cdh

Welcome Diedre! Great to have somebody on the inside of the PLCB joining the conversation! If you're doing the selecting, then you've got the most inside scoop there is. Keep dishing!

Mixing stuff into the sugar sounds risky-- the stuff might burn before the sugar caramelizes leaving a burnt taste rather than a spice taste. Nothing granular but sugar will melt and get crispy like sugar does.

Mantee is the Estonian word for boulevard... probably not what she's talking about either.

My mother (a Dickinson alumna) sings the praises of Rillo's in Carlisle... and I'd trust her taste. And I realize that I flaked on my familial York favorite that I promised months ago... which is the Blue Moon Cafe. No more data than that, as I've never gone food hunting out thataway. Best cdh

I'd agree that the sample strategy is reasonable. I don't understand the disdain for "samplers" while simultaneously advocating samples. I'd add that Adagio teas was the source of a lot of my green tea knowledge back when they had their Tea Horizons tea-samples-of-the-month program going on. Every month 5 one ounce samples of some really exotic stuff came to me. That's where I figured out that I loved Li Zi Xiang as well as Hojicha. I'd check them out and order their green samplers for a broad survey that includes a deep chinese green selection.

I've had a Gaggia Carezza almost since they were introduced. It is a fine machine that had pulled at least 2 fine doubles a day for me for years, though with a few issues, none of which is exceedingly annoying. All of the issues are seal and drip related-- 1) steam wand drips after shutting off the steam flow. Just turn it so that the drops fall into the drip tray. 2) the group head drips every so often after pulling a shot. Fills up the drip tray pretty quickly. 3) when heating it up to steaming temp after pulling a shot, the group head belches steam and a goodly amount of water, which do, occasionally overflow the drip tray. 4) the drip tray is small and needs frequent emptying. None of these make me hate the machine, and for the price, it was a bargain and a half. I recall getting it for around $150 as an intro deal or some such, but it was so long ago I'm not sure.

So, y'all, How's it going? Got anything brewing yet? I find myself in possession of a gallon and a half of still quite cloudy mead fermenting in an airlocked PET bottle, and a quart of honey vinegar, which is what the dregs I left in a pitcher became after a couple of weeks. The honey vinegar seems quite promising in taste, though very cloudy despite having been poured through a coffee filter on its way into the bottle it is in now.

Yes. I really like these lightly oxidized oolongs. Pouchongs too. Ten Ren green king's tea is marvellous. Any Jade Oolong is ethereal.

Hmmm... I have a siphon and don't use it much at all. I find that the particular kind I have makes the fizzy water taste quite unpleasantly metallic. As to making soda stay fizzy longer (and this trick works best with plain fizzy H2O) is to learn never to depressurize the inside of your soda bottle. With a full, closed, plastic quart bottle dispense the soda thus: Pick up bottle. Invert it. Place it over your glass or other chosen receptical. Slowly unscrew the top until water hisses out. Screw the top back on tight. Turn the bottle right side up again. That trick takes a little practice at mastering the art without spritzing fizzy water all over the place before it hits your glass. Worth knowing, since you'll never have to deal with flat fizzy again. Works to a lesser degree with sugary things... but they seem to lose their fizz when treated this way, while plain water retains fizz. Don't know why. Speculation is encouraged,

Chrisamirault-- It is clear that you hate the idea of Vegas, even though you admit to never having seen the place in person. In your worldview, does any chef have a place in Vegas, or do those people really only deserve short order fry cooks? I'll admit that I've never been to Vegas either, but I am not carrying around nearly so much negativity about the place. Did Vegas kick your dog? Have an ex who moved there and loved it? You knew a herd of dimwitted fratboys who wouldn't shut up about it? You watched Leaving Las Vegas one too many times? Your tone makes it seem that your beef is much less about the chefs and their reputations and more about the place and how undeserving it is of their talents. Why shouldn't there be an easily accessable part of the country where anybody from any state could fly in and indulge in the works of chefs from all over the country? Well prepared food as a tourist draw says good things to me about the state of American food culture... if people are drawn to Vegas for the food, that is really great evidence that there is a real hunger out in the sticks for better food... and if they're drawn there for other reasons and encounter good food, then that's great too. Why not look at Vegas as gastronomic training wheels for the inexperienced but curious gourmand? Much less intimidating than, say, NYC, no?

hmmm... peppery isn't how I'd describe Talisker. Iodiney, smokey and a little seaweedy does the stuff more justice. Laphroaig reminds me of seaweed and burning tires... but in a good way.

Well, I'm out in the country... maybe a scrapplefest could be arranged sometime in the next couple of months.

Word, yo! Sacrifice of pleasure in search of long life will only make whatever time you're given feel a whole lot longer than it actually was.

Have indeed been back... actually. Had a fine steak dinner there about a year and a half ago. Haven't dissed the place to others, though when those of us who were there are together, sometimes a snarky reference to THAT MEAL gets made. No ongoing vendetta.

Hmmm... I dunno. I think that we were grumpy enough at the point of leaving that nothing done on the spot could have salvaged the mood. We were reveling in the righteous indignation that inspired the miniscule tip evil we had just perpetrated, and anything immediate to raise our mood might have inspired feelings of guilt in us for that. (I've still not felt a twing of guilt over that particular microtip yet.) I must admit that had the final trisection of the check been successful and I'd not had to dispute the charge I was stuck with, I'd not have addressed the management at all.

Well, I'm just wondering what would have happened if a gripe with the manager on the way out was lodged. We felt our tip left our message pretty clearly. What more was to be gained by reporting it to the authorities as we're being urged to do here? What would a good manager do after hearing that litany of missteps has just happened? The bill was settled (apparently finally, though not in actuality). No comps could have been granted... an apology would have done nothing to make the situation better...

Hmmmm... Sometimes even with clueless rude front of house folk, the idea of tattling to the manager in front of them seems a socially maladroit thing to do and one I'd not do. We're all socialized to hate tattle tales and stool pigeons... what's running to the manager but that, exactly? Honestly, having a waiter dressed down in front of me is not what I want. Once, a few years ago at a steakhouse, three friends and I went for lunch. (To spoil the punchline, I've got a copy of the complaint letter around here someplace, but I'll just present the lowlights that have stuck in my memory 3 years after the fact.) The food was fabulous, but the service abysmal. Waiter so clueless that he couldn't tell the difference between mayonaise and bernaise and brought the former to the table with the steaks. Trying to catch his attention to see about getting the sauce replaced with what we'd asked for was a chore, punctuated by his snippy quip "hold on a second, I can't get out of this room without going right past you." After the sauce was straightened out and the meal was consumed in all of its beefy, hash-browny, creamed spinach-y deliciousness, the worst excuse imaginable for an espresso was proffered upon request for same. Clueless waiter was challenged on this, and said that it was just how they made it there. Ughhh... Train somebody to use the damn machine right... grrrr... Then the billing debacle occurred with several runs back and forth to the credit card machine to properly trisect the bill and put an even third on each of the cards presented. After the first round of slips added up to 150% of the bill they had to go back... then the second round had 1/2 on one card and 1/4 on each other card... back it went... then it looked right.. This never, actually occurred, as it happens, me being the lucky party charged for 100% of meal when the credit charges were posted, necessitating a fax of my 1/3 of the bill signed slip in order to dispute the charges. Having gotten to that point and raising our party to the attention of the establishment well after the fact, I sat down and wrote out a narrative explaining the parade of errors we were subjected to. The restaurant's management responded quite nicely, sending a $100 gift certificate that could be used at the steakhouse or several other restaurants that are also owned by the same folks. Anyway, after feeling maltreated at the hands of the server, we were all grumpy, yet none of us thought to run to the manager on the spot. Some time to cool down and reflect on the experience seemed proper... we were feeling mistreated, and tipped accordingly... but the tip was intended to convey the message to the dang idjit we wanted to communicate with. A dressing down by the manager would do less to make this fellow reconsider his career choice than making it it actually cost him a few bucks in taxes on assumed tip income he didn't make would. Just my amusing tale of restaurant misadventures and how they got handled... I'm sure there are horrified folks out there... so sorry to horrify you, either by my tale of mistreatment, or my party's bad tipping reaction to same.

The best-spiced scrapple I know of is from Habbersetts. Alderfers' is also pretty tasty. There are a lot of scrapples of out there that don't get the balance right. Either too liver-y, or too corn-y or too bland... Those two, above, are pretty close to ideal. What's funny is that out here in Pa Dutch country (Godshall's is a couple of miles from my house), the only variety of Godshall's scrapple regularly stocked in the the supermarkets is their turkey variety... which just strikes me as wrong.

Absolutely... if you promise to send me a case of the wine you use it on.

I love the German sweet wines as well... Mmmmmm Auslese... and good French dessert wines as well... mmmmmmm Banyuls, mmmmmmmm Montbazillac, mmmmmmm Sauturnes! However, the sweet wines that most people come into contact with are more along the lines of White Zins and jug wines like Gallo Hearty Burgundy. The white zins can often (to me) taste as if there is some rotten fruit in there... there is a hint of something not right. If other people taste that and associate it with sweet wines, I'd say that they're pretty reasonable in running as far away from them as they can get. Wine is complex, and no one factor is going to make a wine good or bad. There are yummy sweet wines and crap sweet wines. Same for dry wines. But thinking statistically, given the oceans of crappy jug-grade wine and white zin out there that not-quite-wine-drinkers encounter, the conclusion that sweet wine is bad wine ain't too far off. Some people like wines, and have no desire whatsoever to understand the underlying factors that contribute to the characteristics that they like. It's easy to get caught up in ridiculing the obscurantism... "Grapes from the top of the hill picked at dawn by only left-handed pickers wielding silver shears, and carried by hand to be crushed at the stroke of noon, blah blah blah."

Well said, Sam. What's particularly sad, however, is when one finds a particularly well stocked bar and then discovers that the individual behind the bar has no idea what to do with half of the stuff stocked.

Is it brewing style or marketing hype? Are they making a super malty barleywine meets oktoberfest beer, or are they just slapping the word imperial on the bottles because it sounds manly and classy and increases sales? How long have imperial IPAs been around? What's their story? The whole imperial nomenclature thing strikes me as shorthand for the manifestation of the "too much is never enough" mindset in brewing. But hey-- whatever they call it, if it tastes good, then that is all that matters. What did the Imperial Oktoberfest taste like?

Marvellous blog! What an oven! When you said you built it instead of a barbeque, does that mean that you had anything to do with the brickwork, or just instructing your local masons what to do? That brickwork in the dome is quite something to marvel at. Just finding somebody capable of doing work of that quality would be a task in the USA, I think.

This bartender as database idea seems a little off, honestly. If you have a favorite drink, then know its recipe and be able to communicate it. If you want to try something new and different, then ask the bartender if they have a specialty, or if they can make something you'd like if you also like X drink. I'd bet that almost all drinks that get sold are either the top tier classics, as discussed above, or drinks that get actively promoted by the establishment. If the bartender had trouble making one of the drinks that appears on the cocktail menu, then they really don't belong behind the bar... but inability to construct an Aviation (as if any commercial bar had maraschino behind it) or a Monkey Gland, or a Bronx is pretty much meaningless. Nobody expects a bartender to be able to make them without guidance, so none of them can. If you want one, come in with the recipe, and hope they have the ingredients.

I have to agree with Bob about the Belgians being the ideal place to start for somebody who doesn't like the readily available mass market beers out there. But Belgium is the land of variety, and not all of its beers will be to your taste. I'd start with the abbey style beers, more particularly the dubbels. They have a very strong malt profile without a lot of hoppy bitterness. There are the Trappist breweries, which are run by a specific order of monks who actually brew the beer, and there are other abbey style beers where I'm not sure who does the brewing. You'll get a wide range of flavors, from toasty to raisiny to honey-like. Then there are the tarter Belgian styles: witbiers are the least tart of the bunch, but quite tasty with orange and coriander flavors taking the place of the hop flavors. Hoegaarden is the Belgian standard, and Celis White ( in its old incarnation) is just as good... they were both developed by the same brewer, Pierre Celis. They're a very good beer for people who don't like beer. Some of the american versions are pale imitations, so try to get your hands on a Celis or a Hoegaarden, and then taste the rest with full knowledge of the top of the line. I'll say that Ommegang's Witte is quite good if you can get your hands on it. There are the much more tart lambic family of beers, which are often fruity. They are much more like wines than beers, but they are tasty. Lindemans is widely distributed, and has a number of fruit flavors where the fruit definitly predominates over the beer. There other lambic makers represented in the US as well, like Cantillion and Boon... they are much much more tart, and some of the lambic funk shines through. There are also the unflavored lambics, which are just wheat beers fermented with the natural yeast in the air in a certain valley in Belgium. These are challenging brews, though by no means hoppy or bitter. Also, you might want to try the products of Liefmans brewery, which makes a beer similar to lambic but not lambic. Their Goudenband is of the "old brown" style, rich, sour, very complex. Their Framboise and Kriek are fruit enhanced versions of this beer. If you can get your hands on anything brewed by Rodenbach, then you're in for a treat. Rodenbach brews Flemish red ales, which are also a sour beer. Their different offerings are set apart by the amount of ageing they've received, and they age in wooden vats, so lots of flavors make their way in to the beer while it is maturing. Rodenbach also augments one of their beer blends with a cherry flavor... it used to be called Rodenbach Alexander, but has been discontinued and rebranded and reintroduced in a different formulation that I've not tried. Other beers in this family that you might run across in the US are Duchesse de Bourgogne and Petrus... also worth trying for their not-like-beer-ness. On the other hand, I'd suggest staying away from trippels and strong blondes if bitter beer flavors don't agree with your palate. These are strong, sweet, but hoppy. Probably not your cup of tea (or beer as the case may be.)