JAZ

Rule #111: Any vodka drink worth drinking is worth drinking with gin.

Toni Basil Pasta Skewers?

Definitely a great tome. I skimmed through Sam's copy, but have now ordered my own, so it should be here soon. And when it arrives, I'll look up the Blinker recipe. Compared with some publishing stories I've heard, it sounds like you had a pretty smooth ride. Congratulations both on the book and the article.

Dave, this sounds good. What type of port? Will the cheaper ones do?

Great article, Monica, and good job sliding in the eGullet reference!

If I hadn't been to Patsy's earlier in the week, I'd have said that Arturo's is the best restaurant pizza I've ever eaten. San Francisco's pizza is so abyssmal in comparison -- they just can't do crust here. I thought the red pepper was the best, closely followed by the clam. The sausage was good, but I've actually had much better sausage here. (Maybe because the crust at SF pizza places sucks so bad, they make up for it with really good sausage.) It was great meeting everyone, and the gelato at Otto was divine. I probably won't make any of the future survey outings, but if this one is any indication of the general quality, I'd definitely recommend joining in to anyone who's considering the next one.

I have a 50's-style bar with two shelves in the living room: the top shelf for glasses and the bottom one for bottles. (I think I'm due for a reorganization, to replace most of the top shelf glasses with bottles, because I find I don't use most of the glasses, and the bottle shelf is very crowded). My nicer glassware is displayed on an extra small bookshelf in the living room, while a supply of my everyday cocktail glasses lives in the freezer. The front of the base of the bar is a black metal lattice design, so you can see the contents of the shelves from the room, but you get to them from the back. The top is white formica; the base black. The three stools are triangular white leather seats on black metal tripod-type bases. The only problem is that since it's in the living room, and the ice and bar tools are in the kitchen, I end up grabbing whatever bottles I need and carrying them to the kitchen to mix. Depending on how assiduously I replace them when I'm done mixing, sometimes most of the bottles end up on the kitchen counter for days at a time -- until I want to use the counter for something silly like prepping food.

I used to make it for Christmas gifts. The version I made was the type with heavy cream and sweetened condensed milk, but no eggs. It kept for a month or so in the refrigerator (that's as long as it ever lasted anyone, so I don't know if it would have lasted longer). It was very good, as I recall -- didn't have that plasticky aftertaste that real Bailey's has.

I'm pleased to announce the winners of the book drawing: Snowangel wins a copy of American Pie lovebenton wins a copy of The Bread Baker's Apprentice Sobaicecream wins a copy of Crust and Crumb Thanks to everyone who participated in this great Q&A, and thanks again to Peter.

I agree with your Cointreau assessment -- it (or triple sec) is an ingredient in so many cocktails, I'd consider it essential. Although I've been using Marie Brizard Triple Sec instead -- it's a touch sweeter and slightly lower proof, but considerably less expensive.

Let me add my personal thanks to you, Peter, as well as the "official" thank you from eGullet's staff and management. This was a fabulous Q&A. We'll draw the names of the book winners and post them soon.

I really like cardamom with apple -- I always include a few cardamom pods when I make mulled cider. I wouldn't have considered tequila for the base, though; that sounds intriguing.

Something I make often in the fall is bouchees (puff pastry shells) filled with filled with sauteed mushrooms with a touch of roasted garlic, topped with a bit of Brie and heated just to melt the cheese. I know they sound filling, but because I make them very small (about 1-1/4 inch), they actually don't amount to a lot of food. One nice thing about them is they go well with a variety of wines. They're fussy, but you can do all the work ahead of time, so they're not bad from that standpoint. You can also use the filling in other ways -- on crostini, for example -- if you don't want to do the puff pastry.

I've been considering getting a soda siphon but have a question about how well the carbonation holds over time. I don't use that much soda, so I usually buy the small bottles of seltzer or soda, because even the quart size tend to go flat before I'm even halfway done. That, however, gets expensive. A siphon would be ideal if the contents stay carbonated, but if not, it would be a waste. We carry the Isi brand at work, but the instructions say nothing about how long the carbonation lasts. Does anyone use one? Any insights?

I don't necessarily agree with him about the status of cosmopolitans, but I can understand his feeling the way he does. It's sort of like a chef who balks at cooking steaks well done, despite what his customers ask for. In a similar vein, I know a great bartender here in SF who doesn't stock Apple Pucker precisely so she won't have to make apple "martinis" -- and that doesn't seem odd to me. When she gets requests for them, she says, sweetly, "Oh, I don't have the ingredients for that, but let me suggest something you might like." I'm sure it might alienate some patrons, but most seem to adapt, and she's pretty good at gauging what they'll like. But if she had a bottle of Apple Pucker sitting there, and tried to dissuade customers from ordering apple martinis, then I'm sure they'd get upset.

Just saw the Oxo for the first time today when our rep demonstrated it (we don't yet have it in stock at Sur La Table, where I work, but supposedly it's on its way). It's got some good features and at $70 it's very reasonable. Good points: One removable blade with two edges - one straight and one waffle -- you just slide it out, flip it over and slide it back in. Lower profile and better angle (to me at least). A dial to adjust slice thickness and to pull up two julienne blades. Not so great points: A dial to adjust slice thickness and to pull up two julienne blades. Great idea; not so easy in practice. I couldn't tell if it was just that it was new, or if it was me, but the rep had trouble switching between the selections as well. I don't know -- I have a German V-slicer and it works fine for what I need it for. For me, the only thing the Oxo does that mine doesn't do is waffle cuts, so it's not really worth it for me o upgrade. On the other hand, if I were purchasing my first, the Oxo would be a serious contender.

Not a "notable number, perhaps, but all it takes is one really bad experience. I was at a relatively high end restaurant a few years ago where I ordered a "house salad," which, unbeknownst to me, was dressed with a very peppery vinaigrette. The addition of the fresh ground pepper offered me turned the salad into an extremely bitter, nasty dish. Ever since then, I always taste a bite before accepting, even if I think I'm going to want it.

Click here for an earlier mention of the grass. It might help.

People often use the term "peppery" to indicate a sort of "bite" in a drink -- a chemosensory irritation, rather than a taste. My guess is that's what's meant in describing a Scotch as peppery. And as for "medicinal" in describing liquor, I've most heard it used metaphorically rather than literally -- in other words, to mean that the liquor in question is unpleasant, not that it tastes like a particular medicine.

You could make a Thai style curry with the chicken thighs or breasts, the coconut milk, the serranos and jalapenos, and any of the vegetables -- some of the green peppers, the zucchini and summer squash, potatoes if you want. Then you could serve it over the rice.

It was East Coast West deli on Polk, which has been around for a while but was recently bought by someone new. They apparently import frozen bagels from some place in NY and finish them here.

I agree that the "best and highest use" of a pickled green bean is in a bloody mary. Perhaps it's because green beans and tomatoes are such a good match -- who knows? This reminds me of a time when a friend of mine and I visited a local neighborhood bar for bloody marys the morning after a night of intemperate drinking. The bloody marys were not spectacular at this place, but they were large and they were served with very good pickled green beans as a garnish. I told him to order while I went to the restroom. When I returned, we had bloody marys -- with NO PICKLED BEANS. I asked him why -- were they out? -- and he replied, "Well, the bartender asked me if I wanted beans in my bloody marys, and I said no. I don't want no beans floating around in my drink." After I stopped laughing, I disabused him of his notion of a couple of canned pinto beans lobbed into his drink, and went to beg the bartender for extra green beans.

Check out this green bean thread for more ideas.

In which Gary discusses a new drink created by Chuck Taggert, aka Sazerac here at eGullet. click here: The Professor Fans a Flame for a New Cocktail

Exactly, Trillium. If there is such a list, it's undoubtedly very short. But I, personally, think there is a list, short though it may be. And that's what I was interesed in. Right. An entirely different question. Just to reiterate, I'm not talking about walking into a bar, asking for a martini and getting the martini of my dreams. I'm not talking about the bartender reading my mind about the type of gin (or vodka, as the case may be) or the type or amount of vermouth I prefer. I'm talking about walking into a bar, ordering a martini, and having a bartender who knows that a martini is made with gin (or vodka) and vermouth, and not -- say -- tequila and buttermilk. And, as I said upthread, I think that's a pretty reasonable expectation. That's why I used it as my primary example. Everything else I've suggested has been just that -- suggestions. Most of the drinks I mentioned are actually examples of drinks I don't have that expectation for -- an Aviation, a Bronx, a Negroni, etc. My gut feeling is that there are a few more drinks that should make that list of reasonable expectations. Not a lot -- but the Manhattan, maybe. Margarita, almost certainly (I mean, didn't we all get a kick out of the story on the Mixologist Incompetence thread where the poster asked for a Margarita and got tequila and Sprite?). Daiquiri? Maybe not -- I found it very interesting that on Charming's list, a Strawberry Daiquiri was listed, but not the basic drink. I personally have been surprised -- both pleasantly and less so -- by what individual bartenders know how to make and what they don't. I was suprised the first time, in response to my request for a Tanqueray Gimlet, the bartender said, quizzically, "That's with an onion, isn't it?" Yes, it was a neighborhood bar, not very sophisticated, but I was still surprised. I'm no longer surprised when a bartender doesn't know what goes in a Gimlet. But I am disappointed. On the other hand, I'm happy when I ask for a Negroni, and the bartender knows how to make it. I don't really expect that -- it's a nice surprise. In short, I don't expect a bartender to read my mind. I don't expect him or her to be a walking database of drinks. I do expect a base of knowledge about their craft. It's no different from any other profession. I mean, if I were talking with a professor of English, for example, I wouldn't necessarily expect her to be able to quote long passages of Shakespeare, but I would expect her to know that "To be or not to be, that is the question. . . " is from Hamlet. And as far as the food analogy goes, to me it's closer to this scenario: You hire a cook, you have certain expectations. You expect him or her to know the difference between a coarse dice and a fine mince; you (probably) expect him to know what a mirepoix is; you expect her to know how to make chicken stock; you (again, probably) expect her to know what goes in a bechemel. And that, it seems to me, would be regardless of whether you had dishes that called for mirepoix or bechemel.