Busboy

When I was in France -- and in Greece, as well -- it appeared to me that both restaurants and diners were far more welcoming of kids than appears to be the case over here. Families go to dinner, families have kids, sometimes kids are unruly, no big deal. These were not 3-star places, but some of them were pretty nice spots, linen tableclothes and the like. I didn't experience any serious squallers - though, I expect in a spa offering post-partum treatment they're more common than other restaurants -- but there were a couple of crankers here and there, and the occasional toddler toddleing around. Nobody appeared to think it was a big deal and, indeed, neither did I. I found the whole atmosphere refreshing, actually.

Oh -- another thing: you might want to brown your belly before throwing it in. Your pork belly, that is.

Bad news: that's a pretty vague request. Good news: I can't imagine that you can go wrong throwing anything on top of lentils onions peppercorns and smoked pork belly. But just in case I'd add some chicken stock and white wine to the mix, and maybe some roasted garlic and carrot. Looking over this German/English spice dictionary, all I can think of is sage or cinnamon (zimt), which I add to my lentils sometimes as the mystery ingredient. Good luck, I'm sure it will be great, whatever you cook. Note also this thread.

OK, this is the one you've got to use. Stephanie made it one Sunday and it may be the best meal I've had since the first of the year (except that night at Marcel's). Use the recipe for Coda Alla Vaccinara (Oxtails in the Vaccinara Style) from this Washington Post article, with a couple of changes: Use pork belly, not oxtail; ignore the beef cheeks requirement, pancetta is optional. Use red wine, not white wine in the braise, if you're of a mind to. Add a cinnamon stick or two. We served them atop lentils which were boiled in chicken stock with roasted garlic (lots) carrot, onion, bay, thyme and a pinch of cinnamon. It was really, really good; simple to make, and shouldn't trigger any syndromes except for a Pavlovian reaction whenever you think about it.

Gelatin is most definitely not vegetarian. On another thread on this subject, I was told that each sheet equals two grams of powder (with 28 grams in an ounce, and 20 grams in a lid).

Congratulations! Do we get to see the recipe?

Like that famous place in Berkeley--you know which one: local ingredients and world famous chef--and my reaction was "is that all there is??" It was perfectly nice and the food was very good, but who can live up to the hype? ← Funny, I ate at a famous place in Berkeley and was completely blown away by the food. Must have been a different joint. Pondering this while driving the kids to school this morning... Given the love of peasant-y stuff expressed upthread, I wonder if part of the problem is the current trend towards food that speaks far more from the intellect than from the heart -- a culinary "Spanish Flu" if you will. In a world where (too often) sauces are banished in favor of foams, mousses and "airs"; where presentations have all the precision and all of the warmth (ie, none) of a Schönberg composition; and where the alleged health benefits of a meal are trumpeted as loudly as its flavor, too many meals simply lack, for lack of a better word, soul. I don't think it's any coincidence that the French bistro trend has exploded at the same time that Adria and his disciples have begun to gain influence. I haven't eaten at El Bulli, but too many of the meals I have eaten that have cutting edge ambitions leaving me feeling more than a little let down -- impressed, but not satisfied. Call me a luddite, but give me something I can sink my teeth into.

We will be dining Chez Garcon de Bus; most likely on oeufs Benedict, in honor of the new Pope ; pommes persillade and something bubbly.

Huh? I just double-checked, and there is literally only one word Entrees listed in the Merkado graph that was italicized. Are we getting the same paper? ← In the on-line version there were numerous italicizations, as though the new stylebook said that all restaurant names, chefs and celebs have to be italicized. I noticed it, too.

Some friends have been kind and foolish enough to invite the Busboys to the greater Rehoboth metro area -- that is to say, Dewey -- for Memorial Day Weekend. Since I get bored with lying in the sun and watching the lifeguards pull my kids out of the surf, I'll probably spend most of one day screwing around in the kitchen, cooking dinner for ten or so. I usually shop at the beach by driving randomly up and down Route 1, and stopping at whatever produce markets and seafood shacks I stumble across, many of which have become vaguely familiar over the years. This time, however, it occurs to me that the many veteran food-oriented beachgoers on this site might be able to provide recco's not only for bars and restaurants, but for fresh meat, seafood and produce, as well (are you listening SWoodyWhite?). Any suggestions will be appreciated, particularly (but not necessarily) those oriented towards the southern end of the Funplex, as I am sure traffic will be nightmarish. Oh, yeah -- a decent wine shop is always appreciated.

I used to live on a street that was home to five or six relatively large apartment buildings occupies, apparently, by a number of middle-aged single people. When I'd pop in late, usually for a bottle of wine, it always seemed to me that the people in front were either women buying cat food and ice cream, and men buying frozen dinners and beer. It seemed so damn depressing. I always wanted to figure out a way to introduce them, so maybe they could watch TV alone together.

Agree that the better you cook at home the harder it is to be blown away eating out, but there are also any number of reasons that you may want to hold off on demoting your "revered chef" to the rank of "good cook." Since you don't name the chef or restaurant (c'mon, give us a hint ) it's hard to judge what level the chef aims to cook at. Some chefs/restaurants become revered because the serve "merely" very good cooking in a friendly/hip/beautiful setting, others because they are serving extraordinary creations. Maybe yours is the former. Maybe his/her reputation has been inflated by PR and buzz. Some cities (again, couldn't glean your locale from the post) -- I would say most cities -- set pretty low bars for "top" chefs. I have heard it's improved, but when I lived in Denver, people positvely gushed about places that would have been ignored in DC and sneered at in New York. Most chefs have Mondays off, often their only day of the week. Did you see him/her in the kitchen? You might have been eating the Sous's work. Or leftover produce from Friday's delivery. Or staff pissed off at coming in on their day off. Also, my impression of most restaurants is that if you're eating a meal for 30, you're not getting the chef's best stuff. You're getting what can be put out with corporate efficiency, not necessarily artistic integrity. I had a business dinner for 25 at a very highly regarded restaurant here in DC and then, later, dinner in the dining room. No comparison. Actually, that's happened a couple of times. Finally, maybe you just don't like "fancy-schmancy" food. Or like a different style. Or prefer your own cooking to others' on the gheneral and legitimate principle that you know what you like. It happens. I get nervous when people start believing they're as good as the pros, or that there's no correlation between price and quality. In my experience, both statementsare misleading, at best. Can you give us any more clues about where you ate?

Pizza inspires a lot of strict constructionism; people have very definite ideas about what constitutes a “proper” or “authentic” or even “DOC” pizza, but I’ve always been more of an impressionist: if it tastes good, do it. Despite the suggestion on the flour bag that Friday night is pizza night, we had ours on Sunday. For the sauce, I like Muir Glen’s tomatoes, available from Whole Foods, and prefer them even to the San Marzanos. I also like to work with whole tomatoes. I think – and a friend who was a produce buyer confirmed – that they have a brightness and flavor that more processed tomatoes lack. I also love the few minutes spent crushing them into the pot, on top of the sweating onions and garlic. It’s playing with your food, just like momma said not to, but she isn’t there to step on the mushy glee or complain about the tomato seeds on the stove. I like a little tomato paste and a little sugar in the sauce, bass notes against the high, tart taste of the whole tomatoes. And my spice preferences are surely more New Jersey than old Napoli – the kind of sauce you see ladled out behind plexiglass after ten or so of those pony beers and a scramble to the edge of the private piers, where the boardwalk noise is far enough off that you can hear the waves and see the ships’ lights on the horizon: basil and oregano, dried, and in quantity. Pizza dough is one of the first things I ever cooked, under mom’s tutelage – she made pretty good pizza, especially for an Alabama girl. So it was appropriate that when I couldn’t hunt down the old Time-Life Italian cookbook I’ve used as a go-to for the dough recipe for a while now, I went back to mom’s kitchen -- more or less -- using the paperback Joy of Cooking she gave me to replace the hardback that has been seized years ago by a psycho landlady (along with much other gear) which, in turn had replaced the version we’d cooked from together back in the day. Joy isn’t sexy, but it works. It’s basically bread dough made pizza dough by the addition of a little olive oil; I like to let it sit hours longer than the recipe calls for, to up the yeast count and to lighten the crust. Stephanie made her own batch, a Martha recipe that adds butter at the end. Seems a little effete to me, but it rises like gangbusters and crisps up pretty good on the stone. The one failure: a recipe from an old Italian cookbook that has some great recipes (acquired, according to the price tag on the inner cover, from the Strand in NYC for twelve bucks) but whose “Neapolitan Pizza Dough” recipe still eludes me. You begin by making a sponge with water, yeast and a small portion of the dough and then, after the sponge rises, add it to the rest of the flour. I’ve seen similar recipes for brioche, but have always been wise enough to avoid them. This time, however I took the plunge, but to no avail – even pizza sauce doesn’t do much for cardboard. So I gave it to the kids. [Note to self: reference Albiston’s posting for next attempt] Everything looks a little flat, as the dough was dumped from the bowls in which they were rising. [L-R Martha, Joy, Old Italian Cookbook] Like every yuppie, I acquired a Kitchen Aid somewhere along the line, but I loath the dough hook. Unless you’re making bread for a hundred, I believe that God wants you knead the dough by hand, punching, stretching, folding and punching again, adjusting the moisture and the gauging the elasticity every time you lean forward and shove the heel of your hand into the soft mass, until your fingertips tell you that it’s time for the risin’. I don’t like to eat my pizzas with “the works,” but I do believe pretty much anything works on a pizza, even the oysters a friend brought over once. As you can see below, I’ll settle for Hormel pepperoni if I haven’t made it to the Italian deli, and I like the one-two combo of fresh basil atop the dried-basil infused sauce (hint: Thai basil and chorizo – they have an amazing affinity for one another, and I for them). It’s harder to see that I was also able to score some excellent fresh Blue Ridge Dairy mozzarella. It may not be made with buffalo milk, but it is extraordinary stuff, both in taste and meltability, and is available at the Arlington Court House and Dupont Circle markets. I once read that the carbon build-up on your pizza stones helps absorb heat and keep things from sticking; I've taken that to heart. I’m kind of a “more is more” guy when I’m making my own pies, especially if I’m hungry, so you don’t get the kind of modernist simplicity you see coming out of the wood-fired ovens around town. I like a little goo. Before. Putting the pizza in the oven is kind of like firing a pot, you have a general idea what the glaze is going to look like but you're never positive until the baking is over. But this one did me right. After. I also made a “tria formaggio” (I only had three Italian cheeses in the house; fortunately, one was gorgonzola) with artichoke hearts and sun-dried tomatoes, but the only pictures are too disturbing to post. The kids have their own disticntive styles. Cheese and only token pepperoni for the girl. Pepperoni and garlic, no cheese for the boy. And Stephanie skipped the whole pizza thing and made a calzone, stuffed with ricotta, spinach, a bit of sauce and pepperoni and lots o’ garlic. For all the centuries of tradition and years of experience and cords of hardwood master pizza-makers bring to the job, sometimes there’s nothing quite like waking up in the morning and knocking out your custom pie based on random whims, old memories and great cheese. Unless it's waking up in the morning and eating the leftover pie from the night before .

The Big Mac is a thing of beauty.

Won't they need a chef as pretty, talented and marketable as Todd to get a second season? My wife suggests that you might fill the first two demands but, alas, you're writing about saucisson rather than developing a flagship restaurant in a major city. Keller's kind of buff, though, and he's almost ready to go head-to-head with Ducasse....

Well, we've got religious restrictions. And, of course, you can't get a plateful of peyote buttons or psilocybin mushrooms with your fettuccini and parmesan. But I'm curious where you get the idea that government oversite of your dinner is an OK thing. Once the government starts telling you what you can or cannot put in your mouth, trouble is bound to follow. PS: Welcome to eGullet.

Welcome to eGullet, mfkWisher. As you've probably picked up, the Hill is considered something of a restaurant wasteland, though Bis is very good and Charlie Palmer's is well-regarded. Along with cult-favorite Ray's the Steaks out in Arlington, it is the favorite of the Washington Post's main food critic; having met their chef the other night, I know that they take their meat very seriously there. Of course, the night after a long dinner and long drive at the Inn, you may want to just go to the bar in your hotel -- The Dubliner is pretty much a Hill landmark -- or around the corner to its divier neighbor, The Irish Times, to munch corned beef and hoist a few pints. Has anybody been to La Colline since I was last there in, oh, 1987?

This may be a little far from the water for you, but L'il Magaret's Bluegrass and Old-Time Music Festival just outside Leonardtown, Md, (of the lower Potomac) is an utter blast and also, to stay on topic, features good home cooking and, better yet, a chance to do some serious grilling/barbecuing yourself while the pickin's going on.

Just watched the first two episodes back to back. 20 minutes of interesting cooking surrounded by 40 minutes of embarrasing melodrama. It frankly made me feel bad to see what I assume to be relatively talented, dedicated people taking part into a PBS-sanctioned version of "Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire." The same reality show soundtrack and faux-glitz, the same post-rejection interviews, the same contrived conflicts...it made me feel nauseous instead of hungry. It's not about cooking. It makes Rachel Ray look serious.

I guess an omlette or a frittata would be too simple, even if you tarted them up with cream and some sort of fancy ham? Or maybe the hip-again Bouchon quiche? You could always claim you wanted to keep it simple to let the fresh seasonal ingredients shine, a la Alice Waters and those left-coast types. Or hell, just serve them together with a buerre blanc that's had a little whipped cream stirred in at the end. Maybe some fried shallots on top for crunch.

I'm not sure if we even get the seriously aged stuff over here. As you might guess, most cheese shops are eager to boast about their extra-aged cheeses (cheddar, gruyere and provolone come to mind) so they up the price a bit, but I've never seen any specially-aged Reggiano for sale. If I want 5-year-old parmesan, I have to look in the back of the refrigerator. When I read the original post I was thinking more about the difference between using real Italian Parmesan and the domestic "Parmesan" you pick up at the grocery store. Even if you go a couple of steps up from the Green Can, the stuff still isn't in the same league as Reggiano, and the difference is obvious.

Three things that work for me: 1: Don't over-knead. I used to use a recipe straight out of the Joy of Cooking and it called for kneading the dough for ten minutes. By the time I finished pounding that stuff into shape, the gluten was so high-strung that the dough was almost impossible to work. 2: Another trick is to make sure that the dough is realtively warm. Think how hot it is in the kitchen of a pizza joint -- at that temperature the dough is pretty malleable. I usually let the bowl sit on a slightly warm oven to finish rising (especially if it's store-bought or had been chilled. 3: Make sure it rises long enough. That first handful of dough off a well-risen ball is the easiest to work. Again, think about a good pizza place: they probably aren't making dough every couple of hours through the night -- letting the dough set won't hurt it and, in fact, gives it a nice yeasty taste. PS: We're probably making 'za this weekend so we'll post something Monday.

I come at it from kind of a different direction. A quick google sets the price of Parmesan Reggiano at between $12-16 lb. I don't know what anybody's food budget is, but I find that a relatively small amount goes a long way. I'll bet, for what I pay, three or four bucks worth of Reggiano makes enough pesto for myself and my wife, and that going the less expensive route saves me maybe a buck-and-a-half. I'll bet that the pile on wannabechef's dinner (pictured above) cost less than two bucks. This isn't in the same league as $60 olive oil or $300 wines. I eat Cheerios for breakfast and, at best, leftovers for lunch. Saving a few cents on my one good meal of the day -- a chance to relax with my family, have some wine (the cost of which, even if you're buying swill, dwarfs the cost of the cheese) and have the best damn bowl of fettuccini I can whip up, for less than $5 a serving -- seems the very definition of penny-wise and pound-foolish to me. Most people are on budgets, even "foodies" (and if you ever use that term to describe me, I'll flay you with a cheese rasp ), and everyone enjoys a challenge. This isn't just a group of people throwing money at their dinner, it's people who like to cook. Sure, you get more bang for the buck shaving the Reggiano on top, but lifting a meal from good to profoundly satisfying for the modest cost of a better cheese is hardly a profligate act. To go back to the the original post, if you're making your own pesto, you're already cooking better than 90% of the world (outside of Italy, of course). If you can tasts the difference, then go all the way, make dinner right. You'll appreciate it and you've earned it.

It never occurred to me not to make pesto with Reggiano. I couls see using a different variety of cheese, a pecorino or somehting, but what else would you put in with basil fresh from the garden and lovingly pressed extra-virgin olive oil from Toscana? The green can stuff?

I have enjoyed the responses thus far and, as a resident of the SE for some 28 years, have noted with no small amount of pleasure, the changes from those barbecue shacks, which still exist, to significantly more interesting fare within the region. Stereotyping, as you have in this particular quote, is not exactly what was desired in the initial query. I believe that is precisely what I got in the responses of Artichoke, Ari, Guilty Gourmand, The Cynical Chef, wht, catdaddy, Milt, and so many others .... ← My response was not to you but to the person who complained about all the dishes that weren't "southern". If you look closely, you'll see I quoted him in my post. I think you've started a fine thread that revealed plenty of great meals both traditional and otherwise. I was simply irritated at what busboy was saying. ← I certainly didn't mean to imply that I thought Southern food should be limited to barbecue and grits. But, as much as I appreciate "international" cooking, I find that I most enjoy cooking that has something of its home town in it, whether that's Paris or Birmingham. So, "outsider" though I am, I thought I'd shake the tree a little and see what fell out. Got some good ideas and I'm sure I'll be back on this board when my plans for a trip later this year firm up. In the mean time, I remain skeptical of brunch and promiscuous use of balsamic vinegar, wherever they are found.