JAZ

In the book Cookwise, Shirley Corriher has a great discussion of cookies, with a chart outlining what to do for more or less spread. Of her suggestions, it seems that chilling the dough before baking is the easiest solution. If that doesn't work, you might try using part cake flour in addition to all-purpose, or cut the sugar by a tablespoon or two.

What's surprising to me is not that there aren't more "savory" cocktails, but that there are any at all. If you think about it, humans don't drink very many things that aren't sweet -- some are more obviously sweet than others, and some are sweet and sour (wine, many cocktails, lemonade), or sweet and bitter (beer, tonic, cola), but water's about the only non-sweet thing we drink. (Coffee and tea are exceptions, but of course a lot of people sweeten them. Plus, we drink them hot usually, which makes a difference, I think). Still, I think there's a trend in cocktails to experiment with savory elements -- herbs, peppers, etc. -- which can result in some very interesting, not particularly sweet drinks. For example, I've tried a tall drink with gin and Lillet muddled with basil, with a splash of orange juice and soda. Not very sweet, intriguing because of the basil, really refreshing. But I wouldn't call it savory by any means. But completely "savory" drinks? I don't think there are many possibilities that would be palatable.

I've been carded at several airport bars, and although I find it silly, it's not annoying to me. Same with nightclub type bars. At a nice restaurant, though, I think it would be a different story. I completely understand that the waiters have a job to do and have to comply with ABC laws, though, so I'd let it pass. The only time I can remember getting upset about getting carded (or not, in this case) was at a neighborhood bar, years ago. I was there with a date, who was a few years younger than I (he was 24; I was 28). The bartender, a woman in her mid-forties, asked him for ID, but not me. That didn't really bother me, but my date said, "Aren't you going to ask for hers?" The bartender said, "No, I'm a good judge of women's ages," or something like that. Even then, I still wasn't upset, although I was beginning to get annoyed. But then, she leaned over to me and said, "It's okay, honey, I date younger men too." We finished our drinks, left a nickel on the bar, and never went back.

I've never been a fan of jello shots (mostly because I'm not a fan of jello, period), but those of you who are might want to check this out: Jiggelo Who'd have thought there'd be a book on jello shots?

Kitchen Confidential and other kitchen memoirs I've read are written from a very definitely male point of view, and while interesting, I imagine they're only half of the kitchen story. What's your experience working with men and women in professional kitchens? What are the differences, the similarities? How about some insight into the female professional chef's point of view?

No, the glaze is hard and looks to be pretty durable. It's dishwasher safe as well.

Does anyone have any of this cookware? It's Emile Henry's new line of ceramic stovetop-safe cookware. I got a piece but haven't used it yet. The instructions say that boiling a small amount of milk in the pan for three minutes is "suggested" but doesn't really give a reason for that. I'm wondering if there are any other "tricks" I should know about. I'm looking forward to using it but I have to admit I'm a little apprehensive, too. By the way, here's the piece I got -- a 5.5-qt. round stewpot. It's really beautiful; I hope I like cooking with it as much as I like looking at it.

Another variation is to use roasted red peppers instead of tomatoes. With pesto mayonnaise, it's great.

My guess is that you overreduced the beer (the reason that overreducing beer results in a bitter sauce is that the bitterness of the hops increases as the beer reduces). The extra water from your usual process probably mitigates the bitterness of the beer. When I do short ribs in porter, I use only 1-2 bottles with no initial reduction at all (no marinating, either). I often cook the ribs uncovered for the last 45 minutes or hour, which reduces the beer a lot. Then, after removing the fat, if it's still too thin, I reduce it further. Once or twice, when I used a particularly bitter beer, I needed to add a little brown sugar at the end, but usually it's fine as it is.

First, I apologize for taking so long to post this. Thanks to Pam for taking photos and getting them posted before we all forgot what we ate. Second, I'd like to thank everyone who attended for making the dinner a success. Now, on to the dinner: At each place setting was a detailed description of the menu items, plus the wines we drank with them. It was great to have the information about the food and wine without having to take notes. We started with vegetable and salumi antipasto platters. Incanto makes its own salumi, and the quality is excellent. Although I've been to the restaurant often, I'd never tried it, simply because I've never gone with a large enough group to do justice to the platter. Antipasto platter of salumi misti From the top left, we had mortadella, coppa di testa (head cheese), capocollo (pork shoulder in a spicy dry rub, traditionally cured in a bladder), pork rillete, lardo, and pate di campagna. (In case you're wondering, the platters were full when they were brought to the table. I just forgot to take photos until after they had been ravaged.) It was a treat to be able to try lardo and the coppa di testa, and it was a revelation to try authentic mortadella, but my favorites on the platter were the rillette and the capocollo. Antipasto vegetable platter The vegetable platter was very good too. Once again, I didn't get the photo until after we'd eaten quite a bit. You can see the braised cippoline onions at the base of the platter, and some of the other offerings were roasted garlic, grilled scallions (right above the roasted garlic) and marinated carrots. Much as I liked the both the onions and the scallions, the carrots were my favorite from this platter. The olives were also really good, but here's the thing with Incanto: With every meal, they start you out with their own breadsticks and foccacia, served with a tapenade so good that it spoils you for any other olives. (At least that's my opinion. I love that stuff.) The platters were accompanied by a rose: Serra Lori Rosato 2003, Argiolas. The notes described it as "simple, lively and fresh" and that's apt. It went well with both the pork and the vegetables -- it was acidic enough to balance the fat in the salumi, but not so much that it did battle with the marinated vegetables. After the antipasto, we got an unexpected appetizer of a sardine filet over shaved radishes and some kind of green that I failed to write down. (Anyone remember what the greens were?) Sardine over shaved radish and greens Then we had the octopus. My photo didn't turn out, but fortunately Pam's did. It was a nice dish -- very pretty. I expected something entirely different -- this octopus was "quick blanched, chilled, then packed into a casing and frozen." The paper thin slices were dressed with lime, smoked salt and fresh marjoram. The texture of the dish was really great and the flavors worked well together. My (minor) complaint would be that the octopus was sort of lost among the stronger flavors of the salt and herbs. We drank Soave Classico 2003, Inama, with these two courses. Next was the chicken liver ravioli, which as Pam, Erik and I mentioned, was one of the standouts of the dinner. (Pam's photo once again is much better than mine.) The wine pairing, Passito di Pantelleria 2001, Ferrandes, was a spectacular match. I never would have thought to pair a sweet wine with this course; it was a very pleasant surprise. The main course was rabbit braised in white wine with garlic and rosemary, served on a slice of grilled bread (nice addition -- it soaked up the sauce). It was served with a Pinot Noir -- Pinot Nero Riserva Sandlahner 2001, Santa Maddalena. Ingrid and I wondered about pairing a white-wine braised dish with a red, but I thought it worked very well. Braised rabbit You can see the crouton on which the rabbit sits, plus the huge cloves of garlic that were braised along with the meat. The dessert was pluots from Hamada Farms, which the restaurant preserves. They were served with a zabaglione flavored with the wine we drank with the dessert -- Brachetto Birbet 2004, Ca Rossa. Preserved pluot with vanilla-citron zabaglione Italian wines, for me, are something of a mystery. What I liked about this dinner (and dinner at Incanto in general) is the care with which the wines were chosen to complement the food. Incanto is one of the few restaurants I go where I completely trust the staff to pick a wine for any course I order. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of the room where we ate, but I did remember to get a shot of what you see when you enter the restaurant: A close-up of the meats curing: I think that's a good image to finish with.

Thanks to everyone who attended. I got caught up with work stuff, so I haven't had time to download the photos and compose a post about the details of the dinner. I'll do it in the next day or so, I promise. To start out, though, I'll say that for me, the ravioli dish was the biggest surprise: I'm not a huge fan of chicken liver, so I was a little apprehensive. But the dish was great, and the wine pairing was perfect -- a semi-sweet dessert wine.

Another vote for Henderson's recipe. The caper and parsley salad is a nice foil to the richness of the marrow. Then, if you have leftovers, you can spread it on crostini, top with a little parmesan and run it under the broiler. This is a great appetizer on its own, but where it really shines is as a garnish for French onion soup. Leftovers are also great to mix into mashed potatoes, or the filling for twice baked potatoes, especially if you also add caramelized onions.

For cocktails, try Cortez on Geary Street in the Hotel Adagio (great small plates too) or Enrico's in North Beach.

For a relatively recent review of some Bay Area restaurants, including Gary Danko and Manresa, you might want to check out this topic. In fact, it reminds me that I still need to try Quince.

We have a menu. We'll start with mixed antipasto platters, shared family style (there will be two varieties of platters: one featuring Incanto's house-cured meats, and one without) __________________________ First course: Octopus crudo with marjoram and smoked sea salt __________________________ Second course: Chicken liver ravioli in balsamic brown butter __________________________ Main course: Rabbit braised in white wine with garlic & rosemary They'll choose our dessert the day of the dinner. I'll post the wine pairing as soon as it's final. We do have one last space available, if anyone else is interested.

I made this Bee's Knees Variation from the CocktailDB site, using blood orange juice. It was good -- more complex than I expected. I also tried it with gin, and preferred that to rum.

I'm expecting to get some possible menus from the restaurant within the next couple of days. If anyone attending the dinner has any allergies or major food dislikes, please PM me in the next day or so -- I'll try to take anything like that into account when choosing the menu.

Click here for a recent thread on the topic of gravy for biscuits. This thread might help with the biscuits.

I like to bake all my crumb crusts for just a few minutes (5 at the most) -- I find it gives a more complex, toasted flavor to the crust. I've never noticed chocolate crumb crusts tasting less intense after baking. I use Famous Chocolate Wafers for my crumb crusts.

Here are two of the three types of cookies I'm baking this year: The ones that look like sunny side up eggs are a cream cheese butter cookie base filled with lemon curd. The others are a variation of Swedish Sand Tarts from Sunset Magazine, filled with caramel (which looks very dark in the photo; I'm just getting used to my camera). I make my cookies small; although you can't tell from the photo, these are about an inch across.

We still have four spaces available for this dinner. The chef is working on the menu for us; then the wine director will select the wines. Post here if you're interested.

I have a confession. I've used the dust -- not on cocktails, but to sprinkle on top of christmas truffles. [Disclaimer: I got a free box from the distributor, Lynn, who was mentioned in the article; I doubt I'd have bought it.] But I have to say that it's really pretty. I've tried "luster dust" (a sparkly dust for pastry work) before, and it doesn't come close in looks to the real gold. When Lynn came to the store to do a demonstration, she had a cocktail glass rimmed with the dust. That, I thought, was gaudy -- just too much. And the "chunks" (which I also have) are a little much for my taste. But I could see a little of it mixed in with sugar to rim a special cocktail, although I haven't tried that. And a tiny pinch in the bottom of a champagne glass before it's filled makes the whole thing sparkle. Useless? Yes? Frivolous? Undoubtedly. But really cool looking.

The year is almost up. How did we all do, soup-wise? I didn't come close to a soup a week, but I made some new ones -- some from recipes, some on my own. My accomplishments: I got a pressure cooker, so I made split pea soup with smoked pork shank several times -- 20 minutes start to finish. (The pressure cooker and I also produced goulash, but I think that's more of a stew than a soup.) I made a new recipe for gazpacho from La Cocina de Mama. Made it twice before the great summer tomatoes faded from sight. I worked on pureed vegetable soups -- and made roasted red pepper and caramelized onion, asparagus and leek, and corn and chile. I discovered that half a can of green enchilada sauce, a can of chicken broth, some frozen corn, leftover rice and the insides from a chicken taco from the neighborhood taqueria (grilled chicken, black beans and salsa) make a pretty good soup, if one is so inclined. I made a lot of chicken stock, so I made several chicken soups. I believe I mentioned upthread that I stumbled on a fabulous new (to me, at least) way to thicken chicken soup -- making a buerre manie-type mixture with chicken fat and flour and stirring that in. With Ronnie Suburban and other Pig Pickin volunteers, I prepped pounds of vegetables for the VD stew, which I think counts as a soup. At least I'm counting it. There were other soups, I'm sure; but those are the ones that stand out for me. Does anyone else want to recap their Year of Soups?

On our older but still great thread, It's Friday, it's after 5:00, and I'm going to mix a . . ., we were investigating the possibilities of Boodles and Cynar. I came up with the Boodle's Baby Drop, the name of which you'll understand if you scroll back a little from my post. It was a first try, and I never went back to experiment or improve it, so if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to mention them here, or there.

I haven't tried that, but I make hot lemonade whenever I have a sore throat. A shot of brandy goes in if I'm drinking it in the evening.