Liza

Work friends sometimes go to the 16th Deacon Brodie's on 46th St btwn 8th and 9th Ave. A fine bar, though no outdoor part. But they will rip all the chairs out upon request! I second the bar on the roof of the Peninsula. To drink outdoors in midtown, it is necessary to be many floors up.

Interesting, just got an email from Wine.com featuring recipes from Charlie Trotter. I have all the Trotter books and thought maybe here's a new one. Check out the link here:http://www.wine.com/aboutwine/food/recipes/article.asp?ArticleID=19&s=evm488n&Population_ID=65841053&State=NY&Mode=go And tell me: is that dumbed down or just not Trotter?

Reading the article, where Bittman mentions one helper does this, one helper does that, I read it as, "I do this, I do that". I think it's disingenuous to submit that a meal whipped up in 20-30 minutes is going to have the complexity of one that takes time and forthought. I'm a big fan of taking fresh ingredients and cooking them simply, but I don't think of this as high-end dining. (Delicious, yes).

We've developed a new credo at home: If you don't set off the fire alarm, the pan's not hot enough.

With raw tomatoes, I get rid of the water and add flavor by roasting them first. Halve 'em, sprinkle with salt, pepper, olive oil, and fresh thyme, basil, whatever. Roast at 400 for about 35 minutes until a lot of the liquid is caramelized on the pan. Add the tomatoes to some sauteed onions and garlic, and if you're feeling really snazzy, deglaze the pan with red wine, sherry, whatever... Simmer another 35 minutes or so. Give a whizz with the hand blender and voila.

Thanks, Jinmyo, for posting the link. I've had the potato gratin and sirloin at Montrachet within the last month, and think even Bittman skimped on the cream. It was divine.

The cute little pink store? (Sorry, couldn't resist). I like the pink ones on fish.

sigh. Dining outdoors. Sunday night: diced sashimi quality tuna with diced mango, chive jus, and caviar. B Edulis brought some Wellfleet oysters back from the Cape, so they appetized (!) straight from the shell, down the hatch. Yesterday it rained and rained, and D. was outside at the market all day, so last night was Carnegie Deli matzoh ball soup.

And we're all grateful. I'm with you, Yvonne. If I want to dine, I want to dine - not eat at the bar. Though, there's nothing wrong with eating at the bar sometimes. If I'm dining alone, I like to read and find that pretty difficult at the bar.

I only canoodle with noodles in public.

I'm in NYC, waiting for summer.

I'd side it with couscous and a green salad. And the slivered almonds idea sounds right on track, too.

Cabrales, I think the Smart Chickens are overnight mailed to us. And honestly, it was terrific. If it is true that you will be attending the first NYC Egullet pot-luck, I will endeavor to produce a Smart Chicken for you.

Jinmyo, No worries! I wasn't scolding, though I'm sure it's difficult to determine tone of voice via the internet, please do not worry. Having been adopted after being homeless post-9/11, I am completely content with my surroundings, and just write about our 'lackings' with hopes of sympathy and donated salamanders.

Herbs such as chervil, cilantro, mint, parsley, lavender, and thyme do not need a lot of sun, which living in London once myself, I recognize as your circumstances. Lavender in particular makes a lovely border plant, which spritzes its aroma with each passing leg brush. (It also winters over well). Good luck with the courgettes. Overgrown as they almost always are, we used to find them cricket-bat sized (baseball-bat for the Americans) and try to fob them off on neighbors or use them as security devices.

May I volunteer to help you with excess tomato growth? I'm a frequent buyer of bruised, unwanted tomatoes. I feel it is my Egulletarian duty to rescue the tomatoes considered ugly and useless by others, and transform them, Cinderella-like, into delicious sauces. I've been known to have 20-25 sauces in the freezer come November. That said, I also love Brandywines, 'specially if they have dark 'shoulders'. That said, Sungolds, little orange cherry tomatoes, are like pure candy. And I like the fuzzy-textured peach tomatoes, the beautifully arrayed Zebra stripes, and I'd like to strike a deal whereby if you buy the tomatoes, I'll sauce them, with a cut of the sauce going to the house, of course.

Blue? Cheese. Angry? I get dizzy when I'm angry. I know I'm really angry when I get vertigo. Quite unsettling. But blue? Cheese. And not food related, a good snuggle with a cat helps dispatch the blues even faster than a slice of Cypress Grove Humboldt Fog.

Can't speak for Tommy, and certainly wouldn't dare to, but we rent our adopted home, with kindness from B Edulis, so the salamander will just have to wait. Just as the dishwasher, microwave, toaster, all wait patiently. I have this way with appliances and can keep them at bay, happily waiting to fill my culinary needs, for years. It's a gift.

Lovely as an extra crunchy outside to crab cakes.

We've just sampled our first Smart Chicken, and it will now be the house bird. Here's some information from the David Rosengarten Report: Jason Rowe MBA Poultry 333 South Third Street PO Box 257 Tecumseh NE 68450 402-335-2501 "Your chicken woes are over! It has been the American foodie's amntra for a long time now: our chickens don't take like their chickens. That's what Mark Haskins thought a few years back, especially after a trip to Europe during which he tasted chickens with real flavor and real texture...The Europeans...air chill the bird down to 40 degrees. It's more costly. But he was convinced it's the key difference. So he began producing chickens in Nebraska - including lots of other nice touches, such as no antibiotics, vegetarian feeding, no freezing, etc. - and today Smart Chicken is the only chicken produced on a commercial scale in the US that air-chills it's birds. ...This is the best American chicken I have tasted, bar none. It wins on texture alone - nothing mushy or flaccid about it, but a real, meaty, resilient chew, like Frances' famous Poulet de Bresse...then there's the taste. After you sample these birds, you won't go around saying that other things "taste like chicken". Alligator meat may taste like a commercial chicken, but it tastes nothing like this deep-flavored, sweet, poultry-intense bird."

Have you tried treating them like regular clams - I mean, steaming them in a flavoured broth? We have no tenderness issues cooking them this way.

A home salamander...sigh.

I have the Traunfeld book and look at it admiringly all the time, and have yet to make a recipe. But now that spring is here, and summer approacheth, perhaps this halibut thread will make me crack it open again. EDIT: I've always wanted to try his green gazpacho..

Well it's probably not what you're looking for, but Davy made an excellent drink last weekend: in a blender, mango, cantaloupe, lime juice, ice, and tequila. An EXcellent use of the mango, if you ask me, as its natural stringiness lends itself well to the whirring of the blender. Though I would very much like to roast/ broil it like many people are doing to pineapple these days.

OY, can I really be joining a moil thread transversed with chicken? I take whatever I'm stuffing the bird with and rub it all over the skin, as it is already all over my hands at the time, and that's the best way to try to get it off. We like melted butter, with saffron, fresh sliced garlic, and some other green herb - tarragon, oregano, rosemary, lemon thyme (yippee!) etc. And Priscilla, I heartily encourage the bunging of the lemon.