Fat Guy

Takeda would be the contender I'd put forward in that style and price range: http://www.chefknivestogo.com/tagyas27.html I'm fortunate in that I cook with a friend who has a great Japanese knife collection and I've used most or all of the knives on your list. My favorite knife, by a fair margin, is the Takeda. I like it better even than the Nenox. It is wicked thin and, for example, makes short work of onions. It doesn't have the fit and finish of some of the others, but for a working knife I think it's amazing. My next big knife purchase will be a Takeda, though probably not in the 270mm size. For really thin knives I prefer something a little smaller. I think, however, you're probably past the point of anybody being able to give you a meaningful recommendation. You've identified a universe of excellent knives and the rest is going to be personal preference.

Petrossian is an impeccable source. I'd suggest starting with the Classic Trasmontanus: http://www.petrossian.com/caviar-1--classic-transmontanus-caviar-373.html Also, number of chefs, probably most notably David Chang, are into Hackleback: http://www.petrossian.com/caviar-1-hackleback-caviar-279.html

The owner of Nagila is pretty idiosyncratic. I'm not surprised to hear it has closed. I'd also be surprised not to see a different restaurant from him pop up.

I'll take two.

Zipper bags are efficient but it's only a matter of time before you have a catastrophic release. Square containers, if you fill them completely, are almost as efficient and a lot less disaster-prone (also less wasteful).

It's a pretty amazing institution. There's always a big question mark when such a restaurant copies itself, but an on-par reproduction would be an amazing addition to New York's food-and-wine scene.

I've never noticed a gluey texture when dusting with flour for pan frying. It's not something I do a lot, but if you make sure to use a thin dusting of flour then it seems to work fine.

McGee, On Food & Cooking, page 531:

I thought the deal with instant-blend flour was that it was cooked and then dried.

This leads me to wonder: Paul, what do you want the Wondra for (sorry I have totally exceeded the scope of your question here)

Julia Child's crepe recipe also calls for Wondra. I just wonder if it's necessary in most applications. For example, crepes taste no better when made with Wondra, and it's not complex to make gravy with normal flour.

Just ran out to the local Food Emporium for a missing ingredient and there on the "baking needs" aisle was plenty of Wondra: Although, for $3.19 you can get something like a metric ton of regular flour. So unless you have a Thanksgiving-gravy emergency, I'm not sure what the benefit is.

Where are you located? In some cities there are restaurants where you can get caviar tastings. I'd definitely agree that the supermarket stuff is not where you want to start (or end). It can be useful as a garnish in some contexts but is not serious caviar. I'll also add that caviar is an expensive habit and, while good caviar is good, I'm not sure it's worth it. That being said, when I got out of the hospital last year, a very generous friend sent over a caviar tasting from Petrossian. It was pretty incredible.

I'm pretty sure we don't have any Wal-Marts in New York City. However as suggested I used the General Mills product locator and around here it's stocked by Food Emporium, Pathmark, Stop & Shop, Shoprite...pretty much all the major chain grocers.

Today we're pleased to announce a new fundraising tool for our members, readers and fellow travelers. We-Care.com is a service that allows the Society to receive a donation whenever someone shops online at more than 1,000 participating merchants -- at no extra cost to the purchaser. Because we have so many thousands of users, if even a small percentage start doing this it will be a significant source of revenue for us. As a nonprofit organization, the Society is entirely dependent on donors and sponsors for support. Especially with the holiday shopping season approaching, this is an easy, cost-free way to help the Society continue to offer its program services for free. There are two ways to use We-Care.com: First, you can start at our We-Care.com "mall" page -- http://egullet.we-care.com/ -- where you can select from a large list of online merchants. The second, and superior, way is to install the We-Care extension for Internet Explorer and Firefox. This extension, once installed (which takes about a minute), sits silently in the background and automatically makes sure that if you make a purchase on a participating merchant's site a donation will be routed to the Society. So, please go to http://egullet.We-Care.com/Start and install the We-Care browser extension. Do it now, it only takes a few clicks and a minute or so. If you have more than one computer (work, home, etc.), please install it on all. Many thanks.

I googled it.

There's also a recipe for Cloudt's Pecan Treats on the Andrea Meyers blog: http://andreasrecipes.com/2008/12/07/cloudts-pecan-treats-12-days-of-cookies/

This is a great strategy for freezing and refrigerating make-ahead soups, stews, chilis, stocks, sauces, etc. -- anything with a significant liquid component. If you make it with the bare minimum of liquid, or you reduce it, it will take up a lot less storage space. When you go to reheat and serve it as a meal, you just incorporate enough liquid to get it to the right level.

I think the strongest argument is that, in general when you're talking about nice restaurants, no reviewer other than Sifton is important. Some would argue Adam Platt is also important, because New York Magazine has traditionally had an important restaurant-reviewer post (Gael Greene occupied it for ages). But there's also probably a respectable argument that any paid reviewer with a budget and an audience is important. Of the online professional reviewers I think there are only two significant ones: Ryan Sutton (Bloomberg) and Alan Richman (GQ online). Richman actually used to hold Sutton's position. I have no idea of their readership numbers. I'm not sure if any business gets driven one way or another by the online reviews, but I know that restaurateurs and publicists follow them very closely. I can pretty much guarantee you that Batali, Bastianich and Ladner are seriously bummed about Sutton's review, even though it might not affect business at all.

I don't think we've seen "professional" reviews that negative of a NYT four-star place since Alain Ducasse at the Essex House. But there we had a whole complex stew of political considerations going on. Everybody loves Batali, though. I can't think of a single person in the food press who has an axe to grind with Batali. With Del Posto, I'm inclined to believe Sifton had meals as great as he said he had, and Sutton had meals as bad as he said he had. Although, I will say that the argument “Haven’t we had a better, cheaper version of this elsewhere?” that Sutton makes seems symptomatic of the soft bigotry against fancy Italian restaurants.

I haven't bought it in years but it was always a standard supermarket item in Manhattan. What do you need it for? I just use regular flour whenever a recipe calls for instant-blend flour, and I mix a little more carefully with a whisk or whatever.

On page 156 the method described is to soak the leaves in a sinkful of water with 3/4 cup white vinegar, "which will get rid of any bugs that may have stowed away," then rinse in a colander and dry in a salad spinner.

So, let us recap what we did together this past week: - Saw Ferran Adria and Colman Andrews speak at the International Culinary Center - Baked with Sarabeth Levine and PJ at Sarabeth's Bakery in the Chelsea Market - Took a field trip to Mobile, Alabama, to check out the Gulf seafood scene - Had lunch at the James Beard House and touched Tom Colicchio's arm - Packed school lunches - Poached eggs - Blended smoothies - Cooked vegetarian chili Thanks for reading along. I'm going to leave you with photos of PJ's school lunch and my breakfast smoothie for today. I also wanted to mention, if you think you might want to volunteer to do an eG Foodblog, please contact our eG Foodblog czar, Pam R. Here are those photos: Photo: Ellen R. Shapiro Photo: Ellen R. Shapiro Photo: Ellen R. Shapiro

Whatever the economics behind the closing -- many a restaurant with less success than Tabla has stayed open -- it must be said that Tabla is closing in style. No BS sign that they're renovating, followed by silence. No disconnected phone. Plenty of notice. No guessing. Everything is above-board and transparent in keeping with the soigne approach of the Union Square Hospitality Group. This is the first restaurant Danny Meyer has had to close in 25 years of doing business, and he is closing as well as he opens. I'm very sad to see Tabla go because it was a huge favorite for many years, the site of several of our son's birthday dinners, and a place where I thought the value proposition was spot on. But just as I can't really explain Tabla's closing, I can't really explain why I haven't been going in the past year or so. Yes, I've been busy, distracted by school, real-estate and family-health issues. But I've been eating, just not there of late. It may have nothing to do with the restaurant, just changing consumer behavior. Maybe the answer is simply that Tabla ran through its life cycle and now, like a beloved pillar of the community at the end of a long and distinguished career, is making a graceful exit.

Let us not forget Robuchon's method for french fries, starting with room-temperature oil.