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Well, I suppose you know about Jean-George Vonderichen's restaurant. That's one of several high-end restaurants near the Bund that seemed to be doing good business when I visited Shanghai in August 2004. The building that houses Jean-George's restaurant and one or two others had a block-long line of cabs waiting outside, because I suppose none of the rich expatriats who patronize these establishments ever gets back to their hotel or mansion or whatever any other way. Shanghai is a serious boom economy, so if you want to open an expensive restaurant there, you might stand a decent chance of success. That said, what would be more interesting to me would be to find out what exists in terms of high-end Shanghainese cuisine in Shanghai.

You mean there is a way to feed yourself without killing living things? ← It's impossible to live without killing bacteria, but if we limit this to visible creatures, it probably is possible to eat without killing any, if you restrict yourself to dairy, fruits and seeds (no plant killing), and you could throw in unfertilized eggs. You could also eat certain kinds of leaves without killing the plant. For example, I used to pick young leaves off cashew trees, and it didn't seem to do any damage to the trees, because there were plenty of older leaves and new leaves grew quickly.

That's for you to determine, but I find it amazing that a person who knows for certain that a product is being produced by slaves would buy it anyway, and that seems to be your viewpoint. So while I respect you for facing this honestly and having the guts to make this admission to yourself and us with open eyes, I really have to question why you wouldn't have enough fellow feeling for an enslaved child to think twice about this. But we're talking about slavery here! I don't think that the fact that it's difficult and perhaps impossible to be completely ethical in our purchases is a good argument for the other extreme, which is to have no standards whatsoever. Who's forgetting anything? If there were no abolitionists who not only condemned slavery but risked and in many cases gave their lives for the moral imperative of eliminating it from their corners of the Earth, there might very well still be legalized slavery in countries like the US today. I just can't see being apathetic about this. I don't know about you, but when I think about this, I imagine putting myself in the shoes of the slaves, not the masters. My problem is not apathy, but that this issue tends to gradually move into my subconscious and I buy more chocolate items again. I will try not to forget, this time.

Before he does that, do you like distilled water? That really tastes like nothing, and I hate it!

When you bring up the effectiveness of boycotts, let's keep in mind some that involved food specifically. In the 1970s, Gallo wine, California table grapes, and lettuce were boycotted in sympathy with the United Farm Workers Union led by Cesar Chavez. The boycotts of Gallo and table grapes were pretty effective and clearly had an effect on the eventual union contract, at least on the Gallo vineyard (the California politics that shaped the involvement of the governors and state legislators in farm workers' rights generally were more complex). Whereas Gallo's name used to be synonymous with union-busting, to my knowledge, they have had labor peace ever since they gave in to the demand to recognize and negotiate with the union. Also, I think the question really is, Where do you draw the line? As you say, child slavery is not the same as child labor. And it might be added that child labor is not the same as adult labor, and that part-time child labor that allows children to go to school is not the same as full-time child labor which leaves the children illiterate and unskilled. I plan on decreasing my purchases of chocolate, but I admit that somewhere along the line, this issue will probably slip my mind.

It was (maybe still is?) traditional for rural Malays to have a burial ceremony for the placenta. I'd go into that more, but it's not about food. (They did not eat the placenta! They would consider that both crazy and haram, and probably extremely dangerous.)

What do they say you can substitute for the hog plums? (Though I wouldn't give up on them right away; do you have the Vietnamese name for them?)

You could call this the Bruni effect, "I don't like Bruni, therefore, that review must be wrong" effect. ← Not that it must be wrong, but that I don't consider his opinion reliable. Well, considering that the one time I went to Bouley for lunch, it was not only underwhelming but they gave my brother some raw chicken in a dish where the chicken was supposed to have been cooked....But why would I put my faith in NY Mag? I pay much more attention to what's posted here by people I respect. By the way, like Ted, if I had clearly noticed that a fish dish were fishy at those prices, I definitely would have sent it back.

I immediately said "Yeah!" when I saw who was blogging this week! One question occurs to me: Are there any strange regulations at the community college, like a requirement for a written final exam? When I was in undergraduate school at SUNY at Purchase, they had to give a written final exam even for Yoga! (Musical instrument lessons didn't require any written tests, though, and neither did Sight Singing/Dictation.) And how's the paperwork?

It has not been forever. It wasn't until the 1950s postwar boom that car ownership became really common in the US. Before that, people shopped in city and town centers, not shopping malls, and walked a lot. In the 1939 World's Fair, my parents remember seeing models of empty highways to Long Island in the "World of Tomorrow" tent (or some such). They were counting on all those empty roads providing efficient transportation. What they didn't figure on was that if you build a highway, people will move to locations along its length and turn it into a long parking lot. By the way, New York is by no means the only large US city that's conducive to walking. The problem, for the most part, isn't that people who live in the centers of big cities need cars to go shopping; many of them don't. The problem is the number of people who live in suburbs and suburban-sprawl cities, where the built-up center(s) is (are) mostly for business and not residential (you know, LA and several cities I haven't visited, like Houston, Dallas, Phoenix -- correct me if I'm operating under a misimpression), and generally need to drive to the mall every time they go shopping.

I can't stop thinking about Todd's experience of a fishy fish, regardless of anything else. Would any of those of you who are fans of Liebrandt feel fine about getting a fishy fish at Gilt? If I were thinking of going to Gilt for a big blowout celebration of something, it's not the Bruni review but the experience of Todd and his dining partner that would cause me to choose a different restaurant.

I haven't been up there for a while, but my folks and I always liked Absolute Bagels between 107 and 108 Sts. on Broadway. Several New York-area members have said that those are the best bagels in New York. However, it's way out of your way.

You can get the birdseye chilis at numerous stores in Chinatown and Flushing, and also at stores selling Indian items. They're the firey little green hot peppers (sometimes a bit red, too, which just means they are riper). They might be cheapest at Udon's Thai-Indonesian store on Bayard between Mulberry and Mott. I don't know what banana chilis are. Black rice is used in Malaysian, Indonesian, and Thai desserts, so again, check Udon's and the Thai store on Mosco St., but you should be able to find these in various places. I have no idea what hog plums are. Doesn't sound halal. Are they in fact a variety of plum? One good sort of catchall East/Southeast Asian store is Hong Kong Supermarket. I feel sure you'd find fish paste there, probably in several varieties; their selection of pastes, preserved items, and sauces is impressive and inexpensive. But the places I usually go if I'm looking for just Southeast Asian items are the aforementioned Thai stores plus a store on the west side of Mulberry between Bayard and Canal.

Done. For future reference, you can always click "!report" and make the request that way, or you can simply PM a host for this forum.

The cole slaw is worth getting at Katz's if you want some vegetables with your meat.

This has been very moving. There really is a community here, built around a shared interest in food. I'm sure all of us would be really happy if our words help you to kick the habit for good. I know that I felt my words were totally inadequate, and that I really have no idea just how hard this process is for you. Matthew and Brooks, please check in and let us know how you're doing.

As many regulars to this forum know, I'm a fan of Yeah Shanghai Deluxe, across the street and slightly down the block from New Green Bo, but you're unlikely to go wrong at either place as long as you stick to Shanghainese specialties (do not get the Jalapeno Chicken if you go to New Green Bo). I think we still don't know enough about you to help you pick your Saturday dinner. Are you looking for avant garde food? Give us some criteria.

Gotta put in a prop here for Edda Servi Machlin, who's written cookbooks on Tuscan Jewish cuisine. I think the cookbook by her that my parents have is the hardcover edition of The classic cuisine of the Italian Jews: Traditional recipes and menus and a memoir of a vanished way of life, her first cookbook. Anyway, it's terrific. We've made various recipes from the book, and they were all excellent. One Passover, we even made an entire seder of recipes from that book, and it was a smashing success (what great charoses they made in Pitigliano!). Also, though only part of it is kosher, if you like Indian food, have a look at Copeland Marks' The Varied Kitchens of India: Cuisines of the Anglo-Indians of Calcutta, Bengalis, Jews of Calcutta, Kashmiris, Parsis, and Tibetans of Darjeeling. The Calcutta Sephardic recipes are quite distinct from any other Indian style I know of, and there are a bunch of them.

Yesterday, after it had snowed for a while, I turned on the tap water and found that the water ran unusually cold. It also tasted much more pure than usual, less chlorine taste. It was like really good cold mountain spring mineral water, I thought. Anyone else notice that, or did it taste normal to everyone else? Oddly enough, I notice less difference tonight than I did last night. That doesn't seem to make sense.

You had a PET SCORPION??!! ← Well, he was my secondborn's. I never petted him, though my kid did.[...] ← Yikes! I thought it was a truism that scorpions never change their nature. When I first saw one in Malaysia, my neighbor was terrified of it, so I knew they were big trouble. We had to smash them with a broom whenever we saw them. Of course, some people eat them, but not Malays, who are Muslims. Besides, I don't think they'd want to risk serious health consequences in order to catch them.

If they're charging full price for the meal, they should have their act together. If they don't have their act together yet, they should still be in a pre-opening period, serving food for invited guests or at a discount only. At those prices, I'm not that sympathetic to their feeling that it was unfair for them to be reviewed this early. After all, you, too, were their guinea pig, or at least that's the feeling I get from the report you posted. Not having visited myself, I don't know what I would have thought of the experience, but again, at those prices... Having said that, I do think Bruni should have waited longer, and I don't trust his opinion, anyway. But still...

I'm wondering whether a restaurant like this might not have benefitted from a longer pre-opening period, much like the previews Broadway shows have. It sounds from Todd's reports like they're still experimenting and having significant problems with consistency and even quality.

Susan, you said a venison curry wouldn't be traditional in Thailand. Thinking back to my days in the Malaysian countryside, I remember that jungle deer were hunted (especially pelanduk or barking deer, but I'm not sure that's really a species of deer). Is it that deer are really uncommon nowadays in Thailand, or that other recipes (like jungle curry?) would be traditionally for venison?

What's ekmek, Lorna?

This topic is an evergreen. I've merged this thread with an earlier thread. Also note the links in Mooshmouse's post (#3 in the thread), except the link to an older "Food sayings" thread, which is dead and was presumably merged into a related thread. Carry on! There are so many food sayings in so many languages that I'm sure we'll never post them all!