Wilfrid

I recently noticed huge plastic bottles of MSG at my local supermarket. I have never noticed that before. Is it common? I wonder if it would kick my tripe dishes up another "notch"?

Happy New Year to you too. The menu at Les Vieux Murs sounds agreeable - I think I detect some kind of asparagus pie in there. I have come across, and indeed cooked, gigot en chevreuil, where treating the meat as venison, as you rightly surmise, involves leaving it in a strong, spiced red wine marinade for a few days (edit: yes, then you roast it). Haven't seen it done with beef. Wish I was in France right now.

I didn't notice that. It was pretty empty by the time I got there.

The geezer in Bad Manners used to swear by that, didn't he?

Without doing the actual calculation, I am guessing that for someone based in London, a ticket on the Eurostar and dinner at Gagnaire's flagship would work out cheaper than Sketch.

An unplanned walk-in for late dinner at Picholine after "Dinner at Eight" at the Lincoln Center (pretty good; the sets are spectacular and Byron Jennings makes a great suicidal alcoholic). Anyway: the sea urchin panna cotta was creamy but too mild in flavor; I really like sea urchin and expected to taste it more. Scottish red-legged partidge: the breasts and legs only, although I did get a finger bowl so they might as well have served the carcass too. Good meat, but a little underseasoned. Big surprise: only two - predictable - American cheeses on the trolley. Was a time Max McMalman could put together a complete tasting of American cheeses. Max wasn't serving. Soft, smelly Pave d'Auge from Normandy was the highlight of the plate. For once I got my moneysworth with a fairly young Burgundy. A 1998 Corton Close du Roi - completely open, soft and delicious. I thought the list of digestifs was a bit dull, but enjoyed a grappa liqueur. Still planning to go back for a more leisurely meal. The front room remains quite lovely. Front line service was fine, but if the busboys want to moan about post-theater diners I wish they'd do it out of earshot.

Belated thanks, Jaybee.

Overlapping with some of Tony's ingredients, I roasted a pork shoulder well-rubbed with rosemary and garlic. Served slices of it over chickpeas (dried, not canned ) stewed with onion, more garlic and chunks of blood sausage.

I have never used a meat thermometer. I never saw one when I was growing up, we never had one in the home, and I learnt to cook meat before I was aware such a thing existed. So I've just carried on the same way. Testing doneness depends on size and cut, of course. For large birds, I find testing the juices usually works, but I do make a number of tiny insertions in different parts of the bird. If I ever get it wrong - and I do - finding the meat to be underdone when the bird is carved, an easy solution is to just toss the slices of meat in a pan for a minute or two (with a little cooking juice). Once the meat is carved from the bone, it cooks very quickly. In fact, I employ that technique a lot, not because of cooking errors, but because my Beloved prefers meat of any kind to be well done. I get mine bloody (if appropriate); hers just gets an extra minute or two in a pan. Everybody happy.

Basildog, don't forget to chill the sherry. Champagne and a dry biscuit for me, I think.

I've got a friend who gets this great look of concern on her face while pushing the close button on elevators to keep out people coming at the last minute. Heh heh. That must be the look I wear when pretending to help push a revolving door.

"French shoot" is a very useful phrase. There are a lot of French shoots in one's daily interactions with fellow humanoids, aren't there?

Yup, that would explain it. I only had six pints.

Thank you, Matt. An efficient and professional response at last.

Badly beaten up by Jonathan Gold in January's Gourmet magazine. He liked Fresh better.

Anyone know how strong the Sierra Nevada Celebration is? I was drinking it quite happily on Saturday night, only to suddenly discover that I was completely hammered.

Oops. Sometimes it goes wrong. Chicken fried steak, but the nice, crunchy coating fell off. Over here your greyish steak, and over here your nice, crunchy coating. A bit of an auseinandersetzung. With mashed yams.

Pleased to hear it.

Methuselah sahib.

Okay, you're right about the beans, and I apologize for British history.

Thanks, Suzanne. So how long would you expect to keep it before it goes off? Not looking for a precise answer, but are we talking about two or three days, a week, two weeks. I usually eat the stuff at once, is why I'm asking; I am just wondering whether I can lay in a heap of it to last over the holidays.

Only Suvir could lend such eloquence to the improbable claim that dried beans, of all things, are a snobby, snooty luxury. Staple of the poor in many countries, of course (as he well knows ).

SUvir, do you have preferred brands? Let me make a specific point. Beans straight out of the can are already too sloppy for a good cassoulet. Any more cooking time, and the problem gets worse. One can certainly cook the cassoulet meats and other ingredients separately,and use the juices to give the beans some flavour. One can combine the beans and meats at the last moment and let the beans warm through. But these are desperate measures only in the absence of dried beans. One cannot give back the canned beans a texture that has disappeared. I say the same for the great pork and bean dishes of Iberia. (I would suggest an eGullet bean party, but we'd better wait for warmer weather so we can open the windows. )

Thanks, Robert. Ahr, isn't Atkins brown bread? Although, come to think, that may be an inappropriate use of that particular piece of rhyming slang.

You are moving the goalposts, Suvir. Speaking only for myself, I don't claim that it is impossible to make a dish which disguises the difference between canned and dried beans. You seem a competent chap, so I bet you can. My bold stance was that for most dishes, day in, day out, dried beans give you a better result.