John Whiting

While I'm in Paris next week (leaving early Tuesday morning) I'll be looking into Paris bistros which center their cuisine around cheese and/or are attached to a fromagerie. Two famous ones have sadly disappeared: Androuet and La Fromagerie de Paris. When I get there, I'll be asking Marie-Anne Cantin and Roland Barthelemy, but if anyone knows of any specific places, their identification would be much appreciated. If you're not certain of precise location, I can probably pin them down via the Pages Jaunes website. Thanks in advance for any help.

Here's a pertinent article by Andrew Smith which was published last year in Newsday. Andy owns the coryright and has given me carte blanche to distribute it. ##################################### Newsday. June 17 2001 SHOULD WE GRADE RESTAURANTS? Despite concerns, scoring systems have been a great success. Andrew F. Smith. LONG Islanders were rudely awakened to the seriousness of food-borne illness when a recent outbreak of shigellosis - a gastrointestinal disease accompanied by fever, convulsions and bloody diarrhea - sickened 95 people. Of those lab-confirmed cases, 15 are restaurant employees. Almost 856 more contacted the Nassau County Department of Health to report feeling ill. The source of the eruption has been traced to the Shish-Kebab restaurant chain. Although the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating - a report is not due for several months - the most likely cause seems to be an employee who failed to wash his or her hands after using the bathroom. (Attorney Dominic Barbara, who represents the owner of the Mediterranean food chain, maintains that the infected food came from a supplier.) This incident is only one of many food poisonings that have seized public attention nationwide. In fact, these publicized outbreaks are only the tip of the foodborne-illness iceberg. According to the federal government, gastrointestinal illnesses struck 76 million Americans last year. Of the 325,000 who were hospitalized, some 5,000 died. The crisis is rapidly getting worse, doubling in the last five years. The reason for the rise is complex. Part of it is that we don't always know where the food is coming from. Another problem is that many restaurants are hiring untrained workers from other countries who may not have the same sensitivity or awareness of sanitation. In the meantime, more people today are eating out than the ever before while the food industry is looking to slash the bottom line. Unfortunately most Americans are unaware of the rise in food poisoning, and many who suffer from it never find out the cause. Symptoms may take a week or longer to appear, and victims frequently attribute the distress and discomfort incorrectly to the stomach flu. It is not until the affliction becomes acute that tests are taken to determine the real cause. For those at risk - children, the elderly and anyone with a compromised immune system – this is often too late. The consequences can be deadly. The good news is that many cases of food-borne illness can be prevented by following proper sanitation. Public health authorities in the Los Angeles County Health Department took a close look at this growing national problem and, in January, 1998, instituted a grading system that rates the sanitation of restaurants, food stands, mobile-food units and other retailers. Inspectors assign a numerical score with corresponding letter grades of "A," "B" or "C" to each restaurant reflecting the health conditions found within. Grades must be prominently posted near the public entrance at all times. Customers can view the ratings and decide for themselves whether to patronize the establishment. In addition, the ratings are posted on a Web site so consumers can review eating establishments before heading out for a meal. Under the previous system, restaurant managers would simply wait to be cited for violations and only then correct them. When retailers had repeated citations, most customers were not even aware of these continuing health problems. Under the new system, managers have become much more sensitive to food safety. They've also become much more proactive in eliminating unsafe conditions. Since the system went into effect, food poisoning complaints have declined from 2,050 to 1,603 in just two years. Many factors probably contributed, but the grading system is undoubtedly one of them. The Los Angeles program is not unique. It was based on a system that has successfully operated in San Diego County for the past 50 years. More recently, similar systems have been implemented in other communities. The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, for instance, inspects restaurants, hot-dog stands and other food retailers in the state, grading them based on a numerical system of one to 100. Disgust with sanitary conditions in Toronto restaurants led a Canadian investigative reporter to produce a series of "Dirty Dining" articles in the Toronto Star. As a result of his exposés, Toronto health officials cited 53 of the 74 downtown restaurants. One was shut down until the problem was resolved: it was infested with mice. In the end, all were required to display their red, yellow and green ratings in the window for all would-be patrons to see. Despite the apparent success of these grading programs, concerns have been raised. Food-service managers have accurately pointed out that many restaurants operate in fluid environments. Conditions can change from hour to hour, according to the flow of people in the restaurant and the shifts, and it is unfair to take a snapshot at a particular moment and use it to stigmatize the food establishment for months. The Los Angeles grading system has addressed this by permitting restaurants to request a reinspection if they believe the previous inspection did not accurately reflect overall conditions. The reinspection is carried out unannounced within six weeks, and the restaurant is stuck with this assessment until the next regular inspection. Food-safety professionals correctly point out that contamination can occur at many points along the way in the food-production system, from the farm to the fork. They fear that concentrating attention on one possible source will decrease interest in the others. Indeed, focusing only on food retailers will not prevent all food-borne illnesses. But awareness of food safety at any point in the system is better than none at all. Grading has made food retailers more sensitive to potential dangers and more open to taking preventive measures to avoid them. All this is an improvement over the current system in place on Long Island and most communities across the United States. When grading is combined with frequent inspections and improved training programs, food-borne illnesses can be curtailed. All communities should institute grading systems to ensure the best possible food safety. Perhaps if such a system had been instituted on Long Island a few years back, the recent shigellosis outbreak would never have happened. After all, the Shish-Kebab in Port Washington had been cited for violating health codes four out of the 10 times Nassau County sanitarians inspected the restaurant over the past five years. One code that was broken - failing to wear gloves while handling food. _______________________ Andrew F. Smith teaches culinary history at the New School University and is the author of eight books on culinary topics. His most recent book is "Souper Tomatoes: The Story of America's Favorite Soup."

Pre-boiling potatoes permeates them with water, which inhibits the absorption of fat into their structure when they are later sauteed/roasted. Whether or not you pre-boil them should therefor be at least partially determined by whether or not you think that's a good thing.

Esperya do an excellent line of artisanal pastas, especially the bronze extruded sorts.

FG writes: The classic method of making all the veggies in a ratatouille cook to precisely the optimum degree (whatever one considers that to be).

Inasmuch as what we loosely call taste is largely smell, "supersmellers" would be even more sensitive to nuance than supertasters. For instance, Robert Parker as a young man, well before he discovered his calling, could immediately detect or even identify the aftershave of a man who had just entered at the opposite side of a large room. I wonder how he deals with the monumental BO of French vineyard workers?

I'm interested that FG (together with most lists) sites $10 per bottle as the upper price limit for decent cheap wine. In the UK it's £5, which is about $7.50. (That's the cut-off point for the Wine Society's cheap list, and the wines included aren't rubbish.) This in spite of the absolutely swinging government tax. Why is decent wine so much more expensive in a wine-producing country? France, of course, makes the pricing in both English-speaking countries look ridiculous. Incipient Puritainism, I suppose.

Suvir writes: A wise man who makes a fool of himself must be a consummate craftsman!

Ah, chicken livers, my everyday favorite. Cheap. accessible, versatile. I could live on them: in fact, life depends on the liver.

I've found the answer! After reading through the various conflicting studies, I have chosen to believe those scientists who recommend a diet that comes the closest to my personal preferences.

Wilfrid argues like a teacher, which he actively was. After all the smartly cynical remarks have been made, that is the primary impulse which keeps useful and pleasurable information passing along incrementally from generation to generation. Thanks.

An interesting footnote to the above. Robert Parker, in his recent Ann Arbor Michigan radio interview, remarked in passing, "The skills of a food writer are even more complex than with wine." The sentence structure isn't quite right but he was speaking quickly off the top of his head, and the meaning is clear enough.

There's another dimension to the "steak and chips" debate. I think that almost all eGulleteers would agree in their heart of hearts that most of the so-called steaks and chips actually consumed at average restaurants are of such a mediocre or even loathesome quality that the best thing to drink with them would be whatever totally masked their flavor.

Jaybee, your menu has the enormous advantage that, after supplying it, the State could no longer afford to hire an executioner (let alone Star Wars).

Wilfrid writes: And don't forget that epicure's delight, lemon barley water! That's because Archer is safely tucked away with his word processor, not trudging around the M25.

That's the problem! My friend (not his wife) has a voracious appetite and I could be making omelettes the rest of the morning.

'Eight Dinham' is both the name of the B&B and its address. It's where we always stay -- a quiet street just a few steps from the castle and the central square. Fifteen to twenty minutes stroll from Hibiscus. Two bedrooms with double beds and one with twins. £27.50 per person per night, double occupancy. Enquiries to Angela or David Edwards, Tel 01584 875661.

Honey is indeed a carbohydrate, but the amount that goes into a savory sauce is not likely to be nearly as generous as into a sweet dessert. Fortunately, my abstenance from carbs is not one of ritual denial, like an orthodox Jew and pork, so minor infractions are of little concern.

SteveP writes: In other words, those fine gradations which are so vital in constructing the perfect dish are, in music, simply to be swept together into an undifferentiated pile.

Cheese and cold meat is going to be my breakfast option, as it frquently is at home. I'd make an omelet, as I often do, but I'm staying with friends who eat bread and butter for breakfast, and I shouldn't fill their flat with such melifluous odors. Benoit sounds inviting, but it's out of my price range. We'll be chewing the fat in more modest surroundings.

SteveP wrote: *All* pianos are out of tune, because they are tuned to equal temperament, which is a compromise allowing the instrument to play in different key signatures. Orchestras accompanying a piano concerto are aware of this, and tune to each other differently because their *true* turing would in fact sound out of tune against the piano.So -- is the piano "wrong"? Some musicians with perfect pitch find it so and do not regard it as a pleasant instrument to listen to. Up to the time of Bach, a harpsichord was tuned differently to play in different key signatures, and his "Well-Tempered Clavier" was written to "sell" equal temperament for the sake of its convenience. Knowing that it was a compromise, he wrote each prelude and fugue in such a way as not to show the discordant elements too prominently. You might regard equal temperament as the rough equivalent of an all-purpose sauce, like ketchup, designed to go with the largest number of different foods. OK with beans on toast -- but would you like it with every course in a menu degustation?

Two modifications. We use free range pig's liver from our local butcher, supurb in flavor and a fraction of the cost of calves liver. We ask for it to be sliced very thin, dredge it in flour and dry mustard, and cook it *on top of* the onions, after they are virtually done, at a very low heat. It takes a very few minutes, turning once. For us, the liver is done when it has lost its translucency but still keeps its pinkness and flexibility. We take out the liver, deglaze the pan with a bit of dry sherry and whole grain mustard, and serve it with the liver on top of the onions (but no towers!). In our pretentious corner of London, pig's liver is so down market that the locals won't even feed it to their cats, and so we have to order the whole liver to be sent to our butcher along with his weekly pig, to be sliced and packed into half-pound bags which we freeze.

You're quite right -- it's very easy to stick to the hi-fat lo-carb diet in Paris. My enquiry was prompted by a desire to search out those temples of hi-calory excess which in the past I've denied myself. Now, if only someone would come up with the perfect beanless cassoulet . . . On the wine front, I too try to limit my intake. On my own, I rarely get through more than a bottle.

A thousand-year-old egg, prepared from scratch.

Even more, anyone who keeps coffee warm by any method whatsoever. A mug of coffee which has become tepid can safely be given a quick burst in a microwave, but any method of keeping coffee warm enough to drink, including a Thermos, will burn it within the hour. Those who really care about coffee make it freshly, a cup or mug at a time, whether by espresso machine or French press.I'm not really a coffee snob -- I haven't singled anyone out for condemnation.