Jonathan Day

For what it's worth: in London at least it can be difficult to find chicken for making stock. Sometimes my butcher will happily give me wings, backs, necks, etc.; sometimes he doesn't have any available. The halal butchers here sell "boiling chickens" for a bit of nothing: sometimes as low as £1 apiece. They are scrawny things, without much meat, and with head and feet attached. Perfect for stock making, as long as using them doesn't violate religious sensibilities.

I did read The Fourth Star, cover to cover, but found it disappointing. Other posters and the New York Times reviewer have commented on the wandering, repetitive story, the characters who appear out of nowhere and then vanish again, only to reappear many pages later, the weak writing. I want to focus these notes on something else. What bothered me was that I finished the book without gaining any strong sense of who Daniel Boulud was or what he stood for. Yes, he is a talented, energetic, entrepreneurial chef and businessman, with a strong regard for quality. But what has shaped his personality? What kind of person is he? How does he relate to his family? None of these came through. In contrast, Anthony Bourdain's neatly drawn sketch of Scott Bryan in Kitchen Confidential conveys some idea of Bryan's motivation and personality. Michael Ruhlman's lyrical chapters on Thomas Keller in The Soul of a Chef left me feeling that I had learned something, not just about a great restaurant, but about the man who brought it into existence. Most of the characterisations in The Fourth Star were rather thin, rather like those airport novels that drone on and on about the clothes the characters wear and the cars they drive but offer little about the people themselves. Annoyingly, one of the few characters that did come to life -- a bit -- was Bruno Jamais, the grasping, nasty maitre d'hôtel. And I found myself wondering why Boulud didn't sack him on the spot. Of course there was no explanation. Is Boulud fiercely loyal to his staff no matter what they do? Did he think that this sort of behaviour was good for the restaurant? We aren't told. Did he see the loss of the fourth star as a matter of personal crisis or drama? We can only guess. I would have liked to learn a bit more about Leslie Brenner herself. What motivates her? Why, other than the fact that he lost a New York Times star, did she decide to write about Daniel Boulud? The book and Leslie Brenner's posting in this forum suggest that she was trying to stay in the background. "The reader, I felt, would be much more interested in seeing and hearing what was going on in the kitchen, the dining room, or the reservations office than he or she would be in hearing about my role in the story." Late in the book, she prepares to interview William Grimes, the Times critic: "I must step out of the role I have embraced ...the role of the proverbial fly on the wall...I must now emerge as a character in my own tale." Is the real Leslie Brenner about to stand up? Unfortunately not. We hear a lot from Grimes, with a few thin interpretations from Brenner. The fly on the wall is still a fly. Ruhlman (The Soul of a Chef) offered just enough of his own thinking and motivation to bring his narrative to life. It's not that I wanted to learn more about Michael Ruhlman than about Thomas Keller or the other chefs, but the personal disclosure helped clarify his point of view, his interpretation of what was going on. Likewise Bourdain's description of Veritas and Scott Byran was richer because the author shared so much of his own world with the reader. To be sure, Leslie Brenner didn't offer much interpretation, and some of what she presented struck me as truly vapid (e.g. the Kirkus-lauded "disquisition" about the decline of American culture) so you could argue that it was just as well that she didn't reveal herself in the book. But I found it less satisfying as a result.

I often use cherries (fresh in season, but more often sour dried) in the farce for a duck ballotine. The cherries lend a sweet/acid edge that can be hard to get otherwise and that goes well with the richness of the duck.

Robert, I only replied to the Fat Guy's post earlier because I didn't need my notes to do so. Now having gathered my pane carasau notes, I find that they are somewhat disordered and self-contradictory. I need to do more experiments to get the proportions right. So here are Bugialli's proportions. Unfortunately they are in the American measurement by volume system. For the sponge 1 cup + 1 tablespoon unbleached all purpose flour 1/4 cup very fine semolina flour 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt 1 cup water 1 ounce fresh or 2 packages dried yeast For the dough (sponge plus the following): 2 cups unbleached all purpose flour, plus 1/2 cup for kneading 1/2 cup very fine semolina flour 3/4 cup water The texture of the finished dough should be soft, not wet; rather like the pita in the recipe from Flatbreads and Flavors.I would use restraint in dusting, rice flouring, etc., because the soft dough will quickly absorb anything on the rolling surface. The right rolling pin is probably important, as well; I use a large ball-bearing French pin, but this is probably not right. The photos in Bugialli show the Sardinians using a narrow (but not tapered) pin. The finished sheets of dough should be very thin. A peel is useful for sliding them onto the hot baking stone, for flipping them and for removing them when done. I wish you lots of luck in making this and hope you'll share your notes!

Just to be clear: I am by no means advocating that anyone buy a bread machine. For me it is a compromise, though one that works pretty well given the constraints under which we operate as a family. The crust I get on the French bread recipe from the Panasonic machine is... well, I've had much better but I've had far worse. It is as good as the best supermarket baked bread in the UK and a lot of supermarket bread in France. It is not as good as artisanal bread (which is hard to find, even in London) or what can be produced at home with a bit of work. The Panasonic machine, by the way, claims to be designed to produce a better crust -- for example, it does not have a "window" and thus distributes the heat more evenly. But I have not done any comparisons between bread machines! Some notes on the crust: Colour: usually a good rich red-brown, though occasionally it comes out slightly paler than usual. Texture: surprisingly thick, just a bit chewy, not as crunchy as it could be. The gluten web is often visible in the crust itself. Taste: Very good. Better than I had expected, especially on the top. Deep flavours of wheat, with good distribution of saltiness. Crust on the sides is sometimes a bit lacking in character. And the big irritant, of course, is the cavity in the bottom where the kneading paddle penetrates the loaf. We had a lot of trouble weaning the children from the squishy bread they were served at school to the crustier French bread (often "à l'ancienne") that we get in France. The bread machine solved this problem: because what they now get at home has a proper crust, they cheerfully eat what we give them in France, as well as the artisanal breads we sometimes buy on weekends, or the breads we make by hand. I am familiar with (and have) a KitchenAid, Cuisinart, microwave; I have not tried proving dough in a microwave but have heard it is possible. I will look up Bread in Half the Time as suggested. We have an Aga cooker, with one oven permanently pre-heated to about 240C = 465F, so it is not a problem to bung the loaf right onto the hot metal floor. There is no need to pre-heat an oven or wrestle with an oven stone. The issue is not labour time. It is the need to pay attention to the dough, knock it back, knead it again, pop it in the fridge to slow down the rise, slash it, get steam into the oven, and so on. That attention and focus are what I most enjoy when baking bread. They are hard to come by in the normal course of working weekdays and even weekends filled with judo-football-ballet-birthdayparties-neighbours-homework-etc-etc. The bread machine takes care of all that. And there is no cleanup involved: you shake out the bread, give the bowl a wipe with a cloth, and you're ready to go again. The KitchenAid and Cuisinart and the counter and the bread scraper don't clean themselves! The better way, of course, would be to change our lifestyle so as to make it possible to pay more attention to important things like bread, not to mention children. Some day, perhaps.

That's about it, but with this bread the devil is truly in the details. The website you cited has drawn on Bugialli's recipe. A couple of notes: 1. Bugialli starts with a sponge which rises overnight; I found that this improved the consistency of the final dough. The best flour, by the way, is a mixture of semolina (durum) and ordinary flour. 2. "Soft, slightly damp consistency" -- this is right. This dough should not have much too body. It needs to be soft enough to be rolled very thin and then to rise. Much softer than ordinary bread doughs, even softer than French bread. 3. Heating an oven stone for 30 minutes doesn't sound enough to me: I would do at least 45 and probably an hour. 4. Bugialli recommends, and I agree, that the best way to form the dough is to shape it into a sausage and then slice the sausage into rounds. 5. I found it difficult to keep the dough properly moist during the rolling, especially if, as the website recommends, you are constantly dusting with flour. Dry spots lead to places where it won't rise. I finally ended up keeping the individual portions in a big plastic bag during the rolling out process. 6. The first few times out with this bread it is far better to roll one piece, then bake it, then remove it, then start on the next piece. You will be in less of a panic, and the oven will have a chance to recover its heat from the opening. It takes forever, but then if you want quick pane carasau you are better off buying it pre-made! If you roll three, you will need to keep the second two moist while baking the first. The best way is to have one person rolling and the other managing the oven. 7. Bugialli recommends that you flip the risen rounds after about 1 minute of baking and bake for another 30 seconds. I have always done this. Good luck! I found this bread a sort of "ascent to Parnassus" in difficulty. But it was a lot of fun.

John, I posted that from a grim conference room in Cologne, waiting for a meeting to start. The Germans were not about to be diverted because of the football. Somehow reading/posting on egullet during the work day always feels slightly illicit, like going out for a long lunch...

These were group dinners. There was a choice of roughly 5 starters, mains, puddings but I don't know how closely this menu tracks the carte. And because there were many people present and the topic of discussion was not food, I didn't note the dishes as carefully as I might have. From the last dinner I recall a borscht served with a mesclun salad on the side, the latter with shreds of duck added; the dressing very tangy and well matched to the borscht. Main was a risotto of broad beans and mint, very good without a hint of bitterness in the beans. And the pud was an outstanding "cherry crumble", served in a tiny iron skillet: perfect cherries with just a sprinkling of crumbs and sugar, lightly browned, served with a scoop of ice cream based on (I think) Greek yogurt.

I have recently had several dinners at the Frith Street branch, with groups, in the small private room in the basement. It really is a treasure, even for group dining: everything is simple, the ingredients are good, the preparation is nicely done, and it has a small, "human scale" feeling. If ever I could own a restaurant, this is the kind I would want. You won't get Gordon Ramsay cuisine at Alastair Little, nor will you get stunningly fresh and pure ingredients as at a place like Chez Panisse or the best of the Japanese. But the overall standard is high, the place is unpretentious (it's hard to spot his name over the door) and the prices are reasonable. One other good sign: the Frith street branch (I have not been to the one in Notting Hill) is littered with cookbooks. The private room, in fact, is a library of cookery and wine books that I wouldn't be sorry to have. Clearly the owner cares about "this stuff" -- or did, at one point.

Robert, the recipe in Flatbreads and Flavors seems to me completely incorrect. This error has, for me, put the rest of the book in doubt. I first bought F&F after reading an enthusiastic review by Corby Kummer, in The Atlantic and trying their recipe for pita bread. The recipe works a treat, and the technique is very similar to pita making I have observed in Turkey. Alas, their recipe for pane carasau (it is also called carta da musica, music paper bread) does not come up to this standard. I can only surmise that Alford and Duguid did not actually observe the bread being made in Sardinia. Their recipe, as you say, has no yeast. It produces a flat bread that isn't bad, but lacks the character of pane carasau. There is a detailed recipe, with photographs, in Giuliano Bugialli, Foods of Sicily and Sardinia and the Smaller Islands. It is authentic, as far as I can tell, but unfortunately far from foolproof. I am working on an article on this bread that will try to improve on this. The dough is very soft: ironically, it somewhat resembles the dough from the pita recipe in Flatbreads and Flavors. It is made with semolina flour, ordinary flour, yeast, water and salt. You make a sponge and let it rise overnight. Then you make a dough, knead it, let it rise, and divide it into pieces. These are rolled into very thin circles -- traditionally, about 500 cm in diameter, but this is large for most ovens. The dough circles are baked in a very hot oven, classically a wood-fired brick oven, but you can use a pizza stone or quarry tiles. If they have been prepared just right, the dough circles instantly puff up like pita breads. They are flipped once during this first baking, which takes less than 2 minutes. Each puffed up circle is removed from the oven and sliced in half. The halves are stacked up and weighted. When all of then have been baked, each half goes back into the oven to crisp for a few seconds. The bread can be further dried in the sun, on special linen cloths, to eliminate all moisture. The result is delicious and somewhat mysterious: crisp and light, but with the flavour of leavened bread. It keeps forever, and can be used in all sorts of ways. I have made pane carasau several times (and have a lot more experimenting to do for the article). It is very difficult to get right. The dough has to be soft, but not too soft. It has to be rolled out to almost perfect smoothness, or the discs rise unevenly. The oven has to be very hot, but too hot and the bread burns. Everything has to be done at lightning speed, or the dough gets dry and does not puff up. Bugialli says that, occasionally, pane carasau is dried, then ground and used in place of flour, rather as matzo is ground into meal for use at Passover. He suggests that this practice started "when the carta da musica was still unleavened". He does not elaborate on this. However, none of the Sardinians I asked recognised Alford and Duguid's yeastless recipe as a plausible variant.

BLH, the procedure for grape sourdough starters is is a lengthy one. There is a detailed essay in Bertolli and Waters, Chez Panisse Cooking. It was contributed by Steve Sullivan, the owner of the Acme Bread company and supplier of bread to Chez Panisse. Also see the US public broadcasting website (click here) for Julia Child's programme on Nancy Silverton of the La Brea Bakery. Essentially, you crush some grapes into a flour/water batter, then let this develop, feeding it periodically, until you have a strong starter. This takes about 10 days, if I recall correctly. You can then use this to make a range of "levain" breads. They are delicious and for some mysterious reason they keep a long time, even though you haven't added fat to the dough. Both of the above sources provide American recipes (by volume, not weight) but it's easy enough to adapt them for UK use. But you must procure organic, untreated wine grapes, you need a large container and a place in your house that's exactly the right temperature. And you have to keep checking and feeding the starter. Get it wrong and you have to start all over again. Once you've got a working starter, you hold back a lump of dough from each batch and use it to leaven the next dough. Even this levain needs to be coddled and "fed". I recommend doing this, without reservation; you learn a lot and the product is delicious, but it takes a lot of time.

I found the flavour of the broth at Tétou muddied rather than masculine (=robust, clear, strong, with plenty of garlic and just a bit of acidity) -- and it tasted slightly scorched. Bacon also offered cloves of garlic to rub on the croutons, and a rouille that was more boldly flavoured than Tétou's. I don't remember their broth as being delicate. But perhaps Tétou were having an off night. It's been awhile since the last visit to Bacon, and this exchange has whetted my appetite for a return check-up!

Rachel, the bowl comes out of the machine and goes onto a digital scale. Yeast and 400g of flour go in, followed by salt. Water weighs 1g per ml, so another 300g of water are added. Done. We chose the Panasonic machine because it had good reviews and because it is fundamentally simple. I can imagine a manufacturer making a machine with a built-in scale, but would imagine this wouldn't hold up well under the stresses of heating and cooling. The digital scales are cheap and useful. Ours has a "TARE" button so that you can reset it to 0 after putting the bowl on the machine.

I have made a lot of bread over the years: real French bread (thank you, Julia Child and Messrs Calvel and Poilane), all manner of sourdoughs, starters from grapes, bigas, poulisches, pizza doughs. Even pane carasau, the Sardinian (leavened) flat bread that is a kind of pinnacle of breadmaking technique -- rather like causing French bread to emerge from the oven as a balloon of crust with no crumb at all. And while my product wasn't as good as that made by Sardinian artisans it was undeniably pane carasau. All this not to brag but to say that I'm not afraid of or uninterested in bread making. Yet, sitting in one corner of our kitchen, we now have a Panasonic bread machine. We use it every day. And I am glad we do. It happened like this. My wife had tried to get one of these things for years. I had steadfastly refused. We had enough machines. Bread was easy to put together. Why did we need it? I was a card carrying foodie. What if a friend spotted a bread machine in our kitchen? My egullet licence might be cancelled forthwith. Finally, on her birthday, I relented and bought the Panasonic. We have used it almost every day since. We don't use it for "creative" breads. In fact, I believe we have only ever made 2 or 3 different recipes. Our daily bread is the so-called "French": 400g of flour, 300ml of water, salt, yeast. That's it. It takes exactly 2 minutes and 45 seconds to measure the ingredients, push the button to start the machine and clean up. No measuring cup: it's all weighed into the machine itself. The product isn't near what you would buy in a good French bakery, but it is simple and good. It gets a long, leisurely rise (6 hours minimum, sometimes 8). The texture is chewy, it actually tastes like bread, and the crust is better than almost anything available in the supermarket. Our children like it and they no longer eat tasteless supermarket bread, filled with chemicals. There are all sorts of other ways we could get bread. We could go to the local bakery in the morning, if it opened early enough. We could bake our own bread. But with two working spouses, 3 children and a busy household, that wouldn't happen. The children's nanny, a catering college graduate who is a formidable cook, just doesn't have time for daily bread buying, let alone baking her own. Neither my wife nor I have time, except on the occasional weekend and holiday. In France, we live in a town surrounded by bakeries: some 30 of them nearby the last time I counted, including one specialising in pain au levain, sourdough breads. The daily bread run is a pleasure. A bread machine would be completely superfluous. Perhaps this is true in central New York as well. In suburban London, it makes a lot of sense. Off my chest at last. As usual, my wife was right. There.

A lot of people who might not avoid offal now do so because they are terrified of the cholesterol it is supposed to contain. One bite of liver and the arteries shut down forever, etc. The same people will scarf up processed cheese and put thick layers of margarine on bread, but they won't touch sweetbreads. Similar effect a few years ago from BSE, putting bone marrow off the menu for many.

Neither Michelin nor Gault-Millau mentions chez Michel. Neither does Le Bouche à Oreille -- in fact, none of the bouillabaisse places it recommends are in the Alpes Maritimes. It does single out La Table De Laurence (22 rue Victor Cousin, Cannes), giving it a score of 2.5 ("very good") but for a "bouillabaisse" made with poultry. Sounds like something Julia Child created in her later years, but perhaps worth trying nonetheless. Epicurious does mention chez Michel in Nice, and I quote them because Marquise seems to agree, in a certain way, with Steve Plotnicki: "For a main course the bouillabaisse is the obvious choice. The rich orange broth is crowded with meaty fish: racasse [sic], monkfish, John Dory, and snapper -- but no shellfish. Marquise makes clear that this is the correct way to prepare the dish."

Au Routier Sympa, in Mougins (but not in the old village). Pasta for the children, a grilled steak for my wife, a coquelet (poussin) for me, with roast peppers for the table. All of it simple and good; the poussin had been nicely flavoured with tarragon. Hardly a place to seek out, but pleasant, reliable and good value for money. Hotel de Mougins, again well outside the old village. We met friends who were flying in that evening and arrived on time for a 9 pm reservation. This was obviously too late: they had held the table for us, but the staff seemed confused. No one was on hand to greet us. Finally the headwaiter arrived: "Ah, yes, we were waiting for you." From then on things proceeded apace, in a pleasant and comfortable sort of conservatory. The food was mixed in quality. All of us ordered white asparagus, which I had seen in great quantities in the Marché Forville that morning. It was prepared in a workmanlike but not exceptional manner and served cold on warmed plates. I had a "panaché" of loup (sea bass) and daurade (sea bream). Again, good but not outstanding. Desserts, including a tarte Tatin, were nicely done. The service was erratic: at one point a waitress topped up my half-filled wine glass with water. Marché Forville in Cannes somehow became the place to visit this time, even for friends who weren't as keen on food as we are. This happened because a departing group of houseguests tipped off an arriving group...so back we went, but it was worth the trip. We found the market in the full profusion of early summer, with berries and asparagus everywhere. The children wandered the rows, sampling strawberries and trying to find the perfect one. We found a ravioli vendor who offered daube, pistou, ham, cheese, spinach, and four or five other fillings that I don't remember. Two minutes in boiling water. Superb. Afterwards a walk on the rue Meynadier, a pedestrianised passage with numerous shops including some great food places. Ernest, the traiteur, has several branches in Cannes; the one just before the Rue Meynadier offered socca aux cebettes (chopped green onions). Not cheap at EUR 2.50 per portion, but very good. I spotted a curious looking tabbouleh in the window of a bigger Ernest branch, on the rue Meynadier itself: the grains of couscous were green, as if parsley (and, as I later found, mint) had been rolled into them. The grains were also much larger than one usually sees. Getting a bit of this curious dish was not easy. Where the socca-selling branch of Ernest was casual, this one was prim and fussy. You have to queue on the left until a "vendeuse" is ready to serve you. She then collects your order, walking around the shop with you, and hands you a ticket. You take this to the cash desk, then it's back to the vendeuse who accepts your ticket and gives you the goods you've ordered. The shop is long and narrow, and there was a fair bit of confusion with patrons trying to track down their vendeuses, get to the cash desk (in the rear of the shop, of course) and return for their goods. A French take on the stateroom scene in A Night at the Opera. Several French patrons were sharply reprimanded for moving over to the other side of the shop and asking for bread. No, you have to stay with your vendeuse. Go back to the queue. There was no enthusiasm in the staff, just a sort of singsong politeness. I have seen this style and attitude in Paris (e.g. in Passy) but rarely in the south. After a long wait, I asked for 300 grammes of the tabbouleh. "Is that all you want?" asked the vendeuse. Yes, it was. And at EUR 22.30 per kilogramme, it was enough. But the tabbouleh itself was unusual and very good, with a nice balance of parsley and mint. The herbs tasted fresh and the larger grains of couscous gave it a pleasant texture. I don't think I could have made this dish myself short of trying Paula Wolfert's roll-your-own-couscous method: either the herbs were incorporated as the grains were rolled, or they were pulverised so fine that it was hard to separate them from the couscous. Worth the wait, the snooty service and the price. Not to be missed on the rue Meynadier is Aux Trois Etoiles, a purveyor of flavoured oils, eaux-de-vie and vinegars. Some of these aren't great, e.g. a garlic oil and vinegar where the garlic had a distinctively roasted / old taste. But some of the eaux-de-vie are superb, and there is a wide and changing variety on offer. The owner cheerfully allows you to taste, drawing down small glasses from beautiful glass and pottery demijohns and jugs. Quince, peach, pear and plum were all very good, as was a preparation made with crème fraîche, coffee and kirsch. The oils, vinegars and eaux-de-vie are sold in glass bottles in a variety of shapes, some of them very attractive, and sizes. The owner sold me one of his smaller jugs, with a commercial spigot and spout, as a vinaigrier (vinegar maker); it is perfect in size and in the composition of the pottery. I had, several years before, bought a "vinaigrier" in a shop in Gourdon, but it proved to be merely decorative. It made wonderful vinegar, but the porcelain turned out to be porous and constantly oozed vinegar, and the spigot was made of decorative cork, which didn't stand up either to the vinegar or to regular use. When I finally tracked down the manufacturer (the shop owner denied any responsibility), she cheerfully told me that those jugs had been made as decorative items for tourists, not for anyone so foolish as to try to make vinegar. That was why they had been sold so cheaply. To the retailer, perhaps: I had paid too much for a useless product. The commercial model at Trois Etoiles was EUR 107...more beautiful, and actually useful. A long screed about tabbouleh and a vinegar jug, but sometimes it's worth remembering these details.

Robert, I think you are exactly right here. Bacon offers a "degustation" serving of bouillabaisse: a smaller serving that can easily follow a starter. If I recall correctly, they offered to refill my bowl when I had finished it! Between us we did finish all of the fish at Tétou, but not all of the soup. They weren't overly generous with the langoustines. Nonetheless I somehow think they wouldn't have allowed us to share one bouillabaisse, refusing to give more than one bowl for example. Given the multiple rounds of service, passing a bowl back and forth would have been clumsy. Bouillabaisse didn't start out as a luxury dish. There must be places in the area that offer a good version at a more reasonable price. On our next trip I am going to make some enquiries at fishmongers and markets. Meanwhile, I did a quick look around the web and found the following on Arthur Frommer's site (not quoted verbatim): "Chez Michel / le Grand Pavois, in Nice, is run by members of the family who owns Tétou. Jacques Marquise, one of the patriarchs of the Chez Tétou success story, and manager of the place during the glory years is the creative force here, and he's committed to maintaining prices that are between 30% and 40% less than those charged by Chez Tétou. Bouillabaisse is the specialty here, a succulent and authentic version..." It would have been nice to have paid 40% less at Tétou. Even nicer to have had a truly outstanding bouillabaisse. Still, chez Michel may be worth a try.

Tétou is a bouillabaisse specialist on the beach in Golfe-Juan. We went a week ago, on a rainy evening, so the terrace was closed and sitting next to a window wasn't the pleasure it might have been at this time of year. The room is long and very simply decorated. The first thing you notice about Tétou is that they don't take credit cards. They tell you this when you reserve. There is a sign on the door. The menus and the bills all say: "no credit cards". Even the restaurant's calling card says it. Pay in cash, with a cheque drawn on a French bank or in travellers' cheques. No credit cards. Got it. They do grilled fish but the house speciality is, undoubtedly, bouillabaisse, served either with or without langoustines. We had it with. We asked for something beforehand -- a salad perhaps. No, said the waiter: the bouillabaisse is enough. No starter. First to arrive were toasted (but cold) baguette slices and rouille, the latter surprisingly lacking in intensity of flavour. Then sliced potatoes, tinged with saffron. Then the soup, in a large tureen, and several minutes later, the langoustines, which the waiter carefully shelled and put on a plate, which he put on top of the tureen, presumably to keep warm. The soup itself was good but not exceptional, slightly muddied in flavour, nowhere near as clean tasting as what we had at Loulou. The langoustines were good and properly cooked. Then the fish started to arrive: rascasses, grondin, chapon, and I don't remember what else. Each time the waiter brought us a plate with the cooked fish, then whisked them away to a trolley where he filleted them onto a plate. It ended up feeling a bit frantic and mechanical, not helped by the fact that different staff members took our order, strolled over to comment on the weather, brought the tureen, brought the fish. One of the owners, I think, came to our table, said "Bonsoir", stared at us and then walked away. Almost everyone in the place seemed to be having bouillabaisse. The dessert list is short, but both of our desserts were superb: a sorbet aux griottes for me and a coffee ice cream for my wife By this time, the place was full and a bit out of control; the table nearest ours had around 16 diners, all of whom had ordered the bouillabaisse. We were able to get our bill, but couldn't get anyone to take it up; finally we put the exact sum on the table and left. I would guess that about half of the clientele were American. On the way out I gave the car park attendant EUR 1; he rather sniffily handed it back. Not enough. I pocketed it and we departed. Tétou isn't cheap: EUR 243.50 for two servings of bouillabaisse, a bottle of Ch. Rasque Côte de Provence Rosé, a bottle of Badoit and two desserts -- no coffee. By contrast, Bacon in Antibes came out at EUR 200 for the same plus two starters. The setting was better, the service far superior, and the bouillabaisse much more carefully put together, with a better fish broth. Bacon and Tétou each sport one Michelin star, but Bacon is better, to my way of thinking.

Just returned from a week in the South. Following the helpful advice in these pages we dined at Loulou, Tétou and several other places and I wanted to provide brief feedback. This note covers Loulou and I will separately write about the others. Loulou / La Réserve in Cros de Cagnes specialises in fish, but also features meat from the Boucherie Marbeuf in Paris. There is a detailed review from Steve Plotnicki elsewhere in this group, under the topic title "Loulou in Cros-de-Cagnes", so I will try not to repeat information from that posting. Three of us started with the fish soup, one with tiny fried anchovies. The fish soup was served with rouille, croutons and cheese -- but it is a fish soup, not a bouillabaiise, so there were no chunks of fish in it. The flavour was incredibly fresh and clean, as though the soup had been prepared seconds before. And indeed throughout the dinner we heard, from time to time, what sounded like a whizzing blender, and I would guess that this soup is prepared almost to order. The anchovies were crisp and light, with flavour that was strong and clear but not in the least "fishy". The fish on offer is, for the most part, what is good that day: we were offered either chapon or daurade. The waiter recommended the latter, then returned to tell us that it was of a size that it could only be served to two people. Since only one of us wanted fish, she had the chapon. My wife and I had the Simmenthal côte de boeuf that Steve described. Another friend had lightly steamed prawns. The fish and prawns were superb; both were served with a bit of olive oil and garlic, and not much else. Loulou seems to focus on simple cooking of excellent ingredients rather than fancy sauces. We had trouble with the beef. The waiter asked whether we wanted it "saignant" (bleeding rare); I like meat cooked this way (or even less cooked, "bleu") but my wife prefers it better done. No, I said, "à point". In theory this means "medium rare" but most of the time in France it means "very rare". And the next and only degree of cooking above "à point" is "bien cuit" (well done). When the meat arrived, it was very rare: deep red inside. I thought this was great, but my wife struggled to eat it. The waiter had disappeared, and I spotted the chef, Eric Campo, walking through the restaurant. I asked him to come over to the table. We were then treated to a long and impassioned diatribe: he was the chef, not the waiter. One did not ask him to bring more water. If we wanted something, we should ask the waiter. He, the chef, had other things to do. This didn't sound nearly as nasty in French as the description above might imply, but it took me aback. "I only wanted to ask you a small question," I said. "I am listening," said the chef. I asked whether he might cook my wife's meat a bit more. I half expected another lecture, but he seemed pleased to take the dish back to the grill, from which he returned it a few moments later. I thanked him profusely, and he said he was pleased to have been of service. Somehow my earlier transgression had been forgiven. The meat itself was wonderful: deep flavours with no saucing at all, just a bit of olive oil and salt. I was reminded of a bistecca alla Fiorentina that I had eaten in a tiny village near Greve, many years before. Beautiful potatoes came with both the fish and the beef. The dessert menu offered wild strawberries (fraises des bois). They didn't have any that day, said the waiter, but had just received strawberries from the garrigue that were just as flavourful as fraises des bois. "Just wait," he said, "you must taste them." And he returned, a moment later, with a tiny bowl containing one strawberry for each of us -- a strawberry degustation. The berries were so good that we ordered them. They were served without sugar or cream, but were perfect. Simple preparation, superb ingredients. On our way out I asked the chef about the steaming apparatus next to the grill, which Steve mentioned in his post. "C'est un steamer de haute pression," he replied -- a professional pressure cooker. Did they use it for fish? One could use it for fish, he said, but they didn't: they used it for those potatoes we had, and for shellfish. We will certainly return to this place, even to eat the same things again.

John, you are very kind. I am not a pseudonymous pro -- nor, I hope, a professional pseud. Much of what I do for a living involves writing, but not about food. Perhaps that will be a second career some day. It's hard to know what to think about Claiborne. On the one hand there was the readiness to compromise, the comfort with tinned gravies and adulterated "gourmet" recipes. On the other, he seemed to have a large and positive influence at a time when good food, fresh ingredients and caring restaurants were in the minority. He discovered such talented cooks and writers as Virginia Lee. In the main, wasn't he on the right side? I feel the same way about Julia Child, despite the Hesses' anger at her. No, she was neither French nor a chef, and my guess is that she wasn't all that proficient a cook on her own. And though her books have a treasured place on my shelf, that is where they usually stay. But she helped open a new world for me. I still remember, as if it were yesterday, cooking suprêmes de volaille à blanc from one of her books, the first "French" dish I ever made. The chicken breasts had come frozen from our local supermarket and the sauce was unnecessarily doctored with bad cream and bouillon from a cube. Nonetheless, it was so incredibly good by comparison with our usual dinners that I ate it, and my parents and siblings ate it, in complete silence -- an unusual event in a family of 6. I agree with you about "gourmet" -- as you so neatly put it, a word so thoroughly processed and packaged as to lose its character. This has been going on for a good while. One of MFK Fisher's essays talks about a friend of hers, desperate because the boss is coming to dinner. "I've got to gourmet up the pot roast," moans the friend. Now we have gourmet restaurants (=high prices); gourmet kitchens (=stainless steel, 6 burners on the hob -- never mind that the knives are dull, the oven is small and the burners barely heat); gourmet magazines; the gourmet aisle in Sainsbury's; the galloping gourmet; the frugal gourmet. Yet it could be far worse. I find it far easier to sort out the chaff than to be unable to find interesting ingredients. Yes, there are "gourmet" coffee shops every 200 metres, but at least you can now find an espresso without having to travel across town. I guess I would rather live in a world full of "gourmet" stuff, much of which is silly and expensive, than one in which the food revolution had never happened. It doesn't bother me that the magazine racks are full of gastro-porn as long as I can get eGullet, PPC, Gastronomica, etc. When I was growing up, none of these were available.

I have not done a systematic survey but this general tendency to carp and criticise does seem heavy in food writers. There is a lot of it in Reflexions: MFK Fisher is slammed because she drinks a lot of sweet vermouth, and Julia Child gets her knocks for using phrases like "cookery bookery". The strange thing about Olney was that he seemed to permit others to use him mercilessly: they would show up as unannounced house guests, demand that he cook for them, etc., yet he didn't seem to complain at the time. James Beard orders him to cook caillettes for a book launch party, and he spends a day up to his elbows in ground meat and caul fat. One of his friends announces that he must be co-owner of the house in Solliès and Olney signs the papers. A curious personality. The Taste Of America (John and Karen Hess) has some good elements but seems to be soaked in the same vitriol that John Whiting describes. Food writers (Claiborne, Beard, etc.) are repeatedly criticised because they call for too much flour in sauces. Julia Child is slammed because of her television programme, "The French Chef": she is "neither French nor a chef." Thomas Keller is bad because he has been playful with with some famous French recipe (Sole Véronique, if I recall correctly) in a French Laundry menu. Almost nobody is a good enough, learned enough cook. Some food writers often start from a more generous perspective (John Thorne, for example, or Michael Ruhlman). But most are less warm. Of course it is important to be able to criticise -- for example, John Thorne's penetrating critique of Paula Wolfert's work. Yet there is criticism that seeks to understand, criticism that seeks to appreciate the best in something that is nonetheless flawed, and criticism that is simply poisonous. Is this particularly strong in the tribe of food writers?

The last article in my paperback edition of Is There a Nutmeg in the House is Asher's obituary of Elizabeth David, published (I think) in the Times. It is several pages long and answers to the description you give: trip to California, etc. Could this be the piece you are thinking of?

I discovered it, with great joy, at Books for Cooks (floreat!) late last year. It has some lovely ice cream and sorbet recipes, previously unpublished. Jill Norman, who was David's literary executor, seems to have done a good job with the editing. I was sad to learn, a little over a year ago I think, that Norman finally got tired of storing David's remaining papers, and gave them most of them away or sold them to collectors. Who knows what was lost?

Here's how the story appears in Olney's memoir, Reflexions (Brick Tower Press, 1999). 1955. Olney meets Lucien Peyraud in Paris, at the Salon des Arts Ménagers, where Peyraud was presenting wines from the Domaine Tempier. He orders each succeeding vintage from the Domaine. 1961. Taking possession of his house in Solliès-Toucas, Olney visits the Peyraud family and "becomes a frequent guest at Domaine Tempier." Around 1971, at about the same time Chez Panisse is founded, one of Waters's early partners gives her a copy of The French Menu Cookbook, Olney's first publication; this has a strong early influence on the restaurant. 1972, London. Olney's brother James, who had met Elizabeth David, introduces Olney to David, who had previously received The French Menu Cookbook. Olney: "I went around to see her. As she was pouring glasses of white wine, she said, 'I suppose you disapprove of putting ice into wine -- I always do ... I see that you like savory with broad beans -- I detest savory with broad beans...and you like basil -- I have no use for it...' I pronounced basil in the American manner with a broad a -- she was beside herself: 'You don't r-e-a-l-l-y pronounce it that way, do you?' Our interviews continued in much the same way. I tried desperately to maintain a serious countenance but, finally, was helpless with laughter; by the time she had stopped roughing me up, we were greate friends. Simply being in Elizabeth's presence was magical. She was witty and literate. Her observations about people were often scathing, but only because they were so devastatingly accurate-- they were funny, never cruel. She was generous and kind." 1974. Simple French Food is published and Olney comes to the US for the launch party and a series of cooking classes and demonstrations. Alice Waters and Jeremiah Tower contrive to meet him at Williams-Sonoma and invite him to Chez Panisse. 1975. Waters comes to Solliès; Olney takes her to Domaine Tempier to meet the Peyrauds. Olney: "Lulu invited us to dinner, but we were to taste in the cellars in the afternoon. After sampling all the new wines in the woord, we moved back through vintage after vintage. Alice and I danced (that is to say, we whirled with wild abandon -- Alice assured me that we were dancing the tango) until we collapsed on the cellar floor. Alice fell in love with the Peyraud family." October 1976. Friends of Kermit Lynch suggest to Lynch that Olney might be useful to him on a visit to France, since Lynch didn't speak French. Lynch: "His name, Richard Olney, meant nothing to me, but when I mentioned him to Alice Waters...her mouth dropped open. 'Richard Olney! Don't even think about it. Pack your bags and get on the plane.' I remember waking up at Richard's hillside home in Provence the morning after my arrival." 1981. The Académie Internationale du Vin organises a tour of Northern California and Oregon vineyards; Lulu, Lucien and Jean-Marie Peyraud travel with Olney to the US. Alice Waters organises a dinner for Olney and the Peyrauds at Chez Panisse. The book has a copy of the menu, bearing signatures of many food people from the California circle: Lynch, Joseph Swan, Lindsey Shere, Deborah Madison, Linda Guenzel, Dick Graff, Marion Cunningham... 1986. Elizabeth David, who had not previously shown interest in visiting America, goes to San Francisco to stay with the wine merchant Gerald Asher. Olney makes his first visit to the Bay Area; he stays with Jeremiah Tower "and lunched often with Elizabeth, either at Stars or at Chez Panisse." Waters wishes to organise a lunch in David's honour, but Elizabeth begs her not to, so she names David guest of honour at a lunch given to celebrate the publication of Olney's Yquem. Again, there is a menu signed by Tower, Paul Bertolli, Olney, David, ... * * * Truly an amazing circle. And to think they accomplished it all without the aid of eGullet...