Suzanne F

Good point. Let's hope he's got really good capitalization.

NEAT!!!! Where youse guys staying? And how much are people willing to walk? My first thought is if you hit the Metropolitan Museum, as you MUST, have a pick-me-up of coffee and cake mit schlag at Cafe Sabarsky (in the Neue Galerie at Fifth Avenue and 86th Street). They have real food, too, and are open from 9am to 9pm. More suggestions to come.

FYI: the same company in Brooklyn that makes almond paste (American Almond Products Co., Inc.) also makes pistachio paste along the same lines (but colored). Another suggestion: a variation on carrot halwah.

Actually, I think I mentioned passing up Bar Tabac for a Latino steam-table place next door to a Latino/Italian butcher shop (on Smith Street). AHHHHHH, Noodle Pudding! We that place. Homemade pastas, interesting food (grilled sardines; rabbit). We were there once with HWOE's nephew, his wife, and toddler -- and the kid practically ate my whole plate of lentil soup! We like to go there before later concerts or after early ones at Bargemusic.

I don't know about that; the only time I had the pulled pork it was very, very mushy, as though it had been fed through a grinder. And that really diluted the flavor. But that was months ago, so maybe it's better now.

JJ: Hesser wrote about St. John and its chef, Fergus Henderson (of archived eGullet Q & A fame)

After reading the UK board, I'm not sure we're ready for a gastro-pub. I'm still a little mad at Jason for "NO, NO, NO OFFAL" when we went to Babbo. I want guts!!! And I agree with basque on AB's great Food Arts piece; at least to me it was even better than Melissa Kelly and her leaves. Well, almost (hey, just basil envy).

Mmmm, gingersnaps. So we're looking at 1/3 or 1/10 or 1/31. The first two are better to keep the "holiday" feeling going. Besides, I really missed that burger yesterday.

Thank you for honoring us with your presence! Amanda Hesser has mentioned you as an entertaining, enlightening, and exhausting dinner companion. May I ask your opinion of Ms. Hesser and her choice of topics, her writing style, her choice of dining companions? -- whatever you might care to divulge while remaining the gentleman we know you to be.

No gardening advice; I have a "black thumb." But more on cooking them: The last few days I've just been shredding them and sauteeing the shreds in a hot pan with a little oil and seasonings. They smell like spring when you grate them; but give up a LOT of water. Last night we put them into our chicken tacos -- a very nice contrast against the spicy chicken and condiments.

I love using ground fenugreek as a "Hmm, what is that interesting flavor?" addition. People may recognize it as an element of "curry" but not know what it is. And now I'm wondering if the leaves (methi) might work in an infusion for an ice cream base or a sauce?

Not necessarily the best coffee, but the best coffee experience: Cold espresso sweetened with simple syrup in a stand-up caffe across from La Fenice in Venice, June, 1986 (pre-fire). Just a regular caffe, but a perfect experience. Attending a great conference on Livable Cities, with an international crowd of architects and thinkers. HWOE and I had just gotten married the morning before we left to go to Venice. Still dreaming of going back.

Hey, I wouldn't want to be 29 ever again. But I'd love to spend that day with youse guys.

Um, HERself, Seth Witchel (was there ever a more aptly-named writer?) is Mrs. Frank Rich. BTW: will the event be moderated, or a typically elitist free-for-all? I've already got a question in mind.

there have been several, um, "spirited" discussions on this in the past. i dare not dig them up. Wise move, tommy. Wait, doesn't a thread on your jacket mean you're going to get a letter?

That would mean taking over the whole place -- and probably having to turn people away. (IIRC we had over 40 at Diwan)

I love the turn this thread has taken! Sometime in the mid-1970s. A friend of HWOE's came through Detroit playing for some show. We took him to our local Mexican restaurant, Acapulco. He proceeded to pop pickled jalapenos as if they were olives. Katie, he might have matched the color your rabbi's son turned.

Hey, from what I remember from geography class, Iceland isn't so bad -- thermal springs and volcanoes and all that. Oh wait, you mean where Bjork is from . . . you might be right. Even though I thought the Vermont Chili Festival was kind of strange, I actually enjoyed it. Especially the stand decorated with a miniature, um, loo: the entrant called his "Next Day Chili." (The winner goes on to represent the state at a national championship.)

What I want to know is: dare anyone NOT post here? If this thread isn't the antidote to "we're all a bunch of elitist snobby foodies," I don't know what is. I just don't know whether to cry or laugh when I read it. So I do both.

I'm sure Sam has better aim.

Just remember the opening of Anna Christie (imagine Garbo's accent):

I think it makes sense to call a pan by whatever happens to be its proper and most generally accepted name. That's why I say "chinois" and not "fine mesh conical strainer." The practice by which all the different manufacturers call their pans by different, and often contradictory names leads to too much confusion in my opinion (e.g., Calphalon's "omelette pan," which is really a fry pan and not an omelette pan at all). But, as they say: de gustibus non disputandum est. Yes, that "thing." I do have several of what you continue to refer to so pretentiously; I believe AC calls them -- well, no matter what they call them; when I need to cook, I reach for whatever piece of cookware in my batterie seems the most likely to serve me and my food well, whatever I or its manufacturer call it ("Come here, come here, little Evasée. That's a good pan.") And just as I believe there is no one right way to cook anything there is no one right name for anything, either.* What was a rondeau in the kitchen at Le Bernardin was a rondel in another professional kitchen, and a casserole elsewhere. "That which we call a rose/ By any other name would smell as sweet." (Unless, of course, we burn it in the cooking. ) Not everyone knows there is a difference between a china cap and a chinois (which, by the way, is actually a sieve, not a strainer), or which is which (and, in fact, I have seen manufacturers -- French, at that -- using the names "wrong.") And, if standing at the sink with a stockpot/pasta pot/"casserole" filled with several gallons of food and boiling water, I would have no compunction asking someone to hand me "that thing with the holes" before the food overcooked in the pan, if that person did not know any of the possible correct names for it. * I will grant you some exceptions: a tajine/tagine or a cataplana really should not be called anything else. But that is not to say that the cooking purposes for which they exist cannot be accomplished in other vessels. And really, what is a couscoussière but a big steamer? I do not own, and therefore have not used, a saute pan with a triple-thick aluminum base for home cooking. Thus I cannot say that the All-Clad chef pan is better than a saute pan with a triple-thick aluminum base for any of the uses I already enumerated. Although it does have the advantage of a domed top, which a saute pan does not. (BTW: I use "saute" rather than the proper "sauté" as per instructions from FG before you came on board; for the ease of the search function, he said, although it breaks my 10-years-studying-French heart to do so.) Finally: Are my ACs worth the extra cost? I don't know. Since I have only had my ACs for at most 7 years, I cannot yet do the cost/benefit analysis for their useful life. All I know is that they continue to serve me -- and my styles of cooking -- well in spite of the abuse I heap on them (such as heating them empty, and putting them in the dishwasher).

fresco: The one Chinese wok I have is some sort of steel -- not stainless, but not black steel. I've had it for maybe 25 to 30 years, so it's pretty well seasoned. It is actually more like an Indian karhi (sp?) in that it has a flat bottom. This I use only for stir-fries, on a gas burner with higher-than-normal BTUs (don't know the exact #, sorry). Before I got this stove, the normal heat output was not enough, even though I only cook for two (Sam is right about the need for very high heat to stir-fry properly). I also have the aforementioned All-Clad chef's pan. This I also use for stir-fries, on the same high burner. But because it has the stainless steel interior, I do other cooking in it as well. I will make or heat tomato or other sauces in it, to which I can then add pasta and mix it easily. I deep-fry in it; I saute in it; I steam vegetables in it; I have even used it to cook pasta, although the wide open top kind of defeats the purpose of boiling. For me, it is a very handy, multipurpose pan. The cookware with which I have home experience are: nameless aluminum crap; nameless enameled flimsy steel crap; Leyse aluminum; Magnalite aluminum (a 35-year-old formerly nonstick covered 10-inch straight-sided frying pan that will not die); 33-year-old Le Creuset; Lodge cast iron; and All Clad. Since I have not used other brands, I cannot say how they compare, or whether any of them is a "worst offender" (against what?). After all, I am also working with an N of 1, as Sam is, and I do not presume that "my experience" is definitive. I do feel it is somewhat disingenuous to make the kind of statement Sam does.

Sam: it is you who are operating under a misconception: the All-Clad chef pan is not what you picture as Curved Sauteuse Evasée. While I might agree that their naming conventions are bizarre, to say the least, I don't think that relying on the "classic" terminology does very much good in the world outside the classical French kitchen. Particularly when it is applied where it doesn't belong.

Thank you for your opinion, Sam. I do quite nicely with my chef pan, actually. Even you might be able to. Sorry to shock you with the thought of "all-purpose," but it also works well as a saute pan or saucepan, if need be. I daresay "a large stainless lined heavy copper curved sauteuse evasée" is not necessarily all that essential -- or affordable -- for someone starting out.