Observational Gastrophysics

IFT Awesomeness

2010-07-23T19:30:00.002-04:00

[by Naveen]

I still have yet to absorb all that happened over the past week, which featured the IFT conference in Chicago. Below is a sampling in alphabetical order.

ADM: Probably not approved by Michael Pollan: corn syrup, soy protein isolate, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, digestion resistant maltodextrin, natural and artificial flavors and colors = a good source of fiber and protein.

Barry Callebaut: Initially I just knew about Fine+Raw Chocolate in New York, but now major companies are looking for ways to retain more nutrients during the chocolate-making process. I wish I took more chemistry as an undergrad.

Bascom Family Farms: Maple syrup is far more interesting than I previously thought. I found a booth than showed aerated maple syrup that had the consistency of butter. They also found a way to concentrate the flavor of maple syrup, without increasing the sugar content, and created various types of maple vinegars.

Chickpea smoothie: There were a lot of smoothie samples, but using chickpea as a base was really unique. By combining with various fruit and vegetable purees, it takes this legume far beyond the realm of hummus.

Consumers: I have a new-found sympathy for people in the food industry. They have a nearly impossible task to satisfy frequently paradoxical consumer demands. It would better if everyone cooked for themselves with raw ingredients, but until we reach that Alice Waters utopia, they will be a fixture of the American food landscape.

Fiber: One of the most interesting talks I attended was about fiber, a topic that I had previously given little thought. Unlike other nutrients, its nearly impossible to find a recommended daily value. Eskimos and some people on liquid diets can survive on none, while vegetarians can get over 70 g/day. The distinction between "soluble" and "insoluble" is not really relevant and is a gross over-simplification for the vast diversity of polysaccharides that people consume.

Free samples: Although I appreciated all the free samples, only some of them were actually informative. Side by side comparisons are good. Free, calorie-reduced, nutrient-enhanced bakery goods are nice, but need context. Color and flavor demos could have been far more interesting by defying the conventional combinations. Giant machines extruding play-dough at the Process Expo are fun to watch.

Good Cacao: I would be happy to be a taster during their recipe development.

Green Zebra: I highly recommend the tasting menu. Someday I'd love to try out the more ambitious (and far more expensive) tasting menus at L2O, Moto, or Alinea.

Inception: Go see it, even if it's not the IMAX screen at Navy Pier.

Innovative Foods, Inc.: I only discovered this booth on the last day, but it did strike me as one of the most innovative. The exhibitor/inventor, Edward Hirshberg, was demonstrating his idea for "pre-cycling." Essentially, by using vegetable by-products and lesser known ingredients (e.g. pulp, stems, assorted legumes), he made energy bars unlike any I've tasted before.

Kraft: They didn't have a booth; they had a restaurant.

Micro-encapsulation: Another hot trend in food science makes me glad to be in Prof. Weitz's lab.

Origami Wraps: This simple idea opens up a world of culinary possibilities. Instead of tortillas or other flour-based wrappers, use a sheet of fruit or vegetable puree: hors d'oeurves, pastry and desserts, glazes, rolls…

Probiotics: Your food will soon take on a life of its own. Scientists are just beginning to understand the complex interactions between your intestinal microbiome and your immune system.

Roquette: I spent over an hour at their booth, chatting with the chocolatier they hired about the challenges of working with sugar-free chocolate, as well as the chocolate-making process in general.

Sensory and consumer preferences: This strikes me as an area of food science ripe for an infusion of Bayesian analysis. I went to their reception on Monday and would be happy to spend more time with this sub-discipline of the food world.

Stevia: you'll be seeing a lot more of this soon, thanks to recent government approval.

Symrise: I was initially drawn by their Happy Hour, but I became fascinated by the flavor development process. I did some side-by-side trials of MSG replacers and soy powder flavor disguisers, then went upstairs (yes, it was a two-story exhibit), to talk with one of their researchers, while sampling flavored potato chips and almonds. It takes eight years of apprenticeship to become a flavor chemist, along with a good dose of natural talent.

That's just a small sample: practically every conversation or exhibit booth triggered some new idea for a blog post, recipe, research project, or career path. There's far more that happens behind the scenes in our food supply than I could have imagined.

Jump Monk

2010-07-15T22:34:00.005-04:00

[by Mike]

Last week I had the fortune of traveling to Chamonix, a picturesque little town nestled underneath Mont Blanc in the French Alps, for a statistics conference. The views were amazing, but the food wasn't particularly intriguing. I guess a region known for fondue doesn't offer much for the lactose intolerant.

You do have to respect, however, a town with multiple charcuterie and cheese shops. While browsing one of the better stocked stores, I was amazed to find bottles of Chartreuse, both green and yellow, resting in the rafters above the cash register. Over the course of the week I went back twice, each time leaving with a new product from the Carthusian Monks.

I'm always impressed when I spot a nip of high quality liquor, but this gift set was a revelation. It was worth the bottle of V.E.P yellow alone, a product which I have yet to find anywhere on either side of the Atlantic. The 9th Centenary Liqueur commemorates 900 years of the Carthusian monastery, but isn't much more than a slightly sweeter take on the usual green formulation.

G enepi is everywhere in the Alps. Back in the day montaineers would gather flowers from the slopes and then macerate them in liquor to produce a sweet, herbal, and slightly bitter liqueur. Just about every store sells their own formulation and every restaurant features it on their menu. The Chartreuse offering was actually a bit disappointing; I preferred the versions offered in the local restaurants. Their stronger bitter swallow reminded me of a harmonious combination of yellow Chartreuse and a good amaro.

The bottle that started the string of purchases, however, was the Meilleurs Ouvriers de France Sommeliers, or MOFS, special edition Chartreuse. Confused by the unfamiliar label, I spent the following evening googling around for more information. Information was sparse, especially when limited to mostly French websites and Google Translate, but what I could find was sufficiently intriguing to warrant a purchase.

Once back in the States, the first tastes did not disappoint. Somewhere between yellow and green Chartreuse, in color, flavor, and proof, the MOFS Chartreuse features a rich herbal flavor with an unctuous texture and just enough sweetness to round everything out. While yellow, and sometimes green, work wonderfully in cocktails, the MOFS is something to be sipped, slightly chilled, in the middle of the summer. A porch wouldn't be inappropriate.

Even though I've never been impressed with milk chocolate, I couldn't resist one last Chartreuse purchase.

I need to get to more conferences.

Start Me Up

2010-07-14T23:12:00.003-04:00

[by Mike]

We've discussed the very beginnings of a bar before, but a few weeks ago I had a chance to put some of these ideas into practice.

I was in Los Angeles for a conference, and had the opportunity to crash with some friends from undergrad. One of these friends has long been intrigued by cocktails ever since he, John, and I nearly had Craigie to ourselves for a night thanks to a few feet of freshly fallen snow, but never found the time to start his own bar. It would have been a shame to waste an opportunity to help him see that through.

The weekend before my flight I dropped by the Boston Shaker and put together a basic kit: shaker, jigger, spoon, julep strainer, and a set of Tovolo ice cube trays. Upon arrival I presented him with the gift, essentially guilting him into a trip to BevMo and an earnest start to his bar. Although to be fair, I don't think much guilt was actually involved.

We began with two classics that any self-respecting enthusiast should master: the Martini and the Manhattan. Plymouth and the vermouths were easy enough to find, but the Sazerak took some searching before we found a single bottle precariously placed on top of a display case. Not wanting to risk a rye-free night, we took the bottle and quickly paced over to check-out.

Teaching an engineer how to mix drinks is a delight. Given the basic steps, their underlying motivations, and a few examples, my friend was quick to pick up on the technique and by the end of my trip he was well on his way to a great bar.

The Gospel of Food

2010-07-09T21:23:00.003-04:00

[by Naveen]

Earlier this week, thanks to heat wave-induced insomnia, I read "The Gospel of Food" by Barry Glassner, a book that I picked up at Green Apple Books during my recent San Francisco expedition. Each chapter questioned mainstream nutritional advice and led to haunting questions about food and nutrition.

False Prophets: Culinary Correctness gone awry: What if one's enjoyment of a meal affects nutrient metabolism? The first study mentioned in the book shows how Thai women absorbed more iron from a meal with spicy food, while Swedish women absorbed more from a meal of hamburger, potatoes, and beans. Rather than a quest of self-denial against fat, carbs, eggs, milk, soy, or the trendy nutritional demon of the week, what if we find ways to enjoy food more?
Safe Treyf: Pretending to Be a Saint: What if the nutrient-fortified food products sold by companies ranging from small "organic" workshops to vast multi-national corporations lower the efficacy of prescription drugs and the absorption of nutrients from whole foods?
Promises to the Fathers: How the Food Industry Sells it Wares: I was thoroughly impressed by the descriptions of recipe creation at culinary R&D facilities. The author writes how he "was bowled over by how many of the rank-and-file were foodies and expert chefs. Many had, in addition to training in food technology, degrees from top-ranked culinary institutes, and the bookshelves in their cubicles and lab areas were filled with cookbooks, restaurant guides, and culinary magazines." (77)
Restaurant Heaven: Defining Culinary Greatness: What if the food that "anonymous" diners eat in fancy restaurants is different than food served to restaurant critics and VIPs? This is a controversial claim, but critics can have a huge impact on future business and VIPs can spend far more money on profit-laden drinks than normal diners.
The Food Adventurers: In Search of Authenticity: Food authenticity is a somewhat nonsense concept. Many of the people writing the reviews have never been to the host country. Moreover, chefs in the country or origin often incorporate new ingredients into their own cuisine. I think that these food adventurers, just like beer geeks, oenophiles, dieters, and others, are looking for a sense of community and shared culture (a tribe) rather than a specific food.
Restaurant Hell: The Dissing of McDonald's: It's easy for people like me to demonize McDonald's. However, I wonder how many of the critics have to worry about the source of their next meal or the location of a safe playground to take their kids. For people worried about the environmental consequences, take a look at the jewelry industry. According to the environmental group Earthworks, twenty tons of waste are generated in producing a single gold ring. For the anti-capitalists out there, the author notes that McDonald's is no where to be found in the top hundred on the Fortune 500 list. No one would argue that more fruit and veggies would be better, but viewing fast food as the enemy and condemning the poor as ignorant or lazy is no way to solve the actual problems.
What Made America Fat: It's Not Just the Food: Conventional wisdom touts the "fiscal view" of nutrition: calories in (diet) - calories out (exercise) = weight gain/loss. What if stress has the predominant impact on the absorption of nutrients and the metabolic rate of a person? What if lowering one's weight doesn't lead to improvements in health? What should one do if weight gain is correlated with being social (e.g. the more people present at a meal, the more a person tends to eat)?

Take home message: Nutritional studies, even large ones, often extrapolate percentages from a couple extra incidences of disease or death. More food for thought: two strong correlations with weight gain are low-income and being on a diet.

My personal theory: being "too busy" is the root cause (see Scott Berkun's manifesto). How are American's spending their time differently than people in other countries?

campari and salt

2010-07-08T20:56:00.001-04:00

[by john]

campari doesn't do it for me. i've seen lady gaga rock it, i've had it in cocktail form, and i've even sipped it with a slice of orange at a sun-drenched italian cafe. still. that bitter finish is not pleasant like other italian amaros' bitter finishes. medicinal.

but, holy shit if this didn't change (a small portion of) my life: add a dash of saline solution to campari and it turns delicious! i tried their 'campari martini' the other night and...fruity? sweet? this is campari?! i'll leave the taste science to mike or naveen, but for now, it just tastes good.

the guys at rogue cocktails (go, click that link!) are on top of their game. salted cocktails are definitely trending, but i hope they rise to prominence faster - it seems like there's a large, fertile, unexplored parameter space out there...

white lily

2010-07-08T20:51:00.002-04:00

[by john]

this drink, the white lily, has two amazing virtues.

first, its ingredients are readily found at any fratty house party (hosted, presumably, by some dude who smuggled absinthe back from europe after spring break '07), and their combination in a single drink just amplifies the frattiness ('look bro, a shot each of rum, gin, triple sex [sic], and some of the green fairy. race you to the bottom!), but that blend yields a refined, fruity, crisp, and flipping tasty result.

second, like the pegu club, the eensy bit of modifier (absinthe for the lily, bitters for the pegu) transforms the drink like a necklace of pearls around an otherwise fine neckline of a black dress.

i won't forgive myself for keeping this one on my to-make list for so long.

the white lily

equal parts of:
gin
white rum
triple sec
&
a dash of absinthe

stir with ice and strain

West Coast Rejuventation

2010-07-05T19:34:00.005-04:00

[by Naveen]

With just under three days to explore as much of the Bay Area culinary zeitgeist as possible, I started with Heidi Swanson's list of San Francisco Favorites, combined with recommendations from friends and a good dose of serendipity.

Spice Kit: I followed Heidi's advice to check out the recent issues of Tablehopper for inspiration. I picked this “chef-driven Asian street food” restaurant for my first meal, based on a note in the June 29th edition. The owners, Wilfred Pacio and Fred Tang, alumni of the French Laundry, Per Se, and The Dining Room at the SF Ritz-Carlton, lit up the interwebs with their application of "Farm Fresh ingredients" and "techniques that Frenchmen would love" and now I can better appreciate the thrill of discovery felt by the bloggers.

Nopalito: After following the linecook blog for several months and hearing rave reviews from John, I knew that I had to go to either here or Nopa. The menu combined traditional Mexican cooking with "local, organic, and sustainable" ingredients. I really want to visit one of Rick Bayless' Chicago restaurants now, as well as make an eventual trip to Mexico (perhaps with Mike as tour guide).

Burma Superstar: One of my high school friends and Heidi both recommended this wildly-popular venue. Despite calling in at 8:30 pm, we weren't seated until 10:45. It was totally worth the wait to experience this unique fusion of Southeast Asian flavors. Combined with John's trip to Thailand, the experience reminded me that I need to return to that part of the world.

Dosa: Another one of Heidi Swanson's recommendations. The atmosphere was totally different than the Little India restaurants and hawker center stalls in Singapore, but I enjoyed the food just as much, especially since I got to introduce one of my friends to this South Indian specialty.

The Plant Organic Cafe: Thanks to the Yelp app on my new smartphone, I found this amazing new restaurant at the Ferry Building. It shattered my negative pre-conceptions of pizza, showcased some amazing locally-grown vegetables, and ended with a great contrast between the molten chocolate cake and vegan blackberry cheesecake desserts. After months of resisting, I am glad that I finally decided to upgrade my Motorola RAZR (it still makes a nice alarm clock, though).

There is still plenty left for future visits. Top on my list are Gracias Madre (vegan Mexican), Aziza (Michelin-star Moroccan), and Coi (sadly, closed for renovations during my visit), but I'm sure there are dozens of others that I have yet to discover. Besides the restaurants mentioned here, I also visited the Farmers' Markets, grocery stores, and ice cream shops, which were equally inspiring. As you can tell from my summaries, this trip renewed my interest to travel the world. My last memory of the trip is gazing at models of Shanghia sky-scrapers, as part of an SF MoMA exhibit at the SFO airport, which I hope is a case of foreshadowing.

Medium Raw

2010-06-25T20:25:00.004-04:00

[by Naveen]

I discovered Kitchen Confidential at the start of my year in Singapore and read his other books (and watched all of No Reservations) during my remaining time on the island. I explored as much of the local food culture as I could, while struggling to find a balance between my undergrad vegetarianism and Bourdain's total gastronomical immersion. He's not a role model, but he's always thought-provoking in a way that challenges my too-comfortable grad student life. The new book isn't the best introduction to his philosophy, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading it as the transcript of a hypothetical conversation in a bar after a few drinks.

One of my reasons for reading Bourdain's travelogues and essays (as well as the similar books by Bill Buford, Gordon Ramsay, and Michael Ruhlman) was the intense devotion of each to their craft: a combination of relentless curiosity and almost inhuman diligence. What drives chefs? Bourdain looks at the case of celebrity chefs, such as Emeril, Godron Ramsay, and David Chang. With regards to Mario Batali:

"He gets off on successfully filling a restaurant that everyone said was doomed, or bringing the cost of food below 20%. He likes to do the difficult thing, the dangerous thing - like take a gamble that what America needs and wants right now is ravioli filled with calf brains, or a pizza topped with pork fat."

Does Bourdain have regrets? Yes, many. One of the biggest ones is not seeking out a challenging position in the kitchen of a top-ranking chef after culinary school. He writes:

"The simple fact is that I would be - and always have been - inadequate to working in the kitchens of most of my friends, and it is something I will have to live with."

Wylie Dufresne is a hero. Bourdain writes "To his constant peril, he experiments, pushes boundaries, explores what is possible, what might be possible." I caught a glimpse of this during a conversation with him at TEDx Cambridge and from my dessert at WD-50, so I'm hungry for more.

A major internal debate for me still is between the optimal nutrition of elite athletes like Scott Jurek and Brendan Brazier and the fearless exploration by numerous vagabonds and a smaller number of food critics. With regard to tasting menus, Bourdain writes

"If cooking professionally is about control, eating successfully should be about submission, about easily and without thinking giving yourself over to whatever dream they'd like you the share."

This excludes over-intellectualizing the food, taking photos of every course, and focusing more on the future blog post than the seamless passage of time.

Finally, back to his thoughts about vegetarianism:

"I guess I understand if your desire for a clean conscience and cleaner color overrules any natural lust for bacon. But taking your belief system on the road - or to other people's houses - make me angry."

He elaborates on this anger for quite a few pages.

Has anyone else read the book? Has it changed the way you eat?

First Foray into NYC Dining

2010-06-23T17:15:00.004-04:00

[by Naveen]

Here's the synopsis of my first expedition to one of the dining capitals of the world:

wd-50: life-changing desserts: my top recommendation. Visit the website if the photo at the top isn't incentive enough.

Souen: Macrobiotic Meal: close to the opposite of the dessert last night, but also quite sastisfying. This plate was filled with piles of brown rice, plain beans, squash, broccoli, and hijiki, optimized for nutrition.

Otto: Olive oil gelato with sea salt: made me want to buy the Flavor Bible and read all of the "They Go Really Well Together" posts on the kymos blog.

Lombardi's Pizza: "Best Pizza on the Planet" according to Zagat: good, but not enough to have a charcoal furnace installed in my apartment. Excessive free pizza at grad school meetings has dampened my enthusiasm for pizza in general.

Liquiteria: like Jamba Juice, with more nutritional content and a correspondingly higher price. Meals in a bottle could be seen as a revolution in time-saving technology or a place to showcase conspicuous consumption.

Hummus Place: in defense of chain restaurants: I would be happy to see this spread to Boston.

Stogo: vegan ice cream, which is fascinating from a food science perspective (plant-based fats don't seem close to the complexity of the protein-coated fat globules in milk). Chocolate chip cookie satisfied my nostalgic cravings, but I would appreciate more adventurous flavors.

Recommendations for San Francisco? Chicago? Where else should I go?

Dessert topping or floor wax?

2010-06-20T09:39:00.003-04:00

[by Naveen]

Dessert topping or floor wax? Both.

I recently returned from my first real (i.e. more than 24 hours) trip to New York, justified by the monthly meeting of the Experimental Cuisine Collective. The speaker, NYU Chem Professor Kent Kirshenbaum totally changed my view of plant-derived amphiphiles in one of the best science presentations that I've seen. He started with the Saturday Night live skit that introduced New Shimmer to the world. After some initial slides about the science of soap, he demonstrated how to make soap from various plant extracts, called saponins. A small amount of quillaja extract in a bowl full of water turned to foam with the help of an electric mixer. He used this to clean off the white board and some spots on his tie. When dispensed from an iSi whipper, it looked a lot like a dessert topping.

The second challenge was to make something that tasted good enough to put on butterscotch pudding. Many middle eastern desserts incorporate all types of unique plant extracts, like salep, an orchid extract used to make stretchy ice cream (see this Cooking Issues post for more info). In this case, Prof. Kirshenbaum used a different extract to make meringues and a type of mousse, which the audience got to try. They had a somewhat bitter, herbal taste which was balanced by some fresh fruit toppings. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but the recipe could use some work before going mainstream. Still, there is an expanding market for vegan or egg-free desserts. A company called Angel Food in New Zealand is making vegan marshallows and meringues, and there are likely others out there.

Not only are these saponins floor cleaners and dessert toppings, they could potentially be used as medicine. There is a long list of the purported health benefits of saponins. Many of the claims are probably too general to prove, but there is preliminary evidence that they can bind to cholesterol, suggesting the possibility to be used in a cholesterol-lowering drug. The Masai people of Africa eat a diet rich in meat, dairy, and cattle blood, yet have surprisingly low cholesterol. This could be due to their practice of cooking their food with the bark or stems of certain plants that contain high levels of saponins.

Even if a cholesterol-lowering, floor-cleaning, vegan confectionery doesn't hit the supermarket shelves anytime soon, I still had a great time learning about saponins. Perhaps I should watch old SNL skits for more PhD thesis topic ideas.

PhD in Chocolate

2010-06-07T21:10:00.004-04:00

[by Naveen]

a model of the solar system, constructed by master chocolatier Enric Rovira, one of the inspirations for this post

My latest obsession has been the science of chocolate. After several literature searches and interviews with people about the transformation from cocoa pods to chocolate bar, I'm starting to get a sense of feasible thesis topics, which would be both scientifically interesting and industrially relevant (as well as delicious). Two main frontiers in the chocolate world that can be explored from a soft matter physics perspective seem to be:

1. Design a simple, reliable "temper-meter." By melting and cooling molten chocolate in a specific way, chocolate makers can create a solid bar that is glossy on the surface and breaks cleanly. If this procedure isn't done right, the chocolate can be crumbly and develop an ugly whitish coating on the surface, called bloom. The main difference relates to how the cocoa fat molecules are stacked within the chocolate: well-tempered chocolate has all these molecules packed tightly together. Unfortunately, the only way to determine this conclusively is with x-ray diffraction, which isn't especially convenient for artisan chocolate makers. A more common method is to measure the temperature of the chocolate over time as it cools, which works okay, but apparently there is still considerable room for improvement.
2. Glossy coated almonds (or nibs, cocoa beans, etc.). In a technique known as panning, the nuts are placed in a large rotating vat and molten chocolate is slowly drizzled over them. As the nuts tumble around, a layer of chocolate gradually develops around each nut. Somewhat surprisingly, the resulting coating is smooth and fairly resistant to bloom, despite not undergoing the specific tempering process. However, it's still tricky to attain a glossy, rather than matte, surface on the product, so additional coatings are typically used in the industry.

Armed with my physics knowledge of mechanics, electricity and magnetism, acoustics, and (high-school level) chemistry, I think that I can discover some interesting things while I pursue these problems. If I'm incredibly lucky, I could help solve some major problems in the chocolate industry. At worst, I'll have fun playing around with chocolate.

The Science of Vegan Cooking

2010-06-03T19:57:00.002-04:00

[by Naveen]

After recent inspiration (both in terms of running and cooking) by Brendan Brazier, Scott Jurek, Matt Frazier, and Terry Waters, I've been doing more vegan cooking lately. This has prompted a slew of food science questions, since eggs and dairy play such a diverse range of roles in a whole spectrum of foods. I could write a whole series of posts about this, but for now I'll just give some examples, ranging from the straight-forward to potentially intractable:

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crumble: My version of this dessert got rave reviews, even by swapping the butter with coconut oil (and the sugar with stevia). However, the crumble probably wasn't too sensitive to the physical properties of the fat (e.g. water content, melting points) and it's hard to make a dessert like this taste bad. Many other pastries depend more critically on the type of fat used, so doing a one-to-one swap might not work.
Six-seed Soda Bread: I can replace the buttermilk with 1 cup of non-dairy milk + 1 T acid, but the buttermilk provides more than just acidity to balance the baking soda. Which milk substitute and which acid would go best with the recipe? I used unsweetened vanilla almond milk and apple cider vinegar, since that's what I had in the fridge. I'll want to look more into flavor pairings before going further.
Cashew cream: I've come across several recipes that utilize cashews to replace traditional dairy creams, of the both sweet and sour varieties. My own attempt at blending soaked cashews and apple juice was quite palatable, but wouldn't fool anyone in blind taste tests. How can I replicate the complex emulsion of protein-coated fat globules with something from the plant world?
Aged vegan cheese: An even more ambitious target would be to find a non-dairy substrate for culturing the rich microbiota that lives in a piece of aged Camembert or Bayley Hazen Blue, for instance. Experiments are scheduled for later this month.

Any other ideas? I know rheologists, microscopists, microbiologists, and mixologists to help find answers.

what (free stuff) i got out of tedxcambridge

2010-05-21T23:14:00.005-04:00

[by john]

as naveen alluded to, tedx was such a phenomenal event that it has so far eluded my attempts at summary or theme-threading. i learned so many things, from academic, communication, and even emotional standpoints, but i shouldn't write them all down, lest i use my budget of run-on sentences for the year.

instead, i'll look back via the very grad student lens of the freebies i got.

handshakes

i'm so glad i stumbled into a volunteer position that let me meet every speaker. mike and i were running the floor - mike the slides, me the stage - so we got to chat with and advise each speaker during their practice slots.

all this small talk and handshaking helped de-deify food gods like kenji alt and wylie dufresne, while also putting faces on some remarkable ideas and accomplishments, such as david waters' community servings.

files

the presentations all ran off of my computer, which means that i now have gigabytes of food porn (dufresne had a 14 minute slide deck) and great stock images like this from john gertsen:

see those wigs? those guys are colonizing, not thinking about what's in the bowl.

chocolate

francisco migoya supplied the audience with free chocolate-maple-brioche-bacon bars, delicious examples of his pursuit of non-traditional food pairings. my pimenton-cantelope combination last night seems downright pedestrian compared to that. which is good; it gives me license to explore.

straws

besides defending the thesis that the company you keep at a bar matters more than the drinks you drink there, john gertsen (and ted, of no. 9 park) presented an à la minute pousse-café. this strange collection of french words was made by raising two straws - one filled with bitters, one with cassis - up out of a glass of soda. the bitters floated, the cassis sank, et voila, layers!

the two barmen came well equipped with lots of straws, and i offhandedly mentioned i might steal some. (note: i have been lusting after such black straws for a while now - they're way more elegant for testing a drink than shaw's brand bendy straws.) when john gave the go-ahead, the cocktail geek in me sprang into action, stuffing these black straws into a gallon freezer bag.

well, john and i had been talking earlier that, despite his talk's message, it is alright to geek out every now and then. (phew!) so i just laughed after my kleptomania subsided, knowing that straws are cool, but the friends sipping through them will take precedence.

inside jokes

when you charge a chef's ipod on your computer, you find out what they name it:

awesome.

TEDx Afterglow

2010-05-17T08:12:00.004-04:00

[by Naveen]

Classes are over and I'm riding on a wave of inspiration and adrenaline after a TEDxCambridge event that left me nearly speechless. I feel honored to have been the equivalent of a line cook with the amazing team of various designers and other graduate students who put the event together.

There are probably other, far more comprehensive summaries of the event on the internet, so I'll offer a brief synposis of a few of my own take-away lessons:

Kenji Alt: Don't follow recipes. Ask "why?".
Wylie Dufresne: Meat glue is for much more than just meat (PhD topic?).
Francisco Migoya: Everyday, chocolate can teach you something.
Chandler Burr: Smell is one of the most under-rated senses.
John Gersten: What you drink is less important than how, why, and with whom.
Jeff Potter, Elizabeth Jarrard, and pretty much everyone else I spoke with at the reception: Cook more.

I'm ready for summer.

hot jupiter

2010-05-14T23:09:00.006-04:00

[by john]

a few weeks back, elisabeth, one of my friends, defended her thesis on transiting exoplanets. the after-after-party was at our place, and i had been hemming and hawing for days on whether or not to make a special drink for the occasion. i ended up on the hawing (?) end, opting for the easy champagne route, when, with no more than an hour to spare before the first guests showed up, my roommate (a very good friend of elisabeth's) decreed that a special drink be made. being a good physicist, he prescribed well defined boundary conditions:

the drink shall be named the hot jupiter,
the said drink shall contain rum,
thai chili tincture shall be used,
and it shall require an orange and (transiting) maraschino cherry garnish.

well constrained, indeed, but there was still a lot of parameter space to explore! i first tried the boozy route...spirits-based...several rums...maybe vermouth...then turned to herbal...chartreuse, benedictine, becherovka...yet all with limited success. stressing out, with only half an hour left, i took a step back.

this drink needs to appeal to a wide audience, i figured. not just cocktail junkies with a taste for the herbal edge. what about citrusy and sweet? a classic 4:2:1?! a classic 4:2:1 turned out just great, in fact. satisfied, i measured out a large batch, making a large dent in a bottle of cuban rum for the 4, splitting the 2 between grapefruit and lime juice, then syrup for the 1. damn palatable. and just in time to start a round of congratulations and toasts to ephemerides.

hot jupiter

4 parts rum (havana club reserva)
2 parts citrus (2:1 grapefruit:lime)
1 part syrup
few drops of thai chili tincture per glass

shake and strain. garnish with a central star (orange slice) and transiting planet (maraschino cherry).

the spicy tincture was obviously just for novelty, but it added a curious afterthought to each sip. the hot jupiter proved versatile, as it also worked with dashes of bitters or a champagne float.

i don't have any pictures of the drink, but it looked something like this:

irish-catholic guilt (hmmm, that should be a drink name...)

2010-05-12T19:19:00.004-04:00

[by john]

as much as i don't want to be that (millionth) blogger penitent for inactivity, i can't help myself. we're all still alive!

believe it or not, we've had a couple nights of cocktail brainstorming, some out of town travels to talk about, trips to new restaurants, and there's even a phenomenal event this weekend called tedxcambridge (a local, organic version of ted) which we would be remiss not to document.

in recent news, i saw john gertsen at the wine and cheese cask tonight. omg! i only recognized him as he was getting his receipt, though, so there was no time for him to sign my bottle of plymouth...

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

2010-04-18T12:25:00.004-04:00

[by Naveen]

As I struggle through the latest round of problem sets, it's easy to lose perspective and become entrapped in a web of partial differential equations. However, Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution project has been on my mind a lot lately and helps me keep in mind what really matters. At the latest TED conference earlier this year, he proposed his wish to "to create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.”

I feel totally disconnected from the public school system right now, but his message resonates me for several reasons:

I'm helping develop the "Science of Cooking" class to be taught at Harvard this fall. The class itself is only open to Harvard undergraduates, but many other people have expressed interest in the course. I think that food is a great way to introduce all types of people (including elementary school students) to topics ranging from physics and chemistry to neuroscience and ecology.
I'm also helping organize a TEDx event in Cambridge, inspired by Jamie Oliver's TED wish. I've already discovered many fascinating new ways of thinking about the issues he raised by reaching out to potential speakers.
I recently finished reading Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink, Born Round by Frank Bruni, and Switch by Chip and Dan Heath, which explore the intersections of food, psychology, and behavior change.
One of my role models for giving effective presentations, Garr Reynolds, is similarly inspired by the Food Revolution project (see here or here, for instance) and his written several times about the contrasts between fast food in America and traditional Japanese cuisine.

I'd love to hear more about your thoughts of Jamie Oliver's project, but now I need to return to the realm of reaction-diffusion equations.

Cheese rind: eating my research

2010-04-10T11:00:00.004-04:00

[by Naveen]

For my microbiology class final paper, I am planning to write about the microbiology of cheese rinds. Until recently, I didn't appreciate that nearly all cheese rinds (with the except of wax-coated cheeses), are thick layers of microbial communities, known as biofilms. For the past year, I was studying biofilms in a rather different context. I was examining a single strain of bacteria, known as Bacillus subtilis, to try to understand the mechanics of its growth. The cheese rinds are far more complicated, with successive waves of colonization by various microbes over the course of several months:

Lactic acid bacteria are first to the scene and convert lactose to lactic acid.
Yeast cells eat the lactic acid, which de-acidifies the cheese.
New waves of bacteria can now colonize the curd. If the cheese is brined, then these are predominantly salt-tolerant bacteria.
Fungi can also colonize the cheese later in the aging process.

Each of these microbes has its own mix of peptases and lipases, which can break down the proteins and fats, respectively, in the curd to produce flavorful compounds and change the texture of the cheese. One of the first people to thoroughly study cheese from a microbiological perspective was Sister Noella Marcellino, also known as the Cheese Nun, who got a Fulbright grant to travel around France and study the micro-ecology of all types of artisan cheeses. Below is a figure from one of her papers (N Marcellino and D R Benson, Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Nov. 1992, p. 3448-3454), which shows some of the microbial diversity living on the surface of a piece of St. Nectaire cheese:

At the top (a) are fungal spores and collapsed hyphae (chains of cells). Below that (b) is a layer of yeast and bacterial colonies. More fungal hyphae can be seen growing further inwards (c). The boundary with the curd (d) can be seen near the bottom of the figure. The total thickness of the rind is about 1.5 mm.

Categorizing this microbial diversity is just the first step. In my paper for the class, I am proposing a study to figure out how these microbes are interacting. One well-known method is through quorum-sensing, in which bacteria send out small signal molecules into their environment and listen for the concentration of these same molecules. If there are a lot of the same species around, the concentration of these molecules is high, so the bacteria know they are not alone and start behaving in new ways, such as forming a biofilm.

Cheese is a great system for studying microbial ecology, since it's more interesting a single species on an agar plate, but still far simpler than the overwhelming diversity found in nature. It's another potential topic for my future gastro-science PhD.

Chocolate: gateway into the sciences

2010-04-03T19:44:00.006-04:00

[by Naveen]

My gastroscience research for the past month has focused on the physics of chocolate. It's taken me a while to write this post since I've been a bit overwhelmed by all the science involved in one of my favorite foods. Below is just a small subset of the questions one can investigate:

Botany: where do cocoa plants grow?
Microbiology: what's the best way to ferment the cocoa pods?
Organic chemistry: what are the flavor molecules in cocoa particles?
Physical chemistry: what is the structure of the cocoa fat?
Rheology: what is the viscous/elastic behavior of chocolate at different temperatures?
Physiology: how do we taste chocolate?
Neuroscience: how does eating chocolate affect one's mood?

Since several books and numerous research articles have been written about the subject, in this post I'll just focus on the phase transitions in the cocoa fat. In elementary school I learned about phase transitions like ice melting or water boiling, but chocolate is way more complicated. One can't take a simplistic view when it comes to producing chocolate that has a smooth, glossy surface and that breaks cleanly (aka "tempering").

The fats in chocolate, like most foods, are triacylglyerides (TAGs), which have three fatty acids attached to a carbon backbone (#1 in the figure below). The fatty acids (labelled R1, R2, and R3), can be either saturated (straight) or unsaturated (with a kink), with the center fatty acid often being unsaturated (#2). The composition of fats changes depending on where the cocoa pods were harvested. Unlike the E-shape shown in the chemical formula, the fatty acids distribute themselves on opposite sides of the carbon backbone to form a chair or tuning fork shape (#3). These TAGs can stack in several different ways. In one of these forms, the chairs pack in a double length configuration (#4). A tighter packing is possible in a triple-length configuration (#5). This tighter packing has an observable effect, a chocolate bar can contract by 1 or 2% if it solidifies in this configuration.

The type of packing is determined by the temperature of the cocoa fat. The tighter packings require more energy to form, so their melting point is higher. In cocoa butter, there are six different types of packings (aka phases), labelled with either Greek letters or Roman numerals. The fifth form (Form V or Beta-1) is the goal when tempering the chocolate to achieve a nice, glossy appearance. In the tempering process, molten chocolate is cooled enough to allow the Form V crystals to form, but also to keep the temperature above the melting points of the undesired forms. Once enough Form V crystals have formed, the chocolate can be cooled all the way down to room temperature.

This is where things get complicated and I'm still working to sort out the details. The crystals can form over a range of temperatures and the crystal structures can transform among themselves in particular ways over times that can range from minutes to months. This is the cause of chocolate bloom, in which a dull, whitish coating can form on top of chocolate that is stored improperly. I've tried to show a rough idea of the types of crystals that form at different temperatures in the figure below, but I welcome the feedback from anyone with more authoritative knowledge on the subject.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to phase transitions in chocolate. The rate at which crystals nucleate, the effect of shearing the chocolate, the presence of other fats (like in milk chocolate), and numerous other variables can affect this process. There is certainly enough left to explore to fill an entire PhD dissertation.

if only elevators had cocktail bars

2010-03-29T23:13:00.003-04:00

[by john]

i've really been digging some books on public speaking lately (both via naveen) - presentation zen design and confessions of a public speaker. the latter has very good advice on distilling your presentation to different degrees:

In effect, by working hard on a clear, strong, well-reasoned outline, I've already built three versions of the talk: an elevator pitch (the title), a five-minute version (saying each point and a brief summary), and the full version (with slides, movies, and whatever else strengthens each point).

the same methodology can apply to conversations at a bar or party, where you present yourself layer by layer, without the usual academic powerpoint crutch. this skill is essential in a place like cambridge, where your average craft brew aficionado also cures cancer or microlends in southern india or scans meditating monks in an fmri machine.

drink 1. this is prime elevator pitch time - you have to hook your conversationmate before they take two sips. i usually stick with the half lie 'i do rocket science'.

drink 2. ok, 'rocket scientist' worked, so now i can transition to what kinds of x-rays come from space, how we can best detect them on said rocket, and why this is important for silly things like carbon-based life forms.

drink 3. if you're still asking the right questions at this point, i'll be laying down terms like 'superconductor' and 'ionization state' to fill in the details between those earlier broad strokes. i'll be drawing graphs in the frost of your silver julep cup. i'll describe the mechanics of a supernova so vividly that you won't even think to make a joke involving the oasis song.

further drinks. well, at this point i would hope to have segued to something more entertaining, like cocktail history. otherwise, i'd be yammering about the best kinds of tape for cryogenic purposes, and that's not good for anybody. but at least none of my julep diagrams would use comic sans.

freeing the butterflies

2010-03-25T22:48:00.004-04:00

[by john]

the pernicious condition of butterfly collecting can befall any experience-trapper - cocktail nerds, foodies, movie buffs, and travelers alike. the original pastime, once enjoyable, collapses to single-minded pursuit of a checklist of must-have specimens. naveen and i have talked plenty (and he even posted [twice]) about this problem, but still i fell into it.

my dc experience in january set things in stark perspective - the expectation-free neighborhood joints, like bourbon for no-hassle cocktails or fireplace for no-frills beers, outshone the capital-c cocktail bars that i, as a capital-c cocktail lover, was obliged to visit. it was as if i went to a country for the passport stamp, not the experience.

each of the 26 cocktail blogs i subscribe to has made it increasingly clear that, no, i cannot keep up the joneses with all three chartreuses and every arcane amaro in their home bars, nor their launch party invites, nor their historical knowledge. but hell if i can't enjoy myself with a drink in my hand! a few recent experiences have shown me that i don't need to kill each butterfly to ensure enjoyment:

genever & rum

i threw a party as an excuse to catch up with some friends i hadn't seen for a while. unlike the last two day festival, i actually relaxed this time. chatted, joked, didn't pin myself behind the bar...like a host ought to do. and yet i managed to introduce just about everybody to the oddities of genever and the joys of rum, with a damn good menu to boot. and as satisfying as that was, mixologically, it was more pleasurable to hear about grandmothers' recipes for pâté and fine dining faux pas.

italian on st. patrick's

as i sedulously examined the cocktail menu at coppa, the newest south end hotness, my friends chided me: 'are you gonna blog about this?' 'no', i retorted. clearly, i lied, but for a different reason - instead of taking notes on the creative workarounds for a place without a full liquor license, or a forgettable genever and yellow chartreuse cocktail (how far i've come to say that!), i chose to enjoy the palpable giddiness at the table from the vermillion pitcher of aperol and springlike weather in mid-march. the duck prosciutto and gossip didn't hurt the memorability, either.

four nationalities walk into a bar...

after beers and whiskey at a typical boston irish pub, i decided to drag three foreign visitors to green street for cocktails. it's always fun to nudge people outside of their beer comfort zone, and even more so when the colonizers (the briton and dutchman) had already traded barbs with the colonized (the american and south african). the cocktails were fine to bad (rum and fernet? never again.), but the conversation was excellent - health care, wal-mart, the superiority of the south african accent for picking up girls, dirty secrets of radio astronomy... who cares what you're drinking if that's how you're talking?

The Science of Whipped Cream

2010-03-03T19:01:00.009-05:00

[by Naveen]

Whipped cream has been on my mind a lot lately. A classmate and I just gave a presentation about our experimental studies on the physics of these aerated dairy emulsions for an Applied Physics class that we're taking. People have made whipped cream since at least the mid 1600's, but it has only become more common in the past hundred years thanks to centrifugation (to separate out cream from whole milk), refrigeration (to shorten the whipping time and make stiffer foams), and pressurized nitrous oxide dispensers. Even more recently, scientists have begun to examine its micro-scale characteristics.

From a physical perspective, whipped cream is more complicated than most typical foams, which are just a dense packing of air bubbles held together by surfactant (like soap). The air bubbles in whipped cream are all coated with fat molecules, which is why it tastes so good, and why you need to start with about 30% fat content in the cream. These fat molecules are initially contained within a coat of proteins, but somehow need to escape to attach to the entrapped air.

The physics of mechanically whipping cream is fairly well understood. The whisk introduces large air pockets into the cream, which break into smaller air bubbles. At the same time, the whisking breaks down protein-coated fat globules in the cream, which allows naked fat molecules to adhere to the air bubbles. If the temperature is slightly above freezing, then the blobs of fat only partially coalesce, leading to a more rigid structure.

However, whipped cream that comes out of a can or nitrous oxide-powered dispenser follows a completely different process. The gas is initially dissolved in the fat globules, but comes out of solution when the pressure is released and the whipped cream is dispensed. With the traditional method of making cream, large air pockets are fragmented into small air bubbles. With aerosolized whipped creams, dissolved gas expands to form the air bubbles. We wanted to know how the resulting creams differed.

To be more quantitative about the mechanical properties of the various types of whipped creams, we put a small amount of each in a device called a rheometer. The device consists of two parallel circular plates that can rotate relative to each other in a controlled way. By placing the whipped cream between the plates, we can measure how viscous (like honey) or elastic (like a rubber band) the material behaves. In one experiment we rotated the plates back and forth over a range of frequencies and saw how the mechanical properties of the whipped cream changed. I'd be happy to discuss the results in more detail, but the basic idea is that additives in store-bought whipped cream make the whipped cream less elastic, but more stable.

We also did some preliminary microscopy measurements. My favorite was the confocal fluorescent microscopy, in which we added a lipid-soluble dye that revealed the location of all the fat globules. In the image below, you can see the fat globules clustering around an air bubble (the field of view is about 0.2 mm).

These early experiments are far from rigorous, but they do suggest all types of further studies. There is no shortage of variables to control: the amount of surfactant, the types of fat molecules (e.g. saturated vs. unsaturated), the protein composition (pasteurization can have a major effect), the air bubble size distribution, etc. Moreover, chefs are finding all types of novel uses for the refillable whipped cream dispensers, such as making espumas of seafood, mushrooms, and vegetables, as well as single-serving cakes.

On the agenda this month: the science of chocolate.

your neighborhood fancy cocktail bar

2010-02-28T20:59:00.002-05:00

[by john]

warmed by an almost uneatable quantity of soup dumplings, my birthday revelers and i ambled across the channel to drink, where an unexpected present awaited - john gertsen's gracious hospitality, undivided by other patrons. the bar manager lavished attention, stories, and enthusiasm over the eight of us for two long rounds.

at a later point in the night, john and some of us got onto the topic of drink styles by city. down to the quarter ounce differences between nyc-style and boston-style. but, being an obsessive consumer of cocktail blogoculture, i knew that boston's style would lose out to nyc's regardless, because nyc's bartenders get better press. (i had even suggested earlier that a friend might like the right hand, a milk & honey creation.) so i asked john why we didn't see drink putting out original recipes to get their name out there.

and he replied, thoughtfully, that he wants drink to last. not - he backpedaled - that he was slighting these nyc establishments, but, focusing on his own bar and staff, he considers a thorough knowledge of the classics a more enduring model than trying to keep abreast of trends and publicity. then, once the foundation has been set, they may try some crazy molecular mixology or the like.

his answer floored me. one, it was so frank. two, it was so heartening. three, it was so...unexpected. i have always thought of that bar as a trendy, idea-driven bar (no menus - genius). that idea has now been upended and replaced by drink as a classic bar for the generations to come, which just happened to prioritize the idea of bartender interaction. i had just assumed that it was designed to come, make money, and go, with patrons' interests or the wind, like a shaker-weilding mary poppins (rum punch!). that is the modus operandi in nyc, after all.

maybe i can give myself license to consider myself a regular now.

january budget

2010-02-13T16:35:00.002-05:00

[by john]

i haven't written about hitting my booze budget target lately because, well, i had been hitting it. but, as evidenced by all the dc posts, i blew way past it in january. the trip to julio's liquors for rum, apricot liqueur, rye, vermouth, and genever certainly didn't help, either.

we're talking a factor of two in overspending. (that's not so bad for astronomers usually, but...) a couple things salvaged january from going down in the cautionary-tale-of-profligacy or cut-up-my-credit-card categories. first, i had plenty of xmas and birthday money to blow through, so i knew the size of my cushion. and second, i reminded myself that a budget is not a hard limit as much as a guideline; E[x], not max(x). i'm already well under for february, so things will average out nicely.

moreover, budgets are flexible. i just ran through my 2009 spending and found, for instance, that i overestimated zipcar and clothing expenses, so i redistributed them to other pleasures, like dining out.

well, until i can experiment enough with those bottles from julio's, this will be my budget-saving drink of choice:

parsimony

2 oz italian vermouth

pour on the rocks. add a dash of bitters if feeling adventurous.

drams in dc: px

2010-01-30T21:11:00.005-05:00

[by john]

both washington dc and i matured since the last time i visited. in the next few posts, i'll tell how i tried to drink it under the table this month. (i lost.)

there are two things fatally wrong about px, the generally agreed upon best bar in dc: they've overshot the idea of a cocktail, and they run a damn poor operation. my experience there nearly drove me to join yelp, just to excoriate it in a more visible forum.

(px is a speakeasy in alexandria. they require reservations to enjoy their apartment-turned-cocktail lounge environment, which is filled with lots of loveseat couches ideal for dates. i brought will, my host, for second opinions on the drinks, witty company, and a betting partner for which couples would last two more dates.)

fatal flaw one: overthinking it. for our first round, will chose the admittedly delicious boris karloff (housemade elderflower liqueur, gin, kaffir lime). but why, i pondered, would one (1) go through the trouble of gathering bushels of elderflowers to make your own liqueur and then (2) hide it behind the citrus while (3) the final creation sports a simple taste profile which i feel can easily be replicated at home? hrm. my drink, the 3rd course, had lots of ingrediental promise (foie gras infused armagnac, huckleberries, marjoram), but fell flat - my immediate thought was that they had poured me sloe gin with foliage sprinkled on top. again, they tried to soar so far beyond typical flavors, only to circle back (unknowingly, it seems) to the simplest tastes.

unfortunately, the bar manager todd thrasher, whose hagiography can be found on the website, wasn't tending bar that night, otherwise he may have been able to justify those nullifying complexities.

fatal flaw the second: running a bad bar. the first slip downward came as the doorkeeper rushed us (past a couple streaks of empty barstools) to our couch in the back room. not a relaxing start to the evening. i was a little edgy that we couldn't be at the bar (despite requesting it on their reservation form), but wanted to give it a chance - my booth-confined milk & honey experience turned out well enough with a knowledgeable server. no such luck. the doorkeeper returned and revealed herself, first, to be our waitress, and, second, to know nothing about the bar menu besides the names of the drinks to write down on her pad. unacceptable - servers must conversant with the menu and have opinions on the items therein. at the very least she was useful in getting us seats at the empty bar after our first round.

once there, i was a bit taken aback - not only was our waitress everybody's waitress, but there was only one bartender as well, who occasionally handed off a drink to his only barback to shake. the bartender was freaking out trying to put out the drink orders. since he wasn't being too engaging, i took a longer look around - the other two rooms were somewhat full, but without many empty glasses. i couldn't understand how a bar that, by its nature, had a self-imposed, well defined maximum capacity couldn't handle this kind of throughput. surely they could afford to hire another bartender with the profits off their $12 drinks.

finally, when he deigned to talk to us, i tried to get him to off menu with a new orleans style drink he might fancy. he produced a dry, bitter mess of rye, cognac, averna, oj, and many bitters that was pretty bad (i noticed he didn't straw-taste it). i didn't have the heart or patience to send it back...a decision which hurt all the more when i got charged an extra $2 for it. completely unprofessional move - i've never been subject to a surcharge for a bartender's time (because it certainly wasn't the special ingredients).

and to add heartache to the insult to the injury, they ruined the avett brothers' latest album for me by playing it through two and a half times during the length of our stay, oblivious to yet another fine point of hospitality.

drams in dc: ps7's

2010-01-30T20:45:00.005-05:00

[by john]

both washington dc and i matured since the last time i visited. in the next few posts, i'll tell how i tried to drink it under the table this month. (i lost.)

i sidled up to ps7's swanky, brightly colored bar just around opening. after bantering around with chris, the bartender, for a while, i decided on their ss balvenie, primarily for the way he described the presentation - a whole poached local seckel pear sharing a glass with some balvenie 12 yr scotch. (i was given a fork and spoon to eat it, but ended up using my hands.) i was also curious to try it because scotch is trying to become a cocktail ingredient nowadays. disappointment, alas - the saffron poaching liquid (mixed in with the scotch) didn't come through, so the scotch was just scotch. points for ambition, though, and i appreciate how they brought the small-meal-in-a-drink idea beyond the bloody mary.

i asked for their scorched milk cocktail as a 'nightcap' (it was only a bit past 5 pm...). this drink is borderline brilliant. the process: milk is heated with spices to just below boiling, then chilled and bottled. shake that, some bourbon, and a sweet wine together, pour into a coupe and garnish with fleur de sel and cinnamon. it has a wonderful sweetness that isn't cloying, and unlike its cousin the brandy alexander, it's not heavy and thick.

and just to remind me where i was, the two other guests at the bar were discussing some heavy duty political strategy over their their dirty martinis.

drink to haiti

2010-01-22T19:05:00.003-05:00

[by john]

drink is the last place in the world i expect to be handed a cocktail menu. but extraordinary events can lead to extraordinary measures. they're now offering a menu of barbancourt (a haitian rum) based cocktails, proceeds of which will go to doctors without borders.

my guy and i stopped in for two drinks off that menu after 'in the heights'. we were ready for some rum cocktails anyway after all the caribbean themes running rampant through the musical. but of course, this being drink, we had to order off the menu - my guy got a milk & honey creation, a 'right hand' (rum, campari, italian vermouth, xocolatl mole bitters), and i got a yellow chartreuse rum swizzle.

our barkeep even had to laugh about how strange it was to be pushing menu creations. stranger things have happened, though - like a rap musical winning a tony.

drams in dc: bourbon

2010-01-19T23:18:00.004-05:00

[by john]

both washington dc and i matured since the last time i visited. in the next few posts, i'll tell how i tried to drink it under the table this month. (i lost.)

if i lost, then it was bourbon that won. it kicked my ass with its energy, creativity, and that 107 proof nightcap of old rip.

i immediately fell in love with their menu - simple 4-ingredient sort of drinks that feel like edgy classics. lots of amaro usage, maraschino, tequila, homemade goodness, and, naturally, bourbon. i jumped on 'the rested fig' (tequila, fig syrup, averna, lemon), and downed it alarmingly fast. the fig didn't come through much besides as general sweetness, but the balance was right on.

the neighborhoody vibe at bourbon was great. young folks, old folks (including the guy next to me sipping woodford reserve - seriously...dozens of bourbons in front of you and you go for woodford?), and 'snakes on a plane' on the tv. overall, a tighter and neater operation that the gibson, with a much more approachable feel.

my bartender patrick was incredibly hospitable - he gave me recs on places to go when he found out i was an out of towner, quite a few tastes of his preferred bourbons, and even introduced me to the unofficial tasting party going on at a table (rye genever...who knew). when i put him on the spot for something he'd been working on, he admitted that he didn't have much because he had a young kid at home to distract him. fair excuse! but while i was diverting myself with his rye version of a bijou from the menu (and samuel l. jackson), patrick slipped me a rum/walnut liqueur/honey/grapefruit creation that was plain blissful. maybe could've used some bitter depth, but a great first pass.

bourbon really hits a sweet spot in the bar world - the beer-and-whiskey neighborhood hangout plus quality drinks minus the craft cocktail solemnity.

drams in dc: the gibson

2010-01-13T21:52:00.003-05:00

[by john]

both washington dc and i matured since the last time i visited. in the next few posts, i'll tell how i tried to drink it under the table this month. (i lost.)

for my first drink in dc, i found the unmarked door of the gibson and ordered the stranger on the highway (rye, benedictine, maraschino, absinthe). the buyer's remorse was immediate - because i knew i'd like the new orleans style. and i did - it was delicious. but i didn't come to dc to stay within my comfort zone, so i asked next for something with sherry, an up-and-comer in the the cocktail world, and something i know nothing about.

i asked the bartender (not my original guy) for something with sherry, but he admitted that john (my original guy) was the one playing with it more, and that he'd be back in a bit, having run out to alexandria to pick up ginger essence from px. i thought this was a nice gesture, and when john returned already armed with a pack of ideas and questions, it was hard to contain my smile.

he made a variation on a bamboo (amontillado sherry [lustau], french vermouth, dashes of bitters and absinthe, flamed orange peel). its simplicity let the sherry show its true colors - which are weird. the amontillado starts off with a huge void of flavor, like it's prepping the tongue for the subtle warmth and dry strains of citrus which come later.

we got to talking about the fermentation process, tasting it alone, and then other varieties. apparently amontadillo is the temperamental stepchild compared to its fino and oloroso brothers - it's very dependent on the amount of yeast which forms in the barrels.

after some more back and forth, john remade the bamboo with sweet vermouth for me to try. his intuition was successful - the sweetness started immediately and held my tongue's interest across that would-be void until the dryness came through.

~~~

the pleasant bartender interaction was only heightened by the sexy, antiquated speakeasy atmosphere - candles, edison bulbs, dark wood, a leather-topped bar. the menu was fun to read (they sort of assign personalities to cocktails) and well composed, if long - my perpetual criticism, i guess.

however, i would have expected a tighter ship from an establishment of its reputation. the back bar was messy the entire night, a product of the bartenders' experiments on a slow sunday night. (the place must be making bank, because they were making up drinks with full pours of spirits, and only testing the result with a couple sips!) another bit of smugness showed through when the non-john bartender kept jumping the i-got-something-for-you gun: no sooner had i given a hint of what direction i might want to go with a drink, and he'd start collecting bottles without further input. i had to call him back each time so he didn't do something disastrous...like make a drink i'd already had.

two down, two hundred to go

2010-01-08T15:37:00.005-05:00

[by john]

i've been doing a lot of traveling lately, which means a lot of new bars to visit. rough, i know.

in my latest trip to nyc, i practically had to drag my guy to two cocktail bars. (with cheap happy hour specials and gimmicks like 5 shots for $10, why pay the equivalent of 75 dumplings for a drink? which is a valid point - despite all the cheap food and booze establishments in new york, why are cocktails 50% more expensive than in boston? suffer on, drink geeks.)

pegu club

'man, i had no idea how asian this place was.' i uttered this to te and steven at some point after noting in the geometric wooden window screens, the waitresses' kimono-esque dresses, and, uh, our bartender. apparently, the place is inspired by an old officer's club in burma.

i got a kill devil (rhum agricole, green chartreuse, sugar, bitters), which was agreed to be 'odd'. my guy got an improved strawberry daiquiri with thai basil (it came through great) and an omniscient-third-person view of a first date. steven stuck with a little italy (rye, sweet vermouth, cynar), which was solid, and apparently a pegu original - surprising since i've seen it elsewhere.

the bartending was slow. inefficient, i would say. we were sitting at the half empty bar, so we saw the slow assembly, one restart (cardinal sin of adding the liquor first and then messing up on the syrup amount), stirring one drink at a time, even though he was using wide beaker mixing glasses, and then letting the stirred drinks sit with ice while the citrus one got shaken. eek! if it weren't for the name on the door, i wouldn't know this is one of the top bars in the world.

overall, unimpressed with the skill and the tepid drink list.

mayahuel

after a wtf moment outside death & co (closed for a private event? on a saturday?!), we rallied and got some vegetarian banh mi before heading to the tequila mecca, mayahuel.

the kitschy (yet somehow believable) glazed tile and wrought iron decor felt cozy, minus the icy blasts of snow whenever someone new entered.

i got a red ant river swizzle (mezcal, sugar cane, absinthe, lime), and my guy continued his variation on a theme with a fresa brava (muddled strawberries, jalepeño-infused tequila, and yellow chartreuse). both fine, but not transcendent. no significant complaints, except for the enormous menu, which is almost necessary with such an unfamiliar family of ingredients (except to mike).

but the hipster bartenders commented on my hipster moleskine, so that made it worth the trip.

Cleanliness -Is- Close To Godliness

2010-01-06T23:10:00.005-05:00

[by Mike]

I've mentioned fat washing in an earlier post, and while the concept has always intrigued me I had never attempted the technique until over the break. That's a shame, really, because fat washing is perhaps the latest trend most cooperative to the home mixologist; the application is straightforward, fast, and by its very nature cheap.

For the unfamiliar, fat washing is all about hacking booze. When sugars are initially fermented into alcohol, the byproducts are not just ethanol and carbon dioxide. All kinds of molecules can be created, some which give an individual spirit its unique character and others that can contribute off flavors or be outright dangerous. Distillation is all about extracting as much of the desired ethanol and flavor compounds as possible while avoiding those less agreeable to the palette (or health, depending on your priorities).

Careful distillation produces a finer, smoother product at the expense of yield; aging further reduces undesirable compounds at the expense of time. Because both approaches cost money, the end result is that quality spirits tend to correlate with lighter wallets.

Is there any use for the cheaper bottles, then, besides fueling college misadventures? Like so many things in life, the answer can be found in fat. You see, some of those unappealing flavor compounds are highly fat soluble. Once fat has dissolved in alcohol it will start binding with the molecules, particularly those responsible for the astringent vapors so characteristic of bad booze. Removing the fat then leaves a much smoother spirit at a fraction of the cost.

Almost any fat can be used, but easy removal necessitates animal fats that will solidify in the refrigerator and can be simply strained out of the alcohol with a fine mesh. Because fat dissolves so well in alcohol, trace amounts will be left behind no matter how well the alcohol is strained. While flavor neutral fats such as lard can be used to avoid introducing any new flavors, the real magic of fat washing happens when particular fats are used to impart complementary flavors to the spirit at hand.

The most famous applications so far have been with whiskey, utilizing both bacon fat and butter to round out younger bourbons and ryes while adding a rich note rare to most spirits. When considering my own application, however, I reached for unaged tequila with grassy and vegetal flavors complementary to more savory fats. My fat of choice would be freshly rendered duck fat.

Again, the process could not have been more simple. After picking up an inexpensive bottle of Sauza blanco, I added melted duck fat (75 parts base spirit to 4 parts fat) and let the solution sit overnight. The next day I threw the bottle into the fridge and by the evening I was sipping a smooth, velvety spirit laced with the luxurious taste of duck.

An improvement over shots, no?

Ghost of Cocktails Past

2010-01-05T23:03:00.004-05:00

[by Mike]

Could you identify this drink? Transparent, white spirits... maybe a martini? Would you guess a margarita?

Yesterday a friend forwarded me a link to Cooking Stuff, the writings of two technically minded staff at the French Culinary Institute who spend their time playing with food science (and rapidly becoming my favorite blog). Reading through a few of the entries I came upon Stupid Simple Agar Clarification: a straightforward, completely vegetarian technique for clarifying all kinds of liquids. I'll leave the details to the original post, but the short story is that technique allows for the removal of solids suspended in any solution to leave a strikingly clear liquid with all of the original flavor.

Besides requiring no specialized hardware and being extremely simple, the agar clarification is fast: you can have a clarified liquid within a half hour. Other techniques, which require on the order of a day to complete, can't be used with perishable liquids such as citrus.

Once I read about clarified lime juice I was sold. Sneaking out of work this morning, I ran down to Chinatown to pick up some agar and began to clarify as soon as I made it home in the evening.

The excitement implied by the Cooking Stuff post and the past few paragraphs may sound hyperbolic, but I cannot overstate how amazing the whole process is. In fact, the only downside is that the clarification is not total. Some opacity remains, and the transparency fades when looking through enough liquid.

The applications are many, and my mind is still racing with the possibilities. After margaritas I threw together a Mexican Firing Squad for my testers (particular thanks to Leo, who also provided photography coaching), a drink that becomes hard to distinguish from one based on rye based on sight alone.

There's just something pleasantly devious about stirring a margarita, don't you think?

Diabetic Shock

2010-01-01T23:30:00.005-05:00

[by Mike]

While at Drink a few months ago one of the lovely bartenders was running through the ingredients in one of their tiki drinks, the Jet Pilot I believe. The usual suspects were there, with a twist provided by the inclusion of cinnamon syrup. While the spiciness of the cinnamon proved a nice addition to the drink, I couldn't help but ponder the use of syrup to draw out that flavor. Was the sugar necessary for extracting the flavor? Was there hope for combining cinnamon with sweet spirits?

Over the next few months I became more aware of the ubiquity of flavored syrups. New recipes were dense with the stuff and it seemed as if syrups were quickly becoming the default when a bartender wanted to introduce new flavors. Why was such a popular technique bothering me so much?

Because scientifically the sugar is inconsequential. The water acts as the solvent, if anything the highly hydroscopic sugar would reduce the effectiveness of the water to dissolve flavors into solution. Infused water alone (possibly heated to increase the solubility of any flavors compounds) should provide as much, if not more, flavor without limited the potential applications; the flavored syrups could be recreated on the fly with the addition of simple or demerara syrups bases.

Flavored waters, however, are not without their own flaws. All of that liquid risks diluted drinks, forcing a compromise between the strength of the additional flavor and those already present in the base spirits. What we'd need is a more powerful solvent, something that can extract the desired flavors in much smaller quantities.

That solvent already plays a critical role in the world of mixology, extracting the essence of berries and herbs into gin and caramelized wood into whiskey to name a few. Alcohol, of course, is the prized solvent. Infusing herbs or spices in relatively bland high proof spirits such as vodka or 151 produces solutions so potent that only a few drops are necessary to impart the desired flavor to a drink. Pretty much bitters without the bitter.

To demonstrate the above arguments I put together a test with kaffir lime leaf. Each infusion placed the same amount of chiffonade'd leaves into one of four solvents: (from left to right) 151 rum, water that was them simmered with the leaves, a simple syrup simmered with the leaves, and room temperature water.

The power of the alcohol is immediately visible in the vibrant green of the 151 infusion, and the taste proves no exception. What flavor dissolved into the syrup is, as expected, dominated by the sweetness. With no completing flavors, the kaffir comes through more clearly in the simmered water, although its not entirely welcome; it seems that many of the bitter compounds in the leaves dissolve readily in the heated water, creating a rather unappealing infusion. The unheated water offered hints of flavor but nothing noteworthy.

As academic as this has been, it has proven tremendously useful at least once.

One of my favorite hidden jewels, The Tequila Book (Gorman and de Alba, 1978) compiles a myriad of tequila recipes ranging from offensive shooters to classically designed cocktails featuring everything from orange bitters to egg whites (just imagine how refreshing this can be after reading through every vintage text without seeing one good tequila drink). A particularly intriguing entry, the Spanish Fly called for tequila, Liqueur 43, and a sprinkling of cinnamon. The agave of the tequila and vanilla of the Liqueur 43 would pair great with the cinnamon, but the ground spice would just clump on the surface of the drink and offer little aside from aroma.

With the inherent sweetness of the Liqueur 43, a syrup would be immediately out of the question. Following the arguments above, I procured cinnamon extract, readily available in the baking aisle of any grocery store, and went to work. Indeed, the spicy extract did the trick, providing all of the cinnamon flavor without any unnecessary sweetness or dilution.

Spanish Fly

2 oz reposado tequila

1 oz Liqueur 43

0.25 oz Benedictine

0.25 tsp cinnamon extract

dash xocolatl mole bitters

A lesson I won't soon forget.

Menu Design

2009-12-31T09:36:00.003-05:00

[by Naveen]

A set of coincidences has made me more aware of the confluence of design, psychology, and the restaurant industry. Inspired by the release of Presentation Zen Design, I started listening to Glimmer from audible.com (a great way to make the time pass faster in the line at the RMV), to try to understand what exactly is meant by the term "design." I still don't have a concise definition, but some combination of engineering and psychology seems to be a common thread. That reminded me of a couple articles in the New York Times and New York Magazine about menu design. Both articles mentioned restaurant consultants who teach where to place items on a page, which format to use for numbers, and how to utilize descriptive language (a trend in supermarkets, too), among other techniques. Many of these same skills are involved in creating efficient, elegant slides for presentations, so I wonder if my renewed interest in slide design could eventually lead to some freelance work for menu consulting.

Deck The Halls

2009-12-31T00:42:00.002-05:00

[by Mike]

If people hung meat instead of lights (or boughs of holly for the more classical amongst us), would anyone complain about decorations being left up all year?

atmosphere: case studies

2009-12-26T18:52:00.002-05:00

[by john]

bottled ingredients are not the only constituents of a cocktail that can make it good. there's also that x-factor; the sixth man (for basketball); a je ne sais quoi; the twelfth man (for soccer and football); the indefinable (except, perhaps, via sports metaphors). the atmosphere of a bar can leave just as sour a taste as that careless extra barspoon of lemon juice, or it can bring together a drink as well as a dash of bitters. (for those scoring at home, if you thought 'ice' was the sixth man, you get half credit.)

music, lighting, warmth, menu fonts, cloth napkins...the courtesy of the staff, the obnoxiousness of the patrons, the flare of the bartender...the number of variables to control would drive me half mad if i were a bar manager.

i've already written about the likes of drink, craigie, and eastern standard with their great reverential, hospitable, and belle époque atmospheres. these three new case studies, however, serve average drinks with the equivalent of a flamed orange peel for atmosphere, reaching them out of the depths of one-visit-only bars.

the manderley - as a temporary bar in the immersive theatrical installation 'sleep no more', just the notion of a transient classy oasis amidst a mansion of murder and the supernatural delights the exegetical corner of my mind to no end. after wandering through the play, i got to sit down at one of the tiny tables (flickering candles and all) in front of the jazz band and pick apart this new interpretation of shakespeare with a friend, cocktails in hand. a gin and tonic could have tasted just as good...but it didn't hurt that they were at least classically inspired (but nothing to write home to dunsinane about).

delux - i coudln't stop grinning once i got $9 in change after exchanging my $20 bill for the manhattan and guiness. nevermind the lack of rye or the presence of the scarily red cherry...deluxe was already decidedly awesome. plus, the records on the walls, the santa and xmas tree out months early, the regulars quietly sipping schlitzes, grilled cheese on the menu, and the dr. seuss stories as wallpaper in the bathroom didn't really hurt its case, either.

beehive - cocktails at this south end establishment trespass on the uninspired region of the expensive cocktail landscape. most are bubbly ones mixed in the champagne flute. but - mon dieu - they know how to decorate a space. carpeted stairs, wooden banisters, tile floors, and thick red drapes against cliffs of exposed brick walls. very sippable, that atmosphere.

on barflies

2009-12-14T22:10:00.002-05:00

[by john]

'bartender, there's a fly in my manhattan!'

'what, you think you're the only one with addictions here?'

Adding to the Toolbox

2009-12-06T00:07:00.005-05:00

[by Mike]

A few years ago I started making a Good Eats inspired cranberry granita whenever November rolled around. This quick, easy dessert is great to have around not only for its convenience but for its luxurious mouthfeel. The large, pectin-infused ice crystals melt slowly and coat the tongue with the tart cranberries flavors cut by the sweetness of the sugar and brightness of the lime zest. As recommended on the show, the granita also makes a damned fine cocktail. Once the crystals melt they provide a complex cranberry flavor far exceeding that of any cranberry juice, not to mention the added body and texture.

But is there a compromise between the two service options? Tequila and Cointreau would play excellently with the flavors in the granita, but adding the spirits directly to the crystals would only accelerate the inevitable melting. I needed a way to contain the spirits, keeping them separated from the granita until service. A technique from the oft maligned molecular gastronomy offered a possibility; armed with some sodium alginate and calcium lactate samples from Jeff of Cooking For Geeks I started playing with spherification.

A derivative of seaweed, alginate doesn't do much more than thicken liquids. When the alginate solution comes in contact with the calcium lactate, however, the thickening is dramatically enhanced. Submerged in a calcium lactate solution, a weak alginate solution would form a thin skin around a liquid core. Made weak enough, the delicate skin is just strong enough to contain the liquid until popped in the mouth.

That's the theory, anyways. Use too much alginate and the liquid becomes too thick and the skin too tough, rendering the final pearls awkwardly chewy. Recipes trawled from the internet lack any consistency, so the final ratios had to be left to experimentation. Even with working proportions, forming the spheres themselves is nontrivial. Creating small caviar isn't too hard, but larger pearls takes some clever technique. The delicate membranes then require careful handling, lest they burst prematurely.

It took a few iterations, but I eventually settled into a successful recipe and developed sufficient technique that I could consistently produce large, fragile pearls well suited for the granita. I was using an old bottle of cheap blue curacao for testing, and the bright, contrasting color proved useful for illustrative purposes. Any real application would likely feature translucent pearls hiding within the red crystals.

Have Tools, Will Travel

2009-12-01T22:56:00.006-05:00

[by Mike]

With holiday travel coming up I did not want to risk more cocktail disappointment. In order to guarantee a well made drink to accompany my meals at home and at relatives I would have to bring my own tools, and I would need something to carry them.

Following the recommendation of Robert Hess, I started looking for doctor bags but was quickly discouraged by the outrageous prices. If I wanted something amenable to the grad student budget I would have to abandon doctors and think students: nursing students. Bags designed for nursing students are cheap, rugged, and dense with storage possibilities. Comparing features and reviews I went with a model from American Diagnostics, and I could not be happier.

The bag is small enough to be unobtrusive but large enough to hold everything I'd ever need. A large outer pocket holds a towel, sponge, and gloves for keeping clean. The back features a thin sleeve perfectly sized for 8.5 by 11 sheets of paper, small books, notepads, or cutting boards. Deep pockets inside the bag hold small bottles, knives, and other tools, with the remaining space awaiting larger tools such as the imperative Boston shaker. There are even small zippered components just large enough to hold business cards, matches, or the like.

At the moment I've stocked the bag with everything I could possibly need,

A few small kitchen towels
Four small flexible cutting boards
Seven bottles of bitters plus a spray bottle of absinthe
Tasting straws
Channel and paring knives
Pens
Boston shaker, julep strainer, bar spoon, muddler
Mexican juicer

When traveling home I'll add my kitchen knives and a few more tools. Heading to a party I'd add freshly squeezed juices, a syrup or two, and small plastic cup for service. In the event a few of us cocktail snobs get together I could fit a few bottles of secondary liqueurs. Yes, the possibilities make me slightly giddy.

Oh, and if you're up for some drinks give me a call. I'll bring the bitters.

pairing

2009-11-29T22:55:00.005-05:00

[by john]

the flavor bible is my kind of non-cookbook cookbook - it's an encyclopedia of flavors and flavors that go well with them. so under 'pumpkin seeds', you'll find caramel, chile peppers, coriander, cumin... (who knew! well, apparently, a ton of chefs they interviewed.) i was showing off this early xmas present to naveen when he remarked how useful this would be for making up new cocktails. well, uh, yeah....but i hadn't thought of that.

of course we had to put this to the test. to start, i wanted to attempt a friend's challenge - balsamic in a cocktail. browsing to 'vinegar, balsamic', i found a bunch of ingredients more non-drinkable than balsamic, plus cherry and apricot. i decided on the apricot, and after a couple iterations, settled on a 3:1:1:1 rye:balsamic:apricot brandy:lillet blanc. the apricot wasn't forward at all, but it did sweeten up the balsamic enough to make its bitter ending beguilingly light. the drink, by the way, is evil black. cool. not perfected yet by any means - i really need a good apricot eau de vie - but it's a promising start.

next, another challenge, this time self-imposed. i stole some of a friend's amazing raw cranberry sauce (literally just blended cranberries, whole orange, and whole lemon) from thanksgiving. could i take a passage from the flavor bible to make it into a well composed drink? it suggested apples and (more) orange - so i thought armagnac, cider syrup, the cranberry sauce, orange bitters, and some bitter truth decanter bitters, which have big cinnamony notes. an average drink, in the end, but a good direction.

reading the flavor bible will require a lot of culinary exegesis. jesuit education, don't fail me now.

review: lord hobo

2009-11-18T21:43:00.003-05:00

[by john]

mike, jim, and i were banging down the doors of (ok, waiting patiently in line at) lord hobo at 5 pm tonight for the public opening of the venerated b-side's replacement. in true insouciant b-side fashion, the bouncer waited to finish his cigarette before letting us into a fashionable, cleaner incarnation of the previous bar. the peninsular bar still exists, but the iron airplane fan is gone and all the spirits have moved to the back bar to make room for the dozens of beer taps down the spine of the peninsula.

despite the obvious beer focus, mike and i immediately scoured the cocktail menu. first observation: no classics. in a good sense, though - they can undoubtedly make them, but decided to present their original variants.

i went for their manhattan-esque offering, the rambler (rye, french vermouth, amaro nonino, maraschino). it ended up too dry and sharp for my taste, and i was somewhat appalled that the bartender shook the drink. mike chose the angelina (gin, st. germain, yellow chartreuse, lemon juice and bitters), which didn't have much at all of the advertised bitter component.

being good experimentalists, we stuck it out for another round despite a so-so start. mike picked out the sloppy possum (for the record: according to urbandictionary, not yet a sexual move) - equal parts fernet and domaine de canton with a bit of lemon juice. what a cool combination. the ginger of the canton pops early, then the characteristic bitter mint finish of the fernet, a little subdued from the canton's sweetness. i got the soylent green, which is essentially a chartreuse swizzle with lemon, cucumber and mint. really good.

so they have good drinks, at $10 a pop. and formidable beers. we also availed ourselves of some charcuterie, which i thought was overpriced at $11 (craigie's version is $15 for a creamier, more delicate offering). one nitpick: their drinks sit too low their cocktail glasses, which make me feel a bit swindled, even if i know they are the same volume as those at drink, say. but the atmosphere on the first night was great and lively, and the bartenders were amiable and helpful. it'll definitely be in the regular rotation.

a parting recipe. i was tempted by the wall st., but decided against it because i thought i had all the ingredients - whiskey, lillet, orange bitters. so i went home and tried to make it, slowly increasing the lillet, until i felt i had the right amount. but it was too dry - do these bartenders like everything dry?! i immediately thought to add benedictine, and once i did, the drink filled out, at which point i dubbed it:

c.d.o.

4:2:1 rye whiskey: lillet blanc: benedictine
1 dash orange bitters

stir and strain

only then did i look at their menu online and see that a wall st. calls for lillet rouge - ah, so my sweetening instinct was right! i suppose i'll start with that next time.

Martha Stewart Would Be Proud

2009-11-16T22:18:00.004-05:00

[by Mike]

When the Tiki theme was announced for this year's LUPEC party no outfits immediately came to mind. Last year I went all out with a full zoot suit and a Hawaiian shirt just didn't seem sufficient to continue the tradition of over achieving. When the full details of the party were announced, not just Tiki but 1950s Tiki, the ideas finally starting coming.

My initial inspiration was a fusion of a three piece suit and hulu skirt. Weaving a vest out of dried straw wouldn't be too time consuming and properly executed the finished product would be both classy and unique. Dried straw, however, isn't exactly ubiquitous in the city. Banana leaves are another story.

Available in the frozen food section of any Asian grocer, banana leaves are a great freezer staple. After a quick defrost they're soft and malleable, readily wrapped around foods destined for braising or steaming to provide a sweet, fruity aroma. More importantly for this particular application, they're incredibly cheap.

Unfortunately, banana leaves provide little in the way of structural integrity. The leaves easily rip along the grain and those that do survive in one piece are extremely perishable, drying out into a brittle mess in little more than a day. My strategy was two-fold: layering and hemming the leaves would help reduce ripping along the grain while sealing the leaves in acrylic would help retain moisture and avoid fragility.

Without any experience with sealers, I eventually decided upon Mod Podge upon the recommendation of the staff at Pearl. The acrylic sealer was easily brushed onto the leaves and dried with an attractively glossy finish. It would have been perfect if not for a fatal flaw: when exposed to even mild heat the sealant would soften and become tacky again. Once assembled the vest would stick to itself, becoming vulnerable to ripping upon separation.

After initial testing and design, the vest came together in three pieces: the two front flaps and the back. The fronts were quick, almost entirely single banana leaves hemmed along the sides with folded leaves, while the back involved cutting the leaves into strips and weaving them together into a singe piece. I used hot glue for all the adhesion and then sealed the pieces on all sides with the Mod Podge.

The afternoon before the party I completed the assembly and adding some finishing touches: wooden buttons and faux pockets along the front. To reenforce the seams I added some duct tape along the interior, an addition that would prove all too insufficient.

Not long after arriving at the party, the vest began to rip along the chest. The weight of the vest, especially the weaved back, proved too much for the leaves that laid along my shoulders. Without any backup tape, little could be done to salvage the effort. Well, little beyond lots of hands holding the whole thing together. I don't think anyone caught a picture of the weaved back at the party, so I took a few after the party for posterity. You can already see the banana leaves curling up where the Mod Podge sealant failed and the surface was exposed to air.

Save for the premature structural failure, I was really happy with the effort. Immediately after assembly the vest looked great and with a few improvements it would have lasted long into the night, maybe even through a few dances.

It's Better With Bacon

2009-11-15T22:35:00.004-05:00

[by Mike]

This past September I was over at a labmate's apartment for the Boston area celebration of International Bacon Day. As you might imagine, there's not much to International Bacon Day besides lots and lots of bacon, with plenty of whisk(e)y to wash it down. The brilliance of the festivities comes with the creative applications of bacon.

My initial contribution, bacon chocolate chip cookies, wasn't bad but it was quickly shadowed by the collective efforts of the revelers. The inspiration escapes me now, but it wasn't long into the party that we had set our eyes on a practical bacon straw. While the host and his friend went out for reserves I went to business, wrapping bacon around a bundle of buttered skewers. After half an hour in a hot oven the bacon had cooked into solid, waterproof tube that could be used to sip everything from rye to Bloody Mary's.

The pictures documenting that day were lost due to an unfortunately taxi incident, so the telling has had to wait until today when I finally had time to recreate the infamous bacon straw. This time I used 1/2'' copper pipe left over from an earlier project, wrapping two rashers around in opposite chiralities (one a clockwise helix, the the other a counter clockwise helix). The two layers are critical for a watertight seal.

After 30 minutes in a 400 F oven the meat had shrunk around the pipe and formed a continuous piece of succulence. I had suspected the 1/2'' diameter would be too large, but it proved just fine for sipping from the full glass; it only became a problem when trying to slurp up the final few drops.

Beyond the novelty, the bacon straw adds some welcome notes to spirits. In addition to providing subtle smokey and savory flavors, the bacon contributes fat which dissolves into the alcohol quells some of the more astringent vapors*. It's a perfect addition for overproofed ryes such as Rittenhouse.

Of course, the bacon straw is far from finished. Additional flavors can be added by spicing the bacon before roasting; cinnamon, nutmeg, black pepper, chile, coriander, cardamon... well just about any spice comes to mind. Any structural issues could be remedied by the addition of transglutamtes (think meat glue) in between the two layers of bacon.

The possibilities are near endless. Who's up for some "collaborative research"?

* For those interested in the details: alcohol readily dissolves fat, and once in solution the fat binds with some of the less delicious esters in the alcohol. Once bound, the unfavorable esters don't contribute nearly as much to taste and aroma. Fat washing takes this a step further, adding much more fat and straining it out before serving the spirit.

fall comfort

2009-11-08T20:35:00.003-05:00

[by john]

i associate some great smells with fall. root vegetables roasting in the oven, dead leaves, whiskey...

this autumn, i finally got to avail myself of a new england taste/smell tradition: apple cider donuts. warm, sugary, cinnamony, crispy outsides covering cakey, slightly appley comfort inside. i mean, wow. kevin, mike and i trekked to cider hill farm for some of those ambrosial delicacies, and i happened to pick up four gallons of raw apple cider as well.

i've already started a few batches of cider fermenting (another post if i achieve any modicum of success), but i still found myself left with a lot of the raw stuff. so i made two kinds of cider syrup - one i simmered with cinnamon sticks and sugar until it reduced by half, and one that i just shook cold with sugar until it all dissolved.

there're some foodie camps out there who claim that heating destroys the good, natural flavors in the cider. well, they're wrong. the heated syrup is something amazing. the apple flavors have intensified and rounded out, and come delayed after the initial sweetness.

the syrup worked great in an old fashioned. but to amp up the fall-itude, i tried a brandy old fashioned:

2 oz brandy (e&j xo, the cheap stuff)
1/2 oz cinnamon cider syrup
1 dash whiskey barrel bitters

build in a glass, add ice, and gently stir.

this one really nailed it. the apple and cinnamon were superb and autumnal on the nose, the brandy gave just the right edge (without sharp vapors), and the bitters recovered the complexity of a whiskey that the brandy couldn't provide.

to fall!

Grass-Fed Beef

2009-11-08T20:06:00.004-05:00

[by Naveen]

Last weekend was an interesting juxtaposition of food-themed events: the agricultural sustainability sessions at the Union of Concerned Scientists 40th Annual Symposium and the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival. One of the highlights of the UCS meeting was the panel discussion featuring Bill Kurtis from Tall Grass Beef, who gave a compelling argument about how eating grass-fed beef is far superior to the current corn-fed product. Although the vegans in the Boston Vegetarian Society would likely disapprove of any sort of meat consumption, a recent article in the New York Times proclaimed the benefits of grass-fed beef. Large tracts in Brazil are being cleared for monoculture soy production that could end up in all sorts of vegan-friendly products, whereas pastures in this country could reduce soil erosion, increase biodiversity, and potentially sequester carbon dioxide. However, if the industrial meat production model in this country shifted to grass-fed beef, consumers would need to shift from viewing a burger as a convenient meal at a fast-food restaurant to an occasional delicacy to be enjoyed at a place like Craigie on Main. As a vegetarian who has never been to a ranch, I feel rather disqualified to offer any type of policy recommendation, but I would certainly be interested to learn more.

Random Thoughts

2009-11-03T23:33:00.002-05:00

Your friend has his eye on a cute little number sitting at the bar across the room, and after a drink of courage he makes his way over and offers to buy her a drink. Now she can respond to her liking, shooing him away or inviting him to sit at the stool next to her, and then proceed to order that drink, but isn't that a little inefficient? Couldn't the two steps be combined and the entire process streamlined? What if she should just order a "Not Tonight" or a "I've Been Waiting For You All Night" and avoid the awkward conversation entirely?

Now I'm sure there are plenty who appreciate the opportunity to converse, but I think there's potential for a suite of well made cocktails with utilitarian names. Conversations could span loud restaurants, with drinks purchased from across the room serving as the lone communication. Instead of fighting through a crowd to tell a friend that you're leaving, you could order him an "I'm Out".

The logical generalization is to binary shots representing bits that could be combined to produce any message, but decoding binary after the last shot becomes something of a challenge.

Agricultural Genetic Awesomeness

2009-11-02T18:34:00.005-05:00

[by Naveen]

Genetically modified foods have gotten a lot of bad press lately and it's too bad they don't have a better PR effort behind them. Most people are opposed to GMO due to knee-jerk associations with global corporate agriculture and view it as the anti-thesis of the locavore trend. This misses out on the efforts of plant biologists and farmers in countries ranging from Mexico to the Philippines to Australia to produce crops that are drought-resistant, salt-tolerant, and safe from the latest viral or bacterial threat (see here, for example). It has also been criticized for being over-hyped about its ability to feed the world. After several weeks of researching these arguments, I tend to agree and suspect that better farmer education and food distribution in rural areas will be more important.

I learned all this while preparing for a public talk last week for the Science in the News lecture series. Two other grad students and I explained the history and biology of agricultural genetics, presented some case studies (Bt Corn and Golden Rice), then explored the role of genetically-engineered foods in solving world hunger (that was my part). While researching this topic, for which I felt increasingly under-qualified, I talked to Peace Corps volunteers, farmers, and Friends of the World Food Program. There is so much more to the history of edible plant biology than gets mentioned in the highly-polarized debate about GM Foods, so I thought I would share some of my findings:

Wide crossing allows two different species of plants to breed with each other. The plant isn't too happy about this and tries to eject the hybrid embryo, but scientists can rescue it and grow it up in vitro to a viable new plant. Scientists did this in the 1970s to save the Asian rice crop from the grassy stunt virus.
A floral toxin called colchicine causes a plant cell to double its number of chromosomes by messing with its microtubules (similar chemicals are sometimes used as anti-cancer drugs). The confused plant cells often end up producing seedless adults (e.g. watermelon, grapes). This chromosome doubling method was also used to create tritacle, a wheat-rye hybrid that I first learned about from a Kashi cereal box.
During the pro-nuke days of the 1950s and '60s, a collaboration between the FAO and the IAEA sent out portable radiation sources to farms all over the world. By irradiating, for instance, 100,000 seeds, the second generation might have 30-50,000 adults, which can be whittled down to a few beneficial mutants. Supposedly much of the organic beer in Europe comes from barley that was a product of radiation mutagenesis.

The wide-crossing, chromosome doubling, and radiation mutagenesis are all decades old and (to the best of my knowledge) can still fall under the label organic. In fact, there was a debate in the late '90s about whether new genetic techniques would fall under the USDA certification, since they would not require external inputs like fertilizer or pesticides. For their credit, genetically modified organisms have done several good things for us lately, including producing insulin for treating diabetics and vegetarian rennet for making cheese.

For more info, I recommend these two books:

"Tomorrow's Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food" by Pamela Ronald and R. W. Adamchak.
"Plant Breeding and Biotechnology: Social Context and the Future of Food" by Denis Murphy.

I'm sure there are countless other resources out there and I encourage you to learn more about this fascinating topic. Please let me know if you find out anything else interesting.

geek bar

2009-10-19T18:58:00.005-04:00

[by john, mike, naveen, david, aviv, and te]

get a couple drinks in any of us and soon we'll be fervidly discussing science or cocktails, and often both. science (science!) tells us why we like the tastes we do, how to make them better, and how to predict what you'll like next time. bold claims get bolder with each sip until we know that we (we!) can do those things better. yeah, we assert, we could totally open a bar, and apply science to make it amazing. psh, nevermind the economy and all those entrepreneurial hazards...science works.

thankfully, we always sober up, and none of us has quit his day job yet. good ideas have distilled out, though. here are the initial (feasible) ones; feel free to add your own.

atmosphere

overall: open, not too dark, led lighting, no kitschy beakers or lab coats

back-lit plates of glass along the walls for scrawling equations
bunsen burner mood lighting
graph paper napkins
low-key plasma screens showing real-time drink trending, and possibly kubrick or bergman flicks (or nova documentaries)
polarized microscopy posters
flash cards with tips/conversation starters for shy geeks seeking to chat up their attractive bar-neighbors
bookshelf of textbooks
overly simple web site hides the contact info and menu in the html comments

drinks

overall: lots of bartender interaction, backed with powerful statistical methods; restrained use of lab gadgets; precisely made classics and science-enhanced originals

menu formatted in LaTeX
touchscreen at tables with machine learning software to suggest drinks
discreet use of liquid nitrogen when suitable
vortex mixers
titrated absinthe cocktails
pipettes for busy nights
geeky original drink names: 'feshbach resonance', 'mcmc', 'sag a*', 'mixture of gaussians'
cocktail shakers with built-in thermometers and timers
endothermic glassware (an r&d project for now...)
pH meter for analyzing individual citrus fruits
bartenders speak perturbative field theory ('i'll have a next-leading order manhattan.')

makes me dizzy just theorizing about it...

september budget

2009-10-10T16:26:00.005-04:00

[by john]

it's getting to be the same old story, but i managed another month under budget. to get more fine-grained about it, though, i spent roughly $90 on schmancy cocktails, $45 on wine and beer to bring to friends' parties, $30 on a new bottle, and $15 at the beer-after-work sort of places.

huh, that's a 6:3:2:1 ratio; is that a common one for drinks? some people swear by a 2:1:1 spirit:citrus:syrup portioning for sours, or a 4:3:2:1 weak:strong:sweet:sour for punches, so perhaps. well, not really. after looking through my recipes, the 6:3:2:1 really isn't in vogue. i did find one drink, however, from a weekly blogger think (drink?) tank:

1 1/2 gin

3/4 green chartreuse

1/2 orgeat

1/4 carpano antica

1 dash angostura

(call the tiny portion of bitters extra tips or something, if you want to be strict about it.) what kismet, though - it uses carpano antica vermouth, the bottle i just got. unfortunately, this one goes down in the average column, despite looking so tasty on paper. too sharp and too sweet, i'm afraid.

at least my spending was in tasty proportion...

review: trina's starlite lounge

2009-10-10T16:05:00.004-04:00

[by john]

trina's, the newest neighborhood joint, opened to wildly enthusiastic glittering reviews and hype. justifiably so. i went with mike and others this past wednesday and thoroughly enjoyed myself. it was a perfect night to soak up the place's charm - no weekend crowd to wrestle with, and plenty of time to talk to trina herself (on vermouth, pie, tattoos...), who was holding down the second bar.

their menu really typifies the place. a page for cocktails and beers, a page for food, and nothing taken too seriously. the drinks are free-poured, so none of the poindexterism or reverence you'll find at drink. the bemusing, coma-inducing choices for eats included hot dogs (plus a daily kind at market price), gravy fries, mac & cheese with ritz crackers, and chicken and waffles. $9 tax-included cocktails and $5 corn dogs were fairly easy on my budget, so i was happy.

now, reviewers will tell you that the best thing about trina's is the southern diner atmosphere, or that it's part of a southern food resurgence, or that it's opening when everybody else is closing. but i think they're missing the greatest part: the cheap drunk food. not since devouring a fried kimchi dog at pdt in new york have i had the perfect greasy complement to my drink. bone marrow doesn't really cut it at craigie or eastern standard, and drink's food menu is just offensive - expensive, tiny portions. in the end, trina's drinks are above average, but i'll be going back for the pepperoni rolls.

Visual thinking for gastrophysicists

2009-10-04T21:45:00.006-04:00

[by Naveen]

After spending too much time last week sitting through PowerPoint presentations, staring at math equations, and reading technical papers, I decided on a trio of visualizations for this post:

I. Insatiable curiosity is a desirable trait for a scientist, but can lead to problems in everyday life. Mundane tasks expand to fill valuable time as I ponder what brand of toothpaste or breakfast cereal (or granola or museli) to buy in the store. The psychologist Barry Schwartz has written extensively about the Paradox of Choice (see his TED Talk here), which prompted the idea for this table:

II. Since taking a class at the Harvard Business School this semester, I am more frequently brainstorming for business ideas. Here is one that I had a while ago for a customized mini-muffin bar. It would have the personalized, "just-in-time" feel of a good cocktail bar, since batter could be quickly mixed and baked within minutes. Multi-grain muffins could appeal to the more health-conscious crowd, seasonal ingredients could attract locavores, and decadent chocolate options could draw people from the cupcake demographic. This idea seems full of potential, but I know enough about opening a restaurant (i.e. don't do it), that I'll stick with grad school for now.

III. After outings to several of the numerous beverage establishments in Boston, I see potential for numerous synergistic restaurant co-localizations that capitalize on the modified palate after a night of imbibing. Many types of global cuisine can be tailored for this particular market, as illustrated below. I know it's far from comprehensive or accurate, but I hope it gets people thinking. As diners explore more cuisines, I think that we could see an expanding definition of what is considered "drunk food." I could go for some South African food after my next cocktail adventure, or perhaps just make peanut butter-Fluff-banana sandwiches back at home.

To Each His Own (Bar)

2009-09-28T23:19:00.002-04:00

[by Mike]

As John just wrote, new inductees into cocktail culture are always curious about the best way to start their own bar. But $100? You're never going find a solution that placates everyone, and John's recommendations certainly raised my eyebrow halfway to the ceiling.

The reason? No tequila! My own tastes hold tequila above the other base spirits, and I think a good bottle (Azul, Sauza Hornitos, Milagro) opens a world of cocktail possibilities more appealing to a beginner. Good tequila, for example, blends wonderfully with fruit (from berries to melons to stone fruit), encouraging experimentation while introducing seasonal ingredients. When the bar is ready for expansions, moreover, tequila provides an ideal base for new spirits. Benedictine, Maraschino, Cointreau - they're all prime additions to the agave liquor.

But where does tequila fit in? Honestly, I think gin can be overwhelming to new enthusiasts. Save the gin drinks for the professions, at least until you've trained your wrists for brisk stirring, and start with sweeter drinks that can be more forgiving in their ratios and exact preparations.

My list, then, goes as follows:

Tequila - $25 (Azul, Sauza Hornitos, Milagro if you can find it cheap)

Rye - $20 (Rittenhouse, etc)

Rum - $20 (Sailor Jerry, Old Monk)

Sweet Vermouth - $10 (I think Martini and Rossi is fine to start)

Bitters - $15 (Angostura and Peychauds, for comparing and contrasting)

Citrus Juicer - $10 (In the Mexican style)

Pick up some limes, whip up some simple and ginger syrups, and you'll have plenty with which to play. Oh, and my hardware goes as: bar spoon, Oxo 2 oz measuring cup, Boston shaker, julep strainer, muddler (I'm currently using the end of a rake handle), and a set of Tovolo ice cube trays.

Now I'm off to go brainstorm uses for my bottle of Midori. When it's tequila time, it's Suntori time?

a bar of one's own

2009-09-28T22:47:00.003-04:00

[by john]

in the span of just a few days i received two requests - nay, cries of help from the depths of impoverished abstemiousness - for advice on stocking a bar. hyperbole or not, i felt honored, since these two guys have greatly shaped my attitude towards cocktails. tony, in sf, who defines classy debauchery, made me my first ever mixed drink, and steven, in nyc, gives me field reports on (and occasionally entry into) the best bars in new york. and so, i was obliged.

let's set the constraint: $100 to stock a bar from scratch. thankfully, the simplest and most classic cocktails enjoy a large intersection, and can be made with a minimal set of ingredients. think the martini, the manhattan, a gimlet, a pegu club, or a julep. minus the cheap, background cost of fresh citrus and simple syrup, my initial list would be:

gin - $30 (plymouth, greylock, junipero, beefeater...)
rye - $20 (rittenhouse, old overholt [sazerac for a bit more])
french vermouth & italian vermouth - $30 (-not- martini & rossi - go for dolin or noilly prat)
bitters - $10 (start with angostura)
barspoon - $10 (try to seek out a nice one)

all the essentials are there - spirits, vermouths, bitters, and barware. i'm not trying to cover the gamut of base spirits, nor liqueurs. those can all come later. and don't forget about the barware. i'm assuming there's already a pint glass handy, but with each paycheck acquire, in order, a boston shaker metal tin, an oxo hawthorne strainer, an oxo 2 oz slanted measuring cup, and a citrus reamer.

above all, though, a bar should be stocked drink by drink. find a cocktail you like enough to make it regularly at home, then get the cointreau or benedictine or rum or even absinthe necessary to make it. put aside some money each month to get a new bottle to expand your repertoire. for instance, steven, with his penchant for last words and variants thereon, might consider splurging on some chartreuse and maraschino liqueur. and then last words will cost $3 instead of $12.

if only i had given my callow past self the same advice - then i wouldn't have that damn useless bottle of midori sitting around...

Beasties

2009-09-26T23:41:00.004-04:00

[by Mike]

One of the more engaging elements of the cocktail movement is participation. An amazing drink can inspire you to pick up a new bottle, cook up a new syrup, or prepare a juice you would never have thought of otherwise.

When house made ginger beer started sweeping across Boston bars last year, however, I didn't succumb. I was intrigued, but hesitant to start pushing syrups through my soda siphon lest the increased viscosity cause premature wear on the valves (when you're a grad student on a budget, these are nontrivial considerations). It wasn't until I watched some old Good Eats episodes that a yeast-fermented ginger beer became obvious.

I started with the basic Good Eats recipe (sadly not available on the website), adding cinnamon, star anise, and cardamom when steeping the syrup, and waited anxiously as the two bottles stood on my counter fermenting over the course of a few days. Once the bottles started hissing I had a pretty good idea that the beer was ready. Releasing the initial pressure proved to be slightly chaotic, but otherwise the process was painless.

Unfortunately the ginger flavor didn't really live up to my expectations; while significantly spicier than most commercially available ginger beers it lacked the strong bite to which I have grown accustomed. The texture, however, was a pleasant surprise. Slower, more delicate carbonation produced smaller, softer bubbles that tempted the tongue instead of smacking it around as injected carbonation is wont to do.

The first application was an attempt to recreate a drink from Tom at Craigie,

Blueberry Cobbler

Muddled blueberries

2 oz reposado tequila

0.5 oz benedictine

Top with ginger beer

While it could have used stronger ginger flavor, the more delicate carbonation added a nice, dare I say, sophistication?

The beauty of fermentation is that its applications are near endless. As the beer was charging I sat out a slurry of flour, water, and sugar next to my window and waited for Cambridge yeast to make a home and do their thing. It didn't take long for the characteristic bubbles to make an appearance and hopefully I'll have a proper starter by next weekend.

Smart Choices Program for Bacteria

2009-09-24T21:47:00.005-04:00

[by Naveen]

The blogosphere has been swept by an epidemic of debate regarding the new Smart Choices program laid out by the country's major food corporations. Critics point out that Froot Loops, over 40% sugar by weight, gets the green check mark of approval. Proponents claim that it will help consumers navigate the plethora of choices in the grocery store aisles. Since I'm an applied physicist and microbial enthusiast, rather than a nutritionist, I'll offer my unique perspective on the issue:

Growing biofilms in a petri dish isn't easy. The label above is adapted from the mix of nutrients that I use to feed the Bacillus subtilis that I study. It's a pretty odd assortment: the controversial flavor-enhancer MSG, the supposedly sleep-inducing protein tryptophan, the diet drug component phenylanaline, the B-vitamin thiamine, and various metal ions.

Not growing biofilms outside of a petri dish is also difficult. If we aren't careful to keep things sterile in lab, an invasion can sweep through the incubator. Pretty much every surface around you (e.g. your teeth, contact lenses, intestinal linings...) can be a home for a symbiotic coalition of bacteria.

If it's this hard to know exactly what makes a single, well-studied species of bacteria survive (one of the vanishingly small minority that we can actually culture in a lab), I think that we still have quite a ways to go to catalog all the substances in the plant and animal kingdoms that keep us healthy. On the other hand, human beings seem to be pretty adaptable, capable of surviving on diets ranging from raw vegan to arctic carnivore. Evolution may need a little help, though, when it comes to new creations like KFC's Double Down "sandwich" or deep-fried butter.

the new england society for the promotion of vice

2009-09-24T20:55:00.005-04:00

[by john]

as threatened earlier after our history lesson, we've founded an organization to combat the nosy killjoys over at the watch and ward society, also known as the new england society for the suppression of vice. (nevermind that they're all dead.)

after a soft opening for a week or so, the new england society for the promotion of vice officially flung its arms wide open to cocktail-clutching prospective members at eastern standard's speakeasy this wednesday. laughter, stories, recipes, and pins were all exchanged. yes indeed, vice-sanctioning buttons:

drop us a line if you want one, and wear it proudly.

The Fine Art of Reviewing Books

2009-09-20T16:20:00.003-04:00

[by Mike]

In order to add some variety to my usual load of summer reading (a stack of textbooks), I took advantage of our last trip to the Boston Shaker to pick up a book on cocktails. While John vacillated on the Jerry Thomas tome, I jumped on one of the new reprints of David Embury's The Fine Art of Mixing Drink. Expectations were high: rarely have months passed without hearing fawning praise or stories of old copies reselling for outrageous prices.

Written not long after the appeal of Prohibition, Embury's text oozes of a definite quaintness, complete with a veiled condescension towards women and authoritative pseudo-science. Not to mention a total disdain for tequila. Pushing on, however, it's easy to see why it was so treasured by the early cocktail revolutionaries. Embury held strong opinions towards cocktails and how they should be made, demanding fresh ingredients and careful thought towards construction instead of blind devotion to recipes.

For someone already indoctrinated into the cocktail movement, however, much of Embury's impassioned arguments are redundant; those likely to pick up a copy of the book are already likely to share his philosophy. The real value of the text, then, becomes something for which Embury is not shy in expressing his hatred: a recipe book. While few of the recipes are immediately phenomenal, they serve as wonderfully fertile grounds for experimentation and play. Armed with calibrated ingredient ratios, an enthusiastic reader can readily attack the recipes and quickly develop an array of diverse, well balanced drinks.

Contrary to what some might claim, The Fine Art of Mixing Drink won't change your life, but it does makes great summer reading.

the original jello shot

2009-09-13T22:25:00.004-04:00

[by john]

you know how each generation thinks it's the one that discovered sex? or the word 'guesstimate'? well the same can be said for jello shots, apparently.

yes, that horrid fixture of college house parties was already old news by 1862, when jerry thomas published his book entitled 'how to mix drinks, or the bon-vivant's companion, containing clear and reliable directions for mixing all the beverages used in the united states, together with the most popular british, french, german, italian, russian, and spanish recipes, embracing punches, juleps, cobblers, etc., etc., etc., in endless variety.' (brevity, jerry, brevity.)

witness:

there you have it. and you wondered how you could use all that leftover isinglass! the last sentence is one of the better i've encountered in the english language. equal parts quaintness and hilarity, and a damn accurate description of modern day jello shot drawbacks, too.

a bad review

2009-09-09T19:19:00.003-04:00

[by john]

a rather well respected cocktail blogger reviewed drink (i'd say my favorite bar in the world), and just excoriated the establishment. being a boston cocktail nut, i feel like the review attacks me personally, however ridiculous that notion is.

an apologia. the experience matt had there sounds plain terrible. it sounds like going out for cocktails at...legal seafood, or on boylston street. a cocky, bad bartender. pitchers of premixed drinks (side note - i noticed these getting prepped the last time i went to drink - 5pm on a saturday night. i was disappointed, but misty was adamant about their necessity for high throughput nights.). a four-deep bar. free pouring. shots?! ugh.

but, let me be clear - i have never been to the drink that matt went to.

i've always enjoyed drink on off hours, so that i can talk to the bartenders, let alone get a seat. i thought it was a rule among cocktail geeks to avoid bars on friday and saturday nights, unless you want a beer.

i've never seen someone shoot a shot there.

i've never seen free pouring (modulo champagne floats).

i've actually gotten a boothby manhattan no problem.

and yet, matt's experience exemplifies something i've been sensing - that the level of professionalism at drink is slipping... unlike the first generation of bartenders who started the place, not every new bartender (and there are lots of them, with drink's growing popularity) knows their shit, let alone their classic shit.

and i feel like the bartenders effectively are creating a menu - instead of listening to each patron - by pigeonholing tastes into the friday/saturday pre-mixed drinks. it takes the magic out of drink, and it saddens me to think that a no-menu kind of bar can't do big business.

as for his remaining critiques - no doorman, no menu, no liquor shelf - well, i'd rather sit down and have a drink to talk about them. i believe that an open (we're not speakeasy nyc), interactive (for minutes at a time during off hours), and unostentatious (bars are not liquor churches) bar is the new paradigm.

matt is clearly not one of those confused yelpers who can't get a bud. drink should listen up and get its shit together.

Hygroscopic biscuits

2009-09-08T21:13:00.003-04:00

[by Naveen]

"These are like dessicator packets!" - my self-assessment of a recent baking experiment

An amazing batch of cinnamon rolls from my housemate inspired a spree of haphazard ingredient substitutions. I still had brown rice flour, coconut oil, flaxseed, and other such ingredients from my previous adventure in vegan baking, so I thought that I would use them to recreate his decadent breakfast. However, I neglected to realize two points:

The melting characteristics of coconut oil are totally different than shortening. I didn't mix the dough enough to break up the chilled blobs of coconut fat, which led to pools of liquid when transferred to the oven.
Brown rice flour is good for shortbread cookies, when the purpose of the flour is mainly to turn a large quantity of butter (or other fat) into a cookie that doesn't melt in your hand, but crumbles easily. When the fat:flour ratio is scaled back, the starches are no longer fully occupied, so the resulting quick bread loses structural integrity and appears to seek out any source of water (e.g. your tongue).

In an attempt to console me, my housemate explained how he had hundreds of years of collective cooking experience with wheat flour, butter, and sugar against my couple years of amateur interest in gastroscience. To catch-up, I need to be more systematic and purposeful in my experimentation. Although I lack the resources of America's Test Kitchen, I'll strive to apply my physics skills to the culinary realm.

a saratoga patch

2009-09-06T16:41:00.002-04:00

[by john]

cocktaileers haven't ended their honeymoon just yet with tequila and mezcal. they're reinventing classic drinks (witness the oaxacan old fashioned), they're making new ones (q.v. misty kalkofen's maximilian affair or anything coming out of mayahuel), and they're finding their favorite brands to mix with.

i've been dipping my own barspoon in, with the flux bias and ho(a)rfrost, but hadn't yet tried a tequila twist on a classic. so here's a new take on a saratoga. i forget when i was first introduced to the saratoga, but it was for one notable feature: it mixes two very different base spirits together, rye and cognac. it's kind of one of those average cocktails, better in concept than execution. i wondered if tequila's flavors could improve it:

the saratoga

equal parts: rye
cognac
italian vermouth
two dashes of bitters

the saratoga.2

1 oz rye
1 oz tequila
1/2 oz italian vermouth
3 dashes xocolatl-mole bitters

i like this better than the original. the earthy/herbal flavors of the rye and tequila play well together, whereas cognac is easily subdued by rye. plus, the x-m bitters get their voice heard in the herbal parley. it's not great, though - and it was highly dependent on ingredients. rittenhouse was too strong, punt e mes was too overpowering, and any more vermouth (dolin in the end) is too sweet.

but for now, it can serve as a patch, saving a classic drink from averageness.

august budget

2009-09-06T15:17:00.003-04:00

[by john]

after a raucous july, my alcohol spending took a break while i played with a bunch of new bottles leftover from the party at home. more on that soon. in all, i spent $115, and a good chunk of that was on a book! i picked up a reproduction of jerry thomas' 1862 compendium 'a bon vivant's companion' from adam at the boston shaker. more on that soon, too.

my reduced spending helped absorb the excess from some other categories, however. a lovely dinner at no. 9 park during restaurant week, plus some enthusiastic splurging at the grocery store (on $10/pound butter, for instance. possibly inspired by 'julie & julia'?) put me over the edge. totally worth it, though.

in other monetary news, our graduate stipend has gone up to $2130 per month, a $60 increase. but like any conscious spender, i won't let it affect my budgeting; rather i'll save the excess for my ira and a flight to bkk.

Laplace Would Marginalize Over Red and White

2009-08-30T21:49:00.006-04:00

[by Mike]

It would be odd if we had come so far in academia without being passionate about science. Unfortunately, this means that after a drink or two some of us (i.e. me) find it difficult to keep from talking physics and data analysis. While I'm working to avoid random outbursts of science, especially in mixed company, I can't do it without at least one cocktail memorializing my some aspects of my research.

How do you make the optimal cocktail? One approach would be to find your single favorite recipe, the selection and ratio of ingredients, and stop there. Another approach goes further, considering not just your favorite recipe but also perturbations away from that recipe. You may prefer a 6:1 martini, but how much more do you prefer it to the 5:1 or the 7:1? Or the 1:1 for that matter? The second approach would advocate serving an infinite number of cocktails, the amount of each serving weighted by the preference for that ratio. A similar approach would be taken towards ingredients.

This approach is not as foreign as it might immediately appear. Stripping a cocktail down to a single ingredient, someone with no previous experience would try the same amount of each different variety. But this is just the flight commonly used to taste spirits, beer, and wine.

In practice, preparing more than one cocktail is often prohibitive. When trying to optimize a recipe, however, it may not be a bad idea to compare the different possibilities directly. Consider the choice of bitters in the Monte Carlo,

Markov Chain Monte Carlo

In four shot glasses prepare

1 oz rye whiskey

0.5 oz benedictine

Add to individual glasses

1 dashes Angostura bitters

1 dashes Whisky Barrel Aged bitters

1 dashes Peychauds bitters

1 dashes Xocolatl Mole bitters

Now let's see how long I can go without talking about work...

Unsolicited Advice

2009-08-26T12:50:00.002-04:00

[by Mike]

Father's Office, sit down. Look, you have an amazing selection of craft spirits, nearly perfect sweet potato fries, and a decent burger (sorry, Andy, nothing close to the burger at Craigie). But this whole community seating schtick? And having to order from an understaffed, chaotic bar? At least consider designated ordering areas so that lines can form and some semblance of order night be restored, and then we can talk about seeing each other again.

City of Angels

2009-08-25T17:02:00.004-04:00

[by Mike]

Having spent the four years of my undergraduate education here, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Los Angeles. While the diversity, culture, and weather rival any other city, the cocktail scene has always left much to be desired, especially when compared to the renaissance in Boston (and all the other players in the cocktail movement). The last year, however, has seen a slew of new ventures promising to bring LA back into the game and I was eager to try a few out while visiting some friends.

After going through the various articles written in the past few years, I narrowed down the possibilities to the Edison and the Varnish. A few of my friends had visited the Edison before and spoke well enough to pique my interest and place it first on the list. Unfortunately, the Edison's odd hours (closed Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday) exactly conflicted with my stay.

I was initially hesitant about the Varnish because of their sparse website; how could I make a reasonable judgement without seeing the menu? Browsing through Yelp!, however, I discovered that the Varnish is a creation of the Milk and Honey team and my initial hesitations evaporated.

The Varnish executes the speakeasy theme with exquisite detail. Behind a discreetly marked door in the back of a downtown LA restaurant, the bar features wooden walls and booths dimly illuminated by metal fixtures. A sound system hidden from view plays period music, although we were treated to live piano music most of the night. My only criticism of the design is the lack of stools at the bar which has the effect of discouraging patrons from engaging the bartenders directly. Not to say that it stopped me from heading over to the bar to chat.

More impressive than the atmosphere was the menu. About half of the drinks were a little bit conservative and welcoming to the uninitiated, with the second half more creative and intriguing combinations. Of particular note was the "Remember the Maine", bringing together rye and absinthe in an interesting twist on the Manhatten. After sampling most of the menu between the four of us, I went off menu for my last drink and was pleasantly surprised by a "Medicina Latina" that combined tequila, ginger, and lime with a mezcal (must have been del Maguey) float and an impressive chunk of ice.

An unexpected bonus was Tal, the Lucas/Bols VP of marketing, behind the bar, fresh off of his release party in Boston. We chatted a bit about the new Bols Genever while I partook in samples of the spirit neat and in a punch. Andy had brought back a bottle of the Bols Jonge Genever from Europe a few months ago that was less than impressive, but the new genever based on the 1820 recipe was a marked improvement. Unlike a dry gin, which infuses the herbal flavors in the second distilling, the 1820 recipe adds the herbs directly to malted grains, resulting in a malty almost bread like flavor that pushes the herbal flavors to the back of the palette, almost like a sweeter sake. The spirit was sufficiently intriguing that I decided to try it in a classic Aviation where the malty base almost completely changed the way the herbal flavors hit the palette.

I can't wait to see what the city of angles has to offer the next time I'm in town.

three gimlets

2009-08-23T22:40:00.002-04:00

[by john]

the gimlet is one of those perfect summer drinks - crisp, simple, and cold. it was the first thing resembling a cocktail that i ever mixed, in fact, three summers ago:

the adolescent gimlet

build in a rocks glass over ice:

1 large eyeball pour of vodka
1 smaller eyeball pour of rose's sweetened lime juice

rattle the glass around to mix.

ah, how far i've come. i've eschewed vodka (though a vodka gimlet is a bona-fide variant...for when too much taste gets in the way), i've started measuring ingredients for replicability, i've gotten a proper shaker, and, goodness, i've abandoned high fructose corn syrup products like rose's. now, to be a little fair, there are cocktail snobs who insist that rose's is required to make a 'real' gimlet. i'm not one of them.

a real gimlet should be something close to this:

the gimlet

1 1/2 oz gin
1 oz lime juice
1/4 oz simple syrup (can go more, to taste)

shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

now that is a proper drink. enjoy on the porch just before sunset, when the humidity is still hanging in the air. or just about any other time, really.

there is always room for improvement, though (nevermind a statewide dehumidifier):

the adult gimlet

1 1/2 oz gin (this version used berkshire's ethereal gin)
1 oz lime juice
2 barspoons thai basil simple syrup
1 barspoon absinthe
1 barspoon green chartreuse

shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

mmm, all my favorite (liquid) green things together in one glass. the different herbal flavors dance in the background while the gin, lime, and sugar play their familiar tune.

to progress, kanpai!

a not-so-dry history of boston

2009-08-18T19:36:00.005-04:00

[by john]

mike and i were treated last night to a history lesson like no other by lauren of drinkboston and adam of the boston shaker. the topic: drinking in boston through the ages. surprisingly, the lecture couldn't be summed up into 'the puritans frowned upon it and that dour streak continues to this day.' rather, lauren was able to spin a winding tale of intrigue, ups and down, colorful characters and...what's the word...hooch.

no offense to any of my past history teachers, but i have never been so absorbed with dates and dead people than with a drink in my hand. yes indeed, while lauren was serving up her narrative, adam was shaking ward eights and maharaja's revenges for all of the students. an apropos pair, too - the ward eight is boston's most famous cocktail invention, and the maharaja's revenge represents the new wave of cocktails (and uses rum, hearkening back on boston's huge rum trade).

here's the gossip column rundown of four centuries:

the early-bird puritans hit the scene, starting a church in 1632, the first tavern in '35 and some silly school in '36. priorities, people! taverns multiply like drunk rabbits, and function as inn-cum-courthouse-cum-post-office-cum-banks. the red lion is founded in the north end. george monk of the anchor embodies to the hospitable, community pillar image. women are seen behind the stick but not tippling, except for prostitutes! people drank ~6 gallons of pure alcohol per year, compared to modern day's measly ~3. applejack is the new it! just skim the ice off your cider... no wait, madeira is the new it! it ages well under harsh conditions... no no, rum is the new darling, yes rum has the title! boston gets the rum bug big because of the great shipping center. proto-cocktails form...punches and flips, but no ice yet.

we're just getting started - on to the 18th century! halfway through, there are 25 rum distilleries in the area, with medford's being best by far (what a little quality control does, folks). drink it and be seen with paul revere, that rabble-rouser. speaking of which, the beginnings of revolution get goin' when the brits want to tax the sugar we're using for allllll that rum. rebel! all the colonies meet for a photo-op saying they hate the brits, together. some little tea party (you didn't hear about it? very exclusive.) goes down with help from tavern owners. the first masons lodge is founded at the bunch of grapes. the royal exchange sees bostons first sword duel, and then the boston massacre on its steps. talk about bad press!

the 19th century hits boston hard, with growing pains, immigration, and (egad!) statewide prohibition. yes, prohibition swept massachusetts like a 23 year fad starting in 1852, with a little two year break where people could drink beer. underground drinking (in private club$ for the rich, and tenement jug rooms for the po' folk) drove crime and social ills underground with it. afterward (phew) taverns have windows, so you can see the debauchery. much better, ahh. the concept of a 'free lunch' with a drink starts up, but has nothing to do with the anti-happy hour laws today. liquor license numbers are limited, and still so today. doyle's starts up in jp. the new england society for the suppression of vice (new blog name coming!), aka the watch & ward society starts in 1884. basically beer 'n' burlesque hatin' busybodies. oh burlesque! boston had lots. believe it. fancy grand hotels like the parker house and the (now merged) locke ober open doors. the ward eight gets itself invented there. a hot ice craze hits, and ice begins export from new england ponds to britain, martinique, wherever! proper cocktails get invented in new england, joy!

the 1900's see the great molasses flood (not an onion headline - a humongous tank broke and killed 21 people), national prohibition (old hat by now, right, boston?), bohemia in beacon hill, creative bootlegging, and the rise of women visiting bars. finally. tragedy strikes again with the conflagration of the glitzy coconut grove. modern fire codes ensue. tiki was huge in boston in the 50's, fine dining catches on in the 80's, then wine, then craft beer, then cocktails at last when the b-side opens in 1998. and observational gastrophysics was founded in 2009.

whew, you would think i took notes! the audience, i should mention, was also rather knowledgeable with medford rum and speakeasy trivia.

i have a tad more respect for this town, now. not bad, boston. just fix the t schedule already.

Cocktails in the Rough

2009-08-17T23:43:00.003-04:00

[by Mike]

Last week I was down on the Cape, spending the days listening to lectures about particle physics and the nights socializing with other grad students from New England universities. While free beer was provided every evening, I could not leave well enough alone and decided to attempt a cocktail.

Brainstorming began on the drive to the local liquor store. Azul would provide an inexpensive but quality base spirit, but secondary spirits could I find without pulling too much from my wallet? Browsing around the store I found a four pack of local ginger beer, and I jumped on the idea of a tequila/ginger/lime rickey akin to a Dark and Stormy. By dinner I was mixing together my first trials and trying to contain my disappointment.

Marked by a pungent bitterness, the limes were clearly past their prime and the ginger beer was weak and watery. No matter the ratios, the drink ended up less than appetizing. The only redeeming quality was that it was so watery to dilute the off flavors.

Through dinner I contemplated alternative plans; azul is great in a drink, but mediocre sipped by itself. Recent exposure to "Famous New Orleans Drinks and how to mix 'em" and Good Eats inspired thoughts of a punch. The basic recipe (one of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, and four of weak) laid the foundation and some quick thinking filled in the details. With the lime juice, ginger beer, and tequila providing the first three ingredients I brewed a few bags of Earl Grey tea to provide the weak and went back to the make shift bar.

The lime juice proved too terrible to be salvaged, so I quickly dropped it and focused on the ginger beer, tequila, and tea. Warm ice and weak ginger beer necessitated altered ratios, but eventually I iterated to a half-way decent recipe. Overall, not quite a success but a fun adventure none the less. Given fresh juice and homemade ginger beer, the basic recipe might even have promise.

the flux bias

2009-08-11T22:57:00.004-04:00

[by john]

some truths are hard to swallow - tonight it was that cryogenic experiments can require late nights in the lab, so that precious liquid helium doesn't run out. but thankfully, quality homemade drinks are easy to swallow.

here's what i played with tonight after getting home:

the flux bias

1 1/2 oz tequila (azul reposado)
1/4 oz green chartreuse
1/4 oz maraschino liqueur
3 dashes xocolatl mole bitters

stir and strain.

very sippable, with the different earthy flavors taking turns. the name is a bitter (hah) reference to the little electronic things i was trying to keep cold and characterize - squids.

another hard-to-swallow one: mike may have been right all along - the tequila trend is definitely here, with a new tequila-heavy bar mayahuel in manhattan, the spirit's re-christening at tales (according to misty, tom, and many a blogger), and the great popularity of my sole tequila drink at the party. i'm rolling with the trend, and it's fun. azul, it's worth mentioning, has a great flavor (and no nasty vapors), with a great price point ($23 for my bottle).

p.s. - it is hard to quantify the excitement between mike, andy, and i over the (early, in time for the party [the 1919 was a house special saturday night], thanks to adam) arrival of the xocolatl mole bitters. good things shall come.

how to throw a cocktail bash in four easy steps

2009-08-06T22:48:00.002-04:00

[by john]

this past weekend, i threw a two night cocktail fête. it was perhaps the closest i will come to opening a bar, with different guests every night, waves of drink orders, and gourmet bar food. (mad props to mike and andy for the crispy shredded pork awesomeness, gravlax, and bone marrow.) i had tremendous amounts of fun without drinking anything, save for a few dozen milliliters from test-straws. homing in on each guest's taste proved to be a delightful challenge. i will certainly do this again.

now, easily:

create a menu

i put up my menu last time, but gave no indication of how hard it was to make. i tested tens of drinks over the course of a week to see which would appeal to a wide sample of palates. and, in addition to the pet pet, i created two originals - a st. germain/applejack marriage (la pomme rouge), and a constantly varying - popular, too, it turned out - tequila cocktail (the ho[a]rfrost).

everything on the menu got great attention and compliments, except for the poor martinez. being the oldest drink on there, maybe it couldn't hang with this hip crowd. noted. but otherwise, i am elated for converting many guests to the wonders of sloe gin, regular gin, spicy finishes, and flamed chartreuse.

go into debt

having settled on a menu, i then biked around boston/cambridge for another week trying to gather the necessary ingredients. the word is out on rittenhouse, quality bourbon, and old monk rum, apparently, because i had to discover several new liquor stores to hunt them all down.

after all my shopping, i went (a predicted) $200 over my normal budget for the month. i calculated the cost of each drink: usually around $3, and $4 for the tipperary. i figured each guest would go through ~3 rounds, so asked for $10 donations. in the end, i recouped exactly $200, perfect!

for the nth time, i'd like to reiterate how cheap home bartending is, compared to going out.

focus on the freezer

at some point, maybe 10 days before the party, i realized with growing dread that i would need a lot of ice. like, 200 cubes per night. only the brute force solution was viable: i bought two more tovolo trays and pushed out batches each day and night into ziploc bags. by friday morning, i was satisfied with five gallon bags, four trays in reserve, and five non-cubical trays in super-reserve.

some further creative maneuvering allowed me to fit cocktail glasses in there, too, so they could chill before service. good thing we weren't serving gelato or something.

stand around

the hard parts are done. now you only need to stand in one place for three hours and shake or stir the shit out of lots of drinks. stand, and also listen, steer, cajole, charm, engage, introduce, rinse, muddle, crack, and pour.

i had not expected the rush i got from bartending. it's like being on a kitchen line, but colder and solo. some hardcore multitasking - remembering orders, mixing, chatting people up, and monitoring the glassware situation all at once, with outward aplomb. and the repeated delight on guests' faces with the first sip made it even better.

More thoughts on Menus

2009-08-04T22:17:00.006-04:00

[by Naveen]

John's forays into menu analysis have sparked my own curiosity. While looking through various options for Restaurant Week, I visited several of the venues' websites to examine their offerings. One of the first things that came to mind was a recent post on Presentation Zen about typography, a ubiquitous and often overlooked aspect of presentations. The top restaurants generally showed restraint in their menu design, with a limited color and font scheme coupled with a fearless use of white-space. For comparison, I also checked out some totally different dining establishments, with different economic considerations. The contrast between places like L'Espalier and Rialto, as opposed to The Cheesecake Factory and Taco Bell was quite striking (see here for another example). I realize that my small sample size does not come close to any type of systematic data analysis, but it did make me think more seriously about menu design, as well as the use of graphic design in my own presentations.

At the end, I decided to have a little fun, and made a hypothetical menu (inspired by this):

my menu

2009-08-03T20:05:00.004-04:00

[by john]

after criticizing several types of bar menus, i had to make my own for this weekend when i threw a two-night cocktail party. more on the fête and the drinks themselves later; for now, i want to share the menu (pdf):

imagine it with a fold down the middle, so that you have the option of deciding based solely on ingredients, or solely on description (name and my musings), or on the combined knowledge.

if i owned a bar, it would be called 'aliment' (not usually applied to drinks, but i like the word and the connotation), and if it had a menu, it would look like this one. clean, elegant, brief, and the ingredients-plus-description style. and hopefully enticing enough to obviate any gin and tonic knee-jerk requests.

Teranga: a meta-review

2009-08-02T23:06:00.006-04:00

[by Naveen]

After reading several recent reviews about the restaurant Teranga in the South End and talking with a computer visualization-savvy friend, I thought of showing the articles as a word cloud (generated by www.wordle.net). This is far from scientific, but could be the start of a new way to read about local dining establishments.

From top top bottom:

(1) June 6th, 2009: Teranga report on Chowhound

(2) June 16th 2009: First Bite: Teranga post on on Chowder

(3) July 29th, 2009: Teranga review on the Boston Phoenix

(4) July 29th, 2009: Teranga review on Boston.com

Nerd Cred

2009-07-30T00:35:00.005-04:00

[by Mike]

While we're discussing the intersection of science and spirits, it seems appropriate to boast about some of the art decorating my apartment.

The images are produced by scattering light off of spirits, in this case a Sloe Gin Fizz (on the left) and tequila (on the right), that have been crystallized with some proprietary chemisty. These and a slew of other, gorgeous images are available for viewing and purchase at Molecular Expressions.

And you thought your drink looked good in the glass.

Mystifying the Demystified

2009-07-30T00:19:00.004-04:00

[by Mike]

As John introduced, we absolutely love it when people take a scientific perspective on cocktails. Not only are two of our passions combined into one, but our expertise in one of those passions (science!) opens up the possibility of our making a contribution to the other (booze!). On the other hand, that expertise makes us particularly vulnerable to snobbery.

You know that almost inevitable feeling of disappointment that accompanies a poorly made cocktail at a less than reputable establishment? That's the same feeling I get when I see an article with a poor explanation of scientific principles or abusing data analysis.

To be fair, the former is somewhat delicate. The basic arguments are solid, but the description and application of "entropy" is lethargic. Taking from every bad introductory text on thermodynamics, the authors anthropomorphisize molecules as particles striving to be free when the proper description is a little more subtle but far more enlightening (don't hesitate to request more information, especially over drinks).

The latter? Let's just say that failing to properly calibrate an instrument or posting "errors" without any further description should be as immediately horrifying as a shaken martini. The use of Excel is more like reaching for a cheap triple sec: it'll do in a pinch but if you're going to take the time to make a drink then you might as well make it right.

Of course I'm being particularly picky here. The articles were great fun (seriously, who can't appreciate a thermocouple at the bottom of a Boston shaker?) and I look forward to further scientific endeavors into the world of cocktails.

I just wish there were more scientists involved. We're always looking for a good time.

cold, hard data

2009-07-29T23:18:00.002-04:00

[by john]

the cocktail world has gone slightly aflutter lately (i wouldn't go as far as 'wild') about the shaking of ice. yes, the act that is so routine to your average barkeep that they hardly give it a second notice. and yet, after so many times of not noticing it, one develops a style, and one wants to claim (via pseudo-science or not) the superiority of that style.

exhibit one: a long video of a recent seminar by a japanese bartender, who is a proponent of using many kinds of ice and the japanese 'hard shake' style. he affably parries questions from the audience about using one technique over another with 'because that is the best way i know'. concrete explanation is missing, but i can sense that while a small fraction of the audience is skeptical, the rest is willing to believe the arcane wisdom from this strange land.

exhibit two. a few recent attendees of tales of the cocktail made an honest scientific plunge into the debate of shaking efficacy. entropy, thermocouples, excel graphs and all. while i cringe a bit at their longwinded explanation of freezing-point depression and their excel statistics (mike may whip up a polemic later), i laud them for tackling the myths (dare i say religion?) of shaking, and doing so with science. they found that shaking style doesn't matter, shaking time doesn't matter, but maybe your shaker (all metal/pre-cooled/boston shaker) might matter. empiricism, baby!

exhibit three. twitter! ok, maybe just a single tweet tonight from the drinkboston writer, lauren. drink's bartenders are apparently into ice wars. with thermometers.

here's hoping the trend continues. it keeps us science-minded folk feeling useful and in touch.

Marketing and Restaurants

2009-07-29T22:07:00.004-04:00

[by Naveen]

After enjoying several excellent meals with my parents last weekend (The Friendly Toast, Garden at the Cellar, Highland Kitchen, and Toro) and thinking ahead to Restaurant Week, I've been pondering the situation from the restaurant's point of view. If you are a major corporation, like The Cheesecake Factory, a traditional media advertising campaign works well enough for drawing in many customers to enjoy good, but sometimes insipid food (according to Michael Ruhlman). However, smaller-scale endeavors need to pursue a different strategy, so I thought of some criteria that people follow when choosing a restaurant.

Reputation: Barbara Lynch (No. 9 Park, drink, et al.), Frank McClelland (Harvest, L'Espalier), and Todd English (Olives, and much more), have proven their contributions to the Boston restaurant scene in the minds of numerous critics and diners. I chose a dinner at Toro partly based on Ken Oringer's experience at Clio, which was apparently good enough for Ferran Adria.
Avoid the Middle: On the inexpensive side of the scale, homemade meals, potlucks, "happy hour" specials, and the like can be thoroughly satisfying. On the other side of the spectrum, an occasional meal at a fine dining establishment can fuel further gastronomic curiosity and exploration. Insipid mid-priced restaurants seem to me like an economic drain. This falls into Ramit Sethi's conscious spending philosophy.
Reviews in the weekly periodicals: These aren't necessarily the most insightful critiques, but everyone else reads them, so it's a good way to take the pulse of the city's culinary zeitgeist.
Recommendations from friends: This is the best way to find new venues, but it does require steadily increasing one's circle of acquaintances and seeking out people with similar tastes. For instance, now I wish that I went to Maynard James Kennan's wine bottle signing at Whole Foods earlier this year, since I probably would have met an interesting subset of the population that is a fan of TOOL and intrigued by wineries in the middle of the Arizona dessert.

Advertising good food, a random best of Boston award, or a standard three-course prix-fixe menu does little to convince me to make a visit. However, I'd love to hear about ideas for future dining expeditions or new tools for restaurant recommendations (e.g. similar to Netflix personalized recommendations).

cocktails and powerpoint

2009-07-20T21:10:00.013-04:00

[by john]

all three of us here at the blog have strong opinions on what makes a good set of slides for a scientific talk. generally, they align (conciseness, high information-to-ink ratio, tell a story rather than read the slides, well labeled axes...), but sometimes our opinions clash and we find ourselves in a shouting match over the usefulness of outline slides. (yes, this happened. at drink.)

lately, i've come to develop similar strong opinions on bars' cocktail menus, which are, after all, the bartenders' method of presentation. in addition, as i prepare for my own big cocktail party, i'm thinking about what my menu should look like.

here, then, is a taxonomy of both presentation styles:

the screenshot

we've all (switching to scientist persona for a bit) suffered through a speaker who relied on screenshots of whole paragraphs from colleagues' (or their own!) papers instead of digesting the content into bulleted form. enraging.

the cocktail menu equivalents are the tomes that you can find, say, at new york's pdt. each cocktail gets half a page of rambling attention - some history, some flavor notes, some discussion of seasonality. distill it for me, already!

aphoristic

some presenters like to take the cutesy route to talks. they'll have quotes from einstein or barely related stock photos (usually of einstein as well). they might have good content, but you wouldn't know that if they were on mute.

i think of eastern standard's menu. original drink names (brock's buck) with inside-joke-sounding description (alliterative shout out). what the hell is in it?!

table

similar to the screenshotter, the table-user will lift a whole table of data into the presentation (including the unnecessary columns) and point out the important bits with a dim laster pointer.

i think beer lists are more guilty of this - especially a place like sunset tap which has about a million beers on tap and prints them all in small font, along with brewery location and abv.

maybe the old b-side menu gets close for cocktails:

succinct points

ah the elusive -good- use of bullet points. the basic information and hints of the deeper significance, without becoming a long sentence. there's enough there to understand it in itself, but the speaker fleshes out each point more fully.

craigie on main comes close to this style - the important bare ingredients or flavors, with a little color commentary. and tom is always willing to supply more information.

chalk talk

this speaker is a baller. they are probably old and well respected in several fields, partially for their skill in delivering arresting, note-free, slide-free presentations.

the bartenders at drink and milk & honey are ballers. there is no standing cocktail menu; only what they can hold in their mind. without the crutch of a menu, prolonged interaction between the bartender and customer leads to a better understanding for both.

Running without a Map

2009-07-19T22:04:00.002-04:00

Why are there 18-wheelers all around me? Why am I surrounded by warehouses? Where is the Boston skyline? I'm bringing a map next time. - Me, three weeks ago, while losing myself in East Boston on a morning run.

This road seems a lot longer than before - I don't recognize any of the buildings. Oh crap, Arlington Heights. I'm definitely bringing a map next time. - Me, two weeks ago, after making a wrong turn on the Minuteman trail.

I remember seeing green on the map somewhere around here, but it's suburban sprawl in all directions. I'll just follow this sign and check out Malden. - Me, this Saturday, doing a terrible job of following my own advice.

My approach towards cooking often ends up similar to running: an ambitious goal fueled by enthusiasm and curiosity leads to a comedy of errors from a lack of formal or methodical training. A marathon of cookie-preparation leads to shortbread cookies that are almost too crumbly to pick up. Arrowroot barely salvages an attempt at yogurt from fat-free milk. Mistakenly making vegan "mayonnaise" with silken, instead of extra-firm, tofu leads to unappetizing yellow goop. Whole spice garam masala is ground finely and added at the wrong time in a recipe. Each of these experiences inspires me to learn more about the particular technique, which to me is far more interesting than following a recipe and making something that's just "good."

However, one of the greatest things about being a home chef (and a grad student) is the ability to fail often and with relatively minor consequences. This isn't pediatric neurosurgery. No paying dinner guests or restaurant reviewers are tasting my food. A failed experiment in lab just means I'll need to try again the next day. I'm looking forward to making as many types of mistakes in my cooking and research as I can over the next several years, before entering the "real world." This is prime-time to practice my mistake-making skills, so I don't end up in a rut of making the same mistakes.

John: You should really carry a map or some directions with you next time.
Me: Yeah, I'll do that.
John: That was totally unconvincing.

Vegan Cookie Invasion

2009-07-17T08:28:00.003-04:00

[by Naveen]

Me: "The food processor isn't working."
Jeff: "Did you put in the blade?"
Me: "No."

While struggling to get some results for lab meeting presentation #3 this month, one of my lab-mates asked if I would "volunteer" for taking care of next week's coffee break: every weekday at 3pm our lab congregates around a small table for caffeine, cookies, and conversation. Any sane person would have requested a postponement until after lab meeting presentation #4, but my time-management skills leave much to be desired. As if that wasn't bad enough, I decided to bake my own cookies, hoping to add some variety to the endless stream of Milano's, Oreo's, and Chips Ahoy. However, as my house-mate pointed out, it's hard to make anything taste bad with butter, flour, and sugar, so I decided to take on the challenge of making all vegan cookies.

After my group meeting presentation and a microbial journal club meeting, I stopped by Shaw's to get the raw ingredients and then set off to a marathon of cookie prep. I had done some background reading from Shirley Corriher's Cookwise, which offered a plethora of great information. Some samples:

Cookies made with butter (which has a fat content around 85%) spread out more than cookies made with shortening, since the texture changes more rapidly as a function of temperature.
Cookies made with brown sugar will brown more than table sugar (I guess that's not surprising). Honey is somewhat hygrosopic, so will absorb water after cooking, resulting in a chewier cookie.
Lower protein flour will lead to a lighter, more cake-like cookie.

I also read a related article in the Boston Globe about pie crusts, which dicussed the merits or butter vs. lard vs. olive oil vs. shortening. Vegatable oil fared surprisingly well. Michael Ruhlman also offered some insight from his Ratio philosophy. However, I couldn't find any data about coconut butter, which I would be using in several of the recipes.

Although the recipes varied in the specifics, the basic outline was:

Mix together flour (spelt, brown rice, or whole wheat), oats (if needed), flax seeds (if needed), baking power and/or soda, and spices.
Separately mix the sweetener (maple syrup, sucanat, etc.), fat (i.e. coconut butter, olive oil, peanut butter, or tahini), and apple sauce (if needed).
Combine the dry and wet ingredients (food processors are amazing) and stir in the raisins, chopped walnuts, chocolate chips, etc., if needed. I ruined one of the batches by doing this all in the food processor, which turned the beginning of a gorgeous batch of chocolate chip-oatmeat-walnut cookies into brown sludge.

I now have five batches of dough sitting in the freezer, ready for a (hopefully) epic week of cookies.

Me (looking at five fist-size blobs of dough in separate Tupperware containers, after two hours of work): "I don't think this going to be enough."
Jeff: "Yeah."
Me: "I think I'll need to make a trip to Star Market."

I'm Giving Summer Just One More Chance

2009-07-16T23:13:00.004-04:00

[by Mike]

The rain has left, the sun has returned, and strawberries are coming into season. Who's ready for a cocktail?

Some of my favorite summer cocktails are also some of the most simple. Take the strawberry margarita: fresh strawberries chopped and muddled into a syrup with a little bit of sugar and shaken with the standard 3-2-1 margarita recipe. Deviously refreshing and dense with the complimentary notes of agave and fruit.

Cheers.

pet pet

2009-07-15T22:47:00.002-04:00

[by john]

thailand, perhaps realizing the current cocktail craze might pass them up uncrazed, has unveiled a new national cocktail (the guardian via drinkhacker):

At the very least the drink's ingredients are far from bland: a shot of vodka, coconut liqueur, a dash of chilli pepper and sugar, lime juice, a few slivers of lemongrass and ginger, with the whole mixture shaken then strained into a glass with ice and soda water.

by the looks of it, it's an alcoholic tom yum. personally, though, i'm turned off by the blank canvas vodka-and-soda combo.

having tried my hand with thai cookies, why not a thai drink? my endeavor was purely inspired by this post on homemade thai chili tincture, and the fact that i had lots of leftover thai chilies from the market.

so here it is, the pet pet (thai for 'really spicy'):

pet pet

1 1/2 oz old monk rum (no substitute for this kind of rum)
1/2 oz green chartreuse
2 barspoons thai basil syrup (homemade: equal parts raw sugar and water, steep with thai basil leaves)
7 drops thai chili tincture

stir and strain. garnish with basil leaf.

i like this drink. it has three parts: a fragrant smell which belies the spiciness, then a roiling combination of flavors, and finally a long, slow burn.

the only problem is that it's just half thai. the rum is indian, and the chartreuse is french. i'm willing to say 'oh well', but then that would be giving up on the idea of a truly thai cocktail. apparently, there are, uh, indigenous liquors distilled from rice. they have, however, have been likened to nail polish...which will make this challenge even more challenging.

well, until i get my hands on some genuine spirits, this will definitely be my go-to thai drink.

Greens

2009-07-14T22:28:00.004-04:00

[by Naveen]

I'm currently experimenting with the Dogma Box from Boston Organics, which features produce that originated as close to Boston as possible. The shear quantity of greens that has been passing through the kitchen lately was at first daunting, but is now a welcome challenge. To briefly summarize my plan of attack:

Lettuce: doesn't keep very long. A good excuse to experiment with salad dressings. A failed tofu "mayonnaise" turned into a decent vegan caesar salad (capers helped a lot).
Bitter greens/kale/etc: also don't keep very long. These are great for stirring into bean stews. Beer or adobo chili lead to great sauces.
Cabbage: works well when cooked with rice. This week I added pine nuts, currants, and dill to some black rice that I had in the cupboard.
Collard greens: great for wraps, after briefly dipping in boiling water.
Bok choy: I plan to try braising these tomorrow.

I already have a deeper appreciation for fruit as a result of the experience (that includes tomatoes). I have to confess that I still buy bananas every week from Shaw's, so I'm far from being a true locavore. We'll see how I deal with a bounty of root vegetables in the winter: I've already spoken with several Dogma dropouts.

Not Eating at Alinea

2009-07-14T08:30:00.006-04:00

[by Naveen]

After a month of six group meeting and journal club presentations, I'll be completely ready for a rejuvenating weekend in Chicago to see Lollapalooza with my college roommate. I've been listening to all the bands on the line-up and asking friends for recommendations in anticipation of the big event.

By some type of coincidence, I recently read the latest article in a series of posts by Grant Achatz, the chef of the cutting-edge and controversial restaurant Alinea in Chicago, which brought up some interesting parallels with the music world. He actually starts his article about "when a chef gets famous" with the analogy to seeing Bono live for the first time. Now many chefs have rock-star status as the Food Network and other media outlets have catapaulted them into the realm of celebrity. This has its downsides, since it means less hands-on time in the kitchen, leading to dissapointment by some diners.

On the other hand, this trend is great for people like me. Even if I ate at Alinea (which would be considerably more expensive than the Lollapalooza tickets), I almost certainly wouldn't get to talk to the chef. However, through magazine articles, his recent cookbook, and numerous other sources, I can start to understand his approach towards food. I haven't gone so far as this woman, but it has still led to several great conversations about whether this style of cooking is a worthwhile exploration at the frontiers of food or nothing more than a collection of "molecular gastronomy" gimmicks.

I see another analogy to music. A butterfly-collector can buy tickets to listen to all of the Top 40 bands live. However, I doubt that he would enjoy the music at the same level as a long-time fan of a particular band who has been following the evolution of the their sound over time, keeping track of tour dates, saving money for the tickets, and sharing his enthusiasm for the music with friends. With restaurants, is the diner trying to amass a collection of eating at the "best" restaurants in the world or is he sincerely intirgued by the chef's work?

Recycling

2009-07-09T22:51:00.003-04:00

[by Mike]

Fresh juice is without question a requirement of a well stocked bar, and maintaining a fresh supply can be a bane to any amateur cocktail enthusiast. Citrus left out at room temperature squeezes well but quickly acquires bitter flavors as the fruit ages; storing fruit in the refrigerator can delay the onset of off flavors but at the expense of firmer flesh that can make significantly reduce juicing efficiency. Even fruit kept in the fridge, however, will eventually spoil. With an oft random schedule vulnerable to aging citrus, what is a graduate student to do?

In the past, I would either try to use old citrus (to the detriment of many a cocktail) or swallow the waste and throw it out. After my last big cocktail party, however, I had nearly a pint of freshly squeezed juice that I couldn't bring myself to trash and I began to research alternatives. Eventually my search stumbled upon the unsung hero of preservation: the freezer. Freezing the squeezed juice in 1/2 ounce increments would dramatically increase the effective lifetime while providing convenient serving sizes. Conveniently, one of my ice cube treys held exactly 1/2 ounces in each well. The experiments were on.

My main concern was that the frozen juice would take too long to thaw and limit the convenience of the method. Fortunately, chemistry proved a powerful ally; something in the juice (not sure if it's the low pH or just the solutes impeding crystal formation) reduces the latent heat of the cubes. Build a drink, throw in the cubes, and you'll only have to wait a minute or so before they melt and the drink can be finished with the introduction of ice and a quick shake.

The initial batch of lime and lemon cubes have been in my freezer for over a month now and I have yet to notice any significant reduction in quality. I would definitely pick up some fresh fruit in the case of a party or the occasion to impress someone, but the cubes are definitely sufficient for today's grad student on the run.

Food, Inc.

2009-07-08T19:16:00.005-04:00

[by Naveen]

I read Fast Food Nation and The Omnivore's Dilemma soon after each of them arrived in bookstores, so it's unsurprising that I went to see Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan in Robert Kenner's latest film. The attempt to present multiple sides of such a complex and emotionally-charged issue was quite well-done.

I especially appreciated the portrayal of the tough choices many Americans have to make when deciding between 99 cent cheeseburgers and far more expensive produce at the local supermarket. It's easy for me and many others in the Cambridge area to jump on the local/organic bandwagon and enjoy cooking at home, but the movie reminded me of the millions who work far more than 40 hours a week to struggle to feed a family. It cetrainly makes my troubles with grad school research seem trivial by comparison.

The other interviews were similarly enlightening: an industrial food scientist demonstrating the chameleon-like versatility of corn, the CEO of an organic company that "sold-out" to WalMart (in some people's minds), the founder of an idyllic farm that refuses to compromise his principles (and may never spread his vision beyond elite foodies), a seed cleaner who was sued for patent violations, a food safety advocate who lost her son to a virulent strain of E. coli., a union organizer for slaugherhouse employees...

Like Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," the movie ended with some cute typography giving out a plan for action. I'll keep shopping at the local Farmer's Markets and figuring out creative uses for the contents of my weekly Boston Organics box. I already don't drink sodas or eat meat. I could sign some petitions, write to Congress, and be a more active citizen in general. I'm still struggling with the question of what I could do that would actually make a difference versus cosmetic, "feel-good" changes.

If you see the movie, I'd love to hear your thoughts. If you need a little extra incentive to see it, Chipotle is offering free screenings across the country.

My personal test kitchen

2009-07-05T13:00:00.013-04:00

[by Naveen]

A recent presentation to my research group led to the hiatus in posts lately. I'll be giving at least four more related presentations this week, and I'm actually looking forward to the opportunity to get feedback from my colleagues. In grad school it's possible to go for weeks without any type of clear indication of whether one is on the right path. After weeks or spending far too long in front of my computer doing finite element modeling simulations, I desperately sought out the clarity offered in the kitchen.

For instance, I've been enjoying the challenge of using up the weekly assortment of vegetables (and tomatoes) from the Boston Organic's Dogma Box. I was excited to get a bag full of garlic scapes, which I had never used before. I had seen a recipe for a garlic scape soup over a year ago that I've wanted to try since then. However, what should have been a simple, refreshing summer soup turned into a two-hour ordeal in the kitchen. I didn't pre-cook the scapes enough ahead of time, so the immersion blender ended up getting clogged with a green fibrous mess. I tried transferring to a miniature food processor, which was too small and only spread the green goo further across the kitchen. I didn't have spinach leaves, so I added some other leafy greens from the box, which turned out to be some type of extremely bitter plant and totally ruined the flavor. Every chef these days seems to talk about "ingredient-driven" cuisine, but now I'm really understanding how a failure to understand the properties of a ingredient can ruin a dish.

Making bread was slightly more successful. I made my own sourdough starter, which started smelling quite pungent after a couple days. This Saturday I got around to actually making the bread. After making no-knead bread several times before, I initially forgot to knead the dough before shaping the ball. On top of that, I made the mistake was using all whole-wheat flour without any type of compensation, which yielded a dense product that overwhelmed any flavors from the patiently cultured microbes. Fortunately, there's more started int he refrigerator, so I can look forward to more experiments.

I was really looking forward to making a buttermilk summer squash soup. However, the ingredients list on the side of the carton dampened my enthusiasm. I'm still on the lookout for real buttermilk, but have yet to find any.

On the subject of dairy, I'm now a fan of powdered yogurt-starter: it yielded my best batch yet.

I'm not the only one interested in food. All the free local weekly periodicals seemed to have gastronomical-themed cover stories. I'm planning to see Food, Inc., later this week, too.

After missing the Taste of Somerville (lab meeting), Taste of Fort Point (rain), Taste of Cambridge (journal club), I was really looking forward to the Taste of Allston, which seemed like a great way to discover new restaurants on the other side of the river. Moreover, it was much less expensive than the Cambridge event (which offered a "taste of Cambridge" in terms of prices as well). However, I ended up feeling like a butterfly collector. Potlucks (and food-themed microbial science events) are far more satisfying experiences.

Miscellaneous observations:

Was my last post too "emo"? The question has been haunting my thoughts recently.
Am I also butterfly-collecting when I seek out the most unusual beverage in a cocktail bar? I appreciate the patience of the Boston bartenders and will have a more thought-out request on my next excursion.
I'm starting to like Southern food more, but it'll be a while before I'm cooking like Paula Deen.
Jerusalem artichokes (aka sunchokes), featured in the first photo, are now my favorite root vegetable.
When you love to cook, the world becomes a potluck.

my drink is average

2009-07-02T21:08:00.002-04:00

[by john]

if i were to judge, based purely on the reviews and musings i read in the cocktail nook of the internets, i would think that just about every drink ever drank tasted good. nobody ever says, 'meh, this drink was...okay.' it's like grade inflation for the tippling set. well, it's bothersome, so i hereby start my battle with the fine and dandy:

fine and dandy

1 1/2 oz gin
3/4 oz lemon juice
3/4 oz triple sec (cointreau)
1 dash angostura bitters

well, as advertised, it's average. the lemon juice and triple sec keep each other from making the drink too sweet or too tart, and the bitters add depth, but...it's nothing miraculous. perhaps a good drink for beginners, but nothing i'd come back to much.

tonight, i had an ordinary drink. mlia.

ice

2009-06-25T22:30:00.002-04:00

[by john]

i was reminded last night of just how essential ice is as a cocktail ingredient.

in order to properly warm a cliquot-loving friend's new apartment, i brought a flask of pre-measured gin and st. germain and a bottle of prosecco to make elderfashion royales. the only thing i didn't bring - and hadn't thought i needed - was ice. like habit, i put the glassware in the freezer and started looking around for the clear stuff...but alas! after some playful admonishing, i went ahead with the drink, swirling it in a frozen pint glass and then topping the chilled flute with prosecco.

ah, but there's the rub. a drink is not stirred, shaken, or built with ice for the bracing chill alone; dilution is - i would argue - the most important side effect. you don't want to poison your guests, after all.

so, i ended up trying two versions of the cocktail - one straight up, and one with 1/4 oz of water to simulate a little bit of dilution. and there was definitely a difference...the 'watered down' one was indeed rounder.

the cocktails turned out nicely (as st. germain and bubbly usually do), and made the night's conversations all the more pleasant.

-----

now, i've been trying to restrain myself from becoming an ice snob, as bartenders are wont to do. i don't boil my water beforehand, or purify it, or do two stages of freezing...but i will admit to buying some tovolo trays, which give very solid one inch cubes. they've got a lot more shaking power than chipped ice, and they look sexy in a collins glass.

however, i think this might take it too far: physicists have discovered a new kind of ice, dubbed ice xv. it is formed only at high pressures and is a little strange, being antiferroelectric. i don't know how it would change a drink, but it'd be impossible to find out anyway. i guess those scientists will have to celebrate their achievement with some champagne chilled in regular ol' ice ih.

as a final ice news note, check out this slideshow of different kinds of solid water and then tell me people aren't obsessed with this all too common, all too weird substance.

Surviving

2009-06-24T22:17:00.003-04:00

[by Mike]

After a long week of some inconsistent fast food (ranging from awesome lamb-fennel schwarma to a terrible Chinese buffet) and lots of tacos (corn tortillas, rotisserie chicken, cucumber, radish, lime, and chipotle salsa) I thought it was time to treat myself to something a little nicer.

My previous searches through Yelp turned up one possibility, Blonde. The lone review wasn't particularly helpful, but it linked to the restaurant's website and, despite the aliased text, the prospect of candied apple and fennel proved to be enough persuasion. In classic Long Island tradition, Blonde was located in a strip mall sandwiched between a hardware store and one hour photo developer. The interior decor, however, was largely unaffected by the neighbors. A few too many candles illuminated a warm color palette and a painted wall with a modern touch.

Spoiled by the cocktail selection in Boston restaurants, I tried starting with and Old Fashioned in the hope they would have a nice rye or two. While they weren't stocking rye, this did have a bottle of Milagro blanco tequila that made for a fine tequila Old Fashioned. After a few sips my appetizer arrived; duck paired with spinach, frisee, raw onions, and candied pecans with a ponzu dressing. While I would have appreciated a few more of the addicting pecans, the array of flavors and textures were great.

The quality of the salad had my hopes raised for the entree, pork loin with sweet potato puree and crispy fried leeks, and I wasn't too disappointed. Although under seasoned and somewhat overcooked, the pork loin had a great crust that kept crisp through the entire meal. Also lacking salt, the sweet puree was soft and full of rich, roasted sweet potato flavor and he leeks were a nice addition, melting in the mouth and providing a base earthy flavor when combined with the rest of the dish. All in all, only a few seasoning adjustments away from a really good dish.

One interesting note is the size of the portions. Accustomed to the, shall we say, delicate servings common in Boston, I was blown away by the size of these dishes. The pure bulk of food certainly helped to assuage the price.

For now it's back to cereal, tacos, and cheap take out as I build up my savings and hunger for the gluttony awaiting my return to Boston.

Overwhelmed

2009-06-21T19:30:00.008-04:00

[by Naveen]

I'm lost: what am I doing? I don't want to be a food blogger taking photos of restaurant meals like some safari-goer collecting trophies. I don't want to be a tourist visiting a country just to take pictures of the monuments and buy some trinkets at the gift shop. I can pick any random recipe on-line and buy pretty much any out-of-season ingredient at the local supermarket and more exotic ingredients at Whole Foods, but that doesn't seem like cooking. That's stamp-collecting.

Running analogies come to mind. I don't want to be stuck doing two-mile jogs: I want to run a marathon someday. I keep seeing ways to take my dishes a step further: farmer's market asparagus instead of generic spears from Shaw's. Growing my own fresh herbs and grinding my own spices instead of sprinkling from the numerous small cylinders in the cabinets. Practicing my knife skills. Getting into a rhythm of reprocessing leftovers and extras to minimize time and food waste. Being able to deconstruct the separate ingredients in a cocktail or the various flavor notes in a glass of wine or a cup of coffee.

Constraints make cooking more real. Wary of budgetary overruns, I'm skeptical about long ingredient lists. Falling behind in my grad school research makes me feel worse when a recipe takes far longer than expected to prepare.

Why do I cook? It's more than food. It's partly the Zen-like state of mind that comes from focusing on technique. However, it's different than the quest for perfection that drives many professional chefs. I think it's my way of expressing my insatiable curiosity and the continual drive to go further.

Gallery:

Pierce Street Vegetarian Chili from 101Cookbooks.com, with Goya dried bean mix, some leftover pearled barley, Boston Organics chard, red chili powder from New Mexico.

Breadsticks from "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" - more trouble than their worth, in my mind. Flatbreads seem to be a much more practical invention. Every culture has their own variety and there's now an entire cookbook devoted to this global endeavor.

Home-made granola with dried apricots and chopped almonds. Not cost-effective and I'm not sure I want to turn this into a weekly routine. Making oatmeal every day isn't quite my style either. I'm still on the lookout for the perfect breakfast after my morning run.

My first cast-iron skillet. I seasoned it in the oven and it was so beautiful that I took a photo. Paring knife, spice grinder, and food processor are next on the list for kitchen acquisitions.

So many recipes, so little time. But even if I cooked everything, so what?

Banished

2009-06-18T04:39:00.003-04:00

[by Mike]

One of the drawbacks to working in particle physics is that you have absolutely no control over your experiment. Instead, government budgets and collaboration politics decide when you're lucky enough to have your data taken and those are two institutions not known for getting things done on reasonable time scales. I first arrived at grad school expecting data within a few months and after two years of delays and set backs, my thesis data is finally being taken. While that bodes well for eventual graduation, it also means a two week stint on Long Island.

I've written about the barren wasteland before, so I took a few precautions. Over the last few months I gathered up a few ideas to avoid fast food and strip malls. And in an effort to sate my addiction to Boston's restaurants, I spoiled myself last weekend: Craigie and Rendevous for drinks on Friday, Vietnamese and sesame balls in Chinatown on Saturday, and Ten Tables with Naveen and Aviv on Sunday.

My first task once off the ferry was to stock up on supplies. With minimal supplies and a dorm kitchen rocking 30 year old appliances, my strategy focused on tacos. I picked up corn tortillas and a good salsa at a local Mexican grocery before hitting a megamart and grabbing the secret ingredient: a rotisserie chicken. Cheap, widely available, and consistently delicious, these chickens are perfect taco fodder and all too convenient for the traveling gourmand. Add a cold beer and you have a complete breakfast (I guess I should probably mention that I'm working the owl shift where breakfast is usually in the early evening?).

My initial attempts to avoid the endless maze of strips malls has unfortunately been less successful. Initially I looked to internet sites like Yelp, but local entries are sparse and the few existing reviews rarely feature more than one comment, making any statistical judgement of reliability impossible. Hence I'm left with few options but driving in random directions, trying to pick up on visual clues that might lead to good food.

Yet again, the sprawl of Long Island proves a powerful foe. From the street it's nearly impossible to judge the quality of a restaurant: a sign advertising foreign food is equally likely to point to cheap take out pandering to American tastes or authentic cuisine. Finer dining options are confined to where the sprawl meets the coast, but there it's just as difficult to determine whether a restaurant is worth the expense, let alone the long trip out. Still, I have most of the two weeks left and even unsuccessful searches provide an opportunity to get off campus.

Worse case scenario? I spend most days downing fresh tacos and good beer, occasionally driving out for some solid if uninspiring Chinese, Mexican, or Thai.

I just might make it out of here alive.

Restaurant Reviews

2009-06-15T22:26:00.000-04:00

[by Naveen]

How do I describe my recent experience at Ten Tables?

Devra First wrote an elaborate valentine to the Ten Tables in Jamaica Plain. It begins:

"This is a valentine. Ten Tables, I have a thing for you. Always have, hopefully always will. I know I'm not alone in that - you have many suitors, and I have to fight for my fraction of your attention...."

Yelp gave it four out of five stars. The chocolate terrine with thai basil ice cream, which I had for dessert, got rave reviews. I have mixed feeling about Yelp, partially inspired by humorous anecdotes from the linecook podcast about reviews appearing for Nopalito before it opens. However, the eccentricities and personal manifestos of the crowd often average out to a useful tool.

AA Gills, the Food Critic for the Times Online, has an instantly recognizable style. A recent (June 14) review beings with a vivid description of strawberry pudding: "The pudding looked so good, a shining plum-puce breast of sticky sweet soft sodden bread and ripe fruit." This later leads into a tirade against processed fruit:

"It isn’t only strawberries; we’re eating less unprocessed or melanged fruit altogether. Orange sales have plummeted. I expect plum sales are plummeting. We drink cartons of boiled fruit juice, but we can’t be bothered to peel one. When was the last time you ate a grape with a pip in it? We eat bits of fruit in salads and in yoghurt and shoved through juicers. The death of soft fruit has nothing to do with organics or green farming. It’s down to packaging and distribution. It’s not that the fruit’s grown badly, it’s just the wrong varieties grown for the wrong reasons. "

He gives a concise summary at the end, criticizing this Francophilic retaurants tapas approach: "The food is mostly well-sourced compilations, but it should trust itself to be a bistro, and drop the snack attack concept." I can see why Anthony Bourdain is a fan of his writing, but I can also see how it's not for everyone. That's why it's great.

The salad/pasta/dessert trio is an over-worn cliche for me. I prefer restaurants with open kitchens, background techno music, and a conversational wait-staff. The food itself was a couple levels more refined than anything I could achieve in my own kitchen. The dessert did make me seriously consider buying an ice cream maker. I like restaurants that give me a story to tell: simply "really good food" is not compelling. This all tells you more about me than the restaurant. If any of you have gone to Ten Tables, I would love to hear your impressions. On a related note, I'm also on the lookout for recommendations for new restaurant critics.

Kitchen Failures

2009-06-14T14:46:00.006-04:00

[by Naveen]

After a dearth of posts due to final projects and moving into a new apartment, I'm once again ready to report the latest from my personal culinary frontiers. I've been having lots of fun experimenting in the kitchen, since I no longer need to carry all my cooking supplies down a hallway whenever I want to make something. Along with these experiments have been quite a few failures, which I've decided to share.

From left to right, top to bottom: I dropped the thermometer into my homemade yogurt, which may have contaminated it with some interesting microorganisms (we'll see in six hours). The no-knead bread barely rose, but it did have a nice crust. I spilled most of the muffin batter all over the inside of the oven after nearly burning myself, so the yield was rather small. The photo of the cauliflower flatbread (Mark Bittman's recipe) speaks for itself. The almond butter-thickened tempeh stew (inspired by another Bittman recipe) clearly demonstrates why I'm not a food stylist.

local news in drink

2009-06-11T21:42:00.003-04:00

[by john]

alcohol in massachusetts may be subject to a rising sales tax on top of the obscene excise tax (already forcing poor students like us to zipcar up to new hampshire).
bittermens bitters are finally for sale! the cocktail world exploded at this announcement, but it was already old news to me (and my cohorts) by 8 am yesterday due to my google reader addiction. the bitters are made by a local couple, and the varieties (including the truly intoxicating chocolate-mole bitters) have been getting heavy rotation behind boston bars for a while.
the observational gastrophysics cocktail crew is awaiting the advent of tales of the cocktail a month from now in new orleans with conflicted feelings. it means that our favorite bartenders (*cough* tom *cough* all of drink *cough*) will be out of town, but then they'll also be bringing new ideas back to boston.
judging by quick glimpses on my bike commute, the new b-side lounge construction is moving forward. the entire place is gutted. no new name plastered on the wall, or signs of hard boiled eggs on the bar, for that matter.

restocking

2009-06-07T11:57:00.001-04:00

[by john]

finishing a bottle is one happy, recurring consequence of stocking a bar. it affords the opportunity to try a new spirit, and congratulate oneself on beating the system of expensive drinks at a bar.

our collection has recently seen the demise of some french vermouth, benedictine, and two kinds of rye. all three of these are essential to my bar. french vermouth and rye are featured in nearly every classic cocktail (though rarely together in one drink), while benedictine has become indispensable to my herb-loving palate.

i'm anxious to pick up some dolin vermouth, which is even more delicate than the noilly prat we finished. as for the rye, i think i'll stick with the cheap-and-good-as-hell rittenhouse 100. the restocking will hit my bar-going habits a bit, but that's fine since i'll have new toys to play with.

speaking of budgeting, i hit april and may right on the nose. taken together, i spent about $397 of the allotted $400. solid.

Cougars

2009-05-31T22:42:00.004-04:00

[by Mike]

While I missed out last night's adventure, I was able to convince John, Andy, and a few more friends to join me for a cocktail at Drink before a showing of Pixar's new pleasure "Up".

Having not been to Drink in months, I took advantage of the opportunity to partake in some of the tequila recipes developed recently. I started with a spicy little number,

Hot Damn

1.75 oz Milagro Silver Tequila

0.25 oz Maguey Mezcal

0.25 oz Agave Nectar

?.?? oz Punt e Mes

Mexican Smoked Salt

Dash Chipotle Tabasco

Neither the heat nor the smoke overpowered the agave, instead complementing the flavors of the tequila and the mezcal.

While enjoying our drinks the conversation with our bartender, Scott, flowed swiftly and easily. The most informative discussion focused on the standard procedure for syrups at Drink. Instead of steeping any flavorings in the syrup itself, everything is steeped in water which is cooled before incorporating the sugar. The reason? Well common table sugar, or sucrose, is a disaccharide composed of two smaller sugars (glucose and fructose) bound together, and when heated that bond is quickly broken and the syrup breaks down into a myriad of smaller sugars and various by products. Consistently reproducing the exact same by products, and hence same texture and flavor, is near impossible in a laboratory settings, let alone in a kitchen. By keeping the sugar away from the heat, the clever bartenders at Drink are able to produce a consistent product each and every night. It's an interesting concept, but I can't help wondering on what textures and deeper flavors they might be missing out.

Deep thoughts were quickly brushed aside, however, when some ladies down the bar recommended an intriguing drink. I heard tequila, cocoa, and chipotle and had to place an order.

Heather's (Mexican) Love Affair

2 oz Milagro Silver Tequial

1 oz Marie Brizzard (sp?) Creme de Cacao

6-7 Sichuan Peppercorns

Mexican Smoked Salt

Dash Chipotle Tabasco

The succulent cocktail was eerily reminiscent of a good Mexican hot chocolate (maybe a touch of cinnamon or almond to perfect the analogy) with all of the refreshment necessary for a summer drink.

Sufficiently lubricated, we headed back to the Common to be enamored with Pixar's latest offering. Even the pretentious movie snob was sold, and it can't have been entirely due to his Mamie Taylor.

rum, in all its forms

2009-05-31T11:43:00.003-04:00

[by john]

andy and i stopped by the latest sip & shop to taste some elderflower drinks and inquire with adam of the boston shaker about what bitters he'll be stocking next. as a very unexpected bonus, he told us about an event at the intercontinental celebrating their 100th rum at the bar.

not ones to pass up free/cheap alcohol, we put on fancy summer duds and headed downtown. we were greeted with free pernod absinthe and crêpes, and a gorgeous sunset view of the fort point channel.

there were about a dozen tables being set up around the posh lobby for rum tasting while we chatted up the guys from ragged mountain rum (including, again, adam, who is their boston rep). this is the same local distillery that made my new bottle of greylock. chris, the founder, was eager to tell us about forthcoming batches of bourbon, corn whiskey, and 'scotch'. i'm rather excited for those. oh, and their rum was nice - a surprisingly flavorful nose, with butterscotch and sharper spices, which belied the thinner flavors on the tongue (the burn of alcohol hit too quickly, but that'll change as they release more aged barrels).

far too many other brands to mention them all, but there were some standouts. i liked the oronoco, a light rum good for daiquiris, since it was a smoother version of the 10 cane in my own bar. gosling's old rum (23 y.o.?) tasted like bermudan nectar. their rep told us about their new product, dark and stormy in a can, which, apparently drinkhacker has gotten ahold of. the rhum clément products tasted entirely like brandy.

overall, the wide spectrum surprised me, a rum novitiate, the most. from light to dark, from cocktail-worthy to sipping, from whiskey wannabes to cognac wannabes, from brazil to nicaragua... other spirits just don't have that kind of spread.

talking to the reps was also enjoyable, since it's their job to be gregarious. one woman, at the pyrat table, was especially awesome. she complimented us on being the most sociable mit students she'd met (not hard), we talked about med school and surfing, then parted with some swag bags (featuring the folkloric hotei character [think laughing fat buddha], which immediately transported me back to japanese art history class).

well, random alcohol outing, until next time...

a different (red)neck of the woods

2009-05-27T22:21:00.003-04:00

[by john]

the regular drinking companions finally made it to deep ellum together on tuesday night. a combination of subway-inacessability and oversight had left this bar the last unchecked must-try cocktail destination on our list. but we rallied together for their redneck luau.

they mixed up four original tiki drinks to go along with the enormous pile of meat they were serving up. (the menu warned that several animals were harmed in the making of this event.) my favorite, a tasty mix of dewars, honey-ginger syrup, lime, apricot, and ginger beer, was the grass kilt. (great name, too.) the suffering hillbilly was also notable: the allspice dram in it really took control to make sure that the grenadine and pineapple juice didn't run away and over-sweeten the drink. the only other time i had a cocktail with allspice dram, it tasted like christmas, and not in a good way.

[by Michael]

John's description of his two drinks are dead on. I was a little afraid that the pineapple juice in the Hillbilly would be overpowering but the dram really kept it in check. My only dissent is regarding his previous allspice dram cocktail: it screamed Christmas in all the right ways. Andy, another friend, and I completed the menu. I started with a Volcano (rum, Cherry Heering, citrus, and bitters), which featured an intriguing house made tiki bitters, while Andy took on a Shipwreck (rum, Picon, and Swedish Punsch).

The highlight of the evening, however, was the meat! Roast pig and brisket were served under the glare of a roasted pig head, complete with an apple clenched in its jaw. While the pork was juicy and the skin was great, the brisket quietly usurped the meal with its intense smoke flavor, crisp exterior, succulent pockets of fat, and fall apart texture.

A close second to the meat? John's leaving early to meet up with friends, only to end up on the same bus as Andy and I. You just can't rush the consumption of barbecue.

The cocktail: a flow-chart

2009-05-25T22:09:00.005-04:00

[by Naveen]

"Distilled alcohols are some of the most intensely flavored foods we have." - Harold McGee

I know far less about cocktails than my fellow bloggers, but I do enjoy making flow charts. I decided it was finally time to try to make sense of the language of mixology. The whole field is due to the inability of yeast to survive in alcohol concentrations higher than about 20%. To get around this biological limitation, people figured out how to heat up a fermented liquid to extract the components with a lower boiling point (especially ethanol). There's some danger involved, since methanol, a poison, has an even lower boiling point. Longer-chain molecules can give the final product an oily consistency. However, there are numerous substances with similar boiling points that give each distilled spirit its characteristic flavor.

What about flavor components with very different boiling points than the ethanol? It turns out that ethanol is a great solvent, so adding herbs, sugars, or other flavorings gives rise to the diversity of flavored alcohols, liqueurs, and bitters that go into making a cocktail.

I realize that this diagram is far from complete, since there is much more to add about the sources for the various base alcohols (e.g. corn, wheat, potato) and the psychology of balancing flavors. Any suggestions for future visualizations are welcome.