bandregg

The first season of No Reservations is available through the iTunes store.

The best cookware is that which cooks what it's intended to the best. How's that for a tautology. My wife and I are getting ready to move and as part of that returned a load of pots and pans to Williams Sonoma that we got for our wedding seven years ago: no longer non-stick was the number one complaint, followed by we never use it. Now we have a mixed collection of pots and pans that do get used and work really well at their intended function: Lodge cast iron skillets, Le Cruset dutch oven and small sauce pan, All Clad non-stick griddle, All Clad small sauce pan, Calphalon non-stick medium stock pot. I'll be buying a new non-stick skillet for eggs, a new saute pan, and a new large sauce pan. I haven't decide what brand for these but they probably won't match either. I love this relatively limited set and I could pair it down more without suffering, and everything does it's job just right.

I don't understand what's wrong with using a pair of Lodge cast iron skillets. This panini fad cracks me up.

Ah, but not all chefs leave salt off of the table because they believe themselves to be the arbiters of taste. One of my favorite local chefs does it because the table just gets too cluttered with stuff otherwise. He's happy to provide as much salt as a diner wants and even says, "I'm not the one who gets to say what's right for you."

W O W ! I agree with exactly one of Ms. Ephron's complaints, which is Waiters asking about the food before you've really been given a chance to taste it and take it all in. But, man of man, the rest of that piece is the most self-indulgent crap I've read in a long time. From, "We’ve been at the table for exactly three minutes and somehow we’ve managed to empty an entire bottle of Pellegrino." Right, except it's still there, just in your glasses. It isn't gone! To, "it’s not what I consider salt. It’s what’s known as sea salt. (Sea salt used to be known as kosher salt, but that’s not an upscale enough name for it any more.) Sea salt comes in an itty-bitty dish with an itty-bitty spoon." Which is just factually wrong and seems to point out that she lacks proper muscle control to use that small spoon. I'm also having a hard time wrapping my mind around someone who a) wants Pelligrino, and b) would rather have pre-ground pepper and table salt. Given the titles of her previous works and their categorization by Amazon as humor it's clear that she's trying to be funny, really trying, really really trying. And failing.

I've always enjoyed Chosun OK, but I think it varies greatly dish by dish. The Eel was good, the Dol Sat Bi Bim Bap was very good, the short ribs were just ok, and the pork belly with fresh oysters was just odd to my western palate. Almost next door though is an Indian restaurant called The Spice House which serves some of the best non-vegetarian Indian in the area. Carmen's Cuban Restaurant off of Airport Blvd. is as good Cuban as you're going to find in the area, and I've always enjoyed it for what it is, this not being a hughly Cuban populated area.

In our house we use never used specimen cups for this kind of storage. They're cheaper than almost any kind of branded storage.

That is a disaster. I'm going to be in Albuquerque in next weekend, and I'll try and report back.

Being subtle with a flavor and not over- or under-powering the eater is tricky depending on the flavor itself. A good friend once served a house-cured halibut that was proportedly flavored with clove. No-one eating it could taste the clove and he said, "I've had trouble with clove being overpowering before, maybe I cut it back too much this time."

My wife and I have talked about how to handle this as future restauranteurs and we've decided to find some pre-modern era phone booths like hotels and some restaurants used to have and encourage people with cell phones that they might appreciate the privacy of using one.

The weather being as hot and humid as it is calls for picnic foods: cold fried chicken, cornbread, uber-ripe watermelon, pickles, and campari and soda.

I don't have an answer for you, but I certainly empathize. My wife and I are moving and our new apartment has a traditional four burner electric coil stove. I've been using gas for the past nine years and am dreading the learning curve.

I'm just as happy as anyone here in NC having barbecue on my birthday, but then I'm happy having barbecue for many other occasions as well, like Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday afternoons. For my birthday though, especially with the promise of locopops, I'd rather eat at Grasshopper (Asian) or Vin Rouge (French Bistro), both of which have outdoor seating that is surprisingly cool this time of year, and both of which are walking distance to the pops.

I left Kansas City in 1997. I was just starting to search out new dining experiences at that time and the best meals that I was eating were at smaller ethnic places that didn't reflect midwestern cuisine at all. If pressed then to name the best places to eat in the city they would have fallen to steak houses and formal Italian restaurants. Now, researching places to eat while back visiting my family before I go off to culinary school I find menus online for places like Bluestem, SoRedux, Robert Krause's, and Pachamama, and these are the kind of places I want to take my parents, who don't care much about food, to and say, "This. This is what I want to do!" On the scale of Barcelona, London, or New York they might not seem cutting edge. For Kansas City they are a change and one for the better. "Malaspina Oysters, Champagne Emulsion, Parsley" (Bluestem) isn't chasing the tail of strip steaks and family-style mashed potatoes. In reading this thread, monkfish, I can't help but feel you're rebelling against not just the local restaurant scene, but the industry as a whole, and it gives me pause.

I suppose it depends on the quality and type of grill you have. If any of the parts are rust proof then it would do to keep them out of the elements. More importantly, if it's a charcoal grill we're talking about ash and water when mixed form lye which will rust the grill racks and pans.

I use butter beans, which often confused with baby limas, in succotash to great affect. Boil the beans for about 20 minutes, saute onion and garlic, drain the beans and put in the saute pan along with some corn and tomatoes. Goodness.

Off topic, but I've been out of the Kansas City food loop for over nine years. Is this bakery any good, what's it called and where is it located?

The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian museum in Washington D.C. has a cafe which specializes in American Indain foods from a number of different regions: Pacific Northwest, Great Plains, etc. They may have information that's useful to you.

My wife swears by using your thumb to put a deep indentation in the center of cookies before they're baked to stop them from spreading.

Jujube isn't trying to be one specific kind or even a blend of strictly Asian cusines and making bad food out of it. Jujube is making very good bistro food with an Asian influence in the flavors and ingredients. These are very different things. I'd much rather have the later than most of the specific Chinese, Japanese, Indian, or otherwise restaurants we have here.

I've been thinking about the problem of sourcing ingredients for this project and the amount of time and energy (human and fuel) that go into it. The solution that I propose, and it's a solution that I propose for all of the rest of us too, is to start shopping and cooking cooperatively. There was a time when one would regularly pop over to their neighbors and say, "I'm going to the store. Need anything?" And I don't mean cooking cooperatively in any kind of free spirit, hippie-dippy way. I mean, I'm going to smoke a a big piece of pork this weekend, do you want some or do you want to throw one in with mine. For people who live within certain distances of eath other sharing trips to other towns and sharing food produced in prodigous amounts are great ways to cut down on the fuel and time costs.

Is this place better than Capital Fish Market on University? ← The Red and White has a much more limited selection of seafood than Capital Fish Market, but what I've had has been fresher and better tasting. It's also cheaper. Those amazing scallops, which were quite large by the way about 8 count, were 11.99$/pound.

We're very lucky to have such great farmers markets in this area. Brinkley Farms at the Durham market sells smaller quantites of shelled peas along with their wonderful pork. There really has been an increase in the selection of meats, cheeses, and non-produce available at the Durham market which makes eating locallly easier. I just bought the most beautiful pork shoulder roast from Portia at Chapel Hill Creamery; 16 pounds of whey fed pork! A good source for local seafood is the Red and White grocery at University Dr. and Chapel Hill St. They get their seafood from the coast three times a week and we've had some truely wonderful scallops that had been caught the same day I bought them, so sweet and succulent.

I'd start the cooking the night before. You can use the Minion method from the Virtual Weber Bullet website to easily carry you through the night without any trouble at all. Or you can sit up all night keeping an eye on things and sipping your way through a bottle of bourbon. I've done both and they're both good solutions. I reguarly smoke pork butts and I don't bother with the brine. There is more than enough fat in the meat to keep it all tender and flavorful. And I agree that there just isn't call to baste it. A nice dry rub and you're set. Put it on the smoker, let the temperature regulate and then just sit back and watch it go. I keep a little oven thermometer on the lower rack by the side door to check the temp. on when I add water to the pan or wood to the coals. And as I believe Lan4Dawg said, you should fill the smoker racks up with as much meat as you can get on there. Think of anything that comes off early as chef's treat.

Edward Delaney, the fictional detective of Lawrence Sanders is well known for eating his sandwiches over the sink or over newspaper depending on whether they were wet or dry. I learned to rethink what can be put together between slices of bread by reading his books as a lad.