Lady T

I'm purely enjoying the hell out of this. More, please?

Many welcomes, Ian. One of my own personal Bermuda Triangles seems to be located with corners at Barnes and Noble, Dixie Kitchen and Bait Shop, and Whole Foods (to stock up after I'm done bookshopping and breakfasting, particularly if what I read at breakfast is a cookbook!). Another is shaping up barely a block away, with its first two corners at Border's and the Farmers' Market (I don't know where the third corner will be. An interesting possibility is Chef's Station, the restaurant located literally underneath the Davis Street Metra station.). Still another is forming from the Main Newspaper Stand to Lupita's just west of the Metra tracks to...I don't know where yet. Does that happen with you -- do you have similar sorts of microneighborhoods that simply demand that you spend time with them?

Not yet, but I'm fixing to set up a visit in June (yup, that's the visit I was gonna do in April or May. Had the ldinero, but not the time...then I had the time but not the e-pluribus-unum. We'll get there, don't you fear.

Hema and her crew will cook to order for you, VeryApe: any kind of heat you wish, from pleasant buzz all the way to clean-your-clock hot. I don't recall the vindaloos there as a huge challenge either -- I bet they'll prepare one to your taste if you ask, though.

Probably the only reason it was quiet on Saturday in Evanston would be that lots of the folks who come from greater distances hadn't heard it was open ("Already? COOL!"). Me? I live three blocks away from that market now; it's gonna be a ratatouille summer, I can tell already. But first, the morels, sauteed in butter with shallots and piled on toast for breakfast. And then there's that asparagus, the salad course to end 'em all, with a lemongrette drizzled on top. Between that and the seriously good bread at Bennison's that makes me too lazy -- and jealous -- to bake (I quit buying the stuff at Whole Foods awhile ago), and all those jams and jellies to play with over and inside spongecakes until the berries truly get going (PIE TIME!), and the adventures in my wineglasses recommended by the owner of First Evanston Liquors (on Davis Street east of Oak, north side of the street, just a few doors down from the Pine Yard and across the street from the Cozy Thai place)...restaurants are only gonna see me now and then this summer, even with Va Pensiero barely a few steps from my back door and the fearful temptation of Trio barely four blocks away! Gonna be goooooooooood cooking this year.

Anything that brings more people into contact with Hema and her superb food is good. Did you get a time frame, Fress-man?

Ludicrous.

Noooo...you ain't alone. Here in Chicago we're getting the last hour or so of "10.5" before the evening news. Sweeps month, after all: all logic is hereby cancelled, to the extent there was any to be found on network TV in the first place.

I have a dear friend who's a musicologist, and whenever I go to one of her big dinner parties, I seem to get stuck at the end with all her friends from grad school, who are whooping it up with "inside music" (like inside baseball) jokes that have punch lines like "She thought he played the French HORN!!!!!!" And everybody around me collapses in laughter and I just sit there smiling politely, like a Japanese tourist at a Jackie Mason concert. Ah yes -- this takes me back in time. Much too far back for my taste actually. A sample: Q: How do you tell a viola from a bass? A: The bass takes longer to burn. Q: How do you tell a violist from a percussionist? A: The violist wears jewelry louder than anything the percussionist plays. And so forth. Oy.

Ah yes: all hot and soft and puffy, with all that melty butter and sugar-cinnamon glaze! Superb with cafe au lait. Superb with juice. Just plain superb.

Why, no, Mongo dear, what makes you think that? it's just a walk in the park, la-di-da, dum-de-dum-dum, the merest little bagatelle, could do half a dozen of 'em before breakfast... RIGHT, FELLOW BLOGGERS? EDIT to add: Piece of cake. EDIT AGAIN to add: Nothin' to it. EDIT YET AGAIN to add: Convinced yet? Be very careful, Mongo. I do believe B is thinking about where she should pass the Blogger Torch.

How so, Mongo? More important: why so?

Bloody. Now I have to go find some Girl Scout peanut-butter round-ups. Also sandwich cookies, and also superior with coffee in the AM.

I spent a few days in NYC last spring, just reading and taking walks and eating in places-I'd-dreamed-about (Daniel, Veritas) and meeting eGulletarians I want to see again and typing reports into eGullet about the places I'd eaten at a nearby Kinko's. It was heaven, and I'm gonna do it again some time this year. The next trip I'm saving for, over the long run, is going to be to County Cork in Ireland, to a place in Shannagarry called Ballymaloe House; there's a cooking school as well as an inn/restaurant operation there, I believe, and at some point I'm simply going to pack a trunk of books and go spend a week or so submerged in food and wine and literature and country silence (and some more food and wine).

Jon, that game looks like the only way I could watch this thing without wanting to scream or throw things or bite people thereafter! Damn NBC for putting this show on a Monday night -- I can't dare get that plowed-under if I have to work the next day. Obviously I need to start a letter/email-writing campaign to NBC to put this show on Friday night.

Bleu, before you close out your blog week, may I mention that this is the most delicious, beautiful job I've read yet? It's not news that people eat superbly in France -- even weekday midday luncheons at the workplace -- and it's not news that eGulletarians dine with conscious care and love to share their meals. But the artistry you've offered us here simply raises the bar with this blog. Many, many compliments!

Well...yes, actually. I might not put it that forcefully, but that's certainly the gist. What gets me is that I can't quite comprehend why this bunch of twits is doing this. I'm accustomed to seeing adolescent males consume everything on a buffet table that doesn't actively try to escape; that's not what this is. I understand that students on inhumanly tight budgets might want to take away an extra plate with them after they'd eaten their fill (and if I were the owner, and a student approached me discreetly and politely about it, I might even allow it, now and then) -- but that's not what's happening here either. This is careless and wasteful and rude as all hell, and I plain don't get it.

A list that includes Spago and omits Trio just plain doesn't have a lot of credibility for me -- however they got the list compiled. IMHO.

Absolutely. There are people with whom no topic is off limits, not even over food: politics, sex, taxes, death, religion, how (precise technique, from anesthesia to post-surgical recovery!) to spay cats, the care and feeding of septic tanks, intervention and treatment for alcoholism (especially when complicated by cocaine addiction and/or clinical depression), the delivery of babies (of several possible species; you shoulda heard the giraffe seminar. Or maybe not.) -- anything. Truly anything. We're maybe a touch careful in restaurants if other tables are within hearing distance -- no need to gross out the neighbors -- but among ourselves, it's open season. Then there are people with whom I discuss books and movies, and the quality of the wine. Carefully. The latter group are dear friends -- but for the former group I'll go to Hell and back, kicking obstacles down as necessary.

Building on that - on the Apprentice second season, Chodorow's intern should definitely go up against The Donald. The intern'd last about ten minutes. I dislike Trump's pretensions, and I'd never work for him -- but he appears to have a decently discerning eye for phonies and excuse-makers in his operations, and he appears to weed them out pretty rapidly the minute they get anywhere near his bottom line.

It's all that, and then some, Bruce. I look forward to your report. And I thank you again for giving me my first shot at the Trio kitchen table last fall!

That one reminds me of the way I learned to do the stir-the-food-by flipping-the-pan move: not the way a sane or wise person would, with a dry pan full of uncooked lima beans or such, but instead with a hot saute of shallots, garlic, mushrooms, diced tomatoes, herbs, and asparagus cut into 1" lengths, in a mix of butter and olive oil. The dish, finished and tossed with penne pasta and cheese, tasted fine, whatever of it I wasn't wearing, or washing out of my hair, or sponging off the stove, or mopping off the floor...

Ah...but didn't you see? There's only one restroom. It's a one-seater. And it's feeeeeeeellthy.

It's not your imagination, Al. Be nice, or else. And pass the nachos, please.

Oy. I had that coming.