David A. Goldfarb

I've done photography for many years, and I've done cooking for many years, but when I started doing food photography, I became much more sensitive to issues of presentation. Something that looks perfectly good to serve and to eat often won't do for the camera.

My personal favorite for the list-- Boodles - 45.2%

No immediate dinner plans, but if I do, I'll let you know. I was thinking more about buying a short loin when I run out of beef between my co-op grass-fed beef purchases. I wasn't thinking of getting anything special--more like a cryovac short loin from Western Beef and aging it in the fridge.

I put them out in a bowl unrinsed and ungarnished, or I might have two or three bowls of different types of olives, and usually have an empty bowl nearby for pits.

I've considered doing this. What makes me hesitate is the consideration of whether I can cut nice steaks of uniform thickness with a hand saw, like a butcher can do easily on a band saw. I'm sure it's possible with practice, but I wonder how much hamburger I have to make before I'm good at it. Anyone who has cut steaks by hand care to comment on that?

When I was a kid I used to go with my father to a couple of Italian markets in Cleveland on the weekend, one of them always had a few cheese samples out, and pecorino romano was one we got all the time, and I still do. I'll second the recommendation above for Sicilian cacciocavallo. It's not a cheese that I've noticed even in Italian shops, but Iavarone's market a few blocks from me in Queens usually has one or two of them on hand.

The experience I've had along those lines a few times is bringing homemade ice cream to a party, figuring it will be different and special, where the hosts will ooh and ahh when I get there, then put it in the freezer and forget about it.

Looks fantastic. My parents live in Vegas, so I'm out there occasionally. I'll have to make this a stop next time I'm in the neighborhood.

I've had some outstanding locally raised grass fed beef on Moloka'i. It wasn't entirely consistent, because it came from a variety of sources, but when it was good, it was excellent. Unfortunately, I don't think it's commercially available at the moment, since the Moloka'i Ranch, which included a lot of businesses that serviced the island, shut down, and that meant that the cooperative slaughterhouse closed up for a while, but I read in the Moloka'i _Dispatch_ that the slaughterhouse has reopened for the slaughter and butchering of family raised animals and locally hunted deer and pigs, and even though the Moloka'i Ranch shut down operations, there are other ranches on the island, and the Moloka'i Ranch sold the herd to their chief paniolo, who currently manages it, so the beef is there, it's just a matter of figuring out how to obtain it. Maybe put an ad in the paper and offer to buy it by the side. Meanwhile, you've got such great fish in Hawai'i. I always eat more fish when I'm there.

I noticed when I was in college in the mid-1980s that most of my friends couldn't prepare beef other than burgers and hot dogs, chicken other than boneless breasts if that, or fish in any style, or any kind of roast. More recently I've noticed that the first roast that many people that I know prepare is a Thanksgiving turkey, the first time that they have family over after getting married. Then if I invite people over for a dinner party, people ask my if cooking is my "hobby," and I've never thought about it that way. It's a life skill. I have to eat, so I might as well eat something interesting. I never really set out at some discrete moment to start learn to cook, and I've never owned many cookbooks. I just started cooking as a kid, because my father liked to cook, and it seemed like something that everyone had to do, and it was enjoyable.

My grandfather always liked a martini with an anchovy-stuffed olive, so anything that can take an anchovy-olive seems fair game for fish sauce. Just don't call it a "fishtini" or anything like that.

I have about 25 cookbooks, which is a tiny fraction of all of our books.

If the freezer is for longer term storage, you might look into an old-style chest freezer that isn't frost free. Of course that means it has to be defrosted manually, but since you won't be opening it as often as the freezer in your kitchen, it shouldn't need it as often, and the food will stay better without the automatic defrost cycles that can contribute to freezer burn. I've also found that vacuum sealing extends freezer life (for food). Generally freezers are more efficient when they are full, so if you have a lot of free space in the freezer, you can fill it up with ice until you need the space.

I'll probably end up with more than one, and I'll report back.

We seem to have acquired a collection of teapots that people have given us and that have come and gone, most of them useless, but until recently there was always at least one that was adequate, and the spout of that one broke yesterday, so for the first time, I'm actually going to be shopping for a decent teapot. The one that broke was made in China, but I think of it as a basic English-style teapot with a handle, a lid, and a spout and holes in the inside where the spout meets the body of the pot to keep most of the tea leaves in. It made about 2-3 cups. The ones that remain are impractical. One is a very large Italian teapot with no holes inside to filter out the tea leaves, and the spout is fairly low, so one can't decant either, and the hole on top is a bit narrow, so it isn't easy to clean. I think it was a wedding present, so it's been gathering dust for 9 years. The other was made by a ceramic artist who seems to have specialized in unusable teapots. My parents used to run a small gallery many years ago and sold some of her work. One pot she made, I recall, was very tall and narrow, so it seemed like it would cool rapidly and was in danger of tipping over, if someone had actually tried to make tea in it. The one I have is wide and very low, with no holes insidee, and about a one inch hole on top with a kind of ceramic stopper, so it is both difficult to fill and impossible to clean. After reading the advice here, I think I'll look for a gaiwan.

That's what I do, if I see anything suspect, which I usually don't.

Anodized aluminum won't pit as quickly as raw aluminum, and raw aluminum isn't as slick as anodized, but most restaurant food is cooked on raw aluminum pans, so it's something you can get used to, and if something happens to it, it can be replaced cheaply.

As I recall from my friend whose father made the best sweet sopressata I've ever eaten, he said the salamis would become completely covered in mold in the cellar and would be rinsed in a barrel of vinegar when they were ready to come down. If you're still in town, try to get to Esposito's Pork Store in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn (on the F train) for more excellent sweet sopressata and other items. It's a great neighborhood, changing rapidly, but there are still a few good Italian places left that compete over how many times a day they make fresh mozzerella and will ask you, "It's still warm, is that okay? Can I give it to you in the water?"

Actually, I didn't buy a non-stick pan for years until I was free of roommates--too easy to burn or scratch. Cast iron can at least be scoured and reseasoned, but I didn't buy any cast iron either for the same reason. If you want to stay cheap, go with one of the standard aluminum pans from a restaurant supply. If you find yourself under budget on the other items and want a really nice pan that your roommates can't destroy, look at Sitram Catering line (now called Pro 2, though US suppliers still seem to call it "Catering")-- http://www.jbprince.com/professional-cookw...am-catering.asp http://www.dvorsons.com/Sitram/SitramCookware.htm

When I make a custard base for ice cream, I stop it at 160 F. I've tried that with a few other custardy things, and it seems to work.

I read McGee's article when it appeared, and the main point that I took away from it was that pasta boiled in less water probably isn't dreadful, but no one seemed ecstatic about the results from a culinary standpoint. I've generally cooked pasta, about 1/2 pound to a pound in a four or six quart pot, but lately I've been asking whether this is really enough water and have been experimenting with a larger pot--about 12 quarts (the very pot in my avatar, in fact). It takes longer to boil and uses more energy for only one batch, of course, but I have to say, it's a big improvement as far as the gradation of textures goes, at least with commercial pasta, and the difference between boiling in 6 quarts and 12 quarts is much more significant than the difference between 3 quarts and 6 quarts. Presumably this is because 12 quarts of water doesn't take as long to come back to a boil, so the outside of the pasta cooks more quickly, leaving a firmer core, as long as you don't let it boil too long. I'll have to make a batch of fresh pasta soon to try it out in the larger pot. The extra time to boil isn't active cooking time, so it just requires a bit more planning. I don't think twice about starting the rice cooker an hour before dinner, so I suppose I can manage to put the pot on to boil a little sooner and save energy elsewhere, for instance by not going out for dinner.

Here's the Niman Ranch explanation, pretty much as I suspected-- http://nimanranch.com/faq.aspx#q19 They say they are using "uncured" to follow USDA labeling requirements by which such "naturally cured" meats without added sodium nitrite or nitrate are not defined as "cured," but they acknowledge that they are in fact cured, even if they don't fit the USDA description of "cured" meats.

I think what that really means is "cured with natural sources of nitrites and nitrates like celery juice, rather than refined pink salt." Of course nitrites and nitrates are not in themselves harmful, and the nitrosamines that are carcinogenic may be generated by the combination of protein with nitrites whether they originate from celery juice or Instacure #2, so "uncured" doesn't seem particularly meaningful to me. The Niman Ranch "Fearless" "uncured" hot dogs are pretty tasty, though--closest I've found to Chicago style in New York.

F&B, the euro-fast food place 23rd St. in Manhattan among other locations, does deep fried green beans, no batter, served with herb butter.

I will never again turn the KitchenAid up to "10" instead of down to "Off" with two layers worth of chocolate cake batter in the bowl.