slkinsey

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.

The companies want to make more profits. That means two things: spending less money on materials/construction and driving repeat sales via planned obsolesence. If you look at the Sunbeam waffle iron, for example, that thing is built like a tank. My parents have one that has been in weekly use for over 50 years, and it's still going strong. It makes 4 waffles at a time. It has heavy, deep, thick plates for making waffles and completely separate plates for making pancakes or use as a sandwich press. There's just no way any modern company is going to put that kind of craftsmanship and materials into a waffle iron unless they plan to sell it for over 100 bucks (average for a waffle iron seems to be around 30 bucks, with a top price of maybe $70).

D'oh! I think JAZ beat you to the name. Although I'm sure plenty of people are discovering that name, with the popularity of pomegranate juices, infusions and liqueurs.

Many people prefer the old KitchenAid mixers, which had stronger motors and all metal gearing.

I think the rules of thumb should be: 1. Know the properties of the wine you're going to be cooking with (e.g., sweet vs dry, tannic vs soft, etc.) and make sure you're using one with the appropriate characteristics for the effect you want. 2. Don't cook with any wine you couldn't at least choke down if someone had a gun pointed at your head. This primarily means spoiled (corked, etc.) wines and wines with serious off-flavors. I've always meant to find a decent red and a decent white wine-in-a-box I could keep around for cooking purposes. The thing that's great about the wine-in-a-box delivery system is that the wine is actually inside a bag inside the box. The bag just shrinks in size as wine is poured out the spigot, which means that no air is actually going into the bag -- which means no oxidation, which means you can keep the box around for months and use a bit of wine here and there for cooking as you need it.

Hmm. If I'm laying out substantial coin for a great steak, the last thing I want to do is obscure the beef flavor with garlic or herbs. Another way to do it would be to bring the steak up to, say, 54C (medium-rare is 52–55C, aka 125–130F) for a few hours and then let it go back down to around 50C and hold there until it's ready to be seared and served. Then, when the meat is quickly seared in a very hot pan to form a crust, the interior will heat back up to 54C but the searing time will be long enough for there to be a desirable degree of gradation of doneness without going so far as to get the overcooked layer you describe. This did seem to be the case in Vadouvan's experiments, if I'm reading correctly. Collagen converts to gelatin at 55C, so in order to have any tenderizing effect on a less-than-perfect porterhouse or strip steak, I think you'd need to take it up to that temperature. The good news is that these are naturally tender cuts of meat with little collagen, so even a not-so-good porterhouse or strip steak should be somewhat tenderized by spending a couple of hours at 55C. I'd hesitate to keep it at that temperature much longer, though, or I think the texture would become insipid and mealy. I think this is also often true with respect to a home grill: Either the grill isn't that good to begin with, or it's not loaded/fired/preheated/managed properly, or the fuel isn't very good, etc. It's possible, I know, to get a great grilled steak on a Webber grill with Kingsford charcoal, just like it's possible to get a great omelet out of a thin stainless steel pan on an electric stove -- but both of those things take a good bit of knowledge, experience and expertise. This is another reason I think a lot of home steak grillers reach for the seasoned salt, garlic rub, etc.

Fee Brothers now has a limited edition barrel aged bitters out. It's outstanding. Get it while you can.

Thanks for the link, guzzirider. It would seem that, unless you want to add the smokey flavor from charcoal grilling (and also, unless you have a konro with bincho-tan charcoal), sous vide followed by searing for crust would be the best technique. Interestingly, that's more or less idea of Fat Guy's "French method" (sear with butter to create a crust and then gently cook to temperature) only in reverse (gently cook to temperature and then sear with butter to create a crust)..

According to the NY Post, DeMarco's is probably going to close for good: Apparently the restaurant had been on the brink of closure for some time anyway, which doesn't come as too big a surprise to those of us who had followed the place since it's opening. The pizza simply wasn't ever very good, and there was little reason not to walk a few blocks East to Arturos for a better (and cheaper, I'd guess) pizza.

When you broil, the melted fat just runs off the meat into the platter on which the steak is resting. When you grill, the melted fat runs off the meat into the flames and burns. If I'm paying 35 bucks for a dry-aged prime-of-the-prime porterhouse, I want a deeply maillardized, crusted steak -- I don't want any burnt, carbonized flavors. This would tend to favor broiling. Broiling also has the advantage of retaining the melted steak fat, which can then be spooned over the steak and sopped up with bread. A trip to Peter Luger really demonstrates, among other things, how much of beef's flavor comes from the fat. If I'm going to be eating a cheapo strip steak or something like a marinated flank steak or garlic-rubbed skirt steak, then grilling might be my choice. The char and burnt flavors in this context are adding to the overall flavor profile and aren't muddying expensively dry aged flavors. I have a theory that many people who think paying extra for expensive dry aged prime beef is silly are largely taking their steaks off the grill (often with the addition of a spice rub or seasoned salt). I'm not surprised it's difficult to tell the difference in this context. There are, of course, methods that split the difference. Bistecca alla Fiorentina, a thick porterhouse of chianina beef grilled over vine cuttings, is somehow done in a way that the exterior is not burned -- and although the beef fat is lost to the fire, this is more than compensated by a generous drizzle of top quality Tuscan extra virgin olive oil.

According to Wikipedia, sriracha isn't a codified condiment, but rather the name of a town (Si Racha) that made a sauce that's somewhat similar. I've always been given to understand that sriracha as we know it in America was formulated and popularized by Huy Fung, which is to say that Huy Fung sriracha is sriracha in the States (much like Heinz sets the standard for ketchup). In Thailand I think there is a fair amount of variation in what can be considered "sriracha" and Huy Fung's version may not even be considered a particularly typical sriracha sauce. But I don't think it's the case that there is a "better" version of sriracha as we know it. Anyone would recommend a "better" sriracha is also probably recommending something that's quite different. Also, I have to wonder whether there may be some bias against Huy Fong products among certain demographics due to the fact that it's made in California. I'd say that Tabasco is its own category. There may be other sauces that attempt to duplicate Tabasco, but why use them when you can get the real thing? Now, that said, Tabasco and, e.g., Texas Pete are very often used for the same things. For example, a few dashes of hot sauce on some rice and beans or scrambled eggs. In that case, one is choosing between different classes of hot sauce (albeit fairly closely related in the grand scheme of things). Personally, I prefer the Louisiana-style cayenne sauces. I also don't think it's necessary to have both kinds if you're limiting yourself to a total of only five.

Pan diameters are usually measured across the top.

Unless you do a lot of spicy cooking, I'm not sure you even need five hot sauces. I like to have around: 1. A "Louisiana-style" cayenne-based hot sauce such as Red Devil Cayenne Pepper Sauce, Crystal Hot Sauce, Louisiana Hot Sauce or Texas Pete Hot Sauce. I like these better than Tabasco sauce, which I feel has too much bite and not enough flavor. These sauces have some heat, but not so much that you can't use them in fairly large amounts in something like jambalaya. This is my all-purpose hot sauce that I use on everything from eggs to rice and beans. 2. Sriracha. This is another incredibly versatile hot sauce. It's got enough of an "Asian" flavor that it works well in the few contexts where a Louisiana-style hot sauce wouldn't work, and yet you won't ruin a cheddar cheese omelette with a few squirts of sriracha. Huy Fong seems to be the brand you want. I actually think you could do perfectly well with just those two hot sauces. Adding others is going to depend on what kind of food you like to eat. I'll tell you what I have... 3. Hot pickled peppers in vinegar. This is just a dasher bottle filled with whole little chili peppers (usually green, although I have seen red). Goya makes a perfectly good version. These are absolutely ubiquitous in the South, but seem less so up here in the Northeast. I can hardly imagine eating greens without a few dashes of hot vinegar. These also last forever: when the vinegar gets low, just top up the bottle with additional vinegar. The bottle only needs to be replaced when the vinegar starts losing its zip. 4. Sambal oelek or chili garlic (sambal oelek with garlic, as far as I can tell). Again, Huy Fong seems to be the brand. This is nice to have if, like me, you like to use a slightly vinegarey, garlicey Asian-style crushed chili sauce on things like delivery dumplings, or to "zing up" leftover Chinese food. I'll stipulate, however, that this doesn't seem to be the kind of "dasher bottle" liquid hot sauce you're after. 5. El Yucateco salsa picante de chile habanero, the green one. Very spicy with that special flavor only habanero chilis bring. I prefer the "fresh" and "bright" flavors of the green version, but the red version is good as well. 5. If you don't consider sambal oelek to be the class of hot sauce you're seeking in this thread, then I'd add a chipotle hot sauce for the smoke flavor. I also like to have broad bean chili paste, gochujang, chipotles in adobo and homemade hot chili oil around the house. None of these is a liquid bottled hot sauce, however.

Dude. Custard with a whole slice of pie mixed in?! Sweet.

As far as I know, it was always legal to have a beer with your dim dum on Sunday morning (or at least for the last 30+ years). The blue laws applied mainly to retail liquor sales. We're actually still saddled with stupid laws about retail liquor sales, like the fact that liquor stores can't sell beer.

For the Yankees game, there's always a stop off at Patsy's East Harlem for a quick pizza or five. For Broadway shows (what, no opera?! ) I always like the egregiously under-hyped Esca, one of the best fish places in the city that also has pasta and even some good dishes for non-fish-eaters. For the Museum of Natural History, both Celesteand Cesca are reasonably nearby. Nice Matin could be a good choice, with things like the "five napkin burger" for the kids and "monkfish wrapped In pancetta" for the geezers.