Meanderer

What if the facts are changed somewhat: Both tables order identical meals but one has a $50 bottle of wine and the other has a $200 bottle of wine. Should one server get $30 more than the other for doing the same amount of work. I realize it is the luck of the draw but it illustrates some lack of rationality in the tipping system. And what about the server at the BYOB next door who is opening bottles and pouring wine all night with nothing to show for the extra work?

Surprising to me, the novel IndependentPeople, by Halldor Laxness, contains some unforgettable passages about food. I am surprised because the novel concerns a hand to mouth crofting family in the interior of Iceland in the early 1900s whose diet consisted largely of coffee, rye bread, porridge, and salt catfish. In one vivid and memorable chapter, the young wife of the main character obsesses about the absence of meat in her diet to such a pitch that, when her husband is away, she kills(graphically)a lamb, butchers it and gorges herself with much of the entrails. "It is at least certain that never since the days of Gudmundur the Rich and the old chieftains has any delicacy called forth such in effably wholehearted joy in the body and soul of the eater as that which was produced in this woman by the fat-salty tang of sueted gullet, the lucious meaty heart of the young animal, the tender, delicately fibered flesh of the kidneys with their peculiar flavor, and the thick slices of liver sausage dripping with fat from the pot. She drank the gravy along with it, thick and wholesome. She ate and ate as if she would never be sated. This was the first happy day of her married life." Later there is a brief scene where two children see and smell, for the first time in their lives, duck fried in butter. I could smell it right along with them.

We just returned from our visit and it turned out that we were unable to eat a real dinner anyway for the reason that we tended to stuff ourselves during the day on full lunches at various places serving traditional Bavarian dishes as well as the obligatory beer. The place we enjoyed most was across from the Hofbrauhaus to the west--the one serving Ayinger products, including a terrific winterbock. Incidentally, we stayed in a hotel very close to Romanplatz and found few places we could have eaten within walking distance(the biergarten at the Hirschgarten was the closest--about a three minute walk)but the tram was so convenient we didn't mind leaving the neighborhood. The only reason we didn't eat real meals for dinner was our lack of stomach capacity.

We've never eaten out with any frequency, at least when we are at home, but the eating out we do hasn't changed. I figure the owners and staff of the local restaurants we prefer live nearby and we are helping to prop up the local economy--our neighbors-- each time we dine out. Of course, it helps our ability to continue to eat in the same fashion when there are no restaurants within 25 miles of us at which we could spend $100 on food(for two, not counting alcohol)without being gluttonous.

I found the source of the taint from another source or study...now when I can find it I will post a link... \ ← While you are looking, perhaps you can provide some tips on how to get to know the producer well enough to know whether its wine is tainted. When I go into a wine store, I am confronted by hundreds of wines and, while I may know something about a tiny fraction of producers, one thing I won't know is whether any given wine has heavy metals in it. So far as I know, nobody discloses any laboratory results even if the wine is tested for heavy metals and no government agency, at least in the U.S., tests for heavy metals and then posts the results of the tests. Even if I have been buying wine directly from a winery and have formed a close customer/producer relationship with the winery owner, I can't imagine the owner will acknowledge the existence of heavy metals in his or her wine even if present, nor would I expect to be given relevant lab reports if I asked for them. I don't even know if wine is routinely tested for magnesium, etc. What is one realistically to do?

My father-in-law recently passed away and two people went above and beyond anything I have seen before when they prepared and delivered complete meals for a large group on two successive nights. What was more remarkable to me was that they weren't even close relations. One was the mother and the other an aunt of a granddaughter-in-law. Whether this represents a local tradition or only the goodness of two people, I couldn't say.

I must be missing something. I googled the magic words and found reports on a study which came to no conclusion about the origen of the heavy metals in wine. Is there a specific source which identified old equipment as the culprit(other than the video linked in the original post)?

...nuts were served in a bowl on the bar and not "encrusted" on your fish.

I don't seem to be doing anything right here, so I'll try a different way. You may be able to grow pea tendrils in that environment if you can get the soil warm enough to germinate the seeds.

YAY!!!! someone else is with me now I just planted some onion seeds in pots so I will have starts and epazote Hmm, something appears to be missing from my prior post. What I had thought I said was that you may have a good environment for pea tendrils if the soil is warm enough to germinate the seeds. That sounds like a good environment for pea tendrils if your soil is warm enough to germinate the seeds. and I am going to throw caution to the wind..seed a bunch of rows of Italian greens for seedlings to transplant later ..in my potato bin that has tons of nice soil for seedlings ..it is off the ground, in a protected area and I can put plastic over it to make a cold frame ...hope this works ..I am yearning for dirt under my nails tell me the best things to plant in rich compost filled beds that will get a bit of shade but very protected from cold ..unusual herbs would be great ... anything edible, fragrant, attractive all ideas appreciated ← ←

YAY!!!! someone else is with me now I just planted some onion seeds in pots so I will have starts and epazote That sounds like a good environment for pea tendrils if your soil is warm enough to germinate the seeds. and I am going to throw caution to the wind..seed a bunch of rows of Italian greens for seedlings to transplant later ..in my potato bin that has tons of nice soil for seedlings ..it is off the ground, in a protected area and I can put plastic over it to make a cold frame ...hope this works ..I am yearning for dirt under my nails tell me the best things to plant in rich compost filled beds that will get a bit of shade but very protected from cold ..unusual herbs would be great ... anything edible, fragrant, attractive all ideas appreciated ←

One small suggestion to ease a fraction of your pain: re item no. 9, use reusable cloth bags. The ones I have can hold a small anvil and a couple of bowling balls without breaking. My nearest supermarket does not have a seafood counter but that is not necessarily a bad thing, judging by the quality of the produce sold there.

That looks like a sport pepper in the top photo.

I see that Broeding serves a five-course set menu only. Is it reasonable to assume the menu is posted early in the day so that prospective diners will know what will be served before they reserve a table?

We will be in Munich next month for several days, staying between the Nymphenburg Palace and the Hirschgarten. We are looking for walking-distance(15-20 minutes)restaurants for those evenings we decide not to venture anywhere by public transit. Does anyone have any recommendations for worthwhile places, preferably those serving regional specialities?

Decades ago, my dormitory served food that was pretty dang abominable. One item to which I came to look forward, however, was a hot sandwich comprised of a hamburger bun, some unknown yellow cheese or cheese product, ham, pineapple and a maraschino cherry. I may have had to force myself to take the initial bite the first time I saw the thing but I thought it was a pretty good concoction once I overcame my reluctance. That experience no doubt led me to try, a year or so later and at the encouragement of my girlfriend(now my wife), the Hawaiian pizza at the late-great Morningtown(or was it Morningside?)pizza on 11th St. in Seattle's U District. It was immensely satisfying and I become nostalgic even now just thinking about that pizza even if I no longer have much interest in ordering one of today's versions.

Well sure, if you focus on that peculiar color of that relish, you aren't going to be able to enjoy the sandwich properly, just as I couldn't enjoy a cheesesteak properly if I really thought about the Cheez Whiz.

While strolling around downtown Sarasota at midday a couple of weeks ago, I looked at all of the menus that were posted outside restaurant doors. To me, the most interesting menu was at MoZaic on main street. Unfortunately, it was not open for lunch so I did not have the chance to determine whether the food was as good as the descriptions.

Pepperoncini peppers?! Is nothing sacred? To be authentic, sport peppers must be used. And celery salt. Sales would no doubt take off if they would do it properly. I'd buy a couple, anyway, if I was in the neighborhood.

Welsh rarebit.

Mint oil on cotton balls seems to work for us. The barn cats do a good job on those mice that leave the premises to escape the mint scent.

It depends on how much butter you use. Air poppers produce popcorn that either requires the addition of fat as a topping, or winds up tasting like diet food. If you pop with oil, you get delicious popcorn that doesn't require butter. But calorie-wise, you can get away with less butter as a topping than you can get away with oil as a cooking medium, because oil has less flavor (and more calories per ounce). ← Agreed. We prefer the butter and no oil version to the oil and no butter or the oil and some butter versions so the hot air popper is best for us.

We've used a hot air popper for a couple of decades now and I like to think that has saved us from consuming about a million calories over that time, given how often we eat the stuff. Of course, we have added about a million calories from the butter we have poured on over the years. Normally, we eat the popcorn that we grow but when we have run out of that and have had to purchase some, I've found little difference in popping quality between the store brands, the gourmet brands, and the bulk section popcorn. I have, however, detected a taste difference on occasion. Some of the popcorn just seems a little more corny than others.

Kay and Ray's, out of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, makes an outstanding dark chip, cooked in lard.

If you like your restaurants(and the rest of the island)uncrowded and quiet, now may be the time to plan a trip to Nevis. The Four Seasons is shut down indefinitely to repair the damage caused by Hurricane Omar. In a week of dining, we never ate at a place that was more than one third of capacity. While I realize we were there during the off season, the restaurant people with whom we spoke are expecting a very lean year because so many folks from the Four Seasons won't be there spreading their dining dollars around the island.