Tess

OK, well, rock on. I can tell you that if I see one of my local merchants posting about how dumb his customers are, I'll probably be looking for another place to shop.

Ouch. I know I sometimes say dumb things while shopping. Now I've got to worry that maybe one of my favorite merchants may make fun of me online while using his/her own name. Nobody else will know it's me, perhaps, but I'll know and I'll be hurt.

I can't stand the taste of most of them, but recently I happened upon Enviga which is a fizzy green tea drink. That's pretty good (the plain version at least; the peach and berry flavors do not appeal to me).

The sour cherries I picked up at the market last weekend were small and had a lot of flavor. I made a summer pudding with them, plus red currants and blackberries. The cherries have a bit more skin than is good for the texture of the pudding, but the flavor was interesting. Pitted and allowed to sit in sugar, they made a great topping for ice cream. If I had a bunch more I would try making this syrup. In general if there are a lot I pit and freeze some, and also put some in jars with bourbon or brandy to use and give as gifts in the winter.

Two words: summer pudding. Any recipe, but it's best with currants. Edited to add: summer pudding thread.

Bouvez Pschitt!

Why does it matter? ← Not answering for anyone else, just for myself: How do you picture taking four different plates of entree and whatever sides might happen to be on those plates, splitting all that stuff into four and dividing it among four plates? It's hard to imagine a scenario where that would be appetizing at all. Why does it matter? I can think of a number of different reasons. It's going to have to be pretty time-consuming, and it's (IMO) likely to result in something that's not going to be attractive. I don't think a chef has to be a hopeless prima donna or have a resentful attitude towards customers to be unwlling to present a meal that way. It's a continuum here, in my opinion, between a kitchen that won't change things one iota and one that will try to cook up anything anyone asks for. It's all in how a restaurant chooses to define itself. There's room for everything. As a customer, I think it's silly to go into a restaurant and ask them to be something they are not.

Yes, that's the really absurd part of it. Why would anyone want to do that?

As server or manager I would probably just grin and bear it. As a customer I cannot imagine having the nerve to ask for this. Splitting a salad or an entree, fine, but every single course? If you want a bunch of small plates, got to a tapas bar. There are restaurants that refuse reasonable modifications but then there are diners who are in the wrong restaurant. Other customers are going to suffer by the time being wasted on these people.

I cook with them sometimes. I agree that they aren't well suited to Italian dishes. It's a good idea to parboil them as indicated on the package. For a different texture I sometimes (after parboiling and draining thoroughly) throw them in a large frying pan with a little bit of sauce; they crisp up fairly well.

Sour cherries from Michigan start to appear in the Chicago farmer's markets at the end of this month. We are absolutely fanatical about these; we eat them with Greek yogurt, make ice cream out of them and put them up in brandy or bourbon to give out as gifts. Last year I got a huge sack of pitted frozen ones from a farmer when the season ended. We are just finishing those up and I hope to get another this year.

Another fan of PBS (I sometimes just watch whatever is on) and Nigella Lawson; almost no interest in Food Network. I like to watch barbecue contests like that one Luckylies was in. (On OLN, I think.) I am more interested in little tips or general menu ideas than in someone walking me through a recipe. I have even been known to get ideas from the food parts of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Top Chef is fun but almost never makes me want to cook anything, although I do watch Lee Ann Wong's demos on the Bravo site.

Since this pig flew first class, I'd be surprised if he hadn't been to a restaurant or two as well.

Yeah, his criticisms strike me as paradoical given that (as alluded to in your post) a chronic problem with the US market is that we expect to get huge amounts of produce very cheaply. It's exactly the opposite of what I experienced living in Italy, where I didn't see people expecting to get a big bag of indestructible oranges for a buck or something.

Ms. Connelly, I would find that a useful review if I were considering going to this place. You sample a good number of things, both dine in and take out. Your descriptions are detailed and you don't pull punches when something is bad. Nothing here to discount any of the points you've made above, as far as I can see.

I buy whatever is on sale and white with no decorations. I cut some in quarters and keep them in my towel/dishrag drawer. Take that, Pick-a-size! Like snowangel, though, I use cloth towels and rags for a lot of things.

I think it's because people started adding Angostura or grenadine to lemonade. At least, my grandmother added those things to lemonade.

The article does not make that case, in my view. If anything, to me, it suggests that you can be relatively safe eating at Per Se. 1200-1300 calories is not that much. I may or may not agree with you on the question of the wisdom of the law now being passed, but I still don't see the article making a case-- one way or the other.

For a real surprise, after reading that article I went to a few diet boards and looked up the estimated calorie values of dishes at different "upscale" chains (PF Chang's; Claim Jumper). Even a lunch salad at those places often has over 1000 calories. With entrees, the sky is the limit. I didn't get where that article made an argument about the law, though, one way or another. Maybe you could extrapolate one, but it's not clear to me that that would be, "This menu at Per Se has as many calories as certain foods at chain restaurants, therefore they should also be forced to disclose calories (or neither should be forced to)?"

So, I saw a Cuisinart ice cream maker for $50 at Costco. My immediate thought was: frozen yogurt! I love Pinkberry but live in Chicago. I don't expect to get that soft-serve texture with the Cuisinart, but could I get that approximate flavor? Plain would be fine although I like the matcha and would probably end up trying to make that too. I'm thinking maybe Fage Total 2% yogurt. (My usual "frozen yogurt" right now is Fage with some frozen berries stirred in an allowed to sit in the fridge. I just made some with frozen sour cherries and it was OK but didn't taste very much like Pinkberry, and the texture was pretty bad pwing to lots of juice from the cherries.)

It is a silly article, but I was somewhat interested to see the calorie breakdown. If anything, I was surprised to see that you could have the version without extras for only about half of lots of people's daily calorie intake to maintain weight.

Marjoram is another thing that tastes good with peas and really perks the frozen ones up. Mix it with your butter or whatever.

I thought of this discussion when I read these comments by Roger Ebert.

Nobody is under any obligation to respond to a post in terms of what the poster claims is its "point." In this case, I think the real point was to bash the restaurant, anyway. I think this poster was under a misapprehension-- namely that his late cancellation would cause the restaurant no loss-- which has hopefully been corrected if he's read this thread. I usually think that, when you are in business, it's a bad idea to try to explain this sort of thing to customers but hey, this time it may have worked-- if not on the original poster then on some others reading this thread.

The Indian restaurant is Gaylord's; it's a chain. It's OK but expensive for what it is, and when we went we thought the staff had been instructed to upsell way too aggressively. I believe Hamada of Japan is a chain too. After looking at the menu we decided to sit at the bar at Buzio's and have the sashimi trio-- similar to something on Hamada's menu and less expensive. I will still probably go to Hamada's at some point during a long stay at the Rio but I don't expect it to be exciting. I think the most exciting thing at the Rio is drinks at the Voodoo Lounge to watch the sunset and look out over the city.