SethG

I got some more peaches, tomatoes, broccoli, and some phat blackberries at the downtown market today. They had gooseberries, which I was tempted to buy, but at $3.50 a pint (or were they half-pints?) it just didn't seem worth it to make jam. I may change my mind by Saturday and try to buy some in Brooklyn. The lower Manhattan folks said this week would be the only week for gooseberries there.

Jam.

Sarma, your good-natured defense of Pure Food and Wine and your willingness to speak so freely here have certainly made me more likely to check out your restaurant, whatever Frank Bruni thinks. Thank you for participating.

The NY Times this week has a $25 & Under review of Kombit, a Haitian restaurant on Flatbush Avenue at Prospect. The review is positive. Anyone been?

I believe cinnamon is usually added in a swirl because it reacts strangely to yeast breads, often creating a seemingly metallic, off taste.

I did indeed make sour cherry jam this weekend. I've been shopping at the Brooklyn GAP and Downtown Manhattan markets. I've also been buying sweet cherries, strawberries as often as I can (my daughter eats them very quickly), peaches, sugar snap peas, some of the best broccoli I've ever had in the last two weeks (I mean it!), young onions, and last week I even got some field tomatoes. It seems like the peaches and field tomatoes came early this year. I'm psyched. I wish I could tell you the names of my favorite vendors, but I always forget to take note.

Jubilee came through, as it so often does. Damn! That liquid pectin ain't cheap! I might try extracting some from some apples next time. Suzanne, you've got yourself a deal. I can't promise you much, however, as this will be my second preserving experience ever. My first, just a few days ago, was apricot jam, but it went very well.

Is that a sour cherry conserve, Suzanne? I'll trade you a half-pint of sour cherry jam for a half-pint of sour cherry conserve! Thanks for the offer. I'm already running out of time for today. I want to make jam first thing in the morning before we leave town for the weekend-- but I'd still like to find the liquid for future jams/jellies.

Thanks. Just called 'em. They have powder (which I already have), not liquid. I think I'm going to have to adapt my jam recipe for powder, which I think requires adding the pectin at the beginning with the sugar. I was also thinking even further downtown, like below canal.

Anybody know?

The Beastie Boys are most definitely Beatles fans, although not on the basis of "Egg Man," which is literally about going around town, pelting different people with eggs, ultimately (it's true, listen to the song!) in order to fight racism. But another tune on Paul's Boutique is put together out of a string of Beatles samples and they have a comedy tune called "Cookie Puss" that's a tribute to the Beatles' "You Know My Name, Look Up the Number." Edit: also, didn't they record a cover of "I'm Down" that they couldn't release because Michael Jackson wouldn't allow it?

That's good to know. I'll look for it, thanks. Admin: the current active thread for Blue Hill may be found here

It's funny, but right after I posted the above about the butter, my phone rang, and it was our server from last night at Blue Hill! She called to say that she'd found out which producer made the butter, but had forgotten to tell us. It was the Vermont Butter & Cheese Company. They have a web store, but it looks like they only sell cheese on-line, not butter. Pity. We thought our service last night was exceptionally good, but this phone call is really something else again. (Maybe there's a ghost in the machine.... hmmm.) The quality of the service really enhanced our good time, and the wonderful comped dessert (the passionfruit soufflee) we received was completely unexpected. Again, I don't mean to indicate that the food was bad. Far from it. I was particularly fond of the raw fish pre-appetizer (I think it was fluke?) and my wife's crabmeat salad. The duck entree was the kind of dish one can really get into or be a little disappointed by, depending on your point of view toward a restaurant like Blue Hill. It was a very simple dish of sliced duck, served in a reduced duck sauce with carrots. You might think that would be uninspiring but the duck sauce was (here I'll descend into cliche) so clean, pure, fresh. It was heavenly. We'd go back.

We left extremely happy campers. She's just not so into the pure taste of carrot. When you say "unworthy of serious consideration," that may approximate her feelings, not about the amuse, but about the essence of carrot-ness. The amuse was sort of like being hit in the face with a carrot, which I think she thought was a silly thing to achieve. On the other hand, as I said above, I liked it. It certainly wasn't the focus of our experience at Blue Hill, and I didn't mean to start a big debate. I just noticed some very favorable comments about it above, and thought I'd throw it in there. I think your comments in particular (on another thread), Bux, prepared us for the restaurant. I think we might have been disappointed in our entrees if we hadn't known in advance to expect dishes on the simple side, showcasing the main ingredient over flashy preparations. One ingredient, by the way, totally bowled me over. I thought the butter they had out on the table was the best I'd ever tasted! I kept sneaking tastes of it and feeling (how shall I put this?) ridiculous. I even asked the waitress about it, and she told me their two butter suppliers, but neither of them were local, and I've since forgotten.

I want to report that my wife and I had a very pleasant dinner at Blue Hill last night. Thanks to the comments of many people here, we knew what to expect and had a really nice time. Many of the dishes we ate were commented upon above, so I'll spare you. My wife did think, however, that the carrot amuse-- a real blast of carrot-- was ridiculous. I was "amused" and refreshed by it.

I'm planning to hit Williams Sonoma tomorrow for molds. I thought New Yorkers here might like to know that you can get beeswax from Nature's Way-- they come to the Brooklyn Grand Army Plaza greenmarket on Saturdays. They don't bring beeswax with them, but it can be special-ordered. They're bringing me some in two weeks, 4 oz. for 75 cents.

The meal was good... I'd go back. I tried to approach 66 without comparing each bite to the usual fare in Chinatown, but it's impossible. Each dish invites the diner to ask "is this really all that different from what I get down the street?" and "is it really worth more than twice the price?" Some of the things people ordered that weren't on the prix fixe menu fell into this particularly: scallion pancake, hot & sour soup, and fried rice all tasted pretty much like the usual stuff with slight refinements. The $20 lunch steered clear of such dishes and removed some of the sticker shock. It's a good value for four courses (and they have a $20 lunch all year long, I learned). There are two choices for each course. Course 1: This was a mushroom salad or a tuna tartare. I didn't taste the mushroom salad, but it appeared to me to be mostly greens with a couple mushrooms here and there-- this was not what I expected and I heard a little grumbling about it at our table. The tuna tartare was rolled up into a ball and served with a few little toasts. I thought it tasted fresh, bright, uncomplicated. Course 2: This was a corn and crab soup, which was good but nothing to shout about, or a pair of large shrimp dumplings. The dumplings were the highlight of the afternoon for me. They were really great. Course 3 (main course): This was a choice of a cod dish or a crispy garlic chicken. I enjoyed the cod very much, although I can't really remember much about it. The chicken rivaled the shrimp for best dish of the day. It was superb-- the skin sits atop the meat, perfectly golden and crisp. Then, beneath the skin sits the chicken, which is simply prepared but really really moist. And there's a small bowl to the side with a spice mixture for dipping-- I couldn't tell you what's in it although I guessed a healthy dose of cardamom had to be in there. Course 4: dessert This was a chocolate cake with ice cream or some kind of tapioca concoction. The chocolate cake was delicious, and it had a gooey center. I didn't taste the tapioca. The service was a total disaster, but we were a party of 27 people and the computers were down. I'll cut them some slack and say it was probably a one-time problem.

"Hot cup of coffee and the donuts are Dunkin' Friday night and Jamaica Queens funkin' .... Went from the station straight to Orange Julius Bought a hot dog from my man George Drakoulias"

I can't believe I missed this thread the first, second and third time it came around. Admission: I have never tasted a canele. But this thread has inspired me. I will make a special trip to Balthazar to taste a proper specimen, and then I will bake some myself. This is one of those wonderful things about food-- there are so many avenues down which to wander. There's always some new idea just sitting there, frequently already on your bookshelf, waiting to introduce you to a whole new world.

Wow. Astonishing.

[idiotic joke below.] All I can say is that if Cheap Trick will be playing at the opening of Buddakan, I'm so THERE. "This next one is the first song... on our new album. It just came out this week, and the song is called.... Surrender!"

We're having a good-bye lunch for a colleague tomorrow, and yesterday we were forced to find a new venue. On the spur of the moment, I suggested we try 66 (which is just 'round the corner from my office), but I didn't expect they'd be able to take a reservation for 27 people on a Restaurant Week Tuesday for the Thursday immediately thereafter. To my surprise, they said fine. There's been next to no commentary on eGullet about 66 for the past year. Anyone been lately? Anyone go for Restaurant Week? Has the place improved/gotten worse since it opened?

I got the same warning.

These dividing lines are less than clear. It's all Red Hook, really, isn't it?

We were driving back from my in-laws in New Jersey this evening and lamenting the fact that we were in our car on such a beautiful day, when it suddenly occurred to us to go to Alma in Red Hook/Cobble Hill. This is a Mexican restaurant on the far side of the BQE ditch, on Columbia at DeGraw. The real reason we went was for the atmosphere. The restaurant has fifteen to twenty tables on its third-floor roof deck, which features a view of the harbor and lower Manhattan. Half of the tables are shaded by an awning. It's not a large space, but it's intelligently designed and it was really the perfect spot in which to spend the early evening on a night like tonight. The food wouldn't have to be anything special to justify a visit, especially for a family like ours. (We arrived at 6:00 p.m., and found several other families with small children eating there.) But the menu, while pricy for Mexican food ($15 entrees), is better than the NYC average. The guac is a bit on the bland side, but it tastes very fresh. It is eaten with a spoon. (Just kidding there, Amanda!) The table salsa (which has a nice bite and appears to be made in-house) and the pico de gallo were both very good. I had an excellent pork with mole, and the flan I had for dessert was really really good-- I'd go back just for their take on flan. The custard had a wondeful texture and it sat in a delicious, peppery, minty caramel. (The flan really is eaten with a spoon.)