ludja

Sounds like a great trip, Robyn. I'm glad thet you really enjoyed Quince and Chez Panisse Cafe and that overall, your food experiences turned out very well. Coincidentally, I've had a really transcendant halibut dish at Quince as well. Interesting comments on La Folie; I've never made it there over the years. (congrats on the fab shoes!)

Hey, great idea et alors! I haven't eaten at the Peninsula Creamery in an age. I also always ordered their milkshakes so I woudn't have known first hand about their pies. And it's cool to know that they use sour cherries, I may have to check that out soon. Thanks for sharing your grandmother's pie crust recipe from Iowa as well. It's fascinating how different it is from the 'usual' ice cold water, cut butter/shortening into peameal" style recipes.

Just saw a write up on "Red Tavern" restaurant in Chico, CA which is about 160 miles north of Sonoma, off of Rt 5. It was listed as a "restaurant worth a detour" in this month's AAA mag. They describe the food as having a Mediterranean/Spanish influence. Here's the website: http://www.redtavern.com/ Has anyone else been here? When I've ventured north above Sonoma it's been on Hwy1, so I don't have recs from personal experience...

Since mhadam has to juggle work at the same time as running the blog, here is some more info. Arancini are an Italian dish, as Jean mentioned above, of breaded, fried risotto usually in the shape of a round ball. Arancini means 'orange' in Italian; a reference to the shape and light brown (orangeyish...) color. A classic version has just a plug of mozzarella in the center which gets all gooey and is a nice contrast to the crispy outsides and creamy rice just below. It is also a great way to use up left over risotto! That's pretty cool that you can buy these mhadam. I've never noticed them for sale anywhere. Wonderful breakfast!

Thanks for sharing the menu of your dinner, sounds terrific. Do you remember any more details on the dessert? Were the berries on the plate fresh or were they transformed into a syrup, for instance?

Thanks for reminding me of this, alanamoana. A lot of Austrian desserts do use rum and I've been wanting to try Stroh's myself. David Bouley in "East of Paris: The New Cuisines of Austria and the Danube" describes it as a "dark, highly aromatic rum" used as the rum of choice in Austrian desserts. The substitute he offers is "dark rum". The liqueurs that I use most often in baking or other desserts are: Most commonly: Kirsch, Grand Marnier or Triple Sec, dark Rum, Bourbon Less often: Poire Williams, Port, Sherry, Framboise, Tia Maria, Brandy Thanks for all the great information, Redsugar!

Great report; interesting to see dishes I had not heard of and the fruit presentation is amazing. I'm curious re: the pistachios served with the ice cream. Were they just finely chopped or were they blended with a mixture of sugar or something else? I can't tell from the photo. Thanks!

I agree that with many cases in which both parents work or have careers it will come down, hopefully, to the person who enjoys oooking more to do the bulk of the cooking or whatever arrangement is worked out. But there is no getting around the fact that eating very poorly will negatively impact children and also. still importantly, the health of adults, to eat that way. The special focus on women may not be completely ill-advised though, in the sense that women are still disproportionately the majority of the gender who are feeding kids and teaching them lifelong eating habits---including what they will then pass on to their kids...

Any comments on Pandan Leaf Restaurant near Coolidge Corner in Brookline? I had a nice Malaysian meal there, but it is already 4 years since I was there...

Just got my AAA magazine for Nov/Dec and they had a story on "How Fine Food Won the West". As part of it they had a section on restaurant's 'worth making a detour for'. click Has anyone been to any of these? CHEF’S TABLE Fresno, Calif. 731 W. San Jose Ave. (559) 227-5800. ERNA’S ELDERBERRY HOUSE Oakhurst, Calif. 48688 Victoria Ln., (559) 683-6860. RED TAVERN Chico, Calif. 1250 the Esplanade, (530) 894-3463. TIOGA TOOMEY’S WHOA NELLIE DELI Lee Vining, Calif. 22 Vista Point Rd., (760) 647-1088.

Ludja, if you have names/descriptions of the baked goods, I would love to learn about them. It's always interesting to see how traditional stuff 'travels' to other countries and if, and how, they change along the way. ... ← Here's the link to the The Utopian Bakery in San Luis Obispo, CA. They describe themselves as a European Bakery but many of their specialities are Dutch. I snipped out the obviously Dutch items. Koffiebroodje - Dutch Coffee Bread. A soft twist with raisins and currants Saucijzebroodje - Dutch Sausage Roll. Pastry filled with our homemade sausage Dutch Fruit Vlaai - Sweet bread crust filled with pastry cream and topped with seasonal fruit Cookies: Gevuldekoek - Dutch stuffed cookie, soft cookie filled with almond paste - Boterkoek - Dutch soft butter cookie Jan Hagel - Flaky with almonds and light cinnamon Sprits - Butter shortbread cookie Klettskopper - Caramel lace cookie with walnuts Kattetongen - Meltaway butter cookie Bokkepootje - Dutch almond macaroons filled with raspberry purée topped with powdered sugar Bokkepootje with Chocolate Dutch almond macaroons filled with raspberry purée topped with chocolate Dutch Cream Horns - Lace cookie filled with white butter cream and dipped in chocolate They also served these for breakfast on the weekends: Pofftertjes A dozen "puffed up" Dutch Pancakes with butter and powdered sugar. Pannekoeken World Famous Dutch Pancakes with: Dutch Stroop Syrup Bacon & Syrup Apple, Raisin & Syrup Ham, Cheese, & Syrup

I like adding them to citrus salads or as a garnish to certain sorbets like lime, lemon or grapefruit. Sometimes I splash the sorbet with vodka, or campari, etc and then sprinkle with the pomegranates.

I found a review on MSNBC on some new cooksbooks just released this fall here and it includes a favorable review of the Casas book with some details: From reading the article, I also saw that Deborah Madison has a new cookbook: "Vegetarian Suppers from Deborah Madison’s Kitchen". I have some of her books from the days of Greens and also enjoyed browsing her last cookbook, “Local Flavors” which focuses on using seasonable produce from your local farmer's market but does not have exclusively vegetarian recipes. Some other books are also reviewed with mixed accolades: "Big Fat Cookies" by Elinor Klivans, “Everyday Italian”, first book by Giada De Laurentiis “The Gourmet Burger” by London chef Paul Gayler "Retro Baking: 100 Classic Contest Winners Updated for Today" by Maureen Fischer

This is exciting; thank you for doing this, Chufi! The boterkoek with ginger looks just great. Thank you for the recipe; I will definately try it soon. I found a terrific Dutch bakery out here in California in the town of San Luis Obispo this past summer. They had many great baked goods that I had not been aware of from my short visit to The Netherlands. Looking forward to your other postings as well...

After becoming a big fan of squid it was not difficult to try octopus. I haven't cooked it myself yet though, but the recent pasta dish I had will probably prod me to do it. I had a great prep in Venice which was a room temperature salad with octopus, fresh sliced celery, lemon and olive oil. (Just noticed in Soba's blog that a similar dish is offered at Otto's in NYC; they also have chopped lovage in the dish). More recently I had a great pasta dish at A16 in SF with grilled octopus and white beans. The octopus was very tender but with a slight, pleasant chewiness.

Check out these two previous threads for discussion on the definition of a torte: click1 and click2 I think the Engadiner Torte is more like a tart with a top crust. I'm not sure if there is a word equivalent for 'tart' in German. Witness "Linzer Torte" which is also very much a tart...

Hi Robyn! How did your trip go? There were a lot of posts and opinions on this thread, and it would be interesting to hear where you ended up and what your impressions were. It sounded like The Ritz Carleton, Michael Mina, Gary Danko, etc. were all possibiliites. Did you get to Zuni? Hope you had a wonderful trip! edited to add: I saw that you had some nice lunches here... (Glad that you enjoyed the lunch at Chez Panisse Cafe, as well as the visiit to the Cheese Board across the street.)

I agree that the pies at Duartes are very good. I ususally never order pie out unless it is a place that I can guess might make homemade pies. I really can't think of anywhere around here that fits the bill or that I guess would be a likely candidate. There's not too many old-fashioned farm stands or diners in Silicon Valley anymore... I would (and do) make my own pies--to avoid the inner goo and mediocre crusts you described. Is making one truly not a possibility? I have never tried store bought crusts but if making the crust is completely out of the question you could at least have a good filling. Maybe the purchased crusts aren't too bad either, I don't know... Best wishes for your birthday and upcoming new addition to your family. edited to add: And thanks for the info on Gizdich Ranch in Watsonville, John S.

Regarding Japanese uses of chestnuts, check out this quote from sobaaddict a few years ago: link Has anyone ever seen these? What a baroque dish!

The Japanese use chestnuts in both savory and sweet dishes. They're commonly sold already peeled, cooked, and candied in syrup (in jars); and hot/roasted, ready for peeling (in small paper bags, with an X cut in each chestnut and even a handy plastic guitar-pick-type implement for peeling them!). You can also buy vacuum-packed foil bags of roasted, peeled chestnuts from China that are ready for snacking or recipes. In Asian markets here, the latter cost about $1 for an 8 (?) ounce bag! Typical Japanese recipes include: kuri gohan -- chestnut-studded hot cooked rice kuri manju -- baked sweet buns with chestnut filling kuri kinton -- a sweet made from mashed sweet potatoes and chestnuts kuri yokan -- logs of sweetened red bean paste "fudge" studded with whole or broken chestnuts and various Western-style fancy pastries that use candied chestnuts as filling or garnish. The Chinese, BTW, sell dried chestnuts, which need to be soaked overnight to reconstitute, then cooked to soften. They're most often used as a potato-like starch in stews and braised dishes. ← Wow, thanks for the informative response, suzisushi! I love chestnuts and was introduced to them via a completely European perspective, mainly with desserts. Thank you for giving both the description and the Japanese name of the dishes. I wonder if I would have any luck finding these up in San Francisco which has a smallish Japantown. Must look for the kuri manju... I guess then, that chestnuts are native to Japan or else are now grown there? (sorry, for what is probably a silly question...)

Thank you for the additional information, Ptpois, as requested. Thanks also for the clarification on what 'lamp oil' may mean in France. I'm pretty sure what is sold in the US as lamp oil is not olive oil so I was pretty shocked. If this is true, it surely is a good example of being careful of translated news from other countries. Of course, we rely on translations and editorial spin all the time, in both directions. In addition, do I understand correctly that this olive oil was in very small distribution? That is, it almost sounded like from something I read that Charial's olive oil was basically only a special blend sold at his restaurant and hotel. It didn't sound like it was widely distributed. Still wrong, but not a scam being committed by a major olive oil producer. Although it sounds like there is some dispute regarding who was responsible, as you pointed out. Thanks also for describing above earlier that there is indeed an AOC system for the higher quality French olive oils there. It seems if one was aware of that and cautious, one might not buy an expensive olive oil without it having the AOC imprimateur, as apparently this olive did not. Lastly, I'm curious how this scam was discovered (whoever's fault it was). Is there any hint of how this information came out initially?

Are most Japanese chestnut recipes savory rather than sweet?

Good point re: the freezing aspect. For cases where that was important I don't know how the other fillings I suggested would work. Orange... hmmm.

Sweet success! (Lurch! "smile")

Just responding to the article, pretty egregious, this: The bold text is added by me. This goes well beyond blending lower quality olive oils from unattributed regions together. I certainly hope this isn't mimicked by others producers in France or other olive oil producing countries. It makes you wonder though, did Charial just come up with this idea himself, or is the idea 'out there', so to speak? Not to be naive, but I also find it somewhat surprising that someone would be fined only 15,000 Euros for adulterating distributed, retail food with something deemed, "unfit for human consumption". I'm curious how they discovered this was gong on. I wonder if samples of olive oil from different producers are tested by agencies? Would the testing only occur in the 'home' country? As a separate point, does anyone know how this story is being covered in France? Is it being treated as a relatively big deal?