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A few years back a friend of mine and some of his associated bought a hogshead of Balvenie 30 yr old from a dealer in London. Obviously, it had already been aged. I ended up buying about a case of it. It ended up costing much less than buying it retail. If I recall correctly, I think we paid something like CAD$65.00 (aprox US$50.00, at the time). This seemed quite resonable as my friend had seen the same whiskey being sold for north of US$200.00 at retail stores in N.Y. It was very tasty stuff! They had it bottled in London; with a custom label they had made up and shipped it over in cases. One trick they employed to keep the duties lower was to have it bottled at cask strength--which is about 50% alcohol--instead of diluting it down to 40%. Apparently customs charges are levied by volume, so doing it this way reduced the volume they brought in. When drinking, you would dilute with about 1 part water to 2-3 parts whiskey.

He does make reference to the bacon being quite salty, thus my deduction that it is in fact cured and not fresh.

I'm getting confused. I keep reading about "photos" but there are none in my copy of the book (I rec'd it from amazon a few weeks ago), just line drawing illustrations--quite nice ones, to be sure. Actually, I'm franticlly searching for trotters and unsmoked bacon. I'm planning on making his bean and bacon dish this weekend (I think the attracting feature of the recipe was Fergus' suggestion that one "serve with much red wine"). The trotters shouldn't be a problem, but I'm not so sure about "unsmoked, streaky bacon". I imagine I could substitute panchetta or ventreche, but I think the real thing is less cured and dry, more like pickled porkbelly. Anyone care to comment...? Oh, also planning on making the trotter and pheasant pie soon. Mmmm!

I've got a "Carter" funayuki-bocho--basically a very thin bladed knife used for general kitchen purposes--in laminated hitatchi white steel and I love it. It is high carbon white steel sandwiched between two pieces of stainless steel. This results in the high carbon steel only being exposed along the cutting edge making it easier to maintain. I think it tests around HRC 63-4. Using japanese waterstones I can get this knife much sharper than any of my Henkles or Globals. It will shave the hair off your arm with virtully no pressure, cutting onions is actually exciting (I know, I'm weird!) I once, by accident, filleted strip of skin about 1 cm long and about 0.01 mm thick off of my finger, no blood, luckily, just a little less thickness of skin, how's that for dermabrasion! I'm not sure if I'd use this type of knife in a professional kitchen, as the maintenence may become an issue, but for home use the maintenence isn't a problem, it just takes a minor amount of attention. One issue is that as the steel gets harder is it becomes more brittle, so care should be taken that one isn't hacking at bones at a oblique angle or the blade may become chipped. Anyway, for those of you interested in various steel types, this is from Murray Carter's catalogue: "Q. Which is the best steel, White #1, Blue-Super or ZDP247 A. There is no such thing as a "best" steel for every application. However, there is a best known steel for a given application. The steels I use are all top Quality and each are specialized in one way. White steel, my personal favorite, is an amazingly pure steel and therefore the carbides in the steel allow for the keenest edge possible. So, when a surgically clean cut is required, such as in some type food preparation (Sushi etc.), or in woodcrving, White steel reigns as king. Blue-Super steel, is basically white steel with Cr, W, Mo and V added. This results in oddly shaped carbides in the steel, so keenness is sacrificed somewhat. However, the new carbides enable this steel to retain its edge longer than any other grade of cutlery steel. Therefore Blue-Super is the king of edge retention. ZDP247 is the superior choice when stain resistant cutlery steel is necessary, as in certain medicla application, or when using close to salt-water etc. It doesn't cut as keenly as White steel and doesn't hold an edge as long as Blue-Super steel, but it is the king as far as stainless cutlery steel is concerned."

Many thanks for the info Joanne. I contacted Jasmine @ camellia who gave me Kevin's tel #. I spoke with him this morning and ordered some tea. He said he had been experiencing a virus problem with his computer which is probably why my order and emails didn't go through. I'm happy to say that Kyelateas is alive and well. Cheers all.

I think you've identified the two biggest factors.

Sidra is traditionally drunk in Asturias and Euskadi (Pais Vasco). It is very dry (no residual sugar) and non-carbonated. I've had it in Madrid and Catelonia, but I would imagine that it gets harder to find the further you are from the north. When there, just ask a local where the nearest sidreria is. Some historical info available here www.museodelasidra.com Enjoy!

Anyone out there ever use this website www.kyelateas.com to order tea? I'm wondering if they are still in business. The website will take an order, but it never gets processed (ie. I don't get charged and I don't recieve any tea) and my emails to them have not generated a response. I found this odd as I heard about the site recently in a copy of The Art of Eating "resources' section and I am under the impression that the guy who runs the site also writes about darjeeling for AoE. Any info would be appreciated. I just want to order some tea!

Interesting. On my last trip to Madrid I brought back two cana's of Joselito lomo. I thought it was expensive when I bought it, now I know why. It is absolutely fantastic! Every time I slice some I nearly cry as I watch my supply get smaller and smaller. Interestingly, it does taste lighter, to my relatively inexperienced tongue, than most of the other hams I've tried. I'm not sure if I prefer lomo or jamon. Whichever one I happen to be eating seems like my favorite at the time. Jamon vs. lomo--a new thread, perhaps? I had wanted to bring back a whole Jamon, but there was no room in my luggage. Not to mention that I would have been heartbroken to have had it confiscated by customs. Next trip perhaps. Miguel, thanks for the article.

vserna, which specific producer(s) would you recommend for "great" iberico?

I went two Saturdays ago at about 9:30pm. Two of us popped in on the off chance that they might have room, we had about a 5 minute wait. However, a line up formed up shortly after and it appeared that people were having to wait at least 30 minutes.

Bux, I've made a traditional alsatian dish called "backeoffe"--it's basically a meat (pork,beef, and lamb), onion and potato stew, slow cooked in a terrine sealed with a flour paste--that, I think, originated in the manner you describe.

I had a similar experience with his cochinillo. It was the rear quarter of the piglet, similar in size to the leg/thigh quarter of a large chicken. Perfectly crisped skin and meltingly tender, juicy meat. The waiter kept returning to the table to spoon the most incredible jus over top each time I had mopped up what was on the plate. Ok, so has anyone tried roast lamb at con Fabes?

vserna, please continue. My mouth is watering!

I've eaten wonderful lunches a couple of times in Aranda del Duero at place called El Meson de la Villa. I enjoyed the roast lamb leg immensely, crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. The other dish that looked great--I didn't try it--are the little chuletos. They're brought to the table on a self-standing grill after being cooked in the big wood burning ovens (I assume this is a fairly typical preperation). Both times I started with an order of morcilla. I hate the fact that we don't get decent morcilla here in Canada. I assume the morcilla is generally of quite a high standard anywhere close to Burgos. I'm wondering at what age they would be slaughtering the lambs they use for the roasts? I have a friend who raises lambs and from whom I buy when available. The problem is that they harvest them at quite a large size--in my view too large. I always request the smallest of the batch, which works out to to about 120 lbs (54 kg) live weight. One of these legs would feed about 6 people. It would be nice to try cooking some smaller ones. I've had quite good luck preparing roast leg of the larger ones in the spanish style, it's not quite the same but still pretty good. This is making me hungry. I think I'll go home now and eat some pata negra a friend of mine just brought back from Madrid and was kind enough to give me.

I've found that I get the best result with respect to crispy skin by starting with a really dry chicken, preferably left to dry uncovered in the fridge overnight.

There's a market off of Lagasca just south of Ayala that I thought was quite good. It's not as big as La Boqueria but it still has a great selection of produce, cheese, meats, and very fresh looking seafood. There are a number of Jamon sellers (suprise!) with what I thought to be quite an large selection of producers to choose from. (I have one cana left of some contraband Lomo de Iberico I bought there last fall). Have a great time in Madrid. I'm jealous! It's one of my favourite cities. In fact, I was just suggesting to my wife last night that we should go there for a week during San Isidro.

Starfish in Toronto charges a flat (I thinks it's $25.00) per bottle markup. I wish more places did this.

In the Dominican they have things they call arepas that are different from what you all are talking about. Basically they grate raw yuca, add egg, grated onion, salt & pepper, shape into patties and deep fry until golden. They're served like tostones -- as a starchy side to fish and meat dishes. My wifes mom say's that she rembers having them flavored with anis seed when she was a kid.

Yow. I feel your pain. A funayuki-bocho is a general purpose knife. They're not as delicate as, say, a yanagi-ba. This shouldn't have happened just cutting through cartilage or even soft bone. Murray Carter uses Hitachi #1 White steel clad with softer stainless. The carbon steel edge is usually up in the 60-62 Rockwell C range, making it extremely hard but prone to chipping when it encounters hard material. Doesn't sound like that was the case here. Frankly, I'm not sure what to tell you. This is outside my experience. I do know, though, that Murray is a true gentleman and will probably be more dismayed than you are. I'd e-mail him exactly what you posted here. This is the address I've used to contact him in the past -- Murray Carter. Let us know how it turns out. Take care, Chad Well, here is an update. I contacted Murray who advised me to send him the knife for repair. I did this and it turns out that the damage I did to the knife was actually quite minor. He's fixed it and I'm awaiting its return in the mail. He recommended using a deba bocho for dismembering chicken in the future. I'm very pleased with how things have turned out.

Article here.

On of the cookbooks I have--I think it's a C. Trotter one--recommends freezing the slices before searing. This allows you to get a proper crust on the outside without melting the whole thing. I've done this using the pre-cut slices from D'Artagnan straight out of the freezer and It works fine.

I went last night and had great meal. The menu was a little different from the one shown above. I started with flatbread, pate, and squash ravioli with a blue cheese sauce. The Flatbread (home made pita, cooked on the grill) came with three dips: a brandade, a tapenade, and a white bean puree--all very fresh tasting. The ravioli was nice and delicate with a very sweet filling and intense sauce. The pate was very rich, yet delicate, and, as with every thing else, made on premesis. Next up was oxtail stew, grouper, lamb chop, vegetable tagine, and capon galatine. Oxtail was very rich and intense, I asked for a spoon so that I could get all of the leftover jus. The grouper came pan seared with a red pepper puree. Perhaps a little plain, but very fresh and tasty nontheless. The lamb chop--minty marinade and seared on the grill--came with a nice jus. The galatine as described above. The tagine was a nice balance of sweet and spice and came with a poached quail egg on top. By this point I (and my wife) were to full to have desert (there were two: chocolate mousse, and rasberry sorbet). I would recommend it to anyone interested in eating well prepared, fresh food in a casual environment. I'd definitely go back.

They are a relativley new variety. They were mentioned in a NYTimes article here. I've been buying them from a local orchard just north west of Toronto where they are nearly out of this years product. The proprietor said the trees (fairly new) just started producing this year and will have much better production next year.

Poach pears in red wine with a bit of sugar. Reduce poaching liquid to a syrup. Serve with on a puddle of gorgonzola creme anglais with the red wine syrup drizzled on top.