I'm curious to see how a Caja China would work for a clam bake. Given that the thing is designed to mimic cooking in a pit it seems like it would yield more traditional results with a lot fewer problems than actually cooking in sand or metal buckets.

@redfish that certainly makes a lot of sense, and certainly explains the importance of recent business records. But a fair lot of the time when I've seen these sorts of disputes over who has "the book" from x 100 year old restaurant people are very much talking about who has the earliest and most lists of reservations. Particularly when you're talking about situations where there wasn't a direct person to person sale of the business as a whole. A list of names, dates, and times relating to dead people doesn't have that sort of practical use. Neither do decades old ledgers. But they seem to factor in heavily in arguments over which restaurant is the real descendant of such and such famous place from 1880.

So I might have the records for the last 5 years the business was open, that gives me a lot of useful info. But if you have the same (or even partial) records dating from 1910 to the 60's, most people would consider your claim to continuity more legitimate. I even remember one situation from near my home town where some one picked up a few years worth of quarter century old reservation books from a famous place at a yard sale. He tried to use them as legal fuel to take control of the name/trademark from the family that originally (and to a certain extent still) operated the place. Didn't work but the restaurant he later opened was considered by a lot of people to legitimately be a part of the "family" of restaurants that grew out of the original.

@raptoeEsq The current Delmonico's is located at the same location as the Original. In so far as these things go continuity tends to follow from possession of the location, access to or possession of recipes/menus, continuity of staff, and with more modern places ownership of trademarks and IP. There's also a weird thing I never understood about acquiring a restaurant's "book". Which usually refers to its literal books of past reservations, although can also refer to past business records/ledgers. I'm sure this is mostly symbolic but the business records might give some sort of legal leverage. Like I said never understood it. The guy who opened the Delmonico's at the original location in the 1920's (the first at that location not operated by the Delmonico family), clearly got the location and seems to have at least controlled the recipes and menus. So that gives him a pretty good claim to continuity with the original. As I understand it there's been a fairly obvious 1-1 sale of the business from that establishment to the current one despite the multi-year gaps in operation. So at the very least they can trace themselves to the place established in the 20's, and that place is well enough connected to the original to make the claim of being THE Delmonico's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delmonico%27s

Cutting across the segments to produce a wheel or half wheel produces a flimsier fruit that doesn't squeeze as well. It also has way less fruit in it. So basically you don't want to do it for any drink where the citrus isn't a purely visual garnish. Oranges usually get cut that way all the time because their much bigger, so a wedge would be awkwardly large, and you aren't usually squeezing it.

And yeah MikeyyMikeyy knows what he's talking about. Its far far easier and faster to slash crosswise through the half to produce your notch. Just a shallow cut perpendicular to the segments. The goal is really to sever the membranes on every segment (particularly the thick bit at the center)the pulp parts pretty easily on its own.

@kenji I've read (and watched) a number of debunking of the alcohol cooking off bit from . Some claiming a set reduced %abv (of added alcohol, or total volume of the end result) or even the vast bulk of the alcohol hangs around no matter how hot or long you cook it. What's your read.

@scalfin. Last I checked adding gin to stews and braises, especially those marked jäger/hunter, was as a substitute for juniper berry. Its a pretty common spice in a lot of European cuisines but its never really been common or readily available in the US. Gin being strongly flavored with juniper it makes a decent replacement.

Their rye is rather nice and tends to crop up fairly often down the bar.

This type of soda bread, often called "brown bread" or apparently "wheaten bread" is actually the more traditional form of soda bread. Way back when most of the Irish could not afford white flour, if they could afford wheat at all. So breads were made with a mixture of oats and whole wheat (ie brown) flour. The fruit studded, sweetened, and fruit havin' kind of soda bread is a much more recent creation based on the white soda breads made by wealthier families. I've had a lot of my Irish family complain about the inathenticy of it.

One bit of information that's missing here is whether these are traditional style Irish Reds or American. I'm going to assume American. Smithwick's is the prototypical red ale in Ireland. And not only is it not red in the least but it bears little or now resemblance to American style called "Irish Red".

@ CatScan right Patty is short for Patricia, Paddy is short of Pádraig the Irish language form of Patrick. So Patty is always a feminine name, you really won't find Patricks going by it anywhere.

And apparently my great grandmother cooked all her stews bone in. She was long gone by the time I was born, but a few of her recipes are floating around.

"The health effects of GMOs" no the health effects are known. There aren't any negative ones. And opposition to labeling doesn't originate just from the food industry. A fair lot of it comes from scientists. The vast majority of whom, especially those who have studied GMO's, see little know risk in the plants but quite a lot in the irresponsible scare mongering.

I firmly maintain that the various Slavic fruit brandies are best when home made. A wider variety of fruits pop up in the illicit versions and I've often found that the barrel aging on the commercial versions just makes them harsher.

@lazy_lurker you can always ask to taste the wines by the glass and request a freshly opened bottle if it tastes old or spoiled. Most people have no issue with that. Or if you end up with a bunk glass just send it back for a fresh one, though that will get you far less consideration from the staff that the first route.

Ask about corkage fees when you make your reservation. A lot of places don't allow it or like it much. There's the loss of profits for them of course, but also a lot of sommeliers find it a bit insulting. But if make sure to know their policy, tell them you'll be bringing your own before you come in, bring something respectable, and offer to share interesting or special (typically a glass for the the sommelier and/or your waiter); you'll go a long way towards endearing yourself to the staff rather than cheesing them off.