jeff29992001

the only thing good at payard is the lemon tart. good lemony sharpness, less sugar flavor. the fancy cakes I tried once over a year ago. dind't like em. the flourless cookie is ok, (just ground walnuts and chocolate.) at petrossian, the pastries are not good if you order them late in the day (soggy because of the filling soaking into the phyllo). they also offered a hard plastic (Acetate) box for yoru pastry a long time ago, but look slike they don't anymore...

Anybody tried, and have any opinions on Groupil and DeCarlos' tarte tartin, or their other stuff, tarts, danishes, etc. (they are located inside the chelsea market across from buon italia).

btw, the mta just announced they are a special weekend fare "cityticket" on all metro north, and LIRR trains, ifyou are travelling within the city, the fare is $2.50 (down from $4.00-$4.75). cityticket info Arhtur Ave is a coupla blocks from the Fordham station, closer than the 4, or D subway. if you already have a monthly pass, or weekly pass on any metro north line, then forget about this thread. if you can't shop on weekends, then also foret this thread...

about those castelvetrano olives.. just curious, are they the same as the bright green, buttery, olives Fairway sells, or are those too cerignolas. i once asked them about it and they showed me the jar where they get it from, but I since forgot the info.

what do you all think of the tarte tartin from Groupil and DeCarlos (lcoated in the Chelsea Market). I haven't had a chance to try them, so wondering what you all thought.

hmm, du puy lentils is AOC, I didn't know that? the reason I mention I wanted a bulk spice retail place is I hope I could buy qualities I want, and at reasonable prices, as opposed to a specialty gourmet market like whole foods, zabars, etc. 1) so I guess french green lentils that are specifically grown in Puy (AOC) aren't available loose and in bulk quantities, but in boxes and in sold in mid-range to expensive gourmet markets? 2) and the less expensive option is to buy the same type of lentil--but not grown in Puy--called "french green". the only concern here is whether there is any taste difference, probably none.

where can I buy 2-4 pounds of french green lentils (lentilles du puy) beside the int'l spice place on 9th av 39th st? looking for a bulk spice place not a gourmet market as prices might be less expensive. would sahuldi's have it? anywhere in NYC, newark, or jersey city would be fine. thanks.

how does malka masoor (the roudn red lentils from turkey) compare to masoor dral (the split red lentils, the subject of this recipe) in texture and taste?

in answer to the OP. just be more accomodating, if possible. if you have a "high-end restaurant", service standards, and expectations, should already be high right? just set the bar higher. and in order to stay on top, one has to accomdate the changing face of society, or risk being an anachonism (like those restaurants that stick to tradition, alienating everybody else, and end up closing because their only customers are regularswho grow older every year, then die---shrinking the customer base.)

speaking of grass-fed beef.... there is a small info article in the nytimes regarding brazilian and argentinian beef. "Brazil already has the most beef cattle in the world, more than 170 million head, and now anticipates a big rise in exports in 2004. In the first 10 months of this year, Brazil earned $3.3 billion from exports of meat, more than a third of it from beef." Brazil's main competitor, Argentina, has a $1billion market with its 50 million head of cattle, and Uruguay (where some kosher beef is sourced) coming in third with 10.5 million head. the downsides: there's an import ban on brazilian beef due to hoof-and-mouth disease, and (the article doesn't mention this) some cattle farms directly/indirectly converting rainforests into grasslands.

sorry, the BBC link is 4 years old, and besides that, the autoimmune theory has already been disproven, hence "swept under the rug" as bunk (mouse with no immune system injected with prions can still develop a form of BSE.) here's this committee take on Ebringer's work.... "Overall the Committee considered that Professor Ebringer supported his theory by using a rather selective and limited choice of publications, and had disregarded much of the published literature. They concluded that the theory was not a good postulate for the origin of BSE and that it did not seriously challenge the prion hypothesis. " here's a good FAQ regarding BSE in layman's terms. BSE and vCJD FAQ

if prions can pass through the blood-brain-barrier, then that'll give more weight to "infectious prions".

sample size depends on many factors not just size of population if you want to yield statically significant, and confident results.

20,526 cattle were inspected (for mad cow) out of 35million head of cattle slaughtered last year. THAT is an awfully tiny sample size.

ahh, just screw it all, and tag all the damn cows like they do in some countries, create one gigantic database for cattle. if the homeland security department is able to create a database to track humans, eh. citizens---of which there are 240million in this country---then a database for the 50 million cattle in this country should be easy. project funding? just put a 2cent tax on every McD hamburger. over a billion served? hey that's 20 million dollars easy. all this talk about securing our food system? let's put our money where our mouths are, let's put some real accountability into our food system.

btw, the incubation period of BSE is 3-8 years http://www.fda.gov/cvm/index/bse/bsetoc.html so how many more cows have BSE, and aren't showing symptoms, and how many of these cows will be quietly killed and covered up?

BSE could have, may have already been in the USA for years, and we probably never gave it second thought, always trusting the gov't, and industry's "scout's honor" to safeguard the food chain for us? also add to the fact that only a tiny percentage of cattle are tested before slaughter leaving behind a huge hole which potential BSE could enter the food chain. ""We're talking about billions of people" around the world who potentially have been exposed to U.S. beef, Lester Friedlander, a former USDA veterinarian who has been insisting mad cow is present in American herds for years, told UPI." http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20031223-103657-3424r "The GAO concluded: "While (mad cow disease) has not been found in the United States, federal actions do not sufficiently ensure that all (mad cow)-infected animals or products are kept out or that if (mad cow) were found, it would be detected promptly and not spread to other cattle through animal feed or enter the human food supply." "In discussing the case of mad cow disease apparently found in Washington State, Secretary of Agriculture Ann M. Veneman said yesterday that her department tested 20,526 cattle for mad cow disease last year. But that is only a small percentage of the 35 million commercially slaughtered each year. Because no domestic cases of mad cow disease have been found before, the United States has never put in place the kind of stringent testing done in Japan and some European countries, where every animal is supposed to be tested before humans can eat it. " http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/24/science/24INSP.html

"Yunnan Bo Nay Tea" aka "Pu Erh" tea. it has an strong earthy flavor, which complements chocolate very well. also good I find is oolong tea. a plain green tea might also work. dont' use jasmine because that is good for savory foods

and next door to crif dogs will be a chain called australian homemade (chocolates and ice cream).