slkinsey

That's an interesting question. Part of it, I think, is that they don't really care about the sandwiches that much. It's more or less totally divorced from the restaurant salume business (many, perhaps most of the good Italian places in NYC get their salume from Salumeria Biellese). My guess is that it exists as a working man's lunch counter as an afterthought just because they happen to have a street-level place in an area where they can do some business. FWIW, I've had a perfectly acceptable, if not exceptional meatball hero there. Take it from me... buy a guanciale from them and make yourself some bucatini all'Amatricana. Then you'll see the light.

Lenny's on 98th and Broadway boils, AFAIK. But, needless to say there is more to a top-rate bagel.

aha! Still, I will not be back. As a lunch counter, they're mediocre. But still... if you want guanciale, zampone, cotechino, etc., they're the best in town.

Any decent, traditional bagelries in the City left?

Sounds like you were in the right place. AFAIK, there is only one Salumeria Biellese, on 8th Avenue at 29th Street. There are two parts of Salumeria Biellese: Most apparent is the mediocre sandwich/hot table takeout store. But, if you go the small counter furthest from the door, you can order their excellent salume by the pound (most of which are not available on sandwiches, AFAIK). They sell the vast majority of their salume to restaurants, and likely do very little retail business in salume. Thus, there are no hanging prosciutti, salami, etc.

Yea, I'd call ahead about that if you really don't like foie. It's pretty integral to that particular burger, and they may have trouble making it or it may be difficult to make it without.

It is mostly used in pasta dishes, in my experience. I find it strange that you say you had it with pappardelle (a fresh pasta) and ragù (which usually, but not always, designates a dish made with meat). Bottarga is the compressed, salted and dried roe of either grey mullet (bottarga di muggine, usually from Sardenia, and the best) or tuna (bottarga di tonno, usually from Sicilia, and also very good). Most often it is served grated onto very simply dressed pasta asciutta. A good example might be the maccheroni alla chitarra (the dry kind rather than the fresh kind) with oven dried tomatoes, red chiles and bottarga di muggine served at Babbo or, for a more elemental presentation, a simple dish of spahgetti with great raw evoo and a heavy shaving of bottarga. For a new-world presentation, Otto, I think, offers a pizza with tomato, mozzarella, pecorino, raw fennel and bottarga.

My mother and father got Willie Gluckstern's "The Wine Avenger" and a box of Maldon sea salt, respectively, as stocking stuffers. Gave copies of Bourdain's and Steingarten's best books as gifts. Um... got an interesting pair of wood salad tongs, plus The Art of Eating by M. F. K. Fisher.

Hey Sam, it seems like things are drifting toward the French Laundry. Maybe it should be moved to France. Don't make me give you the eye with all your funny talk, now! Oh... wait...

Hi, guys. Since El Bulli is in Spain, we're moving this thread from the NY Forum to the Spain & Portugal forum. Carry on!

I don't know the price, but I have always been able to find reasonably priced duck legs at the Chinese butcher on Bayard.

Whoa. Bummer, dude. That's not too cool. One thing you might consider doing is calling the guys at Bridge Kitchenware and talking to them about shipping to you in Canada. I am sure they do some business up there.

I really don't know what's available in Canada. But, I'd like to point out that there is this wonderful thing called the Internet that helps you to buy cookware from companies that are located in America. Just because you live in Canada doesn't mean that you can't buy cookware from Bridge Kitchenware, for example. Anyway, if you're set on buying locally available cookware, I'd look for a Chaudier (also called Chaudier 5000 in the US). It's very good quality, heavy stuff. Yes, it's a pretty good buy. I don't think the specs are quite as good as some of my favorites, but I wouldn't mind owning a few pieces. Yes, this is a complicating factor, and something I will probably discuss in version two of my class (whenever I get around to revising it). That said, my working assumption is that there is not a significant difference in the kind of aluminum used by the high-end manufacturers. One does't really need to do CR-style testing to understand the differences, however. All that is required is to have the materials specifications for the alloy they are using. These specifications are all public knowledge. No, it doesn't significantly change the heating properties and no, it doesn't justify their higher price. As I say in my class: You can draw your own conclusions about which manufacturer I was thinking of when I wrote that. One word: plastics. No, seriously, if you want a big sauté pan, I'd get Sitram Profiserie or, if you don't want to buy from an American company (due to tax reasons or whatever) I'd go with Chaudier's heavy line. You'd probably be pretty happy with Scanpan Steel as well -- it looks good.

Heh... I don't know if it's a goal per se. When I make it, it's just a consequence. I also use fairly fatty cuts of meat.

I take care of the oiliness factor by A) including ground pancetta as one of my meats, and B) starting the whole thing with insane amounts of both butter and evoo. Looks delicious, Tommy.

On their web site they say: Doesn't sound too promising to me, but you never know...

A fun glaze to do is a Coca Cola glaze. It works really well, tastes very good and it's always fun to tell your incredulous guests that you glazed the ham with Coca Cola. Here is a recipe for a whisky and cola glaze or, for something simpler, there's this recipe for a cola glazed ham.

Why do you think there aren't as many ethnic places upstate? Is it the case that there aren't enough people of these ethnicities living out there? I have always found it interesting that there can be areas that have fairly large concentrations of certain ethnic groups and still have no good restaurants associated with that group. I've been in some midwestern cities with sizeable Asian populations and no good Asian restaurants. It also strikes me as odd that, even in Manhattan with its huge Dominican population, Dominican restaurants are fairly scarce.

Brazilian ironwood burl.

Sam, I'd love to see photos of your knives. Any way you could post a couple? Hopefully Santa will be bringing me a digital camera. Then I'll see what I can do. Here's a picture I already had (the picture was folded, so that explains the crease in the image):

How's this for a generalization: my youngest sister is Shannon Michelle, my oldest sister is Cathleen Marie, my brother Thomas Franklin. Also, growing up I knew a Keith Brian, a Brian Keith, and a Roger Nelson. And my mom used to try to convince me that the Beach Boys wrote a song about her, Barbara Ann. Unfortunately one rarelysees the truly colorful Southern names of old any more, like this one from one of my favorite Faulkner novels: Admiral Dewey Snopes.

Custom made kitchen knives are indeed cool. I hace a number of custom made cast dendridic steel knives in my kitchen. Wouldn't trade them for anything. Haven't done any "at home modifications" though... yet.

Might be an interesting idea. Certainly it is the case that the average Southerner will be using a softer, lower protein flour to make CFS. Using Wondra would probably give it a nice effect, but one that isn't entirely traditional, I'd guess. You should try it!

Interesting. I agree that the pasta dishes are outstanding -- especially the fresh pasta dishes and even more especially the pasta ripiena dishes (I speak of the goose liver ravioli, the beef cheek ravioli, the calf's brain "francobolli" and the mint "love letters"). That said, the most outstanding dish I have ever had there was the fennel dusted sweetbreads with quince vinegar and duck bacon. The tripa alla parmigiana blew me away too. The grappa tasting at Babbo is pretty cool, too. We've always managed to make friends with the wine guy (I love Italian wines and grappa even more), who always gives us a very generous pour and sometimes an extra grappa to taste.

I think it's a mystery. We still don't know how to cultivate most kinds of mushrooms (or truffles), or even necessarily know why they grow in one place and not another. If we knew more, porcini and chanterelles, etc. would be as cheap as portobellos. I actually think that decent mushrooms pop up more frequently than people think. It's just too bad that most people don't know enough about mushrooms to take advantage of it. The average American, upon waking to see his lawns covered with brown-gray spongy fungus would immediately head for the lawn mower. The only reason we were lucky in that regard is that my parents are both scientists and, due to the incredible mushroom activity around our house in Western NC, they decided to learn everything they could about North American mushrooms so we could pick and eat wild mushrooms. (There are, BTW, mushrooms known as "false morels" that you don't want to eat.)