docsconz

I guess another factor for the specific seasonality (if that is truly the case) might be that these birds are according to Revallo wild. As such they may have a specific hunting season. Am I off base with this thought?

While not a "garbage plate" per se, your description, Jeff, reminds me of Dirty John's dirt dogs in Glens Falls. They are hot dogs with onions and similarly styled sauce. Clearly they are lacking a number of the ingredients that the garbage plate possesses, but the similarity extends beyond the smothered hot dog to the seediness and personality of the original location. I can't say that I eat then myself, though

I have enjoyed their bleu cheese made from buffalo milk. They also tend to have a nice selection of butters.

I have purchased a number of products through them and have been very satisfied. The cheeses have arrived in good condition. I use them periodically, especially when they have specials. In general though I prefer Artisanal for cheese.

Dana, this is very cool. Can you decribe the flavors and textures of the cooked birds? What did they look like when they were taken from the ground? I assume that this is a purely seasonal dish dependent on the truffles and reburial - this gives another context for "half-mourning". Within a religious context one might almost expect this to be a spring/Easter dish.

I freeze my garbage too. I put it outside While it is long gone the weirdest thing we have had in our freezer was a poor songbird that died after flying into a window. I don't recall why we froze it.

I waaaaaaaaaaant some!!!! Buffalo as in buffalo meat? For some reason, I thought the "buffalo" was a brand, like "Maytag Bleu". ← That would be Buffalo as in buffalo chicken wings. The flavor would be based on the spicy sauce.

With both types of bloods grown in the US time of the season is important for taste and as is so often the case the grower can be an important distinction. I've had tart early season Moros and Taroccos and very sweet midseason ones from Rising C Ranch in California. I'm about due to order some.

Venter's paper cited by Steven is interesting and I certainly agree with his main point that alternative approaches should not be ignored as the case for BSE prions as the causative source for vCJD in humans is by no means proven. There are a number of important elements in this paper though. First, is that Venter is not refuting prions as the source of the disease. He is simply questioning whether they are truly related to BSE prions - a legitimate question.Another good point he made is that studies have been down to "prove" the theory rather than test it. Clearly the theory needs to be tested. While the causal relationship between BSE and vCJD has yet to be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, neither has it been disproven. Until that is the case, it is my opinion that given the potential ramifications of the association if true, BSE infected cattle should be considered unsafe for human consumption even if the majority of humans may not be susceptible to it. Personally, I would like nothing better than to know that interspecies infectivity of prions (or any other potential source of this disease) is impossible or at least highly improbable and of extremely low risk. While that may indeed be the case the evidence for this so far as I am aware is still less strong than the evidence that it is possible.

The low-fat study was a great example of a well-designed study, and the researchers who performed it deserve a lot of praise for being real scientists and just coming out with the results despite their probable disappointment. But some of Prusiner's prion studies are just too reminiscent of the studies they do to prove that every substance in the world causes cancer: "We bred a bunch of mice with the special ability to get cancer if you look at them funny. Then we injected them fifty times a day with the human equivalent of a million portions of pure polysorbate 60. And guess what? All the special cancer-prone mice got cancer! Therefore, newspapers should immediately report that polysorbate 60 causes cancer and parents everywhere should chase down their children's schoolbuses this morning and reclaim their lunches." ← Media reaction is a separate issue from the underlying scientific hypotheses. As for the prion studies that is the point of doing the studies with good controls. it may turn out that prions are a red herring with this disease, but I am not aware of a better hypothesis at this time, nor have you offered one based on anything more than the thought that the prion hypothesis may not ultimately be correct.

I don't want to drag this out, but it's funny you should say that, because I thought of that EXACT SAME analogy last night. Here's where I think it fails. Success in sports (let's put figure skating and gymnastics aside) is a completely objective thing. It's not a matter of how some third party judges you in accordance with unclear criteria that others might or might not share: you either succeed at hitting .300 or you don't. So hoping an athletic comeback succeeds simply means hoping someone objectively succeeds qualitatively at what they're trying to do. Starred reviews aren't like that. I know you want to get off this discussion, but I can't resist Now that the winter Olympics is upon us, Michelle Kwan is a perfect example of an athlete competing in a very subjective sport that many people would like to see get high scores and maybe even a gold medal if she deserves them...

Because the study was supposed to show the opposite: it was supposed to quantify the benefit of low-fat diets once and for all. Nobody thought it was going to quantify the benefit at zero; the results were a complete surprise to everyone except for a minuscule minority of skeptics who were never taken seriously. ← But Steven, that is the whole point of doing the studies. While the results obtained were not those expected, the hypothesis had not previously been irrefutably proven.If it was a proven fact, save the money. By all means if reasonable studies testing the prion hypothesis can be designed they should be undertaken, but they need to be well designed and willing to show whichever conclusion the results demand.

There was little disagreement last week that low-fat diets would reduce heart disease. Nonetheless, the few people who disagreed turned out to be right, at least according to the most comprehensive study ever done on the issue. Part of the reason there was so little disagreement was that it was so hard to get funding to conduct the studies that would disprove the conventional wisdom. Steven, if it was so difficult to get funding how did this "most comprehensive study" ever get done? That it got done and published is testament that a well designed study will get funded. The difficulty with getting funding is that the team looking for it has to be able to show a reasonable track record and a reasonable approach to the problem. Pie in the sky approaches rarely come off as sound or reasonable. The finite amount of money available is (or should be) most likely to go to the studies with the greatest chance of proving a point. I will admit that it is a bit of a conundrum as an interesting idea without a track record is less likely to fit into that category. It is not, however, impossible. See above. That may very well be because the likelihood that his theory is correct is low or at least less likely than the "prion noise" that stems from a lot of cumulative data. The mindset that these diseases stem from eating infected tissue amongst other possible modalities is supported by the very apparent mode of transmission for kuru. While that certainly doesn't prove that vCJD is transmitted to humans by eating beef from infected cows, it is certainly suggestive. Until proven otherwise, likely a very difficult task, it is probably prudent to assume that that mode of transmission may be potentially causative. As a result, at this time it is IMO prudent for people to abstain from eating beef from infected cattle and venison from infected deer. I do not believe the relatively low risk justifies the recommendation to abstain from all beef or venison, though. The basic argument against these findings was summarized in the CIDRAP News article on the study (though the study is often cited as Legname et al, which gives the impression of diverse groups of scientists making independent findings in support of Prusiner's theories, the senior author on that study was actually Prusiner): ← No scientific theory should be assumed to be the absolute truth, however, best evidence allows for people to make certain rational choices. The doubt you quoted is an interesting one and suggestive that the results are somewhat uncertain. This certainly allows and calls for further study, which is a good thing, although it hardly disproves the prevailing theory.

That's the way I fell when reading about computer intricacies

Maybe I am missing something, Patrick, but I am very much under the impression that viruses can be and are cultured. Perhaps there is a semantic misunderstanding? ← If you go back and look at postulate #2, I specified "pure culture." Pure culture refers to " A nutrient medium containing the growth of a single strain of an organism free from other living species or strains." Of course viruses can be cultured, for instance using tissue culture (which is how viruses are usually cultured) or even innoculating a living organism, but not in a pure culture, and I don't imagine that is how Koch understood his own postulate. I haven't read Koch, so I could be wrong, but if he did in fact require growth in a pure culture as his 2nd postulate, then viruses could not fufill that posutulate. ← Thanks for clarifying your statement. I knew it was a question of semantics

I used RLB's recipe in the Cake Bible. I absolutely love it! Everyone who has tried it has loved it too. Not too sweet and very light. ← The "very light" aspect is very important for an airplane! Nice work.

You are certainly correct, which is one of the things that does keep life interesting.

Sam, the medium may be different, but viruses are indeed "cultured. There is no regulation that I know of that specifies that culture media may not be "living". As I intimated I believe the issue is a semantic one.

It's been reported in more than one media outlet, so I take it as true. However, I agree with the various comments upthread that the two sides are posturing. The landlord doesn't really want, or expect, Del Posto to leave. They are angling for a better deal. ← I have no idea if this is the case or night, but while it is probable that the sides are indeed posturing, it is indeed possible that there is more to this situation than meets the eye and the landlord is not posturing at all. In any case, it will be interesting to see what happens here. This is beginning to seem like a sequel to "The Restaurant".

I hate to resurrect this divisive topic, but that's kind of what I was trying to say when I inveighed against expressing "hope" that some restaurant you haven't been to will be awarded three stars. Gray Kunz has lots of fans, and when Cafe Gray opened they all wished him well. But why should you "hope" a place like that be given three stars, just because you like the chef, when eating there and thinking about it over time might reveal that it deserves less? Because you like the chef so much that you want him to get good publicity, even though you, when you've had the chance to think about it, don't think a particular venture of his deserves it? Here's the only point I was tring to make (I'm going to put in bold for emphasis, since I seem to get it lost whenever I try to express it): Shouldn't your "hope" be that the public be given a valid evaluation (something you can't expect from Frank Bruni -- but that's another issue) -- whatever it might turn out to be -- rather than that a particular place you haven't tried be given a high rating, regardless of what you ultimately might think it deserves, just because you like the chef or like the way the place sounds? I'm sorry if people think this is tiresome, or if any mention of this opinion annoys people. I hope you all see by now that I'm not trying to insult anybody. Since my probably inept expression of this opinion before seems to have turned people off, I just want to take another shot of explaining what I was trying to say -- expecially since Oakapple, who at least thought he disagreed with me, now seems to be saying something at least sort of similar. And I do think this points to a flaw -- a sort of over-identification with favorite chefs -- that I think you sometimes see on boards like this. ← Sneakeater, your opinion is certainly valid if that is where the hope truly lay. I don't believe it is though. I hope Gilt is as good a restaurant as posters here have made it out to be and gets the recognition that it deserves. I would have liked it to have received three stars (or more), but only if it is truly deserving of them. Ultimately, I will have to see for myself. The other reason I hoped it would have received a higher score than it did from the NYT is it confuses me when there is a disconnect between opinions about a particular restaurant. Life is much easier when people are on the same page, though it might be more interesting when there are those disconnects

Maybe I am missing something, Patrick, but I am very much under the impression that viruses can be and are cultured. Perhaps there is a semantic misunderstanding?

Bruni's review in no way dampens my desire to try Gilt for myself. There are far too many positive remarks on this board from people I have come to trust to dismiss the restaurant based on his review. As for Gagnaire, though, my one experience there was a major disappointment although I could see the technical quality of the kitchen.

Very nice report, IHO. Your descriptions give me the impression that the influences from Spain are indeed strong, although they remind me more of Santi Santamaria than they do Ferran Adria. I agree that the term "Molecular gastronomy" is one that is often used incorrectly ans Bux's description of the term is accurate. As an aside, I recently heard that Herve This will be giving a lecture somewhere in NYC later this month, but unfortunately, I don't know where or when. I have come to prefer the term "hypermodern" for those cuisines utilizing creative and non-traditional techniques and presentations in their cooking. The take I am getting on this restaurant from the posts here is that the food is influenced by Spanish Nueva Cocina, creative, delicious but grounded in predominantly traditional techniques. Sounds as if it should be very much worth a try.

Some questions: Is the cauliflower cooked or is it cooking in the milk and if so how long do you leave it to steep? Is the cauliflower removed from the milk before whisking in the egg yolk and sugar mixture? Thanks!

Interesting studies. Patrick, do you or anyone else know if these synthetic prions have been fed to rather than injected into animals and caused disease?