slkinsey
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Posts posted by slkinsey
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About the 51% rule: As a theoretical standpoint, is it possible to have 51%/49% rye/corn rye whiskey and 51%/49% corn/rye bourbon?
Yep. This is entirely possible.
I wonder what the economics are with respect to rye and corn -- which one is less expensive.
Interesting note: my mother and I were talking recently about booze, and she mentioned an interesting piece of data that she had uncovered doing research for a class she's teaching. Back before Prohibition (most likely we're talking about data from the late 19th century) when this country was producing an overabundance of corn, most of the surplus was eventually turned into corn whiskey. American adults drank something like 1.5 quarts of corn whiskey a day on average! Then Prohibition happened. After Prohibition and the War had passed, eventually we found ourselves in a situation where once again we were producing an overabundance of corn. Only this time, instead of turning the surplus corn into whiskey, we've taken to turning it into high fructose corn syrup. Personally, I think we were better off the other way around.
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Any other examples of radically different cocktails with the same name?
Do the ones in the Savoy cocktail book count? Some are numbered or otherwise differentiated, such as Rose (English) and Rose (French Style No. 1) and some just have the same name such as the two Queen Elizabeth cocktails which I first noticed when I just opened the book, but none of the same incredients. Actually, the French versions of Rose cocktails are not that different but at least the Corpse Revievers are :)
I think some of this may have to do with the fact that a corpse reviver at that time wasn't considered a name for a specific cocktail, rather it was considered the name of an separate class of drink. This is to say that a corpse reviver was not a a cocktail (or a flip, sling, etc.), it was a corpse reviver. Viewed this way, it is not surprising that we have many different corpse reviver recipes just as we have many different flip, sling, toddy, etc. recipes. What makes corpse revivers different is that they don't seem to have been individually named like the others (e.g., Boston flip, rum flip, etc.).
On the other hand, to return to my original example, I don't think "suffering bastard" is an old-school drink classification.
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I'd be the first one to accept that its just psychosomatic... but I can go years between experiencing any symptoms--enought time for me to forget about my "allergy" altogether--and then it hits without warning.
Could be five spice powder, could be Sichuan peppercorns, could be organisms growing on/in improperly stored ingredients, could be a certain kind of pepper, could be the oil they're using, etc.
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I was recently reading through Anthony Giglio's Cocktails in New York, an interesting book on which I shall have more to say anon. Therein I read a recipe for a "Suffering Bastard" that included four kinds of rum, pineapple juice, orange juice and cranberry juice served up in a cocktail glass. Notwithstanding the fact that this sort of concoction is not my cup of (Long Island iced?) tea, this struck me as a very strange recipe for a Suffering Bastard. The recipe with which I am most familiar is a tall drink made with bourbon, gin, lime juice, bitters and ginger ale. This is the recipe found in Dave's Esquire Drinks, and other places. But then I decided to check Dale DeGroff's The Craft of the Cocktail. Dale says it's a "Mai Tai with orange juice" and calls for two kinds of rum, orange curaçao, oregat, orange juice and lime juice served in a tall glass with ice. What gives?
Any other examples of radically different cocktails with the same name?
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I picked up some 50ml bottles today: Crown Royal, Seagram's VO, and Canadian Club (didn't find a mini Maker's). I think I liked the CC best, but I wasn't really thrilled with any of them. I thought I liked Crown, but after having bourbon instead the Canadian whiskies didn't seem all that flavorful and seemed to have more alcohol presence (although my basis of comparison is a 10yr bourbon).
See? That's what I'm saying.
I would have a hard time making any justification for including Canadian blended whiskey in my liquor cabinet.
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The general concensus (which is not without vehement detractors) seems to be that there "MSG allergy" and "MSG syndrome" don't really exist -- or at least don't exist for the vast, vast majority of the population. It is worthy of note that many foods, such as aged parmigiano-reggiano, contain plenty of glutamate. One also wonders why the entire nation of China isn't awash with headaches and other symptoms associated with MSG in Western countries.
I suppose it is possible that there is some adulterant or impurity in certain brands of MSG used by Chinese restaurants that causes these symptoms. It is also possible that there are some other substances used in Chinese cookery that causes these symptoms. And it's possible that it's mostly psychosomatic.
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I think we're confusing a few separate concepts here. To start, I will say that I'm right there with Russ in considering the talent and facility portion first and foremost.
It strikes me as a simple fact that some people are more talented at coming up with fabulous dishes than others. The old saw that 'genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration" is correct in this case because talent depends on education, practice, experience and hard work for its full expression. However, the more one is around any creative field (or perhaps any field of any kind) it becomes apparent that even though 100 people may accumulate the same experience and education, and even though they may all work just as hard, one or two of those guys will turn out product that is far superior to the other nintey-nine. This is talent. In the professional kitchen, talent is most easily demonstrated in the creative arena: coming up with the dishes. This is like Verdi writing an opera, which we all agree is a more significant aspect of the art form than the interpretation of his compositions by performers.
There is also a talent aspect to executing the composition (singing/playing the opera, cooking the dishes, etc.). Again, it is a simple fact that some people are better able to do these things than most other people, despite equal education, training, commitment and hard work. If this weren't true, then anyone could play in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra if he worked long and hard enough. This is where it makes sense to narrow the comparison a bit. It really doesn't make sense to compare restaurant cooks to singers, because so much of what goes into a singer's talent is genetically/physiologically mediated -- this is not true for a restaurant cook. Similarly, it doesn't make sense to compare a restaurant cook to a soloist, because a big part of being a soloist is interpreting the composition in a highly personal and individual way -- this is also not true for a restaurant cook. It does make sense, perhaps, to compare a restaurant cook to a musician in an orchestra. A violinist in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra does not "interpret the composition" himself. His job is to assist the conductor in executing the conductor's interpretation of the composition, and the more skilled the orchestral violinist, the better he is able to perform this function. If the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra plays 1,000 performances of La bohème with 100 different conductors, there will be 100 different interpretations. Still, however, out of many hundreds of equally hard working violinists, only very few can play in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. The difference? Talent.
In many senses, the head chef of a restaurant is like a composer and conductor all combined (this was fairly standard in classical music as well, back in the day). The cooks are the orchestra. I am not sure why we assume that playing in an orchestra demands talent and cooking in a restaurant kitchen doesn't. I find it interesting that most of us in the "creative arts" readily assume that four-star-caliber cooking requires talent in addition to expertise and experience. Most likely this is because it is readily apparent to us in our daily work that expertise and experience only aren't good enough to reach the highest level. I would never suppose I could execute a Charlie Trotter dish as well as a cook on his staff. In fact, I would never suppose I could execute my own Thanksgiving dinner as well as a cook on Charlie Trotter's staff. A lot of this is experience, of course -- that Charlie Trotter's guy has cooked thousands more high-level dishes than I. But I also have to consider the fact that, even if I had cooked the same number of high-level dishes, there's a good chance that the Charlie Trotter's guy is simply a more talented cook than I. This, also, is a barrier to cooking "four star" food in my home kitchen.
Unless we suppose that "most anyone" can execute music on a level with a Metropolitan Opera Orchestra violinist with enough training and experience, why should we suppose the same thing is true with respect to a four star restaurant cook? For someont to say that they "don't believe that the line cooks at The French Laundry have much of anything that a talented and experienced home cook does not" is just like saying "I don't believe the violinists in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra have much of anything that a talented and experienced amateur violin player does not." Even that ignores the fact that the cooks at the French Laundry and the violinists at in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra have infinitely more experience than their amateur counterparts.
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Kevin, um...what's in cotechino that makes guests squirm? Pig skin?
Yup. Plus it seems that quite a few people (or the ones I know anyway) are squeamish about sausage in general and take a don't ask don't tell approach. Serving them a stuffed pig's leg, hoof and all would put them over the edge.
For the record, the "stuffed pig's leg, hoof and all" is a zampone, not a cotechino. Cotechino is just a large, highly spiced pork sausage. The filling is, I think, pork shoulder/neck/cheek and pork rind from the snout and cheek. It's got a lot of rind in it -- around the same amount of rind as meat. In fact, the name "cotechino" comes from "cotica" (pork rind).
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What?! Next thing you know, they're going to replace the Citgo sign.
Do they at least still have the good falafel truck over by MIT?
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Well, I tried it. Reaction? <shrug>
I wonder if the published formula is not entirely correct. 2.5 ounces of gin to a whopping 1.5 ounces of fresh lime juice (with only a half-ounce of simple syrup to balance) makes for what I would call a "new school gimlet." It's very sour, although just balanced enough to be drinkable. It also tastes so strongly of lime that even the gin barely comes through. The orange blossom water makes its presence felt every so often, but as a very mild aftertaste that tends to be lost in the overwhelming flavor of lime. I'd like to try this drink with half the lime juice.
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I believe it is illegal, at least in most parts of the U.S., to serve raw fish that has not first been flash frozen.
It's all frozen fish, folks.
A lot of fish is imported into the US fresh. Whether the restaurant chooses to cook it or serve it raw is another matter.
I don't think it's that simple. Whether something looks fresh, tastes fresh and can be called fresh depends on a great many things... and never having being frozen is not necessarily among them.
In any event, we are straying too far from discussion that is relevant to Masa. If we would like to continue to discuss the use of frozen fish for sushi, etc. there is a thread referenced above that would be more appropriate.
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In re to bourbons: For mixing my "house pour" is Maker's Mark. I think you'll be hard pressed to find a better combination of price and quality in a bourbon -- just good enough for sipping, excellent for mixing. Jim Beam Black is also a very good and reasonably priced bourbon if you want to go in the rye direction instead of the wheat direction.
In re to blended American or Canadian: In my opinion, there is no such thing as a "sipping blended American or Canadian whiskey." To me, these are mixing spirits only. With that in mind, you could taste Seagram's 7 for American, and Seagram's VO or Canadian Club Classic for Canadian. Personally, I'd rather use Makers than any of these, though.
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From today's Shaken & Stirred column by William L. Hamilton:
It's now December, and you can think about ice storms or you can think about Pantelleria, a volcanic island between Italy and Africa where Giorgio Armani has a house.I prefer to think about Pantelleria, which is also a cocktail on an excellent specialty list at Pace, the newest of Jimmy Bradley and Danny Abrams's restaurants, on Hudson Street in TriBeCa. The Pantelleria is a gimlet at heart, with gin and lime. But it has orange blossom water in it too, which is an ingredient in Sicilian and North African cooking. Orange blossom gives the cocktail the fruit of citrus fruit, not the citrus, which you usually get in a drink, with the sharp fragrance of a fresh orange.
When I first saw the name of this drink, I was expecting to see a cocktail that used capers. Pantelleria is famous for capers, and most dishes "alla Pantelleria" feature capers as a primary ingredient. The cocktail was developed by Pace beverage director Peter Botti.
2.5 oz : gin (Plymouth is recommended)
1.5 oz : fresh lime juice
0.5 oz : simple syrup
4 drops : orange blossom water
Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with orange twist.
I think I have all these ingredients at home, so I'm going to give this a shake later tonight.
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Sorry maybe this is a newbie question, but if you don't hold a chef's knife by the handle, how do you hold it?
From Marsha (zilla369) Lynch's excellent eGCI course on basic knife skills are these two pictures of a "pinch grip" on a chef's knife:
Is this pretty much a universally accepted way to hold a chef's knife? Or are there variations? Just curious...
As far as I know, the pinch grip is the "classic" way to hold a chef's knife, and is what is taught in culinary schools, etc. This is the grip you will see most professional cooks using, as well as the pro-trained cooks on television programs, etc.
In my experience, the pinch grip offers a lot more control and confidence with a chef's knife than holding the handle. This is especially true if the "handle holder" puts his or her index finger on the spine of the knife, which makes the grip even more unstable. I firmly believe that most people who are uncomfortable with a large (e.g., 10-inch) chef's knife are made uncomfortable due to an inherently unstable and unwieldy handle grip.
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The shun also lacks the full bolster. This allows you to sharpen the entire blade.The handle is fine. You should not be holding a chefs knife by the handle anyway.
Sorry maybe this is a newbie question, but if you don't hold a chef's knife by the handle, how do you hold it?
From Marsha (zilla369) Lynch's excellent eGCI course on basic knife skills are these two pictures of a "pinch grip" on a chef's knife:
Front view
View from the other side of the knife
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Slice up a homegrown tomato - drizzle with a good quality olive oil - a sprinkle of salt and if you want to get crazy a leaf or two of fresh picked basil - if you are feeling really crazy (or rich) slice up some quality mozzerella.
Its a 5 star plate right there.
See, this is where the whole question of "what is four star" food comes into play. In the context of this discussion, "four star" means "the kind of food as executed in the top-rated, fanciest and most expensive restaurants in the world." There is simply no way a four star restaurant would serve an insalata caprese. Or, if they did, it would be tweaked in some unique and fancy and complicated way. And it would involve specially grown and absolutely perfect heirloom tomatoes and microbasil. And the mozzarella would be life-changingly fresh, made in house from organic milk just out of the rare breed cow. That kind of thing. A tomato fresh from the garden with a drizzle of oil and a sprinkle of salt is delicious. But it's one star cuisine at best.
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I'm with Russ on this one. As detailed here, I just spent around ten days of preparation and hard work to produce what I suppose I'd call a solid two-star multicourse Thanksgiving dinner for 11 people. I wouldn't want to do any more work than that, and it pushed the envelope of what my kitchen can do to the absolute limit. Four star Keller/Ducasse/Trotter food from my kitchen? Maybe theoretically possible, but why?
Actually, I think it's almost impossible. Think of all the pieces that have to fall in place:
1. Are you a four star caliber cook? Do you think you can tell when a sauce is absolutely perfect the way Delouvrier can?
2. Are you going to be doing all the cooking and plating? If so, that's a limitation. If not, are your various assistants up to the four star level? It's quite common that several people will work on one plate at the four star level.
3. Related to the above, do you have the experience and the personnel to get everything plated and out to the diners in peak condition?
2. What about sourcing the ingredients?
3. How's your stove? Only four burners? That's a limitation.
4. No salamander? That's a limitation.
5. Only one oven (or only two)? That's a limitation.
6. How about things like keeping the plates warm, etc. How are you going to manage that?
7. etc.
The further one gets into this list, the more one understands that four star cuisine is designed to be made by people with extensive, expensive and often specialized equipment being used by plentiful and highly trained personnel. Is it theoretically possible to do this in a home kitchen? Sure, I guess... if you have an eight burner Garland stove, three ovens, a salamander, a battery of top level cookware, and a zillion kinds of dishes... and, oh yea, provided you are a really accomplished cook and have several other accomplished cooks helping you. But I doubt very much that Alain Ducasse himself would be able to produce "four star cuisine" in my NYC apartment kitchen (despite the fact that everything but my stove is very high end) without an absolutely Herculean and ultimately Pyrrhic effort.
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If we would like to have a more extensive discussion of restaurant pricing beyong the context of Masa, someone should probably start a new thread. Certainly there is much to be said on that subject.
For the time being, I will offer this one thought: $500 for a restaurant dinner means different things to different people.
To me, and for many of us here I gather, this would represent a significant expenditure. I would go into the restaurant expecting a once-in-a-lifetime peak-experience kind of meal in exchange for my once-in-a-lifetime restaurant meal expenditure. For other people, five hundred dollars for a restaurant meal just doesn't mean that much to them. And make no mistake, there are a lot more of these people around than you might think, and they're all a short Learjet ride away from places like Masa and ADNY. For these people, the gustatory return they expect on their $500 investment isn't the same. Indeed, they may not expect a substantial difference between a $500 meal and a $200 meal. They don't need to have a life-changing culinary experience for their five hundred bucks.
This is the reason why people like me are well advised to choose carefully when going to places like ADNY, because some of the dishes are life-changing and some are just really, really good -- and I'm only going to feel like I got my money's worth if I order the former. At a restaurant like Masa, fundamentally all they serve is great quality fish and rice. It's going to be hard for someone like me to justify paying five hundred bucks for a meal at Masa when I could get one at a marginally lower level for half the price. No one seems to be saying that Masa is twice as good as the competition, and with this kind of elemental food it's harder to tell the difference between, e.g., Sushi Yasuda and Masa as it is between, e.g., Landmarc and ADNY. But for someone who drops that kind of money without feeling pain, or for someone who has other motivations (professional, personal) to unflinchingly drop that kind of money on a meal on a semi-regular basis... it's probably worth it.
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called the "emma" in a few nyc bars...after...me. (it may already exist as something else)
grapefruit
a little pineapple
some fresh lime. lime zest.
ice shake-a shake-a shake!
careful though...
There is no booze in this?
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So 3 1/2 oz--the size of my recipe--is now too big? Sheesh, I thought I was hardcore about smaller drinks...
I have small cocktail glasses, so I normally shoot for 2.5 ounces.
As for the history of the Negroni: pending the arrival of Luca Picchi's 2002 Sulle tracce del conte: la vera storia del cocktail Negroni (Edizioni Plan: 2002) ["On the Trail of the Count: the True Story of the Negroni Cocktail"], which I have just ordered, I'll have to reserve judgment on the common story which has one Count Camillo Negroni inventing it in Florence in 1919 or 1920 when he took to having gin in his Americanos (evidently Picchi makes a good case for it's being true, but we'll see). Apparently, this book holds that the drink was indeed originally served in an Old-Fashioned glass with a splash or two of fizz water (with or without ice I cannot tell), as one would expect if it was simply an Americano stiffened with a "stick" of gin.Very interesting. Ma come mai puoi leggere Italiano? Hai bisogno di un traduttore?
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I'm just curious why you would say GranGala would do and not Marie Brizzard Triple Sec. Many people have commented that the Marie B is very close to Cointreau. As far as GranGala, it's a Grand Marnier imitation and not a triple sec, so if we're talking quality ingredients, why not suggest Grand Marnier? More importantly, if a sidecar calls for Cointreau, wouldn't using GranGala or Grand Marnier really change the nature of the drink?
I've never had a sidecar so I'm not speaking from my experiences here. I was just curious.
D'oh! You're right, alphaiii. I was thinking of Van Gogh Triple Sec "Superieur." Marie Brizzard is fine, I think, for many cocktails that call for Cointreau. But I don't think it's right for cocktails like the Sidecar where the quality of the triple sec is really apparent, and the Sidecar is one such drink IMO. Similar things might be said of certain brands of gin, which work great for most cocktails but are not preferred for martinis.
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Russ, I agree. There is definitely something to be said for the soft carbon steel knives that dull quickly but sharpen back up to razor sharpness equally quickly. It all depends on the user's preferences. If your Wusthoff seems soft to you, try an old Sabatier carbon steel knife.
My dendritic steel knives are super hard, which is great... but I still wish they weren't so hard when it comes to sharpening time, and as a result have occasionally let them get a little dull on me.
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and sam, if you can find really well-made custom chef knives for in the $100-$150 range, that's really great. who do you get them from?
Right here, to make one example. You can get a super-badass 9.5 inch K6 for $161 US, which is substantially less expensive than the $210 9.4 inch Misono UX10 gyutou. In fact, I am in communication with the maker right now, so stay tuned for a "limited edition eGullet Society knife" in the next month or two.
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If it's only a buck or two, I'd say definitely go for the upgrade. But the regular "entry-level" stuff is just fine too. The upgrade to the Cointreau is crucial. Once you've tried one that way you'll see what I mean.
Me wonders if Triple Sec would be an acceptable in-between. I know not how it would compare in price and taste in a Sidecar.
IMO, if you're talking about an elemental and uncomplicated drink like the Sidecar, the quality of the ingredients makes a huge difference.
Cointreau is the original triple sec, of course. In fact, the name "triple sec" comes from the fact that the Cointreau bottle used to say "triple sec" on the front and copycat companies put the name on their bottles too (see an old bottle of Cointreau here). So, we're really talking about the difference between using a really good triple sec and not-so-good triple sec. In my opinion, there are some recipes where one can get away with using a good quality "regular" triple sec like Marie Brizzard. But for the simple classics like the Sidecar, only a top-level triple sec will do. This means Cointreau or, almost as good but a lot less expensive, GranGala. Anything less will be a noticable drop off, IMO.
NYC French Bistrots
in New York: Dining
Posted
Hmmm... interesting list, jgould. Especially interesting that you call for a number of what I would call "faux French" affectations (viz. accents, music, curtains, etc.). To my way of thinking, these specifications call more for a "Disneyland bistro" approach, trying to duplicate the real thing in a foreign environment. One can only truly have a French bistro in France, of course. A New York French bistro should IMO naturally reflect the fact that it is in New York. Anything else is, to me, an artificial "bistroland." To my mind, if a restaurant is serving classic French bistro fare in a setting that is appropriately evocative of the important elements that define the French model, without slavishly imitating it but rather translating those elements into the NYC milieu... this is the kind of place I'm looking for.