Hassouni

chicken sashimi sounds really really gross. Is it similar to how it's ok to have rare beef but not rare pork? Perhaps chicken is more likely to make you sick rare than duck is.

I could be way off, but those look like vine leaves.

I too think it's fish. Awfully blurry!

Go on, what's chikki?

So as I'm sure everyone here knows, most stores only sell "double" old fashioned glasses in size of 10-14 oz, which is way too damn big for an old fashioned, and positively humongous for a rockless Sazerac! Are there any nationwide stores that sell a sensibly sized glass, 5-8 oz perhaps?

First night off the antibiotics from my impalement on glass, first drink from the bottle of Bulleit rye I got recently. Old fashioned! 3 oz rye, 1 generous dash Angostura, 1 dash Regans' orange bitters, and a couple dashes turbinado (Sugar in the Raw) 1:1 simple syrup. Garnished with a homemade Luxardo-soaked dried cherry and with a lemon twist squeezed over the top. Excellent drink, though next time will add a bit less syrup.

There are certain things I only get at TJ's.... Chocolate - the house brand 85%, or the Valrhona 86% (the TJ's one is a lot cheaper though and roughly on par) Cheese - I love their Stilton and Gruyère, and the Vintage English Cheddar or whatever it's called is by far the best I've had in the US, on par with all but the very best in England. The fresh mozzarella is the best I can find for the price. Corn tortillas - WAY better than WF's (which are awful) and better than most of the mass-produced brands from Hispanic grocery stores. Nuts, especially the roasted unsalted peanuts and almonds, and the walnut halves. The husk-less pumpkins seeds are good, but the whole ones don't have the required thick layer of salt that the ones from the Lebanese store have (addictive salt bombs that they are...) Coconut water - the best price on the litre packages of Zico, about $2 cheaper than the Whole Foods across the street (Tysons Corner, VA). I also pick up various soda waters right next to it. Additionally, the 40% reduced fat bacon is also really, really good, and mostly meat as opposed to fat. Still has a great taste though. The organic European-style yogurt is great, much like Yeo Valley and Rachel's Organic brands in the UK. Also get evaporated cane juice and turbinado sugar, organic milk, sardines, pre-cut haricots verts, numerous canned vegetable and bean products, chicken stock, coffee....I also like their pre-marinated Carne Asada and similar things. Their hard pretzels are also good, and I'll echo what everyone has said about the Savory Thins - AWESOME. Also, their Ice Floes are really good in summer, and the Joseph's Brau beer (or whatever it's called) is great at $6 a 6-pack. I really like the dark hefeweizen, the Vienna lager, the Bohemian-style pilsner... I rarely buy produce there, however, preferring Super H Mart in Fairfax for all that (and all my Asian purchases), though in summer they have local corn, tomatoes, and other things that are pretty good. I will occasionally get meat at TJ's, but I tend to go Whole Foods or the organic butcher in my town for that.

hmm, are those doughnuts, bagels, or vadas?

Finished the bancha, on to my remaining Ito En Ooi Ocha wakame wakakuki (doesn't seem to be on the Ito En website), I like it a lot better than the bancha. More crisp and astringent, without being bitter.

Last two days lots of masala tea with Lipton tea dust (hey, it brews strong!) Today, finishing up my Ito En yawaragi bancha. Need to clear some space for better tea...

They're something like 97% water to begin with, so they need to be in water otherwise they'll dry out into nothing.

Well the stew I made tonight was just cooked at lower heat - meat first, meat out, mirepoix in, the moisture from which loosened the fond and avoided any burning. The thing is, I wasn't able to get a really crusty deep brown sear (I didn't raise the heat past a highish medium).

I do it all in the oven, it's not so bad. I definitely wouldn't do it on the stove though.

I saw a commercial for it the last time I saw No Reservations (I think it was a rerun). It's a decent idea for a show - sounds like the 24 hour Greatest Hits of any given city. Does this mean No Reservations is over though?

As many as you can give me

If your is the one on the top, which I'm guessing, it looks much better!

It might be a massive pain to get all the seasoning off (see below). Try cleaning it off with soap, water and salt and see what happens. If you need to get the seasoning off, put it in the self-cleaning cycle in your oven if you have one, you will be left with bare metal. This happened to me accidentally, but the seasoning was kind of crummy to begin with so it gave me a chance to redo it. It did get rusty very quickly before I had a chance to re-season, but I soaked it in vinegar for a while and the rust came right off. You must IMMEDIATELY dry the pan off with a towel and put it on the heat, or else it will rust again. Proceed to season as normal. I used olive oil and it's worked great.

Yes, almost all my Japanese and Chinese teas I do multiple infusions, up to 3. I also already have the teaware bug, but I'm at a stage where I have to justify a new addition....

so I guess the trick is to make sure the fond isn't too dark by the time I take the meat out huh

Yeah, I'm using enamelled cast iron for all my stews now

I'm curious what everyone does here for a stew containing meat and onions. Do you sear the meat, remove it, then fry the onions in the fond? Or do you brown onions and add the meat to them later? I find frying onions in the fond tends to end up burning the fond. Occasionally I fry the onions till soft, remove them, turn the heat up, add the meat, then add the onions back later. None of these seems like a really good method. What do you do?

Yeah the strainers I put in the mugs are metal mesh, either metal or plastic framed, that I've pulled out of old teapots (which broke or were far too large for normal use, or whatever other reason). They fill up most of an ordinary ceramic mug.

The spices are fresh enough for all other uses Might it be that I'm using 1% milk? Perhaps whole milk would bring out the spices better

Yeah, those rotis look very different to the standard chapati or tandoori roti, they almost look like parathas. For the record, I'd like to see as much proper Parsi food as possible (like dansak perhaps?) as I think it's one of the least represented Indian cuisines in the West. Lots of photos of Bombay would be great too!

why not?