stefanyb

I really love those dry sauteed string beans. Also, believe it or not, the string beans in garlic sauce are even better than you'd think possible. The 24st street and 9th Avenue branch delivers to my apartment. The food comes in terrific containers and retains a lot of its just wokked characteristics and they're quick, too. Thats definitely going to be my downfall.

Germaine to the nines, I would say.

While we're on the subject of latkes, I passed a display of Bumble Bee Pink Salmon cans and couldn't help but think of salmon latkes. I always made them with salmon, egg, grated onion, breadcrumbs, fresh dill and s&p. Prepare like potato latkes only in butter. I haven't made them in years, though. Anyone remember these?

Damn, why didn't I ever think of that. This is worth the price of today's log on all by itself. You are our lab guy from now. Knowledge I have from working with wax in the studio tells me that boiling the wax paper in water and baking it buttered at the bottom of a cake pan are two entirely different things. Wax reacts to fat, or oil, in one way and to water in another. A painter cannot mix wax with water-based paints but it will work well with oils. Maybe Nick should try his experiment with oil. The wax will still firm up in the shed faster than the oil will.

Thanks Cathy, that makes sense. BTW wax paper worked well for me today. The cake came out of the pan clean as a whistle. Only a little wax stayed on the cake for flavor as well as for aenesthetizing the coming fruitflies

Lets say, hypothetically, I used waxed paper in the bottom of a cake pan. The cake comes out of the oven and cools on a rack. When cool, the cake is inverted on a platter and the waxed paper is removed from the bottom. Hasn't the wax, upon cooling, somehow reattached itself to the paper and when the paper is removed, stay with the paper and not the cake? Thats what I think happens. Wouldn't the wax firm up before the cake was totally cooled?

Say, for instance, that a recipe for a cake specified buttering the pan, lining the bottom of the pan with parchment and then buttereing it- then adding the batter and baking. Could waxed paper be substituted in that case?

Pretty straightforward question. So?

Sorry for not posting before the actual meal at Babbo as to who had used the reservation, but I had my reasons. Reading and responding to the posts in the original thread and then reading this thread turned out to be well worth the effort of obtaining the reservation in the first place; very entertaining edit: perhaps more entertaining than having eaten the dinner certainly cheaper

I'm not sure if we agree or disagree . I just think once you do to the gefilte fish what you described that, for me at least, it would no longer be Jewish cuisine. If you would like to name it Jewish haute cuisine, well maybe I could go along with that but why not just call it French? The connection to how the original version tastes wouldn't be enough to offset the texture, presentation and ultimately the gestalt of the dish as being something else entirely. But this is really just semantics, anyway.

I would say that certain cuisines' very essence is the peasant quality it has that derives from the poor circumstances of the founding ethnic group. Without the rustic quality it would be something else entirely. Making gefilte fish into quenelles is not a refinement; it is making a French dish that just happens to resemble a dish in another cuisine. Peasant cuisines are just that, peasant cuisine, not haute cuisine. Also, rather than logs, aren't quenelles formed by using two spoons in the classical way turning the paste over and over onto each spoon until the football shape is achieved? Wasn’t gefilte fish originally stuffed into the whole fish, hence the name gefilte (stuffed) fish? Or would that be geschtupte fish ? Would you ask if there could be an haute soul food? I would be more interested if someone prepared the dishes I am the most familiar with with the most quality ingredients, excellent recipes, cooking skills and attention to detail. Perhaps some egulleter

Strip House has its pros and its cons. It also has its tables for 8-10 with young whippersnappers getting drunk and making an awful racket. I will say one thing; they are doing a nice business. No economic turndown for them. Onto the food: My rib chop was nicely charred and flavorful on the crust but that was the beginning and end of its good points. I thought the sides of the fries, goose fat potatoes and creamed spinach were fairly well done. I’ve had the spinach before, though, and I will agree with Liza, it didn’t have much truffle flavor; in the past the truffle flavor was much more pronounced. The marrow bone seemed to have mashed potatoes stuffed into the top. Maybe it was just the uncooked marrow. All in all the food was just okay. The chocolate cake, serving for one?, was surely modeled after the Flatiron Building and almost as large. Of course, the ever delightful and entertaining Simon was able, even in this room of screaming mimis to keep us all amused and three hours just flew by.

I was just thinking that today's baked potato never tastes as good to me as the ones my mother used to "bake" on the stove. These pans were black metal with a wooden handle and shallow with, I think, holes in the bottom. They had high dome tops and "baked" a potato with the crispiest skin you can ever imagine. The inside was light and fluffy and delicious. Anyone remember?

Baruch, What you fail to realize is that the so-called browbeating is nothing more than someone stating their opinion, right, wrong, or otherwise. There can always be a response to it by the other person stating his/her opinion. These exchanges only add to the information a thread may contain. On the other hand, name calling and personal attacks do not add anything to the site and are not permitted anyway.

kind of like ahole, huh.

What means winsob?

Define good time. Are we talking subjectively or objectively - as in, "I had a good time," or, "A good time was had by all?" After Plotsnitski's immortal, "Once again, taste is not subjective" (Artisanal thread), I want to be careful here. I would submit that the intellectualization of a sensual experience tends to decrease the level of enjoyment, at least at the moment of experience. Perhaps it would increase the level of enjoyment when savoring the *memory* of a sensual experience. Even if the dining experience is both a sensual and intellectual one isn’t the sensual aspect primary? Without actually smelling, tasting, feeling the textures in your mouth and swallowing, its just mental masturbation, much like posting here. Not that this isn't fun, only it lacks the sensual impact of the primary experience (unless, of course, you always eat while posting).

Heelllloo.......french fries are, after all, potatoes last time I looked and whats the most common condiment with them? Suvir, I'm drooling along with you

Thats one thing that makes life itself so interesting If you're open to it.........

Probably his own food, and from what I've heard, deservedly so.

I suppose you could describe Relais and Chateaus as opulent. I've stayed at a number of hotels in France and Italy that were part of R&C and I found them to be physically beautiful but the staff to be so fed up with obnoxious Americans who think they can act any way they please and demand anything they want that they, the staff, have an attitude of impatience and annoyance. Also, having to put up with the guests is not very pleasant even for another guest. R&C seems to attract a certain type. Perhaps upstate NY is different but I doubt it. Also, I've never found the food and wine to live up to the prices.

For formal dinners: (I adore tableware) Royal Copenhagen dinnerware, a combination of Blue Flower, Blue Fluted, Half Lace and Full Lace. I have a total of 28 place settings and 24 serving pieces including a 22" platter of Blue Fluted from around 1800, or so they tell me. These are my most prized material possessions. For additional serving pieces I have a diverse collection of glass Heisey bowls and platters in multiple patterns which I have collected for 30 odd years and paid only a few dollars for some of the most beautiful. Stemware is Riedel, Baccarat and Imperial. Silver is Frank Smith sterling flatware from 1910, Newport Shell, also known as Puritan in later years. It is your basic bead and shell pattern. Tablecloths are Bellino damask in a butter color. I use these things only a couple of times a year unlike our own Robert Schonfeld who eats his dinner every evening on the wonderful Royal Copenhagen china.

I have never been there although I have looked, in the past, into what it would be like to visit. The things that put me off were, for one, that it was part of Relais and Chateau; also, that tie and jacket is required for all dinners and that black tie is suggested. It looks beautiful both from a geographic standpoint and from an accommodations standpoint, at least in their promotional materials, but I just can't imagine lugging a trunk full of formal wear to upstate New York.

I've always squeezed the grated potatoes dry before adding any other ingredients other than the grated onion. It just seems logical. Why strain out the eggs or salt and pepper?

I'll bite