Lady T

"Rampage of the Chocolate Nun"...oh God of Wisdom! Way to go, Maggie!!

*Genuflects in Dave the Cook's general direction* Beautifully done, Dave! It takes real skill to make that kind of science readable. Not to mention: I really like the frog.

I don't think direction has much to do with it; keeping it moving and being gentle and careful not to mash the grains of rice does, at least in my personal experience.

Tried the Cab at a friend's home a couple weeks ago. The word I'm looking for here is: ghastly.

It's a BIG day for paczki in Chicago!

Granted, there was a lot of gasping and moaning going on during the hot course...but that wasn't the reason!

I can't imagine any process that wouldn't begin with a thorough audit, by an outside source, to assess exactly what resources and obligations are actually there. The speculation about Groupe Loiseau's debt load is loud but not reliable; the facts as of the date of the late chef's passing would seem to be necessary.

Brava Liza! Didn't know it could be done! At architects' office: Mug reads "Don't worry...there's a woman on the job!" At Chicago Symphony Chorus: Mug from Chicago Symphony's most recent funding beg-a-thon radio broadcast At church choir: Kitschy "St. Matthew's Church" mug At home: (by myself) Funky old mug, '70's vintage At home: (in front of other people) Nice white porcelain cups and saucers

I can see where such an analysis might seem a bit ghoulish this soon, but I do admit to a fascination about how a restaurant's business plan might be set up (at incorporation, I should think) to handle such a sad, awful contingency. Might I suggest we observe what old-fashioned types would call "a decent interval" -- a few days, a week, whatever, and then start considering/discussing how a business survives when its founder doesn't, in a field as volatile as food service?

"Dante's Bar and Grill." Priceless -- you've got the gift of imagery, friend!

Pleasant to know somebody's paying attention, anyhow. For me, it's triple-creme cheese. Brie, Camembert...you name it, I'll set it on a piece of good fresh bread, drink a nice round red with it, and eat grapes. (Peeling the grapes is nice, depending on how cute the peeler is...I sometimes experience major raging horniness at or just before That Time. Been quite a while since I actually yowled at the moon or rubbed up on lampposts, but, umm, you get the general idea. )

Space? Space is FOR cookbooks. In the kitchen. By the bedside reading shelf (that's where two of John Thorne's books are sitting right now). In the literature section (M. F. K. Fisher country). Kitchen Confidential is in the bathroom (I wash my hands before AND after reading). Somewhere around 340, Maggie.

If, as previously stated elsewhere, we want TDG to be an edgy sort of place where things can be said that others elsewhere might not have the nerve to say, then I believe we also have to be realistic about bracing ourselves for the "how DARE you!?!?!" effect that follows when miscellaneous readers feel their toes have been stomped (whether or not they actually were). (Damn, that's a long sentence. Sorry about that.) I enjoyed the article's bitchitude -- if that isn't a legal English word, it should be! -- before I even got to the question of whether I agreed with Chef Klc's scathing assessment of Schrambling's capacity to report and write. I've reread the articles he discussed, and it turns out that I do; I do editing and proofreading for my bread and butter in the real world, and it cheeses me off something awful when somebody who 'knows better' (as anyone hired by the NYT should, IMHO) doesn't DO better. We have enough lawyers and former lawyers hanging out around here to keep us from publishing anything that is actually actionable in law (my lawyer looked at the article over my shoulder a night or so ago, and she says Steve isn't liable for his expression of his opinion, nor is eGullet for publishing it -- no libel, no slander, by the legal definitions of such.). Scathing speech, as we all know, can reflect on truth as surely as gentler speech can -- and it can be just as elegant, too. We've made the conscious decision to welcome it here, and I for one think it's a good move. Rant on, Steve!

*Pokes inquisitive nose into thread* Did I hear Cuervo Gold mentioned? Where and when do I show up? Or do I? *Extracts inquisitive nose*

Glorious prose, lxt! You make me want to pounce on a phone and make a res at Daniel NOW.

Macerating fruit in it for dessert is a possibility. But I do agree with Awbrig and Maggie and the others: drinking it is way more fun.

I've got a bottle of NV Veuve Clicquot in the fridge chillin' for the occasion.

In a restaurant with a million-plus-dollar wine cellar? Where none of the menus is under $100 and there's an automatic 18% service surcharge? I seriously don't think the price points are the problem for Charlie here... ...but damn, some of the best foie I ever had in my life has been at Trotter's, and I'm mighty regretful to see the era end.

Bring those photos on, Awbrig! How'd they turn out?

Dessert. Oh, man. I wanna take lessons from Opera's chef. The two drop-dead hits of this course, served family style, were the creme brulee (flat-down perfect: silky custard under fine brittle crispness, starfruit slices accompanying on top) and the molten chocolate cake (wonderfully velvet-textured -- not sludgy -- and bittersweet...didn't 'sweet' me to death as many of these have at other places.). The longish, filled milk-chocolate cookies didn't last long enough for me to taste 'em, but I take Aurora's and Maggie's and HH's sighs and purrs and moans to denote enthusiasm. The date pudding (mentioned as a specialty) was also lighter than I expected it to be: very welcome at the end of a mighty repast. I loved the accompanying sauteed bananas and cognac sauce likewise. A note about wines: the Awbrigs did enjoy a glass or two of Merlot (Awbrig: I didn't look fast enough to get details when the server showed you the label. Where from? What year? You and Allison seemed to be happy, but give us details, please?), but everybody else did soda or water or the occasional beer, prior to coffee with the desserts. I for one was glad of the mental clarity by the end of the meal. Not to put too fine a point on it, we closed the place just a bit before midnight (it was Monday night, there wasn't much of a scene going; what can I say? Frankly I was glad there wasn't that much ambient noise: conversation was that much livelier. I noticed a few folks looking over at us laughing and whooping and enjoying it all!), with handshakes and business cards exchanged all round. (They were gracious enough not to look TOO glad to see the backs of us, so they could clear up and go home!) Questions? Comments? Submitted at last, at appalling length, Lady T

A digestive pause followed, and so did a most welcome trio of palate-cleansers: a beautiful (both taste and appearance) strawberry granita (think that's what it was: very clear, very clean and granular, no apparent dairy) with sliced strawberries arrayed around; a wonderful mellow coconut ice cream bedded on large-bead tapioca; and a kiwi sorbet beautifully balanced with citrus -- not overly sweet at all. At this point, two of our number had to go comfort both a baby and his sitter, and the four of us ordered various coffees and decafs to accompany dessert. Just a bit longer...

Re: Jonah crab. Ahhh. Thank you kindly. I have learned something.

The three platters which followed seem to have acquired the nickname of "THE HOT COURSE" by unanimous consent. They included a red snapper which had been rubbed with spices, steamed (appeared so to me; didn't hear exactly how cooked from the server. Mea culpa!), and placed in a swimming position on the platter for presentation. The server was most prompt and gracious about boning the fish for our convenience, by the way. A second offering was described as ma po tofu, prepared with scallions, ginger, and garlic, and the third was kon pao beef with bok choy. Everybody at that table is on record as liking heat on their plates...and boy howdy, did we ever get it. If Chef Paul and his crew took a misstep in the entire evening, this in my opinion was it: the fish was nicely, eye-wateringly hot. The tofu was much more seriously so. The beef was not simply spicy/hot, it was head-banging, eye-crossing, I-can't-taste-anything-dammit-my-palate-just-got-blowtorched HOT. It was to the point that nobody (with the stalwart exception of Maggiethecat, who relished the incendiary beef) could take more than a few bites of anything. It was overpowering. It half killed us all to send anything back uneaten to a kitchen which was working so hard to seduce us...and we just didn't have any choice. As I wrote in my notes: YOWZAA!! There's still more...

Next came a "shrimp presentation", also family style: Carolina rock shrimp (very small, very tasty) bound with a chile mayonnaise; a plate of huge, beautifully fresh prawns, lightly breaded and fried, sauced in a sweet-and-sour style with fresh raspberries as a part of the sweet component; and (the platter that emptied first, somehow) Shanghai noodles with rock shrimp in scallion broth. Wonderful. A platter of Hunan pork spareribs rubbed with five-spice powder arrived, and we inhaled them promptly. And then we ate...

After this came a crab presentation, presented family-style on two platters: a very interesting jonah crab egg foo yung (so it was called, though it seemed looser in texture than the usual bound and sauteed cakes. That's not a criticism, by the way: I loved it!) on crisp rice noodles; crab cakes with soy and chili pepper sauces, topped with marinated vegetables (I identified thinly-sliced carrots and zucchini during the dang few seconds I had -- the chopsticks and forks were moving fast!); and crab "chopsticks", which appeared to be solid crab leg pieces, sauteed lightly, and trimmed to match and to sit at angles to each other on the platters as real chopsticks would have done. Cute. Also delicious. General raptures. A momentary digression, and an appeal to the all-knowing eGullet consciousness: what is 'jonah' crab? A different species? Caught from an unusual location? Thank you. To continue...