slkinsey

Eh...? The gargle stuff is mostly bunk and superstition. Although I do find that I prefer seltzer water because I feel that the bubbles help stimulate saliva production. On a day-to-day basis it's all about getting enough sleep and keeping yourself properly hydrated. If the mucous gets a little thick... that's what Humibid is for. It is important, however, to make sure one isn't eating too much too late in the evening, as sleep is prime time for acid reflux (which, for a variety of reasons, is something that is fairly common among classical singers). For this reason, I always dose myself with Gaviscon before I go to sleep. On performance days, I like to eat protein around 4 hours before the curtain. Of course, after the show I'm always ravenous -- but that comes with the territory. Apples and pears are a great way to keep the mouth moist because they stimulate the production of saliva and the juices are fairly similar to saliva chemically.

I have one from this litter, one from this litter and one from this litter.

Bottarga di muggine and bottarga di tonno are quite different. It's like saying, "in my world we just call it fish."

Thanks! I would have never known without asking! Very tasty, magical stuff... salty, vaguely musky(?), a little fishy... I enjoy it grated over pasta (secca, not fresca) that has been barely dressed with a tomato/olive oil sauce and sprinkled with a touch of red pepper flakes.

Although not as bad as the two most common cardinal sins: rinsing the pasta and putting oil in the pasta water.

This is even easier if you have a stock pot with a pasta insert. Also, cooking the pasta in the sauce for the last two minutes -- thinning with retained pasta cooking water as necessary -- makes an even bigger difference..

I've always found the idea of spahgetti alla chitarra as pasta secca somewhat strange. I always make it fresh using my chitarra (which looks exactly like this).

I used to own a ferret. I agree. Humph. I say they mix just fine. Maybe you're just not hanging around with the right class of ferret. Anyway, the trick with ferrets is that they "imprint" on what they think of as "food" at an early age, so it is very important to get them started on a wide variety of appropriate foods as soon as possible. Unfortunately, what most people think of as appropriate food for ferrets is some kind of kibble. The thing is... ferrets are primary carnivores and really don't have any grinding teeth, so there are all kinds of issues that crop up if you get your ferrets to imprint only on kibble -- which is mostly carbohydrates anyway, and thus not so good for a primary carnivore. What the domestic ferret's wild cousins (fishers, weasels, minks, wolverines, polecats, etc.) eat is mostly whole small animals... skin, bones, feathers, fur, organs, stomach contents, etc. So ferrets should eat many different kinds of meat, have plenty of raw bones and a limited amount of kibble as a stand in for the fur and stomach contents. I have never known a ferret who was imprinted as a kit on a wide variety of foods, includiing meat, to choose kibble over meat. This is, unfortunately, fairly common for ferrets who were raised on kibble.

It looks like I've been tapped by Soba to do the next foodblog in this thread, so here goes... Lunch was wonton and roast pork soup with udon noodles and truly first rate cold sesame noodles at "Spade's Noodles, Rice, & More" on 37th and 3rd. A very cheap, surprisingly good Chinese restaurant for a quick lunch in Midtown East. Dinner was my version of pasta puttanesca: tomato, lots of oil-packed anchovies (there were no salt-packed in the house), lots of capers, gaeta olives and Sicilian colossal olives (pitted by me using the "whack with the flat of a knife" method), onion, garlic, red pepper flakes and plenty of fresh minced parsley. As I sat down at the table, I realized that I didn't have any pecorino -- my grating cheese of choice for this sauce -- and so I grabbed a chunk of bottarga di muggine... That sent it right over the top and into another category of deliciousness entirely. I probably would have made a salad, but was busy playing with the ferrets and didn't have time. Dessert was Ben & Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch -- my favorite. Tonight the ferrets are having a little bit of a whole chicken (including bones, skin, fat, giblets, etc.) that I ran through a grinder and lightly cooked. Perhaps I'll give them a whole gizzard or two as well so they can tear something apart.

I have had very good luck finding vintage cocktail shakers on eBay. Personally, I like the glass and metal shakers rather than the all metal ones.

If you're going to be in Asheville, why not check out nearby Black Mountain, also known as the Front Porch of Western North Carolina? OK, I admit I'm biased, because I have a house in the mountains outside Black Mountain... but it's a great place with some cool places to eat.

OK, but I'll start tomorrow, as my budget is into deficit spending until I get paid. Nothing interesting about the bread crusts, gruel and water on which I have been subsisting of late (notwithstanding Eric Malson bringing ingredients over to my apartment for a great Portugese meal a few days ago). I also promise an interesting glimpse into the culinary lives of Asher, Zebulun and Issachar -- my three baby ferrets.

Must be a bitch to force feed penguins for the foie. And what would you feed them? My guess: blubber. Can you imagine liver from penguins artificially fattened on fat?

Had penguin today again. 42nd day in a row. Maybe I'll make a penguin stew tomorrow. Except I don't have any vegetables. Thus, I guess it's roasted penguin again. ...after 53 consecutive meals of roast penguin, penguin stew, poached penguin, penguin francese, McPenguin sandwiches and penguin Wellington, I have finally decided to return to my first love... blubber.

A slice of bacon in time makes room for nine (more).

Since that's the case, you should stay tuned for the eGCI article on making pizza on the grill. You can have your pizza and commune with nature!

Ah, good point! I, too, have noticed that Campari is commonly an aperitivo (or just a drink all by itself) and never a digestivo. Since an amaro is, in essence, a digestivo then Campari cannot be an amaro. Same thing for Cynar, you think? I also wouldn't think of Cynar after dinner.

Of course, adding grated cheese to a dish with anchovies, capers and olives is a bit like saying "have a little salt with your salt" -- but that's probably why I like it. mmmmmmm... salt.

I think this is one of the few fish recipes where it is not taboo to grate some cheese over it. I mean, you're certainly not going to be obscuring any delicate flavors! Personally, though, I like pecorino rather than parmigiano with this one.

For bread and pizza baking: Measure the floor of your oven, go to your local purveyor of building stone and buy a 1" thick piece of soapstone that is sized to leave a ~1" - .5" gap all the way around on your oven floor. This will provide much better results than a pizza stone -- especially dramatic oven spring.

My experience exactly. Thanks. Yea... my recipe calls for a minimal amount of olive oil. One thing fat does, besides tenderizing the dough, is "grease" between the strands of gluten and inhibit cross-linking between strands to a certain degree. From Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking: It has been my experience that a small amount of oil does help to make a dough more extensible and easier to stretch/roll thin (this is over and above the effects of using high hydration, long fermentation and low gluten flour). I have never had any problems with the dough being too soft, but this may have very much to do with differences in the temperature of our ovens and the massiveness (i.e., heat-accumulating property) of our baking stones. I tend to preheat for around an hour on broil, and I have a huge soapstone (at least 100 lbs) on the floor of my gas oven. By that time, the stone is considerably warmer than 550F and is holding a ton of heat. My experience in Italy, BTW, is that pizza Napulitana is not necessarily all that thin or crisp. Roman-style pizza is often paper-thin and crispy, but I have often found the pizza in Napoli to be crisp on the bottom, but more puffy and soft in the middle, and in general thicker. Of the various formulations I was able to get from Neapolitan friends or by striking up conversations with pizzaioli there, many included a fair amount of olive oil. YMMV, of course, and desirable results may not be possible using a lot of oil in a home oven on a regular pizza stone.

My friends who run a trattoria/pizzeria in Italy sure must be doing a lot of things wrong, then...

In the beginning when God created bacon and sausage, pork was a formless meat and salt covered the face of the pork, while smoke from God swept over the face of the pork. Then God said, "Let there be bacon!"; and there was bacon. And God saw that the bacon was good; and God separated the smoked meat from the unsmoked meat. God called the smoked meat Bacon, and the unsmoked meat he called Pork Belly. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Do you eat honey? It is, after all, bee vomit.

For some reason or another, I've been thinking of throwing together a batch of goose fat biscuits for this...