
Pan
eGullet Society staff emeritus-
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Everything posted by Pan
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I love the looks of the chicken dish in the clay pot! I also am a fan of bitter melon, with duck or beef or featured on its own. What's dow see?
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Soy is also used quite a bit in Japan, Korea, and Java, in various forms. But I don't think anyone is claiming that Chinese food is traditionally "built around" soy. Rather, rice is the staple, for the most part (flatbread is used a good deal in the north). But alarmism over soy just doesn't pass the smell test with me. My challenge to those who are alarmist about soy is: Point to evidence of a greater level of birth defects and breast cancer in China and Japan (or a decrease in fertility, good luck there!) as compared to low-soy-consuming nations, that can be clearly attributed to the consumption of soy, or hold your peace. No-one says you have to like or eat soy. I don't like briny fish eggs. But I don't tell people those are going to emasculate them or give them cancer.
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That rendang looks way oily! But the dessert looks like a kueh bakar (wood-roasted cake) of my youth.
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I think "C" has to be for chocolate.
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More props for Cascadian Farms here. My father buys their berries (blueberries, raspberries, mixed berries, etc.) and peaches. They taste great!
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Impaling the thyroid gland! Sounds fatal! Seriously, did these studies see if there is a higher incidence of birth defects and breast cancer in China? The post that started this thread is talking about feeding soy-based infant formula. [Edit: I was wrong, but it SHOULD have been talking about that. That'll teach me to read more carefully...] Infants should be fed mother's milk (if at all possible), not soy. I don't see where that has anything to do with adults having problems from eating tofu and soybean sprouts.
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Yes to capsicum, but no to no hot food otherwise. Remember that black pepper was in Asia long, long before they had ever heard of chilis.
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I'd put that in a different category: Very expensive. I don't consider $100/person "mid-priced." So we differ on this. But we can still get along.
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Maybe so, but hardly as widespread. I agree with your post, though. And I think New England has some pretty darn good local cuisine, too. Plus, there's a California style which is really not like anything else, partly because the excellent local ingredients have unique flavors, I suppose.
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I can't believe I forgot to mention Chanto in the West Village among my top 10 restaurant meals of 2006. I think it must be because Sethro is no longer Pastry Chef there. But my meal there was not only among my top 10 meals of 2006 but probably among my top three.
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So no invasive locusts for you.
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I think cock's combs are quite nice, by the way, not nasty at all. And I, too, don't like briny caviar. But it's all a matter of taste, isn't it? (That is, for those who aren't eating food purely for snob appeal, and I daresay, few of that type of food snobs are eGullet subscribers, because they really don't care how things taste as long as they're expensive and served in surroundings that are either old-fashioned luxe or trendy, depending on their particular type of snobbery. I encounter such snobs on forums that have nothing to do with food, and boy does their lack of taste become evident quickly!)
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Thanks, FG. I'll talk to my friend about the place.
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Thanks for all the information, everyone, and especially Fat Guy! I actually have been kind of underwhelmed by the 39th St. and 48th St. branches of Wu Liang Ye. I'll check Pascalou's menu on menupages (if it's up there). [Edit: Only their dinner menu is up on menupages, but it looks reasonable in terms of price. It seems very eclectic, though. Do they do a good job on Thai salad, teriyaki, and Malaysian curry shrimp, or should we focus on other dishes if we go there?]
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No way will it be that simple. That new situation will give rise to all kinds of learned commentary and debate among rabbinic authorities.
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My initial reaction on reading this is that you should have thrown him out of the restaurant. Which is why I don't share your line of work.
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Hi, everyone. Next Monday, I have a lunch date with someone who works at Mt. Sinai (specifically, 98th and Madison). She tells me she has eclectic tastes but eats gluten-free and low-carb. I'd prefer to pay $25 or less. Any recommendations?
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Copeland Marks' Regional Indian Cooking (or a similar title) is a very good and interesting cookbook.
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We'll have to agree to disagree on this. I think we define the word "intellectual" differently. (Perhaps that's partly because I'm a professor and so are my parents? I don't know your background, but you seem pretty intellectual, yourself, and more so than some presidents I can think of.) Yes, I agree that he is an example of someone who did succeed on merit. He's a lousy campaigner, but his loss might have had a lot more to do with his waffling, not to mention some very dubious events in Ohio and Florida. There have been several well-heeled New Englanders who have become President. One of them was a charismatic speaker, who actually lost to Nixon but became President. Another was George Prescott Bush, who defeated another New Englander who ran a terrible campaign, and benefitted from the support for Reagan. Politics are complicated.
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Well, in the days before eGullet, I was a student in Nice and did have the misfortune to experience some horrendous French food. Fortunately, even in those days, I was on a fellowship that reimbursed me on a reasonable per diem rate, so that I was able to avoid bad food most of the time and, indeed, eat very well on a student's budget. But I did also have an expensive, mediocre meal in Paris back then. Now, having said all that, the profusion of good food at boulangeries and charcuteries and cafes and brasseries is such that it was a lot easier to have inexpensive good food in Nice (maybe more so than Paris) than in most comparably-sized U.S. cities. I think that was clear. And if we extend the comparison to Siena, where I spent two summers as a student (comparing it to, say, Sarasota), the difference between that city and comparably-sized U.S. cities is probably even starker. I found it hard to find bad food in Siena. That's what I call, in your words, "excellence from bottom to top."
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I can't believe so few of you are recommending taquerias. When I go to SF, the first thing I want to do is go to a taqueria. Later in my trip, I want to have good Thai food. And I also like to go to a place like Chow, whose inexpensive, high-quality organic ingredients are a unique pleasure for a New Yorker. So which taquerias are the best at this time? And which Thai restaurants are the best (authentic and spicy only, please; no watered-down overpriced nonsense, because I can get that easily enough in New York and prefer not to).
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No, but partly an act of traders, seeing as the ragu includes tomatoes, and tomatoes were brought to Italy directly or indirectly from the Americas. ← How many centuries is the rule before a product becomes local? ← Oh, tomatoes are long since local to Italy by now, but their arrival there was certainly not an "act of God," unless we can say that God was working through the conquistadores and traders.
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eGullet Management can correct me if my information is out of date, but my understanding is that questions of topicality that apply to the rest of the site do not apply or at least apply more loosely to the Daily Gullet. I will simply observe that you ask me for hard figures but offer some highly, highly dubious assertions. It is in fact a truism that there is more inequality in the U.S. than in any other developed country, and I have never seen anything that contradicts this. I'm sure that anyone who can understand technicalities of economic terms and figures will be able to Google hard facts fairly easily, but here is an interview that details some salient points: The Wealth Divide: The Growing Gap in the United States Between the Rich and the Rest And yes, there are loads of poor people and a bunch of way-above-middle-income people who call themselves "middle class" here. In terms of intellectual U.S. presidents, let's not go back to the days of Jefferson; that doesn't apply today. Clinton is a bona fide intellectual but had to campaign as a "regular guy" from Arkansas to get elected. I don't know what all of this has to do with food, but since the fiction of the U.S. as a genuine meritocracy was brought up, it's relevant. The U.S. is a genuine meritocracy only if all the economic "losers" are unworthy and all the economic "winners" are the cream of the crop. Sounds like an after-the-fact rationalization to me, and I don't like it.
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u.e., I know it's hard to search for restaurant names like Al Di La. Here's the thread and here's my post on my great meal there, with wine pairings. I believe that the restaurant features dishes from the Veneto. Perhaps some of our Brooklynite members will comment further. I just realized, the particular great meal at Congee Village that I had in mind was actually on November 20, 2005, so I guess it doesn't belong in this thread. I still think it's a great restaurant, though.
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We fancy ourselves as one, just as we also pretend that we are all middle class. The reality is that there is more socioeconomic inequality in the U.S. than in any other developed country in the world. And in terms of meritocracy, why is it that there are so many starving artists here? Because they are objectively inferior to the stylish ones who sell out (literally) to the ad agencies and wealthy investors? No. Because we don't support the artists and intellectuals the way they do in Europe. And going back to my other point, I don't think you can point to any examples of U.S. presidents in the last 60 years who made their reputation first as intellectuals or writers, in the mold of someone like Vaclav Havel. But do we really want to have a full-blown political debate here?