Suzanne F

Mushrooms breathe (sort of) and exhale moisture. Plastic keeps the moisture in and drowns/suffocates the poor little darlings. Paper bags give them too much air, and like fish out of water they also cannot breathe properly and just shrivel up and die. (I'm making this up, but at least the observations are correct, if not the actual science ) I do the "paper towels on top of the mushrooms before rewrapping loosely with plastic" number. Or, if they mushrooms are already sweating, I just cook them all lightly and put them away in the fridge or freezer.

I want to know what happens when someone with an egg allergy ingests it. No, on second thought, I don't. Not a pretty sight. But note that they say it does NOT kill pathogens; only delays the infection or intoxication that results from ingesting them. What the hell good is that?

And another for me: Jessica B. Harris's Beyond Gumbo. But I neither bought nor stole this one; I'm working on a new book of hers, and the editor sent it with the manuscript to be a model for what I do. Is this a great racket or what? AND I get paid!

Oooh, I love it when a man quotes Shakespeare!

$300, eh? They should get the simplest food -- Caesar salad has a kind of mayonaisey dressing, but it's pretty good-- and the best wine! And they should wait until AFTER the holidays; too crowded until the end of the year with parties and people who will drive the staff crazy. Oops, that didn't sound right -- I mean people who are not used to fine dining, and well, YOU know. NYTexan's idea about brunch sounds good, too, especially if they do it so they don't have to rush off anywhere after. Anyway, the lights are up year-round, so they don't have to rush there. The whole place is very pretty.

I love food shopping in "boutique" food stores; but I also love going to supermarkets -- especially the huge ones in sterile suburbs -- just to see what they have. I have been know to include supermarkets in the sights to be seen when I travel. You can tell a lot about a culture from their supermarkets. Remember the scene in "Moscow on the Hudson" where Robin Williams goes to the grocery store for the first time and faints at the sight of so many brands and varieties of coffee? I even love my monthly visits to the big Pathmark (and still, occasionally, to the Food Emporium). There are always some scary new products to marvel at (mostly with, "Why on earth would anyone want to eat THAT???"). And there is INSPIRATION. Sometimes a hunk of meat calls my name and whispers seductively, "Wouldn't you like to make pernil with me?" Or the poor little last-day-of-sale mushrooms whimper to me, begging me to take them home and have my way with them. At the checkout, I thrill at parlaying manufacturers' coupons and store coupons and discounts. (The best I ever did was a reduction of 25% off my original total, at a Grand Union in Wilmington, Vermont.) Once home, my organizational skills (for which read: anal obsessive-compulsive behavior) comes to the fore. Divide, package, and label the meats for the freezer. Put up stock with the newly-purchased reduced-price chicken pieces. Transfer all the dry staples out of their dangerous cardboard boxes, into cozy jars. Date-label each and every can and bottle, before rotating them to the back of the cabinets, behind the older stock. And, of course, update the freezer/fridge/cabinet contents list on the computer for posting on the freezer door and inside the cupboards. And start the list for next month. Now: don't you all feel so much more NORMAL?

a work-in-progress: Plantain-chorizo pie: crumbled Colombian chorizo cooked with red wine and piperade, topped with a crust of grated green plantain, masa harina, and egg. Lightened with a bit of baking powder, but still too chewy. Chayote/apple casserole (nuked ) Tilburg's Dutch Brown Ale (no salad, for once; I didn't want to go out to the store)

browniebaker: that's why god invented whipped cream.

Michael, Welcome! And thanks for providing your perspective. Hope you'll have a look around and participate more.

This thread on pies has just reappeared. Check it out if you need inspiration.

ADNY has terrific sculptures all around the room, including on the tables. However, the "paintings" hung on the walls are bad abstract art crossed with "found object" mutilation of musical instruments. I suspect that you would find that as horrifying as I did. I suppose you could be right about "background art" being the visual equivalent of background music, although most background music is totally unnecessary, whereas artwork pretty much always sets the tone of the place. The only restaurant I can think of without any decoration on the walls is Chanterelle -- and, of course, Great NY Noodletown.

P'tcha is calves' foot jelly. Think: the fleishag version of the gelatenous stuff around gefilte fish.

What a great PR opportunity. Now they can go back to their lattes and forget all about it.

If you park all the way over on the west side, you could also take the 49th/50th Street Crosstown bus.

I have to admit to not having read the eGCI lessons, so: did they tell you to transfer the stock to smaller and smaller pots as you reduce it? That way you're less likely to get that sticky buildup on the sides of the pot(s) as the stock cooks down. (Note to Joey: in this case, the fond referred to is the yummy brown bits on the bottom of the saute pan; the stuff you want to dissolve when you deglaze the pan to make a pan sauce.) I've found that if I "wash" it off the sides of the pot as soon as I see it, no harm is done. (This is like washing down the sugar when making caramel.) However, if it sits too long, especially in a pot like an All-Clad, where the heat easily climbs the sides, it gets burnt and should NOT be washed back into the stock. Horrible taste then, can ruin the whole thing.

We had some last night, and it was very, very good. One breast (one half-breast? I'm never sure how to refer to it) between the two of us. I cooked a batch of Great Northern beans with garlic, rosemary, and bayleaf. Then made a sofritto of shallot, carrot, and celery in fat from the confit plus the chopped-up skin from the breast. Added the beans, what was left of the cooking water, and not quite a cup of the jellied juices that had been left in the crockpot. Plus some dried thyme and more of my Ras al Hanout. Baked that about 1/2 hour, then snuggled in the meat and baked it another 1/2 hour. The beans were a little overcooked, but delicious. The duck meat practically melted. Not much evidence of the initial spicing but very good flavor, not at all too salty. HWOE thought it tasted ever-so-slightly porky -- which it would have, given that I used fat from a pork roast, and lard, for part of the cooking fat. In other words: IT WORKED VERY WELL!

OMG: I just realized that I WAS THE ONE who cooked the worst meal I ever ate at someone else's house. (Not counting the one I describe on the new worst-low-fat-meal thread.) When my mother died unexpectedly, my sister came east from California. She stayed at Mom's apartment, and I came over every day to work with her on cleaning out the place, and to cook dinner for the 2 of us (and sometimes also HWOE). One night, after thawing out the 2 (kosher) hamburger patties that had been frozen wrapped in waxed paper only, I had to stretch them into enough for three; I suppose I did the sort of horrible "individual meatloaf" thing we grew up on, and probably used canned mushrooms for a gravy. I know I made baked potatoes -- except I forgot to puncture one of them. So while we were eating our (mostly iceberg) salad as a first course, we all heard a muffled thud. Just the sound of a potato exploding all over the inside of the oven, as we found out when it was time to serve the next course.

I agree with Herb's last statement -- although they might also be food writers previewing the place, not to write it up, but to get an idea of what it's like so that they can START to write about it. Remember, Fat Guy just mentioned having been invited to a press preview of Asiate. So why not the B&B team doing the same?

This is easy: the dinner I had last Thursday, at the home of a friend from high school. She made a recipe from Claudia Roden's The Book of Jewish Food, called Brinjal Albaras (Layered Eggplant Dish). In place of the (minimal amount of) coconut milk, she used "light" coconut milk; she also had to leave out the ginger (for food-sensitivity reasons) and the cilantro (because she didn't know that's what "coriander leaves" are); she had to use the inedible fresh tomatoes available now; and she cut the eggplant slices thicker than called for. Oh, and I think she left out the salt and pepper, too. The result was, well, not a gourmet tap-dance. Why oh why do people think they're IMPROVING on recipes when they do that kind of thing????? Edited to add: one of my cooking mantras is: FAT CARRIES FLAVOR.

Right: injera should never, ever be tasteless. At the very least, it should taste like a sourdough pancake -- because that is precisely what it is. And now that teff (the grain it's made from) is being grown in the US, there's no excuse for phony, tasteless injera. As HWOE likes to say, he loves a place where you get to eat the food, the napkins, AND the tablecloth. Ethiopian food is actually very complex in its flavoring -- not just a lot of spice, as Comfort Me mentioned, but a lot of spices in each blend. One thing I miss about a place where I no longer work is that one of my staff was Ethiopian, and she used to bring me food, and ingredients, and spices from time to time. Yum! Hmm, now I'll have to dig out my jars of barley flour and mit-mit!

Well, that settles that.

Re: the artwork. From where I sat, the pictures mostly looked like cut-paper collages, all in deep earth tones (very nice against the deep orange-y walls). Very little representational; the only two pieces that really seemed like something were a very delicate (painted) monotone portrait of a woman, and a Michelangelo-style small-hand-touching-larger-hand, that had the inscription "my Amma" near the bottom. Really very sweet. Let me put it this way: the art is the antithesis of what's up on the walls at Alain Ducasse NY.

Dumpling: indeed we all got to Amma just fine. Report is here. It was super! Boy oh boy, that is some fish!!!

A very dear friend and local boy (well, Tarboro actually), Grey Bailey, worked on opening Sofia, so I am very, very happy to read such good reports on it. I'll pass this along to him.

Another report. Another terrific meal. Soba, BondGirl, HWOE and I were there last night. (Suvir was not; he was stuck somewhere because of the snow ) It is indeed a warm and lovely room. Well, warm when people remember to close the entry door. And sitting in front of the window, half our party had a view of the beautiful falling snow; I was more than happy to face into the room with its tasteful art. So much nicer than Indian restaurants with spangles all over (although I loved the glass tiles around the mirror in the bathroom). The little spinach and sweet potato patties we received as an amuse were delicious -- and the little tastes of coriander and tamarind chutneys with them whetted my appetite for more. We all ordered different appetizers: iddly, bhel puri, samosas, and stuffed vegetables. It's been years since I had iddly, and these were better than anything I remember; I loved the hint of coconut in them, and the accompanying chutney was mysteriously delicious. The bhel puri was a good mix of flavors and textures. We all wished it were easier to identify the fillings in the samosas; whatever they were, they were all tasty. The "stuffed vegetables" that arrived seemed to HWOE to be not at all what he was expecting -- well, no, because there had been a mixup and he received stuffed chicken. Just as well though, that too was good. The stuffed vegetables were worth waiting for: quite a large amount, perfect for sharing. The bell pepper picked up the smokiness of the tandoor nicely, and the potato was even smokier, yummm. The mushroom was good, but I think the achar mushrooms at Diwan were more interesting. It was indeed a delight to have a good conversation about wine. We ended up with a Romanian (!?!?!?!) merlot/cabernet franc/cabernet sauvignon blend that worked perfectly: very rich, fruity, and spicy. Of course, it helped that none of the food is gratuitously spiced. We were warned off the whole grilled pomfret ("Too fishy today" -- my guess is that they had not received a delivery, and didn't want to serve older fish) so HWOE ordered the halibut. BondGirl got the Tandoori prawns, and Soba and I the lamb chops. We also ordered crab kulcha and raita to share. Other than the same problem noted above of the food not coming hot enough in temperature, everything was delicious. The halibut was soft, sweet, and well-flavored; the prawns proved that Hemant is truly a master of the tandoor; and the lamb chops were so tender. Rices and potatoes that came with these made me want to get full portions (next time, I hope). I'd also be happy just feasting on the crab kulcha -- lots of sweet, sweet crabmeat in a good bread. The crunchy vegetable on the raita -- which even stayed crunchy after HWOE inadvertently mixed it in -- was a good contrast to the smooth, tart yogurt. To me, the best thing about the food was the subtlety of all the spicing. After a while I gave up trying to guess the ingredients and just let the flavors wash over me. This is really what distinguished the food from any other Indian food I've had before. We ordered 3 desserts -- the kulfi, rasmallai, and rice pudding -- and received a portion of the mango cheesecake as well. What a pleasant change from all the too-too-sweet confections (and rosewater they so often reek from) one usually gets. Suvir has really refined the kulfi and its citrus sauce, and the cheesecake was more light mango than rich cheesecake, making it a perfectly blended ending. The rasmallai and rice pudding took a bit of getting-used-to, but we very nearly licked the bowls when they were finished. And the spiced tea was so good we had to have seconds. So: more grateful thanks to Suvir, Hemant, Bikky, and all others. All the praise you've received is well-deserved.