Bux

The extent of what's available in Spain in terms of what we here in the US see as a rather simple product, dried cod, affords a an excellent view into the depth of Spanish cuisine in my opinion.

I'm not very hungry having had some nice lamb loin, chanterelles and tomatoes stuffed with ratatouille and ground lamb for dinner, but I could eat everything I see photographed in the July 2005 issue of Martha Stewart LIVING. Those images bring new depth to the meaning of "looks good enough to eat."

The NY Times and the IHT often run the same articles. Across the page from the article Whose Stars Are They, Anyway? was an advertisement from Sherry-Lehmann, the established upscale wine merchants on Madison Avenue. It featured Champagnes from Alain Senderens' Michelin three star Lucas Carton. Will Chef Senderens be marketing Beaujolais next year or tea? There are some marketing perqs that come with owning a three star restaurant.

I'd kill myself, but if you're not that obsessed, a look around the site ought to bring up a few examples. Starting in Roses, right across the street from Rafa's, there's SnackMar/Las Golondrinas. We were a walk in for lunch and enjoyed some excellent tapas. What's available is going to depend a lot on what's available to them, especially in terms of seafood, but what they serve is not only fresh, but imaginatively prepared with finesse and care, albeit in surrounding that are simple. I've not been to La Llar, just outside of town, but it comes highly recommended from no less an authority than Rafa. I should also note that he's a friend of the owners, but knowing they're all part of a small gastronomic community should offer some hope. I believe there was another place in Roses that was also suggested in this forum, but whose name slips my mind. I asked for suggestions west of Girona recently, but some of the suggestions were actually northeast of Girona and around Figueres. Sant Pol de Mar and Sant Celoni are probably further than you care to travel, although both are home to truly excellent destination restaurants.

And a lot of what the French drink as an aperitif is sweet, not bitter. Kir, the popular Burgundian cocktail is dry white wine (preferably petit chablis or aligote) with a spoonful of sweet creme de cassis. Other variations exist with other liqueurs and the royale versions with champagne. Muscat, a vin doux natural which in France signifies one whose fermentation was stopped with a dosage of alcohol, is as often served as an aperitif as it is with dessert. In the south, I see large bottles of cheap muscat from the Languedoc and from as far away as Greece, sold for aperitif, but some of the better off dry, semi-dry and sweet wines are also served as aperitifs. Pastis is fairly sweet.

You're telling me two things here. The first is that because of your past history with the restaurant you're getting special treatment. Lots of potential diners would have a problem with that. I don't. I can read between the lines and know I may not get the same treatment or food the first time I show up. Besides, you're honestly relating a story of a part of a relationship. What's important to me are the signs I see that the chef really cares about his food enough to cultivate your relationship. I'll accept the criticism many will make that we'll all not get the same treatment, nevertheless it's more important for me to know how seriously the chef takes his own food. From that point on, it's partially my responsibility to get the most out of the restaurant, although I'm not likely to stage anywhere just to get a better meal. Anyway, you're not getting paid to do restaurant reviews and this is not the online version of consumer reports. It's a pleasure to read about someone enjoying a meal as you did, and yes, the restaurant is one that would attract me based on your post, should I be in the region. . dropkickjeffy, I moonlight as a Cincinnati sanitation inspector. You're under arrest for littering.

I like Pastis a lot, but I certainly wouldn't rate is as impressive. I was very disappointed at the Modern Bar. The chef, based on my experience at his last restaurant, is capable of so much more. I wouldn't expect better at the cafe. Bolo was hugely disappointing when I was there. Good tapas, but dreadful main courses that were really sub par. I saw no sign of the three stars it got from whoever reviewed it last for the NY Times. Gramercy Tavern is the only one on the list that probably deserved a place on a short stay in NY, although, as I said, I do like Pastis. I have not been to Montreal in well over a decade. I made a few trips back then on purpose and just passing through, and they included two visits to l'Express. I was favorably impressed, enough so after the first visit to make a second one. Restaurants change drastically over far shorter periods than ten years. So I can't say how I'd judge it today. I think we've also caught up in that regard. We have places that remind me of France in the way that l'Express reminded me of France without being a phoney Disneyland interpretation of France. Thus is also might be less impressive to a New Yorker today. I do remember my dollar going a lot further in Montreal than in NY for food and wine, and I expect that's still true today. Traveling in Europe these days, I'm getting a taste of that medicine, so I can sympathize. If the situation hasn't changed, the best way to impress a New Yorker in Montreal may well be to buy him a bagel. I'm serious and I suspect most of you know why. Although a bit too skinny, bagels in Montreal are most like the ones I knew as a child in New York City. They have the right flavor and texture. I suspect Montreal can't touch Manhattan at the luxury high end of haute cuisine and it's probably not worth trying to prove how close it comes. Stick to the middle ground of casual and better bistros where most people eat most often and your friend may well be inpressed one way or the other. It's always hard to know what to expect in terms of personal taste, especially in food.

I don't have any knowledge on the subject, but I'd guess that plants fully equipped to can soups, or any other products, would have to dismantle perfectly good operating facilities and replace them with new equipment. Thus new technology is bound to arrive at different times in different places as existing equipment wears out or as the cost benefits outweigh the cost of changing over. Consumer acceptance is probably another factor. People who buy canned soups probably feel comfortable doing just that and manufacturers are reluctant to move unless then sense it will benefit them with greater sales and greater profits. For what it's worth, I see a lot of boxed broths and stocks on the shelves, but frequently it's brands that hadn't already made a name for themselves in cans and presumably haven't had an investment in canning equipment.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to stereotype latch key kid families. I was only trying to point out that plenty of middle class and upper middle class well educated professional families have no more time to cook than poor working class parents.

In the US, or at least NY and other large cities, there are any number of "latch key kids" among middle class families. With two parents working full time, it's often the kids who are the only ones with time to cook for the familiy. The telephone is often the most important appliance in the kitchen and take out menus ournumber cookbooks. I don't believe the middle class always have the time to think, let alone act intelligently, about what they eat. I don't find it reasonable for intelligent people to believe that the current state of anti-cholesterlol drugs remove the negative consequences from any food related personal choices. First, they only help lower your cholesterol and do not attack many of the other heath problems. They don't lower the pesticide levels or contaminents and they don't fight other diet related illness. Second, they themselves have a risk of side effects that are equally as threatening, if of lower incidence. There's no free lunch at the pharmacy.

Just buying in a NYC farmer's marked would just about guarantee that you were buying local produce and not something grown as far away as Florida.

Some people slather some sticky sauce on a piece of meat, toss it on a hibatchi and call it BBQ. Others cook some rice and seafood in a flat pan and call it paella. I don't really have much problem with issues of authenticity, except that it's really nice to have some reference points. If you don't over cook the rice or the seafood, it's really hard to find fault with almost any combination of seafood and rice, especially if well seasoned. Nevertheless, as with any traditional dish, a visit to the source is, if not essential, illuminating. Here's what I posted last year after we made the pilgrimage to Casa Paco inland in the province of Alicante. I may actually have described the thickness of the rice as thicker than it actually was. It's interesting that you don't have to get much further from the region than Madrid or Barcelona to find "Paella Valenciana" referring to seafood. Having had the experience, I find myself no longer eager to order paella elsewhere in the world and that includes Catalunya not far to the north of neighboring Alicante and Valencia. Besides Catalan cuisine includes its own rice dishes as well as pasta dishes that are equally as delicious as paella.

What a lovely gesture. I'm jealous. Actually, we've been the recipient of similar thank you's. I just wanted to let you know that in the future they may be just as happy to babysit while you go out to dinner. Really.

Great solution! Now, if everyone did this... ← ... the phone company would make some money. If I had a dime for every menu left in our hallway, our coop could hire a superintendent. (Excuse the slight hyperbole.)

This is key. My guess is that most college educated professionals are close to clueless about the latest information regarding health and food. Most of them are unaware of the level of transfats in the canola, soy, corn and peanut oil they may be buying in the supermarkets and which is found in most salad dressings. What's good for you and what's not is again, not a simple issue. Even low fat is not the simple solution as all fats are not the same and lots of salad dressings are loaded with sugar, or worse yet, corn syrup. The soy oil lobby was a very successful one for the soy oil business but not necessarily for the consumer's health. I would seriously question that McDonald's shift to vegetable oil has made their fries any healthier, but that's the public perception. Organizations that make information available are one thing. Organizations that seek to shift blame are not necessarily better than those that seek to keep us confused.

All of the pit tents had facilities to take cash and credit cards. I truly don't understand the discrepency between the way they operated on the cash side and the Bubba Pass side. On Saturday without a pass I waited for close to an hour to get some ribs, but paid neatly and efficiently with a credit card. On Sunday I avoided lines for a while and eventually had to deal with shorter lines, but the whole thing with the tickets was so inefficient. I was left with fists full of receipts, copies and slips good for pork. Often I was given both the white and yellow copies and there seemed to be no rational for when the servers crossed off their line on the yellow or white copy. I was constantly fumbling in my pockets looking for the right slip with credit for one pit or another and then having to reach back in my pocket for the Bubba card to get from one section of tents to another. It the number of people who buy passes increases, they're going to have to deal with the process far more efficiently. Since the pit tents all had the facility to deal with credit cards, it doesn't seem to me to be a reach for the Bubba pass to be a cash card and have each tent deduct cash as you get your pork and beverages. Danny Meyer and his Union Square Hospitality Group have been praised for organizing the event and criticized for appearing regularly as other NY cue places take their turns with a pit. The event doesn't owe something to him, it owes just about everything to him. I'd like to thank him for providing the second floor private dining rooms as air conditioned venues for the seminars. Many of us arrived dehydrated from the heat and thirsty from the salt and spices to find pitchers of ice water and clean glasses at the back of the seminar rooms. Danny always emphasizes that he's not in the food business, but the hospitality business. Danny's a great host.

Based on my meal there last month, I'd have to say that Celler de Can Roca has to be one of the best restaurants in Spain, Europe and the Western World in terms of food, waiters and correct glasses. I thought it was a restaurant operating at the highest level in just about all the ways you could expect from a restaurant, but that's for another thread, perhaps here. I believe Antojo was first brought to our attention in the forum by Pedro

Actually, foie gras is far towards the healthier end of the spectrum in terms of saturated fats. Thus I'd say yes, foie gras is better than a big Mac. Then again there's lettuce and tomato on a big Mac.

Busboy's points seem to be ignored by too many here. Just as it's easier to lead a horse to water than it is to make him drink, it's one thing to get the raw materials to the right neighborhood at the right price and another to break bad habits that are ingrained and to compensate for a lack of knowledge about food and a lack of education in preparing food. Cooking takes not only some training, but equipment. Can you buy pots and pans with food stamps? I don't think so. Answers such as it's the poor people's own fault for eating fast food are as simplistic and insensitive as the arguments that malnutrition and obesity are the fault of the agribusiness industry. If is odd that obesity and malnutrition can go together. In one way they are opposites, but in another they can be, but are not necessarily, related. Equally simplistic is the argument that it's society's fault as if that sort of blame is meaningful.

Then again I was responding to a comment that said "The real, basic question is whether any working food critic or journalist should write a book or be connected in any way with a chef, purveyor, producer or restaurateur, ..." "Or journalist" was quite pointed, I thought. No distinction was made between the nature of journalist and reviewer. I think it's quite difficult to have a strong interest in food and restaurants and not get to know chefs. There may be art critics who have not gone out of their way to meet painters and sculptor or visit their studios, but that, I believe, is not the norm. Many great art critics have been champions of a particular artists. These rules of impartiality seem more to have to do with a contemporary view of the critic as a consumer reporter. We read newspaper reviews not to understand book, movie or restaurant, but to know if we should buy in. That's an editorial "we," of course.

I'm with Andrew. It's a complex issue and I don't see labeling one side as purely evil. Although I recognize their escalation of moving away from looking at the problems as if they are the result of complex issues, and I see an escalation of hipocrisy in their attempts to avoid appearing as the spokesorganization of the very companies who are funding them, some attention needs to be paid to the over reaching of the otherside in placing blame at a single source group. Whether I believe Cheese Doodles should be available to the public at all, or available to those over a certain age, might have something to do with their potential for chemical addiction, the ability to operate machinery after eating them and the honesty with which they are labeled and sold. The a food is bad for you if eaten in immoderation has not struck me as as a reason to say the manufacturer is irresponsible. Once a lobbying group steps in to defend a food using less than ethical arguments could tip the scales in terms of my ability to support the sale of the food. Thus the CCC works against its backers for me.

The tin just turned up in one of my drawers. Esilda had aquisitioned it for unsanctioned use. From Chocolaterie de Beussent Lachell, 60190 Lachelle and 62170 Beussent. Ingredients: sucre, noisettes, amandes, cacao, vanilline, lécithine de soja. Ingredients: sugar, hazelnut, almond, cocoa, vanillin, soja (sic) lecithin.

Creative cuisine is alive and well in Spain, in many different forms, but Adrià's brand may not survive as well outside of elBulli, even in his own restaurants. See vserna's comments here.

I wonder where all those pit workers came from. It doesn't seem likely that most of the servers were brought up and housed overnight. Pit crews and family were obviously imported. Some of the service seemed assembly line disinterested. At some tents however, it was particularly friendly down home service. All in all, there was a general level of good time and fellowship. I saw a lot of food pressed on those with the responsibility of keeping order and from what I saw, they had nothing better to do with their time than eat BBQ. Attendees were all very well behaved. Whether it was an effect of the food, the nature of the type of person attracted to such an event, or a product of good organization, I can't say, but it was a pleasure to be there. I wonder about the economics of participation in such an event and compensation to the participants. I look at the long line at Ed Mitchell's and then I look at the pits he brought up and the spectacular gigantic rig parked on East 25th or 26th Street and have to wonder if he could recoup the cost at $7 a head. In addition to the free 'cue to pass holders on Saturday and the feeding of security personnel, I noticed worker's accepting credits from other tents, especially late on Sunday when some pits were sold out. It just doesn't seem as if profit was a major motive. I figure they all came up for some good old NYC hospitality more than anything else. In all that heat and humidity, neither chocolate cupcakes nor crumble were appealing to me. My vote went for two scoops of frozen custard at Shake Shack.

Barbeque does seem to be so subjective. I don't know if I'm able to be more objective or just ignorant of the subject with no personal childhood experience. Unfortunately, I hardly had a chance to sample enough of the fare to offer much in the way of opinion. One thing that's been reinforced is my distaste for just about all sauce. I found a few drops of Big Bob Gibson's Award Winning sauce was more than enough to flavor a sandwich for me and too little was better than too much. It's interesting to learn that everyone was using the same meat source because that just adds credibility to his cooking, since I found his meat the tastiest of all I tried. I was sure part of that had to be his meat source. Two caveats. I didn't get to try them all. I'm no authority on barbeque. Hell, I never even ate pig as a child. I didn't get a chance to try other ribs, but Mike Mills had wonderful ribs. I found his beans very much on the sweet side, but there was a wonderful balance of other flavors and I particularly liked the combination of beans, especially those big fat white beans. That said, as far as sides go, all other things being equal, I would more often opt for a pit serving coleslaw over one serving beans. Perhaps my preference is for the kinds of bean cooking I've had in Puerto Rico over barbeque beans and Boston Beans. The best single piece of information offered at the seminars was Peter Kaminsky's comment on Iberian pigs at the Regional Foods seminar. He noted the superiority of the fat, in terms of health issues, of that which comes from a pig raised entirely on acorns. Hams from these pigs are still not allowed to be imported into the US and may be reason alone to visit Spain. You're not likely to see me trim the fat on a slice of good Bellota quality ham. (Bellota is the Spanish word for acorns and the term used for pork from a pig raised on a diet of acorns. It's pretty much the top quality on the market and can command a much heftier price in Spain than Italian prociutto does in the US. Expect it to be very expensive when they ever get permission to import it here.)