Wilfrid

Butter 'n' eggs. Yes, Adam, margarine is an outrageous imposition. For years, I was dumb enough to eat margarine instead of butter in the belief I was doing something healthy. Eventually I switched back to butter, and use it a lot in cooking. Am I fatter, is my blood cholesterol or pressure higher? Absolutely not. All those wasted years!. And on the subject of eggs, I was having a great time with real egg flavours all summer eating fresh duck and goose eggs from Union Square market. Supply seems to have dried up. I don't suppose anyone knows any other sources in Manhattan? Reminds me - must get in a slab of scrapple for the holidays.

This restaurant always had good food. It was the Man Lee Hong in Lisle Street in London's Chinatown. Sadly, no longer there. It was one of the old-style Cantonese restaurants where you could fill up on solid (not fancy) Cantonese food for about Ů. Our party had ordered a huge meal, when Miss Fussy decided that some holes in the scruffy old curtains had doubtless been made by rats. Who knows, who cares?

While on the subject of Daniel, I have just seen in Crains that he is opening a cabaret room: http://www.crainsny.com/news.cms?newsId=2003

I am impressed that you took on Daniel with your wife only a couple of weeks from the big day. I remember the last dinner I had with my partner before she delivered - it was at the Gramercy Tavern, and although it was three or four weeks before her due date, the poor staff looked distinctly nervous. Also, we had by then adopted the practice of carrying a vast bag full of assorted cushions into restaurants so she could make herself comfortable - which made us appear a little eccentric to anyone who didn't notice her bulge. Sounds like your valour was repaid by a great meal. (Edited by Wilfrid at 4:27 pm on Dec. 17, 2001)

I won't argue about Commander's palace, for the very good reason that I've never eaten there. I have to say, though, that one of the best meals I have eaten anywhere in North America came out of Emeril's kitchen at his eponymous New Orleans restaurant. And it was not the rough heartiness of his shows and cookbooks that was on display. It was a tasting menu of great invention, delicacy and finesse. But I think we all know, if we think about it, that making a fool of yourself on television has nothing to do with whether you can cook. Albert and Michel Roux used to a kind of barmy French brothers act on UK television, but no-one suggested this made them less than world-class chefs. The mystery about Bobby Flay, I would suggest, is why the food at Mesa Grill is reliably good and the food at Bolo really pretty bad.

Yes, what cuisine and how far will you walk? If you are willing to walk twenty minutes or so, that brings a huge number of restauarnts within range. If you want to stay around the center itself, there are a handful of choices.

Well, I may be talking to myself here, but that's not a crime yet. I had a purpose in going to le Cirque, beyond hanging out with jaded millionaires. I noticed when I had lunch there a few months back, that they were offering a series of hearty, traditional dishes as daily specials - blanquette de veau, tripes and so on. It reminded me of what Patrick Kuh said in 'Last Days of Haute Cuisine' about Soule feeling unable to offer that kind of fare on the menu at Le Pavillon because - although he loved to eat it - he thought it not classy enough. He would offer it, by word of mouth, to favoured customers. Kuh had identified Maccioni as something of a latter day Soule. It was with this in mind that I wanted to find out what it would be like to eat offal at Le Cirque. They hadn't sold out of the tripe, and looking at my fellow diners I wasn't too surprised. I started with a terrine of foie gras studded with rabbit rillette. Professionally executed, very pretty (wrapped in a Savoy cabbage leaf) and well flavoured. Some leeks had been laid in the terrine to make a nice pattern, and they were slightly al dente, but otherwise a classic piece of charcuterie. The tripe came in a large bowl, steaming hot (as it should be). I consider myself a pretty great tripe cook, and this was outstanding. The meat was meltingly tender. The brown sauce was sufficiently gelatinous to suggest that a calves foot had been involved. It was slightly peppery. I couldn't have known whether the richness derived from armagnac, cognac or red wine if I hadn't been told, but rich it was. The accompaniment was a little pan of fresh, earthy little potatoes, dressed with melted butter and chopped parsley. After eating vegetables converted into every kind of timbale, puree and gratin over the last few months, these potatoes were an eye opener. Was the tripe outrageously expensive? What do you think? It was astronomical. Was this the best meal I have had in a New York restaurant in a long time? I'm afraid so. Afraid so because, no, I can't afford it every week. There are those who say it's easy to make a great dinner if you use expensive ingredients like truffles and foie gras. In this case, a great dinner was the result of exceptionally skillful cooking. I finished with some well kept cheeses. A half bottle of Chapoutier Hermitage, 1996, was reasonably priced at ุ, given the venue. This was a meal which reflected very badly on the pretensions of some more fashionable places I have eaten at recently. Jo Jo springs to mind.

Taken in isolation, that's what the second study implies. But it doesn't tell us much. Higher social status always correlates with better health, and in a country like Denmark where it also correlates with wine drinking, it certainly confounds any conclusion that wine consumption itself is causing better health. The interesting study would be one run in a country where wine consumption is not correlated with higher social status, such as France, Italy or Spain, and see if the apparent health benefits persist. And indeed, I seem to recall that the original supportive data for the beneficial health effects did come from France. So at most the Danish study tells us that any causal relationship between wine consumtpion and good health can't be identified from Danish data, because other factors create too much "white noise".

I apologise. Don't know why I had sweetbreads on my mind.

Looks like it's 'taquito': I found the following (unsurprising) definition: Taquitos - Corn tortillas wrapped around shredded chicken or beef and fried crispy I'd have spelt it 'tacito' and I'd have been wrong.

Yes, the absence of kidneys is much deplored by many of us expatriate Englishers in New York. Occasionally one can find ris de veau - veal kidneys - on French menus. I expect that's what they served at Montrachet, and they offer it at La Cote Basque too. Lamb kidneys, however, are an everyday dish in England. They are much smaller than veal kidneys, cheaper, and have a similar texture, but a different, stronger taste. Fried, grilled or devilled, the English even eat them for breakfast. The only place I have seen them offered in New York was at the Union Sq greenmarket stall which sells lambswool rugs, mittens, etc - and they were all out. Pigs kidneys are readily available in Chinatown, but I don't think they are as appealing. When I was a poor student, I ate a lot of ox kidney too - tough, pungent, but only around 60 cents a pound. Haven't seen that here either. To be frank, I haven't actually looked for cow's udder!

Bux, your point is correct of course, and is a general truth about ordinary language. There is, however, a period of transition during which the attempt to give a word a new meaning can be resisted, sometimes successfully. My real objection was to the increasing, but by no means universal, use of 'confit' to mean braised in fat but not necessarily preserved - which really loses something important from the original meaning. The 1984 Larousse (American text) supports me there in it's confit entry - and I shall continue contradicting those who use the term wrongly. On the other issue of whether preserved fruit/veg/etc can be called 'confits', the water remains slightly muddy. Larousse discusses confit exclusively in terms of meat. But the entry right before that deals with 'confire' - the preservation process - and discusses that in terms of meat, fruit and vegetables. I guess that issue will remain contentious. Is it too late to wish Steven luck with his latkes?

Bux, I agree confiture is probably more acceptable when discussing preserves of fruit and vegetables. I just think it's pushing it to say that using confit is wrong. It's clearly a noun form derived from the third person singular of the verb confire and although it may often mean more than just "a preserve", I am convinced it mean at least that. I looked up 'confit' in Webster's on line, but they think confire means 'to prepare', which I think is wrong, so they weren't much help. My Larousse must be a lot more recent than '61, so I will take a look when I get a chance.

I will be at Le Cirque this weekend. I have been twice before for dinner and once for lunch, but those visits were fairly spread out. I will eat the tripes a l'armagnac if it's available, but with my luck they'll have sold out already. I know this place turns a lot of people off, and I can understand why, but does anyone have any particular recommendations from the carte? I have tried the sea bass wrapped in potato.

Generally I dislike most salads, and other sources of vitamin C, but I confess I have missed them after being in Spain for more than a week. I recall a menu of regional delicacies at a restaurant in Bilbao: soup (a sort of garbure) with visible globules of fat; blood sausage; spring lamb actually sitting in its own hot fat; and a dessert which turned out to be some kind of crema, but looked disturbingly like a helping of lard. Even I was ready for some watercress after that. A few days in New Orleans can have a similar effect: I am nervous that if I order a salad there it will come deep fried and dusted with castor sugar.

Generally I dislike most salads, and other sources of vitamin C, but I confess I have missed them after being in Spain for more than a week. I recall a menu of regional delicacies at a restuarant in Bilbao: soup (a sort of garbure) with visible globules of fat; blood sausage; spring lamb actually sitting in its own hot fat; and a desert which turned out to be some kind of crema, but looked disturbingly like a helping of lard. Even I was ready for some watercress after that. A few days in New Orleans can have a similar effect: I am nervous that if I order a salad there it will come deep fried and dusted with castor sugar.

Language does indeed evolve (which is why the science of etymology, er, evolved), but this doesn't mean that mistakes can't occur. If a mistake is suffiiciently widespread, it often graduates to being correct: one example is the word 'sleek' which originally just meant 'fat', but is now generally accepted to mean something utterly different. It is worth trying to rectify mistakes if they obscure something important, which the misuse of 'confit' does - namely the very distinctive taste which arises from being preserved. (Edited by Wilfrid at 11:24 am on Dec. 11, 2001)

Delicious though your latkes sound, I am going to disagree with you about the meaning of 'confit'. It comes from the verb 'confire', which simply means 'to preserve'. Restaurants do indeed serve confits of duck and other meats, where the meat has simply been cooked in some fat or other as you describe. I regard these as not true confits. Once the duck, let's say, has been cooked in the appropriate fashion, it needs to be preserved for at least a week, I would say, in the cold fat, before it starts to take on the mysterious, velevety unctuousness (yeah!) of a true confit. When I make a confit of duck or rabbit, I always give the meat twenty four hours in salt (with aromatic herbs) before cooking - I don't know if that's the French way. It follows that I can't see anything wrong with referring to preserved fruit or vegetables as confits too. I mean, we talk about 'preserves', don't we? That's all a confit is.

Sorry for lurching into French. Literally,a fine bec is a fine beak - it's an old, probably out-of-date, slang term for a gourmet with a sophisticated palate, and it has connotations of food snobbery. Not that anyone at eGullet fits that description (especially not when people keep confessing to eating junk food and frozen candy bars - ugh).

Blue Heron, unless you're confident your father likes malt in general, I would advise caution. I think there's quite a gulf in taste between blended whiskies and malts. This is even more pronounced if we get to an Irish whisky like Jamesons. Jamesons, I would say, is a little sweeter and richer than the average blended Scotch, and really has none of the peaty, somewhat acrid flavor of a single malt. It's all a matter of degrees, of course. A Laphroiag, for example, is extremely peaty - redolent of seaweed - and an acquired taste. I can readily imagine someone who loved Jamesons hating Laphroiag. If you do go with a single malt, I would suggest one of the less fierce ones - maybe a Glenmorangie? As for age, I think you have to be a committerd connoisseur to find much difference between 8, 10 and 12 years old. Doubtless some of the fines-becs here will disagree. (Edited by Wilfrid at 11:35 am on Dec. 10, 2001)

I got to the re-furbished Jo Jo on Saturday night. I've seen a lot of comments on the decor, but not much about the menu. To my eyes, the decor now looks sort of mock-baronial. Dark greens and blacks downstairs, studded chairs replacing banquettes. Less modern than the old look. Upstairs, rich reds and pinks. Still incredibly cramped ( I thought they might have expanded the space). Arrival is a nightmare. In the tiny space between the bar and restaurant, you have customers waiting for tables, customers who are leaving and struggling with their coats, two or three greeters, and waitstaff trying to manoeuvre with full trays of drinks. Totally nerve-wracking. The food. No significant changes to the menu (somewhere I saw a comment that both the decor and the menu had been overhauled, but that must have been ill-informed). In addition to the famous 27 vegetables, the duck with larded pear is still there. The dishes are still listed with the main ingredient in bold capitals and a small description underneath. Everything looked pretty familar. I ate at the old Jo Jo maybe six or eight times, and always found it very reliable - sometimes great but always at least solid and professional. My luck was out this time. Appetizer: salad of pig's cheeks with lentils. The cheeks were served as small medallions with a light crust (fine breadcrumbs? flour?). Steaming hot, but quite dry, and it's not easy to dry out pig's cheeks. The lentil salad was (intentionally) cold. The temperature contrast was odd. Entree: duck with mediaeval spices and root vegetables. Having puzzled over the appetizer, I actually asked the captain if the duck dish was supposed to be cold. "No," he said "it's suppose to be hot" and whisked it away. It came back a while later (with appropriate apologies). It was not a new dish, as I recognised my tooth marks. The duck had upgraded from cool to lukewarm. The vegetables remained cold. I considered sending it back again, but the night was wearing on, and I thought two chances to serve the dish properly was plenty. The duck was nicely cooked, and very mildly spiced. Three root vegetables had been carved into uniform shapes, and two more had been turned into intense purees. All these items were spaced around a big square plate. Root vegetables are not at their best eaten cold. The dish became sort of annoying, because what I really wanted by that stage was plain roast duck, any one vegetable you like in its natural shape, served on a round plate and served HOT. Two of the desserts were finished by the time I got there, but the fruit "risotto" (rice pudding) was very pleasant. Cold. Intentionally, I think. Positive note: I counted almost thirty bottles priced at โ or less (down to about ษ), which struck me as a very honest attempt at affordability for a restaurant of Jo Jo's standing. By the glass was still pricy; the Taittinger was delicious, but I am not sure even a champagne bar would charge ฤ a flute. I drank a flabby 1995 Mercurey 1er Cru, which had lost its legs. Lunch at D'Artagnan on Friday. Perfectly good frisee salad which someone had tipped half a pound of sea salt over. Truffle butter missing from the charcuterie plate. Then they brought me someone else's check. Oh well, onward and upward.

I ate Kung Pao frog last week. It was at a Malaysian restaurant, the name of which escapes me: it's on the west side of Baxter Street right opposite the entrance to Bayard Street - big windows, tropical decor, you can't miss it. They have quite a long list of frog dishes, as well as some fish head stews and other unusual items. Some of the food I have had there has been a little sweet. The kung pao frog was medium hot, and slightly tricky going with the small bones and dried chili pods, but I was happy to have eaten it. I only mention that in case you're all tired of kung pao chicken.

Stopped drinking boxed wine when I was a student. Got stuck indoors in a blizzard once with a large box. Not obvious how much you've drunk. Very sick.

That's nice, but I would say it's not that unusual. I get a steady stream of mailings, including signed stuff, from restaurants where I have left my address in a burst of enthusiasm after polishing off the wine.

Uh-oh. Now that you ask, I'm not sure. I just recall drinking a brown, brandy-ish drink made from pears (admittedly from the west country of England) which was nothing like Poire William. I will look into this when I have a moment.