Comfort Me

OK -- the wierd part first. For Shabbas dinner I am making an Italian menu in honor of St. Joseph's Day. My wife has always wanted to go to a SJD banquet, but, for one reason or another, we never have. (I went to some awesome spreads in NY while in college.) This year SJD is on Shabbas, so I decided to make her a traditional SJD Shabbat dinner. The menu: A vegetarian vegetable soup, light, tomatoey broth with peas , carrots, lovage, a bit of shredded cabbage, diced tomato, haricot vert, and a little cress dropped into the bowl just before serving. Caesar salad. The last of the really wonderful anchovies I brought back from New Orleans. Fettucine tossed in a bowl with mascarpone until it melts, then drizzeled with pesto. Gnocchi baked with a mushroom marinara, lots of grated parmesan grata on top. Grean beans sauted with garlic, then braised with tomato, oregano and white wine. Zeppole. Cappachino -- I have a manual frother for the milk, which I will keep warm in a metal pitcher in the low oven. OK -- so you are wondering what I need help with. It all seems so straightforward. But a question shot into my mind on the way to work today, and it won't go away. Because of the strictures pertaining to cooking for the Sabbath, I want to have the gnocchi in a warm oven before Shabbat begins. I made the gnocchi a few weeks ago and froze them. (They are really outstanding gnocchi. The best I've ever made.) Do I boil the gnocchi, remove them to a gratin, cover with marinara and cheese, then put in the oven? Or do I put the gnocchi directly into the gratin and preceed without boiling them? Help!

Use a bottle of beer for part of your liquid -- and chicken broth for the remainder. I know it sounds crazy, but I'm Irish, and my people are really picky about their stew. Beer and broth make a fabulous tasting Irish stew. (Don't forget to dredge the meat in flor and brown first!) Oh. Now I want stew. You all are so bad for me. I'm going to weigh 1100 pounds!

Cholent isn't dead! Spit over your shoulder! I make a cholent at least every other Shabbas from Fall to Spring. I've made at least 20 of the recipes in Fay Pomerantz' "Come for Cholent" -- which I think is available on Amazon.com. Now I don't use a recipe, but I do occasionally look to it for inspiration. I have always been an oven person. That's just how I learned. I've used the blech out of necessity, but it never tasted the same -- maybe just mishegas in my head. I've never used the crock pot for cholent because it would mean buying and setting another timer and there are too many timers I forget to set as it is. This topic has repeatedly made me hungry. I have a bag of pastrami ends and a couple of shortribs from the Best Kosher outlet (10 minutes from home) in the freezer. I'm going to make a nice, spicy cholent for shabbas lunch.

We went cholentless for over a year when we first bought our condo because the oven that came with the condo, which we painstakingly kashered, had some sort of vekachteh auto-off feature where it turned itself off after 12 hours. We couldn't afford to buy a new stove, so we made do with stuff that could be kept on the blech. But that eliminated so many of my favorites -- kubbanah, dafina, hamin, lamb stew, etc. Then the old stove started acting up. (Isn't that a coinkydink, as my Grandmother would say! It's amazing what a man can do with a screwdriver!) I convinced my wife that it wasn't worth spending money on a repairman, so we immediately started searching for a stove that didn't automatically turn off the oven. The first shabbat with the new oven brought us kubbanah and dafina, even though it was April.

Not to say anything against the California Wine industry, but isn't that like giving Jacques Torres a Snickers?

Oh yeah! It stays in best if you pipe a dam of buttercream around the edge. Lemon curd filling....I want to be alone now!

I agree with the maple syrup idea. It shows great thought and effort, which will be appreciated by your hostess. If you don't want to schlep, flowers or chocolates are perfectly acceptable. As I look back on my time there, my French friends would bring interesting pates or unique cheeses or petit fours or chocolates. I liked the pates and cheeses most of all.

Read Joan Nathan's Foods of Israel Today. It'll give you great ideas of what to look for ans where to look. I think it may also have a restaurant listing in the back. Eat street food. Go to the little run-down, 600 year old bakeries. And the minute Pesach (Passover) ends, start stuffing yourself with chametz (leavened products)! 'Cuz Israel has some of the best chametz in the world! I'll be thinking about you during Pesach. I hope you have a great time! (If I could change the color of the type, it would be green for the envy I'm feeling!)

Bloviatrix: There was a spectacular lemon curd recipe in an old Martha Stewart Living in the early 90's. It came from a restaurant in England -- possibly London. It was part of a tart recipe. I am one of those people who doesn't make lemon curd because if I do, I wake up in the middle of the night and eat it with a spoon until it is gone. This recipe -- which I will try to find for you, was by far and away the best I ever made. Now that I look at them, I have a decade's worth of MSL on the shelf. I wish they would come out with an index, so I could find those things I remember and would like to make again.

Moroccan meatballs in a spicy tomato sauce, moroccan carrot salad with raisins, cumin, and cilantro, couscous with sultanas and pine nuts, and hummos and pita. I did this menu for 200, with a little help, and got it all done, start to finish, in 5 hours.

I could not live without my Birki clogs. They are the only footwear I own. I used to have serious back and debilitating migraines, then bought my first pair of Birkenstocks on advise from my neurologist. I have far fewer back problems, and half the number of migraines as before. I have worn other shoes twice -- once dress shoes and once snow boots -- and both times my feet and back hurt like a mofo. I'm now thinking about buying another pair of birki clogs for spring. I have black now -- should I get blue, red, or green?

I second the idea of alternate spices -- cumin, coriander, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, ginger, garlic. We always tuck some pastrami ends in, along with everything else. I like using lamb, and include prunes and olives when I do. And I rarely use flanken -- my wife thinks it is too fatty -- and only a tablespoon of olive oil. Once had some wonderful goat ribs, which were terrific. I always tuck a few eggs in the cholent. When I make cholent, I usually make kubbanah, a bread spiced with charnushka and anise, which bakes through the night on until lunch.

Actually, Ruth's first book was Comfort Me With Apples. And it was a very good read. Her stories, especially about her mother, are funny and sad and real.

Am I the only person who found gaping holes in the narrative? He only mentions Claudine three times -- and he shot two series' with her. His wife is sort of a non-entity in the book. I'm a big fan of Jacques, and I thought the story of his early years was fascinating, but once he started working at Howard Johnsons, it went downhill fast. Big things were treated dismissively "I opened a restaurant, and it failed." I also thought he could have talked about certain chefs without mentioning that they wanted to be his boyfriend. I'm always a little put off by people who have to tell you over and over again how straight they are. And where was Julia? He barely mentioned her. I can't remember exactly, but I think she is in the index for two or three mentions. And he shot a series and wrote a book with her.

I, too, miss Clarissa and Jennifer, z"l. They were a couple of righteous old broads whose passion for food was lusty and contageous. David Rosengarten's personality is abrading. I always thought him to be more dicty and rigid than Martha Stewart. I don't think I was ever tempted to prepare anything I saw him make.

I couldn't recommend a hotel more enthusiastically that I can the Renaissance Arts Hotel in the Warehouse district (700 Tchoupitoulous). It is new, beautifully appointed, the staff is helpful, the rooms are large and lovely, with real art, not "fast food" art, and the hotel has made a huge commitment to art in the public spaces of the hotel. The chadeliers in the lobby, executed by the famous glass artist, Dale Chihuly, must be worth a half-million. The robes in the room were so soft and comfortable, I coveted them. The rooftop pool was beautiful. I never wanted to leave. The Renaissance Arts is the newest luxury hotel, it opened just a few months ago, and you can have a lovely, large room for well under $200 a night. It is just a 5 minute walk to the riverside streetcar, which takes you to the Quarter, and a 1 minute walk to Emeril's, which takes you to heaven.

Shout it from the mountain tops, Great Prophet! I've had more than one wonderful meal ruined by asswipes at the next table who seem to get a thrill out of being miserable. Once, at Bluebird, the people next to us (close, you know) had complained about everything. And they somehow felt like they should actually direct their coversation towards us! Finally, after being told how dreadful my entree was, I told them how sad it was they couldn't have eaten in the same restaurant I was, because my dinner was perfect, save for a rude couple at the next table. Not another peep out of them.

Man -- Chick-fil-a. That really takes me back to my youth -- spending Sunday afternoon strolling the mall, hoping a popular girl would stop and talk to me -- or dreading it! And having a chick-fil-a or two for lunch. Those were damn good eats. We don't have a smiley for drooling -- a serious ommission for eGullet! So instead, I'll use this:

Blovi: Sorry about your back. I hope you are feeling better soon. (Now is the time to call family or friends and ask to walk over for Shabbat dinner at their place!) Night three of the hamentaschen bake-a-thon found me just too freakin' tired, so I did a huge cheat -- one I'm quite pleased with. I portioned the yeast dough into roll-sized pieces, flattened them out, plopped in some coconut jam or some pear preserves, rolled them into loaves, then plopped them into mini loaf pans. One will go in each box with hamentaschen, grape juice, and candy. Best thing, I was in bed at 9:15! You've got a misheberach from me, missy. (I hope you stayed in bed today!) Aidan

It is nice to get the truth and be honest, rather than giving the old brush off. A great example of people changing when they know the problem. So does guy still work with you? How is he doing? Last I saw him was ten years ago when he left to spend a year staging in France. I hope he didn't come back -- he was the type to really love France -- I actually picture him after closing drinking a glass of wine at the bar, smoking Camels. He was a great guy. Oh -- and once, after a holiday party (held in January, of course) he actually wrote his name in the snow outside my apartment building. And his first name was Johnathon!

Love: Ina Garten Hate: Sandra Lee

The "neat and clean" part can't be stressed enough, as far as I'm concerned. I once interviewed someone who had motor oil underneath this (bitten) nails. His clothes were dirty. His hair hadn't been cut in months, he hadn't shaved in a while, and the assistant manager interviewing the guy with me said later that she didn't think he had brushed his teeth! I was really up front with him -- I told him why I wouldn't consider hiring him. I said it nicely, but I was also truthful. He re-applied three or four months later, came in dressed casually, but clean, well groomed, and we hired him. I didn't know it was the same guy! He didn't tell me until he'd gotten his first promotion.

Okay, here's a theoretical. If Hamantshen got in a battle with Mandel Bread, who would kick who's ass? The Hamentashen, but then the Rugelach would swoop in from above and kick his ass with his heat vision and chocolate filling. Jason: You are too funny! I just shot hot coffee out my nose all over the keyboard! My IT people are going to love me! But F*** it. I needed a good laugh! Thank you! Now if it were a match between the Rugelach and Mega-Streisand, who would win? (Southpark fans are the only people who will get the reference!)

This is my favorite Korean place -- we always eat there on New Years day. It helps if you have someone familiar with Korean food go along with you, as language can sometimes be a barrier. If wveryone is laid back and easygoing, you should have a blast! (I love their fish cake, chop chae, manu gok, bulgoi. Everything is delicious.)

Every year I have the same thought -- why on earth am I making yeasted dough? they are so hard to pinch closed! I pinch and pinch and pinch -- last night, while the first two dozen were in the oven, I pinched and twisted the rest -- twisting the pinched ends and tucking them under the cookie. I get so frustrated when they don't turn out perfectly. Any hints?