slkinsey

I'd be curious to hear how many people actually really like Illy. I suspect many people think they're supposed to like Illy because he's supposed to be the big espresso guru, but I run into a surprizing number of people who don't like it.

Personally, I hate Illy, which I have always found sour, even in Italy. In general, I think you will find the prevailing sentiment to be that the cheapest option for bar-quality espresso is the Rancilio Silvia/Rocky combination, which will run you about 720 bucks new (450 for the machine and another 270 for the grinder). Other options may be had for less money, but almost everyone I know falls into one of two categories eventually: a) don't use it all that much, b) want to move up to a better machine. This is not to say that Rocky owners don't get the occasional urge to move up, but I don't think any feel that the quality of their coffee/foamed milk and the nature of the things they can do with the machine is substantially limited with the Rancilio products as they would be with cheaper.

Yea. Kind of puts the lie to their spokesperson Susan Magrino's statement to the Post less than 5 days ago to the effect that "it was 'premature' to say whether the menu would change."

Sorry, Daniel, that is a bogus argument. As detailed upthread, "work someplace else if you don't like it" is not a viable argument against workplace safety regulations. Now. With that, I am going to suggest once again that you skim through the thread. This discussion is long enough without becoming endlessly extended with reruns of the same arguments. So... Daniel, jeunefilleparis, et al.: unless someone comes up with something new on this "government restricting personal freedoms" fork of the discussion today, something that reflects a grasp of the extensive conversation in this direction which has already ensued, I am going to start deleting. It's not something I would ordinarily do, but this thread is already over 400 posts and it runs the significant risk of losing all relevance if it becomes the same old thing over and over and over and over again.

Daniel, Menton... I swear this has been covered extensively upthread. Rather than continuing to talk in circles, if this is something you care about please read through the thread.

Daniel, go back and read through the thread, my friend. It is quite clear that the government has the right and responsibility to enact legislation to protect employees in the workplace. The laws do not force people to "give up their personal freedoms" by restricting smoking in the workplace any more than laws force people to give up their personal freedoms by restricting open masturbation in the workplace. People are perfectly free to smoke and wank... just not at work.

An excellent point, Theakston. The article does mention the criticism that the "increase in tax payments and jobs must be weighed against the restaurant industry's emergence from the post-9/11 recession." I wonder how the observed 9% growth compares to the growth in previous years and how it compares to the growth that might have been expected were the ban not in effect. It's hard to "prove" anything in terms of the true economic impact, of course, because the ban didn't happen in a vacuum and there are other economic forces at work which affect the outcomes. I guess the main thing I took out of this report is that the bar and restaurant industry haven't gone down the tubes as many ban opponents were predicting. I wonder how the 9% growth compares to the growth in related/similar industries during that timeframe. I have always tried to point up the fact that the smoking ban was for the benefit of employees and not customers. Just to tell a personal anecdote... I went out to a rodizio in Newark a few nights ago where there was some smoking. It was interesting to notice how much it irritated me now that I am used to smoke-free dining.

It makes pretty good coffee of a certain kind. The big difference, I am given to understand, is that cold "brewing" doesn't extract any of the oils. So, if you want to make something that you're going to keep around for a while, cold extraction might be the way to go.

Well, it is worthy of note that bar owners are critical of the report because the statistics are for bars and restaurants together. The implication by these parties is that the situation is not so rosy for bars as the report indicates. The implication of this is that restaurants have been doing so well that they have skewed the results up to the extent that widesperad difficulties in the bar business have been obscured. While I am sure there is some element of truth to this, and certainly it is the case that certain bars (and certain restaurants) have definitely been hurt by the ban, I have a hard time believing that bars as a group are doing significantly worse than the report indicates. For this to be true, restaurants would, as a group, have to be doing substantially better than the report indicates in order to achieve the same aggregate numbers.

Some relevant excerpts for posterity:

The New York Post apparently spoke to different people, as yesterday's Page Six reflects. Some excerpts:

When this first broke, we made contact with the best sources close to the situation we could find, who asked to speak on background only, and have been able to piece together this preliminary story: It is a matter of public knowledge, and is likely evident to anyone who has been to Mix, that the kitchen has been run by Doug Psaltis and is in every way a Ducasse kitchen. This philosophy extends from the tools (e.g., many copper pans, great stove, etc.) to the staff (the sous chef is an Italian guy Ducasse sent over, but who will not be the next chef), the ingredients sourced and the food produced. The front of the house, however, is run by China Grill Management (aka the Chodorow organization) and there have been conflicts between the two management philosophies and goals for Mix. The people on the Ducasse side have long felt that the level of service has been disproportionate to the quality of food. The management level is no exception. Initially the struggle was to get the front of the house on the same level as the kitchen. But, now that there has been a clear change in the control of the restaurant, the management team has changed course and the struggle has been reversed. Apparently a plan was devised to re-launch the restaurant into more of a money-making operation. Key elements of this plan included using only China Grill purveyors (those used in all of the organization's other restaurants), not continuing to replace the fine china and crystal and moving to cheaper products instead, redeveloping the labor structure in the kitchen, and revising the menu to accommodate more turns. This, as one might well imagine, is somewhat inimical to the goals Psaltis has been trying to achieve at Mix. Psaltis' job has been to provide food that is aligned with Ducasse's ideals. He has been using premium sources for all of their products (which often are no more expensive, sometimes cheaper, than the purveyors that China Grill uses). And, as at any kitchen achieving the level of cuisine Mix has been producing, he has been dependent on a dedicated and talented staff. In this case, the kitchen featured many cooks who gave up higher levels elsewhere for the opportunity to work in a Ducasse kitchen. Throughout his time at Mix (and before it), Psaltis has maintained that he is a Ducasse chef. He has worked to meet the demands of Alain Ducasse and no one else. When he felt the increase in pressure to run Mix more like every other China Grill restaurant, it was clear that there was no way that he would be part of that. Several of his cooks have now also departed. The expectation is that the new chef and level of cooking will move closer to that of the other China Grill restaurants and, following the likely large turnover of the kitchen staff, the menu will likely change quite a bit. As for Doug Psaltis, he remains loyal to the Ducasse organization and is actively discussing his next steps with Ducasse. * * * More information here as we receive it

I have a few impressions: 1. There is no reason to always go to the thinnest setting on the pasta machine every time. I reserve this setting for only the most delicate stuffed pasta dishes and lightly sauced narrower cuts of strand pasta. For tagliatelle, papardelle, lasagna, etc. I wouldn't go anywhere near that thin. 2. If the pasta is so damp that it's sticking together whenever it touches itself, if nests of pasta are turning into blobs of dough despite a healthy dusting of flour, if they need to dry before they can be be run through the cutter or, better yet, rolled up and cut by hand... then the dough is too wet. Pasta dough can absorb a lot more flour than you think, and what seems very dry when you first start kneading can actually turn out to be quite moist after the dough is worked for a few minutes.

Pictures forthcoming once I stop futzing with them. Why must restaurants be so dimly (and yellowly) lit?

Yay! Let's make fun of Gary while he's out.

Excellent! Famous Grouse is the slkinsey house blended, so I shall acquire some cherry brandy and make a B&S forthwith.

What about Famous Grouse?

Thanks, Robert. Glad you liked it. It's a piece of ancestral barware (along with the spoon) from my grandfather, who was quite the admirer of cocktails himself and, bring born in 1897, lived through some of the prime cocktail eras. It's my favorite piece and I think of him every time I use it. What I like about it is that it's a cocktail swirler (stirring vessel?) rather than a shaker. Accomodates 1-3 cocktails nicely. What you can't see very well in my picture is that the lip is very wide (covers around 1/3 of the circumference of the rim), with a little something to hold back the ice. I prefer to use this piece, or a larger cylindrical cocktail pitcher I have, whenever I make stirred cocktails. Speaking of eBay... it's a great place for cocktail mixers, isn't it? Seems like there are always several really nice ones up for auction at reasonable prices.

The prevailing wisdom around here seems to be: brine, spatchcock, very hot pan. I have had excellent results (the best, really) spatchcocking by splitting at the breastbone rather than cutting out tbe backbone.

Marlene, You might want to give one of these threads a look.

I have recently switched over to the KitchenAid pasta roller attachment (which I very much recommend), but used an Imperia for years. Interesting story: I received my Imperia from my mother. It is the pasta machine her family bought when they were living in Rome shortly after the war. Anyway, fast forward about 45 years... I finish a job in Italy and meet some friends from the States. They say that they want to buy a pasta machine. I, of course, recommend the Imperia and we go to a local shop. The Imperia machine we found there was exactly the same as my 50 year old machine. No cheapo plastic parts. No thin crappy metal. No shoddy craftsmanship. Exactly the same. Not too often you can say that nowadays.

That's totally the way to go, I agree Janet. Interesting that you feel it is important to work on free pouring. I realize this is a valuable skill for a working bartender, but as an somewhat advanced amateur I never thought it would have much value to me. I've always been happy to measure my ingredients (and adjust for taste when using variable ingredients like fresh citrus, etc.).

Steven, it's not like you're entirely without cocktail resources. Given that you have a cocktail practically every time you come over to my house, a tour through the Regan's good books might be the thing to do. We might even be able to break a certain someone out of her vodka gimlet orthodoxy.

Scott: 1. Use more flour until you get a stiffer texure. It's not an exact science. The dough can be a lot stiffer than you think. 2. When you are rolling the pasta, roll each batch through the rollers several times at the widest setting. Every time you send it through, fold it in half. Sometimes, if the chunk of dough is the right length, turn it sideways and run it through that way. Eventually, the dough will widen out so it takes up the entire width of the roller attachment. Only at this point should you start thinning the dough. The sheet of dough will narrow a little as it is stretched, but nowhere near the 1.5 - 2" you are reporting. The folding and re-rolling adds extra strength to the dough. I also like to do the folding/re-rolling/sizing stage for all of my pieces of dough right at the beginning and give them a short rest before moving on to the thinning stage. The rest allows the gluten to relax a little, and I also like the texture that results from the slight surface drying before the pasta is thinned. In re to the cutting: first, I encourage you to expermient with cutting the dough by hand. Just dust the pasta with some flour, roll it up into a jellyroll and cut to the desired width. Any time the pasta gets so long that it is unweildly, just cut in half and put one piece aside while you work on the other piece. Next time, start with a smaller hunk of pasta. 3. See #1 above. If your dough is stiffer, you won't have the problem of your nests sticking together. A little dusting of flour (wheat, semolina or, better yet, rice) helps too. 4. Unrolled dough may be kept several hours in a closed container or covered with a damp cloth. My personal experiences with keeping dough overnight in the refrigerator is that I don't like what it does to the texture of the dough. You can definitely tell the difference between a fresh piece of dough and a day old piece of dough from the fridge. The better thing to do is make the pasta and freeze the unused nests.

Big mistake for the restaurant to let Doug get away from them.