EdS

I'd drive by this "French bistro" on a main road each day on the way home from work many years ago and would see only a few cars parked out in the adjoining lot. This went on for about a year. I checked around for reviews and couldn't find anything. Finally, I called a buddy of mine and we decided to check it out. Perhaps all those folks crowding the local Italian and Mexican places were just afraid of French and we'd find ourselves a jewel. We just had to know. It was a Friday night. We pulled into that nearly-vacant lot. The place was nearly windowless but we noticed a window near the back. We approached it to take a peek inside. It was a window into the kitchen. Hey, what's that?!? On the counter! A Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket!!! What the hell?!? We hightailed it out of there and got ourselves some lasagne. Hmm, Coq au Vin, Extra Crispy....

That "1.0 quart" Mauviel sauce pan is actually a 10.1 quart. That's not a misprint even if it looks like one. I've seen these huge sauce pans listed on several French web sites. Hard to imagine handling something like that with just the one handle! I'd personally go for a two-handled pot in that size if I needed one.

There's a fair amount of negative opinion about the Pro 6 which you can find by doing a Search. The Pro 5 is favored. Given Costco's price with rebate, I think you're looking at about a $20-30 price difference between that and the Heavy Duty.

Did people really eat like that? I was only six and really can't remember what I ate then other than Cocoa Pebbles and meat loaf (not together).

I'd love to list some obscure beers but I always end up coming back to my old standby of Guinness. It's not hard to find on tap (the only way) and I know it'll be good. I've been going through a Mexican cooking phase recently and Negra Modelo is holding the fort as my #2 right now.

There's a regular eBay vendor named ACityDiscount that is offering these pans for $172.25 plus shipping. It would be $12.94 to send one to my place in the SF Bay Area, for example. This vendor offers a number of Mauviel 2.5mm/stainless pans, usually with "Mauviel Extra Thick" in the eBay title. I haven't purchased anything from them so I cannot vouch for their service.

There's a fair amount of overlap between French and Italian-style cuisine as you get to southern France. I wonder how Julia feels about Provençal cuisine with its tendency to move away from butter and cream and more towards olive oil and more simply prepared, very fresh ingredients. I've always viewed Alice Waters as being just as influenced by Provençal as Italian. French vs. Italian isn't exactly black and white. It'd be really cool if we could get her to do a Q&A here. We can even promise her that we won't use the F-word.

My understanding is that someone who is lactose intolerant, in other words who doesn't produce the necessary lactase enzyme to digest lactose, can still handle about a pint of milk a day without noticable effect. Indeed, I'm lactose intolerant and I can still eat a scoop or two of ice cream, have some cheese (which has little lactose), or even consume some cream sauce or milk. I just limit the amount consumed and I'll be fine. On the other hand, you won't see on a "Got Milk?" poster anytime soon. Maybe "Had Milk?" is more like it. I recall something out of McGee about Northern Europeans having the enzyme and most people in the rest of the world not having it. If you're lactose intolerant, you're in the majority in this world. Have your dairy but just don't have too much at once.

I think I'm going to give the wireless laptop method a shot. I've got a window sill that's high enough above my counter that the laptop shouldn't get splashed with anything. I just cleared some space so I'll see how this goes. Thanks for your advice.

Speaking of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, here's something that might be interesting. I have two copies from the 60's. One is a first edition. The authors on the spine are listed as Beck, Bertholle, Child, in that order. On the late 60's copy, which appears otherwise identical to me, they are listed instead as Child, Bertholle, Beck. I wonder how Bertholle and Beck felt about that. Is there any Lennon/McCartney, McCartney/Lennon type dirt on this? EDIT: Added smilie

I think you should take a closer look at the financial performance of McDonalds. Doesn't look like a company in great shape to me, or for that matter, to Business Week or Standard and Poors... http://www.businessweek.com/investor/conte..._7104_pi036.htm McDonald's has been trying to compete on price through heavy promotions and discounts and that has hurt their average per-customer margins. I recall being able to walk out of there with some sort of mini combo for about $2 and people were buying them up. I can't imagine McDonald's was making much money on those as their fixed costs remained the same and these cheapo "meals" were cutting in to their more expensive offerings. My feeling is that if McDonald's were to work on the perceived value of the basic McDonald's "experience", they could hold the line on or even increase their prices and also expand their margins.

I lived near the McDonald's mentioned in the article. Not far from there are some nice independent cafés that get a good business and there's a Starbucks just across the street. Choosing that location for a trial is asking to get creamed. Why attack strength? I think McDonald's core competence is (or was) offering a consistently good burger and fries and doing that at a decent price. I recall being a kid in the 70's how I loved those burgers. I swear they were better back then before the beancounters started picking away at quality. About a half mile away from that McDonald's in the article there's another one. And right across the street there opened an In & Out, the famous Southern CA chain that was beginning to expand to Northern CA. Superior burger and fries at about the same price as McD, no extraneous stuff on the menu to distract so everything's cooked to order and fresh, better service, and certainly cleaner (McDonalds' seem to be filthy these days). That In & Out was a hit from the beginning. Something tells me that McCafe isn't going to be kicking in the teeth of that Starbucks across the street in the same way. My advice to McDonald's is to relearn the basics. McDonald's University needs to go back to school.

Well, Bourdain is cool. He worked in a kitchen with pirates. And eGullet is cool and you're the founder so that makes you cool too. You're both allowed to be immature. Maybe that blog just seems forced and tries too hard to be clever, you know? Or maybe it's that she's messing with Julia Child. That's like setting fire to an American flag or something. I remember watching The French Chef as early as 7 or so (I'm 35 now) and wishing that my mom would stop making hockey puck hamburger patties with mac & cheese out of a box and instead do some of that "fancy" stuff. Julie, if you want to go mess with someone, go dis' on someone who has it coming like Nutella Lawson or that guy mentioned earlier with that mortar/prop thing and the scooter.

My error. I misread an earlier post in this thread and it's NolaFoodie who is 39 and not Julie. OK, she's about 29 going on 19.

I just read the first few weeks of that blog and I sure get the impression that Julie is mocking Julia Child and even making fun of the "old way". Perhaps the blog gets better but I don't have a chinois fine enough to filter out the crap for me to want to continue. I don't think Julie intends any malice but I can't imagine Julia Child wanting to be associated with her given this "introduction". I think the concept is great but the execution is flawed by being written by a 39-year-old going on 19.

I have been using a bookholder in the kitchen to hold cookbooks, magazine articles, and computer printouts to refer to as I am cooking. As I am advancing I am finding myself modifying recipes and creating my own to suit my tastes. I'm looking for a better system that will stand the test of time and am curious what everyone's doing. I'm wondering also how this is done in a restaurant kitchen. Some ideas: Index cards - Copy recipes to index cards and keep them in a file on my countertop. Prop a card up on the counter or stick to a bulletin board. Computer, printing individual recipes - Store everything on the computer. Print recipes as I use them and take them to the kitchen. Computer in the kitchen - The idea of pecking at a keyboard with messy hands doesn't make much sense to me but perhaps with care this could work. Recipes copied to scratch paper - Jot down the important stuff to scratch paper. It goes to the circular file when done. By the looks of a few cookbooks I've borrowed at the library, I'd say throwing one wide open and splashing it with ranch dressing is pretty popular but I'm sure you have better ideas.

So, no dark meat then in that recipe?

Crank up the heat. Think stir-fry type heat.

Gluttony is gastronomy without pretense.

Chicken-fried Steak with Mashed Potatoes at Lori's Diner in SF. More than once I've ordered this late at night after a memorable (or not rememberable ) evening. Must have grease and carbs!

2-3/4" boning knife, Henckels Pro-S runner-up: serrated "tomato" knife I got this as part of a set before I knew better than to buy a set. It was a pain trying to bone a chicken with a blade so short. I've replaced this with a Wusthof 5-1/2" boning knife and find its usability improvement over the other knife like night and day. I've also moved up from the Henckels 8" chef's to a Wusthof 10" Wide and use a shorter, thinner paring knife than the one from the set. So, I've found the purchase of that set to have been a waste. Well, perhaps I've gotten some brownie points for giving these away to friends to replace their funky Ginzus.

Creme brulee, like properly-done roast chicken and salad, righfully holds its place as a classic. After digging through so much fashionable fluff to find an occasional gem, you can count on coming back to to the elegant simplicity and perfection of creme brulee.

Try upstairs at the Draeger's market in San Mateo. They have a good selection of quality cooking books including some that you don't see at the chain bookstores.

Truffles are overrated. If they sold for $1.29 a jar, I don't think a whole lot more of them would be sold. I've had them many times and just don't find the taste satisfactory to me, mystique or not.

For Survivor, I'd say a good-sized cast-iron Dutch oven or a cast-iron skillet. I can't imagine anything else holding up.