slkinsey

From today's NY Times: The Second Avenue Deli is celebrating its 50th anniversary by rolling back to the 1954 prices! On Monday, March 15, from 11:30 AM to 8 Pm, sandwiches will be fifteen to twenty cents and main dish platters will be $1 to $1.25.

JJ and I were quite taken with Red Breast 12 year old at the Seppi's Whiskey Dinner. All pot still whiskey. Big flavor. Heavy mouthfeel. Powerful long finish.

As was explained to us by the charming Sheila Golden at the Seppi's Whiskey Dinner, this is more or less bunk, but it is preserved to a certain extent in American "Irish" pubs. After a lof of distilleries closed, the only two operations left were Jameson's and Bushmill's. Now, it just so happened that there Bushmill's is located up in the North (where most of the Protestants are) and Jameson's in the South (where most of the Catholics are). Back in the old days it was perhaps true that Catholics drank Jameson's and Protestants Bushmills, but this was entirely out of necessity. Due to distribution issues, it was very difficult to obtain Bushmill's in the South and vice-versa. This really is no longer the case in Ireland, and plenty of Catholic Bushmill's drinkers may be found. However, given that many Irish immigrants came to the US during the years when Irish distilleries had limited geographic distribution in Ireland, this tradition evolved in America. The only places you're likely to see it are in insular, provincial Irish American communities in certain areas of Boston, etc. IMO, it's no more Irish than green beer on St. Patrick's Day. I don't know why anyone would think that about Harp and Bass, since Bass isn't Irish (it's brewed in Burton-on-Trent).

If you think that's interesting, you should hear me trying to talk Kathleen's mother through PC problems on a computer with an operating system we don't have in the house.

Kathleen and I actually met on the job... on the real job that is. Which is to say, on a gig.

Yes they are sending this stuff to the US. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be 2.5 mm. Mauviel's 2.5 mm stuff still has the traditional straight rim like this and the 2.0 mm stuff has a rolled rim like this. Looking at the two pans above, the 2.0 mm pan looks like a pretty rotten deal considering that it is the same price as the 2.5 mm pan! Here is a similar pan with the stainless steel handle (also 2.0 mm). This pan is actually more expensive than the 2.5 mm pan! You can see examples of all four lines of Mauviel's stainless lined copper (2.5 mm/iron handle, 2.0 mm/iron handle, 2.0 stainless steel handle and 1.6 mm/brass handle) here.

Hmmmm... what is "fine dining" and what is "fine dining in New York" (and does NY have a distinct style of fine dining) and what separates fine dining from really good dining. A lot of interesting fodder for discussion, and these questiona may merit their own thread. I'll inject another point to the debate: to what extent is one's concept of "fine dining" in NYC and elsewhere dependent on the French model of what a top restaurant experience should be?

With all due respect to Ursula Ferrigno, that is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard with respect to cooking ingredients. Right up there with using ultra-expensive sea salt for salt-baked fish and pasta water. That said, and as Soba suggests, there is good extravagance (aceto balsamico tradizionale, A-grade foie gras, white truffles, even things like artisinal Italian pasta asciuta and heavy stainless lined copper cookware) and there is bad extravagance (see above). The point, I think is that you don't waste your money, but rather spend it in places where it will make the most impact.

Will you clarify this? I'm not quite visualizing it. Did he hold the string at both ends and pull it down the length of the peel to sort of separate the dough from the peel after the toppings had been applied? Exactly. Stretched the string across the peel using both hands. Pulled the string tight against the peel. Ran the string down the length of the peel, under the dough, to separate the dough from the peel. After accomplishing this, went immediately to the oven.

One thing we saw at Patsy's in re to the pizza sticking to the peel. As you can see, they load two pizze at a time. Right before taking the pizze to the oven, the pizzaiolo stretched a string over the peel and ran it under both pieces of dough.

I've done both. In fact, currently I am without the soapstone as I lent it out and do not expect to get it back. The soapstone produces much better results -- especially for my kind of use. In general, I think it's too much hassle to go to all that trouble for one pizza. These days, whenever I make pizza it's because I'm having a pizza party at my house, in which case I am likely to be making 10 - 15 large pizze. When using a baking stone, there is a significant problem with the baking stone losing heat over time, and pizza #5 takes 4 times longer to cook than pizza #1 (there is some discussion about this problem on a professional scale at Grimaldi's in the NY Pizza Survey thread. This is simply not a problem with a big chunk of soapstone. Rather than putting the oven on self-clean, I would suggest turning on the broiler if you have a regular gas oven with the broiler underneath. With the baking stone on the floor of the oven and the broiler firing more or less directly into the stone, you should get all the heat your oven is capable of producing.

The only thing I have seen that even remotely reminds me of your specifications is All-Clad's Copper Core line. It is a core of copper fully clad in stainless steel. I assume the stainless is magnetic. Yes. Paderno Grand Gourmet Looks pretty sweet, no?

Well... because the tin wears off eventually, whereas it does not with a stainless lined pan. Also, you have to be much more careful about regulating the temperature of a tin lined pan. Tin melts at around 450F, and it doesn't take too much preheating to get a saute or fry pan up in that temperature range. You get a tin lined pan up to 500F and you've got a retinning on your hands. And, of course, you have to be carefull with using metal utensils, etc. Now, for a professional cook who really knows what he's doing and who never stretches the tolerance of the pan, they probably work okay. But for a home cook, I just don't think it's worth the extra hassle and the limited usefulness with respect to high temperatures. This is not to say that you should throw away your old heirloom tin lined pans... just that I wouldn't recommend buying any more of it. With all due respect to Rocky Mountain Retinning, I don't believe for a minute that a tin lined pan could survive decades of regular use in a home without needing to be retinned. I know plenty of people who own old tin lined copper, and most of their stuff started to look patchy only a few years after retinning. This is, of course, another argument against tin linings: you have to keep on paying throughout the life of the pan. When you figure in the cost of retinnings, a stainless lining is actually less expensive. The only thing I can think that would extend the life of a tin lined pan is to be extra careful about the hardness of the utensils used with it (I would recommend heatproof rubber spatulas instead of wooden spoons) and to be very diligent about never using more than medium heat and never preheating the pan. This is a tough one, as the main usefulness of tin lined copper, IMO, is for saucemaking and that generally requires a whisk. I can't be sure, but I think I saw some nonmetalic whisks and Apex spatulas at Bridge Kitchenware. You might consider giving them a call. I don't know how expansive this is, but I think it's complete bullshit. You're talking about an oxidized layer that is maybe a few atoms thick. I can't believe that it impacts the thermal properties of the pan one iota, and if it does you'd have to have superhuman perceptual skills (not to mention cooking skills) to tell the difference. Many experienced chefs, of course, believe a lot of things that are total bullshit ("searing seals in the juices," anyone?). If I were a betting man, I'd bet you're right about the insistence on bright copper being a holdover from the hardline French days. That said, it's relatively easy to keep copper bright with a Scotch Brite pad and some Bar Keeper's Friend, provided you don't mind a brushed finish (probably okay for a working pan, but I wouldn't do it to an heirloom piece). Welcome to the Gull, Henry. Hope to see more of you around on the boards!

No health risks asociated with aluminum cookware. Probably nothing to worry about in terms of stocks either. However, stainless steel is a lot more versatile as you don't have to worry about reactivity for other applications.

There was one on the menu, but they weren't pushing it. Cheeses chosen by the same guy as Celeste.

Ate there last PM with bergerka and ewindels. What a great place and what a great bargain! When we arrived (around 7:30 on a Saturday night) the place was jumping. The host took my name and suggested we take a drink at the bar next door where he would find us when our table was ready. The bar is a typical self-consciously downdown-drab-hip place. We had "gimlets" that were made with fresh lime juice. Not really a gimlet, of course, but a nice refreshing drink nonetheless. Anyway, this gives you a good picture of what the staff is like at Bianca: after around 15 minutes I noticed that I hadn't seen the guy from Bianca come in to the bar to fetch anyone, so I decided to poke my head out and see what was what. As it so happened, the host was standing in front of the restaurant taking some new names for the list. He looked up and immediately said, "Don't worry Sam, I haven't forgotten about you. Your table will open up soon and I'll come in to pick you up." Didn't have to refer to his list to remember my name or anything. And, true to his word, he came in to get us about 5 minutes later. The room is small and was completely filled, which one would expect at 8:00 on Saturday night. Our table was quite comfortable, but we did note a few two-tops along the back wall that looked a little cramped. So, the meal started with some very nice bread and a puddle of excellent, green evoo. For antipasti we split the gnocco fritto and the sauteed fegatini. The gnocco fritto (always referred to in the singular, for some reason, even though there are always several to a serving) was a plate with six warm, pillowey, rectangles of biscuit-like dough fried in olive oil and served with either salumi or cheese. We opted for the salumi, and got some nice pieces of sopressata, prosciutto, mortadella and coppa. Nothing like draping a piece of salume over a warm gnocco so the pork fat melts into the dough. This dish was absolutely corrrect. The star of the antipasti, however, was the sauteed chicken livers glazed with balsamic vinegar. Simply put, this dish was perfect... and perfectly huge! Take warning, no one person should order this antipasto. There must have been 20 chicken livers! The livers were cooked just right. Pink in the middle with a light texture, and without that aggressive "livery" flavor of overcooked liver. The sweet balsamic vinegar mingled with the cooking liquids exuded from the livers to make a simple sauce. The dish is presented with a mound of livers poured over three pieces of bread, and we found ourselves emptying the bread basket to soak up all the sauce as we finished the livers. To be honest, if one is going to go the antipasto-primo-secondo-dolce route, the chicken livers alone would be plenty of antipasto for a party of four. For the primi we split two dishes. First was a nicely done taglierini ai frutti di mare. This had excellent, firm pasta, a nicely spicy tomato-based sauce and good seafood (shrimp, clams, mussels, squid). The shellfish were, in the Italian style, still in the shell. It was a very nice dish, appropriately sized and quite tasty. My only criticism is that the ratio of pasta to condiment wasn't high enough. There should have been, in my opinion, about 25% more pasta and 25% less other stuff. It is a testament to the quality at Bianca that this truly minor defect made the taglierini the worst dish of the evening. We also shared a nice plate of gnocchi con fontina. These were nicely light potato gnocchi (slightly green, so I assume there was some spinach in there as well) served in a creamy and ever so slightly funky fontina sauce. Gnocchi are not easy to do well in a busy small restaurant, and these are among the best and the lightest I've had in the city. Certainly they blow away any other gnocchi one is likely to get at this price point around here. For the secondi we each had separate plates. ewindels had cotechino con purè di patate. The cotechino was simply poached and presented in thick coins around a modest mound of pureed potatoes. The sausage was excellent (probably from Faicco) and the potatoes were very potatoey -- rich without being overly filling and buttery. Apparently a little parmigiano reggiano is the secret to the potatoes. You couldn't taste it, but it certainly made its presence felt. bergerka had pan seared thin slices of fillet with oven roasted potatoes and rosemary. Very nicely done. ewindels and I couldn't help thinking that it would have made one of the best steak sandwiches ever. The meat was cooked on one side anc nicely red on the other, so it didn't result in the well-done mess one normally expects from shaved meat. This helped it to retain a good beefy flavor (which is saying something, considering that it's fillet). I had salsicce con fagioli -- three small, flavorful sweet sausages (again, probably from Faicco) in a dish of tender white beans with tomato, garlic and onion. Everything gave evidence of havng been cooked together for a long time. The dish was peasantey satisfying, and I'm thinking there had to be a bit of veal glace or something in the beans because the intensity of flavor was great. For dessert we shared three dolci: a ricotta cheesecake, a tortino di cioccolato and ciambella con mascarpone. The ricotta cheesecake was light and lemony, moister and less crumbly than most examples. The chocolate mousse cake had a deep chocolate flavor and came with a dense, irregular scoop of whipped cream (we at first thought it might have included ricotta or mascarpone, because the texture was not light and it looked almost grainy, but the host explained that they achieved the texture by whipping heavy cream by hand only). For me, the ciambella was the best. Three slices of a crumbly traditional yellow cake with a scoop of liquor-infused mascarpone cream over the top. A little glass of vin santo and it would have been perfection. All of the above, plus two glasses of quotidien but acceptable chianti came to only $120! We tipped a generous 25% and still felt it was a bargain at $50 each.

Although I grew up in Boston, both my parents are from the South. Squash is a major staple of the Southern diet. The Kinsey dinner table featured a lot of squash. This, combined with my mother's ironclad "you have to eat at least a bite of everything" rule and "you don't have to like it, but you do have to eat it" philosophy means that I have tried pretty much every type and preparation of squash at least 50 times. The smell of pureed acorn or butternut squash is still enough to make me gag. I have no doubt that I could overcome this aversion a la Steingarten, but I am confortable with my prejudices. (That said, I always try it again if I get squash as part of a dish at a fancy restaurant.)

I hate squash, so I really don't know what they're doing with it. I've just noticed it on practically every high-end menu I've seen in the last 6 months.

The water deal has several reasons: 1. Being fully hydrated is critical to proper functioning of the vocal apparatus for singing. 2. The food at Bianca (that we had anyway) was fairly salty, which made us both thirsty. 3. Alcohol isn't the greatest thing in the world for the voice for a variety of reasons, and drinking a lot of water is the best way to mitigate these effects.

Well... first, I think most of us are expressing it the other way around, as the vodka:vermouth ratio. Jeez... keep up, will you? There are more or less two schools of thought in terms of the ratio for vodka martinis. The main thing has to do with how one deals with the fact that vodka has very little flavor. The first school says: since vodka has significantly less flavor than gin, one should use less vermouth lest the drink become a vermouth cocktail. This implies a ratio of perhaps 10:1. Those who opt for the "token amount of vermouth" take this philosophy to the extreme. The second school says: since vodka has very little flavor, the drink should have plenty of vermouth so it tastes like something. This implies a ratio of perhaps 6:1, which is the recommendation of Gary and Mardee Regan. Again, I think this is looking at the same thing from two different perspectives. Of course you are right that making all kinds of "martinis" is a valuable way for bars and restaurants to sell cocktails and make money, and of course this practice is here to stay. So, from that perspective, you are correct that a "chocolate peppermint martini" is a kind of "martini." On the other hand, the other perspective says that "martini" specifies a certain range of ingredients and that anything that does not include these ingredients is not a "martini." This is why we call a drink made with silver tequilla, cointreau and lime juice shaken with ice and strained into a cocktail glass a "margarita" and not a "lime tequilla martini." This is the more purist and cocktail afficianado perspective, and is is equally correct. A similar divergence of views is seen in the word "panini." Now, to Italophiles and Italian speakers like myself, this is a word that means "small sandwiches." One can have one panino and more than one panini. To us, the idea idea of saying, "I am going to have a panini" or "we are going to have some paninis" is ridiculous and wrong. On the other hand, there are those in the business who would say that "panini" has come to mean "Italian-style sometimes griddled sandwich," that the meaning of the word has changed and that they make lots of money selling sandwiches called "paninis." More or less what it comes down to is looking at the issue from different, andf equally valid in their own way, perspectives. That's not going to stop me from saying my way is better, but isn't that what it's all about?

Right... well, I think we've reached a point here where any further discussion on Mr. Sifton's review, fact checking and whatnot is more appropriate for another thread, as we don't want to get far too afield from our topic, which is to talk about Spice Market.

So... Patsy's! As Joe mentions, huge difference in attitude between Patsy's and Grimaldi's. And, it must be said, an equally huge difference in decor and associated accoutrements. Patsy's dining room is dim and drab (making for some very dark photos), the plates are melamine, the oven is ugly and utilitarian. But, really... who cares? The pizza is amazing. It was interesting for me to discover that several of the things I had heard from well-respected pizzaphiles turned out to be untrue with respect to both Grimaldi's and Patsy's. I have been told by more than one source that the pizza at Grimaldi was mediocre at best, and clearly inferior to Patsy's, and I had also been told that a side-by-side tasting of fresh mozzarella versus low moisture mozzarella at Patsy's would reveal the clear superiority of the latter. Well, neither of these things turned out to be true. The pizza at Grimaldi's was excellent, and in certain aspects better than Patsy's, and most of us seemed to prefer fresh mozzarella over the low moisture variety. Who knew? A lot of this comes down to personal preferences, of course, and I also suspect that most of the Grimaldi's detractors ate there during off-peak hours which were not propitious in terms of oven heat. As Joe points out, Patsy's oven is fired earlier and more often than the oven at Grimaldi's, and I cannot help thinking that this goes a long way towards explaining why they do not suffer the same problems as Grimaldi's in this regard. When we questioned Victor about the oven, he first told us that the oven was hot pretty much 24/7. They stoke the oven at the end of the night, and there are still some embers remaining in the morning when the oven is stoked again. I can't imagine that the oven loses all that much heat during this time -- maybe 100 degrees F at most. And, since they fire the oven at around 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning to get ready for an 11:00 lunch opening, the oven has plenty of heat stored up by the time the lunch rush comes. Contrary to Grimaldi's, who claimed that they stoked the oven only a few times to maintain temperature between two major firings, Victor told us that the Patsy's oven is stoked continuously throughout the day. Of course, he told us in a much more colorful manner: "Look, if you're heating your house with coal and it's 20 degrees below zero outside... you're gonna put coal in only a couple times a day? You'll be freezing your ass off in there." I also wonder whether either Grimaldi's or Patsy's really knows what the temperature is inside those ovens. I am sure it's mostly done by tradition and feel. When we asked about the temperature, Victor showed us his hand and said he'd have a sunburn if he stuck his hand in the oven more than a few seconds. In fact, he claimed to have suggested to the police back in the old days that they use the "hand in the oven" method to interrogate bad guys: "I'll tell you what, if they don't want to say anything after 'one thousand one' I can guarantee they'll be telling you everything they know by 'one thousand two.'" Another thing I noticed about Patsy's in terms of oven management is that the pizzaioli never kept the oven door open more than a second or two. Very smart when you want to keep the air temperature as high as possible. On to the pizze and the all important crust. As the pictures show, the crust is much more emphatially charred than previous examples. I think we can see a progression of char from Di Fara's gas oven to Grimaldi's coal oven to Patsy's coal oven. The char gets blacker, the bottom of the pizza is more completely charred and there is less "soak through" at the tip of the slice as one progreses towards Patsy's. It is also worthy of note that Patsy's was the first slice I could hold up without worrying that the ingredients would slide off (I didn't take a "hanging slice" picture in Grimaldi's as I was trying to be discrete following their unpleasantness about cameras). Now, several tasters felt that Patsy's char was a little over the top and ventured into the category of burnt every so often. I have to say that this was not my own evaluation, but I like the smoky bitterness of a slightly burnt crust and it is also true that the degree of char varied between nicely charred and extra charred from pizza to pizza and especially from slice to slice. Getting back to the main event, for me, which is the crust. There are, to my mind, some interesting comparisons to be made between the crusts at Patsy's and Grimaldi's. I found the crust at Grimaldi's generally chewier, "wheatier" and more flavorful than the crust at Patsy's. On the other hand, the crust at Patsy's is etherially light, thinner, features more charred flavor and, despite being lighter and thinner, actually seemed stronger than the crust at Grimaldi's. Patsy's was the first pizza where I never once thought of reaching for a fork and knife, as they always folded securely in half and never suffered from "soggy tip" (this is most apparent in the Di Fara slice above). Interestingly, it did not seem critically important to eat Patsy's pizza within 90 seconds of the pie hitting the table in order to get a "peak crust experience" as it had at Grimaldi's. In fact, the sixth pizza was mostly for the gluttons and several of us had a second slice which was just as good as the first. In conclusion, I can't say exactly whether I prefer Patsy's crust or Grimaldi's crust better when both are consumed at their peak. They are different, but both are excellent examples of the classic NYC style. After 90 seconds, Patsy's is the clear winner. On to the toppings: Patsy's toppings are good, but clearly third place among the places we have visited thus far. For people for whom the toppings are the main show, Di Fara is still clearly in he lead. As Joe points out, Patsy's sauce is in the middle between Di Fara's strongly flavored cooked sauce and Grimaldi's uncomplicated fresh sauce. I'd probably give the nudge to Grimaldi's in this department. Patsy's sauce didn't reaslly make much of an impact, and seemed mostly to serve as a flavor vehicle that brought the crust and toppings together. Again, the pizza was sparsely covered with cheese, which is to my preference, as opposed to Dom's more generous hand at Di Fara. The availability of fresh mozzarella made a big difference, in my opinion, for this style of pizza. I had been expecting the fresh mozzarella on the pizza margherita to be watery and rubbery as it is in most implementations. But at Patsy's the oven was hot enough and the cheese little enough that it worked really very well. The low moisture cheese was excellent in its own way, but I didn't think it had as much flavor as the fresh mozzarella which provided a clean "white" taste and a rich mouthfeel that contrasted nicely with the dark, earthy, slightly bitter flavor of the crust. As for the other toppings... nothing to write home about. This is one area where Patsy's could really improve. In today's day and age, and in a city like New York, there is no reason to use insipid canned olives and merely acceptable pepperoni. There are many pizzerie in the city offering a markedly inferior pizza with much better toppings. I'd like to see Patsy's going a little more "gourmet" with their toppings -- using better olives, better sausage, and so on. I'd be glad to have them stay traditional NYC with the range of toppings offered, but it shouldn't be too difficult to roast their own peppers and acquire better sausage like Grimaldi's does. All this is to say that the clear choice for Patsy's is an unadorned cheese and tomato pizza. Although others felt it was too strong, I rather enjoyed the contrast offered by the marinara pizza with its hefty dose of garlic. But I would agree that it's not the pizza to buy if you're only getting one. Sigh... one of these days I'll get the group to indulge me in an anchovy pizza. One of my favorites at Lombardi's is anchovy and capers.

Detailed notes later. For now, some pictures. Check out the art, and especially the phone number on this menu. When do you figure is the last time they updated this? 1943? Here is the oven: Looking inside: Making pizza: Cheese: Into the oven: We had six pizze between the eight of us! Regular low-moisture mozzarella on the "reference standard" cheese and tomato pizza: The same with fresh mozzarella: Side-by-side comparison of fresh and low moisture slices: Check out the char: Close up of the char: A "marinara" pizza. No cheese, lots of fresh garlic: Pepperoni: Olive: bergerka with our waiter, Pan to the right: slkinsey hiding behind a well-charred slice, next to JosephB: In case anyone's looking for work:

I did a substantial amount of research/pricing on soapstone and was almost ready to buy one until the question of porosity hit me. Since I couldn't find anyone that used a soapstone for bread/pizza to ask, I ended up going with another solution (fire brick). Although soapstone transfers a substantial amount of heat to the bottom crust, does it wick away moisture as quickly as the ceramic stones do? From the research I had done, my impression was that the stone did not seem porous enough, and too much steam would be trapped between the crust and baking surface. Since you bake with a soapstone, I'm curious about your thoughts on this. Given the amount of heat stored in a stone of this size in relation to the relatively small amount of dough being baked on the stone, porosity is not a problem. Any moisture on the bottom of the dough will boil off pretty much immediately. For pizza in particular my experience is that having a very hot and very massive stone is the single most important thing for the home baker. By the way, I got the idea back in my old sourdough idealogue days from one of my coevals on rec.food.sourdough. He routinely bakes very large (5 pound) loaves on his soapstone and swears that it gives him oven spring and other results that he has been unable to obtain with any other thermal material.

Actually, although you may not realize it, sometimes when you're gone we secretly replace the normal Bux served on eGullet with Folger's Instant Crystals. So far, no one can tell the difference.