Margaret Pilgrim

I buy small, under 2" long, pods, roll them around on a plate with salt, pepper and olive oil, then grill them on a stove-top grill. They are crunchy, not slimy. I usually include them in a larger platter of assorted grilled vegetables. Perhaps prolonged cooking releases the slime?

Put my quarter on FG. The Wuss

Fat Guy, I wouldn't argue with you for all the tea in China, and I may be a wuss but I'm not a wimp! I always have a bigg-ass scrubber around, and use it on a lot of things. I find that, regardless of professional kitchen practices, grill-pans are not necessarily their best use. Stupid plastic squares are light-years better. They also do not need to be cleaned after use, as opposed to b-a scrubbers, which need to be flushed thoroughly to get rid of the horrid glark they have absorbed from the pot. (Having lived under severe water rationing, this is no small consideration where I live.) Do use your b-a scrubber, but I really wish you wouldn't so consistently put down the plastic squares. They are truly amazing on mac-and-cheese, baked on gunk, greasy kid stuff.... Need to ask: have you ever used them? Do we need to have a scrub-off in lieu of an arm wrestle?

Good question, Beejay. I don't find anything useful on their website. I've had mine for probably 20 years, in constant use, and I pick them up whenever I fall over them, particularly offprice. I'd call Bridge or Broadway Panhandler.

I consider my grill pans major workhorses. I prefer Copco, but Le Creuset isn't too far behind. As previously prescribed, you need a super fan, and you need high heat, at least at the start. Cleaning is a breeze: when cooled, let soak for a while. If you have better things to do, overnight. Then, as I posted somewhere else, get one of those little 2" square plastic pot scrubbers, about a buck a piece, and simply run up one side of the grids and down the other. A really abused pan will take maybe 3 minutes. The major advantage of Copco and Le Creuset over Lodge and Griswald is that they have a coating on the cast iron. Other than that, I have no preference between the two.

First, to Pirate, we are always entirely satisfied with our seat assignments, usually getting our first request. In fact, we are entirely satisfied with the level of service we have enjoyed. I was refering only to the way meal preferences were taken, which is of little consequence since I find it makes little difference what they serve. Jordyn, you may be entirely correct about United, at least about its policy. However, on many international flights I have watched the steward hop around the two sections of the business cabin, taking an order from one person or couple here, then jumping several rows or going to a different aisle to take an order from another. As we are mid-level frequent flyers, I assumed that the priority was price, since I doubted that the entire cabin was 100K. I was told by a United rep that frequent flyer status trumps the same fare, but not a higher fair. But then I've been told a lot of things by airline reps.

Farm-fresh produce.

All true, Marcus. But because we live on the west coast and travel most frequently to the east coast and to France, we have found it worth while to work the system as much as we can in order to upgrade for those 7 and 12 hour flights. Yes, you can't upgrade the cheapest fairs, but the savings in stress are worth the difference in price to us. For a few hundred dollars more and 40,000 miles, we can get a seat that the person sitting across from us may have paid several thousand dollars more for. (I know this to be true because we are always close to the last to be asked for our meal preference, although we are upper level frequent flyers. This means that we have paid the least in the cabin, just ahead of those who are flying free. ) If you are a frequent flyer and you are willing to gamble, you can many times get upgraded from a very inexpensive ticket at boarding, as a friend of our does on almost every trip. But this approach was not the subject of my post. It was just a heads up about a major rule change.

Helena, you are incredible! The featured recipe, Cake Aux Olives, sounds exactly like the Tartine product. Gotta go try it out. Thanks so much!

I realize that this is off-topic, but thought that it might be important for some readers to know that United, at least, is raising the miles necessary for upgrading US to Europe to 30,000 miles each way, or 60,000 miles round trip for flights beginning January 1,2003 and booked October 1, 2002 and later. Trips ticketed before October 1 for 2003 travel are upgradable at the old 40,000 mile rate. United is doing this very quietly. Check with your carrier to see if they are following suit. We booked 2 trips, saving 40,000 miles that will upgrade one future roundtrip.

I believe the phrase you're looking for is "crise de foie", which is precisely what it sounds like! The French recommend several days of nothing but mineral water.

Several months ago I enjoyed a slice of olive cake at La Tartine Bakery in San Francisco. Savory, not sweet, this loaf cake (4"x 4"x 12" brioche pan probably) was very moist, rich, slightly crumbly, contained oil-cured olives, red onion, Nieman Ranch ham, guyere, vermouth, and it's my sense that it was not yeast leavened. I haven't been back on days that they have been baking it, so I haven't been able to do a proper autopsy. Any ideas?

But, Steve, we do know that acclaimed chefs, who, we are told, insist on the best artisanal products, can screw them up and, in their haste to feed three seatings, turn out dishes that are not rich but "greasy".

Have to agree with Dstone001 that Slanted Door is kept alive by tourists and those who haven't had the opportunity to experience (and be blown away by) real Vietnamese food. Sorry for the negativism, but SD is a sorry table.

To add veggies to your diet, all you have to do is think outside the box. What you're really trying to get is a rainbow of color, regardless of whether it's a vegetable or fruit. Since I only have to cook for my husband and me, "family dinner veggies" are often a huge bowl of ruby red grapefruit sections or sliced navel oranges; or platter of wonderful sliced tomatoes with goat cheese; or cucumbers in sour cream; or a plate of peeled cantaloupe slices; or peaches in red wine; or, like last night, after a fritatta with zucchini, broccoli, red and green pepper, red onion, Nieman Ranch ham and Spanish goat cheese, we had a bowl of blackberries and raspberries drizzled with fresh plum syrup and heavy cream. Sometimes dinner is a platter of indoor-grilled veggies with aioli: asparagus, portobellos, green onions, red onions, red peppers, eggplant, zucchini, radichio, Belgian endive, parboiled red potato. I serve a lot of things beside a mini salad or clump of dark green baby lettuce and cherry tomatoes. And when it comes to warhorses like broccoli, beurre blanc and Bearnaise make 'em disappear in a flash.

Robert Brown wrote, "I ran into Eli Zabar in front of his store yesterday. He mentioned a bistro on Boulevard Hausmann that also owned, or was next to, a wine store. The name was close to 'Petrossian', but wasn't. He likes it a lot and said they serve big portions of meat. Does it ring a bell, anyone?" Robert, while doing my "homework" I came across the Caves Petrissans at 30bis avenue Niel in the 17th. It's noted for its veal tenderloin (best in Paris?), Salers' faux-filet and tele de veau, as well as classic daily specials. One walks through the Cave and bar to reach the clublike dining room. Might this be your mystery restaurant, albeit on Niel rather than Haussman?

Two products I can't live without: Those 2+inch thin plastic squares that have a different arc at each corner, costing about .89 at kitchen stores. They fit into the corner of every pan or pot, the straight edges scrape the bottoms clean, plus great on cheesy residue on china. With these thingies, you don't even have to soak stuck on gook. And "Barkeepers Friend", a Comet or Ajax type product, that instantly restores shine to stainless, copper, porcelain. My All-Clad looks like it just came out of the carton, and my white sink is spotless. (Also fabulous on bathtubs and showers.) Not harmful to sterling. Caution: do not use on copper unless you want a bright finish. i.e., great for the bowls you use for whipping egg whites or polenta pots, but VERY bad for anything with a patina finish.

Bushey, run, don't walk, to the super and buy "Oxy-clean". You add one scoop to your wash, and stains are GONE. I use it on antique linens all of the time. We spend most of our leisure time at antique events, and tableware is my passion. I'm really a sucker for French "lapkins", the huge (approx 27"x30") linen napkins, usually with massive embroidered initials. I just brought home a group that are the classic country French natural linen with red bands woven on the four sides, with 6" red initial cartouches in the center! Wild! We use our stuff, not holding back "for good". We have mostly switched from using "sets of china" to more interesting settings. When I am shopping, I frequently see something and try to think of a use for it: a particular food or dish, a theme for a dinner. I just came home (from Brimfield, Bushey) with sardine tongs and two groups of strawberry forks. (How do you like the idea of 5 or so small farmer's market strawberries in a martini glass, jigger or so of grand Marnier and a drop of heavy cream? I'm still working on the setting for the sardine tongs. One of my favorite finds was a group of French silver cheese forks. We have several groups of chargers, 12-13" plates, that are our workhorses. Some are all white; some art glass; some white china with clusters of vivid fruit on the rims. I love the latter for dramatic fruit desserts that involve a sauce. I picked at a house sale a couple of dozen Perrier-Jouet champagne glasses, which I adore because they are so foolish. They are painted with the same apple-blossoms as the bottle. They, more than the champagne, make me laugh whenever we use them.

Le Voltaire has been recommended to us by several urbane and knowledgeable Parisians as being an excellent and quintessentially Parisian dining room . We have shied away from it because of it's reputation as a celebrity haunt. Do any egulletiers have experience dining there, and if so, what was your opinion?

We went there several times when our son was at school in NYC and when Anne was still alive and cooking. I simply sat on redial until connected, and begged and snivveled for a reservation, telling Frankie that we would only be in town for x number of evenings, were desparate to eat there, etc, etc.. Because our name, Pilgrim, is the same as Frankie's in Italian (Pelegrino) we established a joke about it. He would concede that he had to find room for his San Francisco relatives. You probably do have to demand to talk to Frankie. How was it? Funky. A time warp. God-awful decor. Amazing clientele. Memorable. Frankie's routine from which he didn't waiver: he pulls up a chair and sits on it backwards and says, "What's good? It's all good. So what do ya like to eat?" Then he coaches you through an order. "No, you're all gonna have the same pasta. We're not making 3 pastas for one table. You're gonna order two antipasti for the table, one pasta for the three of you, and then each of you can order a main course." The Strega bottle was left on the table with coffee. The food was quite decent Italian-American. Service was slow as determined by the kitchen. The table was ours until closing.

Suzanne, I just don't know. I have always assumed that tomatoes without onions or peppers could be safely waterbathed. But in the last 5 years or so, I read increasingly about the danger of processing new low acid tomatoes without pressure. I asked a grower at our farmer's market Saturday, but aside from agreeing that yellow and green varieties are low acid, they had no input on safe canning methods, and suggested a netsearch. An alternative is to contact your local state university extension for information. However, unless we have a handle on the precise variety we're dealing with, the answers will either be inconclusive or unnecessarily stringent, erring toward safety. In your case, and assuming that the information from the Virginia website it correct, I guess you could go to a pharmacy for litmus strips and test your puree before bottling to see if it exceeds the 4.6 pH and needs further acidification. Further complicating things, I just watched a pop TV chef waterbath a whole spectrum of tomato products: pepperonata, antipasto, whole tomatoes, puree with basil. His casual approach terrifies me. It used to be so simple.

From: http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/foods/348-594/348-594.html ****Tomatoes are normally considered to be an acid food. However, some varieties may have pH values above 4.6. Therefore, if tomatoes are to be canned as acid foods, they must be acidified with lemon juice or citric acid. Add 2 tablespoons of bottled lemon juice or 1/2 teaspoon of citric acid per quart of tomatoes. For pints, use 1 tablespoon bottled lemon juice or 1/4 teaspoon of citric acid.

I'm going to throw a tire-iron into the cogs by proposing an exacerbation to the usual hazards of travel or even eating away from home or, worse, even staying home! I want to phrase this in the form of a question, actually, because I have no proof or scientific information to support my premise. My husband began taking one of the well publicized prescription 1-a-day acid preventative capsules several years ago. Since then, perhaps 2 years, he has had 3 episodes of severe stomach flu/food poisoning/digestive chaos, lasting from a week to 10 days each in spite of medical intervention. I recently read that one of the major reasons for stomach acids was to kill dangerous bacteria. Is it at all possible that the use of the acid suppressors increased my husband's susceptability to whatever bacteria caused his upsets? Has anyone else experienced this joint phenonenon? Inquiring minds want to know.

Paling beside Suvir and all the previous experiences, but incomparable for us was the brandade de morue that a friend used to prepare, from his French grandmother's instruction, some 40 years ago! He dramatically brought out a huge pot of hot boiled mashed and whipped potatoes, mixed in cooked and flaked salt cod, chopped garlic, raw egg and olive oil, whipping the mass into a smooth but textured whole. We enjoyed his presentation perhaps a dozen times. Since then, my husband has ordered brandade almost every time he finds it on a menu (read a zillion times), but has never been served anything close to our friend's dish. Many contain cream; some are oily, some fishy, some bland. Our friend's didn't and wasn't. I have finally suggested to my husband, "Stop ordering brandade! You're going to be disappointed!" Needless to say, I have also tried many times to recreate the magic and joy of this humble dish, but no amount of wine for cook or diner elevates my attempts to our friend's simple but perfect rendition.

Seconding Jin and Bux, I will add that I have recently found a 100% idiot-proof way to make mayonnaise: I use a "French working jar", one of those ubiquitous squat jelly jars (the kind with orange or red or green or blue plastic snap on lids) and a flat bottom wisk. The wisk in motion seems to just fit in the jelly jar, and the mayonnaise takes shape or body within a few seconds. I should add that I am categorically against any process that causes me to wash a machine when not absolutely necessary.