Ellen Shapiro

I'm flying to Kathmandu in October and my choices of stopover cities are Singapore (S'pore Airlines), Bangkok (Thai Air), and Delhi (British Airways --> Royal Nepal Air). I've been to Singapore enough times that, though I like the place very much, I don't feel compelled to return immediately. It is, however, one of the safer places in the world to travel. Bangkok I won't do alone. I've done it. It's too stressful. I've never been to Delhi, though. Is it reasonably safe there for a woman traveling alone? What level of hassles should I expect? And if I do go, what should I be doing, eating, seeing -- assuming maybe three days total time.

Do most of you sneak your own food into movies, sporting events, etc., on account of the awfulness and unconscionable pricing of most performance-venue concession food? 1. Do you think it's ethical to bring your own food if the venue has a rule against it? 2. What do you like to bring? 3. If you listed favorites in response to the second question but you also answered no to the first one, you may now answer a third question: Does it feel good to be so bad?

Yes I think when you get into restaurant cuisine you get in a lot more trouble. If you eat at home exclusively you can eat better at home as a vegetarian than most of the world eats as carnivores. But when you dine out you suffer tremendously by being a vegetarian. This was in fact the primary motivation behind my switching. That and the fact that I loved the smell of grilled meats, particularly hamburgers. I broke my vegetarian fast at Lespinasse, with a few bites of Gray Kunz's braised short ribs. They were breathtakingly, unimaginably good. I can't see any way that a vegetable product (or anything from the sea) could replicate the amazing combination of textures, tastes, and aromas that I experienced. I felt a bit queasy -- solely on an emotional basis -- when I saw all that gelatinous connective tissue coming off in strands from the short rib mother ship, but it was just too good for me to stop. The next day I tried steak at Peter Luger, another transcendent experience. And after that I ate a hamburger almost every day for about a month, going from restaurant to restaurant and also experimenting at home, trying to find the best. My body suffered no ill effects from the radical change in diet, and my athletic performance improved a lot. Nonetheless I think it is possible to be a vegetarian and eat very well. If you have a reason for not eating meat, and you are otherwise healthy and happy, I wouldn't say you have to change. There are many things we could do to bring ourselves pleasure that we don't do, for the sake of a higher good. That's the whole point of civilization, or at least that's what Freud (with whom I agree on this point) would argue.

Well, it goes without saying that anybody participating on this message board is in the .01% of people who explore cuisine to the max. But I'm saying that vegetarian cuisine done extremely well would be an improvement over what the other 99.9% eat. Take the average gigantic American supermarket, for example. That's where pretty much everybody in America except for freaks like us gets all their food. And I could live a long and happy life without ever eating a bite of animal flesh derived from any of those supermarkets. I'd much rather, on any given summer day, make my dinner from vegetables available from the Union Square Greenmarket, perhaps with some artisanal bread or pasta, and a bottle of wine, and a wonderful fruit dessert, than eat a bland piece of beef from Winn Dixie or wherever. Now when you get into the tiny percentage of beef out there in the world that's really worth eating, I can see not wanting to miss out on that. I'm just trying to put this in perspective.

I was a vegetarian for 13 years; now I'm a recovering vegetarian. I still eat red meat in very limited quantities, I don't feel 100% comfortable eating dead animals when it's not necessary for my survival or even health (although, as a Marathoner, it's very hard to get by without any animal protein, I probably could do with just fish and dairy and not suffer any health consequences), and I'm ultra-particular about what meat I will eat. On top of that, I was raised in a kosher home and I still have an affinity for that set of limitations. Are you missing something by being a vegetarian? Maybe. Let's put it this way: Vegetarian cuisine at its best is superior to what 99.9% of the world's meat eaters eat as their diet. However, the best food in the world does include meat, and a vegetarian can't access it. So there are limitations, but you can live a very fulfilling culinary life without meat.

I haven't been to either place, but there are some reliable-seeming Santiago restaurant comments on the Sally's Place site: http://www.sallys-place.com/food/dining_directory/south_america/santiago.htm Anybody with first-hand experience?

It’s inevitable—one of the first things I do when I land in a new country is sample the local coffee. Sometimes it isn’t all that different -- in Wellington, New Zealand, there were Starbucks a plenty -- but in others like Singapore, the local brew is a thick brew of beans and condensed milk. I’d almost be willing to fly the 25 hours to Singapore just to have a couple of cups. Anyone ever had any life altering coffee experiences while traveling? Oh -- and what is it about coffee on airplanes? Must it always be so vile?

Cook's Illustrated claims this is the ultimate oatmeal cookie recipe. Any opinions?

Larry, I made it to Old Pueblo Grille for lunch today. You're right, the guy seems to be a bit of a suburban Danny Meyer. We stuck to the Southwestern items, though there were a disappointing number of hamburger-esque things on the menu. Still, the local clientele seemed happy, and so were we. Thanks again. I'll try to post some notes when I get back to New York.

Larry: I just wanted to mention quickly that I had lunch today at Café Poca Cosa on your recommendation and found it to be very good indeed. New York would be lucky to have a place like this. I'll post some more notes when I get back to New York, but just wanted to say thanks.

A last-minute mission to Tucson has me stranded here (specifically, in Oro Valley) with no idea of where to eat. Had a chicken Caesar salad from Costco for lunch, and someone is taking me to "Tucson's best Chinese restaurant" for dinner, but after that I'm lost. Anybody have knowledge of this area? Unfortunately, I'm going to have to stay close in to where I am -- no opportunities to visit Phoenix or Scottsdale this time around.

Haven't been to The Garage (as the tourists call it), so I can't speak authoritatively. But the only place I've been that was better than Ducasse in New York was Ducasse in Paris, and I've been to probably ten or so of the Michelin three-stars now. I'm a strong supporter of Ducasse and think he operates in his own category. I don't love all his food but he is the master. This is all theory, though. My point was just that you can't ignore Ducasse when generalizing about best vs. best. Jean Georges you do have to try again. I find it consistently the best of the four-stars in New York. Have had better individual meals at Lespinasse but not consistently.

I haven't been to all of them but would be shocked if London had a single restaurant as good as Ducasse in New York. And with all due respect to Daniel Boulud I do not think his restaurant realizes his talents as a chef at least not for the average walk-in customer. Did you like Cafe Boulud better? Most gourmets I know do. Jean Georges would be my candidate to compare to London's best. If you have not visited Ducasse and Jean Georges you have not had the best New York has to offer, in my opinion.

I wonder if Indian Chinese might be more like the Peranakhan ("Straits Chinese") cuisine found in Singapore. Suvir, what you're describing sounds a lot like what I had at Jolly Wee's place over there. Fascinating. Thanks so much for posting. Steven said you knew your stuff, but I wasn't quite prepared for the seriousness of your response.

Benedict, we are in the process of attempting to call in a serious expert to help you out here.

Answering that question is as difficult as answering the same question about New York or Paris! What kind of dining were you hoping to do? If you're talking about fine dining, there is something of a consensus about the top restaurants. No surprises: You'll find the same ones mentioned in Fodor's and the other guidebooks, and on the various Bombay Web sites. If you're looking to get into the less elaborate stuff, that's another situation entirely. Give us as much information as you can about your trip, your preferences, where you're staying, etc., and we'll try to scare up some people who can help you.

We had a Raytek Minitemp around the kitchen for awhile -- it was an evaluation piece for an article and we sent it back even though the company didn't seem to care what we did with it. It was a ton of fun while it was with us, though. It could read the temperature of anything, and not just in the kitchen. :)

Here's my nomination: The wireless remote oven thermometer/pager from Williams-Sonoma.

Steve Klc, can you follow up with some tips on how to get good coffee out of a French press pot? Thanks!

Try as I might, I can't extract a decent cup of coffee from a French press. I'm aware that every expert says this is a superior method to the drip filter, yet it hasn't worked for me and the two restaurant experiences where I ordered French press-pot coffee (at some absurd premium) were extremely disappointing. So I'd appreciate some tips in this department, first of all. Secondly, is it truly the case that serious connoisseurs of coffee never use a drip filter? I'm pretty pleased with the stuff I get out of my old Braun drip machine. We don't use any fancy gold filters, nor do we clean the machine with any special descaling agents, nor do we use purified water. It seems to me there are two keys to making good coffee with a drip machine: 1) You have to use approximately twice as much ground coffee as the machine's instructions recommend, and 2) you have to get freshly ground coffee from freshly roasted, fresh beans. Fairway is a good source for this, where high volume and high standards guarantee an acceptable product. Even using the worst technology, also known as the percolator, coffee made from fundamentally good raw materials is surprisingly drinkable. I maintain the quality of the beans and roast are much more significant than people tend to believe. Not that any of this compares to espresso-based coffee drinks. But this is an area where I've found that there's no way to do a good job at home without committing significant resources (both financial and temporal) to the effort. With a half dozen coffee bars within three blocks of our apartment, I can't see any convenience advantage to doing it at home, and it would take a lot of espresso to amortize out the cost of a quality home setup. I've had some pretty good espresso-like coffee, albeit without crema, made in a little Italian contraption that I'd have no idea how to use. It looks like a telecommunications satellite. Does anybody know about this thing?

Someone who sounded knowledgeable told me recently that it's no longer necessary to sift flour on account of changes in the way it's produced. Is this true?

As I think I mentioned, this is a dinner of last resort -- but we try to make it fun. Don't let Mr. Fat-Guy fool you with his fancy gourmet image, though. He gets junk food cravings from time to time, as do most gourmets I know. He's just very selective about what junk he'll eat. He likes the biscuits from here, the chicken from there, and so on and so forth.

We have a tradition we call "Parking Lot Dinner." This is something that gets hauled out when we're driving long-distance and we pull into a town a) that has only chain restaurants, b) when it's late enough that only the chains are open, or c) where the standard of cuisine is so low that it appears the chains will be the best bets. In that case, we declare Parking Lot Dinner to be in effect. This involves cherry-picking only the best items from the available chains. So one example of a recent Parking Lot Dinner menu was: --McDonald's fries --Kentucky Fried Chicken coleslaw --Wendy's chicken breast fillet sandwich eaten without the bun --Popeye's biscuits Of course obtaining this variety of food -- usually from drive-through windows -- leads to consumption in a parking lot, thus the name of the procedure. So, what's your ultimate Parking Lot Dinner?

I get to have Umpqua Dairy's ice cream 1 day a year, and I spend the other 364 thinking about it.

If you hypothetically had a brother stationed at Roosevelt Roads and were going to visit, would you choose the Westin or the Conquistador? Or someplace else? Access to good restaurants would be a primary consideration.