corinne

This is great news. There is no decent restaurant within 5 miles of my Long Valley home.

I love the Black Forest. Well worth the trip.

I hear what your saying, but for those of us used to the drek available in the US, FAGE yogurt is awesome.

Buon Italia usually does have it -

Buon Italia at the Chelsea Market

Fianlly convinced my husband that we can't garden without a compost pile and boy is he a convert. No more dragging big plastic bags full of dirt from the nursery but getting the most beautiful sweet smelling compost from your own veggie scraps. We use a rectangular porcelain enamel containier the size of a shoebox which has a lid as a "GB". My next trick will be the acres of plastic wrap that he swathes everything in. When Robert wraps it stays super fresh, though.

My ex-boyfriend and I had a Christmas Eve gathering one year, very elegant, with the food to be served just so - a multi-course buffet with lots of fish dishes the Italian way. His oafish family started helping themselves out of chafing dishes before the other receptacles were filled. We had a room with French doors that the food was being set up in and tried to close them out, but no luck. Then some cousins arrived hours late. Mr Hypoglycemia with many food allergies who needed food cooked to order immediately. By then the food had been put away, out it came again, with him grilling me on each ingredient.

Opah Grill in Gladstone is the closest good restaurant. Limestone Cafe is pretty good and just a bit further down. Tewksbury Inn is also good, 15 minutes in the other direction. All will be JAMMED! Willie's Tavern is not good. The last meal I had at Venezia last winter was mediocre.

What's the address?

Don't know if anyone's posted about Auroro Creations. I just bought some for my health food store today. A lovely women started packaging spice mixes to send to her son when he was in college in Michigan. Now their blends are sold in Whole Foods and health food stores in the NY-NJ area. Being a nutritionist, I love the implications for disease prevention with many Indian spices, i.e. turmeric as a potent anti-inflammatory in part responsible for low Alzheimer rates in India.

Does Bobolink have a website?

Why are we so shortsighted? I'll eat this "delicious" mcDonald's hamburger today and won't have to deal with the health consequences for twenty years,... I'll buy cheap at Walmart today and worry about the downstream effects when the yuan starts trading at its real value sometime in the future. I think many of us are paralyzed by fear and ignorance, but at least admit there's a BIG problem. Having just read "Fast Food Nation", I was fuming to learn how America subsidizes loans to fast food franchisees who may go bust. Everyone loses but the corporation. Now we are subsidizing Walmart. I went with a friend last week. It was my first time in many years. The prices were so low that it was scary, now I see why.

I was surprised to find them on my morning run through the woods (in the wilds of Morris County, NJ). We harvested a few pounds over the weekend, then noticed them on our own property. Corinne

I agree with the last post - walking through the Chelsea Market to the stores mentioned is great fun - and doesn't require a tour guide by any stretch of the imagination! If the weather is as beautiful as this past weekend make sure you head down 14th street to the Union Square Greenmarket. It's just now bursting into bloom. Corinne

Farm raised salmon has been a blight on the environment and for what? It's practicaly tasteless and the diet of fish meal means that it is lacking in omega-3 fats.

We stopped in at the Hotel Lutece last Saturday and there was a lovely, fancy brunch in the offing for Sunday. Pricey and extensive, I think it was 39 euros but not sure.

I don't see how one could (or should) separate the issue of added synthetic pesticides in conventionally farmed foods from the plethora of other problems with monocultures since the issue at hand is really whether or not it makes sense to buy organic.

Patrick S., organic farms rely on much greater diversity of crops to maintain optimal soil conditions and keep down pest problems. One example is Natural Systems Agriculture which relies on the ecological benefits of natural ecosystems. Some soy and grain farmers are modeling their fields after the native prairie by featuring a diversity of grains such as soy, corn and sorghum.

You said it very eloquently, Darcie. I buy organic in large part so that my children and grandchildren will have a world that can viably produce healthy foods. For more on this, see "Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture" 2002 by the Foundation for Deep Ecology.

I think that coming out with the raw crabcakes was way over the top. I don't think that it is the chef's place to "defend" his creation to the customer in that way. It just makes for embarassment on the diner's part. I would think the owner would be after making the diner more comfortable, not less. It doesn't sound as if any of the parties behaved poorly purposely. Still, I don't know if I'd want to go back.

If you want to add more organic foods you could check out a natural foods purveyor like Tree of Life Northeast. I think another is Albert's. I'm not sure what their minimums are, but if you switched some of your staple ordering to order with them maybe you'd meet it.

My absolute favorite is crumb cake. Very hard to find it properly made, which to my taste is with BIG crumbs and the cake almost breadlike instead of the oily, poundcake-like bottom most often featured. A friend used to bring it to me from a certain bakery in NJ, Clifton I think. Does anyone know this place? I had a piece at Zabar's last week. Sadly, it had the cakey bottom. The crumbs were pretty good, though. Next week I'll be in Paris and intend to eat my fill of French breakfast pastry, especially croissants avec confiture et beurre (lots of butter and jam)

Fairway sells grana padano for about $7/pound, reggiano is $12 or so. Zabar's also has a great cheese selection, haven't checked the prices for "grating cheese" as we called it.

First thing this morning a big chewy molasses spice cookie that I've grown addicted to French ham and brie on white toast with lots of mustard

Turmeric is also an excellent anti-inflammatory. The most recent study I saw looked at it's ability to dissolve brain plaques. It turns out that India has the lowest rate of Alzheimer's (now being recognized as an inflammatory condition) in the world.