JAZ

A few weeks ago I read an essay in the NYT dining section which started out with an observation that -- apparently -- lots of adults all over the U.S. eat cold cereal as a night time snack. The essay then went on to suggest that polenta (aka "hot cereal") would be a better choice. The essay was pretty lame, in my opinion, but the author's contention about cold cereal surprised me. As someone who hasn't eaten cold cereal at any time of the day for more than 15 years, I can't imagine cold cereal being something anyone would eat at night (well, any time, actually, but I can understand the appeal at breakfast -- it's fast, easy and filling). So, have I been missing something all these years? Is cold cereal a perfect snack for late night?

I make a smoked salmon risotto that has dill and leeks in it (finished with mascarpone). It's very good. If you leave out the smoked salmon, you could serve it with baked or grilled salmon.

As Rebecca noted, cardamom goes well with apple. If I had cardamom liqueur, I'd try mixing it with applejack or Calvados and some lemon juice to start. I imagine it would be great in a hot buttered rum, too.

Maybe the salt mills I've used haven't been the right ones, because I find that they never grind as fine as table salt, and I also find that the grind is generally uneven. So I can't imagine using one for sprinkling an even layer of fine salt. I use a shaker for those applications. Even sprinkling kosher salt from my fingers results in a more even layer of salt than the grinders I've used. As for the clumping issue, even living in San Francisco, with its moist marine air, for 20 years, I never had any trouble with clumping (using, from time to time, Morton table salt, which has anti-clumping agents, but also Baleine'sfine salt, which doesn't).

Just picked up a small bottle of Tanqueray's Rangpur, but I'm unsure what to do with it. I tend to prefer the juniper-heavy gins, but I wanted to give this a try. Has anyone had any great successes mixing this gin, or tried any good drinks with it?

It used to be that at virtually any American restaurant, you'd find a set of salt and pepper shakers on every table. Also, at least at a certain class of restaurant, waiters seemed to appear with pepper grinder in hand for fresh ground pepper (which was almost always in addition to the shaker). Now, it seems to me that fewer restaurants, especially the high end ones, provide salt and pepper at the table. I can see a couple of very different reasons for this: I'm sure that anything remotely attractive walks out the door with more than one customer; and (I suspect) there's a feeling among chefs that their food is perfectly seasoned and adding salt or pepper to it is sacrilege. In addition, there's probably a feeling that salt and pepper (particularly pre-ground pepper) at the table are somehow passe or perhaps even lower class. And yet, if there's one thing that can make or break virtually any savory dish, salt is that thing. Much as chefs might not like it, their taste for salt might not be universal, so why not give diners the option of seasoning to their taste? In most cases, pepper is probably not such a big deal, but why make the customer ask for salt or suffer under-salted food?

A note about the mini-magnum mill: it works fine, once you get it filled. Filling it, however, is about the most frustrating thing I've ever done. You have to take the top off to fill it, but the top is what holds the grinding mechanism in place. Thus, you have to hold the shaft of the grinder in place while you're filling the (very small) body with pepper. I can't believe that they couldn't have come up with a better design.

I use it in glazes -- for instance, concentrate, mustard, brown sugar and bourbon makes a great glaze for ham.

When I puree them, I puree the sauce as well, and then strain out the seeds, so I have a completely smooth product. Usually if I have a recipe that calls for the pepper only, I used dried peppers reconstituted with hot water.

I've heard that "heaviness" is a good indicator as well, but in practice, I guess I don't feel much difference, in limes at least. There seems to be more difference among lemons. However, as far as age goes, it doesn't seem to me that age correlates with juiciness. As I mentioned above, I've cut into limes with brown spots, even ones whose flesh has started to turn a little brown and they're still very juicy (even though I've been too cautious to use the juice when the flesh is brownish).

I noticed that the plywood is off the windows and the lights were on at the location in Midtown (on Monroe near Virginia), so I'm hoping it will open soon. Has anyone heard an opening date?

In my old neighborhood, I got spoiled buying citrus -- I could almost always buy lemons at 5/$1 and limes for half that. The quality wasn't always the best, but even when they were a little old, they seemed to have lots of juice. Now, not only are lemons and limes really expensive, but I seem to be running into a depressing number of dried out fruit -- limes especially. I wonder why that is, but more important, I wonder if there are reliable ways to predict which fruit will be the juiciest. From casual observation, it seems to me that the driest limes have had really dark, rough skin, but I don't know if this is an indicator, or merely a coincidence. It certainly doesn't seem to be the case that old limes are drier -- I've used limes (and lemons) with spots that are quite juicy. In fact, once in a while, I've cut into one that's actually started to turn brown inside -- I haven't used them, but they seem to still have plenty of juice left. With lemons, it seems to be a different story. I rarely find lemons that are dried out in the same way as limes (oranges also seem to suffer from desiccation), but I have bought more than a few that have such thick skins that the actual fruit is tiny and thus produces very little juice. I try to get lemons that give a little with pressure, but then sometimes that backfires and I end up with a spoiled one. So, essentially, I'm at a loss. Anyone have tried and true methods for estimating juice content for citrus fruit?

Having done a fair amount of research on this phenomenon, I have to say that this "test' is virtually worthless. As a previous post said, it's about ambiance and social constructs, not about tastebuds. This quiz makes it seem as if being a supertaster is merely a matter of likes and dislikes in some vague sense. It's not, really. It's a matter of tastebuds and measurable sensitivities. There are a lot of reasons a person can dislike Brussels sprouts, for example -- just disliking them doesn't mean you're a supertaster. From what I've read, more reliable indicators are an aversion to alcohol, a violent dislike of bitter foods, and a virtual inability to tolerate spicy foods. Whether you like patios, or smell your food before tasting, or like to talk to your friends while you eat seem to me to be completely spurious questions in determining supertaster status. I can't believe a publication printed this.

After reading hathor's and Pontormo's comments, I actually re-read the article to make sure we were talking about the same thing. I said before, and I stand by it, that it didn't seem to me that she's claiming any kind of Italian "authenticity" for her sauce or her mother's sauce. I saw just the opposite: yes, she starts out in Italy, but she quickly realizes and freely admits that there's no "mother red sauce" to be found there. From her grandmother necessarily relying on American ingredients to her mother and aunts further changing the "family" recipe depending on whim (and what was in the freezer), she seems completely aware that the family sauce is an ever-changing hybrid that's more a state of mind than an actual recipe. That, to me, was the point of the article. To get upset that her sauce isn't "Italian" or "authentic" or to infer that she's perpetuating stereotypes is, I believe, to miss her point entirely and to put words in her mouth (or typescript on her page) that she never intended. While I might not go as far as Steven and say that it'll be the best of the Times in 2007, I did think it was a very well written and artfully constructed essay that told the story she wanted to tell. (And I'll second his statement about headlines -- never hold a writer responsible for the headline.)

I don't think the point of the article was supposed to be about Italian cooking at all. She says pretty clearly right at the beginning that it's about the changes in a family recipe: She very quickly realizes that it's not about the Italian version of the sauce (whatever that may have been): Nowhere in the article does she claim that her sauce, or even her mother's sauce, is authentically Italian, so I guess I don't see that it perpetuates any stereotypes.

Umami is a difficult taste to understand -- especially since many of us didn't grow up thinking of it as a taste and so have less experience identifying it. "Sour," "sweet," "salty" and "bitter" aren't really any easier to define, but since we've heard the terms since we started eating and have plenty of examples, we feel more comfortable talking about them even though we can't actually define them. Another difficulty in trying to isolate the umami taste is that many common umami-rich foods are also salty -- soy sauce, fish sauce, aged cheeses, anchovies -- so I think it's easy to think of umami as just a different kind of saltiness instead of a separate taste. "Savory" isn't exactly a synonym for umami, but it happens to be the term most writers use when talking about the taste, so I think of it as a kind of starting point. However, as I point out in the second class, Texture, I think that much of the experience of umami is mouthfeel rather than actual taste. The best way to "understand" umami is to experience as many forms as you can by trying the foods that are high in glutamate. Buy a bottle of Ac'cent, a chunk of grana cheese (the older the better), fish sauce, mushrooms, etc. Try a pinch of the Ac'cent dissolved in warm water -- I think that's the purest form of the taste. Think about not only what it tastes like, but how it feels in your mouth. Saute the mushrooms and try them plain, then try them with a pinch of Ac'cent -- I think this is a really good way to "get" umami, since you're tasting it at one level with the mushrooms, and then bumping it up with the Ac'cent. I know this isn't a very fast and easy answer, but I hopt it helps.

Am I the only person who doesn't like the taste of flowers in my food? Rose petals or rose water, orange blossom water, lavendar -- they all make me think of soap or perfume when I'm eating.

I think the 20 minutes to Zuni is overoptimistic -- 20 minutes actual travel time, maybe (with little traffic), but that's not counting the time to get a cab, much less rent a car. BART's convenient, but depending on the schedule, I'd say it's at least 45 minutes to the city. That being said, I think if I had six hours, I'd leave the airport, but for only two hours, I'd stay. As Erik said, it's not all bad. The Anchor bar has great beer, but the food is not that great. However, Perry's is very good for pub food -- good sandwiches and burgers with (I think) housemade potato chips. Good Bloody Marys too -- made from scratch instead of a mix.

I go through stages with buying salted snack nuts, and I guess I've been out of the market for a while, but it seems to me that there are a lot more combinations available these days than there used to be. When I was a kid, mixed nuts came in two varieties: regular -- with peanuts, or "deluxe" -- without them (and much more expensive because of it). You could get just almonds or just cashews, or just peanuts, but the two choices were pretty much it as far as mixtures went. Now, if you check out the nut aisle at your grocery store, or (for instance) the Planters Nut site, you'll find the usual mixes (also in honey-roasted and "lightly salted") but also specialty mixes. I just found a mix of cashews, almonds and macadamia nuts from Planters, for instance, which is quite possibly the only nut mixture I will ever buy from now on (no need to discreetly push aside the pecans and Brazil nuts). I'm not sure if this wider selection is a result of the new craze of nuts and health, but I'm all for it. Has anyone else noticed this trend? Any other great mixes out there I need to try?

Having moved recently and thus not knowing anything about which delivery pizza places are any good, I've tried a couple of frozen pizzas, and found one that's pretty good -- California Pizza Kitchen's Crispy Thin Crust. I tried some of the regular CPK pizzas when they first came on the market, and maybe it was the varieties I tried (not my choice, as I recall), but I wasn't very impressed. But these, which I think are pretty new on the market, are really good as far as frozen pizza goes. I've tried the Sicilian and the white, which is all the market by my place carries. The white is fine if you like that sort of thing -- cheese and spinach. I prefer the Sicilian, which has a generous amount of good quality meats. The "fresh" basil and oregano taste dried, and if I have a complaint, it's that the dried herb flavor is a little heavy. But when I get off work at 10:30 and need something for a quick late dinner, it's a definite step up from bad delivery, and it's a lot quicker.

For another taste test of chocolates, see this report from NPR's website. Among their winners: and Which reminded me how much I like Fran's caramels -- I highly recommend them if you can find them.

Depends on the cucumber. If you get the kind that are covered in wax, then it's much easier to peel than to try to get the wax off. Plus, I think that type of cucumber (even without the wax) has a much tougher, more bitter peel. The "English" cucumbers (which in my experience come wrapped in plastic with no wax) are fine without peeling. But back to the question at hand, I find that a serrated swivel peeler like this one is by far the best tool for the job -- it cuts through the wax without slipping, gets only the peel with virtually no flesh, and is much faster than a knife.

What you're missing out on is bottom-freezer! Side-by-side is a woefully poor design. Not enough room for large or bulky items in the freezer side or on the fridge side. Bottom freezer makes so much sense. Most of us spend far less time going in and out of the freezer than we do in the fridge. Why be hunching over or bending down so often when you don't need to? I remain bafffled as to why there are so few bottom freezer models on the market. ← I'll admit that my experience with bottom freezers is limited to the woefully inadequate Sub Zero that was in the kitchen where I used to teach classes, but I would never in a million years get one like that -- one big drawer with a small wire mesh pull out drawer on top. I'll second what Pam said: Plus, when you wanted to put a half-sheet pan of puff pastry or cookies or anything in to freeze, it wouldn't go in flat -- you had to tip it at an angle to get it in and ended up tipping half the contents off. Same with ice cream base in a bowl without a top, or anything you wanted to cool off quickly. There might well be better models on the market, but I'd be wary of them until you're sure everything you might want to put in the freezer (even if it's just for 20 minutes or an hour to chill) will go in and come out easily.

The results were, I think, pretty predictable. I'm sure they were only testing brands available everywhere in the US, but if you add limited availability chocolates, I'd go with See's Candy. Not only do they have a variety of ready-to-go boxes, but if you go into one of their stores, you can design your own box, which is really great. My uncle used to give us gift certificates for a 1-lb. box for Chirstmas, and it was great to be able to get a pound of exactly what we wanted, rather than get a pre-packed box that always seemed to contain something that no one wanted.

I have found The Complete Meat Cookbook by Bruce Aidells and Denis Kelly to be a great addition to the library. They don't go over butchering, but they do explain various cuts of beef, pork and lamb, and how to cook them. I've used a couple of recipes from the book, and they've been good, but mostly I just use it for reference.