Schielke

I eat Indian food roughly once a week. I mostly cook it at home, but enjoy going to Indian restaurants. When I cook at home, I make between 1 and 2 dishes. Even though I cook it only once a week, I find some indian techniques and spicing working their way into my other dishes. Particularly the technique of cooking spices in oil to base a dish. Ben

The proper protocol in this situation would be to loudly cough 'eGullet'. {cough} eGullet!{/cough}

What would be cool though, is if they put peanut butter in one of those Easy Cheese aresol cans. Easy Cheese is the bomb.

Please tell me that does not exist.

Those are some sweet tubes.

Did you meet up with any other eGulleters?

Sounds interesting. I wonder how much he had to do with the products. Rogue Brewery is indeed a PacNW brewery. They are known for their Shakespeare Stout among other things. Now there will be an official drink for the Iron Chef drinking game!!! Ben

Marinated, Grilled Flank steak chopped up for some simple tacos. Beef Stew- Chuck steak, onions, parsnips, carrots, beef stock, fresh herbs. Turned out very good. Marinated some chicken breast in EVOO, Garlic, Dijon, and White Pepper. Grilled those for quick lunches at work.

Ok, so it appears that the 17th is out. No problem. Consider it gone. Ben

I sent an e-mail to Chef William at Mistral to see which dates work for him. I will let everybody know when I hear from him. Ben p.s. Tighe you owe a review!

Ok party people, I am going to throw out a couple dates for the Mistral Cooking Class that was discussed at the BBQ event. For those of you that missed it, Chef William had suggested to Tighe that we do a class where we go to the Market, pick out what looks good and then go back and cook it all up. I thought this was a fabulous idea. Possible dates: May 17th May 31st June 7th Obviously we would have to coordinate with Chef William and his schedule. What works for all of you? Ben

Larb!

Over the next week or so, your body will become used to the extra water in your system. Until then frequent trips to said bathroom are in order. Also, have you considered getting a body fat analysis? It is a far more accurate picture of your progress.

As if!! Truly, I find myself furtively skulking into the kitchen after reading one of Jin's dinner posts -- like I so totally have no business going in! What, I ask myself, do I think I'm going to DO there??!? Ack. Please bear in mind this is a professional kitchen and I have two to three assistants, most days. Meals are for from ten to twenty people. I only post this stuff to give some ideas. It's all easy, really. Just make every grocery trip a foraging expedition. Let every ingredient invite exploration. Always refine technique. And always ask yourself, "Will this make St. Jacques of Pepin cry or be happy?" What, you mean you dont eat all that yourself?!! There I go all disillusioned again. Ben

Vengroff, please accept my apologies.

Just like the tabloids: lots of titillation on the cover and nothing of substance inside. Any photos will be in the form of "after" pictures when we run an eGullet competition to determine who gets to oil me down for my photo shoot. If you really want to see a picture, you can find me (fully clothed and somewhat blurry, thank goodness) in one of Holly Moore's pictures here (Look for Holly's April 8 post -- I'm the one holding the food and beer, of course). That mariners cap takes 10 lbs right off ya!

Good luck and God speed.

Grocery Outlet is the bomb, I picked up some Arabic Tang when I was there in years past. Ben

The meal was for two people who were amply stuffed at the end. Before tax and tip it was $100. The table downstairs took up about half of the room and I would say that it could fit about 14 people. Mmmmm Harvest Vine

I had a great meal at Harvest Vine this weekend. A good friend of mine and I were moping around my place while Katie was off galavanting around for a batchelorette party. We decided that a top notch dinner was in order and decided on Harvest Vine. After our hour + wait (we went to the park and played on the swings), we were led to the new downstairs area. It is a room about the same size as the upstairs and has space for about 20-25 people. There is one large family style table that we were seated at. After pouring over the many mouthwatering sounding dishes on the menu, we talked with our very capable waiter Fernando and he agreed to hook us up with a "tasting menu" of sorts where he would pick the dishes. Fernando assured us that the meal would be wonderful and bounded up the stairs to construct our meal. Cold Selections Selection of Olives- I am still getting used to olives (did not eat them as a kid), but I am growing to like them. The selection was three types: Small green ones a little bigger than a pea that had a nice mellow flavor, Medium black that had a smooth steady saltiness, and Large green ones that were a litte harsher. I favored the black ones. Smoked Sea Bass with Squid Ink, EVOO, and caramelized onions- A nice platter of cold smoked sea bass that fernando said they do in house. It was a nice mellow smokiness that went well with the delicate taste of the fish. The squid ink was very interesting, it tasted very light and savory. Parma Ham 2+ years- Fernando advised us that this parma ham was special in that regular hams are cured for 6 months, but this one went for 2+ years. It had a very nice concentrated flavor of intense meatiness. The fat was very smooth and the texture consistent. Very very good. I did wish, however, that they would have sliced it even thinner. Sardine Filets with EVOO and Black Olive Tapenade- A platter of small sardine filets with good peppery EVOO drizzled everywhere and small piles of tapenade on each filet. I ate these on some toast and they were fabulous. Fishy tasting, but in the good way. The olive oil and the tapenade did a neat kind of "salt" and "pepper" thing. Hot Selections Green Beans with Tomato-Garlic sauce- Really flavorful small green beans sauteed and topped with a slightly sweet garlic-tomato sauce. Chorizo Sausage sauteed with Garlic and Cider- The Chorizo sausage was so very good. It was a little tougher than regular sausages, but it appeared to be the style. I did enjoy it's toughness. It was nicely spicy, without being too assertive. I meant to ask if it was made in-house, but more dishes came and I forgot. Chickpeas with Tomato-Cumin gravy- This one bordered on Indian style. The chickpeas were cooked very well and had a slight backbone to them, but were still tender. They were covered in a slightly smoky tomato-cumin gravy that I loved. Braised Octopus with roasted potatoes- I did not know octopus could be this tender. It had such a great texture and was fun when you got some of the little suction cups in a bite. The roasted potatoes were ok, but made even better when dipped in one of the many sauces on the various dishes at the table. This was a great example of spanish style octopus. Lamb Chops with Potato Gratin- Expertly grilled chops over a little ple of the tastiest damn potatoes. The chops were a nice medium rare high quality lamb. Both of us ended up cleaning and re-cleaning the bones trying to get that last bit of flavor from them. The potatoes were as a gratin should be. More than the sum of their parts. Top notch. Seared Foie Gras with caramelized pumpkin- Fernando came by and told us we had one more dish coming and it was his favorite on the entire menu. He assured us that we would love it. Within minutes he returned with a plate foie that shall rival all other foie. Crispy, salt studded exterior, smooth just-melting interior and a nicely balanced sweet sauce (reduced port perhaps) with small pieces of caramelized pumpkin. Simply Excellent. A bonus was that my dining companion had never had foie gras before and was suitably introduced to the pleasures of goose fat. By this point we were nicely stuffed and unfourtanetly did not have room for dessert. Fernando apologized for not including it in our meal, but we were so happy by then that we did not care. The only lapse in service at this point was getting out. It was almost as if they did not want us to leave. We were long finished with our food and obviously waiting for the check, but none came. I think we waited about 20 min to get it and then it took a long time for them to pick up the credit card. I took nearly 40 min to get out of there! My friend made a comment that the place hates to let you in (long wait) and hates to let you leave. Besides this inconvienence, the meal was spectacular and again I highly reccommend that everybody who has the means visit Harvest Vine soon. Ben

Nuts! It is out of my time range.

Yeah, it seems as if many of these meals have included high end wine, which can easily double or triple a bill. Ben

Do you record each course as it comes out and then reaction? How do you get enough light? Many video cameras do not perform well in low light situations. Thanks! Ben p.s. post some .mpeg links!

Trees.

Yeah the Thomas Kemper is a pretty good product. Much better than the average 2 liter brand. I really like the root beer at The Ram here in Seattle (and Spokanne too I think). Ben