slkinsey

Yes, I do think it makes a difference, unless you happen to have an oversized shaker you can use for making 2-3 drinks at once (and even this usually will not result in a drink that is exactly like an individually made drink). This depends somewhat on the drink. If you can get a large enough mixing vessel with a large enough amount of ice, stirred drinks seem to come out more or less the same. For shaken drinks, however, it is generally the case that two individually-shaken drinks will come out better than if they were shaken together. Think about it: Unless you have a shaker that is twice the size of your usual shaker, there is no way you can get the same ratio of ice to liquid (which will change the thermal transfer quite a lot) and there is not likely to be as much air space (which affects aeration, etc.). Even with a shaker that is twice the size of your usual shaker, it's not going to be quite the same. But don't take my word for it... try it yourself. It's pretty obvious, IMO. Whether or not the UK liquid ounce is actually used in practice, there does in fact exist a "British Imperial" liquid ounce, which comes out at 1/20th of an Imperial Pint (making it somewhat less than an American liquid ounce). What's interesting is that these standard measures are right around the same as an American fluid ounce, which comes in at 29.57 ml. What is the standard shot in Scotland? This accords with what I know of most bartenders: they give recipes in actual amounts. As you suggest, this probably has much to do with costing drinks, booze control, government regulations, etc.

You may not be concerned about the total volume of a drink, but I certainly am! I'd just as soon pass on that 6 ounce Pegu Club, thank you very much. I'd also dispute that a 3:2:1 Margarita will be "just like you make it" or will "taste the same" at any size. A Margarita made with 1.5 ounces of tequila, 1 ounce of Cointreau and a half-ounce of lime juice will be bracing, cold and refreshing at three ounces. A Margarita made with 3 ounces of tequila, 2 ounces of Cointreau and one ounce of lime juice -- even assuming that your shaker was twice the size of the one you used for the 3 ounce drink, and that you were able to chill/dilute the drink to the same degree (neither of which is likely to be true) won't be the same at six ounces. For one, by the time you get to the bottom of the three ounce drink, it's likely to still be cold and you're likely to be ready for another. By the time you get to the bottom of the six ounce drink, it's going to be warm and cloyingly sweet. I agree that there are different sorts of recipes. A simple drink like a Martini, that has wide variation in formula all the way from 1:1 to 20:1 is usefully discussed in ratios. But still, if I were going to give someone a recipe for my Martini formula, I'd size the drink to 3-4 ounces. For most other drinks, I think it makes the most sense to offer the drink the same way the vast majority of drink formulae have been given going all the way back to Jerry Thomas: in the actual volumes in which the author or mixologist expects the drink to be made. When I'm filpping through cocktail books, I automatically skip over books that specify recipes by parts. It's just too much trouble and, not for nothing is my experience that "parts" recipes don't tend to be very good ones. I'm not sure I follow your idea about substituting a half-tablespoon for a quarter-ounce. Is a half-tablespoon measure a common kitchen measure? I've got probably three or four sets of measuring spoons around, and I'm not sure any one of them has a "half tablespoon" measure. You can either use something like the OXO graduated measure (which I find perfectly fine for home use, especially when I can't use a speed-pourer) or all you need is two jiggers: a 2 : 1 jigger and a 1 : 1/2 jigger. If you like, you can precisely measure 1/4 and 3/4 ounces into the two sides of the 1: 1/2 jigger and make a scratch mark on the inside. Another good thing to have for <1/2 ounce amounts is this adjustable tablespoon measure from KitchenArt.

But then how are you going to translate 3:1:1 easily into a drink that is not either a 5 ounce drink or a 2.5 ounce drink? I can easily say to someone, "this drink is three-quarters, three-quarters, two -- lime, MB orange curaçao and Tanqueray, plus a dash each of orange and Angostura bitters" and they can bang out the drink with the right proportions and in the right size without using a calculator. Using actual amounts is even more important as formulae become more complicated (I would not want to figure out the Tantris Sidecar from a "parts formula"), and for drinks that involve a top or lengthening of any kind (Fizzes, Daisys, etc.).

The problem with listing a drink in parts is that it becomes very complicated unless you have fairly simple ratios. For example, how are you going to list a drink that has 2 ounces of spirit, 3/4 ounce of liqueur and 3/4 ounce of citrus? 8 parts spirit, 3 parts liqueur, 3 parts citrus? That starts to become cumbersome. It would be challenging to free pour this drink with any real accuracy, and you end up having to do math to scale the recipe into actual amounts. The other benefit to listing a drink's formula in actual volumes (and given the American provenance of the cocktail, I think ounces make perfect sense) is that it also specifies the actual volume of the drink -- which is important, in my view.

Actually, it's the other way around. The thicker the aluminum, the less prone to warping it is.

No, it isn't. That was debunked years ago. So, no worries on that front.

I think the key is to simply aim for a different style of burger. Why jump through hoops trying to make a decent steakhouse-style thick burger, when that style depends on a luscious medium rare interior for its beefy flavor? Instead, go for a thinner burger in the style of Shake Shack, where the beefy flavor comes from the crisp exterior of maillardized reduced meat juices. Since the burger is relatively thin (and assuming a decently fatty mix), sufficient moisture to make the hamburger sandwich juicy can easily be supplied with things like a slice of cheese, tomato and/or pickle, a schmear of ketchup and/or mayonnaise, etc.

I think that these behaviors can be performed by organisms that to not possess sentience and the ability to have a meaningfully subjective experience. Indeed, I think that behaviors similar to these can be performed by fairly rudimentary machines -- like the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner that leaves its base station, "forages" around my apartment for cat hair, and returns to its base station "mate" every afternoon. As I said before, higher functions such as self-awareness, the ability to think and experience emotions, etc. are associable with a certain level of neurological complexity. In Marsden CD. The emotion of pain and its chemistry. Ciba Found Symp. 1979;(69):305-13, the author writes: "Pain is not an electrical impulse derived from tissue injury but an emotional experience arising when a nervous input is interpreted in the light of experience and emotional context as being 'painful' ". This says to me that, whatever it might be that a lobster experiences when it experiences tissue damage, it is not "pain." I think that a simple but potentially useful rule of thumb is that the method which terminates sensory activity in the fastest way with the least stimulation is likely to cause the least pain (I don't know what the tradeoff should be, surely it varies with each species). I don't know enough to really say which method does this for lobsters, but since lobsters have a fairly diffuse nervous system which some high-level functions spread throughout, I think a whole-body dispatching method (like boiling or electrocution) is the most promising. I think so too... and yet a lot of foodies seem to think this is the worst possible way. The EFSA is a quasi-political organization that has a strong bias to be extra-careful about these things. This is proper and as it should be. We should, I think, try to be as humane as reasonably possible. That said, I should point out that: (1) The report on which the EFSA's recommendations are based is for laboratory animals, not food animals. The bar for lab animals is an incredibly high bar (for example, they aren't willing to say whether or not ants deserve special protection). (2) The EFSA's recommended methods for killing decapod crustaceans is hardly practical in the real world. They say you can chill in air or an ice/water slurry, but on what basis are we to know whether and when the lobster has expired? They can you can immerse the lobster in clove oil. Um... no, thanks. Or you can electrocute. So, we have chilling, where the home cook has no way of knowing when or whether the lobster is actually dead, or we have two other methods that are impossible at home. (3) It may give some indication of the level of care expected by the EFSA to think about their recommended methods for killing fish. Listed as "acceptable" are MS-222, benzocaine, etomidate and metomidate (killing them by anaesthesia). Electrical is acceptable "for some species." "Maceration" is okay for "fish less than 2 cm in length." One step further down the "okay list" is concussion, which is only to be performed by "experienced personnel" and death must be confirmed. Sodium pentobarbitone is also sort-of okay for larger fish, via intraperitoneal injection. And so on. Nowhere is "dragging through the water by a hook penetrating the lip, then thumping on the head followed by gutting " mentioned as an acceptable way to kill fish. Keep in mind that this is a generally accepted way to kill fish, and fish have brains. What fish don't have is more easily anthromorphized legs and hand/claws that lobsters have.

Martin, there is a third question: Assuming that lobsters experience something like what we would identify as "pain" (I would argue that they can't, for which see * below), on what basis can we assert that killing them one way causes more or less pain than any other way? * Here are some tidbits from the wikipedia article on pain: "Pain . . . is the unpleasant sensory and emotional experience an individual has when they perceive actual or potential tissue damage to their body. Pain is highly subjective to the individual experiencing it . . . Pain is defined as a subjective conscious experience." Without sentience and consciousness, I would argue that there is no such thing as "pain." This is why, for example, when someone is horribly burned and would be experiencing excruciating pain, we put them into a medically-induced coma. No consciousness = no pain. I would further argue that an organism that does not even have a brain cannot be called sentient and possessing of consciousness, and therefore cannot have a subjective experience -- all of which are necessary to have "pain." Things like "consciousness" and "sentience" and "ability to experience emotion" are associable with a certain level of neurological complexity. Shrimp don't "think." This is not to say that lobsters don't have enough processing power to generate a message that says something like "Negative sensation! Move away!" under certain circumstances. But I wouldn't put that under the same name as the subjective experience we call "pain." It goes without saying that lobsters do not have a cerebral cortex. Meanwhile, as others have observed, you can see a lobster in the wild have one of his legs or claws torn off -- something I think we all agree would be "painful" to us -- and there is no negative response or avoidance behavior. But there is some question in my mind as to whether avoidance behavior, which is all the lobster evidence we have, is a great indicator of sentience, consciousness and pain. For example, scallops have eyes and will swim away from a predator. And yet, we slice their shells open with a knife, sever their main muscle at both ends and eviscerate them -- all while they are still alive. And it takes a lot more scallops to make a meal than it does lobsters. Does this mean we shouldn't eat scallops any more? All of which is to say that I think we ALL agree that, operating on the assumption that lobsters can experience pain, we would like to treat them in a way that minimizes that experience to the greatest extent possible. No one is disagreeing with that. The question as to whether they can experience pain is more or less a side discussion. What IS important is whether, given the assumption that lobsters can experience pain, we have any basis whatsoever for choosing the least painful method of killing them. I haven't seen anyone offer a reasoned and informed position that convincingly argues against submerging in boiling water compared to any other method. "It seems like it should be that way" just isn't good enough -- it certainly isn't good enough to point the finger at someone else who is choosing a different method from you. Myself, I think that it's unlikely that any way is particularly painful to the lobster, and in consideration of the fact that it's impossible to definitively choose one method over the other on the basis of inflicted pain, I choose whatever method best suits what I am doing with the lobster.

The question about Padero is something I answered back in 2003: Was this store by any chance Bridge Kitchenware in NYC? If you were in the US and it wasn't Bridge, then you weren't seeing Paderno Grand Gourmet. Bridge Kitchenware the exclusive US distributor of Paderno, and the only line they carry is Grand Gourmet. Paderno Grand Gourmet has the same thickness of aluminum as Sitram Profisserie. That said... and to complicate matters somewhat, there are two manufacturers making "Paderno" cookware. There is a Canadian company that makes cookware called "Paderno" in Canada. Here is an excerpt from an email discussion I had with their marketing and development director a few years ago: The Canadian company, Padinox, Inc., makes several lines of cookware. Their lower level line, called "Paderno" in Canada and "Chaudier 1000" elsewhere, has 0.8 mm thick stainless steel and a 3/16" (~4.5 mm) aluminum base. Their high level line, called "Chaudier" in Canada and "Chaudier 5000" elsewhere, has 2 mm thick stainless steel and a 1/4" (~6.25 mm) aluminum base. Chaudier 5000 is awesome stuff. Used on Air Force One. If you have seen cookware named "Paderno" with an aluminum base of less than 7 mm thickness, you were either looking at Canadian-branded cookware or one of the lower lines from the Italian manufacturer (Paderno Serie 1000, Gourmet Serie 1100, Gourmet Serie 2000). Paderno.com is the web side of the Canadian manufacturer, Padinox Incorporated. Note that visitors to the web side have to indicate whether they are Canadian or American. If you compare between the two "sides" of the site, you will notice how the product names are different -- with the "Paderno" name only being used in Canada. Paderno.it is the web site of the Italian manufacturer, Sambonet Paderno Industrie Spa. You don't want a "pot" for roasting a chicken. What you want is a roasting pan. This is not stovetop cookware, and so isn't really covered in the eGCI class. Fundamentally, you can roast on just about anything you want -- from a pre-heated cast iron skillet to an aluminum sheet pan. You just want something that exposes the roasting meat to maximum radiant and convection heat. This means shallow sides. There is an extensive thread on roasting pans here that you may find has some useful information.

Yes, actually you can say that. Not that there was anything wrong with Salieri, mind you. But the strength of a classical tradition is that there is some basis for making more, if not entirely objective comparisons. More to the point, however, is the fact that no one with any real basis for understanding the arguments one would make in demonstrating the inspirational and musical superiority of Mozart's compositions over Salieri's would make the counter-argument. So it's a debate that would never happen. I would say that fine-dining is perhaps a quasi-classical tradition. As Steven points out, there are certain commonly-accepted criteria for what constitutes excellence in a fine dining experience. And while those criteria do evolve over time, they do so within the context and against the backdrop of the history of the tradition that has come before. What does this mean? It means that, while one may of course prefer, say, Balthazar (or even Dinosaur Barbeque) over Per Se -- it is still possible to say that Per Se is an objectively superior restaurant within the tradition of fine dining. I would also suggest that, in comparing Per Se to Momofuku Ko, the anologue in classical music is not Mozart and Salieri, both of whom were clearly operating within the tradition. Rather one might compare, say, the orchestral compositions of Benjamin Britten to those of Paul McCartney. Paul McCartney is a brilliant musician, and turns out very good music. But his music is simply inferior to Brittens when considered within the context of the classical tradition. Not that I think McCartney cares one whit. He's bringing his popular style into the orchestral concert hall and blending it with the classical tradition. But I think it was always meant to be what was ultimately popular music elevated to the classical concert arena. In a sense, that is what Chang et al are doing with Momofuku Ko. I don't think it makes sense to think of their work there as fine dining that has been "casualed-down" so much as it is their street-haute fusion food that has been "fine-dininged-up." Chang himself, I believe, has said that it's ridiculous to assert that Ko is better than Per Se. And I am quite sure that Sir Paul would say that it's ridiculous to assert that Ecce Cor Meum is superior to the War Requiem.

Momofuku Ko seems to me to be a unique restaurant -- on a lot of levels, of course, but some that perhaps make Platt's one-visit review more appropriate. First, there is no a-la-carte ordering at all. You have whatever it is that they are making that day. I'm sure that the offerings will change over time, but it doesn't seem as though Ko will be one of these places where the menu changes on a weekly or nightly basis. Indeed, the menu seems more or less the same as it was when they first started serving around a month ago. There is no indication that the menu will be radically different in another month, although I suppose it could be (in which case Platt could always re-visit the place). Second, part of Platt's thesis seems to be that everyone except the most fanatical Momofuku fan is likely to visit Ko no more than once, and so his one-visit review reflects that experience. If this were a restaurant where one would like to taste lots of other dishes and wines in different combinations with different party sizes and at different hours, and if this were a restaurant one could reasonably expect to visit many times -- then a multiple visit review makes more sense.

I wouldn't say that there is any codified or generally accepted terminology for shaking the ingredients together without the ice. Not sure I've heard anyone say "mime shake" before. I simply inferred the meaning from Toby's recipe (which includes an egg white) and the instructions.

"Mime shake" means to shake the liquid ingredients without any ice (sometimes also called "dry shaking" or "pre-shaking"). This helps with egg drinks to emulsify the eggs and whip air into them. After you do this, you add the ice and shake again. "KD" = Kold Draft ice cubes. At home, you can use regular ice cube trays, or you can buy trays that will make actual cubic ice cubes that are similar in size to Kold Draft cubes. Or, what I like best, is one cube of "big ice" (approximately 2x2) and several KD-sized cubes. I find that this works best, especially for egg drinks.

Did you use the blender ball for the pre-shake, or together with the ice? I have a hard time understanding how it would work with the ice.

What you have is a japanese-style "chisel" edge with a single bevel. To the best of my knowledge, the he Chef's Choice 100 (which would date to around 1985), sharpens to a double-beveled V-edge. You would not want to put your japanese chisel-edge knife in this machine, as it will completely change the edge. For reference, here is a graphic I produced for Chad's excellent Knife Maintenance and Sharpening eGCI Class:

Tri2Cook: Depending on the fat-solubility of pecan tannins, it's possible that if you wanted to avoid the tannins of pecans and make a "pecan and brown butter-infused bourbon" you could grind up the pecans and infuse them into warm clarified butter. Then you could fat-wash the clarified butter.

As an ode to Fat Albert, you could call it the "Green Hornet."

Now that the Library Bar has closed, your best bet is Lu Brow's Swizzle Stick Bar.

Pecans do infuse into alcohol. But keep in mind that there is also a fair amount of tannin in pecans.

"To suffer" in the sense that it is being used here means to undergo or endure something subjectively negative" such as pain, death, punishment, judgment, grief, etc. If an organism doesn't have consciousness and therefore cannot have a subjective experience, how can it suffer? Simply reacting to stimuli -- even stimuli that we, as conscious organisms, would perceive as intensely negative -- does not equate to consciousness, "suffering" and "pain." Even organisms as rudimentary as simple bacteria react to stimuli. If a flagellate reacts to a high temperature that would be painful to a human being, and is even high enough to eventually kill the flagellate -- does that mean that this single-celled organism is suffering and experiencing pain? These both bring up the same question: How are we to know that one way is any better than another way? Maybe freezing them is best. Maybe it isn't. Maybe splitting the heads is best. Maybe it isn't. Maybe throwing them into boiling water is best. Maybe it isn't. Maybe there's no difference.

The existence (or nonesixtence) of a "soul" is something that is inherrently unexaminable by scientific means, and impossible to attempt to understand in any scientific or rational ay. It's something you have to take on faith. Whether or not an animal with an rudimentary neurological system can experience anything that is comparable to what we understand as "pain" is something that can be examined by science, and something we can attempt to understand to the extent possible by scientific and rational means. If someone would like to take a viewpoint on the subject that is more based on, say, religion or spirituality, there's nothing wrong with that. But one has to acknowledge the basis of taking that viewpoint. To make an extreme example, Ione could just as easily say that I believe rocks have a soul and that we are causing them to suffer when we crush them into gravel. That's fine. A rock-animist is free to believe whatever he wants to believe. But one can still point out that rocks are not living organisms. In my opinion, if you really want to step away from the science on this one you either have to (1) understand that you are taking it on pure faith that your way of killing lobsters (whether that be freezing, slicing, "drowning in wine" or whatever) is "more humane"; or (2) decide that you're just not going to eat them at all (and if you're going to go down that path in life, you're probably going to turn out a vegan).

In what way does an animal that barely has two nerve cells to rub together, and doesn't experience pain in any way that would be meaningful to us, "suffer"? Perhaps more to the point, even if one accepts the premise that tossing a lobster into boiling water causes them to "suffer" -- on what basis can we assert that slapping them in the freezer for a while or slicing their heads in half causes them to "suffer" any less? All we can really say about this is that the person who suffers less in these cases is the human being, whose conscience is somehow eased. Again, you have to have some understanding of the neurophysiology of a lobster to have any understanding of whether these things make any difference. Slicing their heads in half, for example, may destroy one ganglion in the lobster's body (lobsters don't have brains), but there are other ganglia further back. How are we to know that the ganglion in the tail still isn't experiencing "pain" -- and perhaps even more so than if the head hadn't been sliced in half? (Answer: we don't.) Similarly, chilling a lobster may cause a lobster to be sluggish, which means that it will die in the water before it has a chance to move around much. But, again, this has no bearing on whether or to what degree the lobster may "suffer" or experience "pain." How do we know this doesn't cause more "pain and suffering" instead of less? (Answer: we don't.) What about getting the lobster "drunk" in wine? Again, we don't know. All we know is that these things make some humans feel better about it. Personally, I would suggest that if you're going to feel bad about it... just don't eat them. Heck... considering how much incredibly more complex a pig is compared to a lobster -- there's simply no way that the most lovingly, humanely slaughtered pig doesn't suffer more than a lobster that is torn apart and tossed into a pot of boiling water while still alive.

The allegation that one is "cherry picking sources" implies that the cherry-picker has rejected equally compelling data in pursuit of a willful misrepresentation. It's another thing to examine reports and data, see what they're based upon, and then decide how much weight to give them. I would argue that, rather than "cherry picking" data which agrees with my preconceived opinion, I have examined the available quality data and allowed the best data to decide my opinion for me. If the best date and the most scientific studies said that lobsters experiencethe same kind of pain you and I experience, then that would be my position today. I don't care to do an exhaustive internet search on the subject now, because I already did that back in 2005. What I found back in 2005 was that I was unable to find much on the "pro-pain" side that wasn't either conjecture, politically-driven misrepresentation, or inappropriate extension of arguments about vastly different organisms (usually fish) onto lobsters. That said, if you have any claims or articles from your google search that you find particularly compelling and would like to stand behind, I would be happy to review them. Fish have an exponentially more complex neurological and sensory system compared to lobsters.

I have a degree in psychology, which involved a fair amountof "brain and behavior" studies as well as looking at other sensory mechanisms (I was mostly interested in perceptual and cognitive psychology). So, for example, if you want to take a look at why certain musical structures are perceived in a certain way, the first place you have to start out is how hearing works, and that starts with an understanding of the physiology and neurophysiology of the ear. One of the things that becomes clear from the very beginning is that not all nervous and sensory cells are the same. So, for example, the nerve cells of a giant squid are not the same as the nerve cells of a human being. Some animals (sharks come to mind) have sensory mechanisms (including specialized sensory cells, etc.) that allow them to perceive, experience and process things that human beings cannot. And guess what? That road goes both ways. So, if a lobster does not have any of the specialized sensory cells that create the signals that are then processed by our complex brains (which lobsters also don't have) into the subjective experience we call "pain" -- then lobsters can't feel pain. Heck, lobsters don't even particularly exhibit avoidance behavior in the wild then their limbs are being torn off. Most everyone knows the word "crustacean." But this also includes a lot of animals that we're not considering this discussion -- like barnacles, for example. "Malacostracan crustacean" is just the name for the crustaceans we are talking about -- namely lobster, crabs and shrimp. For that, I referenced a dictionary.