make me evaluate my views on this from a different angle. I see no reason using a very good spirit that when mixed with other ingredients taste no better than had it been mixed with a lesser spirit. I drink 99% of my drinks neat so I can taste the difference. When drinking the occasional cocktail I taste the mixers more than the spirit. Well that depends. A Manhattan for example is one where the mixer % is so small that the whiskey had better be good. A mojito or a rum and coke is more about the mixer than the spirit.

I'm sure I've learned a lot of cooking things from my mom but one thing stands out and that's cooking rice Syrian Jewish style. Fried in a bit of oil first. A lot of oil if you are going to toast the bottom before turning it out.

Glad to know the recommended setting is 15 psi cuz that's all I have on my Fagor and my average time is in that 60-90 min time zone. Bones crumble after 90 min so I wasn't sure if more flavor could be extracted past that time. I get a high level of gelatin setting when cooled. If more chicken flavor can be extracted I'd like to know.

I've been using mine for beans recently. One batch of chickpeas for hummus yesterday and another batch today which then went into the oven for roasted crunchy chickpeas. My freezer is over flowing with bags of chicken bones and scraps. Some of which will be turned into stock later today.

If the food sucks then no way I'm going back. I really dislike the new trend of ultra loud restaurants. Situations where you can barely carry on a conversation without yelling. I assume it's the buzz that the restaurant wants to create by making the restaurant loud. Loud equates to a hopping, busy, successful restaurant which is where you want to be. Well not me.

A reverse press. Like the clover. Well not exactly

I've been making a corn soup in my Blendtec or Vitamix which is nothing more than frozen corn, chicken base, sauteed onions and celery, a 1/4 tsp of chipotle paste which I make up and cilantro. People swear it has cream in it. Not a drop

Cool. My wife has an Iphone and Ipad. I'm still using a dumb phone. Just checked and it's for droids. Oh well

I bring water off the boil and let it sit until I've ground my beans. The temp drops to about 205* at the time of pouring.

Not only did it sit on the grocers shelf unrefrigerated but it most likely arrived to the store in an unrefrigerated truck. As long as it wasn't opened I see little if any risk.

I haven't had any problem following the belly on my german chef knife which is the knife in my kitchen that has the most belly. Using too much pressure is a common mistake with new users

Well at least it will be really good bean soup. Stay with the program. If you are eating less calories over time you will lose weight.

I would consider Passionfish a moderately priced restaurant. Thanks for the suggestion. The big destination places like French Laundry,Gary Danko and others require advance bookings. With just two weeks to go these are most likely not an option. I'm looking for really good food and can splurge for some expensive meals as long as it's worth it. As I mentioned I cook a ton and we don't go out a lot so to splurge a few times a year is okay. I just want the food to be better than what I can do at home. Too often it's not. Hanging around EG too long. Edited to add that we are staying in the Union Sq. area but not tied to the area.

After doing quite a few searches here at EG I found many post to be several years old. My wife and I will be doing an 8 day trip which will start out in Monterey for 2 days then the Nappa Valley (staying in Calistoga)for 2 days and then finishing up in SF for 4 days. Certainly this is a foodie area and lots of excellent choices. What are some of your favorite places? My wife loves sushi and we both love seafood. I figure we will hit some Mexican at some of the many markets. As a dedicated home cook we don't eat out a lot since home meals more often than not trump restaurant meals but this will be a week of eating out. Our food choices are varied except my wife doesn't eat pig. As well as those recommended where would you stay clear of?

I've purchased the bamboo Melita filters. Still have an opened box. I have been wetting my filters before use to remove some paper taste but the bamboo ones seem to have a stronger paper taste. I really prefer pressed coffee but my wife only like drip

I tried to maintain the steep angle that is currently on the blade using the Sharpie technique to make sure I was at the edge and not reprofiling. As you can see it is a single beveled edge.

Like BadRabbit. I employ a similar technique for spares on my smoker. The standard 3-2-1 is a little too long in my opinion. I lean more toward the times BadRabbit listed.

I had read some comments that the Bradley doesn't get hot enough to smoke poultry properly, but I have also seen pics and heard stories of it being successful. Does the skin get crispy? I don't own a Bradley but can only assume that the reason the Bradley and most electric smokers don't do a good job on poultry is that they don't get hot enough to crisp the skin. Outside of that they do a fine job of the basic low and slow smoking of poultry and fish for that matter. For fish the problem is often the opposite. trying to keep it low enough and still get smoke. The passive smoke generators like the A Maze N smoker or similar can get around that problem.

I think the primary thing you can control is the amount of moisture lost to evaporation. Cooking in liquid or braising and cooking covered or foiled will both help to curb evaporation. Certainly interested in other opinions here.