slkinsey

ulterior epicure, you had what I think are among the best dishes at Babbo (tripe, beef cheek ravioli, fennel dusted sweetbreads), so I am not surprised you had a good time. I've also had excellent experiences with Babbo's wine staff, who always seem to take my vague ideas and recommend something special and extraordinary costing less than I was planning to spend on wine. Interestingly, the one thing you write about with which I'd take exception is your description of the ravioli as "perfectly al dente." The one time I've been disappointed with the pasta at Babbo was an order of the lamb's brain ravioli (which, similar to your reaction, I'd like to see a little more "brainy") that I felt was al dente. I say this because I don't think fresh pasta from the tradition in which Babbo is operating -- which is to say, in the larger Emilia-Romagna tradition as opposed to some toothier fresh pasta styles from the South, like orecchiette -- is meant to bite back. Rather, I think this style of fresh pasta should be tender, and when a raviolo has a texture that I'd call al dente, it makes me think it's been frozen too long, or made with flour that's too hard. This is not to say that I like it mushy, of course, but to my taste pasta can't be "tender" and "al dente" at the same time (in general, I'd only use "al dente" to describe dry pasta). I've never found the beef cheek ravioli at Babbo anything other than tender. Just curious if you could expand on your perceptions of the texture of the fresh pasta dishes.

Right. As I said above, I bet that has to do with the ubiquity of home ranges with a slide-out drawer under the oven where foods can be "broiled" from above by the gas jets that heat the oven, this part of the stove typically being called the "broiler." I don't know when this implementation of the home stove came to be standard in US households, but 50-60 years ago seems about right.

Which "scotch-style" blended whiskies are using rice? Suntory Yamazaki, in any event, is a single malt whiskey by any definition. And, as far as I can tell, Nikka makes single malts and all-malt blends. Both these distilleries appear to be attempting to make whiskies reminiscent of the scotch tradition.

Yes, that's correct. But I think it's clear that what we're talking about here is "scotch-style whiskey, which I take primarily to mean whiskey with a smokey aspect (although, interestingly, smokiness is by no means universal in true Scotch).

Technically, I believe that "broiling" simply means to cook by direct exposure to radiant heat. If I had to guess, I'd say that most likely the distinction between "broiling" meaning "heat from above" versus "grilling" meaning "heat from below" dates from the ubiquity of modern gas-fired stoves in the American home, which included the ability to broil by placing foods under the gas jets which heat the oven. Once this part of the stove became known as "the broiler," "broiling" came to be known as "cooking under the broiler." I suppose this is similar to the way "grilling" came to be known as "cooking on top of the grill." Isn't it the case that "broiling" and "grilling" have different meanings in the UK?

Brown butter is simple and delicious. Great with fish, and my go-to sauce (with sage) for gnocchi. The reason, I think, that people don't often do brown butter for omelettes is that we have this aesthetic idea that an omelette should be pale yellow and shouldn't be browned at all.

The problem with an aluminum disk bottom is thart aluminum is not affected by induction. So what part of the pan is heating up? Some pans have a thin magnetic steel layer on the bottom of the aluminum disk, but some simply have a magnetic steel body. Anyway, if you're talking about a 2 inch overlap on each side of the induction hob, it's unclear to me that aluminum being heated by a thin strip of magnetic steel on the bottom of the pan has a great advantage over directly heated carbon steel in terms of moving heat to the overlap area.

I would assume that this is simply a mispelling unique to Stanley Clisby Arthur, or perhaps one that was common around New Orleans for a time. One can understand how the German word himbeere could come to be mispronounced "hembarig" over a number of years and generations much the same way, for example, New Jersey Italian-Americans pronounce coppacola as "gabbagool." The "red" part would refer to red raspberries as opposed to black raspberries.

1,000 degrees onto an area the size of a silver dollar if you hold the heat gun an inch away. By way of comparison, an okay overhead commercial broiler puts out something like 42,000 BTUs per burner, and it wouldn't be unusual for there to be three burners. That's 126,000 BTUs screaming down out of that thing.

2 mm of carbon steel is quite a bit. Carbon steel is conductive enough that I wouldn't expect hot spots to be a problem the way they are on thin stainless steel or thin enameled carbon steel. And keep in mind that, at 0.51 w/cm K carbon steel may have so-so thermal conductivity compared to aluminum alloy at 1.63 or cast aluminum at 1.21, but at it's still way better than stainless steel at 0.16, and not that far from cast iron at 0.80. I'd expect these pans to perform over standard heat somewhat similar to cast iron.

Great job, dude. What I find is often the case is that tha parents simply aren't willing to give up that dinner you gave up in order to take the kid home in the car for acting up at a restaurant. Indeed, they'll tolerate a certain amount (sometimes a lot!) of misbehavior in order to have that restaurant meal. And once the kids learn that there aren't any meaningful consequences... Well, at that age kids are nothing if not little manipulation machines (which, I should hasten to point out to any potentially horrified parents, is exactly what they should be at that age of psychological development).

d. I suppose it's possible the he was just really sloppy about conveying his reality, however given that his intent was clearly to demean Varietal he should have taken at least some care to be clear and correct. I thought he wrote it to convey the impression that he thought this was a fussy and pretentious practice. This is right in line with his smirking description of Varietal's listing of various producers and growers on their menu (something that has been going on for so long that even likeminded middlebrow restaurants like Franny's do it, and including some mention of the purview of certain ingredients is almost standard in higher cuisine these days).

Right. So it's not 100% efficiency. They're just using the waste water for something else. The chance that restaurants are doing this is, I have to think, infinitesimal. One way restaurants might make their own "mineral water" would be to get ahold of an analysis for their filtered local tap water and then add measured amounts of various minerals to get the profile they want.

Barkeeper's Friend and elbow grease, I'm afraid. I'd ordinarily recommend oven cleaner, but that's not good for anodized aluminum.

I don't think that's correct, Nathan. I'd like to see any manufacturer claims of the efficiency you're asserting (which would be something like 1 gallon of waste water per 33 gallons of treated water). For example, these guys say that their home system is "incredibly water efficient" because it "rejects only 1 gallon of water for every 1 gallon of drinking water that is produced." I've never seen any claims of waste water production better than 1:1 for reverse osmosis. To be clear, reverse osmosis only works by producing waste water. There is no such thing as a reverse osmosis system that doesn't produce waste water. To bring it back on topic, the reason I don't like the use of reverse osmosis when a restaurant is going to represent itself as using filtered municipal water instead of bottled water out of altruism and concern for the environment, is that I think it's inappropriate to use such a wasteful technology.

True, but at the same time the good wine was cheap. According to William Sokolin's investing book, Liquid Assets, 1961 Petrus came on the market at $10 a bottle ($120 a case). Exactly! Not for nothing am I drinking a botle of Château Haut-Brion in my avatar picture taken back in 19mumblemumble. This was a wine my parents and their friends were drinking at a picnic! Among my family pictures of dinners back in the old days, one often sees bottles of Château Latour, Château Lafite Rothschild, Château Margaux, etc. on the table. These were not exactly cheap back then, but they were affordable for young college professors. Nowadays they're too expensive for most college presidents.

Sam, are you sure this isn't a figure for treated sea water? I think the reverse osmosis filters sold for light-duty purification of tap water essentially produce 1:1. Well, even a 1-to-1 ratio of treated water to waste water seems egregiously wasteful when it's not needed. It's true that low-volume home units can be more efficient than larger and undustrial units. It's also a fact that those units can hardly process enough water fast enough for commercial use in a restaurant. But, more to the point, it's simply not needed in New York City, and even a best-case scenario of 50% efficiency is horribly wasteful.

This is too bad. Not only is reverse osmosis filtration entirely un-needed for New York City tap water (it's something you'd generally only need to use if you have reason to be afraid of things like mercury in the water, which is not a concern in NYC) but it's also very wasteful considering that each gallon of treated water produces between 2 and 8 gallons of waste water. All that would really be needed in NYC is a ceramic sediment filter, which would remove anything down to 0.9 microns (this would filter out things like giardia, toxoplasma, cryptosporidium and entamoeba cysts as well as rust sediment from old pipes, etc.) and a big-ass activated charcoal filter to strip out water treatment chemicals like chlorine. This can be set up for very little money (I have this at home) and doesn't waste any water.

I've got a couple of 'em. They rawk.

Interesting idea. I'm getting ready to do some simple syrup versus gomme syrup testing. Maybe I should throw salted simple into the mix as well.

Yea, I imagine that's true. I wonder what would happen if we experimented with an eyedropper of salt water for cocktails. It's worth pointing out, while on the subject, that it's a bit of a waste to use fancy expensive sea salt in a cocktail. Once it's dissolved into the liquid, fleur de sel won't taste any different than any other kind of salt. Probably best, if one is going to use salt crystals rather than salt water, would be the finest grained salt you can find.

Yea, I wonder if they're good as well. My experience is that, to my taste, modern waffle makers produce a waffle with pockets that aren't deep enough, and as a result the waffle isn't as fluffy and light as it could be. Then again, I grew up with the old Sunbeam, so that's what seems "right" to me for a standard (i.e., not Belgian-style) waffle. I'm sure the Sumbeam couldn't keep up with the commercial units in terms of volume, but on a single waffle-to-single waffle comparison, I wouldn't be shocked if the Sunbeam came out on top.

"Midtown" is a pretty big area to cover, more or less covering everything between 34th and 59th Streets. Can you be more specific? What price range are you looking for?

It should be pointed out thast these are all commercial-style Belgian waffle bakers, which is another thing entirely.

...we have to add the cardinal rule though 3. Don't cook with 'cooking wine' Isn't that covered by #2 above? Cooking wine is in no way drinkable.