robyn

The connection between organic produce and E. coli comes from the use of manure - as opposed to nitrogen based fertilizer (the latter is used a lot more in non-organic produce). Of course - since we don't know what happened here - we have no way of knowing whether manure has anything to do with the problem. Can anyone explain to me why manure is a fertilizer of choice in organic produce? Robyn

Just my 2 cents. I think it's prudent for consumers to dump the product if it's in their refrigerators and for companies to take the product off their shelves since the outbreak is widespread - no one knows when - where or what happened - the infection is extremely dangerous - and the most common way to cook small spinach leaves is in a quick saute (which probably isn't enough to kill e coli). I don't think they'd stand up to a "southern" cooking process (at least an hour of cooking with some kind of pork). As for organic versus non-organic - in one of the discussions I heard today - someone mentioned that produce could be tainted if an animal (domestic or wild) defecated in the water or part of the water supply installation that was used to irrigate a crop. I reckon this could happen both with organic and non-organic produce. And if the product is contaminated through its water source - the bugs can be "in" the product - as opposed to "on" it - so no kind of washing will help. Sometimes I eat organic stuff - sometimes I don't. I'm not "orthodox" about it. After all - those disgusting fish parasites (I thought they were clever in terms of how they work - but disgusting) which are the subject of another thread here today in the Japan forum are 100% natural and organic. BTW - they sell Earthbound Farms produce in our grocery stores here in Florida. I don't buy the stuff because it's cheaper to buy "regular" spinach (and it tastes just as good to me). Robyn P.S. One big potential problem with organic produce is the use of manure - especially since composting isn't an exact science. I would rather eat produce that's "manure free" than produce that isn't - just like I'd rather eat produce from fields where the workers have access to porta-potties.

Just thought I'd mention that we loved the hotel - and the traffic wasn't bad at all (Stanford wasn't in session and all our driving seemed to be "counterflow" to rush hour patterns). I know that some forums here allow hotel discussions - others remove them when I post them. I'll post a more complete "review" of the hotel if that's ok here. Robyn

A few more notes. We had 2 lunches that were both good in totally different ways. We spent quite a few hours at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford - and had lunch at the Cool Cafe there. Simple but excellent fare. I had its take on a Cobb salad - which included shredded chicken - some Point Reyes blue cheese - perhaps the best beets I've ever had in my whole life - and a purple egg (don't know how they did that - maybe with beet juice). This is the kind of California food I love - the best of ingredients - presented without hardly any fuss. The ingredients are left to speak for themselves. We also drove down the coast road one day - Half Moon Bay to Santa Cruz - and had lunch at Navio at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay. It's a lovely room overlooking the ocean - and the food again was excellent - a mushroom soup - a crab salad - and a pork tenderloin. Only problem on my part was the food was very rich - and somewhat salty for my taste - and I couldn't handle it. I mean no disrespect for this restaurant - because the food was excellent - and the service was outstanding - but I think when you're used to eating relatively light and simple most of the time - it's hard to switch gears for a meal like this (at least on my part - my husband doesn't have any problems at all - and apparently most people here don't either). Anyway - this is an extremely pleasant place to stop for lunch if you're driving along the coast (and I'm sure it's quite good for dinner as well). Finally - one night we had dinner with some friends who live in the area at the Straits Cafe in Palo Alto. Singapore cuisine. I have to admit I know zero about food from Singapore - and am in no position to critique it. However - we ordered 6 dishes for 6 people - and ate family style - and I found all of the dishes tasty. Perhaps the best thing about dinner is some of our friends brought us a "goodie basket" from Bouchon as an anniversary present. Needless to say - we skipped dessert at the restaurant in favor of dipping into the goodie basket later that evening . Overall - we didn't have a bad meal in California this trip - or the one ten months ago either. Have to say that my favorite is still Chez Panisse - because - to me - it incorporates everything I like best about food in California. Robyn

More notes about our trip. We stayed at the Four Seasons in East Palo Alto. We were there for 5 nights. Service at the bar (I like a couple of drinks at the end of the day) was top notch. If you are local - it is a nice place to stop by for drinks - nibbles - and small courses. We ate dinner at the hotel more than we planned to (twice instead of once). That was because I got some GI problem the third day of our trip. Maybe it was the spinach salad I had the day before - whatever it was - I was a mess. We had reservations at Manresa that night - and had to cancel our reservation. No way I could have done justice to a meal like that that particular night. The hotel kitchen prepared a small soothing breakfast for me that morning - and a nice very light dinner that evening - except for the plate with the homemade truffles inscribed "Happy Birthday" . Luckily - the day I was sick wasn't my birthday - it was the day before. We had an early morning flight Thursday morning - and I still wasn't feeling 100% (which more or less ruled out a long late night at Manresa - we will have to try it on another trip) - so we decided to eat at the hotel. That evening - the hotel was offering a special multi-course tasting/wine meal (it plans to do that once a month - did the first one in August - and this was the second). The food is Italian - we met and talked with 2 of the chefs at length (I think that perhaps they mistook me for a restaurant critic - we really talked for a long time) - they were both from Italy - and they are intent on serving fine Italian food in Palo Alto. The featured wineries are (very) local. This month's winery was Boony Doon. The tasting menu was excellent - although about twice as much food as we could eat (I would have felt terrible leaving that much food on the plate at Manresa but the hotel understood I simply couldn't eat a lot that night) - not great (it's not the French Laundry) - but excellent. Some courses were big winners - and there were some losers - but that is to be expected when you're served 3 appetizer courses - 2 pasta courses - 3 main courses with 2 sides - 5 different desserts - and a "Birthday Plate" with homemade truffles. My favorites were dishes like spiced poached duck and golden beetroot salad with walnut citrus dressing - the 2 pasta courses - spinach bucatina Amatriciana with mini venison meatballs - and portobello mushroom cannelloni - the side of polenta with 4 cheeses - and the panna cotta for dessert. Overall - there was plenty of really good food - and I was a happy camper. About what you'd hope for in a hotel dining room. And a bargain at $75/person (including all the wine you care to drink - there was a white - a red - and a dessert wine). Even if you are local and will never stay in the hotel - I recommend trying this special dinner next month to see what this restaurant can do. If you do - I suggest a table of at least 4 - since there was so much food. Similarly - I suspect the kitchen can do an excellent job catering business and social functions if you have one. Robyn P.S. Forgot to mention - the name of the restaurant is Quattro - and the next tasting menu/wine night is October 11. Also that the restaurant - and the art in it - are both gorgeous.

We're here in Palo Alto - and our only problem in terms of dining is how to eat in such a way that we don't like what the scales say when we get home . One place I want to mention to all of you - because it's new (open only 2 weeks) is Tanglewood in San Jose on Santana Row. This is the website. We had an excellent lunch there on Sunday. The restaurant is run by the same investor group which runs The Left Bank - and includes Roland Passot (owner/chef at La Folie in San Francisco). Good pedigree. But the food here is certainly not traditional French. American eclectic is more like it. We started by sharing the Iceberg BLT salad - local iceberg lettuce with an assortment of amazingly delicious local tomatoes - topped with some Nueske's bacon and a Point Reyes blue cheese dressing. I had buttermilk fried quail as a main. I'm from the southeast - and this was as good - if not better - than any I've had closer to home. Side of jicama, carrot and cabbage slaw - and a couple of melt in your mouth honey buttered mini biscuits based on James Beard's favorite biscuit recipe. Delicious. Delicious in a totally different way was my husband's main - a roasted summer stew. Fresh ricotta gnocchi in a ragout of eggplant, tomatoes - onions - garlic - and Indian spices. Vegetarian - can also be prepared vegan with tofu. Considering that the restaurant has only been open 2 weeks - the service was very polished. And the decor was slick - upscale northern California. It's clear that no one was pinching pennies. Anyway - I can recommend this place 100% - especially for Sunday lunch. Because on Sunday you'll get not only the restaurant - and the great shopping on Santana Row - but the farmers' market on Santana Row and live music to boot. The farmers' market is small - but the produce is excellent (I should know - almost every seller gave out samples - and I don't think I skipped more than a couple ). A very enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. Robyn

We ate there once - about 2 years ago - and - except for the pasta course - the meal was rather mediocre (I wrote about it here). I was surprised to read Bruni's comments about Felidia's a week or two ago. Ate there years ago - thought it was wonderful - and it was surprising to see that Bruni thought it was still excellent after all these years. Next time - try Felidia's. Robyn

I put myself on an email list for Marche - and just got its monthly mailing (which is nice - recommend it to those of you in the area). It's having a slow cooking tasting menu this month. Has anyone tried it yet? Looks good. Don't know whether I'll feel up to another large meal like this during our rather short stay - but I'm keeping it in the back of my mind. Robyn

As I think I mentioned above - my husband's situation is the same as yours. I note that one problem with fish and chips is chips are traditionally salted pretty heavily - and the batter in most batter-fried foods (fish - shrimp - chicken - whatever) is usually loaded with salt too. Funny thing is batter fried food doesn't taste that salty - even when it is (and it usually is - except maybe in Japan based on recent experiences). I had an amazingly bad "salt night" after eating fried chicken (local specialty here) out a couple of weeks ago. So perhaps the best thing to do is make deep-fried food an occasional "treat" (which is basically what we do). Robyn

Meat, vegetables and most woefully of all, pasta, since so many people don't know to salt the water. Pasta tastes awful if the water hasn't been salted. ← I agree with Pan. Perhaps it depends a lot on the sauce. I don't make those simple "a bit of crushed tomatoes and some basil" kind of "sauces". Too thin for my blood . Almost all of my sauces are robust - from red pepper cream sauce - to pesto - to ragus. Relatively salty too (especially the ones which contain lots of cheese - which is a fair number of them). Or maybe it depends on the pasta. I have 3 requirements in pasta - that it's the right shape for the sauce - that it has the right texture if cooked properly - and that it tastes good. My favorite for most stuff is Barilla - but - since it's impossible to find "wide" Barilla here - I use other brands when I need "wide" - like Coppola's mafalde (which is a touch too thick for my taste - but I like the shape) and Colavita's pappardelle (which is just right). Robyn

Most people don't cook at home. Most people don't have older family members who cook. When they start experimenting with cooking, they don't *know* to put salt in. And the average recipe is designed to produce a blind follower who knows nothing about cooking, but can produce edible food. So when a cook says 'throw the meat on the grill, you don't need to do much to it' they hear 'you don't need to do anything to it'. But the cook means for them to at least add salt and pepper to the meat, and depending on the meal maybe some garlic or rosemary or ginger. That's why I don't write things up as recipes anymore. Instead, I try to walk the person through the decision making process I go through as I make something. I may add a lot of salt one time, and hardly any the next. Or I may be in a tearing hurry, so the chicken gets salted *right* before it goes in to roast, rather than the day before. I'm not really interested in helping someone to duplicate exactly the dish I make. I'd rather help them learn how to make the decisions so they can make their own version that suits their taste. And thinking this over, I suspect the reason my friends moan about their waistlines after a meal I cook is *not* due to the fat, but due to the fact that it's carefully seasoned. It tastes like bad for you restaurant food, even if it's something healthy like roast chicken with a salad and several sorts of veggies. 2 teaspoons of kosher salt on a chicken isn't excessive. Neither is a sprinkle of salt on the veggies. And a salad dressed with the jus of a roast chicken is going to taste sinful no matter what you do. Emily ← I have to disagree. Two teaspoons of salt on a small roaster chicken is too much - unless you don't eat the skin - in which case who cares. I do sprinkle salt on veggies - no more than about 1/4 tsp. on a serving for 2-4. And the stuff that comes off a roast chicken is very heavy in fat - although probably not higher in fat content than the average salad dressing. Fat is fat. It's about 120 calories a tablespoon - no matter what kind of fat it is. FWIW - I live in the south - and my favorite veggie recipes (special occasions only) aren't healthy at all (although they do taste good). My rule of thumb cooking at home is more than 4 smoked ham hocks a year is too many - and more than 8 ounces of fat back a year is too much. I also - however - believe in "all good things in moderation". Therefore - I cook/eat one way on an everyday basis - and quite another way when I'm dealing with company or holidays or big deal restaurants. Problem is - when most of your eating is reasonably "healthy" - your tolerance for high fat/high salt foods - and large quanties of food - winds up being substantially diminished. Robyn

Started a thread about salt. Here's one about pepper - specifically pepper mills. I like pepper - I like contemporary design - and I like pepper mills that don't leave pepper residue all over my cabinets and table. Have bought many pepper mills over the years in the quest for the perfect one. And I have found a new favorite. Here it is. This will be a hard one to top. What's your favorite? Robyn

Can you generalize about the types of foods you think are undersalted? Robyn

I think the most interesting thing about reading this thread is finding out all the dishes that I thought were Japanese - but aren't - like tempura. As for artisan breads - they were easy to find in the food basements of upscale department stores in larger cities. Of course - it was easy to find just about everything in these food basements! And one of my favorites was Japanese "french pastry" - which was almost always excellent. Robyn

Cholesterol - that is a totally different issue. My husband has that problem too - and once he started taking statin drugs - it was a miracle in terms of his numbers. Ask your doctor about them. Note that I - like most 60ish people - am not problem-free either. I have been diagnosed with gout (too much foie gras ). You want to see the least heart healthy diet in the world - look at a gout diet. Luckily - there are drugs for that too. Without drugs - the only meal my husband and I could ever eat would be cold cereal with skimmed milk and fruit! FWIW - I started this thread because I simply don't like the taste of food that's too salty. There's no drug to counteract that. Robyn

When I started talking about oversalting - years ago it seems - I didn't want to base a discussion only on health issues. Because health issues can be boring. But it's clear from a lot of the messages here that health concerns are an issue for a fair number of people. My husband has had high blood pressure since we've been married - 35 years next month. He takes meds which keep it fine. And eliminating salt from his diet almost totally wouldn't keep it under control without meds. So we have kind of hit on a medium salt diet as a good way to approach things. It's not medium every meal - every day - but - overall - it's medium (hint for people watching salt intake - balance a meal that's salty with one or two based on fruit - fruit is great for low salt diets). And I guess when you're used to "medium" - a lot tastes overwhelming. As some people here have remarked - the more salt they use - the more they get used to it - and the more they need for things to taste "normal". Now I know there is some controversy about salt and high blood pressure - it seems that some people with high bp can tolerate more salt than others - but I think it's safe to say that - overall - a high salt diet is not a wonderful thing health-wise. And I don't think I should ever eat a meal where I gain 2 pounds or have swollen ankles in the morning because of its salt content (whether I'm paying $5 or $500). Just like I wouldn't want to drink so much at dinner that my "hair hurts" in the morning. Note that I don't advocate really low salt cooking in general. I've been through that with parents who had congestive heart failure. That is a whole different issue - where health concerns overwhelm just about everything else - and diet is literally the difference between life and death. Also - someone mentioned the "salt urge" that kicks in when you're dealing with heat and/or strenuous exercise. Having lived in Florida for a long time - I can tell you that the only time I have ever craved - really craved - a potato chip is after playing tennis or golf in August. And boy do they taste good then. But I'm not talking about that either. I'm just talking about everyday life for basically normal people who don't have major health problems or heat/exercise induced salt deficits. As for exotic salts - I'll pass on that discussion. I can't taste the difference between salting potato water with 10 cent salt and 10 dollar salt. I can however taste the difference between different salts sprinkled on corn on the cob. However - it is possible to overwhelm with choices. We had one tempura dinner in Japan which was served with 5 different kinds of dipping salts - and I didn't have a clue which salt went with what (so we just asked the chef and followed his advice - even though some of the salts tasted really odd). So what should the restaurant norm be? Middle of the road - or a lot? We are the consuming public. If restaurants are convinced that we won't like them unless they serve dishes with huge amounts of salt - that's what we'll get. And vice versa. I have never been a person who goes to a nice restaurant and orders this without that ingredient - or that with the sauce on the side. I like to eat things the way the chef cooks them. I don't want to become one of those people who orders like that. But I guess I might be forced to if most restaurant diners want a lot more salt than I do. I disagree with those people who suggest that high salt (and high fat and high sugar) experiences are primarily a low end fast food phenomenon. Because I don't eat at fast food restaurants - ever. And I think we would all be shocked if high end restaurants posted their nutritional information the way fast food restaurants do. Finally - a lot of people here have said - quite correctly - this is somewhat a matter of taste. Since we can't do a forum tasting - let's look at some of the things we cook with - things where we know the salt content - to see what we personally define as salty or not salty. For example - I use regular Campbell's condensed chicken broth when I make a lot of soups. I'll add some tomatoes and a little cream to make tomato soup - peas and a little cream to make spring pea soup - that kind of thing. This stuff has 770 mg of sodium in a half cup (undiluted -you mix it 50/50 with water). That is 32% of an adult's daily suggested salt requirement. I don't think my soups taste salty. So I can only imagine how much salt there is in the stuff that tastes too salty to me. Robyn P.S. to JGM - in terms of your trip - you'll probably eat at a lot of chains - if only as a matter of convenience. One type of chain you should consider is fish chains which make grilled fish from scratch - like Red Lobster (medium priced) - or Stonewood Grill (higher priced - open for dinner only) etc. They will make you a plain grilled fish without salt - and you can season it to taste. Another chain is Golden Corral. Most have a section with plain steamed veggies - rice - etc. Oriental buffets with lots of sushi. I'm not saying this is great eating (the quality in a lot of these places varies widely from location to location) - but they are places where you can have a decent "virtuous" meal - and save your "salt allowance" for really good places.

I can't speak for all smokers in general - just me. I smoke - and - although I'm sure it affects my sense of taste (because everyone tells me it does!) - I still find lots of food to be too salty - or - for that matter too sweet (a lot of cooks don't seem to realize that a lemon-something-dessert should be at least a little tart). I also live in the south - where oversalting is kind of a disease. Where almost everyone shakes the salt shaker for at least a good 10 seconds before even tasting the food. To me - perfect salting of dishes that are supposed to have salt in them means that the taste is vibrant - enhanced - but you don't taste the salt itself (except in a small number of dishes in which salt is a primary accent taste - like flakes of salt on corn on the cob - or part of the description of a dish - like a salt crusted fish). I think the perfect dish for doing salt tests is mashed potatoes. Which are absolutely dreadful without any salt. So you add salt until you say - boy - those are great mashed potatoes - not salty mashed potatoes. Soups are another good test. Again - usually dreadful without any salt - but at a certain point in terms of salting - yuck! Most canned soups have absolutely ludicrous amounts of salt in them - and so do many restaurant soups. I note that if you make a lot of "semi-homemade" dishes like I do - not making stock/broth from scratch - etc. - that there is such a large amount of salt in some of the ingredients that come from jars and bottles that the food is very well salted without adding any extra. Sometimes I wonder if a lot of professional chefs ignore a basic rule of using salt - which is that you do most of your salting of something that will be boiled down or concentrated after it is boiled down or concentrated. Or you make allowance for the reduction when you do your initial salting. Or if they don't taste what they serve. I once had a vegetable side dish at a fine restaurant that was so salty - we asked for the chef. He came out - tasted the dish - and said there had been an obvious mistake. He later told us one of the guys in the kitchen had put 3 cups of salt in the veggies instead of 3 tablespoons! Robyn

In a discussion of a well known restaurant in New York - several diners remarked that the food was too salty. Which brought up the issue of whether restaurants - in general - tend to oversalt their food. I am in the camp which believes that an awful lot of restaurant food is oversalted. And I'm talking about restaurants of all types - and at all price levels. In fact - some of the most expensive food I've ever eaten has also been the most oversalted (although the 2 most expensive places I've dined at in recent years - Per Se and Alain Ducasse in New York - did not oversalt their food IMO). Now what do I mean by oversalted? I mean that the dominant flavor in a dish is salt. I mean that after I dine - I wake up at 3 am dying of thirst - I call it "New Orleans mouth" (because - apart from raw oysters - I always found it difficult to get a meal in New Orleans that wasn't hideously oversalted). I mean that when I weigh myself the next morning - I've put on 2 pounds in water weight - which is gone by the next morning after a day of normal eating. Note that when I'm at a fine restaurant - I generally eat the food as the chef prepares it. I don't add salt - or pepper - or anything else. But - increasingly - I have been forced to tell a kitchen ahead of time to lay off the pre-serving salting before serving my food. If I think the food isn't salty enough - I will add salt. So far - I've never had to do that. I thought at some point that perhaps I was oversensitive to salt - but I ate in Japan for almost 3 weeks this year - a country where a lot of food has a reputation for being salty - and never once found the food as salty as the food I've encountered in the US. I am a pretty decent home cook - and although I do not use most heavily salted prepared foods when I cook at home - I would say our diet is moderate in terms of salt intake (taking into account recommended daily allowances). For example - I don't hesitate to use a lot of cheese when I make pesto. Now there were opposing points of view expressed. For example: So what do you think? Is the food at the restaurants you eat at oversalted? What do you do about it? Feel free to name names of places where you think the food was too salty - not salty enough - or just right. Robyn

There's one in Palm Beach Gardens - and one in Boca. Check the Whole Foods website for addresses. Robyn

I smoke - and I can assure you that even a smoker can taste food that is oversalted. I think oversalting is one of the cardinal sins in restaurants everywhere - and in all price ranges - these days. I find it particularly off-putting in high end restaurants - where one would expect chefs to be more creative with herbs/spices. I have a drawer full of them - as well as lots growing in my garden. And I'm a mediocre home cook. I just don't know what the problem is on the part of kitchen staffs - but - on my part - it's waking up at 3 am and needing to down a liter of water because of salt-induced thirst. Robyn

Yes - being caught in something like this can change one's world view. I know how I felt after Hurricane Andrew destroyed the part of the world where I lived - and how I felt when I was trapped in Manhattan on 9/11. On the other hand - perhaps you wouldn't have noticed as much pessimism had the original attitude toward Lebanon been more realistic to start with. After all - this is a country that was still technically at war with Israel before this event. And there was a major US state department warning all Americans against all non-essential travel to Lebanon before this event. There's a ton of history - and I won't go over it here. Suffice it to say it's a little like going to a restaurant. If you expect good things - and bad things happen - you're disappointed. A question of expectations versus realities. Mencken once said: "A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin." And I suppose a man can become a cynic when he is smelling flowers - and suddenly finds himself surrounded by coffins. Robyn

Just want to let you know I'm alive and kicking and still reading this thread. Almost sure we'll try Quattro one night - simply because we're staying at the Four Seasons and there will certainly be one night when we'll be too tired to drive somewhere. I know it didn't get a swell writeup in the SF Chronicle - but... Robyn

I've never had a haricot vert grown in Utah. So I can't comment on those. I've had ones grown in other parts of the US - and other countries - and they vary. And I don't think it's only a matter of cutting. There was a hierarchy in the French restaurants of yore. And the sous chefs - like your friend - wouldn't be doing the prep work of cutting. That would be the kids - the apprentices - who - best I can tell - were never berated viciously. They just started at the bottom - and were taught. And worked their way up. It's kind of like in my kitchen. My husband is the apprentice. He does all the mise en place. I'm the sous chef (and executive chef too!). Now I don't think that most French restaurants these days are like what French restaurants used to be. But - when I was in Tokyo this year - I ran into a French chef we know - and he showed me around his place. He's got a staff of about 70 for a dining room that seats 50. 6000 square feet of kitchens (half of which is only for bread/pastry). How does that compare with the Mansion? By the way - it has nothing to do with being snobby. It's just that when I'm spending about $1000 for dinner - I'd rather have a 35 year old server who's been in the business for 20 years - not someone who was dealing blackjack last year. And my prejudice isn't only against Las Vegas. When we were at Per Se a couple of years ago - I thought our 2 servers acted like they were marking time between trying out for roles on Broadway. It's simply a question of the degree of professionalism - all around. In France - all of the roles in a restaurant were considered professions. And that is not what I usually find in the US - no mattter how much I'm paying. Robyn

I'm from Florida. I drive everywhere . Has anyone here been to Marche in Menlo Park? What do you think about it? Robyn

King's is good - but that's at the other end of the county (Boca). Probably not worth the drive from Palm Beach Gardens. Robyn