Lady T

I re-read The A of E once or twice a year, give or take, and so help me, I don't recall a "sharp as lightning" anywhere in the volume. Good excuse to re-read it once more...

If one might ask, Ron: how's the price tag at Quince? Comparable with Trio/Alinea, or maybe a touch more merciful?

Legally: c'mon up to Foodworks in Evanston, on Central Street, or to Whole Foods at Church and Chicago, where the nice butcher counter will special order for you, if they don't have precisely what you want in the house (well, they did for me last year anyhow...). Illegally: Go to Sam's.

Nobody's mentioned sopping up the Bearnaise sauce after the steak's gone. Then again: maybe all their Bearnaise is gloriously gone (on mushrooms! On asparagus! On bread or potatoes!) by that time too.

Menopause is complete. No excuses possible...but just the same, I have a beautiful roast chicken resting and almost ready to carve in the kitchen, with potatoes roasted in the pan and some halved seasoned Belgian endives too, that I threw in an hour ago to cook in the juices. I've poured a tasty flute of cava to go with it all. Do (heh heh heh) excuse me.

My copy's been within dangerous reach of a whole bunch of pots of Tony-style mussels and glasses of wine and crocks of soupe a l'oignon...and still looks okay. Still: yours looks that good after a glass of Pinot Noir landed on it? Wow.

*Surfaces from concert week brain freeze* What fun to enjoy somebody's enjoyment of my home town! Wish I'd been able to join the gang on Friday -- perhaps some other time. *Crawls to bed to get some sleep before singing church tomorrow.*

Ohh Lord: bearnaise, then mayo, then malt vinegar, then catsup, then nothing at all but sea salt, a nubbin of good butter such as you'd use on any vegetable, and fresh-ground pepper...in order of preference. Good duck-fat frites can stand alone, to be sure -- but a little decoration such as one of the choices above can gild the lily really, really nicely.

Eh. If Cleveland didn't rock already, it will when we're done. Good shopping opportunities, and probably some nice hotels at decent prices...but where to find a kitchen that will hold all of us *and* all the food?

I do make certain that I'm not going to be in social surroundings two hours after a meal which includes large helpings of the garlic/onion/shallot/scallion/chive tribe. Or the cruciferous crowd (broccoli, cauliflower). The results can be...er...what the Windy City *should* have been named for. I simply make sure there won't be any innocent civilian victims involved.

I'm particularly curious about the way marketing has changed over the years you were gone. If shop owners aren't uncomfortable about pictures, I for one would love to see some store interiors. Hope that's possible for you.

Beauteous menu. Pictures! Lots of pictures, please please please!

Where are you all? Hello? *crickets*

I am mightily jealous...in and past and over and around the paying project I need to finish. I will check in to observe the goings-on and smile with delight.

Ohhh man. Did I just have your dinner...! Last night's dinner, recycled from Joy Yee's, was Thai beef salad. But tonight, ahh, the leftovers I brought home were juicy, plenteous, rare, and cold. The red onions, cucumber slices, and chopped cabbage had marinated -- yep, that's right, pickled -- and the whole thing went down just fine with a little glass of red. No more than that, because alcohol isn't safe in large doses in the kind of heat we've been featuring in Chicago the last six days, but damn, ma'am...as I said, I'm afraid I just finished off your dinner. I'd say I'm sorry, but -- umm -- it was really great, and I'm really not.

I like it now and then, as a change of pace. Cooked with a little butter and a pinch or two of sea salt, it makes a nice hot breakfast cereal, mixed with whatever fruit is in season, a little cinnamon sugar maybe, and some yogurt. Cooked with good chicken stock and white wine and maybe a finely chopped shallot, it's not half bad as the 'rice' end of beans 'n' rice. I would absolutely agree that human beings should never be obliged to eat badly prepared brown rice.

I used regular Fiskars scissors (!) for at least the first ten years of my cooking life, then graduated to proper shears thereafter. But I was so impressed by the superb way the misused scissors had done the job that I never even considered any other brand of shears when the time came; still have the two that I bought all that time ago. The dishwasher still cleans 'em and I still can get them razor sharp.

Whoa howdy. Weather update for epicures in Cook County: Button the grill up and get inside if you aren't already, NOW! Thunderstorm system incoming fast from the WNW, with major league winds (60 - 75 mph gusts already reported out west) and considerable lightning potential. The main source I'm using is Tribune.com's weather maps, but CNN and others don't look different. Update: By the looks of the regional weather charts, the Detroit area is also about to get slammed. Careful, guys! I wanna see everybody here in one piece tomorrow after it cools off, yes?

Dayum. Hotter than the hinges yesterday in the County of Cook, in the State of Illinois: heat indices around 105 degrees F. Best I could do for dinner yesterday was a l'il cheese-and-pate platter, with Michigan white peaches and a goodie from Bennison's Bakery (ah, keepers of the good sugar-sprinkled custard-filled [that is, refrigerated!] faith!) for dessert. Nothing stronger than prosecco to drink, and lots and lots and lots of water. Worse yet today, but the condo here's buttoned up tight and both the A/C's are on, on 'low'. Managed to bake a piece of salmon in white wine (total oven time: 15 begrudged minutes), steam some asparagus, and shut it all down PDQ thereafter. Plenty of juices in the fridge, plenty of Brita water in the pitcher, plenty of everything else stocked on the shelves. Can we say, until tomorrow at least: Not. Moving! Best of all so far: major-league lightning-bearing storms incoming tonight from the WNW, heralds of at least some relief tomorrow. Obvious thing to do: assess the state of the larder, and shop tomorrow to fill any voids before the temps spike again.

A Fontano's sub sandwich: twelve inches (down, Freud. DOWN, dammit!) of perfect salami and provolone and diced giardiniera peppers and tomato slices and lettuce leaves and maybe a little O & V, on beautifully fresh lengths of Italian bread, baked fresh the day you buy it. And a glass of the Valpolicella I had at Timo last night after the Sondheim Grant Park Concert. I need one of each. DagNABBITall, where's Fresser when I need him and the Mighty PT Cruiser?

One kindly warning: the Wolfgang Puck place, on Church Street across from Border's and next door to the movie theater complex, is waaayyyy overpriced. Not that the food or wine list is bad; it isn't, particularly. It's Puck's 'most saleable hits,' sort of, and the wine list is better than merely tolerable (both the nearby Chef's Station and the Stained Glass run rings around it!) -- but even for the North Shore, the tariff, for the quality delivered, is just flatly outrageous.

One possibility you might want to consider is Lupita's, which is in Evanston -- on the south side of Main Street *just* west of the METRA tracks, or: take the CTA Purple Line north to Main Street, walk a half block north to Main, and walk west a block. Large, delicious (and treacherously strong) Margaritas, better-than-just-reasonable renderings of the usual tacos/fajitas/burritos, plus: pay attention to the 'specials' list, at the front of the menu! The scallops in red pepper sauce are wayyyy better than the everyday run, and the beefsteak offerings, when present, have been astonishingly good when I ordered them. Nothing overly inventive about the desserts, but they do their job plenty honorably at the end of the meal. There is nothing that remotely can be called a decent wine list, but there are soft drinks and a reasonable range of beers.

Last I dined there, the kitchen-table menu (which can be ordered at a regular table) was $175; add the $85 or so wine degustation which accompanies, plus tax and tip, and you're in for approximately $350. It could be more now; check with them directly.

Not-Bad Roast Potatoes for two: Into a gallon-size Ziploc bag, pour three tablespoons EVOO, plus salt/pepper/chopped fresh oregano and parsley to taste. Wash, trim, and cut three russet potatoes (one for each person, and "one for the pot") into lengthwise wedges. Puncture discreetly with dinner fork to avoid in-oven starch explosions. Marinate potato wedges in oil/herbs in bag, massaging briefly to ensure even absorption, 15 minutes at least; can be longer if dinner parameters require. Bake wedges in one layer in baking dish, 30 to 40 minutes, in oven at 375 F.

A lot of Saturday nights in the deep cold Chicago winters of the 60's and early 70's, we had baked potatoes and meatloaf and creamed corn. My memory is probably too rosy in retrospect, but those three mingled smells and flavors (my entire allotment of creamed corn ended up in my potato, after a generous pat of butter and with a proper muchness of salt and pepper on top) spell safety, and home, and peace. No idea why. I still make meatloaf to my late mom's recipe. And when I bake potatoes, I still bake 'em slowly for and hour and a half at 350 degrees, rather than the faster/higher temps other folks might use. They come out just a touch sweeter and crisper in the skin, to my taste. My first taste of foie gras was in the kitchen of the Wrigley Building Restaurant that was -- just a generous gob, schmeared out onto righteous fresh bread. I damn near fainted, and that was before I knew what a good Sauternes could do. There's more, but that's what comes to mind.