Elissa

Somewhere I read that wasabi might have been used with sushi/sashimi to help kill parasites or other bacteria in uncooked fish. Could this be the case? Or is it rather used, as Jinmyo might say, for deliciousness? In my experience the difference between freshly grated wasabi and the more standard ready-made green paste kind could not have a greater effect on Japanese cuisine. Which leads me to wonder if the 'main event' here isn't harmony, and the symphonic participation of 'spices' with their flesh. Ginger and other roots, such as galangal, in addition to the unique flavors with which they enrich food, positively teem with vitamins and nutrients that cannot be found elsewhere. Kaffir lime leaves always taste just like themselves, as does lemongrass: but O the harmonies they achieve in concert. Yet add them to most western dishes and their flavors stumble and protrude. What too of Vietnamese cuisine, heavily influenced by the French?

Wow Eric I'm sated just reading that. Did you eat interesting places (or food in them ) in Sintra? I love that little town, not far from Lisbon, but there I mostly ate fresh grilled fish on the beach. What else could you want? Two things I will never forget in the Algarve include a visit to Silves, the Moorish palace, and a restaurant called Vila Lisa Adega, in Mexilhoeira Grande. (tel 082/ 9 64 78 or 79 94 79) No menu here: just a rustic old joint where one comes for dinner and sits down to roughly eight courses of divinely inspired pork and its accoutrements.

Thank you for that post Eric. Did you like El Gordo in Lisbon?

1998 Ogier Cote Rotie Belle Helene (if you cant find it then the regular Cote Rotie is great also) ... I would avoid producers such as Chapoutier, Jaboulet, and Guigal. They are more mass market wines and would not make as special a gift. I suppose when I said Guigal I was thinking of La Turque, which would be a great gift wine, but costs 3 or 4 hundred dollars....

Must admit that I was only thinking of Grillet, and this can be mighty old indeed. I was thinking of the way it beads almost. Might be too damn parallel with the roe tho, no?

I thought Meerlust's balance of backbone and nuance speoke to formidable strength and character of SA wines. Had it at Morell's by the glass. Met many S. Africans sailing in the Carib: they all seemed to be leaving home in sailboats stocked with South Africa's divine whites. Steely and big. Weren't they to your wife's palate?

Just called Giorgios (sp?, 212 650 0850, 1431 Third Ave) at Beyoglu and he said he does not make Taruk Gogsu, nor has anyone ever asked for it before. He has not seen it in NY either and though he could make it, his cuisine integrates Turkish with Greek and Armenian or Jewish.

I'd go with Rhone, a Cote Rotie or St. Joseph. Chapoutier, Guigal and Cuilleron would be good and the 1989s are drinking magnificently now. Bordeaux 2000 tastes great now and will for ages.

I would have said an old French Viognier, though Rose champansky (I like Laurent Perrier) was likely best

Beyoglu, the Turkish rest on 3rd in the 70's, is really quite good. Would anyone like to argue about this there? BTW: though it seems contrary to intuition, I haven't found any good wines from Turkey or Greece. Dull, muted spices; watery or brutal. Retsina is of course fun to drink on a hillside encrusted with white villas overlooking the Mediterranean, and it cuts through those light fries, fish and lemon flavors: but is it potable elsewhere?

I've recently eaten in two Turkish restaurants in NY that were both remarkably good, though not expensive. Does anyone here know the Turkish Kitchen or Galata?

Tampopo: Juzo Itami's spaghetti western set in Tokyo where the good and bad guys aren't so much as odds as the relative merits of food and sex.

Zagat lets anyone chime in about their favorite. The panel FG proposes would be made of people who have presumably agreed on some notion of criteria. Therefore the ratings would be less indiscriminately, popularly-based than Zagat's. Also, the ratings could be interactive, tabulated by the more particular preferences a user shares with select contributors within the panel.

Excellent idea. The board members could perhaps present their own criteria, preferences and prejudices up front. A panel of X members from a given city all submit twenty five top tens, from which the 'official' answers might be calculated. These have both a 'populist' glean of objectivity, being the average of several people's opinions, and the insurance of well educated palates. Readers/users might also be able to compare top tens from board members whose tastes they have reason to sypathize with (or reject), if they could set the search to lists made by panel members who are primarily seeking top quaity, creativity, authenticity or value.

If Viader does not produce a style of wine that appeals to you, all Parker's points still won't taste good. But to some extent Parker's scale does consider each wine within its own category: a midrange Tuscan such as Terrabianca as brilliant within its ranks, or Solanera. On the other hand the efficacy of French classifications has often shocked me. How did they actually figure out what's right? How can 150 year old judgements still hold water on wine? Do they?

Thom might qualify as an American 4, or a close runner. Perhaps we need an 'Almost Four' category?

oopsi: Ann Wigmore, not Mary Wigworm.

Do you think of March as 3or4?

A guaranteed "gag" is the happy shake I try to drink a few days a week when I first awake: Grind a heaping T of flax seeds in the (dedicated) coffee grinder, dump into clean yogurt container, add a scoop of green powder (I'm partial to ProGreens) and 1-2 cups aloe juice, which has no flavor: I have 4-gallon cases of George's sent directly to my apt in NY from Texas. Blend with wand and transfer to elegant glass. Sometimes I preceed this concoction with a shot of live algae from Klamath Falls to considerable effect. Chases the blues quicker than Etta James does.

Yes! Though surely thee are no more tawdry bars than those of Barcelona's Barri Xino. Maybe Cairo. Bankgkok: yes. There's a bar in Seville just off the river where they celebrate Feria NONSTOP, speaking of Christmas decorations never retrieved. They have videos of the carnevale playing constantly, and the music, and confetti and tinsel festooooooooning dreams of FERIA in Sevilla. The locals at the shiny discos were horrified at my joy at the illusion of a permanent fiesta but I'd recently met Miralda.

In NY: does Rudy's count as a dive bar? They have likely the world's best jukebox and if I recall correctly, which indeed I may not, authentic sawdust on the floor. What's the 'cowboy' bar on 9th St and A? They make a good attempt at authenticity, though it does not smell *quite* as bad as Coyote Ugly, or so I am gleaning from your memorable description, W. And there's a bar up on Amsterdam at maybe 89th that HAS NO NAME it's such a dive. When you go in, the two TVs play sports and no matter what you've had to drink, the locals have had more.

have you ever tried freshly grated ginger with canned tuna?

Watching the Ham Maestros work can indeed tranxfix, especially if you are propped up at the bar at 4 am after a couple none too few. As your skilled, ancient hamcraftsman turns tenderly to his work, his finesse can silience the room, in spite of the mulitudes - men in blue overalls, British football fans and german quadrilles - with which it teems. He picks up the blade (surely this ham knive has a special name? It seems sacriligious even to call it a knife) and reduces the known world to nothing more than the pierna in front of him and the axis' subtle twist. The skinny slices he lovingly follows off the leg to the plate with the tip of his sword as they fall are treated with an awe even maggiethecat could appreciate: the very manna of the earth gently rent from the leg of God himself.* Brazilian Rodizios have taken this dance to another level altogether, as they dress their meat slicers up in torero costumes and prance them around the room in sequines while they slice. It has been said that the Flaming Shashlick of Goa takes its cue from here too. btw: Remelluri *new thread: pigs in religion

May I ask: do you eat tuna from a can though it's been cooked in that can? if so, what you best like to do to tuna when it's no longer in its can or embedded in little white balls?

Did you see any Flamenco? Go to the Cock? El Chicote? There's a great New Yorican trombone player there, Jerry Gonzalez.