slkinsey

Neither was St. Patrick, or Rabbie Burns, or Jesus, etc. For the same, or similar reasons the people above are associated with food.

This is definitely true. Growing up in Boston as the son of Southerners, I can tell you that none of my peers were being served things like the mustard greens, grits, fried porkchops, etc. that were regular features of dinner at the Kinsey household.

I think it's good if you bake it in a cast iron skillet with a little maple syrup until it gets thick and bubbly. Maybe 40 minutes at 350.

Your point is well made that only good coffee beans can make good coffee of any type. After that, it comes down to what one likes in a cup of coffee. Many would argue, and I would agree, that the espresso method is one which extracts the purest essence of the coffee bean and therefore produces the "best" coffee. In my own view there is a clear heirarchy of coffee making techniques that goes something like this: espresso is better than presspot is better than drip. I even prefer caffè Americano (espresso diluted to drip coffee strength with hot water) to drip coffee. Certain coffee making techniques, like percolation, are guaranteed to make a bad cup of coffee out of even the best beans. So... I would contend that a good cup of espresso is better than a good cup of drip coffee. But, at some point, one has to allow for matters of taste. Some people may simply not like the intensity and small volume of espresso. That doesn't make them Philistines, it just makes them people whose tastes have evolved in a different direction. That said, it also seems an inescapable fact that some people prefer bad coffee over good coffee -- not eGulleters, of course.

Esca does a whole salt-baked branzino for two that is excellent. They bring it to the table still under the salt crust, and then fillet/debone/serve tableside. Served with nothing more than extra virgin olive oil and a slice of lemon. I think Milos also makes a damn good whole fish. Certainly in competition for best in the city, and perhaps the odds-on favorite. Extremely expensive, though.

Okay... that's eight so far. We'll undoubtedly be going back at least once more, so there's plenty for others to go next time. Pan, I'll be catching a ride out there and will check with the driver as to arrival time. How many pizze do you think we should get? I'd say we need one round, plain cheese/tomato pizza, one artichoke (a must-have, as you point out)... a square pizza is also a must-have, right? Since you're a regular, I think we'd be happy to put ourselves in your capable hands. Eggplant doesn't do too much for me, but I am happy to eat from the other choices if the eggplant looks really good on Saturday.

Dr. King's work was all about race. His memory and reputation is inextricably tied to black America in much the same way that Einstein's memory is inextricably tied to physics. Serving foods that are traditionally associated with black Americans on the day dedicated to the man who is most associated with furthering their cause -- indeed, to the point of giving his life -- strikes me as being just as appropriate as any menu constructed along similar lines (e.g., serving corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day). If Einstein's work and fame had been fundamentally or substantially about furthering the cause of the Jewish people, which it was not, then serving typical Jewish foods on "Einstein Day" would not strike me as inappropriate. Really, while I don't think this menu is inherrently any less appropriate than any similarly constructed menu, I do think it was poor judgment on the part of the cafeteria simply because "fried chicken, collard greens and cornbread" has been used in a pejorative sense, and is taken as such by some people. On a related note... I wonder why we serve certain "traditional" foods on some holidays and not others? People drink green beer and eat corned beef on St. Patrick's Day, and yet do not drink red wine and eat pasta on Colombus Day.

And let it be known that I have promised Trillium dibs on the first few bags of sichuan peppercorn at Foodmart International, if any remain.

I don't know that you can make that comparison, Jon. Albert Einstein is not a person who is particularly symbolic to or of the Jewish people as MLK is for African Americans. Perhaps a better comparison might be it people wore pocket protectors and carried around slide rules for Einstein Day.

We should check back at Foodmart International to see if they have resupplied after we cleaned them out.

Di Fara: January 24 @ 2:00 PM slkinsey (org.) Pan (org.) bergerka JosephB MRX Anusha1 sherribabee Eric_Malson Who else? I will update this list as people chime in. Edited to update list.

Okay... so, who is going to Di Fara's for the 2:00 meet-and-eat on Saturday? Please PM me and I'll put up a list on the thread (this way the thread doesn't get too cluttered up). We should decide what we're having, too. My feeling is that at least one pizza should be plain cheese and tomato sauce, and after that we can go for the specialties of the house (it sounds like Pan's on top of those). Among the things we can discuss while stuffing our faces is how to go forward, how to present our "findings" and whatnot. It looks like we've decided that it makes sense to hit the "Big 5" first and then the other guys. So, this is my thought: I have no designs on being the "captain" of this survey. I think it will be a lot more fun if it's more democratic. So we'll agree on some evaluation and reporting details on Saturday, then we'll see where this takes us. I'll take the lead, with Pan's help for the inside stuff, in organizing the first outing. After that, maybe we can get some other pizza enthusiasts to take the lead in organizing trips to the other B5 places. Then, if anyone has a particular fondness for a NY pizzeria they would like to bring before the survey, they can take the organizational lead and get the ball rolling in this thread. For the lesser-known (i.e., non-B5) establishments, I think it will help if the person proposing a trip make the case for why that pizzeria is worthy of special note (what the pizze are like, any specialties, atmosphere, whatever makes you like the place). I'll probably propose a few of the faves from my neighborhood, but other than that I'll just do administrative housekeeping in the thread (deleting, merging, trimming, moving the occasional post to keep the focus on pizza, etc.). For example, I might go back and archive all the detail-planning posts leading up to a gathering once we're visited a particular pizzeria. Sound good?

What I like collecting are Italian coffee supplier branded espresso and capuccino cups -- usually 2 of each. I have Miscela d'Oro, etc. Right now, I'd love to get some of those squarish Sedafredo cups and some of the Rancilio cups. But they tend to sell them by the half dozen. I don't suppose there are two other eGulleters who would like matched pairs of Segafredo and Rancilio espresso and capuccino cups?

I use a 58mm Ergo Packer from Espresso Vivace. I like it quite a bit, and haven't felt the call to get another one (yet ). Edited to add method: I slightly overfill my filterbasket, sweep the excess off with a finger... then I put the tamper on, lean on it fairly hard, take it out, tap the portafilter to dislodge the grains from the sides, tamp again and release with around a 1/4 twist. Sometimes I like to spin the tamper on top of the tamped coffee. It doesn't really add anything, but I like doing it anyway.

These are places that I think might bear multiple visits. For example, it would be interesting to go back to Di Fara after hitting the other B5 places and see how our impressions have changed.

I agree. I'd add Totonno to that list, as it is also one of the famous traditional places.

Totally needs to be photographed. And at least one of the test specimens needs to be a plain cheese/tomato sauce pizza. My thought is that, rather than giving a composite rating or anything like that, we would just give our own brief tasting notes. Kind of like they do in the NY Times when the food critics get together and taste 10 kinds of silver tequilla, only about pizza instead... as in: "I thought the pizza was nicely charred on the bottom, while JJ thought it was too carbonized and interfered with the taste of the blah blah blah..." What about places to visit? Would we want to do "NY pizza places" or places in NY that serve pizza. Tha argument could be made that there are notable pizzerie in NYC that do not make NY-style pizza. An initial list: DiFara Patsy's in East Harlem Totonno John's? Otto? V&T? You tell me...

Here is a quick clickable index of Pizza Survey outings and discussion: Conception and Organization (right here) Di Fara Grimaldi's Patsy's East Harlem Giorgione Lombardi's Totonno's Coney Island L&B Spumoni Garden Arturo's Coal Oven Pizza Plus: Some musing on mozzarella Some discussion on Franny's (not yet visited by the Survey) here and here ----------------------- With all the recent traffic on real NY-style pizza and various pizzerie, it looks like it's time to get a group together to visit the well-known New York places and see what we think. I wouldn't say we're looking for the "best pizza in New York" because there are too many differences to make such a judgment. Rather, I think it would be fun to see what's out there and discuss how we react to it. Since there are a relatively limited number of "best of class" NY places, it might also be interesting to revisit some places to see what we think after hopefully gaining some expertise. What I propose is that use this thread to come up with a list of places, coordinate trips and report back our impressions. Possible related events might include arranging a kitchen visit in some of the famous places to learn about how it's all done, and gathering at pizzeria slkinsey for some of the Roman style pizza for which I am famous (justly? you decide!). So... who's interested?

Maybe those who react adversely are sufferers of this metabolic problem, rather than victims of some great conspiracy to market poison to the masses? This specifically refers to people with phenylketonuria (PKU). PKU is a rare inherited disease in which individuals cannot properly metabolize the amino acid phenylalanine. This is why all products containing aspartame in the US feature the warning: "Phenylketonurics: Contains Phenylalanine." I don't think its possible to have a "mild case of PKU" or to be a phenylketonuric and not know about it. It is a very serious disease.

Um... so what? There still remains the fact that the vast majority of reputable, peer-reviewed science does not support the assertion that aspartame is any more unsafe than, say, mangos.

I think it's important to understand that we're talking about the classic NY pizza, not the typical NY pizza.

Um... the Coliseum in Rome is made of concrete, with travertine for the piers and arcades. Point well taken about the durability of granite, though.

1. From a letter in The Lancet: 2. I note that Ralph G. Walton's study (aolready of dubious reliability, due to being a meta-analysis) is not published in a peer-reviewed journal. 3. The reason the FDA stopped tracking adverse reaction reports on aspartame is because they determined that they did not have any merit. More information on the various anti-aspartame scams may be found here. As the good folks at about.com suggest, if the word of the FDA and the mainstream medical research community is not good enough for you, read through the last 20 years of research on Medline and decide for yourself.

I am actually surprized more people don't mention soapstone. I'm definitely going with a mixture of soapstone and end-grain butcher block when the time comes.

A New York style pizza should look like this.