John Whiting

Try this

The NYT seems to have caught up with this in some detail. NOTE: I'm a Times News Tracker subscriber. If this URL doesn't work for others, I hope someone will provide an alternative.

In fact it's called Au 35, which is its correct address. 25 is a hotel. (see Paris Yellow Pages)

And three. On the one occasion I lunched at l'Arpege (tagging along with Marlena Spieler, whom I'd been able to set up for a review), it was obvious that most of the other diners were from the neighbouring bureaucratic establishments which rue de Varenne is full of -- they all behaved as though their names were engraved on brass plaques on the backs of their chairs.

Some of my fondest childhood culinary memories are of the pot-luck dinners given by the Ladies Aid Society. I was inclined to dismiss my recollections as childishly romantic, until I acquired a couple of years ago The Provincetown Methodist Church Cook Book, assembled after my father had been assigned to another parish and consisting of recipes many of which I had eaten as prepared by their authors. There was Boatman's Stew, Smothered Chicken (Portugese style) as served up by my fifth grade English teacher Grace Gouveia, New England Boiled Dinner by Eva Chapman, and -- the only veg I couldn't stomach -- fried okra, or "Poor Man's Oysters". Maybe I'll give it another chance. EDIT: From another era: Mrs. DeCosta's recipe for Baked Scallops begins, "Allow 15 to 18 scallops for each serving." Just right, back when they were free for the taking.

Blumenthal's admirable report reminds me of my wife's several books on feeding children, in which she describes "pattern" foods which can help to overcome a child's resistance to the unfamiliar. A college friend of mine came from a mid-California family in which Haloween was celebrated with a brand-new chamberpot in the center of the table, full of hot steaming cider with a couple of twisted doughnuts floating in it.

There speaks the easy familiarity of one who has lived real fusion rather than "discovered" it. (Pan also, of course -- that wasn't a veiled insult.) See also the writing of Rachel Laudan (familiar on our Mexican pages), whose The Food of Paradise explores the amazingly polyglot cuisine of Hawaii. EDIT: This isn't the appropriate thread, but I'd be interested to know what modest exemplars of unpretentious Asian fusion you may have discovered in London.

Not really, it was just a cheap witticism. My sentiments approximate those expressed above by Modern Day Hermit. I've no objection, of course, to the evolution of tradition, but I dislike spurious claims to inventiveness which are motivated by unscrupulous salesmanship; i.e. hype.

Indeed, but there's more to life than quantum physics.

I hesitate to recommend it, but after half a century there's still Jimmy's. I love it for what it is and make no apologies for what it isn't. (I do, however, apologize for Richard Bradford's intro, which I didn't write.)

Marlena, I'll never forget the Chicken in Truffled Cream Sauce which I watched you make, taking notes as you went. I've done it regularly since, and regard it as an ostensive definition of heaven.

Jonathan's observation is, I think, crucial. Irony is an intrinsic part of British self-promotion -- it allows you to blow your own horn while at the same time admitting that it may be just a lot of hot air.

Along with other complications, we should bear in mind Heisenberg's observation that, in scientific experiment, observing a phenomenon alters it.

I was going to say, the way they select their rodeo stars.

Some, I'm told, even mix-and-match. EDIT: Definition of a menu degustation: an authoritarian buffet.

Definition of fusion: the way things have always been, as promoted by a press agent.

That depends at least in part on whether they have chosen to define themselves in those terms. To aim for Michelin recognition and not to achieve it -- or worse still, to gain and then lose it -- is indeed to court failure. I continue to be attracted to those establishments, rare though they may be, which don't seem to give a sou. A favorite restaurant/hotel of mine, buried in once prosperous Lorraine, had a Michelin star for several years and then unaccountably lost it. Not to be defeated, the chef/patron and his wife started presenting week-end events consisting of two nights' music/degustation events, with mailings to their regular customers. Fortunately they are close enough to Belgium/Luxembourg/Germany so that there are diners with a bit of spare cash who can afford to come for an evening, a night, or the whole weekend. (It's not expensive -- a meal and a room at about the cost of just a meal in a more fashionable area.) They use their Michelin as a doorstop.

Buffets and bordellos have a lot going for them.

Here's what Sri Owen (Indonesian cook and writer, author of the classic, The Rice Book) has to say on authenticity: EDIT: quoted with Sri's permission.

Do Texans select their top chefs the way they select their . . . STOP RIGHT THERE!

I would have called it shallower. The foundation on which neighborhood bistros rest is their neighborhood. These are the restaurants that tell you where in the world you are without your having to ask someone. The purpose is superficial and temporary. The tastes promoted and perpetuated by the chains make the survival of the unique all the more uncertain.EDIT: I become impatient with discussions of Michelin stars as if, like military ranks, they were the sole determinent of status. There are some restaurants which just go along their chosen paths quite independently of who comes along and sticks medals on them. If I remember correctly, a couple of London restaurants renounced their stars a couple of years ago because they were just too much trouble to maintain. They wanted to define themslves.

If this appears in the thousands of words already written here on the subject, my apologies. For those on a low-carb diet, cauliflower steamed to tender and then processed with butter or olive oil makes a very acceptible substitute for puréed potato, either on its own or in recipes such as shepherd's pie. (Well, I think it is, and I'm the one in our household who has to eat it.)

If only. I enjoy and admire his writing, but I've heard him give two talks which were so rambling and seemingly ill-prepared as virtually to cause a behind-the-scenes revolution within the organizations that had invited him. It's a shame; something seems to happen to his brain when he stands behind a podium.

I will never eat at Paul Kitchings' restaurant or Paul Valleley's table, but the two vicarious meals in their jointly-written column were deliciously basted with the milk of human kindness.

I do think we're talking about two different culinary worlds, which to some extent overlap. Paris has always been a city of fashion; it has also been a collection of neighborhoods in which people live local lives with local loyalties (in both respects, not unlike NYC). The former are served by Michelin stars, the latter by local bistros. There are perhaps a dozen of the latter that become trendy, but many dozen which simply serve their local population. Some are ordinary, some very good indeed. It's always a joy to discover them, and the search is relatively painless if you just walk around an unfamiliar area using your eyes and your nose. With time enough, who needs published guides?