Pan

What's the advantage of maltose over other types of sugar?

Wouldn't any perks be bound to cause resentment?

Maybe so, Fresco, but what punishments would be most appropriate when prisoners act up for no good reason? I hope there are some correctional officers, current or former, who will make some remarks in this thread.

ExtraMSG, what I wrote is something I've read before with statistics, but it was a number of years ago, and I don't remember the source. It may not have a bearing on food, but it does have a bearing on whether lousy treatment is merited. If you have evidence to bear in the matter and feel that it's off-topic enough to risk derailing the food angle of the thread, please feel free to PM or email a link to me. I don't have any personal stake in whether it's true or not.

adrober, you thought that paper was mind-numbingly legal? Nope. Great paper! I hope some people who have been in prison, like the lately free and formerly imprisoned chef whose great dispatches from the federal penitentiary (?) ran on The Daily Gullet, chime in with their opinions. Alright, I'll try some of your questions: I don't think that bad food should be served to prisoners generally, but the question is what can be done to punish people who misbehave while in prison. Solitary confinement ("the hole") is sometimes used, but that can result in psychological damage. I really don't know what the answer is, and I think it's a tough problem. But no, I don't see any good reason to deliberately make prison food bad. I think that treating prisoners with dignity is a good thing - until and unless they act up, in which case, some kind of punishment is necessary to get them back in line, I would think. No. However, if prison food becomes too good, I would imagine that it could be possible for some people - especially homeless people - to commit crimes in order to go to prison. I remember reading about a prison in Louisiana that served really good food, and I'm not sure whether they were or weren't kidding when they said that there were people who really didn't want to leave when they were released. It's not unusual, and considering that this is a country in which execution - with some evidence that the methods used are very painful, even if not botched - is legal, it's hard to know what else could qualify as unconstitutionally cruel. Anyone who can establish a bona fide religious need for dietary restrictions should never be forced to violate them. [edit: replace "it" with "them"] Yes. It's disgusting to hold jails to a lower minimum standard than any other food-service establishment. This I wouldn't know, but to punish prisoners in general by setting a low caloric intake is sadistic. I don't think that anything anyone does is likely to make jail a joyous place to be, and jail arguably should be unpleasant, but I don't see any good reason to make it any more unpleasant than it needs to be. By the same token, though, it's questionable whether any special measures need to be taken to make life good for prisoners. When we consider these things, however, we should never lose sight of the fact (? or so I've heard) that a majority of inmates are people who haven't been found guilty of anything and are in jail only because they are poor and bail was set too high for them to afford a bond. Many of these hapless people are ultimately released through acquittal or because the charges are dropped for lack of evidence. And I think their presence in the jail system truly is cruel though all-too-usual punishment. It's my belief that some poor person whose bail has been set too high to avoid prison, spends 2 years in prison, and is then acquitted, should be able to sue the government for unjustified imprisonment and collect major money. How does that person get that time back?

Louisa, are you doing any freelance writing on the side?

Congratulations, Louisa! (It's none of my business, but I hope they pay you something, because I can't imagine what all of this has been doing to your finances.)

and one should assume that making oneself known to the restaurant might be necessary to achieve the level of service and perhaps food that those glowing reviews suggested. Good point, Tommy, and I do intend to make my identity known whenever I go to Amma. That said, the fact that no-one but no-one has had anything but high praise for the restaurant suggests to me that if I dine there anonymously, I'll get good food and pleasant service.

Just one question, Sun-ki: What does "Mahalo Nui Loa" mean?

Why do you think that? I can tell you the tenderest goat satay I ever had was in a place on the outskirts of Jakarta where the meat was wrapped in papaya skins overnight before cooking, but the meat was nowhere near tenderized to the point of mush!

JC, has peanut oil made some inroads into the use of coconut oil in Malaysia? How recent is the phenomenon? And is it mostly restricted to Chinese cooking, or are there many Malays and Indians who use peanut oil nowadays?

I took a generic brand of Prednisone last year for severe allergies, and I had such a scary reaction to it that I'll never take it again. My skin was flushed and red and I got very dizzy. Seemed like incipient anaphylactic shock.

I highly recommend avoiding all products with sulfur dioxide. It's a noxious chemical and major component of smog, so why would anyone think it's good to eat?

You simply omit the "the"? I don't see it as an affectation. If you use "the" before a specific menu item, you're merely identifying that item as unique on the menu.

In Malaysia, and I figure Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand, coconut oil is traditional.

Presumably because there's only one steak or one chicken dish on the menu. If there's more than one, we'd need to identify the dish in more detail.

Your responsibilities are always to attempt in good faith to be accurate and fair. But allow me to wonder whether I'll get the same food and service that Fat Guy did if I go to Mix. If there are various reasons why he could have been served particularly good food there, that might explain why he seems to have a higher opinion of that establishment than some other people do. And I'm mindful of that when considering the reception New York Times critics get at the restaurants they rate 4 stars, as opposed to the reception I've gotten. You can say it's coincidental that I'm 0-3 at New York Times 4-stars, but those are my experiences, and I don't have the money to go to Bouley 11 times and see if they get it right the other 10 times. I'd rather go somewhere else. Amma, for example, didn't get 4 stars in the Times, but has been rated highly by absolutely everyone whose review has been printed or posted, so I think I'll much sooner splurge a little and go there than take my chances with a place whose service is apparently spotty and desserts weak, for example.

So then, without prejudice to the rest of your post, why not do it?

My parents call it the same as your husband's family.

I want to read your next review.

Welcome, and don't assume that all of the regulars go to Michelin 3-stars morning, noon, and night.

Just for the record, Meknes is in Morocco.

Guessing now: Smith? For the record, my college (State U. of New York at Purchase) had no fraternities or sororities, and was so resistant to organizations that the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship closed up shop (yea! I don't know about other campuses, but they were a destructive cult on that campus), Hillel had trouble continuing, and even the Roman Catholic mass almost had to discontinue.

Excuse me, but we may all disagree on what's raw. Bux, there's absolutely zero chance you or anyone else here would have considered the tip of that chicken anything but raw, and the dish was not described on the menu as chicken sashimi. The waiter was genuinely shocked that the chicken was raw.

My brother's meal was in fact comped at Bouley, but that didn't make up for our disappointment at the quality of the meal.