Sandra Levine

I don't like to drink it, but love it as an ingredient. Ranitidine likes to drink it in the summertime. He claims it is refreshing. It's probably no coincidence that he is a major yogurt consumer. Even the very low-fat versions are thick and rich-seeming.

I'm planning way ahead and won't need this until the end of May, so I'm leaving it open.

My grandmother always used it to make her cabbage soup and stuffed cabbage -- actually anything sweet and sour if she didn't want a distinctive lemon taste.

The "theater menu," at $28, is a very good value, although it by no means offers the full Petrossian experience. For under $30, you get three courses, with a choice of three dishes each. The menu is simple, bistro-type food, really, but beautifully presented and served in a calm, quiet atmosphere, with, unusually for New York, adequate space between the tables. There is a nice selection of wines by the glass, from $8 to $11, and a couple of Champagnes for a bit more. Here is the theater menu, with initials after our selections: Appetizers: Mesclun salad with shallot-thyme vinaigrette Smoked salmon, R Roasted eggplant bisque with caponata and creme fraiche, S A 20g serving of American caviar at a $10 supplement Entrees: Salmon quenelles with puff pastry and spinach Roast chicken with bacon, wild mushrooms and pearl onions, R Miso marinated skirt steak with roasted baby vegetables, S Dessert: Mocha chocolate gateau coolant (coffee ice cream and milk foam) Yogurt and honey phyllo tart, crushed pistachios, R and S Selection of ice creams and sorbets Ranitidine had a glass of Kenwood Chardonnay at $11 and I had a Cote du Rhone at $9. Ranitidine's salmon appetizer was one perfectly cut, smoky slice, dotted with four sprigs of dill. The dark taupe bisque was satiny-smooth and flavorful. It was served with white bread toast points. He would have have preferred untoasted black bread. The chicken was a quarter -- the breast and wing -- (preference not asked) served with a generous handful of assorted mushrooms, bits of bacon and a cloud of buttery mashed potatoes. The skirt steak came perfectly medium-rare, as requested, over a mound of vegetables, including eGullet's favorite cauliflower, resting in pool of sparkling clear, intensely flavored sauce. I'll have to take their word for the presence of miso. Dessert was exactly as it sounds, with an excellent yogurt and a light honey. The room is lovely. Dark wood paneling, Lalique brackets holding bronze statuary, heavily-starched off-white damask tablecloths and napkins create an atmosphere that is somewhat clubby, yet very French. Each table is set with white and cobalt blue Bernadaud service plates that are later used for food, along with a variety of square plates and glass oblongs, and tall, graceful Champagne flutes. The theater menu is available from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Throughout the evening there is a $39 prix-fixe available with more variety and, of course, the regular a la carte menu.

A long time ago, we used to go to a place called Walt's King of Crabs that served Baltimore-style blue crabs.

Take a look at the Indian board, beginning, perhaps, with the thread on the history of Indian cooking.

Very interesting article, JAZ. My "sour salt" is in the form of pebbles. Does it come in a finer, pinchable form?

A completely acceptable shortcut to starting with dried apricots is to use prepared apricot butter, a lekvar-like substance made from dried apricots that should be available wherever lekvar is sold. I prefer apricot butter to apricot jam in hamantaschen. It's less sweet and sticky. although, in a pinch, of course, as hensonville says, you can use jam.

Well, it's a very limited menu. I doubt if the salmon variations are included. I'll try to take good notes. There were other options aside from a la carte.

Then salt the slices slightly and allow them to sit in a colander for 10-2- minutes. Pat each slice dry before rolling.

Passed by Petrossian yesterday and saw that there is pre-theater prix fixe for $29 (I think.) Ranitidiine and I will be going tomorrow. Has anyone been here recently?

Wonderful writing, Maggie, but that's no surprise.

What did I miss, here?

Ranitidine and I will be spending a week in Wellfleet at the beginning of June. We haven't been to the Cape in nearly 25 years. What are the best high-end restaurants nowadays? Best clam bars? Best of the rest?

If someone were giving me a gift, I would love the Sauternes, but I happen to know that the giftee really, really likes dry red wines.

The New York Times ran an article comparing roasting pans on February 12, but they are charging for it in the archives.

Yes, the papers cartons have become an atavistic movie convention, like showing nuns in the habits they haven't worn since 1968.

I think you would have been better off with a dry red wine rather than port. When you reduced the port, you concentrated the sweetness. The saltiness of the blue cheese compensated in part, I am sure, but I agree with the others that blue cheese and lamb are not a happy combination. To make a nice reduction sauce, you could start by de-glazing the pan with some beef broth, using enough to have some left after it thickens, then adding some red wine, reducing further, removing from the flame and then whisking in the butter enrichment.

Almost the best part is the cup of rendered duck fat!

I used Lesley C's timing for a 1.2 lb. magret and it needed a minute or two more on the second side for acceptable doneness. For a smaller piece of meat, less time, of course. Thanks, Lesley. We had a delicious dinner.

What is the diameter of the 16 qt. stockpot? I have very serious storage issues.

I do know this person's taste -- he generally likes Rhone wines, also fine Riojas. Cedar, blackberries...He's not afraid of a little tannin, either.

For a gift, I would like to buy a bottle of red wine at about $100. The wine should be drinkable now. I need some help here, because I rarely (never) spend more than $30 a bottle and I know that from $30 to $100 is a big step. Suggestions, please.

Cream of Wheat (right out of the box, uncooked) can be used as a "breading" for fish, and< I guess, chicken.