russ parsons

we'll see.

playing my role as the "season nazi" (as they refer to me in our test kitchen), i'm finding it weird that you're getting these now. favas and artichokes are traditionally early spring crops.

probably would have gone farther if i wasn't loaded down with all those sweet rolls. i don't know how many albuquerqueans remember, but there also used to be a great fried chicken place out east central, golden fried chicken. it was close to the bar i bartended at, so i'd get sweet rolls from the frontier for breakfast and golden fried chicken for dinner. then i found out they were both owned by the same guy! i probably put his kid through school.

aaaaaaaaaaah. frontier sweet rolls. i practically lived on those when i was going to college.

i remember those! they aired at thanksgiving, i think, or christmas. i had a bunch of friends over for dinner. we sat entranced watching them. my favorite was the gateau st. honore--it ended up looking like a child's pottery project. but she attacked it with such enthusiasm!

my new tj addiction: the australian lamb racks: 8 ribs, frenched for like $10. i usually end up cutting them into chops and t hrowing them on the grill. great meat for a ridiculous price.

thought of this thread when i was in fresno last week working on a story. there in a hmong market, locally grown sichuan peppercorns: fresh and dried, packed with leaves and without (a hmong friend says they rub aching joints with the leaves to relieve arthritis).

one word: shakerato. a friend brought this back from florence a couple of years ago. he said it was all the rage. i don't know if that's true, but it is my breakfast treat as soon as the weather warms up enough. 1 double espresso in a sealed container, about 1 teaspoon sugar, about 1/2 cup milk. 3 or 4 ice cubes. Put the top on and shake like crazy. it will foam and emulsify and take on a thin milkshake texture. now i have to go make some espresso ice cubes to see how that works.

once again, a reminder to never underestimate the importance of rigor mortis.

i hate to beat a dead horse, but once again, one of the best meals i've had in the wine country (particularly if you only include sonoma) was at the Farmhouse Inn in the Russian River Valley. This is a very serious restaurant, one of the best meals i had this year. finished food, but not fussy--kind of a cross between French Laundry and Bouchon (and, again, the obligatory proviso: a friend's wife's family owns it).

for high-end italian, i'd head to either valentino ... the obvious choice, but i had a really remarkable dinner there a couple months ago ... or for a very different feel osteria angelini (where i'm planning to go saturday night). valentino is very dressed up, very finished, great wine list (though i agree the room does look like it was done by carmela soprano's decorator). angelini is very minimalist both in decor and cuisine (get anything with tripe or guanciale) and a very good, though much smaller wine list.

they are pickled anchovies. mmmm. i get mine from la espanola, which is a local importer. but they do have a web presence. great on toasts dressed with a little minced garlic, parsley and olive oil.

i've got one of those 40-case vinotemps. i've had it for probably 5 or 6 years and never had a problem. the temp isn't set super-low; i've got it at about 65. but it's in a south-facing storage room in an un-air conditioned guest house, so that's pretty good (i bought the heavy duty cooler rather than the regular). just this summer, though, i've noticed that it seems to be running all the time. the temp is steady, but the fan never seems to cycle off. air flow seems fine, but it's not very cold. does anyone know of anyone who does service on these things in southern california?

several years ago when i was still editing, one of my reporters did a piece on eggs and salmonella during the course of which she went back and analyzed all the original cdc incident reports. during the salmonella "epidemic" she found you were far more likely to die from being hit by lightning than from salmonella from an egg. furthermore, at teh root of almost every outbreak was an incident of truly unconscionable food handling--one cook left french toast batter sitting at room temperature for several hours .... in a nursing home! still, i do refrigerate my eggs at home, but i will NOT give up my raw and lightly cooked egg sauces.

if you're in la, you can find the book at cook's library. it just came out maybe two weeks ago. it's independently published, so it usually takes the chains a while to catch on that it is salable. carl is working on another book on chinese immigration patterns and it does sound quite interesting. it also goes to his point that southern california has a greater wealth of chinese restaurants than anyplace else--the reason being that san francisco and new york were settled during the first wave of chinese immigration, which was almost entirely cantonese. southern california's is much more recent and much more regionally varied.

my favorite california sparkler by far (and my house pour) is roederer estate. at around $20 a bottle, nothing else comes close. like the rose with food, too. the tete de cuvee, l'ermitage, is much richer, but not quite as lively. maybe a wine for important toasts, rather than food.

point taken (and i edited one edition of the tribune book when i was working there!). still, i'd point out that the only two books anyone is likely to have heard of are the restaurant books, which describe more of an individual approach to the food (particularly pasqual). and y ou did leave out the classic "mexican cooking" by erna ferguson (of course it's been out of print for, oh, 40 years). it does have some really interesting historical stuff as it was written before world war II, when the highways/los alamos lab, really began opening up northern new mexico to outsiders ... well, outsiders who weren't artists.

i'll have to try the gloves, but the best method i've found is to roast them until fragrant, then as soon as they come out of the oven, cover them with a damp towel to steam briefly. this makes them (somewhat) easier to peel and doesn't change the texture the way boiling does.

cut them into similar sizes, steam them, then roll them in a bowl with softened (not melted) butter and shallots. sprinkle with sea salt. oh god.

perhaps you'd like to check in with giorgio armani, who always seems to be wearing jeans, white tee shirt and a very stylish jacket.

gee robb, maybe if you sell a couple books you can move to santa fe, too. let's not mistake books written by people who happen to live there with books that actually represent the area (of which, I can think of only one in the modern era: huntley dent's quite nice "feast of santa fe": he does veer off down some coyote cafe streets, but only because a book based on traditional new mexican cooking would be quite thin). and just for the record, though I lived in lubbock for 4 fun-packed years, i've lived in n.m. off and on since 1958.

reporting back after having taken the time to actually look something up: it is 100% sb (tastes richer), street price around $20. anyone know what hippolyte reverdy and vacherin are selling for these days? what? look up two things in one day?

has anyone had the caine musque? since it is named, i would imagine that it's a blend of sb and something else. funnily enough, a friend (who also makes sb) had a bottle in his fridge and i drank some on the porch, not expecting much. really, really sappy, like a great sancerre. i have no idea how much it costs, though.

for old-fashioned diner pies, i don't think you can beat bake 'n' broil in long beach. and they do those open-faced fresh fruit pies as well (i think they don't call them tarts because that would be too fancy). they do strawberry, olallieberry and peach. good crust, pile o' fruit and then what i think is cornstarch-thickend fruit juice over top (well, it ain't campanile).

uh, robb, surely you're not confusing what mark miller does with new mexican food? no, of course not. mark miller has about as much to do with new mexican food as dean fearing does with tex mex (which isn't to say that they're not great cooks). and while tejano culture is indeed vibrant and long-lived, so is new mexican ... since about 1500 or so? ok, granted, the music isn't as good (or maybe just not as overexposed).