slkinsey

Sounds pretty good, too:

Hey! Seriously, though, as much as I am a crusader for more vermouth in martinis, I certainly recognize that what beans says is absolutely correct from the standpoint of someone on her side of the bar who is in the business of satisfying customers' expectations. So, while I don't philosophically agree that no vermouth equals any kind of martini at all, her explanation is right on from the real-world standpoint of what one is likely to serve or be served in a bar if you ask for a "very dry martini."

mdt, go to your local building stone supplier and get a piece of inch-thick soapstone cut a little bit smaller than the floor of your oven. Best baking stone money can buy.

If you're going to invest in a dedicated peel I'd stick with a wooden peel, personally. If you use a moist dough (and you should), once the dough sticks to the metal you're never going to unstick it and save the pizza. That said, you could also get an edgeless cookie sheet like this one and it will work just as well as a peel... plus you get double for your money because it's great for cookies too.

Oh, yea. Guinness just isn't the same in bottles. Even with those little widget things. Imperial stout, on the other hand, was always designed to come from a bottle (the easier to transport it to Russia).

I disagree with respect to Guinness, but there are a few things worth considering... 1. There are many different formulations of Guinness depending on whether it will be sold in bottles, cans or draft and also depending on the location where it will be sold. All other versions are markedly inferior to Guinness sold on draft with nitrogen pressure. 2. Imperial stout and regular stout are actually two distinctly different styles. "Russian" Imperial stout is much stronger, richer and alcoholic than regular stout. What makes Guinness on draft so good is that it is actually fairly light and low in alcohol. But, really, comparing the two styles is an apples and oranges thing. If you like the Sam Smith's Imperial, by the way, you might try the Chocolate Stout from Brooklyn Brewery. Sam Smith's makes a damn good oatmeal stout too. Regardless, Samuel Smith's Imperial Stout is good stuff! I'm glad you reminded me of it -- it's been too long since I've had a glass. Edited to add: apparently you like the Brooklyn stout too.

What is the deal with Kabocha squash? Am I crazy, or is this turning up on menus all over town... even at Oprah's birthday party.

This is odd, Craig. But maybe not so terribly odd for Italy? I sense a bit of la politica here...

All the more reason, I say, to serve smaller cocktails. I'd much rather have several small, perfectly cold, frizzy when they need to be/silky when they need to be cocktails than one big one that will lose those important aspects over the 15 minutes it takes to drink it.

A few things about stirred versus shaken. 1. A shaken drink will be cloudy whereas a stirred drink will be clear. Generally, when drinking a cocktail made of transparent liquors, I prefer stirred. This is the main difference. Some people feel that shaking "muddies" the flavors of pure, elemental cocktails like martinis and manhattans. I'm not sure I agree. 2. A shaken drink will usually be more diluted, and there will often be small chips of ice in the drink. 3. A shaken drink will sometimes have a slightly frothy consistency, and will have a tiny "foam" on the top of the liquid. This is not generally the case with shaken martinis. 4. A shaken drink will usually be somewhat colder than a stirred drink. My personal rule of thumb is that I shake drinks that are not inherrently transparent, and I shake drinks that involve more than two or three ingredients. This means most drinks.

Ha ha ha! It's funny how this happens every time a place like that opens on the UWS. Two weeks from now, you'll be able to walk right in. Same thing happened when they opened a Ben & Jerry's store on 104th and Broadway.

I will weigh in too, as I have a number of times on this subject. A martini is a cocktail. A cocktail is made by combining at least two ingredients, and a garnish doesn't count. So, whoever told you that a dry vodka martini doesn't contain any vermouth is simply wrong. That is not a vodka martini. That is vodka shaken with ice, strained into a glass and garnished. A drink I like to call the "glass of cold vodka." Furthermore, I fail to understand the whole "rinse the shaker (or glass) with vermouth and pour out the excess" method. That gives you something like 40:1 gin or vodka to vermouth. Unless the vermouth is particularly strong tasting (e.g., Vya), there is no way someone can taste this minute amount of vermouth. For a martini, anything much beyond 8:1 starts to make the vermouth superfluous, and 6:1 is really better. In fact, a lot of people really appreciate a medium martini at 2:1 if they've never tried one before. Now, given that vodka has practically no taste whatsoever I can understand that a vodka martini might use a higher ratio -- perhaps 10:1 -- but anything much higher and the drink is no longer a cocktail and it's no longer a vodka martini. One thing I have taken to doing, unless I am in a bar well-known for the excellence of its classic cocktails, is specifying the ratio of gin to vermouth and asking that the martini not be shaken.

JJ, are you talking about Manganaro's Hero-Boy or Manganaro Grosseria Italiana? As you may know, these are adjoining businesses owned by two brothers who have not spoken in decades folowing some kind of schism. From what I hear, the grosseria makes a much better sandwich.

It seems to me that new cooking techniques are about exploring different aspects of the food. Certainly the diner is going to experience something different (different flavors, textures, aromas) eating a piece of fish that was cooked sous vice versus low temperature poached versus fried versus poached in evoo versus grilled versus roasted and so on. Now, it may be the case that you prefer the crisp texture and Maillard flavors produced by certain cooking techniques, and that's fine. But I wouldn't go so far to suggest that any one of these techniques necessarily produces "better flavor and texture." Who is to say whether a piece of poached salmon has better flavor and texture than grilled salmon? They are simply cooking techniques that highlight different aspects of the product. This is why I find dishes "cooked X ways" so interesting -- I get to experience several preparations that bring out different features of the ingredient. New cooking techniques, as I view them, are all about highlighting aspects of the ingredient that were not possible with existing techniques or technology. And, of course, some of them are for the sake of convenience -- but this is not as interesting to me.

Well... my point was more that, had these forums been populated early on with intellectual foodies from Portland instead of New York -- and certainly they exist there, albeit in smaller numbers -- then people might form a similar impression about the PNW forum. I don't think it's a coincidence that there happen to be many people of a certain type in NYC, but I also would not suggest that people of that type do not exist in other cities. All this is to say that there is a Bux-equivalent in Portland, just not as many of them. The real point of all this, of course, is that you can be replaced!

Good points, Hest88. I would also bet that there is much more discussion on these boards about things like "sustainabilty, nutrition, food marketing, etc." from the members in your neck of the woods, reflecting the higher degree of interest and general fluency in these topics over there.

Right... it all depends on what you are counting. I mean, the National Restaurant Association may be counting breakfast at BK as a "restaurant visit." When I think about it, I eat out more like 7 times a week, because I buy all my lunches in midtown during the week. But personally, I don't consider those five lunches "dining out" and wouldn't report them as such unless they were at a "real restaurant."

Very nice pictures, too.

For posterity:

Steven, that is a very good point about the type of restaurant normally visited by New Yorkers. I was initially questioning your assertion that NYers are roughly equal with the rest of America in terms of restaurant visits per week, but when one figures in all the stops at McDonald's and their ilk I can see how the numbers might be roughly equal. On the other hand, if one compares non-chain, non-fast-food restaurant visits per week, I am sure that NYers are well above the national average. And this may contribute to a certain cultural literacy among NYers in terms of eating out, because let's face it, one is not likely to have a lot of interesting conversations about what the new chef at Applebee's is doing with the fiesta lime chicken (although I can imagine some spirited debates on the merits of the McRib sandwich). How often do you suppose that the average middle to upper-middle class NYer eats out per week?

Presumably, though, they arrive at the list of which five places or products to test by some kind of process, though. Right? For example, although there are hundreds of pizza places in NYC, if I were writing an article I wouldn't have trouble deciding on at least a preliminary list of ten, after which time I would perhaps visit the places I had not yet experienced and reduce the list further to the final five. I also wouldn't necessarily feel like I had to devote a few column inches of my article to a description of that process. Needless to say, however, some people would feel that I had slighted their favorite place by not including it. As for soliciting customer input in making the ratings... it inevitably ends up being a popularity contest that favors establishments that are the most effective in getting their patrons to submit votes, rather than a true gauge of quality. I see that kind of thing as "Most popular ____ in ____" rather than "best of."

Good review of Masa here by S. Irene Virbila in the LA Times food section. Scroll past the stuff on Per Se (registration required). Some interesting tidbits:

Of course, when one says "the food section" in the NY forum, it makes sense to mention which paper if you don't mean the NY Times. Anyway, here is the story (registration required). Some interesting tidbits: Keller had the right to choose the other restaurants in the space? Did we know this before? Interesting. I have to echo Russ' recommendation of Virbila's review. It's an interesting and informative one. Also has interesting information on Masa.

See... the thing is that you can get a liter of top-grade kickass evoo straight from the first pressing (actually straight from the first pressing is bitter and nasty -- it has to wait a while) most anywhere in Tuscany or Sicily or Liguria for around 30 bucks.

Well, yes. But if you start figuring in "just outside of NYC" (a.k.a. "metropolitan New York") then NYC gets even more outlandishly huge in population.