hjshorter

Just saw this...we've had a "bistro' explosion here in Washington DC, and it's now possible to eat at a different place ever day of the week. Unfortunately the prices are not as authentic as the food.This was one of the most enjoyable conversations on eG in the past couple of years.

Thanks! I actually used the recipe for white veal stock from The French Laundry.

I posted this recently on donrockwell.com: Bonz: Veal Stock in Christmas Colors: Meat Jello: I made a wild mushroom sauce for our hanger steaks: saute mushrooms & shallots, then add thyme, s&p, demiglace, and a little extra veal stock, reduce, then finish with butter. It was the perfect example of what Michael Ruhlman talks about in his essay on veal stock in The Elements of Cooking. The demi gave it a depth of flavor that lifted it above an ordinary pan sauce, and the mouthfeel was amazing. It's absolutely worth the time, money, and effort to get results like that. The Washington Post's Chef on Call article last Wednesday features a recipe for Roasted Veal Loin with Black Truffle Madeira Sauce. The body of article lists the steps to make the sauce as "[m]ake a meat essence, add a wine reduction, thicken with butter" and the recipe calls for a chicken stock. It's probably tasty as written, but a good veal stock would send it off the charts. And I am not six feet tall, do not have a waist-high oven, and don't have bulging muscles. The recipe halves quite nicely. As far as being fun to read - I thought it was fun, but I'm probably not normal . YMMV.

Same here. Not too low cut - I learned my lesson after spattering my cleavage one day while frying bacon.

This is thoroughly enjoyable. Thanks so much for sharing your week with us. The picture of epoisses made me want to cry. More than anything else I miss the cheese we ate in France.

Actually, I think that the point of the book is that we all shouldn't merely just make do. ← That's not what I meant by "do the best you can." I meant, literally, to do the best you possibly can in all of your cooking. Refine.Edited to remove all possible doubt about what I meant.

Oh, that's too bad. But you can still do the best you can with what you do have. I think that's the ultimate point of the book, not whether you can source veal.ETA: demi-glace is very easy to find on the web.

However, I did not attribute the statement "one's cooking is crap unless one can source veal bones" to Ruhlman. ← Nowhere does it imply that one's cooking is crap unless one can source veal bones.

The section is subtitled "a personal reflection on the home cook's most valuable weapon." So it's Ruhlman's bias, and he states it clearly. He encourages the home cook to make it, and provides examples of how he feels it enhances the home kitchen. To balance that fanaticism of his, he provides examples of cuisines that don't use it all, strongly encourages stock-making in general, and gives the reader formulas, methods, and characteristics of all stocks. Nowhere does it say that one's cooking is crap unless one can source veal bones.

I have seen it at Williams-Sonoma, if you're desperate and don't mind paying their prices.

The first option, even for friends who don't know the difference. I probably wouldn't buy truffles for them, but I feel compelled to do the best I can for all of my friends, regardless of whether they notice.

I've never had much use for The Joy of Cooking. I'd much rather get the basics from the Marion Cunningham-edited Fannie Farmer Cookbook. And I gave away The Silver Palate long ago.

I tore though my copy of The Elements of Cooking this weekend, and Ruhlman is preaching to the choir here. Elements is a distillation of the classical asskicking dished out at the CIA and and lesser schools, formatted for easy reference by the home cook. He's getting flack for not producing a universal text, and it's true, he hasn't. He states right on the cover that he is translating the chef's craft, not the cook's craft, and his use of the French term is deliberate. Those bemoaning the lack of soy sauce and barbecue are wasting their time. If you want the ur-text for Sichuan cooking, this ain't it, and it wasn't meant to be. If you want to cook as if you have a passing familiarity with the brigade system, then pick it up. His emphasis on veal stock is a touch overblown (I completely agree that it enhances everything it touches, but the home cook can get away with using other stocks) but the essays on proper salting and the role of eggs in the kitchen are worth the cost of the book, and any home cook who wants a deeper understanding of those topics should start right here before putting on the scuba gear and diving into McGee's On Food And Cooking. A quibble. He writes: Well, yes. But learning to follow a recipe is essential for the beginning cook. It's the grounding in the basics at culinary school (I survived a local institution here in Washington DC) that gives a cook the basis to experiment, and an instinctive proficiency that serves well when applied to other cuisines. For instance, learning to do a proper mise en place makes Thai cuisine, with its long lists of ingredients, much less daunting.If his mantra “How to perfect a good recipe: Do it over again. And again. Pay attention. Do it again.” strikes you as affected machismo, then the real world instruction "This is bullshit. Do it again." is going to hurt your feelings. Far from being put off, I found the finger-wagging in Elements crucial in these days of Rachael Ray, Food TV's paragon of the soft bigotry of low expectations. Book store shelves are groaning with books advocating half-assed technique, but finesse is vital and that essay may be the most important bit of information in the book. Finesse can be tasted in fine food and seen in the presentation, it's what makes places like The French Laundry worth the expense, and it makes Thomas Keller's cookbooks worth the hair pulling. The results are superior. It's worth the care and attention to detail. If you want a meal in thirty minutes, you know where to go and you might as well put the book down now. It's not going to tell you to open a few bags and call it dinner. Do it. Do it again. Practice. Pay attention. Don't take short cuts. Hallelujah! Preach it, brother Ruhlman. Can I get an amen?

I followed Mr. Ruhlman's directions for this sauce, with two differences: I used red wine instead of white (because I had it and also because I was using the sauce with beef) and I reduced the sauce a bit before adding the butter (because it was way too thin). It was very good; I can see the points about texture, certainly.But I agree with Steven: this was not a neutral sauce. I can't, in a million years, imagine serving it with fish, unless for some reason I wanted to substantially mask the taste of the fish. ← Ah, but you didn't follow the recipe. Use white wine next time. I have made sauce for fish with veal stock, and believe it or not, it works. But not with red wine.You said the sauce was very thin...had you cooked down the stock? It should be practically solid when cold, and fairly viscous when warmed.

My mom always made Turkey Divan, but it wasn't like this! The recipe from the Fannie Farmer cookbook calls for turkey or chicken breast slices, freshly cooked broccoli spears, and a bechamel sauce enriched with egg yolks and sherry. Arrange turkey over the broccoli, pour the sauce over all, sprinkle with 1/2 c. parmesan, and bake.

I love creamed onions. I either do this version, or cook the onions very slowly in butter until caramelized, then add bechamel, cream and nutmeg.

Thanks for the explanation, Janet. I am really looking forward to reading it.

(emphasis mine) Do you mean the information isn't accurate?

I'd like to see this idea expanded. Are there many culinary schools in the US that don't base their instruction on French? This is probably my training and bias speaking, but I wouldn't question that claim. In fact, I would wonder that it needed to be spelled out at all.I wonder what they call a mirepoix at those schools?

So, The Elements of Cooking (In the French Tradition)? It sounds like you wanted a book that Ruhlman wasn't writing. Are you basing your review on your expectations, or on what it is? ETA that, while I haven't read it yet (waiting on Amazon.com to deliver...), the Strunk and White conceit appeals to me.

That's not a claim to cuisine-specific information. That's a claim to universality. ← Oh, come on. This is deliberately obtuse. It's not like you, or most of us, don't know where Ruhlman is coming from. If we're going to be like that then maybe we should retitle Child's The Way to Cook as Maintaining the French Culinary Hegemony for Beginners? (ETA a little winky thing, in case anyone couldn't tell that my tongue was in my cheek here.)

I can absolutely tell the difference between veal stock and beef stock and I use mostly bones for each. I would use veal stock for any preparation, but would use beef stock only for dishes that call for it.If you're going to make veal stock then use Keller's recipe. It's gorgeous. And I use it for more than French haute-cuisine. Veal bones are pretty easy to come by, just make sure your butcher or grocery knows you want them. They are almost always happy to sell you something (I pay about $2/pound) that will ordinarily be thrown away. Andrew: I find chicken stock to be more strongly flavored than veal stock. My copy of the book is on order, and I'm going to reserve judgement on its usefulness until I read it.

Are you serious?Why is a laptop OK in a restaurant or bar, but not a cell phone or Gameboy?

I have to side with the owner, although it would be nice if he hadn't been wishy washy about it. Yes, they are. Laptops do not say "place to enjoy myself." They're equally as annoying as televisions, cell phones, and Gameboys. Get a notebook, and a few good pens. They're more romantic and mysterious. I've read that Fitzgerald used to piss himself while drunk. I doubt the owner would have appreciated that any more than the laptop. ETA: Exactly.

I think Charles was going for places with a higher decent food/jackass ratio. Think of a line with Proof on one end and Posh on the other...I'd represent it graphically, but haven't had enough coffee yet to pull that off.The ratio of course has to be adjusted for different nights of the week, for instance a place like Indebleu might be more on the decent food side on a Tuesday, but definitely leans toward the jackass side on Friday and Saturday nights.