slkinsey

Hmm. I don't think I've ever been called "Sam Slinky" before. The only reason they say that is to cover their own asses. And also because they are well aware that the majority of their market buys their products primarily because they like the looks. So, by advising customers to stay at medium or below, they are hoping to mitigate dissatisfaction due to discoloration of the stainless steel. These are well made pans, and there is no reason you shouldn't be able to use them on extra-high heat with a restaurant stove, never mind a home stove.

See, I think both the Weller bourbon and the Wild Turkey rye are pretty full-flavored spirits. If you like the blueberry-with-whiskey idea, and if can get your hands on some, give it a try with Old Overholt. It's lighter, softer and dryer than those others. The other thing you could do is forget about the blueberry liqueur and either muddle blueberries or use a blueberry syrup (or some combination thereof).

Erik, what bourbon are you using? Maybe if you went to a lighter base spirit? Something like Old Overholt might work nicely, as it has a relatively light body compared to most bourbons and it's not nearly as sweet. And, of course, I couldn't help thinking that it sounds like it might be pretty good with a gin base. Actually, I'd be tempted to try it with a linie aquavit base.

Update: Audrey tells me that the entire line of Fee Brothers bitters, as well as many of their syrups, may be found at Kalustyan's.

I am not aware of any store in Manhattan that sells Fee Brothers bitters. So I think you're out of luck on that one. As previously mentioned, the source for Gary's orange bitters in Manhattan is Pegu Club. For the gins it's a little more complicated. The 209 can be found at Sherry Lehmann on the Upper East Side. You could try Astor Wines & Spirits and the nearby Warehouse Liquors, but I don't think they'll have those particular gins. New York City is kind of a funny place with respect to liquor. You can get a zillion kinds of single malt scotch or grappa, but the availability of different bottlings of gin and rye and that kind of thing is not very good considering the size and nature of the city.

Well, yes. I suppose I should say that the perception "this is pain" is a psychological interpretation of (usually) neurological signals, which in turn are (usually) generated by physiological stimuli. And, of course, there is the fact that psychology and consciousness are artifacts of neurological activity. I was more speaking to the point that a given stimulus leading to a given neurological signal does not necessarily equal the same interpretation (of, in this case, pain) in all organisms. As previously explained, I don't think one could describe a lobster as experiencing pain.

I think we're maybe not understanding each other, doc. I think it goes like this: 1. Nerves send signal to brain 2. Brain interprets these signals and assigns quality "pain." You don't usually have 2 without 1, of course. This is what you do when you interrupt the neurophysiologic pathway of the stimulus. But would you not agree that it is possible to have 1 without 2 -- to have a stimulus that might produce the sensation of pain but to not have the actual pain? Various meditation techniques, I think, demonstrate that this is true. I didn't make up this assertion, of course. The idea that pain takes place in the brain is the whole premise behind gate control.

What the heck, let's get a little etymological. A nice article on Wikipedia has this to say: <blockquote>Anthropomorphism, a form of personification (applying human or animal qualities to inanimate objects) and similar to prosopopoeia (adopting the persona of another person), is the attribution of human characteristics and qualities to non-human beings, objects, or natural phenomena. Animals, forces of nature, and unseen or unknown authors of chance are frequent subjects of anthropomorphosis.</blockquote> I would say that the key part of this is "the attribution of human characteristics and qualities to non-human beings" -- which is what I think we are talking about here. In particular, "the attribution to the duck of a human being's reactions with respect to being raised for foie gras." This is along the lines of assertions such as "it causes ducks tremendous stress to be fed by gavage and is therefore cruel" or "it hurts the ducks to have a tube put in their throats" which are based on our thoughts about what it would be like to experience those things ourselves as human beings with human psychology and human physiology. But again, as long as we know what we're talking about, I guess it doesn't matter what we call it. You are the one who first made the point that you suspect the question as to whether geese feel pain and whether they feel it during foie gras production is a question of "biology, not literature." It is a question of psychology as to whether and how they experience pain, because the perception of pain has to do with how various neurological signals are processed by the brain. For example, take the lobster: we know that lobsters will react to some stimuli that would be processed as "painful" by humans. However, it happens to be the case that a lobster's neurological makeup is simply not complex enough to create the psychological condition we know as "pain." A lobster who has his claw torn off experiences something... but it is not pain. Now, I am not suggesting that duck neurophysiology and psychology are so simple or different that ducks do not experience pain (although I do think it is different from the way humans experience pain). What I am suggesting is that we need to consider the vast differences between ducks and humans before making judgments as to what ducks might feel in certain circumstances, and that includes pain and psychological distress. I would suggest that there are things that are perceived as painful and psychologically disturbing for humans that are perceived and processed very differently by lower animals with less complex psychology and different physiology. But perhaps more important than the psychology is the physiology. As has been brought up a zillion times in previous discussions on gavage, the physiology of a goose or duck esophagus is radically different from the esophagus of a human -- it is hard and calcified and adapted to far different materials. This is partly because ducks and geese do not have teeth and often pass hard, sharp and relatively large objects down their esophagi. Indeed, ducks and geese are known to swallow things that would be damaging and dare I say painful to a human esophagus. Given the sort of things that ducks and geese pass down their esophagi without a second's hesitation, one is led to the conclusion that they are drastically different from humans with respect to situations that will cause them to perceive pain associated with the esophagus. This is due to a mixture of physiology (the composition of the esophagus), neurophysiology (a duck esophagus is not innervated the way a human esophagus is) and psychology (ducks are comfortable having things in their esophagi that human beings are not). To proceed from the assumption that ducks and geese are fundamentally similar to humans in this way is a failure to account for these wide differences. Well, I'll tell you what I'm skeptical of. I'm skeptical of the logical argument that goes like this: "1. If someone put a tube down my throat and decanted extra food into my stomach every day, I bet it would really hurt and I bet it would cause me a lot of psychological distress. 2. I conclude from 1 that it must be the same for ducks and geese. 3. Due to 1 and 2 above, I conclude that this practice is causing pain and psychological distress to ducks and geese. 4. This practice is horribly inhumane and must be stopped!" The problem is right there in number 2 above. Not only do we have no reason, other than what I will call anthropomorphization, to make the conclusion reached in number 2, but we have many reasons to make a very different conclusion. What I have read is that stress leads to increased production of epinephrine, which in turn leads to veiny, lower quality foie gras. It is quite clear to me that there are parts of the foie gras process that can be cruel and inhumane. I'm simply not convinced that it necessarily has to be that way -- and I think a reasonable line may be drawn by those who do not oppose all domestication and slaughter of animals for human consumption. When I see that a place like Hudson Valley Foie Gras uses the most modern techniques, has low mortality and produces a high percentage of A grade foie gras, and when I read reports (several of them posted in these forums) from unbiased visitors to the effect that the ducks there didn't "seem stressed," it makes it hard to believe that the ducks there are being tortured on a daily basis.

Well, yes. It's also the fact that being massaged and fed beer sounds pretty good when heard through the filter of anthropomorphization, whereas gavage does not.

Sounds like an allergy to me. Even if you're talking about rotgut homemade infused "absinthe" I can't imagine that a typical Sazerac contains enough absinthe to contribite to a hangover as we commonly understand it.

Okay, that's one example. And, one could argue that there are things about the production of Kobe beef that are less humane as those used in the production of foie gras. For example, the reason these cows are massaged is because they are permitted so little exercise that their muscles get sore. They are fed beer as an appetite stimulant because muscle soreness decreases appetite. And, of course, one could argue that the level of fattiness and corpulence produced in this cattle is every bit as "pathological" as the fatty livers of ducks and geese raised for foie gras. Funny, though, that no one seems to campaign against Kobe beef.

To the extent that it adds anything to this debate, I'd like to clarify a little on the anthropomorphization front. First of all, as do most people, you make a mistake in assuming that pain is a physiological or neurological phenomenon, which it is not. It is a psychological phenomenon. Advanced animals, like human beings and ducks, have specialized nerves called nociceptors that respond to high levels of mechanical, thermal or chemical stimuli. The activation of these nerves combines with other sensory stimuli and is processed inside our complex brains into the perception we know as pain. The perception and processing part is the important part, not the stimulus part. There is an entire theory of how pain works called "gate control" which asserts that pain happens only in the brain. So, to the extent that we make the assumption that ducks experience pain in the same way as humans, we anthropomorphize, which means "to attribute human form or personality to things not human." And, of course, if we go the direction of supposing that even nonpainful gavage would cause inhumane levels of "stress" in ducks and geese, we're going straight into the realm of animal psychology. We make a similar mistake when we use our own physiology and psychology to form assumptions about things like gavage. There are plenty of things that might not particularly bother a duck or a cow that we, as humans, would find very distressing or painful. For example, I'm guessing that humans would be very stressed out at being formed into a line and marched into the slaughterhouse like cattle are. Does this mean that it is unacceptably inhumane to do the same with cows? Well, maybe it does and maybe it doesn't. One thing we try to do is figure out how we can tell if the cows are unacceptably distressed. In the case of cows, a seriously freaked out cow actually results in characteristically lower quality meat. In the case of ducks and geese, there are other indicators (largely physiological and hormonal, but also behavioral) that can be examined to determine if the animals are unduly stressed by gavage. If my recollection is correct, some of this research has been done and it was determined that the animals were not unduly stressed. And I believe it is also the case that a stressed animal also results in lower quality foie gras, so it is actually in the producer's best interest to avoid undue stress to his ducks or geese. So. . . once we come around to the idea that there are things one can do to/with various domestic animals without causing undue stress that one could not do with humans or other animals without causing undue stress (and vice-versa), you have to try to look at it from the duck's perspective to the greatest extent possible. For example, I don't think anyone would consider it cruel if humans weren't given enough gravel in their feed, while this might very well be the case for animals like ducks and chickens who use a gizzard to grind their food. Similarly, we shouldn't make the assumption that just because having food decanted into our own stomachs with a tube sounds extremely unpleasant and painful, that the same would be true when feed is decanted into the gizzard of a duck with a tube. Indeed, there is plenty of evidence that this is not the case. Now, one can make the argument that the domestication and slaughter of animals for human consumption for food is inherrently cruel (indeed I believe this is the underlying philosophy of most of those driving the various anti-foie gras movements). If you accept the idea that it can be okay to domesticate and slaughter animals for human consumption, then you have to decide what you think is an acceptable way to do that. Now, I suppose we'd all like to believe that the animals we eat are raised in idyllic "Farmer Brown" free-roaming situations until they are lovingly slaughtered by a teary-eyed Farmer Brown while Mrs. Brown sings a soothing song in the background. But the reality is that it has never and will never be that way. That said, the raising of ducks and geese for foie gras comes as close to that scenario as any method of animal husbandry with real scale of which I am aware. From what I have been able to gather by trying to understand duck physiology/psychology and the best methods of producing foie gras, I just can't believe that a limited period of gavage at the end of which, yes, the ducks may become very heavy, is any more inherrently cruel than any other way we raise domestic animals for slaughter. Indeed, I think the whole practice of domesticating and raising animals for slaughter and human consumption would be substantially more humane (or perhaps I should say "chickenmane" and "cowmane" and "pigmane" as appropriate) if only it were as good as it is for ducks and geese raised for foie gras. Can anyone think of a single animal husbandry practice of comparable scale that is even remotely in the same category?

Interesting. Distilled by Blackwood Distillers in Shetland, Scotland. Some interesting local botanicals include angelica root, wild water mint and sea pink flowers. There are apparently two bottlings of gin by Blackwood: Blackwood's Vintage Dry Gin, their regular bottling, and Blackwood's Vintage 60, a limited edition gin made with hand-gathered Summer botanicals from the Shetland Islands. Audrey, have you tasted their gin? What's it like.

You should be able to use the regular iSi chargers. But, I have to tell you that the antique glass bottles with the cool wire netting, of which I have several, are almost never in working order (usually the rubber seals in the headpiece have failed). So don't buy a vintage glass soda siphon on eBay unless the seller can confirm that it they have charged it and it works without leaking.

To a certain extent, I would think that icy shots of straight vodka are out of the question in this situation. Unless they bring the bottle already ice cold, it will take too long for a full bottle of room temperature vodka to get down to freezer temperature.

Keep it in the freezer and it will stay fine more or less forever, in my experience.

If you really want to "taste the vodka" then I think straight chilled is the only way to go. For cocktails with vodka, there are very few I like, but I have enjoyed Audrey's "Dreamy Dorini Smoking Martini." It goes a little something like this: 2.0 oz : vodka 0.5 oz : Laphroaig 10* 2-3 drops : Pernod Stir with ice, strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with lemon twist. * I have used other intensely smokey single malts, such as Lagavullin, with success

I also have a ton of broken down chicken carcasses (raw, not from roasted chickens) and around a dozen cocktail glasses in the door. But that doesn't strike me as all that weird for an eG crowd.

I was just making room for some extra ice in my freezer when I realized I have some pretty weird stuff in there. I mean, most people would think it odd that half my freezer space is taken up with various animal fats, currently duck, goose, bacon, lard and chicken fats plus some butter made from the cream skimmed from parmigiano reggiano. And indeed the weirdest thing in there is yet another kind of fat. I have a big chunk of blubber a friend from Alaska brought the last time she was in New York. I think it's whale blubber, but it might be seal blubber. Haven't decided what to do with it yet, but rest assured that I will be making Steven Shaw eat some of it and we will be writing about it here. Recipes for blubber are, of course, appreciated. So, what's the weirdest thing in your freezer?

Many strong sourdough cultures are decades old, having co-evolved through literally billions of generations.

Whoa. That's a lot of questions, dude. I think it might be interesting if those who fill out the forms for Esquire also post their choices here. I won't fill it out myself, because any bar I might choose would be one of which Dave is already aware. But for top places in NYC, one could do worse than Flatiron Lounge, Milk & Honey and Pegu Club.

Just get a decent quality PTFE-coated frypan. Whatever is being sold at a deep discount. No nonstick surface will last forever, and I am not aware of any nonstick coating that emits "harmful chemicals."

Shalmanese: For various reasons having to do with growth-limiting conditions for sourdough microorganisms, it would be much better if you reduce the amount of "old" starter you hold behind. You are holding back 33% of the old starter. The starter culture would have much better growth characteristics if you held back only around 10% of the old starter. I often refresh by dumping out all the old starter and only holding back whatever sticks to the inside of the jar. Reducing the percentage of held back old starter is the single most important thing you can do to increase the activity and health of your sourdough culture. I would also recommend feeding your starter at 1:1 flour and water by weight rather than by volume. This also helps to reduce growth limiting conditions and makes it easy to know how much flour and water you have in a given weight of starter. Finally, you should try to feed your starter when it is at peak activity. If you wait until the starter is starving before you feed it, you are starting off on the wrong foot already. Rickster: It sounds like your starter culture is awfully young to be put in the refrigerator for three weeks. This is the kind of treatment that is often only handled well by cultures that are very robust and well-established (which is one reason I think it's better to acquire an established culture rather than making your own).

FWIW, I prefer Absente over Pernod for an absinthe-substitute.

I don't think it's entirely accurate to say that there existed only a "minuscule minority ... who were never taken seriously" in the scientific/medical community who were were skeptical of the premise that dietary fat was the end-all, be-all with respect to heart disease, cancer, etc. -- although this may be true of the popular media.