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It should also be noted that this flap has nothing at all to do with the controversial (and IMHO bad) idea of chefs having a copyright interest in the dishes that they create and serve.

Well, generally under trademark law, rights accrue in production and distribution (to end consumers) of goods and services. Trademarks are, fundamentally and historically, about preventing market confusion as to the source of goods and services. In a franchise case, like Two Pesos, there is the overarching entity, the franchisor, who is the source of the comestible goods and services offered at each outlet. In a sense each outlet is a service offered by the franchisor. So when Two Pesos dressed up the interior of some of its franchises to look just like the interior of a Taco Cabana, it was creating potential consumer confusion as to who the ultimate franchisor was, and could do damage to the reputation of the wrong entity if executed badly. In the NYC case, there is little likelihood of market confusion based on the trade dress of the two fish shacks. They have distinct names and locations, moreover, and more importantly, there is only one of each of them. It is a whole different scenario than in a case of look-alike chains upon which the precedent being invoked is based..

This sort of thing is not unprecedented under trademark law. The famous Taco Cabana/Two Pesos case said that a distinctive trade dress is protectable... but that was a chain situation rather than a pair of one-off restaurants, so it could be distinguishable... Will be interesting to see how they work it out.

Somebody here must be very familiar with unroasted cacao nibs, right? Is it even remotely possible that cocoa butter and cocoa can be pressed out of them without roasting first? I'm much more familiar with green coffee, and there is no way in the world that anything vaguely coffee-like at all could be made from unroasted green coffee. Are cacao nibs dark roasty black straight out of the pod? I'd be quite surprised if they are...

They've recently done a great distribution deal. They're in Whole Foods all the way up to the Manhattan outposts. You should be able to find Hendricks cheeses in any mid-Atlantic Whole Foods now.

Might have been me... Hendricks cheeses are definitely available at the source... out in a tiny little burg someplace equidistant between Tylersport and Telford, close to Morwood. Worth the trip. Call me, it's in my greater co-prosperity sphere.

Astor is 4th and Lafayette... having moved out of their Astor Place store last year. Warehouse is 8th and Bway.

I'm doing a nocino already... The wind blew a bunch of baby black walnuts off the tree a couple of weeks ago, so I picked 'em up, chopped 'em in half and covered 'em with everclear. Getting nicely dark and tasty already.

Well, if you're 21 and have worked in all those great places, it's pretty clear you didn't go to college. In a family of intellectuals, that could be a pretty damning oversight. How many of the really successful chefs out there are without the training in thinking and writing that college provides? The way a chef becomes really successful is self promotion and brand building, both of which require a facility with communications... how else are you going to draw in investors when you want to open your own place? How are you going to make sure that you don't get swindled when deals are presented to you? I'd bet that telling them you were taking college courses at the local community college might get them off your back.

Excellent call... frozen watermelon cubes make a great substitute for ice cubes.

Look... it's not as though any of the burbs have food criticism getting widely published that is either controversial, perceived as crucial to market success, or in any way superior to what we generate here on eG, so the sniping between V and everybody else about what is worth discussing here is moot. I imagine Rich is best situated to enumerate the competition, if there is any, for western suburb food writing... Up here in the distant northlands, I've found nobody worth reading, though there are some pleasant spots to eat. Chester County has its own restaurant thread, where relevant comments on published criticism probably should go... Montgomery, Bucks and Delaware counties probably deserve their own similar threads too... But then again, PHL embraces its metropolitan area... after all, the Fuji topic is on the PA board rather than the NJ board... and it belongs there.

Both Cocoa butter and Cocoa powder come from roasted beans. There's no way that anything chocolate can fit onto a raw food diet. Nor could coffee, either. Green cacao beans and green coffee beans are nothing at all like the products they produce after roasting.

An offhand swipe is nothing like a full on excoriation. Bourdain's ire was pointed much more at the organization that bears Beard's name than at the man himself. Lots of folks have not unreasonable complaints about the organization for its history of coddling embezzlement and throwing its weight around in an unseemly fashion. Who might have been doing the disliking of Beard's crankiness that Bourdain spoke of? Who knows. Who cares. The fact that he was good with PR and media doesn't mean he was universally loved. Nor should it.

Hello and welcome! You've got a very interesting recipe there. I'd be interested to hear how it works out. You're relying on the grapefruit peel for the bittering rather than the hops? You put in pith and all? Is two grapefruits going to be overkill on the bitterness? Which Belgian yeast? The classic witbier yeast likes it warm, but some of them may take issue with starting at 74F. You'll have to keep us all updated on your progress. I've got my own wheat brew under way now- 4 lbs German Pils 2 lbs German wheat malt 2 lbs Raw Red Wheat 1.25 lbs Munich malt .5 oz Perle at 50 minutes .25 oz Tettnanger at 15 minutes Weihenstephan wheat yeast. Fermenting in the mid-high 60s.

Isn't this just a subset of the greater problem: almost nobody in the USA can manufacture a decent tortilla, and those who can aren't distributing them widely? Complaints about fragility and flavor of the wrapper are about the tortilla. Solve the tortilla problem, and the wrap problem goes away.

So... why don't you go shopping for mixers at the grocery store rather than the liquor store? Lots of things that don't have MIXER on them in big letters go great with booze. See most of the rest of this thread... Or are you regulated in such a way that you're not allowed to mix liquor store and grocery store products for sale? Or are you a liquor store manager looking to stock some mixer-type stuff to save people from having to shop at the grocery store?

It sounds like you should be fine, having all those windows will certainly keep the stairwell from getting overwhelmed. If you're really concerned about it, set up an exhaust fan so that you're sure to be pulling lots of air out of the window. You might want to check out the big homebrew forums on the net and take note of how many NYC folks represent on them. brewboard.com, forum.northernbrewer.com, morebeer's forum, and tastybrew would be good places to start. You might also want to keep an eye on www.nycbeer.org, as it used to have info for homebrewers in the city, but is currently undergoing renovations.

It's certainly been done there. eG member Iain brews in Williamsburg, or did a couple of years ago. It really depends on your space. Are you in a cheaply constructed new condo with paper thin walls? Are you in an old tenement with shared ventilation? Cook something really aromatic like Indian food and see if your neighbors complain. If not, then brew on! Or you could rent a storage space to stow your fermenters... the Mini-Storage on 2nd and 2nd is convenient to most of the E. Vill.

Indeed. I don't know the facts from any personal experience or in-depth research, but it sounds to me like what the Puppies are doing is not all that different from a protection racket. Threats of actions that are intended to damage a business and scare off customers if the business does not give the Puppies what they want... if they can get mobsters for it, they should be able to get the Puppies for it too. Too bad I'm not a prosecutor as all that is in the hands of the DA's office and the cops... though we do have an AUSA/restauranteur who occasionally reads the PA board on eG... I wonder if Paloma serves foie dishes... hmmmm. For a civil suit, there has to be an entity that can get hit with the judgment/injunction. If the Puppies are just a loose federation of nutjobs who are all on Nick C's speed dial, then I wonder what the law could do about it. Civil conspiracy might do the trick...

Word! Now if somebody in PHL could get the recipe for Tim Love's (of Lonesome Dove in Ft. Worth) Foie Gras shooters (gotta love the Texan twist), I could see a great fund raising/foie supporting event based around selling them... the Puppies would show up, and probably get themselves arrested. BTW, I'm a Philly local lawyer who might be convinced into looking into civil RICO or other causes of action that the Puppies might be subject to.

Mmmmm. That reminds me that I should brew up something Saison-y soon... That recipe last year was tasty.

I second the recommendation of Colameco's Food Show. It is an NJN (New Jersey's PBS conglomerate) thing, usually NYC focused, and I don't know if it gets carried on stations other than the 4 NJN stations... but the interview material with chefs is great, and the DIY segments are also quality information on techniques.

I like Pimms and don't think of it as flawed at all. ThinkingBartender thinks it is objectionable, and easily replaced by something better that he could concoct given a little free time. I'm curious about what that might be. Any new member of the Pimms family of drinks would be welcome, so I'm interested in hearing about replacements and substitutions that work.

M- Thanks for the reply. I've still not gotten around to picking either of those books up yet. They're still on the list. My big belgian strong project is turning out quite nicely now... 3 months in, and they're just starting to settle in and balance out a bit. I did a serial brew with that yeast, and did another variation on a strong dark recipe, so I've got a case of each bottles (minus a couple of sample bottles tried during maturation), and a keg full of a blend of both recipes. For spring brewing, I've got a belgian wit spiced with chamomile and hibiscus and lime leaf that just got tapped, and an experiment in late hop additions, a beer that had lots of hops added in the last 20 minutes of the boil. That late-hopped one is still in the fermenter, so no impressions on how the experiment worked yet.

Watching this space anxiously for you to one-up the Pimms recipe with something much better... It's getting to be summer lawn party time and a new option would be much fun. ← Any brilliant progress to report on the Pimms replacement yet?