Pan

As a bad amatuer musician, I completely agree that children must be introduced to music as early and as often as possible, and I never meant to suggest otherwise. There are many concert settings designed with children in mind or held in places (i.e., outdoors) appropriate for children of any age. When I made reference to the "concert hall," I meant to evoke more formal concert settings. The concert I was remembering was a piano recital at Carnegie Hall. There was a young child who behaved remarkably, even astonishingly well. But he still fidgeted throughout the first half of the show, and often whispered this or that to his mother. These were distractions from Maurizio Pollini's wonderful performance, and I'll never get that performance back. Sorry for the off-topic chat. I was at a Pollini recital at Carnegie Hall 2 or 3 years ago, and the problem I had was not with a kid but with some adults who wouldn't shut up, no matter how much I stared at them. I still loved the recital, however. Nothing like live music. OK, now back to our show...

Thanks. That was funny.

So far, no-one's mentioned the bagel place on Broadway around 107 St. I'm guessing it's still there. I haven't been there in some time but always liked their bagels, and many people compared their softer and probably more flavorful bagels favorably to H&H. And they were a lot cheaper.

I think it would be timely to get a cattle farmer on a Q&A to discuss the whole process. I imagine many of them are extra busy at this time, but I throw that idea out, anyway.

Could you please provide a link to her post for your lazy fellow eGulletteers?

What do you think of Taittinger? To me, their champagne is pure ambrosia.

Laurie, I think all bets are off if the parent declines to exercise his/her reponsibility to control the child, though I do agree that the parents and not the child are really the ones at fault when a child is disruptive and not taken out of the room by the parents.

Exactly. I need to learn the art of brevity. Nah. Your contributions are always well thought-out, and it's nice to follow your thought process.

It's amazing what kind of stuff gets passed off as bagels around the country. Jalapeno bagels, cream cheese bagels with the cheese baked into the bagel, even bagels with ham and cheese baked into them. Abomination indeed!

Your point is well taken, Steven.

What's Everclear?

I do feel impelled to respond to your characterization of Upper West Side Jews, since you made it: The Upper West Side is where Jews moved when they were wealthy enough (with the emphasis on "wealthy") to move out of the Lower East Side. It's also where they kept their mistresses (remember the line "sexy ladies from the eighties who are indiscreet" from "Forty-Second Street" of 1932?). Upper East Side Jews were German Jews, so they were older money, but it's historically inaccurate to think of the people who moved into those big doorman buildings as in any way poor. OK, back to bagels...

I think BSE was a pretty horrific unintended consequence, Steven. Almost any regulation is likely to decrease profit margins. I don't think that would justify a return to the times when there were no safety regulations whatsoever, do you?

As long as you don't bake it much, everyone's probably OK, but I've always found maraschino cherries bitter, and the bitterness may be caused by the additive, Red Dye No. 3, also called erythrosine. There have long been questions about whether this additive may be carcinogenic, and this recent study on mice appears to show the following about dyes currently in use as food additives, including erythrosine: Considering the lack of need for red dye in the diet, I would tend to avoid using it - and this from someone who, as a child, used to enjoy eating the maraschino cherries that were put on top of ice cream sundaes as garnishes. Sorry if you find that I'm being a wet blanket, a killjoy, or perhaps paranoid. [edit: irrelevant excerpt was put in the quote!]

A hummingbird cake? What are hummingbirds like to eat? How many do you need for a cake? Did you hunt them, or can they be bought at butcher shops near you?

Seth, as a musician, I disagree with the idea that kids shouldn't be brought to concerts. Kids are the audience of tomorrow and should be introduced to live music. If you think your kid will behave reasonably, bring him or her. Your responsibility as a parent, then, is to take the child out of the hall immediately if s/he starts crying or otherwise starts making noise and won't stop, and to stay out until or unless the child is ready to be quiet. Any parent who doesn't take that responsibility should be thrown out of the hall by management. But the fact is, musicians don't expect absolute silence at concerts, and hearing coughs and such-like proves that you are listening to a recording of a live performance, not a spliced studio recording. When I was 8, my attention span was too short to sit through a whole concert at Tanglewood, so my parents and I came to an agreement: I wouldn't bug them and would sit quietly for the first half, and then I would walk home a few hundred yards to the house we lived in for the summer and let them enjoy the second half of the concert in peace. The following summer, when we were at Yale Summer School at Norfolk, I was mature enough to sit through concerts quietly. I also began studying the flute that summer.

What did you mean by "bap"?

When I was a little kid, I was taken to Jewish delicatessens and Chinese restaurants which were used to having children there. I was also a pretty well-behaved kid, though one who did have a limited attention span at the age of 4 and enjoyed playing with the proprietor's son when we went to Nam Wah. I'm not sure my folks were going to high end restaurants when I was little, but if they did, that must have been on nights they hired someone to babysit me. I'm not sure how old I was when I first went to a high-end restaurant, but I do remember going to the Imperial Room in Kuala Lumpur repeatedly from the ages of 10 to 12 and behaving maturely. That said, though the Imperial Room was certainly a high-end place by Malaysian standards, and the atmosphere was usually a bit quiet and dignified, it could also be celebratory on days when there were large banquets. Children were not an uncommon sight there, and I remember seeing some Chinese kids who were too young to know how to use chopsticks eating with a spoon or with their hands. Their parents made sure they didn't scream and carry on, however. I remember going with a friend to a Mobil 4-star restaurant in Lenox, Massachusetts, when I had some spending cash left near the end of a stint in Tanglewood as a 15-year-old. My friend was also 15. The staff seemed a bit nonplussed by our presence unaccompanied by adults, and I recall that the service was palpably rude as a result, but we didn't let that spoil our enjoyment of the food and etting, and from what I recall, we dressed up some (we were 15-year-olds but musicians!) and behaved appropriately. I feel sure that was the first time I went to a restaurant of that category without an adult (IIRC, the bill for my food was some $22.50 in 1980), but I'm equally sure that I had already been taken to some fancy restaurants in New York by my parents; I just don't remember which ones.

I think the restaurant has the right to throw out customers who won't or can't control the behavior of their babies, within reasonable limits.

lxt, what's vacherin?

Fat Guy, can't BSE be explained by reference to the Law of Unintended Consequences, and shouldn't people fool with Mother Nature with caution, knowing that the results of doing things like feeding meat to cows are unpredictable?

I want to know how to pronounce that name. Moo-eix?

I could never figure out what "subgum" meant, except that I gather it means it has pork in it?

Elyse: I figure I was covered because I already wished you a happy birthday in advance, but Merry Christmas to all who are celebrating!

I've always found kosher Chinese places to be terrible. Was Moshe Peking the place on Columbus Av. around 94 St. or so?