Jason Perlow

It is actually possible to make a decent gumbo without using roux, but it is a totally different animal. This is the signature gumbo from Bozo's Seafood Restaurant in Metairie, Louisiana. I'm not sure if the place survived Katrina and the resulting flooding of the New Orleans metro area, but it had the distinction of being the one of the few gumbos in the city (perhaps the only?) that was rouxless. By the way, it was an awesome gumbo. It had a thin, but very flavorful broth, which I think was a strong chicken stock, and thickened with a lot of okra.

What about the Clinton Inn (Christinos Restaurant) in Tenafly? They are supposed to do a nice brunch. http://www.christinos.com/Sunday%20Brunch.htm Sanzari's New Bridge Inn has a private dining room upstairs, I am sure they could put together a very nice meal for you.

I'd certainly like to try this place, but it would take an extreme effort to get me to Astoria to have Brazilian food when we have the Ironbound here in Jersey.

I'm sort of torn between Gopdol (Dolsot) Bibimbap and Yuke (Yook-Hwe) Bibimbap as my favorite preparations.

I was just going to say, does all it take to get into the New York Times is to cook a few sacred cows on this site every so often?

This also really amazes me, and I am surprised that both Mario and Pepin would suddenly just retract their endorsement of the book in such a fashion. This sounds a hell of a lot like the Culinary Old Boy network at work to me. Restaurant Bilderbergers perhaps circling the wagons? I've blurbed a number of books (and reviewed hundreds of products) in the computer industry, and I can tell you, I am always scared out of my wits that I said something stupid and innacurate or evidentiary that I hadn't read the material or looked closely enough at the product -- I sometimes blow entire weekends (weeks?) reading/analyzing these things just so I can make my statements with absolute certainty. I have a reputation as an authority on my subject to uphold, and what I say can carry a great deal of impact on my industry. In the computer media, if you make "random" statements or display that you don't know what the hell you are talking about, or didn't do your homework, it can be extremely damaging to your carreer. Batali and Pepin can't take two hours out of their time to read a book by one of their industry peers so they can sound intelligent and with finality in their assessment of it? What the hell is the problem?

There's some minor variation I think between whatever cook might be on duty. That particular omelette does have a -lot- of cheese in it. I've had that omelette at least twice, once on a Sunday morning and the other during the week in the evening, it was very good both times, but I believe there was a slight difference in the preparation of the tomato sauce and the amount of cheddar cheese used. Cheddar unfortunately is one of those cheeses that doesnt melt evenly, and even between samples of cheddar from the same vendor you dont get the same results every time. I had a Spinach/Feta omelette there the other night that had the mushroom sauce on top of it that they use for the Eggs Michael, it was really good.

Well, it is a Treo picture, dude. This is the same type of omelette taken with my Nikon:

For those who missed it last week: A Chain Restaurant Unbound

No, I think a token few places in NYC can serve it, it requires a special license issued jointly by the NY Health Department and some state agency in Japan to specific chefs. Sushi Yasuda is one of them, as is Kuruma Zushi. At least this was the case around 2002/2003.

I think its open to all bartenders now, not just NY metro area ones.

Empire Rulez.

John Larroquete still needs good scripting to be funny. He wasn't even funny on his own prime time TV show (and the best person on it was Liz Torres) which was definitely funnier than KC, and I think that lasted three seasons from 1993 onwards? He was brilliant on Night Court, but that show had amazing writing and Night Court was probably one of the top 10 sitcoms in television history. I think he has been doing TV movies now, a series called Mcbride for Hallmark? I haven't seen any but they aren't comedies, I think they are murder mystery type thingies along the lines of Columbo. Ironically, I think Larroquete might make an interesting choice to play the contemporary Tony Bourdain, even though Larroquete is about 10 years older than him. If you think about it, Dan Fielding and Bourdain are very similar archetypes, so its not like its out of his reach.

Well, in this case though, how can you blame FOX? It just plain sucked. Frankly, I expected better of Darren Starr. Do you think he was just hamstrung by the limits of prime time network TV as opposed to cable? Not enough opportunities for raunchy language and sex scenes?

Wow, that was fast.

I'll ask Rachel to post it tomorrow.

We used the Cuisinart, which I am not sure if it is going to affect the texture or not. Zayda would have used the box grater, but we don't have that kind of patience. Well, actually we do, but we reserve hand grating for latkes. I'm not sure if it really makes a difference with kugels.

Rachel says we combined two potato kugel recipes (one of which I think is Melissa's) to make this kugel, but we made a number of additions/modifications, which includes adding shredded carrot as well as the caramelized onion in addition to the raw onion, plus parsley. And oh yeah, we used Yukon Golds. And uh, lots of schmaltz. Did I mention we used lots of schmaltz?

The house smells amazing. For dinner, we also cooked up some seasoned ground lamb kebabs and had some with schmaltz-lubed roasted potatoes, along with lettuce, tomato and pita bread and (ready to eat) hummus.

I spent most of my sunday babysitting the chicken soup while Rachel had her open house. Tonight, we made the matzo balls and the potato kugel -- which I might add, smells awesome, and I am really restraining myself by not cutting a nice peice of that sucker and eating it right now. I'm not sure how I am going to wait to eat it until Tuesday evening. We also cut up like a dozen yellow onions (requiring several breaks in between to wash our crying eyes out from all that sulphuric gas) and caramelized the hell out of them, which took up most of the evening and added a decent amount of them to the kugel in addition to raw grated onion. It's non traditional, and it met with some resistance when I suggested we do it, but I think the results will surely make the effort worth it. The Kugel and Matzo balls are of course seasoned with a lot of that magic ingredient, schmaltz.

The answer is no. Hell no. ← Unless it is the poultry form of Waygu beef ... ← I am a loyal Empire man. No brining required either.

Thats more like it.

The answer is no. Hell no.

For stingers I use the basic level Pierre Ferrand. At that price point, you're getting a good brandy that is drinkable on its lonesome AND you don't have to feel bad about using as a mixer. And if it doesn't have to be French, theres absolutely nothing wrong with using a Spanish Brandy either. Just don't use a Solera Grand Reserva, use a Reserva, they are about 10 or 20 bucks cheaper. I'd go with one of the lower end Domecq ones, like Azteca de Oro, which is made in the Spanish style of a Solera Grand Reserva, but in Mexico. If you want to try a new twist on Spanish Brandies, Uno En Mil, which is made by Sanchez Romate, the same people that make Cardenal Mendoza ($50 per bottle, definitely not a mixer) is great as a sipper as well as a mixer, at a much lower price point. Alize isnt bad either as a mixer.

I don't think it is likely I will end up at C46's Sunday brunch with any regularity in the future simply because Rachel now works every Sunday and I am frequently travelling that day of the week. The fact that I just got a second car may improve the situation a bit, but I'm not likely to go eat there on my lonesome. That being said, I do want to return for dinner sometime soon. Luciano also has a distinctive tan, whereas, I burn.