Hassouni

An ounce or maybe a bit more of Wray & Nephew overproof over a 1-inch cube of ice. First time I've had it like that, very good!

I can't imagine it'll be a problem with all that salt

What I've noticed at the places where "karahi chicken/karahi lamb" etc are served, it's a fairly quick-cooked, onion-less curry, served at the table in the same karahi it was cooked in. Regardless of where I order it, it always tastes reasonably similar. Also, like I said I've only seen it at places specializing in Lahori food.

Made Korean food tonight: doenjang jjigae (sort of), kimchi, and "Korean aster" whatever that is

Made a hybrid doenjang jjigae/sundubu jjigae, using mostly doenjang, a bit of gochujang, gochugaru, sundubu, potato, daikon, butternut squash, onion, Korean red pepper, spring onion, and a sprinkling of Hon-dashi. Served with Kokuho Rose rice with a Japanese mixed-grain packet thrown in, as well as kimchi and "Korean aster" - something I tried as a sample at Super H Mart and took home. First time ever making a jjigae with doenjang, I normally make sundubu jjigae (with a LOT of gochujang and gochugaru) or kimchi jjigae. Apparently I didn't have any firm tofu tonight... (in case you couldn't tell I'm more familiar with Japanese ingredients, hence me using some Japanese terms)

I'm a huge fan of Panjabi style karahi dishes I've had at various Pakistani restaurants run by Lahoris in the US and Dubai. I've had reasonable luck replicating the chicken dishes, in which ginger, garlic and green chile are fried, followed by chicken, followed by crushed tomatoes and the masala. Apart from the taste, I like it because it cooks so quickly, not containing any onions. A few questions - is this a specialty of Lahore only, hence why I see it only at Pakistani restaurants, but rarely see it at Indian ones? Is my method for making the chicken more or less correct? I've seen extremely variable recipes online. Also, how is lamb/goat karahi done? I don't see any way to cook the lamb thoroughly enough in the 15-20 minutes it takes to cook the dish. Is the meat boiled first?

All across south Louisiana are sandwich shops selling sandwiches called "po-boys." Shrimp, oyster, catfish, crawfish, and oh, those soft shell crabs! Besides po-boys, there are shrimp salad sandwiches, grilled shrimp sandwiches, and I've seen crab burgers, crawfish burgers and shrimp burgers. Don't forget obster rolls (not here, but in New England). We love our seafood here on the Gulf Coast. Having said that, my son won't touch the stuff. He crazy. That's not surprising, Louisiana has a very strong local culinary tradition. What I meant is that Pret is a national chain in the UK, seen on every street corner in London and elsewhere, in airports, etc. I just don't see a national chain doing that here.

OK, so I'm embarrassed to admit this, given all the Middle Eastern food I cook, but I've never known how to trim shanks. Do any of you do this? There's so much fat and collective tissue and other junk on there that always ends up in the final product. The times I've had shank in restaurants, it was mostly just delicious meat falling off the bone.

I've seen similar things for sale in H Mart. I suspect they're VERY powerful, but I don't know where I'd set one up.

Went for drinks at one of my favorite places in DC, El Centro DF, where they have numerous mezcal and tequila cocktails...of which I drank a lot. Tried Sotol reposado (mezcal I guess), amazing stuff, as well as one of their signature drinks, the Red & Smokey: mezcal, agua de jamaica (Hibiscus tea), and chile-ginger syrup. Superb drink.

It's not so much that I'm generalizing about everyone, but of the people I know, most if not all the ones that reject all seafood are American. I do of course have American friends that love it or at a minimum tolerate it, but definitely not all of them.

Everyone with state- or province-run alcohol monopolies really gets my sympathy. I live in Virginia, where the state-controlled stores SUCK. They have a ton of whisky and vodka, and I'm positive they have Chartreuse, Benedictine, and the like, but their gin and rum selection is terrible, their liqueur selection not great, and their prices are ghastly. Thankfully, I live a few minutes from DC and Maryland, which offer a lot more choice and much better prices. Strangely, the Montgomery County (Maryland) liquor monopoly is the cheapest place anywhere, with a much better selection than VA.

Not having had sturgeon, I couldn't tell you, but the smell of frying fish makes me happy. Once the eating is over though, yeah, it does smell bad but so does cooking a steak indoors, or stir frying chiles for the Sichuanese or Thai food I make

I've heard that defense a lot, but to me, mackerel tastes entirely different than salmon, which is entirely different from snapper, which is entirely different from cod, pollack, and other (in my opinion, slightly boring) whitefish, and so on. Hell, I say slightly boring because to me many whitefish have so LITTLE taste. To me it's like someone saying "I don't eat fruit." What fruit? apples? oranges? bananas? cherries? How can you make such a sweeping generalization?

This is certainly true, but fish seems to be at the top of the list. A couple points: In my case, a lot of the food I love now I wasn't exposed to early on - Most East and Southeast Asian food besides sushi and Americanized Chinese food, Ethiopian food, etc. From my first bites of fuqi feipian (a Sichuanese hot & numbing beef tendon dish) or kimchi I was hooked. As for there being a huge seafood culture on the East Coast, I don't know. Not in DC - the city hasn't been its own entity for long enough to develop a serious native culture. We have proximity to Baltimore, Annapolis, and the Chesapeake Bay, famous for crabs and rockfish (striped bass), but there are no traditions like clambakes, or fish fries, or anything like that. Going to a crab house is as close as it gets but that doesn't happen more than a few times a year, at maximum, for most people. Pret a Manger in the UK has tuna, crayfish, and prawn sandwiches at a minimum, and probably smoked salmon too. When was the last time an American sandwich shop had anything besides tuna?

I'm inclined to agree about the bad preparation, but here on the east coast there shouldn't be an issue with availability

So I grew up in the US, with an American father and an Iraqi-but-Westernized mother. Because of my international upbringing, I travelled a lot as a kid and still do, and I grew up eating and loving seafood of all kinds - currently I'd much rather eat fish than meat on any given day. A lot of my friends here, that grew up "more American" than I did, will NOT eat seafood - fish, bivalves, crustaceans, you name it. Sometimes canned tuna is OK, sometimes not. Even my dad, who likes fish, and most shellfish, won't go near squid, octopus, or scallops, is indifferent to mussels, and even though he likes fish, really dislikes fish with bones, whereas I feel bones are part of the experience. One of my non-seafood eating American friends just got back from a year in Beirut, and while I was visiting family there some Lebanese friends and I took her out for an amazing seafood lunch with loads of fried whole fish caught fresh that morning, and pound after pound of grilled shrimp. We pressured her into eating some and lo and behold, she liked it! She said this was the first time she'd ever liked seafood, but with many of my other friends, no such luck. The American supermarkets near me have pretty crummy fish departments, whereas when I lived in London, my neighborhood supermarket has a great selection (in the US I go to Super H mart for all my fishy needs). What is it with America/ns and fish? I'm sure I'm not the only person to encounter this, and it's not that the friends I've mentioned are necessarily picky eaters who only eat pasta and peanut butter - they love Lebanese food, Sichuanese ma la spice, etc.

Oh man, I tried a Last Word last night at Tryst in DC, and man, what a superb cocktail. Chartreuse is definitely on my to-buy list now. Any similar recommendations for Benedictine?

Somewhat related to this, I've noticed that all the nori for sale that I've seen, despite being labelled in Japanese, and produce by a Japanese company, says Product of China on it. Is Japanese-made nori exported?

Razzoux is definitely just a typo. Of the Lebanese ones you listed, I'd say Massaya is the smoothest, and Ghantous & Abou Raad and Razzouk are about on par with each other for firey-ness. That being said since they're drunk with water, it's not that they taste harsh, but the smoother ones have a more rounded, sweeter profile By the way, when I say rakı and arak are identical, this is more or less true, though there are variations in the product that's fermented - a lot of rakı is made from raisins, some is made from fresh grapes, some from figs, while in Lebanon I think grape pomace is common. That being said the taste is basically the same, esp as the anise flavor overwhelms everything else.

I dunno, the yen went from 110 to the dollar to 70ish...a lot of Japanese goods are more expensive now in roughly that proportion.

As someone whose second home is Lebanon and is an ardent Turkophile, I'll say that rakı and arak are IDENTICAL. Yeni Rakı is the bog standard stuff in Turkey, Efe Rakı is a bit smoother/more subtle. I love it, but yes, I only drink it the traditional way. I guess you could add it to soups or stews or sauces if you want an anise taste.

So I read the thread with SLKinsey's thorough write-up, and saw that video with the baking soda....just put half a teaspoon of baking soda on some onions now and they really turned into a brown mush. I'm not sure this is exactly what I wanted....does anybody else do this, and how much baking soda do you put?

Yojimbo, Orgeat is definitely on my list, and if I can't find a good all-natural source then I'm going to follow the homemade recipe on the 7-page orgeat thread. I really want to make a good Mai Tai, though as for other Tiki drinks, I'm not sure, as I'm not a big fan of anything juicy other than a small splash of lemon or lime. I have a nearly full bottle of Lucid, which I deem to be "OK" (I've had several others at bars), but it works fine in Sazeracs and the occasionally times I do an absinthe drip. Arak really is no substitute, it's straight anise. I also want to ask, although it deviates from the liqueur question, what's a decent, affordable brandy for making sidecars and numerous other drinks? Would a $20 VS Cognac typically work well? I've been making my sidecars with rum, which Robert Hess dubs an Outrigger.

If that half bottle of Cointreau that's lasted you 2 years is too pricey, you should probably stay away from the Chartreuse ! That said, I've found Chartreuse a most worthwhile investment. I bought it to try my hand at a Last Word as recommended above. I found that very tasty but I really, really like the Final Ward. In fairness, It was mostly full at the start of the summer and I've really gone through most of it in the space of a few months... That's because it doesn't. A Last Word is equal parts gin, maraschino, Green Chartreuse and lime juice. The usual going rate is .75 oz. of each. Since you're in DC, I suggest you check out Ace Beverage on New Mexico Ave. up near American University. Great selection and you'll have no trouble finding splits of dry vermouth. As well as practically any rye you might be interested in trying. Yep, already an Ace customer, great store. I forgot to mention I have about a litre and a half of cachaça, and I make caipirinhas all the time when it's hot out.