ned

You sent me to m-w Good word and I agree.

RAH RAH RAH Apparently the US ships TONS of chicken thighs to eastern europe because our people think they prefer chicken breasts. For shame.

Needs some tuning and as much an amuse bouche as a cocktail but: Arugula soup salt simple syrup hendricks gin bacon lollipop garnish

Bloody Mary with bacon. Skewered on a swizzle stick.

Mama Zuma's. OUCH!!!!

A friend of mine pulled an escolar out of about 250 feet of water last winter on a late night fishing trip in Jamaica. I was dismayed when the captain of the boat let the sixty-some pound creature go. His claim was that it was delicious but that it gave everyone the runs. Sorry for the candor. Anyway, is this true and if so, why?

Had a bad espresso at Aroma on Houston street. Thin and wan. The cup was so hot it burned my lip. The menu appears to list prices in Euros.

Let's start with Tres Hermanos in, of all places ritzy Sandy Springs just outside Buckhead. It's in an awesome Mexican grocery store. All kinds of amazing tacos: tongue, cheek, brisket many types of pork.

JohnL, I went back and read the thread again. I agree with you. I was respondng to rich way upthread and should have been clearer about it. Can you name some of the things you think the Times has put ahead of "great Journalism"?

After some hours of reflection, another twist I'd like from the Dining section is more peer to peer communication between amateurs. Jonathan Reynolds has provided some of this, most recently with an article about a dinner at Kurt Anderson's apartment. There's room for more poetics and less synergy (ie PR) in such pieces (though the Anderson piece may have had some of the latter). For many of the reasons JohnL listed, the news business is in transition. Thanks in large part to the internet and less so to cable news, it has lost its center. Eventually the dust will settle. I appreciate that political partisanship has no place on this website. A discussion of the bit of the paper that wraps the Dining section risks trespassing there.

Atlanta is chock full of amazing places: Vietnamese, Korean, Mexican to name a few. Right up top and worth a visit are a couple of ethnic markets. Vast, incredbly well-run and full of the unexpected. If they're not already on your lst and you want 'em, I'll get some names.

There's an awful lot of nay-saying going on in this thread. I'm curious about what advice gulleters would have for the Dining section. What are articles that you'd like to read and who ought to write them? Let's offer some criticism they can use. What articles or kinds of articles have revved your engine. My bet is that the walls have ears. I'll start. I've loved everything Matt and Ted Lee have written. I'd like to see their byline far more often.

Proportions worked out great. Because of all the salmon I didn't make any extra shoulders. We didn't eat quite all the pig but there are plenty of hungry mouths around finishing it off as we speak. Cubanos etc. Thanks for all the good advice.

Fast forward a year less five days and there I was rocking the box again. This time it was in honor of the wedding of a close friend. The pre-wedding barbecue for 80 people called for an eighty pound pig and caja china model #2. I'm going to get to the meat of the matter right away. The pig was finished cooking in less than two hours and had bubbly cracklin. Guess that box got HOT. In all it was a rousing success but the cooking time did take me quite by surprise. Might have been better if it had taken longer. Also all that talk about steam in the post above was obsolete this year. There was a nice puddle of jus in the pan below the pig but no steam at all when we opened the box. Curious. I wish I had an excuse to Caja-Chinafy fifteen pigs a year. Pics to follow.

What's important at this stage and also great news is that consumers are motivating Wal-Mart to offer so-called organic produce. Regardless of the credibility of the USDA's current regulations, Wal-Mart's move can only be a step in the right direction.

That black cod dish is unpretentious and stellar. Nuggets of melting goodness. . .

The Haitian Lots of mint muddled with some kind of sugar and ice Lots of Barbancourt's Some lime A splash of soda if you're thirsty.

If you ignore the rest of the menu, you'll miss out on the best Beijing duck in NYC. Also their pea vines are exemplary. I ate ma po tofu there for lunch today and, granted it's kind of highfalutin, but it was also very fabulous, esp. the pork part. Through a wonderful twist of fate I'm headed back for dinner late tonight.

You may be a little bit psychic Emma. The pig is a sore spot between the groom and his parents who don't keep kosher but nevertheless felt uncomfortable at the thought of THAT MUCH PORK at their son's wedding. The groom's father, in response to questioning said ". . . well I wouldn't take a ham sandwich to a synagogue." He seems to have a sense of humor about it. Steven, your advice about extra shoulders is good. I don't really want to have leftovers but a whole roasted shoulder is another matter. Might not be such a bad thing especially if your 1/3 yield calculation ends up being right. The pig is coming from Sylvia Pryzant at Four Story Hill Farm. She successfully tempted me with five milk-fed poulards that are going to roast on a spit over the caja china coal bed. That in addition to some planked Yukon River king salmon had ought to provide sustenance for the non-pig eaters. Judiu. The guest list is composed of Swedes, high school teachers, artists, Jews. . . and a stevedor and a zoookeeper. It's hard to say how this cross-section will respond to roast pork. Hard to say.

Thanks Emma. Yeah head-on. We're thinking less than 8 oz of meat per person as there are sides, salads and also some planked salmon. So we're at a pound, cleaned weight, per person. A 70 to 80 pound pig.

I'm doing a BBQ for a friend's wedding. He wants a pig. There are 80 people invited. I'm trying to figure out how big a pig to buy. In order to do that I need to know roughly how much meat (maybe as a percentage) you get out of a whole cleaned pig. For example, and this is my guess, out of a 100 pound pig I'll get 30 to 40 pounds of meat. Somewhere between 30% and 40% yield. Am I close? Thanks in advance for your help.

I bought Arrack (Arak?) in New Jersey. Pretty sure I've seen it in NYC also. The Punsch I saw and tasted at Zig Zag in Seattle but I don't know how they got it.

Pate de campagne

That number seems high for rare. Especially if you are resting the steaks which you absolutely must do.