JAZ

I've tried a couple different strategies for my cocktail party classes, where I need to pour out 8 to 16 cocktails at once. I've found that if you're making a drink that's best stirred, like a Manhattan or Martini, Gary Regan's method of adding water (to compensate for the lack of ice melt), chilling and pouring out works fine. But if you're making something that's best shaken (Margarita, Sidecar -- anything with citrus, really), you lose a lot in texture if you don't shake them. So in those cases, I've had better results if I mix a pitcher of the ingredients (without any extra water, or just a little bit), refrigerate it, and then pour and shake over ice to order.

This will depend on your thermometer -- most of them don't actually have the sensor in the tip, so it makes no difference where the tip is. What's important is that the probe is at least an inch into the drink -- that's usually where the sensor is. But you're right that you can get very different readings depending on where the sensor is. But we're not talking about ice size or shape or the length of time it takes to chill a drink. We're talking about the optimal serving temperature. So shaking/stirring time isn't really relevant.

Remember that this is a request for culinary authors, not just influential women. Alice Waters has co-authored a few books, but her primary influence isn't as a writer.

Katie, a couple of years ago, cocktailgeek made a tequila and hot chocolate drink that he let me preview (not sure if it ever made it on to the menu -- we tasted a test version) that was fabulous. I'd definitely go with tequila.

Take two on the homemade lime cordial: This time I used white sugar -- again, 1 cup. I upped the gin to an ounce and the water to 1/4 cup. This made the sugar much easier to melt and resulted in a thinner syrup. The white sugar made for a syrup much more like Rose's in color -- it lacked the neon green hue; in fact, it's much like old Rose's in color. Since the other makrut limes had been slowly dehydrating in the freezer, they didn't yield much juice, but it's my understanding that most of the flavor in them comes from the peel. I think in my next batch, I might also add the zest from a Persian lime as well (might make for a brighter green syrup as well. I think at this point I'm pretty close to what Francesco made (going by memory, of course), and I certainly have something I can drink in Gimlets. I'll probably play around with a few permutations, but I think the basic formula is sound.

You might consider M.F.K. Fisher (mentioned above): not only did she write numerous books of her own, but she also translated and annotated Brillat-Savarin's Physiology of Taste.

I like Bugles: they are to Fritos what Munchos are to potato chips.

Since I've worked in cookware stores off and on for 10 years, no one ever gets me cookware or kitchen stuff for Christmas. I did, however, get a few things for myself this season: Two of these Gel-Pro mats for my horrible tile floor Silicone cake pans for caramel (silicone is candy's best friend) A new Infinity Conical Burr Grinder (I was waiting for my crappy old grinder to die, and it finally did -- perfect timing!)

Soaking onions in milk or buttermilk (or water, for that matter) draws out some of the compounds that can make them harsh. I'm not sure that buttermilk has any softening effect on the onions. Also, if you're doing the flour-egg-breading routine (or just the flouring technique for "onion strings"), a soak in milk will make the flour stick better.

Count me as being not terribly impressed with this list. Not that I expect much innovation in an article like this, but there were only a handful I haven't made or had somewhere. I also think the "20 Minutes" part is very misleading -- lots of these, while they sound fine, surely would take more than 20 minutes. I can't cut apart a rack of baby back ribs and get them cooked in 20 minutes. I can't make crab cakes, start to finish, in 20 minutes. I can't form a pound's worth of meatballs in 10 minutes (all that's left given the 5 minutes of sitting and 5 minutes of cooking). In only one (the cod cakes) does he hint that the "20 minutes" is a misnomer.

When I was looking at recipes, some of them called for rolling in panko only, and some called for the more typical flour, egg and panko coating. I tried the panko-only technique, thinking I could save time and mess, and I had the same problem you had -- the croquettes leaked and fell apart. The flour-egg-panko version didn't suffer from that. It's definitely worth the extra time.

What's with using the phrase "fancy-pants" to describe what (I assume) the writer thinks of as a fussy dish or restaurant? It seems as if I'm seeing it everywhere recently, and I'd rather not.

Pam, I think mushroom croquettes would be great -- finely diced sauteed mushrooms, roasted garlic, maybe a little brie or havarti or fontina cheese.

So, it's that time of year for lists -- "The 10 Best Cookbooks," "What Every Foodie Must Read" etc. -- and frankly, they get tiresome. Some publisher feels it's necessary, and the same old standbys are trotted out. Not that the standbys can't be good, of course. There are classics that show up on these lists for good reason. But still, it's refreshing to read Slate's version of the end-of-the-year list. Slate asked a variety of food people -- chefs, historians, writers and editors -- for their personal and quirky choices, and they came up with a great list. Some are classics, some obscure; all sound like they're worth looking for. It's cool (to me, at least) that The River Cottage Meat Book shows up twice (chef Dan Barber and Matt Sartwell, manager, Kitchen Arts & Letters, both recommend it). I think it's great that Mimi Sheraton's entry probably can't be found without scouring second-hand book stores. Julie Powell, Christopher Kimball, Ming Tsai and our own Steven Shaw also add their choices. Here's the entire list. What do you think? What would you add?

I teach cooking classes -- mostly cocktail party menus. For some reason, when I wrote up the menu a couple of months ago for an upcoming class, I added "smoked chicken and green chile croquettes," never having made a croquette before in my life. Thanks to Google, I found some recipes to start with and came up with a pretty decent recipe. I'm still tweaking it (I'll post it when I have a final), but I'm satisfied with the basics. Like Chris, I'm using a very thick bechamel as the binding agent, with onion, minced roasted green chiles, a little Monterey Jack cheese, chicken and spices. One thing I'm having a little trouble with is getting them to set up -- they're tending to get a little squished during the cooking process. Is that just that I'm not letting them chill enough?

Are these the same as "sand cookies"? I love those.

Kerry, I just taught a candy class, and made three batches of caramel in the past week. It'd been quite a while since I'd made it, so I wanted to practice. Your recipe was fabulous, but I found that at 250F, the caramels were very soft -- excellent tasting and easy to eat, but within 15 minutes after cutting into squares, they'd settled into puddles. I ended up cooking the last batch to about 256F and they held their shape much better (yes, I double checked my thermometer -- I used three to be sure). Every recipe I've read gives 250F as the temperature for firm caramels, and as far as I know, when I used to make them I would have used that temperature. Could this be due to humidity (it's really dry here right now) or some other factor I don't know of? By the way, I tried a square silicone cake pan to pour them out, and it worked better than any other pan I've ever used -- no buttering, no lining with foil and then peeling it off. They just popped out of the pan. I highly recommend it.

I've always enjoyed Cortez, although I've heard mixed reviews from others. I think it's got a great atmosphere, and many of the small plates are excellent. The cocktails are pretty good, if somewhat less inspired now than they were before Todd left for Bourbon and Branch (if you like cocktails, do go there -- it's right around the corner from Cortez). I also had a great meal at Salt House, but it's not close to where you are, and it is loud.

It's also important to remember not to crowd the pan -- I think no matter how high the heat, if you have more than a single layer of mushrooms, the liquid won't evaporate quickly enough and they'll start to steam.

My drink of choice was from Prohibition: the Scofflaw, which I first read about in Harrington's Cocktail and then in Dr. Cocktail's Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails. Although the two books agree on the origins of the cocktail (Harry's New York Bar in Paris; 1924), the recipes diverge slightly. I went with a combination of the two: 1.5 oz. rye (Rittenhouse bonded) 1 oz. dry vermouth (Niolly Prat) 1/2 oz. lemon juice 1/4 oz. grenadine (homemade) It's a very good drink -- a more interesting, fruitier version of a whiskey sour -- if not terribly complex. I'll be making it again.

In my posts on veal stock, I've been trying to figure out exactly what's so special about it. It was suggested, and Mr. Ruhlman agreed, that its primary virtue is its neutrality -- that it adds texture with no taste of its own. That, to me, sounded similar to what MSG does -- enhances flavor and adds mouthfeel with very little taste of its own. Hence my musing that MSG might add "something more" similar to what veal stock does. At that point, I asked why, if neutrality was the desired effect, that he suggested a brown stock rather than a white one, and he said that it was more versatile in the home kitchen. I got some brown veal stock, and used it much the way he suggested. I wasn't assuming that his treatise was a codified recipe, so I took a few liberties with it. As I posted, it was a great sauce, but my opinion was that it wasn't neutral in any sense of the term. Although Mr. Ruhlman hasn't weighed in on my reflections from that trial, it's clear from the comments of other members that my diversions from the "recipe" as written rendered my opinion invalid. So, I repeated it, sticking as closely as humanly possible to his directions. I guess I have a different sense of what "neutral" means than Mr. Ruhlman (and apparently, most everyone else.) It's still a nice sauce (although it's thin without further reducing), but I'll still say it's not neutral -- I think that's what's nice about it. And I'll say again that, as nice as it is, I'll never use it on fish.

If you can find the small "entertaining" breads, you can top them with a couple of different cream cheese based spreads, run them under the broiler, and have a good snack that's reminiscent of 50's-60's card parties but still tastes great. I like cream cheese and crabmeat, mixed with minced green onions, salt and pepper. Curry powder if you like that. Or cream cheese and smoked salmon and dill. Or minced ham and Gruyere, mixed with a little mustard and just enough cream cheese to make it spreadable.

I know that when I took a pizza class from Peter Reinhart, he advocated making the dough in advance and letting it rise slowly in the fridge at least overnight. He said that the flavor improves and also that the gluten is less elastic and makes the dough easier to work with. He didn't say anything about 9 days, though.

I followed Mr. Ruhlman's directions for this sauce, with two differences: I used red wine instead of white (because I had it and also because I was using the sauce with beef) and I reduced the sauce a bit before adding the butter (because it was way too thin). It was very good; I can see the points about texture, certainly. But I agree with Steven: this was not a neutral sauce. I can't, in a million years, imagine serving it with fish, unless for some reason I wanted to substantially mask the taste of the fish.

They're available through Amazon -- Sahale Snacks. I've never seen them, much less tried them, but they sound interesting. I used to make Cajun spiced pecans, which called for mixing Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce into egg whites (beaten until pretty foamy but not stiff). Then you tossed the nuts in that and added the spices before baking. The spices stuck to nuts; the egg white didn't add any flavor; and the nuts were very crunchy. For incorporating balsamic, you might try that method -- I'd reduce the balsamic first.