David A. Goldfarb

Definitely sounds like spoilage. I find that vacuum sealed steaks keep their texture in the freezer better than steaks wrapped in butcher paper.

My father liked to cook, and cooked pretty well, as did his mother, but it wasn't exactly haute cuisine, necessarily. Mechanical skills aside, I think I benefitted from growing up around people who had a love for food and had a sense for what tastes good and when something is done and what textures are desirable. Of course one can learn a foreign language later in life, but it helps to be a native speaker.

That looks really appealing, Chris. Nice photos, too!

Romy Dorotan, of Purple Yam (formerly Cendrillon on Mercer St. near Grand in Manhattan) does a really nice asian-inflected brandade, served over coconut-creamed spinach (like regular creamed spinach, but with coconut milk). I've made it from the recipe in Memories of Philippine Kitchens, the book he wrote with his wife and restaurant partner, Amy Besa.

I haven't tried them recently, but a couple of years ago before the first big article about him, I handled a couple of them briefly at Brooklyn Kitchen. They are beautifully finished, but didn't particularly suit me either. Brooklyn Kitchen can't keep them in stock for long, because they sell very quickly.

I've always thought this was only a microwave issue. I suppose I'll continue to live dangerously and bake my potatoes in the oven without pricking them. My parents used to slice off one end of the potato when I was young, but at some point they stopped doing it. I gathered it was to make them easier to handle. I think they picked it up from Graham Kerr.

Usually I slice it, stack it so it dries completely, and make it into breadcrumbs using a blender. Sometimes I make bread pudding, french toast, croutons, or other things with it.

Season and butter inside and out, roast on a rack starting at 400F for 20 min, and turn down to 325F. Turn it over about 30-40 min into the cooking time, and then back the other way about 30-40 minutes after that. Baste every half hour once you've got enough fat to baste with. Remove at 160F internal temperature. Don't overcook it, and it won't be dry. The skin should be nice and crispy, but if cholesterol concerns prohibit, well, such is life. To slice, remove the breasts from the bone first using a long flexible boning knife and slice across the grain.

I've tried the PUR system in two different apartments, and I got all the special adapters that you have to order (they are free, but you have to send away for them), if the thing doesn't stay attached to your faucet, and we had a constant problem with the fixture blowing off the faucet. Maybe we were just unlucky, but I wouldn't bother with it again.

They seem to improve the taste of the water, and they're tested to remove things from the water. One issue with most filtration systems is the potential for bacteria to grow inside the filter as it ages. The concept of charcoal filtration is quite old. Here are instructions to make your own water filter, circa 1910-- http://books.google.com/books?id=ioNOAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA535&lpg=PA535&dq=scientific+american+cyclopedia+water+filter&source=bl&ots=qedhIJgYwY&sig=HLGHR66CzX7ofRljGleiZ6kxpNM&hl=en&ei=29YjTcGhFIH78AbO3NGfDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

There's a pretty good selection at Broadway Panhandler--Messermeister and a couple of other brands. I brought in my knife roll and replaced all of mine at once around a year ago, but my longest is a 12" chef's knife, so I don't know off hand if they have a 14". They might not list them on their website, but you could call, and they could tell you if they had one that size.

Copper pans and pots are culinarily useful--a copper stand mixer, not so much. A copper mixing bowl for egg whites is another story. KitchenAid used to offer a copper liner for the bowl, but I haven't seen it available new in recent history. This company makes solid copper bowls for some of the KitchenAid mixers-- http://frenchcopperstudio.com/kitchenaid.html

People go to Vegas to see performers who have acquired a certain level of fame and are just riding out that celebrity. Why should restaurants be any different? Steakhouses are popular these days, and for a lot of Americans a "special" meal means steak. So celebrity+steakhouse is enough of a concept to fly in Vegas.

I do it with a dry cure following the proportions in Julia Child's recipe from The Way to Cook. Add several cloves of garlic for Jewish style corned beef. I've done it both with and without pink salt. I usually cure at least two weeks, but if it let it stay for four weeks, it will keep for months, which I've done, and it doesn't change much after four weeks. If I know that I'm not planning to cook it for a long time (usually because I've bought a large amount of beef as part of a cooperative beef purchase, and making a corned beef saves some freezer space), I tend to use the pink salt. If you do let it cure more than four weeks, you need to let it soak overnight or even for two days to de-salt it. Then I usually simmer it until a fork slides in and out of the meat easily, but recently I made a pastrami by coating it with pepper and coriander and hot smoking it on the stovetop in a wok, and it was excellent. It took about three hours smoking with no additional cooking. Brisket is a cut that shrinks a lot. I wouldn't bother with a brisket smaller than 4-5 lbs. That's usually the whole flat end or the "first cut" as it's sometimes called. The second cut is much fattier, but pastrami made from the second cut fries up nicely like bacon.

Today I was idly wondering whether The Fuller Brush Company still existed, and indeed they do, despite products like this one-- http://www.fuller.com/products_detail.asp?cat=1&subcat=5&id=2002&pg=1 Marked down from $23.99 to $6.99 for quick clearance. Order yours now!

'wichcraft uses a system where there is an electronic lock on the bathroom doors, and the combination is printed on your receipt, which you get after ordering from the counter and paying, before sitting down. It's not a perfect system, because most people don't realize the number is there until they've been to 'wichcraft a couple of times and have needed the bathroom after losing or discarding their receipt.

You've probably found your belly sometime in the past year, but since no one has responded, The Meat Hook is an excellent place. They have a great selection of heritage and naturally raised meats, and they know what they're doing. It's not cheap, but if you ask for a belly for pancetta, say, Tom Mylan will cut it, so that it rolls up perfectly, and it's not cheap, but you won't pay for the trimmings, which will probably find their way into their house made sausages.

We tried John Dory Oyster Bar at the Ace Hotel last night, which serves raw bar items and small plates tapas-style, no large entrees. Expensive (oysters $3/ea all types, small plates $12-18, and you would want at least two or three per person to make a meal), but the seafood was first rate. Highlights were the oysters--two west coast and two east coast varieties on the menu--which were fresh and particularly neatly done preserving most of the liquor, the char pate served with a very buttery Parker House roll, Maine lobster chowder, and the chocolate pot for desert.

Was the pastrami I made last week better than Katz's? Hard to say. In some ways yes.

1500 watts is about the maximum you're going to get out of an electric tabletop burner that runs on a normal household plug, which is for a 15 amp/110-120 volt circuit: amps * volts = theoretical maximum number of watts. If you are close to a 220v outlet for an air conditioner or a 20 amp line that can take a 20 amp plug, you might find something more powerful that you can use from a commercial restaurant supply house. I suspect you'll get more heat out of the butane unit, since that's what they have in the Asian markets.

Try Korin. You might need to call them, and they can probably get it. Info at korin.com.

Most of the classical variations are with different sauces and/or additions like a slice of fois gras or truffle. It can also be wrapped in bacon or another fat and roasted. Could be interesting to try something Wellington in form (i.e., with a crust of some sort and a pate or forcemeat), but with a different set of flavors maybe from another national tradition. If the meat is of excellent quality, it can be carpaccio. The filet is not immune from stir-fry treatments or marination or being broiled on skewers.

They're still making some knife shapes that aren't made by other manufacturers, and some people like the feel of a heavy German chef's knife. The knife I use most these days is an 8" carbon steel Sabatier **** Elephant French-style chef's knife, which holds a fantastic edge, is lighter than the German style, and is pretty much outside the loop of cutlery fashion. The knife doesn't do the job on its own. There's a person holding the knife, and the knife has to feel right in that person's hand with that person's technique, and plenty of excellent knife work has been done with traditional European knives, and it's not as if those techniques and tools have suddenly become useless, because there are other techniques and tools.

Day after Thanksgiving, our office is open. No. 7 Sub--braised short ribs, baked sweet potato, marshmallows, and red wine vinaigrette. I've never understood the concept of sweet potatoes and marshmallows, but you hardly notice the marshmallows on this sandwich. They melt into some kind of mysterious sauce, surely no worse than "Special Sauce" , binding the whole thing together without becoming obtrusive. The shortribs were good.

Exactly. Blanching makes it easy to peel all kinds of small onions. My favorites are white and red cippolini that I can find at the Union Square Greenmarket sometimes here in New York. Usually I cut off the root end first and cut a "+" with the tip of the knife in the cut end, then maybe 30 seconds in boiling water and the skins should slip off.