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H. du Bois

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Everything posted by H. du Bois

  1. H. du Bois

    Summer Truffles

    Sadly, it's so. But she does make reference to it and tells you to go look it up. Thus is explained how she managed to fit the contents of two hardcover volumes of cookery into a third volume the very same size. My summer truffles were purchased in Rome and are packed in a small glass jar with a little water and sea salt. I have no idea yet what they'll taste like, but I like all the ideas of simply experimenting with them. I love wild mushrooms with Madeira, too - love to reconstitute the dried ones with that, and then mix the strained liquor into cream. PS: That Brillat-Savarin quote is priceless!
  2. H. du Bois

    Summer Truffles

    MaxH, thank you for your help. I recently replaced my old Classic Italian Cook Book with Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. Hazan refers to this recipe as coming from More Classic Italian Cooking, but leaves out both the name and the intro you quote, which would have been helpful. In Essentials, it's called simply "Black Truffle Sauce." Seeing as these summer truffles are black, I just assumed they'd fit the bill (at the beginning of Essentials, she refers to Italy as having black truffles, but it's the white truffles she then praises). So, here's my deal - I've never cooked with truffles before, so I don't have any of the experience you do. I can't therefore tell what the dishes are supposed to taste like with the real deal in order to compare or measure these against. Are these worth using at all? Should I not bother with any recipe that calls for a truffle, given that these aren't what they refer to?
  3. H. du Bois

    Summer Truffles

    Thanks for the suggestions! I dug around in my books and found a recipe by Marcella Hazan for a black truffle sauce for pasta, using exactly the kind of truffles I've got. It's done with grated truffles, garlic, extra virgin olive oil and an anchovy, and is tossed with thin spaghetti or spaghettini. I think I'll use this for my first foray. At least I'll have a sense then of how intense or mild they are and where I can go with them.
  4. H. du Bois

    Summer Truffles

    I'm with you - someone just brought me a jar of summer truffles from Italy (tuber aestivum vitt), in which there is also water and salt. I was told to rest a truffle in dry grains of rice overnight before I used them. But I haven't really used them before. I'll gladly take suggestions for use (I've had them before in beef Wellington and tournedos Rossini, but those are wintry dishes).
  5. When I was up visiting recently, I had some dim sum at a place on Winton near Jefferson. Cantonese Garden? Don't remember the name. The food was surprisingly good.
  6. Just to clarify, I don't think that third drink the bartender made me was off-menu per se (it did have a name, I just don't remember what it was). It was delicious, though. Interesting to see what he came up with, particularly as my first choice was sentimental and my second was idiosyncratic.
  7. You have never gone to pdt with H. du Bois. Hey! Not my fault they're so damned good.
  8. Tom Wahl's! (I don't remember their burgers, I only remember the root beer - as did this guy who was asking me, because it was a memorable experience for him.) You've both hit the bulls-eye. Thanks, Gordon and Philadining. Somehow it's comforting to know that Tom Wahl's still serves root beer in frosted mugs, and that Don & Bob's (oops, Don's Original) still uses the little wooden forks in the fries.
  9. Don & Bob's is known as Don's Original currently. Don & Bob's - that's it! Guess Bob bit the dust. Are the burgers still good?
  10. I have some very knuckleheaded questions to ask. I grew up in Rochester, and I ran into someone today who has spent a lot of time there. He was asking me what my favorite burger place was, and I couldn't remember the name of it, even though I can see it in my mind's eye. (It's been a very long time since I lived there). Can anyone help with these names? - The burger place I loved. If you go toward Irondequoit Bay, past Sea Breeze, you end up on a road that fronts the lake. Marge's, my favorite summer bar, was on the lake side. There were a couple of burger places on the other side of the road. The one I loved wasn't Vic and Irv's, it was the other one. - The place that sells great root beer that you stop at when you're heading south toward Letchworth Park. If I remember correctly, you pass through Avon and see the White Horse on your right before you come to this place. Thanks!
  11. Unfortunately yes -- the Staggerac is coming off the menu along with almost everything else. One or two drinks will be sticking around for an encore though.which are staying. The problem with the staggerac is the supply of Stagg. it was a limited edition and we pretty much exhausted the supply of it. ← Noooooooooooooo! I'm not shaking, I'm crying.
  12. You aren't retiring the Staggerac, are you? That one is stellar (I still think about it).
  13. I just looked it up - I had the Staggerac, the Benton's Old Fashioned and the Silver Sangaree. I'd be really hard pressed to choose which one I liked best.
  14. Excuse me, but I do believe that you got me in. (Because they don't turn you away lightly, although you can't say that without sounding like an asshole). I'm awfully glad we did get in. I loved those drinks, and it was fascinating watching Johnder and Donbert making them. I can't remember the name of the last drink I got, though. Something that began with an S, but not the Staggerac. So good.
  15. I have no practical advice to offer - I just want to say congratulations. That's the best reason to celebrate ever. Hope you and your wife have an unforgettable evening.
  16. I bought myself a Lodge Logic pre-seasoned skillet to replace my beloved ancient one (lost due to divorce), and I haven't used it yet, because it doesn't look or feel seasoned yet to me. My old one was black, almost soft to the touch, and this one doesn't feel right. Question: can I season this one anyway?
  17. My vegetarian ex-spouse's favorite restaurant was Union Square Cafe. They treat vegetarians well there - many of the starters are vegetarian-friendly, and they'll upsize any of them to mains for a reasonable fee.
  18. For the amount of money it costs to buy, maintain and insure a car in Manhattan or Brooklyn, you can dine at very nice places like Per Se and hire limos to take you to and from Blue Hill at Stone Barns. And you have quite a few more hours of free time in your life when you don't have to drive around looking for parking spaces (or deal with the unmitigated horror known as alternate side of the street parking). So, is the food in Edison really worth all that?
  19. Another possibility - Convivium Osteria on 5th Avenue, closer to Flatbush. It has a very pretty room that would suit the romance of the occasion. They serve mediterranean food (Italian, Spanish, Portugese influences). I don't think Tempo is open for lunch (don't know about Applewood), so they might still be game for something like this. Did you speak with them? Stone Park Cafe would be out - their weekend brunch service is a big thing. ETA: The reason I suggested Tempo is that I live near there, and have seen special occasion events happening inside - as I said, they've got that one big room. I'm not pushing them, I'm just trying to make you aware that they of all the Park Slope restaurants seem to be geared to do what you're looking for.
  20. Tempo (northern Italian, 5th Ave. at Carroll Street) would suit your purposes, and they have a larger room to the side that’s often used for private parties. Stone Park Café (new American, 5th Ave. at 3rd Street) would also suit. I don’t know what they’d charge pp for something like this – you’d have to check. The Chinese restaurants of Park Slope are of the pink tablecloth variety, and unfortunately, I’ve found the French restaurants (Moutarde and Belleville) to be iffy and inconsistent. I haven’t eaten at Cocotte, perhaps they’re better. Another possibility would be Applewood (11th Street near 7th Ave). I don’t think that Al di La, perhaps the most beloved of the Park Slope restaurants, would do something like this – they don’t even take reservations. Good luck!
  21. Didn't someone note that this debate was ridiculous (like pages ago?). I agree. And didn't FG himself note that perhaps the debate over this issue may have grown tiresome? I really agree. We're up to what, 5 pages now? And no sign of it ever abating. Mimi Sheraton's final point was, "In my book, he is responsible for every morsel, every time his doors are open and customers are being charged." If David Chang's restaurant served Mimi Sheraton a lousy meal, she has a right to not like it, and she has a right to say so, too. You can tell me I'm wrong on that a thousand times over, and I won't change my mind, so don't even bother. This is starting to reek of the Charlie Trotter Superdud thread, in which some guy got eviscerated by the membership for: a) not having been terribly impressed by his meal; and b) having the audacity to say so. I respect Mimi Sheraton's and Doc Sconz's right to not have been impressed by their meals, and I respect the right of the others on this thread to have been wildly impressed by their own experience. What I am finding difficult to respect in this thread though, is the ever increasing heap of pedantic drivel that one has to wade through in order to find any mention of the food itself. It's FOOD. People like it or they don't. They enjoy their experience of it, or they don't. And where I'll stand in my judgment of this place is where I'll stand depending on how good it tastes - no more. I'm damned if I'm doing any research before dining there. I'm sick of this place already, and I haven't even eaten there yet.
  22. Well, in New York City terms, yes, they're reasonable. But what makes them a favorite store is that they're family owned, and the staff are really knowledgeable. The man who owns the place once gave me a really great lesson in how to choose a cooking knife - one of those irreplaceable experiences that you can't have when you're buying things online.
  23. Ruth Reichl once famously flirted and played kneesies with a man who was not her husband while she was in process of researching a restaurant she was reviewing. More importantly, she included that scenario in her 4 star review. So, where was the firestorm of response to that? She was flagrantly promoting a heterosexual agenda - perhaps an adulterous one, at that. There is frequent mention of both a husband and a son throughout her columns. So, how did her sexual orientation impact upon her writing about food? In fact, what did any of her many disguises or the behaviour of her various "characters" have to do with the food? (I exempt her famous and wonderful review of the two Le Cirques, as it had everything to do with it). Bruni's light allusion to his life was inconsequential compared to that of many of his straight counterparts at the Times. Why this keeps coming up again and again and again is beyond me, but the foregrounding of it has far less to do with Bruni than with those who keep needlessly referring to it. I liked Reichl's reviews. Liked them lots. In fact, I'm going to come out of the closet here, and openly admit that I enjoy reading Bruni, too. So shoot me. (Oh, and please let me know to whom I must submit my resignation from EG, for such a flagrant violation of group concurrence).
  24. This link below will take you to a thread on restaurants near BAM. Most of the restaurants mentioned within are geared for feeding the pre-BAM set, and as such, they're okay. But they're no better than that, and they certainly wouldn't show you what you're missing by never leaving Manhattan. http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...0entry1193506 Since you are seeing Cymbeline first and eating later, I'd suggest that you check out some of the better restaurants within walking distance of BAM. Franny's or Ici in Prospect Heights. Or, walk down Fifth Avenue in Park Slope, which has become restaurant row, and eat at Al di La, Tempo or Stone Park Cafe. Alchemy's been getting good play on Time Out New York (haven't been yet myself). These places would give you a much better idea of what Brooklyn can offer than any of the pre-BAM places.
  25. Do you all think sir would feel better if I started doing this to sir? Oh, do! Although if sir begins referring to himself in the third person, we're all in trouble.
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