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I think I've actually visited that place, but not on castration day and I can't remember whether the pigs had nose rings. I wonder how we could find out. More to the point, it's not like you ever see on packaging a checklist like "__ nose rings, __ castration without anesthesia, __ spaying without anesthesia, __ confinement for __ months." I think the salient point of the article is that a "free range" claim doesn't begin to end the discussion of humane treatment. Me, if I'm going to pay a lot more for meat in order to guarantee humane treatment, I'd rather only do that with the knowledge that I'm actually paying for humane treatment. ← You have been there. I took you a number of years ago. It so happens that I recently republished a photo on my blog of Jen Small at Flying Pigs Farm taken several years ago. She is with some of her pigs with not a nose ring in sight. You can see it here.. McWilliams has become more subtle since his other recent attack on non-factory farmed meat production. While he does not defend factory farming here, he indirectly does by saying how bad the touted alternatives to factory farming are in their own right potentially narrowing the distance in the minds of consumers. Of course, even though it appears that he has a very strong bias and may be prone to exaggeration, his main point is a good one. Though free-range is significantly better than factory farming, it could in many instances be better yet. The problem is that rather than emphasize those farms that do adhere to more humane practices, he paints them all with a very broad brush.

Try MiLa in the Pere Marquette Hotel.

This was an event that I would have loved to attend and thought seriously about making the trip down to the city for. I look forward to reading and seeing more details.

Late summer we get peaches from N.J., Pennsylvania and N.Y. that are generally quite good. For us to get great peaches now, we generally have to pay an arm and a leg for shipping on top of already pricey per peach costs. I am partial to Frog Hollow peaches, though clearly, as Steven's post attests, they are out there. My friend, Rocco Verrigni, a chef/professor, who is currently in Italy sent me this from there for My blog:

John is class all the way. The eGullet Society is ever the richer for all of John's many contributions.

I recently bought beautiful Canadian hardshell lobsters at $6.99/lb for 2+ pounders at our local Hannaford. Less than 1.5 pounds they were $5.99/lb. Cheapest that I have seen in a long time.

Not just toasted, but grilled!

One can keep shutter speed the same, but change ISO to compensate for changing aperture. Depending on the ISO and shutter speeds, one approach may be preferable to another.

Thank you, David, for the additional information.

Nice summary, David. Another advantage of shooting raw and an important one is image preservation. Every time a jpeg is opened the image degrades somewhat because it gets recompressed or something like that. The fact is over time the quality of the image dwindles. This doesn't happen in raw. If you must save photos in a different format, try TIFF.

The only kitchen items that are a total waste of money are those that aren't used or those that make the work more difficult.

But there were people doing that for decades before the star chef was born. Can anyone really claim that Jonathan Tower, Jean-Louis Palladin, or any of a hundred other talented chefs who rose before the advent of the food media onslaught were making unsatisfying food? My point is that it's the machines built to promote stardom, and not the quality of individual stars, that drives the mega food star phenomenon. ← I am not sure that we are disagreeing. Sure there are machines to promote culinary stars, The Food Network being the most prominent, but the American public is much more willing to accept chefs as celebrities than they were in the past, something the chefs you mentioned were not able to take advantage of except in retrospect. I think both aspects come into play today. A good machine can make a star out of someone undeserving as well as someone who is deserving. Most of the FN stars are stars not because they are wonderful cooks or chefs, but because they are personalities who happen to fit in a kitchen (sometimes), but then some are excellent chefs.

My point is that chefs who become famous and stars because of the food that they cook that people actually eat, will likely remain stars so long as their cooking continues to satisfy. I think it is the very rare chef who can preside over a successful and worthwhile empire. I would like to think that the days of those chefs remaining famous because of past deeds may be numbered, but I think our culture tends to like celebrity wherever it comes from and tends to celebrate celebrity for its own sake.

CK, we are now split on my favorite two new restaurants in NYC - Aldea and Corton. I am not sure why there was a disconnect on Corton, but Aldea we agree on. George Mendes can cook and there is nothing else quite like it in the city (or probably the country). I did not have that duck fried rice, but I have only heard wonderful things about it. I must try it!

I think that our culture is too star and personality obsessed for this to happen. More likely, we will see chefs arrive with a splash and then fade from view if they can't maintain their celebrity and product at the same time or depending on the culinary fad du jour.

The irony is that with the dessert's limited water supply, it may actually make more sense to have food shipped in than home grown around Vegas depending on the source of water, probably the biggest environmental issue of the Southwest. One advantage of a local agriculture is to develop a local culinary identity with specific products that emphasize locality something not likely to happen in Vegas given the greater emphasis on variety and individual chef creativity. Of course one can argue, that the very existence of Las Vegas represents an environmental conundrum, especially with the way water is used so freely there, but that is another discussion altogether.

I also don't get the aversion to all-clad. While it may be expensive and may not be the "best", it is good cookware and frequently on sale at a reasonable price. Another advantage is that it is widely available, something not terribly true of the better European lines unless one lives in or near a major metropolis. I love my AC non-stick skillets. They haven't warped and I have no problems with the handles. My favorite pot though is an Ikea non-stick wok that is well made, cheap and extremely versatile. I love it for cooking pasta of all things. It is from their top line.

Built in grill cook-tops - I thought I would use it a lot, especially in the colder months, but it is such a pain in the ass to clean. Even then, if it worked well, I would still use it, but it sucks. Mine is an electric Jenn-Air. The only reason we kept the insert when we remodeled the kitchen and changed the main cooktop to induction is to use the regular burners for pots that don't work on induction like my wife's copper jelly pot.

I watched an episode online and I have to say that it was dreadful. MPW was quite preachy. He may be a legend in the kitchen, but that did not translate very well to the tube. I can't see any of the contestants as deserving of winning a restaurant or ultimately keeping it.

One thing that has not been considered in the context of this discussion is what may have prevented the owner from speaking with you directly? May he have been dealing with other issues at the time, trying to placate other customers because of the sudden squall or was he just standing there looking simply to stay dry? He may have had any number of other on-going issues at the time preventing him from dealing with the situation described. We simply don't know, because we do not have that side of the story. I prefer to give the benefit of the doubt.

Seth, there is considerable debate as to who's molten chocolate cake is the original. While J-G is the one who seems to have popularized it in the US, few give him credit for being the originator of the cake. The name that I have most often heard associated with it is Michel Bras. Regardless, J-G's is great and can serve it forever as far as I am concerned.

Also El Mexicano in Hudson Falls and now Saratoga, I believe has excellent Mexican food.

Cooper's Cave Pub in Glens Falls is a place that may interest you. The food is a bit uneven, but I recently had the best fried fish that I have had in a long time there. They have good ice cream and very good beers and sodas as well, all house made. Martha's Dandee Creme in Queensbury across from the Great Escape Amusement Park also has wonderful soft-serve ice cream.

I think to a significant extent it is true that Saratoga has been insulated, but so many restaurants operate on such thin margins, ti doesn't necessarily take much to run them out. Given the overall state of the economy, it is remarkable that there have been as few closings as there have been and not all of those are directly attributable to the economy, including Springwater. In the case of Chez Sophie, they simply had an opportunity that they could not pass up, a now-or-never opportunity. I expect Saratoga to be very busy this summer. If it is not, I would not be surprised to see more closings as all the businesses depend on a strong summer season.

Nobody has suggested that you should have liked it, but many are stating that the restaurant is not blameworthy here and we don't even have their side of the story. I believe that there is a bit of a difference between a baby coming inside under those circumstances (or any other - as annoying as it sometimes can be to other patrons, a baby in a restaurant is not a health code violation) - and a dog. Clearly, you did not choose to be in that situation, but neither did the restaurant. It was simply your misfortune, for which they were clearly unprepared to accommodate. Did you ask to change your meal to take-out? One thing you did do, is name the restaurant, which is unnecessary for the purposes of this discussion and smacks of an attempt at retribution, which is unseemly, perhaps generating the irritated tone of a number of responses and lack of sympathy for your situation. Sorry, but you asked.