ludja

France, Italy,and Spain seem to be the most heavily featured. There certainly is plenty of room for more representation from some overlooked(in Saveur) European locales: Netherlands, Belgium, Scandinavia, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Greece, Eastern Europe.... etc. Very little African cuisine as well. I still like the magazine though. I almost always enjoy the regional American stuff and just wish there would be more representation of some other areas.

Thanks for the info. We had a Macoun apple tree in the backyard growing up. Terrific apples for eating out of hand as I recall re: texture and flavor. You can buy them back East but I haven't seen them in SF Bay area stores.

Use them in trifles and other types of bread puddings, or just spread on pound cake with or with out sweet butter for dessert. Alot of the flavors you have would taste great as a filling in a chocolate cake (frosting on the outside). Besided the open-faced or lattice tarts and crostatas mentioned above, (which use a lot of preserves) I've also seen some recipes for custard pies in which ~ 1 cup of preserves is folded into the custard before baking. Another variation is a type of frangipane pie or tart. Before pouring in the frangipane, cover the crust with a thick layer of jam. Use them to fill crepes, then dust with powdered sugar. In the Austrian/Hungarian manner, this can be preceded by a savory soup and followed by some fresh fruit or a fruit compote for a light dinner. Else, they make a very nice dessert or snack. Similar to the ideas to use in parfaits, puddings, above, they may be nice as a dollop or a swirl with unsweetend or slightly sweetend yogurt, farmer's cheese or fromage blanc. Make an adult version of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich...a soft, mild goat cheese and jelly sandwich.

No way! I have asked few of the Greeks in the neighbourhood no one knows this as a Greek recipe even though Melbourne is hosts the largest Greek community outside Greece and second largest to Athens and people come from all parts of Greece. Greeks are very conservative people they make good food but this does not seem to fit their traditional food habits not to even the ones that come from Alexandria. ← Good to know, thanks.

Thanks for posting the recipe, Marlene. Interested to hear how it turns out... (having not made or eaten a pandowdy to date)

For fans of Moroccan food and Mourad Lahlou's cuisine at Aziza you can read this article along with these recipes. (Free access disappears after a few weeks). Recipes: Moroccan Eggplant Soup with Za'atar Croutons Smoky Eggplant Mousse with Paprika Moroccan Spiced Tomato Jam Grilled Pepper Salad with Preserved Lemons Moroccan Stuffed Peppers Here's a link through the SF Chron egullet index: click

If you can't make it to Acme over in the East Bay, there is also a full Acme Bakery and retail store at the SF Ferry Bldg. Two other great breads from them are the walnut wheat and buckwheat raisin bread. (But then, I like all their breads.) If you really enjoy bakeries you should try to visit either or both of these in SF: Bay Bread Boulangerie 2325 Pine St San Francisco, CA 94115-2714 (415) 440-0356 (I've only been to this location, but there are others. Classic french tarts (sweet and savory), pastries, breads and cookies, including many flavors of macarons. This place is more for take out. The macarons themselves are worth a visit, and you may run into jgarner53 of egullet there...) Tartine's in the Mission is also completely wonderful and has an attached cafe, inside and out, to immediately enjoy some of the treats with coffee, etc. Every item I've tried here has been just delicious. edited to add: For something on the savory side, I recently enjoyed a great dinner at A16 in the Marina --rustic Italian cuisine from Campania. I'll probably start another thread on this. Here's a review from about a year ago: click

Oops... sorry Bushey and Busboy... guess I was still a little sleepy!

I agree with busboy's suggestion re: renting an apt. depending on the length of your stay. (We were able to do this for 4 days, mid week). This worked out very well for us --both financially and convenience-wise. This arrangement makes it very easy to enjoy croissant and patisseries from local shops in the morning. We usually were out for most of the day and ate our 'big' meals at lunchtime while we were traveling around. Sometimes at night, it was great to just come back to our apt and have wine, cheese and sausages that we picked up. It *is* a good idea to get an idea of where you would like to be based on things you'd like to see. One nice, centrally-located district is the Marais. (3rd and 4th arrondissement).

Hi Abra! I can't remember, but it was probably at a more "upper end" cook store like Sur la Table. This one offered on-line for $17 looks very similar to the one I have: click

Can't remember how often I had these in restaurants--but growing up back on the East coast and now out here I've made and mostly seen two-slice (closed) tuna melts. I think my college cafeteria (back East) made them open-faced.

This article from the San Francisco Chromicle should be available for free for the next week or two. It's just an article, but has a discussion of overcoming potentially difficult food-wine pairings and also has a small discussion of some general principles in pairing food and wine. click The menu sounds delicious. (a personal vote for the tuna tatare...). A roussane based wine sounds interesting with its crisp, racy flavors as a pairing with the first two courses. The ones I've had tend to have a voluptuos mouthfeel while still retaining a nice acidity. I can't help with French suggestions, although I think one option might be a Chateau Neuf du Pape, but one nice Californian example is Bonny Doon's, "Cigare Blanc" (inspired by white Chateau Neuf du Pape, but ususally with a higher percentage of Roussane). Have no idea about price and availability in the UK; in the US it is ~ $18, making it just within your range. Along the same lines, a nice chardonnay (not oaky) would seem to also bring a certain matching richness and contrasting sprightlliness. Seems like there are a bunch of options for the lamb, including the ones you mentioned. I'm particularly partial to Pinot Noir with lamb--the cherry flavors and earthiness in the Pinot Noir and the less forceful backbone seem just perfect with the slightly 'gamey' taste of lamb. If you remember, it would be fun to hear what you end up choosing and how the pairings went over for you and your boss. Have a nice dinner!

It's cool to know how to make the traditional way as shown in the two links. I also have an ice cream scoop that is ovel in shape. It doesen't affored the nice sharp edge that you can get making it with the spoons, but it is a quick way to get an elegant, oval of mousse, etc.

galanga chicken stock lemon grass kaffir lime leaves chili-tamarind paste thai chile peppers Seasonings: fish sauce lime juice palm sugar then, shrimp, thai chiles, straw (or button) mushrooms garnish w/green onion rings and cilantro edited to add: No claim to authenticy here. It's based on a recipe from "Practical Thai Cooking" by Puangkram Schmitz and Worman and it tastes similar to good versions I've had in local Thai places out here.

And along those lines, other custard-based dishes like break pudding, oeufs a la neige, custard pies, puddings. I looked at a cookbook from the library awhile back which was all based on nut recipes---main dishes with and without meat, sides dishes and desserts. Nuts may be a good way to add nutrition. Nuts: Recipes from Around the World That Feature Nature's Perfect Ingredient (Hardcover) by Linda Griffith, Fred Griffith

Jean Anderson in "The American Century Cookbook: most popular recipes of the 20th century" says that in her research this recipe showed up in "Ladies Home Journal" in the 50's. She thinks it arose due to promotions by Thompson Seedless Grapes. The dish alluded to in the first recipe sounds like something that people might make in Greek homes even if it isn't a "known" recipe. Grepes, mint, yogurt: all Greek ingredients. Both these recipes sound good; I need to try them this fall.

Room for all tastes, of course, but just to add that to me there is an art to serving warmed apple pie with ice cream. The pie should not be screaming hot and the (vanilla) ice cream should be very firm. Some of the ice cream will slowly melt and form a great sauce with the apple juices. But the best part is to have most of the ice cream not melt over the duration of eating the slice so that you always have the contrast of warm crispy crust and filling with cold ice cream in each bite.

Although I haven't learned this from experience, I just read this in Richard Sax' "Classic Home Desserts". According to him, juicier pear varieties like Bartletts or Comice throw off more liquid and you might need to adjust the recipe for this, for instance by adding some cornstarch. Bosc or Anjou are drier and may need less or no added ingredients re: the juiciness. He recommnends Anjou, particularly, for their flavor. Ripe (but not ultra ripe) Bartletts worked well for me in the recipe I referred to above which has some cornstarch in it. edited to add: Sax' book has a bunch of nice looking reicpes for pear pies, tarts, and galettes.

Here are some of the 'older' (from England) garnishes she mentions: heavy cream fine sugar to dredge over the pie good Port wine in a dcanter to pour over the pie Cheddar or Cheshire cheese toasted hazelnuts blanched almonds melted quincy jelly diced candied orange peel sweetened whipped cream plum conserve (damson plum jelly in Mystic) dried currants raisins cinnamon sugar Another New England custom was to have pie for breakfast (a custom that I gladly keep up): I think this may be one of my all time most favorite eGullet posts ever. ← Wow, thanks Jaymes; glad you enjoyed the quotes. I like the rather baroque listing of toppings!

Thanks for pointing this out takmabaker... I have a whole new interest in pear pies after making the ginger one last year.

I just have whole roasted green chiles (the way one can buy them from chile roasters outsided supermarkets, etc in NM). Simply peel off the skin and remove the stem and then lay strips of green chile on top of the cheeseburger (jack or cheddar is very good). One can also remove the seeds if you like if you want to decrease the heat. These are also very good made with ground buffalo. No digital camera, so no photos to share. but there is nothing to it besides peeling destemming and slicing them... Not sure if they would do anything different in a restaurant (i.e. use green chile stew, etc); If you had fresh chiles, you would just have to roast them first---under broiler, in a cast iron skillet or over a gas flame...

Just got back from a trip to New Mexico and have been ramping down my green chile withdrawal symptoms by parsing out my NM green chile hoard for green chile cheesburgers. That sure looks good and to have green chile cheese fries too... New Mexico green chile cheeseburgers are indeed one of the most heavenly food combinations around. Also surprisingly good (to me) are hot dogs with green chile and cheese. You can get those at Blakes which are around the state. Thanks again for the great travelogue!

I made a great pear pie last autumn for the first time (from Bill Neal's "Biscuits, Spoonbread and Sweet Potato Pie". (great cookbook) For a "regular" 9" pie pan the recipe uses ~ 6 cups ( 2 1/4 lbs) pears and it uses 1/2 cup sugar and 1 3/4 Tbs cornstarch. Dot with butter before putting on top crust. I used Bartlett pears that were pretty ripe. The other flavorings in this pie were fabulous: 2 Tbs chopped crystallized ginger (which I doubled the second time I made it--but I'm a ginger fiend), juice of 1/2 lemon, 1 tsp tangerine zest and 1/8 tsp salt.

We ususally chose between ice cream, heavy cream or cheddar cheese. Cheese is always served as a wedge, on the side. (This was in Connecticut). From "The Mystic Seaport Cookbook: 350 Years of New England Cooking by Lillian Langseth-Christensen (1970): Here are some of the 'older' (from England) garnishes she mentions: heavy cream fine sugar to dredge over the pie good Port wine in a dcanter to pour over the pie Cheddar or Cheshire cheese toasted hazelnuts blanched almonds melted quincy jelly diced candied orange peel sweetened whipped cream plum conserve (damson plum jelly in Mystic) dried currants raisins cinnamon sugar Another New England custom was to have pie for breakfast (a custom that I gladly keep up):

Also a tradition in New England. A nice double crust pie with lard or lard/butter crust, tart apples like granny smith and a wedge of sharp cheddar cheese; perhaps from Vermont. I'd guess that this tradition started in England and then made its way here--first in New England and (it sounds like) Canada and then spreading to various parts of the country from there.