David A. Goldfarb

Shouldn't all recipes be named after eighteenth- and nineteenth-century aristocrats, military officers, opera composers and performers, and ballerinas?

It may just be part of the general salty-sweet fad of late. About a year ago it seems that there was madness about salted caramel, which is a fine thing, but it was showing up everywhere.

Bacon drippings as the fat in a cherry or apple pie crust are really good.

They have a goat curry with rice pancakes as a main on the new menu. Is that it? I think I remember having goat there once a long time ago, but haven't had it for ages.

Cold avocado soup garnished with a scoop of avocado sorbet is one of my standard summer things.

With the exception of Peter Luger's, I suspect that just about anything outside of Manhattan is going to be off the radar for most non-locals. How many people are going to take one or two trains and a bus to try the Grandma slice at Rosa's pizza on 69th St. two blocks north of Grand Ave. in Maspeth? We'll just keep it as our little secret. Our friends Romy Dorotan and Amy Besa who owned Cendrillon on Mercer near Grand in Soho for 13 years--a Filipino fusion place with a solid following and two stars in the NYT--recently opened their new restaurant, Purple Yam, at 1314 Cortelyou Rd. in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn (Cortelyou Rd. stop on the Q train). It was a long wait for permits and inspections, and service was a little chaotic the first week or two with some new staff and new computer system, but they seem to be settling into their groove, and the food is still interesting with a mix of old favorites from Cendrillon and some new Korean influenced dishes. I highly recommend the lechon kawali, chicken adobo, and Romy's spareribs. I haven't compared the new and old menus side by side, but the check was less than I expected last time we were there, so I think they've lowered the prices a bit for the neighborhood. Info at www.cendrillon.com

There's still plenty of fat from the pork skin, sausage, and half the pork belly that Bourdain recommends. After I made it the first time, I thought the pork belly was taking over everything else, and instead of a balanced rich succulent mixture, it was that plus globs of pork belly that people were leaving at the side of their plates.

Interesting. Maybe things are just different in New York (because no one drives, or at least no one has to drive), or maybe things are different in academia (because, well, just because).

Well, I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks so. When I made it the first time, it reminded me of the time when my wife wanted to start learning to cook (we weren't yet married), I gave her a copy of Beard's _Theory and Practice of Good Cooking_ and suggested she start by roasting a chicken. Being of scientific bent she followed the recipe very precisely, using two sticks of butter for one small chicken.

If I bring a bottle of wine to a dinner party, I don't expect it to be opened. If someone brings a good bottle of wine to dinner at my place, I'll open it if it is well matched to the food, but will save it for a better occasion, if it isn't. If someone brings a bottle that I don't think is going to be very good, but at least won't conflict with the food, then I'll probably open it, on the grounds that the person who brought it will enjoy it more than I will, so we might as well open it immediately. If someone brings a bottle of wine that I'm not enthusiastic about that will also conflict with the food, then I'm likely to save it for an occasion like a party where I have to bring a bottle of wine, but I know no one will care about whether it's any good. Did I just get myself disinvited to your office party?

I agree. A Pekin duck is good for about two and a half people. Duck fat can be used in similar ways to goose fat, by the way. It may not have quite as high a smoke point as goose fat, but the flavor is somewhat richer, which you may or may not want. Potatoes and root vegetables roasted in duck fat are really good. If you roast a duck or a goose, you can just put the veggies in the roasting pan under the bird about an hour before it's done, mixing them up occasionally for more browning. A large heavy roasting pan with plenty of space helps.

So, the beans won't be as intact as Tarbais beans, but it will still be delicious. Just make it, chill, and bake again to improve the crust as Bourdain recommends. If you do find Tarbais beans, you may find yourself asking, should I pay $18/lb for beans? For beans? They're not bad, and I did it once just to see what they were like, but it's not a make or break thing. With smaller beans, you just have to pre-cook them less, so they don't get too mushy. Personally, I find this recipe has a little too much fat for my taste, so I cut back on the pork belly by half, but make it once according to the recipe, and see how you like it.

I siphon off the goose fat as it cooks, leaving some in the pan for basting. Truth be told, I roast a goose occasionally mainly to have a supply of goose fat and consider the goose itself kind of a bonus.

It is used to lubricate many other things as well, some of which may not be appropriate to mention on a family-oriented forum.

I'm not obsessed, but I was surprised at what an improvement the Oxo Sink Strainer was over the one I had--like it was even possible to improve on the sink strainer. I quite like my Oxo flexible fish turner, which has a thin metal core wrapped in silicone that can tolerate up to 600-deg. F. The Oxo wooden spatula is a nice thing, but mine chipped recently, and I think I'll have to replace it.

I trust you've seen Lileks' Gallery of Regrettable Food. There are a few pages devoted to Jell-O and Knox Gelatin monstrosities.

Not exactly sure about your white clumps, but add the butter at the end. Let it melt a bit and stir it in, and it will taste butterier, and if they had anything to do with the white clumps, then that should take care of that.

A friend from Statesville, NC introduced me to Sims Country BBQ in Dudley Shoals several years ago, and I haven't been back in ages, but I gather it's still worth recommending. They serve pulled pork with fine local music and dancing. Doc Watson has been known to show up occasionally and sing for his supper.

$125 is quite reasonable, particularly for a new place.

I keep it on a very low simmer usually, and when I started doing this instead of boiling, I found the flavor was richer.

At the high end, there's Per Se, which is around $275 per person with options that can increase that. At the less high end, some places that offer elaborate tasting menus are WD-50 and Le Bernardin, which are around $140 per person without wine pairings. The tasting menu at Craft is $110, but doesn't include as many separate courses. They all have menus on their websites, so you can get a better idea of what each tasting menu entails, figuring there will typically be a couple of small items that aren't mentioned on the menu.

McGee's piece on cooking pasta in minimal water didn't demonstrate that it was a good idea, but considered what might happen if one did it. The pasta would get soft and you would have the advantage of starch water for balancing the sauce, and it would be faster to boil less water, but the texture of the pasta might not be as desirable as pasta cooked in a large pot of boiling water. French fries started in cold oil work surprisingly well as long as you only have to make one batch. If you need to make a lot of fries, then it isn't really an option, because the oil is no longer cold at the end of the first batch.

Yes, and it works very well. I've done it a few times now since posting about it here.

I've been told the same regarding the freezer.

Growing up in the suburbs of Cleveland, we had space for a spare freezer and had room to stock up on food, but when I moved to New York, I realized that it was much more practical to keep a lean kitchen and let all the nearby shops serve as the pantry. That means passing up some bargains, but we're saving on the square footage in the apartment, not to mention the electric bill. I can still survive for a week on stuff in the house, and do when we're about to travel and want to clear out the fridge or if we need to free up freezer space for something like our periodic cooperative beef purchase, but we don't accumulate a lot of excess. I save freezer space for things like beef fat, fatback, sauces, demi-glace, stock and bits and pieces that go into stock (and film, but that's another subject).