Suzanne F

Into the batter/flour fray: When I cook them, I only flour them. I like that extra little crunch that the dryness of flour imparts. Also, I am no damn good at battering (ask HWOE ). However, the "Salt and Pepper Softshells" at NY Noodletown are in some sort of very light, tempura-style batter, and they are wonderful. then again, meuniere with no coating at all are also good. The bottom line is: softshells are delicious any way you deal with them as long as they're properly cleaned (I've had ones that were not, and yech.)

Mine was an intimate dinner for two, pre-HWOE. We'll ignore the fact that I cooked enough for a dozen people, and all the food was WHITE (halibut baked in a cream sauce, boiled potatoes, I forget what else). What we cannot ignore was the fact that my guest was dreadfully allergic to cats, of which I had 2 or maybe 3 at the time. As you can imagine, the evening did not end as I'd hoped it would.

Oh my. First time I've been on this thread since Jinmyo got a camera. Oh my oh my. As mentioned on at least one other thread today, I am alone and so made myself some spaghetti with olive oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes. Modified with a little clarified butter as well, plus a dash of oregano and a dozen grindings of black pepper; Parmigiano-Reggiano too. Paumanok Chenin Blanc.

Home (that is, the restaurant on Cornelia Street in Greenwich Village) also makes their own. I don't have the book, but I suspect it may be in Recipes from Home. I would also think allspice (but mostly because I love it). Homemade in the Kitchen by Barry Bluestein and Kevin Morrissey adds cinnamon stick and whole cloves. Better than Storebought (Helen Witty and Elizabeth Schneider [Colchie]) calls for a load of whole spices: mustard seeds, allspice, cinnamon, black peppercorns, bay leaf, cloves, coriander, red pepper flakes. In both books, the spices are tied in cheesecloth to be retrieved after cooking.

Not sure if I said this before, but: I used to like Pret a Manger, except for the pretentious written materials (especially the napkins and bags). But then they closed the one nearest me after maybe 6 months, if that long; apparently the place wasn't making its numbers. To me, that's an awfully short time to expect to change people's eating patterns. So now I do not like them. Besides, Claudia Fleming left.

Doc, do you flour them first? Just curious.

Tommy, YOUR work is never done. But now I realize why I posted about making this to the thread on "Cooking for One." This, and the fact that I just worked on a new book by Marcella Hazan (no, she doesn't give a recipe for it, but does mention it along with some great ammunition in the fresh-versus-dried pasta debate). And, of course, since HWOE is away tonight, guess I'll have to make it just for me!

The Sterns were recently part of a panel on "The Persona in Food Writing" and brought up that story. Actually, Jane said that almost all the negative criticism about their reviews began "That bitch Jane Stern . . ." as if Michael had nothing to do with it. Hmmm.

Jeez, wish I'd known about you on my recent trip to Portland! Or maybe I did, but didn't know it. In any case, please keep writing. Great story. And fyi: the Todaro store is still going, on Second Avenue. Let's close our eyes and take a deeeeeeeeeeeeep breath together.

Has anyone here ever heard a piece of music by Alvin Lucier titled "I am Sitting in a Room"? It begins with a tape of a person reading the words "I am sitting in a room, different from the room you are in now . . ." The tape is played back into the room and the sound from the playback is recorded, and then that tape is played back, and THAT tape . . . over and over, until the words are long gone and very little identifiable sound remains, just the vaguest outline of tone and overtone. That's been my experience staying on after the chef left. The way the chef's dishes were prepared -- a tenuous attachment at best even with the chef's presence -- drifts farther and farther from the original. The plating may change, because there's no one to make sure the plates look just right. The accompaniments may change, because one day the purveyor can't supply the right ingredients, and the new person in charge says, So what? The dish changes, not for better or worse, or greater or lesser "authenticity" -- it just changes because there's no reason for it NOT to change. Sure, the recipes are probably all still there, but there's no one to enforce their correct use. So the food drifts, until the new chef exerts his/her influence and makes substantial changes in the menu.

The perfect opportunity to make spaghetti with olive oil, garlic, and hot pepper. That, maybe a little steamed broccoli or sauteed zucchini, and a glass or 2 or 3 or . . . of wine: perfectly simple and simply perfect.

Where you been for the last 3 months, boy?

Jason, you got something against Mosca? I'll admit I've never been there, but I've been making their "barbecued shrimp" for almost 30 years now, thanks to Mimi Sheraton in the NY Times Magazine in July, 1976. Basically, you marinate shell-on shrimp in lots of olive oil with garlic, bay leaves, rosemary, and dried oregano for a couple of hours, then put the whole thing in a pan with some salt and pepper (I use a LOT of pepper) and poach very slowly for about 20 minutes. Add some white wine, simmer 5 to 10 minutes, then dive in. Serve with lots of good bread, or over linguine or spaghetti. The shells soften up enough to chomp easily. If the gods of copyright will allow me, I will post the actual recipe in eGRA. May I? 'Cause this stuff is GREAT.

I'm more likely to knock over the setup in which I'm filtering oil to reuse for deep-frying. I can't remember exactly how long ago the last occurrence was (months, not years at least), and I'm still cleaning up: just washed the kitchen rugs last week (finally) and tonight have some of the forks in the dishwasher from one of the drawers into which the oil dripped. Yuck. Oh, wait: I just remembered: that was in early February, and it wasn't filtering oil; it was measuring it for a monster batch of vinaigrette for 60 people. Knocking-over-the-china-Melitta-cone-full-of-oil WAS a couple of years ago. And THAT was cleaned up within only a week or so. But atl ast that means that the oil I'm (still) cleaning up was clean to begin with. Whew, that's a relief.

The matzo brei I grew up on -- and still make most often -- is neutral, neither sweet nor savory. So one could eat it with jam OR with extra salt and pepper. I only make a specifically savory version when I want it to be that way. Never heard of actually making it sweet: what do you do, add sugar to the soaking/eggs? Hmmm, might be worth a try.

Kosher Wine: A Distillate of Judaism's Coming-Out Party Be sure to check The Daily Gullet home page daily for new articles (most every weekday), hot topics, site announcements, and more.

I've got a Polder Triple Timer/Clock/Stopwatch. No rope, but it fits in a shirt-pocket. and has a magnet to slap it on surfaces (over my desk, that means a huge binder clip, clipped onto the bottom of the cabinet door). The clock and stopwatch are one mode, the timers another. It is possible to have all five counters going at the same time (timers counting down, clock and stopwatch counting up). Each timer has a different ring. Very handy for timing unexpected breaks during work (stopwatch) and the usual washer-and-dryer cycles (timers). I don't use it in the kitchen -- I've four timers there, one each built into stove and nuker, plus one single electronic and a twisty manual -- but no doubt it would be good there.

I'm doing a happy dance! All around my office! My co-workers think I'm verkachteh! I have already placed an order for two pans -- and if they work out well, I'll buy six more. Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! I can hardly wait for Pesach to be over! I will post the recipe for the chocolate challah very, very soon! OY! you should have waited and checked out King Arthur Flour. Their nice, heavy-guage pans are on sale (probably because it's still Passover)? They cost more than the ones you got, even on sale, but. (Is this Jewish echad-upmanship?) Nah.

I was going to suggest Reine de Saba (Queen of Sheba): almond flour, chocolate, eggs, butter, but . . . well, yeah, sugar and flour, too. Maybe there's a recipe for it somewhere out there in cyberspace that doesn't have much of the carb stuff? It's so wonderful, and needs nothing else, no frosting, not even cream (although that's always nice).

Look in lower left-hand corner for Picaman's Squash-and-Apple Tart from the NY eGullet Pie Potluck back in January.

You could call a weak flavor a subtle flavor. I think you are right that there are probably cultural differences of opinion in how strong a flavor should be. I think subtle flavors have their place as do bold flavors. I personally don't want a flavor to hit me over the head, but I want to know its there. I think that when an item in a dessert is supposed to taste like something, you should be able to taste it. Sometimes you might taste it, and not be able to figure out what it is, but you should hopefully be able to find it. I'd say the pastry cream in these puffs is definetly not overly sweet and the vanilla flavor is very sublte. I don't like things too sweet and I don't think that adding more sugar would make the cream any better or more flavorful, it would make it worse. I agree with suzanne that vanilla is one of the pastry chef's tools for enhancing flavors (like salt), but it also has of course its own great flavor. I think when you have a pastry cream with a lot of vanilla beans it just makes the flavor great--but that I suppose is very American of me. I also think that a big part of the reason this cream only has a few vanilla beans in it, is that vanilla is incrediblly expensive. As I recall from my one and only visit there on Opening Day, they had signs and flyers making a big deal about how expensive the vanilla is, but they use it anyway. Which is why I was so disappointed that I could barely taste any vanilla at all (although yes, the Breyers-ish black specks are quite visible). It was way below "subtle" to the point of "is any there at all?"

Isn't this the same Sutton Place that bought Balducci's here in NYC and turned it from a wonderful place into schlock? And now the new owner has the chutzpa to use that name for all the stores? Feh. Yeah: we talked about it here.

Yes, and I've seen that pig elsewhere, too. He (she?) really gets around. Probably out of a -- OH! just looked through the Dover book I have and there it is, on page 85! Ever so much more handsome than the one just above it, or in the upper right-hand corner (rather surly, that one). So it's a public-domain pig.

Anne Rosenzweig used to make a mushroom matzo brei at Arcadia, I think. I never actually had it, but loved the idea so much that I worked one up for myself. - Saute lots of mushrooms (including some rehydrated porcini, especially otherwise if only using button mushrooms) with some chopped onion or shallot and garlic in butter (for dairy) or olive oil (fleishig). - Soak and break up the matzo as you normally would (use the soaking water as part of the liquid), and add it to the mushrooms. - Cook, turning and breaking up the pieces. It won't necessarily get crisp, but yummmm! Works especially well with whole-wheat matzo (not pesachdige, though, is it?).

I would think that the less-sweet cream would allow the vanilla to come through more strongly on its own. But it doesn't. And to me, vanilla is what enhances sweetness, not the other way around. (I was very happy that the cream was NOT overly sweetened; sorry if that did not come through clearly.)