richardv

Are these included in the price of the skillet dinner, or did you pay separately for these a la carte?

I just got the current invite and the price is now $200.

Any chance you would share that recipe with us? No need to repeat what you've told us already about the kneading and rising; just ingredients and quantities would be fine for me. BTW, I have many sizes of those specialty pain de mie loaf pans. This might be the perfect way to put them to use.

I've been an avid photographer for decades and in years past, traveled with a digital SLR, lenses, tripod - the works. I thought nothing about bringing that huge camera (by today's standards) with flash and bounce hood into any restaurant. It never caused a problem and in some cases led to making new friends. In the past couple of years I have become self-conscious about using flash and have been searching for the best low-light, small digital camera I can find.

Convection certainly but if you're serious about European/artisan breads, steam injection.

Our current 12-cup Gevalia has an even worse flaw (for me anyway): When the lid is lifted to place the filter, the condensed water and coffee residue runs from the lid back into the reservoir! In the past we've had Gevalia coffee makers that had a separate lid for the reservoir.

It drives me crazy when I find a "wood burning oven" place that can't be bothered to make their own pizza dough! They spend the money to put in a wood burning oven but go to "Restaurant Depot" to buy frozen pizza dough. Amazingly, I was at a Wolfgang Puck franchise that did the same thing. Wolfgang is famous for his pizzas, they're a big part of the menu and yet he doesn't have them make their own dough to his specifications or even ship them HIS pizza dough frozen. Crazy.

Well, I guess I should have said that bread isn't too difficult for a high calibre restaurant to make well. The breads I've tasted from 'artisan' bakeries don't compare to the breads made at most of the restaurants I worked. Then again, there aren't many great bakeries around here. I suspect restaurants buying bread has alot to do with a lack of qualified staff, not to mention space is limited in a restaurant, and there are never enough ovens in a restaurant... ← If Jean Georges wanted to make his own bread (of the same quality he is currently serving) he would need at the minimum a steam-injection oven (big investment), an area to accomodate a large mixer and cutter, a baker as well as an area cool enough to allow the slow rises necessary for the dough to develop the required character/flavor. All of that to produce a product similar to what he can buy with none of that overhead. I thought the bread he served me was perfect; petit pain ordinaire; flour, water, salt & yeast; complex flavor with perfect consistancy.

Does anybody have any experience with The Spanish Pavillion in Harrison, NJ? Thanks.

Would people be kind enough to weigh-in on DB Bistro Moderne, please? I need a place in the Theater District (right around the corner, actually), and am kind of suspicious that there's no chatter about this place on eGullet. Is it terrible? Thanks.

Well no, read his comments and you will see that he goes on to talk about "some of those people are just bit with vituperative anger and just want to rail on you ... I don't like them." Wasn't Babbo a "no cameras allowed" restaurant?

Well, Mario comments on this in a short interview posted on New York Magazine's site: Batali: It’s amazing, these fucking Websites, these blogs. [Otto co-owner] Jason Denton hasn’t even thought about this pizza restaurant that isn’t even a pizza restaurant across the street from Otto, and he’s getting quoted. I call him and say, “Lips. What are you doing?” and he’s like “I want to tell you, I’m never planning on opening a pizza restaurant … I don’t know what happened on the blog this morning.” Whatever the blog heard is now fact. Bourdain: I think it’s great. They’ve beaten down the wall, and everybody’s invited to write whatever shit they want about you. It’s democratic. Batali: I’m not so much about these blogs by anonymous people saying nasty things about you. I think it’s getting pretty stupid. If there’s something interesting, and there’s somebody editing it and taking care of it, I’m down with it. But some of those people are just bit with vituperative anger and just want to rail on you. Bourdain: It’s inevitable, it’s the tide, there’ s no fighting it. There’s a bunch of these guys that are like Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons, whipping out their fucking little cameras, and five minutes after one of them says it’s the greatest, the next will say that’s so last week. That’s inevitable. I go to all those sites and enjoy them, especially when they’re about people I don’t like. Batali: Well, I don’t like them. __________________________________________ Full Story at: http://nymag.com/daily/food/2007/05/batali..._much_more.html

I didn't think the question was so much about metric as it was about using weights instead of volumn measurements. The inexact use of cups and teaspoons as measurements in baking seems to be an American thing. Any baking recipe I've ever gotten from a professional baker has all ingerdients stated by weight. To me, baking is a science and the more exact the recipe, the better chance of successfully replicating the result the author intended.

On the Blogosphere. Batali: It’s amazing, these fucking Websites, these blogs. [Otto co-owner] Jason Denton hasn’t even thought about this pizza restaurant that isn’t even a pizza restaurant across the street from Otto, and he’s getting quoted. I call him and say, “Lips. What are you doing?” and he’s like “I want to tell you, I’m never planning on opening a pizza restaurant … I don’t know what happened on the blog this morning.” Whatever the blog heard is now fact. Bourdain: I think it’s great. They’ve beaten down the wall, and everybody’s invited to write whatever shit they want about you. It’s democratic. Batali: I’m not so much about these blogs by anonymous people saying nasty things about you. I think it’s getting pretty stupid. If there’s something interesting, and there’s somebody editing it and taking care of it, I’m down with it. But some of those people are just bit with vituperative anger and just want to rail on you. Bourdain: It’s inevitable, it’s the tide, there’ s no fighting it. There’s a bunch of these guys that are like Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons, whipping out their fucking little cameras, and five minutes after one of them says it’s the greatest, the next will say that’s so last week. That’s inevitable. I go to all those sites and enjoy them, especially when they’re about people I don’t like. Batali: Well, I don’t like them. __________________________________________ Full Story at: http://nymag.com/daily/food/2007/05/batali..._much_more.html

Well, I don't know why she chose or offered what she did, but for a lot of reasons it would be wrong of me with this lady to say that I'd prefer to go to Jean Georges when that wasn't offered. (If that had been one of the offers, I'd have taken it!) I just know with this friend that among the choices she has offered, I absolutely don't have to pick the cheapest one of them. But I think I'd be really rude to ask for Jean Georges when she didn't include it.