Are you loving the new Bon Appetit Magazine? I am. Admittedly, my initial reaction was that it looked a bit too much like GQ, but I can get behind Editor In Chief Adam Rapoport's approach to making food and cooking more accessible and fun. I just hope we'll see as many features about where our food comes from (and why we should care) as about, say, what the Missoni family cooks.
Anyway, Bon Appetit's online presence has also been relaunched to give us more insight from the editors and test kitchen. Case in point: today's delightful demonstration of "a bartender's best party trick" -- how to flame an orange peel -- by Restaurants and Drinks Editor Andrew Knowlton.
Watching Knowlton demonstrate this trick brought me back to the dinner table in Cape Town, where my father-in-law dazzled me with a couple of bar/party tricks of his own. (Oh, how I wish I'd videotaped him!) Do try these at home (or at a party or bar). All you need are a box of wooden matches, a bottle, a spoon, a fork and a coin.
The setup for both of these tricks is typically a challenge or a wager, as in: I'll bet you a dollar I can...
...balance a matchstick, fork and spoon on the lip of a bottle.
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| Guys, what you see above is no optical illusion! Simply (?) insert the end of the matchstick and the head of the spoon between the tines of a fork and anchor the whole thing -- by the tip of the match -- onto the lip of the bottle. (I'm going to go out on a limb here advise that the fork and spoon be balanced in size and weight.) |
...remove a coin from under a match without moving the match.
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| The setup: a coin rests under a leg of a match "tripod." |
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| Light the matches. |
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| As the matches burn, the one resting on the coin bends upward and... |
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| BAM! Swipe the coin without touching the match. |
Guys, these tricks are super fun and I hope you try them yourselves. (If you do, let me know, okay?)
What are your favorite party or bar tricks?
