robyn

This is definitely true. Growing up in Boston as the son of Southerners, I can tell you that none of my peers were being served things like the mustard greens, grits, fried porkchops, etc. that were regular features of dinner at the Kinsey household. Things have changed. I am Jewish - born and raised in the New York area. Spent most of my life in Miami - which is the "south" in terms of the history of segregation - but not so much in terms of food.. When I moved further "south" (i.e., north Florida) - I learned how to make collards and black eyed peas and corn bread - and grits - etc. Love fried chicken - but it's kind of messy to make at home. This is southern black food - and white cracker food. Depression and bad economy food. Like the traditional "grits and grunts" you find in the panhandle at every politician's picnic. I do not consider it condescending to cook it - or eat it. I am learning how to cook decent, interesting food - and learning something about history at the same time. What's the big deal about some students in the north learning about what people in the south eat/ate - particularly when economic times were bad? Robyn

HSF is also a "usual suspect" (although I haven't been there since 9/11). Used to go to Nom Wah's years ago. It was a dump then - and I suspect it's even more of a dump now . When visiting New York lately - I have found it inconvenient to get to Chinatown. I've found that Shun Lee Cafe on the upper west side offers - to my mind - very adequate dim sum. With carts. The atmosphere is nicer than most of the Chinatown places - and when I'm trying to have a meal with family/friends I haven't seen in a while - it's nice that they don't try to turn your table over in 30-40 minutes. With the carts - you can point. If you don't know even approximately what something is - you can ask - what is this. Don't expect to get a more complicated answer than shrimp dumpling or chicken feet - but you should be able to make up your mind based on what you hear. Brings lots of people and try lots of dishes. Robyn

Will you be in Jacksonville proper (as opposed to Amelia Island) for any reason during the day - shopping - business - whatever? There are some nice lunch places or places for an early dinner I can recommend. Keep in mind that it's at least a half hour drive - maybe 45 minutes - from Amelia to any part of Jacksonville where there are restaurants you'd care to eat at - and you'll be driving dark 2 lane roads over lots of bridges. Best eating on Amelia is at the Ritz Carlton - it has 2 restaurants - 1 formal big deal - 1 relatively casual. It will be hard to do better than either of those restaurants for dinner in Jacksonville (was just up there for lunch a couple of weeks ago). But you could get close. I agree that the food at the Plantation is pretty institutional. OK for lunch. That's about it. The Beech Street Grille in Fernandina is highly touted - but I've never eaten there. The restaurant in Ponte Vedra that was mentioned was Barbara Jean's. It has a branch on Amelia Island. Look it up. I live in Ponte Vedra about 6 miles north of Barbara Jean's. It's about an hour or so from my house to the Plantation on Amelia - add 10 minutes for Barbara Jean's here - and there's no reason to come here if there's one there. It is a basic crab cake southern veggie place. Cheap and popular (because it is cheap). Certainly not a destination restaurant - but ok for a night you want to do simple. Robyn

Nope - never been to Coral Springs except passing through heading east. I lived in Miami for 20+ years - and I liked Versailles - especially when all the politicians came tromping through during election season. But I don't think any restaurant in Miami is worth a 3 hour round trip from northern Palm Beach county. Robyn

I don't think I was even 30 years old at the time, and I assure you it was the totally "in" product and we were the envy of our peer group. You could have opened up any design-and-decor magazine at the time and found this material and color used in kitchen and bath renovations. I hadn't quite figured out at that time that following trends is kind of stupid when you're buying something you have to live with for decades. That's why I stick with my "white on white". Discovered I really liked living with it when I did my first kitchen in my first condo (it replaced a brand new kitchen with harvest gold appliances so I guess that kind of dates me). After you live long enough - just about everything passes into and goes out of style - and then it comes back again (usually just about the time when everyone has tossed whatever they had in that style in the junk heap ). Another consideration with kitchens is stuff like dishes and glasses and accessories. People have taste in those things too. And once you assemble enough of that stuff - it's nice to have it at least most of it go with your kitchen/dining decor. So find something you really like - and think you can live with for a reasonable period of time. Robyn

Think what a back splash is. Do you really want to splash stuff over something that has grout? I like solid back splash surfaces for ease of cleaning. Even a semi-gloss finish paint which can be wiped down is better than tile with grout in my opinion. Robyn

Yes - the Buckhead Ritz. Thank you for the information and the recommendation. We get to Atlanta about once a year - and will have to give Joel a try. I love any chef who puts short ribs on his menu (took a peek at a restaurant review). Robyn

I don't know if you live in - or travel to - Atlanta - but last time we were there - my husband really liked the wine pairing at the Dining Room at the Ritz Carlton (kept the menu - it was $55). The staff explained all the wines - offered him a little - and then if he didn't care for a particular wine (which I think happened once) - they offered to pour him more of a previous wine he liked better. They also topped off the glasses of the wines he liked a lot . Luckily - we weren't driving that night. Just stumbled upstairs after. By the way - the food was excellent. Robyn

OK - let me add my opinions about liquor at ADNY - even though I know much less about wine than most people here. Let me start by saying that I can't drink most wines these days for medical reasons (no big whites - and no reds at all) - and I can't drink much of the ones I can drink. But I do like to drink. So I drink cocktails (remember those?) most of the time. At AD - it was impossible to pass up the preliminary glass of champagne. I seem to recall there were 2 - one was about $20 - the other was perhaps $25. We had 2 glasses of the more expensive one on the basis of a staff recommendation. Two thumbs up. My husband does drink wine. Faced with the staggering array of wines we knew absolutely nothing about - he told the staff about what he was looking for to go with what he had ordered - his approximate price range - and he asked for a wine that I might be able to share a little with him. What arrived was a stunning dry riesling that went perfectly with the food. I think it was about $140 for the bottle. No need to quibble about whether the bottle had 3 or 4 or 8 glasses in it. I drank about 1/4 and my husband drank the rest. I have no idea whether this wine was marked up 2X or 10X. And I don't much care. On that particular evening - I was paying a restaurant to stock a million wines - to have staff that knew the inventory and understood how to pair a customer's wants with what the restaurant had to offer - and to serve what was chosen appropriately. Based on these expectations -again two thumbs up. (I will compare this with another experience at Jean Georges. We did the same thing. Wound up with a similarly priced bottle of a white wine that I can only describe as "weird". It wasn't turned - or corky - it was just weird. We didn't like it - and I wonder if the person who recommended it had ever tasted it.) I did have a few cocktails with my meal. Beefeater and tonic (which I drink all the time). The prices were certainly in line with those at other places in New York - and the drink was fine (bottled tonic - one would expect that at all high end restaurants but frequently you get stuff out of a gun). My husband had a relatively modest after dinner drink (cognac) which he enjoyed. Seem to recall that it was about $25. So I guess we spent about $250 on liquor overall. I really hadn't thought about what we'd be spending ahead of time - on liquor - or food - because we were last minute walk-ins (didn't have a reservation). But afterwards - we thought the total was appropriate. We certainly didn't have any complaints. By the way - for people who simply hate paying large markups for wine - just order liquor. It's a heck of a lot cheaper - and there are enough drinks around to satisfy just about any type of taste. Robyn P.S. "Weird" didn't seem enough to describe the Jean Georges wine. The closest thing I had ever tasted like it was retsina (but it wasn't retsina).

I don't know how much of the weekend you want to spend battling traffic on I-95 (it's murder) - but I suggest staying in the north and central Palm Beaches area if you want to have a reasonably relaxing time. There's certainly enough there to keep you busy for a weekend. Don't even think about Miami unless you want to spend at least 90 minutes driving each way. We get to south Florida about 3-4 times a year. I usually visit my parents near Boca - and have some business in Miami. The traffic has become so bad that we split up our hotel stays (a few days in the Palm Beaches - a few days in Miami). You didn't say how old you are - what kind of atmosphere you're looking for - or what you feel comfortable spending. So I'll dash off some comments. Feel free to ask specific questions. Of those restaurants you've mentioned - I've been to L'Escalier, Cafe L'Europe, and Chardonnay within the last couple of years. L'Escalier had a new chef when we were there last fall, and we thought it was excellent (best meal we had last trip). The room has a very formal feel - but the staff was very friendly. Cafe L'Europe is also very good - also pretty formal. In Palm Beach proper - you should also take a look at the new Cafe Boulud (it probably isn't in the guidebooks yet - but it has a web site). Didn't think the food was as good as that at L'Escalier -although it was very good - but we liked the ambience more (didn't hurt that they were having a fashion shoot in the courtyard the night we were there). We also enjoyed Echo in Palm Beach. It is more of a casual Asian fusion type place. Not sure you'd want to make it your "night in Palm Beach" restaurant. Haven't been to Charlie's Crab in a long time. There are better places in my opinion. Chardonnay is more of a high end "local" restaurant in a strip shopping center (in Palm Beach gardens or North Palm Beach - can't remember the exact town). It is fine - but it has never been as good as - for example - Mark Militello's original strip shopping center restaurant in Miami. Isn't in the same class as the Palm Beach restaurants in my opinion. For a fun girls night out - and especially if you're 20ish to maybe 40ish - you might spend some time at City Place in West Palm Beach. Lots of restaurants and places to have drinks. No great food - but a fun high energy place. If you plan to spend an evening in that area (and I recommend doing that) - also take a look at what might interest you in the Clematis street area in Palm Beach (restaurants/bars/clubs/etc.). Further north - we like Carmine's in Palm Beach Gardens (casual but not inexpensive neighborhood place) - and for good deli for breakfast/lunch if you hanker for some - TooJay's in either Palm Beach Gardens or Jupiter (the one in Palm Beach Gardens is right down the block from the Palm Beach Gardens mall - very nice mall - and what would a girl's weekend out be without at least a little trip to the mall). As for microbreweries - haven't found one that's worth a detour - much less a trip (we have much better in Jacksonville). I think you can safely skip Brewzzi's and Hops. We've found a couple of "Irish pub" places in the area that are ok - but none that is worth a detour if another is closer to you. By the way - you definitely want to spend a little time in the Norton Museum. After its recent expansion - it is now probably the best art museum in Florida. Robyn Whoops - Clematis Street area is in West Palm Beach - not Palm Beach.

If anyone is interested - there's an article in today's New York Times design section about kitchen renovations - The Ready Mix Kitchen The website is free - but you have to register if you haven't already. Robyn

I guess I've only had the privilege of going "behind the scenes" at local joints. They can't afford granite . I like the look of black granite in a "city kitchen" that is used mostly at night. Very elegant. So the Alain Ducasse kitchen must look great. In Florida - during the day - when it's sunny (and that's when I do most of my cooking) - black granite makes your kitchen look like a relic from Miami Vice in the 1980's. It's hard in Florida to get any type of suitable surface for baking/pasta whatever. Everything is too warm and too humid. So I don't even try to do stuff like bread. When my husband and I make pasta - we use wax paper to minimize sticking. Cooling elements would probably work - but it doesn't make sense installing $1000 worth of cooling elements for the $25 worth of pasta we make a year . Take care, Robyn

OK - I understand your disappointment. I never thought Corian was cheap compared to granite - or "better". Just a different look. With somewhat different characteristics. I agree that granite is somewhat tougher - and that Corian scratches more easily (my current counters are 8 years old and they have some fine scratches on them - but the finish is still shiney). Both can chip if you drop things on them (not always but sometimes). Particularly with light colors - I think it's easier to get stains out of Corian if you're the kind of person - like me - who sometimes doesn't get around to cleaning up for 12 hours after making a mess (like last night - my husband thought he would be nice to me and make me a milk shake because of all my dental work - but he didn't screw the blender together properly and everything wound up covered with chocolate ice cream and strawberry syrup - which I cleaned up this morning). I've seen some pretty badly stained light granite counters in friends' houses. Unlike you - I have to categorize myself as a "light user" of my kitchen. I use it a lot. But there's little in the way of "banging and whacking and clanging" except in the sink when I'm cleaning up. I've never had to refinish any Corian counter I had. Once had to repair a chip in a counter in another kitchen - and that was a relatively easy proposition. My installer in this house did tell me - like you were told - that he could come back to "redo" the counter if I needed it - and that it would be easy. Of course - he then moved 1500 miles away - so I doubt I'll be seeing him anytime soon. With the pace of construction in most parts of the US today - it's hard to get anyone decent even to install something - much less fix/repair something. I think the next time I need a major appliance repaired - I will simply throw it in the trash and buy a new one. Considering what you say about how you use a kitchen - for your next kitchen - you might skip all the "residential" finishes and go straight to a commercial setup - like stainless steel - with specialty areas for things like baking. That will of course have its limitations too. It is easy to keep clean (and very sanitary) - but sometimes hard to keep from spotting unless you keep wiping it down. It will develop a patina of scratch lines over the years (I like stainless steel sinks - but they do develop a patina of scratch lines very quickly). I suspect you know enough chefs to ask to be taken on tours of lots of commercial kitchens that aren't brand new - so you can see what they'll look like down the road. If you want something that is very heavy duty and functional though - I suspect real commercial materials will make you happiest. As for aesthetics - perhaps you don't like what you got because you were trying to "imitate" granite - and what you got was "real Corian" - i.e., fake looking granite". I have taupey gray flecked Corian counters in my bathrooms. I like the look - but never thought about whether they looked like real stone of any kind. I just went in to look at them. I suppose you might mistake it for stone if you gave it a quick glance - but I think I'd be unhappy if what I really wanted in the first place was stone. I had a similar but worse experience with marble. This was for a bath counter in a master bath - maybe 12 feet long. It was supposed to be a monolithic slab. First the contractor drilled the sink holes in the wrong places. Then he got the sink holes right in the next slab - but the slab cracked in half during installation. So now we have 24 linear feet of marble and no counter - and the contractor is going broke on our job. We wound up cutting up those slabs into smaller runs - so the counter had 3 seams instead of none. They were grouted - and could be easily seen - but they didn't bother me. Still - I developed a phobia about marble cracking - and never used it again (for that reason - and also because it wound up covered with ring marks which were impossible to remove). By the way - I always like a full bullnose on residential counters - no matter what they're made of. Gives them an elegant look in my opinion. And I'd be careful about concrete. From what little I've seen of it in other peoples' houses and their discussions about it - it seems like an architect's perfect dream surface (i.e., one which photographs beautifully but isn't really designed to be used). It's good to talk about mistakes. My current kitchen is the third one I've done - it was built when we built this house - and I still have mental notes of mistakes that I will correct next time. You'd think I'd be able to get it right by now! Robyn

I agree with Robyn on this point, and not only for those on a budget. Fluorescents are often overlooked in the overall lighting package, I suppose because they have a connotation of cheapness. But with the latest bulbs, they can be extremely effective at general lighting (and task lighting, when used under cabinets) for a fraction of the installation and maintenance cost of incandescent or halogen, and when properly deployed, they can be almost invisible. Anyone who thinks all fluorescents are cheap will disabuse himself of that notion if he looks at the Artemide website. You know your budget is in trouble when you're looking at "luminaires" - not "lighting fixtures" . Likewise - all halogens aren't "high class" - far from it. Incandescents of course are all over the place - you can even use halogen floods in a lot of can downlights. I find lighting a very exciting overlooked area in many design plans these days. People have to start with basic questions - what am I going to use for general illumination - what am I going to use for accent/task lighting - do I have any particular problems like needing wall washers to deal with a large painting. And then how can I integrate everything I need in terms of light colors and (possibly) mood changes through things like dimmers. In the kitchen - I always found that general illumination was most important. In another kitchen I built (not the one I currently have) - I had fluorescents installed under the cabinets - but found that I had enough general illumination that I rarely used them. Robyn

My favorite spot would be directly on a counter. I think it's the safest space for one. That's why I also said it could fit right on the countertop across from the fridge, right there in the corner on top of the wine fridge. I'm used to designing small kitchens - so my favorite spot is above the cooktop. Works out fine for me since I like Barbara Kafka's Microwave Gourmet and wind up doing prep work in the microwave which gets thrown into a pot on the stove. Also -I cook smokey, greasy things outside - not inside - so the dinky exhaust fan on the microwave doesn't bother me. Robyn

My husband and I used to eat offal (which includes brains) when we could get it cooked properly (both in the US and Europe). After mad cow surfaced in England - we stopped. You probably don't have a great chance of catching it - but since it's 100% fatal - and there are so many other foods - why take a chance? Mad cow isn't the only issue. We have a friend who's a neurologist at the University of Kentucky medical school. His area of academic interest is AIDs dementia. He's done research about another form of (invariably fatal) dementia he discovered in Kentucky - and he traced it to eating squirrel brains (which is a popular dish there). Anyway - you might think twice before ordering if you see brains on a menu. Robyn

Actually, this might easier with the open shelving Varmint's considering. Presumably, such a unit can be cheaply built by hand. It just needs to be somewhat shallower and shorter than the standard cabinets, with a false back and top to hide the hardware. You may well be right. And if he tends to use the same X number of pots/pans all the time - it would be convenient too. Whatever Varmint decides - I'd advise measure 5 times - cut once. And even then you can run into problems. I wanted to put all my knives in a knife drawer under the cooktop. Ordered a cooktop which gave me the necessary clearance below. When it arrived 6 months later - it was the next year's model - and my knife drawer wouldn't close. Wound up pulling out the cooktop and tracking down a "last year" model which fit. Luckily - the last year model was also a touch bigger - so I didn't have to ponder the question of how to make the hole in the counter smaller. Robyn

You could get some shackles and chains anchored to a slab of concrete. Make the chains just long enough to go from the sink to the dishwasher. He decided to go the fancy route - he's using granite instead of concrete . Robyn I see Dave beat me to it on this one. By the way - is there any way here to just delete a message - not simply modify it (I've looked for one and can't find it).

Robyn - What are these fixtures? I still haven't done my kitchen lighting and am looking for energy effiency and good light. I have a small solar electric system and it would be nice to run the kitchen lighting from it if need be. (I can transfer load from grid to solar.) Do you have any links to learn more - or a google term to search for? Thanks Nick - Dave saved me the time of looking up a picture (thanks Dave). My fixtures are Lightolier (which is now Genlyte). I don't know if they're the best - and they're certainly not the only manufacturer - but the Lightolier/Genlyte web site has a lot of technical information. See, for example, this description. By the way - the reason I used these fixtures (in my kitchen/laundry room/closets etc.) doesn't have anything to do with money. I have absolutely terrible eyesight - including developing cataracts - and I just like to have enough light so my fingers don't wind up in the bowl when I'm chopping onions - or I don't walk out in blue pants when I meant to wear black. Robyn

With your budget - and your large pantry - I think you want as plain vanilla as possible. You don't even need a lazy susan (put large things in corner cabinets). Do however try to get the following in cabinets if possible: Upper cabinets which are full width - and where the shelves can easily be adjusted at lots of different heights. As for lower cabinets - I am a big fan of the configuration with a utensil type drawer on top - 2 drawers underneath (preferably with full extension). Anything that is buried in a lower cabinet is almost worthless in my opinion. Don't know if you want a pullout for garbage/recyling. One of my favorite lower cabinets is a "cutting board cabinet" - with vertical dividers - where you can store cutting boards - baking sheets - muffin tins - etc. Items like this can be stored much more efficiently vertically than horizontally. Take all of yours out - stack 'em up - leave some room for dividers and "wiggle" room - and that's about how much space you need to start. Add a little - it's always more fun buying this stuff when you have somewhere to put it . Think of other items you might want specialty storage for. We're not talking fancy hardware here - just different sized drawers. Like a drawer for placemats if you use them a lot. What are you going to do with the granite? I somehow thought that this was a big standalone stove - not a cooktop. If it's a cooktop - remember that there is stuff under the cooktop including the electrical line (or gas line? - I don't know anything about gas) - and you'll need something to conceal that stuff. Robyn

OK - the food shrink is in . If you really love Prego mushroom sauce - why do you bother to make sauce yourself? When I was younger - I always bought sauce in a jar - Ragu Traditional - and I doctored it up with carrots and onions and celery and chopped meat and wine and herbs and a bit more sugar - and I thought it was tastey. Then I got fancy - started making stuff from scratch - got one of those things where you put the tomatoes in on the top - a tomato pulverizer. I thought it was ok - but my husband plain didn't like it. So after a while - I said shoot - why should I waste time making something that I don't care a lot about - and my husband dislikes. So I'm back to my doctored Ragu now. I happen to prefer another sauce I make - a roasted red pepper cream sauce. And it's really fast because I use roasted red peppers out of a jar. I could spend the extra time roasting the peppers - but the incremental improvement isn't worth the time to me. So go my child - and eat your Prego Mushroom sauce without guilt . Robyn

Don't be sorry - I don't much like islands either (which is why my kitchen doesn't even have room for one). I am just trying to figuring out a good place to put a really big stove - and give the cook enough room around the stove so he has handy access to everything he needs - without knocking the whole house down . Where would you put the stove? The "L" with the little sink looks promising - but I don't think you can stick a stove in front of a whole wall of windows (and now I've forgotten whether those windows exist now - or whether they'll be created in this project). If those windows don't exist yet - putting the cooking area there would get all the hot stuff out of harms way. Robyn

That's an excellent point, and one that I had not fully considered. But of course, they'll have total access to the sink and dishwasher, which is there appropriate spot!! Let me consider the island option again, although I don't like islands' ventilation that much. Assuming you don't wind up using the "L" with the little sink for something else - you might put in some counter space which is a little lower than the rest for the kids (I don't know how old they are - but if they're L'il Varmints - I suspect they're my size or smaller). Even when the kids grow up - a lower counter can be used for certain specialty things (I seem to recall that bakers like lower counters). Note that counter heights can be important for adults too. This is your family kitchen - so make it for you (unless you're 6'5" and your wife is 5'0" - in which case I'm staying out of that discussion ). Robyn

Here is one way to save money when it comes to lighting. Use a couple of "floating look" fluorescent fixtures for now. Maybe a rectangular one along the "galley" and a square one in the middle of the left hand area. They are cheap -energy efficient - and will give you tons of light. There are "warm bulbs" which emit a light color which won't make the kitchen look like a garage. Robyn

I am in your camp when it comes to cooking things that are very greasy and smokey. Outdoors is the way to go. That said - I have read some interesting articles about kitchen design for people who do lots and lots of wok cooking (which most people don't want to do outdoors ). This is a custom design problem in most parts of the country. But in areas of the country with large Asian-American populations - standard builder houses are designed for the way most of the people who buy those houses cook. A hunt on the internet might turn up some of those articles. Also - if someone is going to do the kind of cooking indoors which requires a commercial quality hood - it would be a good idea to look into commercial or high quality fire extinguishing systems. They can be important. I once worked on a case where a BBQ place put in all kinds of fancy new stuff in its kitchen. First night they fired up the stove - it caught fire. The fire system failed - and the restaurant burned down. Needless to say - it was a good case and settled quickly. Robyn