Jonathan Day

Dean, if I were to suggest only one change in this it would be to try for an extra 6 inches in the lower cabinets (for a countertop depth of 30 inches) and a corresponding extra 3 inches in the upper, to make them 15 inches deep and hence easier to reach. We did this with our new kitchen, and it's wonderful. Machines (stand mixer, food processor, etc.) can co-exist with cutting boards. There is enough room for a proper mise en place. The entire space has a less crowded feel, and there's also more room for multiple cooks working together. The idea comes from Don Silvers, the chef / kitchen designer I mentioned upthread. It works. The "maze" design of your kitchen may make this impossible. Even a bit of extra depth would be well worth going for, in my view.

Philglass and Swiggott on Northcote Road is good and friendly. The owners are Australian and have good connections to interesting Antipodean wines, but also good coverage of other regions. They won the "independent wine merchant of the year" award last year.

In many service businesses, the customer is effectively given an option -- to show up or not to show up -- for the hotel, the airline flight, or the restaurant. In each of these cases, the vendor has a "vanishing asset": an airline seat that is not used cannot be stored for future sale. An unfilled hotel room cannot be sold again on the following night. At least some of food purchased for sale at a restaurant will be wasted, as will staff salaries. Airlines have charged for option value for a long time. If I buy a full price ticket, I can simply no-show for the flight and turn the ticket back in for a refund. But that full price ticket may be far more expensive than an equivalent-class discounted ticket, where if I don't show up for any reason, whether or not I call in advance, the ticket is worthless. The flight, meals, etc., are the same; the difference in price is the charge for my option to not show up. The options are worth a lot to business travellers who have uncertain schedules. They are not worth much to tourists who can predict their arrival times at the airport. The tourist saves a lot of money -- paying perhaps 10% of the business traveller's fare. On the other hand, if the tourist has a car breakdown, he or she is out the price of the ticket. Restaurants can do the same thing, by charging for no-shows or late cancellations. Hotels and rental car agencies can as well. The issue is more about industry practice than morals. Charging for option value has been common in the airline industry, for many years, and we expect to pay more for refundable tickets. For the most part, there is no common practice in the restaurant business of charging for no-shows or late cancellations. A restaurant that does so could be competitively disadvantaged versus one that gives away the no-show option. A restaurant in high demand, on the other hand, can get away with imposing a charge for no-shows, even though its competitors don't. If I want any meal, I can choose a restaurant that doesn't ask for a credit card or charge for no-shows. If I want Gordon Ramsay or Sketch or Pierre Gagnaire, I have little choice but to follow their policy, as long as it is legal.

Ellen, that makes perfect sense. I've cited some very orthodox sources simply because they are written down and can be examined, not because I have any view either as to the worthiness of these practices or the extent of their actual use. It is clear, reading through several of these web sources, that there are ongoing debates as highly observant Jews seek to extend their gastronomic horizons at the same time as they comply with kashruth. Click here for an interesting examination of what kinds of poultry can be eaten. It begins:

And don't forget L'Aile ou la Cuisse? (A Wing or a Thigh?) a 1976 Louis De Funès comedy in which De Funès stars as Charles Duchemin, France's best known gourmet and publisher of the red Guide Duchemin. He is waging a war against fast food entrepreneur Jean Tricatel and seeking to preserve the traditional cuisine of France. Meanwhile his son wants to become a clown rather than a restaurant critic and he, the famous Charles Duchemin, has lost his sense of taste. Very 1970s, mostly silly, lots of slapstick, but dead on-topic for eGullet foodie types.

More on kosher living and the rules of kashruth here.

This topic sent me looking for more information about kashruth, and I found the Orthodox Union site, http://www.ou.org. (By way of background, my mother's family is Jewish but mostly non-observant; my father's is Christian. So I was aware of kosher as a child, but it didn't enter much into our family dining). The site's Kosher section conveys some rules that I hadn't previously encountered: According to US rabbis, the only poultry that may be consumed are chicken, turkey, duck and goose...so no quail, pheasant, ortolan, etc. fish scales must be visible to the consumer ... filleted or ground fish must have a skin tab with visible scales attached, unless the entire store is closely supervised. In any event, the knives and tables in an unsupervised fish store may have been touched by non-kosher ingredients. pans in which bread is baked might have been greased with non-kosher oils; margarines, coffee creamers, and foods containing natural or artificial flavours may have been in contact with non-kosher ingredients; all these things are therefore unacceptable from commercial providers unless prepared under supervision "Rabbinic law prohibits consumption of fish and meat together." Therefore, nothing like paella to be served, even if prepared only with chicken and scaled fish "It is Rabbinically prohibited to consume bread with dairy ingredients. Since bread is frequently eaten at all meals, the Rabbis were concerned that one might inadvertently eat dairy bread with a meat meal. There are two exceptions - if the bread is baked in an unusual shape or design indicating that it is dairy, or if the loaf is so small that it would be consumed at one meal." I guess this would apply to bread rolls. "According to [uS] government standards, any product labeled 'sherbet' or 'fruit sherbet' must contain milk." I wonder whether this applies to something labelled "sorbet". "A traveler bringing along frozen (T.V.) dinners where only non-kosher ovens are available for reheating, may use the ovens by covering the frozen package with two layers of aluminum foil. If a microwave will be utilized, then the food must also be double wrapped." The big surprises for me were the prohibition against eating meat and fish together, though this is rare, and against eating bread with dairy ingredients, even at a dairy meal. To focus on the topic of this thread, I guess the ability to maintain kashruth and also retain your foodie licence depends just how observant you want to be, and also whether you want to eat at restaurants. At home, I can imagine keeping the kosher rules, though this would be expensive and time consuming, and eating reasonably well. For me, eating in restaurants is important simply "I don't know what I don't know" about food and cooking, and I learn a lot from dining at good restaurants. I'm not sure how easy it would be to do this and maintain a strictly kosher regime.

Their website (www.bernachon.com) says that they don't take orders by phone -- only by mail or fax. 42, cours Franklin-Roosevelt- 69006 Lyon - FRANCE - Tél. :(0033)04 78 24 37 98 - Fax : (0033)04 78 52 67 77-

Many years ago, before I started to drink good espresso, a friend gave me an coffee maker he had picked up in Italy. He had a small flat and didn't want it. I didn't know what it was, and put it in a box. Later, in a move, I unpacked it and realised that it was a Pavoni lever pump machine -- an ancestor of today's "Europiccola" (this one). It now sits in a proud place on the kitchen counter and gets frequent use. I'm sure these machines are not the ultimate espresso makers, but it works pretty well. I had considered turning it down, or throwing it away once I got it home -- glad I didn't.

I believe the Feast of the Epiphany is immovable, and is on 6th January every year. Unlike some liturgical dates, e.g. Ascension Day, Epiphany is not a public holiday in France, and I would guess that if it does not fall on a Sunday, most churchgoers "anticipate" the event at the previous Sunday, i.e. the first in January.

I think that alone, when considering the required floor enhancements, would bust my budget. I'm a big fan of Agas, as Jack knows. But it gets HOT in the Southern US. An Aga, constantly hot, would be torture in that environment unless Varmint wants to follow the example of a wealthy Dallas socialite who installed an Aga, then installed industrial air conditioning to carry away the heat that the Aga generated. We've just finished (mostly finished) a kitchen renovation. We got a lot of good ideas from a book and website by a chef/designer named Don Silvers -- see his website www.donsilvers.com. His book, which we bought through Amazon, is very good: it's called Kitchen Design with Cooking in Mind.

Be careful. Lime is dangerous stuff, especially in contact with water -- it can seriously damage skin and eyes. Get some advice on the right concentration and about safety precautions to take: rubber gloves, goggles, etc. If I am not mistaken the lime "cooks" the corn in the same way that an acid "cooks" (denatures) fish in a seviche, except that the lime is a strong alkali.

After about 6 months on an Atkins-esque plan, I have evolved a regime that feels comfortable, doesn't mess up the digestive system and seems to work for weight control. It focuses on fish, meats and vegetables, but includes some fruit. The big change from regimes of past years is that I no longer worry about fat -- so red meats, butter, avocadoes, eggs and cheese are all back on the menu. For the most part I've avoided sweets, though I have made allowances for special events e.g. Christmas dinner. Bread, potatoes (and other starchy vegetables) and pasta have been trimmed way back -- if I bake a loaf of bread, I definitely try a small slice of it, but that's about it. No ersatz desserts, no artificial sweeteners. I experimented with "Splenda" which is sucralose, a reduced-carbohydrate sweetener. Too sweet for my taste, and in any event a reminder of how much I enjoy sweet things -- and hence a temptation to break the regime. I've felt free to eat green vegetables and salads virtually without limit. I've avoided all but small servings of sweet fruit, but will have an apple, or a few tomatoes without worry. It seems to work. It does require exercise and a lot of water consumption, but those are good things in any event. Atkins does recommend a two week "induction" programme where carbohydrates are cut to a tiny minimum. And they recommend returning to "induction" any time you've gone off the Atkins wagon. I've done "induction" but don't plan to redo it. It did give a big boost in energy, and, almost miraculously, my desire for sweets, which was once very strong, went away quickly. The big benefits of a low(er)-carb regime, for me, have been weight loss, a marked increase in energy, better sleep, and the end of the horrible afternoon sugar swing and tiredness. And, though this is harder to assess, a general sense of calm and well being. Cholesterol readings have improved, just a bit, over the period.

I'm sure Paula and John are right -- more important than pot absorption characteristics are the quality of the ingredients (the beans especially) and the cook's care and patience in making this dish. Nonetheless, I can attest that those Le Creuset "Dutch Ovens" (I have large versions, both round and oval) have different cooking characteristics to similar earthenware vessels. The cast iron pots retain more liquid in stews, and the heat is less even -- both on the stovetop and in the oven. Perhaps the difference in liquid retention is because the terra cotta lids fit less tightly than those on the cast iron vessels, in which case a cassoulet, cooked without a lid, wouldn't be that different. In any case, if you're going so far as to make real cassoulet, why not take the final step and cook it in a heavy earthenware container?

Linda, the picture your link took me to was a stick blender. Useful, but not for cassoulet! My impression from cooking in this glazed terracotta is that its porosity is different to that of enamelled cast-iron.

Not only hotels, but also some restaurants and a good number of "bed and breakfast" establishments, some of them fairly fancy. It's changing, but there is more of a "children should be seen but not heard" philosophy here than in the US. Some eight year olds are sent to boarding school (and seem to enjoy it, from what I've picked up). Some families don't dine together except on unusual occasions: there is an early childrens' dinner, prepared by the nanny if there is one in the house, with the adults dining together later in the evening. It doesn't seem to lead to badly adjusted or unhappy children -- it's just a different way of doing things.

When we moved to London, in 1990, our first child was 9 months old. We were living in South Kensington and took him, asleep, in his car seat, to a Chinese restaurant -- as it turned out, it was pretentious, overpriced, with horrid food, but we didn't know that at the time. The waiter officiously told us that "children are not allowed here", so we left. The majority of restaurants in London will welcome babies and children, which means providing high chairs, toys, child menus. A few will allow them but indicate that they are "not welcome", and a very few ban them entirely. Some British hotels, both in London and the provinces, once (recently) banned children, not just from the restaurant but from the hotel itself. I believe this has changed somewhat in the last decade. I have seen children in restaurants at every level in France, ranging from newborns to pre-teens. It is rare that we have not seen children at Michelin starred restaurants in the provinces. Families will often dine together at these places, as a special occasion; for some mysterious French reason the children seem perfectly behaved. Perhaps the same gene that converts red wine and foie gras into life-prolonging, slimming substances also makes children behave well in fancy restaurants. And I have never had a French hotel forbid children; in fact the first few times I asked a hotelkeeper whether children were allowed, I was treated as though I had asked a question in Martian. How could they not be allowed? This may be one reason why many finer French restaurants allow children: they are connected with hotels, and it is unlikely that you would be dining in the restaurant unless you were staying in the hotel. I have been in two and three starred restaurants that provided a childrens' area -- e.g. a small "library" equipped with television, video films and a few toys, where children could go during a longer meal. We have also been in hotels that were more than happy to serve our very young children a simple meal in our room, around 1800, then listen through the telephone system for cries while we had our meal in the dining room. Paris may be different. In the 3 stars I have been in, I haven't seen many children -- young teens, perhaps, but few toddlers or babies. When our children were very young we tended to take them to restaurants of many levels, but to remove them instantly from the dining room if they cried or fussed. They now behave fairly well at restaurants, though we try to be thoughtful about the hour of the day, their state of tiredness, and the ambience of the restaurant.

I think your idea about staying in one place is actually a very good one. There are increasing levels of understanding and familiarity with an area that you can attain in the course of a long stay -- getting to know the rhythms of a village, experiencing some of the cycle of the agricultural and religious year, getting to know the tradespeople. We've always preferred to create a "home base" and venture out from there, mostly on day trips, rather than moving from place to place. I would also echo your concern about getting "a pig in a poke" -- to the point that it might be worth arranging a reconnaissance trip, including a short stay, just to check the place out. The kind of property to avoid is a pure investment play, one whose owners never visit. Many, though not all, of the gites de France fall into this category, and they can prove very run down. Also remember that, especially in the provinces, French notions of comfort can be different to American: we've rented farmhouses with no soft chairs or sofa in the house at all, just a long wooden table with wooden chairs. Do try to make contact with the owners and find out how often they use the properties themselves. Don't expect a fancy kitchen in a French rental property. Many French domestic kitchens are very simple: two burner hob, small oven. The good news is that they also tend to be practical, and furnished with workable tools rather than toys. Our first Paris apartment had a tiny kitchen, but it had one of every truly needful item: wooden cutting board, sharp knife, saucepan, enameled cast-iron casserole, nicely seasoned saute pan, etc. Bonne chance et bon voyage!

This nicely sums up a culinary transformation that has taken place in the last 100 years, accelerating in the last 20. When dishes like cassoulet were more common, the main thing to be economised was the ingredient, meats especially. Skilled labour was relatively inexpensive -- farm women worked long hours, apprentices in top restaurants worked for a pittance. But it was essential to conserve every scrap of the pig -- blood, fat, ears, and so on. Extra cooking energy was cheap, since ovens were being kept warm for baking. Today, the economics are completely different: especially under industrialised farming, the cost of ingredients is much less than that of the long labour required to make cassoulet, a real sauce espagnole, blood sausages or poulet à la vapeur Lucien Tendret (truffled chicken, steamed over a double consommé). "Nose-to-tail cooking" is a specialised, luxury art. "Peasant food" is mostly for rich connoisseurs. What's easily and cheaply available in restaurants is no longer slow food but preparations a la minute: grills, sautés, and the like.

In mid-December I stopped at a Christmas fair in Mouans Sartoux, a village between Nice and Grasse, where I bought a large, covered terra cotta casserole (perhaps 40-45cm in diameter and 10-12cm deep). It was not expensive -- something like EUR29 if I recall correctly. It is very heavy. I had planned broader uses than cassoulet for this -- stews, tians, gratins come to mind -- but I don't see why it wouldn't work for a cassoulet as well. It is glazed on the inside and outside (not on the bottom) but there is a fine crackling covering the glaze and it had to be soaked overnight before its first use, presumably indicating that it will "breathe". For a cassoulet, what are the "right" characteristics for casseroles of this sort? This heavy terra cotta ware, incidentally, is commonly available not only in France, Spain and Italy but also in cookshops and places like Borough Market in London. It would have to be packed carefully, but I see no reason why the smaller pieces, especially, could not be brought back to the USA in checked luggage.

AA Gill slammed East@West in today's Sunday Times review. He described the chef, Christine Manfield, as "almost supernaturally talented" and gave the food "top marks". But he criticised the "chicane" of a menu as "twee, modish obfuscation and smarmy bollocks...remorselessly silly and an infuriating waste" "This is the worst example of concept eating I’ve come across", he says, "but with some of the best food." He concludes:

Are you thinking of "baguette épi"? This is of course a specific kind of bread, but at least in the South is also a trademark used by a good number of bakeries. I'm not sure what it covers (a specific dough formulation, a franchise, or just the manufacturer of paper bags into which the bread gets put). I'll make some queries next time I am there.

Great point, Linda. I was referring to the classic bright green treatments of vegetables: bean, broccoli, whatever. There are delicious preparations involving long-cooked vegetables, e.g. broccoli cooked in red wine for a long time, or cabbage, slowly cooked in butter for a good long time, or smothered green beans. But for the "bright green" versions, there should be brilliant colour, an intense but not overpowering flavour, and just enough crunch. Not crudités, but not cooked to mush either.

I stopped at the Moulin last week, but it had its fermeture annuelle until 10th January. It will be interesting to see the new "run of the mill".

A bread tasting could be very enjoyable. Worth departing from the low-carbohydrate regime for a day. I have counted something like 35 bakeries in and around Mougins, so this could involve a lot of bread. I have no idea of the true economics of a standalone bakery or of a small chain like Ribierou. My guess is that on an opportunity cost basis, taking into account the operator's labour and the cost of the capital equipment (ovens, mixers, etc.) the economic returns (essentially those appropriated by an operator who is only interested in the money) on a bakery aren't very good. They well may be better than those of a restaurant! The bakery we most often use, da Silva in Mougins, is a single, standalone operation, run I believe by a family. Some of their breads, e.g. a pain à l'ancienne are very good; their pastries are undistinguished. My impression is that they work very, very hard. There's nothing wrong with that. It could be more rewarding to spend the night baking bread than to toil in a law office, regardless of the money. If the conjecture above is true, then it is perhaps not that surprising. I love Menton but don't know it half as well as I would like to. Where in the market is this bakery?