JAZ

Comic, I really didn't mean to imply that Alberta is not a good bartender; she's great in many ways. As I mentioned, I've had some fabulous drinks with her, on many occasions. She's good; she has a great sense of flavor combinations and takes a lot of time and care with her drinks. I like that; I like her, and I like the Orbit Room. My comments about her speed and efficiency were just my observations. The article, though, calls her, at one point, "the best bartender in SF" and I do disagree with that. There are other places in the city that offer great cocktails from extremely talented bartenders, some of the best I know. And on a busy night, I'd rather be at those places than at the Orbit Room.

I was making a Pegu Club the other evening and didn't have quite enough lime juice (I use the Dave/Paul Harrington proportions) so I augmented it with a very little bit of blood orange juice. It was a very good variation, and a beautiful color as well.

I've been using the wild Italian amarena cherries in cocktails ever since I tried one at a local bar -- Amarena Fabbri is the best brand I've found. Before I was introduced to them, I generally asked the bartender to hold the cherry because I dislike commercial maraschino cherries so much. Once I tried these, I kept trying to find drinks that used them so I could eat more of them.

Alberta does make some wonderful cocktails, but calling her the best bartender in San Francisco is not terribly accurate. While I've always enjoyed the drinks she's made for me, she's not very quick or efficient in mixing, and it can be frustrating to wait a long time for your drinks when it's only moderately busy. When it's very busy, I'd give the Orbit Room a pass entirely. I've enjoyed the Orbit Room the most when I've been there in the afternoon with few other customers in the place.

Marlene, my vodka-preferring friends all really like martinis made with Tanqueray Ten. It's much less assertive than the regular Tanqueray, with less juniper -- but stands up much better in a martini, in my opinion, than Sapphire. You might give that a try.

Fine Cooking magazine has an article this issue about roasting vegetables, including green beans. Their suggestion is to toss the beans (trimmed) with sliced shallots and chopped garlic in some olive oil and roast at 450 degrees for 20 minutes or so. Stir occasionally. They then top the beans with grated lemon zest and chopped toasted hazelnuts. I haven't tried it (yet) but it's on my list. The magazine is worth picking up just for the vegetable recipes alone.

Sorry, I realize that wasn't clear. Yes, the brandy based ones were sweeter.

When a group of us were at Bemmelman's in October, Audrey set up a side by side comparison of Grand Marnier, Cointreau, Marie Brizzard Triple Sec and Marie Brizzard Curacao. I agree that the main flavor difference was the brandy base (in the GM and the MB Curacao) vs. the neutral base in the Cointreau and the MB triple sec. They seemed markedly sweeter to me as well. As for the difference between the Marie Brizzard products and the others, I could tell a difference, but I'm not sure it would come through that much in a cocktail.

If you like that, you should try a Twentieth Century Cocktail. It's gin, Lillet Blond, lemon juice and creme de cacao. Sounds as if it's in the same family. But then, of course, you'd have to get a bottle of Lillet Blonde. But everyone should have a bottle of Lillet. In fact, my three would probably be gin, Lillet and Maraschino.

What I've experienced, Sam, is that if a bartender chills the glass by filling it with ice and water (or it's been resting in a tub of ice) and then sugars the rim, the sugar melts and drips down the sides of the glass. Then it doesn't matter how you hold the glass, because there's sugar syrup pretty much all over it. When you sugar the rim of a frozen glass, especially if you return it to the freezer, that doesn't happen because the sugar sets before you start to drink from the glass.

Harrington's recipe calls for 1.5 oz. gin, .5 oz. each of Cointreau and lime juice, and two dashes of Angostura bitters. Since that's where I first encountered it, that's the way I've always made it, so I have nothing to compare it to. It is tart, but balanced.

Generally speaking, when drinks call for fruit brandies, they're designed for the sweet kind. A recipe will usually call for an eau de vie if that's what's meant. Books: I'm sure other will chime in here, but my first serious cocktail book was Cocktail: The Drinks Bible for the 21st Century by Paul Harrington, and it remains one of my favorites. It is, unfortunately, out of print, but you might be able to find a copy on Amazon. For classic drinks, you could try Dr. Cocktail (Ted Haigh)'s relatively new book, Vintage Spirits and Forgotton Cocktails (click here for an earlier thread on the book). I love Dave Wondrich's book, Esquire Drinks, because it makes me laugh out loud whenever I read it. Gary Regan's Joy of Mixology is a good one if you want to experiment: the entire middle section consists of charts of drinks by "family" so it's easy to see what substitutions are possible or desirable. Or, you can always check out CocktailDB, a fabulous online resource from Dr. Cocktail and Martin Doudoroff.

Another good "cooler" type gin drink is Gary Regan's Tart Gin Cooler, which is a hefty shot of gin, a dash of bitters, grapefruit juice and tonic, served over ice in a tall glass. It's a great afternoon by the pool drink (not that I have a pool, but you get the idea).

If you have any questions about the logistics of the braising seminar, please post them here.

As far as I know, the recipes at Webtender are not monitored by anyone, so I imagine the quality varies dramatically, depending on the particular person posting the recipe. I'm much more likely to check out CocktailDB, brought to you by Dr. Cocktail.

Since I made chicken stock, I thought I'd use some of it to make chicken noodle soup (not much else I could make, given the state of my pantry/fridge). It was fairly standard, and not really worth posting about, until I was struck by inspiration. The problem was that not much starch escaped from the noodles, so the soup was pretty thin. I didn't want it really thick and didn't want it creamy (not that I had cream anyway), so I was about to mix up a bit of buerre manie when I spied the chicken fat I'd just removed from the stock. Viola! Schmaltz manie! It gave the soup a beautiful silky texture, thickened just enough, and also contributed to the flavor. Anyway, that'll be my standard thickening method for chicken soup from now on. I also tossed in a big handful of baby greens (mostly spinach and arugula) that were past their prime -- gave a nice hint of bitterness. Now, the rest of the stock will be split between "three celery" soup and the freezer.

For me, they're all enjoyable, in different ways. They appeal to different aspects of my nature, satisfy different needs. Planning to me is an intellectual exercise. When I'm devising a menu for a relatively formal dinner, it's the process of beginning with an infinite (or vast) universe of possibilities, and narrowing down the choices along paths that feel instinctively right, until I end up with a menu that fits the season, my mood and my event. Sometimes, when I'm cooking for myself or a few friends, I prefer to hit the markets with no ideas in mind, in which case I plan as I go, and the exercise is mostly one of memory, as I attempt to recall what, exactly, I have in the refrigerator and cupboards, and what that recipe that I only just glanced at a couple of weeks ago actually called for. A third type of exercise is the one that comes from opening up the refrigerator and determining just what I can make without having to go to the store, a more limited but challenging task that carries its own rewards. In all cases, the planning stage provides that feeling of completing a puzzle, and when my menu or recipe settles itself, I feel the same sense of peace I get when the last crossword is filled in or the last jigsaw piece drops into place. If I try to start cooking before I get to that place, I always regret it. Prepping, for me, instills a sense of order in my culinary universe: turning a pile of raw, wild food into neat bowls of ingredients. Yes, of course chopping, mincing, peeling and measuring are tedious in themselves, but they are satisfying tasks for the part of me that wants order over chaos. When the real cooking starts, it catches my creative side – taking the neat bowls of ingredients and making them into something entirely new, turning them from separate ingredients into soups and sauces, stews and sautes. As long as I've been cooking, it's still always an almost magical moment I realize that it's worked yet again: I've created something delicious. Because that's the point, isn't it? For all the satisfaction I derive from planning and cooking, I wouldn't do it if I didn't love the taste and texture of what I eat, if I didn't like to eat. Sometimes the wait seems interminable – when the smell of the short ribs braising is almost too much to resist, when the asparagus goes on the grill pan and starts to char ever so slightly – but that makes it even better when it's finally ready. That's when everything goes well. There are, unfortunately, those days where the market is out of everything I need, and I have to revert to Plan B or even Plan C so often that I can hardly remember what Plan A was. The days where I run out of time to prep and consequently my cooking is disorganized, and the sink fills up with dirty dishes, and nothing finishes according to schedule and I’m so worried about what my guests will think of the horrible dinner I'm mangling that it all tastes like dust, and it's all I can do keep from apologizing and ordering pizza. Those days, I hate it all. Until the next time, when I love it all, all over again.

The new term of the eGullet Culinary Institute is starting in a couple of weeks with a braising lab class taught by Fat Guy. He'll be experimenting with temperatures, amounts (and types) of liquids, stovetop vs. oven and other variables, and if you want to follow along, you'll get your fill of braising.

The newest and most comprehensive is On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee. McGee was the guest of a special Q&A here in November; click here to read it. Other books that discuss the science of the kitchen are Russ Parsons' How to Read a French Fry and What Einstein Told His Cook by Robert Wolke.

I had a chance to taste these when Ed was in San Francisco recently, and I'll vouch for how good they are. I've never been much of a fan of rum (sorry, Ed!), but these were fabulous. The vieux is smooth enough to sip neat, and they were all successful in the ti' punches. In fact, I'm going to try to find some this afternoon and experiment with some other drinks.

Well, I've had ripe green olives in cans. Lots of times. Where do they fit in?

I think it's worthwhile to note that there are really two Joy of Cooking books out there: the original one, revised several times; and the New Joy of Cooking, which was substantially rewritten several years ago, with many new recipes and techniques and much of the older recipes modified to fit into "today's" cooking habits. I've never done a page by page comparison, but from what I've seen, they're very different books.

When I first moved to the city, I lived in the Cole Valley area of the Haight. My sister and I (and occasionally other friends) went to the Aub Zam Zam, not regularly, but several times. Bruno was quirky, yes. Your best bet getting served was to order at the bar, preferably a martini (gin -- no such thing as a vodka martini for Bruno) or a shot if he was in an expansive mood. We were fine, as we always ordered martinis and played by his rules. I can remember one time sitting at a table (after getting our drinks at the bar), my sister and I watched as a youngish couple came in and moved the two chairs at the table next to us so that they could sit side by side and not across from each other. Bruno came over and made them move the chairs back. And a friend of mine likes to tell the story of taking an out-of-town business acquaintance there in the late afternoon. They had just ordered martinis when a woman at the bar used a swear word (I don't know what it was, something fairly mild, as I recall). Bruno closed the bar, saying he couldn't allow profanity from a woman in his place. So, yes, there are stories. I'm sure he relished his reputation, but he was okay. Now, it's still pretty old school, but you can order more than a martini. Why would you, though?

Wow, are they still around? ← I think they only sell wholesale now, except for one last shop out on Taraval, and that might not even be there anymore. But you can find their products at some Bay Area markets. I even get them at Safeway (the one on Market). I've always liked the fact that they make demi-baguettes and mini-baguettes, since the main problem with baguettes is that they don't keep at all.

I had a bottle of the Collins, before I found Fee Bros. When I tasted them side by side, the Fee was so far superior that I tossed the Collins (it was almost empty, anyway). The Fee Bros. had a more pronounced orange taste and much more complexity.