slkinsey

Make cocktails with the juice. Make bergamotcello with the peels.

Not to make too fine a point here, but why would you want to take shots? What is it that we do when we slam a shot of booze anyway? We try to get the booze out of our mouth and into our stomach (and thence into our bloodstream) as quickly as possible. In other words: it's to get drunk. For me -- and I daresay most of the participants in this forum -- drunkenness may be the occasional result of pursuing my interest in alcoholic beverages, but it's never the goal. I want to taste what I'm drinking, and if it's so horrible that it has to be thrown back in great wince-inducing gulps, I'd rather not drink it at all. So, one solution is to be proud that you don't do shots and sip your alcohol. If you really want to drink in shots, just practice taking really big gulps of water when you drink out of a glass. Fundamentally, that's all there is to taking a shot -- learning how to swallow two ounces of liquid all at once.

One thousand blessings be upon you, my friend. Will check soonest. Were they there? Looking for some myself. Unfortunately, upon checking it appeared to me that the sour oranges they had there were, indeed, sour oranges.

Hmm. I suppose it is possible that it has changed. My information came from an All-Clad rep some time ago. Never bothered to measure it myself. Maybe that's why they call it "MC2" now?

There is an exemption, apparently, for places that do a certain percentage of their business selling tobacco products.

Some of my favorites include places I visit with some regularity with Fat Guy and Ellen: The two five-for-a-dollar places" -- Fried Dumpling at 99 Allen Street between Delancey and Broome; and, a little better IMO, Dumpling House at 118 Eldridge Street between Broome and Grand. New Green Bo

There is also Ninth Avenue Cheese Market (615 Ninth Avenue), which is an excellent, reasonably priced and often overlooked cheese market. And let us not forget that Fairway has an outstanding cheese department, both uptown and UWS.

I'm not sure I'd say there are a lot of claims, but there have been some. As Todd36 points out, it really depends on whether you are talking about a larger, well-known place or about a guy selling barbecue in a gravel parking lot on the side of some local highway. I'd say that it is standard to sell multiple meats in the former and a single meat in the latter, although exceptions can always be found. More to the point, I think, is the comment I made upthread about places that try to do multiple styles of barbecue along with the different meats. I have simply never been to a barbecue place that was successful at doing this. I'm not saying it's not theoretically possible, but I think there are a lot of things that get in the way. Show me a place that is selling both "Texas brisket" and "Carolina pulled pork" and I'll show you a place where at least one of those products will be not very good and not particularly representative of the advertised style -- and there's a fair to middling chance that neither style will be all that great.

I've been quite fond of Alice's Tea Cup on 73rd Street just off Columbus Avenue. Their web site has plenty of good information. I've always wondered if any of the fancy old hotels in town did an afternoon tea.

Well, China 46 is disqualified because it's in the Midwest, not NYC. So, what is it that's so good about the dumplings at these places, Stan?

Not soup dumplings -- I'm talking about the fried or steamed Chinese dumplings filled with pork and/or vegetables. Who makes the best? I've got my favorites, but I want to hear from you.

Sounds like curly endive or escarole might work. I've often found that they stand up to braising well.

I'm quite sure that neither the Post nor the Times review will hurt Dinosaur Barbecue NYC's business one iota. Edited to add: I see Oakapple and I are of one mind on this point, right down to the choice of quote.

One could easily say almost the opposite: one benefit of Staub's matte black interior over Le Creuset's shiny white interior is that it is much better at browning -- which I have found to be true. Unless you have a dimly lit kitchen, it shouldn't be all that hard to judge the level of browning on a piece of meat, etc. It's just not something I have found to be a problem, and I like the fact that it's faster at browning. And, once you get past the browning part, I just think it's a better pan for low/slow/wet cooking. It's heavier and I like the basting spikes.

Given the size of the place, I am quite sure that Kreuz Market does huge business with everything they sell. How do you know that the pork chops were their biggest seller that day? I would be shocked if it were not the case that beef was their best seller, with brisket beiung the most popular form (they also sell shoulder clod and prime rib). Smoked sausage is another Texas regional specialty, so I bet that's their #2 best selling category of meat. Of course, now that Kreuz Market is such a tourist attraction, they probably don't have to cater to regional tastes as much. But I know they made their bones on beef and sausage, and once you have your operation set up to make one best-of-class product, it's a lot easier to think about adding something. Still, the top places like Kreuz, et al. serving multiple meats aren't attempting to produce multiple styles, just multiple meats. That's a big difference. The pork at Kreuz has nothing in common with the pork at Mitchell's. What is so "authentic" about Dinosaur that is "not authentic" about Virgil's?

This is a very good point, although it is also worthy of note that many of these places serve one meat that is truly outstanding, while the others are just good to very good. I can't imagine that Mitchell's, for example, would be famous for their chicken. Similarly, do you want to go to Kreuz's for the pork? This is, I think, one of the big difficulties in making outstanding barbecue outside of the barbecue regions. All the places in NYC seem like they're trying to be all things to all people: not just Texas-style brisket, but also Carolina-style pork and Kansas City-style ribs, etc. The invitable result of this, in my experience, is that none of these places quite hit the mark on any of the 6 styles they're trying to make. On the other hand, think about the barbecue regions. People in Eastern NC want lightly smokey chopped whole hog with a slightly sweet vinegar sauce. A place like Mitchell's focuses a large percentage of its efforts on making that one product as good as it can possibly be, because that's where they're doing most of their business. If a NYC place is ever going to truly succeed in making top-level barbecue, I think they have to focus on doing one signature style and doing it to the highest possible level. But, of course, the NYC places really don't have to do that. Barbecue-themed restaurants like Dinosaur and Virgil's are beating off customers with a stick. There's gotta be a reasonable list of the top barbecue restaurants on the internet, but I can't find one.

Keep in mind that, although this thread is ostensibly about Le Creuset, they are by no means the only game in town. There are plenty of manufacturers who make enameled cast iron. Le Creuset makes a quality product they stand behind, but in my opinion Staub is even better. Here is the Lodge web site. They are a well-respected manufacturer of cast iron cookware, and one would expect the quality to be high.

Great idea. What kind of lettuce? And do you puree all the ingredients raw, or par-cooked?

Hmm... I am not so sure I totally agree with you here. I don't think it goes out on too much of a limb to suggest that NYC will never be a great barbecue town. It's like suggesting that Lexington, NC will never be a great pastrami town. Perhaps in the strictest sense both assertions are unprovable, but they are so close to being absolutely true that it strikes me as acceptable to say it. There are serious barriers, such as economics, history, infrastructure, ingredients, experience, expertise, culture, etc., to making outstanding barbecue in NYC. Even if we had one truly great barbecue joint (which we don't) I'm still not sure that would be enough to qualify us as a "great barbecue town." So, let's say that it is extremely unlikely that NYC will ever be a great barbecue town -- which is one small step away from "never." And, by all reports, including most in these forums, it would seem that Dinosaur NYC is serving barbecue that, while perhaps pretty good by NYC standards, is relatively mediocre relative to the highest standards. Indeed, I haven't heard even the most fervent Dino fan claim that it's on a par with the best (or even very good) places in the barbecue regions of the US. It's not clear to me that anything said in this review (as opposed to Sietsema's, which contained some spurious information) is incorrect about the place -- or at least it's not out of line with that I've read and heard from trusted parties. Hey... NYC is a tough town. I do agree that the author doesn't help herself by missing the boat on NC barbecue, though.

It appears that an era has ended. According to today's NY Times, Mitchel London no longer runs the Fairway Cafe. The Times says the next thing for him is Sunday brunch chef at Lucy Latin Cafe on East 18th Street -- although I can't imagine that this is what someone with his talents will really end up doing. Maybe he's just taking a break? He will still oversee Fairway's prepared foods.

I'm always interested to see how many American fresh pasta recipes include some form of strong wheat (durum, semolina, bread flour, etc.). When I'm making fresh pasta I like it to be silky and soft -- not gummy, but also without having a firm bite. So I like to use AP flour at the strongest, although I prefer 00 and am not above cutting the AP with some lower gluten flour like cake or pastry. Unless I'm making one of the Southern Italian fresh pastas, like orechiette, that need semolina. This isn't really a "better or worse" thing, more that I prefer the Emilia-Romana style when I'm making fresh pasta. Anyway, like just about everything I do in cooking, I never measure. I just plan on about one egg (or two egg yolks if making egg yolk pasta) per person, toss it in either the food processor or KA depending on how much I am making, and mix in enough flour to form a very firm dough. That gets kneaded by machine until it starts to look glossy and uniform, rested for at least 30 minutes at room temperature and then formed into noodles. If I am making pasta alla chitarra, I just flatten it out with a rolling pin and roll it through the chitarra. If I'm making tagliatelle, papardelle, etc. I use the roller attachment for my KA, rolling/folding/reinserting each piece of pasta until it looks smooth and uniform, then resting it while I do the same with the rest of the dough, then thinning the dough with progressively narrower runs through the rollers, then rolling the dough into a cylinder and cutting it to the width I want (pasta machine cutters never seem to work very well, and this allows me to get the exact width I want). Then I turn this: Into this:

How do you feel about regular cast iron for browning? Is the non-reactive surface the only cooking benefit of enameling cast iron? Sorry I didn't see this before. Might as well respond now... You nailed it: Yes, regular cast iron is excellent for browning. And yes, the only cooking benefit of enameled cast iron over regular cast iron is that the enameled cast iron is nonreactive.

Heh! No, maraschino is clear. It's a real must-have for the classic cocktail enthusiast.

Yes, I would say so. Maraschino doesn't taste particularly strongly of cherry. It tastes like... well... maraschino. Kind of like a sweetened cherry grappa, if that makes any sense. I assume that the "grappa-like" quality comes from the fact that it is distilled not only from the cherry fruits but also the pits, stems, etc. And for cherry brandy you really want something like Cherry Heering or Sangue Morlacco. Both of the products above are likely to be somewhat less sweet compared to your bottle of crème de cerise. It's also less likely, in my experience, that you will find a cherry liqueur of equivalent quality that tastes as "natural" as, e.g., Luxardo Maraschino or Cherry Heering. In any event, regardless of any potential differences in quality, crème de cerise does not taste the same as maraschino or cherry brandy. So you might make a perfectly good drink with gin, lemon juice and crème de cerise... but it probably won't taste much like an Aviation (and, as someone who tried this drink substituting Cherry Heering for maraschino, I know whereof I speak! ). If you like drinks that call for maraschino or cherry brandy, you owe it to yourself to acquire some of the real stiff if you can. It's delicious, not that expensive, and it's used in small amounts so you won't run out any time soon.

This is an interesting question. I thought it would be an easy one for me, but it isn't. In my mind, my "signature dish" would be the sort of thing where people would say, "you just have to have slkinsey's _______" or "when I think of slkinsey's cooking, _________ comes to mind." And I'm not sure I really have a signature dish. Or rather, maybe I do have one, but I'm not the person to answer that question.