Priscilla

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.

Must've been frites night all across the US. Helena what is your method?

Last evening steak frites. Certified Angus New York strips, large-scale frites. Tomato, onion, Hass avocado salad, these early tomatoes ain't been half bad. Mayonnaise as each individual saw fit. Wild Horse 2000 Barbera, packed a punch, in a good way.

What a pleasure to read -- and, Jonathan, in your writing the restaurant and the chef come across as exciting and appealing, worthy and sensual. Really good stuff!

Mmmm creme fraiche & sea salt. Oh yes and some potato skins. Last evening, poulet frites. Yukon Gold potatoes from the guy at the farmer's market for the frites, very very light interiorally, less substantial than russets. Not bad. Organic spring mix from another guy at the farmer's market, toasted walnuts, goat cheese, dressed with walnut oil, white wine vinegar. Baguette from the Vietnamese French baker. Cotes du Rhone, also organic, for some reason.

For Saturday's Morimoto-Sakai King of Iron Chefs faceoff we had Reuben sandwiches. Cotes du Rhone. I did like how Chairman Kaga chose bell peppers as the Theme Ingredient for this heartrending battle. Sakai (who won) is obviously a great chef, but Morimoto ain't no slouch, neither. He Morimoto actually made bell peppers look almost appetizing, quite a feat. Looking forward with trepidation to Sakai vs. Chen Kenichi ....

In the interest of full disclosure in this time of seasonal self-reflection I realized today I do use paper napkins sometimes -- IF they have the image of the A-Team on them. And I prelament seeing the end of these papery paper goods -- even though I bought a scandalous number of packages (for a dime each, as I recall) years ago from the clearance shelf of an unfortunate dusty low-rent so-called "party store," my supply is, sadly, finite.

Jane Grigson - Good Things v There is a similar instruction somewhere in Elizabeth David's books ... spinach "imbibing" half its weight in butter, or something like that. Of course there's a lot of crossover between Grigson and David. Adding cream little by little achieves something like this, too. Not a steakhousey creamed spinach, a different, very good thing. Nutmeg seems absolutely essential regardless in almost any cream/spinach preparation.

Proper napkins, every day. I like how serviette has loaded within it class striving, as aforementioned. Doomed, doomed class striving, of course -- as with any indicator of class identity all the U-ers are already there in the parlor just WAITING. I see it as analogous to how Damon Runyon gangster archetypes never use contractions. Also I claim serviette as an example of hypervocabularization, a related concept more on which later -- fortAY, e.g., rather than just plain old "forte."

Oh thank you, Maggiethecat and Wilfrid. And yes, good authorities are beyond essential. One needn't know everything already if one knows where to go to find out. Sometimes it's enough merely to float it out over the psychic transom. Other times, it's straight to Expert PMs.

Last evening some very nice Dover sole, which I looked up on the Monterey Bay Aquarium site to see what's what and found, 1., fairly plentiful, and, 2., Dover sole is its actual name, not the flight of fancy I thought, have thought for years. ANYway, nice little fillets, floured-egg washed-panko'd, fried in grapeseed oil (took just moments which was good because that's what was available), salted/peppered, landed on very crisp Romaine with Miss Priscilla's Creamy Teriyaki dressing drizzled over all. Nearly-all--crust Il Fornaio ciabatta.

Beautifully written and very inspiring, Maggiethecat!

Yes, Jeniac42, Cambro, of Huntington Beach, California. I use the cylindrical ones. Endlessly useful.

You know, it's funny how it goes with TV channels. They show a whole bunch of shows, and some of 'em I am interested in watching and others I am not.

For large-quantity things like flour and Basmati I use inexpensive amazingly tough food-grade bins from the restaurant supply. (Like the ones King Arthur Baker's Catalogue sells mentioned by Maggiethecat up there.) The 4 qt./4 ltr. size holds 5 lbs. of whatever, the 8/8 10 lbs., and so on. (They start at 1 qt./1 ltr., and range way bigger than 8/8 too.) Lids are sold separately so that when the pull tab begins to crack (which it does, in my experience, after a couple of years of heavy use) one can invest the two dollars in a new lid and carry on. They are freezer/dishwasher safe, dunno about microwave. I like 'em for stock and similar, too -- the measurements printed on the side make it easy to know what's what. Also, they create the perfect environment for proofing dough, with no plastic wrap no damp towel no nothing else needed. Plus, one can easily see when one's dough has achieved double or triple volume. But they so far as I know do not have their own rose, which of course Tupperware does, and that's hard to argue with.

Tupperware! Iconic. And, works.

FoodMan, practically neo-Jungian synchronicity, that was. What I was asking myself Saturday was how in the world have I managed to NOT make this simple delicious little extra before this. Which size bulgur do you use in your tabbouli? I've been partial to the finest size -- is it #1 or #3 -- for years, but have enjoyed the salad with coarser grinds, too.

Cauliflower? Luxury! (As Liza would say.) I think this evening I shall be so avant of the garde, sososo dernier of the cri , that I shall have an accompanying Romaine salad.

Wow haven't there been some nice meals here on Dinner! lately. I continue to suffer from on-again off-again Ingredient Envy. Saturday night was as you all know the first installment of the King of Iron Chefs tourney and well, even though we feared we knew poor little elfin Kobe was SO going down, we had dinner anyways. Middle Eastern stuff -- hummus, tabbouleh -- the founding inspiration -- scored a big old bouquet of flatleaf parsley from the farmer's market when my garden parsley is still adolescently wiry. I showed it to my plants, thinking to encourage them. Also some mint, which, in understatement, needs no encouragement whatsoever. Early tomatoes in there, nothing to tatoo on one's forearm but still, early tomatoes. A nice additional dish from Claudia Roden, tahini and yogurt and garlic. Bulgarian feta. Cracked green olives. The remainder of a can of dolmas. Persian cucumbers, chopped tomato, parsley, olive oil. Nice fresh pita. Kobe lost. One looks ahead, warily, to next week when two faves duel to the death of one. But what shall we eat?

Ben, what a very nice meal. As per the spinach your description made me wonder if it was so-called baby spinach in a bag, because I have in the past gotten a weird unpleasant chemical flavor from such a product. Otherwise maybe it was spinach + cast iron + acidic cider.

For those interested in butter there was a previous eGullet discussion on the topic. On the freezing topic, I would freeze butter only in the most dire of circumstances, but then I am anti-freezing in general.

Well, my friend the Costco maven gave me a gold-foil-wrapped chunk of Irish butter she bought there, representing 1/3 I believe of the Costco bundle. Salty good for table use, with that almost cheeselike Lurpaky texture, and very very yellow.

There's also a very good Italian grapefruit soda called I think Milano ... notably using cane sugar rather than high-fructose corn syrup, scourge of good-tasting sodas everywhere.

OK I prepared Richard Olneyesque scrambled eggs with asparagus, a dollop of creme fraiche in there, salt & pepper. Really really good. I can see why he was always serving it as a first course.