slkinsey

Isn't Franny's more or less on the boundary between Park Slope and Prospect Heights?

In Italian-American restaurants, I'd say that it's somewhat common to serve clams with grating cheese. The Italian-American staple, linguine with white clam sauce, almost always features plenty of grated cheese.

It's true in my experience, although as with all things, I am sure there may be some exceptions.

Odd. "Watery" is the last word I'd use to describe Kesso's yogurt. If anything, I think it is significantly thicker than Fage. There are lots of things I use Kesso's strained yogurt for where I find Fage a poor substitute because it's too watery.

I agree with most of the things you're saying. However, I should point out that it's a whole lot easier to say those things when you live in Napa. For someone like me, in NYC, there is simply no such thing as a local grapefruit. I understand that your example is for "anything fresh" -- but it's a simple fact that a huge percentage of Americans live in areas of the country where their diet would be severely restricted for large portions of the year by eating strictly locally. So, for us, the question is whether there is a meaningful difference, carbon-footprint wise, between a grapefruit from Israel and a grapefruit from California. I don't know for sure what the answer is, but depending on transportation routes and methods, it may be that the grapefruit from Israel has a smaller footprint. What is not a realistic option is for people in First World countries who live more than X miles away from citrus production to simply never eat citrus fruit.

I think there may be some borough confusion. Isn't the Income Tax cocktail a variation on the Bronx, and not the Brooklyn?

I think it very much depends on the style and price point of the restaurant, and the depth of the wine list. What are the restaurant and wine list going to be like?

The advantage of the high proof cognacs (in the $60-$45 range) is that you don't need to use as much of it.

The "tang" of sourdough bread doesn't come from yeast. It comes from lactic acid-producing bacteria. Lactic acid-priducing bacteria are also responsible for the sourness of lambic beers, but these are different strains. The bacteria in lambic beers are Lactobacillus delbrukii and Pediococcus damnosus, whereas the bacteria in a sourdough are other strains such as Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis.

You might want to have a read through this thread. More technical/scientific information as to sourdough cultures here.

FYI: All this will do is give you a false sense of security in starting the culture, as you will see some activity from the commercial yeast for the first several cycles. Eventually these yeasts will die out and, if everything goes right, be replaced by a symbiotic culture of wild yeast and lactobacilli. All that "starting" a culture with beer yeast or bread yeast or juniper berries or grapes or honey or whatever does is delay the inevitable. Considering that the inevitable is what you want anyway, why not simply start with flour and water?

Are you sure your friend isn't simply misremembering the venue? It seems very unlikely to me that Pegu would have been serving a jasmine tea infusion and peach drink right around the same time as Flatiron. Seems more likely that your friend had the drink at Flatiron.

Kesso definitely has fairly limited distribution. But they're hardly a boutique artisanal producer. I buy mine at Fairway. My point was just that the example of Kesso proves that it's possible to make a high quality Greek style yogurt on a fairly large scale in the United States. Needless to say, Fage's operation is quite a bit larger than Kesso's. But if Fage is able to do this in Greece, I have to believe they can do it here as well -- and the quality of Kesso suggests that they can.

Just surfed back to this thread. In case it was not already clear as a result of the context of the discussion and the American "crudi trend" that grew out of NYC: I'm not suggesting that Pasternack and Batali invented the tradition of "Italian style raw seafood." They were quite upfront from the beginning that it was a tradition they had encountered in Italy and were introducing to America in their restaurant, Esca. What I am suggesting is that the American "crudi trend" grew out of NYC, and specifically out of Esca. Thus, for all intents and purposes, Pasternack "invented" crudo for the United States.

Considering that Kesso Foods in Queens makes Greek-style yogurt that is, IMO, better than Fage, I have to believe that it will be possible for the Fage people to work out the kinks in their new American facility.

Sounds like you want a rondeau.

SuzySushi, I think you're thinking of lamb's lettuce (Valerianella locusta), not lamb's quarters (Chenopodium album).

I agree. I think Old Overholt is a wonderful rye. I keep on hearing that they're going to come out with a new version of OOH, and I really hope it's simply a bump up to 100 proof (i.e., use the same old base spirit as always and just put less water in the bottle). If they did that, I'd probably go over to using OOH as my primary mixing rye over Rittenhouse. An interesting experiment is to try the low proof Rittenhouse versus Old Overholt (which comparison is won by OOH in my opinion). You can understand just how much is gained by the higher proof of Rittenhouse BIB. It's worthy of note that there are two different styles of rye whiskey, Monongahela and Maryland -- Rittenhouse and Old Overholt being the former and Pikesville being the latter.

Nice, Dave! Ideally we'd want a photograph with better lighting and higher resolution, but these definitely provide the basis for getting into the ballpark. From what I can see, I'd say that the copper layer is around 0.89 mm, the aluminum layers are around 0.17 mm (assuming that they are the same thickness -- the bottom layer is not easy to see in the picture) and stainless layers are around 0.335 mm).

A piece entitled "Raising a toast to the martin" appeared recently in the Houston Chronicle in Kristin Finan's "Kristin2Go" column. Within, the columnist talks with Christa Bradley, a bartender at the Davenport lounge which claims to have more than 70 "types" of Martini. The column, as much about the Sex and the City movie as it is about cocktails, makes particular mention of the Cosmopolitan. Interestingly, the Chronicle ran the following letter to the editor: Unfortunately the Chronicle's editors changed the original "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" to "Has the Chronicle no decency?" -- but one suspects that the copy editors of the Letters section may not be old enough to get the reference. Overall, a fun letter and one could say that I was brought up to agree with this viewpoint!

To each his (or her) own, I suppose. I think Gordon's is held in pretty high esteem, and sometimes I wonder what people might think about it if it were sold in the US at a comparable price point to Tanqueray. Let's see if I can explain better: I feel largely the same way about Bombay that you seem to feel about Gordon's. I don't care for it. Most people whose opinions are worth valuing agree, however, that Bombay is a very high quality gin -- and I guess I'd agree with them, despite the fact that I don't like it all that much. Other people have posted to these forums about how much they hate Tanqueray, as hard as it may be for me to fathom that. Choosing Tanqueray over Bombay (or vice-versa) doesn't strike me as a compromise, and it wouldn't strike me as a compromise even if one were chosen over the other on the basis of price. Rather, while it might represent a compromise on an individual basis due to a personal preference, it's not a compromise on a more universal basis because both products are high quality -- it wouldn't be a "substitution." I would argue that Gordon's is an equally high quality product although, as noted, I'd like it better if the proof were higher. If it's going to be your only gin, it's probably a compromise because of the limitations of the proof (although I'd say the same thing about Plymouth). But if a skilled bartender reaches for a bottle of Gordon's instead of a bottle of Beefeater, that selection is being made on the basis of flavor and I don't necessarily think he's making a compromise. What is a more universal compromise is choosing a clearly inferior product (MB triple sec) over a clearly superior product (Cointreau) on the basis of price. There may be a few, rare instances when MB triple sec is preferable over Cointreau, but not too many (and most likely you could get a better result using Cointreau cut down with simple if you don't mind the extra step). 95% of the time, if the bartender reaches for a bottle of MB triple sec instead of Cointreau, that selection is being made on the basis of price and represents a compromise. The larger point I was making about the usual trend to compromise on modifiers is that I believe that a Pegu Club made with Gordon's and Cointreau would be better (not to mention less expensive) than one made with Tanqueray and MB triple sec. I also believe that, even if one does consider Gordon's a compromise from Tanqueray, it's a significantly smaller drop than it is from Cointreau down to MB triple sec. Plenty of people with well-founded opinions hold Gordon's in high esteem alongside the other "top" brands. I don't think too many people would hold MB triple sec in the same company as Cointreau. And this is perhaps another part of the reason I think it is usually unwise to compromise on modifiers. Usually there is one iconic modifier that defines the category, and almost all the other brands are less expensive copies. With gin we have Tanqueray, Plymouth, Beefeater, Bombay, Junipero, etc. -- all of which are considered top quality. What's Grand Marnier's competition? Drambuie's competition? Bénédictine's competition? Chartreuse's competition? No one, really. This is often the case with modifiers.

I probably wasn't clear: I don't view using Gordon's gin as a compromise. I think it's a very high quality gin that just happens to be less expensive than Beefeater. I would consider using Gordon's a compromise only if I needed a gin with a higher proof. One could make a similar example comparing more expensive Baby Saz against less expensive Rittenhouse BIB (although the proof differential goes in the other direction).

IMO, there are simply too many "guestimates" involved in making the weight calculation (e.g., that the stainless cladding is the same thickness on both the Copper Core and the Stainless lines, that we know that thickness, that the handles and other hardware weigh the same on the two lines, that the pan dimensions and amounts of material used are the same on the two lines, etc.) to make it particularly useful. If any one of the several assumptions turns out to be incorrect, it throws off the whole calculation. Let's say that we determine thicknesses based on the blowup of a high resolution picture and that these results are not confirmed by the weight calculations. Should we suppose that the weight calculation is incorrect or that the visual measurements are incorrect? Or both? If we assume that the metals visible at the lip are representative of the various metal thicknesses -- which is a more secure assumption than the assumption that the stainless steel cladding and handles weigh exactly the same and that Copper Core and Stainless pieces have the exact same dimensions -- the most reliable and accurate way of measuring them would seem to be using a high resolution photo that includes a reliable visual reference for scale (which in this case could be the micrometer measurement of the thickness). Ideally one would saw the pan in half and measure at the base, in case the metals shown at the lip are not representative. But without that possibility, a high resolution photograph should be the most accurate way. (Fixed typos)

Tim, do you mean "Copper Core" or "Cop-R-Chef"? There is no such line as "Cop-R-Core." I don't think that weighing Copper Core and Stainless pans would provide any meaningful result, because the pans are different designs with different detailing and hardware. We're also making too many assumptions as to the relative weight and thickness of the stainless cladding. Assuming that the edge detail shows all the layers, it ought to be able to take a high resolution picture and calculate the layer thicknesses from a scaled blowup of the picture.

Ideally you'd want someone with a micrometer to measure the thickness at the lip and also take a high resolution picture. Then you'd have some basis for blowing up the picture and figuring out the thicknesses of the various layers.