Really Nice!

Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volumes 1 and 2 by our dear, late friend. FoodStyle - The Art of Presenting Food Beautifully - by Molly Siple and Irene Sax Herbs and Spices - edited by Waverly Root; speaking of which, he authored two fantastic books about food and food styles: The Foods of France The Foods of Italy These two books describe the cuisine of each country by department and region. They are both great reads! Oh, and a Peanuts Cookbook that I bought in third grade. It has a pink and green cover. Once every five years or so I'll make Charlie Brown Divinity.

Okay, it's not even Labor Day, but Fall is coming. I'm looking forward to making: · French Onion Soup · Soupe au Pistou · Coq au Vin · Braised Lamb Shanks · Roasted Foie Gras · Pot Roast · Le Pichet Chicken

What, you haven't seen the new Seattle Olive Oil Factory™ in the Market? It's pretty cool, they have a half-hour tour in these little cars that look like olives and they take you around showing you how they mine for oil, olive oil that is, the scene is much like what you saw in the beginning of Jurassic Park. There's a movie too. Okay, I'm bored...

Where in Canada? Your choices indicate either east coast or west coast. Esquin in Seattle (only 125 miles from the border) also has wine storage facilities (55F 70%humidity). Using Esquin removes two days from your drive to SF. Contact them to find out if they will handle and hold your purchases until you're ready to pick up. Esquin in Seattle.

Did everyone miss this? "10% of the proceeds benefit breast cancer research" To me it's worth purchasing a bottle or two.

The point system has always given me a good laugh. Europeans really wouldn't drink anything under 14 (using their 20-point system), and American reviewers wouldn't touch anything under 80. Can anyone really pinpoint the difference between a 15 or 15.5, or an 87 and an 88, respectively? It's all subjective, so why not go with a subjective rating system? So, I've recently adapted the TIVO rating system for judging my wines.* 1 thumb up Okay, a good weekday wine. 2 thumbs up Good, something to share with a friend once or twice a month. 3 thumbs up Mine, mine, mine! Something to drink once every three or four months. 1 thumb down Not bad, but drink only if desparate, or it's on sale. 2 thumbs down Make a note not to buy again. 3 thumbs down Pretend to have a headache and can't drink. * This is much like the one-two-three-glass Gambero Rosso rating system for Italian wines; probably the most common-sense review system implemented in the world.

Page 211, for the Latour 1970 vintage, which he rated as in the mid to upper 90s. "The 1970 is excellent, but not inspirational. A bottle from my cellar drunk in late August 2002, was rated 97. It appeared to have at least two decades of life remaining, in contrast to the Chateau's bottles, which require immediate consumption. Readers who purchased old vintages of great wines, regardless of whether they are Bordeaux, Burgundy, or California Cabernet, need to remember the expression, "There are no great wines, just great bottles," particularly after a wine reaches 30 years of age." ctgm, have you tried Wine Searcher? It shows many wines from 1971, including: Montrose (~$100) Latour (~$300) Mouton Rothschild (~$160) Gruaud Larose (~$53.00) Palmer (~$100) Click Search when you get to the site. These are some of Parker's favorite Bordeaux for that year.

Kriste and I went to Union last night to celebrate our anniversary. I made arrangements with Jason, the bartender at Union, the night before. We started the evening at our place to re-create our first dinner: Rover's scrambled eggs and caviar with creme fraiche (recipe is in KCTS Seattle Cooks Volume III), Roast chicken and Potatoes Anna. Then we walked down to Union, stepped inside, and sat at a table by the bar. Kriste didn't know what was happening as we just had dinner at our place. Jason walked up and said, Happy Anniversary! <This was classy!!! Thank you Jason!> We had desserts, Kriste had a Lemon curd tart with berries on a brioche. I had Creme fraiche mousse with port-infused figs. As per our prior arrangement, Jason brought us a bottle of 1994 Chateau D'Yquem. It was lovely, amazing, and fabulous! This 375ml bottle was only $100. This was a steal as acknowledged by Jason. The retail price of it is generally in the $110-150 range. He said they originally had it for $140, but no one was interested so they lowered it to $100. So, when is the next Egullet dinner there?

We went to this today. It started about 30 minutes late. Nick was walking around shaking hands with his "people." It started with Philip Mihalski of Nell's Restaurant making a White Corn and Dungeness Crab soup. He said he'll post the recipe on his Web site. We're making it tonight. Then some guy from Food Network came on stage and we lost interest. Someone handed us a schedule and we didn't see room for the other local chefs so either they cancelled or the schedule was wrong. Was anyone else there?

No offense all, but these sound like recycled "worst of Food Network" ideas: Best of, Top 5, Food 911, Door Knock Dinners, Calling All Cooks, Food Finds, Unwrapped, The Secret Life of... Personally, I'd like to see a show that interviews chefs in their restaurant. It's part Charlie Rose/The Actor's Studio (without all the pompousness) and part Great Chefs (with all the class and style). Yeah, perhaps this too is recycled, but it hasn't been applied to the food industry. For example, each episode is divided into three segments, the first two are an interview between the chef and the interviewer sitting at a table in the restaurant. Segment three is the chef in the kitchen preparing his/her most favorite dish on the menu. The dish doesn't have to be the most popular by customer standards, but something that the chef takes great pleasure in creating. Fade to black.... Segment 1 - The Road to Success Sitting at a table in the restaurant. When did you (the chef) realize you had the 'passion' for this profession? How did you get to where you are. Who were the most influential people to help you achieve your success? What was your biggest obsticle, how did you over come it? What sacrifices did you make along the way? What was your best business decision? What was your worst? Commercial Segment 2 - The Chef's Philosophy Sitting at a table in the restaurant. What do you look for in a potential employee? If I were a culinary student applying for a position, what would be the one thing you'd look for that would put me ahead of the competition. (Besides attitude. ) What mood do you like to have in your kitchen? Typically, as you grow more popular, the demands of the public require that you cook less and less, how do you handle that transition? What's the most unusual or creative idea you've come up with? How do you keep your ideas fresh? How do you measure success? What's next? What's your next business opportunity (what's on your horizon?) If you had to do it all over again, would you? When you go to bed at night, do you reflect on the day, and if so, what do you think about? Commercial Segment 3 - The Chef's Favorite Dish In the restaurant kitchen. This is where the chef prepares the dish that gives him/her the most pleasure and most satisfaction. ----------------------------------- If I were in the business, this is the kind of show I'd like to see. It can be cheaply made because there's no set to maintain or rent, no kitchen equipment to purchase and maintain, there's only a small staff required, and there's no 10+ assistants in the backroom making dishes at various stages of the cooking process. If properly organized, you can interview 10 to 20 chefs (read 10 to 20 episodes) in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. If all goes according to schedule, you could interview 2 chefs a day, and that would help keep the budget down. Chef's I'd like to see interviewed include: Thomas Keller And then in no particular order... Alice Waters Charlie Trotter Daniel Boulud Ethan Stowell Gary Danko Jaques Pepin Jean Georges Vongerichten Jerry Traunfeld John Ash Leslie Mackie (Seattle baker/owner for Macrina Bakery & Café) Paul Bocuse Paul Prudhomme Philip Mihalski Rick Bayless Thierry Rautureau Some might not have a restaurant, such as Jaques Pepin, so it would be 'quaint' to interview these folks in their home. Again, I mean no offense to all of you and your previous suggestions, but for me this would be heaven.

I've eaten there in each of the last four years and each time I ask that they match the wines to the dishes. They obliged this request on every visit.

Yes, and I believe Britney Spears is in the back seat.

Huh? Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!

The book has mixed reviews, but the movie should be worth the price of admission to wine geeks. Quick Time trailer.

Somewhere in his latest bordeaux book (I think it's in Latour) he writes that with age there are no great vintages, only great bottles. Could the same be true for bad bottles? Oh, and for a really nice! '71 try a Penfolds Grange. It's a lovely wine and will evolve for several hours in the glass.

According to my latest copy of the Certified Specialist of Wine Study Guide, TCA is has an extremely low recognition threshold of 1 - 4 parts per trillion. It is estimated that 3 to 5 percent of all wine bottled today is affected by cork taint. So I would say no, this isn't normal. Most people can't detect TCA when it is under 2 parts per trillion. Unfortunately, I'm very susceptible to it and can't drink a tainted wine even though everyone else enjoying the bottle says that there's nothing wrong with it. Eh, you call it witch hunt, they call it aggressive journalism, let's call the whole thing... I think how a winery reacts to these McCarthyesque witch hunts is the most important thing in these announcements. BV and WS had a good, public row going for quite sometime about the 'unacceptable levels' of TCA in BV wines. Lot's of mud slinging in that one. I'm curious to see how Gallo responds to that 55 rating in the next issue, especially with WS giving the '02 Sonoma Chardonnay vintage a 98 rating.

Yeah, Fero's. Sign's been up for awhile - I posted under butcher's thread some time ago - but don't know any more. And today the signs are down. And in other news, the plywood wall in front of Johnny Rockets at 101 Pike Street is gone. Finally, a cheap alternative to Union.

I definitately want to know this information because at $125, it will influence my purchasing decision. Last year I sold some wine through Winebid.com. They would not accept any Beaulieu Vineyard wine (vintage dates 1997 to 2002) due to TCA. This might be worthy of a new thread, but... I understand the basics of TCA, but is it transmittable or spreadable? For example, since I moved from my house into a condo, I now have to store my wine at a wine storage facility. It's 55F and 70 percent humidity in this facility. If someone next to my locker is storing their wines in bleached wine boxes, is it possible for TCA to develop over a period of time? And if so, is my wine in danger of developing TCA? Why is it such a big problem in California?

I don't think it's surprising at all, given WS track record with reporting TCA. Someone over there thrives on publishing this type of stuff as hardly an issue goes by where there isn't some report of it in some wine somewhere in the world. Heck, the last August issue rated a Gallo '02 Sonoma Chardonnay as a 55. They said six of eight bottles had some form of TCA. They seem comfortable with publishing this to the world and basically saying, "You've got a problem, fix it!"

In his imaginary Italian accent.

Trip report?

cool! hey, do they deal with non-trade walk ins? i'm a Dick's regular (i find Seattle Restaurant Store overcharges and usually doesn't have what i want -- how can you not stock an all-metal fish spatula?!?) but the Mercer location is right by my gym, and has Saturday hours ... Yup! And if you're a culinary school student, you get an extra 10 percent off. But I think most places do that.

The delightful Pike Place Market Creamery (owned by the equally delightfully named Nancy Nipples) stocks quail eggs plus duck, ostrich, goose, and specialty chicken eggs. Here's their entry from the market site: PIKE PLACE MARKET CREAMERY Location: Sanitary Market Building, behind Jack’s Fish Spot Hours: Monday – Saturday 9 am – 6 pm, Sunday 10 am – 5 pm Address: 1514 Pike Place #3 Phone: (206) 622-5029 Hey, I was there on Saturday too! I picked some up for Malarky. She made a quail egg, red onion, creme fraiche, caviar pizza. They are 30¢ each. You don't have to buy the typical 6 or 12. You can buy one if you want. They'll line a regular chicken egg carton with paper towels amd place them inside for you. Someone told me that Uwajimaya also carries them for a bit less.

Haven't the trade magazines been documenting (for the last four or five years at least) the problems at Mondavi?