Priscilla

T-L Foods of the World is a GREAT series. I mean, I know a Bulgarian who consults the Bulgarian section of the Quintet of Cuisines volume! The writing is often great, and always interesting and worthwhile. My set was completed over years (not single-mindedly searching), finding the spiral-bound recipe book long after the main volume, in some cases. Sometimes my Mother the Reference Librarian would find one among her Friends of the Library donations. I have heard there's an edition which slip-cases each little spiral and big hardbound together. What a beeyootiful sight THAT must be. And oh don't I envy HJS's finding the whole set all at the onct -- what a major, major score. I feel I should mention T-L's The Good Cook series -- edited by Richard Olney, so good, so useful. And beautifully bound, with TWO place-holding ribbons per volume.

Wow Jim I hope you do ask your Mom for this ... I love bread & butter pickles and a recipe from a real cook who's made them for years and years would be a treasure. Mmmm bread & butter pickles. Absolutely essential for liverwurst sandwiches. Also chopped into tuna salad, if it's going to be THAT kind of tuna salad.

Memorial Day, bunch of people drifting in and out, mostly in: lamb shish kebab, meat having been marinated in pureed onion, lemon juice, s & p, few saffron threads. Brushed with heavy cream whilst grilling. Landed on a big old flatbread with asst'd seeds, sesame, nigella, flax, poppy, + crunchy salt. Salad with tomato, feta, onion, parsley, mint, olive oil, lemon juice. Basmati infused with whole spices, like this recipe from Suvir, keeping the spices contained in cheesecloth, and clarified butter rather than oil, and more clarified butter drizzled over at service. Hummus, too, there was. And excellent pistachios. Yogurt/garlic/parsley sauce. Also, an incredibly delicious pungent sour plum-tamarind sauce made by a Pakistani friend that blew everybody's mind. One guest brought a decadent homemade chocolate cake and another a bottle of Porto, good guests, complementarily wrapping everything up sweetly.

Really really nice -- I like the color palette very much. But I have a BIG complaint -- THERE ARE NO DOGS IN THESE PHOTOS!!!

Mr. Matthew Stillman, if you are responsible for the voiceover talent on "Iron Chef," you are something like a god in my household.

Steve Martin, another lovely meal. Will you tell us the difference in tenderness or texture between the three octopus preparations?

Had our first Copper River salmon of the season, last evening. (Ongoing CRS discussions here and here.) Front half of a not-large fish, 2.75 lbs. before filleting, two scant-inch-thick fillets resulting. Grilled over mesquite, annointed with chive Lurpak after being pulled off at the right moment. What a great fish CRS is -- we're lucky that Ralph's, a local supermarket chain, makes a big hoo-haw of bringing it in so that we too can share in the PNW bounty. Little red potatoes, which always seem to suggest themselves with springtime salmon, maybe got some of the chive Lurpak, too. Fat asparagus, grilled, you know the drill. Sourdough bread cut thickly, grilled, rubbed lightly with garlic, nice slices of excellent Hass avocado arrayed over, thread of extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper.

Wow nice looking meat salad, there, Perlows. Just at lunch today I got to share some of a Thai beef salad that the Consort likes. And he shared my red curry with bamboo shoots and PERFECT jasmine rice. (I love rice and use it as a yardstick for Thai and Japanese places -- if all is well with the rice all is often well with the rest, in my experience.) ANYway, last evening was the first really summery day, 90-degrees-some-odd, and we grilled NY strip steaks, the aged ones from the local supermarket, and they were pretty good. Very good, in fact, charry on the outside, on account of the hothothot mesquite fire, course I happen to like mesquite, I know not everyone does. We also had grilled fat asparagus, blue-rubber-band size, olive oil, etc., you know the drill. Really really good. And, baked potatoes, sour cream, big old sandhill of finely-chopped chives. Those chives, they just wave there in the border like sea anenomes, WILLING a person walking by to USE ME USE ME USE ME. I don't think we'd baked a potato in like two years -- and right now White Roses are so fresh, with that papery peely skin, and well, they were good. Lurpak on there, too, don't forget, and loads of s & p. Nondescript but not-bad Beaujolais with a little chill on it, perfect accompaniment for the grill and the changing light on the hillside.

It's beginning to look a lot like sum-mer, ain't it, reading through recent entries. Saturday, put together about 8,000 pel'meni, Russian meat dumplings, starting with grinding the beef and making the pasta. Some consumed later with guests, with the usual-suspect condiments -- melted Lurpak, sour cream, soy sauce, vinegar -- available for application in any combination, any at all. Sunday afternoon, nice big old piece of Alaskan halibut on the grill over mesquite, annointed with melted Lurpak upon service, potato salad with chives in there, previously-blanched asparagus with mayonnaise, sourdough bread, big thick slices grilled.

The NYT link for this recipe has been archived ... does it exist in a book or at another link somewhere? Sounds intriguing and useful ... like so many of Mark Bittman's dishes.

Roasted a chicken, mostly to complement the plum preserves from last summer. Browned sourdough bread slices in some of the pan drippings, a crouton trip, also in service of the preserves. Little white creamer potatoes cut in wedges, tossed with olive oil, rosemary, sea salt, cracked pepper, roasted on a sheet pan, turning this way and that to brown all sides. Nice redleaf salad with olive oil and the teensy-bottle Balsamico. Dinner.

Wow what a great article! Absolutely chockablock with high-quality information, inspiring as hell, and, AND, meticulously well-written. More more more!

This discussion points up how many great and important sauces are, in fact, uncooked, that is to say, raw. Jason, possibly muhummra (I'm sure I've spelling even a variant of the variants incorrectly) you're talking about? I've had a similar thing from an Armenian chef raised in Iraq ... only no tomato. Red pepper puree (sometimes a little spicy), finely chopped walnuts, pomegranate molasses. Unbelievably delicious.

I'd like to see that nice Anthony Bourdain a-sittin' at the old Emerilbar, that's what I'd like to see ... but could somebody clue me in if this should begin to happen on account of I don't watch the show and wouldn't know otherwise. Thank you in advance for any help, I remain, Priscilla

Then there's that ingenious, OK maybe ingenious is too strong, but still, two-sided affair that Total Greek yogurt with the honey sidecar comes in. Big crescent of fantastically amazing whole-milk yogurt with NO additives, and a little pointy ovoid of really really really good honey. Peelaway foil lid, no keepy. Right into the old recycling bag. But nice, In the Yogurt Moment.

Very nice to see the asparagus harvest rolling Eastward. Those interested might consider documenting their asaparguses of 2003. Last evening, nice veal loin chops, browned in the pan, pretty good hit of white vermouth and a handful of big old sage leaves. At the end, chops removed, what was in the pan reduced, enriched with cream and seasoning-corrected, previously sauteed sliced mushrooms and the chops added back in. Smashed red potatoes with garlic and chives, not even trying to be anywhere near pureed. Nice Romaine salad dressed with truffle oil and white wine vinegar. Ficelle from the French Vietnamese bakery.

I think the big-eyed hungry urchins mighta had something to do with it, too.

Yes, yes, (very important) as Ellen said, but then too, what Busboy said about the otherworldly color of a True Vodka Gimlet, sitting there on the bar, pretty much GLOWING. And, clear, like. And, uh, GIMLET?

Once I made the lasagna on the Polly-O carton.

I appreciate the cuteness factor of so-called Cornish hens, but the proof's in the pud and to me they are irredeemably, palate-coatingly chalky. A small chicken, while never AS small as a so-called Cornish hen, is SO much better-tasting.

can you elaborate?? Was it roasted or braised? It does sound very interesting. Thanks FM Adam I requote here because I too am interested in what FoodMan was asking. Selfish? Perhaps. I've been called worse. ANYway.

Tonkatsu, panko'd & fried pork cutlets. Nice Nishiki rice from the cooker. Sake-simmered carrots, spinach with Torakris's sesame sauce, Japanese pickled cabbage I made. Kikkoman Tonkatsu sauce from the bottle continues to rule.

Malawry I have to remember to make lemonade, too. I juiced the lemons and forgot! And the simple syrup, well, it's a staple. Last evening we finally tried steaks a local supermarket (Ralph's, for those in CA, or, I guess, the West) has been touting as "aged." At least 14 days, the label claims, a claim which did not fill our hearts with promise and confidence, understatedly. Curiosity, plus the desire to be able to easily purchase a decent steak, PLUS a steak-loving guest joining us for dinner all combined to make it time to see if that dog would hunt, and so. What looked best in the "aged" department was T-bones, a cut I normally don't like but everybody else does, and these had a nice big tenderloin eye really more Porterhousey. Nice and dry, as in not sopped with moisture as bad beef can be, and visible tracery of marbling. So, OK. Superhot mesquite fire, grill grill grill, season the turned-up cooked side, grill grill grill. Meanwhile, frites getting their second dip in the old hot oil, Romaine salad getting its buttermilk-based dressing, LBB baguette a-heatin'. And, they weren't bad! In fact, good! Nice supercharry outside, cherry-red interior. Pretty! Tender tenderloin side, the NY side a little more resistant but with tons of flavor. A suggestion of actual tang, and behaved very well during the cooking, too. Of course this first outing could well be only a chimera, so we'll be going for those reproduceable results right quick here. Overall, the weeknight-supermarket steaks to beat.

Oh my goodness Ellen vodka gimlets are what I drink, very nearly exclusively, when in New Orleans. Why o why don't I put aside these Rusty Nails that I've been imbibing recently and naughtily have a gimlet at home? I associate them strongly with heavy humidity, and getting the last order in a takeaway plastic cup. And now I'm going to be up all night contemplating the Conspiracy Theory behind the two different Rose's Lime juices.

Surprisingly nice little T-bone lamb chops. Pan deglazed with red wine, reduced, mustard, s & p, butter to finish. Creamed spinach. Garlic mashed potatoes with a lot of chives in there. LBB baguette. Cotes du Rhone.