Dave the Cook

snif At least we'll always have . . . Thanksgiving . . .

Another point of agreement. Or is that two? I'll try the remoulade, for sure.

I am not talking about your divine 'maters, Brooks (the first of which I consumed this afternoon on a slice of fresh bread and butter, thank you very much). I am talkin' 'bout limp, hot, wrinkly cucumbers nestled obscenely up against a crisply fried chicken breast. ewwww.

Chick-fil-A only gives you one per sandwich. Check with Jason and Brooks, though. They're each due for a package soon. Not what their website indicates: official pickle quotient per sandwich note the give away plural ... In thirty years of sammiches (my best guess is a thousand of them), I have never gotten more nor less than one slice per.

Chick-fil-A only gives you one per sandwich. Check with Jason and Brooks, though. They're each due for a package soon.

See, I like the pickles on the Chick-fil-A. I even ask for extra. Watch for a package in the mail.

Pickles belong neither in tuna salad, nor on a Chick-fil-A sandwich. I can't believe they're still making this mistake.

Pork stock is awesome stuff. It's great not just for sauces, but for soups, simmering beans, and making certain types of etouffees and gumbos as well. Chicken in the form of stock is far more flavorful than beef, and I think it could withstand the addition of a few bones of other types without deleterious effect, but I'm not sure you'd gain anything, either. I've made stock from smoked bones. For that matter, smoked hocks are part of my standard red beans and rice recipe. However, it's not amenable to reduction greater than about 50%. After that, the smoke flavor takes over. But I'm pretty sure this is more or less how Liquid Smoke is made, and perhaps it would be useful as a seasoning agent. Say yes to trotters.

I had the Barbequed Shrimp at Mr. B's the other day. As Jason reported, they are amazing. I asked about a recipe, and was directed to their website. Low and behold: Mr. B's New Orleans Barbequed Shrimp I haven't made it, but this recipe looks right, not just on the ingredients, but on the shaking technique for incorporating the last-minute butter (which, as far as I know, was introduced to restaurant cookery by Prudhomme -- no, it's not the same as most butter sauces). The way the sauce separates over the course of the meal is a dead giveaway to anyone who's employed this method. I'll get my hands on some head-on shrimp this weekend and report back.

Brooks Hamakers' Mama's cookbook has quickly become the stuff of eGullet legend. Finally, Mayhaw Man comes clean with the whole story: Cook with Brooks (and by extension, Mama) . . . +++ Be sure to check The Daily Gullet home page daily for new articles (most every weekday), hot topics, site announcements, and more.

Alton, thanks for spending some time here with us this week. I have a story to relate, and a couple of questions that spring from it. The other day, while shopping at the local grocery, I watched as a woman in surgical gloves wrestled a whole chicken into a polythene bag she'd obviously liberated from the produce department. Still begloved, she twisted the bag shut and laid it carefully into a sequestered corner of her cart. "Well," I thought, "What's reasonable to me isn't necessarily reasonable to everyone else," though she had breached protocol by leaving the gloves on while handling the bag -- again, to each her own. But then she proceeded down the counter, laying her besmirched silicone on a pack of pork chops, one of lamb shanks, and in particular, fondling a chuck roast which had caught my own eye. More than one of these items went into her cart, opposite the chicken, nestled among the romaine and Cheez-its. Question 1: I thought of you, of course, when I first spotted the gloves. Here's a perfect case of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing. And as I watched this Typhoid Mary work her way down the aisle, I wondered, to what lengths do you go to ensure that the whole story gets out -- in a comprehensible manner -- on an episode of Good Eats? And do you worry that you might be making things worse if you fail? Question 2: What's your assessment of the danger that raw poultry represents to the American consumer? Do you think the government is doing a reasonable job of educating the public in such matters? Question 3: Is there a proper way to ask a lady to remove her surgical gloves that won't get you a rubbery, germy slap in the face? I guess that's five questions. Skip the last one if necessary.

I don't think you could call Trio or Moto destination restaurants in the sense that Robyn is talking about. If you define a destination restaurant as one that is worth travelling to solely for the opporunity to eat there, there is only one in North America, and that is the French Laundry. Other places might qualify: ADNY, Chez Panisse, Charlie Trotter's come to mind; I'm sure there are other candidates. But they won't be tested, because their proximity to other attractions makes their individual drawing power impossible to assess. What's wrong with us? Despite the fact that Atlantans spend more dollars dining out than the national average, apparently there is not a sufficient population to support an adventurous high-end dining subset -- you need only look at the Buckhead Life restaurants to see that what succeeds is stuff that's about two steps behind the bleeding edge. Right now, there are probably only two ways to do what they were trying to do: put it in a big city like Chicago, Philadelphia, NYC or LA; or churn the PR machine to make Blais a destination -- a restaurant that can be just about anywhere. They did neither, and so the place failed. But cash flow seems to have been a problem as well. Would the investors have stuck it out longer if Blais had been generating larger grosses? Surely, they knew that a place like Blais was going to take a while to catch on, so they must have had patience in mind. In another life (circa 1980), I was Assistant Food and Beverage Manager at the Sonesta Atlanta (in Tower Place; I think it's a Doubletree now). We had Dom Perignon on the wine list at about $45, priced according to our standard formula. One evening, I went down to Billy's (who remembers Billy's?), a meat market that, by the looks of Buckhead now, was positively prescient. They were going through a case of Dom a night at $100 a bottle. The next day, I asked my boss how much we were selling -- two bottles a week, was his answer. How many would we sell at a hundred bucks? I asked. Um, probably two bottles a week, he said. So it couldn't get any worse. We reprinted the wine list (well, a supplier did it for us), raising the price of Dom Perignon to $99. We moved a case the next week, and topped out at two (most of them through room service). The point is this: Blais was charging $49 for their tasting menu -- about $100 with matched wine. What would have happened if they had charged $150 + $75? I doubt they'd have gotten that many fewer people, and the perceived value would have been greatly enhanced. I suspect cash flow would have improved considerably, and that would have kept the doors open.

Thanks for this, GG. This is terrific news. Not for me, so much, because I don't eat a lot of sushi. I thank you on behalf of my sushi-loving visitors. I used to send them to Soto, and I never got a bad report -- quite the opposite, and many of these were people who frequented the best in LA, Seattle, NYC, Tokyo and Australia. Sorry, I can't answer your question, though.

Bacon Aphorisms

I disagree: the most dangerous thing in almost any kitchen is the cook.

Andrew Levinsky is fed up with formula food -- even if it's made from the very best of ingredients: Check out Andy's rant . . . --------------------------------------------------------------------- Be sure to check The Daily Gullet home page daily for new articles (most every weekday), hot topics, site announcements, and more.

When there's nothing else left, toss ham ends and Parmesan rinds into bean and veggie soups like Minnestrone.

Yeah, it's dead, and I can't find it in the AJC labyrinth. The article said essentially what you've been saying: that the closing was abrupt, and the space will be redeveloped for Klaskala. Personally, I don't think it's a good space for anything upscale or adventurous. The problem is that the property is either owned by the "We're Cookin'" group, or by one of its partners, David Davoudpour (CEO of Best American, the country's largest Church's Fried Chicken franchisor), and they, or he, has made a public commitment to devote resources to upgrade the area. This means that another bar, which could almost certainly be successful, is not in the offing. I commend them for sticking to their priciples, but I'm surprised at the quick hatchet they dropped on Blais. Between Davoudpour and George McKerrow (one of the other two partners in We're Cookin', and the founder of Longhorn Steaks), this group has an amazing amount of restaurant experience. McKerrow's comment that they we're closing Blais after investing "close to a million dollars" strikes me as disingenuous. A million dollars seems modest for a venture like this -- I'm guessing a Church's or Longhorn franchise costs a million before you even open the doors. Had they asked me (no reason they should have, but what the hell), I would have told them that if they only had a million to invest, they shouldn't bother.

You could do worse than following whatever instinct led you to the subtitle of your thread. The Best Recipe from Cooks Illustrated has a very good middle-of-the-road version, and if I recall, they give you two crust options. I remember it being a little underseasoned, but that's easily corrected.

Jim Cowan, famously known as "Florida Jim" across the Internet, has attained almost legendary status for his poetic tasting notes that lovingly describe the pleasures of people, food, and wine. The Daily Gullet is pleased to have Jim join us on a regular basis with his new column "Liquid Literature." Get a taste of Florida Jim . . .

Here's a link to the article (free registration required). Gifted Gourmet tried to post it last night, but we had to wait for the AJC to provide a URL that wasn't two blocks long. Peach Buzz It will probably change after today; we'll try to keep the link up to date.

For the record: we've heard directly from Chef Blais that his restaurant has closed. As with many such situations, the causes are complicated, and to a great extent, private. Rest assured, however, that he is already thinking about his next venture. We will keep you posted.

Maybe it's a warhorse, Lisa, but remember, it's a literary contest. Being clever enough to think of bludgeoning your husband with a frozen leg of lamb, then feed the roasted weapon to the investigating officers (nod to Sir Alfred); or to imagine dispatching the vicious neighbohood cur with ground-glass-laced Alpo (was that Bloch, maybe?) is not sufficient. You must be as stylish as Nabokov, you must plot like Turow and surprise like Porter. Sharpen your pencil along with your Sabatier; we expect big things from you.

Dave, that is the first discussion of New New that has made me want to get it. I just wasn't that interested in that style of cooking, much preferring the "rustic" home cooking style to creole chic. Does he discuss the culinary origins in any depth? Perhaps I've made it sound like more of a theoretical treatise than it is. No, there is not a lot of discussion -- this is an "actions speak louder than words" kind of cookbook. If you've watched Emeril's shows, or read Real and Rustic cover to cover, you know that he's not much for words; the best ones in Real and Rustic were written by Bienvenue, I'm sure. I admit to being intrigued by "fusion," or at least by the idea of it. More often than not, the marriage fails. But in his recipes, Emeril finds harmonious new alliances and rewarding tensions that make for truly satisfying food. The things is, Cajun and Creole are already the children of fusion -- and arguably, Prudhomme married them during his stint at Commander's Palace; Emeril continued the affair. In NNO, he reminds you that relationships evolve, and there's no reason for the evolution to be frozen at some random date. I'll stop gushing. NNO isn't Mastering the Art . . . or Theory and Practice . . . But folks who think fusion is silly, and especially people who dismiss Emeril as nothing more than the creation of television, ought to look seriously at this book.

I like Real and Rustic a lot. As an introduction to Cajun and Creole cooking, it falls short of the achievement of Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen, but it's still well worth having, for its breathless sense of discovery, if nothing else (and there's more to it than that). But I much prefer New New Orleans Cooking. This is original thinking about the origins and the future of New Orleans cuisine. He starts with the traditional and by now familiar Cajun and Creole ingredients and techinques. He dissects them into their French, Spanish, African and Carbbean components, adds the (common in NOLA but not generally recognized) Italian contribution, and tosses in some of his Portuguese sensibility. Then he recombines everything into a unique take on the New Orleans tradition, with respect, wit, and best of all, flavor. Despite its lackluster production values, this is a great cookbook. I have Every Day's a Party. and while it's got decent recipes, I rarely cook from it. It works too hard to mine a vein that's long been depleted. I've looked at the rest, and I've not been compelled to add anything else to my collection. They're either recycled from Emeril Live, Essence of Emeril, or just plain recycled. One that I haven't checked out yet is There's a Chef in My Soup, his children's cookbook. I'm told it's pretty good.