slkinsey

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.

What exactly does "toothy" texture mean? I tend to cook my porridge so that it's firm and chewy, not mushy. That's how I prepared this. Exactly. When I think "porridge" I tend to think of grains that have been cooked to the point of a (hopefully) pleasant mushiness. For example, rice in a well cooked ricotto still has a bit of an "al dente" quality to it, whereas the rice in congee has been cooked far beyond that stage. I also tend to think of things in the porridge/gruel family as having a fairly soupy texture. One thing with oats is that they relase a lot of thickeners into the cooking water. So, if you use a lot of water, you end up with something that is more or less little bits of cooked oats suspended in an equal amount of thickened liquid. That's what your picture looks like to me, although of course that may not be what it really turned out to me. My thought in using a risotto-like technique is that it might create an appropriately creamy texture, but that using smaller amounts of liquid might limit the "pudding like" quality that oatmeal can have.

Okay... so I just scored three bottles of Torani Amer. Now, as you may well imagine, I have a serious itch for Amer-ish cocktails. Any suggestions are appreciated. I will naturally try a facsimile of Picon Punch and a Brooklyn Cocltail. And I'm dying to try Hoskins Cocktail. After that, I'm open so suggestions.

Did you hold it up in the air and shout: "avenoooooooooooooooooottooooooooooooo!" (For the perplexed: see Roots.) It might be interesting to cook the oats risotto style, by adding simmering stock bit by bit and stirring. I'd think you would want the oats a bit more toothy for avenotto than you would for porridge.

I love the way The Dude orders a White Russian in "The Big Lebowski."

Good luck, Scott! Really. Although I won't need any Torani Amer in the forseeable future, having just bought three bottles over the internet from California (shhhhhhh!), I'd love to see this product available in NYC. Seems strange that all the other Torani products except Amer are widely available. I guess because Amer is the only one with alcohol...

Probably because it is commonly consumed somewhat sweetened. And perhaps also because rolled oats -- the kind with most people are familiar -- wouldn't have a very appealing texture as a savory side. You're right, though, there's no reason some "parmesan steel cut oats" wouldn't make an interesting part of a savory meal. Probably have to call it something silly like "avenotto" to get people to make the nexessary paradigm shift.

Cocktail flights are cool. They're been doing them at Flatiron Lounge here in NYC for some time now. It's especially an interesting way for newcomers to the game to have a taste of several classics with which they might not be familiar.

Interesting idea. I think just about any cocktail would work in this size, although obviously the context of the other cocktails around it will influence the success. Questions: What is the size of the miniature cocktails? How many do you normally serve together at once? How do you keep them cold? Presumably they are not all mixed a la minute to order?

Scott, is this a commercial customer? Can't you sell to whichever distributors she already uses? Out of curiosity, are you talking about Torani Amer or Amer Picon?

I wonder if there's some way to make okra-crusted fried chicken... Use maybe 50% dried okra flour. Just a thought.