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deangold

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About deangold

  • Birthday 08/29/1957

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  • Website URL
    http://www.DinosGrotto.com

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Interests
    Opera, Sondheim, wine
  • Location
    Annandale Adjacent

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leviathan

leviathan (121/123)

  1. Toast thanks to Mrs DanielK with cream cheese, lox, capers, onion. Wow is that bread good!
  2. Softshells. Spot thinks we are cooking then to torture him. Pan sauteed dusted with flour & Grotto spice rub. Served with spaghetti w/homemade ramp butter & ramp pesto. Bread courtesy of DanielK's wife. Wine was Alcesti Bianco from Sicily. Nice, simple white to go with the spicy and rich crab. A higher quality wine would have been lost. Spot was so put off his food by our tormenting him that he finished all his pizza, ate all his evening chow, and told us he would see us at 3am.
  3. The strawberry shrubs are mostly done. I used different vinegar pairs for each. The white sugar was balsamic & champagne vinegar. The turbinado was with sherry & rice wine. The dark brown sugar has the least strawberry flavor and I vinegared it with Red Wine and Seasoned rce vinegar that you usually use for Japanese cooking. That came out interesting but I am not sure. The shrub extracted in the balsamico & red wine vinegar was with no sugar. I added all the rich brown sugar simple syrup I had. I forgot I used all the brown sugar, so I used some Lyle's Golden sugar and a little water to finish it. The strawberry flavor needed puching up so I pureed the strawberries in to the shrub. Now my shrub has a 1" layer of foam. We shall see. The 1.5 pounds of berries in the 3 sugar extracted shrubs wwnt into the vita mix along with some blood orange juice & zest and water. We got 20 oz of a wonderful puree for margies or daiquiris from that, not in the freezer. I ran out of gas on the cherries so I will finish them tomorrow, along with the second batch of puree. I got 3 pounds of cherries
  4. I am sorry, but the current Post article to me seems to be the kind of exposure to the causal nature with which white people accept racist behavior. I had customers at the Grotto and Dino make comments about my staff based on race. They were kicked out or told off in no uncertain terms. I banned a regular customer from Dino over his unacceptable statements towards a team member of mine with visible challenges. It is unacceptable and you cannot accept it. Here was a quasi official affair and something unacceptable happened. When two BIPOC called out the woman in blackface, the hosts of the party were already in the wrong.She should have been asked to leave already. That one of the hosts did not provide the harrassed woman the full information and lied about it, he became complicit. If this had been a dinner party with just friends, the fact that the hosts were insensitive and complicit in a racist act could have remained private or could have become an issue affecting attendees. But that is not what happened here. This is one of those parties where you have a large number of people who work at the post attended. It became a quasi official affair because of this. Workplace harassment can happen on the job, but it can happen at social events. And this workplace is the Washington Post. And Toles is a Pulitzer prize winning member of the Post's editorial page. And he blew it. What should happen? To me, this article is the bare minimum. I do think HR at the post should be investigating it if they are not already. I think Mr. Toles has opened himself up to public scorn. Should he be fired? I am not doing the investigation and I do not have input from the harassed employee. But this should not be swept under the rug and especially Mr. Toles does not get a pass because of liberal cred. This situation is very similar to me as outing. There are a lot of people who think outing a political figure with a track record of anti LGBT action is wrong. I am not one of them. When people in power use their positions to harm and hide, there need to be consequences. Aaron Shock was outed not because he was gay, but because he was actively harming gay families by lying about who he was and using his position to inflict that harm. This case is not the same, and Mr Toles offence not at the same level. But his outing is a good thing as was Shocks. I don't know if this offends any one, but if it does so I will be glad to know and eliminate you from my life. I don't have time for casual white supremacy. Our country does not.
  5. The lychee is a characteristic of the Musque clone. The use of certain yeasts can exacerbate it. I like it in low oak styles.
  6. I scored some soft shells live from Cold Country Salmon. I am making crab pats for a couple of Grotto customers to pick up tonight. Contactless pick up of course. So we decided to quality control the crabs as soon as we got them. We took two, I cleaned them {cutting the face off a live crabs always gives me the creeps} and coated them in a mix of flour & Grotto spice mix. I pan fried them in olive oil and they came out pretty deliscious. It was good to get back into cooking crabs as there are some adjustments I will make in how I handle them tonight. Very juicy, very heavy, lots of meat. I mixed some homemade fermented hot sauce and some homemade roasted garlic mayo for the sauce. Hearing eating sounds, Spot came out and ate some dry food. His look he gave us told us he is up to something. His so far 3 hour cat nap tells us he is too lazy to implement his great plan even if he could remember it.
  7. Atwater bread homemade ramp butter, grated parm regginao, grotto spice rub, salt. Toasted until bubbly. Spot was angry at Kay because she respected him to wait until 15 minutes before his breakfast time to feed him. How unreasonable. I leave it to you to decide who I am referring to.
  8. Korean BBQ inspired dinner. Local pork belly unseasoned and done in the yaki niku grill. Roasted local veggies: purple cauliflower, kohlrabi, daikon, red radish, broccoli, carrots from Linda Vista, Barajas, Spring Valley. All seasoned with olive oil, grotto spice rub, S & P. Doenjang, gochujaru paste, salt & sesame oil. Japanese salt pickle with leaves {kohlrabi, radish and outer Chinese cabbage,} slicing cukes, soy, mirin and persimmon vinegar dressing. Baby new potatoes from Spring Valley. We wound up toasting them on the grill and making Ssam. Potatossam with doenjang and gochujang are amazing! Linda Vista romaine leaves. local cherries from Spring Valley. Flattened garlic to go on the grill. Garlic ssam are as good as the potato ones. A few shots of soju and a bottle of makkoli.
  9. I used the one in the Cusinart recipe book with mods. It is based on using a 1.5 quart batch. start with the Mexican style chocolate recipe. increase the vanilla to 1 TBSP. If you can get the double fold vanilla, use 1-1/2 tsp vanilla and 1-1/2 tsp old grandad or some other budget priced GOOD bourbon. I used more pepper but it was Aleppo and I used over a tablespoon of mixed fresh ground spices: Allspice, clove, a little black pepper, a tiny bit of black cumin, Ceylon cinnamon, Aleppo flakes. I started with less and added moe to taste. This was added as I scalded the milk and let it cook before tempering the eggs. 6 farmers market egg yolks. 64% Valrhona Manjari chocolate. Probably closer to 7 oz. 1/4 teaspoon grey salt add one scraped vanilla bean to the milk mix before scalding. Two if you are feeling flush. Get good vanilla beans and extract. Pensy's is not good but it is acceptable. Beanilla is great and standard pricing for really good vanilla. If you buy them 10 or more at a time, you need to have a vacumn sealer to keep the beans from drying out. On the technique, I do not add the vanilla to the milk mix initially. I want the alcohol. I scald the milk up to 190 to 200 degrees with a fair bit of stirring as I am creaming the yolks and sugar on the lowest speed on a stand mixer. When it hits temp, I let it cool to 140 degrees, stirring often to help it cool, then I start tempering the egg mix and the milk/cream mix. I find tempering the egg mix at 190 degrees leaves an eggy residue that gets strained out. Do not strain the mix at this point, but just dont pour the vanilla bean as you temper. Once the egg mix is fully incorporated, reheat is over low to medium heat until 200 max, 190 is OK. Now strain over the chocolate and use a whisk to make sure it all melts and incorporates, but try not to get a lot of air added at this point. When the cooked custard reached about 140, add the alcoholic additions. You can go up to double, but your gelato will wind up softer. I love it that way, but YMMV. Let cool to 70 degrees on the counter, you have 2 hours in the safe zone. Refrigerate overnight. You will need to use a scraper to get the gelato base into the cuisinart. If you deviate from this suggestion by any manner whatsoever, Spot the Cat {@SpottheCat6 on the twitts} will come and be very loud in his disapproval, and expect you to feed him Greenies. Don't say I did not warn you.
  10. It is hard to be the first one to speak out so I am glad you are not victim shaming. But he threw his employees under the bus as well as harassed them. This is beyond my comprehension on his part.
  11. Atwater bread with melted pecorino pepato Smith meadows egg scrambled w/grated parm. Not enough coffee. Spot ate his chow quietly. What wasn't quiet was his MEOWING! in our ears from 4 am till breakfast time of 6.30. We were petting him and scratching behind his ears but the little bastard wold hiss and then rub our hands for more.
  12. Just to report back for scientific purposes. Buffalo Trace is a warm, lighter bourbon. I look forward to mixing with it. High West Double Rye is a smokey big mouthful of spicy rye. Outstanding. Almost Islay scotch-like smoke. Redemption Rye is a more delicate, lighter style. Very tasty and quite a good buy at $33. {22 at Macarthurs. This is going to be my house mixing rye when I am out of Old Overholt.} Now that my palate was calibrated on rye, I went on to consider Templeton and Willet Family Reserve. again for science. The Templeton was light and sweet. While this rye has grown on me, it still does not justify its price IMO. The WIllet was very round and less spicy than the High West. Fuller and rounder than the Redemption. I think the High West is my favorite, with the Willet Redemption behind. But with the redemption $22, The High West $29 to $35 and the Willett $59, the Willett is going to be a rare treat. I was checking pricing on Willett and the big takeaway is that my favorite spirits are $7 a bottle cheaper in DC. Worth a trip.This is not going to be a good thing for my wallet.
  13. Very carby as I was fighting off a severe low blood sugar attack. Snickers frozen bar, Cadbury candy bar, a couple of fried Indian snacks, and Gim Bap from H Mart. Plus some fried snacks from the India Bazaar flavored with lime and cardamom. All medicinal.
  14. I had a rough day and was not feeling well so Kay did all the cooking. I gave some instructions. We had some Japanese salt pickle working in the fridge made with kohlrabi and radish leaves. The Kohlrabi leaves were very tough so they have been sitting for several days. We did some with lemon slices and that was what Kay picked out. First she squeezed out the juices. Next was sliced baby Kirby cukes from the farmers market. Then she flavored it with an Asian pear dressing we had used before on a similar pickle. She added some soy sauce and persimmon vinegar. Came out perfectly and just the thing to sooth my stomach. Left over sweet potato with ramp pesto, served cold. Strawberry gelato with fresh strawberries. Kay made me a 4 to 3 Gibson with Plymouth, Dolin Dry, and a pair of bitters: Peychaud's aromatic and Angostura orange bitters. Kay has a tendency to under bitter martinis but this time she hit it right on. I get the cocktail onions from one of my old suppleiers, IGF. They are small but very tasty with more than just a brine flavor. I scored a bottle of Buffalo Trace Bourbon, and one of Redemption Rye. These are hard to come by at the VABC so it was a lucky day. Also, the High West Double Rye was on sale for 15% off, so I was forced to buy one too. I will quality control all three tonight. I am in no mood for more booze, but you know, quality control is important. Only half of the last sentence is true. Spot, in recognition of my not feeling well, was an asshat to Kay, and not me, tonight. I did not follow the details but he finished his pizza in record time. Usually it takes him 3 or 4 hours to finish half a can. Tonight, first shot and the bowl was almost licked clean.
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