Bux

I got three right on the first attempt and the other one on the second try, but multiple choice helps a lot. I don't know that I'd remember those things at the table when the multiple choice prompts aren't there. I'm also intimidated when served noodles by a Japanese host who's very international and familiar with western manners.

And you can't park it in the driveway.

Valrhona Guanaja Google works much better with the correct spelling, but you'd be surprised at how often Valrhona appears as Valhrona on the web. Someone has even been clever (of that's the word) enough to take advantage of the frequent misspelling and register valhrona.com so that www.valhrona.com is redirected to their site where they sell Valrhona chocolate as well as chocolate from 20 other producers.

Google asks "Did you mean ganja?" I suspect you already know ganja and that it's not on the menu at WD-50. Gianduja, on the other hand, is chocolate and ground nuts, usually hazelnuts.

Katie, there's a bar on an the corner of an acute intersection in Sevilla where we watched "how nice the whole lifestyle in Spain is. So unhurried and relaxing, taking particular time to enjoy ones' family, friends and neighbors and some good cheer each evening. The evening cocktails and stroll and visiting. It's an institution," the lifestyle was, and perhaps it applies to the the bar as well. You can't miss it for the yellow Pedro Domeq awnings and it's prominent location on a pedestriam street. A variety of tapas nicely plated on tiny saucers with contemprary squiggles of sauce kept us there through several drinks, but we couldn't help notice how civilized it all seemed as singles and couples met their friends, had a drink and chatted and then went on about their own businesses. Perhaps there's a back street in Roses away from the hotels and beach condos.

I think there are few people, if any, who would wish them back. At best they were a sexist nineteenth century solution to a problem much better handled by the current pay toilettes. I have no nostalgia for the pissoirs, but I have a great deal for the Paris of their time. I think Paris was genuinely more exotic in the sixties -- the world is becoming a smaller and more homogenized place -- but it was certainly more exotic for me then, that it is now and the smell of Gaulois, Gitaines, urinois and diesel fumes were all part of my introduction to France as well as Spain and Italy. Of course they were all alien scents and part of the experience.

Yes and no. If you get your cash by making a withdrawal via an ATM or debit card, you should get the same rate of exchange as you get using the same bank's credit card. The caveat here is to be sure they have no fee for using that card -- many banks charge a fee to some account holders for using other bank's ATMs. Otherwise VivreManger sums up the situation as I know it. Marcus' comments on AmEx and the grace period are also worth noting. Much of this has already been noted before and I hope we'll get a more complete essay at the end of VivreManger's investigations.

As Fat guy noted, a stock pot is for making stock and may at any time have solids as well as some sort of sediment that settles at the bottom. A tea kettle is for boiling water. I haven't given much thought to this, but I'll bet hot spots on the bottom of the pan are not an advantage when cooking pasta.

Trends and fads in food scare me and there's little that's more precious and less conducive to finding great food than looking for the next fad, but once I get past that and some of the funkier kitsch in the article, I sense that people in Portland are thinking more about how they cook and eat, at least in restaurants. The answer to: won't be known for a while. I think it matters very little if any of the particular plates are around next year or not, or if any of the current thinking now is still current then. What matters is if the thoughts develop or if fads just ricochet off the wall.

I love to walk in Paris, but I also love the Metro. In spite of the new line, it's one thing that always reminds me of my first visit to Paris. As a matter of fact, since they've removed all the old inimitable, picturesque and photogenic urinoirs from the streetscape, the Metro is the only place that still smells like the Paris I discovered in 1960. For lovers of subways, that new 14 line is worth seeing. Some of the stations are quite deep below the surface of Paris. The platforms are separated from the tracks by a wall of glass with sliding doors that open when the train arrives. That's a long overdue safety feature.

Nope, and when you come right down to it, I'm kind of a purist and would tend to avoid any Chinese Taco joint that didn't seem authentic to me. I'm a New Yorker and I know what a Chinese Taco joint should look like.

I'm a guy who avoids all the usual fast food, with the exception of pizza by the slice, which I have consumed in great quantity over the years, but I have staved off hunger pains in a few of those places in Manhattan. I have yet to see the bizzaro stuff you report. Generally it's just been chicken, beans or beef rolled in a flour tortilla, or some combination with perhaps guacamole and of course, hot sauce. Only in America, as they say.

I believe you've not made -- or tried to make -- the point that wine appreciation is not subjective. "I don't know anything about wine, but I know what I like." I won't argue against the idea that we can't all learn to better appreciate finer wines and I don't think Ms. Robinson will either, but I will argue that you might be better off buying what you like and not spending more for a bottle you don't enjoy because it rates higher on someone's chart. I will however, also offer the fact that I've frequently heard experts disagree on the subject of which of two wines is better. Of course, if you intend to devote some time to refining your palate and making a study of fine wine, I'd advise against laying down what you like now without considering the opinion of experts in the field. I mean there was that Chilean burgundy we all moved up to when one of us got a corkscrew in our sophomore year. Wine prices reflect the laws of supply and demand more than they are a reflection of quality anyway.

We've got three Peugeot mills. We've had them for a long time. The oldest, I think it's the oldest, has the stem held in place by a fat piece of metal that makes it hard to load the corns into the body of the mill. The two newer ones have a wire device that is totally nonobstuctional. It appears they've corrected a design flaw a long time ago. One is used for black peppercorns every day. One holds wihite peppercorns and is hardly used. I think my wife has forgotten we ever decided to have one with white peppercorns. The third one is used for miscelaneous spices. Everything we grind in there comes out tasting like miscelaneous spice. Well at least the first few seeds do. It's rarely used and then for cloves or allspice. It also broke. I mean the actual wood body cracked along a fault in the grain. I glued it back together. If it was used with any regularity, I would have replaced it. The burr, or the actual grinding heads seem so much better than any other grinder we've seen and I like the classic desgn which to me says "peppermill" so well that I wonder why anyone ever made another one. We also have a matching salt grinder which has stanless burrs specially made for salt. The salt grinder is an affectation as freshly ground salt is no tastier than two week old salt, but it gives us a matching pair.

Nice. I mean nice work overall, but I have a suggestion or two. I have no problem publishing press releases, but could we identify them as press releases and not as news releases. Could we also better identify sources so we know they when they are PR firms and when they are news syndicates. Richard Farnabe was with Daniel before he went to work with Jean-Georges at Jean Georges and then the Mercer. Before opening Aïgo, he was chef at Bruno Jamais' private club. The pastry chef is Greg Gourreau. Greg worked at Daniel a long time ago and has been pastry chef at The Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco. None of this guarantees anything, but these guys know how to cook, so my expectations are high in terms of the food.

Most of those are wines that are generally drunk young, but the prices are tempting. I'd be quick to grab a bottle or two of any of them, but reluctant to get cases without trying them. There are those who are fans of aged zinfandel. A few years ago, a client of my wife's in the wine trade, gave her a bottle of Zinfandel that was about six years old and told her to put it away for a few more years.

Another transatlantic lapse from English to American ears. Pommes purée avec roquette sounds great. When I read mash and rocket, I assumed mashed potatoes with an arugula salad on the plate, a far less appealing presentation with coq au vin. Thanks for the translation. French may be the language the British should use when communicating with Americans about food. I think it would be futile or absurd to welcome a friend back from France with a French meal, although if one normally cooks French food, it could be norma. However, if one is leaving for France, I think it's a proper send off. The problem these days is determining just what classic French food is. I hardly ever see it on great menus in France. Everyone is so creative.

Katie, the problem with Roses is finding a local, let alone one not connected to a bar or hotel. By and large, any local is apt to be recommending his cousin's restaurant or bar. Just the fact that most of the restaurants by the main drag running along the beach are advertising the fact they serve cryovac Paellador paella, I suspect good local cooking is hard to find. There's a Michelin one star restaurant on the opposite side of Roses from Tony's hotel, but I see their specialties include dishes with foie gras and truffles. That's just not the food that would attract me to a one star restaurant by the sea in Spain. When Adria served lunch, we were in and out of town too quickly to seek another meal. For dinner we arrived too late for anything but a snack and were out the next morning. French friends who met us for dinner at El Bulli stocked up on wine before returning. Alcohol taxes seem lower in Spain than in France. There's plenty of good wine in Catalunya and Cava is more local than sherry, but from what I've been seeing, beer is the aperitif of choice these days in Spain.

I'm pleased to see yet another confirmation that coffee is Spain is the best. The most annoying thing about cofffee in Spain on my last trip was that many of the best restaurants are now serving Italian espresso and consquently, we had better coffee in average bars than in the best restaurants.

Victornet, I meant to comment on this earlier. I think this has been true for some time. I remember talking to a couple who had recently been in San Sebastian where they spoke with Berasategui who they had previously met in NYC. Not only were there other American chefs eating in the dining room, but evidently young cooks and chefs from NY and California had been parading through the restaurant all summer long. Most recently, when I was introduced to the new French pastry chef at Blue Hill here in NYC, I mentioned that we were traveling more in Spain and his response was to say that's where it's all happening now. We had some interesting food in Madrid and a most interesting and satisfying meal in what's really a god forsaken part of la Mancha a few months ago. Perhaps you've already come across my post on Las Rejas. Things are happening as far south as Andalucia where we also found a few creative restaurants. It's not just Catalunya and the Basque region anymore either. Nevertheless, they are the hotbeds and I'll look forward to your posts next month.

Nice post. Obviously, I was composing my last message while you were posting and missed this. Pleasure is fleeting thing and as one man's meat is another's poison, perhaps one man's pleasure is another's pain. I'm not sure we can agree on what's delicious, but I suspect we can agree that at times most of us want to recede from delicious to comfort food that we have already decided is not full delicious. On the other end of the scale there may be a food some of us can reach for that doesn't match everyone's definition of delicious, but which offers a taste of another pleasure. Our first olives and pickles may not have seemed delicious at the time. Fun is another dimension to our pleasure.

I thank you for that reference. I was thrown by "tightly disciplined rock group" and never found cool jazz to be particularly cerebral. What I am able to see now is that the rock group probably has a larger audience and the cerebral jazz is beyond the taste of many or playing to a small coterie of fans. Dance music has a pupose or function beyond being art as well, I suppose. Perhaps there's a pertinent analogy between music meant for dancing and music desgned to command a listening audience.

I'm really sorry to hear that Can Fabes was a disaster. We were there two years ago and thrilled. I find it easy to accept an opinion of El Bulli as novelty or great meal. I've had reactions from people whose opinion on food I trust go either way on this. We had several wonderful meals at le Jardin des Sens when it was a two star restaurant, but haven't managed to return since it's earned it's third star. I've also heard mixed reports since then. Two of our three meals there were gems and the other was good enough considering that we all took the least expensive menu and that just a few days earlier the same group of four had a more expensive bang up celebration of my wife's birthday at Daniel. As for your lack of notes, I suppose I shall just have to wait twenty years until some memorable story comes to mind about the dinner and you post it then.

At long last I think we have a definitive answer here: it's the silly-looking hat! Put one on, and you're a chef. I believe it's the shoes. As I've heard it expressed, "If he had the balls to fill a chef's shoes, he'd be a muff magnet."

Answer my question. Im not sure I understand the question. Im not sure I'll understand the answer anyway. I'm relying on Jinmyo to explain it to me.