emsny

I was downtown on jury duty earlier this week, and saw to my amazed pleasure a pile of krapfen on the bar at Blaue Gans, this after the folks at Cafe Sabarsky had for a couple of years sworn up and down that these would be available only between Fasching and Shrove Tuesday.

There isn't a Zabars in Grand Central.

Yura & Company on Third Avenue and 93rd Street makes what I think are the best black and whites around; they might be able to accommodate you. The question is whether the result would be any good; so much of the appeal of a black and white is the cake:icing ratio.

Bruni's review has now been posted on nytimes.com. I won't spoil the ending for you: read it yourselves.

And the scraps of meat, along with some of the fat, will get mashed/shredded/pounded into rillettes.

It appears that Penzeys Spices is opening a stand in the Grand Central Terminal market, I believe on the site of the ill-fated Adriana's Caravan.

On this rainy Saturday, Trader Joe's wasn't crowded at all. Neither was the farmers' market or Whole Foods.

And you, of course, are right too.

Not to get into a geopolitical debate, but the Pays Basque - at least the French part - IS in the south-west; and when I asked about SW cooking I did not mean to limit it to any one cuisine.

And speaking of pony-sized animals, the excellent pork chop I ate a week and a bit ago at Le Repaire de Cartouche looked as though it might have been cut from a pig of about that size, like one we once saw at the Ecomusee des Landes. I couldn't quite finish mine, though I noticed that the rake-thin kid at the next table ate all of his plus half of his girlfriend's pigeon. Unusual to see a pork chop on a Paris menu - nice. So thanks, John, for that recommendation. Perfect choice; our expatriate friend, who lives a 10 minute walk from the restaurant, has added it to his List. It was exactly the right piece to complete our little four-day dining puzzle, the other elements having been Drouant, the Meurice (quite spectacular, much progress since two years ago) and Le Comptoir (where we had our first whiff of tear-gas).

Or - last time I checked, which was a long while ago - Esposito's pork store on Ninth Avenue around 38th or 39th Street.

Thanks, John; I was hoping you'd weigh in. You and I are of one mind on Helene Darroze, by the bye, although you will admit that her restaurant is distinguished by a most charming pony-sized dog.

Thanks, Marc - and thanks for the pic of the menu.

Can someone name some Paris restaurants with good south-western cooking? I know Le Bascou and Au Trou Gascon, and we used to stay on a street containing a restaurant called La Poularde Landaise (I believe); it is no longer there. Thanks.

Let me second the endorsement of Chiang Mai Kitchen.

I think Oakapple might have just had bad luck with the bread; I ate at Perry St with a friend last week and we both, simultaneously, remarked that the bread was terrific. Kind of ciabatta-y: very light but nonetheless chewy. And impeccably fresh, with a good crisp crust.

When I come home from work, I often go right into the kitchen, do something messy and only THEN change out of my good clothes into jeans and a polo shirt. Keeps the laundry in business, I suppose.

And in town you should visit La Tupina.

Try using a normal microwave, with the nuts spread out on a pyrex pie pan. There's enough oil in nuts that they toast nicely. I generally start with two or three minutes and go from there.

Pignolata. There are several desserts by that name, but one that's served in Tuscany/Umbria, as I remember it (I'm not near cookbooks - you can look it up) is: line a tart pan with pasta frolla; fill with pastry cream and pignoli; top with another layer of pastry; bake. I have also had it with additional pine nuts embedded in the top crust, and have made it that way. Serve no colder than room temperature - blood temperature is about right.

Though a perfectly good sausage, akin to a French saucisson, Biellese's is not really what I would call a cotechino; we ate one a few days ago. It has almost no skin ground into the meat mixture and therefore lacks the lip-sticking lusciousness of a true cotechino. I've eaten Faicco's too, but honestly don't remember it well enough to offer a description.

What we had was: beet salad with crisp pig's foot patty; foie gras with citrus marmalade; coddled eggs; scallops; truffle pierogi; heritage pork with beans; a couple of desserts. See menu on menupages for more descriptive dish names. elicious and others - is it really unusual for a restaurant to ask the customer to call to confirm? Seems pretty normal to me (and, for the way my day usually gets put together, more convenient as well).

I thought Telepan was terrific. Including the beans. Going again next week, in fact.

On which model to buy and at what price, be aware that the company's web site offers a few reconditioned models at good discounts. When my discontinued model broke a year or so ago, they sold me a reconditioned one for about $40 and it has worked perfectly.

Thanks, both of you. The aluminum, baking soda, salt method did indeed work reasonably well. Results (as Gifted Gourmet says) are nowhere nearly as good as silver polish and a cloth, but at least the fork tines are no longer black.