cakewalk

I make pesto according to a very strange recipe I found in an old James Beard cookbook. Apparently he was quite ill with heart problems and had to cut down on fats, and he devised a pesto recipe that has no cheese at all, and no nuts. (It also calls for margarine instead of olive oil, which I found shocking coming from James Beard, and which I completely ignore.) But the point is, the recipe is only basil, garlic, lemon juice, S & P, and olive oil (you can use margarine if you want, I suppose.) I think it's great.

You have an amazing talent for overlooking the obvious. Bridges, both literal and figurative, take you nowhere. What they offer are opportunities to "go from one place to another." Whether or not you take advantage of those opportunities is another story altogether. But it's not up to the bridges. Soba Addict: mazel tov, you have crossed the bridge! If something is cooked well, it will taste good. If it is not cooked well, it won't taste good. Kosher, halal, etc. is not the relevant factor.

That's the most telling thing about yourself you've ever said. Actually bridges don't "take" you anywhere. What they do is link together things that would otherwise be disconnected one from the other. Discuss.

Three-thirty-ish in the afternoon. Snack-time is NOW. Sweet stuff. This is where I stop myself (or not) from going downstairs to the kiosk to buy a candy bar.

You mean ... you don't think the world revolves around you?

Isn't that what cookies and milk are about?

It's the cartoons. And because when it does hit, it really hits. And because of the fiction.

You've been thirty for the last six years? How did you manage that? (Sorry, I'm hard of hearing.)

Scares me to death.

The beginnings of another junk drawer ...

Best solution: move to New York City, where your kitchen will be so small there will be NO ROOM to have a junk drawer. You will be lucky to have ANY drawers! And watch out for your bloomers, too!

An extremely fortunate couple. I say that without sarcasm. Cook whatever is convenient for you.

Ban ketchup? (It was Reagan, BTW, who said ketchup was a vegetable. What did one vegetable say to the other vegetable?) In college my roommate once made this great salad dressing. It was the first time I had ever tasted anything like it. This is great, Mike, what is it? I asked. Ketchup and mayonaise, he said. No, really, Mike, what is it? I insisted. I can still see the look he gave me. Ketchup and mayonaise, he said again. I refused to believe him, and he ended up making it again to prove it to me. So not only is ketchup great all by itself, it's also a great mixer! Canada Dry, eat your heart out! During Passover I bought this kosher-for-Passover ketchup (I think the company name was Gefen) that was made without corn syrup, and I think it was much, much better than Heinz.

Excuse me for intruding, because obviously I'm no chef, and everything I do in the kitchen probably amounts to "cheating." But I find the topic interesting. Where do you draw the line between making things easier for yourselves ("acceptable"), and just plain slacking off ("not acceptable")? Is the distinction only to be made if the person eating the food can tell you did something different? Is it a matter of how you yourself feel about what you just cooked (guilt, gee I shouldn't have done that)? I'm trying to apply the principle to other, everyday things we all do. I can't think of anyone who feels guilty about using a washing machine instead of washing clothes by hand, etc. Is there any sort of "standard," even an unwritten one?

Is it Yom Kippur already? I will never again press down the handle of my french press too fast and too hard. Yeah, right.

Well, let's carry the analogy one step further. Being in a public place means an individual is open to being hit upon (the phrase itself has negative conotations, but let's say, for our purposes, it's really neutral). I'm not sure I totally agree with that, but, just as a restaurant is public, when an idividual goes outside, he/she is also "public." We've agreed (I think) that if the individual says "no" to the attempted "hit," that "no" ought to be respected. I don't think anyone is arguing against that point. (Not even me. I'm arguing over whether or not anyone and everyone has a "right" to make the hit in the first place.) But that is precisely the point that is being argued in the case of the restaurant -- whether or not their "no" ought to be respected re: whether or not they should be written up in a guidebook. In this case, most people seem to think that the restaruant's wishes are not necessarily the most relevant ones. So I still say the analogy doesn't hold. (But if you see me in a bar, feel free to buy me as many drinks as you like.)

An important distinction to make. A lot of people miss it, or ignore it, or think he/she is just being coy. And then, of course, there are "hits" and there are "hits." Flirting can be fun. It can also be decidedly not-fun. But my main point was the analogy to writing up a restaurant in a guidebook. I still say a woman and a restaurant are simply not analogous!!

Oh dear. Quite often, a man will go into a bar because he wants a drink. Now this may be hard to believe, but quite often a woman goes into a bar for the same reason. I think each is entitled to that drink. I think the analogy, from the get-go, was off the mark. A restaurant's "existence," as it were, is for the purpose of serving others, exposing itself to others, it's there for "my" sake. A woman going into a bar is not there for "your" sake, unless she wants to be. She does not have to "stay in her room" or "hire bodyguards." (I'm sure you didn't really mean that. Did you?). She does not exist for the pleasure of others. The restaurant does. It's a business, by definition. A woman is not! (No wisecracks here.) The restaurant is also a one-to-many type thing. The man hitting on a woman in a bar is one-to-one, and that dynamic also changes everything. So really I think the analogy just doesn't hold up. Shropsins is becoming more than ridiculous at this point. It was even dropped into the article on the Russian Tea Room's closing in yesterdays Times, along with Le Circque, etc. It made me think of the old Sesame Street song, "One of these things is not like the other ..."

I must be missing something again. Is the vacuum brewer "head over heels" better than a plain ole French press?

Sounds like a natural continuation of the Trillin article.

And now the focus changes, doesn't it? I wonder if the owner approved of that website? I imagine he must have. Does he not realize the web reaches so many more people than any guidebook?

Now why does that make me think of "Arsenic and Old Lace"? Soba Addict, thanks so much for the recipe (which is printing out at this very moment). Do you think a batch of that could be frozen and thawed and still be good?

Waiting, waiting for this recipe. It sounds so good, I'm already anticipating it as breakfast for the rest of the summer! Please don't forget. Ta.

Ah, but did you try the steamed vegetable dumplings? It's just about the only thing I get there, but I also like the scallion pancakes. But the dumplings are great. I can't say much about the rest of it.

YAY!!!! YAY!!! Does anyone have a somersault icon?!! Please let us know!! Thank you.