SethG

laurel, that's the best-looking camping meal I've ever seen. And to get that you just added boiling water to a powdered packet, right? I'm going to try your brand the next time I hike! Seriously, that looks fantastic. Did you really make that out in the woods, or were you camping in your back yard? Monday night in my house: porcini mushroom risotto; and eggplant slices, marinated in lemon juice and EVOO, roasted and wrapped around tomato slices that had been dunked in EVOO, dredged in parsley, basil and garlic, and also roasted. And I'm about to have some of the Bourbon Pecan Pie (Courtesy Jaymes) that I made yesterday. Yum, bourbon.

Aren't you guys listening? I said I went to the World Series yesterday! You're supposed to express shock and jealousy, and I'm supposed to say it wasn't that great, but eat your hearts out!

The Zagats have to say positive things about the restaurant or admit the weakness of their entire enterprise. They have to know that sample size is not the only question. A bigger problem than sample size is that very different groups review restaurants in different parts of the city. The Brooklyn folks have given restaurants like Convivium and Al Di La ridiculously high food ratings, and this is because they are not generally reviewing Le Bernadin and Bouley, and vice versa. (And by the way, I happen to like Convivium and Al Di La very much.) I think the effect of a new scene taking shape also inflates the ratings; this happened previously with the Upper West Side. What had previously been a restaurant wasteland got a few good places to eat, and these restaurants got ratings out of line with simlar, often better and cheaper restaurants downtown. I think Grimes' point is sound, but his analogy to music is not. I had a lengthy argument I was going to make on this subject, but I think I'll leave it at that.

Jackal10, thank you for this superb tutorial. I've been wanting to make mayo at home for the longest time, but I've been deterred by the risk of salmonella (my wife is eight months pregnant, so I don't want to take any chances). You seem to feel that this risk is exagerrated. Could you elaborate a bit on this? Also, I recall reading in Peterson's Glorious French Food that egg yolks can be heated to a temperature that will destroy salmonella without destroying their capability to make mayonnaise. Your note one says something about Pasteurization-- but do you have any specific thoughts about this procedure's merits, or tips on how to go about doing it? Thanks again.

At game 2 last night in the upper deck, we had vendor-served beer and peanuts. Also: The friend who got me a ticket brought almost all of a leftover, rare steak for two from the brooklyn Blue Ribbon, along with the spinach side and one grilled vegetable skewer. I brought about half of a bourbon pecan pie I made in the afternoon. I worried that they wouldn't let us bring in the food, but other than a vigorous frisking that made some of the pecan pie squirt out into my jacket pockets, we didn't have any trouble. I tried to get a hot dog late in the game, but I couldn't get the vendor's attention. the game was a bit lacking in suspense, but it was a very nice time nonetheless.

I will have no comment on this aspect of the JA experience! What if you cook them with epazote, Dave? Would that make a difference?

Funny, I had a similar awakening to JAs this weekend. I found a recipe somewhere on the web that had you simmer them, peeled, in a mixture of water and wine for an hour, then add mushrooms and lemon slices for another 20 minutes. I thought they were good, but your roasting experience sounds better! By the way, most of the JA recipes on the web seemed to be for soups.

marie-louise, I think it goes without saying that you are welcome to join in whenever you can. That goes for any other eGulleteers out there, too. Unless MatthewB disagrees, since this is his thread after all. I'm interested to see another vote for Making of a Cook. I'm going to look through it a bit today for the first time. It looks enormous, comprehensive, thorough. But if more of y'all want to do Jules et Jim, I mean Jacques et Julia, I'm down with it. Edited to add: And maybe we should hold off on selecting a book until MatthewB has recovered from the Heartland gathering!

It was good! I would have credited you, except you did not give me the recipe, see? We've never talked about it, got it?

Saturday night: Had a friend over. Made steak. Three shell steaks, pan-broiled, deglazed with wine. Also served noodles with garlic/butter/rosemary/parmesan sauce butternut squash puree from the Frog Commissary Cookbook, a book I may as well plug since I haven't bought it myself. And I got some Jerusalem artichokes at the greenmarket this morning. I'd never cooked or eaten them as far as I knew, and when I got home I did some digging on the web. Turns out they're neither artichokes nor Jerusalem-based. I found some recipe in which you simmer pieces of the "artichokes" in water, wine and onion for an hour, then add mushrooms and lemon slices and simmer some more. And I'll be damned if the pieces didn't come out tasting a lot like artichoke hearts! Neither our guest nor my wife would eat them. But what do they know anyway?

I think I speak for the whole band when I say that you are most welcome to join. Especially if you have a PA and your dad will let us practice in your garage! My report: The recipe I made involved stuffing a chicken under the skin with sauteed mushrooms, garlic and parsley, then roasting the bird, then making a tomato/olive/garlic/herb sauce with the pan drippings. I was able to make some judgments along the way. 1. So far as technique is concerned, I found Jacques' instructions to be pretty clear, but his choices of what to illustrate were sometimes a little curious. The actual stuffing of the chicken is pretty simple, yet Jacques devotes most of the instruction to this step. On the other hand, he tells you to remove the wishbone, but gives you no instruction whatsoever in how to do so. I've roasted a chicken probably once every two weeks for the last two years, and I can carve up a chicken or cut it into serving pieces in seconds, but I've never removed just the wishbone from an uncooked chicken through the neck before, and how to do it did not seem obvious to me. In addition, although I found his trussing instructions (without a needle) to be very helpful and clear in general, I couldn't for the life of me understand what he was telling me to do in step 6, right before the knot is tied. And the illustration was of no help. More importantly, I wished Jacques would tell me why a little more often. Why, for example, should the wishbone be removed? I've never removed it before when I've roasted a chicken, and everything always comes out fine. If you carve into serving pieces, you cut through it, but so what? Last night, I didn't remove it, and I don't think it harmed the dish. Jacques also says it's important to push the breast up when trussing the chicken, but why? Might this not lead to faster cooking of the breast, which I don't think you want? I'd like to know what he's thinking. So in sum, I guess as far as the technique goes, I worry that the book will give me certain skills, but that I'd become a better cook if I better understood the reasons underlying those skills. After working with Jacques last night, the virtues of a book like Cookwise became more apparent to me. (I actually just bought that too, but I've yet to make anything from it.) 2. Cuisine. Jacques' book is not supposed to be about cuisine. So it may be unfair to expect to learn anything about it. But I gotta say I was rather frustrated by the purely technical aspect of the book. I'm not generally a fan of chicken roasted the French way. I've always felt that all the trussing, turning and basting are unneccessary, and that the use of butter to moisten the bird adds so much fat when a couple of lemons in the cavity could do the same job. But Jacques' recipe, it turned out, was not as time-consuming as I thought it would be, and it was delicious. He limits the basting to a couple times right at the end, and the stuffing only takes a few minutes to prepare. And the tomato/olive/garlic/herb sauce at the end also took only a few minutes, and it tasted great. So I had a much more sophisticated dish than my usual roast chicken, and it actually took only marginally more effort. This was a good lesson. But what is this dish? Its use of garlic, tomato, and olives identifies it as a Provence-inspired creation, I guess. But it isn't the usual Provencal chicken, which is stewed in a pot and uses olive oil instead of butter, right? I think it might be an improvement on the Provencal classic, really, because the roasted chicken is tastier to my mind than stewed chicken, which can turn out rubbery if you're not careful. But does this dish have a history, or a name? I'd like to know, and I'll never find out from Jacques. So that's the report. It was successful, and a very tasty dish I will make again. But not without some frustrations.

So many eGullet gatherings lately, one of these days I'll have to attend. Where are those pictures? Let the rest of us see what fun you're having... so we can become still more jealous! I trust you guys will be taking a break this evening to watch the game?

Did you mean Sandra Dee or Sara Lee? Rachel, don't tell me you missed this hot thread?

Heather, I wasn't trying to dissuade the group from using Julia/Jacques. I could go and get it; it sounds worthwhile. I did make that chicken thing (#144) last night, and it has led me to some thoughts about Pepin's book, if you guys want a report.

Roasted a chicken, Jacques Pepin's way (technique # 144), with sauteed mushrooms/garlic/parsley stuffed under the skin and with a Provencal sort of sauce made afterward with tomato, garlic, onion and an herb (I chose rosemary, as I do so often). Leftover green beans Asparagus. No butter-lemon sauce.

I don't have Julia/Jacques, but my copy of Making of a Cook just arrived.

And I think I'll try Jacques' chicken stuffed under the skin (#144) this very evening. This includes two skill sets I want to work on-- getting herbs under the skin, which I do all the time but not very well, and also trussing without a needle (#143). My trussing skills, I must confess, are rather paltry. Not that trussing matters.

I keep flipping through the book, too, and I'm having trouble. There's this divide between dishes that would improve my skills and dishes I'd actually like to cook and eat. I have no experience working with artichokes (#110), so I'd like to give it a try using his method of preparation. But there's no real recipe there. And then I was looking at the meats, and I'm not sure I want my first project to be the trimming or carving of a large roast or leg. The stuffed flank steak (#175) looks pretty nice, plus you then actually do get some roast-tying technique (#168). But then again, the actual cooking of the meat (in a casserole on the stove-top) provides little of the (sautee or other) skill set I'd like to acquire. Maybe the thing to do is to use the book in conjunction with another well-used book, such as Julia Child's MtAoFC (as Julie Powell likes to say). We could use Jacques for artichoke technique, then use Julia for an artichoke recipe. Or we could all pick different artichoke recipes, and just report how the technique worked out. What do you guys think?

This thread has gone a long way in just a few days, but I just stumbled on the above quote and I'm reminded of a restaurant in Prague I visited with my wife. This place had very stuffy, formal service, and the waiter had a set list of recommendations-- several choices he suggested for appetizer, entree, and drinks. And each of his lists was especially designed for either "ladies" or men. This presentation was so over the top, we found it hilarious. And, being comfortable with our genders and not particularly worried about appearances, we felt no need to follow his suggestions. I ordered one of the dishes for the ladies (I do believe it was chicken) and felt a little naughty. I don't think we've ever had this kind of experience in New York, though.

The book came today (Thursday), actually, and I happened to bookmark that corn pudding page. I'll let you know when I make something from the book.

I got around to looking through the November Bon Appetit, and sorry to say, I didn't much like what I saw there either. But last night I did try out the red onions sauteed with vinegar, cranberries and a dash of chipotle. (This isn't the name of the dish-- I don't have the magazine in front of me, and the November issue hasn't been incorporated into Epicurious.com yet.) Anyway, it was great. I think I'll still make a more traditional cranberry sauce come T-day, but I will make this onion dish as well. Great mix of sweet and tart, and the chipotle, which I feared would ruin the dish, adds just the right hint of smokiness and depth. Delish. I also made green beans with shallot butter; very nice. Thanks, Nancy Berry.

Recipe please? I have never seen that combo before and it sounds interesting. And while you're at it, post a link to it in this thread. Dinner Wednesday: Paula Wolfert's rack of lamb recipe from the Ocotber 2003 Food & Wine. I'd never cooked rack of lamb at home before. It was totally simple. I was going to make Paula's suggested side (slow-cooked carrots with olives) as well, but my daughter was not cooperative. She was very cranky for about two hours this evening, and by the time I could turn my attention to shaving carrots, it was too late to start them. So I tried out some potential Thanksgiving sides. I made green beans with shallot butter and almonds. Nice. My very pregnant wife managed to eat five or six beans. And I made a red onion/vinegar/cranberry/chipotle thing from the November Bon Appetit.

I'm a U.S. native, and I never heard of it until last week. I even entertained the notion that the dish was invented by Sandra Lee. I still have a hard time picturing what french fried onions from a can taste like.

Bi-weekly sounds good, and I'm happy to let others set the priorities. I need work in every area. I'm excited about this. But, er.... we're not starting with the vodka bottle?

Oh, I'm in!