slkinsey

Forgot to add that the ferrets had big chunks of pork loin deep fried as described for the beef above. Everyone seemed to like it, although they didn't attack it with quite the same intensity as they did the beef. Pork these days really isn't fatty enough, I suppose, and the texture is a good bit tighter than the chuck steak I gave them on Thursday -- which made it more difficult for them to rip off ferret-sized portions with their teeth. As always, Issachar was the first to tear into his, with Asher taking a bit longer and Zebulun taking a while to decide he liked it.

Friday was: Lunch: All you can eat Indian at a little place in Midtown East. I had copious amounts of onion fritter, raita, some raita-like preparation that included peas, fluffy white rice, chicken tikka masala, lamb rogan josh, and some curried potato and cauliflower dish the name of which I have forgotten. I always regard "all you can eat" as a challenge, and I am fairly certain I ate enough to feed a small village in rural India for 2 weeks. Dinner: (slkinsey, bergerka and Eric Malson) Started with martinis of Boodles gin and Vya extra dry vermouth at 8:1, gently stirred and garnished with a twist. Then it was carne enchilada tacos, carnitas tostadas, pollo con mole burrito and chorizo nachos washed down with Negra Modelo.

No... most full-flavor cigarettes are rated at around 1 mg of nicotine. That is a far cry from "contains" or "delivers to the average smoker." As Philip Morris says on their own web site It is a known fact, and has been known for some time, that cigarette makers do things to their products like putting tiny pinholes around the filter in order to artificially lower the nicotine content as tested by the machine. The machine numbers are widely reported to be significantly lower than the actual delivery of nicotine to the smoker's system. Again, Philip Morris acknowledges this: I don't have any data on this, but I don't see how it could possibly be true. There is no way that a smoker absorbs any more than a small percentage of the nicotine contained in one cigarette's worth of tobacco. Digestion, on the other hand, would tend to introduce all the nicotine into the system. My own personal esperience of having smoked a cigarette a time or two and having tried smokeless tobacco a time or two is that oral delivery is several orders of magnitude more potent a delivery system than lung absorbtion. One cigarette never made me feel much of anything, whereas less than one cigarette's worth of smokeless tobacco (by volume) was enough to make me light-headed and queasy. I don't think one can "build up a resistance" to a lethal dose of a poison. Some people may be better able to tolerate a sub-lethal dose below a certain threshold, but it does not necessarily follow that the amount required for a lethal dose or serious sub-lethal dose would be less for one such person. The fact of the matter is that 50 mg of nicotine will kill just about anyone. Period. While it is probably unlikely that one cocktail will include 50 mg of nicotine (although, who knows? it is highly soluble in water and alcohol, so it would depend highly on the preparation) it is certainly within the realm of possibility that someone could consume a lethal dose by drinking 3 or 4 cocktails containing 12 - 16 mg of nicotine. From Blondie's article: I can tell you for sure... if I were a bar owner, I wouldn't want to assume the added liability of serving a nicotine-infused drink.

The world in all doth but two bacons bear,— The crisp, the limp; and these mixed everywhere.

Interesting, but potentially dangerous. Nicotine is a poisonous alkaloid that can cause respiratory failure and general paralysis in a dose of less than 50 mg. Smaller toxic doses can cause heart palpitations, lowered blood pressure, nausea, and dizziness. The good news for smokers is that smoking one cigarette equals around 3 mg of nicotine, which merely increases the heart rate, constricts the blood vessels, acts on the central nervous system and makes you feel good. However, these bars had better be very careful about how they are infusing their tobacco, or they may give someone a lethal or serious sub-lethal dose of nicotine. I would not be surprised if it were actually against the law.

FG, I was interested to read in your article that you enjoy eating the chicken and beef meat left over after making your stocks -- especially since you favor such long simmering (a practice with which I concur). Don't you find that the meat has given up just about all of its flavor to the stock and is insipid and flavorless? Also, I am curious as to your thoughts on using the carcasses of roasted poultry for stock making (i.e., using the bones from the Thanksgiving turkey to make turkey stock, etc.). I have found that I prefer the result from starting with raw bones -- even if I do end up roasting them to make a brown stock -- rather than already cooked bones. Thinking of stocks... it might be fun to pick up a cotechino, zampone, tongue, capon, etc. and do an eGullet bollito misto in the fall.

Not really, no. If there were certain foods that triggered a notable allergic reaction or gave me serious acid reflux, I'd probably avoid them. So far, so good. In re to the dairy, I have never experienced the alleged congestive effects many people claim. Besides, it's not as though I was drinking a milkshake 10 minutes before I started singing. I don't tend to eat anything (except, as previously mentioned, perhaps a few nibbles of apple or pear) for an hour or two before singing. There are certain temporary physiological effects in the throat that result from eating that are not so great for singing.

I think maggie was punning off smegma. You would. There was a local band in Boston during my formative years called "Smegma and the Nuns."

This morning: got out of bed late; staggered through the three Ses and took off without eating. Lunch: chocolate milkshake, French fries and a bacon cheeseburger at Scotty's Diner in Midtown East. They make quite a good bacon cheeseburger, and now that they know me I always get it done just the way I like it and with extra bacon. Dinner: had a late rehearsal and the GF had a performance, so I threw something together... salad of endive, julienne of Granny Smith apple (done on the mandoline), crumbled Cabrales cheese, evoo (Frantioa Barbera unfiltered Sicilian evoo -- 12 bucks for a liter, and really tasty), vermouth vinegar and Maldon sea salt; sourdough bread with a nice, ripe Reblochon; and an appley Reinhessen Kabinett Riesling. In honor of Craig's article on amari I am sipping a small glass of Fernet Branca as I type this. The ferrets had some more of the ground chicken earlier in the day. At the moment they are noshing on bowls full of ~0.75" cubes of chuck steak briefly deep fried in hot oil to kill any bacteria on the surface while keeping the interior as raw as possible (most bacteria in large cuts of meat is on the surface). This is their first taste of beef. As usual, Issachar went right for it immediately, Asher took a few exploratory nibbles and declared it "good" while Zebulun is taking a more cautious approach.

Yea, yea, yea... potato/potahto. Yes, it is asparagus pee. Broccoli is, um, also green! And... um... ..also stinks, if you overcook it! Yeah, that's the ticket! Heh! I'd be interested to see how many eGulleters can smell asparagus pee, just as a matter of curiosity. I've never been sure whether I can smell it or not. I have two friends who swear it is so strong it can make their eyes water, whereas I have only occasionally wondered, "is that it?"

Isn't that the point? Besides, you could replace "better than" with "so far superior that it's hard to believe it is even distantly related to" and get no argument from me.

Well, yea! Who doesn't?

Yea, yea, yea... potato/potahto. Yes, it is asparagus pee. Broccoli is, um, also green! And... um...

No... I think you hit the nail on the head with your last one there. Nothing changes chemically, but it does go all cloudy and becomes overly diluted, which IMO negatively impacts the distinctness of the flavors and the viscosity in certain kinds of drinks. That's all there is to "bruising" IMO. Also IMO, it really doesn't make much sense unless one is serving a relatively pure cocktail -- a Martini, a Manhattan or something like that. In my "Samhattan" vanilla perfect-style Manhattan, I like to shake it quite a bit because I am mixing two bourbons plus two vermouths plus bitters. OTOH, If I am just having gin and vermouth, I want to flavors to be more pure. To my palate, shaking a Martini to the point where it gets cloudy obscures the purity of the flavors somewhat. That said, it could be that I am letting my eyes do the tasting and responding to the cloudyness. Regardless, I don't like it in a pure, simple cocktail.

I love you, Ruth. That is exactly what cilantro smells like! But, I like it anyway. I take back all the nasty things I've said about you. Well... I've always thought that some of the best cheeses smell like sweaty feet. Cilantro, though, I completely don't get thinking it smells like unwashed underarms. I wonder if it's the case that there is some compound there some people can smell and others cannot (like "broccoli pee").

I tried a bite of one when I was five. Baloney has never touched my lips since. Ever. Now, mortadella on the other hand...

With the tails still on? Absolutely.Interesting. They have to be doing the peeling/deveining by machine, right? I wonder how the tradition arose? I still think it is probably related to the Italian tradition of keeping the seafood as whole as possible to show that it is fresh (the same reason most vegetables in the markets still have flowers and vines and stems attached). What culinary tradition to you suppose originated this practice?

It's just like the way the Italians leave the vongole, etc. in their shells in pasta dishes. It is a sign to the customers that they are fresh and don't come from a can. Correct! Peeled and deveined shrimp come from frozen five-pound bags, instead! With the tails still on?

It's just like the way the Italians leave the vongole, etc. in their shells in pasta dishes. It is a sign to the customers that they are fresh and don't come from a can.

A good pint of draught Guinness alongside a dozen raw oysters is a match made in heaven.

Thank you! I also do not get PBJ. Frankly, there are certain things I simply refuse to eat now that I am out of grade school: PBJ, boloney sandwiches, and mac 'n' cheese from the box. Now, on the other hand... a nice peanut butter and bacon sandwich can be extremely tasty (especially if you fry it in the leftover bacon fat) -- although it's probably been 15 years since I had one.

I would add: Heavy Glass Shaker with a Metal Top (top including cap, strainer and spout) -even better on the eye -great control from gentle swirling to all out bruising -doesn't get very cold to the touch, since glass is a very poor conductor of heat and Cocktail Pitcher -also easy on the eye -the tops for making cocktails en masse

Too much information. Oh yea... first I put on my cocktail cape and sword... Jeez... you put in one extra space, mistype one little letter.

For me, it's vintage glass-and-silver shakers all the way. I only go to my (1950s era) metal shaker if I have a drink I really want to shake the hell out of. The GF got me a really cool amythyst shaker for my birthday last year that is also quite strong and good for a vigorous shake. I have never -- not even once -- had the problem of the cap sticking on one of my shakers due to negative pressure caused by rapid cooling. If I am making a relatively pure cocktail (like a martini or a manhattan), I always swirl or stir the cocktail and the ice inside the cocktail mixer rather than shaking. My parents have a shaker I really covet... it is relatively short and wide with gently curved sides. This makes it easy to swirl the cocktail and the ice by simply holding the shaker in an upright position and moving it in a circle along a horizontal plane. I think of it more as a cocktail swirler than a cocktail shaker. I also have an interesting cocktail mixer that really is a swirler. It is gently cone-shaped, with the top of the vessel being around 50% wider than the base. It has an open top and a wide silver pouring rim with an ice catcher that covers around 40% of the top circumference. Clearly, this was designed so the cocktail would be stirred rather than shaken (indeed, shaking would be impossible as there is no top). If I'm making martinis for a lot of people, I have a tall narrow martini pitcher I use for that purpose. Everything is stirred with my grandfather's long-handled sterling silver cocktail stirrer, and I like to serve in my ancestral bar wear (e.g., my silver manhattan glasses) whenever appropriate. My thoughts on the Boston shaker when used as a shaker is that it encourages too much movement and crashing together of the ice cubes, which leads to excess dilution, ice chips and muddying of the flavors.

The guys at Alleva and Di Paolo in Manhattan are no slouches in that department either.