mamster

I really want to get on the wireless Internet bandwagon, since I like to check email six jillion times a day, but I hate carrying a laptop and Palm wireless service is too expensive. One of you geniuses needs to invent something that weighs less than a pound, has a roll-out screen, and (to keep things on-topic) comes with free donuts.

I had a wonderful som tam of young coconut at a riverside restaurant in Bangkok. Som tam is usually shredded green papaya, but many other shredded vegetables work (the name just means something like "sour mash," now that I think of it). Pound shreds of the coconut meat with dried shrimp, lime juice, palm sugar, chiles, garlic, peanuts, and tomato. Mmmm.

The reason you never hear about pork (or lamb) stock is that it's far less versatile that chicken or veal stock, less neutral-tasting. With veal or chicken stock you can add body without making people say, "Ah--tastes like chicken." But pork stock is great for things that are already porky, like your pan sauce or Asian or Eastern European pork soups. When you make pork stock, use plenty of meat as well as bones; with pork shoulder going for maybe $1.50 a pound, there's no reason not to.

Hey, look--not one but two articles about Montbazillac in the NYT this week. First, a general overview by Fabricant, then the Minimalist on stewing brisket in Montbazillac.

To be more specific, Babbo reaches higher than Cioppino's and only succeeds sometimes. Cioppino's sticks to safer territory and always succeeds. I've had individual dishes at Babbo that were more interesting than anything I've had at Cioppino's. I prefer the room and the service at Cioppino's. They're hard to compare, so I blustered through anyway.

See, this is why I made you guys take the pictures--I don't have to apologize for them! I forgot to mention the grappa. Yours was a Tignanello grappa, right? I had a grappa di moscato and it was good but a lot harsher and more stereotypical firewater than tighe's.

They carry the donuts now at the Zeitgeist in Pioneer Square (right by Salumi), too, and you don't have to smell the frying.

You are so fired. That diagram you did above is awesome. I've never seen a better explanation of why my broiler sucks. The only thing I ever use it for is toasting a lot of bread, and it doesn't even work so well for that.

Aha! That's what it was. I knew that looked like tuna. I'm going to go back and edit.

I got what was available in the little bottles: Vidal and Pillitteri. The BC icewine was more than I was prepared to spend after springing for the Sauternes and some other stuff. I have had BC icewine in the past and it's pretty incredible stuff, although sometimes more heavy and intellectual than I'm after.

Egulleteers took Vancouver by storm last weekend. Before I talk about our meal at Cioppino's, a few general notes about dining in Vancouver. Only a palate of stone would dispute that Vancouver's dining scene outclasses Portland's and Seattle's. There is nothing in either US city in the same league as David Hawksworth's West or Rob Feenie's Lumiere or Diva at the Met's pastry chef Thomas Haas. You could say the same if you were comparing Seattle with New York or Chicago--we don't have a Daniel Boulud or a Claudia Fleming either. But the Vancouver metro area has a smaller population than Seattle or Portland. What's going on? The answer is written all over Vancouver's skyline. It seems like a new high-rise condo or apartment building is going up on every vacant lot in town, joining the dozens that already reach skyward from all parts of central Vancouver. On a per-capita basis, the city is growing faster than India. These new developments are no eyesores. Vancouver is perhaps the first city ever to do modern architecture right on a large scale, and much of its newest housing sports gorgeous flashes of color and Asian accents. Even better, these buildings aren't scattered in sterile parks but touch down onto vibrant city streets full of eclectic shops and restaurants. Rowhouses in downtown Vancouver: The downtown peninsula of Vancouver isn't simply dense. It's dense like Manhattan. It's Hong Kong, North America. The city as a whole is twice as dense as Portland or Seattle. That's not the end of the story, of course. About one quarter of Vancouver's citizens are Chinese, which is probably why Martin Yan, interviewed on book tour for <I>Martin Yan's Chinatown Cooking</i>, said that Vancouver had the best food of any of the Chinatowns he visited. Some of this food is to be had in the downtown core and the old Chinatown, at places like Kirin and Szechuan Chongqing. But some is in the very suburban Richmond, in the shadow of the Vancouver airport at Sun Sui Wah and the President Chinese Seafood. If you were the proverbial food writer from Mars, you probably wouldn't expect to find great restaurants in Yaletown. The area of converted warehouses just east of downtown has a bit of a theme park feel. If you fired a cannon down the center of Hamilton Street, you'd destroy numerous BMWs. But don't fire that cannon, please, because you might damage Cioppino's, and that would suck. Cioppino's is an Italian restaurant, moderately priced and with an excellent wine list. It's divided into two rooms--the casual Enoteca and the slightly more formal Mediterranean Grill. The decor is relaxing and tasteful, and the Enoteca (which is the only side I've tried) has a beautiful wood-enclosed wine room which can be booked for special occasions. The two restaurants have separate menus and the Enoteca is slightly cheaper. Cioppino's serves classic, rustic Italian food with occasional French accents. I don't know if they make duck confit in Italy, but I'm never sad to see it on the extensive menu, which features over a dozen each of appetizers and main courses, with some waiter-recited specials on top of that. It's hard to say exactly what makes Cioppino's different from other rustic Italian restaurants, but it must have something to do with the skill of chef Pino Posteraro and his staff. It comes down to this: whatever you order, it's likely to be the best of its kind. That was certainly the case with MsRamsey's lamb chops scotta dita, grilled over high heat to produce a flavorful crust and amazingly juicy meat that paired well with our bottle of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. (Tighe, did you write down more about this wine?) It was also the case with tigue's duck confit with Tuscan white beans and pickled cabbage. The best duck he's ever had, tighe sighed. Duck confit: nightscotsman and I chosed the special pasta, wine-braised veal cheeks over pappardelle: falling-apart tender meat and al dente pasta, the only sauce the braising jus. I'm still on a tart kick, so I had the special wild mushroom tart appetizer, which had a deeply browned buttery crust. Tighe and nightscotsman had the scallop special, which was delicious but I can't remember what went into it, so I'll leave it to them to describe. Scrat (edit) had the tuna described below by nightscotsman and a main course of braised short ribs in red wine and marsala over risotto, which was excellent. The only reason it wasn't my favorite is that I make pretty damn good short ribs at home. Seared tuna with mozzarella di bufala: Mushroom tart: If I'm overdoing the praise, it's because Cioppino's speaks to all my prejudices. I've had wonderful meals at Lumiere and West, and they're clearly more important and forward-thinking restaurants, but French-inspired New Canadian cuisine isn't my favorite genre. Rustic Italian is. I've eaten at Babbo in New York, Al Forno in Providence, and Genoa in Portland. Cioppino's is better, period.

Thank you so much for the recommendations, everyone. It's going to be a lot of fun drinking my way through them. Incidentally, I brought back some Ontario icewine from the Canada trip also. The remainder of this bottle of Guiraud is going into a custard. Maybe some cream will calm the oak.

I am against humor in food writing. Had you going there, didn't I? I'm such a card. Seriously, Michael Ruhlman is a great writer, but if whoever mentioned him was implying that he's not funny, I disagree--I remember laughing at his books several times. If we have to nominate someone who is a talented and well-informed food writer but not funny, I'd say Ed Behr. Now someone will probably prove me wrong. It's obviously a bad idea to use humor to cover for ignorance. At the same time, I'm very deliberate about working humor into every column I write. I'd like people to keep reading my stuff; if they come back for the recipes and food info, that's great, and if they come back for the jokes, that's great too.

Serious newbie question ahead. Last week some eGulleteers went out for dessert in Vancouver (more on this on the Vancouver board soon) and several of us had glasses of Sauternes, 1994 Chateau d'Armajan. I've only drunk Sauternes a few times but always loved the incredible balance of acidity, sweetness, and alcohol with that weird Botrytis flavor. So I figured I'd buy a bottle at the big BC liquor store and take it home. They didn't have d'Armajan, so I picked a first growth at random and ended up with Chateau Guiraud 1999. Laurie and I opened it last night and hoped for a great experience. I hated this wine. All I can taste is oak. It's a complete unmitigated wood-bomb. I'm retasting it right now and it's just bitter, astringent, and brutal. Where did I go wrong? Is a 1999 Sauternes way too young to drink? Are the first growths oakier in general? Is Guiraud known for using more oak than most (they mention the casks on the bottle, never a good sign in my oakphobic experience). At the restaurant I was babbling about how Sauternes is one of the most incredible achievements of humankind. How can I drink a Sauternes like that at home?

I'm not prepared to refute "fish glue," either, or go near it for that matter. Panna cotta you've enjoyed in the US, Suvir, definitely was made with gelatin. I find the difference between leaf gelatin and powdered to be insignificant in the finished product--leaf is just a little easier to dissolve and portion. The keys to getting American restaurant-style panna cotta right are to use non-ultra-pasteurized cream, which tastes better, and to use as little gelatin as possible and still have it set up in a reasonable time. For my recipe I settled on 1.5 tsp of powdered gelatin for 3 cups of liquid (a mix of cream, coconut milk, and milk). But the thing a novice cook should know about making panna cotta is that it's really, really easy, like making Jell-O.

Nah, they don't make any good cheese there.

So THAT'S what the numbers on the Rubbermaid containers are! I use the 21 cup Rubbermaid for proofing dough, also. It's awesome. With a window onto the dough, I really feel like I'm in the room with millions of microorganisms doing my bidding. Of course, I didn't mean to say that cabinet reorganizing was only a guy thing, by any means. It's an equal-opportunity obsession.

FG, I was going to say it's too bad I didn't know about these Bourgeat Modulus containers before I started rearranging, but you know what? It's a damn good thing I didn't know about them. As far as Rubbermaid vs. Tupperware, I see what you're saying about the rounded edges. The only Rubbermaid line I like is the plain white-topped ones, which come in the most useful shapes and sizes. It is expensive, though--I bought Rubbermaid for the most-used items like flour and sugar, and then Gladware and Ziploc for the rest. I did notice that Rubbermaid is now competing in the disposable storage market, so I had to pick up a little of that, too. My local Safeway now also sells store-brand disposable containers, but they're opaque. I was trying to imply that cabinet rearranging is a guy thing, but maybe a sensitive new-age guy thing. We are talking about teabags and pecans, after all.

I just got back from this excursion (Laurie's still in the area) and had a couple of good meals. First was at a taco truck on Northgate in the Natomas area. This was a serious purpose-built taco truck with a chilled salsa cabinet and efficient, professional taco artists. I tried carne asada, cabeza, and carnitas. The carnitas taco was the hands-down winner, wonderfully crunchy and juicy meat. The carne asada was a little dry. If you're looking for this truck, it was parked outside Rico's Pizza on Sunday. There was another taco truck parked nearby. I would have tried both, but I have this irrational fear of walking past one taco truck with the wares of another--if they "accidentally" backed over me, what jury would convict? We had lunch today at Biba. It's a very attractive Italian restaurant with a simple and classic menu. The homemade pastas are the way to go--Laurie had a magnificent wild mushroom ravioli with mushroom butter sauce, and she still sometimes brings up the cheese ravioli she had last time. I had penne with shrimp, pancetta, and broccoli, which was good, but I coveted the ravioli. We split an appetizer of prosciutto slices topped with figs and arugula salad with balsamic vinegar--like I said, nothing new here, but it's hard to argue with that combination. Eating the silky slices of prosciutto, I realized that there's a huge difference between prosciutto sliced two minutes ago and prosciutto sliced an hour ago, which probably explains why the guys at my local deli are always slicing off extra prosciutto and eating it behind the counter.

Tupperware has been available at tupperware.com for a while now, too. I can assure you that despite the new retail channels, Tupperware parties are alive and well, and my sister-in-law does a brisk business. In fact, all she had to do was bring out a milk crate stuffed with labeled containers and I bought a few pieces from the Modular Mates line, which is for the housewife looking to spice up her marriage. Sorry. The Modular Mates are actually pretty handy. You know what I'm not going to buy any more? Celestial Seasonings tea. Once you take the bags out of the box, you can't tell what they are anymore except by sniffing them. Plus, the new yuppie teas they sell at Starbucks and similar (Tazo, Republic of Tea, and so on) have very attractive individually wrapped bags.

Do you have a kitchen scale, torakris? I always weigh butter (it's 1/2 oz per tablespoon, or 4 oz per stick), and I've gotten to the point where I can usually slice off the exact mass I'm after. An impressively useless skill, since I'm standing in front of a scale.

Yes, cut it off and eat it. I mean eat the stuff left behind. It's cured with nitrites, so anything you find growing on there is benign.

I love Jif. In honor of PB&J day, I'm going to go eat a big bite of it right now. With a knife.

The main reason we freeze butter is that we only buy unsalted, and butter often goes on sale for 50% off. When I'm in the mood for buttered bread, which isn't often, I have to convince myself it's special butter, so I get something French and enjoy it as quickly as possible.

Ham smuggling is certainly one of the highest forms. So, those of you in dire need of Sichuan peppercorns, you can have them, but you can't necessarily have good ones. The quality varies a lot. Last time I was at Grand Sichuan International Midtown, they were still using them and they were still good, but I'd be surprised if they were willing to squeal on their supplier.