Wilfrid

Otter again, how dull. Well, I would like to give you a precise method for the salt cod, and I keep trying to look over her shoulder. Yes, it does require periodic manipulation, and the cod starts to flake up. So it's not suitable if you are committed to serving the cod in big slabs. On the other hand, you can also pluck out bones as you go. But I was wrong about the water being hot. Essentially, it goes like this. Put cod in saucepan, run coldwater over it and rinse it thoroughly with your hands. Drain, replace with fresh water, and simmer on the stove for about fifteen minutes. Then drain this water, and put it back under the running cold tap again, rinsing with your hands. Then back on the stove for another fifteen minutes. Repeat the process (cold rinse, hot simmer) four times. Then add whatever you like to cod and finish it - you'll find the cooking process is quite far advanced already. This works with any salt cod. Give it a try, and let me know if you have problems.

Well, I think it's cheeky. As for the New Yorker, I have been reading it since the latter days of Shawn's editorship, and I think its direction has not been one of steady decline. It did decline, signifcantly, under Tina Brown's editorship, but I think David Remnick has made numerous improvements. The one thing which seems irretrievable is its reputation for fact-checking. Every issue is rife with inaccuracies. However, as Fat Bloke can't help indicating, I don't know of anything even close to its equal in publishing intelligent, literate articles on a regular basis, and note that it does so weekly, not monthly like its closest competitors.

Thanks for that, Soba. I had the Beloved one at the burners yesterday, making bacalao con huevos. She prepared the salt cod in Dominican fashion by repeatedly rinsing it in hot water. It takes about forty five minutes, is far superior to soaking it in the fridge for a couple of days, and makes it complete bullshit that so many restaurants serve salty salt cod and think it's supposed to be that way. Da bastards. The cod and eggs served with plain boiled rice, and flushed down with a Bodegas Montecillo white Rioja (2000) which was a little young and sharp for my taste.

There must be some difference between a bribe and a fee, surely, but I think it's getting lost here.

I look forward to the day I receive exceptional service in Starbucks. Tipping culture is so entrenched in the States, it is worth sending out a reminder from time to time that plenty of countries get by without it. In Germany, it is standard to see - at the bottom of any menu - "all our prices are fully inclusive of tax and service". Makes life easy, and I don't see the waiters starving. I guess they get paid a decent wage. Service, needless to say, is no better and no worse for this.

I haven't eaten Barramunid since I was in Australia, which means my memory of it is dull. But I know I ordered it a lot back then, so I must have liked it. Anyone seen it elsewhere in the State?

Almost finished the issue. There were some interesting observations about the treatment of customers at Babbo. No question that VIPs get extra-special treatment, and that you can get away with any kind of behavior if you're drinking a $475 bottle of wine. No suprises there, but the reported custom of the kitchen referring to a solo diner at the bar as "loser" left a slightly bad taste. I thought the Trillin article, while amusing as usual, was desperately thin. Nothing of any interest or importance about wine tasting in there at all. I have a higher opinion of the New Yorker than Fat Bloke - I don't think you can expect a stable of general feature journalists to write for an expert audience - but the Trillin piece was a wasted opportunity. I'd like to have read Trillin's views about wine tasting proper, not about the silly red/white blind taste question - which I see prompted almost no interest on our wine board.

I'm flattered. And I'm thirsty now (patter of footsteps and sound of slamming door.)

Is it too late to say that I don't think people who don't go to bars should have an opinion? Because I sense that's where a lot of the pressure is coming from.

Many years since I tried a Phaal. It was possible if you had the Phaal on one plate, and yoghurt and plain rice on another, and kept the cutlery for each plate completely separate. Yoghurt and rice was a complete antidote to the Phaal, so long as you didn't get it mixed with the Phaal sauce.

A high recommendation. Five pints and a curry it is, then. I am only a little concerned that my tolerance for spiciness has fallen since I left the UK.

For a dessert, combine them with fairly obvious things, like ice cream and splashes of suitable liqueurs. Chill the lychees first.

I wondered why I'd been thirsty for the last six years. Now I know. And yet American pints are more expensive - or is that a different thread?

Watch 2 episodes of the Naked Chef back to back, and after you come out of your grand mal seizure, the camera work on Good Eats will seem like PBS. Oh yes, there are degrees of annoyingness. I didn't like the editing on A Cook's tour either - why send Tony Bourdain thousands of miles to look at something if it's not worth putting on the screen for more than half a second?

Stir fried lo mein with chicken and pearl onions (halved to cook quickly - nice variety in texture).

It's okay, Cabby, I've memorized it. Fat Bloke, I knew you meant to stop us doing this. We're loveable rogues, aren't we?

i would like to read any study that even remotely suggests this. There are many studies suggestive of a higher risk from vehicle-generated air pollution than from ETS. Numerous studies find increasing respiratory problems among children in cities or countries where smoking has steadily decreased, thus making it plausible that childhood exposure to ETS has decreased. Of course, you can't run a clinical study to examine the hypothesis. Anyone want my opinion? If bar managers made acceptance of a smoking environment an explicit term of a contract of employment, everyone would be happy except fanatical anti-smokers and maybe the very small percentage of non smoking bar staff who really object to being exposed to tobacco smoke. Case solved.

Tad dah! These days, they're half German, half Greek. Off with their heads!

And we already know the first one.

I did see your post. The roesti sounded good, but we didn't get any sides. It was certainly substantial meal without them.

You'd think some German influences might have come across with Albert. Maybe they just never took. German restaurants have a consistent record of failure in London (I'm talking in my time now). One day soon, I'll start a thread about German food, because I actually think it gets a bad deal.

I could be wrong, but I don't think French did become a court language in England, although I suspect it was an important acquisition among members of society, just as it was in Germany and Russia. Queen Victoria, however, did read and discuss menus in French.

I think that's one of your theories I didn't reject out of hand, although as you point out there were a number of countries producing and exporting wine. I am away for the next couple of weeks at least, so around the end of September works fine. Five thousand books should fill our time nicely.

Disappointing.

I didn't taste your chicken dish, but I am guessing that some of the other entrees were even better. Not to mention heavier.