JAZ

I bought some of these before I moved and used to use them sometimes, although in my old crappy freezer they took forever to freeze, which was a drawback. Then I moved and now have an automatic ice maker, which actually makes pretty decent sized half-moons. I got lazy and stopped using the silicone trays. A few days ago, however, my ice maker stopped working, so I dug these out again and, like Chris, I'm in love. Not only are they a great size and shape, but they taste better -- I haven't noticed it with shaken and strained drinks, but in rocks drinks, it's pronounced. I guess the water for the ice maker sits in the tubing and develops off-flavors, which I only really noticed in their absence. So what to do when they come to fix the ice maker? Use the stuff from the ice maker for water baths, cooling stock and that sort of thing, and continue with the good cubes for drinks?

At my market, they bag differently if I bring my own bag(s). If I don't, they give me 6 bags for 10 items, with all the heavy items in one bag and each other one with eggs only, or bread, or one package of meat. If I bring my own bag, they seem to consider it a challenge to fit everything in the bag I've brought, even if I say they can use another bag. Either way, I often end up out in the entryway where the carts live, rearranging my bags so I can walk home with them.

Although I don't make oven fries, I do roast red (waxy) potatoes, and I've found the best trick to keep them from sticking is just to let them roast until the side that's on the sheet pan is done enough to release by itself. When I try to turn them too soon, they stick, but if I'm just patient and wait until they're deep golden brown, they're easy to get out of the pan. I do toss them with oil, but I wouldn't say that I drench them. Maybe this wouldn't work as well with starchier potatoes like russets, though.

Bob, your lamb breast does look amazingly good. But I'm sort of confused. You didn't smoke it? and you didn't use pink salt (nitrates) in the cure? Maybe I just don't know what "bacon" means, but I thought curing and smoking was part of the definition of bacon.

Indeed they do, Holly. Not only the opportunity, but almost a necessity. I've found that trying to bite a Triscuit against the grain results in a broken cracker and a big mess, depending on what's on top of the Triscuit. Whereas if you go with the grain, the Tricuit almost never breaks up. I like that.

When I was growing up, we always had saltines, and usually a "fancier" cracker -- often Triscuits or Wheat Thins, both of which I remember liking a lot. I guess I "outgrew" crackers as time went on, because when I started cooking and eating on my own, I hardly ever bought them unless I needed some for a cheese plate, in which case I tended to stick with water table wafers or the like. Recently, though, my Publix had a sale on Nabisco crackers, including both Triscuits and Wheat Thins. I got a box of each. I found that I no longer like Wheat Thins; they're too sweet and have a weird aftertaste to me. But I'm once again a big fan of Triscuits. I admit to liking the fact that the ingredients are just wheat, oil and salt, but mostly I just like the way they taste, and especially the texture. I like them plain, and also topped with tuna or chicken salad, cheese, or even peanut butter. Any other fans out there?

Please reconsider. The copper layer in All-Clad isn't thick enough to make a noticeable difference in the way it cooks -- I've used all four lines of All-Clad enough to know this -- and the price is much higher than for the other All-Clad lines. If you want copper encased in stainless, I'd recommend Demeyere's Sirocco or Atlantis lines, both of which have a thicker layer of copper. Also, the Demeyere can go in the dishwasher; because of the exposed copper on the A-C Copper Core, it's not dishwasher safe. I've had my Demeyere for 8 years, and it looks great, with very little upkeep. For an explanation of how Demeyere is constructed, see this video: . (By way of disclaimer, I used to work for Sur La Table, where this video was filmed. I have lots of Demeyere cookware, which I was able to get for a steep discount when I worked there.) I don't know how Mauviel M'Cook is priced, but it's simply not true that Demeyere costs twice as much as All-Clad. If you compare All-Clad Copper Core with Demeyere's Sirocco line, you find that from the same retailer (Sur La Table, in this case) Demeyere is less expensive: the 2-qt. Copper Core is $235 and the 2.3-qt. Sirocco is $230; the 3-qt. Copper Core is $310 and the 3.2-qt. Sirocco is $245. In this case, you get a vastly superior Demeyere product for less money. When you compare the Stainless All-Clad with the Apollo line of Demeyere (both aluminum cores and stainless exteriors), the Apollo is more expensive, but not by much ($160 for a 2.3-qt. compared with $140 for the A-C Stainless; $175 for the 3.2-qt. Apollo compared with $165 for the 3-qt. A-C). In this case, you get a superior Demeyere product for slightly more money. The only way you can figure that Demeyere is twice as much as All Clad is if you compare the highest end Demeyere lines (Sirocco and Atlantis) with the lowest end All Clad line (MC2), and that's simply not a reasonable comparison. This is one problem shared by disc-bottom sauce pans. A small pan on a gas burner allows the flame to over-heat the outer edge of the pan, sometimes burning the contents. Obviously there is not problem with water, but reducing a sauce or frying can result in problems. The limitation is greater for disc-bottom skillets. Burning around the edges in a gas burner; no browning around the edges on an electric burner. ← Demeyere solves this problem by making the disc the same diameter as the pan in the case of sauce pans and saute pans, and by not making their skillets with a disc bottom at all -- in those, the core layer goes all the way up the sides (see the video linked to above).

The first serious cookware I bought was an 8-piece set of Le Creuset. It included a skillet, a 4.5 dutch oven, a 2.5 quart dutch oven, and two saucepans. Now, I love Le Creuset dutch ovens; I own several and never had any hesitation recommending them to customers. And the skillet in the set was actually very useful -- it was sort of a combination skillet/saute pan, and since I had neither, I used it all the time. But the saucepans sucked. I mean, at the time, I didn't realize it, because I didn't have any basis of comparison, but really -- cast iron saucepans? Whoever thought that was a good idea? So, not a total waste of money, but damn! if I'd known then what I know now, I never would have bought the set.

When I was growing up, my Mom almost always used a tablecloth. Plastic lined or oilcloth during the week, with a nice linen one for company or Sunday dinner. I vaguely remember some placemats in there somewhere, but they can't have been too common. I've rarely used either myself. For a while, I used a tablecloth in my old apartment, mostly because my table was ugly, the room needed brightening, and I got a great tablecloth on sale. Of course then I didn't want it to get dirty, so I used a placemat on top of it. Go figure. Now I have a glass table. I still have both the tablecloth and the placemats and I use neither.

I tried some on salmon tonight. I have a couple of rubs that I like to use with salmon, but neither seemed to go with the side dishes I had planned, so I was thinking I'd just use salt and pepper. Then I remembered Old Bay and gave it a try. Nice.

From the website: Ah, so that explains it.

Yes, they're all non-smoking with the exception of a very few bar & grill places that seem to have some kind of exception.

I think it's not that All Clad is a bad product (except that the handles truly suck). It's just that you can find equally good cookware for much less money. It sounds like you got a good price on your set, but lines like Le Creuset's stainless/clad line or even Sur La Table's "tri-ply" are anywhere from two-thirds to half the price of the All Clad stainless line and perform just as well, if not better. And the AC Copper Core line is a joke -- for that price you can get Demeyere's Apollo or Sirocco line get a significant layer of copper, instead of a thin layer sandwiched by aluminum. The other thing about All Clad in my experience is that because it has the big name, many people choose it as their first "serious" cookware, so of course they love it -- they've been using crappy pans and this is the first decent stuff they've used. I've had lots of customers over my years in cookware stores who have started out buying All Clad and then ended up upgrading to Demeyere; I've never had a customer go the other way, even if the All Clad was on sale.

I had lunch at the burger bar on a recent trip to New York; my lunch companions knew Waldy and Sergio, the chef, so my experience was probably not typical. We started with some of the wild mushroom pizza, which they apparently give to all the tables. Thin crust and wood fired, it was among the best I've had. (Since I didn't get a chance to have any other pizza on this trip to New York, it was very welcome.) The burger was also one of the best I've ever had. Apparently the burgers used to be served on sliced bread; I'm glad they switched to onion rolls because I've never been a fan of burgers on bread, but I'm told that they were great that way too. What was exceptional about the meal was that Beacon just changed its menu, so the chef sent out quite a few samples from the new lunch menu to see what we thought (by way of disclaimer, the chef offered and these dishes were all complimentary). We tasted a nice smoky seafood chowder garnished with tiny pate a choux puffs, plus a number of items from the wood oven -- grilled smoked pork belly served with charred peppers; shrimp in butter sauce; razor clams; chicken livers and lamb kidneys; an artichoke stuffed with breadcrumbs and gremolata; lamb meatballs; and asparagus with egg and parmesan. For me, the most successful were the asparagus, pork belly, meatballs and shrimp. The razor clams were very tasty, topped with buttery breadcrumbs, roasted garlic and chorizo, but razor clams are just not my favorite -- they're always chewy, and these were no exception. Likewise, the artichoke was nicely done and flavorful, but I think roasting isn't the best treatment for the vegetable -- it was a bit dry and would have benefited from a dipping sauce. Overall, though, I think the menu works. Given that they'd just started it a few days before, they had the dishes down well and execution was solid. We got to watch quite a few dishes leaving the kitchen, and I could easily have found another half dozen I'd want to try.

Back in the early days of the eGCI, David Leite did a class on Food Writing. Although most of it is about breaking into the field, some of it is about the writing process itself. One excellent point he makes is to learn to write a grammatical sentence. Too many food writers seem so enthralled with the subject matter that they forget about the underlying structure.

Depending on the diameter of the onions, I do that too -- split the white part before I start chopping.

The only dark rum I currently have is Appleton 12 yr. Reserve. Would this drink work with that rum, or should I wait and buy a bottle of Cruzan?

Messermeister, for its serrated peeler. Several other manufacturers make similar peelers now, but this was (I believe) the original, and it's certainly the best.

Quite a while ago, I was teaching a private cocktail party class for a Junior League group, who wanted a cocktail "like a cosmopolitan" for their group. Using white rum and pomegranate juice, I came up with the Pomeranian: 2 fl oz white rum 1 fl oz pomegranate juice 1/2 fl oz triple sec 1/2 fl oz fresh lemon juice 1/4 fl oz grapefruit juice It was a little on the sweet side, but they loved it. I preferred a version with the amounts of pomegranate and grapefruit reversed. (I'm sure it's not the only cocktail out there called the Pomeranian.)

All of my cooking life, when I've used green onions, I've trimmed the roots and started chopping from the white end. Unless a recipe specifies whites only, I use the white part and the tender green parts, stopping well short of the dark green ends. I was recently cooking dinner with a friend of mine, however, and asked him to chop some green onions for potato salad. He washed the onions, trimmed off a bit of nastiness in the greens, and then started chopping at the green end. I wasn't really paying attention until he asked me if I wanted the white part too. Huh? I swear it never occurred to me, despite the fact that I've always referred to "green onions," that the green part might be a crucial element in cooking. My friend explained that in Cajun and Creole cooking, it's the only part that counts. Who knew? What part of green onions do you use? White, green or both? Most important, which end do you start at when chopping?

I add chipotle puree to mashed sweet potatoes -- the sweetness is a good match for the smoke. I have tried adding dried chipotles (ground up) to brownies, but it's easy to overdo it -- the smokiness becomes acrid if you add too much. I've come to prefer cayenne or ancho.

I make this Asian style coleslaw often and it's always a hit -- it actually won a prize at one potluck. Also, if you're a beet fan, you might consider a beet salad -- sliced beets in a vinaigrette with mint and feta cheese is different and beautiful, and beets and oranges also go well together in a salad. I also make a Southwestern style salad with julienned jicama, red bell pepper, red onion, orange and avocado slices with a lime/orange/chipotle dressing.

My standard operating procedure is to puree the entire contents of the can (adding a little water if necessary) and then refrigerate it until it's used up. It will last well over a month, which is plenty of time for me to go through a small can. Only rarely do I encounter a recipe that doesn't call for mincing or pureeing the chipotles first, so this just gets it all out of the way at once. I add it to all kinds of dips, salsas and sauces, including salad dressings for Southwestern/Mexican slaws or tossed salads.

I once tried Calvados in a Jack Rose. Despite what's been said about this substitution by others, I found it undrinkable. Maybe it was bad quality Calvados, but I'll never do that again.

I forgot -- I've also made cookies that use Chinese five spice powder, so that would be anise, fennel, Sichuan peppercorns, cloves and cinnamon.