CathyL

Lump charcoal. It's a ceramic smoker, which also works very well as a bread/pizza oven. The grill area is only 18" in diameter but we could accomplish a lot with that, I bet. As has been established.

Nina, we can lock them (R. and any other watchers) in the bedroom. Over the music of snicking bread knives and conversation, we'll never know who's tackling whom, as long as we throw food & drink in occasionally.

I volunteered to host so I wouldn't have to parade my long-unpracticed yeast bread skills. Weather permitting, maybe I'll fire up the outdoor pizza oven... No Superbowl conflict for me either.

I'm a New Year's Eve minimalist: Steak tartare garnished with quail eggs, capers, parsley, onion. Green salad, possibly frisée with walnuts and Roquefort. Orange or lemon soufflé. The Producers on DVD.

Baphie, I use a Maverick Remote Check - also with two probes, but with a remote readout. Excellent for all-night barbeque sessions; I no longer have to stumble outside at 3 AM to make sure the fire is neither raging nor dying. It's fairly reliable. For steaks and other smallish cuts I use a Taylor digital instant read.

What Suzanne said. The food won't make you drop your fork in astonishment, but it's fine (I also haven't been in a while, except for a press conference/cocktail thingy earlier this year).

Um. Or that n'est-ce pas has no 'que' in it? Great piece, Tony. "Pork ring," heh heh.

Welcome, Ondine. What a glorious summer feast! Fresh fruit for dessert, I agree. Make us winter-bound eGulleteers envious and tell us what's in season now. I look forward to reading more of your posts.

Jin, if you're comfortable discussing it, how did fis come to be in your mother's repertoire?

Yes, tongue sandwiches. The liver in my house was pinkish gray...

My mom didn't know where the name came from but guessed it was regional. Her (Polish) family's recipe: cut the feet into 2" chunks and pile into a large roaster with cut-up onion, lots of garlic and paprika. Cover everything with water, clap on the lid and roast overnight in a slow oven. By morning, the meat should be falling off the bone. Ladle into soupbowls and eat. Or not. Mom told me her father would come home with the calf's entire lower leg, from knee to ankle, often still bristling with, um, bristles. Her mother singed the leg over a gas burner to clean it up before it was chopped into pieces. The lemony version I remember is from my dad's family. When the Air Force stationed him in Clovis, New Mexico my grandmother in Denver packed several jars of fis in dry ice and sent it to him on the train. But my pregnant mom was so nauseated by the smell she had to sit outside while he ate a jar's worth. Later that night she told him she could smell it through the refrigerator, and begged him to throw the rest out. Jin, my maternal grandmother had a separate set of dishes for the cow's udder, since it was both meat and milk.

Here's another Googled recipe, from Mimi Sheraton: click. This one is close to my family's version; I remember lots of lemon.

Not just in the UK. We called it fis when I was a kid and my Romanian grandmother made it; I'll ask my mother if she knows anything about the etymology.

Not a favorite of mine, but my mom makes it to please friends who crave it. In my family pe'tcha was always served hot, meat still on the bone (I think), rich and flavorful but, well, gluey. Want I should ask for her recipe, Stef?

Liza told me she froze some when she wasn't able to can it. No ill effects, apparently.

Steve, I think Julia and Alice each had a vision of what cooking in America could be, and each strove to overcome the limitations of a specific time. Alice didn't improve on Julia; she shifted the focus. The fact that CP has not retained its primacy suggests to me that the focus has shifted again: if most chefs can obtain great ingredients without dedicated foragers, technique becomes more important.

This may be the closest thing to consensus I've ever seen on eGullet. It's the dynamic between ingredient and technique that matters. As JD expressed so well, the historical perspective is key. Julia stressed technique because ingredients in the US were mediocre then. Alice Waters rebalanced the equation, tapping into a growing discontent with plastic pink tomatoes and battery chickens, especially among people who had experienced the cuisines of France, Italy and elsewhere. What a luxury that we can have both! I don't have time to post excerpts now but Richard Olney's preface to 'Simple French Food' is an extremely articulate, well-reasoned discussion of this question. Okay, a quickie: "'La cuisine! That's when things taste like themselves.' [Curnonsky] This is none other than the artist's precept, 'Respect your medium,' transposed into the world of food. No more, it says, should a leg of lamb be altered to imitate venison than clay should be made to imitate marble, the quality of the basic material being, in each instance, destroyed while the noble material, insolently imitated, remains aloof. "Defined as 'pure in effect,' not only rustic cooking but also classical French cooking, with its refined methods and subtle harmonies, must insofar as its integrity remains unmarred by sophisticaton, be admitted as well to the fold of simple food. " Continue, please.

Lovely menu. I'd never heard of beraweke either so I Googled it: it's Alsatian, a bread flavored with dried fruit (pears, prunes, figs), nuts and "de nombreux aromates."

Suvir will, I think, recognize this as a tribute: Part of the thrill of making this chutney is that the results are as delicious as his. I so much enjoy the whole process, and then there's the pleasure of giving a jar to someone. Invariably, I get a call or e-mail asking for the recipe...or another jar. (When Nina tasted some, she said, "Okay, I get it." ) Thanks, Suvir.

SteveP, I don't know if they're wheat-free but Lupa's ricotta gnocchi are sublime.

Onegai shimas (respectful greeting to the sushi chef) Makasemas (choose for me, please) Okinomi (by the piece) Murasaki (soy sauce) Agari (No more food. Tea, please.)

Me too for 2 too.

Yeah, it figures the crabs would do it that way in SF. I had lunch at Tadich's last month. Great local color, lousy food. The French fries were okay.

Hensonville, do you mean the gribenes turn golden brown, or do you keep rendering until the schmaltz is brown too? I favor the same one step/one pan method. Tabasco?!? Oy, these goyim...

Some batches I've made have 'pinged' immediately; others took up to 1/2 hour. Not sure what the variable is; possibly the degree to which the jars are filled?