slkinsey

Um... those guys you're calling "crackpots that say lobsters don't feel pain" are what most of us would call "scientists" and "experts in their fields." I haven't seen anything written specifically about malacostracan crustaceans by someone who has researched them, has an understanding of their neurophysiology and an understanding of how pain works on both a neurological and psychological level that says that these animals experience anything we could call "pain." Rather, all these people say that they don't. Now, there are people -- and these are the ones I'd call the "crackpots" -- who are not informed as to malacostracan crustacean neurophysiology and how pain works on a neurological and psychological level, and who use various nonscientific ways to argue that lobsters "surely must experience pain." But they simply don't have any basis for making that assertion other than the underlying belief that, "since it would hurt me to be thrown in boiling water or have my arms torn off while still alive, it must be true for lobsters as well." The evidence is that lobsters don't feel pain. Period. If it makes you feel better to kill them in a certain way, that's okay with me. But there is no evidence that killing lobsters by throwing them into a pot of boiling water, or indeed by simply tearing them apart, is any less "humane" than other ways.

I've had raw clams as well, which are alive when we eat them.

Lobsters barely have a nervous system, and certainly not anything approaching complex enough to call "consciousness." Scallops have eyes too.

This question has been fairly extensively discussed in these forums before, most notably in this thread. Scientists who have specifically studied this question, those with an understanding of neurology and those with an understanding of pain psychology tend to agree that lobsters do not experience anything like what we would consider "pain." People who would like to anthropomorphize ignore this evidence and insist that they must.

I think the state cocktail of New York should just be the Cocktail.

Swearing is only unprofessional in contexts where swearing is considered unprofessional. I would consider swearing unprofessional for, say, an elementary school librarian. Whether or not it's unprofessional in the restaurant kitchen depends on the kitchen.

I have to say... if I were in one of these kitchens and Ramsay were yelling in my face like that, I just don't think I could prevent myself from punching him full in the face and choking the arrogant bluster right out of him. . . . . . which, in consideration of the fact that jail time isn't high on my list of priorities, I suppose makes it a good thing I'll never be on a show like that. I am a little surprised, though, that if he's really like that to people, no one has snapped and given him a good ass-kicking for his trouble.

I've worked in a large number of fields because, believe it or not, the performing classical arts aren't exactly a huge moneymaker. What I have observed is that most every field has its own expectations. For example, people working in advertising at a certain salary level expect a large lavishly appointed and "designed" office whereas a banker at he same salary level might be working out of a cubicle. These industry-specific expectations extend to acceptable modes of behavior. For example, in law firms I've seen partners throw temper tantrums, yell at or belittle associates and display any number of behaviors that would have resulted in immediate suspension or termination if they were working at, say, Citibank. It seems that there is a certain culture of profanity in certain professional kitchens, and this is deemed an acceptable mode of behavior in the business so long as the chef allows it. Certain BOH workers clearly relish and even glorify this culture (viz. Tony Bourdain). On the other hand, I've been in any number of professional kitchens, and plenty of them have quiet and polite.

Rack & Soul. My neighborhood local. Interesting. They do a mean beef short rib. I hope that's what they do at the BABBP.

Interesting. Seems from what you're saying that, rather than the "pot still versus continuous still" distinction, which is largely meaningless, it would make more sense to distinguish between "alembic versus fractionating column."

Some assorted pot-versus-column still posts scrounged from elsewhere about these forums:

Doesn't Tito's distill their own? Why someone would want to go to all the trouble of distilling their pre-rectification neutral spirits escapes me.

I'm curious about the crawfish question. Is it that the locals would like to get a higher price for their crawfish and are being undercut by Chinese crawfish, or that they would like to sell more of the stuff? I'm just thinking that, if it weren't for the Chinese imports, might it be the case that locals would be overharvesting?

I wonder if Junipero is really pot-stilled from beginning to end. I suspect that it starts out with pretty pure neutral spirits (of the kind that can only be obtained by column distilling), then infuses those spirits with aromatics and redistills in the pot still.

No idea. But if you look at the pictures of the hardware at most "craft/micro-distilleries" you will see that there is a rectification column on top of the still. From here:

I certainly agree that pot distillation isn't ideally suited to every spirit. In particular, I wouldn't think that a pot-stilled modern dry gin would be ideal. You want a neutral base so that the aromatics shine through. As an overgeneralized rule of thumb, I guess my feeling is that pot distillation is better if the spirit will be aged, and column distillation is better if the spirit will not be aged. One may make a true pot-stilled (i.e., with an alembic) unaged spirit that is refined enough, but I think it's a lot more difficult than using a column still. On the other hand, I suppose it would also be possible to configure a column still to "let through" more character. It is, of course, possible to make a good spirit either way.

For lack of a better way of putting it, pot stilling is a more old-fashioned and artisanal way of distilling, and therefore produces a spirit with more character (although what can be considered "character" in one kind of spirit can be considered "impurities" in another). One thing I recently learned about is that a lot of the microdistillers who are supposedly producing "pot stilled" spirits are really using a pot still for the bottom, but then a column on top of the still instead of an alembic. This produces a spirit that i suppose can technically be called "pot stilled" but really doesn't have the character one would associate with this distilling technique.

I would definitely say not All-Clad Stainless. It's okay if you want fully clad cookware that you can throw in the dishwasher, but it's egregiously overpriced, some of All-Clad's other lines (e.g., MC2) have better thermal properties, and more or less equivalent cookware can be had at a much lower price point. As for Eric's question... I'm not sure I understand it. There is no one brand or design that's good or "best" for everything. It depends on your price point, what kind of cooking you want to do, whether dishwasher-safe is important to you, and many other variables. Even if you have decided, say, "I want a twelve quart stockpot with a heavy stainless body and an thick aluminum base that can be fitted with a pasta insert" there are many options: You can go with something super-expensive such as Demeyere, you can go with a professional-grade pot by someone like Paderno, you can even get something from Target that will fill those specifications. All of them will be a good choice. Which one you buy will depend on how much money you're willing to spend and how much value you put on other considerations (e.g., Demeyere will have an encapsulated "all the way to the sides" base, Paderno will have an extra-thick aluminum base that does not go all the way to the sides, the Target pot will be similar to the Paderno pot with a thinner body/base and a correspondingly even lower price point). Better, more important/relevant questions to ask would be: 1. What kind of cooking does your wife like to do? If, for example, she likes to do a lot of stir-frying, then a really nice wok (or a wok burner) would seem to be in order. If she likes to make omelets, then a nice nonstick dedicated omelet pan would be good. 2. How much money are you willing to spend? Secondarily, is it more important to you to have a few really good pieces (hopefully the pieces she uses the most) or a whole lot of new stuff? 3. How much maintenance fussiness is acceptable to you? Fully clad stainless cookware does have a great advantage in that it has okay thermal properties, is nonreactive and can be chucked into the dishwasher. If you don't mind cleaning your pots by hand, this opens up the possibilities to things such as stainless-lined heavy copper -- and if you don't mind cleaning by hand and you don't mind having a mildly reactive pan, this opens up the possibilities to things such as heavy gauge carbon steel.

A set almost always turns out to be a bad idea in the long run. First of all, it's often the case that one or more of the pieces is on that you never end up using. For example, a lot of sets come with a 9-inch sauté pan. I have owned this pan, and find it almost entirely useless. I won't say that I never use it... but hardly ever. In general, I find that frypans and sauté pans are usually too small in sets. Second, since a set consists of pans all using the same design philosophy (disk bottom, fully clad, whatever) it's inevitably the case that some of the pans are massive overkill for their intended use and some of the pans have a non-optimal design. For example, you'll end up with a 4 quart saucepan you use for boiling water and steaming vegetables that has a thick disk bottom, and you'll end up with a (usually too small) frypan with a disk bottom -- the former being overkill and the latter being non-optimal design. Third, it's my experience that most home cooks do 75% of their cooking on only two pieces of cookware that require any real quality. Boiling water and things like that work just as well in a $10 saucepan from the hardware store as they do in a $150 saucepan from Williams Sonoma. And, there's really no point in getting someone a fancy sauté pan if they don't sauté. On the other hand, someone who cooks a lot of pasta may really benefit from having a nice large stockpot with a removable pasta insert. This is something you won't find in any set. Finally, depending on what kind of cooking the person does, there are some things you can get that will actually cost less than any pan in the set. For example, if someone likes to do a lot of high heat/short time cooking such as stir-frying, searing meat and fish, sautéing, etc. -- an extra-heavy gauge carbon steel saute pan may be just the thing. And it'll only cost around 25 or 30 bucks for a 12" pan.

Picked up a bottle of St. George at Park Avenue Liquor today. Outstanding. Really, it's very good with no water, but it louches beautifully and is quite complex.

Curious: It's been two months since the excursion. Who (other than Steven) has been back to New Jersey for a food trip?

1. The fact is -- and this is simply too widely acknowledged to be worth debating -- that any regular restaurant reviewer operating in a given city will be recognized most of the time. All of the time? Probably not. But most of the time. And I would suggest that a reviewer who goes into restaurants under the (usually mistaken) assumption that he is not recognized and is not receiving any special treatment is much more susceptible to having his opinion swayed by the special treatment he will be getting most of the time than a reviewer who goes in with his eyes open. On top of that, even when it's clear that a reviewer is recognized and the restaurant is making maximum effort to turn out their absolutely best product, there are limits to the changes a restaurant can effect (they can't keep one extra-prime steak in the walk-in just in case a reviewer walks in) and dishes still come out as disappointments. There have been any number of occasions where Bruni was clearly recognized and still got so-so food and service. 2. Given the food cost, any restaurant operating at a price point at which it would be unduly burdensome for a reviewer to pay out of his own pocket will easily be able to afford dozens of comps. 3. I'd say Bruni is recognized around 75% of the time, and that most likely goes up to 95% on his second visit. He may not have been recognized at Babbo (I have no position on this) but if he wasn't, it was also practically the first review he wrote and I don't think anyone at Babbo supposed he would be re-reviewing them as part of his earliest work.

What a crappy web site. Unfortunately, the specific heat of water makes it better for the job.

I can't quite tell from your description in the other thread whether you meant to name this drink after the Italian national team (most commonly associated with either football or cycling).

Keep in mind that sea salt is not just boiled-down seawater. All food-grade sea salt must be at least 97.5 percent pure sodium chloride by law. This means that in edible sea salt, at most, you are getting 2.5% "other minerals" and usually a lot less. Salt harvested by solar evaporation, for example, is around 99 percent pure, with the other 1 percent being almost entirely magnesium and calcium compounds. When you evaporate seawater in traditional evaporating pools, some of the stuff you don't want precipitates out before the sodium choride does, so it's possible to get a fairly refined salt. You would not want sea salt that contains everything in seawater minus the water.