Wilfrid

Ah, outside the current mainstream. That would make sense.

Italian cuisine is far from my favorite, but I can't ignore it forever, especially living in a city where it has played such an important role in gastronomic history. I plan to explore it a little more this year, and I will avoid a lot of deadends and disappointments if I can get some advice here. I have a completely open mind about the balance between up- and downmarket places I should try. A mixture, I assume. I am particularly looking for good examples of red sauces and pizzas (DiFara's, I know), as well as cutting-edge stuff. I'd like to know which, if any, of the old-timers - Gino, Patsy's - put good food on the plate. Outer boroughs have to be contemplated, although Manhattan is more convenient. I'll look at Fat Bloke's reviews again, although I am assuming they haven't been updated much recently. Hopefully, out of recommendations, a plan of attack will evolve. Please don't recommend the Batali-Bastianich empire - I managed to think of them, and Lupa will be on the list.

Without wishing to go around the same block again, I thought you had previously argued the complete opposite: namely that Craft's menu was reminiscent of old-fashioned menus where long lists of entrees and sides were separately listed. Suzanne mentioned the reliably stone cold pommes boulangeres. I hope some of the food served to Jay's party was hot.

Yes, the dodgy cockney in the bow-tie was quite hypnotic. I think it was the rotisserie oven which I liked, because of the excellent catchphrase which all the audience knew: "You just set it and forget it!" Makes a change from Robin Byrd, anyway.

Oh, okay. Six to eight pints, then, depending on strength. In my youth, ten to twelve, but my liver is wearing out.

"how much beer people, from across the world, can handle' Per hour? Per day?

I tried Aix at last. My goodness, is this place designed? The corporate color scheme - red and chocolate brown - is everywhere, from the walls to the servers' uniforms. Bright, busy, and a little noisy, there are dining room s downstairs and upstairs, and a lively bar where enormous portions of good-looking bar food (burgers, soups, salads) were being consumed. Service was pleasant but not smooth. The waitstaff (all women; the busboys all men) seemed hurried. I was also very tempted to ask my server how much the women working there hated their uniforms. In the obligatory chocolate brown, the dresses managed to be very short, very low cut, but completely unflattering, especially when paired with heavy brown shoes. Trust me, Nicole Kidman would have short, chunky legs in one of these dresses. I eventually realized that they were supposed to be a take on the kind of costume worn by a young waitress or housemaid in a French provincial hotel. But what might look charming on a teenager in Tarbes looks silly on an adult woman in New York. Carte prices were heartening - appetizers around $8 to $12 and entrees in the low twenties - much less expensive than, oh, Sammy's Roumanian for example. I ate the tasting menu; $78 for four courses and dessert, $114 with paired wines. The amuse was a small cup of pistou, and I managed to burn my mouth drinking it. The first course proper was a write-off; long, thin slices of raw tuna and marinated cucumber, but so doused with black pepper that I could taste nothing else. Then things looked up. The fresh foie gras crusted with ground pistachios was a great idea, well executed. I like my foie gras slightlky underdone, but I am usually put off by eating it very rare, when it has the texture of runny jelly. Here, Virot cooks it very rare, but restores texture and crunchiness with the coating. And the pistachio flavor remains subtle. Very good, and matched by a soft potato cake, also with a crunchy crust (not pistachios, i think), the soft mash being gently accented by an infusion of quince. Next was a sort of re-think of lobster a l'Americaine. I thought it was the sort of dish Floyd Cardoz might serve, The sauce had a hint of Indian spicing (cumin, but something else as well), and instead of the traditional rice accompaniment, a crisp basmati rice cake. Lobster was tender. It was okay. The meat course, squab. So-so. A little underseasoned, I thought. A pair of contrasting desserts, neither of which I liked. An old-fashioned tarte tatin was very flat in flavor. Next to it, a chilled stack of cucumber, apple and mint had an odd texture. Didn't work for me. The wine pairing was a curious affair. The menu listed a Vouvray with the tuna. Noting that I had been drinking champagne in the bar, my server offered me a glass of Charles Heidsieck instead. Great. There was a generous glass of sweet Jurancon with the foie gras, then half pours of white Burgundy with the lobster and Chateauneuf-du-Pape with the fish and fowl. But no wine pairing with the dessert. I thought that was odd, and said so, and I was comped my choice from the dessert wine list. Now, I would have said $36 for four half pours would have been poor value, but what with the champagne and comped Moscati, I ended up very happy. A bit noisy for me, but I'd use this place if I lived nearby. I am not sure I tell people to cross town to go there. Edit: Re-read Grimes after writing my comments. Cayenne pepper on the tuna? I thought it was black, but we agree it was too much. We disagreed about the foie gras dish, I see.

Nick, the chocolates seem to cost about 50 Euros a pound. On the random web-site I just pulled up, chocolates of no particular distinction cost about 40 Euros a pound. All looks about right to me. I don't know when I last bought fancy chocolates, so I am open to correction.

I sometimes wonder where people find all these bargains. This is a link to the second retailer I found by searching for chocolates in New York. I have never heard of them, and have no idea what the quality is, but just look at typical prices per pound: The price of chocolates.

I know the feeling. Most of my arguments are in the Outer Boro's somewhere.

I don't know how far we want to go down this admittedly intersting path, but isn't there a significant distinction within Christianity between Christ's passion and the martyrdom of the saints (and others)? Clearly, there are plenty of Biblical passages drawing analogies between Christ and the sacrificial lamb, and between Christ and the scapegoat. In the former case, a kind of sacrificial offering for the propitiation of sins, and in the second case a way of transferring the burden of sin. I am not sure martyrs were viewed as performing either of those functions. Now, I'm not sure how that relates to Kiku's argument, but I can more readily see the relationship between pagan animal sacrifice and the passion of Christ, than between animal sacrifice and the martyrdom of the saints.

I think that comes under the heading of unacceptable religious practices! I once shared a kitchen with some Muslims. During Ramadan, they considered cooking pork in the kitchen to be unclean. I used to cook it anyway, but tell them it was rabbit or something. How bad was that?

But not sacrifice. I think we have pagan animal sacrifices, on the one hand, and human martyrdom on the other. Right?

I do find it interesting that a physicist would go that far with Feyerabend - many philosophers who don't know a test tube from a pork pie would reject his views out of hand. You hit on the key point, I think. Physicists are very successful in advancing hypotheses of increasing reliability and plausibility. If one is convinced that they would be less successful if they chose hypotheses by throwing dice, one is forced to conclude that just because we can't yet adequately explain the rationality of science, it doesn't follow that science is, at Feyerabend would say, irrational.

If only all elective democracies were indeed nondiscriminatory republics with no established religion.

Stepping gingerly over the Aghoris, that's all very sensible. I would only add that social practices which define a community's identity by distinction from an Other are by no means restricted to religious practices.

Church of Wilfrid is very much a one-legged stool.

I miss haddock. Seem to be on a tripe binge. Following the Spanish tripe dish last week, I am now onto tripe a la mode de Caen. Good thing for this weather, with buttery mashed potatoes to soak up the sticky juice.

I prefer "poncey".

Winot, you're absolutely right. Feyerabend argues this position about as well as it could be argued; namely, that when one looks hard at the choices and decisions scientists make, one cannot find a strictly rational basis for them. He draws the conclusion that research programs might as well be organized by rolling dice or shaking chicken bones as thinking about the issues. It has to be said that, while Feyerabend's intellectual firepower is widely respected, few people agree with him. Lakatos is a good antidote. I know Professor Johnson has some interesting views on Feyerabend.

In what sense am I "mild" looking?

Yes, most interesting. I preferred the position which I thought Macrosan (and perhaps Fat Bloke) were originally taking, which was that certain religious precepts were to be followed simply because they are God's laws - an entirely sufficient reason for those who have faith. I am convinced this is the most promising position for someone who is religious to take. It's much less promising to start to compare evidence for religious beliefs with evidence for scientific hypotheses, because whatever the evidence for the existence of black holes might be, we (or at least physicists) have some idea of what it would look like. We have no idea what evidence for God's commitment to a particular dietary principle would look like. Best to rely on faith rather than evidence, I would say, if you are a believer. Of course - and I think this is Steve P.'s point - if one believes it is correct to follow God's law just because it is God's law, one struggles to find a rational position from which to refute the right of some people to do terrible things in the name of God's law; one can contend that they have misinterpreted God, but one cannot demonstrate that contention. I hope no-one misinterprets what I'm saying as hostility to the peacable practice of religious faith. I am simply convinced that the advantage of a secular position is that one can say to someone bent on some religiously-inspired course of action - "Sorry, it isn't sufficient that God wants you to do it; whatever it is must also be harmless and legal!"

His ingenuity was not restricted to philosophy. He designed a pair of breeches with threads inside which he could attach to his silk stockings. He could then reach into his pockets and give the threads a little tug to keep his stockings up. What people thought he was doing in his pockets, I can't say.

Do we have to be horrible to each other? Why not everybody read my post about Kant - that should have a suitably tranquilizing effect.

I'm not sure I have the strength for Kant. He thought some a priori truths were analytically true, i.e. tautologies, while some a priori truths were synthetically true, i.e. not dependent on experience but not tautologous either. He also believed that the possibility of rational judgment implied the validity of certain basic concepts like space, time, identity, free will, and - indeed - causation. And, yes, I think he would have regarded the existence of cause and effect as a synthetic a priori truth. Kant's account of the a priori is far from uncontroversial. He also recognized, less controversially, the existence of a posteriori truths, or "empirical" truths as we are more likely to refer to them now; statements which are true, not because of the meaning of their terms, but because the world is the way it is - e.g "some swans are white". Does the possibility of rational discourse depend on an acceptance of certain principles which (arguably) are not derived from experience? Yes, I'm sure it does. It would be very hard to have a discussion about economics with someone who didn't accept the propositions of mathematics. But for your objection, Steven, to get any traction, you need to argue that things like logic, mathematics - or even, pace Kant, fundamental concepts like causation - have the same epistemological status as religious claims like "God prohibits pork-eating" or "the bread and wine of Holy Communion are the flesh and blood of Christ." That's a tall order.