Chris Amirault

I've been fiddling with Keller's Bouchon mac n cheese (mornay base), which is great if you bump up the oven temp to 425F or so.

Make Naw Mai Fon. With that lop yuk you've been curing.

I'm thinking that Maggie has a good point. Maybe, like the "sixties," which happened in the 1970s for most people (if at all), 50s cocktail parties took place primarily in the 1960s. Flipping through Jane and Michael Stern's great American Gourmet: Classic Recipes, Deluxe Delights, Flamboyant Favorites, and Swank "Company" Food from the '50s and '60s, I can't imagine that most people save Vincent Price and James Beard were making "the Golden Eggs of Crassus" at home even as late as 1959.

Folks might want to check out the Kosher questions topic for some background information.

Seems like you have quite a few food ideas. What cocktails are you considering? I'd go with two or three options: Manhattans (or Brooklyns, or Red Hooks) with some quality rye or bourbon; some Tiki drinks -- if you've got velvet falernum, I'd go with a Test Pilot; and a sour, like a classic Sidecar. Of course, you gotta serve some real Martinis with orange bitters.

Thanks johnnyd! Around the holidays, they were selling out at both Providence Whole Foods. Believe me, I know: I had to buy two orders. A house member inadvertently froze (ahem) a couple of pounds that I bought for that meal above, and I defrosted them the last couple of days. Tonight, I did the quick blanch in salted water that johnnyd recommends, and did a peel 'n' eat with some scrambled eggs and sliced cucumber. Man, they were good.

Oil temp?

Took a few days to get the photos up from the New Year's cassoulet. I didn't do a step-by-step since the method was, again, an amalgam of the Wolfert, Bourdain, and Saveur Cooks French recipes. The meats were duck confit, fresh ham hocks, pork bellies, and the Toulouse sausages. The beans were flageolet from Rancho Gordo, and I must say that they were remarkable things. I strongly urge people to buy them. Really. What else... some duck stock and the jelly from the confit, some roasted garlic, some onion confit.... I tried to set up the oven to replicate the clay chamber: It worked pretty well, and I pushed the crust down six or seven times, so there's not as much on the top when you see it: As Paula suggested up-topic, the clay pot retained more moisture in the beans, so the entire cassoulet was appropriately moist. In addition, a year of getting my sausage act together had a great effect on those Toulouse links. It was just fantastic -- and much of what was fantastic about it came directly from the folks here. So thanks -- and Happy New Year!

Let's be clear, now. I'm not talking about MFK Fisher or the Thornes. Books with recipes tossed into them now and then don't count. I'm talking about books whose raison d'etre is helping you cook food. Of those books clearly designed to be cookbooks, are there any that you like to curl up with and read? Why read them? What makes a cookbook a page-turner that you just have to finish? Right now, my bedside reading is Colman Andrews's Catalan Cuisine: Europe's Last Great Culinary Secret. I bought it to prepare for a trip to Barcelona and have been immersed it in whenever I get a chance. His commitment to the cuisine itself, to the persnickety, strange details, and to that which cannot quite translate for American consumption makes for very compelling reading to me. There's also something wonderful about his assertion that this "brown food" (his description!) is one of the triumphs of world cuisine. The last time I felt this way about a cookbook was when I got my hands on Fergus Henderson's The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating. A radically different book than Andrews's, with prose that Hemingway would have found sparse, but one that displays a sensibility about and sensitivity toward the eating of killed animals that is evocative. I read it in one night, and then read it again the next day. Those are two of my cover-to-cover favorites. Yours?

I don't really think it's that big of a surprise at this point that Food TV is in the process of transitioning into a lifestyle channel. All of their demographic research clearly indicates that focusing only on cooking -- and on viewers who know what bechamel means -- will bring a sure, swift death. Their money stars have been doing more and more outside the constraints of "cooking," and this guest seems tailor-made for the sorts of collateral opportunities for food (Wheat Thins), books (name it), and merchandise (NASCAR and NFL tie-ins) that support that expansion. ETA: Steve, dude, if you're gonna crack on people for not knowing a sauce, I think you need to spell it right!

In 1993 while driving down PCH I had a conversation with my agronomist then-brother-in-law who stated, definitively, that I would never eat a good grocery store tomato in my lifetime. He was as certain as certain can be. So what happened? Was there some agricultural equivalent of the Manhattan Project going on in the last decade involving the love apple?

Shaya, those veal shanks are astonishing -- bulbous, even. I've never seen anything like them. What osso bucco recipe did you use? Oh, and here's the link to Percy's molten chocolate cakes.

This is fantastic. It should be called a "Sky Pilot," as it's sort of a Corpse Reviver #2 on acid.

Here at the BKF website or at your local grocery, Sur Le Table, or Williams Sonoma store.

I think that the beans' texture is really the key: firm and tender both, so perfect for the bumpy ride that is casoulet. I hope we'll see your recipe in Recipe Gullet, Dave!

I'd say use that amount.

In Milwaukee, where there were nine or ten bars within a three-block radius of my house in Riverwest, the egg and beer breakfast was common for folks getting off the 12m-8a shift at the plants and breweries.

I suggest that you do the roast chicken. It's very simple and stunning: the room will fill with the aroma of the truffles when you bring in the bird(s).

I thought I'd share a couple of photos of the fantastic Clay Coyote cassole that I just got: It's just a beautiful thing, and I'm dying to break it in with this week's cassoulet. I have a potentially dumb question, though, as this is my first piece of stoneware cooking: do I need to do anything save a good wash? Like, um, season it or something?

Sounds good to me. I'll just be doing a salad.

Or a Last Word.

carpetbagger, esq., why can there be only one?

Here's what it looked like in execution. Devils on horseback canapés, which paired up fantastically with the Red Hook Cocktails: Maine shrimp bundles, which were tied with the cucumber pickle noodle things and were the best dish of the night by all accounts: Mushroom noodle soup. The rosemary really exuded a wonderful aroma stuck into this twisted noodle nest: Lobster tempura, the one dish of the night that wasn't a success, as the tempura frying didn't at all bring out the sweet flavor of the lobster. The sauces, however, were great, and the celery leaves were a good idea, as they gave off their own aroma under the hot oil of the lobster: Finally, following a plate problem and a bit more wine than is good for successful photography, here's the ham and eggs, another winner: No sausage course, as people were bursting at the seams after the lobster course and I kept 'em in the fridge. The wines were fantastic -- thanks, Jack, especially for the gewurztraminer recommendation, which was beloved by all. I appreciate everyone's help!

They made it through the 33F night on the second floor porch (heh) and I just did a two-minute blanch and shelled them. The fleshmeat is now on ice in the fridge. Thanks, everyone, for your help!

OK, I think that the elements are conspiring with me here. According to this report by the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, tonight's low of 34F may be perfect for storing these lobsters. I'm going to go with an overnight stay on the porch with plenty of wet newspapers to keep their gills moist. Sounds like I could get as many as three days with that set up. Wish me luck.