Batard

Quick anecdote. I was getting ready to sear some sashimi grade tuna the other night, when I realized I was out of ginger, sesame seeds, and I had NO dried bonito flakes to make my Ponzu sauce recipe. I had stupidly neglected to check my ingredients beforehand. So now I am in trouble, the nearest Chinese market is pretty far from my house, and they are all closed by now. So I am in big trouble right? Where am I going to find bonito flakes at 7:30 pm in Lyndhurst? You guessed it! The Riverside Farmers Market.

I was there and bought the basa sole. When I looked it up I found this: I think it's a type of catfish. I pan sauteed it very simply to see what it would taste like, and it was light and delicious. So we've been eating that fairly regularly, it is a lot sweeter and cleaner tasting than domestic catfish. I'm going to make a fish souffle this weekend with it this weekend. It tastes too nice to fry up.

Oh sorry: Stockpot Inc 20 Church St Montclair, NJ 07042-2770 Phone: 973-744-5503 Right next door to the Church Street Cafe. Try the mulligatawny.

I tried a few of these places since I started this thread. First I went to The Daily Soup on Halsey in Newark. I found the soup pretty good, definitely home made and not over salty, but it was quite expensive. Which I would not mind paying, except the soup seems to be lacking the main ingredients. The Carribean Seafood Stew had chunks of potato, no seafood to be found. Senegalese Peanut w/Chicken was OK, but where's the chicken? And try to find the crab in the Boston Crab Chowder. I tried like 6 different soups. and they were al good, but very one dimensional in flavor. The place called the Stock Pot in Montclair was very good. Besides the soups specials each day, they have about 10 different soups available frozen in quart containers. All the ones I tried were excellent. Apparently the owner's son makes all the soups. At any rate, I am very satisfied with their soups. just thought I would pass that along.

I've been to Gilroy, where they specialize in such items as garlic perfume and garlic ice cream. Garlic permeates everything. I walked into the Gilroy town store once and asked the counter girl working their and selling all these garlic products "You must really love garlic, huh?" She just looked at me sadly and said "I can't STAND garlic". One of life's little ironies. I like the cookbook "Garlic, Garlic, Garlic: More than 200 Exceptional Recipes for the World's Most Indispensable Ingredient". It's written by two James Beard award winning authors, by Linda and Fred Griffith. It's full of interesting garlic trivia, but much more than that, the recipes are well designed. Try making the brandade or the Castilian garlic soup.

My wife has a habit of easting 2 or 3 raw cloves of garlic with dinner. She is convinced of the health virtues of garlic, and she never gets sick so I can't argue with her. In fact, I have come to enjoy eating little bites of raw garlic between mouthfuls of grilled meats. I admit it does seem to boost your immune system. But I also have to say, it makes for some very garlicky bedtime kisses.

In East Rutherford, there is a place on the north side of Paterson Plank Road just west of Park Avenue. Kayasan Restaurant 235 Paterson Ave East Rutherford, NJ 7073 201-933-5067 We eat there fairly often. It's quite good, but still not quite up to Fort Lee standards.

As far as this issue goes, I guess we all need to draw our own personal line in the sand. I'm immunosuppressed, so my "line" for germ acceptability is going to be different than most people's. I never get a cold or get sick, so i am doing something right. Sherry made a great point: who's cleaning the tongs?

If it's gritty, it has to be sand left over in the clams. The clams need to be soaked in salt water for a while before cooking them. Use about 1 tbsp salt per liter of water and soak for at least an hour (3 is better). This will give the clams time to purge their grit. Most people recommend adding cornmeal to the salt water when they soak their live clams. Apparently causes the clams to spit out the sand and opt for the cornmeal. If your canned clams have grit in them, I think something is wrong with the brand you are buying.

I have some Indian friends who are strict vegetarians, but they use ghee in their cooking. I never quite understood that, since ghee is a milk-based product. Is it considered "vegetarian" because all the milk solids have been removed? Anna thanks for the tip about the "higher smoke point" than butter. It seems obvious now, but I never thought of that before. I can think of quite a few new ways to try it now, instead of letting it sit for weeks between making Indian dishes.

I spent wonderful two weeks in Ithaca last summer, and we LOVED this place. After trying a few other places, we ended up going there almost every night. It has a Southern relaxed theme to it, and the food was great. Seemed to be the "happening spot" with the locals, and it was FUN! But it's not white tablecloth or aloof in any way. If you are looking for a super "Romantic" spot, this isn't it. But my wife and I found it very relaxing and really enjoyed the vibe there (we're in our mid-40s). Maxie's Supper Club (and Oyster Bar) http://www.maxies.com/index2.html

Actually, I thought the whole point of making a yeast starter was to reduce the chances of infection, not increase it. If you just pitch inactive dry yeast, it takes a while to get going, and there is plenty of time for bacteria and other ugly critters to get going in your mash before the yeast kicks in. Once the yeast is going your mash is safe, but before that the sweet liquid is great food for anything that drops out of the air. I switched to yeast starters when I first started brewing because my beer was getting infected before the yeast took over. I notice that no one has mentioned liquid yeast. It's a little more expensive, but if you've tried it you know it is much quicker to become active in your mash and results in a cleaner beer. After a year of using dry yeasts and starters, I moved on to liquid yeasts and never looked back. That being said, I am not a kit brewer. We buy the malted grain ourselves, crack it, mash it, boil it, force cool it, and have active yeast pitched immediately after the force cool. The beer literally has no time to sit around before the yeast takes over. I have never had a bad incident with yeast starters and liquid yeasts. http://byo.com/feature/37.html

I wouldn't count that as a technical "double dip". No foul if you dip one end of the celery in the dip, take the bite from one end, and then dip the other end. To me, those are clean dips, no penalty. But anyone who takes a bite and places the bitten end back into the dip is a heathen. Unless it is me and my wife, but considering all the other things we share I am sure we have very similar bacterial colonies. I would never put out chips and dip at an event where there are children, I have seen kids triple dip right in front of their parents. Isn't that cute? To me that seems pretty ignorant and inconsiderate on the parents part, the kids only do what they see at home. I also agree with Susie Q, that if friends decide to share a little of their meal on a fork with me or ask for a taste of my wine that's fine with me, and I do it with friends also. But to me that is a completely different situation, at least I have a choice. I have eaten family style in China, but that is a lot less gross than double dipping. People are careful to eat what they touch with their chopsticks and do not pick around a dish. if a dish needs stirring up, you use a clean set of chopsticks or the spoon. And they are also very careful not to suck on their chopsticks or get saliva on them when placing the food in their mouth.

Naive me. When I first started shopping years ago, I always used the tongs or turned the bag inside out to pick the bread from the bins. I thought any sane person did. Then I started noticing it, and have now seen it a million times: people who fondle every piece of bread with their hands before they pick out their two rolls. I have actually yelled at people for doing this, but this happens at the International markets where not many people speak English, and those that do have no clue why I am upset. And parents who let their kids grab bread, run around the store with it, and then instead of buying the bread they make their kids put it back in the bin where they got it. And some poor fool is going to take that home and eat it. Keep the rolls behind a counter. These open bins are how colds and the flu -- and worse things than that -- get spread around. Keep your germs to yourself please. Oh and it's not just the bread bins. How about those candy bins at the supermarket. Parents happily let their kids stick their grubby little hands in there too. I'll also take a pass from the community salad bar, which usually has someone's hair in it, and on most buffets.

Ideal Cheese also has the Belotta for $100 a pound 1/2lb minimum. But I would be a little concerned about how the product was packaged and whether it would degrade during shipping. Silly question, but can you just walk into the store and buy a quarter pound?

Not to pull things off-topic, but I am actually in the market for a food mill and have been looking around. I was looking at the OXO stainless: http://www.cheftools.com/prodinfo.asp?number=06-0974 Anyone have any other recommendations? Thanks.

Can I add a question to this discussion? I occasionally have access to fresh sea cucumber but I have never had the courage to try preparing it. What would be a good way to prepare these when they are fresh? TIA.

Thanks for the update! I will have to drive by tonight to grab a menu.

Since Japan has no known rock-salt deposits or other terrestrial salt sources, they produce all their salt from evaporation of seawater. So traditionally their production method is different; it is crystallized in wooden bowls in solar houses. I am not sure why they don't dry it all the way out, maybe they feel it loses something if all the moisture is removed.

Hi, thanks for the response. Actually, I had been looking at the regular Stubb's BBQ sauce bottle. But if it's that good, I guess I ought to try it despite my general dislike of high fructose corn syrup. To add to my own confusion, I really don't know the difference between all those different types of BBQ sauce and it's a bit overwhelming. * Memphis - Memphis sauces occupy the middle ground between other styles. Based on tomatoes, vinegar, brown sugar and spices, but not too thick, these blends provide moderate amounts of sweet, heat, and tang, with a lot of flavor.[7][8] * Kansas City – thick, reddish-brown, tomato-based with molasses[9] * St. Louis – generally tomato-based, thinned with vinegar, sweet and spicy; it is not as sweet and thick as Kansas City-style barbecue sauce, nor as spicy-hot and thin as Texas-style * North Carolina – three major types corresponding to region: Eastern (vinegar with pepper flakes), Piedmont (tomato-based with vinegar), and Western (tomato-based and thicker) * South Carolina – mustard-based (central, Low Country regions of state), vinegar and black pepper (Pee Dee region), light or thick tomato (Upstate region)[10] * Alabama – vinegar and pepper base in the northern counties; tomato/ketchup base with Mediterranean influences in the Birmingham area; sharper, unsweetened tomato/vinegar blend in the western counties around Tuscaloosa; mustard-based in the Chattahoochee River valley in the eastern part of the state; a special white mayonnaise and black pepper-based sauce is used on chicken in the area around Decatur * Georgia – much of the state favors a ketchup base flavored with the likes of garlic, onion, black pepper, brown sugar, and occasionally bourbon; South Carolina-like mustard sauce found in areas around Savannah and Columbus * Arkansas – thin vinegar and tomato base, spiced with pepper and slightly sweetened by molasses * Texas – tomato-based with hot chiles, cumin, less sweet Aghhhh!!!

Try this link instead: http://incredimazing.com/page/Bacon_Flowchart

The only reason I haven't tried Stubb's is that "high fructose corn syrup" is #3 on it's ingredient list. I don't mind sweetness to the sauce, but why go right to the bottom of the barrel for your sweetening agent?

Prior to 1/31/2008, they have had only five bookings for this tasting menu.

I recall having a wonderful meal at the Belvedere Inn several years ago, which was among lancastermike's recommendations. We reserved a seat upstairs, where a live but unobtrusive band was playing some quiet smooth jazz. I don't remember specifically what we ordered, but my wife and I both remember that the food was excellent.

I though the Fidhery had closed for good. I passed by like 3 or 4 days in a row last week and they were closed every day. I tried calling a couple of times and the people who answered the phone did not speak English. So I had assumed they shut down. Jon, are you saying they were open this past Saturday? I thought I looked ... I talked to he owner when they first opened, and they had originally planned for the restaurant next door to be a fish specialty restaurant. He even promised me good fried clams. So I was disappointed when Piatti di mar opened. I looked at the menu, it seemed like mid-point Italian place, which is not really what this area needs considering the other billion Italian places around. I never see anyone in there (I pass by it almost every evening), and quite frankly I don't know how that are still open. That location has been the death of many other places.