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The Drinker's Manifesto

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:00:00 GMT

Published in the June/July 2013 issue — and a preview of our coming 2013 Best Bars in America

1. Drinking is fun.

2. Drinking is everything you do in a bar, including talking, going to the john, and overhearing the conversations of others.

3. Craft cocktails tend to take a long time to make. Mixology.

4. At a place that serves...

Things to Which You Should Toast

Fri, 24 May 2013 10:15:00 GMT

(The unofficial soundtrack to your weekend...)

To the those who gave their lives. Thanks.

To the vets who get to make it home. (And whose drinks you should buy this weekend.)

To Sgt. Joe Montgomery, who eventually did.

To Donovan Gay, who still lives with Agent Orange....

12 Cocktails to Get You Through Summer

Fri, 24 May 2013 09:03:00 GMT

How to Make Clams Casino Stew

Fri, 24 May 2013 08:14:00 GMT

Published in the June/July 2013 issue

Rhode's Island's classic clams casino, often credited to Julius Keller, maître d' at the original Narragansett Pier Casino, is a baked half-shell appetizer traditionally made with shoreline flavor elements: clams, bacon, vegetables, and breading. This one-pot interpretation is assembled in two parts: routine stove-top prep and grand grill finale.

How to Make Clams Casino Stew...

Bartender Questions: What Does His Airness Drink?

Fri, 24 May 2013 06:12:00 GMT

Robert Ferrara
Swine Southern Table & Bar
Coral Gables, Florida

How’d you get into bartending? I was a senior in high school, believe it or not. I was at that age where your parents won’t buy you Air Jordan’s anymore. My mother was in the restaurant business, my father was a produce manager, so I was around food and restaurants my whole life. I landed at a restaurant as a waiter, but there was a guy behind the bar who was always fucking up a lot. He would miss shifts, so they’d put me behind the bar, and eventually they fired him and gave me his shift. It was a mom-and-pop bar and grill, and I knew nothing about making drinks. I ended up bartending there for six or seven years..

You’re drinking a shot. What is it? Mescal. I’ve actually been to Oaxaca, so I’ve seen the way mescal is made. It’s a more hands-on shot, there are routines associated with it, like what you say when you drink it and what you prepare to go along with it. There’s so much involved, which makes for a great experience, but it’s also just a really delicious, smokier kind of shot...

Ask Eat Like a Man: Your Memorial Day BBQ Questions (Part 2)

Thu, 23 May 2013 17:55:00 GMT

Josh Ozersky is a James Beard Award-winning food writer, B-list food personality, and noted polymath and deviant. The founder of Meatopia, he will answer all your questions on meat, food, food writing, relationships, restaurants, or cooking. He is also available for private tutorials.

The second of our two-part special on barbecue advice for your Memorial Day.

What's the deal with competition barbecue? I am thinking about entering my first one next month, the New Hampshire Rock 'n' Ribfest (just half a mile from my home.) Any tips? Have you ever cooked competition yourself? As a judge, what do you look for?
Clarence B. Stockman, Merrimack, New Hampshire

A big question, Clarence! I actually have cooked in a number of New England Barbecue Society events (the closest major circuit to New York). For those of you unfamiliar with what Clarence is talking about, barbecue contests are held all around the country, with thousands of portly men with circle beards trying to create the most perfect brisket, ribs, chicken, and pork butt conceivable. I heartily recommend it, if you have access to a mobile pit. The problem with competition BBQ, especially smaller contests like the one you mention, is the judges. It only takes a few hours to become a certified KCBS judge; you don't need to have cooked, or more importantly, to have been to any of the great barbecue temples, like Kreuz Market in Texas or Scott’s BBQ in South Carolina, that define what barbecue is supposed to be like. The typical judge likes everything sweet, everything spoon-tender, and they like it all to shine with an unnatural ruby glow. The result is predictably awful, and the judges' bad taste has conditioned teams to cook bad barbecue through a form of culinary operant conditioning. I judged the Jack Daniels contest two years ago, the so-called Super Bowl of Barbecue, and it was like spending two weeks at Applebee's. So go, compete, hang out, get drunk, play poker, but if you make great traditional BBQ, don't expect to win.

What are your recommendations for grills in budget, intermediate and high-end categories?
Billy Barlow, Brooklyn, New York

Billy, I addressed this very question in...

Memorial Day Salsa You Can Make in Minutes

Thu, 23 May 2013 12:00:00 GMT

It’s not even June, and you’re already sick of bringing food to cookouts. And you're going to attend one this Memorial Day weekend, because it's what people do. And whether you like it or not, you have to bring something, because it's what people do. You don’t have hours to marinate chicken thighs. You don’t have the mental energy to make a seven-layer dip. You just want to settle softly into a sunlit lawn chair, brew in hand, burger in the other, and relish the early-summer rays.

But you have to throw something together, and it has to be good. Or at least attempt to crowd-please, and you can’t go pre-made. Excuses and reality aside, we have a tip for men like you: Fool ‘em. Yeah, that’s right — Fool ‘em all, and fool ‘em good.

Your brother-in-law made a tiered, time-consuming pretzel salad that immediately concaved, and his neighbor hand-cut three pounds of sweet potatoes for cold, soggy fries, but all you did was check the pantry. All you need are a few ingredients, a can opener, a knife, and five minutes. Oh, and some chips. Definitely some chips. Truth is, they might not be fooled — not all of them, at least — but they’ll eat it all the same. And they’ll like it.

Cinch Cookout Salsa...

How to Be the Master of Your Grill

Thu, 23 May 2013 08:53:00 GMT

Published in the June/July 2013 issue

There's a reason men stand guard over their grills: Fire is alive, wind is unpredictable, adjustments are always necessary. Plus, it makes you look knowledgeable and very busy. Since barbecuing is often a group affair that involves more than one thing cooking, it takes vigilant timing as well as a tolerance for preferences. You are more short-order cook than chef, handling requests for blackened dogs, rare steaks, and chicken that's "not too burny." For maximum grill efficiency, sanity, and success, the first step is to learn to work your grill in three cooking zones: hot, medium, and low. Then you can grill anything. Steaks. Chops. Corn. Bacon. Clams. Fking pineapple. Anything.

How to Do It...

Everything You Need to Eat Well in the Wilderness

Thu, 23 May 2013 06:58:00 GMT

I am writing this from a remote wilderness area. I can't say where it is, because I don't want anybody coming after me up here. I left town for a reason! But before I did, I brought along my food kit: that survival package that serves me well no matter where I go, in any season, in any environment. I would strongly recommend that you build one too.

My inspiration for the Emergency Meat Cooking Kit came, like all my best ideas, from First Blood. When John Rambo, in a psychotic fury, beats up the entire...

How to Make Dark and Stormy Pineapple

Wed, 22 May 2013 13:00:00 GMT

Published in the June/July 2013 issue, on sale any day now

The Dark and Stormy,a classic summer cocktail of ginger beer, rum, and lime, has a 19th-century nautical past linked to the rum runs between the UK and the Caribbean.

How to Make Dark and Stormy Pineapple...

Why Does Food Heated in a Microwave Cool Faster?

Wed, 22 May 2013 12:00:00 GMT

Call me paranoid, but I have long harbored an absolute conviction that food heated up in the microwave cools faster than food heated on the stovetop or in the oven. I don't think I'm being delusional here. Whether I'm nuking a half-finished cup of coffee — which I do almost daily — or cooking a frozen pizza, or heating up last night's leftovers, it all comes out of the microwave sizzling hot and then seems to cool to room temperature before I can find a clean fork. Given that I am a person who once weasled my way out of a high-school physics class by inventing an independent study in poetry-writing, I have always simply chalked this observation up to karma: food heated hastily will cool hastily, just to spite your impatient ass. Makes sense!

Today, in a burst of science-y curiosity, I decided it was time to seek a more logical explanation...

FAQ: Everything You (Didn't) Want To Know About the Rat Meat You Might Be Eating

Tue, 21 May 2013 17:36:00 GMT

What's all this about China and rat meat?

Earlier this month, the Ministry of Public Security for the People's Republic of China announced a three-month crackdown on food safety violators, some of it involving rat, fox and, mink flesh being sold as lamb meat. They reportedly uncovered 383 cases of meat-related crime and made 904 arrests of people suspected of selling 20,000 tons of fake, diseased, or counterfeit meat.

Is this the first time food fraud has been committed on this scale?

Not only is it not the first time, it's not the first time this year...

How to Make a Delicious Elote Salad

Tue, 21 May 2013 15:58:00 GMT

Published in the June/July 2013 issue, on sale any day now

Elote (or corn on the cob) is a Mexican street food, eaten on a stick or by using the peeled-down husks and cob as a handle. Here, it's an outdoor salad — easier to prepare, serve, and eat.

How to Make Elote Salad...

Ask Eat Like a Man: Your Memorial Day BBQ Questions Answered

Tue, 21 May 2013 09:04:00 GMT

The first of a two-part special on barbecue advice for your Memorial Day. Come back for the second on Thursday!

What is required to do top-notch BBQ at home for a beginner? This has been asked my many of the people who come to demos I do at barbecue competitions. What do I tell them?
Harry Stewart, Oakland, California

I mean, Harry, you know as well as I do that a beginner can't make top-notch barbecue, unless he is some kind of a natural cooking genius, or a cyborg like in The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. Barbecue is hard. Or at least it should be. We live in an age of pellet cookers and green eggs and automatic air-flow bafflers. If all you want is to make good barbecue without the effort and skill required to truly earn it, by all means, turn to those weak expedients. But if you want to learn the art of smoke and fire and meat, the mastery of flow and flavor, then worry...

A Place at the Table: A Maddening, Inspiring Film About Hungry Kids in America

Tue, 21 May 2013 06:51:00 GMT

It’s a strange country, America, and not just because of the Honey Boo Boo wedding—although that’s part of it. Look at the obesity problem. There are a lot of fat kids out there, and most of us probably think we know why. Their parents buy them junk. Companies who make junk market it to kids. Kids themselves buy junk with their allowances because it tastes good. Nobody cares. It’s an endless cycle.

All true. But America is a strange country because while we have those things, we also have a classic American paradox: In addition to one of the highest childhood obesity rates in the world, we also have an alarming—and I mean unbelievably alarming—rate of childhood hunger. And often it’s the same kids.

A Place at the Table: A Maddening, Inspiring Film About Hungry Kids in America

Tue, 21 May 2013 06:51:00 GMT

The Hater: Natural Peanut Butter is Vile

Mon, 20 May 2013 16:06:00 GMT

What the Federal Reserve is to a hard money crank or Halliburton to an ardent leftist, that's what natural-style peanut butter was to me as a child. Everything I most detested in my groovy ’70s South Miami childhood was represented by the revolting natural peanut butter I was periodically confronted with. I don't know if you've ever had the misfortune to encounter this hideous product—essentially it’s a dry, tasteless protein paste covered with a layer of clear grease, which you are then expected to mix together, producing an even more vile amalgamation of the two. It's almost beyond my comprehension that such anyone outside a vegan commune would buy this when there is Skippy on the shelves.

Since the onset of adulthood, I have considered natural peanut butter to be a distant and abstract atrocity, like the suppression of Tibetan Buddhism. But today, I actually encountered the stuff for the first time. I am, as I mentioned in an earlier post, in an undisclosed wilderness area in the far west. My wife and her Israeli parents are here with me, and Aba and Ima (Mom and Dad) were good enough to stock the refrigerator before we got here. I should mention that Aba and Ima are two of the healthiest people in the world. They live on hummus and dried fruit, as far as I can tell. But this morning I woke up and saw that peanut butter, and since there was nothing else...I tried it.

Cocktail of the Week: A Lemon-Fueled Gin Nightcap

Mon, 20 May 2013 08:04:00 GMT

One of our bartenders, Shanna Mayo, likes to make herself a nightcap with Fever Tree Bitter Lemon and Campari. This drink basically combines that with a traditional Pimm's cup. It's super light and clean with a nice bitter finish, and you can drink a number of them before you'll know what hit you. Botanivor is St. George's softest, botanical-driven gin. It's still got a nice juniper backbone, but there are a lot of citrus notes and coriander as well. You could probably substitute with something like Citadel, but St. George is pretty easy to find these days. Luxardo is basically a slightly more bitter approach to Campari — it's got a great red color and some nice, bitter grapefruit notes. If you don't have Luxardo, you could absolutely use Campari. Fever Tree Bitter Lemon is a sort of tonic water with lemon notes. Finally, we add a little rich simple syrup just to round out the citrus and bitter flavors....

The Mad Quest to Drink Every Craft Beer at GoogaMooga

Mon, 20 May 2013 06:02:00 GMT

The mission was pretty clear when I started: Go to The Great GoogaMooga festival in Brooklyn and sample the beers they have on tap there. All of them....

Things to Which You Should Toast

Fri, 17 May 2013 09:31:00 GMT

(The unofficial soundtrack to your weekend...)

To a new baby for Bey!

To the graduates, may you find wisdom in the sea of lies, peace in the decades ahead, and funny anecdotes in those that came before.

To excellent penmanship...

Dissecting the Texas Monthly Top 50 BBQ Joints

Fri, 17 May 2013 07:31:00 GMT

There are two reasons why, in the world of food – hell, in the world of anything – no magazine list is as anticipated and debated as Texas Monthly's quinquennial "50 Best BBQ Joints": One, rarity. Quinquennial means every five years. What other list comes out only, and every, five years? And two, topic: Mate the craziest Boston Red Sox fan with the most psycho opera diva and you maybe get close to the emotionality of your average barbecue hound.

See what I did there? Okay, so it's a list of two. I'm just getting started.

The full TM package doesn't drop until May 22, but the magazine has begun doling out morsels like burnt ends. It provided a sneak preview online of the 50. But no long essay, as is customary, and no rankings. And except for the snub of Smitty's Market in Lockhart, no surprise. Surprises, I'm certain, are coming. Until we learn what they are, here's another list:

8 Predictions about the Texas Monthly Top 50 List

The 3 Best Ciders to Drink Right Now

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:45:00 GMT

The definite, inevitable, any-minute-now explosion of artisanal hard cider across the United States has been written about with breathless anticipation by the food media for a few solid years now. And yet here we are still waiting for craft ciders to show up, Godot-like, at our local supermarkets and liquor stores. The good news is that tiny, quirky cideries are without question proliferating. The bad news? The high-quality bottles they produce are still fairly difficult to find outside of a few restaurants and...

Great Ciders to Drink That Aren't Stella Artois Cidre

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:45:00 GMT

Bartender Questions: Drinking Like a Jazz Guitarist

Thu, 16 May 2013 09:32:00 GMT

Tyson Bittrich, 31
Holeman and Finch Public House
Atlanta

The best bars are _____ bars? Open. We are very much open about what we're doing, and recently we decided to include all of the cocktail recipes we rotate. Part of what I mean about being open is the willingness to share techniques and recipes.

Is that why people go to your bar? Yes. Making approachable drinks that are balanced and celebrating openness is something that's been instilled in our House.

What drink is your bar known for? The Oracle. It's rye whiskey, lime juice, jasmine liqueur, some orange bitters, and ginger syrup.

What's a cocktail everyone should know how to make? An Americano. It's Campari, vermouth, soda and a little bit of orange in it. I'd recommend it this time of year.

What's your favorite fictional bar and why? It's in my head, and I'm sure...

5 Good Drinks When You're Not Drinking

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:06:00 GMT

My pregnant wife only asked for one thing: Don't drink until the baby comes. I couldn't help carry the weight of the hormones and the aches, but at least I could miss my Bombay while she missed her Patron. I agreed to abstain, but liquor to me isn't just about a buzz. It is another burst of flavor, as important to a memorable meal as the seasoning or the cooking time.

My friends invited me to a local pub a couple weeks into the pledge. At a loss, I picked a random, aged root beer on tap. I was surprised. It packed the intense, mouth-filling experience of a stiff drink.

Like an alcohol-free guy or a designated driver for the night, I realized I had to find as many interesting, refreshing drinks as possible to keep things interesting — and to keep myself sane...