Hassouni

Usually wrapped in a plastic bag and tied off, then wrapped in clothes, then wrapped in another plastic bag. I hate the liquids rule.

I've made daiquiris this dry before, and I prefer them a TOUCH sweeter. Not "Sweet" per se, but the first few sips of this were all lime juice. Most of the ones I made this summer were with simple syrup. I think if it were really hot outside it wouldn't have bothered me at all. Edit....post cocktail typos.

So years after this thread was started, is there a really good commercial product yet?

First daiquiri in what seems like forever with my newly purchased Flor de Caña 4 yr extra dry. 2 oz of that, 1/2 oz lime, 2/3 teaspoon homemade superfine sugar (regular Domino spun around in a food processor). I've run out of simple syrup, so I think a new batch is due, as this was just a hair too dry. Interestingly, the sourness of the lime seemed to mellow as I drank, possibly because the rum flavor shone through more as the drink warmed up.

Of course, the Last Word! A cocktail I've heard much about but never had. I'm sure the better mixology bars in DC can whip me up a good one. I have no issue with it being a powerful drink I couldn't imagine a full ounce of maraschino though..

Yeah I've heard of the Bijou - I think something like that would be a good introduction, that I could just walk up to a better bartender in town and order. Mr Kayahara, how many drinks require apricot liqueur? Also what is the consensus on Cointreau vs other triple sec/Curaçao? Cointreau is great, but God it's expensive...

Not that I do this, but I think a list of what's in the freezer, with the date it went in, stuck to the freezer door would be an awfully good idea...you can cross stuff out as you take it in, and write in new stuff as need be.

Well, I like drinks where the spirit is rather forward, and I don't like anything too sweet, or excessively bitter, but I do like complex flavors and interesting combinations. I've never to my knowledge had a drink with any herbal liqueur like Chartreuse in that, so I'm not sure if I'd like that. Is there any cocktail that Chartreuse really shines in that I could order at a bar and form an opinion?

Inspired by the ongoing thread on Bourdain's Les Halles cookbook, I made his recipe for fennel and tomato soup, and salade niçoise. The Salad was good, but the soup was phenomenal! So simple: sweat onions, fennel, and diced potato, add a can of tomatoes, cook for 10 minutes, add chicken stock, let simmer, then blend and season.

I seem to have an unusually good memory for WHAT things in the freezer are, though the date of freezing escapes me. For things like stock, etc, I usually label with the date, but for everything else, it just sort of goes in and gets pulled out when it gets pulled out, I just keep a mental list of what's in there.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll look for the half bottles - my half bottle of Cointreau has lasted about 2 years. I like bitter to an extent, I find a Negroni about the limit (or was it an Americano I had? I can't remember)

Also, regarding vermouth, what the hell do you do with a whole bottle? I have a small bottle of Martini & Rossi red that has been sporadically used and living in my fridge for a while, and it doesn't seem that I can get any French dry vermouth in anything less than 750ml. I'd love to try some of the non-Martini Italians, like Cinzano or Punt e Mes, but have only seen them in large format.

So I've got most of my bases in the major spirits categories covered - 10 different rums, a few whiskies, tequila, a couple gins, rakı, absinthe, vodka (not that I have much use for it), some sweet vermouth, and I can't remember what else. I also have a 3/4 empty bottle of St Germain, an even less full half-bottle of Cointreau, a mostly full bottle of Luxardo Maraschino, and a brand new bottle of R&W Violette that has been used for about 3 Aviations. Have Angostura, Peychaud's, and Regans' Orange bitters. I'm really into classic cocktails and modern ones that aren't super-frilly - not interested in lots of juices are super obscure ingredients or anything especially sweet. I love old fashioneds, pegu clubs, manhattans, daiquiris, sidecars, classic margaritas, and some newer things I've seen on DrinkBoy or invented myself. It seems, from browsing credible cocktail resources, that to take things further, I'd need to add, say, Chartreuse, Benedictine, Heering, and I'm not sure what else. Some of these seem super-expensive, so I'd really like to know what the bare minimum is in addition to my already-present standards of Cointreau and Luxardo.

Yeah plain yogurt for the win. The Turkish and Iranian brands are quite good (Choopan, Golchin, Sadaf, Yörük, Pınar, etc), very thick and tangy. I'll occasionally make a dessert by adding some chopped nuts or dates or honey or Iraqi date syrup (which is great stuff), but more often have it plain next to savory food. Of course, labna, which is what Fage markets as "Greek yogurt" is one of my staple breakfast foods. Goes with EVERYTHING: tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, cheese, za'tar, jam, whatever you want. All you need to make it is a strainer and a coffee filter.

As an ardent yogurt fan and someone who cooks East Asian food a lot, I don't see the two going together. Yogurt and soy sauce/fish sauce/miso/kimchi? Nooo thanks!

I don't know about the Ceylons you have, but I assure you that the teashops in Iraq and Iraqi restaurants in the UK and the UAE that I've been to are not using anything remotely as high quality as something coming from an online tea specialist. O However, if you give it a try, please do report your findings!

By all means try it with other Ceylon blacks too! I'll tell you now that Ahmad Ceylon doesn't work so well, and I would guess that the brands market for Persian consumers wouldn't either - Persians, who also use the samovar method, drink their tea VERY weak, which sort of defeats the purpose. However, I'm always looking for new teas to try, I just don't like buying half a kilo at a time then discovering it's not very good. I also haven't tried any of the other Alwazah varieties. I would strongly suggest looking for the tea in Middle Eastern shops (Lebanese or Iranian, less so Turkish markets, that tend to sell Turkish tea, which is good, but doesn't reach the same strength as the Sri Lankan brands meant for the Arab market) or even Indian/Pakistani shops. Oh by the way, I can't believe I didn't mention this, but as is common in many parts of the Middle East and South Asia (though definitely NOT Turkey), Iraqi-style tea is often brewed with cardamom, either several cracked cardamom pods, or even cardamom-scented tea, which both Alwazah and Ahmad both produce. This is typically drunk in the afternoon or evening, with un-spiced tea de rigeur in the morning. Also, some Iraqis have their morning tea in a larger glass or even mug, often with milk. This is in stark contrast with Iraq's neighbors Iran and Turkey, where milk never goes in tea, and I suspect is a legacy of habits brought by British colonialism and the numerous Indian cooks who worked in Iraq a few generations ago.

Do you notice a considerable difference in taste between quick-browned vs. slowly caramelized onions? Most of the time when I'm making...onions heated in oil...it's for use in a stew or curry or soup where the onion flavor sort of just melts into the background. For curries it makes a difference in the texture of the sauce, but I've never really thought about a difference in flavor. The most recent cookbook I got says something about cooking onions until brown in a matter of 2-3 minutes for most recipes, which seems wrong, even on pretty high heat.

Yes, technically the grill thing is called a saj (or in Turkish, saç), but often the pizza-like thing cooked on them, technically called a man'ousheh, is also called saj. The overturned wok construction seems to work well in that thread, but a real saj is not as steeply convex, and can usually handle 5, 6, or more manaa'ish (plural of man'ousheh) at once, and they're usually about 10" in diameter. By Caesarea, do you mean Kayseri in Turkey?

The Tojiro DP 240mm Gyutou is the best $60ish I've ever spent on kitchen stuff. Sharp enough to shave with when I bought it, fairly easy to sharpen. I don't really use Japanese cutting techniques, but man does it fly through food. Sadly Korin no longer carries them and the stronger Yen means it's more expensive now.

Right now my Whole Foods has AMAZING local honeycrisp apples, I could easily spend $20 on those in one go, at $2.50 a pound. Possibly the best apples I've ever had.

Amazingly, found a great liquor store (for rum at least, pretty good for other stuff) near the IMF and World Bank in DC today. Picked up these: I've been out of white rum for a while and am still on my quest to find the best rum for mojitos and daiquiris. My favorite so far is the Brugal, but I have yet to try the FdC - I hear it's a good substitute for Havana Club. Brugal white is surprisingly hard to find in the DC area, too....

Wholemeal, I absolutely know what you mean. Certain black teas, even many other Ceylons, when brewed this way become overwhelmingly astringent and bitter, even with sugar added. One reason I like Alwazah so much is that the flavor just gets "deeper," if that makes sense - more concentrated without getting overly tannic, if that's the right word. Of course some bitterness and astringency develops, but some brands are a lot worse. Turkish tea (that's actually grown in Turkey) can typically be brewed for hours without getting very bitter, but it tends not to get that "deep" flavor. Interestingly, I often make more tea than I can consume in one day, and have been known to boil some fresh water and reheat the concentrate the next morning - with Alwazah, almost all bitterness is gone and just that deep flavor is left, however I think some bitterness/sharpness/whatever is necessary to the experience. As for anything besides black tea, samovar/çaydanlık culture evolved around black tea, so no, I haven't heard of anyone using anything else. A lot of herbal teas like rooibos and whatever else can be steeped forever though, so they may be worth trying.

Does anyone live around Detroit that may have seen them in Dearborn?

Does anyone know where I might be able to obtain an actual saj for use in a restaurant? Short of going to Lebanon, that is...