Artichoke

Thank you all for your advise. I shall report back upon my return and subsequent awakening from the food coma.

Work was a bit slow today so I went to lunch near my office at Wu Liang Ye (36 West 48th, bet. 5th & 6th). I have not been there in a year, the last time I was able to get out of work for lunch. I was with a fairly conservative eater and so had to forgo the duck tongue and the tripe dishes I was eyeing, but I could not pass up on the sliced beef tendons. One of my favorites. Very thinly sliced beef tendons (shaved realy) served cold in a roasted chili vinnagrette. Spicy, with a slightly crunchy texture, delicious. Next were Dan Dan noodles. Consistantly good at Wu Liang Ye, served in a spicy chili vinagrette, and topped with finely minced pork. In addition we had the Sichuan pork dumplings with roasted chili vinaigrette (Wu Liang Ye throws the word vinagrette around alot, but it is more like a chili oil, than what one would commonly associate with the word vinagrette) , also spicy, but with a sweet undertone. For the entree my conservative eating friend chose the prawns and vegetables with toasted rice in sizzling platter wah bah. I have no idea what wah bah is, altough it is kind of fun to say. This was not a bad dish, just not something I would order again. Huge prawns that had been lightly fried, mixed in a brown sauce with bamboo shoots, straw and wood ear mushrooms and peppers. The toasted rice were squares of what amounted to stale rice cakes and added nothing to the dish. As a vegetable we had sauteed stringbeans with Yibin City spice. I have always liked these. The stringbeans are topped with a mixture of finely miced preserved vegetables and a bit of pork. This is a realy tasty dish that I would highly reccomend. There are not many spots around Rockefeller Center worth eating at, Wu Liang Ye remains one of them. One thing to note is that the restaurant is jammed during the lunch hour, so I would definitely reccomend making reservations if you planned on eating there during a weekday.

I am traveling to Charlotte from Manhattan this Saturday morning through Monday evening. I have never been and my one goal is to eat as well as possible in what will unfortunately be a short amount of time. I am interested in good down home Southern fare, whether it is from a shack or a lone guy off the side of the road. Ambiance is not an issue for me, just great food. Is the Coffee Cup and Prices Chicken Coop as good as I have read about? Reccomendations for BBQ, breakfast? Thank you in advance for any help you can offer.

I travel to Boston alone twice a year and always go to No. 9 Park to eat at the bar. My primary reason for going is to have what is one of my all time favorite appetizers, the prune stuffed gnocchi. Extremely light and soft gnocchi with a strip of pureed pune through the middle, each one topped with a piece of seared foie gras, resting on a sauce made from reduced Vin Santo. It is a phenominal dish. I will say however that a roast duck I had as an entree the last time I was there was severely overcooked. As an aside, I also like the chef and owner, Barbara Lynch's story. She was raised in the projects of South Boston, got turned onto cooking in her high school home economics class and slowly worked her way through various Boston area kitchens and Europe where she honed her cooking style.

I own and enjoy The Foods of the Greek Islands by Aglaia Kremezi. Very good recipes and nice text about the individual Greek islands at the begining of the book.

I started the Chik-fil-A thread and must admit I have a Southern stomach, trapped in the body of a Manhattan born and bred Yankee. There is a web site called boiledpeanuts.com that I read about in a past issue of Saveur, although I have not used it yet. I have taken to calling the Southern food companies directly or ordering off their web sites. Someone on the Chik-fil-A thread informed me that Mt. Olive pickles are actualy available from a Pathmark in Manhattan, I will definitely have to check that out. Aside from Golden flake chips (I find the hot ones to be the best), Cheerwine soda, Sundrop soda, Mt. Olive pickles (love the pickeled okra and bread and butter), what other Southern food brands am I missing out on? Does anyone have a favorite brand of pork rinds and pork cracklings? Thanks for helping a starving Northern boy out.

I agree with you. I tried to find the ingredients on Cold Stone's web site, but was only able to find nutritional information.

I was not saying it looked like spackle, that was the actual texture of the ice cream. As for the taste, the overwhelming taste is simply sweet and too sweet at that. When you have Haggan Daz coffee, there is that immediate, great coffee flavor coming through. I am by no means an ice cream snob. I have had and enjoyed ice creams of varying quality, but this was this was the very first time I have eaten ice cream and actually thought it tasted bad.

I got Sundrop soda (never had one), Big Bob Gibsons BBQ, Mt. Olive bread and Butter pickles and pickled okra, Golden Flake Hot thin & crispy chips (a great chip) and Mac's brand pork cracklings. I truly love eating in the south and I have a lot of these products shipped up north to me (still have some Cheerwine soda left). I am trying to make my way through all the Southern states, I was in South Carolina in Feb., Alabama this past weekend, and I am heading to Charlotte in two weeks.

Last night, after having dinner at Sushi Sen-Nin's new East 81st Street location (great sushi, but another topic), the person I was with suggested going to Cold Stone Creamery on Second Avenue near 86th. I had never heard of Cold Stone and despite living on the Upper East side, did not know that one had entered the neighborhood. For those that are unfamiliar, Cold Stone is like the Steve's ice cream that existed years ago on the Upper West side. Ice cream placed on chilled granite and mixed with fillings of your choice. There was a line when we arrived and so we waited. I have an issue about waiting on lines for food, it feels too much like a soup kitchen. My turn. I ask for a small cup coffee ice cream with some chocolate chips. I do not usualy like things in my ice cream, aside from pistachios, but, when in Rome. The guy behind the counter attempts to upgrade me, "For less then $0.50, you can have the next largest size." Had I somehow wandered into a movie theatre? No, I will stick with the small cup. "You should realy get that in a waffle cup, ice cream does not taste good out of styrofoam." Huh? Perhaps I should also eat it with a mother of pearl spoon. Odd that the company would choose styrofoam and its mystical flavor altering qualities as their cup of choice. As I am growing increasingly frustrated over the difficulty in simply ordering a small cup of ice cream, the lovely sake haze I had from dinner was shattered by an eruption behind the counter. In unison, all of the employees shout "Cold Stone! Cold Stone! Cold Stone!" and then each employee breaks into a rap, "my name is Davie, my hair is wavy..." My only thought was someone please shoot me. I want to meet the person in the corporate office who thought this one up "Hmmm...we will sell an inferior product and it will be served by rapping employees, yes...I am a genius." I want to suggest that the Central Intelligence Agency include Cold Stone employees in all interrogations of Al Qaeda terrorists. Trust me, the terrorists will sing like canaries in a matter of minutes. How was the coffee ice cream I finally received? Imagine taking spackle, mixing it with a ton of sugar, a very weak cup of Maxwell House coffee and chilling it. The styrofoam cup would have tasted better.

Yes I did. Of course you are speaking to a pickle fanatic. I pack the overhead compartment with Mt. Olive Pickles everytime I travel south of the Mason-Dixon line. Love the pickled okra and bread and butter.

While spending this past weekend with my girlfriend's family in Decatur, Alabama I had my first Chik-fil-A. Wow. I have not eaten from a quick serve/fast food restaurant since graduating from college 12 years ago, but Chik-fil-A is in a league of its own. I got two of the signature fried chicken breast sandwiches an order of waffle fries and a lemonade. The breast is my least favorite part of the chicken as it has none of the fat or flavor of dark meat, but this was fantastic. With terrifficly seasoned breading, the breasts were tender and moist. I saw something on the TV Food Network about how the chicken is cooked in a preassurized fryer, I guess that is the secret. Soft bun, crisp fries, great lemonade, Chik-fil-A lived up to my southern girlfriend's hype. If only they would open one up in Manhattan.

St. John Restaurant in London with Fergus Henderson

One of my favorite things about making beef stock is making a meal of the bones after the stock is finished. I roast a mixture of marrow bones and joints that tend to have a good amount of meat and cartilage attached. After I roast the bones I remove the marrow before putting those bones into my stock pot along with the rest. I just eat the marrow straight with the slightest sprinkle of salt or spread it on toast. There are few things better then warm marrow. When my stock is finished I love gnawing the incredibly tender cartilage and meat that clings to the bone. In addition it is heavenly to suck out the stock that is deep within from the porous ends of the bone. Needless to say, this is a solitary activity. I can only imagine the look of horror that would come across my girlfriend's face if she saw me sucking and gnawing a plate of beef bones.

I love the simple but delicious stuffed mushroom recipe from Vincent Schiavelli's great cookbook "Papa Andrea's Sicilian Table: Recipes and Remembrances of My Grandfather." Preheat oven to 375°. Remove and coarsely chop stems from 18 large white mushrooms (about 2 lbs.), reserving caps. Heat 3 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil in a large, deep, skillet over medium-high heat. Add chopped mushrooms, season with salt, and cook, stirring occasionally, until mushroom mixture is dry, about 5 minutes. Slowly add 1/4 cup marsala. Cook until marsala has evaporated, about 2 minutes, then remove from heat, and stir in 1 1/2 cups fresh bread crumbs. Set aside to cool, then add 1 cup grated pecorino romano, 2 tbsp. finely chopped fresh parsley, and 1 minced peeled garlic clove. Mix thoroughly. Place mushroom caps in a single layer on a greased cookie sheet. Spoon filling mixture into caps, drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil, season with freshly ground black pepper, and bake until golden, 30–45 minutes. Serve warm. Serves 6–8.

I am taking my knives in there this week to be sharpened. I have not used Henry Westpfal before, I will report back on the results.

My girlfriend says the same exact thing everytime we go out for Italian. She also gets a kick out of how much restaurants in New York charge for it.

Alas, no. I love grits, but my girlfriend's mother is not a grits type of woman (I was not aware that such types exist south of the Mason-Dixon line. My last great grits experiance were the shrimp and grits I had at Jestine's Kitchen in Charleston, SC. in February. I am usualy skeptical of places that find there way onto to TV Food Network (it was featured on "Best Of" and $40 a day), but the food was great. The creamiest grits I have ever had topped with shrimp and a great tasting gravy.

1) I am going to try and replicate the biscuts. I am an avid cook, but I never bake. 2) The breakfast will definitely taste different outside of their native habitat, particularly when accompanied by the sound of garbage trucks and car alarms rather than breezes blowing through the magnolias. 3) My weekend was filled with examples of gracious southern living, but this was definitely tops. My girlfriends mother quickley hushed me when I suggested that she not go through all the trouble of making breakfast (this is the same woman who sleeps on the couch the night before Thanksgiving so she can awake every couple of hours to baste her turkey in the smoker) 4) There are no substitutes for the ethereal biscuts, I have had some at restaurants in Manhattan that fancy themselves Southern and they were as bad as attempts at BBQ up here. 5) Yes, I am surprised the South did not win, your food was a hell of a lot more worth fighting for.

I did not have any ribs but I did go to Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q in Decatur. There are two locations, I went to the original at 1715 6th Ave. Excellent BBQ sandwich and they also have a delicious white sauce for chicken. I also llike the coleslaw, no mayonaise, just sugar and vinegar.

I spent Memorial day wekend at my girlfriend's parents house in Decatur, Alabama, my first trip to the state. Being from Manhattan, but loving Southern food, I have long been deprived. My girlfriend's mother did not disapoint. Each morning she made scrambeled eggs, bacon, sausage patties, homemade buttermilk biscuts and gravy. Everything was cooked in her beautifuly seasond cast iron skillets (I counted about eight in her collection). While I have had eggs, sausage patties and bacon many times before, there is a discernable difference when they are fresh out of a cast iron skillet, the bacon was crisp and the patties developed a nice crust without being overcooked. The homemade biscuts and gravy were a first and is something I will truly miss. The biscuts, made with White Lilly flour and buttermilk were rolled out and cut with a glass and topped with a large pat of butter while they were still hot . Soft, warm, buttery, with the tang from the buttermilk, they were ethereal. Particularly when topped with the fantastic gravy made from mixing milk, flour, salt and pepper into the bacon dripings that remained in one of the cast iron skillets. I also drank about a gallon of half and half, half ice tea and half lemonade, which I never had before and became addicted to. Perhaps it was the warm Southern air, the view of magnolia blossoms or the laid back Southern attitude, but the breakfasts I had this past weekend in Alabama were the best I have ever had.

1. Cashel Blue - A mild , soft, sweet blue from Tipperary Ireland 2. Roaring Forties - A firm buttery blue from Kings Island Australia 3. Shropshire - Creamy and full flavored 4. Stilton - Always good

I took a two day trip to Charleston this past February and aside from one meal I thoroughly enjoyed eating there. The key to enjoying myself in Charleston was to steer clear of the high end restaurants. They try too hard and the quality of the cooking is simply poor. I ate at Peninsula Grill and aside from very good service, the meal was worth forgetting. On the way from the airport to Charleston I stopped at Sweatman's BBQ, Highway 453 (take the Holly Hill exit off of I-26). I do not want to enter a debate about mustard based BBQ, if you do not like it, you do not like it. The quality of the pulled pork at Sweatman's is very, very good and the fried skin is ethereal. Also the hash and rice were worth having. I did not have any but the qualified 'nana pudding expert I was with gave her thumbs up to Sweatman's version. Bowens Island, for roasted oysters is fantastic. Located on James Island, south of Charleston, off Foley Road. Around $17.50 gets you all the roasted oysters you can eat at this water side shack. I would travel back to Charleston simply for this place. You sit at a newspaper covered table with a square cut in the middle for the shells. Clumps of wild oysters are placed on a piece metal over a fire and covered with a burlap sack that is repeatedly hosed down. You are served oysters by the shovelful, along with a washcloth and oyster knife and sauce. Along with a beer this was one of the best things I have eaten in a long time. The oysters were sweet and the atmosphere is the definition of laid back. Jestine's Kitchen, 251 Meeting Street. Yes, it was featured on the Food Network, but no matter, the low country cooking here is great. I can reccomend the fried chicken, shrimp and grits (a Sunday special and my favorite thing at Jestine's) collards, okra gumbo, fried okra, fried green tomatoes, glazed ham steak and Coca-Cola cake.

1. Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Julia Child 2. Complete Techniques, Jacques Pepin 3. The Making of a Cook, Madeline Kamman 4. La Varenne Pratique, Anne Willian 5. French Regional Cooking, Anne Willian 6. Nose to Tail Eating, Fergus Henderson 7. Goose Fat and Garlic, Jeanne Strang 8. The Classic Cuisine of Italian Jews, Edda Servi Machlin 9. Heart of Sicily, Anna Tasca Lanza 10. Classic Pasta, Giuliano Hazan 11. Roast Chicken and Other Stories, Simon Hopkinson 12. The Slow Mediiterranean Kitchen, Paula Wolfert 13. Real Stew, Clifford Wright 14. Noodle, Terry Durack

Very difficult to name just three but: 1. Vacherin Mont d'Or - There are few things better than a perfectly ripe Vacherin. Cut off the top of the rind, grab a spoon and experience the glory, it will make your toes curl. 2. Cashel Blue - A mild, sweet blue cheese, with the creaminess of butter, it is from Tipperaray Ireland. 3. Humboldt Fog chevre - Made by Cypress Grove in Northern California. Humboldt is creamy, sweet and tangy, it melts in your mouth. It is also very pretty, covered in ash, stark white inside, with another layer of ash that runs through the middle in a thin line.