Suzanne F

Oh, I was thinking it's just meat (well, a little meat and a LOT of fat and salt). In which case, turning it into hash is the natural thing to do. Just don't salt the potatoes or anything else, or you'll all be guzzling water all night. You can also chunk it up and use it as part of the filling for pasties -- pretty much the same as Jinmyo suggests, but encasing it in a crust. Mmmm, pie. Just don't think of it as meat.

Hey, me too! You sure we weren't separated at birth? But sorry, I almost never use my ancient garlic press. As Jinmyo says, too much trouble to find in the drawer, rinse because it's been sitting in schmutz so long, dry, use (open, drop in 1 clove, squeeze, open, push partly-crushed clove back in, squeeze, open, etc.), rinse, clean out hole-by-hole with a toothpick, rinse again, put in dishwasher, take out of dishwasher, turn inside out to finish drying, and fit back into overloaded gadget drawer. So much better to: place clove on cutting board, smack, pull off skin, chop chop smush chop smush. Then wash and dry knife, put cutting board in dishwasher, and get on with the important stuff: COOKING!

Any thoughts on the live fish one sees swimming around in tanks in some of the supermarkets?

I hate post hoc ergo propter hoc when it's applied to death.

Hey, Stone, we're talking about PIZZA here.

So I'm a hypocrite. So sue me. Actually, I think by now they recognize eGulleteers, and all we have to do is waggle an eyebrow. I thought it was the scarlet "e" on our chests. That's just a drip of Suvir's Tomato Chutney.

Total aside here, but I've had nothing but problems with the Good Cook book club and wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Can't wait to buy my final book and have done with it. I am not a member, so I didn't want want to badmouth Good Cook. But almost everything I have heard from friends bears out what JAZ said. Does my saying that make me a bad person?

So I'm a hypocrite. So sue me. Actually, I think by now they recognize eGulleteers, and all we have to do is waggle an eyebrow.

The branch of "Little Italy Pizza" closest to me is all Russian, or some other former SSR. A friend in cooking school won a pizza competition; he is 2nd generation Irish-American. Now, I'm not claiming any of these guys make GREAT pizza. But, then, nobody has yet said that Mario makes great pizza, either.

That leads me to something of a moot question: I wonder if "nobodies" get the same service that we, the "in-crowd," get. On other threads there has been discussion of how one gets better service than the average diner. At Diwan, we say the magic words eGullet and Suvir, and presto! Of course, we have to keep up our end of the bargain and continue to demonstrate that we are worthy of such treatment. Our joy at being there, and our appreciation of the food, is definitely mirrored by the staff, who seem to enjoy having us as customers. For those who are unsure: yes, this is supposed to be a joke. Mostly.

Orik -- Not that it's my fault, but I'm sorry you so disliked your meal there. But that does not mean that everyone else has to view the experience as poorly. Chacun à son goût. We didn't have the marrow -- although it was considered -- so I can't comment on the quality of preparation at Prune. I don't doubt Yvonne's palate, she had considerably more of the sweetbreads than the rest of us. And if she is correct, perhaps we should bring that complaint to the chef's attention. That sort of problem persists only when it goes undetected. It does seem fairly unlikely, though, that your parallel complaint about your steak holds, unless it was also deep-fried. Was it? I would love to know where the street festivals are with suckling pig. To be honest, the only one I go to regularly that has it is 9th Avenue, and I don't try it there, only kokoretsi and spit-roasted quail or partridge. Please let us know where we can find better. And as you can well imagine, I disagree with you about the level of restaurants in NYC. I would not put Prune at the highest level that NY has to offer, nor do I expect anyone else here would. Not every restaurant can -- or should -- aspire to Jean Georges-hood (or, god help us, Ducasse-hood, where I had one of the worst dishes of my life). And not all of us can, or should, eat at that level with any frequency. You didn't like the place. Others do. That neither elevates you nor lowers them. [/schoolmarm mode]

And add the leaves to salad, for color contrast as well as flavor.

Not that I'm any kind of expert on shower etiquette, but I thought the showeree is not involved. Isn't it supposed to be something of a surprise? That means the questioner can get other people to do the lying for her: have one or more of the shower organizers say that the food has already been arranged. She Who Can't Cook is welcome to contribute one of her "specialty dishes" if she'd like, but really, thanks awfully much, it's all taken care of. Then everyone else race around like hell making the lie into the truth. PS: I would never, ever give someone like that a food book; it will just encourage her.

Jon, I too remember that incident. But I can't remember who or where, either. Just that a restaurant burned down, and someone died. Isn't Vatel a precedent for this sad business, if it was indeed suicide? That was long, long before critics mattered much. It was all the pressure he put on himself. As, possibly, here. edited to remove unintended innuendo.

I've got Gary Regan's The Bartender's Bible, which I find notable mainly for the cocktail names -- e.g., Presbyterian (blended whiskey, ginger ale, club soda, and a lemon twist); Brazen Hussy (vodka, Cointreau, lemon juice); Shooing away the Tribes of the Night (all sorts of stuff). I've never actually tried to make anything from it.

Just because of how Mamster started his excellent article: I think the "raw food" movement is a lot of horsehockey -- and dangerous too -- but in good hands, vegan can be something pretty damn good. One of the most inventive, flavorful meals I've had was a special dinner for Women Chefs and Restaurateurs at Real Food Daily in Santa Monica. What I didn't learn until partway through was that it was vegan. So the "cashew creme fraiche" was pureed cashews, and not the least bit creme fraiche. No egg in the butternut squash flan. And so on for the whole meal. Too bad such inventive cooking seems not to be the norm. Anyway, remember: "Cheese is milk's leap toward immortality." Bennet Cerf? Clifton Fadiman? One of them.

So do you think that those places that make a big deal out of having "coal oven pizza" are just playing on nostalgia? Since coal was the primary fuel when the old places opened 100+ years ago. Or does coal actually give better heat than gas or electric (better = hotter if that's necessary, more even, whatever it takes)? As I mentioned on that other thread, the two restaurants where I had to tend and cook in wood-fired ovens had the wood burning IN the cooking chamber. In those cases, the food was cooked for a longer time than pizza might be, and did pick up flavor from the smoke. I've always thought that if pizza (or food) picked up flavor from the burning coal (or oil), it would be inedible. Which is why I never understood the supposed charm of the coal oven.

Robert, I worked at a couple of restaurants that had wood-fired ovens. Mercifully, both stints were brief. Getting the fire going was a pain. Keeping it fed was a pain. Maintaining a proper temperature was a pain. Cleaning it out at the end of the night was a pain. The only good thing was how the food tasted: incomparably, subtly smoky and delicately flavored! So I guess it was it was worth all the pain.

Wow! That's a pretty fancy menu. But don't you think they should quit screwing around and just add the damn nickel all around? It's sooooooooo tacky this way (and for $38.95 I would want the whole g-d deer!).

Only if they try to get you to believe it's as good as the real thing.

If I could make up stuff like that, I'd have already written the Great American Novel.

Pomaire, near the far west end of Restaurant Row. Not terribly exciting the one time I went.

Which reminds me -- I've got an electric warming tray on the pass-through between my kitchen and dining table. I use it to keep the teapot hot, extra servings of dinner warm, and so on. And to warm the dinner plates. Let me tell you, if you warm your plates for more than 15 minutes or so on the hot spot set on high, you will eventually need a whole new set of dishes. They tend to "ping" and split in half, crossways.

I read somewhere that canned sardines improve with age. That there are secret societies of sardine-can keepers, who maintain private lists of which brands are best at what age. All very esoteric. No, I am NOT making this up. I just can't remember where I read it. So what if you've got 5+-year-old cans? My storage philosophy is, if it ain't bulging, it's staying. Of course, if it looks or smells weird when I open it, THAT'S when it gets dumped.

No personal experience with this, but family legend has it that when my mother was carrying my older sister, the only things Mom could eat were anchovies and hard-boiled eggs. Fits in perfectly with the emerging sharp flavor/high protein profile.