SobaAddict70

I remember an account of a paella being made in the Time-Life Foods of the World series, in the Spain volume to be exact -- ditto on most of the details above, except that in the center was a dish placed face down and another on top of that placed face up, with salad in it. The idea was, that you'd eat the paella on the outside, alternately with bites of salad from the center, and when the salad was gone, take off the center plates and consume the paella in the center. Soba

So, how many of you actually go in and clean out every single crumb of chometz/chametz from your house and go and give it away to your friends? (See, I actually do know a little bit of Pesach-lore here and there, I'm not always the clueless gentile I usually am. It's just things like matzah sandwiches that sometimes make my head spin.) A friend of mine who claims to be Conservative but is actually bordering on Reform these days used to do it pretty regularly, by giving all his chometz to his neighbors when he was living in Astoria. This year, he couldn't do it on account of having a couple of herniated disks and a bite from a brown recluse (which he miraculously survived). Soba

BLT Steak (Amanda Hesser) (from the New York Times DIGEST update for 14 April 2004. Scroll down for the appropriate link.) Soba

Ok...now you REALLY have to explain this to me. What do they taste like? Cardboard sandwiches? Soba

This is a sister thread to the "How We Ate Growing Up" thread. As I've surfed all over eGullet, I'm frequently struck by how people determine what they have for dinner, and family dinner habits from household to household. I'm also curious as to how those of you who have children manage to get your children to eat new foods, and whether this is particularly difficult at dinnertime more so than any other time of the day or any other meal at any point in time. So without further ado, here's a list of questions I've got. Feel free to answer as much as you want or as little as you want. 1. In your family, do you cook dinner every single day of the week from scratch, or is there one or two days set aside each week during which time you prepare food in advance for the week? If you prepare things from scratch, are you able to prep some things in advance? 2. In your family, who determines what to have for dinner? How frequently does this happen? To what extent are likes and dislikes taken into account when planning a menu? Will you go out of your way to accomodate food preferences such as vegetarianism? 3. Do you have a set repertoire from which to draw your meal ideas from? Do you routinely explore new things and ideas to expand your dinner repertoire? When you go food shopping, are you a coupon clipper or are you an impulse buyer? Do you shop for food once a week, or do you shop for ingredients as you need them? 4. What gets discussed at the dinner table? Are there any topics that are considered off limits? 5. Do you have a set dinner hour, or does it vary from evening to evening? When your family has dinner, does everyone join in at the table, or will some have dinner elsewhere in your home? How often are kids (or relatives, or neighbors) over to have dinner at your home? How often do you have guests (nonfamily/nonfamiliar) over for dinner? How often do you have dinner parties? Do you like to entertain? When you entertain, do you involve your children or not? 6. How often do you introduce new food to your kids? Do you disguise it in such a way as to make it appealing, or are you pretty blatant about it? Are you a stickler for trying things out, or do you usually let things slide? 7. If you have any dinner table traditions in your family not covered above or elsewhere, we'd love to hear them. Ok, I think that's enough for now. Soba

I'm reminded of a short piece in the Time-Life series, "Foods of the World" in the Japan volume, of a kaiseki chef's conception of a fall festival, in which at least two courses involve matsutake -- one with the whole mushroom, one utilizing just the cap, and one utilizing the stalk. Sheer bliss. Soba

Silly boy... there are no chefs in hell, only microwaves. my dining companions would be bigots of every stripe. we'd probably spend most of our time slinging food at each other. as for food, that's easy -- all the food and drink I can't eat: stinky cheese (runny Epoisses, anyone?), wine by the glass, sake/hard liquour, and gallon jugs of milk. Soba

So, how often do people in Japan go to kaiseki restaurants? Are these primarily for special occasions? Here in NYC, they're fairly uncommon. I think we've had at most three or four in recent years (Sugiyama, Kai and two others I can't think of, off the top of my head), of which one (Sugiyama) is still in operation. Even then, Sugiyama isn't kaiseki in the sense that a Japanese person would know it, but rather a close approximation (which is to say, not close at all). Soba

You do realize that I'm sitting here in my office, dreaming about matsutake mushrooms right now? Soba

Would it be too entirely off-topic to describe the tea ceremony from beginning to end? Soba

The goalposts seem to have shifted. We started out talking about inventiveness in the kitchen. If we've moved on to PR, then we must add Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson, Delia Smith, Martha Stewart, Emeril . . . One measure of creativity is the lasting influence of a professional on other professionals. After the second world war, when the time was ripe to rediscover good food, it was an aristocratic English journalist who introduced the English-speaking world to the pleasures of simple southern European cuisine. Even in America, it was not the flamboyant Julia Child who had the most profound and lasting influence, but Elizabeth David, whose French provincial recipes were avidly devoured by Alice Waters and her successors, and whose monumental treatise on bread making taught Stephen Sullivan of Berkeley’s pioneering Acme Bakery, by his own admission, virtually everything he knew. Ms. David began as a journalist but used her success as a means of turning herself into a serious scholar. Not necessarily. Inventiveness in the kitchen is still the focus of the thread, but credit must be given to Julia and Alice for the inspiration they gave to those who followed them which made it possible for some people to become known. Indeed, the style of cuisine propagated by Alice Waters lends itself to the thread very well: cooking seasonally with locally grown ingredients is a wonderful starting point, but is this necessarily the only end that a chef can aspire to, or is it possible to evolve beyond that? Soba

Oh ho, Atelier's rating was one surprise out of many during Grimes' tenure. It's haute French cuisine, of the Lespinasse/ADNY level. Chef Gabriel Kreuther, formerly the chef-de-cuisine of Jean-Georges, opened Atelier in early 2003. The restaurant is located in the Ritz Carlton on Central Park South. I think you might like it. Many on eGullet thought that it merited four stars. How wrong we were. Atelier thread in the NYC forum Atelier (William Grimes) (from the NYTimes DIGEST update for 20 August 2003. Scroll down for the appropriate link.) Soba

I personally wouldn't be so dismissive of Michelin. Does the organization have its faults? Yes - but so does the NYT. And it really isn't totally mired in tradition (at least when it comes to France - which is where it's most useful in my opinion - just like the NYT is most useful in New York). I remember eating at Jamin (Robuchon) when it had 1 star. I think it had 3 stars before I got home from vacation! Robyn I wasn't being dismissive -- au contraire: oakapple's quote, which you left out by the way, is central to my point: that if Michelin rated the restaurants of New York, I'd suspect the order of top rated restaurants would be reversed in ways that would surprise quite a few people. Certainly the order of three and four star rated restaurants....Atelier (*cough*) springs to mind. Soba

Why, to inspire millions and millions of people to learn more about cooking and cuisine, of course. Without Julia, there wouldn't have been an eGullet. Hyperbole to be sure, but well deserved in any event. In Julia's time, "familiar and popular" was the opposite of what she set out to do and did. Cooking was, at least for most of the population, "unfamiliar and avant-garde", in a sense. Modern chefs owe many debts to many pillars of the culinary world -- Escoffier, for instance. I daresay that Julia is another. She may not be the principal pillar in your book, but she is in others. About a few hundred thousand others. Soba

Some chefs will never need to worry about being left behind because they're such giant figures in the restaurant industry that the shadows they cast will still be present long after they themselves have left the culinary stage. I am thinking principally of notables such as Alice Waters, Madeline Kamman and of course, the one and only Julia. Mario Batali is not yet there but is well along the way to approaching that stage. Give him another ten to fifteen years, I'd say. I don't think the question of whether it's better to be familiar/unfamiliar is necessarily limited to chefs in places such as New York, San Francisco and London. It's a question, I think, that applies to all chefs, regardless of whether they're cooking in family run bistros in Oskalooskee, Wisconsin, or in the wilds of Manhattan. Soba

she means to wash the brine off the lemon, I think. Soba

There would also have to be a pet cow named "Lassi" somewhere in the film. You know, kind of like a star cameo thingie. Somehow, a dog named "Lassie" just doesn't quite cut it. Soba

Oh, mongo, you mean to tell me you've never heard of that early 1980's cult sci-fi classic "Time Bandits"? My suggestion was a play on the title of the movie itself. heheheh, a product of my childhood.... Time Bandits Don't say I didn't warn you. heheheh Soba

What if Michelin rated the restaurants of say, New York City? Think of the argument this way: Michelin = tradition NY Times = innovation Soba

Friday dinner: broiled salmon, brown rice, steamed broccoli. apple juice. Saturday: broiled skinless boneless chicken breasts, pasta w/caramelized onions, a little EVOO and cracked black pepper. green salad. soy milk. Sunday: broiled skinless boneless chicken breasts, basmati rice. dal baati. tomato salsa. soy milk. Soba

NYTimes Weekend Update Friday, 9 April 2004 -- Sunday, 12 April 2004 Dining In/Dining Out Section and the Sunday Magazine Landmarc (Sam Sifton) Click here to discuss the article or contribute your experiences. Harlem Classics (Jason Epstein) Recipes in today's section: 1. Fried Chicken 2. Black-Eyed Peas 3. Alice Waters's Coleslaw Have a good week, y'all. Soba

Admin: Archived discussion about the NY Times' erronious listing of a 25% discount at Landmarc may be found here Landmarc (Sam Sifton) (from the NYTimes DIGEST update for the weekend of 9 April to 12 April 2004. You may have to scroll down for the appropriate link.) Soba

Mr. Asimov has been doing the bi-weekly column "Wines of the Times" for some time now. For more a selection of past columns, please click on the following links below. --Soba ------------------- Barbera Wines of Italy (Eric Asimov) (from the NYTimes DIGEST update for 17 March 2004; for this and the other links below, you may have to scroll down for the appropriate link.) A Selection Of Italian Pinot Grigots (Eric Asimov) (from the NYTimes DIGEST update for 3 March 2004) Spirits of the Times (Eric Asimov) (from the NYTimes DIGEST update for 18 February 2004.) Also included in this update is a sidebar online presentation given by Mr. Asimov, Amanda Hesser, Florence Fabricant and Garrett Oliver (brewmaster of the Brooklyn Brewery) on a selection of artisanal Armangacs. Click on the box entitled "Armangac's Country Cousin" to begin the presentation. Wines of the Times: Australian Pinot Noirs (Eric Asimov) (from the NYTimes DIGEST update for 4 February 2004.)

Short of going out and actually buying some fruit slices, can you describe the taste? Is it cloyingly fake sweet with a hint of tang? Or what? Unlike Jon here, I'm not about to buy a bar of sugarless chocolate. Soba

Tandoori Bandits. (*ducks from incoming*) Soba