Gifted Gourmet

Thanks for the new concept ... recipe? Pure cocoa or cut with a little confectioners sugar .. to inflame the authoritites yet a little more??

In my house, chocolate is a vegetable!!

This is truly quite cleverly constructed: the way you are able to tie the two together, while at the precise same time, make a cogent argument for avoiding ersatz, touristy hot sauces and equally overblown, overheated locker room chatter ... Rabbi Ribeye, no one does it better than you!! and I mean it when I say no one!! Now, back to the heat of the charain ...

Any website created by The Web Geisha, Tanabutler, would, with an economy of words, yet with the clear and perceptive insights she possesses, make a place sound like paradise on earth! Can't wait to hear about your trip and your lodgings!!

Pan has said this much better than I .. and as for "le merde du chien" ... I personally have never seen much of it .. I think the owners probably take care of cleaning it up ... it is France, after all, and one must have standards, you realize!

Fresh Cream's website Just returned last weekend from this area, and after reading the website for Fresh Cream, am booking the next Delta nonstop from Atlanta to San Jose!! Thanks for this Tana!!! My God, does it get any better? The sun setting on Monterey Bay and that food and wine: orgasmic!

Fresh Cream in Monterey is divine!! I love the views and the food is superb!! here is more information and maps: http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide-1240...ream_monterey-i

Best memory is of an elderly lady in a restaurant early on New Year's morning feeding her petit chien a chocolate croissant, and he, mangling it beyond recognition, begging for more ... it was adorable and so very French! Hold on there, isn't it a well known fact that chocolate contains potentially fatal ingredients pour les chiens?? Zut alors! But, as for the initial topic here, I was shocked to get out of a cab in Vienna and look up to find the familiar Starbucks logo on their branch there ... which, as Arthur Schnitzler's writing clearly attests to, is the home of the coffeehouses of the first rank in Europe ... Perhaps I ought to have read this first .... http://www.mascotcoalition.org/initiatives.../starbucks.html

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Gravlax (of course!)

Heck, I stalk THIS forum! didn't someone here just say: "He's got a bigger tribe here, several of whom are quite stalker-esque"I believe when it comes to forums on the Net, the best term currently in use today is "lurk" ....

Yes, but that was pre-Internet when all we fans could do was write letters to our adored-ones and hope against hope they might respond with an autographed photo. The adored-one-in-question could then promptly throw our letters away and forget about us. Oh, I quite agree with you about the adored-one-in-question having the option of throwing our fan mail away .... but, with the new internet options, everything is so intimate and close-up ... cookies lead to cookies and then loss of privacy and then identity theft ... Have we all become "paranoids sans frontieres"? Or are we, as Tom Ridge so deftly puts it, merely being eternally vigilant? I still think that this "tribe" thing is a bit extreme .... and just so very "off the proverbial wall" ...

I think the term "freaky" only just begins to describe the entire "set up" ... Didn't one call these things "fan clubs" in the primitive days of my youth??

Although this challenge was originally issued in the early days of January by Rabbi Ribeye, and was rather lost in the verbal shuffle, I thought it rather appealing for those of us out here who consider their gravlax "variations on a theme" to be worth sharing ... and, although he never actually says as much, I rather bet there is more involved here than his merely preparing and tasting a selection of new recipes for this delicacy du mer ... Might there also be a wondrous new book curing on the shelves for next Christmas? or perhaps Chanukah?? Truly, The Gravlax Gauntlet has been thrown down for all of us here ....

I actually did go to Happy Valley with a friend for dim sum once on a weekday, and, while it was nicely done, I really rather imagine that the weekends are superlative by comparison ... Thanks for the tip on one's ability to request certain items not already available on the carts!

from the article: "And after bingeing on everything Ronald's menu has to offer at least once — and supersizing when offered — the previously trim and healthy Spurlock had spent about $850, gained 24 pounds, raised his once-normal cholesterol levels by 65 points, sent his blood-fat levels out of the Playland roof and, in one of his doctor's words, turned his liver into pate" I really loved this line about turning one's liver into pate! While no one loves a good pate more than I, will most decidedly always look at the stuff with this new visual playing in my head ....

Although this is rather old, much of it is certainly still applicable to dim sum in Atlanta today: http://www.ajc.com/living/content/living/d...2/12dimsum.html and the restaurants listed are still in business and cranking out their varied dim sum offerings ... of course, the weekend dim sum is certainly well represented by all of them!

I guess it must be a genetic defect for those of us born in Atlanta. A genetic defect indeed!! It is part of the "historical tapestry" that is Atlanta and nothing can diminish its prominence in all of our lives here!!!

Hate to say this but I was in The Hotel Sacher in Vienna on a trip at the beginning of November and my friends and I made a beeline for the venerable place with our Euros clutched in our sweaty little palms ... and we were, to a person, quite disappointed at the great Sacher Torte itself ... actually turned out to be rather dry and not appreciably apricotty ... but the ganache topping and circular chocolate coin decorating the top were quite lovely in flavour and memory .. the schlag itself accompanying our tortes was whipped so stiffly, that one could easily discern each "cell" of fat ... or, dare I say, "globule"? The coffee, on the other hand, as well as the decor, made the visit worth noting ...

I will most happily second that concept and belief, Ellen ... Of late, I have come to the conclusion that Judaism can enhance and enrich my life to the extent that I am willing to allow it to do just that ... merely restricting my options (in this case by observing the stringent rules of orthodox kashrut) does little more than offer me frustration and limits to my life as it exists today ... so, chacun a son gout, and live life on your own terms, as they say ... for me, that has taken many years to comprehend fully ....

Mad Cow Disease or no, I am an avowed beefaholic and this photo montage merely served to whet my otherwise ravenous desire to buy and grill a lovely piece of chuck! and definitely "bleu"!! Thanks for this piece!!

Msk, Thank you for confirming and validating a few of my comments on this topic ... maybe after doing this for some thirty-five years, I am simply "burned out" and watching the new plethora of great new ethnic foods and ready-made items increase, I am feeling somewhat "limited" ... I agree wholeheartedly with your comment about being passionate about food .. in fact, my nom de plume at our website here is "Passionate Palate" ... Don't even want to tell you about my gut-wrenching pain at Harrod's food halls in London recently .. although I actually did find something of a small kosher food hall at Selfridge's on Oxford Street .... Then there is the marvelously exciting fact that at least now we have the Net and messageboards like eGullet to "sort out" and share those concerns with other like-minded, and even not so like-minded, individuals ... This is a hell of a lot cheaper than therapy and can be accessed 24/7! Gee, technology supplanting Dr. Freud! Who woulda thunk it??

Which is precisely what I have maintained throughout this thread .. Nigella said it better and more publicly... see my comment much earlier as to feeling as if I was Toulouse Lautrec painting with two colors ... It is, indeed, difficult, but not impossible, of course, to make marvelously creative meals which are, at the same time, both kosher and "foodie-ish" .... have done it myself as a kosher caterer. Most of what I am experiencing hit me yesterday when I was in my local upscale new Fresh Market here in Atlanta. I looked at all of the very chic and lovingly prepared "foods to go" which had been prepared to take home and complete the cooking ... crab cakes, meats, duck breasts, lamb legs ... and I remembered buying my Empire Thanksgiving turkey, taking it home and having to clean off numerous feathers which were still clinging to it ... and then reading labels on other items and discarding one after another .. limited kosher cheese choices next to full,luxurious, exciting new imported cheeses ... the list could go on and on ... and that is yet another thread which I am unable to, or even desirous of, writing: why the kosher consumer often suffers from a lack of quality in many of the kosher items he/she buys when the tref item is of higher quality ... just having a rabbinical hechsher is not necessarily a guarantee of quality items. The observations I am/have made here are simply due to my own personal frustrations ... but are closely tied to the question which opened this thread .. which echoes a belief I have held for many years ... bottom line for me? If I had greater strength of my convictions religiously, I would be more sanguine, more satisfied, possibly even less vocal!

I will have to admit, the laws of kashrut certainly will raise your level of awareness to a high "orange" level on Tom Ridge's scale .... as to whether or not one can approximate a version of a dish using substitute ingredients, the answer is, sometimes ... pareve cheese is not particularly similar to the real thing ... and, with this caveat, it just isn't the same as the original, the classic dish .. and while one who is kashrut observant can be a wine afficianado, the same answer obtains .. it is only the case here that it is more difficult and often even more expensive to find good kosher wines (but that is changing, I am given to understand by my more rabbinically-inclined friends!)

You have no conceivable idea what a "Pan-dora's Box" you are about to open with that tiny little innocuous comment, Pan! There are literally thousands of food-oriented laws for one to peruse, ponder, and, ultimately, either accept or reject! When FG says "esoteric mitzvot"... he ain't just whistlin' Dixie!!