JAZ

Actually there are two Lillets: one white (Blond) and one red (Rouge).

About 90, with another couple dozen that are about food but in no way cookbooks, and a dozen or so books on cocktails, spirits, wine and beer (these do contain recipes but I'm not sure if they count).

so does the ass always come cured, and sold as ham? According to Aidells and Kelly's Complete Meat Cookbook, the uncured leg can be difficult to find, since apparently not many butchers know how to cut up a whole leg into smaller roasts. So most are smoked and end up as ham. But they say you should be able to order one from a decent butcher. Look for it as "pork leg" or "fresh ham."

A salad of blood oranges and beets, if you want a side dish.

The other night I was caramelizing onions to serve with steak. I had also steamed some brussels sprouts, and was toying around with some ideas for finishing them when I was struck by the idea of adding the sprouts to the onions. A splash of balsamic vinegar and a fairly heavy sprinkle of salt, and it was a wonderful dish.

The first cookbooks I owned were a couple of Sunset books -- Cooking with Spices and Herbs, and Breads. I still have both, and use them for a couple of recipes. Shortly after I bought those (some time in college) my mother gave me a book on crepes and omelets -- one of those paperback books that was divided into two, so that if you opened it one way you got the crepe side and if you flipped it over and opened it that way you got the omelet section. I somehow only ever used the crepe side, but I made a lot of crepes back in those days. I don't know what happened to the book; I kept it for quite a while, but hadn't used it in ages and it disappeared in one of my moves.

Since I was planning on scrambling some eggs anyway, I just took the opporutnity to do a little experiment. I whisked three eggs separately: one plain, one with a tablespoon of water and one with a tablespoon of whole milk, then cooked them separately. I used the same pan with a little butter. The egg with milk didn't blend very well -- when I poured it into the pan to cook, there were big streaks of unwhisked whites. The egg with water blended quite well, and turned very very pale. They seemed to cook at about the same rate. The egg with the water was fluffier than either the plain one or the one with milk, but felt and tasted watery. The one with milk was fluffier than the plain one. The texture was nice and creamy, but the flavor was weak. Usually when I scramble eggs I blend in a little butter right as the eggs are finishing (unless I'm adding cheese), so the plain egg seemed a little dry compared with my usual eggs, but it was definitely the best tasting of the three. The only time I add liquid to eggs for scrambling is when I make what I call quiche lorraine eggs. In that case I add quite a lot of half and half, whisk the eggs constantly until they're just set, then fold in some diced cooked bacon or ham and gruyere cheese. In that case I want more of a custard taste and less of a plain egg taste, which is exactly what I get.

No, not terrible at all (at least I don't think so). But to me, what you asked is worlds apart from what the WSJ folks did. You asked about a daily special that's usually available, at a restaurant you're familiar with. And I imagine that if the waiter had returned to your table and said, "sorry, sir; the chef couldn't get them today" you wouldn't have insisted on ordering off the menu. (I can't help wondering why, though, if the short ribs were already prepared, they weren't on the menu. Think they were being saved for the dinner menu?) On a more general note, I began reading this thread wondering why on earth anyone would think they should be able to get something off the menu, but I have come to understand why in certain circumstances, one would want to ask if it's possible. Insisting or assuming that the restaurant has a duty to comply, though, is still a notion that's beyond me.

I did get a copy of the article to read, and on this point, I had to infer that they behaved badly. Phrases like "Some restaurants wouldn't take us seriously until we graciously insisted" make me think that they were in the obnoxious camp (how can one "graciously insist"?). And the fact that they provided " few parameters" leads me to believe that they probably came across poorly -- it probably seemed as if they were just being difficult, rather than trying to get the best from the kitchen.

Can't believe no one's mentioned the episode where Homer (with lots of help from Lisa) becomes the restaurant critic for the paper. Or the one where he get sued for eating too much at the "all you can eat seafood" restaurant.

I guess I'm missing something here. Why would you go to a restaurant and expect to get something not on the menu? I've occasionally asked for a minor substitution (plain mashed potatoes instead of scalloped potatoes with roquefort, for example, when the plain potatoes are on the menu elsewhere) but that's the only sort of thing it would occur to me to ask. I have been to restaurants where the menu changes and been disappointed to find something I'd previously liked was no longer available, but I never even thought to ask if I could have it anyway. I can definitely understand special requests to accommodate allergies or other dietary requirments, but I think if those were substantial (e.g., vegan, wheat-free, etc.) I would call in advance to ask about possibilities and make arrangements. Now it's true that I rarely, if ever, go out to high high-end restaurants, and if that's where this tends to occur, then maybe that's why this seems so strange to me. I'm not being just a devil's advocate here; I truly don't understand this thread. Can someone enlighten me? (I haven't read the WSJ article -- hopefully my sister still has the paper it appeared in, so I can catch up).

I stand by my assertation that a few leaves of iceburg and only iceburg lettuce below the pattie sops up the beef juices quite nicely and wonderfully wilts the iceburg lettuce. Nope. Maggie's right. Why on earth would you take iceberg lettuce, whose sole virtue is its crispness, and put in on a burger where it wilts? That's just wrong.

Any idea why? Not sure. All that occurred to me was all the acid in the wine, and the long cooking time. Doesn't seem sufficient, does it? Guess it's possible. Lots of salt, maybe? I don't tend to add much salt to stews and such to start with, so I doubt that was it. (Now, this was about 12 years ago, so it's not like I can remember the details.) And after that episode, whenever I used pearl onions in stews, I added them halfway or two-thirds of the way through, so I never expereinced the same thing. Here's another thing: My ex used to compete in chili cookoffs in Texas (won a couple, even), and he said that in those competitions, the only identifiable pieces of anything allowed were meat chunks. In other words, all the tomatoes, and onions had to dissolve. And when he made chili, his onion chunks dissolved too. His chili simmered for a very long time, and had enough tomatoes to bring the up the acidity level, so I still think it's the cooking time combined with acid.

The only flaw I witnessed was in clean-up. These things are very hard to clean back to their original shine. There may be a specific product that does the trick, but I think you're going to have to resign yourself to significant dulling of the surface. I don't think it will affect performance, though. FG, it's been my experience that it's tough to keep any "clad" type stainless cookware looking new. I have pieces of All Clad and Kitchenaid and they both require lots of Bar Keepers Friend and hard work to keep really shiny. Even my beloved Demeyere takes some scrubbing occasionally to stay looking nice. Does the Chefmate seem harder to clean than, say, All Clad?

Any idea why? Not sure. All that occurred to me was all the acid in the wine, and the long cooking time.

Aren't avocados one of the fruits that won't ripen on the tree? I know I've read that somewhere; anyone know if that's correct?

I've used the frozen ones with success (I'm not ordinarily a big fan of frozen vegetables either, but it's so much easier than peeling the little suckers). I actually even used them to roast along with some sweet potato chunks once. I was afraid they might be mushy, but they worked well -- crisped right up. If you want to peel fresh onions, try blanching in boiling water for a minute or so. It works better than soaking in hot water. But it's still a pain. I'll never forget the first time I peeled pearl onions -- it was for a beef stew that I was going to cook in the crockpot. I finally got all the onions peeled and dumped them in the pot along with the other ingredients, including a couple of cups of red wine. Turned on the crockpot, went to work. When I came home and checked on the stew I discovered that every single last onion had simply dissolved in the wine. All that work, and not an onion to show for it...

Here's my recipe for the dressing version (the original came from a Turkish cooking class given by an instructor/chef named Anel Stoyanof, but I've altered it a bit). 1 cup lowfat yogurt 2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 1 small clove garlic, minced 1 Tablespoon ground cumin 1/4 tsp. cayenne 1 1/2 Tablespoons finely chopped fresh mint 1/2 tsp. kosher salt (or to taste) This needs to time for the flavors to mellow and blend; otherwise the garlic is a little overpowering. The original recipe called for whole milk yogurt, but I found it a little too rich with the olive oil (might just be that I'm more used to the lowfat). This amount is enough for about a pound of carrots, shredded. As I recall, when I made it as a dip, I merely drained the yogurt first and kept everything else about the same -- I may have upped the mint a little. Keep in mind that I made the dip specifically for carrots; if I were planning to use it with other vegetables that lack the sweetness of carrots, I might think about adding a pinch of sugar. Some notes: I generally toast cumin seeds, then grind fresh.

Yes, it is in Seabrook. So, I assume that as served there, the bacon is in a pretty large dice and still too fatty? That was my concern when I read about it. Is that why you think it'd be better to parboil it first, or grind it?

In the 2002 edition of the book Best Food Writing, there's a piece describing the burgers at a place called Tookie's in Texas. They're apparetnly famous for the "squealer," in which the beef for the burger is mixed with diced bacon. I very rarely cook burgers, but I'm wondering if this might be worth trying out. Seems to me that if you started with fairly lean ground chuck, the bacon would add the necessary fat, plus, well, bacon flavor. But my concern would be that the bacon wouldn't cook enough, and there are very few things ickier than underdone bacon. Any opinions?

I have a good recipe for a carrot salad with a spiced (garlic/cumin/mint) yogurt dressing, which I've also altered into a dip for carrots. You might be able to play with the proportions, using a little carrot for color and flavor, but keeping it as a dip rather than a salad. If you're interested I'll find the recipe and post it.

Very nice analogy. I'd not thought about food in terms of syntax and meaning before (too busy thinking of musical analogies, I suppose). One could go further and say that some other utterances, while not meaningless, are still so banal that they should certainly have been edited out of the final draft. There are numerous references in books on language to computer programs that attempt to create meaningful sentences and paragraphs, most of which have been dismally unsuccessful. I wonder what the result would be if a chef tried to use a computer program to generate ideas for new dishes?

And Can you explain a little more about what this sort of balance entails? You've said quite a bit about what it's not (i.e., it's not "nutritional" balance and it's not sensation based), but not much about what it is. Is it just an awareness that how I feel is, in part, affected by what I eat? Is it an awareness that what I eat has an effect on the environment? Both of those? More? Maybe this is something that I'm just not going to understand, because I'm not by any definition of the term a "spiritual" person, but I'm really interested, if you could give some examples (sorry, but watching Eat Drink Man Woman is not an option for me).

This isn't new -- it's been out for a couple of years and, in fact, has long passed its height of popularity.

Here's a fifth. I'm with you on the Tanqueray, but I prefer my gin and tonic with lemon. I'll have to try the gorgonzola olives - that sounds yummy. Hey, I may be with you on the gin, but those olives sound vile. How could you ruin a good olive (not to mention the gin) with something as loathesome as blue cheese? What you want to get is olives stuffed with a piece of lemon peel. Now that's an olive for a martini.