mags

See below

I hate the taste of Splenda straight -- like someone else here, I find it tastes "hollow" -- but mixing it with either erythritol or another xylitol works extremely well for me. Because the erythritol is granular, it creams well with butter (gets enough air in), and the two sweeteners together taste just like sugar to my tongue. I haven't yet tried meringues -- I'd think that would be the real clincher.

Fifi, recipe? That sounds seriously delish.

Fish. My mother did things to it that I wouldn't do to my worst enemy. Sometime in my 30s I was taken to a fish-house for dinner, and cod changed my life. Also pie. It always tasted kind of boring and gluey to me, and then I learned to make my own, with actual fruit and a lard crust. Revelation. And, to chime in with a lot of others: Cauliflower. Again, I think it was my mother's fault; she used to boil it forever, drain it not terribly well, and plop this wet, cabbage-smelling lump of white slurf on my plate...yccchh. Now cauliflower puree is my bestest bud.

Yeah, the Advantage bars are disgusting, but the Endulge bars are pretty good, and Russell Stover's new line of low-carb chocolates is even better. But frankly, if you can cook even halfway decently, you can make your own low-carb sweets, and not deal with all the trans-fats and other goodies that show up in the processed stuff. FWIW, breakfast for me was some stewed rhubarb and ricotta cheese, lunch was sliced chicken and artichoke hearts with a lemon mayo, and dinner was steak and a salad. Works for me.

I saw cheesesteaks sold in LA's Farmers Market that came with sprouts and avocado. Oh, now, that's just wrong. <sighing wistfully> I love cheesesteaks. Scrapple, too.

I'm so happy to see you here, as I've been a big fan of Lobel's for ages. Having spent a few years living in the UK (and a few more years paging dreamily through British cookbooks), I have a huge craving for British-style roast pork -- i.e., pork loin or shoulder (NOT ham) with the skin on. But none of the butchers I've asked (and I've asked and asked) can get it for me, even as a special order. Is this something Lobel's could order? Thanks so much, Maggie

I am loving this travelogue so much. Ellen, it's just terrific. Thank you.

At least on an industrial scale, I know it exists - I have a few gallons of it. No idea if they market such a beast in the consumer world, however.. Sadly, no. It was, briefly, available to consumers via online retailers, but McNeil took it off the consumer market -- with no reason given -- about two years ago. It is still sold at a consumer level in some other countries (notably Brazil), but McNeil has offered no indication that it will be returned to U.S. supermarket shelves. Wanna sell a gallon, Sebastian? Heck, wanna sell a pint? I got some crisp greenbacks with your name on'em.

Splenda also doesn't taste like sugar. It's a big step up from Equal and Sweet n Low, but it still has a kind of flat, metallic edge....at least to me.

Lord almightly, I wouldn't! Stevia has a vile, licorice taste -- at least for those of us who think licorice tastes vile. Besides which, as far as "natural" goes....eh. Sure, I wish I could eat good old regular chocolate sweetened with "natural" sugar (though the extent to which sugar is refined in the process of turning it into your standard spoonable white granules kinda begs the "natural" question, to my mind). It tastes better. But the whole "natural is better" argument strikes me as kinda boneheaded. No processed food -- and that includes the yummiest, highest-end chocolate -- is in its natural state. If you're going to eat processed products of any kind, you're eating something that's not "natural." And of course, the assumption that "natural" stuff is inherently good for you is an easy one to shoot down: Arsenic and cyanide are both "natural" products. I don't at all mean to do an apologia number for Big Food -- I have no doubt that companies like ADM are inherently just as evil as the tobacco boys. And as it happens, I tend, by preference, to eat very little processed food -- though I guesss we could stretch a point and call cheese and coffee "processed" products.

Money magazine will be publishing an exhaustive review of low-carb products in either the October or the November issue. I have no idea what the finished article will look like, or how much it will include, but I'm happy to email people the original, if desired, once the issue hits the stands. For what it's worth, the tasting panel -- of both low-carb dieters and decidedly NON low-carbers -- particularly liked the bread and tortillas made by Synergy Diet, the sugar-free jams made by Colac and La Nouba, the chocolate truffles made by Pure De-Lite, and the sugar-free ice cream made by Le Carb. Let me know if you're interested in more details.

AGGGHH! Ok ok ok. Uncle.

A pretty basic tenet of journalism is that you don't rely on some other journalist's interpretation of what the story is. You don't take the Washington Post's word for it that somebody's car is blue, you don't take People magazine's word for it that Ben Affleck and JLo are still an item, and you don't take the Times' word for it that Adria thinks the most important principle is "Don't copy." You do actual reporting. You get the quote yourself. And if for some reason you can't, you make it clear, in big fat neon letters, that you are relying on someone else's reporting. And you credit that someone else. This is particularly important in a column or an op-ed piece -- which is basically what Tim wrote -- because you're basing your entire analysis, the entire point of the column, on someone else's story. You asked, earlier, if it would be impossible (or immoral or naughty) to write an article about Iraq without having been to Iraq. Of course not. But if you're going to write an article about, say, the geopolitical implications of the war in Iraq -- roughly analagous to writing an article about the culinary-world implications of Adria's cooking -- then you damn well better base your analysis on something more substantive and first-hand than the nightly news. I would be perfectly happy if it turned out that Tim had read Adria's book or stuff Adria has written. I would be happy if it turned out that he had interviewed chefs about their reactions to what they knew of Adria's cooking. Hell, I'd be happy if it turned out that he had interviewed the guy who wrote the damn Times article. For all I know, he may have done all these things. But none of them are mentioned in the article he wrote, so as far as I'm concerned, it's just so much navel-gazing.

Will you marry me? Wait...I'm already married =R= One thing I've never done is a married...suburban.

I dunno. I'm a feminist and I love pornography.

For what it's worth, I've been on Atkins -- more or less strictly, though I've fallen off the wagon many times -- for about a year. I've lost a little over 40 pounds, and my health has improved in some significant though private ways. Perhaps more importantly, I really don't see it as a "prison." I agree that the low-carb pasta is revolting (though I've used it relatively successfully to make the 50s-style casseroles -- like chicken tetrazinni -- that I secretly love). Actually, a lot of the low-carb packaged products are just totally puke-worthy. But I've been very happy with the way I eat. A sample menu: Breakfast: strong coffee with half & half; stewed rhubarb sweetened with a mix of splenda and erythritol (which does a good imitation of sugar, to my tongue); a dollop of Greek yogurt Lunch: tuna salad made with mayo, chopped scallion, and chopped green olives, packed into a red pepper Dinner: thick, brined pork chop stuffed with spinach, feta, pine nuts, and some breadcrumbs made from low-carb bread (works fine for this); grilled zuchini and eggplant And there are tons of alternatives. In the winter, I made a lot of beef stew with red wine and mushrooms (thickening the gravy with guar gum, which works very well, rather than flour), and bedded it down on turnip puree. I also ate buckets of clam chowder, with cauliflower standing in for the spuds and guar gum -- I love this stuff -- as a thickener. Lately I've been making a lot of curries (both Thai and Indian). When I'm craving serious, junky comfort food I make a tuna-melt on low-carb bread, which tastes fairly crummy eaten straight but makes a perfectly good grilled sandwich. I don't have much of a sweet tooth, but I am a big fan of the LeCarb frozen desserts -- the lemon ice cream is a favorite, and the vanilla makes a swell milkshake -- and, particularly, of the Pure De-Lite chocolate truffles, especially the espresso and orange flavors. I made a very good strawberry pavlova (meringue, whipped cream, berries) for a dinner party a few weeks ago, and have several times made shortcakes with berries or peaches, whipped cream, and almond-flour pound cake. Other regulars: crab cakes and chicken parm (both breaded with low-carb breadcrumbs), savory bread pudding (made with low-carb bread, again, and whatever bits of meat, cheese, and veggies need to get used up), baked shrimp with tomatoes and feta, cabbage with cream and bacon and balsamic vinegar, Chinese chicken salad with peanut sauce.... I tend to think that I'm eating a lot "healthier" -- meaning more veggies -- than I did in the low-fat days, and I like my food a whole lot. I do have to do a lot more cooking than I used to, but that's ok. And while I miss pasta, rice, and (especially) good bread, the trade-off has been well worth it for me.

I'm afraid I don't. Mere originality is not sufficient to make art, in cooking or in anything else. I could make a cake out of canned chocolate frosting and cat-kibble, but while it might be original, it wouldn't offer much to my audience, the eaters. Without that connection to and with the audience, all I'm doing is pissing around. And without having experienced Adria's food, Timothy has no idea of whether it does, in fact, make a connection with its audience. He's simply recycling someone else's opinion, and canonizing Adria as an artist on the basis of it. I don't see anything different between his doing that and my writing an article about, say, the earth-shaking genius of Jackson Pollack without ever having seen one of his paintings, based entirely on other people's reviews.

I must have missed this part of the show. Did the "goosee" complain? Do we know whether she and Rocco were previously acquainted? Nope, no complaints that I saw. And I don't recall anything indicating that she and Rocco knew each other -- but I dunno.

so we can count that as just one more piece of misinformation fueling this mess. thought so. I'm not sure it really matters whose thigh he was goosing, Tommy (though it might well have mattered to the critic and/or to the Anonymous Blonde ). well then perhaps you shouldn't have suggested that he was rubbing a critic's thigh. i've "goosed" many women in my day, as have many others. i don't expect to be sent to hell for it. In the first place, it was an honest mistake on my part. As others here have noted, the segment involving said goosing was intercut with others involving Rocco's schmoozing the critic; I was apparently confused as to just whose thigh was getting massaged. In the second place, back off. I'm not suggesting that Rocco be "sent to hell" for goosing some woman's thigh, whether or not she is a critic. And I have no desire to send you or anyone else to hell for similar behavior. At the same time, yeah, I am seriously repulsed by someone whose opinion of his own sexual appeal is such that he not only feels entitled to grope strange women in public, but -- and this, to me, is the important bit -- apparently believes that this behavior is pleasing and ingratiating, the ditigal equivalent of comping the table to a round of drinks.

so we can count that as just one more piece of misinformation fueling this mess. thought so. I'm not sure it really matters whose thigh he was goosing, Tommy (though it might well have mattered to the critic and/or to the Anonymous Blonde ). My point was that he's on national TV exhibited as a fella who feels up strange women in public. This is not endearing.

What I can't understand is, does Rocco not have ANY competent PR people? Sure, the show is doing nicely for NBC (I guess), and the huddled masses will probably flock to the restaurant for a few months, just on the strength of having seen it on TV. But IMO, Rocco comes across like a shallow, utterly self-absorbed frat-boy with zero management skills and a repellent confidence in his own tinny charm. (He was feeling up that critic's thighs, fer chrissake!) Real simply, the show doesn't make him look good, and I'm stunned that he didn't have a PR staff smart enough to demand edit-approval. Of course, the alternative is that he DID have edit-approval, and somehow imagines that he comes across as A) appealing, and B) someone you would want to hire to run your restaurant. And that notion is even more horrifying.

"Into the Fire" is a weekly food reality show that takes viewers behind the scenes and into the heart and heat of America’s most renowned restaurants on their busiest nights. While traditional food programming brings the professional chef into the viewer’s home, "Into the Fire" brings viewers directly into the home of the professional chef - the restaurant kitchen. Every week, viewers will become voyeurs in a different restaurant allowing them to embark on a thrilling rollercoaster ride through the professional culinary world. Last night Commanders' Palace in New Orleans was the subject of the evening .... Ella Brennan and her family and top notch staff were among those involved in the show ... the concept of the "open kitchen" and how the expert staff was able to deftly handle various crises with charm and good humor .... perhaps it was this level of professionalism which explains how Commanders' deservedly won the James Beard "Top US Restaurant" and "Best Service" awards... this show is far superior to "The Restaurant" on NBC. Do give it a look... you won't be disappointed! Umm...is it just my imagination, or does this read rather stunningly like a press release?

With apologies to Oliver Goldsmith: When lovely bacon stoops to folly And finds, too late, microwaves betray What charm can soothe my melancholy? What art can wash the taste away? The only art my guilt to cover To hide my shame from every eye To mark me as a bacon-lover And make me happy is -- to fry.

That was really interesting, and thank you. But, a question I have actually mulled over for a while: Why, in Cockney English, does "tea" become "char" -- which I have figured was probably a variation on "cha" or "chai"?