The Fine Art of Rimming
A sloppy sticky rim job really gets me hot and bothered, but not in a good way.
Take two minutes—actually 2:09—and click through to this video and watch the bartender demonstrate the wrong way and the right way to rim a glass.
He is spot on about the importance of rimming only the outside of the glass. However, the bartender uses a very heavy hand when rubbing the citrus against the edge of the glass and creates a thick, inelegant rim. If you look carefully (at about 1:05) you can even see some lime juice dripping from the glass.
The edge just needs to be dampened for your rim to stick.
All too often bartenders get this wrong, and they are getting it wrong more often as many are now using fanciful rims to produce new cocktails. There was the promising Buzz Aldrin cocktail that cleverly was served with a Tang rim at a local bar. Except the rim job was so bad that the Tang dripped down the stem of the cocktail glass, making it a sticky mess.
In Defense of Fussy Little Portions
On Tuesday I tackled the first of two recent comments that presented interesting counterarguments to issues I find very important. I was very pleased that a few of you filled in some of the gaps, listing additional restaurants that do a good job of bringing the farm to the table in upstate New York, despite the short growing season.
Today I want to share the second comment, which has more to do with restaurant portions. It was written in response to the post Living on Leftovers, where I clarified the difference between home-cooked leftovers and what one would take home in a doggy bag after eating out at a nice restaurant.
Once again let me say how much I enjoy getting comments like these. They are thoughtful and articulate, and allow a chance to clarify my original argument so that it can address some specific concerns.
Here is what maltnsmoke wrote nine days ago:
“Ideally restaurant meals should be reasonably sized portions that do not result in leftovers. ”
Unfortunately, we cannot all be satisfied by identically sized portions. Perhaps biased by the fact that my appetite tends to be left unsated by fussy little portions, I’d prefer that a restaurant err on the side of more rather than less.
An establishment’s total cost of serving a given dish is probably not greatly affected by providing a slightly larger portion. Serving a much smaller portion at a slightly lower price point would not necessarily increase most patrons’ perception of value.
Of course a restaurateur must strike the correct balance. But giving a little more probably pleases more diners than it offends.
Soothing Irish Oats
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day. Green beer isn’t my thing. And I’m more into Jewish corned beef with sauerkraut than what most people will be eating today. Perhaps I’ll get a small shamrock shake. But it’s a stretch to come up with something Irish to talk about. And then I remembered Irish steel cut oats. Bear with me for a moment, and I’ll bring this back around.
Sometimes you have a recipe and it works. Other times it is a complete disaster. I have had a few disasters in my time. And even friends who are significantly better cooks than I have had their flops.
Mrs. Fussy remembers my biggest disaster from college. I had a Jacques Pepin cookbook, and I was over at her house for a dinner party. Somehow I had convinced everyone to help make this gorgeous-looking potato and spinach gallette. And somehow we all thought it would be plenty of food to feed several people as a vegetarian main course. It took hours. Lots and lots of hours. Spinach was everywhere. And in the end, it resulted in this teeny tiny thing that wasn’t all that good.
And as good as a cook as my friend Raf later became, sometime in college he set out to cook an Asian feast. The meal included some very ambitious handmade egg roll wrappers and bacon fried rice. Suffice it to say, this was not Raf at his best.
Recently a regional blogger posted a recipe for an easy steel-cut oatmeal technique that just takes a few minutes of active preparation. This was very appealing to me, because my steel-cut oatmeal recipe requires one’s attention for the better part of an hour.
How is Everything Over Here?
It’s fine.
There are some people I know who habitually send things back at restaurants. It may surprise you to learn that I am not one of those people.
Despite my fussiness I am willing to suffer through some degree of botched preparations rather than disrupt the flow of a meal and risk subjecting my dining companions to any level of increased anxiety.
When I’m dining by myself, well, that’s another story.
I know all about this anxiety because I’ve been on the other side of it. When someone’s meal gets sent back to the kitchen, regardless of how well the news has been received by the service staff, there is an awkwardness at the table. Everyone is eating, except for one person.
Granted, those with food can offer some of their bounty to the diner who is going without. And the other people in the party can try to eat at a more leisurely pace, so that when the waiter returns with the properly cooked dish, there is at least the hope of everyone finishing around the same time.
But it generally doesn’t work out that way.
In Defense of Cheap Beer in Cans
Soon it may be time for some category consolidation. Fussy about Cocktails and Fussy about Wine should be renamed Fussy about Drinking. One day I will figure out exactly how to do that. But as the categories stand right now, there is no obvious place to talk about beer.
Sure, beer fanatics will say it should fall under Fussy about Food. After all, the ingredients in beer are almost identical to the ingredients in bread.
But the larger issue is that it is March, I’ve been writing this blog for over ten months, and I have yet to write a dedicated post about beer. I suppose in truth, I have written about beer quite a bit over the course of the past year. But it has always been in the background.
Today I’m going to clear all of that up.
ARA: Help Build My Bar
Kristi and Steve seem to do this thing all the time with great success. But here is my first experiment with the form.
Do you know Kim? For what it’s worth I think she has a great eye. Last month she wrote a post about stocking a liquor cabinet. And while her liquor cabinet may be modest, her inspiration was striking.
Officially she didn’t exactly ask. Actually I volunteered to help her select good bottles to fill her cabinet. After all, this is a subject I know a thing or two about. But you can see the whole exchange here.
A couple of days ago, Kim got in touch. She wrote, “i am planning on adding to my ‘cabinet’ later this week…any suggestions will be very welcomed :)”
Specifically she says, “Next up on my list are tequila and scotch/whiskey. suggest away!” and to remember that she is “very limited by monetary restrictions.”
Burgers Should Taste Better From a King
This is a disgusting story. I had my first Burger King hamburger (in this case it was a double cheeseburger) in a long long time.
Honestly I cannot remember the last time I have eaten beef at a McDonald’s or Burger King. I’m at McDonald’s more often that I would care to admit, driven largely by their omnipresence at highway rest stops and my mother-in-law’s unnatural love for their ice cream cones and sundaes. Occasionally I’ll pop into a Burger King when presented with limited options for one of their veggie burgers.
In college I remember eating burgers from the two big fast food titans, except in West Philly we called them Murder King and McDeath. Not because of the food they served, rather because of the shady neighborhood where they were located. Sometimes they were just too cheap to resist.
But they really fell off my radar when I adopted a New Year’s resolution while living out in California to only eat one burger a month. This was difficult because I love burgers. The key was to make every burger count, and to make every burger special. The big fast food chains just didn’t make the cut. Heck, In-N-Out Burger even maxed out at one time per year.
So it had been a long time. Then on Monday I found myself hungry, driving past a Burger King, and noticing the $1 Double Cheeseburger sale. My curiosity got the best of me. I pulled in the drive through and ordered that burger.
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