Sandra Levine

Rochelle, I love the chronicle of culinary education. No matter what else you do, I hope you continue to let us go to school with you.

Do you eat oatmeal every day?

mmm...like risotto (never mind)

So should the question should be, where can one get buffalo milk here? Even that would not suffice, probably. American buffalo are a different species.

The milk with the highest percentage of cream available here is from Jersey cows. In the Berkshires and maybe in Columbia County, NY, you can get milk from High Lawn Farms, which has a herd of registered Jerseys. It might be be worth trying.

We English majors were taught to pronounce Don Quixote something like Don Quicks-ot and Don Juan as Don Jew-an (so it would scan properly.)

By the time you're done, it's not gloppy, but not dried out either.

When I was a little girl, it was possible to get "certified milk," that was neither homogenized nor pasteurized from the Walker-Gordon farm in New Jersey (long ago turned into condos or an industrial park.) This milk was considered superior to the milk commercially available. Certified milk is still produced in small quantities, but I don't know where to find it now. This website has some suggestions, including Hawthorne Valley Farm, which comes to the Union Square Greenmarket on Saturdays and perhaps during the week, too, but I don't know if their milk is actually "certified."

Not exactly. The amount of liquid the rice will absorb will vary depending on the type of rice, its age, the humidity and so forth. It will absorb much more liquid than rice made in the ordinary manner. You start out by sweating some finely chopped onion in butter. When the onion is translucent, you add the rice and stir it until each grain has been coated with butter. In the meantime, you have brought some not-too-salty broth to the simmer. Using a ladle, you pour some of the broth into the pan with the rice. Let it sit for a few seconds. Then, begin stiring, making sure your spoon touches the bottom of the pan so the rice does not stick. You want the liquid to bubble slightly, but not to completely evaporate. The point is to allow the rice to absorb it, after all. When the rice is pretty dry, add some more broth and continue stirring, as before. Continue stirring and adding broth until the rice reaches the al dente stage and the grains are suspended in a creamy sauce, still a little wet. This is the time to add the greated parmiagiano-reggiano. Stir in the cheese. Stop stirring and listen to the rice. It will tell you when it is ready. I mean it. There is a definite sigh and whisper. This is the traditional way to make risotto. You may add a few strands of saffron to the broth if you want to call it risotto Milanese. The rice should be finished in 20-30 minutes.

I've never seen it sold. It's something you make yourself right before you use it. It's delicious with capers and lemon juice added and poured over fish.

...as an alternative to pasta.

We there Sunday night around 9:30. One table was available, which we took. The place was still full when we left. I wish now that I had paid more attention to the take-out operation. I hope it is succeeding, because I liked it.

I've been making risotto for 30 years or so, long before it became popular here, according to the technique I learned at the side of a man whose Milanese grandmother taught him -- and I say what I ate at Risotteria was real risotto, even if they use the restaurant, rather than the home cooking, method.

A shortcut does not mean that it is not "real" risotto. This is a restaurant, not Mamma's kitchen.

What would you call it, then?

Has anyone else been here? It's a small restaurant on Bleecker Street, near Cones, that specializes in risotto. The menu proclaims, "No freezers, No cans, Everything is handmade." In addition to the risotti, small pizzas with either tomato sauce or tapenade and various toppings are offered, as well as panini and salads. Salads are available small or large. The risotti are made using either baldo, carnaroli of vialone nano rice with ingredients chosen accordingly, e.g., sausage, beef, chicken lamb or pork with the carnaroli or fish shellfish and vegetables with the more delicate violone nano Alan chose roasted Italian sausage and spinach (made with Carnaroli) and I had shrimpl, roasted garlic and green onion. Both risottos were well made, with al dente grains of rice and a generous quantity of other ingredients suspended in the creamy sauce. There was, indeed, no taste of commerical broth. I had a mixed baby lettuce salad with asparagus, roasted tomato and mozzella and Alan had arugua with bermuda onion, oven dried tomato and mozzarella. My only complaint about the salad was that the balsamic vinaigrette was too sweet, but that is my own fault for ordering balsamic vinaigrette when I could have had chianti or fresh lemon vinaigrette, one of which I will try next time. There are 43 risotti listed on the menu. Service was very accommodating. Our waiter offered to raise the lighting level when he saw me struggling to read the menu in the dark.

The way it's supposed to be done, I might add. Do they use a raw egg or one that's been boiled for a minute or so?

Do Fearless Franks feature a for-real casing?

Same cook as my "seducer," perhaps?

Tashlich is generally performed on the second day of Rosh Hashanah.

The original restaurant was very small and the lines were very long. The kitchen would send out tidbits from time to time. Quality remains the same as it was then, but portions are a bit smaller. Also, they no longer serve trifle for dessert.

We've been going here for 25 years. They have a very nice way with simple preparations of fresh fish. My husband loves the cioppino. There are a few dishes on the menu that are more elaborate than simply broiled, fried or sauteed, but I've never had any of them. This is not Le Bernardin. The service is professional, but casual, in a glorified hash-house kind of way. Don't misunderstand. I'm also happy to go to London Lennie's. It would best be improved, in my opinion, by offering good bread.

I remember being served a bowl of crunchy brown rice topped with steamed shredded carrots and celery. (This was supposed to be a seduction supper!)

Indian, yes. Chinese, no. Breakfast, maybe. I've enjoyed the lunch buffet at Sapphire. The Bombay Grill in Lee, MA that I posted about on the New England board serves weekend brunch buffets that sounded good on the menu (which I seem to have misplaced.)

The memory of those desserts got me through yesterday.