slkinsey

All: I have had to do some minor deleting of quasi-political and off topic material. Nothing egregious, but I thought it was prudent to nip this in the bud before we go any further astray. Let's keep to our topic here, and stay away from any temptations to expand into speculation as to motivations, culpability, etc. Thanks!

Until after the strike or the holidays? Same here. Until after the holidays. Since most places are booked to capacity, I can't imagine it would be possible to reschedule until after the holidays. Given that deposits have been paid, etc. I would think that most firms are locked into their venues.

Things like conspicuous amounts of gold leaf and rubies and XO cognac in cocktails are simply conspicuous stupidity for rubes with too much money in their pockets and not enough good taste (not to mention good sense). What's the point? I could see putting a tiny bit of something in a cocktail if it made a really striking visual effect, and maybe some of the gold garnishes are cheap enough and make a nice enough effect for this to be worthwhile. But really, I can't imagine that this sort of thing often adds anything to the drink to justify the price. Then again, the price is sometimes the point isn't it? It's all part of the competition to have "the most expensive [insert food or drink item here]." Not dissimilar from the "world's most expensive burger" nonsense that followed DB Bistro Moderne's "super-luxe burger" -- which is very good and was designed with culinary goals in mind -- with absurd and bad-tasting creations designed to ratchet up the price and volume of luxury ingredients (usually inappropriately, as things like waygu beef are not only overkill for a burger, but are actually not good in that form). Ultimately, I suppose superexpensive drinks like this are all about the publicity. I can't imagine anyone is buying them. Edited to add: I see that the use of gold leaf doesn't have to be super-expensive, but it still seems a bit silly. Than again, maybe it's my bias about garnishes being edible and contributing flavor that's talking here.

Alas, Malacca is no longer being produced & can only be found among those of us who have secreted away a stash for the future. One of the more interesting products to come along. I was sad to see it go, and I know I'm not alone in that respect.

I guess there really isn't much value to keeping the bones in when you cook short ribs sous vide.

IMO the hands-down best starter book on cocktails is Dave Wondrich's Killer Cocktails : An Intoxicating Guide to Sophisticated Drinking. For more information, see this thread on the book

With respect to making pasta asciutta (aka dried semolina pasta) at home, I've tried it any number of times and with any number of technologies. Ultimately, I determined that it's a lot of trouble to take for something that won't be nearly the same quality as a good artisanal brand like Setaro or Latini. For preserving fresh egg pasta, nothing maintains the same quality it has when it's truly freshly made. But freezing seems to be the best alternative.

No dice. I could only find a few syrups there: orange, almond, and a couple others. I'm looking for ginger and apple. Apple syrup?! Feh! Anyway... try Zabar's. You can likely get jiggers and whatnot upstairs, and they heve plenty of syrups downstairs. For ginger syrup, I think you're better off making it for yourself to order. The only bought syrup I think is really worth having is oregat.

Yea. The problem with drying fresh pasta is that it doesn't really have the strength to withstand drying and storage. It's not designed for that, and I would go so far as to suggest that the properties that confer good drying/storage characteristics are inimical to the Emilia Romanan pasta aesthetic.

Just about, yea. Angostura bitters have wide availability, and should be on the shelf of any well-stocked grocery store. Bodegas and neighborhood delis are another story, of course.

Go to Chelsea Market. You can get the flavored syrups ar Buon Italia and you can get jiggers, Hawthorne & julep strainers, mixing cups, pint glasses, stirring spoons, muddlers (albeit not very good ones), etc. at the "Bowery" store also in Chelsea Market. For fancier and antique barware, eBay is your friend. WRT bitters, you can get Angostura bitters anywhere. Peychaud's and Gary's Orange Bitters you can buy from Audrey at Pegu Club. Fee Brothers, I'm not sure where you can buy that at retail in NYC. The other bitters you may read about in these forums (Stoughtons, Abbot's, Hess House, etc.)... most of them aren't for sale. You have to know someone.

Here are some maraschino cherries I've had going since the early fall (NY State sour cherries put up with Maraska maraschino). This is a small jar I'm going to give as a gift. I probably have around 10 times more than that. They're getting very tasty, although not all that attractive (the color is going towards a washed out brownish purple).

As many of you will have noticed, the eGullet Society has embarked upon a major expansion to its volunteer program with the creation of a new volunteer group: eG Specialists. I am very pleased to announce that two new eG Specialists are bringing their enthusiasm and diverse talents to the NY Forum: Megan Blocker and John "johnder" Deragon. Megan will be favoring us with a Digest of New York Magazine's food section, and John will be managing the eG Forums Calendar for New York events. You can read more about John and Megan here, in "Meet the eGullet Society specialists." We hope to announce more new New York specialists soon, and have some exciting projects coming for the new year. Please join me in welcoming Megan and John to the New York team!

Try Audrey's "Little Italy" cocktail: 2 oz : Rittenhouse bonded rye 0.5 oz : Cynar 0.75 oz : Martini & Rossi Sweet Vermouth Stir with ice, strain and garnish with Luxardo cherries

Before this interesting discussion goes off the tracks, I would like to interject with a small moderator's note: One goal of the eG Forums is to engender a free and lively exchange of thoughts and ideas relating to the subject of food. To this end, Society members are expected to comport themselves with all due civility when engaging in discussion and debate in the eG Forums. In particular, members are cautioned to address the substance of a counterpart's arguments in a debate, and never to make ad hominem arguments or personal attacks. Furthermore, let us all be aware that the eG Forums are not self-policing. They are moderated, and the eGullet Society has a moderation staff to handle moderation. So, if you feel that someone has said something inappropriate, the correct and only course of action is to report that post to the moderation staff by clicking the button and filling out the form. Let us not see any more chiding of fellow members or speculation as to motivations in this thread. Thanks, and carry on!

This is getting away from the topic of this thread, but it does make me wonder about some things. I remember seeing a picture in the NY Times of schoolchildren lining up for vaccinations in the 60s. My father said, "notice something different about this picture?" I thought, "well, it's mostly white kids. . ." He said, "no. . . take a look: not a single one of them is overweight." And then I thought back to my elementary school in Boston. Back in the 70s, each grade in my school had maybe one overweight kid. Now, the same school is probably 40% overweight. What is it that has changed so much?

All those adults drinking venti non-skim lattes are consuming a *lot* of calories in whole milk. They're consuming a lot of calories in milk period -- regardless of whether it is skim or whole. A venti latte at Starbucks is 340 calories, but it's not like a venti skim latte is only ten calories. A venti skim latte still comes in at a whopping 210 calories. Now, it is true of course that the person opting for the skim latte is consuming 130 fewer calories, but the real issue is the consumption of the venti latte to begin with -- especially multiples of this drink on a daily basis. A venti skim latte still has substantially more calories than a can of full-sugar Coca-Cola. So, if you're drinking 4 venti lattes a day, the difference between skim and whole is the least of your worries.

It's not the fat per se, it's the fact that a cup of whole milk is nearly double the calories of a cup of skim milk. That's a lot of calories, particularly given that you're drinking them. Whole milk is a very efficient way to get calories into people that need them, like infants. Very few of the rest of us need to get so many calories so easily. I guess it depends on how much milk you're drinking. Regardless of whether whole milk has almost double the calories of skim milk, it's still not that high. We're talking about something like 150 calories per cup. And when I was growing up I certainly wasn't drinking more than four cups of milk each day maximum. That's 600 calories compared to 340 calories for skim milk. Now, I can't believe that 260 calories a day is going to make a big difference to a growing active child with an otherwise healthy diet that does not include tons of extra calories in the form of fruit juice and soda. And if we're talking about adults, I can't believe that the volume of milk consumed on a weekly basis with cereal and coffee will be significant either.

Here's the thing I have never understood about drinking 2% milk: whole milk is only around 4%. So what's the big deal? You have to drink an awful lot of whole milk before becoming worried about the fat.

The earliest recipe for Rock & Rye I can find is from the Jerry Thomas book (click here). It calls for nothing more than rye whiskey and rock candy syrup, which I take to mean a highly saturated simple syrup. Thus the name Rock (candy syrup) and Rye (whiskey).

The one thing that is amazing about doing short ribs LTLT sous vide is the extent to which any flavorings completely permeate the meat. I included a small (maybe 2 inch) branch of fresh rosemary in a fairly large batch of short ribs I did for 36 hours. It was incredible the way every bit of the beef was infused with rosemary flavor. Even when I deliberately sampled meat from the innermost part of the short rib, it was flavored with rosemary.

eBay and other places can yield good deals, but be wary. . . The situation is complicated by the fact that there are three copper/stainless lines of Mauviel at 2.5 mm, 2.0 mm (with either iron or stainless handle) and 1.6 mm. And, of course, there is the traditional tin lined stuff in various thicknesses. Often times, if you see someone selling a piece of heavy Mauviel at what seems like an incredibly inexpensive price, it is because it is not actually 2.5 mm. On a place like eBay, where it may be the case that the seller doesn't really know what he has or anyway doesn't have calipers, this is usually simply a mistake. On the other hand, as I believe is mentioned upthread, there are ecommerce sites that sell pieces as "2.5 mm" that they know perfectly well are only 2.0 mm (in at least one documented case, because that particular shape is only manufactured in 2.0 mm).

This is true, of course, but I think it's impossible to create legislation around something like that. The paper I cited below interestingly observed an average of only something like 15% or 17% smokers in the rooms it studied, which is actually lower than the prevalence of smoking in that geographic area. So only a few smokers can still make a lot of problems. This is a good idea. It's never been clear to me whether this kind of provision exists in the NYC and NYS bans, but it strikes me as a reasonable idea. People I've talked to tell me, however, that it's damn hard for a "cigar bar" to do that much smoking-related business. Here's a good piece of news: One thing I can say about smoking bans, having closely observed the effect of the ban in NYC, is that all the dire predictions turned out to be little more than crying wolf. The restaurant and bar business in NYC seems to be, if anything, doing better post-ban than it was pre-ban.

I don't think that's quite right. They're not saying that the outside air doesn't meet the NAAQS. What they're saying, I think, is that the outside air isn't clean enough for air-exchange to clean smoke-filled inside air at any reasonable exchange rate, and that the outside air would have to be 60% cleaner in order for 80 changes/hour to work. This might mean however, that something like 300 changes/hour with "regular" outside air would clean the inside air sufficently to meet the NAAQS. But the point is that 300 changes/hour isn't workable, so therefore it is impossible to clean the indoor air sufficiently without cleaning the outside air as well. I mean... think about what 80 changes an hour means: If you've got a 1,000 square foot space with 12 foot tall ceilings, that means you need to change 960,000 cubic feet of air every hour. . . 16,000 cubic feet of air every minute. . . 266 cubic feet of air every second. And 1,000 square feet is a tiny restaurant or bar.

This can be true, but is highly dependent on the provenance of the cast iron. I have many inherited Griswolds and other pieces of cast iron that are 100+ years old. Those can't just be replaced.