russ parsons

i don't know how i missed this the first time around. there'll be a whole chapter on this in my book next spring. that ad out of the way, the quick lesson is: there are two kinds of melons (way oversimplifying) and they have different ripeness indicators. melons with netted or ridged rinds (cantaloups, muskmelons, etc), are pretty easy to tell--look for the slip, look for the golden background color, look for the pale spot where it rested on the ground and, above all, smell. when they are really ripe, jiggle them and you'll feel the seeds move around inside (when they are overripe, you'll hear them). smooth-skinned melons (honeydews, etc), are tougher. the color should be deep and creamy, there will be the rest spot. press at the stem end and there should be a slight give (don't worry about a trace of stem, they do not slip). with a really good melon there'll be sugar spots (dark flecks of dried syrup on the skin). there will be no perfume (fun fact: their latin group name is inodorous) it is really rare to find a perfectly ripe melon at the market, though it does happen.

hmmm, that's a pretty good example of why we shouldn't take chef explanations at face value. it simply makes no sense that over hundreds of years, cooks would follow a more complicated procedure for making a dish simply because one time some guy made a mistake. you'd think somebody might have noticed, right? the reason the liquid is added in portions is because that allows the amylopectin within the kernal to partially cook and break free, then become absorbed in the next addition of stock, which is what makes risotto creamy.

that reminds me of the time an italian cookbook author argued with me for a long time about the absolutely necessity of using the best quality extra-virgin Tuscan olive oil to deep-fry potatoes ... of course, that was Lorenza de Medici.

i've done a bit of this, and you don't need to use great olive oil (in fact, it's more of a texture thing, with just a little flavor). i use the trader joe's santini oil.

just for the record, i think one of the point in michael's chapter on cmc was the utter pointlessness of it. almost none of the well-known chefs in the us have passed it. it's the kind of thing that is only important for chefs who want to go into high-level teaching or work in hotels/resorts, where the hr department tends to want some kind of accreditation.

i'm certainly not disagreeing with you, but it does put the whole rick bayless/BK fiasco in a different light (actually, that was what i had argued way back then).

it's all bs. a wooden spoon is certainly pleasanter to stir with, because it doesn't make the scratching sound on the bottom of the pan. but stirring with a metal spoon will not destroy your risotto. many years ago i did a piece collecting myths about risotto. some people said wooden spoons, some said wooden forks! quite a few very sternly advised to only stir in one direction. and a very disturbing number recommended uncle ben's as a substitution! (these were different days, when arborio wasn't on supermarket shelves, but still ... if you don't have the right rice, make a pilaf or something else).

michael's my buddy, so mine is not a disinterested perspective, but i really liked this book, in most ways more than the previous two. having been around the cuisinescene for a longer time, he is no longer so star-struck as he once might have seemed. he certainly appreciates chefs, still, but the appreciation is a more mature one. has the world of the chef changed in the last 10 years? being his elder, i would probably say that the things he is pointing out where already happening back then, the wolfgang puck-ing of the profession. but it has certainly gained in numbers and speed. for me, this new general skepticism makes his appreciation of the heroes--thomas k, masa, melissa kelly, grant achatz, etc., -- ring so much more true.

i just finished the book and found it absolutely delightful. i knew julia fairly well and the book sounds just like her. her nephew did a remarkable job of capturing both her personality and her way of speaking/writing. with public personalities, we frequently assign them characteristics we wish they had, and then are disappointed when they don't measure up. so if you don't like this book, it is quite possible that you might not have liked julia either (the real julia, not the tv one).

this may be a matter of semantics. i think what she was trying to say was that it shouldn't be dense and clumpy, it should be creamy. that is probably not light, but it is right.

thanks for taking it in that spirit john, re-reading my post, it could have come across as over-the-top. but i was raised on that food and love it dearly. it is very different from mexican food, or tex-mex, or ariz-mex or cali-mex, with its own set of ingredients and history (read traveler's accounts from the 1600s and you will recognize that bowl of green you loved). i'm pretty spoiled as far as good eating goes, but i so much look forward to my n.m. trips and gorging for days on end on enchiladas (stacked, blue corn, cheese, either red or green depending on the season and the restaurant, and with an over-easy egg on top). there are times i'd rather have that than oysters and pearls.

there's always a lot of that, but it's also true that the french laundry has a definite style of service, just as they have a definite style of cuisine. it is one they work very hard at perfecting. it is very ceremonial and not a little showy sometimes, though a lot of fun if you let yourself get into the spirit of it. the staff has terrific elan. if you accept it at face value, it can be seen as enhancing the experience of the meal ... after all, in real life who wouldn't want to have that many highly trained servants eager to make us happy? if you go in expecting that it is going to be another pretentious restaurant, i'm sure you can find that, too.

forgive an old new mexican for getting snarky, but what in the world could you possibly be thinking about? for any kind of fusion cuisine to work, it must be based in the regional flavors of the area. Mexican, Tex-Mex, California, Pacific Rim ... none of those things have anything at all to do with New Mexican food. Granted, New Mexican food may be more interesting if it did (as the only restaurant critic in the state for four years, i did get tired of my only dining options being what filling for my enchilada and which sauce, red or green). as much as i respect mark miller as a cook, when he opened coyote and started the whole "southwestern fusion" thing in santa fe, it was purely a restaurateur's fantasy ... shrimp, tomatillos, chipotle peppers, cilantro ... none of those things had anything to do with new mexican food (well, dried shrimp are sometimes pounded and used in a kind of lenten beignet). (actually, mark started doing the research for coyote when I was still in new mexico and his original intent was to base it on new mexican cuisine. i helped him pull together some of the historical research on what had been served in new mexico, back to pre-territorial times, but in the end he decided there weren't enough ingredients of interest ... probably a wise move commercially.) If you complain that wherever you go, restaurants serve the same cuisine (a complaint with which I enthusiastically agree), then you need to do a little more homework about the native cuisines of the region you're visiting (and not just the trendy chefs). the only chef i can think of who actually got new mexican cooking right in a creative format was john sedlar, who had the lamented st. estephe in manhattan beach here in southern california. it was no accident that sedlar had long roots to new mexico (iirc, his aunt was georgia o'keefe's chauffeur). john was able to distill the flavors of new mexico to their essences and then re-present them in surprising ways while still being true to tradition. i vividly remember a posole he made that was essentially a perfectly clear consomme that tasted exactly like the best new mexican posole you've ever had, accented with only a few sprigs of tarragon, which melded so perfectly with the flavor of the hominy, it made you regret the herb was too tender to grow well in santa fe. sorry for carrying on so long and so loud, but this is one of my pet peeves and you obviously touched the wrong nerve this morning.

to a certain extent, there are also cultural prejudices about foods that come into play. i'm not talking about flies buzzing around, or anything like that, but i've noticed that in mexican markets in la, the meat is always darker in color. their customers prefer meat that has a slightly oxided appearance, as opposed to the bright red "freshness" we get from shrink wrapping. On the other hand, i still shake my head when i go into some chinese markets and see absolutely beautiful, pristine fish sitting on ice right next to something that looks like it should have been embalmed two weeks ago.

that sounds like my story, too (it's snake river ranch vs. snake river farms). but that certainly would not qualify as "real kobe"

when i was doing that story, i found people who claimed the same thing. even told me who their meat supplier was. meat supplier denied it --of course. the generous side of my nature wants to believe they are just idiots who don't know the difference. there's a chance that some small, very high-end places are "suitcase importing" real kobe, but you can count on that running more than $100 a pound, easy.

i did a piece several months ago on american-style kobe beef (for wont of a better term), and everyone i talked to said there was a shortage of that meat because of all the steakhouses in vegas. craftsteak was blowing through a pretty amazing amount of it. to answer the last question: there is no export of american beef to japan and (therefore, quid pro quo, etc.), there is no import of japanese beef to the us. anyplace advertising "real kobe beef" is stretching the definition of two of the three terms.

Sounds like eGullet! -- M ← actually, my hopes were that it might develop into something like the gullet, but apparently, there were too few foodies involved in the internet to make it happen at that time. i was also a member of an early food listserve called chefs and cooks on the internet, probably from about 1989 to the mid '90s. it was much more serious and much more fun ... trolls and all.

both. use them fresh in pounded sauces or folded into little meat balls, etc. you can also dry them--this will change the flavor to be more like the commercial seeds (though not exactly; i believe a different variety is used for the seed). do make sure they get plenty of air circulating. they grow quite large and exotic colonies of molds very, very quickly (yes, you can assume this comes from personal experience).

oh jeez, prodigy. i edited part of their food boards for a couple of years, like 89-90, something like that? what a goofy trip. my job was to line up "star chefs" and cookbook writers who would write brief columns and then answer questions. i remember one (michael roberts) wrote this really great thing about flavor and the first question he got back was a request for the recipe for bob's big boy fudge cake.

wild fennel (in the us) is the same plant as the domesticated ... in fact, it is the domesticated that has escaped. fennel is now classified as an invasive pest in most states. goes to show what good farming will do, because the bases in the wild are pretty much inedible. the fronds are great, though, and the dried stems as well. one more thing--the seeds in the early fall. they are very different from the dried fennel seed you buy in the store. they are more tender and more explosive and much "greener" in flavor. you really should try them sometime.

i tried to like the ceramic knife but just couldn't. for me, it was just WAY too light. like cutting with a feather. other people might like that, but i like the feeling that the knife is helping me. i've also been impressed with the knives from MAC ... they are really good for the price.

check out any of chris schlesinger and doc willoughby's bbq/grilling books. good recipes and basic info. also, steve raichlen.

i just wanted to agree with sam: this is an interesting discussion of cast-iron cookware, but i'd never use cast-iron cookware to make risotto. i really prefer something that reacts more quickly to heat, so you can adjust the cooking as you're going along. but, of course, cast-iron is unbeatable for braising.

at various times in history there have been different agricultural crazes. pears had their day in 18th and 19th century France and then again in the us at the turn of the century. who knows why? it became fashionable for everyone to have an espaliered pear tree in their garden. i guess they have to taste better than tulip bulbs (obscure reference to another ag craze)