VivreManger

It is heartening to hear that the little Spitalfields yearling may be doing better than the mother. B&W is open Sunday evening when Smithfields is closed. And a Sunday evening is when I plan to squeeze my visit it. Let me know how the food holds up at the end of the weekend, if anybody eats St. John's then.

I have done duck, chicken, and turkey in a Weber grill, with hard wood charcoal, and hickory chunks, indirect heat, probably for about 2 to 3 hours, at probably around 250 to 320, and gotten the telltale ring. I am less certain about brisket since I have done that less frequently, but I think I got comparable results for longer time.

Agree 100% with Loufood. Over the past 20 to 30 years I have been shopping in the Bon Marche food market -- I remember when it was dominated by fresh fruits & vegetables, now still excellent, but consigned to the rear. One day I comparisoned shopped a number of products there and at Hediard. What I bought was better and cheaper at La Grande Epicerie. As for Fauchon, it reminds me of Madame Toussaud's. I am always afraid the food will taste like wax.

Living far from Wegmans and not having been back to Paris since, I can't answer your questions. I hope to get to Paris this spring -- London is in the fall -- and perhaps then I can help.

I can't find it right now, but there have been a number of threads in the French forum with contributions by Cabrales, Loufood, myself and others on the Herme patisserie. Here is the promised link which includes my Herme report. A search for Pierre Herme in the France forum will yield even more details. http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...hl=pierre+herme The similarity resides in the trifle-like glass enclosed desserts.

After all these recommendations I tried Empire during the summer, a celebratory dinner for a 92 year old's birthday. I was disappointed. The seared tuna salad that I ordered lacked oomph. The tuna did not go well with the nondescript potato salad that dominated the vegetables. My aunt's filet was fine, but nothing spectacular. My daughter had a cold avocado soup that was rich and satsifying, but could have used a bit more assertive and intriguing spicing. We kept on adding more lime. The chocolate pot de creme was rich and savory, perhaps the best dish of the evening.

lxt Posted on Aug 25 2003, 07:43 PM I can't find it right now, but there have been a number of threads in the French forum with contributions by Cabrales, Loufood, myself and others on the Herme patisserie. I might ask Jason to help track them down. Otherwise I will get back to you with the info.

Sketch, 9 Conduit Street, London http://www.pierregagnaire.com/anglais/sket...etch-repere.htm The Parlour : Pastry Shop and Tea Room Open hours: - Breakfast, lunch and tea : 9 AM to 6:30 PM - Monday through Saturday Reservations : 44 0870 777 44 88 That should do it.

Wonderful report. i can't wait to try these when next I get to London. I am curious if you have ever been to Pierre Herme in Paris which does desserts similar to these variations on the English trifle.

I am curious as to the value you place on the judgments of reviews in LondonEating.com. Sutton Arms which has gotten consistently praised on the site, gotten a moderately positive review. SEE http://www.london-eating.co.uk/2874.htm On the other hand Cigala and Perseverance, suggested as Bloomsbury possibilities though by much fewer, got some pretty nasty write-ups on that same site. Does any place any stock in london-eating.co.uk?

In October I have 6 days to work and eat in London. One dinner is booked at the New Tayyab. For my first evening meal (Sunday night) I plan to hit the original St. John's (unless there is a strong sentiment from this mixed multitude for the new place). BTW, are both the new and old St. John's open for Sunday evening cooking? I have heard that only the new one is. I hope to do Sunday lunch at Putney Bridge, though it remains to be seen if that is a realistic option just after I have fallen out of the plane. I control the venue for only two of the remaining four nights. My lunches depend on my work schedule in Bloomsbury which I don't yet know. So a lot of things remain to be determined. For the moment I am seeking suggestions on the two nights I do not control and for which I do not pay. Why not begin with the impossible? In the past after I have done my university lecture gig, I have been wined and dined at absolutely dreadful places, presumably within the modest budgets imposed on academic life by Philistine Thatcher and her epigones -- all staff members from Dotheboys. I suppose beside their price the other attraction was that the food was horrid enough to keep diners away and so we could do what academics love best, talk and even be heard. My question is the following: do restaurants serving decent food, at medium prices, in which normal conversation can occur, exist within 15 to 20 minutes or so (by whatever means of movement) of Senate House at the University of London. The Mangal Grill in Islington struck me as a possibility, particularly since one evening my host is an Ottomanist. The price won't force the staff into early retirement. How long should it take to get there on a Monday evening? The most important questions are how noisy does it get? and is it licensed? Another dinner possibility is Sutton Arms. Where exactly is it located? Being a so-called gastropub, it will be licensed, but what about noise level? Are both of these places likely to be so crowded on a week-day evening that we will have a long wait for a table. Are reservations possible at either? The last problem is can I chat up my hosts skillfully enough so that I can go where I want to go, rather than where they want to take me? I don't expect you to help me on that score.

I make them at home. Alas with a bar blender. One important ingredient is a hefty serving of Horlicks Malt Powder, far superior to Ovaltine, which should not be called malted. Generally I can only find Horlicks in Asian ethnic food shops, East, Southeast or South. I did order one at Ben & Jerry's in Providence about a month ago. They did not put enough malted powder in.

Everything seems great. My only question concerns the pepper to coriander ratio, 95% to 5%. I would make increase the coriander to about 30% to 40% of the total. Any other suggestions out there?

I have used variations on an osso buco recipe for lamb shank. To get a particularly rich sauce, I add a bit of veal demi-glace. It is one of those dishes which only improves with cooking and warming up.

A Canadian candy bar I adore -- might it also be British ?? -- is made by Cadbury. It is called either Crunch or Crackle -- hardened honeycombed treacle (a la Lyle's) covered in chocolate. I don't thin it would deep-fry well. The whole thing would quickly revert to Lyle's golden syrup.

Circa in Northampton is on my to-do list. Bushy has been once. Other friends have told me they enjoy it regularly. Given the heat, serious eating is not easy these days.

Vengroff, thanks for the link. Given the topic -- Fried Cheese Cake -- and the forum -- Media -- I don't feel too bad that I missed it. Glad to see that from your report as well an anti-fried-twinkie consensus has emerged on this board. Both of us agreed that frying ruined the sponge-cake of the twinkie. I think that my friers tried to address the problem by underfrying, but they did not under it enough. Mine had chocolate syrup instead of powdered sugar. The chocolate -- albeit too little of it -- was the only thing worth eating.

After posting this earlier, I just noticed another discussion for fried twinkies -- here's the link http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...T&f=13&t=25470& The recipe there was different -- no batter here. The conclusion was the same -- not worth getting excited about it. By the way snickers gets a treatment at the link as well. Mars Bars in the UK is similar, as I recall to 3 Musketeers in the US. We don't have a Mars Bar as such here. In the UK there is no Milky Way (????). I don't remember Snickers in the UK, but my memory on that score is hazy. Cadbury has pretty much cornered the UK Candy market -- I still have fond memories of the Cadbury Fruit Tray.

I wonder what the relationship is between what you call smoked beef or spiced beef and what I know from London as salt beef. I also wonder if Montreal Jews would have been influenced by English cuts of meat. Did Ben's original owners come through England.

For more than a month I had been hearing a rumor that someone in town was frying twinkies. Ever eager to reach a new frontier of culinary experimentation, patiently I sought out the source. Finally I chanced upon it today at the Taste of Northampton, an annual 35 restaurant grazing gathering filled with fried everything, lots of sushi, and various oddities. Now offering fried twinkies in Northampton does take some gall. This burg in addition to rolling more sushi than any place east of Japantown is the capital of Tofu Valley, the home of more vegan/vegie restaurants per capita than other town in New England, I dare say. The lone BBQ place was tarred and feathered many years ago. Carnivores are an endangered species. The fast-food franchises are confined to the strip mall that runs between two exits along the interstate. Moreover twinkies represent a lamentable icon in the culture wars. After all it was the twinkie defense that allowed Councilman Dan White to escape serious punishment for his homophobic massacre of Harvey Milk and allies in San Francisco. Northampton is lesbian SF East. Thus with a good deal of fear I siddled up to Nini's La Pazzaria and asked for one fried twinkie in a brown paper bag. They warned me that it was still very hot. So I let it cool a bit before taking my first bite. What a disappointment. The dough had flanged a bit off to the side so the twinkie had lost its core integrity. The sugary doughy cake had lost the soft character that makes a twinkie such an indulgent pillow-like pleasure. The sugary creamy center I had hoped would be oozing with sweetness had lost its gooey core and was reduced to an oily glob. Oh well! Next stop. Fried Snickers.

Clarification please. I have never used an electronic sharpener, but for years and with satisfaction, I use a long (steel ??) rod with a wooden handle and a small guard at the bottom of the rod above the handle to prevent the knife from slipping onto the handle while sharpening. The whole thing is about 16" to 18" long. Once I get into the proper stroking motion and angle, it works easily and quickly with my carbon steel knives. Is what I use here being called "a steel" ?? By the way it is made by Simco USA. I have not regularly used it on non-carbon steel, but when I do, although it does require more effort, it does work.

I hope to post a fuller report on this subject, based on a recent trip to Quebec, but my report has been delayed because, among other reasons, I have not had a chance to check my recent bank statements. The preliminary report based on usage in the province of Quebec is limited to credit card not ATM or, for that matter, debit card transactions. The MBNA card I was using does not charge BankOne's 2% fee for credit card transactions in foreign currencies. On the other hand, with regard to full disclosure, MBNA do not provide, as the BankOne statement does, the actual exchange rate on which the transaction is based. To confirm this I made a purchase which I divided evenly into two different credit transactions. Ultimately the MBNA transaction was 2% cheaper in US Dollars than the BankOne. On the other hand the exchange rate was insignificantly better by a few ten-thousandths of a per cent for BankOne. However when rounded off to the nearest penny it was in fact the same result. This was a purchase of a few hundred dollars -- I imagine the standard maximum on most single credit card transactions. Even with the infinitesmally different exchange rate, the MBNA card saves money. It remains to be confirmed that similar savings prevail in Sterling and Euro transactions. That test will have to wait about two or three months.

Excellent. RA, do you plan to apply your throughly well-conceived and expressed principes de poutine in testing the virtures of 514 poutine purveyors? If so, when may we receive your next report? My hangover and frustrations can't wait.

Did The Brown Derby close down about 5 or 6 years ago?

There is a reasonable likelihood I will get to Paris in May and a slight chance for December. As I understand it, in December no sandwiches only ice cream. In May, both?