essvee

What is a granadilla?

My recipes state you just drink the broth, and discard the carcass.

Spenser, what I meant is that I'll never work in a restaurant again. 20 years was enough for me.

Panang curry paste often, but not always, contains peanuts.

Oh, Spencer, man, that post made my toes curl. Very vivid description of how it is. Never again. Never again, I tell you.

Well, it might not be gourmette enough, but a good strong cheddar is my favorite by far. Many many lunchtimes have been satisfying because of it. Followed by The Regg, most indispensable, and any one of a variety of triple cremes, Pave d'Affinois, Marcellin, along those lines. Goat cheeses too, for number four.

I eat everything. In my house, there was no argument. If you complained, you got more. I guess it rubbed off.

The Miss Florence in Florence MA. There's only one thing to order-- corned beef hash. They grind it, which is very old-style, slap a great big plate-sized circle of it on the griddle with some red onions smooshed into it, crisp it on both sides and serve it with poached eggs on top. Almost surreally good, the combination of crisp outside and creamy, meaty, potatoe-y inside is splendid, with the velvety egg smeared on the top. I miss it so. Snif. And damn, when I was in Chicago, we stayed right around the corner from the Salonica!! My wife and I laughed because they proclaimed themselves to be "pan-cake specialists." We wanted to go and challenge them to prove this wild assertion to us, but we were always too full from the night before to think about breakfast. Wah. Next time. The Miss Florence has a sister diner named the Miss Worcester, under the highway on Southbridge Street in Worcester MA. The food wasn't good, but it was a great place to eat homefries and drink coffee in the wee hours, eavesdropping on the drunken conversations and trying to sober up enough to drive home. The good old days ...

Feh. I shy away from any place that advertises NR beef. I consider it tasteless. Even their hamburger's not good (Burger Joint, for instance). Harris Ranch, on the other hand, is beefy heaven. If'n you don't believe me, go to Berkeley Bowl (if you dare), where they sell Harris Ranch, Niman Ranch, and Western Grasslands. Mebbe Whole Foods does too. Do a taste comparison. You'll see. NR is a classic example of food snobbery gone wild. Aidell's sausage is another. Not good. It all tastes like kielbasa. They smoke their Italian sausage, fer chrissake! The lone exception is their fresh (important) chicken apple sausage. That stuff is quite good. Folks out here will believe anything if the right person or persons tell them.

I hate margarine. A lot. But Buffalo wings don't taste right without it. Just butter won't do. I wish it would, but it won't. Here's what you do. Melt margarine with a little butter. Add Frank's hot sauce to taste. Deepfry wings to very crisp. Toss wings with sauce. Pop into 500 degree oven for a minute or two to infuse wings and sauce. Eat. Try not to make animalistic noises. Fail. That's it. No spices. No nothing. Anything else and you'll have tasty wings, but not Buffalo wings. Don't forget the blue cheese. Ranch dressing is an abomination, a CMD (condiment of mass destruction).

The Mayflower at 3Oth and Geary is outstanding Hong-Kong style.

Soup, like meat broth with celery and arborio rice, cotechino, salad, cheese, fruit dessert, like macerated oranges or grapes, or granita, or a crostata.

Any cotechino I've ever come across is raw. I would simmer it longer than an hour; it gets creamier (from the pork rind melting) the longer it simmers. Up to three hours, really. I've done both and the longer simmer really makes a difference. As to the lentils, they should only take a half-hour or so to cook. Chop a little onion and garlic, saute in olive oil, add a cup or so of lentils, double that of cooking water. Enjoy. Cotechino is so good; I've never seen a zampone. Someday...

It's not E-Mass, but the corned beef hash at the Miss Florence diner in Florence, MA, is the ne plus ultra. They grind it, stick big rounds of red onion into it, and fry into plate-size crispy crusty creamy perfection. It totally kicks ass.

It is a brilliant medium for pan-searing white fish: monkfish, sea scallops, and the like. Unbelievable golden color and smoky, meaty undertones. Recently, I made Franey's duck stew, and used some of the fat I rendered to finish mashed potatoes I had already added butter and cream to. They carried the flavor of the duck fat in an incredibly savory manner, without being too heavy/greasy. A friend made pommes Anna with them once at his restaurant: I didn't like it so well, but that may be because pommes Anna are the perfect marriage of potatoes and butter. Imagine, a potato dish made with so much butter you must actually pour some off! Swoon...

The sausages that so many Italian cookbooks are called luganega and don't contain fennel or garlic. I think fennel seed is an Italian-American thing.

cabrales. I would be happy to. It was presented in a lidded iron pot, an airline breast stuffed with foie gras and strewn with aromatic veggies and herbs. The waiter took the lid off, placed the breast on the plate, and put down a monkey dish with broth and fried fideo noodles and cubes of foie gras. The chicken was, just, perfect. Real striated chucken muscle from a real chicken, not cottony and mushy. Such a beautiful dish. Laurent is mad for foie gras. I had his foie three ways as an app. Salt-cured, terrine, and wrapped around an Armagnac-soaked prune. Served with perfect tiny slices of pain levain and sweet butter. It kicked my ass. I also had something very special. I had brought a 1970 BV cabernet (for my wife's 30th birthday). The sommelier was impressed, and at the end of the meal, he brought over a bottle of very special aged Chartruese. Oh my god. I love liqueurs, and this was stunning. Instead of being, well, chartreuse-colored, it was clear, with just a hint of green. It was less sweet than regular green Chartruese and intensely intensely herbaceous. I will never forget it, especially as I don't drink any more. Um, anyone wanna buy my wine cellar? No '70 BVs, alas...

I've been, twice. Laurent is a genius. His poule au pot is a revelation.

It seems to be, yes. Man, when I did it, the shells kept filling up with water!

I as well have made the Arpege eggs, not from pw's recipe but from a recipe in Saveur a few years back. My tip is to steam the eggs in a sawed-off bit of egg carton. i tried to float the eggs in boiling water per the recipe and they kept filling up with water. Outstanding stuff and will wow your guests with a minimal effort.

Good call, mamster. When I said "fat-free" I really meant "practically greaseless." Not quite the same.

I just flipped through the thread and didn't see this method, which is the best by far. Put in on a half-sheet pan fitted with a rack and do it low and slow in the oven. The fat drips through the rack so the bacon does not stew in it. The end result is divinely crispy, fat-free bacon. This method is one of the reasons I quit cooking for a living. Pass by enough bacon-filled racks and sometimes one might eat 15 pieces of bacon in an afternoon. Ai dolor!

I use whatever flour I have around, hopefully usually high-gluten bread flour. I'm new around here, so I missed the pasta slam, but IMHO, adding water to pasta dough is just not done. 1 large egg to every 1/2-3/4 cups flour, that's it. I also stretch it by hand rather than use a pasta maker. It's really not that hard to do, and I like the results much better. I taught myself years ago using the instructions from The Classic Italian Cookbook. It's a very satisfying skill to have;, it impresses your pals, and the pasta is chewier, heartier, and more rustic than what you get from a machine, which I consider to be a tad egg-noodley. Give it a try. It helps to have an Italian-style rolling pin, which resembles a dowel. Salud!

It was still the Ethopian joint when I moved to Oakland (five blocks from Chinatown!).

Kyo-ya, the Japanese restaurant in the Palace Hotel downtown will probably have what you are looking for. http://www.kyo-ya-restaurant.com/ Also, Hama-Ko is Cole Valley does a bitchen kaiseki. Call the chef and tell him how much you want to spend.