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Steven-- You see Felix Unger, I see Frasier or Niles Crane... same archetype, different show, different generation (though less double entendre in the initials). Anyway, thanks for definitively pronouncing the industrial cheese DOA. Saved me an experiment and the cost of a hunk of parafin. All the sadder for those who are hours and miles from live cheese... As to the affinage issue, I guess I was somewhat suckered by the commercial hype of the concept. The Artisinal cheese center is only the most recent attempt at making affinage a hot marketing concept... the Central Markets down in Texas made rather a big deal of their specially climate controlled cheese caves they've built into their stores back in 1999... Further commentary on this would, of course, be welcome if you've got more to add. Best, Chris

Steven, thanks so much for a great answer to my terroir question. It brings to mind a silly thought, however. It is about the blocks of "cheddar" and "colby" and "swiss" that appear shrink wrapped in plastic in every supermarket, the industrial bulk cheeses that don't have much in the way of character. They seem young and with a fairly high water content, which means they could probably take some aging and develop some character if it were done right. Do you have any thoughts/tips for people stranded far from interesting cheesemongers with only industrial cheese to work with? Could somebody create a space where a block of this sort of cheese could age and develop into something interesting that incorporates the regional slurry of microbeasts and their unique flavor? Any advice for introducing variety into the outcome while starting with the same base material? Any idea what somebody could expect if they waxed a block of the stuff and tossed it into the 65 degree cellar for a few months? What sort of care regimen would be required? Is there any hope of teaching ordinary folks to be successful home affineurs?

Project- I've never been to Trotters... or even to Chicago... but in my experiences with high-end tasting-menu based restaurants in NYC and Phila., I'd venture to say that if you named a couple of wines and gave them a couple of weeks notice, they'd put together a menu designed to go with your wines of choice. There is nothing inherently nouvelle or spa-cuisine about the tasting menu format. You appear to like heavy heavy food-- let them know that in a special request with your reservation and you'll see a tasting menu of braised short ribs, stewed veal cheeks, crispy breaded fried sweetbreads in some sort of sauce, etc. I think the excessive lightness in the menu that you find problematic is a product of market forces, not a imposition of the chef's vision of an ideal cuisine. I'd bet the kitchen would be quite happy to have the chance to cook a full line-up of beefy fatty heavy dishes-- there's a long tradition of them in haute cuisine... just the people with the money today are deathly afraid of fat/salt/carbs/whatever so the public presentation menu must take those irrational phobias into account. Just because they do that doesn't mean that they can't or won't chuck a rack of lamb or a slab of ribs into the oven with the same amount of attention to detail as they lavish on the lobster carpaccio with hyssop oil and baby pea shoots.

What is the story on the beautiful pink tuna that is out there in the markets? Not all tuna is so pretty and pink... more often brown, even when IQF. I've heard that the pinkness is attributable to some sort of immediate carbon monoxide treatment of the fish. Anything to this story?

If you like Alton Brown's kitchen, it is for sale now: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...ssPageName=WDVW Wonder what this means for future production of Good Eats...

I recall hearing/reading a story a while ago about a cheesemaking operation that moved from one building to another. In their new quarters they found that the cheese they made just wasn't the same as the cheese that came from the previous facilities. They followed their procedures exactly, used the same ingredients, but couldn't get the cheese to come out the same. The punchline of the story was that they needed to culture the room they were making the cheese in by storing a big batch of the earlier made cheese in there in the open to allow right the microfauna to take up residence. My question to you is-- was that story apocyphal, or is consistent cheesemaking really that subject to environmental conditions. Any similar stories you've run across? How about examples of cheeses that are made from the same recipe but come out totally different?

Looking at the costs of American artisan cheeses, I'm wondering on your thoughts about those of us who wander over to Fairway or Zabars or the Gourmet Garage and buy lots of interesting imported cheeses at the $10 or less per pound, when domestic non-industrial products are always $15+. I like good cheese and am not disappointed by the bargain imports... You'll pry the $8.00 Boucheron and $9.00 Cabrales out of my cold dead hands... but I feel kind of bad about my aversion to paying the premium for American artisan products more often than I do. When I do get them they're good... but I often don't taste the premium (except in certain limited exceptions like Humboldt Fog and certain local producers...) Your thoughts? What American cheeses are really worth it?

Was wondering if you've had any thoughts on the topic of displaying cheese that has been pre-cut for sale but in a more cheese-friendly packaging than the standard plastic wrap? Sure, every cheese counter operator says that plastic wrap is bad for the cheese, but opaque wrapping like foil around paper is bad for business. A local cheesemaker in the countryside outside of Philadelphia brought to my attention a mold resistant paper that they will wrap larger cuts of cheese in that they say will keep the beasties at bay for the lifespan of a pound cut. Has anybody had the thought to put a clear window in that sort of paper and market it to cheese counter operators? I'm sick of getting cheese that has been pushed over the hill by its packaging. Any thoughts?

Where is the border between honestly sampling the wares to determine if they're of the quality you want and theft? Is tasting a grape to see if the bunch is flavorful or watery wrong? How about a cherry? I'd certainly not want to pay $X/lb for tasteless or watery or otherwise suboptimal produce. How about the new batch of olives that you have no idea about what they're like? I agree that snagging candy from the bulk bin is shady, since you know damn well what it tastes like, and that you want it. I'm really grossed out by the chutney story above... which is really theft of value from the store, even if she didn't walk away with any of them... the pop-top is popped, so if somebody did buy one of the opened ones they'd likely realize it wasn't sealed... and if it sat on the shelf long enough opened, it would go bad. The store would certainly have to take the return. Now stores should do tastings of things like the chutneys that are unfamiliar to most shoppers... but I imagine that Typhoid-Chutney-Mary wouldn't be deterred from her top-popping-finger-dipping ways even if the shelf did say that chutneys are offered for tasting every third thursday from 2:00-6:00. Were I a manager of the store and saw that, she'd become persona non grata from that moment forward.

Dear Mario- I really love your work at inspiring Americans to think about cooking in a more Italian way... we all really need it, I think. So... on to the question-- What American purveyors offer ingredients of an Italian level of quality? Pretty broad, I'll admit. I'll give you a few examples of the stuff that raised the question: 1) Your own experiments with curing meats in the basement of your wine shop-- Nothing good enough out there in the NYC market, so you're making your own... or just helping your Dad's salumeria project in Seattle with a little experiment here? 2) Gorgonzola- I've found that that BelGioioso's Wisconsin produced cheese is as good or better than anything that Zabar's or Fairway have in the way of imported offerings.... much unlike fellow Wisconsonian Stella's offerings. 3) Dry pasta- I've not found an American product that can beat imported pastas... probably won't, given how affordable the imports are... unless you have a hint. 4) Specialty stuff, i.e olives and their oil, proscuitto, pancetta, etc. - Being a Philadelphian who spends a lot of time in NYC, I have the benefits of having everywhere from Tallutto's to Di Palo's at my ready disposal... but are there products that are worth getting that don't appear in the Italian shops like I've mentioned? Any domestic stand-outs that do appear in them?

My summer witbier just came out of the fermentor and went into my force carbonating toy yesterday, so by this afternoon it had absorbed enough fizz to give it a try. I brew a not too shabby witbier if I say so myself. Not up to Celis standards yet, but quite tasty. Mine has a little too much in the way of body, I think. Celis (my gold standard) is quite thin, yet very flavorful... This batch has the tart tangy citrus-ness of a wit down, but the mouthfeel is a little too dense, which obscures the tanginess, which is what witbiers are all about. Following quickly on the witbier's heels, a summer dark beer just went into the fermentor today, taking advantage of the leftover belgian wit yeast from the previous brew. This is a modified witbier... modified to be pitch black and with a little denser body to go along with its imposing visage. But this is still a wheat beer at its heart, and should have the tart crispness that all wheats share... I'm looking forward to see how it turns out this year, since I've played with the hops and spices in it since I last brewed it. This time around, there are coriander, orange peel and sweet woodruff in there, in addition to the hops. The hops themselves are a little different as well-- Willamette as the bittering hop and Styrian Goldings as the finishing hop... should make for a nicely spicy flavor profile combined with everything else in there... My recent commercial beer tastings worth talking about have been Unibroue's Trois Pistoles, a dark, fruity belgian style beer from Canada... quite tasty indeed, and a few of the widget cans of Young's Oatmeal Stout, which turns out quite nicely from the widget cans, actually-- chocolatey and rich with chewy mouthfeel and lovely long finish.

Vermouth is good stuff. Nobody takes it seriously except maybe the people who make Vya and King Eider... but that's not a bad thing, as far as I'm concerned. If there were no vermouth there would be no way for people to brag about how dry their martinis are. A dry vermouth over ice is lovely. Add Orange Bitters for a real treat. Does anybody know what sort of wine it is based on? Sweet vermouth, on the other hand, does nothing for me. Always tastes oxidised and musty on its own... I use it solely for mixing.

Thanks so much everybody! I'm feeling some inspiration now. As promised, here's a picture of part of the purslane patch:

I'm looking for some inspiration on what to do with this succulent weed that has been spreading throughout my garden like wildfire. I know that I could use it in salads as a green, or mix it in with cubed cucumbers and tomatos... What else is there to do with it? It's got a bit of leafy crunch like mache does, but has a brighter flavor... sort of like less sour sorrel in a mache like form... Maybe I'll go snap a picture so that people know what I'm talking about and edit it into the post in a bit.

Fine. You win. All animals are likely to be full of deadly stuff that can kill me, and always have been and always will be. No changes in agriculture will make any difference. Bacteria that have survived generations of anti-biotic onslaught are no more hardy or infectious than they would have been without that selective factor in their environment. But food television should not harp on it.

Back to the point of this thread-- What exactly should a TV chef be forced to do repeatedly on camera by way of demonstrating compliance with sanitary standards? Should there be a closeup of a good 30 second hand scrub every time uncooked poultry appears? How about just a conspicuous donning of latex gloves... <*snap* ... *snap*> like the old standard shot before a TV surgeon goes into the operating room? Should all food television kitchen sets standardize on a set of colored cutting boards and knives so that the viewers can be assured that the chef is cutting the right item on the right surface with the right knife? Should there be a monologue about the importance of preventing cross-contamination every time one of these actions takes place? There won't be much in the way of cooking television produced if these rules are enforced. The food sanitation problems come from the indiscriminate use of antibiotics in raising animals, and the vile condition factory farmed animals live in. Those actions are directly attributable to a certain industry, and that industry pays for none of the havoc its policies demonstrably wreak. Is that right? Why, exactly, should TV chefs have to cut into their 22 minutes of instruction time to right the wrongs caused by an identifiable party who is not paying for them for that service?

Fine research... I'm sure that sanitation, vaccines, anasthesia, subdued Huns, Gauls, Ostrogoths and Visigoths, antibiotics, prenatal care, lead-free pipes, and the fact that garum is out of fashion all contribute to modern longevity. However you've entirely missed the point- Why should the burden of defusing the biotoxic bombs that agribusiness deploys to every supermarket in the country fall on TV chefs? Whaddaya bet that the chickens that they use on the TV shows are free range, disease free boutique beasts specially raised for the chef? If I were negotiating a media contract for a TV chef, I'd damn well stick that in as a condition of employment... no way I'd want them to have to deal with toxic chicken when there are minimally costlier alternatives that have a significantly lesser chance of infecting them or passers-by with noxious microfauna.

What do you mean by sake-tini? I'd agree that the whole -tini naming thing is a crime against language, but not necessarily against the booze. I've seen two variations on the sake cocktail concept- A gin or vodka base with sake used in place of the vermouth... which, when garnished with a cucumber, is quite nice, and is really not that far from a real martini (if you believe in the authenticity of vodka martinis.) Coming up with a proper name for this shouldn't be so hard-- Call it a Geisha's Whisper, or a Zen or a Silver Moon... anything but a goddam sake-tini. Then there are the sake + liqueur drinks and the sake and fruit juice drinks which are also called sake-tinis, which are nothing like martinis and really shouldn't be called sake-tinis because not only is the name stupid, but it is also misleading since sake+stuff bears no resemblance to a real martini. Problem of the -tini phenomenon is that -tini does at least carry some information insofar as it implies a strong drink in an inverted conic glass... No standard method of divining what a creatively named cocktail's like unless you order one... at least you have some small fraction of a clue when you order something called a x-tini.

Never had any of them... A very PNW selection... What drew you to them?

Putting my legal background to work I perused the PA Code of Regulations and found a few mentions of thymus glands and other such, but none of which made any attempts to outlaw them.. so I don't think there's a law against them*. It may just be a real lack of demand that keeps them off the shelves. Clamor for sweetbreads all! Let them know we're here and we want our sweetbreads! * Which is not to say that some other law has not been interpreted to cover them while not specifically mentioning them, a possibility no lawyer could discount.

Excellent! I look forward to hearing the results of your sleuthing. Would be interesting to see if a consistent story emerges across all the folks who are asked.

Word!

Actually, have you seen sweetbreads on the menu in PHL anywhere? I know that the only memorable sweetbreads I've consumed in restaurants were in NYC... La Caravelle did them wonderfully, as does Prune... But I don't recall seeing them in PA ever. Makes me wonder if there is some regulation in PA that declares the offal bits "unfit for human consumption" for some silly reason or other. I could get sweetbreads in ordinary supermakets in Texas... I've picked up lamb kidneys at Wegman's in Allentown before... but never seen a sweetbread in PA. Maybe we have a grass-roots political issue here-- "Free the Sweetbreads!"

Oh please.... People survived thousands of years of cookery without the benefit of even the germ theory of disease (though did not have antibiotic fuelled superbugs living in their poultry either, to be fair). The marginal increase in risk to anybody caused by licking a spoon is negligable. It's sad enough that modern agriculture has turned food products into biohazards. Now do we consumers need to be beaten over the head with the fact that our food supply is noxious and toxic? Sure we do, because it is the case... but cooking on TV is as much about the fantasy that such were not the case as it is about the actual procedure. Antibiotic crazed agribusiness should have to fund a ubiquitous public service announcement campaign warning of the dangers caused by their practices... The duty and the blame should not be shifted to TV chefs or anybody else. This is called internalizing the externality in economic speak. Time to advocate its adoption more broadly...

Randomly asked a farmer today if, since they sell lots of lamb parts, could they get me some lamb sweetbreads. They were puzzled and said they never see them from their butcher, and wondered if there was some law that prevented it. I've never seen sweetbreads available at any consumer market in PA... maybe this is just a function of the limited sample size of my life experience, but there might be something to it. Has anybody who's not a chef ever bought sweetbreads in PA? How does one qualify to buy them if there is some law restricting access?