slkinsey

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.

The unfortunate reality is that even a "really good ventilation" system won't do the trick. As detailed in This definitive article, which was published in the Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine (46(9):887-905, September 2004. Repace, James MSc), details: Now, mind you, this is not talking about filtration, but instead about replacement of air in the room. Filtration is even more expensive, burdensome and difficult -- to the point of being effectively impossible from a practical standpoint.

If you're talking about 6 weeks, I don't think you have anything to worry about. Just put the corks back in the bottles.

Cool stuff! Other than the obvious (warm drinks) what do we think makes for a cold weather, winter cocktail that's different from an Autumn cocktail?

Definitely more. I eyeball it, but I'd say something like 2 ounces Fernet Branca or Branca Menta to three ounces Coke plus ice.

Dehillerin is great. And the heavy Mauviel they sell is functionally the same as Falk & Bourgeat (they purchase their stainless/copper bimetal from Falk). It's only really an amazing deal for those of us in the New World if you fly back with a few pans in your suitcase, though. Once you pay tax and shipping and all those other things, it's a long wait to save yourself around fifty bucks (or less, depending on how much you buy) after you figure in Falk's discount. And, to my mind, there is some value in having a relationship with Falk's US distributor who is located in the US and will stand behind his product 100%. If you can bring some back in your suitcase, though... it's an amazing deal.

I'd be interested not only in hearing predictions for trends that will make their way from cocktail epicenters like NYC across the country, but also what we think the in-crowd and enthusiasts will be doing in the next year.

Where've you been? There are several brands of mango (and coconut and vanilla and whatever) flavored rums that have been around for awhile. I think the point was rather that these commercial product tend to completely suck, in general, and simply cover up inferior, flavorless whiskey, rum, whatever. There's a big difference between Maker's Mark infused with real vanilla beans (pretty good) and Cruzan's vanilla-flavored rum (completely horrible). That said, I used to do a drink with vanilla-infused Maker's, but have come around to the idea that there's not much point in putting additional vanilla flavoring into something that should already have good vanilla notes to it. I had an opportunity to taste Navan straight at a DISCUS-sponsored cordials event, and it didn't do too much for me. We liked Tuaca better, and I'm probably even more partial to 43. That's all for another discussion, though. . . Yea. I've noticed that I've been drinking an awful lot of brown liquor over the last year. In fact, I've probably had more rye whiskey over the last 3-4 months than I have gin. I think you're right about the egg whites. I hope we see bartenders going back to that tradition more and more, and I've had quite a few egg white drinks over the last year. I also wonder if there will be a trend more towards strong drinks, and whether the mainstream might soon start slowly shifting away from "cover up the booze" drinks.

What do we think the trends are going to be for 2006? I'll get the ball rolling. These are really trends that are continuing from 2005, and so perhaps easy calls on my part, but they are largely trends among the cognoscenti and I predict that they will begin to go more mainstream in aught-six. The two "hip" liquors of 2006 are going to be rye whiskey and rhum agricole. We're going to see more and more bars doing their own bitters. I also hope to see applejack make its way deeper into the cocktail enthusiast zeitgeist.

Never came back?! Haven't you heard? Rye whiskey is the new vodka!

The NY Times Magazine recently did an article on "Bar Necessities", including two favorites from Audrey Saunders. First is her adaptation of the Tom & Jerry from the Jerry Thomas book: Egg Batter 12 : eggs 3 Tbsp: vanilla extract 2 oz : rum (Bacardi 8 specified) 4 dashes : Angostura bitters 2 lbs: sugar 1 tsp : ground cinnamon 0.75 tsp : ground allspice 0.5 tsp : ground clove 0.5 tsp : ground nutmeg Separate eggs. Beat sugar, bitters and spices with yolks. Beat whites stiff and fold into yolks. Service 1 gal : whole milk 1 bottle : rum (Bacardi 8 specified) 1 bottle : cognac (Courvoisier V.S. specified) Heat the milk until just below the simmer. Each toddy mug gets 2 ounces egg batter and one ounce each rum and cognac. Fill the rest of the way with hot milk, give it a stir and garnish with fresh grated nutmeg. This is a great drink for a special occasion on a cold night. But, as you can see, it serves a lot of people. This recipe makes around 24 servings. It's probably possible to make a smaller recipe -- perhaps as few as 6 servings -- but that would take some serious precision measuring with the spices (I'd recommend making a spice mix of the regular amounts and then simply dividing the whole works by 1/2 or 1/4 according to how you are scaling the recipe). Another fun choice for the winter is her Hot Port Sangaree, which has the advantage of much better storage characteristics compared to the T&J. You can make up a bottle of the stuff and drink it off and on for the whole winter. 3 cups : port (Graham's Six Grapes specified) 2 oz : pomegranate molasses (Al Wadi specified) 3 oz : simple syrup (1:1) 2 oz : fresh lemon juice 2 oz : Cointreau 5 dashes : orange bitters (Regans' specified) 5 dashes : Angostura bitters Lemon twists Combine all liquids in a bottle. To make a single serving, heat 4 ounces together with a lemon twist to just below the simmer. Strain into a toddy glass and garnish with a new lemon twist.

I make veal stock whenever I can get plenty of veal bones. And I always make my stocks for sauce making... which is to say that I always reduce the stock to a glace and freeze it in cubes. So I can use the cubes for a sauce as-is, or I can add water to get a broth. It's really handy to have a bunch of glace cubes in the freezer, because you can always melt a few for a small sauce, to flavor rice/make risotto, etc.

I'd say yes. Just mix the syrup to order with vodka to get the right proof. See? I knew I'd find a use for vodka if I kept thinking about it long enough!