mamster

I am a cheap bastard, so I got one 12-oz USDA prime strip steak, for absolutely nothing! They didn't even ask for my credit card number. I told Laurie about this and she gave me the most disbelieving look you have ever seen.

Jim, sorry for the trauma. Oops, it's back up. Down, boy!

Yes, it's very good. I've never had a good dessert there, though--have cheese. If you go, definitely get the rillons de porc.

I fudged the baking/roasting distinction. Baking a vegetable wrapped in foil is somewhere between steaming and roasting; then when you take the foil off, it becomes genuine roasting. I would have titled the column "Baked Broccoli" rather than roasted, because it's more alliterative, but you know those headline writers.

MsRamsey, Laurie, and I went to check out the burgage at PK. Of the three of us, it is likely that only I would be caught using the word "burgage" in a public forum. I have to agree with Fish that this is a better burger. The meat struck me as marginally less flavorful than at Oceanaire, but they treat it so much better at Palace. My burger was perfectly medium rare, as was MsRamsey's (Laurie had some tasty ravioli). They serve it with sweet onions and pickled green tomatoes, an awesome burger topping. You also get a bottle of Tom Douglas's BBQ sauce and little bowls of aioli and ketchup. The fries could have been better. They seemed to come in two different sizes, like there was a tooth broken off the julienne blade, and some were undercooked. The thinner, fully cooked ones were excellent. I'd never been to Palace before, but I will certainly go back. Not that I probably need to tell any of you this, but it's a nice space, and I like hearing the monorail go by. We also had a couple of appetizers, including bruschetta with house-cured guanciale, served with a salad of salicornia, peppers, and other stuff. My kind of food.

I find the sturdy 16 oz pint glass (available at Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn, and a jillion other places for as little as $2) to be an unassailable masterpiece. It's hard to imagine anything more satisfying to drink out of, except of course the skull of my enemies.

Actually, I just wanted to see if I had the power to summon nightscotsman. Essential Baking is also very good. Grand Central is not bad either. I was there yesterday and had a great piece of strawberry-rhubarb coffee cake.

Cafe with great pastries = Cafe Besalu. See the croissant thread. Everyone liked it except Neil, and we shipped him out for his apostasy.

I have a blue 100% cotton chef's jacket that I wear when I'm cooking something especially stain-inducing. Otherwise, I wear one of my many stained shirts.

There's a Todai opening in Pacific Place in Seattle, too. Eeagh.

David Rosengarten thanks everyone for participating, and has selected SteveW's question about reviewing for Gourmet Magazine as his favorite. SteveW will receive a subscription to the Rosengarten Report.

So, I noticed in the King Arthur catalog that they have two silicone potholders: one woven, one solid. I think the woven one has fingers and the solid one is more of a mitt. Has anyone tried the woven one? I keep burning the back of my hand on the oven door while pulling bread off the stone, but I can't do it with a mitt on--not enough dexterity to grab the parchment. I'm thinking the woven silicone glove might help. Or I could get a peel, I suppose, but then I'd just burn myself on a different part of the oven door.

Stockpots. You could pay over $300 for a big All-Clad stockpot, or even more for a Rosle, if you were nuts.

We just bought a Good Grips to replace one of those SafetyCan ones that only opens certain cans. Unfortunately, we have had no need to open a can since we bought the new can opener. I realize that if I were serious about the whole thing I would have found an excuse, but we just got rid of a bunch of unneeded cans. Dammit. When we were shopping we noticed that Kitchenaid now sells can openers, in colors to match your KA appliances, and they seemed pretty sturdy.

Could you chop up the shrimp and call it larb? Larb goong?

Hey, I've made that recipe, JAZ! It's delicious. I also make tomato-cream sauces all the time and have never had a problem. We had penne alla vodka last night.

I'm don't know about lobster, but I'm sure shrimp get larbed in Thailand. They'll larb anything.

Well, the pizza at Cafe Lago is better, and I think I prefer Post Alley to Pagliacci. None of these is as good as the pizza at Really Nice's house. The only homemade pizza secret I have is to turn the temperature dial of my oven to broil and the selector dial to bake. This also reminds me to start a new thread on oven mitts. I'm not going to boycott Pagliacci or anything, but they really did a number on the place.

It's my duty to check this out. The Oceanaire burger is good if you can get them to cook it right; I've now been in close proximity to four of them, and exactly one was correctly prepared. How's the bread at Palace, Fish?

No, it's not here and they have no plans to introduce it here. It really is better than other brands of supermarket white bread, and we are simply deprived. Sorry!

Kimchi Chigae Many recipes for this soup call for using pork stock and then adding tender pork to the soup. This recipe takes the nontraditional shortcut of having you braise the pork. If for some reason you have pork stock on hand, by all means use it instead. 1 tsp peanut oil 1/2 lb pork shoulder or country-style ribs, cut into roughly 1-inch cubes 4 c water 4 medium scallions, cut into 1-inch lengths 1/2 lb hot cabbage kimchi, coarsely chopped salt to taste 2 tsp sesame oil Brown the pork cubes in the peanut oil in a saucepan. Add the water, bring to a boil, and reduce to a simmer. Cover and simmer one hour or until pork is tender. Shred the pork and defat the liquid with a spoon or gravy separator. Add scallions and kimchi. Raise heat to medium-high and boil 5 minutes. Add salt if necessary, stir in sesame oil, and serve with rice. If the soup is not spicy enough, add some Korean hot sauce or sambal oelek. Keywords: Soup, Korean, The Daily Gullet ( RG562 )

Baked Broccoli 2 heads broccoli 1/4 c chicken broth or water 2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced 2 T olive oil 1/4 c grated Parmigiano-Reggiano salt and pepper Preheat the oven to 350 F. Cut the broccoli into florets and arrange, flowers up, in an 8"x8" baking pan or 9" pie tin. Pour the chicken broth or water and sprinkle the garlic slices over the broccoli. Drizzle with the olive oil and season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover with foil and bake 25 minutes. Turn the oven up to 425 F. Remove the foil, sprinkle with the Parmigiano, and bake 5-10 minutes or until the broccoli is lightly browned. Let the pan sit for five minutes before serving to dissipate the cruciferous odor. Serve warm or at room temperature. Tex-Mex Variation Replace the garlic with chopped onion and the olive oil with corn oil. Sprinkle with 1/2 tsp chili powder. Omit the cheese or use Mexican-style cotija. Asian Variation Replace the salt with a few squirts of soy sauce and the olive oil with peanut oil. Add some chopped ginger and scallions along with the garlic. Keywords: Side, Vegetables, The Daily Gullet ( RG561 )

I have to admit this is a recipe I haven't bothered to play with very much, but I'll give the high heat roasting a try this week. A warning on the beets: I think I said 45 minutes in the article, but that's not always enough; it depends on the size and condition of the beets.

Once I bought a case of Trader Joe's frozen kung pao chicken. They don't make it anymore, which is just as well, since I don't really ever need to see it again. It was at least as good as what you'd get at an entry-level Chinese restaurant, though.

Have you tried a mixture of low-moisture mozzarella (they are certainly using that) and parmesan or pecorino romano? That's what I usually use, and it has considerably more flavor than mozz alone. Sometimes I also throw in gruyere if I have that on hand.