Ellen Shapiro

The nice thing about booze on a backpacking trip is that anything tastes good after a day of hiking! There's no need to worry about bottles. You can transfer any liquor to a nalgene bottle. The only weight consideration is alcohol content really. Higher proof is more efficient assuming alcohol is the goal (as opposed to flavor). One easy thing is to go to a liquor store that has a good selection of "nip" bottles (aka miniatures, airplane bottles, 5cl/50ml bottles). You'd be surprised at some of the good stuff (single malts, decent cognac) that comes in this size and many of the bottles are plastic. They're great because they fit in the nooks and crannies of your pack (put in a sandwich-size ziploc just in case!) and you can have a different one every day.

Um, no one felt compelled to comment on this stunning model? The brat-grilling uniform must be a regional thing.

More stories! What entertaining tales for a gloomy and frozen Saturday morning. What good fortune that the snails showed up!

What an amazing story! And just look at the story value--it happened in 1988--it's now 2004 and I'll bet you've told that story at least once a year since. Talk about proverbial payback!

I wonder if it could be argued that the evolution of modern orthodox kashruth into a set of rules that reads like the tax laws is really the natural outgrowth of trends in the food supply. A hundred years ago most food was still being provided through very few steps in distribution from farm to table. There wasn't much processing. The need for supervision especially in insular communities would have been low. Today, food routinely travels thousands of miles through multiple processing plants and distribution points before it reaches the consumer. We have no idea who grew or produced what we buy in the supermarket. Thus in order to keep up with this fundamental change, there needed to be a fundamental change in the way supervision was conducted. That theory would not cover the revival of esoteric in-home regulations, but it would help to explain the general change that Wesza was talking about regarding supervision.

Hi Vickie. I was thinking about space food and space travel, thanks to your Q&A, and it occurred to me that even though space food sounds like a very futuristic venture the reality is that the facilities for preparing and eating food in space right now are the opposite of futuristic: they're really quite primitive. I've just been traveling, as I do most every year, in the Himalayas, and I was wondering: does NASA's space-food team study the techniques that pre-industrial peoples like those in Nepal, Tibet, parts of Africa and South America, and Mongolia use to preserve food without refrigeration for long periods of time? It would seem that the old ways of curing, drying, smoking, and otherwise manipulating food to be stable might have applicability in space. Just a thought, if you'd care to comment.

To those of us who grew up in Conservative Jewish families (please note that Conservative Judaism is the largest denomination within American Judaism), most of the above rules would not be considered relevant. In any religion, the absolutist and fundamentalist arguments and approaches have the most internal consistency and often appear to outsiders as the most worthy of respect. But my observance of Judaism has always been about honoring and continuing the traditions of my people and my religion while also being fully engaged in ecumenical society. To do that requires I believe some adaptation and evolution of the Biblical and Talmudic rules. This is basically where Conservative and Orthodox Judaism part company. In any event, there are almost no foodie obstacles whatsoever to a Conservative Jew who wants to follow moderate Conservative Jewish kashruth practices. There are some things and combinations that can't be eaten, and that's it. And most everybody, even foodies, have things and combinations they won't eat. For those who want to follow the types of rules as above, there are greater obstacles to being a foodie. They can still be foodies but they will start with significant inherent disadvantages, like the Jamaican bobsled team. I see I may be going agains the direction I was trying to give above, so let me clarify that I'm mostly trying to say the OU is defining one denomination's rules for kashruth, and not the largest denomination's rules, which are much more flexible. So when it comes to talking about definitions of kashruth, I think it is relevant to keep that in mind.

The Hearth Website characterizes the cuisine... "Our food is rooted in the classical cooking of Tuscany, presented in a fresh, modern way." Also... "Another common thread will be the use of true Italian cooking techniques (predominantly soffrito, a classic Italian flavoring-base of slow-cooked vegetables and olive oil), which are often sacrificed in modern restaurants in favor of easy fixes and culinary shortcuts. There will also be homemade pastas and risottos available, as well as some classic Italian combinations: lamb shoulder with borlotti beans and escarole and roasted cod with baccala mantecato." Had I not read any of that I'd have called it New American, though. I think I still would!

Note: This thread was split off from the Freaky Cooking Disaster thread in the Adventures forum. Thanks.

Don't like 'em, don't like 'em, don't like 'em! Too sweet, too low chocolate percentage, not good enough cocoa. Okay, well, I'll eat Godiva if they're around. Ironically, I'll eat lots of them even though I don't like them very much. :) But I think I read somewhere that they dumbed Godiva down for the American market and that it's basically Hershey's-level chocolate. I have a friend who sometimes gives me chocolates from La Maison du Chocolat. Next time I get some Stan I'm going to give you a few.

Let us know! I would love to get some. Do you think Bernachon are really the best still? I used to think so and have not had side by side comparison opportunities but I think La Maison du Chocolat may be as good and also Torres is local so no wear and tear from shipping. The last Bernachon ones I tasted though, which were hand-carried back, weren't as good as I remembered.

The fresh pea shoots at Grand Sichuan Midtown are one of the best things in the world!

There are GREAT deals all over town on leftover Christmas candy right now. Duane Reade, for example, is down (up?) to 75% off on Christmas M&Ms, Rolos, et cetera.

Thanks, Pan. I too would like us to be careful to steer this conversation away from its potentially incendiary religious component and keep it focused on the basic question of whether kashruth observance makes foodieness (this is a word?) impossible. To refine the question, I think it should really be: "What are the challenges to foodies presented by observing different levels of kashruth?"

I grew up in a kosher foodie family, but with the resurgence and vocal dominance of "modern orthodoxy" the practices we thought of as kosher would not pass muster by the strict definitions. We were conservative Jews and observed some traditions but not others. For example we would eat in restaurants we just wouldn't eat forbidden ingredients. Obviously it is easy to be a foodie under such circumstances. You're just a foodie who doesn't eat certain things. But when you lock yourself out of all restaurants other than kosher ones, and you radically limit your purchasing of and exposure to the larger world of food you are going to have major challenges. At that point your best bet is to move to Israel!

Schielke I have no point of reference for knife pricing of this kind. Can you direct us to places that have the same knives as Korin for less money?

Took my brother, the knife collector, to this store the other day. It was the first time we had been there. What an amazing place! The selection of Japanese knives is mind-boggling. The best thing is there are always chefs hanging around to talk to. I'm not good with chef faces, but I think we talked to Marco from Hearth for awhile. Or maybe just his evil twin. The sales help isn't all that helpful but they sort of try. They have a great catalog that has lots of information in it about metallurgy and sharpening as well as a lot of knives. And you can stand around the store and watch a cool knife-sharpening video that's dubbed in English. Also they had on sale and probably still to a lot of nice Japanese plates, cups, and other small ceramic things. I got some excellent aquamarine rectangular plates for eight bucks each. Thanks to The Art of Eating's Mitchell Davis for recommending Korin in the most recent issue of this "food letter." Korin Japanese Trading Corp. 57 Warren Street New York, New York 10007 800-626-2172 toll free, U.S. only Showroom Hours: 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. Weekdays and every 2nd and 4th Saturday of the month 212-587-7021, 7025, 7026 phone 212-587-7027 fax sales@korin.com

VERY hard to generalize on this. As a member of the Recovering Vegetarian Society (I was veg for 12 years) I can only speak for myself. I have a very strong GI system and was not veg for ethical reasons, I just didn't like the taste of meat so I stopped eating it and that became a lifestyle. I decided to get back into it because I was craving it, because I thought I was getting insufficient nutrition otherwise, and because the foodie lifestyle sort of demands it. I started off with a Peter Luger steak, Gray Kunz's short ribs at Lespinasse, hot dogs at Gray's Papaya, and a hamburger at Cafe Centro back when Centro's beer bar had one of the best burgers. All in the same weekend. YMMV.

Oh! How all of you shame me--how can I possibly compete? One of my favorite consistently "worst meals" is at the home of a beloved cousin. She just doesn't know how to cook--no matter what she does--and the whole non-fat/low-fat thing doesn't help either (we must start another thread on that!). Favorites include: ice block coffee cake, freezer burned brownies with internal ice crystals (lest there was any question), frozen challah, frozen cookies (I've acquired a taste for these) and salad with glutinous non-fat Italian dressing (you know the kind--it's yellow and there are flecks of red and gray stuff suspended in the yellow stuff and it makes noises when you squeeze it from the bottle). There are other specialties of the house -- the meat is always overcooked beyond recognition -- and those fresh baked products most usually are too (perhaps it's better that we get to eat the others frozen?) but the saving grace is that we get to see the cousins and it’s never inconsistent -- so we always know to eat something before--and after each visit.

Two recent experiences... Parmigiano Reggiano, hand-schlepped by my mother, from Reggio-Emilia. At first we thought it was better because it was "fresher." But how can something three years old be "fresh"? And now we know for sure because it has been in our fridge for months, that even when not fresh it's better than any Parmigiano Reggiano we've ever been able to get in New York. Darjeeling Tea, hand-schlepped by a friend, from Darjeeling. You can't believe how much better and more vibrant and fragrant it is than even the expensive stuff from the tea places downtown in New York. Any other examples of great hand-schlepped food? And what could be the reason for this? With FedEx available to commercially schlep anything and everything overnight anywhere in the world, how can hand schlepping still be so much better?

If this is for a Web site you may find that the most important skills here are not photography skills but image postprocessing and manipulation skills. Effective Web graphics are often less about the quality of photography and more about the ability to combine relatively low resolution images into a compelling montage that communicates as much as possible with a few simple visual elements. Have a look at the home page for http://calphalon.com/ and you'll see the effectiveness of image manipulation of simple photographs. It didn't take a genius of a photographer to shoot the pans. The real work was in creating the graphic.

Do you know if you'll be shooting digitally or on film? I would make some different recommendations one way or the other. At the high end, the formats are relatively interchangeable, but with amateur or "prosumer" equipment you will have to treat film and digital differently especially when it comes to lighting and depth of field issues. One thing I have found when either a) dealing with amateur photographers and b) needing to shoot in a situation where I don't have a full lighting kit or a lot of time is that it can be best NOT to do extensive styling and, rather, to rely on a natural or naturally occurring setting. Unless you really know how to style food, chances are you won't do it well. Awhile back we were shooting ice cream from Il Laboratorio del Gelato in New York City for a magazine article. Ice cream melts fast and doesn't react well with lights. We tried and failed with several styling options but they all sucked. So we decided to shoot in more of a photojournalism style, without neatly composing the scoops or using any fake backgrounds. Sometimes this is more appetizing in the end result than a highly styled, glitzy presentation with disappearing background. There are exceptions to every rule and sometimes you just have to do the opposite of the standard procedure. There was a storefront window at the shop. It would have made sense to put the window behind the camera for natural light but it wasn't working. But shooting towards the window gave a nice effect, once the shot was filled with one camera-mounted flash and one slave-flash off to the side. This was a digital shoot with an EOS D-60. The advantage of digital is you can take a million shots and quickly see your options, and then narrow it down to what you like best.

Aside from my encounters with the Maoists (those pesky renegade guerillas, whom, shortly after my departure from Kathmandu for the mountains, our president declared terrorists--which they are) there isn't much to report on the mishap front in Nepal. Ah, but the food -- it's really going to test all of my skills as a writer to describe to you the astonishing variations in menu options from one tea house to another. Well, without going into too much detail, it's important to note that all of the menus are exactly the same--at least within regions--so it's the variations of the amongst the same items listed on each menu that are so dramatically different. Good thing I can back my stories up with photos, otherwise, I’m certain that none of you would believe me.

Seeing is believing. J dared me--asking me what my price would be--to eat a scorpion. I declined but later considered lying and telling her I had a change of heart--after she left.

Here are a few additional photos from Beijing and the Great Wall. J hamming it up with Chairman Mao . . . In and around the Forbidden City . . . A better idea of the scope of the on-a-stick selection at the night-market -- this is just one of many vendors . . . A wider angle on those pork things . . . Hungry J ordering dumplings . . . More stuff-on-sticks . . . Another good street-food snack . . . The posse at the Peking Duck place . . . There was a photo above of a woman holding a kite. Kites are big in China. At dusk, you can find tons of people out flying them . . . Beijing streets . . . A few more from around the Great Wall . . .