paul o' vendange

Maggie, sorry, where do we post?

Bux, I agree with you, tend to think the "problem" is more the second of the two you posed...the French simply caring less about good food. Indeed, I think this is a problem everywhere - the "mother country" which spawned anything of global import (power, economic influence of England at its height in the 19th Century; the Pax Americana of the last century, France's gastronomy) has a hard time hanging on to that hegemony, by two, possibly ineluctable forces: the "export colonies" taking the wave with enthusiasm, and making it one's own (in this case, "New American" cuisine resting solidly on classic, and 'good' nouvelle technique, but with 'American' energy, ingredients, and outlook), and 'spiritual' lassitude at home. It seems the French have lost much of their taste for their own food, as the English have for their ale (Bud, yes Bud, is big in England, as are lagers generally) or the Germans for their lager ('alco-pops' are taking over; brewing is dying, rapidly). I just hope the same trends towards consolidation/standardization we see everywhere else do not sink their teeth too deeply into French soil - I think French gastronomy, including regional cuisine, is still something we can learn from...as they from us.

Maggie, off topic, just saw your subtitle - the Dark Lady of the Literary Smackdown... May your name inspire great food writing, as the Dark Lady of the Sonnets brought forth, in this erstwhile actor's view, Shakespeare's best work!

Any one see the attached article discussing "Foude France," Alain Ducasse's program to bolster the work of French cooks (outside Paris), and bring more renewed attention to French gastronomy? http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/06/26...d.ap/index.html Comments?

Mogsob - Thanks. At the moment we're in Chicago, but as of March, next year, will be in NYC, attending the French Culinary Institute. Will put this in the file for future use. Lastsupper, wholly agree on the cassoulet. At 90+, I basically want to eat nothing (but a nice glass of Riesling)... Thanks to both of you for your thoughts. My wife and I are on quite the Rhone hunt, and happy dancing around there for the time being, but very intrigued by these "hairy" cousins...

O.K., I'll throw my 2 cents in. As a former brewer, and quality control (bottling line) tech for a regional brewery, the issue of microbiological control was a part of my daily regimen. Even on a homebrew level, I never liked bleach - residue was hard to get rid of, and chlorine/hypochlorite is particularly noxious as an off-character. My sanitizer of choice, and one used industry-wide, is Iodophor, 1 tbsp/gallon of water, at least one minute contact time. There is an argument on the need for rinsing afterwards - often, what's in your rinse water is worse than any bugs previously in your container, and rinsing may itself contaminate - but I did, as I wanted to make sure no residue of any kind remained. I regularly ran micro cultures, and my beer was clean. But many brewers/cellarman swear by the no-rinse need. If you do rinse, Iodophor rinses well, although it will stain porous surfaces (like the 55 gallon plastic drums, cut in half, holding fermenter accessories). But I have found it to be the easiest and cleanest to use, and is effective as hell (we used to test micro counts by both petri culture and by bioluminescence - ppm "bugs" measured by their enzymatic reaction to a light-inducing reagent...) If you plan on doing a lot where you'll need the sanitizer, you can buy the gallon jugs at any farm supply store - if you are in a rural area, otherwise, homebrew stores sell in smaller quantities. A bit off your thread, perhaps, and sorry for the length, but I am really not a fan of bleach at all (though many are, with great results), and wanted to provide an option. Edit: guajolote, forgot you were in Chicago. Brew & Grow, street escapes me, has it. They're in the white pages.

Changed up tonight's plan. Just don't feel like cooking indoors, will do Bbq-grilled chicken, marinated in tequila, lime, garlic, cilantro, with black beans, tortillas, salsa, maybe some roasted chiles, bells and tomatoes we've had a wee too long. Lots of Negro Modelo. Soba, we are closer than you think. I'm of French blood (we know what they eat), my wife's of Estonian blood. They can maw blood sausage with the best of them (usually to the tune of thousands singing, and a glass of vodka or two)!

Only thing I'll add is when you're finished and ready to eat...my wife's side is Estonian, who eat it with a good deal of barley and a ham hock cooked over course of an hour or so with the finished kraut. Mutes, or rather balances the sourness (agree that natural lactic acid from the lacto-ferment beats whatever the hell acid they add in the jar - acetic acid?), and gives a hearty textural component.

Maggie, I usually take a pass on the Jasmine Decolette Cream, too. Alright, I admit it, I buy bath teas and the like there from time to time. I'm still cool, though, right? Forgive me, what is Salad Russe? White Plonk? I am at work and don't have my LaRousse handy... Edited, got off the web - nice looking French salad, coupled with a decidedly English toss-off for "cheap wine." Hmm. Nice looking French? English toss-off? I smell trouble.

Chad, I find that sauce aux tomates fabrique pars Heinz pretty much brings our little lad to gulp down whatever's 'fore him...

You know, nerissa, this is also a thought, I haven't tried it - but the book "cook's guide to chicago" lists some sources of live animals such as chickens, ducks, rabbits. I don't know that I would want to get one that fresh (in the city - on the farm, yes, but what the city stock has eaten, and how it has lived, the last several weeks is questionable at best to me), but a thought. Mostly, if memory serves, close to or on devon, pakistani or otherwise halal places... I'm with you 100% on organic and humanely raised animals. I just would hope for less of an unnecessarily high premium for it. My gripe is that I believe this is everyone's inheritance - and not for the select few who can afford healthy, "happily raised" food. But then that's another thread. Good luck! The time before last, I turned my duck stock into a wonderful truffled consomme...I love the stock! (damn - another gripe - the truffles from W.Paycheck are woefully anemic at best, preserved in brine, and horribly expensive - look at the muscular, fresh babies from F&O!) Edited to add - you're right, the bread is killer. I spoke with one of the bakers there, a French woman who really puts out amazing products...F&O may be my financial downfall yet.

Nerissa, the duck has typically been from jewel - believe it or not. Maple Leaf, about $9-10 for the duck. Yeah, it's not muscovy, but as most of my desire in cooking these days is to learn and perfect technique(s), I don't experiment with the $40 ducks...and, it tastes just fine. The rabbit unfortunately comes from whole paycheck (or used to). I despise the store, and get hives basically every time I go in ("would you like some holistic air for the benefit of the planet, oh, and can I take your first born for the 'exchange of value...' blech.), but sometimes it's all I can find. Fox & Obel has a ton of stuff, I like the guys in the 'boucherie' (one, a CIA grad), and try to go there. I find, for the quality of the stuff, that Fox & Obel is very reasonable. My $50 goes a helluva lot farther than "the other place." And I don't have to put on airs of "helping the planet" for the benefit of Whole Hypocrisy, Inc. Sorry for the soapbox, a rant from one who really needs to walk out into a 10-acre herb plot and, oh, is that a red hare I see in the woodlot?

NeroW, I think I see a three-eyed carp in your grilling-future... I know this is cheating (as I haven't made it yet), but I got a hankering for rabbit: English pea soup with creme fraiche. Roasted saddle of rabbit en crepinette with mushrooms, sage and (some kind of wood-smoked) bacon; braised rabbit legs, with cippolini compote and crispy potato-leek cake. pear tart with spiced pistachio cream. Plan to do Sunday night.

Chef Fowke - I am not aware of the 2 types of fat, but I see we are talking of the same thing, essentially - I make demi-glace over a three day period, and whether using a traditional roux (no longer do this) or a reduction based demi-glace, I chill in the interval and skim any fat or particulate; and bring back to simmer each time over the course of 1-2 hours. Skim religiously, then ladle gently through both china cap and then chinoise. Similar method for meat glace. I thought maybe you were talking about periods during a given day of chilling down...as in when I make any herbal oil, I will chill if needs be during maceration so as not to denature any (desired) volatiles due to heat. Thanks for the reply...

Chef Fowke, I have always just gone straight through to glace; could you describe the cheesecloth procedure, and the reasoning behind the chilling intervals?

Craig, don't know much about the Washington terroir; where are Armin Diel's vineyards within the Nahe region, and how does it compare to the Washington site?

Laurel, Seattle is a beautiful town. Sorry to say I have lost touch with friends from there (of Seattle Rep), but would one day like to pay homage again. Maybe you could make room for one more french restaurant about 5 years from now?

THAT'S IT! Brilliant. Could become the next wave of american cooking - neo-apocalyptic GMO Sourcing, NAGS for short.

Spoken with the zeal of the field. Forage on, NeroW!

Laurel, I don't know where you live, but I am jealous. I'm looking out the 18th floor of the Chicago Loop. I think I see a three-eyed carp walking across the Chicago River bridge. Sounds great.

Well, Nickn, I guess I always feel a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Maggie, why don't we just host a "nothing but really hackneyed aphorisms allowed" contest? Like jazz, it could be the only indigenous writing we could truly call our own? I'll start. I have been waiting for a reply for some time now, but realize it won't be coming any time soon...after all, A WATCHED POT NEVER BOILS. (gauntlet thrown).

Just had lunch with chicken breast supremes, sauce poivrade, and the above-beans and rosemary oil. Tonight, ribeye, bordelaise, frites.

Ahem. Maggie, I think we should just cash it in. I don't know if it's possible to match the brilliance of those openers. But then, Rome wasn't built in a day, so we might as well shoot for the stars and leave no stone unturned.

A variation on FL's "Double lamb rib chop with cassoulet" - lamb loin chops; "cassoulet" of white and pinto beans, haricot verts, yellow wax beans, soy beans; "quick" lamb sauce and rosemary oil. Delicious. Started with a "napoleon" of phyllo (I usually want puff, but phyllo is so much easier - bought!), herbed three cheeses, ratatouille, and calamata tapenade, plate drizzled with balsamic glaze and basil oil. As I work through the FL book, I am coming home to something. It was always my bent to try and be inventive in composing a plate, and I spent a lot of time thinking of a "sauce" to accompany the main dish, in this instance lamb; trying to "make something" spectacular out of the item by the use of a (usually) non-integral sauce (an example is a whitefish I make - plate a roast red pepper coulis, then a mound of spinach, the whitefish, and topped with deep fried [to "carbonized"] finely julienned leeks...) and inventive garnishes. Chef Keller's use of integral, quick sauces, and his simply elegant plate composition is bring me to think more deeply about extracting the intrinsic quality of a food, trusting that, seeing where it can take me. Something about his cooking looks to me almost stark, yet in its simplicity, there is a softness, and invitation to enjoy the thing; it speaks volumes over the foams, towers, almost aggressively abstract plate composition I have seen elsewhere. I know this is nothing new, and I certainly don't mean to leap into the "foam/no-foam" fray, or related arguments, especially in a "what did you have for dinner" forum. But I think it is an interesting place to be, culinarily speaking. It's more and more where I want to go.

Veal Kidneys with mustard sauce; perigord-style white beans; braised endive.