Mimi Sheraton

And watch out for the buckshot..although the chef does too...the menu will have a disclaimer..more for your bridgework than your innards..Enjoy!

This is intended as a heads-up for anyone who loves game birds as much as I do and who knows that Brits have a special way with them. Pace, animal rights activists while I celebrate this special kind of gourmandise - the arrival of wild red grouse on the New York restaurant scene as sampled last night at Orsay's, the Lexington Avenue reincarnation of Mortimer's. In the midst of writing about red grouse, a game bird I had years ago at the Connaught Grill in London, I read in the New York Post (Sept. 20th and on-line) that Orsay's was taking advance orders for this lusty, gamey bird, never farm-raised and existing only in the British Isles, most especially in Scotland. Aha! I thought. A chance to refresh my memories of this uniquely succulent bird. Idea is that the would-be diner calls the restaurant 5 days to a week in advance and the order is then relayed to a game estate where the birds are shot, hung then flown to the U.S. , which is what I did. Chef Jason Hicks being a Brit, braised our birds precisely to faintly blood-red perfection enhancing their primitive, aphrodisiac flavor, soothing it with seasonings of smoky bacon, carrots, celery, parsnips, onions and thyme. Garnishes are chosen by the diner and I ordered the traditional bread sauce, jus, game chips, watercress and a crouton spread with the grouse liver. The cost was $45 per grouse main course and may fluctuate depending upon who knows what. August 12th marks open season for grouse shooting in Britain and event of much ritual and celebration. Other wild Scottish game promised on the Orsay menu include red-legged partridge, Blue Mountain hare civet and wood pigeon, all of which I intend to try.

And, come to think of it, it's no wonder Popeye ate canned spinach as devotess of that cartoon may recall...His theme song "I fight to the finish, 'cause I eat my spinach, I'm Popeye-the-sailorman.." may have new, macabre meaning.

Local is fine for many reasons, but everyplace is local somewhere...including environs of the Calif. farms where the tainted spinach is believed to have come from. Sadly, organic may be part of the problem as discussed in NYTimes today..insufficiently sanitized manure fertilizer.... Bags are also part of the problem..sealed bags, that is...less so the open bags seen at many farmer's markets. Still, selecting from bulk is always better....

I think all accounts, including the one in today's NYTimes say fresh when they mean raw. Not that anyone would want to buy a product known to have e-coli, but cooking does remove much of the danger if not all.dpending upon how long it is cooked.

Ah, but not all chefs leave salt off of the table because they believe themselves to be the arbiters of taste. One of my favorite local chefs does it because the table just gets too cluttered with stuff otherwise. He's happy to provide as much salt as a diner wants and even says, "I'm not the one who gets to say what's right for you." ← Give us a break! Just how much clutter can be caused by a tiny dish or small cellar of salt? It has been part of table service for centuries until egotistical chefs removed it. There is no seasoning so personal as salt as anyone who has studied the taste sciences will tell you. Runners up are sugar and the bitter flavor. Not two people taste salt the same way..It would behoove the chef to find an attractive way to incorporate salt in the table setting.

I seem to remember starting a thread on the absence of table salt on this site earlier this year. I agree with Ephron on it primarily because it indicates that the chef has wrested control from the dinerand I resent that. I have been trying to find out when salt withdrawal began -- some time in mid 70s when chef's became superstars...No reason not to have ground sea salt on table. I believe I recommended that we each carry a big box of Diamond kosher coarse salt and plunk it mid-table if no salt is there. Also, does anyone know if kosher salt is sea salt as Ephron implied? That would surprise me..Coarse yes, but sea? Re: Pellegrino..what annoys me more is when passing busboy pours tap water into my glass of mineral water..The water glass should be a separate design not used for anything else so that would not happen...unless of course busboy is shape-blind.

Selling the "holes" certainly did not originate with Dunkin' Known as hearts, they were sold as a far back as the 1940s in NYC at a tearoom-cafe called Mary Elizabeth's and at a bakery in Southampton with a name that escapes me.

Long ago I read somewhere - can't remember where - that the doughnut with a hole was devised by a woman in New England, based on the original big round doughnut such as the jelly doughnut that is German-Dutch, etc. The problem in frying was to get the center thoroughly cooked without burning the outside and she got the idea to cut the center out with, I guess, a sort of cookie cutter. That same reason accounts for many ring-shaped cakes based on very dense or fragile doughs..such as kugelhopf or angel's food cake even though many use the ring form just for appearance sake.

Nice to know it still works..it's been in print for 41 years and still selling well.

While haggis is certainly kinfolk, the old country ancestor is more likely "Saumagen" or 'sow's stomach" from the southern Rhine region of Pfalz (Palatinate) in Germany. I think the majority of German "Pennsylvania Dutch" settlers came from that area of Germany. Here's some information on Saumagen: click Mimi Sheraton has a recipe for Saumagen in her book, "The German Cookbook". Her (probably adapted) recipe includes ground pork, ground beef, minced streaky bacon, bread rolls, potatoes, eggs, onion, s&p and marjoram. edited to add: Here are some recipes on the web: click and clack and one from Helmut Kohl’s wife, Hannelore: click ← I am not sure what you mean by adapted. I think with a dish like that, as you point out, there are many possible additions. I got the recipe from a very old German cookbook printed in fraktur. If by adapted you mean American-ized you are wrong. If you mean I combined traditional elements ot suit my taste, you are right.

Antoine Magnin, original and famous chef at L'Ami Louis in Paris, ate a huge slab of foie gras at 11 every morning and lived to 85, cooking all the way. If you don' eat any fat, you don't live longer... It- just seems longer.

Shouldn't Morgan Spurlock be long since dead? Time Magazine questions on Supersize Me ... This is incredibly scary for those of us whose credo is "just this one time.." You may have saved just one life by posting this article, Toliver ... on the other hand, I am realllly depressed now ... ←

As a matter of fact, I bought the two egg piercers I use in Amsterdam. But I have seen another style in kitchen utensil places in Paris and in germany. Maybe try Bridge Co. in NYC. Anyway, you defiled sanctity as soon as you took the egg from the chicken. And, as they say, you can't make an omelette without.....you know the rest. With a proper egg piercer, you will not shatter the egg.

Salt in the water may help but what really works is an egg piercer that punches a tiny, needle tip hole in the wide bottom of the egg before it is placed in water. Egg piercers are real devices and come in various forms. By letting some air out of the egg, it prevents expansion and brusting..It is also said that covering the pan tightly while eggs are boiling causes bursting - as with hot dogs or other sausages that are boiled...O.K. Not boiled - simmered.

In answer to questions: A serious egg professional or just an egg professional - is someone in the egg business....either by running an egg farm, or by selling eggs at wholesale or retail levels or as itinerant butter-and-egg men if any are left, or as a food scientist specializing in eggs as many do at Cornell and other Ag schools. The reasons such experts choose medium to small eggs has nothing to do with price, only quality. The older a hen gets and as her vent expands, the bigger eggs she lays. But, as I was told at a Cornell egg lab long ago when I did a story on this, there is always the same amount of material to form an egg-shell no matter the size of the egg.. That means larger eggs have thinner shells and, therefore, do not keep as well and are subject to more contamination by odors and temperature. In addition, younger hens, like younger women, are more likely to produce healthier off-spring at peak breeding years.

It would seem that timing depends somewhat on the egg's temperature just before it is cooked...Chilled direct from refrigerator? Out in a room 10-15 minutes? Also, doesn't size of egg matter? Jumbo vs. small or medium? In articles I have written on eggs, I found that the serious egg professionals rarely buy anything larger than medium - a matter of quality.

Just to clear up two points: to SMW..you say since the Times started a separate food section...It began in 1976 and was called Living...despite the name, it was all food except for Jane Brody's health column. Only the name and some features were changed when it became Dining. Do you mean pre-1976 when Food it was a Thursday page? To John L..Many thanks for the generous words. As it happens I now write free-lance for the Times Travel and Weekend sections, but, by my choice, I specifically do not write for the food section, Dining.

I have always thought that Starbucks is really in the milk business, not the coffee business. Coffee is a flavoring in most of their insipid drinks that appeal to those with nursery palates..hot chocolate lovers, basically. No one who really appreciates coffee wants beans so burnt you cannot tell their origin, nor to have it so diluted and sweetened as most Starbucks drinks are. Professional coffee-tasters sample beans roasted to the approximate color of cinnamon so they can experience nuances of various beans. I'd bet that a very, very small percentage of Starbucks coffee is sold as simple espresso or, for that matter, even black. An interesting phenomenon: The Greek coffee shop I frequent is across the street from a Starbucks. More and more, I see customers coming into the coffee shop for breakfast or lunch carrying Starbucks coffee. Maybe the coffee shop owner should charge a corkage fee.

What it all boils down to really, is that Whole Foods does some things very well and other things quite badly and the very term, "Whole Foods" is obviously designed to have a halo effect over the whole operation over which there is a vaguely disturbing messianic aura.

I think HungryChris has the right idea on real reason behind Whole Foods elimination of crabs and lobster..too hard to handle and, maybe also, not enough customers for those to justify expense and hassle. But what about clams, oysters and mussels? They are alive - they'd better be - until eaten and they have feelings too. As for selling only cooked lobster and crab products as Whole Foods says it will do, how do they think those lobsters were treated before they were cooked and did whoever cook them have teams of workers who pierced each lobster between the eyes before dropping into scalding steam or water? Retailers who sell fur coats did not do the killing but they are targets of animal rights people just the same..In PETA minds shouldn't that also apply to those who sell cooked lobsters?

Don't miss Washoku by Elizabeth Andoh (10 Speed Press)...A really valuable and innovative piece of work that explains the aesthetics of the Japanese kitchen with a detailed, well-written text, gorgeous color photos and intriguing, well-explained recipes. Even if you never cook from this - and there is no reason not to - these recipes will increase understanding and, therefore, appreciation of the Japanese cuisine.

Americans probably learned to share Chinmese food because Chinese waiters put big bowls and platters in the center of the table, and then gave each diner smal plates and bowls - that being the way the Chinese eat. Anyone who does not share in a Chinese restaurant should go to jail.

When can we expect Chicago to ban the sale of furs? Anytime soon?

As much as we need education of children on health and obesity, we must couch the advice carefully to avoid driving many children - especially girls - to anorexia and bulimia.