Pan

This seems like a good time to revive this thread. I gave up on Chickpea some time ago, and now prefer the St. Marks branch of Mamoun's when I want felafel or shawarma late at night in the East Village. I don't think it's the best, but it's cheap and quite acceptable to me. I am very upset over the apparent very quick end to the existence of Taksim's East Village location, where I got tasty doner kebab sandwiches and the like. I still haven't tried Taim and some of the other places mentioned in this thread. Is this place still recommended? I'm getting together with various people for lunch tomorrow, and we need a good kosher felafel place in the West 20s or 30s (the out-of-towners' hotel is on 31st and Broadway).

well...2nd Ave Deli was in the EV, not the LES. and it's going to reopen. Katz's is a concern ← EV historically=northern part of LES. Though with the new generation and the condominiums, we increasingly hear statements like yours. I'm still of the "same difference" mentality on this. savethedeli, this is no longer a largely Jewish neighborhood, so the closure of some more Jewish institutions is presumably to be expected. Katz's is so popular with all ethnicities that it's likely to be an exception and, even if closed in its current location, will almost doubtless continue in another building.

David, please tell us more about clover sprouts. Are those for red or white clover? Can you buy them, or do you need to forage them? How do they taste?

Good luck! Do you think there will be much clientele for an American bakery in Paris?

I'll let others make suggestions on what to get, but beware that on weekends, the crowds, pushing, and sometimes elbowing can be terrible at Zabar's. That's pretty much true of Fairway on 75th St., too. But in a brief trip, go to Zabar's when you can.

Tofu. Check. Definitely need to do something on that. Another idea I had overnight: desserts. ← Not to ignore the "obvious": Make sure to mention fruit under desserts. Varieties of tea and other beverages should also be mentioned, including the phenomenon of Bubble Tea and related phenomena (smoothies with nata de coco, etc.). I've heard this stated many times, particularly in the context of food-and-nutrition discussions (you can Google and find thousands of variants of the statement "Rice is the main dish, the other stuff with the meat and sauce is just the topping"), but is it actually correct? I can see how if you're a peasant eking out your existence in an infertile, inland area there's no choice: you eat starches to survive and you get whatever bits of meat and vegetables you can. But if you go to a restaurant in Asia, or a middle class home, you don't see people eating huge piles of rice and using meat as garnish. You sometimes don't even see a plain starch item on the table at all. If anything, what I've noticed is that Americans eat more rice than Asians.[...] ← Your experience is different from mine, though to be fair, I don't frequently buffets in the U.S. In places like Malaysia, my experience has always been that you might eat a lot of food, but whatever you eat will be over a more or less full plate of rice probably 90% of the time, with the other ~10% consisting of exceptions like fried noodles, types of pancakes for breakfast, etc. I do agree that as people have become wealthier, they've been able to eat more lauk (the Malay food for "what goes on the rice"). I don't get the feeling that not eating rice with the lauk has become acceptable, though I could stand to be corrected. Nor do I get the feeling that eating more lauk has come at the expense of eating less rice -- I think wealthier people simply eat more food in general.

Why would it be better for a very easily-measured piece of data to remain opaque to doctors? It's just one piece of data. I have a scale that measures not only my weight but the percentage of fat in my body. I will use it every day to see what increases and decreases my weight on a daily basis. I recognize that that data won't tell me whether I have a respiratory disease or not, but I still want to know it.

Pan, please accept my sympathies on the loss of your friend. I've had a variety of thoughts from the original post, and from subsequent replies. I'm still sorting things out, but I want to start with a question that came to mind when I first read Pan's original post. Do they know how your friend's diabetes and weight caused her esophageal hemorrhage? ← Well, the friend who spoke with me very clearly felt she knew it. I don't know my friend's doctors, so I can't address what they thought or knew, other than the diabetes diagnosis. The last time I saw my friend in person, she mentioned to me in an off-hand kind of way that a doctor had said she had diabetes and that she thought it was BS and "doctors are nuts." My reaction was to say that if she didn't agree with the diagnosis, then by all means get a second opinion, but that I wouldn't fool around with this. And I left it there and went on to other topics. I haven't checked all of the potential complications of diabetes, but could speculate that the hemorrhage could have had to do with untreated or insufficiently treated high blood pressure, which often has a genetic component but can be related to being overweight in some people. (For example, my brother finds that when he's below a particular weight, his blood pressure is good, and when he goes above that weight, it's high.) My mother, who has at various times been overweight, though not drastically, has taken medicine for high blood pressure for decades. At a certain point, she was prescribed a medicine she had a terrible allergic reaction to (which would have brought on anaphylactic shock), and she decided to go off all blood pressure medication entirely and try to lose weight quickly. Three months later, at the age of 59, she had a severe cerebral hemorrhage that almost took her life. Needless to say, I take my high blood pressure medicine every day, and now, so does she! (By the way, my mother was lucky enough to be treated at a state-of-the-art ICU at St. Luke's uptown and is fine and still teaching full-time at the age of 74.)

I'd add that if you have to have Vietnamese food, get a sandwich for lunch at Banh Mi Saigon Bakery on Mott St. a bit south of Grand.

I agree on all counts. I'll add that a friend of my recently dead friend, who lived in the same city and therefore was able to spend a lot of time with her, was always a voice of truth to her. In retrospect, she believes she probably could have been more effective by communicating at a deeper emotional level, instead. Because for my friend, the overeating and obesity were symptoms of a deep, unresolved sadness, exacerbated by the problems of her line of work (freelance musician). Of course, we can never know whether any different style of behavior from anyone could have saved my friend, but I do agree that repeated lecturing is unlikely to have positive effects most of the time.

The most important topic of all for most Asian cuisines. Somewhere, it needs to be explained that traditionally, the rice or noodles are the core of the meal, with other things being regarded as sauces or side dishes that are added to the rice or noodles. But in terms of specific rice "dishes": Indian: Biryani Chinese, Malaysian, etc.: Various types of fried rice Korean: Bibimbap in its various guises And we can and should add to this list. (I'm sure there's a topical thread somewhere.) Breads also need to be mentioned. Most are flatbreads, sometimes stuffed, and they are more prevalent in Indian than other types of Asian cuisines commonly found in the U.S. It's uncommon to find Chinese flatbreads in American Chinese restaurants, but in Indian restaurants, the diner will likely be confronted with a choice between naan, paratha, roti, and various other types of North Indian breads, or in a South Indian restaurant, will have a choice of various types of Masala Dosai or Utthapams. And in Malaysian restaurants, Roti Canai and Roti Telur will be offered. I'll probably post some more ideas later. [Edit:] OK, coming back to this post, an additional category of rice dishes is congee in its various guises. Should there also be a discussion of how Chinese barbecued/roasted items such as Char Shu, Roast Duck, and Soy Sauce Chicken are different from Galbi and Bulgogi?

This promises to be an interesting and "different" blog, and I look forward to reading more about the intricacies of berries and so forth. Have fun, David!

prasantrin, are you sure the aneurysm had nothing to do with your father being overweight, or what he ate? It seems to me that there could have been a relationship there.

I just caught up with the rest of your blog. Thank you, Randi! The food you made for those receptions looked way better than what I've usually had (or seen) at wedding receptions I've played at. Now, enjoy NOT blogging for a while!

Thank you all for your expressions of sympathy. Kate, I'm so glad that you're recovering from anorexia. As you know, that kills many people and permanently affects others. I wish you -- and indeed all of us -- strength to persevere!

I understand, Kate. An ex-girlfriend of mine who's still a dear friend is like you -- hypothyroidism. But she is very fat, and I worry about her. I think it's great that she enjoys and has good taste in food -- that's one of the things we have in common -- but she's living in denial, too.

Thank you, Kate. My friend's death is very hard for me to deal with, but I do agree that if it can help me and any of the rest of us to wake up and take responsibility for what we're doing to ourselves, some good could result from a tragedy. But perhaps you'd like to elaborate on what you mean by living "in the tension." Tension is the proximate cause of a great deal of overeating and unhealthy eating -- a fact I of course know empirically. So I think that release of tension may be an important part of the solution. But I think you mean something else.

On Monday, I got a phone call informing me that a friend of mine who went to grad school with me had died at 45. The immediate cause, I found out later, was an esophageal hemorrhage, but the actual cause of death is the reason I'm posting here. My friend was quite heavy ever since I met her in 1990 and got heavier over time. She was eventually diagnosed with diabetes but pooh-poohed her diagnosis and doctors generally and continued to stuff herself, bringing upon herself a series of symptoms friends of hers recognized as stemming from diabetes. The hemorrhage was the final symptom. At the funeral, everyone was in disbelief that a 45-year-old could die suddenly like that, but as I've learned more about her recent history, I've realized that in a larger sense, her death wasn't sudden at all. While her case is extreme, I know that she was not unique in being overweight for emotional reasons -- in her case, as a reaction to a bad relationship she had two years before we met (before and during the relationship, she wasn't overweight) -- nor in living day to day in denial of what overeating is doing to us, and is likely to do to us later. We food-lovers share a joy in eating, and many of us have discussed the consolation of comfort foods. We all know that overeating and being heavy tend to engender problems with high blood pressure; acid reflux, with all the scary potential side effects of anti-reflux drugs; diabetes; heart attacks; strokes; hemorrhages; etc. And yet in the short term, it feels easier to many people, including many of us, to please and console ourselves with food, all too often to excess. What has shaken me so much is not just losing a wonderful friend who lived nothing close to a full lifespan, but also the fact that, at 5'10" and around 220 lbs. (with a heavy frame, but 31% body fat), I am a less extreme version of my friend, facing the same risks she refused to acknowledge or face. And so I can only say that those of us who are overeating or/and heavy -- especially if we're already experiencing any related symptoms -- need to see ourselves and our behavior with open eyes and be careful.

I agree that belacan is an excellent ingredient, but it is possible to overuse it, and like any other strong ingredient, it tastes awful when overused. My landlady, who cooked for my family when I was living in Terengganu in the mid 70s, veritably flooded stuff in belacan. Don't do that.

I think that “red onion” and shallot is the same thing, but I can’t remember where I got that information.[...] ← Shallots are called "bawang merah" in Malay, which translates literally as "red onion." Garlic is "bawang putih" ("white onion"), and onions are "bawang besar" ("big onion").

I agree with Chufi. Autun is a nice place. Great Roman amphitheatre. At least one nice restaurant that we sampled. ← Which one?

Have a good day tomorrow! How were the leftovers?

This seems to be your main point: DiFara deserves special treatment. I love DiFara, but I've noticed that the place is very dirty (the walls, the floor, etc.) and I've seen roaches in the dining area. As a matter of fact, the first time I ate there, I had to smash a roach before it got into the food. Do you think Dom's artisanality (is that a word?) should also give him a free pass on regulations on dirt and vermin? ← Pan: When were you last at DFara's?[...] ← Truthfully, Irwin, it's been a while -- possibly as long as a year ago or more, mostly because of happenstance (the fact that my lunch hour at Brooklyn College is not long enough and then I'm not around at suppertime). Are you saying that the whole place was cleaned and made relatively vermin-free more recently? Yes, I have eaten at various places where there were roaches. I would certainly eat at DiFara's after it reopens, and would greatly look forward to it. But I can't see why you think it deserves special treatment on regulations about vermin and cleanliness. My feeling is that they should do whatever they need to do to take care of the problems and then reopen. Somehow, all the other pizzerie manage to stay open. What are they doing different? Do you mean to tell us that they're no different, only someone has it in for Dom? Isn't he giving them a lot of rope to hang him with, in that case? Dom and family, take care of the problems and reopen. Please. We need your pizza and calzoni. Whatever needs to be done, just do it.

Looks like you got a lot of char on your satay. That rojak looks really Malaysian. I wish I could get rojak like that in Malaysian restaurants here.

This seems to be your main point: DiFara deserves special treatment. I love DiFara, but I've noticed that the place is very dirty (the walls, the floor, etc.) and I've seen roaches in the dining area. As a matter of fact, the first time I ate there, I had to smash a roach before it got into the food. Do you think Dom's artisanality (is that a word?) should also give him a free pass on regulations on dirt and vermin?