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Hmm. If Rob (whom I've followed since Stratford) gets a multi-line bio, and the linebacker gets a mention of his other career, doesn't Paul Kirk deserve credit for his barbecue championships and books? Edit: Clarified by the addition of the word "barbecue," to avoid any confusion with Super Bowl championships.

Smokey's. Late 70s/mid 80s(?). Josh(?) Levin and his wife. Three stores: Ninth/24th, Amsterdam/93rd, Third/24th. Good ribs and chili; infernal hot sauce; those vile, greasy little shredded-potato nuggets ("Tater Tots"). Smokey's reappeared some years later in Florida, transgendered, with what looks to be an identical menu.

Herewith, the results of four days in Clam Country, coinciding, unfortunately, with a Red Tide infestation—after I had scheduled this visit early in the season to avoid crowds and the concomitant supplementation of the Cape Ann crop with non-native clams to accommodate demand. All the shacks are self-service, with both indoor and outdoor seating. Bill's Seafood is table-service only; Flo's is both table- and self-service. BILL’S SEAFOOD (Westbrook, CT). Big, soft, gooey, tasteless clams, competently prepared. Lobster roll in the Lenny & Joe’s style, even slightly better, but no match for Red’s (too tough and too many shreds). Outdoor waterside view accompanied by the thrum of car tires on metal bridgework. Cash only. FARNHAM’S (Essex, MA). My old sentimental favorite. Clams of the usual local size but not locally sourced, fried to their usual standard. As with Essex Seafood (see below) only the odd few had that lovely sweet, almost gamy, taste characteristic of the best of breed. Picnic tables between the road and the salt marsh; cheerful indoor seating. Cash only. ESSEX SEAFOOD (Essex, MA). Also Maine clams, slightly crisper than Farnham’s, with a bit more greasy residue. Some too large and excessively chewy. Picnic tables out back facing the trees. CLAM BOX (Ipswich, MA). Clearly the best sampled—as is true perhaps 75% of the time—if not quite so good as on previous visits. Of unspecified origin, but the only clams that might have passed as local. Uncharacteristically slightly underdone, and mine served slightly cold (my bad for not exchanging them). Picnic tables overlooking the parking lot. Cash only. WOODMAN’S (Essex, MA). Skipped this time, after too many past disappointments. LOBSTER POOL (Rockport, MA). No clams ordered, though on the menu. An OK lobster salad roll and an OK steamed lobster in a pretty seaside setting. It may be more than coincidental that the Clam Box was the only one of the Cape Ann joints that was seriously crowded. Farnham’s and Essex, however, provided the sweetest service. EVELYN’S (Tiverton, RI). Rhode Island, like Connecticut, does not produce fried clams as good as those in Massachussetts. Besides that, these were too soft. Cash only. FLO'S (Middletown, RI). A huge portion of clams, excessively breaded, with the sort of brittleness—not crispness—that bespeaks fattiness, though no residue was to be found on the plate. Unusual and nice underpinning of what New Yorkers would call mesclun. Cash only. SCALES AND SHELLS (Newport, RI). Tender littlenecks cooked in white wine with LOTS of garlic; sweet sea bass with the edge of a wood-grill char. A full-service, in-town restaurant. Cash only. A few bits of clamporn for the easily aroused:

Here's a spreadsheet that I've been haphazardly accumulating for years, containing the names and addresses (mostly) of New England clam shacks and lobster pounds. It's sourced from the Sterns, Holly Moore, Chowhound, eG, and my own happy discoveries. Note that it's sorted alphabetically within state. I've visited and can recommend most of the places listed, but some particular favorites reasonably close to Route 1 are: Abbott's (Noank, CT) -- A real seaside lobster pound, long before you get to Maine. It can be very crowded. Clam Box, Essex Seafood, J.T. Farnham's (Cape Ann, MA) -- Textbook fried clams, the ne plus ultra. The nearby Woodman's—or any place not near Cape Ann—is no match. Waterman's Lobster (South Thomaston, ME) -- Famous (a Beard award), but scenic and delicious nonetheless. A bit more expensive than Muscongus, below, but still not very. Muscongus Lobster (Round Pond, ME) -- The locals' lobster pound, with wonderful steamed clams, lobsters, and impeccably fresh oysters on a dockside deck. The Clam Shack in Kennebunkport is an old favorite that disappointed on my last visit two years ago. One famous place "just off" a bridge is Red's Eats, in Wiscasset, a few miles south of Damarascotta. Don't get caught in the crossfire betwen Holly and anyone who doesn't agree that Red's serves the best lobster roll. PM me if you have Microsoft Streets & Trips 2005 and want a .EST file approximately locating every place in the spreadsheet. Oh, and be sure call to ahead. Clams shacks and lobster pounds are seasonal—and sometimes transient.

It's too late for last Fall's New Yorker tour with Calvin Trillin, but the ICE (formerly Peter Kump's New York Cooking School) offers a $70 dim sum walking tour here. Addie Tomei, my junior-high English teacher many moons ago and the mother of Marisa, offers a more upscale experience, including an optional cooking lesson, here. A Google search turns up many Chinatown tours, with and without meals, but the above would seem reputable.

So, eGullet's--maybe the web's--first sea-going food blog. On which night does the buffet feature AYCE fried Ipswich clams?

I also remember a pastry, perhaps another danish, with a wonderful cinnamon(-almond?) filling. As Bux said, Sutter's common denominator was butter: it's been so long that the details have faded, but the "danish" may even have been made with croissant dough. Retro is good, but no one's yet indicated a yearning for the decor. More to the point, do you have the recipes? Some guy tried to recreate Ebinger's about ten years ago, but failed; he didn't attempt their entire repertoire, and, for the most part, the product was little better than Entenmann's. That said, best wishes. Really.

I also have the fondest childhood memories of Sutter's on Flatbush Avenue. Whenever the family went a-visiting relatives out Queens way, we'd detour via Sutter's to pick up some cookies to bring along and some brioches and danish* to eat in the car, the prune being my special favorite. How about someone's opening an Old Brooklyn Nostalgia Bakery, with a Sutter's counter on one side and an Ebinger's on the other? ------------------------------------------------------ * Would anyone ask for "a couple prune danishes"?

Here's a little Flo's preview:

If we're thinking of the same place, the Sea Swirl is in Mystic Connecticut, just a few miles this side of the Rhode Island border. Their clams are good, but not the very best. As for the necks, it's entirely possible that the much-praised Thirsty Whale is on to something, but here are some of the top-level shacks that remove them: Arnold's (MA), Aunt Carrie's (RI), Bigelow's (NY), Bob's Clam Hut (ME), Cindy's (ME), Clam Box (MA), Clam Castle (CT), Essex Seafood (MA), Flo's (RI), Farnham's (MA), Johnny Ad's (CT), Lenny & Joe's (CT), Sea Basket (ME), Sea Swirl (CT), The Clam Shack (ME), and Woodman's (MA). Many people mistake the curly loop, separate from the belly, for the neck (see the picture upthread), but that's just the clam's outer superstructure that supports the mighty belly. I’d forgotten to mention Arnold’s in my earlier post; though I haven’t been in several years, it was an old favorite.

Bookbinders, purveyors of "the cleanest clams in captivity," or something like that. Though large, those steamers were definitely imported from New England, of the rectangular/flat/stubby-necked variety.

I grew up eating at Lundy’s in Sheepshead Bay once a week, and discovered the Sterns’ Roadfood in my early twenties, so clams are an old hobby of mine. Deep down inside, I still believe that Lundy’s were the best ever, anywhere, but the new Lundy’s isn’t the old Lundy’s, so we’ll never know. My ideal is the Ipswich/Essex model: no batter, no breading, and no crumbs—just the thinnest brittle mantle of fine corn flour (or a mixture of corn and wheat), clinging tightly to a tender, de-necked New England soft clam. The taste should be mostly of sweet, briny (and even slightly gamy) clam, with just a hint of the nutty taste and scent of roasted corn. There must be no fatty feel or aftertaste, no gaps between the coating and the clam, and none of the mushiness (hello, Woodman’s!) that results from mashing fried seafood too tightly into the bottom of a container. Each clam must be separate and distinct from its brethren and sistren, not an atom in some bready, clammy mass. The best soft clams are the somewhat rectangular-shaped variety from New England and Long Island. I prefer mine medium-sized with at least a bit of belly goo, but I’ll take even tiny, goo-free New England clams over the bulbous, testicular monstrosities that seem to live in the warmer waters off New Jersey and Maryland (both for frying and for steaming). Many good clam shacks, including Bigelow's, source theirs, albeit pre-shucked, from the Ipswich Shellfish Company. Unfortunately, however, demand generally so outstrips supply these days, and prices have so risen, that “native Ipswich” clams, even served in Ipswich, are not necessarily native to Ipswich. Who's next?

Holly, I'm afraid I must demur with respect to Johnny Ad's, based on a single visit last Spring. I stopped there on my way up to Cape Ann and Maine, and found their fried clams good--better than, say, the Clam Castle's or Lenny & Joe's--but inferior to those at the Clam Box, Essex Seafood, Farnham's, and probably even Woodman's. I was also disappointed on that trip with the clams served by a long-time favorite, the Clam Shack in Kennebunkport; those, too, were good but not great. I've never made it to Allison's, so thanks for the tip. Proximity has its charms, but the real thing still requires a drive farther north. (With the caveat that I've not visited in two years, the best fried clams I've had south of Cape Ann were at Bigelow's, about 25 miles east of midtown Manhattan, in Rockville Center.) Perhaps we should discuss our criteria for what makes the perfect fried clam. Strips, of course, need not apply.

Ruskay's? Wow, that takes me back. Ruskay's, an early proponent of the restrictive tasting menu: unless you wanted steak (always available), you'd call in the afternoon to inquire about that evening's three-course $7 dinner, because that's all that they'd be serving. As I recall, the menu was expanded and the hours extended before the place closed, but that was the original idea. The food was pretty good, too, and certainly cost-effective.

Surely you meant, "I don't think Barbot is influenced by Aduriz's cuisine..." And Per Se is in New York.

So...any evaluations yet, either first-person or in the press?

Actually, lobsters and cockroaches are not all that phylogenetically distant. There's even something called a lobster roach, of which this is a picture of two mating. Does the place look ready to open?

So who's going to report on the new Old Original Bookbinder's, risen from the dead? Based on this article, it sounds ominously dissimilar to the original.

Some questions that occurred to me over the course of the seminar: Did the immersed parts of partially immersed samples differ in texture and/or taste from the fully immersed samples? From the interior of the unimmersed parts of the same samples (to discount for greater exterior caramelization)? Was the crappiness of FG's foil-tray samples due to a higher ratio of liquid to total vessel volume? If not, then what? Why is it assumed that temperature stability during cooking (i.e., a vessel with high heat capacity) is beneficial, when reheating experiments showed that cooling and reheating improved flavor? Perhaps fluctuation is a good thing, so long as the high end does not substantially exceed a simmer. BTW, my old MagPro pots have cast-aluminum covers substantially heavier than the flimsy things accompanying Calphalon, All-Clad, and similar current cookware.

The side walls of a Calphalon Commercial 2.5 quart low-rise (8.5x3") saucepan, which I bought mostly because it cost only $17, are fully 3/8" thick. I'll bet it will do a heckuva stovetop braise-for-one (or -two).

Dueling transliterations aside, does everyone agree that vin is pronounced comme ci?

When will you be accepting questions and comments from those who only stand and lurk? For example, did the immersed parts of partially immersed samples differ in texture and/or taste from the fully immersed samples? From the interior of the unimmersed parts of the same samples (to discount for greater exterior caramelization)? Was the crappiness of FG's foil-tray samples due to a higher ratio of liquid to total vessel volume? Are you going to try Tom Valenti's famous (and my favorite) braising technique, wherein the meat is uncovered partway through cooking and rotated every so often? Just asking... wait, no. Didn't I see slkinsey already participating in one thread, though not himself a braiser? (He was correct, as I recall, in suggesting that differences among cooking vessels should be more apparent on the stovetop than in the oven.) So how about it?

As I recall, Mr. DiStefano was formerly listed on the Devi website as Consulting (not Executive) Pastry Chef. No time now for details, but over the course of several meals in the past few months, mostly at times when the restaurant was relatively uncrowded, I could hardly have been more pleased with either the food or the service. Eating at Devi makes me happy.

This book predates that recommendation. Recipes specify only however many "packets sugar substitute," and the introductory text omits any discussion of which to use or how to combine them. A more recent Atkins book suggests, in a different recipe, that 2 packets of mixed sweeteners is equivalent to 3 packets of a single kind.

I’ve had some success in baking The Best Recipe’s “Rich and Creamy” cheesecake, replacing the sugar measure-for-measure with granular Splenda (the stuff in boxes), and replacing the graham-cracker crust with one of ground hazelnuts and almonds (and a dash of cinnamon, and, of course, butter). I recently compared this recipe to the one appearing in Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Cookbook. Without violating any copyrights, The Best Recipe specifies 1 1/4 cups of sugar for 16 oz cream cheese, four eggs, 1/4 cup sour cream, and 1/4 cup heavy cream; whereas Atkins specifies twelve packets of artificial sweetener for 16 oz cream cheese, three eggs, and one cup crème fraîche or sour cream. Since one packet of artificial sweeter equals 2 teaspoons of sugar, and 48 teaspoons of sugar equal one cup, Atkins calls for the equivalent of 1/2 cup of sugar vs. 1 1/4 cups for The Best Recipe for roughly the same amount of solid and liquid ingredients. Can anyone correct my arithmetic or otherwise account for this factor-of-two discrepancy? Edit: Added the eggs.