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I didn't know what that was and so I looked it up. One of the pages I found was especially interesting, this recipe. Is this like what you are familiar with? Any advice? ← I've never made shchav. The recipe looks like shchav to me, though I don't think the eggs are obligatory. No doubt, someone else will pipe in with more details. You may find various other transliterations, such as schav, but the Ukranian pronunciation used in my family (father's mother comes from what's now Ukraine) is shchav.

One idea I have is that, if there are reports that "nobodies" are treated lousily in certain restaurants - as indeed happened to me in two restaurants that got 4 stars from NYT reviewers (Lutece and Chanterelle, a long time ago in both cases) - perhaps the Times should send freelance reporters who don't normally cover food, simply to find out what kind of service they get.

Couldn't it be claimed that a credit card under a fake name represents fraud? Is it perfectly legal, for example, for me to get a credit card under the name of James Bond?

Thanks. That's a really informative course. Sorry I missed it the first time.

I'd like to know what charts call you obese at that height and weight, Dr. Funk. But obviously, there's way more to sickness and health than mere weight vs. height!

Shchav, of course, but you might think of that as a soup (some think of it as a drink). You could also simply eat it in place of or as part of a salad.

It probably helped me fall asleep and sleep pretty soundly for some 12 hours. That's a good side effect, under the circumstances. Nausea is a bad side effect. Yes, StudentChefEclipse, I've also sometimes had trouble with constipation from codeine. In fact, I just ate some Metamucil Cinnamon Spice fiber wafers. I don't like their apple crisp wafers but find that the cinnamon ones are relatively palatable and make the medicine go down a lot better than the terribly chemical-tasting powdered versions.

I have yet to have the pleasure of visiting Vancouver, but I'd have to believe that there are plenty of really good inexpensive restaurant there, too, so that what you're describing may be more a function of taste than frugality. Am I right?

For the record, today, I ate a large order of tripe soup with unbuttered rye toast accompanied by fresh orange juice, delivered from Teresa's, my local Polish diner. For whatever reason, or maybe for some reason having nothing to do with the food, I haven't had an upset stomach so far today. I'm glad you're better, Ling.

How common is hard labor there? They may be poor, but are they working the fields every day or doing back-breaking labor in the mines or factories? How do they make their livings, and do they all have cars?

I've had a respiratory illness for over a week. Today, my cough acted up and I've had to take two doses of hydrocodone (codeine) syrup. Earlier in the week when I took that syrup, it immediately upset my stomach, but that hasn't happened today. I'm not sure why, though. Does any of you have a strategy for drinking or eating things in such a way as to avoid bad side effects from medicines you have to take on either a sometime or everyday basis? Talk about it here.

I don't get it. Would it take more time for you to cook meals for one another than to go to someplace and get stuff you don't like?

How do you flavor the agar-agar, Sue-On?

I've never had the pleasure of visiting Barcelona, but I think Kuala Lumpur is a pretty damn interesting city for food. They have great Malay food, great Chinese food, and great Indian food, all the way from fine dining to street stall levels. And the thing about it is, a lot of that food of diverse origins ends up coming together with some pan-Malaysian features. I don't feel up to going into more detail right now, but perhaps some of our KL-area members would like to elaborate.

The Italian name is Ceci. I live in New York and have always recognized "garbanzo beans" but call them chickpeas. Keep in mind, however, that Goya products are for sale in most any supermarket in Manhattan.

Sounds like a little too much excitement for one day! Good luck with everything.

It may be hard to reach a consensus that obesity is primarily caused by behavior rather than genetics in the U.S., because we haven't changed from a primarily agrarian society characterized by hard labor and walking long distances to a society of sedentary workers and car owners who walk to the car, from the parking lot to the mall, and back to the car, in one generation. By contrast, I look at Malaysia. It was very rare to find fat Malaysians less than 30 years ago - essentially, a generation ago. Why? Because few people owned cars or even motorcycles, so they walked and biked long distances. Also, most people were poor peasants or proletarians who did hard labor for a living. A generation later, have people's genes become fatter? Or is it that they're wealthier, eat more (including more sugar), own cars and motorcycles, don't walk or bike much (generally speaking, with some exceptions in places like Kota Bharu where a nightly walk is part of the local culture), and have legal and illegal aliens do the hard labor for them? It's undeniably true that I haven't done a scientific study, but the empirical evidence is very difficult to gainsay. Our genes may help make us obese, but the evidence seems to me to clearly point to the likelihood that it's our behavior that really causes the obesity in most cases. I have no doubt that there are some exceptional people on the margins, what with hypothyroidism and the like, but I also have little doubt that this accounts for a small percentage of a general increase in obesity.

As in "Y-M-C-A! It's fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A!"? Nope. Who's Barazza?

I don't remember bell peppers in the gulyasleves I had in Budapest. Is it in fact common to use bell peppers in gulyasleves in Hungary?

Sounds like a good idea to me, but for some reason, the Times hasn't done it. It would make their star system a lot easier to understand. I must say, I wonder if anyone other than Rich thinks Sripraphai serves 4-star food. I can think of an Indian restaurant I ate at a few months ago that served what I thought of as at least 3- and probably 4-star food, but it was considerably more expensive than Sripraphai. I think Sripraphai serves delicious everyday food. And there's nothing wrong with that!

I think "worth a detour" is a definable phrase. Going to Chickpea if you find yourself at Tompkins Sq. Park is not a detour but a restaurant that's worth going to if you're in the area or making a trip to the area anyway (which to me is in some way analogous to the "interesting" category of 1 star in Michelin or, better yet, the unstarred bib gourmand). A detour to me means that if you're driving, you find it worthwhile to go a fair distance out of your way to have lunch or dinner somewhere, or in this case, that you're willing every once in a while to take a ~80-to-90-minute round-trip on the subway because the place is so good. Much as I like Chickpea - and I'm delighted to be a regular there - I don't put it in that category. I do put Sripraphai, Tanoreen (at least based on one visit), Spicy & Tasty, and a few other places that are not expensive in that category (forgetting about more expensive places for the moment). I think it is a very small number of places. I also think that people who are suggesting Bruni would ever give four stars to a cheap, informal place that serves great fried chicken or you name it are engaging in really overblown hyperbole. (How's "overblown hyperbole" for a hyperbolic phrase. )

Dowel, between 5th and 6th.

Union Pacific had strange decor, but this place just sounds out-and-out weird. It sounds like the product of a hallucination. Anyone want to go there? Not I. But it sounds like it'll fit in in the current version of the Meat-Packing District.

Same to you! Crabby Joe's must have taken a beating in the hurricanes. Did they have to do a lot of repairs before reopening?

No tips here, but congratulations! and have a wonderful time!