Hassouni

How have they run WT into the ground?

Matilda is superb stuff, enjoy!

Hm, good point...

Re: oleosaccharum - might it work with pomegranate seeds as opposed to citrus peel?

Everything you say about your shop leads me to conclude that in your own best interest, you must find a new boozeria. They have trouble getting Grupo Campari products?? They barely deserve to be in business.

The what now?

I think the ones easily available that you listed would cover pretty much any application of Western or Middle eastern cooking. If you're into Indian or Persian, then some dried fenugreek is useful. I regularly use rosemary, thyme, bay, basil, parsley and oregano in cooking, with mint, coriander, tarragon, and dill usually consumed fresh. Thyme, rosemary, and basil (not to mention mint) are dead easy to grow and very convenient to have on hand. As for East/SE Asian, there's a wide variety not normally carried at Western shops. I can't remember where in London you are, but certainly the larger supermarkets in Chinatown carry a pretty good array of stuff.

Each Ivy League school has its own drink

No, despite appearances. Not sure why it looks like that.

As demand rises (due to a global trend towards greater prosperity), a lot of corners can be cut to meet supply. What's the term, race to the bottom? Basically, if there's enough demand, people will buy whatever. I have a not too cheap cutting board that is less than 6 months old and it's splitting - and I dry it upright. As you pointed out, this isn't a problem just in food-related stuff, it's everything. I'm in the market for some new home goods, and the reviews for almost all state "not as good as they were a few years ago"

OK a round of googling tells me that while it may not have been invented there, the drink first rose to popularity in Barbados

Yes, though the homemade falernum is a weird brown color....so instead of corn (dark brown/black) and oil (very light yellow to clear), you get brown and brown, using homemade falernum and better rum

3 weeks too late see this post upthread http://forums.egullet.org/topic/119100-seasoning-carbon-steel-pans/?p=1952286 The inside of the pan just looks very well-used now. It has a decent layer of carbon down, and while not glass-smooth anymore, is still pretty much nonstick. I haven't tried eggs yet, though. The bottom still looks like it's been through hell and back, but whatever. I have to say, the handle is annoying. If it were also bare steel I'd have just stuck the whole thing in the self-clean cycle.

Glad you got an answer. The only copper cookware I have are a couple Turkish coffeepots (cezveler) which are definitely tinned on the inside, and craftsmen over there will even re-tin your cezve when the tin starts to wear away. I guess in that case it's because of the acidity of the coffee?

High on the rum, and not bloody blackstrap. It's a Bajan drink anyway, right?

The Valrhona is better, but it costs more and you get less of it. It's an indulgence, whereas the TJ house one is a staple!

Is that the one called the Dark Chocolate Lovers? I will have to check that out once my Swiss supplies run out. That's exactly the one. It's not the best 85% out there, but it's better than many, and the price is otherworldly cheap.

Have I mentioned their 85% cacao chocolate bars? $2 a pop and you get 2 bars per package. Good for slowly melting small quantities in your mouth (medicinal chocolate, I call it)

I dunno. Cruzan blackstrap is super-super one-dimensional. It runs roughshod over everything else you put into a drink, though I suppose it could be acceptable in quantities of <1/2 oz.

I have to say, as for cocktails I feel it doesn't make nearly as much difference - as I said, ED12 makes a bangin' OF without any added sugar. However, I like sipping rum much as one might a nice single malt, and in this case, the unaltered ones win hands down.

Unsweetened rums are closer to whiskies than a lot of what's sold as rum. That blog says ED uses only ex-bourbon casks, and bourbon is a totally unaltered spirit. It's not like a sherry barrel which does transfer sugar over, for example.

Cheapo rhum agricole (Dillon, $11 for a litre!) works great, too. If you have a Total Wine outlet near you, they carry it.

I've been reading this with great interest. I once met Shaun Caleb, DDL's master distiller, at a bar (Donna in Brooklyn) and talked the poor guy's ear off about how much I love his rums. I didn't want to impose so I stopped myself from asking about their stills but I'm glad the always chatty and inquisitive David Driscoll gets to ask all about them and report his findings. There's a line in the blog you linked to about the sweetness in the double-digit aged El Dorados coming from the evaporation of the angel's share. I call bullshit. In fact, the Swedish govt already did, as can be read about here: http://www.refinedvices.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=485&p=2515#p2515 ED12 was measured as having 45 grams of sugar per litre! And the 15, 31g/L. No wonder after all my malt whisky drinking ED tastes syrupy. If anyone wants to get deep into this issue, check out Capn Jimbo's Rum Project forum (I post there under the same name, but be warned it's a heated topic), and if may quote myself, "Re: "why is EL12 unacceptable now when not long ago you rated it so highly", etc, etc - the most recent Ralfy video (review 432 I believe, the Caol Ila re-review) mentions the fact that it's quite common for palates to change fairly fast if exposed to a lot of different spirits in a short amount of time. [At first] I thought ED12 was great, though sweet, preferring the slightly dryer 15. But as I got into rum I found that kind of stuff a bit cloying, and then got into single malts. Going back to rum, something like ED12 is just way, way, way too sweet. For example, I made an old-fashioned cocktail with just ED12 and bitters. Zero sugar was required, and it was not lacking in sweetness. My own bottle of ED12 is probably over 2 years old at this point, and in that time, my palate has DEFINITELY grown to appreciate dry spirits. 2+ years ago I was still learning to appreciate spirits neat, and the sugar probably didn't hurt."

I discovered that El Dorado 12 is so god damn sweet on its own that it makes a great OF with just a few dashes of bitters. It's literally as sweet as if I had made it with a super-dry whisky and a half-dollar sized puddle of syrup at the bottom of the glass.

Yeah, my dad is from Easton