[BBQ: Tenderness vs. Smoke Flavor]

That's an interesting thought, docdix, but I'm afraid it's impossible. The vast majority of flavor is olfactory.

The reason we perceive certain things as having "taste" that is distinct from "odor" is because human physiology allows us to enjoy what is called "retronasal olfaction" - meaning that, in addition to bringing scent molecules to our olfactory sensors through the front of our nose, we also send scent molecules "up the back way" to the olfactory sensors as we chew. Here's the interesting thing: when we sense an odor "orthonasally" (through the nose) it seems like it comes from without and is perceived as a "scent"; whereas when we sense an odor retronasally, we perceive that the sensation comes from within, as "flavor" arising from the mouth.

All of which is to say that the motion that the rub is "tasted" and the smoke is "smelled" is a false dichotomy. They are both primarily smelled.

[The Mint Julep]

To my mind, the more interesting direction to go if one would like to branch out in the Julep category is to step away from the hegemony of bourbon and explore other base spirits. The Prescription Julep is always a winner, especially if you can get Louis Royer Force 53 (106 proof cognac). I have made and enjoyed Juleps with aged rum, tequila, London dry gin, Old Tom gin, and one of my favorites is a Julep with genever.

[The Mint Julep]

I can't say that I think any mint other than plain old Mentha spicata (spearmint) represents an improvement.

"Chocolate mint," by the way, is a cultivar of Mentha piperita, aka peppermint.

[No-soak beans, in the oven, in 90 minutes]

There are two things you want to do when cooking dried beans: 1. hydrate the bean; and 2. gel the starch, break down the internal cell walls, etc.

McGee has some interesting things to say about bean cookery on pages 488-489 of the new edition.

Cooking presoaked beans, he says, reduces the cooking time by around 25%. This is primarily because the bean is already hydrated. Heat penetrates the bean much faster than water does, so when you cook unsoaked beans you are spending some of that time simply waiting for the beans to hydrate. This can create an effect whereby the outer part of the bean is overcooked and becomes fragile by the time the center is fully cooke, although this can be mitigated by cooking just below the simmer.

According to McGee, beans soaked in cold water will absorb more than half of their full capacity in the first few hours and reach full capacity at around double their original weight in 10-12 hours. But hydration is accelerated with temperature. If, for example, you boil the beans for 1.5 minutes and then soak in cool water, you get complete hydration in only 2-3 hours. That's a big reduction compared to 10-12 hours. Apparently much of this is due to the rapid hydration of the seed coat, which controls water movement into the bean (this is why beans with the seed coat removed, like split peas, cook so rapidly). It's worth noting that when we cook directly from dry, we are effectively performing an accelerated high-temperature presoak followed by the actual cooking. The bean won't really start cooking until it is hydrated.

Anyway, a 25% reduction in cooking time is not all that much. So it's unclear that presoaking is worth the trouble on a time basis. If unsoaked beans cook in an hour and a half, the same beans presoaked would still take around 67 minutes. A 23 minute difference is not such a huge amount of time saved that presoaking is worth the bother. However, there may be some other things Steven is doing that makes his cooking times even shorter -- maybe even to the point of being faster than conventional cooking of presoaked beans. Steven salts the water right from the beginning, which has the effect of hydrating the beans with salted water. Although cooking conventionally presoaked beans in salted water may extend cooking time, hydrating beans in salted water actually reduces cooking time.

McGee says that using salted water has two interesting effects: It slows the rate at which the beans absorb water; but cooking beans which have been hydrated in salted water reduces cooking time significantly. When we cook no-soak beans, the hydration of the bean is already accelerated by higher temperatures. Then, when we use salted cooking liquid right from the start, we are hydrating the beans with salted water and this hastens the cooking time. The net effect is probably an overall shorter cooking time.

Some of this also goes to the overall desired effect. It's also noteworthy that Steven mentions cooking the beans "al dente" -- meaning that they are fully cooked, but have some bite to them. They're not creamy. Here is what McGee says: "the presence of salt [in the beans from the hydrating water] reduces the swelling and gelation of starch granules within the beans, which means that it favors a mealy internal texture over a creamy one." "Mealy" is exactly the kind of "al dente" effect I get when I cook beans using the no-soak method with salted water. On the other hand, sometimes what you want is a creamy texture (when using fabes to make fabada, for example). This is a case where I wouldn't use the no-soak method and would hydrate in unsalted water.

ETA: It's interesting to note in an informal read-through of the posts above, that many (most?) of the remarks about the no-soak method taking much longer than 90 minutes were from people who did not add salt to the water in the beginning.

[Poitín]

They operate their own still? That's pretty cool.

I would look around for any recipes that use white dog, as that is more or less what it is. Poitín can be super high-proof, though. So something with plenty of dilution, I'd think.

[Best Cocktail Recipe Website?]

The short answer is that there is no currently-existing web site that comes close to providing the kind of valuable information and good recipes that can be gained from having even just a few decent cocktail books.

[Good Ice Crusher Recommendations?]

Go on eBay and get yourself a vintage Rival Ice-o-Matic.

[Infusions, Extractions & Tinctures at Home: The Topic (Part 1)]

For hard to juice things "like pineapple and strawberries" also kiwi fruits and the heavily seeded concord grapes and wild blackberries (from a friend who lives in Tehachapi and has to contend with bears who also love blackberries) I use a steam juice extractor. Similar to this one.

Doesn't this effectively cook the juice?

Personally, for the amounts of product likely to be used by home users (which is to say, less than the 5 gallons bostonapothecary is juicing in his basket press) I have found that I can do very well in my orange-x. Pineapples, for example, I simply cut into large wedges and stick under the press. It expresses plenty of juice and the pulp that remains behind is quite dry, leading me to believe I am getting pretty good extraction. No, I wouldn't want to do a dozen pineapples this way. But at home I am not juicing a dozen pineapples.

[Physics of Cookware: Conduction and Radiation]

So how did you do this, exactly? Preheated the pan to 600 degrees, then took away the heat source somehow and somehow held the english muffin 1 inch away from the surface of the pan for 4 minutes? Was this on the stove? In the oven? I'm just trying to get a picture of how you did this.

You can, of course, brown an english muffin in a 600 degree oven without holding it 1 inch away from anything at all if you leave it in there long enough. And those of us who own toasters know that you can brown an english muffin in around 60 seconds by holding it 1 inch away from a piece of metal that weighs around 1/1000th of what your cast iron pan weighs, so long as that metal is red hot.

Again, no one is saying that sub-red hot substances don't radiate thermal energy. They just don't radiate nearly as much. More to the point, considering that your metal slab will be continuously replenished by the ambient heat of the oven, a large thermal mass isn't required to sustain the radiation. You might be able to get a better effect with a thin sheet of very shiny material. Surely you're not putting the pizza into the oven, turning off the heat and leaving the door open? A ten pound slab of metal in a 600 degree oven won't radiate any more thermal energy than a one pound slab of the same stuff. The only difference a large thermal capacity will make is that it will take longer to come up to temperature (or if you turn off the heat source).

There is also the issue of distance. The intensity of radiation decreases as the square of the distance from the source. It took you four minutes to brown that english muffin holding it 1 inch away from the surface of the radiating body. Now imagine that you have a 1/8 inch thick slab of iron on a shelf in your oven at 600 degrees. It will still take about four minutes to brown that english muffin at one inch away from the slab. How close together are your oven shelves? Ten inches at least? That's ten times the distance, which means a sigificant reduction in the intensity of thermal radiation. How long do you think it would take to brown that english muffin at ten inches?

I'm with Ray. I say try it and see what happens. My experience in baking multiple "levels" of pizza in my oven at the same time is that having something on the shelf above makes some difference, but by no means a dramatic difference. You will get nowhere near the effect achieved by reflected radiant heat in a real wood- or coal-burning pizza oven. I also don't see any reason why it would work any better with a steel plate above than it would with a baking stone above (which, it must be said, will be a lot easier on your oven). It might also be interesting to experiment with putting something highly reflective above, so that rather than counting on radiation out of the top piece you would rather be refecting thermal radiation down onto the pizza.

[Physics of Cookware: Conduction and Radiation]

Unless you get that slab red-hot, there is no way you will approach the radiant heat of a broiler. Since the top piece will effectively be heated by the ambient temperature of the oven, I don't think it will make any difference what it is composed of. Heat capacity doesn't really make much difference where radiant heat is concerned. There are extremely powerful broiler elements with a tiny heat capacity.

Okay, so if heat capacity doesn't make much difference, then you're telling me that I can take two 2" thick slabs, one of steel and one of brick, put them next to each other, preheat them to 550 deg., open the door quickly put a hand under each about 2" away, and both hands will get about the same heat? And, that, because neither item is 'red-hot' neither hand will burn?

Is that what you're saying?

Yes, both hands will get right around the same amount of radiant heat. Sure, your hands will burn if you keep them in there long enough. But no, I wouldn't expect either hand to burn more than the other.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, I had a cube of aluminum weighing a ton that I was able to heat to 550. Could I toast a piece of bread 2" away? Being aluminum, it's going to lose heat very quickly, but, assuming I move incredibly fast to get the bread in place, would it toast?

No, the bread likely would not brown in this scenario. More to the point, you could brown the bread much better using 10 grams worth of thin metal filament heated until red hot.

In a traditional wood-burning pizza oven, the intense radiant heat that cooks the top of the pizza is not energy radiating out of the hot stone at the top of the oven. Rather it is reflected radiant heat originating from the fire burning on the oven floor. This is the reason wood burning pizza ovens, even after they have been fired and brought up to temperature, still have to have a small fire burning inside to work properly. Take away that fire and you lose that intense top-down radiant heat.

[Physics of Cookware: Conduction and Radiation]

Unless you get that slab red-hot, there is no way you will approach the radiant heat of a broiler. Since the top piece will effectively be heated by the ambient temperature of the oven, I don't think it will make any difference what it is composed of. Heat capacity doesn't really make much difference where radiant heat is concerned. There are extremely powerful broiler elements with a tiny heat capacity.

[The Punch Topic]

Another workaround is to kludge some faux peach brandy by infusing peaches (either roasted fresh or perhaps dried might give more flavor) into Laird's bonded.

How well does this work? I've always heard that peaches are notoriously stingy in what they contribute to an infusion, apart from water. Have you tried it?

I think it works okay. Peaches are definitely quite watery, which is one reason you want to roast them down quite a bit . . . Remove most of the water, concentrate and develop the peachy flavors. Also a good reason to use Laird's bonded, so that whatever water you do add hopefully still won't get you below 80 proof. If you start with 750 ml of Laird's bonded, you can add a bit over 6 ounces of "peach-derived liquid" and still end up at 80 proof. If you roast the peaches down, that's probably quite a few peaches you could infuse into a single bottle of Laird's before you hit 6 ounces of added liquid.

Never having tasted FHP made with the real thing, I can't even guess as to whether it's a decent fake-up. But I figure it's got to be better than using DeKuyper. Eventually I'd like to try mixing the infused Laird's with eau de vie de peche, and see where that gets me.

[The Punch Topic]

Another workaround is to kludge some faux peach brandy by infusing peaches (either roasted fresh or perhaps dried might give more flavor) into Laird's bonded.

[Big Apple Barbecue Block Party 2010 [REPORT]]

Anyone try the mutton?

[What are "salt potatoes"?]

They are small potatoes boiled in extremely salty water (as in 3/4 cup of kosher salt per quart of water).

[The high-power blender topic]

I've made a cooked carrot soup starting with raw, but I really only did it to see if it was technically possible. Was pretty good, tho.

[The high-power blender topic]

It's not clear to me that you even have to precook the potato.

[Advice on first copper pan purchases]

Hi guys, I am planning an investment in a copper Mauviel pan. I managed to chance upon this website which give copper pans at pretty good prices - http://www.doublehappiness.com.sg/merchants_olgift.asp?merid=220.

Beware of sites like this. I would not call these very good prices. From looking at them, most likely they are either "Table Service" Mauviel pans (1.8 mm thickness) or 2.0 mm thick tin-lined pans. You don't want either one of those.

[The high-power blender topic]

If Vita-Mix turns out to be the best available option, so be it, but I think it's a highly flawed machine. Vita-Mix is guilty of going too far in the direction of plastic. The casing is plastic, the pitcher is plastic, the controls are plastic, the drive socket is rubber.

What should they make these things out of? Metal? Pyrex? Does the Blendtec have a glass pitcher? Metal casing? Metal controls? Does any ~$400 blender have these things?

For whatever it's worth, my experience is that "soft touch" controls and thin metal casings (as on my KA food processor) are less sturdy than the casing and controls on the VP.

The Vita-Mix website's forum is full of posts from people complaining about these parts, and I do think ultimately they're all replaceable -- but I don't want to have to replace them. To get my Vita-Mix back to fighting condition I'd have needed to lay out $40-$60 for parts, to get a new drive socket, wrench, part or all of the blade assembly... I'm not totally sure but to me that sort of disposability is not okay in a $400 product.

That seems to be overstating things a bit. A two-second internet search reveals that one can buy a VitaMix/Prep drive socket assembly kit, complete with the hex key if you don't already have one, and two replacement drive socket assemblies for around 20 bucks. Or is there something else that your VitaMix would have needed changed out? Why would you need to replace all or part of the blade assembly?

I do wonder about the extent to which some of these things may be made a bit more cheaply for the VitaMix compared to the VitaPrep. Yes, the controls and case on the VitaPrep are made of some kind of plastic material. But whatever it is, it's high-impact stuff and I can tell you from personal experience that it's able to withstand being dropped on the floor from counter height without breaking. And I believe the Prep pitchers aren't the same as the Mix ones. They VitaPrep does have the same safety-feature drive socket assembly -- but personally I'd rather blow out the drive socket assembly and have to spend 10 minutes putting in one of my spares than seize up the motor.

That said, unless something more catastrophic happened and something else broke, it sounds like you just jammed the drive socket assembly into failure just like it is designed to do. What were you doing when it broke? Or was there some gradual loss of function?

From what I've read, if smoothies are your main use, the Blendtec is definitely the way to go.

[The high-power blender topic]

When you say the "coupling" I assume you're speaking of the drive socket assembly (looks like this)?

The drive socket assembly is designed to break under extreme stress. My VitaPrep3 came with several of them. My understanding is that they make those things the way they do because they're cheap (around 10 bucks), easily replaceable and protect the more important parts of the machine under heavy use. The idea is that the motor is protected in two ways from the abuse of putting too heavy a load on it: 1. thermal shutdown if the blender is run too hot for too long; 2. if the blades are jammed during use, the drive socket assembly gives way. Needless to say, the cumulative effect of pushing the machine just beyond its limits (you must have been doing some heavy tamping!) can cause the drive socket assembly to wear out even if the machine doesn't jam. I believe that it's things that put sudden extreme loads on the blade (e.g., forceful tamping) that stress the drive socket assembly (rather than, say, making a lot of thick peanut butter, which might cause a thermal shutdown) because these are a form of jamming.

For smoothies I would agree that the Blendtec is probably tops. Whether it's overall as useful is harder to say. I don't see how it would be possible to get a super-smooth, thick puree of a handful blanched herbs without a tamper or additional liquid. Of course, since the ability to tamp down these ingredients is exactly what was putting the stress on your VitaMix's drive socket assembly, it's difficult to make a direct durability comparison.

[Making absinthe at home]

Absinthe is not made via simple infusion. Like gin and aquavit, it is made by infusing a spirit base and then re-distilling the infused spirit. Without a still of some kind, you cannot make absinthe.

[Espresso Terminology]

Yes, I suppose that's right. It's a double-sized shot pulled through a triple-sized basket, making it a triple-sized ristretto.

[Espresso Terminology]

My guess is that if he's excited and says they're pulling triples it means that they're using a triple basket (meaning one that holds the same amount of grounds that would typically be used for three individual shots of espresso) but not pulling through the triple volume of water.

In other words, they're pulling a double ristretto through the triple basket. This is what I do at home. Although in actuality it may work out to be more of a single ristrettissimo, since if I fill my 2 ounce espresso cup all the way to the top, by the time the crema subsides it's only around 1 1/4 ounces of liquid in the cup.

["White Dog Rising: Moonshine's Moment" - TIME]

Josh Ozersky, aka "Mr. Cutlets," whose work I generally admire, is a passionate writer on food and restaurants who has exceedingly deep knowledge in certain subject areas, and he has done some valuable, informative and enlightening writing in those areas.

I wouldn't say that spirits is one of those areas, however. Indeed, I confess to being surprized he got that gig in the first place. Josh isn't even on my radar as someone I'd task with writing a piece on spirits. But, on the other hand, he is certainly has some name recognition in the broad category of "culinary writing" and this probably prompted the people at TIME -- who aren't exactly in the know when it comes to tis sort of thing -- to offer him the gig. He wrote a great and well researched book on hamburgers, and he has a kind of hip informal writing style. How different is that from writing about white dog, amiright? This is the kind of thinking that probably went on at TIME. Well, at least it's better than Mark Bittman telling people how to make a Margarita.

I can't really give Josh too much grief for it, though. You take the gigs they offer you and you do your best for the money they're paying. There's no way he could have done the level of research or accumulated the breadth of knowledge in this subject that someone like Matthew Rowley has. Sure, maybe they should have asked Matthew to write the article. But they didn't. And maybe that's not the style of article that they thought would appeal to their readership. If he pitched it to them and thinks it's written from a depth of knowledge in this area, that's different.

[Japanese Cocktail Technique Seminar : May 3-4]

One more piece of hard shake-related technique before I move on to discussing claims, philosophy, results and my reactions: decanting the shaken cocktail.

The main technique when using the cobbler shaker is that you have to swirl and twist the shaker as you pour it out in order to avoid clogging the strainer with ice and restricting the flow. The position of the strainer when decanting will determine whether and to what extent ice crystals are held back in the shaker.

Uyeda says that the formation of fine ice crystals is not a goal of the hard shake technique, but rather a side effect. Nevertheless, the presence of fine ice crystals on the surface of his shaken drinks has clearly become a hallmark of Uyeda's style. In order to pass through lots of fine ice crystals, the cobbler shaker is held upside-down over the glass and vigorously swirled/twisted. If you would rather minimize the presence of ice crystals, the cobbler shaker is held in a mostly horizontal position, slightly angled down towards the strainer, and is gently twisted. This way, the ice crystals are held back in the shoulder of the shaker.

I've found that the natural clogging action of a cobbler shaker makes it relatively easy to make the "perfect pour" so long as you are in the ballpark with your starting volumes. This is because additional twisting will almost always produce a bit more ice crystals to finish filling the glass, whereas ceasing with any twisting and holding the shaker at 45 degree angle will almost always clog the strainer if you're worried about over-filling the glass. Either way, it's not rocket science to appear that you have made the perfect pour every time.

Uyeda has a nice flourish he does at the end, holding the shaker more or less horizontal as the last few drops come out, then drawing it up and away from the glass, and snapping the ice to the back of the shaker with a quick sideways-and up jerk in the direction of the strainer end.

As I've learned, it's a good idea to have one figer above the shoulder of the strainer piece when decanting upside-down and/or performing the final snap, otherwise there is the real risk of the strainer piece coming off. I am given to understand that dumping out a shaker full of ice onto the bar when decanting or sending the strainer piece flying across the room with the final snap are considered undesirable results. :-)