Hassouni

Seconded. Also, CKTG has surely the largest collection of quality, distinctive Japanese knives and hands down more information than any other site I've seen. And no, I don't work for them either and only bought a $20 knife from them a few years ago (though I am planning a larger purchase in the near future). I think they're also better for entry-level stuff than, say, Korin, who specializes in really high end, pro-level stuff (and for what it's worth, my main knife was bought at Korin, and I've spent far more money there than at CKTG!)

Mmm gumbo, one of the good things about (not yet here) cold weather...

Another exception is the original version of green papaya salad, from Laos, known as tam mak hoong in Lao and of course, altered a bit, as som tam in Thai. From my experience with Lao food, the overall cuisine is not that hot, with the exception of papaya salad and to a lesser extent laap. At my local (and from what I heard from a disinterested Lao customer, quite authentic) Lao place, dishes can be requested "mild", "Thai hot", or "Lao hot". I always order "Lao hot" (or more, see below) but only the papaya salad is truly incendiary - everything else is fairly balanced. Lao curries are barely hot, if at all, and their dips/chile pastes aren't that hot either.` NB. For what it's worth, the spice levels at this place are marked with an X when the servers take the order or when the bill is presented, with "Lao hot" represented by "XXX." They will, upon request, make 5, 6, or 7 X if you're a regular customer, and, like me, notorious for taking the on-menu XXX as if it's nothing. I once asked how the chef-owner would have her papaya salad, and was told 6X, so I ordered it. That pushed the limits a bit. Now I hang comfortably at XXXXX

Is that actually a blend of Yemeni and Indonesian, or what

Pretty much whatever coffee comes my way...

Princesse, you might find this useful: http://www.amazon.com/Anjali-Coconut-Scrapper-Shredder-Grinder/dp/B009QP8MH8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411163684&sr=8-1&keywords=coconut+grater

Mae Ploy is MUCH better than Maesri for curry pastes. Maesri does good chile pastes though (nam prik, in Thai)

No, Qualia, in DC. But I might just get lazy and get some La Colombe since it's so much closer

What works best for me is actually a coarser grind than is always recommended, as I put in about 21g or so, to more or less fill a 12 oz mug. Also, right now I have no coffee in the house. Time to go to that place Mitch was talking about in another thread....

Yeah, I have one too. Just as good as the more expensive Bodums

This is not the answer you're looking for, but build up your tolerance. I did this by adding 1 extra Thai chile to my food every day for several days when I was cooking lots of Thai food. My chile tolerance is now nearly superhuman, but Mae Ploy stops well short of that level of heat - I usually add 6-12 Thai chiles to my dish of Mae Ploy-based Thai curry, so to me the basic paste really isn't that hot on the spectrum of things.

Highland Park 18 and Ardbeg Uigedail in celebration of the preservation of the United Kingdom!

Mae Ploy is probably the best of the easily-available commercial pastes. It may be hotter, but that's more authentic, anyway.

Lucifer. First time. I heard it's Het Anker's attempt at Duvel. As much as love Gouden Carolus, Het Anker dropped the ball on this one. There was plenty going on it but it was overwhelmed by a taste of alcohol, that Duvel for one (and Gouden Carolus for that matter) doesn't exude.

I have the authority of the Bum. And I know for a fact Rafa is consulting the same recipes for his Power Daiquiris

It's a modified Daiquiri No. 3

Those prices are way too high, unfortunately.

3 day old ashes?? How?

Sadly I have no control over that setup

The chef knives to go forum has people that will make you very concrete recs if you can define what you want based on those parameters

I have not... Indeed, with most of the air sucked out

Well, a fine mesh strainer doesn't help, and a coffee filter hardly works. I figure as far as relatively budget friendly option goes, it was that or gelatin. ETA: I should have mentioned I was a filtering a liqueur, so maybe the sugar had something to do with it.

I saw some blog post recently about making bitters and other such things out of ingredients in a "flavor library" - a collection of single flavor infusions. So, if I wanted to have a gentian, clove, ginger, and cinnamon bitters, for example, I'd make it out of little bits of each infusion, rather than infusing the whole batch of ingredients together. I can see the appeal, as it allows for infinite adjustment of the finished product, but I was wondering if there is any discernible difference in taste between something done like that, and something infused the old fashioned way, all together. ETA, I see the post linked above describes exactly the same, though that's not the blog I had in mind.

This is what I did, it worked great! Now, back to a more general question: Is there any higher quality neutral grain spirit than Everclear available in the US?

Resurrection time: Do you find that it drips quite slowly? I just got my setup and tested it out tonight. After a few minutes it's drop by drop. To do about 300ml took well over half an hour, but then my stuff had a LOT of gunk in it....