slkinsey

The discoloration on stainless steel cookware commonly caused by cooking over high heat is called "heat tint." It is not caused by coagulated proteins, or anything having to do with the food that is cooked in the pan. You can, in fact, produce heat tint in a stainless steel pan by heating it on the stove with nothing in it whatsoever. At around 350C/660F and higher, the stainless steel reacts with oxygen in the air to form an oxide layer. That oxide layer is the heat tint. Heat tint is not the same thing as the blackness that develops on a pan when fat is heated to high temperature. That is polymerized fat. It's quite durable, as efforts to remove it demonstrate, and can be relatively slick compared to other surfaces. The blackness comes from carbon that is bound up in the polymerized fat. "Seasoned" cast iron takes advantage of polymerized fat to form a less reactive and less "sticky" coating on the raw iron.

Grape tomatoes do seem, for some reason, to be quite reliable as to flavor, etc. throughout the year I don't think they're even remotely in the same neighboorhood as the Purple Cherokee and Brandywine tomatoes I get in the Union Square Greenmarket in August, but they do actually taste like tomato. I wonder what the deal is with this particular tomato? Where are they grown? And I wonder if the flavor 's related to the size somehow? Because the one thing that's incredibly annoying about grape tomatoes is trying to use them in a sandwich.

This may be due to several factors, however. For example, if you typically only use your roasting pan for birds that are too large for a skillet, it may be that your roasting pan is too small for the things you're roasting in it. If there are a couple of inches of room all around the bird in the roasting pan, I'd think it would brown just fine -- especially if elevated a bit (either with a rack or by sitting on a couple of halved onions, etc.). Just going by memory, my Calphalon roasting pan doesn't seem a whole lot thicker than that. It might warp a little bit on the stove, but not unusably so.

Those shysters!

Why, if the publication date of Volume CCLXVII (aka 267) of The Gentleman's Magazine was actually 1854 would it say "July to December 1889" on the cover? Or are you saying that The Unsophisticated Travellers originally appeared elsewhere in 1854?

Aren't all of those others too tall on the sides (i.e., >2 inches) for what you want? If you're willing to go up to 2.5 or 3 inches, your options open up quite a bit.

Stay tuned. We may organize a "for fun" competition in the new year.

It might be possible with a very heavy gauge sheet pan (at least 16 gauge, which is 1.29 mm in aluminum) and relatively low heat. I doubt you'd hurt yourself, but considering that those things have something like a 1 inch lip, I think it would be pretty damn messy. If the heat from the stove caused it to buckle at all (not unlikely) you'd have pan drippings all over the top of the stove. And once you deglazed, how would you pour the liquid out of the sheet pan into a saucepan without spilling it all over the place? What about this pan? It's got sides that are only two inches tall. It's also 14 gauge aluminum, which is 1.63 mm thick.

So... what's in a Democrat cocktail?

Hmm. I've not had a problem with burning pan juices when using a rack, but anyway that's what potatoes are for. I've been meaning to get one of these 16 x 10 babies for roasting, which sounds like what you're looking for but may be out of your price range.

Interesting. What was the thinking behing infusing the star anise in only 1/2 ounce of gin instead of the whole 2 opunces? Seems like you could put the 2 ounces of gin in the shaker with the star anise, wait 2-3 minutes, add the other stuff, put in the ice, shake and then double-strain into the glass.

I don't think that M&H does much "pre-screening." So they're not "selective" in that sense. That's supposed to be taken care of by their unlisted number/reservations system where they ask that you not pass along the number to anyone you wouldn't be comfortable having alone in your apartment for a weekend. Of course, the number eventually reaches wider distribution and a few jerks publish the number either in print or online, etc. This leads to some dilution of their target demographic. After a while, enough is enough and the number has to change (as it recently did). I will say, however, that I have been there when people have been asked to leave. I should hasten to point out that this is what makes it such a great place for more mature parties of two or three.

Hi Paul. I am not aware of any such pan, but I think you will find that a rack should provide sufficient elevation for all the air circulation you might desire in your existing roasting pan. One great advantage is that a roasting rack costs a lot less than a new roasting pan. I highly recommend roasting racks that are coated with a nonstick surface for ease of cleaning. That said, a liberal application of oven cleaner overnight works well on regular stainless roasting racks.

There's really not much point in spending big bucks on high performance cookware for an electric stove. The evenness of the heat source should take care of itself, and the slowness with which the heat source responds to changes in the heat setting will mitigate any advantages in responsivity. I'd say you have the right idea in your last paragraph: Wait until you have the induction stove, buy a piece of each and see how they perform against each other. There's no reason to have everything all from the same brand. In general, if you're going to lay out big bucks on an induction stove, it seems a bit silly to buy cookware based on how you think it would perform over gas. If you decide to replace the induction with gas, the cost of a few pots and pans will be the least of your worries (Mauviel Induc'Inox will be far from useless over gas anyway and, no, I wouldn't expect hot spots).

Milk & Honey is out for a group of that size. All the more because it's a weekend, and they do many things that would tend to make it less fun for the "twentysomething girls out for a fun/rowdy night on the town" demographic (they're very particular about restrained decorum and that sort of thing). But Flatiron is definitely a place that does a good mix of "cool scene for younger people" and great cocktails on the weekends.

What about Stone Rose in the Time Warner Center? And isn't there a bar with a great view in the Mandarin Oriental? Both of those are reasonably close to Carmine's.

Buckethead, I'm not sure I entirely follow your logic on using copper. Given the way induction works, why wouldn't you want cookware where the thermal material can be directly acted upon by magnetics? In particular, my mind goes to Mauviel's Induc'Inox line, which I have mentioned previously on this thread. It is a fully stainless-clad, straight gauge design with a 2 mm thermal core of magnetic carbon steel. Given the way induction works, carbon steel should be plenty responsive, and I think it makes sense that the induction hob acts directly on the thermal core. This is what I'd be likely to buy if I were to switch to induction.

My first thought is that strawberry and basil isn't exactly a match made in heaven, so that might be a bit of a nonstarter. My second thought is that, if your friend wants a gin cocktail with which he is not familiar, there are plenty of tried-and-true gin drinks that, while perhaps familiar to the cocktailian community, aren't exactly well-known. There's the Pegu Club, for example: gin, orange curaçao, fresh lime, orange bitters, Angostura biters. Or, if that's too familiar, how about the San Martin: gin, red vermouth, yellow Chartreuse.

Okay. It appears that the B&T fork of this discussion has run its useful course insofar as it relates to the topic of this thread. So let's move on. Thanks.

Exactly. The bad news is that the dance nightclub scene in Manhattan is absolutely horriffic, unless you're into swing dancing or something (in which case, check out Swing 46). The good news is that, if you're not married to dancing, New York City is the international capital of cocktail culture and offers several of the best cocktail bars in the world. Unfortunately, the bad news for you may be that your companions may be more into clubbing and dancing than a decent drink.

Gordon, I think you'll have a difficult time finding any place in Manhattan that does "bottle service" (i.e., charging a 1000% markup to sell you a whole frozen bottle of Grey Goose at your table) that: a) you will be able to get into (and I say this with no offense intended, as I couldn't get in either), and b) isn't overrun with B&T guidos.

WRT the "new restaurant crowd" and whether they are often comprised of B&T types... I think a lot of it depends on the restaurant. I don't think a lot of B&Ters were going to Landmarc after it opened, nor were there likely many at ADNY. However, there certainly does seem to be an archetypical person found in some concentration at Manhattan restaurants of a certain kind (places like Spice Market and Buddakan) in the opening months, along with what I might call members of the "executive assistants by day, would-be scenesters by night" demographic. I've certainly observed an increased B&T quotient at, say, Pegu Club every time a mention runs in Time Out or New York Magazine.

As a generality, people who live in Manhattan do not go to Manhattan dance clubs. Rather, these clubs are populated largely by B&Ters from Jersey and the Outer Boroughs ("guidos"). Here's a blog from a Chelsea club bouncer that describes the scene in some detail.

What exactly do you have in mind for a "night club?" Are we talking about a luxe cocktails lounge like Pegu or Flatiron, or one of the Chelsea B&T dance clubs? Others may know better, but I'd say that any place in the Times Square area will be very tourist-oriented.

That's a nice idea and all, and I suppose we're meant to think they're such genii at Per Se and French Laundry that they'll come up with a brilliant strategy to make this happen. But these restaurants are so strongly identified with "the genius of Thomas" that I have a very hard time imagining how these restaurants will persist at anywhere near their current level after the eventual departure of Keller. This has nothing to do with how good they may continue to be, mind you, but everything to do with economics and perception. To continue your analogy, even if there were a plan for a Cuba without Castro (and there is no reason to suppose one doesn't exist), the smart money would still be on chaos down there once he dies.