melkor

Pretty much any plan for keeping a cellar organized is likely to fail. The only way I've been able to keep track of what bottles are where is by keeping things on my computer, I used excel until that turned out to be more work than it was worth. I switched to cellartracker a year and a half ago or so. Bottles go wherever there's room for them and as long as I put the correct info into CT then they are all easy to find.

I changed my group gasket last week, it really does make a huge difference. I change it every 6-12 months, maybe I should buy more than one when I next need one...

as long as you cured it right and it dries thoroughly, shouldn't be a problem. As always, use your common sense when evaluating the finished product! ← So nothing poultry specific to worry about, good I checked that out after making them. If they start glowing in the dark, smelling like kim chi, or growing a beard I think I'll start to worry. This is the 3rd day they've been hanging and they are coming along nicely. I'm really enjoying working with this book, it's an excellent resource.

So Michael, am I going to die when I eat the saucisson sec we made using duck instead of pork?

After chasing the UPS driver across town we came home with a sausage stuffer and put it to work. Following the recipe in Ruhlman's Charcuterie book, swapping sheep casings in place of hog and rendered beef fat where the recipe calls for pork fat we made a batch of merguez. Our wine cellar being woefully low on meat, we set out to rectify the problem while the merguez was resting in the fridge. I disassembled four ducks, rendered the fat and the legs and thighs are now happily turning to confit in the oven (not sausage related but preserved nonetheless). We used the rest of the meat from the ducks mixed with a fair bit of fat to make a duck version of saucisson sec. After twisting off the links we meatified the wine cellar. I'm really curious to see how they come out. The forcemeat was much looser than expected, likely because we used rendered fat. The merguez went on the grill and were served with couscous, harissa, preserved lemons, yellow carrots.

I'll second bong's recomendations for Dasaprakash and Shalimar, both are excellent.

The saeco automatic machines are in hotels all over asia, they work but I'm not a big fan of the results. What sort of budget are we talking about? Having the machine hooked up to a water line is really helpful but isn't required. Though with 15 people you'll be refilling the tank pretty regularly.

Making aged cheeses is at the top of my list for next year.

DAT is running during January, you might as well eat well each day and night you're in town. As far as the participating restaurants that do lunch - some people really like Campton Place though my experience there was less than stellar, Farallon is reasonably good, and A16 is quite good. Any of them will set you back $21.95 plus tax and service and Campton Place certainly fits the bill for fine dining. I think Zuni is overrated, some of the food is good, some of it (like the pizza) is awful, in any case the restaurant is best experienced for a lazy lunch on the weekend - it most certainly not fine dining. The French Laundry with no beverage tab set you back around $225 for one person, though if you've never been I'd say its worth the price.

I got one of these pans when they were $20 also. It isn't very heavy and the shape is fairly useless, but I like it for reducing stocks. The thing it's best for is acting as an ice bath for other large pots.

selectappliance.com is in south SF, I don't think they have a store front but they have excellent prices.

Even if you don't like smelly fish, hot spices, and bold flavors you can eat well from the street vendors all over Thailand - fried chicken, roti, fresh fruit, sugar cane juice, etc.

Good ingredients are expensive in the US. The majority of the inexpensive restaurants are either chain restaurants or serving pre-made food from Sysco. Food isn't really a part of our culture, anyone who works in an office can tell you that the bulk of their co-workers get their lunch from McDonalds. For a restaurant to serve quality food at an affordable price they not only need to spend substantially more money for their ingredients but they also need more people working in the kitchen since cooking takes more time than opening bags and reheating things, then they need to find enough customers that the restaurant is full all the time. A restaurant that spends more money on staff and ingredients will have a very hard time competing on price and will need to serve an enormous number of customers each day to stay profitable. In Thailand there is no Sysco truck, ingredients come from the market and food is a huge part of the culture. It costs about the same amount of money to make any given dish in any kitchen if you start from the same ingredients, customers on a budget have the luxury of deciding where to feed their family based on how the food tastes. I wish that were true here.

Good luck with the CIA, of the restaurants there I think the bakery is the best of the bunch. My 06 restaurant wish list is to eat as much street food as I can wherever my travels take me.

Rubicon is a good choice, it really is an excellent value during DAT.

Congrats on the move, there are plenty of good places to eat within walking distance in and around Japantown - a major improvement from wine country where nothing is walkable.

I rigged my weber smokey mountain up to a gas grill using some aluminum dryer hose - run the wsm without the middle section and stick the hose on the top vent connecting it to the bottom of the grill using the grease trap. This time of year the air is cold enough to let you use anything you want as the smoke box (cardboard is a reasonable choice), when its hot out you'll want something that you can stick an ice tray in to keep the temp down. Ruhlman's charcuterie book has a cold smoked salmon recipe in it, it calls for curing the salmon for a day and a half before smoking it. I keep meaning to defrost some salmon and give it a try but laziness has prevailed thus far. I just checked out the post on the virtual weber bullet that BBQ Brian links to - they are doing the exact opposite of what I'm doing, they use the smoker to smoke the food and a seperate container to generate the smoke. Using the smoker to smoke stuff? Crazyness! I'd go their route if you don't have a grill available to use as the smoker. My setup cost all of $8 and took 5 minutes to rig up but it only makes sense if you've already got a grill and a bullet.

I'm not sure if it still exists, but since the restaurant was/is in Healdsburg you might try posting about it in this thread.

I didn't say that your gift basket was crap, but you'd be hard pressed to argue that this basket was worth the $975 Neiman Marcus is asking for it. At that price my gift basket could include a personal chef to prepare the meal and some seriously nice wine. I'm not only old and grumpy, I'm also right .

Blue Bottle and Ritual are the best in SF. Trieste is an institution, but their espresso isn't at the same level.

My only experience at the Station House was awful - I much prefer Cafe Reyes around the corner. Budo is at the same price point as La Toque in Rutherford; the latter will be serving their excellent black truffle tasting menu for the next few months. In the valley itself, I'd put the Martini House on the list of places not to be missed during the winter months. During the summer I prefer Terra, but with wild mushrooms at their peak the Martini House is head and shoulders above the other restaurants at a similar price. Bouchon has improved tremendously in the past couple of years - I used to like Bistro Jeanty better but at this point they are both serving excellent bistro food at reasonable prices (for the area).

Hmmm. Most gift baskets I've seen are full of mass produced mediocre packaged goods. The assumption seems to be that the recipient will have nothing useful in their house - that's why a basket with interesting cheeses in it comes with an assortment of crappy crackers, a cutting board, and a flimsy knife. There needs to be a gift basket for serious cooks - who doesn't need a lobe of foie gras, some Cluizel chocolates, an assortment of good cheeses, a few racks of lamb, and a couple of bottles of wine? The basket would cost less than most of the junk Neiman Marcus is offering and most of us would be able to turn it into a great meal to share with family and friends.

I've found santoku's work really well for people with small hands - they are comfortable, light weight, and easy to work with. Having said that, I don't use one because they don't fit my hand, I prefer a heavy knife, and I like using one knife for the bulk of my prep work - a santoku with its rounded tip won't work for things like removing the silverskin from a piece of meat or filleting a fish.

Tea pots, blind filter for the espresso machine, kitchen torch, decanters, juicer, and a random crock. edit: Plus that big jar full of preserved lemons that I somehow didn't notice when I posted the picture.

I'll be there with MsMelkor - looking forward to it!