mikeycook

I am particularly fond of Laure Japy on Rue du Bac in the 7th (assuming they haven't closed or moved since 1993). They have beautiful place settings. It is virtually across the street from L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon.

I am not familiar with the Chesapeake version, but there is a Jasper White recipe for Oysters broiled with Pancetta and Leeks and I am sure you could substitute the pancetta with the country ham (cut into dice). The basic idea is to sautee the Pancetta and Leeks together until the Pancetta is crispy and the leeks are soft. That is spooned over shucked oysters. On top of that, put a mix of bread crumbs and parmesean (preferably parm-reg) cheese. Then put them under the broiler until the top is nicely browned. Good with a squeeze of lemon.

Ah, now it is beginning to make sense. So, in effect, this was like a hit for not paying protection money to punish the business and warn other businesses?

If you use a good, European-style butter, like Plugra or Lurpak, you will reduce the water issue. Also, I would personal recommend never cooking or baking with salted butter. You can always add salt.

This is the type of thread that makes me love eGullet. There is a Wylie Dufresne recipe in last week's New York magazine for Goat-Cheese Panna Cotta with Bacon Syrup and Cashews as part of his "blasphemist's christmas", which he describes as both the cheese and dessert course in one. Would it be too much to call this thread genius? I think not.

I was watching Iron Chef America the other night and in Battle Turkey, Bobby Flay did several different stuffings to represent different areas of the country. The one that interested me was the northeast version, which contained lobster, fresh corn, and corn bread, among other ingredients. Does anyone know if this is an actual Flay recipe that is printed somewhere? Does anyone have a lobster stuffing recipe? My family is originally from Maine and I am thinking about serving something like it as a second stuffing (the main one will be oysters w/pancetta). Even my lobster bible (Lobster at Home by Jasper White) doesn't have a lobster stuffing recipe (just one recipe for a cabbage stuffing). If all else fails, I might just find a good basic cornbread stuffing and embellish.

Isn't L'impero cheaper than Babbo? The tasting menu is very reasonable and the food is out of this world. I think the room is extraordinary, service is great and the place just has a nice unassuming feel to it. Another suggestion -- the bar menu at Veritas. Was there two weeks ago and had an amazing cheese plate. My friend had the short ribs which were extraordinary. But all of this is off the topic -- I came to the thread to confess my disappointment with the tavern room. Went last week -- shared the following plates: mushroom tart, octopus salad, steak, salmon. Nothing overwhelmed. Mushroom tart was nice but strictly an average concotion -- puff pastry, cheese-based cream, mushrooms; octopus were overcooked and a bit dry; steak was very good but not better than what I had a few days later at Bacchus on Atlantic Avenue; and salmon was not memorable. The thing is, I have loved this place -- the feeling, the light, the art, the cocktails -- for a long time; it's been that special treat I always went to when I needed something great. I think I need to let go of that. ← Zagat lists L'Impero as being, on average, $2 lower than Babbo. In my experience, while the tasting menu is a greal deal, I always want to order things that are not available and spend more (but that's just me). I am not sure what is currently not offered as part of the tasting (most stuff is), but two things I highly recommend are the fricassee of seasonal mushrooms w/creamy polenta and truffle reduction and duck and foie gras agnolotti w/ moscato passito di sardegna reduction. My personal description of Gramercy Tavern would be a very reliable, upscale, American comfort food restaurant. To me, in many ways, Gramercy is the best of a type of restaurant that has become more prevalent outside of the city, perhaps influenced by the CIA, good American restaurants with young chefs that are safe enough to be approachable my non-foodies, but that foodies can enjoy as well. Gramercy is the first restaurant I would take my parents to. They know good food, but they don't eat out at fancy restaurants a lot. They are hate stuffy service and don't necessarily appreciate overly creative chefs and certain types of ingredients (like foie gras, caviar, and offal). The service is very unpretenous, the room is comfortable (nice, but not overly formal) and the food is always solid. I might call it the best American restaurant I have eaten at (not to be confused to the best restaurant in America I have eaten at, which is, in fact, L'Impero). Since I go out to nice restaurants relatively frequently, I tend to look more for chefs that provide interesting takes on food I like or food I am interested in exploring. Having eaten at a number of nice American comfort food restaurants (Gramercy being among the best), I don't find myself looking to eat at Gramercy Tavern unless the group I am going with dictates.

Have you been to L'Impero? The service is not smarmy and the food is first rate. It is a similar price point to Babbo. I love Babbo, but I prefer L'Impero.

There is an excellent recipe for soft shell crabs in Savannah Seasons that calls for them to be stuffed and fried (using a light batter). I am drawing a blank on the stuffing, but will look it up and post back.

I saw this strange artcle indicating that what was previously thought to be an accidental gas leak and explosion at Rioja Alta Winery in Haro (La Rioja) turned out to be a ETA bombing. Does anyone know the significance of this? Why would ETA choose to bomb a winery as opposed to say a more typical target (i.e. government building, etc.)? They indicate a pamphlet was found calling for "the boycott of certain companies for failing to pay revolutionary taxes". Can anyone shed some light on this?

I am going with a 2003 Moulin-a-Vent Cuvee Prestige from Duboeuf.

Hello John, Despite his boyish smile, Vanel was not one of the "Young Turks" of French cuisine that the journalists were agog about. He was more of a " Lone Ranger" type working in the tradition of regional southwestern French cooking. Yet he was as innovative and imaginative as the best of them. To understand my appreciation of Vanel you need to know the cuisine of Quercy, which epitomizes the art of giving great taste to simple ingredients: mushrooms, walnuts, chestnuts, pork, and duck and geese raised for foie gras. When Vanel was seventeen his mother made him chef at the family inn in Lacapelle Marival in the Lot district. Soon word of the youngster's cooking began to spread; people spoke of extraordinary lightness and flavor. Lucien Vanel's snails with walnuts, his tourtiere of chicken with salsify, and stuffed goose neck on a bed of pureed sorrel were judged exemplary in a region where first rate cuisine is the rule. Then he went to Paris, ordered sweetbreads at the famous restaurant Denis, and...revelation! "I found they were four times better than my own," he told me. This was when he discovered cooking that went beyond his mother's one star establishment. He subsequently traveled and learned to cook even more lightly by inventing new ways of doing things while still remaining true to his traditions, and untouched by the fads of the day. He returned to his regional restaurant but people were not impressed. They wanted the older food. So he moved to Toulouse and garnered his own two stars doing food he understood but the people around him didn't. I greatly admired his courage and his talent. By the way, John, I want to thank you so much for helping me nail the duck ham recipe. I don't think there is a better one in print and I owe you a great deal for helping me develop a revised one for the moulard. ← Thank you for your kind comments. It was a real pleasure (and my first experience doing anything like it.) I appreciate the opportunity. If you would like any help formatting the recipes that didn't make the second edition for your web site, let me know.

Paula, in the introduction to this Spotlight, you refer to Lucien Vanel, of all the chefs in SW France you met, as having the kitchen sensibility closest to your own. You allude to certain things you admire in the posts and the book, such as his elevation of his mother's home cooking and his thriftiness in using what was available from the previous day to create dishes. Can you perhaps explain in a little more detail what it is specifically about Vanel's kitchen sensibility that strikes a cord with you, as well as the similarities you may have found in your own cooking?

mikeycook, how did your undipped nougats turn out? How well did they hold their shape? I tried a different nougat recipe (not Montelimar) that had 1/4 of the sugar beat into the whites at 250F, and the rest beat in at 300F. These nougats cut like a dream with my chef's knife, no problem at all. But by the next morning, the cut pieces had flattened out quite a bit. I'd like to be able make nougats that hold their shape at room temperature, even without a chocolate coating. . . ← The newer batch kept their shape much better. They kept their shape completely intact for most of the first day. I cut the order into 24 pieces, about the size of a small candy bar. When I brought them back to my apartment, which was a little too warm, they did good for a while but, like yours, sagged a little after a few hours. Not too bad, but I decided to put keep them in the fridge to be safe. The chocolate helps it hold the shape lnoger at room temperature for obvious reasons and is good as well.I am still looking for the secret to the shape and have a couple of thoughts (since I am no candy expert, I can't say for sure how well these will work.) 1. More sugar syrup. I don't think I would need to do a lot, but it seems to me since the sugar syrup is what is really holding it together. I don't think I would need much more, but would probably try to increase the percentage slowly. 2. Heat the honey to a higher temperature. I am less optimistic on this, particularly since I already heated it to around 250, but perhaps a little higher temperature would make the honey just a little bit firmer. I have a few nougat recipes that are in French and I am going to try to do a little translating (which I am poor at) to see if it yields any clues. Thanks, Patrick. Nice to know I'm not doing this all by myself.

What a great idea! Why even put it in bottles? In fact, instead of pitchers, wine shops should handle it like village wines are handled in some parts of France. Put a large tank in the store with a hose coming out of it and let people bring their own buckets and tubs to fill up (that much easier to drink from). At least that would allow people to tell the difference between nouveau and the others (i.e. nouveau comes by the bucket, the others come in bottles). Or maybe they could put it in a wine box to make the difference clear.

Paula, congrats on an excellent new edition. Those of us who are devoted to the original are thrilled with the recipe updates (particularly the use of Moulard ducks) and additions, as well as the excellent list of sources in the back (I have already ordered from several of them). For those who do not have the original, is there a list anywhere of the names of the dishes that were not included? While it makes sense to have removed many of them for the general audience, eGulleteers are a slightly different breed and might be interested in picking up an original edition as well.

As a related topic, here is is one of my favorite articles on eating competitions, in this case not a multi-person event like the Nathan's Hot Dog contest but more of a standing challenge.

I usually toss haricot verts with some good butter, truffle oil, and salt, so the truffle butter would work for that. I paired the haricot verts with lobster, which also would be nice with the truffle butter.

In France, a bistro is generally a mom-and-pop type restaurant that writes out the menu every day on a chalkboard. A brasserie is usually a large restaurant with a bar, kind of like a diner that serves french classics. Brasseries usually have fairly broad hours and are open on Sundays. ← Thank you for your take on this. Do you think this applies in the States? ← Unfortunately, I think virtually every French restaurant that is not very high end is considered a bistro by most americans. I guess that makes sense, since authentic brasseries are a relatively new thing in the U.S. Nevertheless, if I go into a "bistro" and see a large bar (made of zinc or similar material), more than 75 or so seats, and large menu (like a diner), I instantly say "brasserie". I think a lot of restaurants still avoid the term because brasserie is not a familiar term to a lot of Americans (they are more like to think of "Brazier", like Dairy Queen). I think you will see this term more frequently in the future. As another category, restaurants that serve breakfast all day are always interesting to me.

I think most good chefs would want to hear your concerns. Although they may not like criticism and some may bristle at hearing it, the alternative is certainly worse (i.e. people stop eating at the restaurant because it is getting tired and because of a staff that worships them too much be too critical, they don't find out about it when either business falls off or they get a bad review citing the same. I would think hearing such a criticism directly from a customer when there is still time to change things would be preferable (they can always disagree, but then again you can always go somewhere else).

A couple of favorites: - Roast Chicken with Sherry (from Penelope Casas's The Food and Wine of Spain Just cut up a chicken into serving pieces and all of the ingredients for the basting liquid are added at the same time. A little basting is all you need after that. - Figs stuffed w/goat cheese and wrapped in proscuitto Very each to make and easy to cook. Hold on the proscuitto with a tooth pick, put in a baking dish and bake for 2 minutes until the ham has gotten a little crisp.

I think it was inevitable that the number of people attending culinary programs would go down. At least in the U.S., culinary school seems to have taken on an increased cache, at least up from the "vocational program" that it used to be considered in my high school to one that gets considerable respect from rich and poor alike. It is no longer as unacceptable for college-oriented students to choose the culinary path as it once was. Like any career that gets an increasing amount of spotlight, the food industry has likely seen an increase in people attending programs because it is no longer limited to those who really want to cook and increasingly is attended by people who think "cooking sounds like a cool career". I think articles like this are an indication that the popularity of culinary school may be on the wane (at least for now).

In France, a bistro is generally a mom-and-pop type restaurant that writes out the menu every day on a chalkboard. A brasserie is usually a large restaurant with a bar, kind of like a diner that serves french classics. Brasseries usually have fairly broad hours and are open on Sundays.

I personally would like to see a clear deliniation between french bistros and french brasseries. Until the last year, Zagat didn't recognize brasserie as a category in NY. Now they do, but have a number of them tagged erroneously (Balthazar is labeled a brasserie, while Pastic is labeled a bistro... when they are basically the same place.)

I think both of you make excellent points and this is something I have debated with my wife for a long time. Fat Guy, I think you are spot on with your comments about the limits of the entree. I can't count how many times I have had a wonderful, interesting appetizer, only to be followed by a fairly standard entree (i.e. meat, starch, veg, and sauce). This is part of the reason I (as well as others) order tasting menus more often than I used to, although this can pose another problem. While I agree that the small plate allows for more risk-taking, the tasting menu makes it easier to hide a bad dish or two. The same, I find, is true of tapas, for the same reason. With the appetizer/entree combination, though, it is very hard to pass off a dish that is not fully satisfying. I find I wind up having more respect for a restaurant that can thrill me with two dishes (or three with dessert) as opposed to 6-10 dishes (or more) because there is nowhere to hide. I also think part of the reason that we find more exciting appetizers than entrees is partly psychological. I think the whole process of entering a restaurant, being seated, reviewing the menu, ordering, getting your first drink, bread, water, etc. is all leading up to the arrival of the appetizer. When it arrives, it usually gets everyone's full attention and it can be consumed by a mouth that is not yet adulterated with other food tastes (except maybe a little bread which will tend to taste more neutral). The entree, by contrast, will necessarily be compared to the appetizer and has to contend with a person who already has food tastes and memories from that meal. If the appetizer is great, it is easy to overshadow what comes after. It is like having two people give speeches immediately after each other. If the first speaker is dynamic, exciting, and interesting, the second speaker's message can be lost or diluted as the audience is still thinking about the first speaker.