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cdh

eGullet Society staff emeritus
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Everything posted by cdh

  1. I've enjoyed Nam Phuong in Tribeca... 6th b/t Walker and White if I recall rightly... or maybe 6th is still Church down there... not sure.... anyway, it is immedaiely west of the monstrous AT&T ziggurat. Anyway... very good pho and other soups, and quite tasty entrees... excellent summer rolls and other wrapped pre-dinner nibbles. Jackfruit shakes are also memorable.
  2. cdh

    Champagne under $50

    Personal favorites: Bollinger NV- Yummy... I just love the full rich flavor and the lack of sulfury-ness (thanks Jason for making that flavor distinction w/ the Veuve). about $40 Roederer Anderson Valley - Half the price of Bolly, and in the same flavor profile. Bolly's better, but this is good stuff too. Glad others agree. about $20 Gruet Blanc de Noirs- From New Mexico (of all places), but in the same vein as the above... rich, yeasty and excellent. about $10 R. Dumont et Fils Rose- An excellent pink champagne... lacking in oaky or sulfury and a real pleasure to imbibe. about $25 Thierry Triolet- A very weird champagne... almost oxidized like sherry, but not quite. Really interesting. about $25 Billecarte-Salmon Rose is yummy, but I'd prefer Dumont if its me paying. Nicholas Feuillatte (sp?)- Good wine at its price point... but I'd take any of the above over it of given the choice. Chandon's Napa stuff is not disagreeable either, and usually a good deal. I too will weigh in with the Dom and Veuve hatin' crowd... not to my tastes at all... as a matter of fact, downright disagreeable to my digestive system... feels like the acids and sulfur will eat straight through me. I've had the Iron Horse in several of its incarnations, but it hasn't done much for me.l... ditto Taittinger, ditto Roederer french (even the Cristal), ditto Mumms, ditto Delbeck...
  3. Arghhhhh! Please don't misuse "British-high-tea" so as confuse people into thinking that it is the genteel afternoon pastime of eating finger sandwiches, sipping tea and watching the peasants toil... High tea in Britain is an early supper that the toiling peasants were more likely to eat. You're thinking of cream tea or just afternoon tea... certainly not high tea.
  4. Second things first... do you mean to say that you worked someplace that used Rose's in its margaritas? Ewwwwww. That unfortunate mixture has been foisted off on me a couple of times... Ewwwww. And first things second... Is a drink with fresh lime and simple syrup and gin really a gimlet? sounds more like a gin daquiri to me... not what I think of as a gimlet.
  5. Maybe Robert would care to discourse on this in more depth, but my reaction to the suggestion of fresh lime with a dash of simple syrup is that it would do serious damage to the mouthfeel of the underlying cocktail. Part of my unified theory of cocktails is that any cocktail that uses fresh citrus juice requires a healthy counterbalancing dose of a syrupy ingredient like triple sec, maraschino, other more obscure liqueurs, or simple syrup. A dash of simple syrup would leave the underlying gimlet downright astringent and unpleasant to drink. At least one made with east coast market limes.
  6. Welcome indeed, Robert! Great to see you here, especially since the DrinkBoy boards have fallen off of my regular browsing schedule since I found egullet. Hopefully your expertise will get many a lively cocktail thread going here! Looking forward to seeing more from you!
  7. cdh

    Who is drinking Burgundy?

    Claude, Earlier in the thread you listed a number of recommended producers... do you have any advice regarding things one might see on a label that are red flags or otherwise warnings to stay away?
  8. cdh

    Who is drinking Burgundy?

    Burgundy is particularly off-putting because it has so many dedicated fanatics who regularly go around saying "There are no drinkable burgundies on the market below the $40 price point." While, all by itself, that sounds like idle snobbish frippery, combine it with the above-expressed sentiments to the effect that there is a whole lot of really bad burgundy produced, and that trying burgundies is a crap shoot, and even when I see a bottle of something Cotes-du-Nuit for $15, I'm not willing to risk having wasted my money on a bottle of plonk, when I could pick up something from Alsace or Germany or even a Bordeau cru bourgeoise that is much more likely to be good for the same dough. I have no idea what to expect from a "good" burgundy, much less a "sublime" one, and judging from the burgundies that I've experienced (generally paired with courses served at the Beard House), I've not tasted any reason to put down $40 for a barely palatable example of the genre when there are other regions producing wines at much more affordable price points that are less likely to be clunkers.
  9. A few years ago I made a white peach sorbet that was liberally flavored with black pepper and nutmeg... made quite an impression upon those to whom it was served... yum...
  10. cdh

    Lamb cooking physics

    I'm out of town next weekend... but will gladly do it again sometime and document it and post the pictures. Sometime in the middle of next week, probably, will be the best time for me to do it...
  11. cdh

    Lamb cooking physics

    You're missing the same thing I am: an understanding of what it is about lamb flesh that makes it cook so differently from beef and pork. WHT's explanations, sorry to say, seem relevant to a question like "I put my lamb into a 350F oven for x minutes and it is still looks and feels raw... however, when under the same conditions, beef would be medium." That is a heat transfer question, to which WHT is providing heat transfer answers. My question is "When lamb's internal temperature is 140F, it still looks and feels pretty damn raw, while beef or pork at the same temperature are much more cooked." I don't care how long, or by what means the internal temp got to where it is... I care about how the material behaves at a given temperature, and why it does so.
  12. Alamosa Viognier was quite good when I was introduced to it a couple of years ago by Wiggy's wine shop in Austin. Yummy stuff. Apparently Viognier vines work in the TX climate... who would have guessed. And I'll second the Gruet New Mexican recommendation-- the blanc de noirs especially.
  13. cdh

    Lamb cooking physics

    And bill it all to the MatthewB Charitable Foundation For The Advancement of Culinary Science?
  14. I am a fan of milk punch and the like... I've never noticed a thickening like you describe. I use 2% milk just like I pour over my breakfast cereal, and it maintains its consistency.
  15. cdh

    Lamb cooking physics

    It was, indeed, a bone-in rack approximately 6 inches long (8 ribs). The probe, which is about 4 inches long was inserted into the center of the loin, to a depth of approximately 3 inches in, on a plane orthogonal to the bones' axis. (I think that is the right word, but my cartesian vocab is quite rusty...) edit: correction of cartesian speak
  16. cdh

    Lamb cooking physics

    I've not done side-by-side comparisons with the thermometer and any others, but it has worked fine in all other kinds of applications...In boiling water it reads 211, and in cooked pork loin it says 160... it even tells me that my melted sugar is 350 when it starts looking and smelling like nice dark caramel... But at 140 lamb is still rarer than rare beef, which is 10-15 degrees cooler. What's up with the lamb? I agree that the recommended 180 on the chart must be a misprint... but that still doesn't get the lamb off the hook for cooking differently.
  17. cdh

    Lamb cooking physics

    Since we're getting into the mechanics of cooking now, rather than just the physics of why lamb behaves as it does, here's the story that prompted the question: A rack of lamb, previously frozen, was defrosted and thrown on the grill with the probe of a Pyrex instant read digital thermometer firmly planted in the center of the meat, away from the bones. Grilling commenced, and the internal temp rose. When it got to 140F, I pulled the rack off the grill and whacked off a chop. Said chop was nearly raw in its texture and appearance. This got me thinking "Beef at 140 is never anywhere near this raw... what's up?" so did a little research. Said research (the table of donenesses that came with said Pyrex thermometer) indicated that medium rare lamb was achieved at internal temp of 180F... Huh? What is it about lamb protein that is so radically different than beef protein that it needs a full 60 Farenheit degrees more heat to acheive the same level of denatured-ness? So I posed the question here, which WHT took a stab at... Is lamb protein really more dense? (Time to bust out with a scale and a graduated cylinder...) How would the density of a protein affect the temperature at which it denatures? How would internal fat content affect the temperature at which a protein denatures? What's up with lamb flesh??? Lamb! The Amazing Asbestos Animal!
  18. cdh

    The Martini

    hmmm... I've been making a few martinis lately and have found that a 3:1 ratio of gin (or vodka) to vermouth is really quite tasty when a dash of orange bitters enters the mix as well. This is going very pre-war, I know, but I have found them to be quite delicious. And a use for the Fee's Orange Bitters I went so out of my way to acquire. And they are, at least arguably, still proper Martinis, rather than some other cocktail served in a martini glass. I've been quite pleased with Noilly Prat dry vermouth... so pleased in fact that I find it tasty when served alone on the rocks before dinner. I've been less pleased with Martini and Rossi... riding on reputation... (and don't get me started on their Rosso, which is downright vile...) When it comes to gin, I love Beefeater, and I'm pleased to see that others here corroborate my affection for Seagrams... All the while I was thinking it was nostalgia for my series of "Cheap-Gin and Tonic" parties I threw shortly after I got out of college (which featured Seagrams as the starring ingredient, and left me with lots of it to play with in my evening mixology sessions.)
  19. As everybody here, I'm sure, knows, when a cut of beef's internal temp gets to 140F, it can in no way be described as blood rare.... So... Why is it that lamb, when taken to the same temp, still manages to be almost raw and bloody? What is it about lamb protein that resists the denaturing power of heat? Do we have any food physicists who could take a whack at that question?
  20. Tony- Thanks a lot for the behind-the-scenes take on the Beard House... I'd wanted to hear a bit more of the Kitchen Confidential treatment of that place. It is a pity that the audience is so geriatric there... but the food more often than not makes up for the fact that most of the crowd were old enough to have voted for Eisenhower and Kennedy. There are a few of us young Beard people... but only a few, unfortunately...
  21. That sandwich reminds me of the cream cheese and olive sandwiches I ate as a little kid. Haven't had one of them since, probably, fourth grade... but they were good... probably fell out of the dietary habit as my mom got turned off to fat as the health craze spread across the mind of America. That really looks like a grown-up version of food I ate long ago. Now that there are better olives than just the pimento-stuffed brine-in-the-jar kind, I might have to start experimenting with that sandwich again. hmmmm...
  22. I was just thinking about the two varieties of Roses myself... To further explain the differences between the two products, the boozy one (about 3% or so, if I recall correctly) is marked "Roses Lime Cordial" while the supermarket one is marked "Roses Lime Juice". Have never done a side-by-side tasting, but have been building a curiousity about the difference. Everybody-- look in your fridge/liquor cabinet and report on whether you're using cordial or juice...
  23. cdh

    Fromage a Trois

    1) Cabrales -- thereby covering the goat/sheep/cow categories 2) Boucheron-- preferably left in the fridge to age for a month or two to maximize the thickness of the ripe part... too young and it is a little chalky. 3) That German Brie-esque thing with the mushroom bits in it. yummy. With certain St Marcellins and Castello Blue as runners up.
  24. cdh

    Searing tuna

    Have a look for the Good Eats episode where Alton Brown uses a roaringly jet-engine-afterburner hot chimney charcoal starter to get the tuna seared properly. Moral to the story is that you need huge quantities of concentrated heat to sear properly. Experiments with blowtorches might be in order if you can't get a charcoal chimney going in your cooking venue and your stove can't get your cast iron pan to glow red.
  25. Central Market still has Wegmans beat. CM has no vestigial "traditional supermarket" aspect to it like all the Wegmans I've experienced. Imagine chopping all the flourescent asiles of General Mills and Proctor and Gamble products off of a Wegmans and replacing them with more small-producer specialty type stuff, and a better fish section, and a better butcher, and much much much more developed bulk stuff section. CM is almost purely about food (though they have some stuff like soaps and vitamins and herbal supplements and such), while Wegmans is place you can go to stock up on toilet paper and toothpaste and such. What I miss about the CMs is the promotional introductions of lots of the smaller producers' stuff... they used to offer great products at excellent intro prices. Wegmans doesn't appear to be doing that. Maybe a artifact of marketing decisions... maybe they think Texans need to be given a chance to try off-the-beaten-path stuff cheap, while us sophisticated yankees will pay full price to test it. I also miss all the tastings that CM did that I've not experienced at Wegmans.
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