slkinsey

My understanding is that you cannot legally take liquor purchased on one state and sell it in another. This is exactly why it was not possible, before Laird's bonded was available in NY State, for NYC bars to simply purchase the spirit in NJ and sell it in their bars. To continue examining your scenario... if the Montecristo rum were legally sold in the both states, it would be fairly difficult for the liquor authorities to figure out what you had done. But, if you were found out, you'd be in big trouble.

Bubbles in ice form because, as water freezes, the dissolved air comes out of solution. Since the top part of the ice -- the air's usual route of escape -- is usually already frozen, the released air has nowhere to go. The air is trapped and freezes in place as a bubble in the ice. If, on the other hand, the water is flowing and the ice forms more or less one tiny layer at a time, the air is able to escape into the flowing water and does not freeze in place as a bubble. Thus, less air in the ice, resulting in denser ice with better clarity. Kold-Draft, in effect, miniaturizes the moving water freezing process used to make large blocks of clear ice for ice carving, etc.

The only real commercial sloe gin (which is to say, lightly sweetened gin infused with sloe berries) of which I am aware is made by Plymouth. It is not available in the US yet, although they are working on bringing it in (red tape abounds).

Pecten maximus

By the way, if anyone wants to know how Kold Draft machines make such high quality cubes, their special technology is explained here: http://www.kold-draft.com/why/technology/

Jesikka, those just look like whole (i.e., uncleaned) scallops with the roe attached. Further on the St. Jacques thing... it appears that the scallop shell is the symbol of Saint James the Greater.

You know... Kold Draft makes an under-counter sized machine suitable for residential use. Just saying.

Hill Country... somehow I can't get that excited about smoked sausages. That's just my taste, but I don't think it's as difficult to master as whole cuts of meat (you can adjust the fat content and grind to keep the texture and moisture where you want it, etc.)

As I understand it, the review demoting ADNY to three stars came out in February 2005, then Esnault was hired in April 2005 and the restaurant closed at the end of 2006. If we consider that a major re-review would be largely, if not absolutely unprecedented before February 2006 (i.e., 1 year after the previous review)... is it not possible that there was already a sense that the writing was on the wall and that ADNY would be closing? Eater was reporting the closure in September 2006, which means that people in the right circles must have suspected this might happen several months before that. Indeed, Fat Guy posted at the time: "There has been talk of ADNY moving ever since the union exemption expired." So, let's suppose that Bruni is thinking of fitting in a re-review of ADNY sometime after February 2006. It doesn't seem unconcievable to me that the Times started to get wind of a possible closure and a decision was made to not "waste" a review on a place that is probably closing within six to nine months. I don't think the argument can be made that Bruni had any obligation to re-review ADNY before February 2006 at the earliest. And, if ADNY hadn't closed, perhaps he would have re-reviewed it sometime around, say, May 2006.

Bring on the bitters: Chicago bartenders make their own to achieve the complexity they desire. By Michael Nagrant

Coquille is French for "shell." Coquille Saint Jacques is the name for "scallop shell." It is also the name of a classic preparation where scallops are served in the shell, etc. To add to the confusion, both coquille and coquille Saint Jacques may refer to scallops.

sounds like a cool place. Finally a restaurant to recommend when out of towners really want an Italian meal in what's left of Little Italy. A few thoughts and comments... I'm sure they were delicious with mascarpone. But I find it funny when people give reasons like this. I can remember once when David Rosengarten did a television piece on Philly cheese steak and he was asking one of the guys at one of the famous places about the bread and what makes it special. "We like this bread because, you know, it's crisp. It has to have that crispness," the guy said. Rosengarten raised his eyebrows while squishing the bread with no apparent difficulty and said something like, "well, I don't know that I think it's crisp, but..." and went on to say what he thought was special about the bread. Anyway, the point of this is that people seem to think that "crisp" is a word one uses to describe desirable properties in bread, and also that "we used this because it's lighter" is a desirable way to describe substituting a different ingredient. Anyone who is familiar with ricotta and mascarpone will know that substituting the latter for the former will in no way result in a lighter ravioli filling. Quite the opposite: it will result in a richer, silkier filling. Which, from the sound of things, is a good idea -- but not lighter. Cappesante (usually with a doubled P, but there are numerous spellings) is Italian for "scallop(s)." It comes from cappa (cape) and santa (saint) -- presumably because scallop shells look like a cape and... er... Italians like to throw the church in whenever they have a chance? Anyway, beet-grappa vinaigrette sounds very interesting. Did it taste alcoholic at all, or was the alcohol cooked off somehow?

Another Laird's bonded update: They recently added Opici as distributor, and Opici may be the best option for those wishing to order/stock Laird's bonded.

You can read the paper here: Trevithick CC, Chartrand MM, Wahlman J, Rahman F, Hirst M, Trevithick JR. Shaken, not stirred: bioanalytical study of the antioxidant activities of martinis. BMJ 1999;319:1600-1602

Here is something I posted eons ago in the rec.food.sourdough newsgroup. I think it speaks fairly directly to what's happening here. The original topic had to do with the wisdom of using a alread-established starter culture versus starting one yourself. For some reason, people who are new to sourdough baking (I should hasten to add that I have no idea as to the level of sourdoush expertise among participants in this thread) often want to begin my making their own starter culture. This makes the task of sourdough baking, which is not without challenges in the best of circumstances, exponentially more difficult.

For Rack & Soul I'd say the specialties are "pan fried chicken, beef short rib, pulled pork, baby back ribs." (They offer waffles among their many sides, but I don't get the impression that "chicken and waffles" is a particular specialty.)

I think you have to toss the short ribs. It's not so much a matter of killing whatever bacteria might have grown during the time that the temperature was too low -- you know you can cook to sterilization over 31 hours. However, no amount of cooking will have an effect on any toxins that may have been produced during the period when the power was off. If, for example, you had some Clostridium botulinum growing in there and excreting botulin toxin during that period, you can cook those ribs until the cows come home and they'll still kill you dead as a doornail if you eat them. Probably this didn't happen... but it's a risk you can't take.

TBoner, you say "Apry came through nicely in good balance with the maraschino." Maybe you mistyped? The Slope, which we're talking about, doesn't have any maraschino. In the Slope, Apry more or less subs for the maraschino in a Red Hook... so it's rye, Apry and Punt e Mes (instead of rye, maraschino and Punt e Mes, as in a Red Hook).

I assume you mean the red one? Could be interesting.

In this drink, I'm usually more concerned about overpowering the Apry than anything else. As opposed to the way maraschino cuts right through in the Red Hook, Apry can get lost behind an assertive rye and especially behind the Punt e Mes. I'd be more likely to bump the Apry up to 3/4 and leave the Punt e Mes at 1/2. Chris, I'm a little surprised that you're concerned about covering up the rye, considering the bottling you use (fwiw, I think Flatiron uses Rittenhouse). It's hard to find a more assertive straight rye whiskey than Wild Turkey. If any rye can stand up to 2:1:1, it's Wild Turkey 101.

A google search for "choctease" suggests that your recipe is missing an ingredient. 1/2 oz. Lena 1/2 oz. Frangelico 1/2 oz. Goldken[n] 1/2 oz. Butterscotch Schnapps 2 oz. cream Honestly, I can't help saying that it sounds like a positively revolting drink.

Wait. You're saying that Arroz con Pollo is not a "traditional Mexican" dish, or is not a "latin cuisine" dish? This is something that can be found in many variations in many different Spanish-speaking cultures. I've had Cuban versions, Dominican versions, Puerto Rican versions, etc. Okay... I haven't had a Mexican version. But this was a "latin" episode, not a Mexican episode, right?

Mmmm, I don't think so. A Manhattan served in a bowl is still a cocktail, and vichyssoise served in a "V glass" is still a soup. The question, in my mind, is how much booze do you have to put in the vichyssoise in order to make a "leek and potato cocktail."

My experience has been that early dinnertimes are more common in the American Midwest, and I think this tradition may be a holdover from more agrarian times. Growing up in Boston, we typically ate dinner sometime around 7:30 or so -- and I didn't have the sense that this was particularly late. It seemed like almost everyone I knew started dinner sometime between 7:00 and 8:00. It was only when I went to college in Wisconsin that I encountered the phenomenon of dinner at 5:00 or 6:00. In a two-income family, I don't see how it would be possible to have dinner on the table by 5:00 or 5:30 anyway. When is there time to cook? Personally, I rarely have more than a cup of coffee with perhaps a piece of toast for breakfast on weekday mornings, and I like to have lunch at around 1:30. After that, I really don't find that I'm all that hungry for a meal again until 7:30 or later.

Right. I think there is a certain concentration of alcohol or in some situations a certain presence of an alcoholic ingredient (e.g., wine, champagne, sherry, whatever), that represents the dividing line between "alcoholic libation" and "cold soup." And, most often, cocktails on one side and cold soups on the other don't get all that close to the dividing line. To make a few examples: If you start with 8 ounces of finely pureed, relatively thin gaspacho and add a half ounce of pepper vodka, you have soup. If, on the other hand, you take 3 ounces of the same gaspacho, add 3 ounces of pepper vodka and serve it over ice, you have a kind of Bloody Mary -- a cocktail. Or, if you take 2 ounces of white peach puree and add 4 ounces of prosecco, you have a Bellini -- a cocktail. If you take 5 ounces of white peach puree and add 1 ounce of prosecco, you have a fruit soup (or perhaps a non-cocktail libation). With both of those examples, I think you will find that as one gradually reduces or increases the proportion or presence of the alcoholic ingredient, tasters will begin saying "this is no longer a soup . . . now it's a drink" (or vice-versa). And there will be some (not particularly appealing, IMO) point there in the middle where it is neither fish nor fowl -- it's either a weak drink or an overly boozey cold soup, or both or neither.