russ parsons

i think it's possible that david failed to communicate every nuance of his position in his column. he is a dear friend and i have eaten with him often and he has always been the soul of generosity. he has opened great bottles at his home without any consideration of cost (or what i brought). he has also volunteered to sell great wines at his original cost for special occasions (that way i managed to score a bottle of an old bordeaux for michel richard's birthday one year that was the same as the one he's always said was the first truly great wine he'd ever tasted). at the same time, if we go out for lunch to a restaurant and he brings a great bottle, i have absolutely no problem crediting half the original cost of that bottle toward the check. in fact, i think it's a terrific bargain. '98 marcassin for $35 or so? i think to do otherwise would be cheap and churlish. david has often been accused of being churlish, but never of being cheap.

it's a big book, but it's not THAT big.

oh, you big cassata-teaser.

as my pal cliff pointed out, it's a fact of life in cookbook publishing these days that editors are looking for writers with a "platform." these vary, and it depends on what kind of book you want to do and how many you want to sell. i work for a newspaper, which doesn't really require me to act like an asshole (usually i do that quite well all on my own). but my books aren't straight recipe collections and, quite frankly, i don't care about selling hundreds of thousands of copies. if you want to be the next rachel ray, the situation might be different.

lucy, have you checked out ici la press? they're here in the states, someplace, but they specialize in translating french chef cookbooks. maybe y ou could line up some work for hire with them to get the experience. ici la

the crucial part of the technique as our fair jin pointed out, is the squeegeeing of the skin side with the back of a knife. you'll find that a lot of moisture comes off, it will stick to the knife. wipe it off. keep going with this until no more moisture comes up. it's this drying action that gets you really crispy skin that stays crisp. you can finish the dish in a couple of ways: you can reduce the heat after the initial sear and cook it on the stove top or you can stick the pan in a 450-degree oven and let it cook that way.

i'm not being coy, but i'm not really sure. it really was one of those crazy things. the first printing in hard was ridiculously small--something like 15,000. but thanks to the sainted terri gross and all the people who liked the book, i think we went through three printings before the thing was technically for sale. my recollection is that there were four printings, with probably 50,000 to 60,000 in hard (who knows how many of those were returns, though). i have absolutely no earthly idea how many papers were printed (or sold). some day i've got to get professional about this ... but probably not. i am also proud to announce that "french fry" has been translated into two languages--japanese and polish (wtf?). they sent me a box of the japanese books, which are nice to have but useful primarily as a doorstop since i don't read japanese (it took me about a half-hour to find my name on the cover). a japanese friend translated it to me: i love the title (how to read a french fry is a pretty specific pun that doesn't translate): "Macho Cooking the Rational Way."

actually, i consider myself an accidental cookbook writer. i never really intended to do one. after 20 years writing about food for newspapers, i was of the firm opinion that there were far too many cookbooks in the world already. but then i had an idea that i thought might contribute to somebody cooking a better dinner and found an agent and an editor willing to take it on. i was extraordinarily lucky with "french fry" and i am eternally grateful (and cognizant of the fact that it probably won't happen the same way for the next book). but i have to agree with everything everyone has said about warning folks away. i'm really lucky in that i've been writing about food for years, have a lot of recipes saved up, have a good full time job and (most key from the publisher's point of view, i think) have a "platform"--that's what they call a reputation from another field that they hope will help you sell books. all that said, even with a pretty generous advance, by the time you divide it over the three years it takes from inception to publication, it's not a whole lot of money. unless you're extraordinarily talented, extraordinarily well known or extraordinarily cute (and 2 of those 3 wouldn't be bad), writing cookbooks is really a part-time job that must be supplemented by something else--journalism, cooking classes, consulting, or, best of all, independent income. but i've been giving that speech for years now, and i don't think i've dissuaded a single person. we are an optimistic species.

something the rest of us can only aspire to.

they're showing up in la farmers markets now .. just last week i had them twice.

i tried out a bunch of gyutous for a story this christmas and am totally converted. my workhorse knife is a misono ux-10. every time i used it i am amazed.

one thing i've noticed about discussions like this is that they tend to go reductionist very fast. we EITHER go the chez panisse route and have high-quality, carefully grown foods OR we go Conagra and have mass-produced food that lasts forever. i think experience shows that we can easily accomodate both--and plenty in between. today we have the cheapest food supply in history at our supermarkets, but we also have $6 a pound heirloom tomatoes at farmers markets. And we also have supermarkets starting to sell heirloom tomatoes! one thing does not rule out the other.

i've done some reporting on it, but i am far from expert. as i understand it, there are really two main objections that seem to have some credence. the first is that we americans still don't seem to have a good way of disposing of spent radioactive materials, and that this would create far more. the other, and more to the point as far as i'm concerned, is that the food industry resists the idea of any kind of package labeling disclosing that the food was treated. it does seem to me that if they're going to do it, they should give consumers the right to choose (but then, i'm so naive, i think all food should also come with country of origin labels, too).

i do know that nadia and antonio do think of themselves as a three-star restaurant, rather than a restaurant in the italian countryside. i was somewhat surprised the first time i visited them too. i had met them in this country and they were very warm and relaxed. the first time i ate at the restaurant, the formality surprised me a little--certainly no abrazzi at the door (though flutes of bellavista and some hot frico is not a bad subsittute). but that is the context they want their food presented in. once i got used to that, it no longer bothered me. and they always come out and sit and talk after service over many grappas.

i stumbled into this late. but my belief (based on something i read somewhere and who knows whether it's true) is that as a member of the shark family, skates excrete urine through their pores (just as sharks do) and (just as with sharks) if they are not bled and treated properly immediately after being caught, they develop an ammonia odor/flavor. ps: that was a great tip on the machine skinning. that's the kind of thing that keeps me reading egullet!

i agree with ludja, though it really seems to me the paul bertolli book (Chez Panisse Cooking) is very much a one-off in the series--much more essay-driven. my two favorite books in the series are lindsey shere's desserts book (actually, one of my favorite books in any series) and the cafe book.

i'd like to make one more suggestion. it's not a sauvignon blanc, but it fits much the same flavor profile. my house white this spring (and probably into the summer) is a pinot grigio from mendocino county's mcfadden farms (potter valley, near ukiah, east of the 101). it's from a very limited production, only available so far online or by phone. the producer is a guy named guinness mcfadden (not a joke) who has been one of hte biggest grape growers in mendo for many years (organic), but who has always sold his grapes (navarro, etc). the wine is very crisp, very citrusy, very clean with a nice herbaceousness that resembles in effect that distinctive note in nz sbs. best of all, it's like $13 a bottle before case or half-case discounts. 800-544-8230 http://www.mcfaddenfarm.com/policies.html

what about joel gott? iirc, there's a very small amount of oak, but i'm very sensitive to it, too, and it's not at all objectionable to me. or brander "au naturel"(sp?) from santa barbara?

that's an interesting point bux, and i probably agree with you more than not. but i do sometimes think that in becoming popular, the science of cooking has kind of become just one more collection of useless information that certain kinds of people collect without ever acting on. now, as a lifelong collector (and professional promoter!) of next-to-useless obscure information, i don't have much of a problem with that. but i can understand how others might get cranky about these endless wonky conversations that rarely seem to lead to anyone actually cooking dinner.

well, john's a terrific writer and a very interesting, challenging thinker. he has written some very good reviews that i really disagree with and i think this is one of those. to me, the mark of a good review is not whether i agree with it or not, but whether i am clear where the author stands and why. by those standards, i don't think you can argue that john didn't write a good review. i think hal's book struck a nerve with john, who is very much an experiential (as opposed to experimental) cook. i guess i'm somewhere in the middle, so i was able to take a more distanced view. one thing that i do agree with john about is the way all this food science stuff--unintentionally, to be sure--can actually serve to make cooking seem more complicated and difficult, rather than the opposite. someone interviewed me for a story a couple of weeks ago and wanted to know if people could cook well without understanding the maillard reaction.

i regret to say that it is still on my bedside table (damn that louis de bernieres "birds without wings"). but i do know matt quite well and i believe that the book was rewritten throughout. he is truly one of wine's few original thinkers (as he would be the first to tell you).

yes, it seems that making wine to an "international taste" is not something new. the biggest consumers of the top bordeaux historically were british. wine goes where the money is and i guess you could argue that first-growth bordeaux are one of the benefits of empire.

thanks for the mention janet. i do think it's important to be specific about what you want from the book. each title mentioned is somewhere along a curve that runs from mcgee at one end (or any of the REAL food science texts, which are practically impenetrable) to, probably, "french fry" at the other. as john thorne pointed out in his review of the new mcgee, that book is not so much a cook's book as a science book about cooking (he thought that was not such a good thing; i'm of a different opinion). john seemed to prefer the "french fry" approach. i like my book quite a bit (even after 4 years and seemingly countless other food science books), but i wouldn't for a moment pretend that it was better than hal's, unless what you're specifically looking for is a cookbook that uses some a little science to explain practical technique.

unfortunately, even as a raw-milk cheese supporter, it must be recognized that there are risks. in southern california, we have outbreaks of listeria from raw milk queso fresco every couple of years. in the best-case scenario, a few folks get really sick. worst case, if i recall, was more than a dozen fatalities back in the 80s.

i've got ikea cabinets in the extension i built on my kitchen. i've had them (and the hardwood countertop) for almost 10 years and they still work great. in the next couple of years i'm going to redo the rest of the kitchen (finally, a built-in dishwasher!), and i'm planning on ikea for that, too.