coquus

Nah, before, I always season it before, unless it is something that having salt on it before cooking will cause it to lose moisture, veg/mushroom, etc., meat always gets seasoned before cooking, I feel the crust tastes better if it has salt in it, and what kind of salt sticks to a carmelized crust anyhow, some pretty funky sea salt maybe, but none i've ever cooked with.

Yeah, well, we make the world rich, but gras makes no sense. (Were you, by chance, CIA-educated under the able, but etymolologically*-challenged, Chef Turgeon? )Fabby, the Spelling Nazi. PS -- I think I'll start a foie gras speakeasy type of thing. Maybe I'll also serve unpasteurized cheeses without gloves. Oh, yeah. Who says I can't get a little crazy? (* Yippee, new word!) ← I'll say it, you can't get crazy, it's a Nazi thing, a Spell-ling Na-zi thing. You should though, you should. You got me, FFBabe 1-me 0. I really thought it was spelled that way too, shame on me, and my sixth grade class wants to tell you they are shamed they only had two better spellers than me, well, you know, they would probably be, if I knew many of them anymore.

Hey, BryanZ. Yeah, good, Stephen is a douchebag. Maybe he didn't deserve sent home before Tiffany and Dave, but still a douchebag.

I wonder this too, it's pretty clear they were some finicky eaters, I would say it's highly likely that the whole thing was staged.

She's a witch, a witch! Burn her, burn her. Sorry, couldn't help myself, bad analogy in this topic scordelia, otw good stuff.

Buck up, this isn't the end of the world for you guys. I'm sure your favorite chef knows how to make things taste just fine without fois gras. And it will be character building for you to go without, or risk your tails dealing with the seedy, underworld duck wranglers. Ah people, you make this world rich, not fois gras, you.

That was some good Tony this week, not great food porn, just good, but hey, he was in Sweden, fu-ged-aboud-it. I bet those No Reservations people could make a show in North Dakota that everybody on here would watch. I think this was a bit too close to Quebec and the seal, a Quebec2? Last week we saw Grill Bitch, what's this, teaching! And she looked, well, actually quite attractive. Well, quick, throw Tony the life Equator, or was it preserver. . .

What Grub said.

I don't think either of these things is true. She was hung out to dry by both of her teamates at times still managed to work through it. And do you really think that she would sabatoge her chances at winning. Stephen actually impressed me more this episode than others, but I still think he should have been sent packing. This seemed set up in a way however, and it was refreshing they didn't go that route. I think that they served more people should have been taken into consideration however, and the complexity was far greater as well. Come on the winners served 13 some canned bullshit, what did they really win?

Just a reminder, this starts tonite, I suppose if I watch it I will have to decompress with a little No Reservations later on.

That was definately true after they went up in the mountains and the girl guide took over, he was still smoking in Lima, I didn't notice it much in the Amazon. I did notice a good deal of drug use, and what was clear to me was the lengths Tony would go to to get a beer, clearly his favorite sidecar-drug. Eating piranha like that seemed like such a waste, that meat must have been absolutely inedible for them to use it like that. I think it's Tony's goal to get through this whole show without catching anything, and yet they make him fish every other/third episode. This show was one of those that made me really want to go somewhere like that soon, very good episode.

Oh, sorry, brookcook, oh well, I guess I just can't say enough bad about the guy. I'm looking forward to wed., I have a decent amount of respect for what Q.E. Ted has to say, he seems like a decent person, even though hes made a few false moves on Q. E., his experience on Iron Chef should serve him. I would like to see how he reacts to some of the personalities, and hope he actually tastes all the food. It's time for a little spring cleaning.

rlibkind, nice site! That's a good looking streudel.

You call that a man? Yeah, I cracked up when I heard that comment as well, he's got the best compliments for himself ever, what rock did he crawl out from under?

That's Pangea. I haven't been there for a couple of years. but it was very good. It's eclectic rather than Italian: Nuevo American, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, whatever. But it works (or at least did when I was last there). Please tell me more about Dano's. Is it in Watkins Glen? Similar to his old Ithaca establishment? When it was operating, I thought it the best overall restaurant in the burg. ← It opened up last year sometime, it's north of Watkins ~7mi. on whatever route, unfortunately I have yet to go, but it sounds like my kind of place. It's near the Stone Cat which I also would like to check out sometime. The closest I got to Dano was working with a dishwasher at Dano's old spot, which became the now defunct Le Duc, a French place I never heard much great about. Dano himself was working at a Cornell frat house feeding them well free range chicken as reported in the Ithaca Times a year or so ago. And, Pangea, I guess I said Italian because of the Italian name and the pizzas they do upstairs. I have always heard good things, on my limited budget I would still try that out over most others. And I don't really know anything except that I never heard much great or exciting about the other two expensive places in town or any of the new openings so I didn't mention them. I suppose the best meal deals in town can still be found at the Farmer's Market though.

More on Ithaca, what's the Italian place, Pandoro or whatever, in the tangle of streets north of State and west of the hill, in Falls Creek, I hear that's nice. And you can bet you'll get some good wild mushrooms soon at Just a Taste, or see Carl, their purveyor, often at noon at L&F and he'll hook a brother up with some beauties. Ithaca is a decent place for a foodie, hope things go well with you and her, watch out for bugs though .

Ithaca is tough most restaurants per capita anywhere in the US. I bet the Carriage House is doing well, not too hard when you're subsidized by Cornell the chef is a culinary school grad however, I thought it was mostly pizza and sandwiches though. I lived there a while, I think I still know it. I would say that chinese on State St. is cheap and good, the rooster place across the street (Chanticleer?) is the best dive bar, the Thai on state near State Diner is also good. Mahogany Grill is decent. The ethnic (jap, viet, greek) up in collegetown is hit or miss but can really hit sometimes, haven't really hit it that much however. Not sure for Korean, maybe Asia House, or the place in collegetown. I would go to Geno's for pizza anytime. Collegetown Bakery is good for sandwiches. I like the Wegman's there and Win-Li market, and Green Star of course. For fine dining check out Willows or Valentine Cafe, not sure about anywhere else. Olean is just two hours away, come on down, you can hit the Stone Cat or Dano's new one near there (Watkins) or Jerlando's Pizza as well on the way, if they're still operational.

phaelon56, did you ever make it down to No Match last fall? She was on the local cable channel again for Black History Month she did four weeks and I was there for three of four, hehehe.

Also, I'd like to call the judges out on something, well maybe I would if I truly knew the answer, in the tasting when they had chile paste, and Miguel says Sriracha. Sriracha, you know the cock on the bottle hot sauce, I was under the impression that it wasn't a brand name but more of a thai word for chili sauce (the bottled stuff is garlicy and it's probably what Miguel was thinking), yeah, not chili paste, but they gave Lisa credit for saying sauce. Minor, yes, but it would have put Miguel in a tie with yoga girl who I'm proud to say I called to win the immunity yesterday.

He called Harold out Wed. too with that cooking in a box comment. He's growing on me more as time progresses. Upthread someone said TC looked like Cal Ripken Jr., I have to say he does, crossed with Howie Mandel, he's pretty fit for a chef. Someone's gotta teach that yoga girl some salt she'd be on her way then. I liked this weeks structure of two per cart, as Tom admitted, some of the best food was made. Yeah, I watch this, It's not the greatest but what have I got better to do (full distainful looks to TFN).

That's a great attitude, you have to live there so you should make it suitable for living first and foremost. I always think people are crazy that try to keep everything pristine for some future buyer, or, conversly won't spend the money to make a place comfortable enough to be livable.

Sounds right? I was somewhat awed to see that it looked like a popular place, and it was what I had in mind as the possible other place that was on the FN before (strong sense of deja vous).

HEAR, HEAR (PBS Comment)

I bought a Kitchenaid glass ceramic because it was on sale, it had a convection oven, and had this computer type thing on the controls (i'm a guy in case you didn't guess), let me tell you for the price, great, but it has it's drawbacks. You can't really use it as extra space for fear of dropping something and cracking the cooktop. It has knobs on the front anyway, instead of on the backsplash, which would get hit with body parts and turn on, perhaps under your plastic cutting board. The cooktop is white so is super high maintainence (glass ceramic is super high maintainence as it stands so super super high, am I spelling maintainence right?). Also you can't uses copper on it, and because mine is white, Kitchenaid? you're not supposed to use aluminum. I don't know how long I'll be here, so I don't know how healthy speculating is, but I would definately like to try induction (the intro Kenmore (Sears) is only 1500) since I cook alot with carbon steel pans anyhow. Ideally, I would like a induction top with a gas stove, but since nobody makes them, yet hint, hint, i guess that's out. Think of the energy and time savings there, that would be phenomenal.

The new episodes of NR have been great, on par with the best from last season. Only one thing, at least one of those places, El Rey, has been shown on the Food Network before (possibly explaining your hesitance to go there), however it was for all the right reasons, I know, I sat and ate there once in '96, keep up the good work Tony.