JAZ

Or you could carve a facsimilie out of a disk of lemon rind.

I like red beets, and to me the golden ones are okay, but very mild. A couple of friends of mine who don't like red beets like the golden ones, so maybe you'd like them too.

For camping and vacations, we always use Bisquik, which is reliable and as good as or better than any "fancy" mixes I've tried.

There are other American eaux de vie besides Bonny Doon -- Clear Creek up in Oregon produces some, as does St. George Spirits in Alameda, CA.

No one I talked to about it seemed to know.

Laurent Gras is no longer at Fifth Floor; last night was his last there. Apparently Melissa Perello is taking over the helm.

Use thighs instead. Seriously, is there some reason you're determined to use boneless chicken breasts? The thighs have much more flavor and are much more forgiving of slight overcooking (a cooking instructor I know put it this way: "the problem with chicken breasts is that you have a 30 second window between salmonella and chicken dust."). If you want to use breasts, and you don't like brining, you might consider pounding or slicing the meat into thin pieces (like a scallopini) so they'll cook evenly and very quickly.

I love Le Creuset, for all the reasons mentioned above. Mostly cleanup, although it's also nice to have a good looking cooking vessel that you can take to the table and serve from as well. You know there's an outlet store for LC in Vacaville, right? I haven't checked the prices, but I know the discontinued pieces are significantly marked down, plus they carry "seconds" as well.

I'm with you on this one. In my opinion, the only good thing that Waldorf salad ever did was to inspire a hilarious Fawlty Towers scene.

Winning the lottery.

Inadequate, indeed. I'm in awe. Doc, if you ever want to hire anyone to come by and, I don't know, catalog, or dust, or anything, let me know.

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?