Wilfrid

Was that worth looking at Ruby? Should I shell out my twelve bucks?

Thank you for improving on my drivel. Yes, the pig's foot or tail or whatever (steady, now) is best if it's salted. I forgot.

No. So no. I thought for a moment you meant a biography of E.D. Donahey, but that is not going to mean anything to you unless you receive Fox News. :wow:

I am sure that what Robert describes happened, but wasn't it more the case, for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, that chefs in the French haute cuisine tradition would expect to - and would be expected to - prepare dishes from a quite closely codified repertoire? For a chef to make many additions to the repertoire was surely quite uncommon below the level of an Escoffier. Chefs would, rather, be famed for the perfection to which they brought the classic dishes. Maybe my take on culinary history is wrong, but what I tried to say above - clumsily I think - was that I regret the fact that young chefs today either can't or won't produce dishes from the classic repertoire (and I am not suggesting they should have mastered the whole of the Guide Culinaire, just that they should have some of those dishes at their fingertips. Especially if their own "new" "creations" turn out to be insubstantial, ill-thought-out or unpalatable.)

Swiss chard - I may have to get back to that, or spinach, now the ramp season is over and I can't cook the ramp leaves as greens! Meaty Memorial Day weekend. A rib-eye steak rubbed thoroughly with Dean & Deluca's ready-made South Wetsern rub (mildly spicy, plenty of cumin), and seared in butter. Mashed potatoes with chopped ramps, and ramp greens. Sutton Hill Zinfandel. Yesterday - they said it couldn't be done! But I dragged duck a l'orange out of the history books successfully. A magret only, in fact, but a very happy sauce made from bitter oranges, a little veal stock, raspberry vinegar and a teaspoon of sugar. Fried potatoes. Ch Moulin du Bourg, Listrac-Medoc. Cheese. Port and cookies. Cheese of the weekend - a leaf-wrapped Robiola from Dean & Deluca of such pungency as one might achieve by leaving a Durian fruit in an old laundry bag. A fantastic cheese, about $19 for a four or five inch round. Recommended.

As it happens, I am planning to make baked beans today - or maybe tomorrow. I am soaking some Great Northern beans in water. I will boil them up, then put them in a casserole with a mix of tomato ketchup, tomato paste, molasses (certainly!) and maybe a little stock. I will make up the proportions as I go along, in my usual unscientific way. Minced oniuons? Possibly. Some strong smoked bacon I happen to have. I also throw in some part of a pig which will help make things unctuous - doesn't really matter if it's a foot or a tail, and I picked up a chopped-up tail for about a dollar in the supermarket yesterday. Bake slowly for a long time, checking flavor and seasoning periodically. (Yes, I'm great at writing recipes, aren't I?).

But what about razor clams? If I chucked away every razor clam with a partially open shell before cooking, I wouldn't have any left. They seem very lazy about keeping their shells closed. Am I dicing with death?

Let me recommend a biography of Elizabeth David by Artemis Cooper, which I think does help to locate her within the literary tradition to which Gavin refers. Had she been a man, she might well have ended up writing something like the Alexandria Quartet rather than food books. Not that there's anything wrong with food books. Very interesting life... Details here.

I have read about Legal Seafoods. In a nutshell, I have noticed good seafood restaurants in New York where the fish is carefully worked into elaborate and sophisticated dishes - Cello, Le B. - and restaurants where simpler preparations of a wide variety of fresh fish and seafood are offered. I have had a lot of disappointments with the restaurants that fall into the latter category. Would I be right in guessing that Oscar's was a good example of the latter kind of restaurant?

I am blank on the name, but there are few wine stores actually on Park. I thought it was above 23rd. Sorry to be hopeless. I know they've got a web-site, but all I keep finding is Park Avenue wines which is between park and Madison, and that's not it. Useless Wilfrid.

One would imagine the silver ribbon comes somewhere between the blue and the gold. The relevant page of the Martell web-site is here. I can't see the answer, but then the web-site seems to be a little out-of-date. However, you could e-mail them from the site and put the question.

I cook pilaffs in the over, in a covered clay pot. Seems to work well. Only me?

"Oscar's Salt of the Sea" - what a fabulous name. Up there with Danny's Grand Sea Palace. I didn't recognize so many of these - a lot of casualties there, I suspect.

I have been trying to come up with the correct information, but I've failed - maybe someone can help. There is an upscale wine store on Park Avenue South, in either the twenties or thirties, and I think it's on the west side. I found a first rate collection of Spanish wines in there, including some attractive Ribera del Dueros. I had some information from the place, but I trashed it because I found the owner to be obnoxious. But maybe I just didn't hit it off with him. Anyone know the place?

Or you could probably find a Crianza Rioja (one step down from a Riserva) at around that price.

I admire you for knowing the names of all those leaves and things! For me it's just the green stuff I wolf down to feel less guilty about having eaten a pound of tripe.

A good seat in an attractive room makes me well-disposed towards the menu and the food. If the ambience is lousy, the food has to be excellent to overcome that disadvantage.

Bodger & Badger, eh? Whatever happened to Sooty and Sweep? They'd have known what to do with mashed potatoes. And Andy, one phrase from that article struck me: "Now, all the dishes here are my own..." says twenty-eight year old Daniel Clifford. Well, good luck to him. If he has created a menu-full of original dishes worth eating by his age, is doing better than Escoffier. The point I was trying to make earlier, perhaps clumsily, is that I would first like to know if Daniel Clifford can make some of the dishes which are not his own, but which millions have enjoyed, before I embark on his slamon with chocolate (or whatever it was).

Didn't know what I wanted to eat last night, so went for an old favorite. Beef tripe, of course. Cut it into strips and boiled it up with some chunks of smoked center-cut bacon. Drained and rinsed it, then cooked it as if I was making a meat sauce for pasta - tomatoes, tomato paste, oregano, onion, garlic, a little chicken stock, etc. Boiled some penne, then lined a gratin dish with the penne and the tripe in red sauce. A sprinkle of breadcrumbs and grated Pecorino Romano, and finished in the oven. Tender, sticky, wonderful. I resolve to cook more tripe.

In my wayward days, I once bought a wine box, with the idea that, since it allegedly kept the wine fresh for several days, I would have a glass now and then and thereby cut my consumption. Later that evening, the box was empty and I was unwell. Nice theory, netrover!

Tommy: Maybe you don't get Channel 35 over the water? Stella: Aren't you getting tired of that song about a piano?

Okay, maybe it was a bad example - and of course I didn't mean I wanted to eat a badly made version of duck a l'orange. I considered giving the example of a fancied up cassoulet I was once served, with odd ingredients and an unnecessary crispy potato waffle topping - I kid you not - but thankfully I couldn't remember the details. But what did anyone think of the point I was making? No, don't tell me here* - I should give it more thought and start a thread. *Not an instruction, just a suggestion.

Just look at the numbers, dear boy, look at the numbers.

Let me know if you're going to Brussels. There I could help you.

You're quite right, Steve. I like to have the opportunity to eat traditional dishes, but I don't want to eat badly made ones! Maybe this is an effect exaggerated by the competitiveness of the Manhattan food scene, but I often have the impression that almost every dish on a menu has to have some new combination of ingredients, a new twist, even just an unusual garnish or presentation. If the cooking is then not up to sctratch, I find myself wishing the chef could demonstrate a mastery of the established repertoire before attempting to improve it. I could think of plenty of examples, but here's one: I would rather eat a well-executed duck a l'orange and a few fried potatoes, than an unsuccessful braised duck with marinated figs and eight spice sauce on a root vegetable puree. I might start a thread about this one day...