russ parsons

boy, maybe. but that's the leanest piece of pork belly i've ever seen, both in terms of marbling and the layer of fat under the rind. normally, there's at least a good half-inch of fat under the rind and frequently a second layer that runs laterally through the meat. in addition, you can usually see more striations of fat through the muscle.

judging from the rind and the moderate marbling, i'd guess it's part of a boned-out picnic shoulder. should be great roasted--pierce the rind in several places or score it, roast at 300 degrees to about 170-175 (because it's a moderately fatty cut, you can push it further). You might want to raise the temp to 400 when the pork hits 165. That'll crisp the skin nicely.

how about expanding the thread as dr. rogov has done to include other things we like to eat with our fingers? my nominations: dungeness crab; asparagus; romaine lettuce salads ... i'm sure there are more.

maybe i should have been clearer. yes: a gribiche is a chunky sauce, not a smooth one. the minced whites and yolk thicken the sauce, but not my emulsion, more like if you put a bunch of chopped herbs in (which you do, too).

check out the one in the french laundry cookbook. never had a problem with it. emulsion is not exactly the right word, since these are hard-cooked eggs. the egg does thicken the oil, though.

paul rocks. things were a little rough at the very beginning, but he has really hit his stride. it's interesting to compare fra'mani with salumi (batali, sr.). they're both delicious, but salumi is over-the-top exuberant while paul's is much more based on the classic values of pork and salt and time.

yup: 1) weight; 2) condition of the skin--it should be glossy and soft, not hard and dried out. 3) "tautness", but this can be misleading because a lot of times extremely underripe lemons and limes will feel extremely hard.

i've got a friend who would probably choose to remain anonymous who runs a very well-known restaurant in san francisco and (s)he goes completely apoplectic on this topic. waiters typically make $100,000+ because of tips while salary-based cooks--even those who have been with the restaurant for decades--rarely clear half that. and, according to him/her because of state of california laws, as an employer she is not allowed to make changes in established tip-sharing practices unless he/she revamps the entire structure. which will probably mean the introduction of service compris pretty soon. he/she also said that when the restaurant introduced a computerized check system, they saw an overnight 40% increase in revenue, which, presumably, had been going out the back door or in waiters' pockets before then.

i'm with maggie on this. this thanksgiving we did a big tasting in the test kitchen. 4 different turkeys side by side--one regular, one brined, one dry-salted and one roasted in a covered roaster. you could definitely tell the difference in flavor on the one that was covered. i'm not saying it was bad--it was certainly moist--but it did taste more steamed than roasted.

people do tend to get very possessive about their favorite cuisines and pretty rankled when things don't conform to their expectations. i remember when i was working in new mexico, people would come back from vacation in old mexico and say of the food: it was good, but it wasn't mexican.

hmmm, i thought it was a pretty wonderful story. i thought the premise was trying to find the roots of her mother's spaghetti sauce and realizing that it had changed almost beyond recognition from what it had started out as. i thought lydia's comments were right on point, and brought up an aspect i hadn't previously considered: that "turning up" an ingredient could be an aspect of nostalgia.

not to be pedantic or anything (who me?), but if they were attributing nutritional characteristics, it would be "healthful".

i just did a whole piece on squid cooking (sidebar to bigger piece on squid fishing). generally, cook it either very quickly (less than 2 minutes) or much longer (more than 20 minutes). out website seems to be experiencing difficulties, at least at my end, but i think both stories are still up. recipes were a salad with squid, arugula and shaved fennel, braised squid stuffed with italian sausage (hint: pastry bag is the ONLY way to go); and the fried squid from david pasternack's new book.

johnson & wales knows where i live??!!! aieeeeee!

somewhat true, though you don't really need the apple, and in most cases, you don't really need the brown bag. some fruits (pears, apples, peaches) give off ethylene gas as they ripen, which acts as a trigger to begin ripening other fruits. ←

this isn't a japanese technique, but i love salmon bellies and, unbelievably, you can usually get them cheap from stateside fishmongers (they think it's trim!). i cut them into strips and broil them until they're quite brown (because they contain so much fat, they stay moist). then i toss them in salads with bitter greens, like endive or escarole.

boy, chickpeas really do need to be soaked. those are tough little suckers. i'm sure you could do it without, but it would be a matter of days rather than hours. i've done runners without problem, though. haven't done limas, but i have done dried favas (broad) and they were fine, too. i don't think it's the size of the bean but the density of the starch (said blithely, without having looked anything up).

people do take their beans seriously. as they should.

yeah, think about being the first guy to do it! (at the time, the other theory was that soaking reduced the amount of gassiness) honest, i ran the first full trial during the day, at home. ate them, then sat by myself for an hour or so waiting for .... well, you know.

it's certainly an interesting topic. i did a piece on the el bulli book when it came out and looking back over it, they told me they printed 16,000 copies and they expected to sell half of that in Spain (that included their Catalan edition). predictably, no one wanted to talk specifics about the economics of it. but i quoted one new york book editor saying: "Everything is expensive in this book. It is a fabulous production job, but we would probably have to charge $200 for it. With that many color plates, we'd probably have to sell 50,000 copies and I don't think we could sell even 10,000." that's just a for what it's worth.

these are all fascinating points. I would love to see a breakdown of the economics on these books. but i do think one important clue can be found looking at the spines. Who published El Bulli? El Bulli Books. Who published Ducasse? "Les Editions d'Alain Ducasse". So is there no expectation of a profit? Or is it just that they can save so much money by not having a publisher take his bite? A combination of both? A quick glance through the other French chef books I've got shows many more along the lines of TFLC--Michel Bras, Roellinger, Bocuse, verge, blanc, martin, and some of ducasse's other titles. that seems to me to indicate something more along the lines of the "monument" theory. And I do know that Keller put out fine press editions of both TFLC and Bouchon, which he has given as Christmas gifts.

nathanm, i think your expectations of print runs are a little off. i think 10,000 to 15,000 is much closer to the norm, especially now that it is so much easier to go back for reprints (except on art-heavy books). i know "french fry" had a first run in that range and we'd reprinted four times in the first couple of weeks (thank god). furthermore, i think we're still operating from another fallacious assumption--that ducasse, adria, et al, are expecting to make money on those books. i really don't think that is the case. and just out of curiosity, i'm wondering what you think could have been done better in the TFL cookbook?

i did a long piece on the epicurean many years ago (an abridged version appears in the oxford history of food). resources were scant, but i did get a lot of good stuff from Lately Thomas' book on Delmonico's. There were also some interesting contemporary magazine articles--apparently, there was a bit of heat for star chefs even at the turn of the century!

for anyone who is interested, i contacted fred to ask about the us revision of "gourmet traveller." here is his response. actually, a good little peek into the world of publishing: Greetings to all visitors to eGullet....This is Fred Plotkin writing. My friend Russ Parsons mentioned that there was some discussion about the state of Italy for the Gourmet Traveller. I thank you for your kind comments about the book and want to give you the latest news: The book was published in the US in 1996 by Little, Brown. It was then published in the UK by Kyle Cathie, an excellent publisher. I did an updated edition in the UK in 2000 and another in 2003. These were not printed in an American edition because Little, Brown preferred to keep selling the original. I did a very substantial revision for Kyle Cathie that was published in 2006. I did add to Piemonte, I took out many dated listings throughout the country, and I addressed changes in the way people eat, the new anti-smoking laws, and many other topics. There are some few places where the word lire was not corrected to reflect the Euro value, but I use a word scale of inexpensive, moderately inexpensive, moderate, and so forth, so please don't get too exercised if you see the word lire here and there. I completely revised the dining suggestions in Rome, Florence, Venice, Trieste, Bologna and Milan, keeping places I still enjoy and tossing out ones that do not make it for me. I have tried where possible to reflect other changes I have perceived in Italy. I continue to travel there a great deal and will be in about ten regions in 2007, including Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Veneto, Lombardia, Trentino, Alto Adige, Marche, Toscana, Lazio, Puglia, Calabria and Sicilia. So I keep taking notes. The new 2006 edition, called Italy for the Gourmet Traveller, has a red and tan cover with a motor scooter on it. If I may immodestly say, it got sensational reviews in the UK, made many "Best of Year" lists and has sold very well. People in America, France, Italy and elsewhere were able to purchase it at www.amazon.co.uk. Because it has sold well, I know that supplies ran low. A second printing is happening and there is the intention to bring it into America. The main obstacle has been my old American publisher, but we hope that will be resolved by early spring. So, if you wish to own it, I suggest you pre-order at the British Amazon site, and I hope you will get it very soon. If you have suggestions, comments, corrections, etc for the book or inspired by your own travels, send them to fspinnyc@hotmail.com, which is specially set up for that purpose. I don't see this account all the time, but get to it enough to respond when possible. Ciao, e buon viaggio a tutti! Fred

i consider them different but equal. and there is no higher praise i can give.