Wilfrid

London cabbies not Jewish? Tommy, you are the weakest link. Also, they range from the polite and informative, through the garrulously chummy to the rude and difficult. Takes all sorts, mate. Now, pulling all the disparate strands of this thread together... Er... I forgot.

I had a power blackout in the neighborhood about half an hour after I had started a hare braising in red wine and veg. The electricity came back just in time for the hare to be adequately done when the guests turned up, but the elaborate plans for reducing the cooking juices, adding some chocolate etc went out of the window. The hare just got slapped on the plates with some relief (and no garnish). One of the guests commented on the rustic presentation.

I love answering questions. Okay, (1) and (2) together. I find that a lot of planning is necessary so that one doesn't spend the evening in the kitchen. Cold hors d'oeuvres obviously prepared in advance. I find that many other dishes can be brought to a state of near completion, so that I only have to spend five minutes or so in the kitchen finishing them up before I plate them (yes, I almost always plate food; I've gone right off family-style service). Let me confess, I will use a microwave if necessary to warm up components of a dish - I hate inadvertently cold food. But I do usually write down a plan for service, showing what should be happening at each stage of the evening. (3) I love planning the menu, and enjoy most of the shopping. Preparation has elements of sheer hard grind to it, of course, and there are always the disasters along the way. For an elaborate dinner, work usually starts the day before. The sauces: I meant that two of the dishes would each have a contrasting sauce - usually the fish and meat dish, sometimes a hot hors d'oeuvres. I like the idea of two service dishes, but can't right now remember having served one at home. Oh yes, and these dinners are infrequent just because of time pressures from all the obvious sources: work, family, and - believe it or not - other interests. For the same reason, elaborate dinners "a deux" tend to happen on special occasions, although we do make an effort to sit down together Sundays. Otherwise, we're on different schedules. My Beloved eats her main meal during the day while tearing about the five boroughs. I usually eat mine around ten o'clock at night.

Although I am not always wholly serious in my posts, it is a good rule of thumb that, if I am talking about eating odd body parts or unusual animals, I am speaking from the heart. Annoyingly, I now can't find a name and address for guine pig (or cuy or coypu) consumption, although I am pretty sure I filed it somewhere. I certainly did have an article which explained that the animals were served, roasted whole on the bone. I did turn this up in an old Eric Asimov article: "The truth, of course, is that South and Central American restaurants have always existed in New York City. Strolling the streets of Jackson Heights or Corona in Queens is like a trip to the Andes, with extended families sitting down at neighborhood Argentine spots like El Gauchito for huge platters of ribs, sausages, beef hearts and sweetbreads, or at Tierras Colombianas for a huge, thin steak, served with a fried egg on top and puffy fried pork skin on the side. On certain summer weekends, you can even find grilled cuy, a prized Ecuadorean specialty otherwise known as guinea pig." I gather Peruvian restaurants are also a good bet.

That is a question I was interested in putting to other eGulleteers, and we probably should start a different thread. But here goes. I like to keep it small. Four is fine. I have cooked for six and eight, but I can't remember larger parties. Adam's post reminded me that I have certainly prepared canapes for larger groups. Here's my reason (apart from having few friends and disliking most people). I don't have as many opportunities to cook for people as I'd like. I wish it was every week, but it's never more than once every couple of months. This causes me to be selfish: I want to cook the kind of meal I really enjoy cooking (and eating). This would be essentially a traditional, maybe old-fashioned French meal with quite a number of courses. A couple of hors d'oeuvres, fish, meat, salad, cheese. Dessert if they're well-behaved. I usually prepare different sauces for at least two of the dishes, and I do tend to go for things which require a good deal of prep (boning, stuffing, etc). What with the shopping and everything, doing this for four people is exhausting. I don't fancy doing it for twelve. These days, my Beloved also weighs in with a course of Dominican amuses bouches which would satisfy a peckish elephant. If I cooked more frequently, then I would doubtless prepare a lot of simpler dishes from other cuisines. It's the big occasion thing which drives my approach.

Tommy, I must be heartless. I saw a guinea pig on TV this morning and had two immediate thoughts: 1. Hey, it's really cute; and 2. I really must get over to that Ecuadorian restaurant in Queens where they roast them. Same goes for your bunny, I'm afraid. Cute and edible.

It's quite clear that what's going to happen on Friday evening is people pointing and squealing "Oh, it's you, I know you..." And I believe I do remember hearing an Irish accent at the Hog stall.

Thank you, Pan, for the words of comfort, and no, it wasn't a joke. I have observed the steady gentrification of the Avenues over the last few years, and the transformation is amazing. Avenue C is now littered with bijou boutiques, lounges and twee restaurants. Avenue D is the final frontier, and it's still fairly barren. On the one hand, one thinks that since Avenues A to C have gone upmarket, Avenue D will inevitably follow. On the other, there is indeed the gloomy presence of the projects just across the street. We are a mixed race family, and my partner and baby should be fairly safe in the area. I probably won't be wandering around in my fancy frock coat, tapping a tattoo on the pavement with my silver-topped cane. Bottom line: we need a lot more space, and in Gramercy Park that's for millionaires. In case the thread isn't all about me, a couple of observations: I didn't have much time for research last night, but I did notice that, if you go back a hundred years, writers referred to the whole area from the Lower East up just as "the East Side" (Riis, Howells, for example). "Lower" and "Upper" seem to be later distinctions. And personally, I find Avenues A to C to much like a continuation of the East Village in terms of population, atmosphere and general feel, and not very much like the Lower East Side below Houston. Hard to be specific about that, but it's how it feels to me.

Liza, I am a regular at High Hope Hogs, but I guess I just always, automatically buy the scrapple. I should try some of their other products.

Simon, the Johnsons are not the only ones involved in this who honed their damage-riddled livers in the bars and dives of London's Soho. The significant thing about this plan was that, at one stage, it was almost all ex-pats from the British isles who had signed up. I see the party is now more balanced and international in composition.

I would agree that the guest's behaviour was bad in this case. My Beloved, who is uninhibited in her expression of likes and dislikes, is under strict instructions not to make "bleeuugh" noises when we are guests. I would suggest that there are obligations on both sides, however. I have been firmly apprised of the fact that many foods I like are powerfully aversive to other people. I genuinely enjoy cooking and eating offal dishes, but I know that I will get a "bleeeuuugh" reaction if I serve them at most dinner parties. So I reserve my gorgeous tripe plates for sophisticated friends. I think if you surprise someone with something way out of the ordinary, a "bleeugh" reaction, while rude, becomes something you should have expected. In my view, Adam was well on the right side of that line in offering pheasant and partridge, but clearly the guest found the dishes as weird and appalling as rognons blancs. If I have no idea about my guests strong dislikes, I do usually ask them before planning a menu. But there is also an obligation on guests to offer significant information on this subject without being asked. I had the experience, by no means for the first time, last week of inviting someone to a restaurant and having her tell me, as she scanned the menu that she was vegetarian. I shouldn't have to ask for that sort of information - she should have told me before I chose the restaurant. Fortunately, it wasn't a steak-house - I had her figured for a wimp in any case.

One taste which does vary hugely between cultures is what kind of bacon to eat, how to cook it and how to eat it. I was raised in England on medium thick rashers of bacon, fried only until just cooked through and still tender, with just a slight crunch to the outer strip of fat, or rind. I am vague on the correct terminology (and I am sure others here can fill me in), but we rarely ate what we called "streaky bacon" - the thin rashers with several strips of fat. In the States, of course, this is the most popular kind - as far as I can see - cooked absolutely crisp. I have been instructed that the correct way to eat this is to drop your utensils and use your fingers. Thick cut, meaty bacon can be found in New York. The excellent butchers on the Ninth Avenue food strip always have it, as does the considerably pricier French Butcher on Third. In a desperate pinch, I have sometimes bought a chunk of pancetta and cut makeshift rashers myself. So, lots of options: meaty, fatty, soft or crisp, smoked or unsmoked. I am scratching the surface here. Do people have strong views - I am particularly interested to know if crisp-bacon-eaters find the tender stuff aversive? I prefer tender, but will eat both.

Okay, bacon thread coming up. Over on the Cooking board, I guess.

I am not going to get a buzz tonight until around nine o'clock at the earliest. Where's that damn hip flask?

Now I'm upset. I have to go buy furniture now. The move, remember? Otherwise, it would be yes. I feel like a wuss (which is American for whatever I feel like).

Your uncle's younger than me, so I shall stop deferring to him instantly. This whole subject is intriguing (to me anyway) and could bear some research. I have seen references to the East Village in materials dealing with the 1940's, but those weren't necessarily contemporaneous references. "West Village" is surely a recent coinage, right? - that whole area used to be just part of Greenwich Village. I must see how far back I can trace "East Village". It also occurs to me that the area called Alphabet City may have an older name. Presumably, just "Lower East Side" as Ruby says. Therse things do, of course, change with time. The area around Fitzroy Place, north of Oxford Street in London was unquestionably known as part of Soho in the first half of the last century; but it would just be wrong to call it Soho today. I will put this on my list of things to do with my allegedly spare time. Anyone want to offer a research grant, go ahead.

When I ordered the woodcock there a few years back, I asked if they would be serving the trail on toast and they had no idea what I meant. Sounds like the guts are now present and correct. It's a shame Henderson is no longer in charge of the French House Dining Room, because I found that a more cosy setting for his food. Incidentally, I thought St John was a converted abattoir - but perhaps that's consistent with it being a smoke house too. If you look at the photos in 'Nose to Tail Eating', it is clear that Henderson is making a very specific and considered statement about the way his food should be plated and indeed eaten, right down to what the table should look like. I think "studied slopping" is not a bad way to put it.

I take your word for it Tommy. I find it hard to think of it as LES, because it's above Houston. On the other hand, Avenue C has the rubric "Loisaida Avenue" on its street signs. I lived in Soho in London for a number of years, and one of the main parlour games there was defining the boundaries of the district. Anyway, simply moving a couple of miles away from the French Butcher should cut my weekly food bill by seventy or eighty dollars.

It's worse than that. I work alongside people who are either New Yorkers or at least have been hanging around the city longer than me, and I have drawn blanks with the phrase "Alphabet City". I now tell people I am moving to the East Village. I wouldn't, in truth, call it the East Village, but at least I don't get vacant stares. I plan to post some questions about restaurants and food shopping in that part of town once the move has taken place. In the mean-time, most of my questions are going to be along the lines of "How do I turn the heating on?" and "What do you mean you can't get the bed through the front door?" - which are less likely to be of interest to eGulleteers, although I have no doubt that they will be comprehensively addressed if I raise them.

Sandra, that was certainly the name in England when I was a youth. Do I take it that "perry" is in use in the States too?

I managed to find a pretext to mention this on the One Fish, Two Fish thread, but I am happy to spread it far and wide. I am moving to Avenue D, about ten minutes walk from Katz's deli.

Tommy, that picture would be very helpful if I could recognise the buildings from their roofs. But happy to greet a fellow Mapquest user. I think anyone throwing up in my hat will have the consolation that they are making a young Dominican woman very happy indeed.

Come to think of it, slimy, shattered sex isn't that great either.

I don't know about anyone else, but I find that varies depending which way I'm facing. Haven't eaten in the Tavern on Jane. The Barrow Street place sounds great (I have a vague recollection of it). Frat boys certainly unwelcome, otherwise we could go to the Peculier Pub and contemplate their three million different types of beer.

Sadly, I haven't eaten in any of these great restaurants outside Barcelona. When I have taken the train I have tended to go further afield. Pamplona (great place), Burgos (grim), and so on.