Boris_A

Welcome! Nice to see a bottle of Ravenswood. The R. zinfandels had been my fist steps into californian wine. Looking forward to your wine-subfoodblog. This is so true for many dishes and allows for some incredible "convenience" food. "The cuisine of the re-heated" is an unexplored, yet promising field in the times of the freshness cult.

The most promising "AOC wine" stages of Le Tour 2004: 9/7, stage 6, Bonnevals - Angers; Loire Valley AOCs, notably Savennières, Coulée de Serrant, Roche aux Moines, Quarts de Chaume, Coteaux de Layon, Anjou. 15/7, stage 11, Saint-Flour - Figeac; Cahors AOC. 16/7, stage 12, Castelsarrasin - La Mongie (the first ascension arrival); Côtes de Gascogne AOC 18/7, stage 14, Carcassonne - Nîmes; Languedoc AOCs, notably Minervois, St.-Chinian, Coteaux du Languedoc, Costières de Nîmes as mentioned by Brad 20/7, stage 15, Valréas - Villard-de-Lans; Southern Rhône AOCs, notably Côtes du Rhône (and -Villages), Côtes du Tricastin, Clairette de Die 21/1, stage 16, Bourg d' Oisans-L'Alpe d'Huez (time trial); Savoie AOC 24/7, stage 19, Besançon - Besançon (decisive time trial); Jura AOCs. A "Jura Vin Jaune" could be the obviuos choice here. 25/7, stage 20, Montereau - Paris (Champs-Elysées); Le Tour scratches the Champagne AOC. It's the final stage, so if your favourite is riding in yelllow today, it's not unapporpriate to uncork a bottle of Champaign. If the winner sets the record of a sixth win, maybe even something like a Grandes Années

That's why I love to offer exactly that kind of cookery. It's tasty, it's simple (almost primitive) , and I dont' know of many (rather any) professional locations where you can order it. Thus, a vast field for amateurs (not inclined to imitate the pros). There are two parameters in play here (one too much, I'm tempted to say) A task much more difficult if you are not the waiter but rather an unstarred home cook wihtout any authority.

Helen, thank you for your wonderful and highly infomative blog. Until now, the only thing I ever pickled were a handful of garlic cloves, but now I'm inspired to do some more. Before I begin, I know where to read and study an extensive, practical piece of information about pickling techniques. And a special greeting to your husband. Thanks again!

Nowadays, it's much more difficult to find places for excellent good traditional food. I know of a German food writer (who wrote a very good culinary guide about the "Schwarzwald") who said it's zero of a problem to find and visit the foie-gras-truffle-league there. But to find places capable of executing a typical, but outstanding "grandma" potato salad, that's a lot more diffcult and requires somtimes hard investigative work. If you's ask me about the 5-8 "best" restaurants in Vienna for instance, I could tell you all of them. I visited only a few, but they are virtually to be found in every Vienna guide anyway. But to spot an original, atmospheric Heurigen, a traditional outstanding restaurant or a typical "Wiener Beisl", here I have to rely on "mouth to mouth" information by locals in order to find them at all. Not to mention the "there you should eat this" and the "for that, you don't need to go there" advices. Of course, most of them have an entry in comprehensive city guides. But OTOH, such guides address mostly the locals who already have a lot of pre-knowledge and thus those guides are often not very helpful and are leading to a mere random game. Northern Spain is a dream destination for quite a time now for us, and without eGullet and the excellent input by the "Spanish" (inhabitants and visitors, that is) eGulleteers community, I don't know where I could have found all the info about Spains traditional universe. I knew the names of the Adrias, Arzaks, Berasteguis etc long before I joined eGullet. Of course, the personal reviews and the exchange of opinions are great and helpful and is somtehing I never would like to to see missin here - but I would have found those places anyway. This is definitely not the case with all the immensly valuable info here about Spanish traditional food. In that respect, I not only highly appreciate the way eG is flying under the radar of the (international) media coverage. I think it belongs to eGs strengths. It could become a core value. And to learn here about matanza (called a Metzgete here in Switzerland) and to learn about the way morcillas (related with our Blutwurst) are freshly made on spot leads not only to fascinating comparative food knowledge, but offers additional great fun.

Thanks for the clarification. Additionally, AOCs (or DO, DOCs, etc) can have their individual regulations and exceptions (to simplify matters, ). Andrew Barr's chapter "The law is an ass" comes always to my mind. As for the workarounds ... The "uprooting of hundreds of hectares" is also not exactly implying lower yields per surface.

Thanks for all the pictures (and especially the fish-sausages). I think I dont' buy in the "boil and bang" story. I'd really love to make a journey across Japan, well equipped with a pair of chopsticks. I always felt something like "airy" about japanese food. When I see those pictures, I think it's the only food I can imagine to pick here and there a bit even after an extended meal. As for the "xenophobia" issue: showing real interest for language and culture, and especially eating and drinking of local products together with inhabitants has a strong symbolic function (like sharing bread and salt). Looking forward to the second half of you blog.

Today is "Prologue" (6 km time trial) in Liège, Belgium, so we are rather in for a beer. Afterwards, the Tour stays in the northwestern part of France, so there are still no regional wine bottles to uncork. You'll have to wait until mid-week when the Tour crosses the valley of the Loire. But what a range of different, great wines and a spectrum to choose from you will find there. Next weekend, the stages reach the Normandie and the Bretagne, therefore this will be rather a weekend for cidre than wine.

Boiled, whole pig head is a traditional dish for new year's eve in rural Austria. I was invited once. All eyes on you when the guest is allowed to be the first to cut out a piece from the best part - the muzzle. It was delicious and had a very, very soft consistency.

Then I'd choose Chapel. He was directly and indirectly the teacher of the most influental contemporary chefs - Ducasse, Troisgros, Maximin > Adria, Keller, Robuchon, to name just a few. As for Carême and the service à la française - I think he was really in love of decoration. I think he found service à la russe suitable for a more familiar circle - for a royal presentation, I believe he didn't want to renounce for the "aahhs" and "oohhs" when the pièces grosses were presented.

We are talking here about $1/bottle producer selling price. I don't believe the AOC commission is able to control the amount of produced wine, only the amount of wine labelled as AOC. I don't think there's a legal base to limit the amount of (bulk) wine a producer chooses to produce. Not even in France.

My experiences with p.d. Bresse are mixed. Sometimes it's clearly better, sometimes it's just normal. It's either me or the chicken. I usually blame the chicken. (A kingdom (or at least a horse) for reliable supply lines.) Another famous species is "Poularde de Houdan", but I never made it to buy one. I know an importer who supplies half of the luxury restaurants here around (lamb from the pyrenees, wonderful matured beef filets, great prok, poulardes, ...), price is ok but supply is limited and being a private client, I not only have to go there, but I have to take the left-over. Living in the basement of the food pyramide, you know. I just PMed (copyright issue) a most simple recipe for sauteed chicken. Simple recipes are unforgiving wrt. to raw material. It's a litmus test.

To compare these numbers with consumption of wine, beer and spirits could be telling about drinking habits. For instance, the French consume 70-80 l wine (=7.5-8.5 l pure alcohol). Not much left for beer and spirits.

Luxembourg (440'000 inhabitants) is a banking/financial center of Europe. A lot of the European union administration is located there too. They must have happy lunchtimes there.

Labneh? Never heard, but many of the classic Greece/Bulgarian/Turkish recipes are almost interchangeable and root in the times of the Osmanian empire. The quality (consistency, taste, acidity) of the yoghourt (or cheese like feta) is a highly important factor. The main bacterium to produce yoghourt is called "bacillus bulgaricus", BTW. And they love to pour cold yoghourt over warm dishes like moussaka, for example. A simple, great drink for hot days is "ayran", a mix of yoghourt and cold water (around 50/50) with a bit of salt. So refreshing! Give it a try. (Dill is not my thing, too)

Add some finely chopped walnuts instead of mint, and you've got a "tarator", the Bulgarian version of tzadziki.

Thank you for the pictures! We should be glad for all the truly great season vegetables or fruit, which are not disposable all year round. One has to wait for a full year - and then they are here, often for a short time only! The austerity of the long wait even increases our pleasure! My recipe suggestion is pure speculation, of course. Sometimes, it sautée sautée the tomatoes for 2-3 minutes in butter or EVOO. The idea is to preserve as much fresh taste as possible, of course.

The focus is standard "Bordeaux AOC", as far as I understand:

They arrived. Cherries from several old trees nearby. The cherries are deep black as coal. And incredibly sweet. Some years ago, when the farmer was younger, he went to the city market to sell these cherries. They have been famous. Market opened at 7 pm, and I never could buy later than 8 pm. Years later, I learned form a old friend that the farmer with the famous cherries - is his uncle! So I have still the possibility to buy them. I never made anything with it than just eating. And I don't know of anybody else who processed them into food. They are perfect as they are.

Thanks for the ume story. I loved umeboshi from the first minute, when I had it in a rice ball rolled in a nori leaf. Is the sisho mainly to add colour or does it add distinct flavour as well? Is the ume vinegar drink in the morning a common Japanese habit?

Hotels: the Admiral is nice with rooms on the port side. $250/night for a double. Central apartments for rent are difiuclt to find. I checked web-offerings and couldn't find any. If you learn anything, let me know. Another museum suggestion is the Danish Museum of Decorative Art for design and furniture and interesting special exhibitions. When we were there, we didn't spend much for food, focus was on classic design furniture. Even simple restaurants and pizzerias were quite expensive. 0,5 l beer at $7, for instance, but we found sometimes huge differences. I'd go back to Copenhagen anytime. Lovely, very friendly people.

Quite interesting, especially the fish sausage (chikuwa?) in the miso soup! I'm looking forward to your pickles. I'm interested in learning more about that fish sausage. (the "stay first in your realms" - approach ) Is there a relationsship to something like "Surimi"? Is there artisanal production of such sausages?

Once I learned quite a bit about Japanese woodwork and tools and was excited by the sophisticated simplicity, as I called it. Maybe I'm just misusing the notions. My knowledge of Japanese cuisine is very limited (and the little is acquired in Europe, to make it worse), but I experienced similar impressions. An undue projection of a misused notion?

Hello Helen! I'm looking forward to learn about everyday food that is simple and sophisticated, opposed to the simple and primitive I know.

Some more tips: The ultimative guide is Falter Verlag: Wien wie es isst. Some 4000 entries. Knowledge in German language required, though. My favourite, typical Vienna traditional restaurant with some simple dishes (6 Euro) is "Zur Stadt Krems" in the "Zieglergasse 37" in the 7th Bezirk (district). Don't let you intimidate by the waiter. He is as grumpy and abusive as a real Viennese "Ober" has to be. Dont' miss "Tramezzinis" (tiny sandwiches) at Trzesniewski in the "Dorotheergasse 1", 1st district . It's a true Viennese institution. During the whole day, all kind of people stop there to eat 2-4 of those and to sip a tiny 3 oz beer. For "Kaffeehaus" (not exactly the same as Starbucks), my favourite is the Bräunerhof, "Stallburggasse 2", 1st district. Just beautiful, simple interior. Sit down, order your coffee and read some newpapers for an hour. Fun to watch the regular customers pour in, taking place at "their" tables and how the "Ober" serve without an order. Visiting the "Naschmarkt" (~"sweet tooth market", literally translated) is mandatory for foodies visiting Vienna. If tired of Austrian food, try sushi in "Kojiro Fishshop", "Rechte Wienzeile 9" at Karlsplatz-side of the market. With ~6 (six!) square meters, it can be pretty crowded. Rather cheap, and many say wihtout any doubt the best sushi in Vienna. Open only until 6 in the evening, and the last half hour they crank out expensive take-away sushis for many Japanese companies. The crew are the same three Japanese for years. It's mis-translated. It's German "Kartoffelpuffer" (Fryied small pies of grated potatoes). Due to this error, they loose a lot of $ revenue, I fear. Ask for "Rohscheiben" for take away! Freshly made potato chips! Completely different from industrial ones.