therese

Having a great time, in point of fact, though at the moment it's rainy and cold outside and I'm in a cybercafe catching up a on few things from work. Kids at home still drowsing. Apartment lovely, kitchen large by Paris standards and well-equipped, but I wouldn't want to cook with two people. I'll post some photos when we return.

I leave this evening for a week in Paris in a flat that includes a kitchen. I'll post particulars here when we return.

Actually, though I wouldn't personally recommend the Sundial for a meal, the bar is a great place to visit, particularly at sunset: the bar rotates (about 45 minutes for a complete turn, if memory serves) and offers great views of the city and surrounding area. You have to buy a drink, of course, but it's a pretty good deal considering.

But not exactly budget dining, though I suppose that depends on the budget in question.

Not even remotely a culinary wasteland. Metro Atlanta's got great stuff of all sorts. Unfortunately downtown is a culinary wasteland. And although Atlanta's got great food, it doesn't have great public transit. No, no reservation needed for either Monday lunch or Monday dinner at Watershed, though if you've got a big group it would be cool to call them en route so that they can get tables together. At the south end of Midtown, right at the edge of downtown (so just north of Ponce de Leon) are some restaurants that you might want to consider: Baraonda (Italian pizza), Enoteca something or other (same owners as Baraonda, brand new, nearby), The Globe, and Eno (this web site is being renovated, and last time I drove by it looked like they were working on the building as well, so call ahead of time).

I've been getting Sunkist-labeled moro type blood oranges. Very sweet, very juicy, deep red flesh. Essentially seedless, almost a blood orange variety of a navel orange.

Yes. One instance here in Atlanta is Restaurant Eugene.

What a great blog theme, for everybody. Best of luck to you all.

Schiacciata all'uva. Easy, you can make it ahead, no last minute assembly or storage issues.

Coffee jelly (or jello/gelatin) non-existent here in the U.S. unless you count the versions you can buy in Japanese markets. I got one a while ago that was single serve portions of the jelly, over which you poured a little packet of coffee creamer liquid. Interesting.

Plugra's web site makes no mention of the butter being made from cultured cream, only that it's higher % butterfat. As it's a U.S. product made for the U.S. market I'd assume that it's not cultured, particularly as it's specifically promoted for baking and some people find the cultured butter flavor too strong. Does anybody know for sure?

It is. If you live in an area that's got any sort of traditional farming (like Amish) you may be able to get it. There is one U.S. manufacturer that sells this sort of butter: Vermont Butter and Cheese (though they don't sell buttermilk, darn it). It's very good, and the sort I routinely buy, but it's not as amazing as my grandmother's was. Finally, most butter sold in Europe is made from cultured/soured/clabbered cream. So premium butters like d'Isigny will fit the bill, but U.S. butters described as "European style" are just a higher percent butterfat, not cultured.

Hey, I bet you could make jello shots with Manischevitz.

That would be cool, and a nice option for cold weather. And jello shots go well with pretty much cuisines, don't they?

I'd go with another island theme, but this time someplace Caribbean. So either Cuba or Jamaica. Beans in both cuisines, but they're also easily avoided, and both feature various stewed meat dishes that can easily be done ahead of time.

How about an orange panna cotta? Lighter, calls out the orange flavor in the sauce for the other dessert, and nice contrast in colors.

Your mom is right, true buttermilk is the liquid left after butter's been churned from cream. But that's only the case if the cream's soured ("clabbered" was the term my grandmother used) before churning. The cream's left at room temp for several days while lactic acid-producing bacteria (from the environment) do their magic (which is much faster in the summer than the winter, at least in my grandmother's farmhouse kitchen). The resulting butter has a much stronger butter taste, and the whey is buttermilk. Butter made from unsoured, "sweet" cream has a milder flavor, and the leftover liquid is pretty blah. Almost all butter produced in the U.S. is from sweet cream. So true buttermilk isn't sold in stores because no true buttermilk is produced. True buttermilk is fat-free, by definition: all the fat's in the butter.

Wow, that sounds like a really amazingly bad evening out. All my sympathy. There's a brew pub in Savannah called Moon River Brewing that's located on Bay St, the street that's right behind the riverfront. I can't vouch for the food, but the beer was decent on my one visit, and my friends and I talked to the brew master for a while one evening before heading out for dinner. Pleasant guy, nice vibe to the place when we were there. I had a surprisingly decent lunch one day at Belford's, located in the City Market. The dinner menu looks too foofy and too expensive, though. Very good food at Gottlieb's, but not even remotely a possibility for the entire group food- or price-wise. The bar's nice if you want to eat solo and can ditch your colleagues. There's a Chart House right on the river. You could do worse. The Hyatt Regency Savannah was remodeling its bar when I was there this fall (2005). It's likely finished by now, and would presumably offer a nice view. The traffic on the river is actually pretty cool to watch---enormous container ships go by with some frequency. If the group were willing to go for seafood there are some places ("shell houses") not right in town I could recommend. Car or taxi required.

Well, since you're willing to come into town I'd probably go to Woodfire Grill. Very nice food using lots of locally sourced produce and meat/dairy, cozy ambience (what with the wood-fired grill and all) and great wines. Sunday night is half price for bottles, a particularly excellent deal. The wine steward (or director or whatever) is Greg Koetting, very knowledgeable and enthusiastic. Talk to him if you get a chance, as he's very into the subject.

Where does your brother live? Atlanta's huge, and the traffic's unpleasant, so knowing the general neighborhood will help us give you appropriate recommendations.

As you've noted, Fogo is a gaucho-staffed meat palace. I went with a Brazilian colleague a couple of years ago and he loved it. Not my cup of tea, as I don't eat huge amounts of meat and don't like salad bars, but that's just me. As for the burger vs haute question, rest assured that the local versions of haute cuisine offered by Seeger and Berthelier (at The Dining Room) are very good, and certainly better (on a relative scale) than most burgers you'll find in Atlanta or elswhere. The closest thing to "down home southern" in Buckhead is Restaurant Eugene, and then only if you're dining on Sunday, when this otherwise very elegant restaurant (that does use local ingredients and some southern vernacular) offers "Sunday Supper." A little bit farther down Peachtree is MidCity Cuisine. The restaurant's been open for a couple of years, but recently got a new chef, Nic Bour. Very good on my one visit last month. Neither Southern nor haute. If you want the real deal insofar as "down home Southern", take Peachtree all the way into town to Ponce de Leon, turn left, and you'll see the sign for Mary Mac's Tea Room a couple of blocks up on your left. We ate there last night, and my daughter pointed out that there were a lot of police cars in the parking lot. I told her that was a good thing, that the police knew where to find the good food. A couple of new places that I've not tried but that you might like are Taurus and Table 1280.

Well, since you ask.. As I point out upthread, Kyma and BluePointe are both Buckhead Life restaurants, both used extensively for expense account dining. Bones not part of that group (Chops is the steak restaurant in that group) but similarly very expense account. Clearly your girlfriend likes these places, but if you want to try something different in Buckhead I'd go to The Dining Room at The Ritz Carlton and/or Seeger's. Much more haute cuisine than the ones you've got listed, but about the same amount of money in the end. If you don't want to go that fancy you could try Fogo da Chao.

Great blog, Helen. Also a fan of "The Makioka Sisters." Some particularly cool food references in "Some Prefer Nettles" as well, especially contrasts between traditional and new (for that era), Western style foods.

They do, don't they? And the pink rubber gloves really add that certain something. Count me among the impressed as well, Helen---really cramped kitchen, and your food always looks (and sounds) so great. Think your kids know how cool their mom is?

One Midtown Kitchen has actually been around for several years, perhaps as long as four or five. It was Bob Amick's first venture back into the restaurant scene---he and Steve Nygren (now founder of Serenbe, a combination organic farm/housing/B&B a few miles south of Atlanta) had been big on the Atlanta restaurant scene back in the '80s, launching a local group of restaurants that started with The Pleasant Peasant (which is still open, I believe, but under different ownership). Anyway, Amick's since opened a number of restaurants here in town, including Two Urban Licks, Piebar, a place in Orlando, and a couple of places that just about to open, Trois and Lobby (hmm, maybe Lobby already open). All of Amick's restaurants are at least as much about the vibe (generally sexy and/or stylish in some way) as about the food, and there are lots of people in Atlanta who love to hate his perspective. Blais has been with Amick et al. for perhaps a year now. He'd previously been at several places, including one named for him (financed by a deep pockets restaurant group here in town) that pretty much went under in flames. So far this seems to be a good fit for him. Note that you have to ask for the tasting menu, and in fact need to ask when you make your reservation. Otherwise you order off the regular menu, which is good (and will feature some of the same dishes), but is not the same experience.