bleudauvergne

That was a very nice looking meal with a good theme. Agrumes, ginger, carrots, curry, nice colors everywhere. What made you choose Newski Bacon? Does it have a particular flavor? Is it a local bacon? I like that combination of ginger and leek, I'm going to try that. Comments on the white truffle oil? Was it the perfect marriage? Will you do the sorbet float again? What did you add to the juice to make the sorbet? Sorry for all the questions. I loved your meal.

And its not just a morning getting up kind of thing. If I haven't had the coffee, I don't feel normal all day. I would also say breakfast but it is not a downright necessity. I have given up coffee for various reasons here and there along the way and it takes about three days of splitting headaches to rid yourself of the need. But I drink coffee now. It is good. It is great. I also need something around noontime. If I can't have a meal, it I have to deal with the bare minimum, it's a fruit and it will see me to dinner.

Get a guide, read, learn about the ones to save, and do it! You can find good wines to age in so many places! Not just those ones you save 20 years. We started about 6 years ago and we are astounded with improvements on wines that cost us very little in that little time.

Easter. What's the traditional fare? We usually just had chocolate when I was growing up.

Wow, that must have been a nightmare, not having waterproof particleboard in a kitchen. Were you still under warranty? We did our shopping thoroughly from bottom to top and everything in between, i.e. close examination of specs. I've seen the cheap stuff but also the higher grades of particleboard, which did not seem to be the same type of particle board at all. When we did our shopping hardwood was out of our price range (but it might be less expensive in the States & Canada). The guy who installed our kitchen did not feel that we were making a compromise by not going with all hardwood cabinets and we have not had any problems at all but I do think it is a question of making sure you're getting a high grade board suitable for the use it's going to get in the kitchen. Just to let you know that high grade particleboard exists and is in common use in many of the higher quality kitchen cabinets. Particleboard has come a long way in the past 20 to 30 years.

For the structure of the cabinets, one thing you should be prepared to accept is particleboard. What you'll find, or at least what we found was that the idea of having all hardwood cabinets is really just a selling point and not worth the expense because even the highest quality kitchen cabinets use particleboard for the structure, albeit very sturdy thick good quality particleboard. So be prepared to see it and not be afraid of it. We had a long talk with the contractor that came to install our chosen cabinets. He did many of the installation jobs for the show kitchens for upscale designers around Europe and he said that almost eveyone manufactures particleboard cabinet structure, and the quality varies. For the fronts, you can choose hardwood or pressed depending on the look you want. He also advocated choosing kitchen stuff that has been designed with installation in mind, like lathed recesses for hardware and thought about providing room for use of tools for installing, mounting etc. If you have questions about quality you might want to talk to contractors about how certain kinds of kitchens install because they know the products.

Very nice looking soup, Barbara. Kale's a great idea. What's Ditalini?

I hear ya Judith, corn on the cob ... I love it but you just don't find it much 'round these parts. But generally I do find most things on the list in my shopping basket at one time or another, most of the veggies, meat cuts a little different...

Sometimes less is more in these cases, I mean what's better than a nice sliced corned tongue sandwich with mayo onions and pepper between two slices of milk bread? I wouldn't even fry it, because I think brined tongue is better cold. But I've got a nostalgic element interfering with my judgement.

Considering that there is no disputing the fact that the chefs who originally created these dishes are truly artists and not simply craftsmen, what prevents this from being an unauthorized reproduction of their work? My big question would be : Was this chef authorized to reproduce and claim as his own the dishes he learned as a stagiere by the chefs who created them? Taking it so far as to duplicate the exact graphic design of the photos and not give attribution, the shrimp pasta dish for example... photos are definitely copyrighted material, aren't they?

Continuing along with this blog has got me really inspired, with the plays on scale all through it. People who design their own living spaces rank very high in my esteem, Henry. Thanks for taking us on this journey, it's got me thinking about all kinds of great ideas. Seattle looks very cool and I love that sandwich shop, I like the outside, the sign, the way it's worn along the edges.

Tell us more!

Mariage Freres Paris Addresses 30 r Bourg Tibourg 75004 Paris 01 42 72 28 11 13 r Grands Augustins 75006 Paris 01 40 51 82 50 260 r Fbg St Honoré 75008 Paris 01 46 22 18 54 Apparently they sell by mail order - website only in French (hint: click 'francais' to get in).

Another thing is that I can't say that saying that Japanese pastries all tasting insipid or tasting the same is really valid in this discussion - come now, lets get some specific details with points of comparison if you want to mention it at all - so we can judge if the comparison is really a comparison with a common base or if it's just a singular opinion. Imagine, for example, if I said "Oh French food all that butter and fat - it's just like bathing in a grease pit". If a person said that, we'd take into consideration that they had already made up their mind about it and trying to discuss specifics would not bring out much further detail or contribution. Can we agree on that?

How right you are. Ptipois mention of butter had me thinking about a kughlehopf I tasted that just changed my whole way of thinking about this kind of pastry precisely because the pastry chef had really emphasized the butter flavor and yet the whole thing stayed so light and simple. I've never had an overdose of butter flavor. But if yuccaland has, well, it's a matter of subjective taste. Someone in this discussion was talking about the butter experience in a croissant they had in Tokyo that really made the experience perfect, so I can't say that butter flavor is a point of criticism for everyone. I have had some croissants here in France that instead of being light and simple, were greasy and heavy. That is an example of bad use of butter, in my opinion.

That and champagne goes really well with smoked almonds.

Those are some mighty fine looking ribs there, Henry! Hail to the mighty food blog! Looking forward to a week of sleepless nights with you.

I will chime in that if you work the dough too much they won't be light and airy. When my grandmother wrote 'knead three times' she meant literally meant fold the dough three times and no more.

This is an interesting point to discuss, the concept of 'buttery is better'. Where do we stand on this? So what you're saying is that there's a difference in the general tradition of the pastry and the role it plays in family life. In Japan, the French style pastry also involves its presentation in a venue that excludes other types of food, focusing on the act of enjoying the pastry in a certain environment like a tea room, whereas in France the shops generally tend to produce cakes and pastries for people to take home and enjoy at home in the context of a home situation. Of course some of the pâtissiers-chocolatiers in France do have tea rooms but many do not. Why is this? I have to disagree on this point, the desserts served in high class restaurants (well the ones that serve multi course menus here in France) have in my experience been much more sweet and rich than the desserts sold in the neighborhood places for home consumption. They also tend to serve copious amounts if you consider what is normally served for dessert in addition to whatever they serve with coffee. It can be a lot, and extremely sweet. Well, you don't find them on every street corner, but there are enough of the true pâtissiers-chocolatiers in Lyon that every neighborhood has at least one or two. Their pastries are clearly above average, and they are able to continue their activity despite being flanked by bread bakeries that also do pastry that for the most part costs less. I'm not sure that the 'big names' in Paris started out as much different from these shops, except that they have evolved within the framework of a different influence - international fame. Once that becomes part of the formula, they begin to put much more value on innovation and stretching meanings and limits, thus their product begins to change. To some people this is very interesting intellectually as well as satisfying taste-wise. This clearly does not hold too much interest for the people who grew up loving the everyday pâtissiers-chocolatiers of their neighborhoods, who do continue to exercise their vocation on a popular level and enjoy a certain degree of success. We may see less than we did 30 years ago but I still say they're alive and thriving. I would love to here more about the Japanese kinds of pastry and maybe see some pictures? What is Kasutera? Just to have a context. Thank you very much puccaland for your insight, having had some experience with both Japanese and French pastry. Very happy to see you here, puccaland.

Come now, surely someone can come up with one example of a restaurant where this is not true? If I was touring through, I'd hate to waste the view...

Thank you Louisa, for this helpful information.

It does sound like it will be a wonderful journey! I will point you to some threads that will be of help. Maybe regulars to the restaurants in this region can chime in on any recent finds or updates. Restaurants in Monaco/Nice/St. Tropez/Provence Restaurants in and Around Nice Cap Ferrat Cap d'Antibes and Surroundings Good Eating in Cannes St. Tropez From what it looks like you may need to do more homework on St. Tropez. Your assignment to bring back and report: Ile de Porquerolles which is rumored to have good eats but we don't have names, and Pamplonne Bay.

Well one good thing is that they were perceptive enough to realize you didn't like it even though you were trying not to show it and tried to make amends. Did you discuss with your friend how you think this anomaly of a place came to exist and how it went wrong? The idea was good enough that you had hopes when you decided on the place. This was coming from the same kitchen as the restaurant? Besides improving the execution of certain dishes, i.e. the calamari, what do they need to do to make it a good experience? Tapas - can it come from a French kitchen?

We've recently come into opening some magnificent wine, part of the batch we bought had infected corks. This comes from the cork, not the storage conditions or anything we did or didn't do. It's just this one wine. The contamination varies with each one we open, and it has been so disspointing. The bottles that aren't corked are simply magnificent. The sense of loss that comes when you open and smell that overwhelming damp stink sticks with you. I think that once a person has come across a bottle of wine from their cellar that is thoroughly corked, after all that anticipation and feelings of loss, even really mild cases of it become easy to spot. You become sensitive to it. The other night my husband opened a bottle fresh from the cave to let breathe before guests arrived. I could tell right away it was corked but he didn't believe me until it warmed up a bit and the ick was unmistakable. I think that a person's history with corked wine can make a difference in their sensitivity to it. The people who say they can't identify corked wine clearly haven't ever had the misfortune to run across it, because it is unmistakable. At the business dinner, if the host doesn't taste the corked wine at first, it just means they have a different sensitivity to it, or maybe the wine was cold. I would most likely slip away from the table and have a word with the waiter or sommelier - otherwise do nothing, wait for the next bottle, find some way to get rid of what was in my glass the best I could.

John, your trip looks like it was simply amazing. Your photos are stunning. I can't wait to see more. Thank you so much for sharing it with us.