slkinsey
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Posts posted by slkinsey
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I've never seen it done so that the pizza retains a shape anywhere near the circularity that's achieved with a pizza pan. Then again, anything made with such a hard dough that it can be thrown in the air and spun into a fourteen-inch circle that won't deform upon being shaken off the peel onto the oven floor isn't likely to result in what I'd call outstanding pizza.
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i'm an heirloom tomato neophyte, so i can't comment on trends (or the names of the varieties in question) but this discussion inspired me to try several of them.
i went to the greenmarket this weekend and picked out five of the best looking examples i could find, each one a different variety.
final score: one was insanely delicious, one was so flavorless that i threw it out, and three were ok ... no more flavorful or well textured than what you normally get this time of year at a supermarket, though a bit more interesting tasting and a lot more interesting looking.
As others have pointed out, one of the things about heirloom tomatoes is that some of the varieties aren't to everyone's liking, even if they are good examples of that particular cultivar. I, for example, have never liked Green Zebra (which is technically not an "heirloom" since it dates to 1983). And other cultivars I have found to be either too sweet or insufficiently acidic for my taste. These are the kinds of tomatoes that I might like to have together with several different cultivars in a mixed heirloom tomato salad, but wouldn't care to eat on their own. All of which is to say that, for sandwiches and just plain eating, I stick with the cultivars that I have found to have an intensely "tomatoey" taste -- which is not true of all cultivars. I wonder if you might have bought some cultivars that didn't appeal to you.
Now, I have agreed that ten years ago the words "heirloom tomato" were almost always associated with high quality and that they are not so today (primarily because of new entrants to the heirloom tomato growing, handling and selling chain).We are in agreement on this, the fundamental point here.
But I never thought that "heirloom tomato" was a designation of quality.But it was, as you just noted, a virtual guarantee of quality -- a designation you could indeed rely on. And now it isn't.
No, it wasn't a designation. It was a way of describing a certain kind of tomato.
"Heirloom tomato" was no more a designation of quality than the words "apple pie" or "chicken fried steak." For example, for the first 30 years of my life "chicken fried steak" was synonymous with "delicious" because the only chicken fried steak I ever tasted was prepared by my grandmother, who had been cooking it for something like 80 years. Since she passed away, I have had chicken fried steak prepared by a variety of home and professional cooks and, well, while I have had some outstanding examples, the overall quality doesn't measure up on average. Does this mean that "chicken fried steak has been dumbed down" or is it the case that there was always wide variability in the quality of chicken fried steak, and that that variability had been previously unrecognied by me? I would argue that it was the latter, and I would argue that the something similar has happened for you with heirloom tomatoes.
I would also argue that heirloom tomatoes are no different from other tomatoes in being highly suceptible to weather and other growing conditions and practices, harvest time, post-harvest handling and similar variables. My mother has grown tomatoes every season for longer than I've been alive, so this is something I have always known about tomatoes.
I've always known that tomato quality is highly dependent on the way they are grown and handled, so it's no surprise to me that the heirloom tomatoes at Whole Foods and Stew Leonard's are not so greatI wouldn't know, having never purchased an heirloom tomato at either place. I'm not sure I've even seen an heirloom claim at Stew Leonard's, and I don't really shop at Whole Foods -- I just go in to look around when I'm near Time Warner.
I have, however, purchased mediocre heirloom tomatoes at the Union Square Greenmarket twice this summer. I've also purchased good ones. (As well as good and bad ones at Fairway, Eli's, Vinegar Factory, and a few other places -- the point being that sometimes they're good and sometimes they're bad). As I noted in the posts you referenced, I specifically make a point of shopping at the Greenmarket during apple and tomato seasons (your math seems to assume I go once per season?). And I've been doing this over a period of years. Are you buying heirloom tomatoes from a variety of vendors, and have you been doing so over time? If so, I'm really surprised you've not noticed the same trend I have.
Steven, I've been buying heirloom tomatoes at the Union Square Greenmarket to the tune of a 5 to 12 times a summer since I first noticed them for sale over ten years ago. So, with all due respect, I think my sample is a little better than "twice a summer." I also don't agree that "twice this summer" is a sufficient sample to support your assertion that the quality of greenmarket heirloom tomatoes is in radical decline.
For example, when did you buy these tomatoes? More than 1/3 of the days in August 2007 had rain in the Northeast. These are not conditions that are likely to lead to outstanding tomatoes. What cultivars did you buy, and were they cultivars that you have enjoyed before?
When I said earlier that "At this point you can't just tell someone 'go to the Union Square Greenmarket and get some heirloom tomatoes' and expect that person to come back with great tomatoes. A few years ago, you could have done that. Now, you have to direct the person to specific stands on specific days, as well as limit the time frame (since even the reputable growers are now selling heirlooms earlier and later than in the past)," I thought that was a pretty obvious claim.It is an obvious claim on it's face, but I think it is also a misleading one and I disagree in several ways.
If it was true that, several years ago, you could simply tell someone to go to the Union Square Greenmarket and get some heirloom tomatoes, this is true only because heirloom tomatoes were being brought to the Union Square Greenmarket by one or two growers at that time. So, by directing someone to the USGM for heirloom tomatoes you were, in effect, directing them to specific stands. Those same growers are still producing outstanding heirloom tomatoes, and have been joined by a number of other growers who have started to produce heirloom tomatoes. They come from various areas around NYC with different microclimates and growing tehniques. They can all produce outstanding heirloom tomatoes when the conditions are right, but from time to time they may also produce less-than-optimal heirloom tomatoes depending on things like rain, sunlight and temperature. It is also true that, back in the day, the few original grower-sellers of heirloom tomatoes at the USGM could have some less-than-peak tomatoes, depending on the same variables. Finally, also the case that not all the growers who expermiented with heirloom tomatoes have stuck with it over the years, because they weren't getting the results they wanted. So, in reality, not all that much has changed at the USGM with respect to heirloom tomatoes: It was always possible to get less-than-optimal heirloom tomatoes, the best heirloom tomato growers are still there, and more than anything else, it's a farmer's market: If you want to get the best of something, you have to talk to the growers and ask them things such as "what's good right now?" and "there's been a lot of rain lately, how is that affecting the heirloom tomatoes?" Most of the time, if they're selling you a sub-optimal tomato, they'll be up-front about it: "The rain's made them a little watery and the flavor isn't as concentrated as it can be. It's supposed to try out later in the month, and we think we'll get some amazing flavor in about another week. But these are probably as good as it gets right now" or "We started these out early in the hoophouse so we could bring them to market earlier in the season. It's still really early for heirloom tomatoes, and they're going to be a lot better in a month. These are pretty good for right now, though." You can't expect to walk up to a random table at a farmer's market, pick up some tomatoes and end up with something amazing 100% of the time. This wasn't true in 1997 and it isn't true today.
Do you seriously disagree with my statement? If so I'll make a commitment to doing further research before making a stronger claim.I'm sure Mitch and I could be pursuaded to meet you at 9:00 at the USGM on Saturday for a tomato-buying expedition.
As it so happens, I've brought the fixings for an heirloom tomato sandwich to have at lunch today -- the tomato slices in their own container so they don't spend the morning soaking into the bread. Delicious.
I've scanned back through the topic and I can't see any reading of it that supports the claim that I'm "in the distinct minority when you argue that the 'heirloom' designation was a guarantee of anything." For example, Sam has posted a couple of variants of the following:I think it was the case that in the early days of the "heirloom tomato phenomenon" not that many people were growing them, and those that were growing them were doing so with care. So, in those days, pretty much any time you got your hands on an heirloom tomato variety, it was going to be delicious.I should qualify that statement with two caveats:
1. "Delicious" in comparison to what else was available.
and
2. I can't discount the extent to which the novelty of the flavors and textures of heirloom tomatoes may have influenced perceptions as to quality when they were first introduced in NYC greenmarkets.
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I think what he was saying was: don't trust a pizza that is baked in a pan. This is something I can agree with. I don't think it's possible to get a truly first-rate pizza that is baked in a pan. Truly first rate pizza, even the style that is baked in a steel deck oven, needs to be baked on the floor of the oven. This will never result in a uniformly round pizza. I think what you will find is that round pizza that is not baked in a pan is actually "round-ish" and not really round.
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Even if we limit the discussion to only the heirloom tomatoes available at the Union Square Greenmarket, in my experience (and I shop there much less often than many other people, but enough to put two and two together) there has been a dramatic overall drop in heirloom-tomato quality. At this point you can't just tell someone "go to the Union Square Greenmarket and get some heirloom tomatoes" and expect that person to come back with great tomatoes. A few years ago, you could have done that. Now, you have to direct the person to specific stands on specific days, as well as limit the time frame (since even the reputable growers are now selling heirlooms earlier and later than in the past).
Like Mitch, I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. All I can suggest is that perhaps you simply aren't getting to the Union Square Greenmarket frequently enough (your posts elsewhere suggest that it's somewhere in the range of zero to three visits a year on average). There simply has not been "dramatic overall drop in heirloom-tomato quality" at the greenmarket. That's so clearly incorrect that I'm going to say it's a matter of fact rather than opinion. If it were "dramatic" and "overall" one of us would have noticed it.
Now, is it possible that on one infrequent visit you went on the wrong day and bought from the wrong vendor, who was selling the watery, less-flavorful fruit that people upthread have indicated results from certain weather conditions? And that this meant you got heirloom tomatoes that didn't live up to the expectations of your memory? That seems rather more likely to me. Greenmarket heirloom tomatoes, just like any highly weather- microclimate- growing- and handling-dependent produce (and I would argue that tomatoes are among the most sensitive in this regard) are sometimes going to be less than perfect. That's the nature of the beast. If people say it happens in their home gardens, there's no way it can be avoided in a commercial operation. This is no less true now than it was in 1997, unless it is the case that we had a string of summers with uniformly optimal tomato weather throughout (which I find unlikely). It's not like the tomato growers are going to, or were ever going to throw away all their ripe heirloom tomatoes just because a week of heavy rains had made them less than perfect. Remember, we had a ton of rain a while back. This weather, according to my guys at the USGM, definitely had a short-term negative impact on heirloom tomato quality. Now, on the other hand, the weather's been perfect for him and his tomatoes are back to peak quality.
The point is that a particular product designation went from being worth something to being worth very little. Some folks, myself included, find that both interesting and regrettable.The point I think many of us are making is that the product that was good "back in the day" is still just as outstanding as it always was. The fact that you're the only person arguing the counterpoint, and that you have historically declared yourself not-a-greenmarket-shopper, strikes me as an indication that you don't have a good basis for asserting that the great growers of 1997 are now turning out mediocrity. Now, I have agreed that ten years ago the words "heirloom tomato" were almost always associated with high quality and that they are not so today (primarily because of new entrants to the heirloom tomato growing, handling and selling chain). But I never thought that "heirloom tomato" was a designation of quality. It's not like buying a wheel of Parmigiano Reggiano, which must be produced in a certain way and passed by the Consorzio del Formaggio Parmigiano-Reggiano. That is a designation of minimum quality. I've always known that tomato quality is highly dependent on the way they are grown and handled, so it's no surprise to me that the heirloom tomatoes at Whole Foods and Stew Leonard's are not so great -- none of the tomatoes these places have ever sold have been up to the level of a picked-yesterday, peak-season, good-weather greenmarket tomato (heirloom or hybrid). I think that's the point that Dave, Mitch and I are arguing.
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If I may reiterate my point...
Ten years ago, only a few people were growing heirloom tomatoes. These were the best growers in the area. I can remember that you had to show up early at the Union Square Greenmarket, or they would have sold out of heirloom tomatoes. Yes, you could still buy amazing "regular" tomatoes from these guys, but the heirloom tomatoes seemed to have a more intense "tomatoey" flavor, and depending on the cultivar had an interestingly different-than-usual tomatoey flavor.
Everyone in the area was getting heirloom tomatoes from these few growers. If Steven had an heirloom tomato in 1997, there were two choices: buy it from one or two growers at a greenmarket, of eat it at a handful of Manhattan restaurants like Blue Hill (which I don't think was open then, but I'm using it as an archetype). Those few restaurants, meanwhile, were buying their heirloom tomatoes from the same growers who were selling at the greenmarkets.
Now, ten years later, you can get heirloom tomatoes at A&P, Stew Leonard's, Fairway and Whole Foods, not to mention that there are more than eight growers selling them at the Union Square Greenmarket. And instead of a half-dozen high-end Manhattan restaurants like Blue Hill using heirloom tomatoes, hundreds of NYC-area restaurants like Josefina are using them. As a result, for all the reasons that have been outlined above, the average quality of all heirloom tomatoes one is likely to encounter has declined. In making this observation, Steven is absolutely correct.
However, Dave is also correct in observing that tomatoes are highly dependent on the grower (i.e., how/where they are grown, when they are picked, how they are handled, etc.), which comes down to where you buy your tomatoes. In support of that point, Mitch and I are similarly correct in observing that the same guys (plus a few more) who were selling the amazing heirloom tomatoes in 1997 are still selling amazing heirloom tomatoes today.
Supporting all of these observations, I have personally bought heirloom tomatoes this summer from Whole Foods and my guys at the Union Square Greenmarket. The contrast was huge, with the former being mediocre (if actually not bad for a supermarket tomato) and the latter being amazing.
These two sets of observations are not mutually incompatible unless it is the case that Steven is buying his heirloom tomatoes from the same people from whom Mitch and I are buying our heirloom tomatoes. The evidence suggests that, Steven's claimed trips to the Greenmarket to buy mediocre heirloom tomatoes notwithstanding, this is not the case.
Now, as to Steven's larger point about the "dumbing down of heirloom tomatoes" -- I'm not sure, exactly, what that means. When I think of "dumbing down" I think of a deliberate and purposeful reduction in sophistication, complexity and refinement in order to appeal to a broader, more popular demographic that would have difficulty in appreciating the real thing. I don't think that has happened here. Rather, it's simply the case that there has been an explosion in the production and availability of heirloom tomatoes over the last ten years. The inevitable result of this explosion has been that many growers have applied the same techniques and methods in producing heirloom tomatoes and bringing them to market that make regular supermarket tomatoes so crappy. That said, it strikes me that there are, in fact, more outstanding, mindblowingly delicious heirloom tomatoes to be had today than there were in 1997. The same few guys who were growing them back then are now growing many more of them (as well as growing more cultivars) and several other high-quality growers have jumped on the bandwagon. But, of course, the increase in availability of high-quality heirloom tomatoes is dwarfed by the increase in availability of mediocre-quality heirloom tomatoes in supermarkets and gourmet stores, which has gone from zero in 1997 to "the way most people get heirloom tomatoes" in 2007.
Does this mean that heirloom tomatoes have been "dumbed down"? I don't think so. Rather, it means that the popularity and availability of heirloom tomatoes have grown greatly over the last ten years, but nevertheless the same criteria which apply to all highly grower-dependent produce continue to apply to heirloom tomatoes. I suppose it is the case that heirloom tomatoes, taken as a whole, have seen a dramatic drop in quality over the last ten years. But the things I understood about tomatoes in 1997 are still true today. You just can't get an outstanding tomato at a grocery store or gourmet market.
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Cookware sets are almost always a bad idea because, while they may look like a great deal ("look how many pans I get!"), inevitably several of the pans are rarely if ever used. When you figure out the cost of the pans that are actually used, the deal suddenly doesn't look so great. Rather, I'd advise your friend to take a look at the two pans she uses the most and which she constantly finds herself wishing she had better (or bigger, or different design or whatever), spend the whole 200 bucks getting really good versions of those two pans and make do with the crapware for the other stuff. The fact is that you don't need a nice pan to boil water for pasta or steam vegetables, etc. If, a year down the road, she finds that she's still using one of the crapware pans a lot and constantly wishing for better, then that would be a good time to replace that one pan with something better. And so on, and so on, and so on.
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I was just thinking about this myself! Yesterday I visited the Union Square Greenmarket and picked up a bunch of heirloom tomatoes from my regular guys (I forget the name, but they're at the end of the short dogleg in the Northeast and their other main products are herbs and potted plants). They were, as usual, mindblowingly delicious.
I actually mentioned this discussion to the farmer... how heirloom tomatoes used to be 100% awesome when you could find them 10 years ago and how they're not the virtual guarantee of quality anymore now that you can get them at Whole Foods. He visibly recoiled when I mentioned that name and said: "Look... if you put crap into the tomatoes, they're not going to be good no matter what kind they are. Also, these were picked yesterday. We have to pack them in single layer stacked boxes because they're too delicate to pile on top of each other, and even then some of them break open. [He pointed to a discard bucket of burst-open tomatoes.] There's no way you can get that from a big grocery store." He also reiterated that high rains does tend to create mushy, watery fruit and excessive cracking unless you're able to take countermeasures (which I suppose might include covering the vines to shield them from too much rain, or holding back the tomatoes until the weather dries out).
Anyway, I certainly didn't detect any diminution of quality. If anything, it's the case that my guys have mastered an ever-widening number of heirloom cultivars, so variety has increased greatly over the years. I got some Purple Cherokee, some Brandywine, some Amish Paste, and a medium-sized cultivar I can't quite remember that had the deepest red I've seen.
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Just to add a point of data... Fairway's "high B" quality Parmigiano Reggiano was selling for less than $9 a pound the last time I bought some. For "best you can get in the US" quality Parmigiano Reggiano delle Vacche Rosse it's going to cost quite a bit more (probably around $20/lb).
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Hawthorn strainer or julep strainer?
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Jack, I'm not thinking in terms of what will sell in retail for a low price. I am thinking in terms of how to achieve certain goals. In specific, I am thinking about how large a convection-equalized water bath would have to be in order to hit and maintain a target temperature within a range of variation that is less than 0.5C, and also such that the water surrounding the food won't vary more than around 0.25C (e.g., I don't want the part on the bottom to be a degree warmer than the part on the top). I don't see anyont shelling out $150+ for a sous vide system that can only cook two pork chops at a time. I'd say it needs to be able to accommodate at least, say, six double cut pork chops at once or six portions of beef short ribs, etc. -- in other words, something right around the size of an American football. I doubt you could put that amount of food into a bottom-heated, convection-equalized water bath of only one gallon and not have temperature equalization problems. You'd also run into a problem that the volume and thermal mass of the food would be more than the volume and thermal mass of the water. For example, a gallon is 231 cubic inches. Six double cut pork chops would be around 128 cubic inches, leaving only 103 cubic inches for the water. I don't see that working. This size would work for a crock pot, but not for a water bath for sous vide.
Not that I think the size issue is unimportant, which is one reason I favor a clip-on recirculating heater over an all-in-one convection-equalized design. The clip-on unit is small, and you can use it with equipment you already own (you can even clip it to a plastic pickle bucket or rubber bus tub, for that matter).
Doc, I agree that you can use a large variety of vessel sizes when you use a recirculating heater. I'm more interested in minimum practical size requirements for a convection-equalized water bath. And for practical use, as I say above, it should be large enough to accommodate food at least as large as a pork loin, first-cut brisket, short ribs for 6-8, etc. For people who just want to do short-time sous vide cooking in small portions of foods such as two pieces of salmon, a dedicated water bath system really isn't needed. A large stock pot and a highly accurate thermometer should suffice.
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I'm interested as to what we think would be the minimum practical volume for a home water bath for sous vide, and I suppose we should divide it into two categories depending on whether the temperature will be equalized throughout the water actively, with a recirculator, or passively via convection.
To my thinking, you'd want to have a fair amount of space around the food, and in particularly between the food and the heat source, when using water bath that is equalized by convection. With a recirculating water bath, should be less of an issue (especially if the heating element is in the recirculator).
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I've had an idea, which I mention in another thread, of shaking a drink as usual but including a marble-sized piece of dry ice together with the water ice. This should allow for approximately the same dilution, but should make the drink extra-cold and would hopefully result in a smoking and perhaps lightly carbonated drink. You would need to have a shaker that locked together, though, otherwise I think it would blow apart as the CO2 was liberated.
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Do sous-vide cooks (I'm not one) routinely use the circulating type?The reason lab heaters circulate the water is to maintain all the water at the same temperature.Yea. As far as I know, most everyone who uses a water bath for sous vide cooking uses a recirculating type. Otherwise, how can you insure uniform temperature rthroughout the water bath? I do mine in a 5 gallon vessel, and assume there would be significant challenges to hitting/maintaining a target temperature with +/- 0.5C (mine is good to <0.1C) unless the water were circulating.
On the other hand, someone like nathanm would have a better answer on this than I.
The thermal circulating units (maybe including that Lauda?) are very precise, but more expensive, starting around $700-800 depending on size. The other type is a regulated water reservoir without circulation, starting around $350.Seems like you can find recirculating units for around $400 bucks or less on eBay if you're lucky. I got my Lauda, thoroughly cleaned and reconditioned, for something like $500. Brand new units go for significantly more.
I think the very nature of the way [a crock-pot] heating element works would likely cause the temperature to overshoot with some frequency, and the temperature would likely swing with a range of several degrees.Sam and also jackal10, that may or may not be relevant (do you have data?)
I'm just thinking in terms of practicalities. As you say, almost every feedback-regulated temperature controller in daily life employs an on-off heating element. My Lauda does not appear to be different in that respect. Once the Lauda reaches the target temperature, the heater appears to pulse on and off as the unit determines necessary to maintain the target temperature. The entire water bath is the same temperature, because the water is constantly recirculated.
Consider now, a crock pot. First of all, it would have to be a gigantic crock pot in order to hold enough water for anything bigger than a few pork chops at a time. So, you've got a temperature probe in the middle of the water bath. The heat element comes on full blast and heats up the Crock Pot's ceramic insert. Eventually, the water around the probe reaches the target temperature and the heating element shuts off. But, of course, it doesn't suddenly go to zero heat. How long does it take for the heating element to cool down? How long does it take for the ceramic insert to cool down? Presumably, the ceramic insert and the water near the ceramic insert are already warmer than the target temperature once the water next to the probe reaches the target temperature. So, what happens is that the residual heat in the heating element and the ceramic insert conduct into the water and the water overshoots the target temperature.
I suppose that you could theoretically hit a point where the heating element was pulsing on and off just the right amount (assuming the heating element is amenable to that sort of thing) to maintain the target temperature at +/- 0.5C. Maybe. Or it could just continue to swing back and forth too much to be useful for the full range of sous vide techniques, some of which are more temperature-sensitive than others. But I still have to believe that there will be temperature stability, uniformity and accuracy problems when the temperature probe is in a reasonably large volume of non-circulating water, and the heating element is on the bottom and/or sides of the vessel. Of course, there's no way of knowing unless someone tries it.
It might be worth Robert Wright's/Lab-Pro Incorporated's time to do some testing and see if they can come up with a system large enough to do real-world amounts of food that has temperature stability and accuracy within, say, 0.5 - 0.25 degrees C. If they could either produce a system for around $200 or sell a unit with instructions for under $100, I bet people would buy it.
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The question is whether a PID controller/crock pot is sufficently low priced to make it worth choosing over just picking up a recirculating water bath heater on eBay. And, needless to say, whether you can use the crock pot setup without having to know electronics (a recirculating water bath heater is more or less "plug and play").
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I'm not sure that I buy the "spatially uniform" bit. The reason lab heaters circulate the water is to maintain all the water at the same temperature. For something like a crock pot, I have my doubts as to whether it could maintain the temperature with any precision and uniformity. For one, I think the very nature of the way the heating element works would likely cause the temperature to overshoot with some frequency, and the temperature would likely swing with a range of several degrees. Now, your friend may not think that temperature accuracy of +/- 5C is a big deal, but it can make a really big deal on what you're cooking when you're trying to take advantage of the technology's full power.
I'd also be curious if you could ask your friend what features, exactly, a recirculating water bath heater would have that would not be used in sous-vide cooking. My Lauda has settings for temperature and fail-safe cutoff temperature, and it recirculates the water (mine is a stand-alone heater that I can clip on to any water vessel, rather than an all-in-one water bath). That's pretty much all it does, and it's accurate to 0.1 degrees C. All of these features I'd say are used in sous-vide cooking.
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Al, did you sear the short ribs right out of the bag? If I'm going to be pan-searing (as opposed to using a blowtorch) I usually wait for the meat to cool down a while. Otherwise, the pan searing will probably take the temperature of the meat too high. You'll still have the pink interior because the LT/LT cooking "fixed" the color, but you might end up with a dryer texture that you don't want.
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As you can see, I've been a Franny's supporter from the beginning, so I'm very happy to see that they are getting the recognition they deserve. Also very happy to see that they are bringing back pasta items to the menu. I think it says a lot about the kind of people they are that they took pasta off the menu for a number of years because they didn't think they had the equipment and staffing to do it right.
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They say:
Pour your wine into this decanter because it will "aerate" the wine. Okay, so far so good. It is generally accepted that aeration has certain beneficial effects on wine. Another word for "aerate" is "oxygenate."
Then they say:
You can use our special vacuum cork to suck all the air out of the decanter, thus preserving your wine. Okay. Well, it is also generally accepted that vacuuming out an opened bottle helps to minimize spoilage to the tune of a day or two.
Here is what is ridiculous and stupid about this product:
Once you pour the wine out of the wine bottle and into the decanter, it is already oxygenated to a certain extent. No amount of vacuuming out the airspace in the decanter is going to "un-oxygenate" the wine. And oxygenation is what makes the wine go stale after a few days. In effect, they are saying: "Oxygenate your wine by pouring it into our decanter. If you have any left over wine in the decanter, protect it from the effects of oxygenation by vacuuming out the remaining air in the decanter."
Personally, I'm holding out for a V1 Vacuum Decanter with built-in Wine Clip. I'm totally going for the crystal pyramid wine cabinet to store it in, too.
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I should add to this that some drinks you won't be able to get just anywhere. For example, looking at your examples, the Oaxaca Old Fashioned from D&C is made with very specific spirits, in particular, Los Amantes Joven Mescal. This spirit, or indeed any mescal whatsoever, is not exactly standard bar stock, and if you don't have it you can't make an Oaxaca Old Fashioned. This would be equally true of drinks made with custom infusions. etc.
In general, most cocktails people I know are not so big on the "secret recipe" thing. They would rather have their drinks made with the correct recipe and attribution, and of course having some popular cocktails out there with your name attached to them is a pretty good way to grow your reputation and influence.
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The main question is whether the new bar is going to know how to make the drink. I wouldn't order a French Pearl at a random bar in, say, Milwaukee. But one has a reasonable expectation that the bartenders at PDT are familiar with the drink.
Consider this: all cocktail recipes were once "house drinks" at a bar somewhere.
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Not to mention the Blinker:
2 oz : rye whiskey
1 oz : fresh grapefruit juioce
1 tsp : raspberry syrup
Two important notes: First, I find that Old Overholt is by far the best rye for this cocktail. Second, depending on the tartness of your grapefruit and the sweetness of your raspberry syrup, you will need to adjust for balance.
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the greatest technological breakthrough in cocktails is the measured drink.... its as significant as indoor lighting.... unfortunatley so many bars are working in the dark....
The "measured drink"? What does this mean, exactly? Using a jigger instead of free pouring? This is something the best bars in NYC have been doing for years.
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I don't think you'd have an easy time getting ice cubes into the top of an ISI Thermo Whip.
The dumbing down of heirloom tomatoes
in Kitchen Consumer
Posted
Look, I never disagreed that if you were to take a sample of every single heirloom tomato available for sale at retail or in restaurants today and compared that sample to a similar sample from 1997 there wouldn't be an observable drop in quality. In that, we have always been in agreement. We have mainly been in disagreement as to a) which factors are responsible for this phenomenon; and b) whether there is a meaningful decline in the quality of tomatoes available at the Union Square Greenmarket.
I think the decline in average, across-the-board heirloom tomato quality is attributable to the popularity commercialization of heirloom tomatoes that resulted in the same, or similar techniques being used to bring heirloom tomatoes into supermarkets that are used for commercial hybrids.
I also think that the quality (as well as variability due to weather, etc.) of heirloom tomatoes at the USGM is much the same as it has been in the past.
In addition, I never thought of "heirloom tomato" as a stong indicator of quality so much as I thought of it as a certain kind of tomato that, in the past, was only brought to market in NYC by the best local growers and now is being brought to an exponentially larger market by a wider variety of growers. This is something I've seen happen with any number of products. Ten years ago, the only game in town for guanciale was Salumeria Biellese's "pure funk" product. I guess you might say, "guanciale was a designation of quality" at that time. Now one can buy guanciale in NYC from any number of producers, and "the overall quality has gone down." But I never thought of "guanciale" as anything other than the name of the product I was buying, like "cucumber" or "baguette" or "steak." If there was any association of quality for me, it would be in saying "guanciale from Salumeria Biellese." I feel much the same way about heirloom tomatoes. Now, if my favorite guys at the USGM started selling crap heirloom tomatoes, then I'd be ringing the alarm bell. Thus far, it hasn't happened.
Really, I'm not even sure it's a "regrettable state of affairs." What's so regrettable about it? If anything, it's the case that there are more outstanding heirloom tomatoes available today than there were ten years ago. My USGM guys are certainly growing a lot more of them, and instead of growing 3-4 cultivars they're growing as many as a dozen different cultivars. Okay, you can find crap heirloom tomatoes at the same places you find crap commercial hybrid tomatoes. So what? There's no way they were going to turn out this many heirloom tomatoes with an average level of quality even approaching what the best greenmarket people are selling. It's simply not possible on that scale. What does that mean? That things were better back when they were growing 1/50th as many heirloom tomatoes as today, and the only people who could get them were the likes of Jean-Georges Vongerichten and whomever showed up to stand on line at Union Square early enough on Saturday mornings to get a few before the growers ran out for the day?