Fat Guy

Caramelized, Maillardized and charred are three different things. I'm in favor of the first two, just not the third.

Dejah, I wholeheartedly agree with the "everything evolves" premise, but after stating that you slip right back into the false dichotomy of "authentic" and "inauthentic." Everything does evolve. There were no capsicum peppers in China before that product migrated back from the New World. That doesn't make Sichuan cuisine inauthentic. It never did. It just means that as different ingredients become available, as tastes change, as circumstances warrant, cuisines change -- sometimes for the better, sometimes not. Between America and Canada there are more than 5 million people of Chinese ancestry living in North America. Chinese cuisine is one of the most popular here: there are 3 Chinese restaurants for every McDonald's. When you have 5 million people of a given ethnicity cooking at 40,000+ restaurants, the issue of authenticity is a red herring: you're talking about a fully formed overseas extension of the parent culture. The problem with most chop suey is not that it's inauthentic. It's an entirely legitimate adaptation of Chinese technique to available ingredients and local market demand. Rather, the problem with most chop suey is that it's badly made. That's the problem with most Chinese-North American cuisine: it isn't made well, and the ingredients are poor. But in the hands of a skilled cook, those same dishes can be wonderful. The same is true of most every hyphenated cuisine: Italian-American, Tex-Mex, you name it. The best examples of those cuisines are actually quite superb. It's the poor-quality versions that trickle down to undiscriminating customers that give hyphenated cuisines a bad name.

We may in fact disagree on this one (it'd be our first, too ), but when the fat sizzles and crisps, are you considering that burnt?; and are you considering 'black and blue' burnt? ← Every black-and-blue steak I've had has been, to me, unpleasantly charred. I certainly don't mind a little taste of the fire, but it would be unusual to see a black-and-blue steak done that subtly. I have no problem with a steak with zero crust. I'm happy to have a steak put in a sous-vide bag, brought to the exact right temperature all the way through, and served. A nice Maillardized crust is a plus, and perhaps a hint of char is acceptable or even desirable, but I'd rather have no crust than anything that tastes charred. The no-crust scenario at least allows one to taste the meat.

If it's a good steak I'll definitely take gray over burnt. At least when it's gray there's nothing ruining the flavor of the steak.

As I've noted in various discussions, I think heavily charred steaks are a mistake. Burning the outside of a high-quality piece of meat simply ruins it. I think there are three issues that contribute to this widespread palate confusion. First, American steak-eaters' palates are calibrated towards charred steaks, but charred steaks are not actually good. Of course, most steaks aren't good either, so charring them may sort of help disguise that. But a $30-a-pound USDA Prime dry-aged steak? You don't want to mask that at all. Second, there's the confusion between char and the Maillard reaction. The former is just burning. The latter is a form of browning that occurs due to the interaction between sugars and amino acids -- someone with better scientific background than I can explain non-enzymatic browning if necessary. It's the Maillard reaction you want on the exterior of your steak, not char. Third, people generally don't grasp how to produce the desirable Maillard reaction. It's not a question of applying brute-force heat. You don't need a steakhouse broiler or a charcoal fire to produce a gorgeously Maillardized steak. You don't even need a cast-iron skillet heated to a villion degrees. You just need a relatively hot pan and plenty of the right kind of fat -- butter, for example, is an excellent trigger for the Maillard reaction. I have demonstrated this technique countless times for people: butter plus moderately high heat makes a delicious crust; super-heated cast-iron skillet with oil just burns the steak (as do most of the favored steakhouse methods). That's why many of the best chefs, such as Alain Ducasse, prefer to use copper skillets to sear, and then finish the steaks in an oven.

After two repetitions I never saw another one. I've done three now, and the fourth is coming up soon -- I'm going to do the full recommended course.

It has been almost a decade now since the tragic death of chef Patrick Clark at age 42. From 1995 through 1998, Clark -- one of the most respected African-American chefs of the 20th Century -- oversaw the kitchen at Tavern on the Green, the landmark restaurant in Central Park. Clark resigned in October of 1998 to receive a new heart, and soon after died awaiting transplant while being treated for amyloidosis. Clark's short tenure at Tavern was also the last time the restaurant had a modicum of culinary street cred. Ruth Reichl of the New York Times, while bashing the restaurant's yawning service (which to this day leaves much to be desired), praised Clark's food and awarded Tavern a star. After knocking the service around, she wrote in December of 1995: Then, just three years after the death of Patrick Clark, the great restaurateur Warner LeRoy, who had run Tavern since 1976 (and spent three years renovating it prior to that), also passed away. It would be difficult to overstate LeRoy's importance in the modern history of New York dining. Not only was he responsible for making Tavern on the Green the nation's highest-grossing restaurant, he was also the restaurateur behind Maxwell's Plum, described by Eric Asimov in LeRoy's obituary as "an explosion of brass, wood, fresh flowers and Tiffany glass at First Avenue and 64th Street that opened in 1966 and closed in 1988." Asimov wrote: If you're ever at Tavern, there's a long hallway leading to the bathrooms near the main entrance. Along that hallway are many photographs of the LeRoy family over time. Stop and take a look. Read the captions. The guy had quite a life. LeRoy's last great project was the renovation and relaunch of the Russian Tea Room, which he had purchased from Faith Stewart-Gordon in 1995. It opened in 1999 after many false starts, and captured the imagination of many (myself included) for a few moments before LeRoy died. Jennifer LeRoy, Warner's daughter, sold the Russian Tea Room (Maxwell's Plum had closed long before) in order to focus entirely on Tavern, which she now runs. In part because I grew up three blocks from Tavern, and in part because in the past decade I've become good friends with Shelley Clark, Tavern's long-time publicist, I've long had an interest in the place. Tavern is misunderstood by almost everybody in the educated foodie community. To be sure, it has many flaws. But Tavern is more than a restaurant. It's one of the most prominent squares of the cultural quilt of New York City -- something many tourists and non-foodies seem to understand better than many locals and foodies. I passed through Tavern a few times as a young child, but my first clear memories of it were when I was 13 and the bar mitzvah season arrived. At the time, I went to Columbia Grammar and Prep, a private school on the Upper West Side, and Tavern was the place to have a bar mitzvah party -- if you could afford it. Mine was at my parents' house, but I was invited to a few at Tavern, always in the Crystal Room. (Tavern is a labyrinth of rooms and gardens, each with a different theme and name.) The events were always so memorable, and without any frame of reference the Crystal Room seemed the most elegant, sophisticated, adult place on the planet. With a little more age and perspective, I still love the crystal room, though now I recognize the intentionally ironic, over-the-top kitsch factor that Warner LeRoy was famous for. I have so many memories that involve Tavern, and that's not particularly unusual for someone who grew up in the neighborhood. Even when I moved across town after college, though, Tavern's mass kept me in its orbit. There was the occasional meal there with visiting relatives, but the most significant visits were for the events. For example, my wife, Ellen, has been in several New York City Marathons, and Tavern always hosts various meals surrounding the Marathon (which ends right near Tavern). There are pancake breakfasts, pasta dinners, etc. -- she has been to them all. At Easter, there's a hat competition -- we've been many times but never been serious competitors. When I was working at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, a law firm in Midtown, we used to include Tavern on the summer lunch circuit. Not because it was so great. But because it has perhaps the most enjoyable outdoor garden dining area in town. And they made a good chicken Caesar salad. It wasn't something we did a lot -- we all preferred modern, adventurous cuisine -- but it was a great Friday activity, a way to stay grounded. My relationship with Shelley Clark came in handy when I was working on my first book, "Turning the Tables." She arranged for me to spend time in the kitchen at Tavern, and I was just amazed at the size and scope of the operation. (You might like to read Ellen's account of the brunch service we witnessed.) In terms of scale, the only thing like it I'd ever seen was the food-service operation on an aircraft carrier. But I also saw a high level of integrity -- much higher than a lot of people give Tavern credit for. The top-level cooks who run the various departments are hardened veterans with serious skills. And the quality of product is, across the board, quite high. That's the first thing you need to know about Tavern: the restaurant buys really good ingredients. This has always been and remains the key to a successful meal at Tavern. If you focus on product, you'll generally do well. You can always be sure that your shrimp cocktail will be made with really good shrimp, that your crabcakes will be made with top-quality jumbo lump, that your beef will be from near the top of the market. Tavern buys tons and tons of product. Every vendor wants that account. Tavern demands the best, is willing to pay for it, and is ultimately able to get it at an excellent price on account of sheer volume. Perhaps the most magical Tavern moment in my life occurred when my book was published, on 16 August 2005. Jennifer LeRoy offered to host the launch party. She would provide the facility, and we'd invite several of the chefs whose restaurants had been featured in the book to come up with small-plate dishes to be served at the party. Alain Ducasse, Gray Kunz and several others accepted the invitation (I told Kunz that Ducasse was doing it, and told Ducasse that Kunz was doing it -- the gambit worked) and sent their people over with some wonderful stuff. Blue Smoke was there, and Starwich, and Le Perigord. The team from Hank's Seafood in Charleston, SC, flew up on the owner's jet and brought clams from the clam farmer I'd profiled in the book. It was some party. I may never have another book-launch party, because anything else I do will surely pale by comparison. The party was in the Chestnut Room, which looks like, as Shelley put it to me, "a ski chalet on acid," and also spilled into the adjacent garden. At the time, Ellen was almost at full term -- the party was on the 16th and her due date was the 31st. Friends had flown up from down south to attend the party, so afterwards we went out with them to the Bar Room at the Modern. We stumbled into bed at about 1am. At 5:30am, Ellen said to me, "I think my water broke." We walked over to Mount Sinai Hospital (we live just a few blocks away). On the way, we realized it was the 17th of August -- the same date on which, exactly ten years prior, my father, Peter Shaw, had passed away. That afternoon Ellen gave birth to Peter Shaw. He goes by PJ (the J is for Julius). Last Easter, we brought PJ to Tavern for the hat contest. That's not all they have going on. There's a petting zoo, pony rides and all manner of entertainment for kids. The weather was crisp. We decided to let PJ try his first pony ride. The pony's name was Toby. When we put PJ on Toby, PJ became alarmed. We thought it was going to be a disaster. But as soon as Toby started walking, PJ's eyes lit up and he smiled the hugest smile of his life. To this day, PJ often spontaneously says, "Go see Toby?" I'll stop with the Tavern reminiscences now. But are you starting to see what I mean about Tavern being more than just a restaurant? After the loss of Patrick Clark, the ambitiousness of his regime quickly fell away. Tavern regressed, foodwise, into a fancy chophouse. That's not to say it was bad. A couple of years ago, we had dinner there and the steaks were excellent, as were plenty of other things we ate. But there was nothing remarkable about the experience, except for the beautiful garden setting (it was warm enough to eat outside that night) -- and the service, even for a VIP table, was just okay. That's the second thing you need to know about Tavern: service, not food, is the weak link in the operation. Even on its worst day, you're not likely to get actual bad food at Tavern (and if there is a problem with a dish -- a kitchen this size inevitably makes mistakes -- just send it back). The kitchen operation is always professional. But you're not likely to get great service even if you're the Queen of England. The union waitstaff as a whole is just not interested in doing more than the bare minimum. Even if you get one of the better waiters, he'll be backed up by a mediocre team. And while I've always done relatively well service-wise, several of the stories I've heard from friends have been pretty disappointing. There's also one nexus between the service and the food, which is that the size of the place means slow service leads to cold food -- your plate goes from the pass in the kitchen down any number of long hallways and eventually makes it to your table. Even with the benefit of heat-retaining domes over the plates, there's a lot of thermal degradation unless service is quick. Probably the best thing you can do to improve your chances of getting decent service is to avoid Tavern in November and December, as well as on all holidays, as well as weekend nights. Much better to go in January or August on a Tuesday when there won't likely be a lot of events going on and you'll have the run of the place. Last year, Tavern hired a new chef: Brian Young. He's a Chinese-Canadian from Vancouver who has serious credentials. He did his externship at Alain Chapel. He worked at the Quilted Giraffe and on other projects with Barry Wine (one of the few restaurateurs in New York who operated on Warner LeRoy's level). He was at Le Bernardin and rose to the rank of chef de cuisine. Most recently, he was the chef and a partner at Mainland, the ambitious Chinese-restaurant project on the Upper East Side that got good media attention but collapsed due to partnership conflicts and was repurposed as an Ollie's (the space is now Accademia di Vino). Shelley took us to dinner at Tavern last night so we could see what Brian Young was up to. The restaurant was hopping. There was a Montel Williams-hosted charity event occupying several of the rooms, and the public dining areas were tightly packed. We dined, appropriately, in the Chestnut Room. The service was mediocre as usual: our waiter was very nice but getting things like water was a challenge. The food, however, was quite good. Brian Young has elevated Tavern back to a level of ambition that parallels what Patrick Clark was trying to do, albeit in a different style. You're not going to find cutting-edge cookery at Tavern. The guests won't accept it and the kitchen is too big to pull it off. But Young has modernized and spiffed up the menu to a significant degree. The plates look good and most of the dishes are successful. We started with a few cocktails. The third thing you should know about Tavern is that they make really stiff drinks. The fourth thing you should know is that the wine list is a gem. You can look at it here. You'll find that many of the bottles are priced lower than the New York norm, and that the selection, while not the best in town, is well chosen. We had a Chassagne-Montrachet from Louis Latour that was terrific, and served at proper temperature in good stemware. Things like shrimp cocktail and prime rib are still on the menu, and I'm sure they're good, however I wanted to focus on dishes that had Brian Young's stamp on them. We compared the current menu to one from a couple of years ago and ordered new dishes. My appetizer was beef tenderloin carpaccio with unfiltered extra-virgin olive oil, shaved Parmigiano Reggiano, slivered red onion and arugula. I can't imagine anybody not thinking this was a pretty damn good dish. All the ingredients were excellent, so how could the dish not be? The portion was a little small (the appetizers at Tavern tend to be small, the entrees huge) and there was more arugula in the ratio than I'd have done, but it was good. Seared tuna with soy truffle jus, lotus crisps and black seaweed salad was also a successful appetizer -- perhaps the generic truffle flavor was unnecessary, but I admire the fact that the tuna was robustly spiced on its exterior. Again, good product. Ditto for lobster salad with endive, avocado and celeriac. We also tried one of the traditional appetizers: the crab cakes with coleslaw and tartar sauce. These are very good crabcakes -- not as good as what you'd get at the Baltimore specialists, but much better than what most New York places are doing. For my entree I had a massive lamb shank braised in Cotes-du-Rhone, which on its own was a great piece of meat. It was overcrowded with other stuff on the plate, though: Yukon gold mashed potatoes, broccolini, tomato gratin, apricot . . . it was a bit much. Better was the pasta. Tavern makes pasta in-house, and we tried one of the three pasta dishes: goat-cheese ravioli with whipped goat-cheese fondue, sopressata-onion broth, and peas. Excellent. Properly al dente pasta, a very strong goat cheese filling, and good balance throughout the dish. I was surprised how good this dish was. Also very good: blue-cheese-crusted filet mignon -- a really good piece of filet -- with crispy onions, potato gratin, asparagus and a pinot-noir sauce. There was a special of short ribs with sticky rice, and it could have been great but the quality control was not up to snuff -- the ribs were overly fatty and cartilaginous and were not particularly moist or tender. The dish was accompanied by a delicious leaf-bound package of sticky rice. Desserts were mostly workmanlike. The one standout was a pumpkin cheesecake -- the texture was velvety and not at all leaden. Great flavor. I'm certainly not here to tell you to make it a priority to run out and have dinner at Tavern. It's an expensive restaurant and for the money you can get better food at any number of smaller-scale restaurants. Then again, it would be a shame for anyone to go through life without having dined there once. So if somebody you know wants to go there for dinner -- inevitably, someone will -- then just go. There's no need to go into foodie hysterics. You can eat quite well at Tavern. Brian Young is doing an impressive job given the scale of the operation. Get into the mindset; live Warner LeRoy's fantasy. For better or for worse -- and yes, the Oz reference is intentional -- there's no place like Tavern on the Green.

Dark-meat chicken is the great underutilized meat for schnitzel-type preparations. Many supermarkets sell boneless, skinless chicken thighs that can be pounded out into roughly shaped cutlets, breaded and fried just like pork or veal. Also, one really must include chicken fingers and chicken nuggets on this list. There's so much foodie disdain for both, yet they're really just different cuts of chicken schnitzel. They're greatly improved, by the way, if you make them with thigh meat instead of breast meat.

I can't say I feel bad for Missy Chase Lapine. First, she should have kept her mouth shut. Plenty of other people were already noting the lack of originality of the Seinfeld book. Lapine knows full well nobody stole her idea, and that her idea wasn't original in the first place. The second Lapine started piping up, opportunistically and disingenuously dissing Jessica Seinfeld in the press, she lost my sympathy -- she became just as much of a phony in my eyes as anybody. Second, she has done just fine financially. HarperCollins may have rejected her book, but six other publishers bid on it in an auction. It's true that Seinfeld's book is number one on the hardcover advice bestseller list, but Lapine's book is also a bestseller -- currently number nine on the paperback advice bestseller list. Lapine has also reportedly just signed up for a six-figure advance for an even stupider sequel about how to sneak vegetables into your husband's food. She may not have been on Oprah, but she got the Today show and is pursuing all sorts of profitable activities related to the book. Don't cry for her. Third, Lapine is certainly going to sell a lot more books now than she would have if Jessica Seinfeld had never existed. She could never have generated this level of publicity on her own. And still she took the wrong approach. Rather than bitch and moan about Seinfeld's book, Lapine should have adopted an aggressive marketing strategy trying to ride Seinfeld's coattails. She should have tried to become Seinfeld's ally. That way, when Seinfeld gets a million requests for speaking engagements that she can't be bothered with, she can tell the potential client, hey, call Missy Lapine instead. That was a missed opportunity. Fourth, the Seinfeld book really is a better book. If I cared at all about books like this, I'd buy the Seinfeld book over the Lapine book in a second. It's just a much nicer product, especially for gift-giving and as an object of beauty. The team that put it together hit the nail on the head with tone, content, appearance, etc. They did a great job with it, by the (admittedly low) standards of this sort of project.

The private dining room ("PDR" in the restaurant's vernacular) at Gramercy Tavern is one of the most enjoyable dining spaces in town. It's a room off to the side of the Tavern grill area with a long wooden table that seats about 20 people (though I think it's possible to cram 24 in there, if I remember correctly). The decor is a microcosm of the larger restaurant, but it all seems more elegant in the PDR, and the centerpiece on the PDR table, incorporating seasonal produce, is always beautiful. Over the years I've had five or six occasions to attend PDR functions, however a couple of days ago I had my first PDR experience under the Michael Anthony regime. The occasion for this meal was that ViniPortugal, in combination with a couple of other Portuguese groups, is putting on a series of media wine tastings in various US cities as part of a new marketing effort. I was lucky enough to be invited to the New York event, and luckier still that it involved a meal in the PDR at Gramercy Tavern. Before lunch we tasted 12 Portuguese wines, mostly reds, with the guidance of Portuguese winemaker and consultant Rui Reguinga. While I wasn't terribly impressed by the wines overall, there was one that I thought was fantastic and another that was close. Actually, there were several good wines but most of the good wines were not interesting -- they were technically correct wines in the international style with too-high price tags. It's good to know that Portugal can make wines at that level, but I think the world is already overpopulated with them and it's not like Portugal is competing on price -- you'd have to give me a really good reason to buy a $50+ bottle of Portuguese wine when I can get wines in that style for less money from several other countries. The one wine I tasted where I was eager to run out and spend my own money was the 2005 Touriga Nacional from Quinta Dos Roques. It retails for $30 and it's well worth it. This was a unique, unusual, varietal wine (100% Touriga Nacional) with plentiful but not absurd fruit, deep structure, and a finish that was surprisingly long, then even more surprising as it went on and on. I must really like this grape variety, because the one other wine I thought was a true standout when taking price into consideration also turns out to be made from Touriga Nacional: a $13 rose from Quinta Da Alorna. Strawberry and other berry flavors dominated, great acidity, a rose for drinking year-round. We vacated the PDR for a few minutes while the Gramercy Tavern team took down the projection equipment and reset the table for the meal, and we had cocktails at the bar. We were served a "Portonic" made with white port. I don't like white port, and I don't like anything made with it, so that's that. Some other people loved the cocktail. The meal started with marinated calamari with preserved Meyer lemon and toasted pine nuts. I've had this dish once before, or at least one almost exactly like it, and I loved it again. The calamari is cut into julienne strips and lightly coated with the dressing. It's very tender, and happens to go very well with Portuguese white wines. Then we had "lightly smoked lobster" with cauliflower puree and scallion sauce. As I understand it, what Mike Anthony does with this dish is he creates a smoked beurre blanc then seals that in a sous-vide bag with the lobster. The smoke flavor penetrates the lobster that way -- the lobster itself doesn't see the inside of a smoker. This was a great dish, not least because it was one of the handful of not-overcooked lobster dishes I've had in New York in the past few years. For me, lobster (and shrimp and other crustaceans) are properly cooked when they're still just a little bit translucent at the center. Almost nobody does lobster this way, but this dish nailed it. And for 20 people at once -- that's the beauty of sous-vide cookery for you right there. This is the second time I've had a dish along these lines at Gramercy. Last time it was with a fennel puree and pomegranate sauce. I wouldn't choose one over the other. The main course was lamb cooked two ways: braised shoulder and roasted rack, with butternut squash and Swiss chard. Neither of the two preparations was exactly what you might expect. The piece of rack was a slice of a cylinder of just meat that had been removed from the bone. Mike Anthony's argument for doing it this way is that it allows them to cook it evenly all around the cylinder, and that's true. While I have a general preference for meat on the bone, this was one instance where off the bone works better. Pieces of the braised shoulder meat (along with a nice amount of fat) were formed into a larger cylinder. It was hard to decide which was better. I can't say I think butternut squash was the best choice for a veg here -- it sent the dish overall too much in the sweet direction for my tastes -- but the Swiss chard brought it back a little bit and it was, overall, a winning dish. If you're keeping count, there were four additional wines served with those three courses (a white with each of the seafood courses, and two reds with the lamb). Then we had a tasting of four Ports with three Portuguese cheeses. I suppose because this presentation was marketing-oriented, the Ports we tried were all ones that are available at retail. So, no older stuff. By far the best Port of the tasting was the 2003 Quinta Do Noval. Even though it's young, and even though it's ferociously strong in every way, it's still entirely drinkable. For dessert, chocolate praline mousse with mocha ice cream. A subtle dessert, but one of the better ones I've had at Gramercy lately. All in all, an excellent meal. I had been wondering how Mike Anthony's food would translate into the PDR format, and it made the transition without a hitch. It's nice to know that you can get food in a banquet setting that's fully as good as what Gramercy serves in the main room. In general, when I heard Mike Anthony was coming to Gramercy, my main concern was that the size of the operation wouldn't be suited to his style, but more and more it seems clear that he's managed to pull it off. When I see the plates come out, it's hard to believe I'm at a restaurant that's doing 300 covers, or at a 20-person banquet.

OpenTable's web reservations product is a terrific system. I use it all the time. Perhaps the most powerful feature is its ability to search for reservations that match certain criteria. For example, with a single search, you can identify every OpenTable-enabled restaurant in a given neighborhood that has a table for four available tomorrow night in a given time frame. OpenTable does have weaknesses, though. Those searches by availability, for example, are limited by the universe of restaurants that participate in OpenTable. In addition, OpenTable online is not a good way to get a hard-to-get reservation. What jsmeeker says, "I got the impression that to be known as a regular, it helps if the restaurant knows you when you make the reso," is absolutely true. Several replies to his comment have missed the point. Sure, after you make a reservation, OpenTable tells the restaurant who you are. But that doesn't help you get a reservation in the first place. Just about every in-demand restaurant has levels of availability of tables: there are the tables that are available to the whole world, there are tables that can only be reserved by a manager, there are tables that are held for VIPs until the day of. Then there are tables that don't really exist until someone in command makes it happen. This is something they'll do for regulars: even if the restaurant is fully booked they'll take you and squeeze you in somehow -- any restaurant above a given size knows it's going to have some no-shows, or a table that finishes early, or they can haul one extra table out of storage and make space somehow. So, Reservations 101: if you're calling to make a reservation at a restaurant where you're a regular, you tell them who you are before you ask for the reservation. Once that happens, you're into human territory. OpenTable online simply doesn't offer that kind of flexibility. In addition, even if you're not a regular, a good reservationist is going to be able to do more for you than a computer: the reservationist can put you on a waiting list (not possible with OpenTable), give you tips on when they might get cancellations, etc. There's no computerized substitute for that. So yeah, OpenTable's online system is tremendously convenient and it's excellent for most purposes, but for hard-to-get reservations you should definitely call. Also, bear in mind that restaurants pay OpenTable for every online reservation. So you can save them a buck by calling.

Right. The approach (which Jane Brody didn't invent either) is laid out on page 132 of Jane Brody's book: "sometimes it pays to forget about trying to get kids to like what's good for them and just sneak it in" She goes on to recommend: "I grate zucchini and cabbage into tomato sauce, meat loaf, breads and omelets. You can do the same with carrots. When making soup, I first cook the vegetables the children dislike and puree them with the broth." This same advice has appeared in countless other books (not to mention repeatedly on just about every online parenting website with message boards). The 2004 book "Raising Healthy Eaters: 100 Tips for Parents," by Henry Legere, recommends it, as does the 2003 book "The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Parenting," by Joshua Piven, David Borgenicht, Sarah Jordan. As I mentioned in the Slate piece, and as other writers have noted, the 2006 book "Sneaky Veggies," by Chris Fisk, doesn't just mention the approach (if one can call it an approach) but is entirely devoted to it.

For those of you who haven't seen the Jessica Seinfeld book, there's a nifty tool from HarperCollins, the publisher, that lets you browse inside the book. You can't read the entire book online, but the allocation is generous and you can get a good idea of what it's about. I haven't tried this before, but here's the link that should work: <object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" width="184" height="182" id="biWidget" align="middle"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://www.harpercollins.com/services/browseinside/widget.aspx?hc.guid=27e0e397-33c9-422b-be2a-d7b5f13d6243" /><param name="quality" value="high" /><param name="flashvars" value="isbn=9780061251344&guid=27e0e397-33c9-422b-be2a-d7b5f13d6243" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><embed src="http://www.harpercollins.com/services/browseinside/widget.aspx?hc.guid=27e0e397-33c9-422b-be2a-d7b5f13d6243" flashvars="isbn=9780061251344&guid=27e0e397-33c9-422b-be2a-d7b5f13d6243" wmode="transparent" quality="high" width="184" height="182" name="biWidget" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" /></object> Incidentally, this is the only way you're likely to be able to see the Seinfeld book for now. It is sold out everywhere in the country, and backordered to the tune of more than a million copies. I believe they printed 200,000 and now have 1.4 million orders to fill. They're saying at least 5 weeks to get the next round of books into the stores. For the Missy Chase Lapine book, you should also be able to get a similar in-depth online preview from the publisher (Running Press). Follow this link to check it out.

GF, I think in many cases what you're saying is correct, however those comments can't really be generalized to the entire youth population. As a scientific matter, the latest information indicates that pickiness is an inherited trait. As the New York Times recently reported: A possible explanation for this trait: The article later mentions the Seinfeld book, and dismisses that method as silly. In the end:

Here’s what happens when a big-deal celebrity, or the spouse thereof, writes a cookbook. Typically, it starts with a book packager, which is a company that pulls together the various aspects of a major book project into . . . a package. The packager brings in a real writer to do the actual writing, a real chef to create and test the recipes, a nutritionist to consult, an art director, a photographer, an illustrator, and a project manager to corral them all. A literary agent shops a proposal around to publishers and makes a deal. A team from the publishing company gets involved. The packager delivers the book to the publisher, and the production and marketing cycle begins. The celebrity can either step out of the process completely, or pretend to matter by "collaborating" with the people who are really creating the book. In the case of Jessica Seinfeld’s book, "Deceptively Delicious," the book packager is Melcher Media, an elite book packager in Greenwich Village headed by Charles Melcher, who has masterminded books such as "Sex and the City: Kiss and Tell." The writer is Stephanie Lyness, frequent contributor to the New York Times and the co-author of Suvir Saran's first cookbook. The chef is the winsome Jennifer Iserloh – you may know her as The Skinny Chef. The nutrition consultant is Joy Bauer, herself the author of a New York Times bestseller called "Food Cures." The art director is Paul Kepple of Headcase Design, the photographer is Lisa Hubbard, the illustrator is Steve Vance ), and the project manager is Lia Ronnen (who also handled the "Sex and the City" book). That’s in addition to the William Morris agency and the team at HarperCollins publishers. (HarperCollins is also my publisher, however I have no relationship with anybody involved in the Jessica Seinfeld project and my experience with that publisher has been quite different: for example, they insist that I write my own books.) If you know what to look for and you know a little about how the publishing business works, you can piece all that information together from the acknowledgments and back cover of "Deceptively Delicious" (plus Google and a couple of phone calls). But the only name you’ll find on the front cover is the one that sells: Jessica Seinfeld. (Lyness is not even named in small print as the co-author.) The fantasy behind the book is that this mother of three has regular-mom problems getting her kids to eat their veggies, that she has a sneaky solution that she’s going to share with her 2.4 million (and counting) closest friends, and that she slaved over a hot stove and late into the night on her computer to bring these secrets to you. Perhaps you also believe Martin Sheen is the president. So, when you think about all the attention that has been devoted to the plagiarism claim, you kind of have to raise a couple of eyebrows: First, it seems to me that using a ghost-writer (paying someone else to write your book, then putting your name on the cover) is nothing more than an institutionalized, socially acceptable form of plagiarism. If you did that with a term paper in college, it would be called cheating, plain and simple. Celebrities and other people who can't or are too busy or lazy to write their own books shouldn't be taking solo cover credit. At the very least, the cover should read, for example, "as told to . . ." (this is commonly done with autobiographies" or "based on and idea by . . ." Second, plagiarism is about deception (i.e., you're pretending someone else's work is your own). In normal moral discourse, deception is thought to be a bad thing. Meanwhile, this whole book is a how-to manual for deception -- for how to trick kids into eating vegetables by disguising them as other foods. The book is even called "Deceptively Delicious." Meanwhile, scores of journalists -- these are the people in society who are supposed to know the most about plagiarism and why it's wrong -- have been recklessly reporting on the specious plagiarism claim that Jessica Seinfeld lifted ideas from a book that hadn't even been published when the "Deceptively Delicious" manuscript was signed, sealed and delivered to the publisher. It seems utterly bizarre to be up in arms about non-existent deceptive behavior by a celebrity spouse when that same celebrity spouse is plainly advocating deception in a book she didn't even write herself.

The manuscript came back from my editor with comments a few weeks ago. I spent three weeks doing revisions and adding some new material, and now it's back with the publisher. I hope to have the production schedule soon. And, we have a new title -- but we need to tweak it a bit before I can share.

There's no way to tell what that quote means.

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All applicants are required to include a project proposal that demonstrates true literary merit in both promise and achievement at writing (not just knowledge of food); an itemized budget detailing the use of this award; a tentative travel schedule with dates and locations and a current resume to qualify for this scholarship.This scholarship, funded by Marlene and Don Newell in loving memory of her brother Brian Moore and mother Thelma Moore, is valid for research and travel conducted between 1 July 2008 and 30 June 2009. The eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters Culinary Journalist Independent Study Scholarship One $5,000 cash scholarship for a career journalist to conduct independent study and research worldwide; designed to further writing on an original and innovative culinary topic.This scholarship is available to a career journalist who demonstrates commitment to advancing his or her skills as a writer, and whose work is primarily focused on food, wine or some other aspect of gastronomy and the culinary arts. All applicants are required to include a project proposal that demonstrates true literary merit in both promise and achievement at writing (not just knowledge of food); an itemized budget detailing the use of this award; a tentative travel schedule with dates and locations and a current resume to qualify for this scholarship. This scholarship is valid for research and travel conducted between 01 July 2008 and 30 June 2009. No extensions will be granted. 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Exactly!

I thought they just used all the leftover odds and ends for the staff meal! Seriously, though, I'm not surprised that a lot of people posting here are hybrid shoppers and planners. It's really the most logical way to go about it, if you're a reasonably skilled cook and you have a modicum of ability to improvise. I always shop with a list -- that's the only way to avoid running out of eggs, forgetting to buy flour, missing out on an advertised sale item, getting the wrong cereal for a picky family member, etc. -- but that list is certainly not comprehensive. Probably half of what I buy is what's on the list, and the other half is what I see when I'm there. The list basically skips over produce, unless it's staple produce like onions and garlic. Likewise, I loosely plan several of the week's meals ahead of time, but there's a constant process of updating and reevaluating that occurs during and after I shop. Today I had planned to make pizza, but the temperature outside got high enough that I didn't want to fire up the oven, so I changed the plan. We'll have pizza later in the week -- dough freezes really well, and the cheese will last just fine. Sometimes, I'll have two, three or four complete meals in mind that I could make from what's in the house, so I'll offer them all up and let the family pick -- what do I care? (I'll only push hard for a specific meal is when a key ingredient is nearing the end of its usable life.) Our lifestyle also includes a lot of meals out, many of them on short notice, so there needs to be wiggle room to accommodate that. Needless to say, if you want to utilize this system effectively you've got to have a well-stocked pantry and freezer. That's what gives you the tools to be flexible: the pastas, grains, beans, canned tomatoes, frozen stock, etc., that can turn most any ingredients into a meal.

That may be. It's not easy to do an accurate comparison between Fairway's whole loose heads of lettuce and those at another store, because there are so many variables. My sense is that Fairway sells older, inferior stuff, but I can't be positive, in part because long ago I gave up on Fairway loose lettuce. When it comes to standardized products, however, like the Earthbound Farm Organic plastic clamshells of baby spinach, or the bags of mixed greens, or the Romaine hearts in three-packs, there it's easy to compare and there I'm certain Fairway falls flat. I had a revelation on this a couple of years ago when I got a FreshDirect order. I couldn't believe how great the condition of the Earthbound stuff was. There wasn't a speck of brown, or a hint of wilting, anywhere. Several days later in the refrigerator, the unused portion was still in amazing shape -- still better than the Fairway equivalent on the day of purchase. FreshDirect actually has a "we guarantee 5 days shelf life" policy on all the Earthbound products. Whereas, at Fairway this morning, as usual, there wasn't a single package of Earthbound lettuce without brown around the ends, and even on the days when you can find visually flawless specimens they tend to go brown the next day. So, as usual, I decided to buy my lettuce elsewhere. I don't wish to defame Fairway. I'm Fairway's biggest fan and I have no idea what their actual purchasing practices are. But it almost seems like they buy all the lettuce that's too old to sell to other markets, or the vendors know that Fairway has such high turnover they allocate the older products to that delivery. I don't know.

I suppose that would work, but if you're making several pies at once then disposable is the way to go. My mother always doubles up any foil trays she uses for anything, and has good luck with that method -- it provides extra rigidity and protection against punctures.

Wait a second. There's no tooth fairy?

To go from specific challenges to a blanket dismissal of all statistics collected by the Zagats is untenable. This all-or-nothing view of the reliability of statistics is unrealistic. When you have a large sample size and you're seeing clear trends from year to year over a period of many years, that information is worth looking at, even if there are flaws in the data.

But it's not cheaper. The standard supermarket price for a 3-pack of .25-ounce packets of Fleischmann's yeast is $3.45 (though I've seen it for less on occasion). But for $3.29 you can get an entire pound of Saf yeast and you can get actual Fleischmann's for $3.69 a pound. That's 23 cents an ounce versus $4.60 an ounce (search for "yeast" under "gourmet food" on Amazon.com for a quick price comparison of several products). So it's exactly 20 times cheaper per ounce to buy a pound, and the overall purchase price is roughly equivalent as between a pound and .75 ounces. If one truly only uses .75 ounces of yeast before all the yeast dies, then the full-pound purchase is wasteful, but that stuff lasts a good long time especially if you refrigerate it and even more so if you freeze it -- freezing has worked for me for well over a year.