Busboy

Keep in mind that there's likely an informal, if not formal gang of female chefs in the area. Call one of the senior members of the sorority, and they'll likely be quite pleased to point out the up-and-comers for you.

Boy, on a cold night like we're having here, you could hardly beat Chicken With 40 Cloves of Garlic. And nothing's easier. Cut your chicken up and brown it in olive oil and then throw it in dutch oven or some other lidded pot with a handful of fresh thyme, a thick pour of olive oil (should have recognizable depth) and 40 cloves of garlic. If you're feeling all fancy-pants you can chop up carrots and onions or rutabagas or whatever to taste and maybe even throw in a little wine or stock, but none of that is necessary. Cover, seal with dough if you've a mind to, and throw it in a 325 degree oven for 45 minutes to two hours -- it's a very forgiving dish. Serve with mashers or some polenta maybe. My daughter likes to make cornbread when we have it. Besides the chicken, there will be plenty of liquid in the bottom of the pot to spoon over your potatoes and it's mandatory to smoosh the garlic onto your bread.

I didn't say your thoughts were juvenile, I said that stiffing a waiter for something they have no control over is juvenile and I'll stand by that. Rather like kicking the dog after a bad day at the office, isn't it? Much as I loath the word "netiquette" I will suggest that netiquette defines typing in all caps as metaphorically equivalent to pounding on the table, and a gesture certainly as dramatic as anything in my post. Tips are indeed a waiter's right in the U.S., barring bad service. Part of the social contract and all. Tipping patterns around the world are not relevant. I didn't mean to suggest making a scene -- one can stomp out discretely as well as ostentatiously -- the point being that calling for the check and leaving abruptly sends a dramatic (that word again!) signal to the chef and/or manager that things are going wrong, whereas stiffing the waiter might be unclear as well as unfair.

Looks brilliant. Of course, I say that because it seems to confirm my deepest prejudices only more articulately and supported by, you know, science. Review here.

You nailed it. We have to pay for the food. The experience, a good one that is, is what we hope to get. It's the bonus. It's what's behind door #3 when we've chosen door #1. Luck of the draw. Obviously the experience part doesn't always work out for everyone. The obnoxious people probably thought they had a good time though. There's no extra charge for the experience whichever kind we get. ← You are right if you are talking about Denny's or Olive Garden. But if I'm in a nice place, paying big bucks, and planning to tip my usual>20%..THEN I HAD BETTER GET A GOOD EXPERIENCE!!! It is expected and decidedly not a bonus. If it is truly bad, and my requests to be moved aren't honored, and the problem continues... then as a minimum the tip would be zero. Unfair to the server? Perhaps, but what is a tip for if not to get a good experience? A few lost tips will make the servers more proactive. ← There are no guarantees when you sit down to a restaurant meal and pounding the (keyboard) table and announcing l HAD BETTER GET A GOOD EXPERIENCE will not create such a guarantee. You pay for dinner because that's what civilized people do, writing it off to experience if THE EXPERIENCE WAS NOT GOOD -- though canceling everything not already fired, getting the check and stomping off in a snit is acceptable and sends a clear message that you DID NOT HAVE A GOOD EXPERIENCE without inflicting collateral damage on the server. Stiffing the server because of something that is not his or her fault is juvenile, whereas taking care of the server even though your EXPERIENCE WAS NOT GOOD will mark you as a person class and leave you with a tasty bit of self-satisfaction that goes well with a proper snit-driven stomp-out which -- I thank we can all agree -- is almost as satisfying as a good meal and yields far more interesting conversation over drinks later on.

I used to go to a butcher in Denver that sold dry-aged steaks at a premium over the non-aged beef. One day, just for an experiment, we got a less-aged prime rib and the nastiest-looking piece of dry-aged around. Looked damn near rancid. We did a taste-test. No contest -- the nasty-looking steak kicked the other steak's butt. Expect it to taste good. Just eat and enjoy. By the way, according to the butcher, a steak isn't really dry-aged unless you have to "shave" it -- slice the mold that's grown on the outside of the beef while it hangs in the meat locker. This is described in the brilliant essay "All You can Hold for Five Bucks" collected in Joseph Mitchell's Up in the Old Hotel (recommended both by Tony Bourdain and me, perfect for a last-minute Christmas gift for the food aficionado or New Yorker in your life) and excerpted here.

I'm not certain that I'm ready to accept the fact that French meals are that much more dainty than American meals. Admittedly, my time there has been limited (and mostly in the South, if that makes any difference) but I generally walk away from a French table quite as stuffed as from an American table. The culprit, if you will, seems to the first courses which are quite often as large as the main courses, especially at those Bib Gourmand restaurants where they seem bent on demonstrating to value-conscious Frenchmen and Michelin reviewers that one can fill up elegantly for only 28 Euros. Neither course is as large, of course, as the stereotypical American main, but the sum of the two courses seems about equal. And then add in a cheese course before dessert, and it's difficult to make a case that French meals are smaller than those in the U.S. Personally, on either side of the Atlantic I hope the main course holds on -- if there is delight in the creativity assigned these days to first courses, there is also joy in an elegant cut of meat simply prepared. I'll take one (or more) of each, s'il vous plait.

There's another thing to consider, too. To what level of cooking does the restaurant aspire? Chefs who earn three (Michelin) or 4 (U.S.) stars bring a level of (shall we say) genius to a kitchen that experience and dedication alone can't duplicate. While the "trained monkeys" (personally, I would never use that description for people who play with knives for a living) may be able punch out the presentations during service, finding and training a talented Sous or EC who can capture that genius day-in-day out is a bit of a trick. Unless you're a Ducasse or a Keller who attracts talent that could earn top stars on their own, I doubt you can really keep a restaurant at the top of its game without significant chef presence. On the other hand, if you're aiming a notch or two below -- let's call it consistent high quality cooking -- compulsive hands-on management is probably not as important, as long as the chef has an eye for talent and someone with an ownership stake in the restaurant keeping an eye on things. Most of the successful owners of multiple places 'round here aim for and generally hit the 2-star level.

I'm not certain I care if the chef is physically behind the line or even -- by dinner service -- on the premises. But I feel better when the chef is in the kitchen, supervising, almost every day. I occasionally get to one of DC's best restaurants and invariably get one of the tables facing the kitchen. Never actually seen the chef in there. One the other hand, I know he designs the menu, oversees prep and has probably put the fear of God in his team. The food is always excellent. On the other hand, there's another excellent chef in town who's running a variety of restaurants and a couple of outside ventures. The food is reliably good at most of his places, but never great. And I think it's because he's just not there to impart his genius and his perfectionism to his staff every day. Push comes to shove, I'm going with the place where the guy whose name is on the door is also in the kitchen.

Last year I overcame my longstanding aversion to New Year's Eve to go to a Parliament-Funkadelic concert followed by tequila shots and ultimately home-made truffle boudins-blanc with bacon and fried apples and a bottle of excellent right-bank Bordeaux. Confident that that experience will never be topped, I look forward relaxing with a bottle of iced vodka, a tin of Uruguayan caviar and a classic movie. For BryanZ, I recommend a similar, low key even, only the vodka should be made into an "air," the caviar deconstructed, and the movie should be something Wim Wender-ish

I do since my kids' friends started wandering randomly through the kitchen (the kitchen sliding glass door is the de-facto front door) and I decided that the picture of a hairy, no-longer-svelte middle aged guy swilling wine and frying like hell was traumatizing either the friends or the kids. Count me in the short sleeve camp.

I once had a prominent local chef -- one of 4 4-star dudes in DC -- speak highly of Uruguayan caviar. Said that the producers had scoured the world for conditions and fish that most closely resembled the Caspian Sea and whatever the local sturgeon is, and deemed Uruguay the place to be. Just Google, there's a number of sites, if you can't find any locally.

Sadly, that's just a myth (I'd say "old wives tale," but I'm afraid to ). Trust me on this.

Do they run the local/bio market in the winter?

Different stuff, different purpose. Wolfert calls for ventreche but allows pancetta to be substituted, and also calls for the rind. (Wolfert uses pork shoulder instead of belly, as well).

Interesting bit in The New York Times.

There are a ton of problems with biofuels in the U.S. (Tthe Brazilians are doing much better with their sugar cane as the conversion process is much more efficient. Unfortunately, tariffs and import restrictions prevent the Brazilians from exporting substantial quantities of the cane or the ethanol to the U.S., the prodecting profits for Big Sugar and Archer Daniels Midland). My personal pet peeve is that many more acres of corn are going into production, leading to increased erosion and groundwater pollution, both of which have tremendous potential to do long term damage. Of course we "can't" feed people with grain destined for bio-fuels, but that acreage could certainly be taken out of production or planted with something more human-friendly, whether it be Silver Queen corn or some other crop entirely. The idea that it takes more energy to create a gallon of biofuel than the ethanol yields is hotly disputed. Advocates claim that a a gallon of corn-based ethanol generates approximately 50 percent more energy than it takes to produce. The next generation of ethanol -- assuming a way can be found to produce "cellulosic ethanol" from farm wastes, fast-growing grasses and so one economically -will yield 80% more energy than it consumes. A further consideration is that since the energy inputs are not all in the form of oil, a gallon of ethanol replaces six to seven gallons of imported oil, which has significant economic and national security benefits. Very complicated issue, and one that will not be resolved rationally as long as the Iowa caucuses loom large in the presidential selection process. My view is that we should continue experimenting with the idea of biofuels, but with an eye towards learning how to produce and deliver cellulosic ethanol, so that we can use our corn for food (and the stalks for energy).

Yep-- it is easily spotted, whether you wish to avoid it or consume it. My impression from both Bourdain and Wolfert is that pretty much the entire cassoule should be lined with the stuff. Of course, there are a thousand different recipes, so cassoulet, so it's possible that everybody's "right."

Midi Libre! -- I'm homesick now. Sniffle. Any sangliere on the menu for the near future?

You know, I'm always the guy who calls dinner guests just as they're leaving their house as says "can you pick up some butter on the way over." I think I need to have more guests who can stop Les Halles for me before they drop by.

Try here. Also, if there's one near you, just go to a farmer's market and see what they have. (not on the site I linked to: Sea Urchin is in season until February).

Welcome! We had cassoulet for Thanksgiving at our house (kind of a cross between Les Halles and Wolfert's The Cooking of Southwest France) and I ended up munching the leftovers for days afterwards. It softens up enough to munch, though it's a little rich for my taste. I think of it like the fatback in a good batch of baked beans: thanks for the flavor, but I ain't eating you.

I haven't been to Ken's but I'd go back to Scholl's in a second. Do keep in mind that some locals call them ""The Pizza Nazi" (I guess if they were true Neapolitan they'd be "the Pizza Duche") because they are somewhat strict in their etiquette: I was told that I could only have x number of toppings on my pizza, for example. Also that there tends to eb a line out the door and that they (I am told) sometimes run out of dough early.

This one? ← Funny -- that's pretty different than the recipe in the cookbook - much less oyster-centric. In the book they call for eight oysters instead of six, a quarter cup of oyster liqueur rather than two cups of clam juice, and 1/2 cup of cream rather than 2 cups of half-and-half. We have a supplier of excellent shucked oysters (also unshucked) so we usually make it with whatever ratio of oysters/liqueur comes in the jar -- on average slightly less than the recipe calls for. I expect it will work either way, but the preponderance of clam juice and half-and-half in the linked recipe reminds me of a cafeteria stretching it's supply (or of a TV show trying to adapt a recipe for the masses).

You know, we have a pizza shop here in DC that is "DOC" for Neapolitan pizzas. Their crust is definitely thinner than Scholl's. Matter of fact -- and I say this knowing that any pronouncement on pizza can cause a fight -- I'd suggest that Scholl's neither aims for nor achieves a Neapolitan pizza. It's much closer, in my experience, to classic thin crust New World/New York/New Haven pies (and thank God for that; I really dislike those austere "authentic" pizzas). While there's a mention of Naples on their website, the only establishment that really gets a name check is Lombardi's, in lower Manhattan. Also, the only other establishments I've ever run into that use "apizza" rather than "pizza" are Frank Pepe's, Sally's and Moderne in New Haven. So, by process of elimination, I nominate Ken's as the Napolitina style (though the thick crust thing seems very un-Neapolitan). PS: Google "apizza." Every one of the first few dozen hits is either Scholl's or a New England establishment.