slkinsey

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.

I just picked up the Rocky doserless. Looking forward to giving it a try.

Steven, Have you ever thought of using a electric medical heating pad (like this one) wrapped around a big carton of milk? I have an adjustable one you could try out. Makes yogurt and it's good for earaches and muscle pains!

Hendrick's is at the moment the martini gin of choice chez slkinsey, mixed 8:1 with Vya white vermouth, stirred and garnished with a paper-thin slice of cucumber.

I wonder why no one has come up with an extra-wide channel knife for cocktail twists?

Patrick O'Sullivan is the real deal, and I encourage anyone in the Carnegie Hall area to drop in for a drink at the bar.

Naples 45 has pretty good pizza, actually.

It is not standard practice -- at the NYT anyway -- to include such information in a review unless the chef de cuisine, pastry chef, etc. are somehow noteworthy due to the exceptional excellence of their work, the depth of their participation in creating the cuisine, etc. (e.g., Psaltis at Mix, Pasternack at Esca). This makes it an unusual and critical omission that Kunz' contribution was not mentioned, but not so for the other players. Restaurant reviews aren't like movie credits that list everyone involved.

Man... tasting 39 of the oldest drinkable scotches around. That must have been horrible.

You were there? I thought I saw someone who looked like you.

Not to mention... Spice Market: three stars. Asiate: one star.

Along similar lines, what is your take on pairing strong drink with food? I recently went to an Irish whiskey dinner (described here) that was interesting, but I definitely noticed a certain anaesthetic effect of the strong alcohol on my palate which interfered with the full experience of the flavors in the dishes I was eating. Also... some high end restaurants (Trotter's in Chicago, for example) are deciding that they will not serve before-dinner cocktails because the alcohol "dulls the palate." What's your take on this? My personal experience at the whiskey dinner as well as the known anaesthetic effect that alcohol can have on the taste receptors leads me to believe that a glass of vodka would probably not be the ideal accompaniment to a subtle and nuanced meal, but I also think any such effect is short lived and that one cocktail isn't going to carry through the entire dinner.

Gary, When you use Vya (my favorite), do you find that you need to use less so the vermouth doesn't overwhelm the drink? For example, I typically do 5:1 or 6:1 gin to vermouth with Noilly Prat, but with Vya I might go to 8:1 or 9:1. I love Vya's sweet vermouth in a Manhattan, or together with their dry in a perfect style Manhattan, or in my little riff on a perfect style Manhattan Have you ever tried King Eider vermouth from Duckhorn Wine Company?

That's probably because they didn't taste Duke's.

A 50/50 martini? Very interesting. I'll have to try that (although, obviously one would need a relatively light vermouth). Were they allowed to pre-chill any of the ingredients? Taking the gin and vermouth out of the freezer might work well for this kind of martini, because the large amount ov vermouth would cut down the alcohol content quite a bit and the dilution from melted ice wouldn't be so important (plus, of course, there would still be some dilution from melted ice).

More importantly, perhaps, why are there so many "Newfie" jokes?

Steven, why did you boil? Was that in the instructions/recipe you have? Sounds like most people here just heat to 100F and add teh culture. Also, what kind of milk did you use? Regular supermarket milk (Tuscan/Dearle/etc.) or something like Ronnybrook? Skim? Whole? 2 percent?

Post-WWII, I think. July 22, 1948 was when they voted to join Canada.

My understanding was that this dish is served with "Italian poached eggs" -- which is to say, eggs poached in olive oil. Have no idea where I got that idea, though.