slkinsey

The secret of the Boston shaker is to go all-metal. Then you can just squeeze the shaker to break the seal. As a bonus, it results in a colder drink. As an additional bonus, it makes a cook "snap!" sound when you break the seal. As a third bonus, you're riding the equipment curve instead of following it.

IMO, there is nothing wrong with shaking (or stirring) every cocktail, especially if one is approaching the craft as a beginner. I can't think of any cocktail that is ruined by shaking, and only very few (egg white drinks come to mind) are impossible to make via stirring.

The article, at least, has more correct information (although I'd hesitate to call a Daiquiri a "Gimlet with rum").

Heh. No, of course you don't count. We've already established that you're an outlier.

At this point, they very likely do most of their business on the internet or telephone. Very little walk-in business to justify a Manhattan rent. So... still curious: Who has been back to NJ for a repeat food trip?

I should begin by saying that I really like Mark Bittman's work. His cookbooks are excellent, I admire his recent writings on the ecological, ethical and moral aspects of the foods we eat, and I like the way he often breaks down otherwise complex restaurant foods into simple iterations. And although I've never met him, I like the personality he projects in his television and video appearances. That said, his recent NY Times article, and especially the accompanying video, do not represent his best work. Any time a video on cocktails starts out with the line "I'm not a big cocktail drinker, but..." you're likely to be in for some rough sledding. Next he notices that almost all of the cocktails he makes consists of booze, something sweet and something sour. In other words, some kind of Sour. Okay, so far so good. There is fertile ground there. Next, he says that he looked around at old recipes for cocktails, and discovered that "80% or so of cocktails are pretty much made from that same formula." Really? 80% of cocktails are Sours? Often in these videos Bittman spends some time with a well-known chef where he explores some of his ideas. This video continues the trend. So he goes to Porterhouse Restaurant where he chats with chef Michael Lomonaco and his "barman" Brad (no last name given). Really?! In a city that has telegenic and well-spoken mixologists such as Julie Reiner, Audrey Saunders, Eben Klemm, Eben Freeman, Gary Regan (who has written persuasively on the "families" of cocktails) or, dare I suggest, Dale DeGroff -- Michael Lomonaco was his go-to guy for discussing cocktails?! Lomonaco starts things off by explaining that what they're doing is taking raw alcohol and combining it with things to "make it more palatable." Brad Noname starts off with a "classic" Margarita, which he compounds with tequila, lime and 1:1 simple syrup (which Lomonaco says should be boiled). They discuss the necessity of using quality ingredients, and then Lomonaco says that simple syrup helps to make the spirit more palatable again. Why anyone would need to make $50/bottle Patron tequila "more palatable" is a mystery to me. Brad then shakes this mixture in a small shaker and dumps the whole thing, ice and all, into a rocks glass. No Cointreau in evidence. Bittman then asks, "what if I do the same thing with vodka, do you call it something different?" "A Collins," replies Brad. Really? A Collins with no fizz water? And vodka is the classic base spirit that defines the drink? Bittman says, "a Collins is vodka, lime and sugar." Really? Then Brad chimes in with the brilliant observation that "if you do that with gin, it's a Gimlet." Really?! That's a lot of misinformation packed into a small amount of time, garnished with poor technique. Getting into brown spirits, Brad "proves Bittman's theory" (which was about Sours, you may recall) with the example of the Manhattan. Apparently, the vermouth is the sweet component and... er... bitters stands in for the sour component. "I'm not seeing a lot of differences here," says Bittman. Really?! Not seeing a lot of differences between a Margarita and a Manhattan? Isn't that like saying you don't see a lot of differences between pancakes and biscuits? It ends with a self-pat on the back, saying: "I have this theory. I go do research. It seems like it's correct. I come here and talk to the experts. I look like a genius." It's too bad, because I think his demystifying, reductive approach could work well with some real background knowledge and a talk with someone who would actually be appropriate for such a video. I just don't understand going to Lomonaco to talk about cocktails. He got the video and article about no-knead bread spot on, but then again, he was in an area in which he had some background knowledge, and he talked to the right guy. I wonder how that would have turned out had he never baked a loaf of bread, and done the bread baking video with Dale DeGroff.

Wow. That's sad. It was one of my favorite stores in the City. Haven't been there forever, since I've got cookware up the wazoo. But I'll have to go back before they move.

If you have a food item in a rigid container and reduce the pressure inside the container, the air will be "sucked out" of the food item. Things like watermelon and cucumber are full of air, so they are especially good for this. If you have liquid in the rigid container as well as the food item, when you reduce the pressure you can see the air coming out of the food item in the form of bubbles. When you release the pressure, the food item "reinflates." If you have liquid in the container with the food item, the liquid will be "sucked in" to the areas formerly occupied by air. Needless to say, the efficacy of this technique will depend greatly on the porosity and other characteristics of the food item. Dense items, such as meats, probably don't benefit all that much from this technique -- although there is some benefit. This technique only works with a rigid container. "Marinating" a food item in a vacuum bag is only useful in that it greatly reduces the amount of liquid you have to use, but it works otherwise like traditional marination.

Yea. Well, I wouldn't call it a "purée." Pea pods are pretty fibrous, so the best you can hope for is to thoroughly shred them in the blender and liberate as much Spring goodness and green peaness as possible. Then you strain through a fine sieve to hold back all the fibrous shreds. It added quite a bit of flavor, a little thickness and a very nice pale green color to the stock.

Anyone seen it at retail around NYC?

My favorite Irish whiskey cocktail is Dave Wondrich's Weeski.: 2 oz : Irish whiskey 1 oz : Lillet blonde 1 tsp : Coinreau 2 dashes orange bitters Stir/strain/lemon twist. This drink really brings out the peachy qualities of Irish whiskey, which I sometimes highlight even further with an additional dash of peach bitters.

I made pea risotto the other night. Used vialone nano rice. The broth was made with the backs of a few chickens. Then, after that, I cooked the pea pods in the mild chicken broth. That was pureed in the blender and strained through a fine sieve to make a "pea broth" that I used in making the risotto. Nice way to get all the pea flavor out of English shell peas.

The only other suggestion I'd have other than béchamel (which I always use) is to make sure you use a high quality, dense ricotta. If you can't get something that comes out of the container in crumbles rather than blobs, drain it overnight. Then measure the drained ricotta for your recips. It could be that your ricotta disappears because it's too watery -- in other words, you're adding too much water and not enough cheese.

There is no bechamel sauce in that ziti. What you're seeing is tons of melted mozzarella. Then, where is the ricotta?

Although one would think that Una Pizza Napoletana has brought that into a bit better perspective. A big part of what you're paying for at Franny's is all the locally-sourced produce, etc. That stuff is spendy. I'm sure there is a reason no other pizzeria in metro-NYC is doing it.

I think they use a harder-than-optimal (for me) flour at Franny's. This allows them to get a very thin crust with a good chew (as opposed to the more tender typical Neapolitan crust), but can make it a little more difficult to cut. I don't mind it. For me, it's part of the fun.

I have to say I've never understood this. Uncut single-sized pizza has been standard in Italy since forever, and no one seems to have any trouble with it. 1. I expect better customer service in the U.S. then in Italy. 2. these pies aren't single-sized. 1. I don't know why, since that certainly doesn't reflect my experience. 2. Yes, they are. I have to say I've never understood this. Uncut single-sized pizza has been standard in Italy since forever, and no one seems to have any trouble with it. The pies in Italy aren't as large as the ones at Franny's. More importantly, the ones in Italy are served on a platter that is bigger than the pizza, which makes cutting immensely easier (i.e. Franny's pizzas are hanging over the edge of the plate. I've consumed dozens upon dozens of pizze in Italy, and my experience does not accord with either of your claims. Neapolitan style pizze are typically right around the same size as those served at Franny's, and I wouldn't say that it is typical to serve them on plates that are substantially larger than the pizza. Rather, I would say that it's typical to serve them on a flat plate with little or no rim that is right around the same size as the pizza. A brief image search for "pizza napoletana" on Italian web sites will bring up plenty of images like this one or this one or this one, showing a pizza more or less the same size as the plate on which it is served. I would say that this is the most common. Sometimes, as with this one or perhaps this one, the plate will be slightly larger -- but I'm not sure they're so large as to provide a significant advantage. Quite commonly, as with this one or this one or this one or this one, the pizza is larger than the plate. In fact, if you look at this picture of five people eating pizza napoletana, you will see that all but one is substantially larger than the plate on which it is served. The diners don't seem to be having any difficulty, and have simply moved their pizze over to the side to create some room on the plate. What I think it is, is that Americans are used to eating pizza in slices with their hands.

I have to say I've never understood this. Uncut single-sized pizza has been standard in Italy since forever, and no one seems to have any trouble with it.

Undercook the ziti. Use béchamel (I don't see a lot of ricotta in that picture, but I do see plenty of béchamel).

I'm not sure this rises to the level of "patently obvious" or even "probable." How would this work better on a practical basis? Let's look at the queue model: According to your proposal, they would open up the reservations queue at some date, and people could load it up. Your specific example proposes offering a reservation slot nine months in the future. How is this egalitarian? This seems to unduly favor not only people who were "in the know" about Ko to the tune of 9 months of more in advance of other people, but unduly favors metro-NYC residents, since most visitors to the city are unlikely to know about their plans 9 or 6 months in advance -- especially where they might like to go to dinner. Would there also be some mechanism in place to prevent someone from placing his name in the queue 500 times and then picking and choosing (or giving away) the reservations they want? This would be simple to do for anyone with a knowledge of email forwading aliases and proxy servers (this favoring the technologically savvy). A queue system would either be too short a queue to offer any benefits over the current system, or would be so long as to be about as egalitarian as the queue to buy season tickets for the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field, which currently favors those whose parents guessed they might like season tickets some ten years before they were born. A lottery system, performed on a daily basis, seems a bit more egalitarian, but still has many potential problems. Presumably the system would have some way of accounting for reservations for parties of two or one, which might involve some fairly tricky weighting math depending on how egalitarian you wanted to make the lottery (Does a reservation for two get one chance or two chances in the lottery? How do you account for the fact that some chances take away two slots whereas others only take away one?). And, of course, the technologically savvy should be able to game a lottery system to their advantage fairly easily. Presumably they're not going to assign staff to visually check the lottery entrants on a daily basis, and anyone with imagination and technological savvy could fool an automated computer system using proxy severs (to fool IP address checking), email forwarding aliases (to fool email address checking) and variations of, say, Steven Shaw, Steve Shaw, S. Shaw, Steven A. Shaw, Steve A. Shaw., S. A. Shaw, Ellen Shapiro, etc. It's even possible to get one-time credit card numbers for use online. Either system has the problem that you don't know right away whether you got your reservation, which is a major advantage of the current system. Now, it could be possible to make these models more "game-proof" and egalitarian (the lottery system much more so than he queue system) but it would require a much more sophisticated system, and most likely one that requires a certain amount of human monitoring. Meanwhile, the advantages over "first X reservations to click through starting at 10AM two weeks out" seem slight for the work and complexity that would be required to make another system work. The question is whether the system is reasonably fair and egalitarian, and the answer seems to be that it is. It doesn't seem reasonable to invent an entirely new system with much greater complexity and security, that is more burdensome to most customers, in order to solve the problem that some people seem to have a faster connection to the reservations server than others. One possible solution might be to set aside a small number of reservations each day (say 4 seats) for a small lottery in order to accommodate those who may not have been able to reserve due to a slow internet connection to the Ko server. Even this would carry some significant technological burden for Ko, however, and may simply not be worth that amount of extra trouble.

Mentha × villosa, called "apple mint," is a hybrid of M. spicata (spear mint) and M. suaveolens (also called "apple mint)."

If you're in Cuba, you're likely making your Mojitos with Mentha nemorosa, aka "Cuban mint." The closest we can come to this, and it's very close, is Mentha spicata, aka regular old spear mint. Pepper mint (Mentha × piperita) is a hybrid of spear mint and water mint (Mentha aquatica). I find pepper mint to be not very harmonious in cocktails due to its high menthol content.

While I'm posting, here's a first look at the menu. This is available in various places around the interwebs, but I thought I'd summarize it here so it can provide context for future reports on experiences at the bar. Once nice feature is that the menus will be printed on nice paper, rather than inserted into the usual heavy leather book as they are at Flatiron and Pegu. This means you can take yours home, if you like. The menu at Clover Club is somewhat smiliar to the menu at Flatiron Lounge, only expanded (in some interesting directions). This means that it consists of acknowledged classics, some "new classics" and a nice sprinkling of entirely new creations from Julie and her crew. This is not a menu that places a great deal of emphasis on new techniques and the unexpected, as with Tailor and some of the offerings at PTD. It's cocktails in the classic tradition. The menu is divided into sections, consisting of sours & daisies, collins & fizzes, bucks & mules, cobblers & highballs, juleps & smashes, swizzles, royales, cocktails, and punches. Each section is prefaced with a short history, explanation and/or anecdote. The sours & daisies included the Tequila Daisy, New York Sour, and Chaz Baker's Daisy De Santiago. We had a chance to sample all of these. It's especially fun to see people progress through surprise, puzzlement and pleasure upon reacting to the tannins in the claret float on top of the NY Sour. Under collins & fizzes were the Southside Fizz ("London Style," which I think explains the otherwise unorthodox inclusion of cucumber), Hoffman House Fizz and Bohemian Fizz (gin, elderflower, lemon, soda). Bucks & mules brings us Grandma's Buck (rhum agricole, sour apple juice, gingerale), the Gin Gin Mule, and the El Diablo, which I believe comes from Trader Vic. I'm anxious to sample Grandma's Buck. The other two were not featured at the opening party, but I've had them any number of times at both Flatiron and Pegu, and they're as delicious and refreshing as can be. Now we start getting into parts of the menu that (re)break some fertile ground. Cobblers & highballs offers a Madrono Cobbler (a tweaked Sherry Cobbler including oloroso sherry, amaro and muddled strawberry), a Champagne Cobbler and a Hemingway Cobbler (essentially, a Hemmingway Daiquiri served cobbler-style). I haven't had the chance to try any of these yet, but they will be on the top of my list. What synchronicity that, just when I was thinking of exploring cobblers, here comes a whole menu section devoted to them! Juleps & smashes is also a category I really like to see. It's not too manmy bars that will feature three crushed ice categories (Swizzles on the way!) that are this labor-intensive. As you can see from my pictures above, Clover Club has nice barware for their Juleps as well, and the bar staff are sufficiently well versed in Julepry that they won't have any trouble going off menu in this direction. In fact, the traditional bourbon Julep we sampled at the party doesn't seem to be on the menu. Instead, we find the Highland Smash (scotch, lemon, mint, honey), the Market Street Julep (pisco, pineapple, mint) and the Jersey Julep (applejack, mint, maple syrup). This is what I mean about "cocktails in the classic tradition." For swizzles there are the Bermuda Swizzle, Queens Park Swizzle, and Negroni Swizzle. I had the chance to try the Negroni Swizzle when Giuseppe was working on it down at Flatiron. It’s compounded exactly how you might expect, but the swizzling and crushed ice creates an entirely different impression. Bermuda Swizzles were in great supply at the party, and theirs is a good one. They certainly aren't stingy with the Angostura bitters, making this drink at once warm and spicy, cold and refreshing. For royales they have the French 75 (pictured above), Charles Baker’s Burra Peg, and the Sorrello from Flatiron (muddled orange, campari, punt e mes, champagne). Hard to go wrong with these, and they're priced to sell -- especially for champagne drinks. Under Cocktails is the Clover Club, of course, the popular Slope from Flatiron (and quite popular among eGullet cocktailians) the Improved Whiskey Cocktail, the Gin Blossom (gin, apricot eau de vie, martini bianco, orange bitters), the Mole Old Fashioned (mezcal, mole agave nectar, angostura & orange Bitters), the Black Maamba (rye whiskey, pommeau de normandie, green chartreuse -- Giuseppe’s twist on the Copperhead/Diamondback meme), the Bramble and the Perthshire from Flatiron (single malt scotch, mandarin orange, lillet blonde, lemon, spice). I’ve had all of these, except for the Mole Old Fashioned and the Gin Blossom. You can see the picture of the old school ice they’re using upthread. The Black Maamba is a good introduction for those who may be working their way into boozier, herbal cocktails as the use of pommeau de normandie in place of the usual bonded applejack lightens things up considerably. Last, but not least, is the selection of punches, all served in vingate punchbowls for 4 to 8. As Julie says, "it's my answer to bottle service." They have their Clover Punch (gin, lemon, blackberry, allspice, champagne) a Pimms Punch and the classic Algonquin Bar Punch (Jamaican rum, sloe gin, lemon, sugar, raspberry).

More on Clover Club from Metromix New York. A few of the Q&As below...

More on Clover Club in The Brooklyn Paper The article mentions Julie's desire to bring "classy, swanky cocktail lounges" to the neighborhood, the punches they will have on offer ("my answer to bottle service"), the food from chef Gavin Citron -- and includes a nice picture of the always-pulchritudinous Ms. Reiner making a Julep at the bar. I liked this quote especially: This is something both Julie and Audrey have mentioned from time to time lately. The NYC cocktail community has become awfully serious lately, with drinks seeming to get dryer, boozier and more bitter with every cycle; and cocktailians looking down their noses at lighter, fruitier, sweeter libations as well as the bars that include them on their menus. I think there's room for both sides of the coin, and one of the things I've always admired about Julie's bars is that they're places where a serious-minded cocktailian can go for a serious-minded cocktail, but they're also places a relative neophyte can go to have a more approachable libation that it just as "cocktailian" as the hard-core drinks. There's more to cocktails than brown spirits stirred with vermouth, a herbal liqueur or two and a healthy whallop of bitters.