slkinsey

As Rien says, Amaretto Di Saronno is the standard. I can't imagine that there are any particular drinks where one would favor a different brand over that, if price is no consideration. And actually, since the distribution in the US is so much lower, brands like Lazzaroni and Luxardo are usually more expensive than Di Saronno. My general rule of thumb for home use is to stay away from well brands like Hiram Walker, which never tastes natural to me.

You assume correctly. Wouldn't do much good if it was magnetic anyway, since it is on the inside. If they use a three ply construction, how could they get away with making the 7 ply statment? Also, if they used a 7 ply construction, it seems the performance would go down, not up. Theis whole "7 ply" claim is just a bunch of marketing mumbojumbo. If you look on the Demeyere web site, you will see the following description of their "7 ply" material" So what do we have here? We have an inner layer of stainless steel. Okay, that's one layer. Then we have a miniscule bit of bonding material that adheres the stainless cladding to the aluminum alloy core. Are we going to call this a "layer?" Demeyere does, but it doesn't pass my bullshit test. Then we have a thick layer of aluminum alloy. Okay, that's the second layer. Then we have another miniscule bit of bonding material. Again, not really a layer. Then we have an outer layer of stainless steel, supposedly in "three special alloys with magnetic properties" (like magnetic steel is so special). That amounts to one layer as far as I am concerned. So, in reality, we have three layers: an outer layer of magnetic stainless steel, an inner layer of aluminum alloy and an inner layer of stainless steel. This is why I included this text in my class: Demeyere's "layer inflation" is designed to appeal to people who believe that "more is better." Like somehow seven layers are better than three layers. Really, the optimal configuration is only two layers: an thick outer layer of thermal material and a thin inner layer of nonreactive material. This maximizes the thermal benefits of the thermal material while protecting the food from the problems of reactivity. Demeyere claims that the total thickness of the "7-ply material" for frypans is 4.8 mm. I assumed that the stainless layers were similar to the thickness of the stainless layers used by All-Clad (0.44 mm interior layer, 0.46 exterior layer), so doing the math I came up with an approximate thickness of 3.9 mm for the thermal material. I doubt it is any thicker than 3.9 mm, but it could be thinner. Assuming it is 3.9 mm, you correctly surmise that this is better than All-Clad Stainless in terms of thermal material. It is right around the same as All-Clad MasterChef, which has an aluminum exterior of 3.94 mm. That said, the MasterChef line does not work with induction. Personally, induction doesn't interest me all that much. I'd rather have gas than any other heat source. They do make professional-style in-counter gas cooktops with high powered burners, fwiw. If you're determined to get an induction cooktop, I'd recommend getting cookware specifically designed for induction. In particular, you might look at the Induc'Inox line by Mauviel. They are made with 2.0 mm of magnetic steel fully clad with stainless steel. This means that, rather than having the induction hob heat up a thin layer of magnetic steel which conducts heat into the thermal layer (this is how All-Clad and Demeyere work with induction) with Induc'Inox, the thermal material itself is heated up by the magnetic field.

Apparently, it's just very finely-cut oatmeal. Actually, if I understood Alton Brown correctly, it's partially cooked by steaming, then pressed flat, and then cut. But they also add flavorings/sugar even to the plain flavor. Steel Cut Oats are whole oat grains (minus the outer hull) that are cut into 2-3 pieces. This is, IMO, the best tasting kind of oatmeal. Takes around 30 minutes to cook. Rolled Oats are oat grains that are heated and passed through a roller to flatten them out. The thinner the oats are rolled, the more pre-cooked they are. This makes them cook faster, among other things. There are three major types of rolled oats: Old-Rashioned Rolled Oats where the whole grain is rolled. These are the thickest and the least-precooked. Takes around 8-10 minutes to cook. Quick Oats where the grains are sliced before rolling. These are thinner and more thoroughly pre-cooked. Takes around 3-5 minutes to cook. Instant Otmeal where the grains are grains are sliced, entirely pre-cooked, then rolled very thin. Cooks instantly with the addition of boiling water.

Yes! Steel cut oats are delicious, and really don't need anything more than a touch of salt (not that this stops me from adding a bit of butter in the end). That McCann's stuff is obscenely expensive, though. On a tip from JosephB, I now buy mine in bulk for around a buck a pound upstairs in the organic section of Fairway. You might try stopping by your local organic grocery to see if they sell it in bulk.

I'm curious how old these people were? There is certainly a definite "depression mentality" among people of a certain age (my parents' age). Apart from understanding it (which I do) - I also find it kind of difficult to fault. When someone like my father-in-law - who never earned more than $25,000/year in his whole life - could afford at the end of his life to spend almost $7,000/month for a skilled nursing facility for 3 years and never dip into capital - well I find that kind of admirable. More admirable than the 40 year old people who don't have a dime saved for their kid's college educations or their retirement. It's nice to be in the middle - but - over the years - I haven't met too many people in the middle. People who've found the proper balance. Robyn ← Without revealing too much about these relatives, I'll say this: they're both around 70 years old, and have to be considered "wealthy" rather than "upper middle class" at this point. Of the two of them, one grew up affluent enough to have servants until leaving for college, and one of them grew up in a family that had to scrape to get by in the Depression. The one who wouldn't drink a $60 botle of wine is the former, not the latter. So, I don't know if it's a depression mentality thing, per se. Rather, I just think 60 dollars is simply more than she thinks any bottle of wine could be worth to her. More to the point, people I know with this view will often decide beforehand that they aren't going to like or appreciate something if the cost exceeds their paradigm of how much is reasonable. For example, I have a friend who likes steak. He buys regular supermarket steak at regular supermarket prices. When his brother and I took him to a good butcher in his neighborhood, he was aghast at the idea of paying 25 dollars a pound for a steak (nevermind $45/pound for a top prime porterhouse or $100/pound for American Waygu from some place like Lobel's) and more or less decided before tasting it that he wasn't going to be able to tell the difference. The result was, of course, that he declared that he preferred the less expensive steak. If someone went into Masa with the idea that $350 sushi can't possibly be that much better than $100 sushi, and a little offended at the price, I can well imagine that such a person would determine in the end that the $100 sushi is "better."

According to their web site, this is a planned closure of the restaurant. Landmarc has been such a success down there, and deservedly so, I am quite sure we won't be losing them from the scene anytime soon. They reopen on January 10.

I think there is something to this... people assign certain values to certain things in life and balk at the idea of paying more. Clearly there are people who are personally offended at the idea of spending 350 to 500 dollars per person on a meal. To them it is an offensively frivolous expenditure of money. I have always found it amusing that people who think nothing of spending 2500 bucks on a laptop that will be obsolete in 3-4 years can't wrap their minds around the idea of spending 250 bucks on a copper saute pan that will last a lifetime. I also think a lot of people have a hard time even enjoying something if it costs more than the value they have assigned to that category of expenditure. I had an interesting experience with some relatives just before Xmas. We went to Da Marco, a nice Italian place in Houston, and I ended up picking a very nice bottle of wine for the three of us. It cost something like 50 dollars, and we all remarked that it was very good. At the end of the meal we were discussing what a good value the restaurant is, and I mentioned how much the wine had cost. One of them blanched said a very curious thing: "I wouldn't have had any of the wine if I had known it cost that much." This is a person who could never enjoy a 350 dollar restaurant dinner, no matter who was paying the bill, if she knew how much it cost. i don't think diamonds lose half their value, or much value at all, after being bought/worn. I don't think it's necessarily the diamonds that lose value, but rather the piece of jewlery -- which probably costs considerably more than the value of the stones -- loses value. It's like a car that loses value the minute you drive it off the lot. I'm sure it's not half their value, but I don't have a hard time believing that a brand new $10k diamond necklace has a resale value of substantially less than $10k the day after everyone has seen it around someone's neck at the annual Rich People Society Ball.

Try the large fruit/vegetable joint in the Chelsea Market--Toby Cecchini and I just scored some there; they call them "sour oranges"--3 for $1. One thousand blessings be upon you, my friend. Will check soonest.

Moderator's note: I have moved all the posts from this thread that dealt primarily with the question of "whether it can be worth the money" to a more appropriate thread. Please continue this fork of the conversation in the thread entitled Can Masa Really Be Worth THAT Much $? -- $350/Person for Sushi?! Let's keep this thread for discussion that bears directly on Masa and Bar Masa.

Still haven't seen any in NYC.

I think there may be a little bit of misunderstanding here. When people speak of the NYC neo-Neapolitan coal-fired pizza style and the pizze that can cook in "only 2-3 minutes" they are talking about a much larger and copiously topped pizza than the Neapolitan style pizze you mention that can cook in 30-90 seconds. So it's comparing apples to oranges, really.

I have a friend who lives practically across the street from Compass, and one thing he has observed is that they close the restaurant somewhat frequently for private functions.

Let's remember that this is a thread about The Modern restaurant at the MoMA, not about the museum.

The recipe calls for "Virgin Islands rum." Both Cruzan rum and Pusser's rum are made in the Virgin Islands. Generically, as far as I know, "Virgin Islands rum" means a light rum, so you can probably substitute your house light rum of preference without too much difference.

As I suspect we all know, there is no cure for a hangover once you have one. The only solution is to take prophylactic measures before you get a hangover: Dehydration is a major cause of hangover symptoms. Drink lots of water. JAZ's recommendation to alternate drinks with water is a very good one, as is glossyp's recommendation for a big glass of water before bed. Give your body the best chance to break down the alcohol before it gets into your bloodstream. There is an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase that breaks down alcohol. Some people have more of this than other people, which is one reason some people have a greater alcohol tolerance than other similar people. The best way to give your alcohol dehydrogenase a chance to break down the alcohol before it gets into your bloodstream is to dilute it. Water is a good idea, but food is even better. When JAZ and I went on a NYC bar crawl a while back we consumed an incredible number of cocktails with no ill effects, a stop at the burger joint in the Parker Meridien was crucial. Take a vitamin before bed. Alcohol depletes the body of certain vitamins, so making sure the tank is full is always a good idea. If you're going to get falling-down drunk (something I don't recommend) there may be some minor benefit to consuming low congener alcohols like vodka instead of high congener alcohols like bourbon. Once you have a hangover, though... just take some analgesics, drink plenty of water, maybe eat some food, if you can hold it down, and wait until you feel better.

At various times and depending on the potency of the critic, the reviews in Gourmet, New York Magazine and the International Herald Tribune have probably come the closest. There may be others, not in English, that also qualify. Right... these were viewed as good, quality reviews. But do you think they had the influence and cachet of comparable reviews associated with numerical ratings (e.g., the NYT)? Part of what I am getting at is that it would seem good strategy on the part of the reviewer or publication to assign star ratings or numerical values if such reviewer or publication would like to have the greatest possible influence and impact.

I wonder if there is any restaurant reviewer, reviewing body or publication of reviews that is widely considered to have major influence that does not include a star rating or other numerical indication.

Gary's latest in the SF Chron shows how an interesting and uniquely different drink can be made when you add just as few changes to an old classic. In this case, it's a Manhattan plus a touch of Elisir M.P. Roux (a herbal liqueur with anise and a bunch of other botanicals) served on the rocks with a lemon wedge. He calls the drink Organized Chaos: 2.0 oz : bourbon (Wild Turkey 101 specified) 1.5 oz : sweet vermouth (Noilly Prat specified) 0.5 oz : Elisir M.P. Roux 1 lemon wedge Build in an ice-filled wine goblet. Squeeze lemon into drink and add for garnish.

Belvedere vodka is having a cocktail competition. If you're a professional bartender from New York City, Las Vegas, San Francisco or South Florida, go here and submit your best original cocktail recipe that uses uses Belvedere Vodka, Belvedere Cytrus Vodka or Belvedere Pomarancza Vodka as its base. Submissions are due by Wednesday, January 5, 2005.

You can do freeform tartlets, provided you don't fill them too much.

I'm not sure that this is, strictly speaking, true. We just don't know. There are a lot of things at play. Who knows, she might have been told not to assign a star rating precisely because the NYT wanted Bruni assigning all the stars for the big TWC places. Certainly the assumption all of us had was that the big TWC places were reserved for Bruni. My point was rather that she managed to do something interesting with the column that she would not otherwise have been able to do with the only other option available to her: picking out an obscure one-star bistrattoria to write up.

To clarify Ya-Roo's post a bit, there are two spaces at The Modern, the Dining Room and the Bar Room. The Modern’s Dining Room, which is the more formal space overlooking the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden, is set to open later in the winter. It will feature the dishes Ya-Roo detailed above. On January 5, The Modern's Bar Room will open to the public with it's full menu (it has been open since November 20 with a limited lunch menu for museum visitors only). This is a less formal space designed for walk-in business. The Bar Room will focus on Chef Kreuther’s Alsatian roots and will feature over 25 savory dishes served as small plates to give guests the freedom to enjoy a light meal or to create a multi-course tasting. Dishes will include Fines Herbes Salad with roasted bacon-wrapped goat cheese, Arctic Char Tartare with daikon and trout caviar, Steak Tartare with quail egg, Tarte Flambée, Wild Mushroom Soup with toasted chorizo ravioli, Diver Scallops with poppy seeds, arugula juice and parmesan, and Grilled Quail with chive späetzle and lentils. Desserts by Marc Aumont include Pineapple Carpaccio, Ricotta Crepe Flan, Ten-Hour Cooked Apples and Hazelnut Dacquoise. Guests may bring their own wine to The Modern's Bar Room from January 5-19 with no corkage fee. The Modern has a separate entrance on West 53rd Street.

White Godiva isn't the same thing as crème de cacao, afaik. In general, I think the Marie Brizard crème liqueurs are very high quality, and would tend to turn to those first. My memories of Hiram Walker are not good, and I don't tend to buy that brand.

The right questions are: what were her options, and what could she have done better given the hand she was dealt? I actually think her Masa review was one of the more interesting pieces of writing to appear in that space; far more so than a forced one star review of some obscure bistrattoria she had to dig up in the boroughs would have been.

I don't think she had mush choice. She was treading water and holding a slot for someone else, and everyone knew Bruni would be reviewing Masa eventually. Rather than devoting space to the review of an unimportant restaurant, I thought she actually managed to say something fairly interesting and revealing in her review of Masa -- not only about Masa but about NYT restaurant reviewing in general. But it's not as though she had a lot of options.