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Bitters adding spice to Canadian, US cocktails

31.12.69

VICTORIA, British Columbia — They put the mojo in a martini and the mettle in a Manhattan.

Cocktail bitters, those tiny, paper-wrapped bottles filled with a liquid so intense that most cocktails only require a dash or two, are the bartender's equivalent of the iron that turns a rumpled outfit into a crisp-pressed suit.

When a cocktail is missing a certain something, salvation is often just a few drops away. But beware, add too much and your sublime cocktail will be undrinkable.

Now, boutique bitters are springing up across the United States and Canada and craft bartenders looking for ways to transform an old-fashioned gin cocktail or a sour are fueling demand.

"Bitters are the salt and pepper of the cocktail," said Peter Hunt, head distiller at Victoria Spirits in Victoria, British Columbia, where, for the last two years, they've also made the Twisted & Bitter brand of orange bitters.

"Bitterness ties a cocktail together," he added.

Source: AFP

Kitchen ready for parties, but not for a cosmetic redo just yet

31.12.69

In Corina Weibel's kitchen, there are no secrets.</p><p> It's no secret that Weibel takes no shortcuts: There's no dishwasher or food processor, but there are three mortar and pestles that she actually uses and rows of glass jars holding dried beans and grains, vinegars and spices.</p><p> It's no secret that Weibel, chef and co-owner of the Atwater Village restaurant Canele, starts most days with oatmeal and cafe au lait: Check out the five stove top espresso makers, some with bottoms blackened by use. And there are half a dozen McCann's Irish oatmeal canisters.</p><p> And it's no secret that this roughly 6-by-8-foot sunlit room with a shortage of counter space is the kitchen of a real cook: Her favorite steel saute pan, as seasoned as it gets, sits on a burner of one of the few upscale notes in the room: her Wolf range with its iconic red dials and wolf's head logo plate. Surrounding the range, cotton towels and aprons hang on S-hooks; rubber scrapers, ladles and wooden spoons are at the ready.</p><p> In Weibel's kitchen, all but the cleaning supplies are out in the open.</p><p> Her home sits halfway up a heart-challenging Silver Lake hill. Weibel, who was catering at the time, bought it seven years ago, moving from a nearby rental. After she moved in and made some necessary changes, she didn't have much of a budget for a cosmetic redo of the kitchen.</p><p> She ripped out ratty cupboard doors, including lower ones destroyed by a previous owner's pit bull. What she calls cheap drywall came down, revealing an insect infestation. She played off the range details by painting red walls (also the color of the toaster and teapot). And she covered the chipped and discolored linoleum with a hunter green cotton rug.</p><p> "It's the irony of my life," she jokes - a restaurant chef with a make-do home kitchen.</p><p> But she makes do quite well, giving dinner parties for as many as 50 or 60 friends, who spill out to the backyard, which is home to the chickens Dolly, Madison and Chanel. (She says she always makes extra oatmeal, for them.)</p><p> She's never owned a dishwasher, and her guests often help to cook and clean up after a meal. "It becomes that social thing. Rarely do I have to do it myself," she says.</p><p> In the cupboards there are olives, anchovies, garlic and capers, and a dozen kinds of tea in metal boxes. And sharing space with the wine and martini glasses are several shapes of dried pasta from her favorite brand, Maestri Pastai.</p><p> "If you have all that in the house, you can make a meal," says Weibel, a onetime commodities trader. But she sometimes worries her guests might raise an eyebrow.</p><p> She imagines them saying: "Oh, my God. She has a restaurant, and she just threw together pasta and garlic."</p><p> Not likely.</p><p> Her Wolf is her favorite thing in the room, she says. Her friends pitched in for it as a housewarming gift.</p><p> "It's never let me down," she says. "I love the way it looks - kind of industrial."</p><p> Weibel also put up steel shelves. And she has long owned a pale wooden bar on wheels that she's moved all over the country. Here it does double duty, dividing the kitchen from the living room. On top is a small cutting board, a Spanish casserole dish and a plate holding a couple of peaches.</p><p> Her big refrigerator has gone to the restaurant, replaced by an unremarkable white one next to the back door and covered in those little poetry magnets. Her cookbooks include "The James Beard Cookbook," "From Julia Child's Kitchen," an old Betty Crocker and Anthony Bourdain's food and travel journal "No Reservations."</p><p> A double farm sink sits under a window with a frame that's seen better days, but your eyes are drawn instead to a great view of the reservoir down the hill, seen through wind chimes made from a whisk, fork, spoon and cookie cutters.</p><p> One day, she says, she'd like a new floor, and a wooden counter top to replace the old and broken white and gold tiles. But it's not likely to happen soon.</p><p> Over the sink is a little tray holding a three-legged clay pig, a Mexican charm to bring good fortune. "I'm still waiting," she says, then adding after a moment, "I guess fortune doesn't have to mean money."

Source: Kansas City Star