KatieLoeb

Kerry - have fun with the Dolins. They're sooo good. ThatNateGuy - wow that sounds intriguing. I have some Benton's Bacon fat from a friend that got a case for Xmas last year and was promptly instructed that he'd be summarily strung up if a single drop of those precious drippings were put into the trash or down the disposal. Might have to wash me up some bourbon and give that a whirl...

YES!! The Di Saronna is made from apricot pits, not real almonds. The Luxardo is infinitely tastier both because it actually tastes like almonds, is less sweet and has that bitter edge of good Marcona almonds. A vastly superior product IMHO.

Yajna if you are playing with the Wray & Nephew overproof, the only thing I do with that is use the occasional little bit in a tiki drink or use it as a base for infusions like homemade allspice dram or bitters. That stuff is STRONG!! If it's a different W&N product then I don't know it since I live in PA and there isn't any other available I know of...

Fishing weights or small weighted disks in the bottom hem of the curtains should take care of that problem.

Getting heavier fabric and a small heater could elevate it from so-so to pretty functional though. It certainly works in the restaurants I've seen use that system. (No, I didn't think of it myself. I described what I'd seen in use in at least two restaurants I can remember) Find some heavy curtain fabric on closeout or buy a big remnant. It only has to be functional and not hideous, correct? Heavy velvet or upholstery material would work just fine.

Thanksgiving punch this year was this: Morning in Marrakesh 1 bottle Blueberry Vodka 1 bottle Pomegranate-Raspberry Vodka 3 cups lightly sweetened English Breakfast tea 3 cups fresh lemon juice 1 cup Orange-Cardamom Syrup 1 cup Blueberry-Pomegranate Juice 1 cup Jallab (Lebanese Date-Rosewater Syrup) 1 bottle brut Champagne or sparkling wine 16 oz. club soda Orange wheels Mix together first seven ingredients in a large container completely and taste for sweetness and balance. Adjust to your taste then pour into a punch bowl. Top with one bottle of Brut champagne or sparkling wine and 2 cups of club soda. Float orange wheels for garnish. Pour into ice filled wine glasses and toast your friends...

ThatNateGuy: Talk to me about what you're doing with bacon infused bourbon and R&W Apricot. I'm intrigued as that sounds delicious...

Can you hang a round rod and make some heavy curtains to trap the air? How about one of those portable heating units on the ceiling right by the front door making a warm little temporary vestibule?

No longer at the Oyster House (I think it was) I take it? Are you able to reveal the secret yet? I need to know where to go for a quality cocktail the next time I pass through Philadelphia! Although admittedly I have no idea when that might be yet. Working at a brand spanking new establishment called Tapestry, at 5th & Bainbridge Streets in Philadelphia. It's walking/stumbling distance from my home, and I have the most astonishing back bar I've ever worked with. The focus is craft beers with 24 taps and 120 bottled beers, but there's also 200+ spirits and 20 wines by the glass. This has all transpired rather quickly since last week, so I'm still settling in. Classic cocktail menu for now - selling oodles of Old Fashioneds and Aviations. When I have time to breathe and feel comfortable with all I have at my disposal I'll start cooking up my own mixers and putting some more original cocktails on the menu as well as do the classics with the house made ingredients. If and when you make it to Philly I'll be happy to serve you whatever your heart desires but want to be on the same side of the bar with you when I show you all the other great places there are to drink.

Really?? That's intriguing just on its own. I'd be most curious to hear back on what you discover about that.

Why not contact your local fish purveyor and see if you can buy them either directly from them, or find out where they get them before they're emblazoned with their company logos, etc. The only place I've ever seen them are the restaurants I've worked at, and they're already branded with the company logos from whichever seafood purveyor they've come from. Surely they are all buying them from someone. Perhaps if you have a good relationship with a chef or restaurateur you could inquire about purchasing some from them. Everywhere I've ever worked there has been an abundance of those rectangular "fish boxes" somewhere in the restaurant. Can't imagine it's any different any where else.

Invited to dinner at a dear friend's home who was testing out newly acquired Asian recipes for dinner. I was asked to bring wine to suit (a South African Chenin Blanc) and decided to bring a pre-prandial cocktail as well. I have a metric boatload of orgeat taking up space in my fridge right now so I decided to bring pre-mixed Japanese cocktails to shake on site both to suit the theme of the evening and use up some orgeat. Damn I'm sorry I'd not tried these sooner. Delicious! I love Cognac so finding a new cognac based cocktail is a gift unto itself. Will likely be putting a Japanese on the menu at my new place of employ once I have the chance to ease my own recipes on to the menu. That's a damned fine drink.

I think that's an entirely plausible explanation. Good thinking.

Rewarding adults for bad behavior has the same or worse results as doing the same for an obnoxious child. The behavior will be repeated in hopes of getting the same reward. Even if, in this case, the net financial gain is a wash, some naughty children and dogs can't tell the difference between getting their noses rubbed in their own excrement and getting smacked with a rolled up newspaper and getting patted and praised.

ThatNateGuy: Most definitely looking forward to the report on all those delicious sounding variations. Take notes. We expect full on recipes that are capable of being easily reproduced. Somebody has to take one for the team. Welcome to eGullet.

eBay is a constant source of vintage barware for me. Just this week I found an old cocktail pitcher with a chrome rim for straining and a vintage functional soda siphon. I'll post pics when they arrive. My other favorite places to find cool glassware, etc. are the thrift stores or Goodwills. There's a gigantic Goodwill shop just a few short minutes away from my house in Camden, NJ where I've found some gorgeous glasses for as little as $.25 each. Camden isn't exactly the most fashionable neighborhood, but you'd be stunned at what treasures will appear in such places. If you don't mind being a bit more spendy, the "high rent" area thrift and consignment shops can be a treasure trove as well. Where I live the Western suburbs of Philly (aka the Main Line. Think Katherine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story) qualify as that. The various hospitals, Junior Leagues, etc. all have charitable thrift shops set up. Gold mines if you have the patience. I've found some lovely gifts for friends for weddings, anniversaries etc. just by judiciously combing around a bit. What could be a nicer gift than an old school chrome Art Deco martini shaker, a pair of spectacular (accidentally) matching silver rimmed coupe glasses and a copy of one of my favorite cocktail books? Certainly a fitting gift from someone like myself, and hopefully they'll think of me fondly when they're making their Happy Hour cocktails at home. And if you're merely looking for your own collection, then the fact that there might be an odd number of those lovely glasses you keep coveting just means you'll have however many + a spare when one inevitably breaks.

I alluded to this earlier in the thread. Those that try to beat the system might get away with it for awhile, but the nightmare that could ensue if they're ever audited is not worth any prior gain in terms of living large for a short time frame. Most transactions are indeed via credit card, and those transactions for which there is a verifiable paper trail will serve as the "truth" for the IRS. If you work in a place that is all cash, I'd worry about the business owners getting audited first and all of the tipped employees being next on the suspect list.

That's so funny. I just bought a little sampler pack of sherries today from the liquor store because I thought it would be good to have those in my back pocket for recipe development. I just tasted a couple of stellar cocktails with sherry last weekend while in NYC and have vowed to find new ways to utilize it myself. If I'm not mistaken the sampler pack I bought has 1 each of cream sherry, fino, amontillado and manzanilla in "airplane" sized bottles. All by Savory & James. The box of all of them was less than $4. I couldn't resist.

I use xanthan gum in my orgeat recipe. Doesn't keep it from separating completely over time, but does seem to help keep it emulsified for longer once it's shaken up. For whatever that's worth... Not quite sure I understand what you're trying to do with simple syrup. Just give it more body? Why not make a richer syrup and just use less accordingly?

Read back through the thread. Unions don't exist everywhere, and the masses making the low wages have a lot less political power than organized business owners/restaurateurs who are providing jobs and lining their local, state and federal coffers with taxes. That's why.

I'm not convinced ignorance is the only reason for non-tipping and under tipping. I've simply seen too many instances where "stingy, parsimonious, niggardly, miserly, and just plain mean" are better descriptors. Especially when they call for the manager to have the tip removed from the bill, and then leave the restaurant laughing about it. This happens far too often to be chalked up to simple ignorance of our customs. And there's still that German guidebook I read -- I have a feeling many visitors use this tactic to stretch their vacation Euro a little farther. Oh dear, ScoopKW, it appears that we have still not met in appreciation of the underlying causes of the conflict regarding 'tipping' in North America from the perspective of the vast majority of visitors to your shores. Even though a previous post of yours appeared to highlight that the problem was that Euro visitors were reluctant to understand that the problem lay in a medieval 'American' law permitting the payment of starvation wages to loyal staff, this most recent missive of yours reverts back to your previous position of placing the blame, not on a non-appreciation of this barbaric salary system, but instead on the tight-fistedness of Europeans (and presumably also Australians, Latin Americans, Japanese, South Africans, New Zealanders, Indians, etc). I think that we should agree to disagree. You and I have totally different views as to what 'tipping' is. You continuously revert back to the need to include in 'tipping' a recognition of the underpaid nature of the US service-sector workers and that it is not an unawareness of this that leads to Europeans 'under-tipping', but that the reason is the Scrooge-like nature of these visitors to your country. I in turn find that to be an unacceptable shifting of blame. Instead I intransigently continue to demand that a 'tip' is an appreciation for the quality of service and experience, and that salary issues are none of my business. You may continue to blame Europeans for their reluctance to contribute to restaurant/cruise workers' salaries, but we insist on blaming your tourist-industry lobbyists in the USA and their ability to get the great State to accept what is clearly an antiquated system. I do not contribute to the salary of the mechanic who services my car, to the teacher of my grandson, nor to the nurse who gives me post-operative treatment after a triple by-pass, by 'tipping' them. So why should I do so specifically for a waiter in the US because you chose to accept your country's deviation from modern first-world salary norms? Don't continue to beat the "tight-fisted" drum. It is the barbaric salary system in restaurants in the US that needs to be subject to the utmost scrutiny from you and your political representative, not any assumed tight-fistedness. So as if to prove my point, you're basically saying what we service industry folk have been saying all along. As a foreigner, you don't "believe" in tipping the percentage that is customary here due to the way the system is set up and therefore won't do it, even though the issue has been clearly explained to you in this thread. Yes the system is barbaric. Yes the wages are substandard. If you have a problem with it then yell at the restaurant owner but don't waste a seat that someone who understands the implied contract could be taking up and tipping appropriately so I can keep a roof over my head. Jeez... I revert back to my earlier analogy. There are lots of things that are "customary", like not defecating in public. You can flout the local customs for whatever reason you like but will be thought an ass for doing so...I'm not calling you a tightwad, I'm just telling you you're misdirecting your anger in a way that is financially punitive for no good reason other than to stand on a lofty principle.

You can if you want. Or run it around the rim, dip it in and discard it. Up to you. Depends how much orange flavor you want hanging around in that glass. Warming the peel first in addition to cutting it right seem to be the tricks that help most. Holding the peel not too close to the flame helps too. You want to spray the oils through the flame and have them alight, not wet the head of the match and put it out, if that makes sense.

Pumpkin Pie infusion 2-3 cups of Kabocha squash, peeled, seeded and cubed (one medium squash) 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise 3 cinnamon sticks, broken up 1 teaspoon cloves 1/2 a nutmeg, cracked and broken (I smash mine with my meat tenderizer) 3 nickel sized coins of fresh peeled ginger Optional: 1 tablespoon brown sugar and/or 2 cardamom pods lightly crushed. Place all your aromatics into a large sterile jar with a tightfitting lid. Top with either 1 750 ml bottle of vodka or 1 750 ml bottle of white or gold rum (your preference). Keep in a cool spot, and allow to infuse for at least a week, agitating the jar daily. After a week start checking it to see if the flavors are strong enough. When it's to your liking, strain through a cheesecloth lined fine mesh strainer and funnel back into the bottle. Keep refrigerated. This is good chilled up like a pumpkin pie martini, on the rocks with a twist of orange (and a dash of bitters if you like - Ango or orange work) or tall over ice with soda or Sprite if you like it a little sweeter.

The Aviatrix variation of an Aviation is a great intro cocktail. 2 oz. gin .5 oz. each St. Germain and maraschino .75 oz. fresh lemon juice Shake. Strain into a coupe. Garnish w/a lemon twist or a cherry at the bottom of the glass.

I've found that the cutting of the orange peel is crucial to the perfect flamed peel. Cut a contact lens shaped piece of thick skinned orange peel with lots of pith but no flesh. Strike a wooden match and heat up the outer surface of the peel before you give it a quick pinch and spray the warmed oils through the flame onto the surface of the drink. There should be a very visible poof of flames and you should smell the carmelized oils as well as see them on the surface of the drink. This takes practice but is a skill worth mastering.