smithi

My mom has been making this for years and it's quite different from olive oil based tomato salads. Add slivered red onions to your tomatoes which have been cut into wedges. Add sour cream, and a bit of white vinegar and salt to taste. Mix. (The juice from the tomatoes will slightly thin out the sour cream) It's surprisingly delicious, different and extremely simple.

Vong has a great $20 lunch special every day of the week...a nice way to view and try the restaurant inexpensively.

I'm currently pregnant and, like your wife, dislike cooked vegetables...all of them. However, what I do still enjoy is raw vegetables. As a result, I've been eating many salads in order to ensure I'm getting enough vegetables in my diet. In addition, at times, my mom is nice enough to stop by w/ some fresh veggie juice she makes for me. After a nice salad...I can enjoy my dinner of pasta w/ tomato sauce, pizza, grilled cheese sandwich, or any other form of carbo loaded tomato-y, cheesy food (which is what I tend to crave these days) withough worrying about whether or not my meal is well balanced. Good luck! And it's very nice of you to be preparing such well balanced meals (or any meals) for your wife. She's very lucky.

Many people cook their kielbasa before eating it...i'll have a cold kielbasa sandwich anyday. You need quality kielbasa, sliced thinly, some fresh rye bread and great mustard (w/ some mayo sometimes). A great simple sandwich.

Pastis used to serve a great frisee salad. You could taste the bacon grease and vinegar in the salad...the proportions were perfect. Unfortunately, they took it off the menu and won't even prepare it as a special request. Many people have recommended Les Halles' frisee as a good version. I have yet to try it.

On the front page of today's Wall Street Journal there is an article titled "New Water Pressure: Waiters Reveal Tricks of the Bottle Trade". This should be of interest to a whole group of you who were involved in a thread earlier this year regarding unfair bottled water practices.

Sandra...thanks so much for the recommendation and review. Although I work in the city and enjoy trying many of the higher end restaurants that are posted all over this website, I live in Queens. Manhattan will never beat the boroughs for great authentic ethnic food (other than French, and maybe Italian, Chinese and Japanese) at reasonable prices. I would love to hear more about great restaurants in other boroughs, however, not many people venture across the river for food. I believe I read a review of this restaurant in the NYT some time ago. It's on my "to-go-to" list.

I have regular salt, fleur de sel, and kosher salt. I use regular salt and kosher almost interchangeably. I think once I use up my regular salt, I'll stick to kosher...I like the larger granules. I use fleur de sel when I want to "taste" the salt on top of the food, i.e., tomatoes, salad, etc. Ok...I've really offered no great insight. The reason I'm really posting here is because you all reminded me of a problem I have regarding salt shakers. I keep my kosher salt in a little bowl in the cupboard b/c I can't seem to find a shaker w/ holes large enough to accomodate the salt. Although, I must say that I do like keeping the salt in the bowl as it is easier to grab and sprinkle into my dishes. Maybe I just need to find a small bowl with a cover instead of a shaker. Any recommendations?

Thanks Bux for the feedback. I understand how much sauce I need in the end. I simply found it surprising that a whole bottle of wine and a cup of broth can be boiled down to 2 tablespoons (before adding the rest of the ingredients). But then, why can't it? I just wonder how long that will take. When I've had this dish at Le Cirque I also remember there being more than just 2 tablespoons of sauce on my plate. Maybe Le Cirque, over time, decided to increase the amount. The sauce is so great...I'll just make the whole recipe for 2 servings! Thanks again.

Bux...thanks so much for the recipe. I'm especially looking forward to making the sauce. I was just reading the recipe and wanted to ask your, or anyone else's opinion... The recipe calls for 1/2 cups shallots, 1/2 mushrooms, 1 cup chicken stock and 1 bottle of wine...it then instructs the cook to reduce sauce to 2 TABLESPOONS!!! I've reduced sauces before, but this seems a little ridiculous. The shallots and mushrooms alone will take up 2 tablespoons, but I'll even exclude the solid ingredients from the final measurement. Any feedback?

Hey...just for fun, I tried a Cadbury's Egg fried in 'Fish and Chip' batter right here in NY....at A Salt and Battery. I believe they also have fried Mars Bars. Weird, but not as bad as I thought. The batter doesn't tast like much against the strong flavor of the chocolate. At the same time, the frying process melts what's inside...surprisingly good! (so were the fish and chips).

Thanks for all of the feedback. I'll definitely make plans to try it at Les Halles. As far as frisee goes, I agree with Pan. I'm not a big fan of it. It's difficult to eat and I've been served frisee that has been very tough (don't know if this is due to the maturity of the vegetable, place it's grown, etc). However, the combination of frisee with warm juicy lardons, croutons, an oozing egg and a salad dressing, who's base is bacon grease overrides any negative feelings I have about the vegetable.

I really enjoyed this salad at Pastis but they recently took it off the menu (and won't fill a special request for it). I was wondering if anyone has had a good version elsewhere. I recently tried Brasserie's version...it was BAD. Dressing seemed to be all vinegar and I don't even think they put an egg on the salad (or anywhere else on the plate).

Thanks for all the responses...you have all been very helpful. I will try it this Sat.

Any help with what types of fish and thickness would be helpful as well. Thanks.

I have had the Potato Crusted Sea Bass at Le Cirque a couple of times and have loved it. As a result, I have searched for potato crusted fish recipes on various websites and have come across a few. For the most part, they all seem pretty similar. I am wondering if anyone has ever tried making a potato crusted fish fillet/steak. I am having company over this weekend, and would love to try it (and don't have the time to test it). My greatest concern is that the fish cooks before the potatoes do. Thanks.

The July 1997 Cook's Illustrated had a recipe for pulled pork that I tried and loved. I don't know if you subscribe to the magazine, but you can probably find it on their website (for a fee, I believe).

Forget the bacteria-in-the-sponge even if you use the dishwasher problem. Something that supposedly harbors a ton of bacteria that I will never ever give up is a wooden cutting board. Although I wash mine (by hand only), my mom uses one and I can't say I ever really saw her wash it with the intention of killing bacteria (scary, but at least she doesn't cut meat on it). We all grew up very healthy (must have been the raw egg yolk w/ sugar concoction she fed us - no joke).

OK Macrosan...how about putting the sponges in the dishwasher AND THEN in the microwave for 30 seconds??? That should result in a relatively bacteria-free sponge - don't you think? Seriously, the temperature in the dishwasher gets pretty high, and i would think that all that water sloshing around would penetrate the sponge and kill off some bacteria in the center.

should we infer from the above grease stain that Geno's is your steak of choice? I am very, very partial to Jim's, despite trying to give Geno's and Pat's a try based on various recommendations.

Bilmo, re: Wishniak: Love the soda...especially if i'm in the mood for something sweet and fruity. Wisniak, is a brand of Polish cherry flavored liquor....the word Wisnia in Polish means cherry. In Polish, the w is pronounced like a "v", the "s" has a little apostrophe on top of it, giving it the "sh" sound, and the "niak" part is pronounced nee-ak. Therefore, the Philadelphians pronouncing it like "Veesh-nee-ak" are closest to pronouncing it like Poles. Don't know if anyone cares, but just a FYI.

I've been to Meson Asturias, in Elmhurst Queens, a few times. The last time was earlier this summmer. Excellent blood sausage appetizer...Good food at good prices. They used to have flamenco dancing on a small stage in the corner - I don't know if they still do but it was a nice part of the experience. Paella was decent, but I've never had any paella here that compares to the ones I had in Spain (at almost any restaurant I went to).

I ate at Capsouto about a year ago. I remember the dinner being good but not memorable. However....the souffles at this restaurante are awesome!!! Both my husband and I had them and they were quite memorable. Just an FYI.