H. du Bois

I'm very partial to Droste dark chocolate pastilles. Love the flavor, the size of the bite, the crunch and the melt.

Joy of Cooking. It's the one cookbook I had sent to me when I was living abroad - it remains my gold standard as a reference, no matter where I live or how I cook.

In Manhattan during the 1980s, on 8th Avenue in the 50s - a Chinese restaurant with a sign advertising "Vegetarian Pork." In Japan, during the 1990s - an energy drink called "Pocari Sweat."

Paternal grandfather always had a glass of good whiskey and a cigar in his hand. He loved whiskey sours, which I'd beg a sip of (I liked them, too!). His favorite restaurant in town was a clubby, men's only place, and he loved their lemon meringue pie. I ate at that restaurant when I was an adult (they began allowing women in when I was 19) and I had the pie - grandpa was right. My paternal grandmother died when I was four, but she was renowned for her fudge, and had something of a rivalry with her sister as to who made the better fudge. Maternal grandmother was a wonderful cook. with a kitchen garden filled with herbs, radishes, tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. I've had a lifelong devotion to fresh salad because of her. Her Sunday roasts were to die for. I loved the end pieces, not so much because they were well-down, but because I loved the garlicky, peppery, crunchy bits. Maternal grandfather wasn't a cook himself, but he did like her cooking.

I too have experienced the horror of finding on the bill that the special was far more expensive than I'd imagined. If they're going to recite the specials orally, name that price! I'd rather hear that than the verbose product description that often accompanies each dish the server mentions - it's that, more than anything, that creates mind clog for me.

Oooh, good topic. Depending on my mood, Chocolate chocolate chip - the flavor that taught me to like chocolate ice cream. (I was a vanilla girl when I was young - have spent much of my adult life rectifying that imbalance). Vanilla swiss almond, because it's sublime. I have a bunch of female friends who went beserk when Dulce de Leche came on the market. E.

Tim, if someone of your caliber were cooking my meals, I'd never leave the house! Seriously, everything you describe sounds delicious and interesting. Hell, I get hungry just reading about it! Please don't be disheartened. Even if you were cooking in a restaurant, there'd be some customers who wouldn't appreciate what you've put into your work. Ellen

You know, I’m glad to see those entries above me that indicate that other people have had more than one wedding … I’m currently going through a divorce, so somehow I had felt it inappropriate to reply to this topic until now. Silly me – my marriage may have failed, but the celebration of it remains a happy memory, untarnished after all. It was a lovely day – a summer wedding in the garden, the flowers all in bloom and children running about the lawn. The food was done by a friend of my parents’, and it was so delicious that it was talked about by my in-laws for years afterward. Hors d’oeuvres were Lao egg rolls (similar to Thai) with a spicy peanut dipping sauce. The drinks flowed freely. The main meal was salmon mousse with cucumber sauce, roulades of cold stuffed chicken breasts, wild rice salad, and garden fresh tomatoes with fresh basil en vinaigrette. For dessert – a chocolate cake, the layers brushed with Chambord, filled with raspberry mousse, and iced with buttercream. Fresh flowers on the top (and champagne on the side!). Ellen Edited to correct the name of the liqueur. Shouldn't type when I'm tired!

I was quite a serious cake baker when young - partly because I had an affinity for it; partly because my grandmother and a great-aunt were willing to answer my millions of questions. By the time I was 9, I'd bake a cake from scratch after school just for the sheer pleasure of it. Ellen

Fascinating.

1. My grandmother, who served fresh kitchen-garden foods in an era in which we were conditioned to crave Tang, fluffernutter sandwiches and Wonder bread. One of my earliest memories is plucking fresh radishes from the ground, dusting them off and eating them while she gardened. 2. My mother, who, while not a great cook, taught me everything she knew before she went back to work, leaving me with dinner duties. A memorable quote one Christmas: "Why should I buy you a Kenner easy bake oven when you know how to use the real thing?" 3. My younger sister, eventual co-dinner cooker and partner in crime, who had a far more adventurous palate than mine. One of my first forays to the grocery store after getting my driver's license was to buy artichokes, which she was dying to try. Of course, we hadn't the vaguest idea how to eat them ... oh, those inedible leaves! 4. An older version of The Joy of Cooking, our faithful teacher and guide.

I'm wondering too. Maybe, there is some interesting local cuisine in those "greasy spoons" that get bypassed on the way to the 40 mile away place? I don't know, I'm just saying that I have had some incredibly good food in some very unprententious, and yes, even unpromising locations. Talking to the locals about where to eat, and keeping an open mind, can generally net you some great experiences. Of course, coming out of New York, where there is good food at every other door, I could see where one would get spoiled. Just spending a long weekend there spoils me. Just the nature of the beast. I am, at present, in a little place in western New York, halfway between Rochester and Buffalo. It sounds an awful lot like petite tete de chou's town! (Are you sure we're not neighbors?) I don't mean to stir the pot with my posts. I do recognize that as a New Yorker, I've grown accustomed to having the world at my fingertips - a circumstance which the rural regions of the country cannot possibly hope to replicate. And I have been able to find some wonderful things to make up for it - this is peach and apple orchard country, and the sweet corn in season is to die for. The fresh, free-range turkey we bought from a local farmer for Thanksgiving was superb - no brining necessary. But finding some of the food I've grown to take for granted has been difficult - not impossible, but difficult, and there's often a fair amount of driving necessary to hunt it down. Agree completely that the best food to be had here is probably cooked at home, or acquired by means with which, as an urbanite, I'm unfamiliar - I've been assured that if I were to shoot my own deer, there's a man here who makes the most fabulous venison sausage ... As MarketStEl notes, and I agree with him absolutely, it isn't that there isn't good food to be found outside the urban areas, but it can take effort to find it. Ellen

Austin, I think you need to spend more time in California. Go to a place like Chow in San Francisco. Good, healthy, creative food available at a price that normal people can afford? Yep, I think they've got that covered. High end and ritsy, it ain't. Good and a bargain, it sure is. ← Pan, with all due respect (truly!!!), I believe what Austin is talking about is eating outside of the urban centers. I've eaten like a queen in New York and San Francisco, at ethnic restaurants that cost very little as well as at the high end of the spectrum. Where I'm currently staying, I have to drive 40-50 miles to either of two cities if I want to eat at a place that isn't a chain or a greasy spoon - with the exception of the local prime rib house. One has to be truly motivated and flush with gasoline money to do that kind of thing on a regular basis, and forget about having wine with the meal if you have to drive that distance home. I can leave my apartment in New York and be within a 5 minute walk of any regional cuisine at a decent price and quality. The same cannot be said for the rest of the country, alas. Ellen (who is jonesing for sushi like a depraved junkie)

I think there is a point to what Austin is saying. I've lived for the past 20 years in New York City, though I'm presently on a long-term visit to my family, who live in the country. I've grown accustomed to being able to buy fresh, seasonal produce via the greenmarkets in NYC, and to eat at various wonderful little ethnic restaurants all over town as a matter of course. Yet here, even in an agricultural region, once the farmers' produce stands close down for the season (usually by late October), you have no recourse for purchasing fresh fruits or vegetables beyond the supermarket chains, and god only knows where they were grown, when they were picked, or how many thousands of miles they had to travel to arrive on the shelf. Much of the supermarket meat comes "value packed," and one has no way of knowing whether their sourcing is reliable, ethical or healthful. The restaurants (usually chains) tend to serve portions that more than make up for in quantity what they lack in flavor. I can leave feeling filled, but not satisfied. Perhaps I should also mention that I've gained weight since I left the metropolis - a very unhappy state of affairs. Things are better here than they were 20 years ago - now one can find fresh herbs in supermarkets, and a variety of vegetables beyond the rock-hard square, pale tomatoes and the ubiquitous iceberg lettuce of yore, but there still seems to be an inherent disconnect between the nation-at-large and its food supply. Aside from growing one's own fruits and vegetables organically and having various ingredients sent to one's home via Fedex, what can an ordinary someone living outside an urban center in the US do in order to eat well? The former is more time-consuming that most people can manage; the latter is prohibitively expensive (read elite). I happened to be in England when Jamie Oliver's school food series first aired, and it was riveting television. It also packed enough of a wallop to shame the government into making changes in the nation's school lunch programs. Could something similar happen here? Could our celebrity chefs whet their sharp knives and wits and do battle for a greater good? There is a SERIOUS problem with how this nation is eating, and the problem doesn't have to do with good intentions on the part of the eater. Ellen

Jamie, Thank you for your graceful answer to my question. Ellen

I shall miss this blog when it's finished. I look forward with glee to every new entry - the thoughtful reflections on cuisine & culture, the wonderful photographs (in which your splendid sense of presentation extends beyond the plate ). And I love the humor and joie de vivre you bring to the table. Are there any dining experiences in your life that you consider to have been seminal, magical, transporting events? If so, what was it that made them so? Ellen

Loving this blog. More, more, more!

My BIL (whose mother trained at the Cordon Bleu) brought the tradition of beef wellington, potato gratin, green beans and some scandalously rich chocolate dessert into our family. Since then, the Christmas dinners (he & my sister cook) have always been a variation on the beef tenderloin & potatoes theme. A couple of years ago, the dessert was Mario Batali's chocolate valpolicella pudding, which was so decadent no one could finish it! As for me, my own favorite holiday fare was the time I did a multi-course seafood meal on Christmas eve, complete with English Christmas crackers and lots of champagne. Between the paper litter from the popped crackers, the broken shells from the lobster & crabs, the champagne corks, and the torn wrapping paper from all the gifts, my kitchen looked like a bomb had gone off in it, but it was such a happy mess. Ellen

QUOTE: Great idea. Keep us posted if and when the time comes. Ditto that! Would love to eat there. Ellen

Goodness me, you must have lots of stamina! I wish you a delicious and glitch-free entertaining season, followed by a lengthy vacation somewhere warm (where you should be waited upon hand and foot!). Ellen

I haven't enjoyed a topic so much since my fellow grammar school classmates and I discussed how astronauts ate (and er, dealt with waste) on the playground when I was six. And no, I'm not being a wise-ass! This was utterly fascinating. Thank you, Chef! If your restaurant ever served the public, I'd be a customer! Ellen

Dear Marlene, I'm a newcomer who is wending my way about the site, and I stumbled across this thread after having just read your tag-team blog with slkinsey. I'd like to say that: a) your food looks so delicious and beautiful; and b) it seems like there's always a party at your house! How often do you entertain? Your guests must love you! Ellen

I'm a New Yorker presently in exile, and my mother (bless her soul), hearing me wax poetic about how much I missed my bagel-with-a-schmear, went out and bought me Lenders frozen blueberry bagels. With a package of fat-free cream cheese to go with them. Have managed to "lose" the white petrochemical byproduct masquerading as cream cheese, will have to gracefully diminish the purple hockey puck supply. Re: the gastronomic sins subject, for my money, putting ham and pineapple on pizza is just plain wrong. Ellen

There was a spell during the late 70s where vegetarian cuisine (can one call it that?) was comprised of various common dishes in which the cooks took every blessed ingredient and substituted them out for something "healthier." Even the vegetables were subject to this - why use lettuce in a recipe if you could use alfalfa sprouts instead? The end results were monstrosities that Victor Frankenstein himself could not have imagined. One night we were invited to a vegetarian dinner, in which the main course was tofu broccoli lasagna made with whole wheat noodles. Whether or not the lasagna tasted good was impossible to determine, as the chef had, in a moment of culinary daring, gone wild with cayenne pepper. I sensed, rather than tasted, that dish. So did everyone else - we wept as we ate. But it was the dessert which, after all these years, still sticks in my mind. Homemade vegetarian oreo cookies. With carob instead of chocolate. With honey and tofu instead of whatever concoction of sugar and fat it is that Nabisco uses. Beyond being indescribably bad (which it was), for me it still begs the eternal question: why???

Wow. That's impressive. Was there at least some variety in the style of potato salads? I have at least 2 or 3 quite different recipes... ← Dear tammylc: Nope! We ended up with 8 variations on an American potato salad with mayonnaise theme (hey, it was the 70s!). It made for a memorable meal, though - we all thought it was hilarious. But I learned my lesson - now, if I ask people to bring things, I assign each one a particular task. Ellen