JAZ

I've used a slightly Westernized version of Indian saag (creamed spinach) to fill phyllo triangles. That might make a good version of spinach dip.

If you like the idea of chile and chocolate, why not add a pinch of cayenne, or chipotle or ancho to your flourless chocolate cake? I've altered a regular brownie recipe (for an 8x8 pan pan) with half a teaspoon of cayenne and a teaspoon of cinnamon, for a "Mexican brownie" version. It's a hit whenever I serve it.

While I liked Cochon, I think it's not as good as Herbsaint (which you also have planned, right?). Since you want to go to the Pere Marquette for a julep, why not go before dinner and eat at Mila? It'll save a lot of travel, as well. And if Chris is at the bar, you'll have better drinks there than at Carousel, which is fun, but doesn't have great cocktails.

I've pretty much always just cooked for one or two (unless I'm cooking for a dozen or two), so to me it seems odd to have to have a "strategy." But I realize that if you're not used to it, it can seem daunting. And on second thought, I do have a strategy, but I've been following it for so long it doesn't seem like one. My first thought is that there are two issues here: lunches and dinners. To answer the first, lunches, it would help to know what your workplaces are like. Do you have a kitchen at work? Microwaves? Refrigerators? If you have both, then lunches can be both easier and more varied. If you don't, then sandwiches and some kinds of salads are probably your best options. The good thing about sandwiches and salads is that they can often use up protein and vegetables from previous meals. There's all kinds of good advice here about cooking and using extra protein already, but sometimes what people don't think about is using cooked vegetables in subsequent dishes. If you're roasting vegetables for dinner, roast extra and use them in a pasta salad for lunches. If you feel the need for protein, a little left over chicken or cheese can complete the meal. You have beets for dinner? Make a beet salad with feta cheese and mint (pine nuts are great too) for lunch the next day (or the day after). You got a huge bunch of broccoli because it was on sale? Cook it all and use the second half for broccoli soup. Generally, if you think "ingredients" instead of recipes, you can end up with the start of a new meal. It's not always possible, but if you can cook things without much strong seasoning or sauce, then add the flavorings afterward, you've got more useful fodder for future meals. I get pork shoulder or chuck roast and pressure cook it for an hour or so with nothing much more than salt, pepper and broth or beer. Then I can use the tender meat for chili, stew, pulled pork sandwiches, ragout -- whatever -- by adding the appropriate seasonings afterward.

I went ahead and bought the 11-bottle model. It fits on the counter right that divides the kitchen from the living room, and I think it's going to work great. It comes (of course) with racks designed to hold wine bottles, but they're removable, so I'm hoping to find a flat rack that can fit onto the holders. On the other hand, I think I'll keep the top rack for wine -- I mostly drink reds, and it'll be nice to have a cool place to store a bottle or two.

I think that electric v. gas ovens is not a big deal. If anything, a good electric oven will provide more even heat than a gas oven. If you can deal with the adjustment from a gas cooktop to electric, then the oven is a piece of cake. (Worry about other things -- knives, decent cookware.) What seemed to be the problem when you cooked potatoes and zucchini in the electric oven? I cook potatoes and other vegetables all the time in electric ovens and have no problem getting them browned and crisp. If the temp was too low, then it's a calibration problem. As suggested earlier, bring an oven thermometer and check it before cooking.

Another thought -- if you interpret "British" food to include British colonial foods, then you could do some Indian-inspired appetizers. Saag paneer comes to mind -- a little bite of spicy spinach with a chunk of paneer on top (or you could cheat and use farmer's cheese, if it's easier to find).

How about a version of baked beans on toast? Cook some beans ("baked bean" style) -- a little spoonful of beans, with a little triangle of toast on top. Another idea would be bangers and mash. Cook some bangers and cut them on the bias. Lay a slice in the spoon and top with some mash -- if the spoons are heat-proof, you could run them under the broiler.

For equipment, we used to travel with this set. Loved the glasses, but other than that, it wasn't the greatest -- the shaker is small, and there's not much room for extras. I could fit a picnic knife and a small plastic citrus reamer under the molded plastic holder, and could fit a small lemon and lime inside the shaker, but that was it. At Tales of the Cocktail this summer, Plymouth gave away a very cool looking bartender's kit. From the outside it looks like a picnic wine cooler that will hold two or three bottles, but it's fitted with a Boston shaker, double-ended jigger, bottle opener, bar spoon, muddler, strainer and Mexican style citrus press, all strapped onto a center board with elastic straps. The center piece pulls out and all your equipment is right there. (If I can find batteries for my camera, I'll post a picture.) I used that for the first time on my latest vacation. The problem is that the items are pretty cheap. (Hey, I'm not complaining; it was free.) The glass half of the shaker, which was very lightweight, broke; the metal half is warped. The citrus press isn't deep enough for lemons, and it's aluminum, so it's already starting to discolor. However, I'm thinking that if I replace the items that came in it with higher quality, and swap the bottle opener for a picnic knife, I'll be all set. There is no room for bottles, so that's a whole other problem.

Sam, as far as I've been able to tell, the major difference is that the product sold in the US (Rose's Lime Juice) is made with high fructose corn syrup and the one sold in the UK and Canada (Rose's Lime Cordial) is made with sugar. I've never seen anything on the subject that indicates that the cordial or the juice ever contained alcohol. The main reason that Rose's was first developed was to provide a lime juice that was preserved without using alcohol -- that's the way it was advertised as well. It was marketed as being healthy (and later, a hangover cure), so that might be the sense in which the term "cordial" was originally used. Since the legal US definition of "cordial" stipulates alcohol, it seems to me that this is probably the reason that it's not called "Lime Cordial" in the States.

I'm thinking about going out for dim sum -- I haven't had any since I moved to Atlanta from San Francisco. I have no idea about any of the places that came up on a Google search. Any suggestions? Do dim sum places here use the cart system exclusively, or can you order off a menu as well?

They are sort of a cross between an American style skillet and saute pan -- as you said, straighter and deeper sides. The introductory price, if you can get it, makes them a great deal. If you have any other pans made my European manufacturers, the lids might fit -- European lids tend to come in 9" and 11" inch sizes, as opposed to American, which are usually 10" and 12".

The problem with the lazy susan idea is that it creates incredibly inefficient use of space. I'm guessing you could fit at least 25% more liquor bottles into a cupboard without lazy susans. And, for most of us, that's the name of the game. ← Another consideration is height. A lazy susan will reduce the height of the bottles you can store. But I agree that one would be ideal for bitters.

Okay -- it just seemed to me that if you're cooking all those ingredients together for 8 hours, you'll get all the merging of flavors that you need. And so, for the garlic, you want pieces about 1/2 inch on a side? Or should they be smaller?

Here's the recipe I found online. I assume that this is it? It sounds good, but I have a couple of questions: Why soak the garlic overnight? I thought that garlic in oil was subject to botulism. For the garlic, what does "quartered and halved" mean, and why not just smash the cloves? Finally, it seems to me that a chuck roast would be better with this cooking method than a sirloin tip roast. Is there a reason for that choice?

At the risk of heaping scorn upon my head, I'm going to suggest the 1867 patent by Lachlan Rose to preserve lime juice without the use of alcohol. Within a decade, his company was successfully bottling and selling Rose's Lime Cordial. Like it or not, Rose's has been a mainstay in the bar world, officially as an ingredient in the Gimlet, and less officially and less felicitously, in all kinds of drinks that call for fresh lime juice.

Dave makes a good point: blanket statements about water being preferable to canned stock don't take into account what the dish is that requires the stock. If it's a soup or a stew where the beef flavor is paramount, I probably wouldn't bother making it without homemade stock or broth. If it's a sauce where the stock is reduced quite a bit, then I probably wouldn't use canned broth because I think any off-flavors would be magnified. But I also wouldn't use water in that case, because I think the umami taste and mouthfeel would be too important to give up, and you wouldn't get those with water. In those cases, I've used More Than Gourmet glace de viande and demi glace and been very happy with the results. And the upside is that because they're concentrated, you don't have to reduce as much, saving some time. Better than Bouillon is also decent, but I think the extra cost is worth it for More than Gourmet, if you can find it. In cases where you're not really relying on the beef flavor but you want the mouthfeel of stock, then canned chicken stock would be my choice. If there are enough other flavors going on in the dish and all you need is liquid to dissolve taste molecules, then water is fine.

I don't know that Atlanta has any historic cocktails, but going with option #1, I started thinking about peaches. While I was at the store to pick some up, I stumbled across Red Rock Golden Ginger Ale, a native Atlanta soda. Seemed like an omen. (And having recently lost electricity for 6 hours due to an Atlanta thunderstorm, the name was easy.) Dark and Peachy 1/2 large peach, cut into small chunks 2 oz. Barcardi 8 or similar dark rum .5 oz lime juice 1 teaspoon Falernum dash peach bitters Red Rock ginger ale* Place the peach, rum, lime juice, Falernum and bitters in a shaker with ice. Shake hard and pour out (double strainer suggested) over fresh ice in a highball glass. Top with ginger ale. * if you need to substitute a different ginger ale, pick one that's spicy and not too sweet. Red Rock is made with capsaicin as well as ginger.

How could I not, after that? Chris is right: the Gimlet is one of my favorite drinks. I even defend the use of Rose's Lime Juice because of that (although these days I am making my own lime cordial). And I love Raymond Chandler and Phillip Marlow. I love the scene quoted above, although I have to say that half gin and half Rose's is not how I make my Gimlets. But the Gimlet as an LA drink? It's just so damned British; even Marlowe was introduced to it by an ex-pat. On the other hand, I guess if everyone's main introduction to it was from Chandler, then maybe it does count as an LA drink.

Very true. It's a nice appetizer, but not a main course. However, if you can't eat it all, leftover marrow is a great ingredient. I've mixed it with parmiggiano and spread it on bread, broiled it and used it to float on French onion soup. It's also great for steak sandwiches.

I'm a big proponent of one- or two-bite sized appetizers for cocktail parties (when I teach cocktail party classes, I always tell my students, "Don't make your guests set down their drinks to eat."). Two of my most successful appetizers are stuffed miniature potatoes, and stuffed cherry tomatoes. They have the "cute factor" plus, for some reason, people love miniature versions of big foods. I'll have to figure out something to do with the small squashes.

Thanks for the advice. As it turns out, I can buy the Cuisinart wine refrigerator for a really good price -- either the 6 or 11 bottle model. Anyone have any experience with this?

I make an appetizer that consists of sauteed diced mushrooms topped with a little piece of brie and then baked just until the brie melts, and in my experience the rind doesn't melt -- I always take care to just get the inside of the cheese.

I tried this Maiden's Prayer variation from Cocktaildb, which combines gin and applejack. A little sweet, but nice.

Having lived in San Francisco for many years, I got used to having a kitchen that stayed relatively cool pretty much all year long. I left butter out (in a butter bell) and kept all my citrus fruit, and tomatoes out as well. Now that I live in Atlanta, that's okay in the winter, but doesn't cut it in the summer. I don't like refrigerated tomatoes, and find that citrus doesn't juice as well when it's cold, but I also don't like having fruit rot before I can get to it and I'm not crazy about melted butter. So I'm thinking that maybe a small inexpensive wine fridge might be the way to go. I'd like to keep it around 65 degrees, and I know that's in the range of wine fridges. But I have some questions about them: First, they all seem to have racks for bottles, which makes sense for a wine fridge, but do any of them have removable racks? If so, can I replace the bottle racks with flat racks, or will I be able to place a flat rack on top of the bottle racks? Second, are they loud? Do they suck up a lot of energy? Third, they seem to range from around $100 up to $600 or even more (I'm looking for something pretty small -- maybe sized for 6-12 bottles). What features should I look for, given what I'm going to use it for? I don't need dual zones, so I assume that will cut down on the cost. Anything else I need to know?