KatieLoeb

I'm working on an Old Fashioned variant with Pisco that will be called a Peruvian Old Fashioned on my spring cocktail menu. So far I've narrowed it to muddled limes and brandied cherries with Demerara sugar (extra grittiness works well to extract oils from peels) and Angostura and Fee Whiskey Barrel aged bitters for spice. Add Pisco, a bit of Carpano Antica for added complexity and a splash of pear nectar. Early results look promising. I'll post a full recipe when it's perfected.

Just top it with prosecco, like a mimosa Easy and tasty. And not ridiculously high in alcohol so folks can drink more without ruining the decor, if you know what I mean...

The way infused vodka happens at my house is usually random- I don't buy or drink much vodka personally, but sometimes a stray bottle will end up at my house after a party, and what to do with it besides making it into something more interesting! So at one point, I had a fresh branch of rose geranium, around 12" long. I stripped the flowers from it, and stuffed them into a 3/4-full bottle of vodka, along with a tablespoon of turbinado sugar and a handful of lightly bruised cardamom pods. I shook it pretty viciously and let it sit. Every other day or so, I turned the bottle upside down to mix things around a bit. After a couple of weeks, I had a rather unpalatable liquid that tasted like a florist's shop. I strained the liquid through a series of coffee filters into a fresh bottle and hoped for the best. It took about another 3 weeks for the aromatics to settle down. Since then, the stuff is super, unreservedly yummy. I only wish it didn't take so long to make! An interesting mixture I made with it last night: Bouquet: 1 1/2 oz dry gin 1/4 oz rose geranium vodka (or another floral liqueur) 1 oz strong hibiscus tea, chilled 2 dashes orange bitters (Angostura OB worked really well) Combine all in ice-filled mixing glass, stir briskly, and strain. Top with flamed lemon or grapefruit twist. Yum! ← Aha! The rose geranium that I have has no flowers, just the lovely smelling leaves. I was afraid it would be too vegetal to muddle with. Maybe I'll try infusing a small batch of vodka instead and see what happens.

Hello Furious! I think the new Ho Sai Gai ought to be just the thing for you, from what you've described. There won't be any scary offal or unidentifiable ingredients, but they do a perfectly tasty rendition of almost any dish you can think of. It's a fairly broad menu. And I suspect they'd make off menu stuff too, if asked nicely. Get the Sizzling Rice Soup. Trust me on this. It's delicious and everyone loves food that talks back.

I think I've seen the ads for this show. Is this the guy that supposedly made Gordon Ramsey cry?? Or as he puts it, "Gordon chose to cry..." This really ought to be interesting. Lots of foodie TV stars coming out of Philly lately, it would seem. So has anyone been to Soul or know anything about the chef? The children's cooking classes look interesting. I might want to sign up my niece and nephew for those - they're both prodigious eaters and little foodies-in-the-making.

Please do! I have a friend with a ton of rose geranium plants that keeps offering me cuttings I have trouble keeping alive. (My notorious Black Thumb has been discussed over the ages in other forums....) I adore the scent of the rose geraniums, but am not confident of what to do with it.

For less scary ingredients and excellent "Americanized Chinese", the recently reopened Ho Sai Gai at corner of 10th & Race is quite good. I was there with a large group a couple of weekends ago and enjoyed quite a feast. The Sizzling Rice Soup is a must-have, and the Cheesesteak Rolls are delicious with the spicy mustard on the table. All the usual suspects are well prepared. I enjoyed my Lychee Duck and my friend's Mu Shu Pork quite a bit. For serious porky goodness you can't go past the door at Four Rivers. It's ALL GOOD. Order anything pork based and you won't be disappointed. A second for Ken's Seafood.

New World Wine Wednesdays start tonight at Chick's. Since we normally only feature wines of France, Spain and Italy, we'll be exploring wines from the New World in $8 flights Wednesday evenings beginning this evening, 2/18/09 with a trio of wines from Montevina Terra D'Oro Vineyards of Amador County California. Tonight's lineup includes: Terra D'Oro Barbera Terra D'Oro Sangiovese Terra D'Oro Zinfandel A taste of Italy from California, as it were, with a Zinfandel thrown in for contrast. Hope to see some of you there!

I'm not surprised by this at all. Assuming that the article is accurate, it takes some pretty bad business decision making skills to refuse to try and work out deferred payments with the utility company. Even if business is down, theoretically you aren't using as much gas to cook with (if they turn the burners off when not in use, unbelievably not a common practice in many restaurants), perhaps you could close earlier, send some hourly kitchen staff home early to save payroll, etc. Doesn't sound like any of that was happening. If it's clear that the next generation doesn't want anything to do with the family business, it was time to hunt for a buyer, not just throw your hands up and say it's all so unfair or bitch that the road construction is going to ruin you (even though it hasn't started yet and it will effect ALL of the businesses along that stretch of road). Not for nothing, but there has to be dozen of diners and therefore diner owners in a 30 minute radius of there. Perhaps one of them might have been interested in purchasing an already outfitted diner at a major crossroads for a second (or third or fourth) location?? Why wouldn't you at least try to see if they were? :shrug: Obviously, I don't know the specifics here, but you'd think the article would have mentioned if the embittered owner was trying to sell or at least cutting back to stay in business...

I wouldn't even be so certain that the bellman isn't making $8-12/hr. already, PLUS his tips. Hotels tend to compensate their staff with better hourly wages, even if their position is tipped. For instance, the hair stylists at the fancy salon, or the masseuse at the spa are making over minimum wage for certain. PLUS their tips. Many hotels are union run, as well, which ups the base wage considerably. The only professions where I know for certain that it's absolutely legal for an employer to pay a mere fraction of minimum wage is to servers and bartenders. And theoretically, the employer has to make up the difference for any days when you actually made less than minimum wage. Good luck collecting that. Since paychecks are generally weekly or bi-weekly, the payroll company just gets a figure for the total number of hours worked and the amount of tips to tax. Do the math and get an average and it would likely rise above suspicion. Who is policing this?? No one, that's who.

Thanks for the advice. I've actually eaten all but the last of the bowl of guacamole and it stayed reasonably fresh in the fridge with several of the pits buried in it and a layer of plastic wrap pressed onto it's surface under the lid of the container for the last several days. Not sure if I could vacuum seal it for the freezer anyway, so that worked out OK. I defrosted and roasted that chicken last night with an herb-lemon-butter rub under the skin and a few cubed potatoes in the pan. It's delicious!

Ok - that makes more sense. Next time I see frozen blueberries when I'm shopping at Trader Joe's or BJ's, I'll nab some and play with some new drink recipe ideas. Last summer we were making blueberry simple syrup for lemonades (either with or without the extra kick of some booze) by buzzing fresh blueberries through the blending in the still hot simple syrup and then straining it. This shouldn't be any more difficult to accomplish and I don't even need to cook up a batch of simple.

Marlene, my point is that it really ISN'T voluntary. ← If it isn't listed on the menu then it is indeed voluntary. It is a bad system that needs to be changed! ← Do you need a note at the bottom of the menu that says, "Please use the bathrooms. Do not defecate in the soup bowls..."?? Not taking food off the plates of the people at the next table isn't printed on the menu. Not spitting water at your tablemates isn't either. But it's "customary and expected", just like the tip, unless the service was poor enough to warrant a conversation with the manager.

I would, but don't those invariably have sugar added?? It always seems like the blueberry "juice" is more like blueberry "syrup", which would undoubtedly throw off the balance of the recipe.

Er... don't you mean Serge Voronoff? ← Actually thinking through the logistics of transplantation technology in the late 19th century is enough to make me want to hurl. Dr. Voronoff was undoubtedly transplanting putrid monkey glands in less than sterile circumstances into only the very rich elderly gentlemen that could afford the $5000 price tag for the "procedure" back then, a tidy sum that made the good doctor a very wealthy and sought after surgeon. Yeah - I'll pass on "honoring" Dr. Voronoff. He made his own fortune and needs no honorifics from me. Aren't you glad that modern technology has brought us the wonders of Viagra?

Thanks Ufamizm! That sounds tasty! I might not get to try it until it warms up and I can find some decent blueberries with flavor (I hate winter fruit sometimes), but I'll definitely give it a whirl. I always have lavender syrup at my bar for Provencal Martinis, one of my favorites of my own creations.

I'd be more than happy to work more than 40 hours and I used to. Until I noticed I wasn't getting properly compensated and complained. The "answer" was to cut one of my shifts. pastrygirl, thanks for the kind offer. Not sure I want to move to Singapore, though. I have a house, a car, pets and friends and family here, so I can't really just pick up and go, much as I'd sometimes love to. The standard of living in Philly is pretty high compared to other US cities, which is one of the reasons I stayed here after graduating from University of Pennsylvania. I love that I can afford to have a house here (granted, I inherited the one I live in now, but I rented several prior to moving into my mom's former abode), I can have a car and eat and drink reasonably well. None of those things would be even remotely possible if I lived in New York or San Francisco, for example.

I'll be serving Monkey Glands today in Darwin's honor...

Busboy, you're my hero! I love the idea of some sort of nationwide protest, but the fact remains that the tax paying business owners are going to get the lawmakers ear and attention, and the poorly paid and undertipped service staff will not. Until our Federal government literally goes Socialist I just don't see that changing in my state, or anywhere else they can get away with it. It's still legislated on a state by state basis. Unless President Obama decides to have a sit down with a panel of waiters and bartenders I'm not seeing it. And I think the tipping system is a lot lower on the priority list than CEO salary caps, etc. pastrygirl, the guys in the kitchen where I work are either salaried or hourly and work many more hours per week than I do. And their checks aren't effected by how busy we are or how folks are tipping. It's not adversarial, it just is what it is. But cutting a shift so as to not pay an employee that actually brings folks in the door overtime at $4.24/hour rather than sending a guy home early in the back strikes me as an "interesting" choice at best. But I'm not the GM or things would be quite different...

This is pretty much what I do behind the bar. I just need to try to get the servers on the same page as me I guess. And I have my go-to drinks to get people to try gin. My Velvet Underground is the most popular drink we have and most people don't beleive that it has gin in it. ← Great minds think alike... So what's in your Velvet Underground? I'd love to have a new gateway gin beverage in my repertoire.

Thanks Zeffer! Looking forward to your contributions! I forgot to add that the Produce Manager at Pathmark was kind enough to mark down 5 superripe/borderline overripe avocados to .99 for me when I asked if they had any already packaged in reduced produce. I made a huge honking bowl of guacamole that I'll be eating for several days with Tostitos scoops I bought at the BJ's a couple of weeks ago. Can one freeze guacamole or does it just turn a foul shade of gray and get watery when it defrosts as I suspect it does?

Welcome to eGullet. ← Allow me to second this. Welcome!

Mano: Thank you for defending my honor. You are truly too kind. There are several participants in this thread that have been my customers, so I was hoping that they were at least nodding their heads for me silently. As I said, the college cutie thing is for another thread, but I'm certain you understand my frustration, especially in this town where there seem to be an abundance of places that hire (and simply exist) based on form over function, or style over substance. Katie, I appreciate your honesty. Understandably in these times you're probably going to have more bad nights than good nights, and that is hard. It is hard to not have a great income, it is hard to want to work but there is no business, hard when you are at the grocery store trying to find the cheapest food you possibly can and your old junker car just broke down again and you really don't have $600 to fix it. I spent entirely too much of my 20's living that way, and it really sucked, but in truth I was also irresponsible with my spending - when you make $9 an hour, you really can't afford to go out to dinner that often, a fact I was in denial about. But still, I understand the frustration of living paycheck to paycheck and having debt. But I think why people get so fired up over this, is that a lot of servers seem to think they 'deserve' to have a good night every night. They brag about how much they made on a busy Saturday and whine and moan on a slow Tuesday. Every night is not Saturday night, so each person has to decide for his or herself if the average wage ends up being worth it. If people think they should be averaging $20 an hour but in truth they only average $14, they need to examine whether they still want to do that job for that wage, instead of demanding that now everyone has to tip 25% instead of 15. Like someone said above, servers tend to resist the service charges when restaurants try to implement them, choosing instead to take the gamble. If serving was truly a hellacious, underpaid job, there would be unions, organizations, strikes, etc. But it seems to work for a lot of people, at least in good times. Now that we are in bad times, pretty much everyone is struggling or know someone who is, not just servers and restaurants. Talk to someone in Detroit who lost their job after 30 years at GM and whose 401K is shot and doesn't have a whole lot of job options at the age of 50. Talk to a car salesman who works on commission and used to sell 50 cars a month but now sells 6. You sound very capable and like (in better times) you could easily get a job at a place with a higher check average and make more money. You say you love your job and there must be reasons why you have stayed there instead of moving to a more expensive place. Maybe it's a convenient location, the owners are friendly and flexible, you have creative input, whatever, we all make choices based on what is important to us. At the end of the day, is it worth it? We all have to take ownership of the choices we make. ← pastrygirl, I am more than happy to be honest. And of course every night can't be a Saturday, but I'm feeling more and more like the guy that got laid off at GM than I'd like to. Some of it is the economy and some of it is the frustration I've outlined above. Watching the twinkies in miniskirts make more money than they either deserve or know what to do with just fans the flames of my ire. We read articles about the oldest bartender that just retired, and it's always a man. There are fewer options for an adult woman. Call it ageism, sexism, whatever, but it pisses me off. Especially because I actually do take pride in what I do, and know that I'm damned good at it. And I don't think it's pompous to believe I deserve to make more money than the fry cook at KFC. There are reasons I stay where I am, as you said, for the creative freedom and my love for my customers and coworkers. But it's getting to a point where something needs to change or I might have to change careers again. I changed careers to BE in the restaurant business seventeen or so years ago. I left a very lucrative career in telecommunications at a huge reduction in pay but a great increase in my level of happiness to be in the restaurant business. I've never regretted that for an instant. And I do know that I'm lucky to have a job and at least a little money in the bank, unlike some others that are less fortunate. But what was supposed to be my 401K got hammered in the economic downturn too. I pay for my own health insurance through a prior employer and that's about to run out soon. Things are very rough, and I'm happy to own my choices, but to get back OT, I bitch when folks don't appreciate how messed up the system is and think the semantics of "voluntary" can explain that away.

Quite right. The first question after that is, "When you say "martini" do you mean a mixed drink with a proportion of vermouth in it, or do you really mean vodka <insert brand here> up?" Then I explain that by saying martini they are implying a mixed cocktail with a garnish of their choosing, not just cold vodka in a stemmed cocktail glass. You need to engage them to educate them. If it's a service bar order, I also just make them as I normally would and can scarcely remember any being sent back. In fact most folks order another and I hear from the servers it's the best one the customer has had in a while. It's amazing what a properly made cocktail can do to educate the customer for you. Getting people to try gin is easier with a gateway drink like a Gin-Gin Mule or one of my Front Stoop Lemonades. You can work them up to a martini from there.

Table 31 looks like it might fit your criteria. Lots of expensive cuts of meat, a well reknowned chef and a pretty stacked wine list. I had dinner there for Restaurant Week and it was top notch. The Italian sommelier ought to be able to help you run up the check effectively too.