melkor

I think while the items you list are relevant, people don't look at the cost of their drink based on percentages. The examples you used show that the dive bar is making the same drink using a cheaper ingredient and has a $3.50 margin while the upscale example has an $8 margin. That's what your customer is looking at when they bitch about being "price gouged". The drinks don't take twice as long to make, so it seems like a reasonable comparison to me. Sure rent is a bit higher, and someone needs to pick up the tab for the guy who designed the lighting but maybe if the upscale bar is making $5 a drink instead of $8 then people wouldn't complain so often. Then again if the upscale bar were charging more reasonable prices the answer to the question eje asked wouldn't be 'A LOT!'.

A cooks knife thats comfortable in your hand (~$100), a 3 quart copper saucier (~$200) and a 5 quart le creuset oval oven (~$200). You can do almost anything with a good knife and you can cook almost anything with those two pans/pots.

All the dried beans are harvested and ready for the winter. Summer squash is slowing down but we're still getting a zucchini or pattypan every now and then. The winter squash are almost ready to bring in - a couple of pumpkins need a little more time in the sun, as do about half of the butternut squash. Peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, and basil are still going strong. Most of the winter garden is planted: the chard, carrots, turnips, beets, spinach, lettuce, artichokes, peas, cabbage, bok choy, brussel sprouts, garlic, onions, broccoli, romanesco, and cauliflower are all in the ground. We still need to plant potatoes, shallots, fava beans, and a bit more garlic.

I haven't found a good place to buy salt cod so I've just been making it. Get some black cod fillets, take out the pin bones, remove the skin, and pack them in salt in a tub and put it in the fridge. After 3-5 days or so you'll have exactly what you're looking for. You can dust off the salt and leave the fish in the fridge more or less forever hanging from the back of a shelf.

I use a steel before each use and I sharpen my knives on a stone when they need it, every few weeks for my cooks knife, every few months for the rest of them.

I think you're wildly off base here. Sure Fat Guy is defending his friend, but that in no way suggests that eGullet management are in agreement on this book. You can clearly see that in what Bux and others have posted.

Just so I’m clear on the story, this book is the memoirs of a 31 year old line cook and sous chef who has worked in a number of very well respected kitchens and left most of them either under unclear circumstances or was asked to leave. Right? He himself contributes to this thread that he assaulted a co-worker and that he has some issues with his temper. In the book he makes a number of claims about the kitchens in which he has been employed and neglects to mention any part of the story where he may have been in the wrong. The French Laundry comments about the walk-in for example are most puzzling since if he were employed as Thomas Keller’s right hand man and Chef Keller were in NY opening Per Se, then wouldn’t the cleanliness and organization of the walk-in be his responsibility? I’ve been in the French Laundry kitchen on several occasions; it’s always been spotless. I suspect a fair portion of the restaurants patrons visit the kitchen when they are there for a meal. Those who don’t tour the kitchen almost certainly observe the kitchen from one of the many windows that look in from the courtyard. As best I can tell, the kitchen is ALWAYS expecting guests. Now what I don’t understand about the book is how a cook who has never run a restaurant gets his ‘life story’ published? He went down in flames at Mix, he left the French Laundry under questionable circumstances, and he clearly didn’t play well with others at Blue Hill. What’s the deal? Just because he has something provocative to say doesn’t merit publishing a book without doing the appropriate fact checking. Either he’s got astonishingly bad luck or he’s had a hand in at least some of the impressive failures he’s suffered as a cook. Mimi Sheraton posed a very interesting question earlier in this thread - who will Psaltis blame if Country fails? Maybe he’ll write another book about it.

I bought a few of the Oberhauser Leistenberg kabinett and the Hermannshohle spatlese, both are solid wines with more acidity than most of the 03 German wines I've had. Not to say they are great wines, but at the price, they aren't a bad choice. Edit to add: I paid US$14 for the O-L kabinett and $35 for the hermannshohle spatlese. For the price the SAQ is charging, I'd probably pass on the kabinett.

Kraft is looking to lower the requirements for what the put in the green can and the plastic cheese-type product they sell shrink-wrapped in the dairy case at the grocery store. They already offer a wildly inferior product, how much harm could 2 months less age do to it?

I can't imagine anyone eating the Kraft 'Parmesan' cheese from the green can is going to notice the difference between 10 month and 6 month old cheese. One tastes like cardboard, the other tastes like cardboard.

Local ingredients. The corn or flour used to make the tortilla tastes different, the water tastes different, the meat tastes different, the entire dish while visually similar will taste remarkably different in another country.

I generally go for something simple and not too sweet. Panna cotta, creme brulee, olive oil cake, bread pudding, rice pudding, that sort of thing.

Traveling has always been important to me. When I moved out on my own and was making a buck and a half more than minimum wage I saved my money and traveled in the off-season. The first trip I had enough money to fly into Geneva in the middle of winter, the flight was less than $300 round trip. I learned that staying at a hotel in France was much cheaper than Switzerland so that’s what I did. I didn't have enough time off work or money to stay very long so it was a 5 day trip. I’m certain that not only did my trip cost less than $500 per person, but the same trip could be done again now on the same budget. As I've gotten older, gotten better jobs, and learned of the magic that is obsessively collecting frequent flyer miles, I've traveled more frequently, farther away, and to places that are harder to reach. Almost anyone can travel. $500 is less than a lot of people spend smoking cigarettes in a year.

There are Mexican immigrants cooking all over the country, but Mexico is no small place and the vast majority of Mexican restaurants are serving the same dishes. You can't up and move a cuisine from one place to another, as the ingredients change so does the dish.

I think it’s impossible to fully appreciate a countries cuisine without going there. What percentage of Americans considers what the olive garden serves to be authentic Italian cooking? Never mind the countless Sysco ‘Chinese’ restaurants all over the country.

I'm turning a 3 1/2 pound brisket into cuban pot roast today. I'll take some pictures and post them in a few hours along with a recipe.

A wire mesh glove is a good purchase to go along with the mandoline... keeps your fingers attached to your hands.

I much prefer Incanto - not just because is it a calm and comfortable place to eat compared to the scene at A16 but most importantly because the food in my opinion is far more interesting and more carefully executed at Incanto. What’s your take?

The older and crustier I get, the more I prefer Bordeaux to new world Cabernet. I've grown tired of too much oak, too much fruit, and have been looking for balance and elegance in the wines that I drink.

Obviously If only I had a blog, then I'd have a reason to drink Pinot Noir from Kentucky.

Erm... California is considered New World... I suspect somewhere in Napa someone might be willing to pour you a glass of domestic pinot.

Erm... I grew up in NY and now live in the SF Bay Area... Having never been served an open-faced tuna melt I'm starting to think maybe it isn't a regional thing after all .

All this talk of tuna melts forced me to make them for dinner. Salt, paprika, garlic, shallots, green peppercorn mustard (Edmund Fallot), black pepper, a bit of lemon juice, and some mayo. The bread is denser than I'd like - by the time I decided I wanted to make sandwiches for dinner Bouchon Bakery was closed . Black Krim tomatoes from the garden, emmentaler cheese melted under the broiler on skillet-toasted bread and a few slices of full sour pickles. Simple, but satisfying.

For me the key ingredients for a tuna melt are texture and temperature – the tuna should be creamy but room temp, the bread warm and crispy along with the gooey melted cheese. A ton of butter doesn’t hurt either. Here’s how I make a tuna melt: Italian tuna packed in olive oil chopped after reserving the oil. Whiz the oil into mayo with an egg, some mustard powder, and a touch of lemon juice add the mayo to the tuna. Add some minced shallot, garlic, dill, parsley, and the zest from the lemon you used to make the mayo. A little salt, pepper, mustard powder, and paprika and mix the whole mess together. Melt some butter in a skillet and toss two slices of moderately open crumb bread in the butter, flip when the bread starts to brown, remove when both sides are lightly brown and crisp. Cover one slice of bread with sliced emmentaler cheese and stick it under the broiler until its bubbly and delicious. Assemble your sandwich, remembering the most important step - cutting the completed sandwich in half.

Good luck. Whatever you end up finding, please post about it - I'm out that way from time to time and haven't found anywhere decent to eat.