slkinsey

The restaurateurs already had that power. They could have chosen to make their restaurants non-smoking. Two things here: 1. Gallipygos is wrong. The smoking ban in restaurants and bars was enacted to protect restaurant employees from the preventable health risks associated with the inhalation of second hand smoke. 2. Once many restaurants were forced to put in nonsmoking sections, that is exactly what many restaurants did. However, put yourself in the position of the restaurant owners... A financial decision has to be made. If there is enough societal acceptance of smoke in the restaurant (or bar), then the proprietor would be crazy to turn away potential patrons who wish to smoke. However, as society's acceptance of smoke in these environments changes -- helped along by legislation -- so does the proprietor's decision. I have little doubt that a restaurant which allowed smoking all over the dining room today would lose business because most diners have decided that they won't tolerate a dining room where clouds of smoke come from the next table over. Compare this to office buildings. Not too long ago, it was commonplace for smokers to light up in office buildings with impunity. These days, such a situation is unacceptable to the majority of working people (again, largely due to a societal change helped along by legislation). A business which allowed smoking in its offices today would have a hard time attracting talented employees because, for many of them, working in a smoky office would be a "deal breaker" and they would simply seek employment with a company that did not permit smoking in the office. Where would we be on this without legislation on smoking in the office? Not here. The stated purpose of the law was to protect employees from the preventable health risks associated with the inhalation of second hand smoke and it has been successful in this areas. As for "many bar employees were either let go or make considerable less money in tip" -- I'll be interested to see where this ends up in another several months. I'm sure there will be plenty of data available to evaluate the short-term and long-term impact of the smoking ban on bars and restaurants factoring out the effects of the recession. My casual observation -- which is backed up by what I hear from my friends in the business -- is that some establishments are clearly suffering, but that many/most are not doing appreciably less business than expected by now. I know what you mean. As a non-sexual-harasser who hates sexual harassment, I feel it is simply not the role of government to be involved in whether or not ass-grabbing is permissable in a bar or restaurant. I mean really... the next thing you know we're all going to have bar codes tattooed on the backs of our necks.

OK, that does it. Maggie just volunteered to do the next foodblog in iambic pentameter. Or, if she prefers, in sonnet form. Your choice.

Since Dean has been favoring us with so many interesting pictures of North Carolina, I thought I'd show everyone what else they have been missing by not being in North Carolina right now. These pictures were taken from the deck on my house in Western NC a few days ago: Even though it's a hazy day, it's a pretty nice view, no? Wait? What's that lump on that tree? Let's have a closer look... Um... is that what I think it is? Is that a baby bear right outside my back door?! I guess it must be, because his mother is in the garden. D'oh! Mom is climbing up the deck to have a visit! Time to go inside and radically rethink my position on gun control... Bears, if you didn't already know, love good pork barbeque.

Why not a citizen of the great nation separated from us by a common language? Balic? Majumdar? A Scottish Chef? LML? And, while we're at it, I'd like to see the next foodblog all in iambic pentameter.

I've tried corn meal too. Same problem.

This may also have to do with the coating you are using. I used to think it was a cool idea to include pulverized corn flakes in my fried chicken coating for added crunch. But corn has too much sugar in it, and the exterior was always way too dark by the time the interior was cooked,

OK, Sob' Sorry I haven't been keeping up. I've been quite busy with the eGCI coordionator gig and learning enough physics to write my (much longer than I thought it would be) eGCI unit on cookware. I'll finish up with Sunday, just because I thought the food was interesting. Bergerka was kind enough to bring home some buckwheat flour, so brunch chez slkinsey was buckwheat pancakes with plenty of butter, Canadian maple syrup (with apologies to my New England upbringing), raspberry jam and peach preserves. Dinner was pork scalopine with mushrooms (dredge pork in flour, brown pork on high heat and remove, dump in sliced crimini mushrooms, add several cubes of frozen chicken stock and the juice of one lemon when the mushrooms start to exude their liquid, pour off the liquid once the mushrooms have stopped shrinking, return pan to heat to brown mushrooms, mix some beurre manié with the mushroom liquid and return to pan, toss in some minced parsley and lemon zest, return pork to pan to warm through); salad of oak leaf lettuce from the Greenmarket; finished the bottle of riesling. The ferrets had, I think, more ground up whole chicken and some chicken wings on the bone. Asher has taken to sneaking around and stealing his brothers' chicken wings when they are out for play time and bringing them to his "secret hiding place no one else knows about" under the bed. Now... for the next "volunteer." Your suggestions sound interesting, although Bergerka is probably noa a good choice since we live together and tend to eat the same things. Might be interesting to hear from one of our more enigmatic members... or maybe someone from another part of the country... or maybe someone in the cooking biz.

As far as I can tell, it was just fresh frites with raw garlic and minced parsley sprinkled on top. They call it "papas alla provencal." Actually, I think it would work better if they softened the garlic in a little olive oil and then tossed the parsley, garlic (with oil) and frites together. The parsley and garlic would stick to the frites a little better that way.

If I can add a little hint of my own.. I always include parsley in my stocks. What I do is, when I buy parsley I pluck all the leaves off the stems, rinse them, spin them dry, lay them in more or less a single layer on a length of paper towel, roll up the paper towel, put the roll into a large ziplock bag and store in the refrigerator. I have been able to keep really good, fresh parsley from the Greenmarket in primo condition for up to three weeks this way. Getting back to stocks... I take the stems and thrown them in the 2 gallon ziplock bag I use to keep chicken bones in the freezer until I have accumulated enough to make stock. This way, I already have all the parsley stems I could possibly want when it comes time to make some chicken stock.

Perhaps a better headline linking to this article might be: breathing in the debris from several exploded and burned skyscrapers results in a 4% difference in the incidence of lower-than-expected birth weights.

He doth bestride the world like a bacon. And my grandfather's favorite: (ahem) If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. You all do know this bacon: I remember The first time ever Caesar put it on his plate; 'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent, That day he visited the artisanal smokehouse: Look, in this place ran Cassius' teeth through: See what a bite the envious Casca took: And here the well-beloved Brutus nibbled; And as he pluck'd his cursed teeth away, Mark how the bacon of Caesar follow'd it, As rushing out of doors, to be resolved If Brutus so unkindly snacked, or no; For bacon, as you know, was Caesar's favorite.

In re to the defatting... I'd like to mention that there is no reason whatsoever not to take the skimmed fat, boil it with a little water to clean it up a bit, separate it from the dirty water using a defatting pitcher and store it in the freezer for future use. Those of us who have made it can tell you that nothing compares to matzo balls made with real chicken fat. The beef fat is probably less useful if tomato was used in the brown stock -- but duck stock, pork stock, turkey stock, etc. all yield very useful fats for cooking. It is also very nice to make the roux for starch-thickened sauces and gravies using the fat of the same animal with which the sauce will be served. Using turkey fat, deglazed turkey pan drippings and turkey stock gives a super-strong turkey flavor to your Thanksgiving gravy.

I don't know about that. I'd love to get my hands on one of these babies.

I make something fairly similar, although I also use a healthy dollop or Worcestershire sauce. A handfull of crushed dry-roasted peanuts is good in this too.

Yes, they make them on site AFAIK.

Well... Obviously we don't agree on this. But, you know what? I'm sure we'll eventually have a chance to find out which one of us is right and which one is wrong, as I have little doubt that someone will try to challenge one of the smoking laws on the books around America in the highest court possible. With that, I'd say that this part of the discussion is closed. If you have any thoughts, comments or feelings about food you would like to contribute to discussion on eGullet, please avail yourself of our many forums.

I hope to clarify all this and more in my "Understanding stovetop cookware" class in the eGCI.

Saturday was a Ronnybrook Farms chocolate milk for breakfast down at the Union Square Greenmarket where I bought many tasty things for the week. Lunch: Cape Cod Salt and Vinegar potato chips and slices of Spanish chorizo. Dinner: went to Pampa on Amsterdam at 97th with bergerka, Eric Malson and a friend I shall refer to as "the God of Thunder" for reasons that will remain obscure. Had a nice bottle of Malbec from Argentina... a few spinach empanadas and a few corn empanadas; frites with parsley and raw garlic; bergerka had a wonderful skirt steak, the GoT had a bacon-wrapped fillet (not my first choice of cuts, but he liked it) and Eric and I shared the "mixed grill for two" or, as I like to call it "the gizzard plate" -- this consisted of two skirt steaks, two cross-cut sections of rib, chorizo, blood sausage, kidneys, sweetbreads and intestines... VERY tasty, as I'm sure you can imagine, especially with chimichurri. Chased all of this down with crepes filled with dulce de leche and an apple pancake with vanilla ice cream. The ferrets had some deep fried pork for breakfast and some deep fried chuck steak for dinner. They really liked the chuck steak because I fied it up while it was still frozen, so it was nice and crispy on the outside and pretty much raw inside.

Welcome to eGullet esvoboda. As I am about to explain in my eGCI unit on cookware, you really can't toss food (i.e., sauté -- the French verb sauter meaning "to jump" as in "to jump around in the pan") effectively in a cast iron skillet. Cast iron skillets are not designed for it. The sides are too low (around 14% - 20% as tall as the diameter of the pan as opposed to 25% for a sauté pan) and the handle is both short and parallel to the cooking surface as opposed to long and angled upward like the handle of a sauté pan. Both the higher sides and the long angled handle of the sauté pan make it easier to sauté effectively -- not surprisingly, since it is, after all, called the sauté pan.

Am I the only one who has ever eaten a bagel from Lenny's? I really do think they're way better -- i.e., denser, chewier -- than H&H.

Actually, the exact opposite it correct. NYC has some of the softest water in the US.

OK, John... let's ask a simple question. I don't want a bunch of quotes and whatnot, just a yes or no answer. Do you believe it is within the government's purview to enact legislation with the intention of protecting employees that regulates, say, the amount of volatile coal dust in the air inside coal mines or the safety of machinery in factories or the use of respirators at chemical plants? Understand, of course, that these places of employment are all located on privately owned property. So... yes or no? Because it sounds like what you are saying is: no. To rephrase your quote, you could just as easily be saying: "…entering a privately owned dioxin plant [even if it is to work there] which does not provide breathing apparatus and other safety equipment for employees, is done so with full knowledge that one may ingest carcinogenic chemical vapors and willingly subject themselves to all heath consequences resulting from the ingestion of those carcinogenic chemical vapors." This is tantamount to saying that the government may not enact any legislation to protect employees from dangers at any workplace located on private property because that would be stepping on the property owner's right to do whatever he wants on his own property, and that all employees at these workplaces are "knowingly and willingly" subjecting themselves to the (preventable) dangers associated with those workplaces. This is ridiculous, because this line of reasoning removes any ability whatsoever for the government to protect employees in the workplace and we end up back at the standards of the industrial revolution. Regardless, it has long been established in this country -- and upheld by the Supreme Court -- that the government does, in fact, have the mandate to enact such legislation and so your entire point is moot. If the NYC or NYS smoking bans ever make it to the Supreme Court, I have no doubt whatsoever that they will be upheld as constitutional. I agree on this point when it comes to people who patronize establishments on private property. But, again... how does this address employees who work on these private properties? It doesn't. This is just like saying, "there is no clear and imminent public danger from carcinogenic chemical vapors that are present on privately owned property. The danger, if any, falls upon those who willingly enter upon privately owned property where carcinogenic chemical vapors are present without a breathing apparatus..." This is all fine and dandy when it comes to visitors to the chemical plant. I would agree that any non-employee who is told "there is a fog of carcinogenic chemical vapor inside this plant" and who decides to go in there without a breathing apparatus and other safety gear does so on his/her own dime. However, the standard is different for the people who work at the chemical plant. It is not enough to say, and the highest courts in this country agree, that the employees at the chemical plant voluntarily subject themselves to the carcinogenic chemical vapors at the dioxin plant without any safety measures at their own free will by exercising personal liberty and freedom of choice, and that they can always take their employment elsewhere if they are not happy with the levels of safety provided at the plant. This is, again, tantamount to saying that the government has no mandate to enact legislation to protect employees from workplace dangers when the workplace is located on private property. Yea, I read what you said before. I just don't think it applies in this case. The dangers associated with the inhalation of "first hand" tobacco smoke have been well documented. I don't think anyone can argue that smoking is not bad for one's health. For various reasons, several of which I have documented elsewhere in this thread, it is unlikely that absolute proof from long term environmental studies of humans as to the health effects of passive inhalation of environmental tobacco smoke will ever be forthcoming. This has nothing to do with whether or not the inhalation of second-hand smoke is bad for one's health, but rather has to do with the unmanageably large number of oustide variables and other changes inhernet in such a study that make is extremely difficult bordering on impossible to arrive at a conclusive and statistically strong result. That said, there is copious evidence from long-term human studies as to the health effects of first-hand smoking and there are plenty of animal studies -- both laboratory and environmental -- demonstrating the negative health impact which results from the passive inhalation of environmental tobacco smoke. This strikes me as plenty of evidence to satisfy the Constitution and the Supreme Court. Whether or not it is enough evidence for you... who cares? The City and State of New York don't have to satisfy you. One other thing... you know that this is a discussion board devoted to food and subjects related to food, right? One would hope that you're not just here to flog your pet topic.

I'd say that there are some places in Montreal that are excellent and are better than many places in NYC. That said, they are not as good IMO as the best places in NYC -- my favorite (and a smaller, denser bagel) being Lenny's on 98th and Broadway.

Hmmm... before responding to someone who likely won't listen to reason, I should have taken a look around the Internet to see what else pops up about Mr. Kurowski and his one-man organization to see what this axe-grinder is all about. Needless to say, he does not appear to be on these boards to discuss his love of food.

John, you seem to be widely missing the point. The NY ban -- or at least the NYC ban as I understand it -- is there to protect employees from dangers associates with the inhalation of second hand smoke at their place of employment. Public spaces where the ban is in effect are those which inherently have employees. For example, if there were to exist a private smoking club that had no employees (i.e., where the members performed all the maintenance and other duties normally done by employees) then that club would not be subject to the smoking ban. As for your repeated statements as to the "rights associated with property ownership and individual liberty" -- it is quite clear that the government is free to pass laws regulating activities that take place on private property where the safety and wellbeing of employees working on said private property is concerned. If this were not the case, there could be no legislation regulating the workplace whatsoever. Where you make your mistake is in assuming that the smoking bans are intended to protect the general public (patrons of establishments or visitors to private properties). This is not the case, and could not be the case because, as you suggest, patrons and visitors may exercise their freedom of choice and take their business or selves elsewhere. The standard for employees is different, however, and it is quite clear that the government may enact laws to protect employees in the workplace from a reasonably perceived potential danger.