The Hersch

I once favored Boissiere for martinis (which are made with gin and vermouth), but I agree that it's not as good in cooking. Because of that and the fact that it's not to be found just anywhere (at least around here), I rarely buy it any more. For both martinis and cooking duty, Noilly Prat is now my vermouth of choice. I used to assume that Gallo vermouth from California, which is very cheap indeed, couldn't possibly be any good. Then a few years ago on one of Julia Childs's television programs she said something about a California vermouth that was just awful, but whose name she would not reveal. Well, she had to be talking about Gallo, so I felt my actually uninformed judgment had been validated. Who would know better than Julia? Then a couple of years ago, Cook's Illustrated did a blind test of vermouths in cooking (I think they might also have tasted the stuff as is), and surprisingly the two winners were Noilly Prat and Gallo, with M & R and Boissiere down at the bottom of list. So one day when I was in an inferior supermarket in rural Virginia needing some vermouth and all they had was Gallo, I bought a bottle. It's very good! A nice clean taste with the appropriate floral notes, no off flavors at all, and it's good for cooking and martinis. And as I say, it's cheap even for vermouth.

I think the Waldorf Salad is much improved by replacing the raw celery, which I don't care much for, with raw fennel. I've never tried it in a Waldorf, but celeriac would also surely be an improvement over celery.

I have been having brunch at Bistro Français every couple of months for a couple of years. I haven't been there for dinner in eons. The service is certainly uneven. I usually have the Eggs Benedict, and it's always been very close to perfect. About six weeks ago, my last visit, I had the Norwegian version, and that, too, was excellent, with a very generous portion of quite respectable smoked salmon. The pommes frites are almost always superb, and they were on that occasion--about as good as they get in this life, very much like what you get in Paris. The escarole salad that is the only starter with the prix-fixe brunch is nice in its way. And you can't beat the price ($18.95) if you take advantage of the bottomless glass of French sparkling wine. I recommend sitting in the room to the right as you enter; it's much quieter and more relaxing than the other room.

I suppose one can't expect a magician to reveal how her tricks work, but as someone who has made a good number of ravioli I sure wish I knew how she did that. How do you get a raw egg yolk inside a raviolo AND have it still runny when the raviolo is finished cooking? That's two bits of magic in one dish. And my god it looks good. Beautiful photographs of beautiful food.

Old-time Washingtonians may agree that the way the Whitehurst Freeway used to smell before they closed the rendering plant in lower Georgetown was world-class repulsive, although I find myself now strangely nostalgic for it. Among the most intoxicatingly wonderful: the heady perfume of exquisite, ripe, vulnerable strawberries during the two or three hours when they are perfectly ready to fulfill their destiny to be ravished and devoured...few scents can rival that. Others have mentioned apples and cinnamon. Why is it that whenever Americans cook apples cinnamon seems to be obligatory? I find cinnamon kind of sickening (although not as nauseating as nutmeg). An apple is simply not improved by cinnamon. A cinnamonless apple pie is a fragrant delight which cinnamon would spoil.

Bolinhos de Bacalhau...little footballs of salt cod, mashed potato, onion, egg, and seasonings, deep fried. The National Snack of Portugal, and one of my favorite foods.

The principal seasonings in chouriço are paprika, garlic, and black pepper. In a caldo verde, the chouriço is typically added just before serving, because if it were allowed to cook in the soup the paprika would spoil the color. The same would hold true for a white bean soup (which sounds very good, btw). There's an excellent David Leite article on chouriço here .

There are three different sausages: Mexican chorizo, which I think is what's in your freezer...sold raw in tubes of plastic wrap; Spanish chorizo, which is a ready-to-eat, dry-cured affair; and Portuguese chouriço, which is similar to Spanish chorizo but not quite the same thing. Of the three, Mexican chorizo would be wildly inappropriate in a caldo verde, Spanish chorizo would be pretty good, and chouriço would be authentic.