Bux

Hands, feet and trotters all seem far more appealing when off the bone. I've never thought to identify the various 'meaty' substances in callos a la madrileña. The chorizo is easily spotted. The rest is just stuff that tastes good. Some of the best tripe I've had has come from fancy French restaurants in NYC, where, to no great surprise, it's not a big seller.

Seriously, the modern bagel has almost completely lost its hole. Its now like a navel, or a rectum. Another reason I think I am able to appreciate the modern bagel on it's own terms without regard to how well it performs on the bagel standard is that the resemblance to what I think of as a bagel is so slight.

Ed says he searched to determine what makes a "great and authentic New York bagel." He found several that he judged "superb," although some of these could be improved in his mind. It's also clear however, that he's accepting the bagel on it's 21st century evolved standard. "Evolved" is a euphemism for reduced, here. I've not had a bagel from Absolute Bagels and it may be a match for the bagels of the 1950's. I tend to doubt it, if Murray's bagels are another traditional bagel. I happened to stop at the Murray's on Sixth Avenue early last week and had a poppy seed bagel with cream cheese. Although there was too much cream cheese, the roll was excellent, but it was not much like the bagels I remember from the fifties. It's been a long time since I've had one that even reminded me of those and a longer time since I've had one in NY that reminded me of those of my childhood. In an odd way, the bagels I had in Montreal some time ago, came closest. For one thing, the hole in the center of a bagel should have a diameter as large as a cross section through the ring. For another, the texture should be dense, really jaw numbing dense when you make a sandwich using both halves. Even a very fresh whole bagel made a good teething ring. Then there's the taste. Maybe it's the lack of malt, or maybe Irwin has the answer, but the taste is missing something intrinsic to a bagel. Traditions die. Sometimes they die harder than others. The new bagel has been around almost as long as the traditional bagel, and there are already so few who remember it that it's just a matter of "the bagel is dead, long live the bagel." For a while I consoled myself with croissants, but either my bagel depravation is catching up with me or my neighborhood croissants have deteriorated faster than the bagel in NY and I'm learning to deal with the new bagel on its terms.

You might also be interested in know what Ed Levine had to say in The NY Times this Wednesday. The full article Was Life Better When Bagels Were Smaller? is online at the moment and worth reading if you're interested in the state of the art of the bagel in NY (not in great shape) or the history of bagels in NY.

Are you saying you're a non-NYer who's eaten in a good number of NY restaurants or are you saying his reviews sound fair to someone who hasn't eaten the food or suffered the service? It's one thing for the star rating to match the food description, it's another for the description to match the food. If you read about flaws in the food and than read a later review that describes improvement and results in a higher score, you're going to think the reviewer a fair judge, but if you're familiar with the restaurant and can discern no change, you might wonder about his agenda enough not to pay him much heed.

The one problem I see with analogies between political and economic journalists and restaurant reviewers is how much personal taste is involved in the latter. As for the political journalists, it might be even more important to be familiar with their political leanings than to know who their clients are. All of this matters to a degree, and too many here argue as if it's an absolute situation.

Half a million dollars worth of frozen prefried French fries boggles the mind, not to mention the tongue. Sixty 40,000 pound containers of frozen potato products is no small potatoes.

I haven't had Korbel in a long time. When I last had it, I was under the impression that it had a fairly good reputation in its price range. I'm one of the (few?) people who just stopped buying it because they were one of the few domestic sparkling wines in their price range that used "Champagne" on their label. The competition ensured I did not have to spite myself to act on principle. Moreover, they had more competition from imports at that price range. I prefer the idea of a real Cava to a pretend Champagne. We'll have none of this cork snobbery however. According to Frank Prial in the NY Times, Bonny Doon will be using screw tops on all of its wines this year. I assume all cheese made in Switzerland is Swiss cheese. Not all of it is Emmenthaler, although Wisconsin Swiss cheese most closely tries to imitate Emmenthaler.

My impressions of Parisian weather differ a bit from Mrs. B's although we've been there at the same time. Paris can become quite nice early in September and the winter grayness sets in as early as October. By November the sky can adopt that almost opaque milky quality that seems pervasive for much of the winter. When weighing the pros and cons of the seasons, it's also worth noting that Paris is on a lattitude well north of NY. (Barcelona is online with NY) Although the temperatures are probably a bit more temperate than NY on both ends of the thermometer, there is a fair difference in the length of daylight. By the end of September, there's a noticeable shortening of daylight. Some people forget how much drizzle we had early last October because they had a good time. On the other hand does it matter much if it rains or the day is short if you're having fun. Actually, I dislike hot and humid more than anything and have enjoyed Paris in October, November, December and January. There's nothing more welcoming than a nice well lit restaurant with good food on a dark evening. No recommedation for the Basque Country of France should be made without mentioning one of it's best features--it's not far from the really enticing restaurants around San Sebastian.

No argument there, I don't trust the government, but given the alternative between trusting the people the lobbyists are trying to convince and the people the lobbyists work for, there's no question in my mind which one might act in my interest.

You're mother ain't writin' restaurant reviews for the NY Times. Seriously, what I want from a food writer, or restaurant reviewer, is to not to tell me a food has less potential than I think it has, but to open me up to the potential I didn't already know it had. I want my horizons expanded and I want to read articles by those willing to show me the way.

As I read Grimes' review, I was thinking it was a fitting departure. In a separate article he wrote of the changes that have occured in the restaurants. In his early reviews, and in so many to follow that I didn't largely follow his reviews that closely, I sensed a lack of interest in food, or at least a lack of any interest in conveying a love for his new metier. Here is his review of 'Cesca, which I read because I've been a fan of Valenti's food and because it's a seminal piece, (assuming of course, that this is the start of some new aspect of his career) I sensed a real appreciation for food. That is I sensed it up until I read what he had to say about tripe. Filet mignon in the wrong hands is perhaps less a gastronomic treat than tripe in the wrong hands, but tripe at its best is a joyous preparation. If potential represents the potential for improvment from a raw product, tripe obvioulsy has great potential it's inedible raw, but from a gastronome's viewpoint, at least from this one's, if potential only meant hitting great heights, tripe would also have great potential.

Alas, there are no truer words. As certain wines become more fashionable they rise in price, often moving quickly from bargain to over priced. There's another problem and I think I've seen examples in Gigondas and maybe Vaqueyras. It's that a few good wines from an unknown, or at least under appreciated appellation, attract a shipper or wholesaler and are offered at a reasonable price knowing they're not going to find an immediate market. In time, these wines attract a market and establish a reputation for the appellation. Along come the less reputable middlemen. They find a wine in the appellation that's much inferior and selling for far less from the chateau, but because of the "name" on the label, will sell for an unwarranted premium in the US. They price it at a few bucks lower than the wine that deserves twice the price and in no time, the appellation is no longer reliable and the original imports raise their price accordingly. The ten dollar wine drinker is attracted to a baqrgain $15 Gigondas. Six months later he spots and tries a $12 that appears to be a bargain, but is not as good as his daily ten buck stuff. Enough of that gets sold at $12 and the $15 stuff moves up to $20 where it may belong--or maybe the $12 stuff is worth six or eight and the fifteen dollar wine is only worth eighteen. End of the bargain appellation. Buxbaum's law?

And after Tthree Washington children died and 600 others were sickened due to poisoning from E. coli O157:H7 served in undercooked Jack In The Box hamburgers, did you still feel they did an effective job? When more effective becomes ineffective it's no longer effective. Private industry has a moral and ethical obligation to the public and a financial obligation to its shareholders. Government has an obligation only to the citizens.

Clicking on the US, Canadian and UK flags on the MENUTEXT.COM home page, will all take you to the English welcome page. There are three Swiss flags. One is a link to the French welome, another to the German page and the third brings up the Italian page, but all of the flags appear the same. There's no Belgian flag, but there are Walonie and Vlaanderen flags. I find these things fascinating. The site is a development of a company specializing in commercial translations services for restaurants with "experience working for restaurants at all levels in 9 countries: the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Switzerland." Based on menu translations I have seen, there is a need for someone who does this well. I hope this company is not responsible for the many awful translations I have run across in my travels. Their free database is a wonderful public service, and for that, I offer my thanks to them.

I see such markups on the imported Spanish wines, that while they're bargains in Spain--I'm never suprised to see a vacationing French family filling their trunk with Spanish wines--they seem priced in line with quality here in the states.

I'd be reluctant to use any wipe on penetrating finish other than one sold specifically as suitable for food preparation surfaces. I've seen mineral oils that comply, I'd doubt that general wood finishes would.

Not all lentils are created equal. I like the very small Italian lentils I can get at DiPalo's, but I would urge the caution that they seem to have a very brief leeway between properly cooked and overcooked. They are not very forgiving. I don't know that I even have a source for French lentilles du puy, though I seem to recall having them to cook once. I just can't remember where I got them.

I think the importers have this covered with markups already.

There may be a connection between the two, but it's not necessarily a given that the founding/executive/titular chef has to be there for the food to be as good as it ever gets. Hearing that a restaurant is over the hill is far worse, in my mind, than hearing that the chef is not in the kitchen. The old fashioned need for a web site. It's good to see old fashioned ways defended. Actually, I think not having a web site these days is a failing for any company that deals with a public and it's just as great a pity when a restaurant's web site is not as communicative as it should be. When I see how many restaurant web sites have three year old menus and prices online, I no longer regret others not having a web site at all. In France at least, the Guide Michelin, as well as other guides, will give you a fair idea of the pricing. In many cases, it's the wine list that will offer the shock anyway.

My condolences. We've had our share of getting sick in the middle of a trip and losing long planned dinners. I am convinced that no one has ever missed as anticipated a meal as I have due to illness, but we have never had to cut a trip short due to illness. The worst fate I've suffered was not getting home on schedule due to a missed flight and another time due to local strikes. Suffering through a strike that closed the airports and train stations wouldn't have been so bad, had the restaurants been permitted to remain open.

I assume this is already cooked and waiting to become salad. Slice it and arrange it over lettuce or cube it and or toss it with an appropriate buch of stuff such as raw or roasted peppers; shallots, scallions or onions; olives;, boiled potatoes; capers; other raw or roasted vegetables; etc. Dress it with a vinagrette sauce, or just drizzle some good olive oil and some fresh lemon juice over it and add salt and pepper. I've also used cooked fish to make a spreadable paté for crackers and toast. I first ran into this in Brittany, where it was served as rillettes de poisson although it was nowhere near as involved as making rillettes from pork belly, nor as fattening or saturated fat laden. Just shread the cooked fish with some olive oil, lemon juice, capers and fresh herbs to taste. You can use a couple of forks or a food processor, depending on how much texture you'd like. A few drops of Tabasco or other pepper sauce is usually a good idea. In a pinch I've done this using canned sardines or other canned fish, but fresh is better. I'd go for the salad first because of the texture of the swordfish.

I believe Dennis was comparing within the same brand of steel encased aluminum pans. He feels the pans on sale now are not as heavy as the ones they used to offer. The All-Clad web site seems to indicate that that they only make one quality of stainless steel cooking ware. There is stainless Emerilware, but that's clearly packaged as Emerilware and not as All-Clad. All-Clad pans in general are not all that light compared with most stainless steel pots and pans. Although aluminum is light, the pots have a stainless steel lining (and stainless steel exterior on the stainless line) and use a heavy gauge of aluminum.

That UK publication was heavily weighted towards famous restaurants rather than restaurants respected for their gastronomic heights. The jury was composed of a variety of celebrities, some chefs, some unconnected to the world of fine food. The clientele of the restaurants up for nomination as well as the prejudices of the panel seemed to play a large role in the rankings. The whole process was no more serious than the original post of this thread from a Claifornian, which supposed that El Bulli was a fit topic for the New York forum. I've eaten at the French Laundry. It strikes me as reasonable that Ferran Adria was impressed enough with his meal to call it magical. It's also reasonable for Victor not to want to place it in the uppermost echelon of restaurants. His reasoning is sound although I've eaten in some rather uncreative restaurants where the finesse of traditional cooking is brought to such new heights that I'm inclined to have a higher regard for the chef than I have for many other chefs known for their creativity. What seems obvious to me is that it's unreasonable to rank all the restaurants in the world in numerical order. Equally obvious is that publications will continue to do so because it sells books and magazines. A restaurant is no better than what the diner can get out of the meal.

i've seen *adults* dining at places like these where they didn't seem ready to enjoy the food at some level. The thread is about babies, but I think it extends to children. Otherwise, I'd have no problem substituting "being" or "person" for "child." The only difference, I'd suppose, is that an adult gets to decide for himself where he goes. Many people seem to choose to be where they have no business. I guess it's a free country.