Pan

I've never been there, but for what it's worth, here's a thread on the place from 2002. Have fun! Admin note: Merged all previous threads relating primarily to Tabla and The Bread Bar at Tabla into one master thread.

Klary, I travelled around Burgundy with my family (parents and brother) in the summer of 2002 on a very different kind of trip and enjoyed your photo journal very much for bringing back some great memories. Did you fit in any visits to any of the wonderful cathedrals and other places of artistic importance in Autun, Beaune, et al. in between visiting vineyards and eating all that delicious food?

That's a great idea. Some fennel for fennel tea is also good for nausea, and peppermint tea is a soothing general tonic.

Who knows? But I suspect this is probably just a genuine difference in judicial interpretation. In the past, Scalia has broken with Rehnquist and I believe Thomas, too, on some free speech issues. But that's not about food.

Oddly enough -- and someone can correct me if I'm off-base on this -- I get the impression that in Iranian food, plums have a somewhat comparable function to tomatoes in Italian cuisine (acidic, sweet/sour, juicy). You can try your braised chicken recipe with plums and see if it works before deciding whether to pass the altered recipe on or not.

When I saw the subtitle to this thread, I thought the issue would be different: Whether wine is really necessary for a great meal. I would strongly argue that it is not, though such an opinion is really personal and not some kind of universal principle. But far be it from me to suggest that wine cannot add to the enjoyment of a meal. I certainly don't think wine could have improved my meal at the Li Family Restaurant in Beijing, but though I am only an occasional wine drinker, I have certainly had meals that were enhanced by one or more glasses of well-matched wine.

I'm wondering whether the taqueria on Roosevelt Av. in Jackson Heights (around 77 St. or so) which features tacos de lengua among several other varieties might be comparable in quality to a good SF taqueria. I haven't tried it, but it sure as heck looks authentic.

Yeah, I didn't realize just how active an agricultural region the southern part of Ontario was. I get the impression that London is a city of some size, too, is that right?

My solution for avoiding sleeping through alarms is to set both my alarm clock and clock radio to 24-hour time (no chance to set the alarm to PM rather than AM) and put the alarm clock on Snooze. The alarm clock then rings repeatedly (every 5 minutes until turned off), and the radio's alarm is really piercing and set to the "emergency" time that's the latest I'd be able to realistically wake up and get wherever I'm going in time. I usually turn it off before it rings, but for those days when I'm really exhausted, it's a reliable last line of defense. Of course, I live by myself, so I'm not waking anyone else up with the alarms. You're definitely a better person than I for being able to start work at 5 A.M. Enjoy your new job!

Food was entertainment for the ancient Roman patricians, too, and I would think, the ancient Chinese court, etc., etc.

Too oniony? Is there such a thing? You need to tell them the old Eastern European Jewish joke/story about the fierce king and the onions and garlic. You know the story? I must have posted it in some thread here, but I can't remember which.

I'll answer this differently: I used to hate durian, and I used to dislike Roquefort. I now can like really top-quality durian and loved the great Roquefort I decided to try at Grand Vefour. Hmmm...I also never liked sashimi until I had some great stuff at -- ironically -- a rather inexpensive Japanese place in Paris! Anyway, the theme here is that sometimes, great quality really is the most important thing.

Gobble, gobble. Sleep well; see you tomorrow.

Terrific photos, and it looks like food I'd probably enjoy.

I'd like to emphasize that samosas must be thoroughly reheated after sitting outside for x-number of hours. I remember family members getting upset stomachs after eating curry puffs that had probably been sitting out too long at roadside stands in Malaysia in the 70s.

Randi, those pineapple upside down cakes look awesome! You had an adventure today; thanks for sharing it with us. So what's on tap tomorrow?

For some of us, this is not speculation. What did and do people who don't have refrigerators do? Answer: Reheat everything thoroughly. That's the key: Everything must be reheated thoroughly before eating. If the people being given food have no cooking facilities, then they must not be given anything that requires heat for sterilization. But if they do, they can carefully reheat the kinds of things I've been recommending and eat them with a reasonable expectation of safety. Your approach simply wouldn't have worked for most of human history, before refrigeration was invented.

Chow mein is a real Chinese dish, too -- it just depends on how it's made. Next time you're in New York, consider trying the Beef and Chinese Broccoli Chow Mein at Congee Village. That's real Chinese food for Chinese people (though we non-Asians eat it, too). But now, back to our show...

Indeed. It's great to be a part of history, but greater to find one's true love and be able to share one's life with them. Robin, I love your attitude about gaining weight in style. Bon courage [obligatory French reference for a Canada-based blog] on staying off the cigarettes!

I used to bite the heads off of animal crackers, and that didn't make me into a dog-kicker when I grew up!

When I was living in rural Malaysia in the 70s, no-one in the area had a refrigerator because electricity was available at night only. A common occurrence in (well, initially, outside) my house was for a chicken to be slaughtered, cleaned and boiled plain on the first day, then recooked with spices as a curry the next day. Fish from that day's catch were bought, cooked, and eaten on the same day. The key point is that as long as the families have working stoves and can thoroughly reheat everything, it is possible for their food to be acceptable or even tasty as leftovers the next day. Spices certainly do help, though, if any spoilage has occurred due to being left out in hot weather. As per what Touregsand wrote, soups and stews -- especially well-seasoned ones -- are good candidates even if refrigerators and freezers are unavailable. Let's remember that until pretty recently, nobody had a refrigerator. That's a major reason for the development of fish sauce (garum, etc.) and shrimp paste; dried salted fish (baccala, etc.), shrimp, and squid; jerky/pemmican; jerk dishes; etc., etc. Here are some specific ideas: Jambalaya, chili, spicy Thai curries (e.g., "Massaman" curry is the Malay Muslim-style curry of the villages in the southern part of Thailand and a time-honored no-refrigerator recipe), mulligatawny soup. For less-spicy ideas, consider a nice pot roast, boeuf a la flamande, bouef bourguignon, coq au vin. There's a great Ecuadorian chicken recipe from the Round the World Cookbook that my mother used to cook; it features olives and is called Aji de Pollo. I'm sure others will think of more, but I think these are the types of dishes to consider. Keep away from highly perishable foodstuffs like clams and mussels (I wouldn't recommend clam chowder). For vegetable dishes, ratatouille would be welcome, or provide some spicy vegetable curries, etc. Also consider lentil soup, split pea soup, dal, and Dominican-style (or Cuban-, Puerto Rican-style, etc.) black and red beans. I think that that style of beans, which contains a good deal of liquid, will stay good without refrigeration better than refried beans, which I figure should probably be refried and eaten right away. Some fresh fruits and vegetables that don't go bad immediately could also be much appreciated.

If we're going to talk about tarts, I really prefer French-style rhubarb tarts without berries. I love strawberries, but I don't think that strawberries add anything to improve a rhubarb tart. The thing that's great about rhubarb is similar to what's great about granny smith apples, only more so: The tart succulence. Just add sugar to taste, but not so much that there's no tartness left. YoChefGregg's suggestion is more to my liking. I think I prefer the rhubarb tart without custard, but I'll take it either way, without complaint.

I'm enjoying this blog already. Randi and Robin, I can't resist wondering how you two met, but that's not a food-related question. So what I'll do instead is ask you two whether Robin spent some time living in California before you moved to Ontario, and if so, how did she find that? Was California a culinary culture shock for her?

I, too, was going to recommend chicken soup. Congee is also a great idea. But it might be even better to bring something your friend is craving.

Not me! I'm sometimes amazed by the lengths to which some people (maybe we food-obsessed eGullet Society members in particular) will go. I find it unimaginable to bring my own salt to a restaurant, but in all seriousness, whatever floats your boat is fine with me. I'm with jgm, though: I almost never add salt to anything I'm served, except for the Korean soup that has no salt in it whatsoever and is meant to be salted by each customer to his/her taste.