slkinsey

Pink but not gin, eh? I can't offer any non-Cosmo pink cocktails with vodka, not being much of a vodka drinker (but just about anything with a splash of cranberry will turn out pink). How about a pisco sour with Peychaud's bitters? Or a caipirinha with muddled cherries and/or blood orange?

A salted ice bath might be even better. Colder and also puts some seasoning into the chicken.

Thanks for the article, Elie. I think I must have missed it the first time around. As ever, Rob has some interesting things to say -- as do some of the people he quotes in the article. I'm not so sure I agree, however, when he says that "Houston is on the cutting edge of the new cocktail trend." He also says that Texans "drink more than twice as much distilled spirits as we do wine. And if you figure that those spirits are diluted in cocktails, you realize that by volume we probably drink six times more cocktails than wine." This didn't seem quite right to me. Although I am a New Yorker by choice and a Massachusetts yankee by birth, most of my extended family is in Texas, and my parents have lived in "Houston for around 15 years now. I did some digging. According to the Texas Safety Network, Texans drank 26 gallons of beer, 1 gallon of liquor, 1.5 gallons of wine and 1.5 gallons of malt liquor (i.e., Colf 45, Zima, etc.) per capita in 2003. This, and all the other statistical evidence I've seen (e.g., here and here) portray Texas as an overwhelmingly beer-drinking state, with liquor bringing up the rear. Experience tells me that much of this liquor is consumed in the form of shots and frozen margaritas. Anyway, that's really a minor quibble. The article is overall a very good one, with some provocative statements from a few notables. I found this an interesting one: Although one cannot discount Adria's culinary importance, I'm not sure he is destined to be a major figure in the evolution of the modern cocktail. On the other hand, I'd be interested to hear whether others think the idea of "deconstructed cocktails" and "melting essences" and that sort of thing are likely to become dominant paradigms. Walsh describes Adria's deconstructed piña colada as little pieces of pineapple sorbet, coconut foam and rum Jell-O lined up on a soup spoon that "become a cocktail" when you chew them in your mouth and mix them together. Danny Meyer also contributed some interesting stuff. Walsh characterizes Meyer as "one of the main forces behind the cocktail revolution in New York. I would imagine this is more due to the cocktails served at his restaurants, which were among the first to do cocktails themed with the restaurant's food, than his mixological skills. I had never considered this before, but it's a very interesting point. I wonder what others think about the importance of Danny Meyer's group in the cocktail revival. It was somewhat interesting, and unexpected, to read an article about the underpinnings of the cocktail movement in NYC without hearing the name Dale DeGroff.

Shouldn't make too much of a difference if the marinade is already cold, right? That would only accelerate the cooling of the chicken. Of course, one could always throw the chicken in an ice bath for 30 minutes or so before going to the buittermilk.

This is exciting. My Souss tagine (finally) is set to arrive on Monday and my copy of Paula's book shortly thereafter. I guess I'll buy a wok ring sometime this weekend. So... how soon can I start cooking in this thing? Sounds like I should give it at least a day for seasoning according to these instructions posted elsewhere: Since I live in NYC, unfortunately I do not have a fireplace for wood ash -- so I guess it will be just oil for me. After that, I'd love an inaugural recipe that's really going to show me what this thing can do -- not to mention start infusing flavor into the unglazed clay. Any suggestions?

I am quite interested in purchasing from a live market myself the next time I make fried chicken. This is undoubtedly the way my mother (and certainly her mother) had fried chicken. I am wondering, though, how to manage the whole buttermilk soaking part. Ordinarily I would marinate in Red Devil sauce for around 8 hours and then soak in buttermilk for around 16 hours before frying (usually in the afternoon). To a certain extent, however, this would seem to defeat the purpose of getting superfresh just-killed chicken. Now I'm thinking of getting the freshly killed chicken early in the morning, soaking in buttermilk/Red Devil for around 8 hours and then frying in the evening.

In re to the simmer mat or other heat diffuser: If one is using a rounded tagine (e.g., Souss) on a gas stove, is there any advantage to using one of these devices? Or might there actually be some disadvantage? I had rather envisioned using the Souss tagine with a wok ring over direct (albeit low) gas heat.

You should be able to order Medieval Arab Cookery by Maxine Rodinson directly from David Brown Book Co., the American distributor of Prospect Books (the publisher). They are selling it in hardcover for 60 dollars. And do check out the other food-related offerings at David Brown Book Co. Many books I have never seen before on interesting subjects.

Just a guess here, but cold egg wash probably has increased viscosity compared to warm. This likely means not so much that the cold egg wash adheres to the chicken better when it's cold, but that the layer of egg wash is thicker once adhered. Related, but not exactly the same thing. Again, just a guess.

The egg wash will probably adhere better if you pat the chicken pieces dry, then dust with a little bit of flour mixture (not very much will stick, so it's not the same thing as "double dipping") and then go into the egg wash. This is because wet things like to stick to dry things and vice versa. Dusting the towel-dried chicken pieces with flour makes the surface of the chicken dry before it goes into the egg wash.

By legs, I assume you mean drumsticks and not the whole drumstick-thigh combination? If so, I've always thought the drumstick was the worst part of the bird as it tends to have an unpleasantly dry and mealy texture. Fried drumsticks do seem to be somewhat better than other preparations, however. Usually when cooking drumsticks, I cut off the knuckle or run a shark knife around the knuckle end to sever all the tendons. This allows the meat to naturally contract as it cooks, and seems to provide a more "thigh like" texture to the drumstick meat. No, low fat is what you want. I'm actually not sure there is any such thing as full fat buttermilk. Remember, modern "buttermilk" is a facsimile of the real stuff from the old days. Back in the day, buttermilk was the liquid left over when cream was churned into butter -- cultured butter, that is, because all butter was cultured butter, since it was made from raw milk. Since the leftover butter liquid would be very low in fat (the whole point is that all the fat stays with the butter) modern buttermilk uses lowfat milk as a stand in, and then adds a bacterial culture to that lowfat milk as a stand in for the "cultured" part.

Well... I'm not sure I entirely agree that it's a matter of degree rather than kind. IMO, Di Fara is fundamentally "NYC slice shop pizza" elevated to the Nth degree. As such, it's fundamentally about the toppings rather than the crust. That said, I would agree that, within the context of pizza that is fundamentally about the toppings, he doesn't pile on the ingredients. Within the context of pizza that is fundamentally about the crust (e.g., compared to Franny's or Patsy's) it is a bit "piled on," though.

For a 2 ounce drink, I'd like something like this Libbey "3787 - Champagne - Embassy" glass. It holds 3.5 ounces which, with the flat shape, should leave a nice but not unreasonably large collar with a 2 ounce pour. Something like this would, I think, provide more elegance than a shooter glass without forcing patrons to hunch over the bar to avoid spilling. They're selling a case of 36 over the web for a little less than 4 bucks a stem, so three to five people could split a case and be very well set up for home use.

I have a theory about the way people think about pizza. For some people, pizza is CRUST (with some stuff on top). This is the way I think about pizza, and the way I think most Italians think about pizza. For this reason, the idea of "bagel pizza" or "French bread pizza" doesn't make any sense to me. Where's the crust? For other people, perhaps most in America, pizza is PIZZA TOPPINGS (on top of something). This is where the "piled to the sky = good" philosophy comes from. I'm not making a judgment here... just pointing out that there are differences. One thing that happened to a lot of Italian foods that came to America and became Italian-American foods is that they became more about the condiments than the base ingredients. Take pasta, for example. In Italy, pasta dishes are about the pasta and the sauce is there as an accent to enhance the pasta. In America, however, pasta dishes have become much more about the sauce than the pasta -- the pasta is simply a vehicle for the sauce. For this reason, the typical American pasta dish has around triple the amount of sauce compared to the typical Italian pasta dish. To make another example about pasta, an Italian would never call a dish "lasagne" that didn't actually contain lasagne, whereas in America we would have no problem layering up sauce and cheese with thin slices of potato and calling the result "potato lasagna." This is not to say that the "toppings are king" outlook is wrong, although it doesn't happen to be one I share. The famous and delicious Di Fara pizzeria produces a fundamentally topping-centric pizza. I think Patsy's or Franny's could easily do business in pizza topped with nothing more than rosemary, sea salt and evoo (often called a "ciclista" in Italy) because people would revel in the amazing crust. But I don't think this is something Di Fara would sell very well, because the crust isn't what makes that pizza great.

Ah. Good size. Actually, I vastly prefer cocktails at around 3 ounces -- and I wish restaurants would serve them at that size. This is enough for a bracingly cold drink that stimulates the palate without dulling the senses. FWIW, if I were drinking them, I'd much rather have those 2 ounce cocktails of yours served in a 2.5 or 3 ounce cocktail glass with a nice bit of "collar" (aka. empty glass at the top) than in a shooter glass filled almost to the brim. Just poking my nose in with that thought.

My Rifi should arrive on Wednesday ! Sigh... I ordered a Souss tagine, but according to the UPS tracking information, it was shipped to Davenport, Iowa. Working out how to get that fixed.

Per my post back here, I find that the addition of corn makes it turn out too dark by the time it's cooked through.

What? No okra?!

Interesting cocktail with pisco, espresso and chocolate liqueur mentioned here.

Here are some pictures of various food trucks around MIT, including one of the falafel truck that was somewhat famous around those parts in the late 70s/early 80s. https://alum.mit.edu/postcards/ViewCollection.dyn?id=2 Here's some news about the falafel truck from 1998: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1998/moishe-1104.html More interesting stuff about food trucks around MIT: http://www-tech.mit.edu/V121/N17/17food.17n.html http://www-tech.mit.edu/V120/N7/Food_Trucks.7f.html http://www-tech.mit.edu/V119/N14/Food_Trucks_rev.14a.html

Yea, I'd heard that Torani Amer is really the better product in modern times, and closer to the old Amer Picon than today's Amer Picon is. I wonder why the Amer Picon people would decide to change the formula like that? Well, anyway, it makes me feel better about not having any Amer Picon. The Brooklyn is definitely on my list (see above). The recipe I was planning on using has 1/4 ounce each of maraschino and amer, though, instead of a dash of each. This means I'll have to try both, now. You know... for the sake of science.

Buy a dozen eggs. Make a leek, onion and carrott fritata for the antipasto. Total cost, let's say $1.80. Buy two pounds of De Cecco "orecchiette" ($2.60 total), a pound of hot Italian-style pork sausage ($3.50) and several large heads of broccoli ($3.00). Make orecchiette with sausage and broccoli as the main course. That's around 11 dollars so far. Dessert for 6 with 4 dollars? Hmmm... 6 bosc pears will probably run you about 4 dollars. Poach them with water and sugar.

The only cocktail with tea I've had is Audrey's Earl Grey MarTEAni. In that drink the Early Grey infused Tanqueray works very well. But Earl Grey is, of course, a fairly assertive flavor. Anyway, with tea flavors I think it probably makes more sense to infuse the tea into the base liquor rather than brewing some tea and using it as a modifier. An ounce or two of brewed tea will probably get lost in most cocktails. Lapsang souchong is another very assertive tea that comes to mind. It's dried over burning pine and has a distinctively smokey flavor. I wonder what could be done with infusing lapsang souchong into some kind of liquor. Might be interesting. Maybe a riff on the Sidecar: lapsang souchong-infused brandy, Cointreau and lemon juice... or, if the flavors worked, you could take it further in the Chinese direction by using Canton Ginger Liqueur instead of Cointreau... or you could go with something like 2 oz. lapsang souchong infused brandy, 1 oz. Stone's Original Ginger (ginger flavored currant wine), 1/4 oz. Grand Marnier, 1 dash bitters (Peychaud's comes to mind for some reason -- but I'm making this all up at work, so the whole idea could completely suck). As with the MarTEAni, you'd probably want to use an egg white to smooth out the tannins from the tea. To a certain extent, it all depends on which kind of Asian one is talking about. When I'm thinking of cocktails, my mind tends to go towards Southeast Asia rather than towards East Asia. I'm not sure how I'd put distinctively Korean, Chinese or Japanese flavors into a cocktail. But things like exotic citrus, lemongrass, coconut, kaffir lime leaves and tamarind work on the brighter side, and then there are all the sweet spices used in some of the other countries down there. Then, the idea of classic cocktails with an Asian twist adds another layer. I would think that much could be done to impart an Asian twist simply by using, e.g., lemongrass infused gin in a classic formula, or using tamarind instead of a more traditional acid.

It's official: the Shake Shack reopens on Monday, April 4. The hours of operation for April will be 11am-4pm, seven days a week. Summer hours will begin May 1.

Grazie. I agree that it can work... it just depends on the inherrent strength of the food item. Parboiling and sauteing cubes of potato, for example, should work just fine. But with matchstick cuts like johnjohn describes above, I think they would have a tendency to snap in half if agitated.