Stone

Having eaten twice with Cabrales, I'm sure that however many questions you ask, you're still in the safe zone. And don't worry, if they think you may be a critic, you might get something special. Nothing wrong with that.

I haven't been in Chinatown for a while, but is there any store without a horrible fishy smell? Or fish swimming upside down, gasping for oxygen, with fungus, scales and God knows what else hanging off?

Oh Lordy, NC is where the money from the class action lawsuits against the tobacco companies, designed in principle to enable the states to invest in health care needed by the victims of smoking, was almost all ploughed into subsidies for failing tobacco farmers Don't forget that some of the money was used for a tobacco museum.

I have a hand-mixer attachment for more than 7 cloves, less than 4 fists.

What about, say, 9-14 cloves? Do you just stand there, mouth agape, arms folded, with your eyes jumping back and forth from your knife to your processor?

We were using the term lay-man-like. Edit -- you smug bastard.

I thought the point of the broiler was higher heat, closer to the food, from one direction. The transfer is still by heating the air. The heat "radiates" because the broiler is so hot. It's not like there's a fan or something pushing the heat out of the broiler. The oven is less-high heat, all around, but the heat still radiates from the floor and the walls. (You're right about transfer from the oven floor, but it's still the same in all pizza ovens, non?) Re smoke: if it's a smoke free fire, you've probably answered the question about the importance of smoke.

Also-- I haven't found many good ones. The garlic smushes out the side or at times breaks the press-plate.

I find it lets out too much of the oil resulting in too strong a flavor (if raw) or easily burnt flavor if cooked at all.

(Referring back . . .) I certainly see the difference between the oven and the frying pan. The broiler, I'm not so sure, but that's splitting hairs. My point, however, is that in a pizza oven, it's the same heat-transfer mechanism (air) whether using gas, coal or wood. As for smoking, I think that the BBQ analogy may not be so sound. It certainly takes awhile for the smoke to penetrate deep into a piece of meat. But not very long for it to settle on the surface and affect the taste of bread or whatever.

If a large enough segment of the population started wearing foul smelling perfume in restaurants, there would probably be a stink about it. I hate heavy perfume more than cigarette smoke, and have considered, but never had the nerve, asking for a new table when some foul-smelling tart is seating next to me at a restaurant. I have forced friends to ride with an open window in winter as punishment for too much perfume.

I agree with you. But, to take a page from Plotz, if people really didn't want that, wouldn't the bar and restaurants owners follow their customers' desires? You hate smoke; for the most part, I hate smoke; and many others hate smoke. Yet for some reason, restaurants don't think they would be better off by banning it.

If this is true, and I don't doubt it, doesn't that mean that most of their customers want to be able to smoke in bars? Restaurants would start billing themselves voluntarily as smoke free, their business would increase to the detriment of other restaurants, and others would follow. If so, why is the state banning it? (I, like others above, don't buy the second-hand smoke argument.)

The problem with separate areas, of course, is that smoke doesn't respect the boundaries.

(Is it worth discussing whether pizza (NY, New Haven or what-not) is from Italy or influenced by Italy? I've heard that it's really an American treat.)

Um. What you talking bout Willis? What's the diff between food surrounding by 500 deg. air and food being radiated with 500 deg. Heat is heat, non? A 500 deg. oven (assuming no dead spots) is a 500 deg oven whether heated by coal, wood, or lava, non? (Unless we're talking about "smoke" flavor being imparted by the source, which seems to have been dismissed, although rather quickly.) I could understand a "dry" heat v. a "moist" heat making a difference. My guess is that the rest is marketing. Hmm -- Maybe Mario will read this thread and quickly install gas pizza ovens so he can make decent pizza. Unless, of course, he prefers marketing to pizza.

Or maybe I'm not as good a cook as people tell me.

This should probably be the subject of another thread, but does anyone think it's weird that people will say, "I don't want Chinese food tonight, I just had Chinese food last night;" But people usually don't think twice about having a steak the night after having roast chicken, i.e., "I don't want to have American food tonight, I just had American food last night." When people tell me "I just had Chinese food," I usually respond, "o.k., well if you had a Chinese chicken dish last night, we can order a Chinese seafood dish tonight." It doesn't work, but I say it.

How do you add that hazelnut flavor? (Actually, I hate flavored coffee, but I'm curious if it's possible at home.)

Fat Guy mentioned the heat factor also. How hot does the stuff get? I've touched newly ground coffee, and never felt any heat. Certainly nothing like the heat from, say, the boiling water that I pour on it.

When I lived in NY, I never really noticed smoke in bars or restaurants. After living in SF for three years, walking into a bar or restaurant and smelling smoke is like a slap to the face. And now I always notice that my clothes smell like smoke when I put them on again the next morning.

I think you're engaged in an admirable attempt to define a loose, non-uniform term. However, since Plotnicki pretty much provided the answer in the first response, . . . .

But isn't that a question of exposing the proper amount of surface area to the hot water?

Hey, Stone, we're talking about PIZZA here. Other than the chemical aroma imparted by the box liner, I think they make a decent pizza. But I was a Dominos delivery boy for a while in college, so I'm biased.

Dominos was started by an Irish guy.