enrevanche

Biggest yard sale score for me: an ancient but fully-functional hand-crank pasta machine with a full complement of cutting attachments, $5. I like it especially because it's constructed of heavy-gauge steel; the newer ones seem to be much lighter in construction. I've pressed miles of fresh pasta with this thing.

Chicken soup, with plenty of onion, carrot, and celery in it, and some freshly ground black pepper added just before serving. Just a few egg noodles or a bit of rice, not too much, added to the broth. Anything with loads of garlic. Garlic has remarkable healing properties in my opinion and experience. Takeout or delivery: Spicy Chinese and Thai soups. (When I get stuffed up, I crave strong flavors for some reason.) Hot tea with lemon. Not appropriate for children, but: hot toddies or Irish Coffee. Heat and whiskey, that's the ticket.

Thanks to all for the wonderful advice about our upcoming trip. I love the idea of taking a picnic lunch to a simpatico winery - solves an important logistical problem for us. Gonna do that. I wish we could actually stay a couple of days in wine country, but that will have to be next trip out. So this will have to be a day trip, this time around. And in re: Muir Woods, we are definitely going to check that out. It's already on our list. Thanks again to all.

Patisserie Claude on West 4th Street (between Sixth and Seventh Avenues) in Greenwich Village for croissants, pain au chocolat and just wonderful pastry in general.

Really just idle/uninformed speculation on my part, but: Since many NYC Chinatown restaurants are or at least once were Cantonese (much more regional diversity in recent years), could "NY-style Chinese" be a sort of code-phrase for "Cantonese/American style cooking"? Edited to add: My always perspicacious wife offers an even simpler explanation: since Florida is crammed with ex-New Yorkers (both snowbirds and retirees) this may just be an attempt to signal "Chinese food like you used to get back home" (instead of the blander, more Americanized stuff all too often on offer.)

Wow, 'tis the season for New Yorkers to travel to San Francisco. My wife and I are planning a five-day trip in early June in celebration of her birthday. We're really looking forward to it, as neither of us have been to SF in years. Getting a lot of good ideas from this thread. Two quick questions: -- I've heard from a couple of friends that the cafe upstairs at Chez Panisse is as good as the downstairs main dining room and may in fact be the way to go. Comments? -- How feasible is it for us to plan a day-trip into Napa/Sonoma counties to take a quick look at wine country? Looks like it would be maybe an hour and a half's drive to Napa (?) Would we be better off taking a guided tour first time out, or can we muddle through ourselves in a rental car? Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Thanks for the welcome, Pan. Wu Liang Ye (the 48th St branch near Rock Center -- dunno about the other ones) is absolutely worth at least one visit. Like Grand Sichuan, they are a small chain, but if I have my information right, the Wu Liang Ye chain is actually based in *China*, and these are the NYC outposts. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong.) Both GS and WLY have good dan dan noodles (and for that matter, good tea-smoked duck) but somebody's got to be the ultimate winner. On the dan dan noodles, I give the edge to WLY... it's almost indefinable as to why, but I just think that the minced pork and chili oil have a little better texture when combined and that the whole dish just hangs together a little bit better there. For the duck, gotta give the nod to GS. A food-tasting/extended restaurant-crawl to Flushing has been on my culinary to-do list for quite some time. Eric Asimov's ecstatic review of Spicy & Tasty the other day in the Times has just redoubled my resolve, as have your comments.

At Grand Sichuan/Chelsea (I'm in the minority, I know, but I like the 9th Ave/24th St location best): cured pork with garlic shoots tea-smoked duck At Wu Liang Ye on 48th Street: dan dan noodles beef tendon hand-shredded chicken in sesame vinaigrette scallops with chili cucumber I'd also like to state for the record that I really, really miss the dear departed Sun Lok Kee. I still daydream sometimes about their whole fish (catch o' the day) cooked with fresh ginger and bitter greens. Mmmmm.

Totally fascinating thread. (Nina, thanks especially for your input.) I grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, and was completely spoiled by the presence of the North Carolina State Farmer's Market downtown. Subsidized somewhat by the state government, both small farmers and larger commercial growers set up their wares in the sheds down there; every restaurant and serious amateur cook in town bought produce there. In spring and summer, a mindsnapping variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. Peaches and sweet corn to die for, etc. Going to the Farmer's Market was a social occasion to boot; you met friends and neighbors down there, or offered to bring goodies back to your neighbors if you were headed on a shopping expedition. We should be able to do *at least* that well in New York City. Union Square is my local Greenmarket, and I patronize it cautiously. There are still some gems to be found there, e.g. last weekend I bought some terrific ramps and a beautiful hunk of handmade blue cheese. As the season progresses, I know that I'll find fiddlehead ferns there, for instance. And there's this lady from New Jersey who always has beautiful okra in season (which as a native southerner I crave instinctively)--nicer than I've been able to find in any store. I don't know that I could bring myself to totally boycott the place, but I do strongly believe in voting with my wallet and supporting the suppliers who are doing the right thing (and agitating like hell for change, which it sounds like is sorely needed.) I'll be following developments there with considerable interest, and I'm gonna start making some noise.

I've got a hunk of cold leftover brisket that needs to be used, so tonight, it's comfort food: shepherd's pie . Couldn't be easier: Chop the brisket into small pieces. Simmer up a thick, hearty onion gravy, add baby carrots and a small bag of green peas I have in the freezer. Toss the chopped brisket into the simmering brew, pour into casserole dish. Boil some Idahos, add a little butter and milk and whisk up fluffy mashed potatos for the top layer, then shred a little cheese (I usually use boring old cheddar, perfect in this application) to top that. Bake at 400 until bubbly. Serving with a crisp green salad and some lightly steamed zucchini. Everybody in my house loves shepherd's pie night. My wife just loves the dish, period. I do too, especially since I can usually eke a couple of meals out of it, and just have to reheat for the second night, plus it's a thrifty use of leftovers. And the dogs and the cat love it because they get to eat the fat bits I trim off of the brisket.

mudbug writes: Whoops, my bad. In retrospect it seemed a little funny that Alton wouldn't know daikons and foie gras. I've seen a couple of his Food Network shows in passing and he seemed like a pretty knowledgeable guy. So that makes much more sense. Thanks for correcting my wrong impression.

On our scorecards, the wife and I had Sakai as the winner. Of course, it's hard to really tell without actually tasting the food. Aside from the trout ice cream (which I would have gamely tried) Sakai's dishes all looked like complete winners. As an aside, was Alton Brown useless as a color commentator, or what? Failure to recognize a daikon radish: ten yard penalty, loss of down. "Um, it's a long, white, root-looking thing." Indeed. Made me long for Hattori-san, Fukui-san, and Ota-san.