JAZ

Actually, according to Shirley Corriher, acid helps to keep the cheese from becoming stringy (hence its use in cheese fondue).

I'm in charge of a dinner for a large gathering, and I'm thinking Mexican-inspired as well. What I'm planning is chile verde and grilled chicken thighs with a chipotle-cumin rum, both to be served over rice, or in tortillas as the basis of tacos. Cheese enchiladas and black beans for the vegetarians. I'll probably make two salads, one a rice-corn-bean salad with a cilantro-jalepeno dressing, and the other a jicama slaw with orange, avocado and chipotles. That's if you don't go with the King Ranch Chicken, of course.

Not much to add to beans's reply. You recipe sounds wonderful, but as she noted, it's not a classic Americano, so you probably won't ever get that if you order an Americano in a bar. What passes for an Americano in bars can be all over the map, as you've noticed, but it should be nothing but Campari, sweet vermouth and soda, with the Campari and vermouth in pretty much equal proportions. Vermouth based aperitifs (and the whole family of bitter-sweet drinks, like those made with Campari) are not terribly popular with Americans, in general, but I'm a little surprised that your French guests didn't seem to care for your drink. I think it sounds like a great summertime option.

a bit like a delilah (also on the harrington site), huh? but with different proportions & added bitters (which, uh, i guess makes it pretty different). sounds good! Yeah, I forgot about the Delilah. Also similar to the Pegu, which calls for lime juice instead of lemon. It would be interesting to do a side-by-side tasting of all these to see exactly how noticeable the differences are. I always try to list lemon and lime juice in terms of ounces for that reason. Somewhere I have a chart that gives average amounts of various citrus juice per fruit, but you do always run into those anomolies -- gargantuan limes or tiny lemons.

I just got a pressure cooker and used it for the first time, so here's my opinion. I cooked short ribs with onions and dark beer, a dish I make often (like carbonnade flamande, but with short ribs). When I make it in the oven, I saute the onions and remove, then brown the beef, then deglaze the pan. Pile everything back in the pan, cover about 3/4 of the way with porter and stick in about a 300 degree oven for about two hours. Then I take it out, remove the meat, de-grease the sauce, take the meat off the bones and trim the connective tissue if necessary. Put the meat back in, put the whole thing back in the oven, uncovered, for another hour or so, until the sauce is thickened and the meat is meltingly tender. If I'm in a hurry, I skip the last hour, reduce the sauce on the stove and go with it as is, even though it's better (richer, with deeper flavor) if it finishes in the oven. For the pressure cooker version, I started out the same, but instead of sticking it in the oven, I put it all in the pressure cooker and cooked it for about 25 minutes (20 minutes after it came to full pressure). At that point, it was almost identical to the oven version after the first couple hours. The meat was falling off the bones and was as tender as the oven version. I finished the sauce on the stove (the reducing and seasoning, etc.) and tossed the meat back in to heat up. It was just as good as the "shortcut" version described above, but not equal to the full length, reduce-in-the-oven original version. On the other hand, it cut off about 1 1/2 hours of the cooking time. If I was going to do it again, I would plan on a longer stovetop cooking, without the lid, to reduce the sauce more slowly and give it that deeper flavor. So, is it worth it, if you don't need to save time? Maybe not. But consider braising things in the summer time, when the last thing you want is an oven on for three hours. Consider the disorganized dinner prep where you're 10 minutes away from dinner and you realize you haven't even started the potatoes for mashing. Consider coming home from work at 5 and having beef stew, or chicken and noodles, from scratch, in an hour or so. Artichokes in 15 minutes. Applesauce in 10. It makes those spontaneous culinary ideas that would ordinarily take major planning possible in real time. I'm hooked, and I've only had mine for two days.

I think I'm calling this one the Mother of Invention (as in Necessity is the. . . ), because I concocted it from what I had on hand. It's similar to the Jasmine, one of my favorites from Paul Harrington's (click here for that recipe. But since I'm out of Campari, Peychaud's bitters had to stand in, which meant the proportions had to change slightly. 1 1/2 oz. gin 1/2 oz. Cointreau or triple sec 1/4 oz. lemon juice three shakes of Pechaud's bitters Shake over ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

I really don't like any tropical fruit, except pineapple, and not if it's overripe. Bananas are also okay if they're not ripe. Mangoes are okay in things, but I'd never go out of my way to eat them. Something about tropical fruit tastes fermented, almost rotten, to me -- especially as the fruits ripen. (sorry!)

Mother of Invention I modeled this on the Jasmine, one of my favorite cocktails from Cocktail by Paul Harrington, but I didn't have Campari on hand, so I made do with Peychaud's bitters, changing the proportions a little. 1-1/2 oz gin 1/2 oz triple sec 1/4 oz lemon juice 3 dashes Peychaud's bitters Shake over ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist. Keywords: Cocktail ( RG863 )

Mother of Invention I modeled this on the Jasmine, one of my favorite cocktails from Cocktail by Paul Harrington, but I didn't have Campari on hand, so I made do with Peychaud's bitters, changing the proportions a little. 1-1/2 oz gin 1/2 oz triple sec 1/4 oz lemon juice 3 dashes Peychaud's bitters Shake over ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist. Keywords: Cocktail ( RG863 )

You might check out the book A New Way to Cook by Sally Schneider -- she has some great ideas for lowfat/nonfat dressings (and all kinds of sauces). Some ideas to experiment with: Dijon mustard is a great thickening and flavoring agent in lowfat dressings. Try lowfat or nonfat yogurt as a base for "creamy" dressings -- especially with fresh herbs. And if you want something thicker, just drain the yogurt for a few hours and you'll end up with a cream cheese like consistency. The rice vinegar idea is a good one. Also, balsamic vinegar (the cheap sort) is a good choice for vinaigrettes because it's so much sweeter than other varieties it needs a lot less oil to balance it out. Orange juice and balsamic is a good combination for low fat salad dressings. If your girls like oriental style dressings, you can do great things with hoisin, soy, rice vinegar and a little tiny bit of toasted sesame oil for texture and flavor. Finally, I don't think chicken broth is the way to go with dressings -- I've tried a couple of recipes that call for it but found them to be very odd tasting -- all the sudden the chicken flavor becomes very apparent.

Hi Janet: Thanks! I thought of you while I was experimenting with this. It's definitely a take-off on the Hangar Mandarin Blossom and Lillet combo you suggested previously. This is just more of a "girlie drink", I think. They are quite tasty, if I do say so myself! It's really only about 1/2 - 3/4 oz. of soda so it doesn't do much in terms of fizzing it up. More like a very very light "schpritziness" by the time you strain it into the glass. It wears off quickly too. I haven't noticed any problems with it "fizzing over", so to speak. I suppose if it did you could merely top it with soda at the end. I think it tastes better with all the ingredients well incorporated though. The Sprite in the Sicilian Martini is to take that overly "alcoholic" vodka taste away a little bit. (people who order these sorts of cocktails usually don't want to be reminded that they're drinking VODKA. If they did, they'd just order a vodka martini, right?) Club soda would also work, but I'm afraid would make the drink taste more watered down. The Sprite tastes almost neutral with all the other ingredents and doesn't seem to make the end product as watery somehow. The very slight hint of lemon/lime blends into the background. That's good to know about the Sprite. I've always hesitated to put anything carbonated in drinks I shake and serve up because I didn't know how they'd behave; now that I know what to expect I'll feel free to experiment without mishap. And I do see what you mean about the Sprite -- I was thinking of a drink more in the (classic) martini family, but this is really more in the sweet and sour family. Makes perfect sense. Okay, sorry to be such a pain, but one more question. By blood orange puree, do you mean juice with pulp, or is the puree something different? (I've been seeing great blood oranges in the market, and I'm really interested in trying this.)

Katie, Your Sicilian martini sounds great (you know me -- anything with Lillet!), although I'd probably use club soda instead of Sprite because I tend to like less sweet drinks. But I have a question: I've never used carbonated drinks in a shaken drink -- doesn't it get too fizzy?

Regarding the question of the black matte finish on some Le Creuset pieces, it is indeed a "ground coat" as Dave mentioned. Older LC pans had bottoms that were coated in it as well, before they switched to the full hard enamel coating. (Staub, incidentally, uses the same sort of coat in its pans.) It won't rust, so from that standpoint it doesn't need to be seasoned. But it is relatvely porous, so it will benefit from seasoning to develop non-stick properties. It's very durable -- I know because when I got my skillet with that coating years ago, I used to scrub it with steel wool (didn't know any better) and it still doesn't rust. But fifi's grill pan seems to be one of the sort with what I can only describe as a finished black enamel coat. It's not non-stick, it's not the usual hard enamel, but it's different from the ground coat. That might chip with high heat. That's what the cute little "skinny" grill pans are coated with. I just ordered LC's double burner reversible grill and griddle, which, oddly, doesn't show up on either the LC site or Sur La Table's (as far as I know, we haven't discontinued it, so I'm not sure what the story is). It's coated entirely with the ground coat and can be heated up just like plain cast iron (I've used the one in the store's kitchen for years, and it's great). If you're thinking about a Le Crueset stovetop grill, that's the one you want.

Ah! You and me, Mac and Cheese… To think I went through a phase where I thought you weren't good enough for me. Stupid me! Yes, it's true, the early versions of you were but a faint counterfeit of your true glory. But even knowing the true heights to which you can aspire, my friends laugh and disparage me for loving you the way I do. Ah! But if they but knew the glorious heights to which cheese, pasta, milk and the spices that add the je-ne-sais-quoi that comprises the quintessential divineness that is macaroni and cheese, I know they would change their tune.. The silken rich sauce enrobing your golden noodles, the contrast between your perfectly al dente pasta and its spectacularly cheesy base -- the combination convinces me that I have known heaven on earth.

Raisins. Blue cheese. Evil foods.

Actually, one theory holds that a taste for spices (all kinds, not just the "hot" ones) arose because of their ability to kill pathogens in food. Because, when you think about it, using spices cover the taste of toxic food is not a viable evolutionary strategy.

Nowadays, supermarket meat is presalted-pumped up with a saline solution which is supposed to make dry, flavorless meat tender and juicy. They claim they're doing this because the customer is demanding it, insists on paying meat dollars for water? One effect is to make meat broth and stock already too salty to concentrate as I like. I wonder what people who are on a salt-restricted diet are expected to do, pay 4X as much to have boutique meat shipped to them? Meat like this is, in effect, pre-brined. As Dave explains in his great eGCI course on brining, you're paying for extra water when you buy meat like this. But having tried it, I have to say that it does what it claims to -- that is, meat treated this way did cook up very moist and flavorful. I'd still rather brine meat myself, but for cooks who don't know how or don't have the time, I don't think it's a bad idea.

Only 40 to 50 percent of the white population, and 65 to 70% of the black population (I couldn't find numbers for other groups) are salt-sensitive. I'm not qualified to advise you on the crucial medical aspects of diet, but it might be worth your while to find out if you're really in the sensitive group. Dave, you mean 40-50% (and 65-70%) of the people with high blood pressure are salt sensitive, don't you? Not those percentages of the general population?

I'm teaching a hands-on cooking class/party that was bid on in an auction. The hosts of the party want to hold it on Feb 13, so they were thinking of aphrodisiac foods. My problem is that most things I can think of to make are either out of season, prohibitively expensive, or too complex for the time frame. My constraints are: 1) Everything has to be able to be made in about an hour and a half. 2) My food costs will be covered, but I can't go in for wildly expensive ingredients (no caviar, no lobster, no foie gras). 3) Nothing should be terribly difficult to make. Some of these people will be cooks, but some will likely be new to the kitchen. 4) Although the format is for small plates and appetizers, these people will want enough food to fill them up. So far, I'm thinking about something with wild mushrooms (maybe in puffed pastry) and grilled shrimp with a chile-based rub. For dessert, I thought I'd have them make a strawberry-champagne sorbet served in chocolate cups. But I need two more dishes. Maybe something with artichoke hearts or avocados? I'm not sure. Any ideas would be most appreciated.

One thing I do when I'm salting the food I'm cooking is to put a little of the food into a prep bowl when I think I'm getting close to the right salt level. Then I add a tiny bit more to the food in the bowl and see if it helps or hurts. If the food doesn't need more salt, I haven't ruined the whole dish. Incidentally, I've noticed with my cooking students that the most common error in salting is to get to the point where there's almost enough salt and then stop. When I have them try the trick with the prep bowl, it's often an eye-opener for them. It shows them exactly what we're tasting for. Keep in mind that when you're "salting to taste," you don't (usually) want your food to taste salty. What you're tasting for is really what the salt does for the other ingredients. If you taste a soup that's undersalted, for example, it'll taste flat, and some herbs or spices might seem overpowering, while others don't seem to show up at all. Add a pinch or two of salt, and the flavor overall will become more lively (for lack of a better term) and the other flavors should come into balance. Sometimes when you think you need more salt, what you really need is a touch of acid (lemon juice, wine, tomatoes, etc.). You can use the prep bowl trick to test for acid levels, too. And don't discount MSG as a flavor enhancer, unless you have a reaction to it. Check out this TDG article for more information.

That's beautiful. A few years ago, I was browsing through a few antique/used shops with a friend of mine and we came upon this 40's bar/liquor cabinet. I can't remember all the details, but when you opened the front, a shelf slid out and lights came on. It was very cool, but very expensive, so it lives on only in my memory. I do have a pretty nifty bar -- 50's or 60's I believe -- with a black metal base and white formica top. It came with three triangular bar stools, also with black bases and white leather seats. It has a couple of shelves for glasses and liquor, but without a source of water or ice nearby, it's mostly for show. I store stuff in it, but always have to drag the bottles into the kitchen to actually make drinks. When and if I get a digital camera, I'll take a photo.

I had some of these in a mushroom class I helped with a few years ago. They were sweetish and tasted vaguely of maple syrup. I think they were sauteed and placed in a tart shell, maybe with some cinnamon added. The novelty wore off after about the second bite, and I've never since felt the need to seek them out.

Just to burst everyone's bubble here, I have to say that I hate any and all blue cheeses in any carnation whatsoever. I can't even describe how vile they taste to me.

Absolutely never. Fortunately, it's very easy to clean by hand. Um, I've been putting my le cruset cast iron dutch oven in the dishwasher for 20 years now, and it doesn't seem to be a problem Edit to add: From Le Creuset: Le Creuset Cookware Pans are handcrafted in France of cast iron, which absorbs heat slowly and spreads it steadily. The cast iron is coated with porcelain enamel, which requires no seasoning and cleans easily. Dishwasher safe. Hmmm, the insert that came with mine said no dishwasher. Veddy, veddy interesting. If your Le Creuset is older, the instruction booklet that came with it likely did say "no dishwasher." The bottoms of the older pans were not coated with enamel and could rust. Now, however, they're coated all around and are, technically, dishwasher safe. Our Le Creuset sales rep has reservations about putting them in the dishwasher, however. He says the problem is not what can happen to the pots, but what can happen to the dishwasher. Apparently the heat and weight of the pots can actually warp the dishwasher racks.

Has anyone tried Caesar's in Berkeley? I've heard good things about it but haven't been.