Bux

I didn't mean to imply that they weren't, only that it's hard to get a bargain wine to go with the bargain meal at a top luxury restaurant for those really trying to do it all economically. I think nursing a single glass of wine can be a reasonable solution, although if you plan ahead, it's probably more economical to go with three companions and get a full bottle. You'll get more wine for the same money. Most places charge around a quarter of the bottle price for a glass that's closer to a fifth or sixth of a bottle. I have no problem with that either. There are costs involved in serving wine by the glass and they include the frequent loss of part of the bottle at the end of the evening. Wines by the glass are an additional service and should carry a small fee.

The Gold card thing is interesting because it's not mentioned on the Big Apple Block Party site. They mention the Pass and give the phone number. I wonder if they won't have some irate callers. Three people on three lines should be assemble a selection faster than one person with one card having to wait on three lines. If they offer two bracelets, but only one card, only one person can order food at a time. Possibly the Pass express lines will move three times as fast. As for additional space, I wonder if the distance from Fifth to Madison Avenues isn't almost as great as that from 23 to 26 Streets. Madison Avenue is probably wider than 26th Street though. I'm not sure how the Pass will work. My guess is that it's a preloaded cash card. Those things have a name. I don't know what that is, but that's going to require every pit tent to have a credit card machine. Don't forget the event is sponsored by AmEx and this is a good opportunity for them to push this technology. My guess is that they'll be pushing this sort of loaded card and selling the technology as superior to having people buy tickets at the fair. Their sponsorship probably is what enables them to test the product here.

Okay, from the official http://www.bigapplebbq.org/ site, you can get more information and on it, there's no mention of needing a Gold AmEx card to order the Bubba Fast Pass which sells for $100 + $2.50 for shipping. Shipping may be dicey at this time with less than a week to go. 212 447 7733 is the number to call for more info. The site promises faster lines and the ability to pay for your food at the pitmaster tents. There will also be a few more pits. That should help reduce the time waiting in line. A weather forcast of isolated thunderstorms and scattered showers may also be a forecast of shorter lines. As I see it, one draw back of using the Fast Pass for several people is that they can't all stand on several lines at the same time. Last year, three of us got on three different lines while one of us took care of the baby and and kept the spot on the grass warm. A plate of 'cue with a side is advertised as going for $7. There was beer available last year and I suppose soft drinks. I assume the Pass is good for beverages as well as food. There are some interesting seminars. On Saturday, they're supposedly showing a documentry film with Dan Rather and Ann Richards. There'll be a panel afterwards with Rather, the filmaker and a few others. There's also a $25 wine tasting with Danny Meyer -- Wine for Swine. Texas brisket probably qualifies as swine, Danny doesn't. On Sunday, a bunch of New York residents with some degree of authority in the matter will discuss or defend the concept of NYC BBQ. A Steven Shaw (eGullet.com) is named twice. That could be for his importance, his size or simply as compensation for not upgrading to .org. There's yet another panel discussion for down home eating outside NYC with yet another group of interesting people. It seems a rather lopsided balance. Full list of participants at the above mentioned site. Probably two interesting panels, though they may not be enough to draw people from the food tents.

The taste and quality of NYC water is so good, that I'd question why anyone seeking value, or on a budget, would order bottled water. Coffee, that is espresso, really caps a meal for me, but it's not essential -- or at least I've learned to go without from time to time for one reason or another. Wine however, is something I find essential to the enjoyment of food such as Jean-Georges serves and I've noticed how many people neglect to consider the price component of wine in a restaurant meal. A restaurant with good wine values can often end up seeming like a bargain even if the menu prices seem no better than average. Likewise restaurants with lofty low end to its list are never going to be places for a budget meal. Landmarc downtown for instance always seems a better buy when paying the check than it does when just examining the menu prices. Danny Meyer's restaurants always seem to have some good values on the wine list as well.

I've heard that people wander in cluelessly even at Per Se with no idea of the price, dress code or knowing anything about the place. I've got to imagine V Steakhouse must get some business as well as the other place that foodies don't seem to both even mentioning. Of course people unprepared to pay the price at a restaurant that's fully reserved anyway are not what you could call business. "Traffic" is a a more ambiguous term.

I regret to say that every time I'm in Paris, it seems I'm disorganized and in need of a vacation from organizing the other parts of my life, which never seem to benefit from attempts at organizing anyway. I've made feeble attempts to cover a few patisseries. Once however, four of us were in Douarnanez in search of the perfect Kouign Amman, that wonderful very buttery Breton pastry. We didn't get far. They were all so good that we had to finish each sample purchased and in some cases, I seem to recall there were no individually sized pastries to sample, so we had to buy a big one. That we made it halfway though the towns pastry shops was actually a miracle. A great kouign amman is better than a cannelle or a macron. Alas, of the three, it is the only one not to have achieved any sort of popularity in NY. Perhaps it's because you need good Breton butter. Reportedly, there are places in Paris that make it well.

Now that you're this successful, maybe it's time to start thinking creatively and not of imitating Nutella. Some years back as the Salon du Chocolate in Paris, I purchased a chocolate "paste." It came in a flat metal tin exactly like shoe polish. When you twisted the little gizmo on the side of the can, the lid popped off and there was the shiny surface of a brand new tin of shoe polish. I bought it for a nephew, but quickly realized that dark bitter chocolate flavor wasn't going to appeal to him anyway and like the grinch that I am, I kept it for myself. The tin was yellow and it was the product of a chocolatier in the northeast of France. He had a booth at the salon. I don't recall his name or if the stuff is available anywhere else in France. It was quite spreadable at room temperature on toasted brioche and rather excellent. I can't even recall, but I believe there were nuts or nut butter in the paste. Nutella should not be our paragon. ← I think Bux is right. Just mastering the plethora of ways we can use chocolate and incorporate it into our daily lives while following the Montignac method should be the goal. I would love to know what that paste was, Bux. Please try to remember. ← It was simply a dark brown thick paste and smooth in texture. It was not quite as gummy as a thick cream cheese, nor as stick to the roof of your mouth as a smooth peanut butter. Not unlike a ganache perhaps. I have a more vivid memory of the surface sheen of the newly opened tin. It was remarkably like that of a new tin of wax shoe polish.

I had eaten there shortly before Ms. Hesser's review and thought the time was ripe for a reassessment back then. I guess I was one of those who found her unduly negative. I think hotel restaurants that do not have a street entrance still tend to suffer. There was such a buzz about places like Per Se and Cafe Gray that they've risen above being in a mall in terms of appeal, but I wonder how the other restaurants in the Time Warner Building are doing. Nevertheless they all have the advantage of grouping and of being in a building with traffic. Asiate, around the corner and accessible via the hotel is not going to get any spin or residual traffice from the TW mall.

And probably not with a woman a third your age.

Now that you're this successful, maybe it's time to start thinking creatively and not of imitating Nutella. Some years back as the Salon du Chocolate in Paris, I purchased a chocolate "paste." It came in a flat metal tin exactly like shoe polish. When you twisted the little gizmo on the side of the can, the lid popped off and there was the shiny surface of a brand new tin of shoe polish. I bought it for a nephew, but quickly realized that dark bitter chocolate flavor wasn't going to appeal to him anyway and like the grinch that I am, I kept it for myself. The tin was yellow and it was the product of a chocolatier in the northeast of France. He had a booth at the salon. I don't recall his name or if the stuff is available anywhere else in France. It was quite spreadable at room temperature on toasted brioche and rather excellent. I can't even recall, but I believe there were nuts or nut butter in the paste. Nutella should not be our paragon.

The terrine was probably pork together with perhaps veal or poultry. That's the most common. A terrine is basically what we know as pate cooked in a mold, usually or traditionally earthenware (the terr(e) in terrine). It can be coursely cut, or very finely ground as you are more likely to find liver terrines and pates. It can also be stuffed with meats, poultry, foie gras and, as in your case, nuts. Pistachios are very traditional, but hazelnuts seem to be becoming fashionable. We've had some nice photographs on the site lately of dried sausages with hazelnuts. The nasty Parisian is a myth, I often suspect. I wonder if it isn't created by those happy visitors who don't want to see Paris overrun with Americans. However, I often suspect Parisians are great readers of people and know exactly how to treat people as they deserve. I say that because, as a rule, the French have always shown me great kindness and courtesy and it's never been less the case in Paris. I've wondered if maybe it's that as a New Yorker, we're on the same big city wave length. Seriously, I've been told they've learned how important the tourist is to their economy and have changed. I don't really believe it. My first visit was in 1959 or 60 as a student. I was well treated.

My favorite has been Bernachon in Lyon. Someone in Paris was selling a selection of his chocolates. I don't know if they still are. Lucy has just posted that she's found yet a better chocolatier in Lyon. It's hard to believe, but I wouldn't take the chance she's wrong when it comes to food. Her photographs make a convincing argument. On the other hand, everything she photographs looks good enough to eat. Then again, she's drawn to excellent food. That she's stopped to photograph it is argument enough. Alas, I suspect you're not going to get to Lyon. Pierre Marcolini is a Belgian whose chocolates are more in the French style than the Belgian, but which I generally mean less rich and more intense. His shop in Paris is relatively new. I haven't had much of Hevin's stuff, but a chocolate macaron was sublime.

If I were paying $13 to buy a drink for a woman a third my age, you can bet I'd pay an extra $6 to be sure she wasn't making eyes at a guy half my age.

A young nephew of ours refused to eat lobster after seeing a Walt Disney movie in which a cartoon lobster played a leading role. The anthropomorphism of crustaceans outside of a cartoon seems far fetched. I'll have the bambi with sauce poivrade, s'il vous plaît.

We should hear more about that course. As I recall, The eGullet Society was a sponsor. ← I agree. AFAIK, the conspicuous egulleteer who came to visit us those days has quite a lot of info and pictures and is preparing them for a wide article. No wonder if he is affected by the extremely common disease "lack of time". ← I'm afraid I took up more than a bit of his time last week as well.

Mrs. B and I had done a lot of walking that day and we also had a large lunch at Cinc Sentits when Elie suggested we meet at Taktika Berri. I had fully intended to have a glass of beer or a cava and maybe a tapa. I was good to my word when confronted with the array of cold tapas although they were a good cut above most Basque tapas bars in Barcelona. Resistance pretty well evaporated whenever the hot tapas appeared. Taktika Berri, by the way, is right around the corner from Cinc Sentits and not far from L'Olivé a good mostly traditional restaurant specializing in Catalan food. It's only a few blocks from a concentration of hotels and more touristed places on the Rambla de Catalunya and Passeig de Gracia and well worth a far greater detour, but far enough away, I hope, to keep it from being over run with tourists. On the whole we found gracious reception at bars and restaurants all over the city, but Taktika Berri appeared to go the extra step. The problem with large lunches is that we often don't get out later at night, so thanks to Elie I managed to hit one more place worth noting for next time.

Gee, I always thought blurbs were a way for chefs and authors to keep their names in the public eye. There's another side to every coin, even the one glued to pavement by some prankster. What I find amusing about this, and every other public message board, is the willingness for lay people to make assumptions and explain them in great detail even when they fly in the face of more professional opinion coming from experience in the subject. More relevvant to the original subject matter. Lesley notes that Patricia Wells dates herself by putting Robuchon up as a paragon. I'd debate that. Having a dish cited as the best preparation in twenty years is greater praise than having it cited as better than anything I ate last year. On the other hand, the best of it's kind since Careme, or even Escoffier is bound to sound hollow as the reviewer is likely to have a large chunk of what went by in that period of time. That Robuchon was so revered in his prime and that Wells is so tied to him, makes him a good yardstick for her to use. I can't imagine the mention sold many cookbooks.

I forgot to mention that we were passing by a restaurant in Madrid noted for tripe. As is my habit, I stopped to peruse the menu. I looked first for the tripe dish, but couldn't find it. I was puzzled and assumed there was a larger menu inside perhaps, but there it was listed under "vegetables." I turned to my wife and said Madrid must be a scary place for vegetarians, especially those with limited Spanish. She nodded in general agreement until I pointed out the list of vegetables. Then she burst out laughing.

I find it increasingly difficult to be blown away by food in Paris, especially at reasonable prices and all too easy to be disappointed, so perhaps you didn't do too badly for a first trip. There are gems however and plenty of meals to be had at restaurants that would become regulars if I could eat as well for the price back home. I regret that I have no personal experience with any of your choices. That's indicative of very little. I don't get to spend more than a few days a year in Paris on the average. My general opinion is that any restaurant really worth eating in, should be reserved at least a day or two in advance and that better bistros may need reservations a few weeks in advance. Reserving, is also seen as a sign of respect and it's a good idea. A copy of the Michelin guide will answer many of your questions. It will rather reliably give you the price range of both the prix fixe menus and of eating a la carte. Fortunately, you can get most of what's in the guide online at their web site: http://www.viamichelin.com/ With luck, a few residents will chime in about the bistros you mention. I'd recommend doing a search here on each of them. Members who have posted, often extensively, after a good, or bad, meal are understandedly often reluctant to rehash what they've said, especially after the meal has faded in memory. I'd throw in Aux Lyonnais. We've eaten there twice with great satisfaction. 32 rue St.-Marc, 75002.

Let me say a couple of things, that may have no relevance to Montignac. First, my understanding is that the European Nutella is made from a slightly differenct recipe. I've heard it doesn't contain hydrogenated fats, which are about the worst kind you might consume according to the lastest expertise on fats and oils. Margarine, for instance, is now almost universally recognized as less healthy than butter. Hydrogenated vegetable fat is what the UK successfully lobbied over the interests and objections of the French and Belgian chocolatiers, as a permissible ingredient in products labeled as "chocolate." Intuitively, what I would want to do is substitute cocoa butter for the hydrogenated fat, or perhaps whole chocolate for the cocoa and fat, since chocolate is a combination of cocoa butter and cocoa solids. Again intutitively, but with no real basis in experience, I might even experiment with good quality milk chocolate bars that are already a combination of sugar, cocoa solids, cocoa butter, milk, and generally lecithin as well as vanillin. Ideally, I'd prefer vanilla to vanillan, but I've only seen dark chocolate bars with real vanilla. Anyway, I'm suggesting chocolate bars, nuts and nut oil in various combinations. The problem with walnut oil is that it gets rancid rather quickly in comparison with other oils. I can offer no advice, intutive or otherwise, on how to reduce minerals. Let me know if any of that works out. I have a grandson whose mother is beginning to let the tot taste sugar -- I know he's had a few home made shortcake cookies -- but won't let him near hydrogenated fat. Don't waste any sympathy for the lad, his bean puree has been well flavored with organic bacon and his asparagus is served with morels. His grandmother needlessly fretted about not bringing him a present from Spain, but no one ate the queso de cabra from Garrotxa with more enthusiasm.

We should hear more about that course. As I recall, The eGullet Society was a sponsor.

I'll excuse your translation and your spelling, but never for making me so hungry for food I won't get to taste again for at least another year. I'm teasing of course. When I'm not eating, I love to read about good food, especially when I'm reading what's written by those with a passion for food. By the way, although this is an English language site, we encourage those who are still learning or improving their skills in the langauge to post and practice their English. Native Spaniards are a valued source of information for us Anglophones on the food of Spain.

I've not been to Can Ramonet, but I seem to recall it being well recommended for it's type and sort of restaurant. Then again, I've loved Can Majo and gotten mixed reports from others. Los Caracoles is a place I visited over forty years ago when I was still in college. It was where I first tasted paella and things like squid that were exotic to me then and so far removed from my childhood diet. I credit it, as much as any other restaurant for opening my tastebuds to the world of food. It was decorated with international reviews, write ups and awards from magazines such as Holiday. Just entering the place made me feel more worldy and sophisticated. To be dining where an international audience of travelers more glamorous than my parents congregated was thrilling. Holiday magazine has folded, the world has changed as has my outlook on life. Once or twice, I've gone a few blocks out of my way to see if Los Caracoles was still there, and I see it's listed in Campsa, which is some sign of respectability, but I've not dared to enter. I am sure that whatever seemed a destination for worldly travelers to me at twenty is going to appear as a tourist trap today. That's probably unfair and I've probably eaten in far greater tourist traps in recent times. In fact, I had some nice tapas not far from Los Caracoles last week where it appeared that no one in the cafe spoke Catalan including the waiters chosen for the ability to speak English more than anything else. Barcelona is a major tourist destination and some of the best restaurants in town cater to an international clientele. By the way, there is probably decent, and maybe good paella in Barcelona, but paella is a dish from further south in eastern Spain -- Valencia and Alicante. Arroz caldoso is the Catalan dish and invariably paella is not the best rice to have in Barcelona in my limited experience. In a restaurant picked simply because it was the only restaurant near the beach that was still willing to serve so late in the afternoon -- not at all a good sign of quality -- we had a very good black rice (squid or cuttlefish ink and broth). Nothing else was particularly interesting or satisfying, but the rice was good enough to save the meal.

And then there are the Spanish. I think Spain is far less hospitable to vegetarians than France and Italy far more receptive. Cultures with a passion for hunting are less likely to understand vegetarianism. I needn't mention bull fighting I suppose.

SD, if it's an overnight trip from Barcelona and you're looking for the speediest route, I suspect you won't be going through Toulouse, but avoiding the mountain roads over the Pyrenees by taking the highway straight up to France and approaching Laguiole from the southeast. Belcastel is close by Laguiole and charming. The few rooms at le Vieux Pont are inexpensive, certainly by comparison to Michel Bras' inn, which are not expensive, for a Relais Château property. I'm finding things particularly relative today and I'm sure you can find much cheaper rooms along the way in less charming settings. Although I've seen great evolution in Nicole Fagegaltier's food each time we're there, I can almost assure you it will be fine. On our last trip a few years ago, we stayed two nights and my impression was that the gastronomic tasting menu was so far superior to the other menus available. We both took that the first night and then we took different menus the next night and it was clear that the best effort went into the gastronomic menu. A lot might depend on whether you want such a meal after Michel Bras. If their web site is accurate, the double room with shower, not bath, is a buy at 73 €. It's our favorite room for its layout, but I also prefer a shower to a tub.