tanabutler

Green bean soup with basil-butter and lemon (puréed). Grilled wild salmon grilled and Zephyr summer squash (a beautiful new yellow heirloom from Thomas Farms). Mashed potatoes. So so good. No pictures, no time.

Sleep in Tivoli and commute to Rome. Tivoli allows you a 4-star hotel for less than half the cost of a 3-star, and it's so quiet. I recommend the Hotel Sirene, overlooking the twin waterfalls and the temple of Vesta and Sybil. Three years ago, we paid $90 a night for it. We likewise paid $220 a night a 3-star in Rome that took 20 minutes for the hot water to reach the fifth floor. Hotel Sirene was built in 1865. You can visit the Villa d'Este, which has (I think) 600 fountains. It was one of my favorite places in all of Italy. A link to information about Villa d'Este. (I have plenty of photos, but cannot find any online that are anything but dismal.)

Is it breaking some code of conduct to post prices? I would love to know if I can aspire to taste a single one of the wines you praise.

Eunny Jang, I think you're doing great. This is your first experience with photography, or just digital photography? What kind of camera are you using? I kind of liked that you did two plates: if it were me, I'd probably have gotten a little to the right and included all of that plate in front (detail) and cropped the plate in back off a little more. But the colors are good, and it does look appetizing. ----- I haven't posted in here in a long time. Someone wrote to ask me what kind of experience I've been having with my new camera (the 8-megapixel Canon Powershot Pro1, purchased in June). To tell the truth, I have been having terrible challenges with my it, starting the day after it was too late to return it for an exchange. It has ADD (it can't focus, with great regularity). It also had some problems with the bracketed exposure, and I sent it to the shop when I'd had it only two weeks. Tomorrow it's going back to the shop, and I am demanding a new one. I've lost so many good shots, and it's affecting my confidence and my ability to do my job. Then in the beginning of July, my G1 Powershot was stolen (or so I thought). I replaced it with the Canon Powershot A80, as I have to have that swing-out viewfinder for my work with the farm dinners. (I often need to shoot over the heads of people in front of me. This viewfinder allows me to see what I'm missing.) I don't like the A80 nearly as much as the G1, but it does have some great features. It's just that the G1 was my partner, and I didn't have to think to get the shots I wanted. I really missed it. Anyway, the problems with the Pro1 really undermined my confidence, and I was feeling like a sham and a fraud. I've had to learn way too much jargon, and the buttons are complicated, and sometimes I just wanted to throw it (and me) in a lake. Since I learned that it's the camera's fault, and not mine, I feel a little better. What made me feel a lot better was being hired by chef David Kinch at Manresa restaurant for photography and web site consultation. They saw the photos I had posted, loved them, and asked if I would do some work for them. Well, duh. The cherry on top is that my photographer friend, Nikki, (I posted her photos in the Manresa thread) is offering me some training in exchange for training her on her Macintosh. Once I get some more of the language down, experientially, I think I'll be more versatile and creative. The footnote to this whole story is that, on Thursday, a chef I know called me and asked, "Did you lose a camera?" He'd found my camera at his restaurant, but couldn't read the phone number on my business card, which had gotten wet. Two of the digits in the middle were smeared. Finally he just started calling, and got me on the third try. So I have my G1 back, and I'm giving the A80 to Bob. I'm looking forward to have a camera that focuses as it's supposed to. I love the camera, but haven't been happy to have a lemon. Yeah, I know, "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade." Not this time.

2001 interview with Julia (and Jacques) from Gourmet includes recipes. And Julia's nice and chatty.

When draining zucchini or other squash, I put them first into a thin cotton kitchen towel and twist/wring/squeeze the water out. Then I put a dry kitchen towel in my colander (for this, I use a ceramic colander with large holes) and let it sit for an hour. I will occasionally twist/wring/squeeze that towel, too. Works like a charm.

Sistah Katie! I actually think I haven't had the best meal of my life yet. I thought about it a lot last night.

Isaac is correct: SKIP THE DRINKS. Have wine!! They don't have a liquor license, so substitute this truly ghastly sour fermented rice crap that made a cocktail that tasted like vomit. No kidding. But they've got a good wine list. And the food is very very good, most especially Lechon a la Cubana (roasted pork). Dear God, if you love pork, that's the dish for you. It was swooningly succulent.

Ground hazelnuts, too...skinned and ever'thang.

It looks great, but I don't understand their web site design. Rolling over things turns my cursor into a hand, indicating a link, but the links don't do anything that I can detect. I see that some rollovers change the center area into caption, but is that it? No more details available inside? I feel clueless.

I have a little more information about the October 10 dinner. It will be at outside Athens at Woodland Gardens farm (host farmer Tucker Taylor): guest winemakers Martha and John Ezzard Tiger Mountain Vineyards) and Sweet Grass Dairy (a goat farm) are also participating. More details are here.

Was the partner who made the offer present when you were billed? If not, you absolutely should have said something. He could easily have made a sincere offer but not communicated it to management. They sound like nice people. A reminder wouldn't have been out of order. Clear communication is always better than bad blood. It sounds like an innocent misunderstanding to me.

This is a hard one for me...I've been to two dozen Outstanding in the Field farm dinners, for starters. Not that they were all perfect, not in the least. (Five or six were, absolutely.) But if I had to pick just one meal, it would have to be "one evening." Last October, my chef friend, Betsy, and I had a food evening that was kind of like "Lucy and Ethel Eat New York." We had 7 PM reservations at Blue Hill; chefs Dan Barber and Michael Anthony were to be the guest chefs at the farm dinner the following day (up at Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Sleepy Hollow). But before that, Suvir Saran had invited me to meet him at Amma for "a glass of wine and an appetizer." We had arrived at 5 PM, and Suvir had been called away on a family emergency. "One appetizer" turned into eight or nine plates of the most exquisite dishes that Betsy, her daughter, and I had ever tasted. It was a parade of food from the Amma kitchen (and the mighty hands of chef Hemant Mathur) that started to look like a Crosby-Hope "On the Road to India" comedy. We kept saying, "We've got dinner reservations at Blue Hill," but they were undeterred. And we were overjoyed, honestly. Such amazing service and even more amazing food. We trundled to the subway, got downtown, and said good-bye to her daughter. "How are we going to EAT anything?" I asked. "We'll make room," she said, wisely. We arrived at Blue Hill. I told the hostess, "We were just kidnapped and forced to eat eight or nine of the best appetizers we've ever had and we're not all that hungry." She responded, "Oh, chef will be so disappointed. He's been looking forward to your visit!" Betsy, ever the diplomat, said, "Well, maybe he could just make smaller servings." So yes, fifteen or twenty of the "smaller servings" later, and we quit. Retired. Resigned. Died happy. I consider it one of the most fortunate evenings of my life: to dine with Betsy and to dine at both Amma and Blue Hill, in complete care of two talented and heartful chefs, in one of the greatest cities in the world. Close second is lunch at Hosteria Il Carroccio in Siena. Ice cold weather, the day before Easter, and every molecule of food was a revelation. It's where I had my Italian epiphany. (Divina Cucina, an eGulleteer who teaches cooking in Italy, says it's one of her favorite places in Siena.)

My stepson-in-law-to-be has started inviting himself over for meals (and I mean that in the best, most flattering way), which is sometimes convenient and sometimes not. Usually he's starving, so I have had to come up with a bone to throw when he's got those hungry jitters. TJ's Gorgonzola Gnocchi (frozen foods section) fits the bill perfectly. He has requested a 55-gallon drum of the stuff: I think he thinks I make it from scratch. Sweet but clueless. And I'm not telling him the secret, because I want him to keep asking if I'll feed him.

Caroline, I hope think you should start dressing your little pet vine in baby clothes. You could start a trend.

I am so jealous of this thread.

This thread has become THE thread for San Francisco...so I'm reviving it with two new reports. First, we happened to be driving down Chestnut Street, and spotted My Most-Trusted Foodie Friend, standing in front of a restaurant. Beeped the horn, waved, and he was gone. But I figured, "If he's there, it has to be good." So we ate a great lunch at Andale, a Mexican place with pleasant ambience and decor, and spit-roasted chickens. Nikki ordered a jicama salad (with goat cheese, greens, avocado chunks, and vinaigrette, I think $4.95) and a shrimp burrito ($7.95--huge, bursting with juicy shrimp, covered in flavorful, medium-spicy sauce). I ordered the chicken burrito with rice, beans, guacamole, cheese and sour cream in it ($7.95). Everything was very good, though I've had burritos twice as big for less money. MTFF wrote this morning that Andale is "the best food bargain in town (I get it for take-out occasionally) is their whole rotisserie chicken dinner with potatoes, fantastic salsa, and salad, for $15. Their chickens are so big, we make two dinners out of it." Worth knowing. Andale is at 2150 Chestnut. You order at the counter and they bring it to your table. Second, we had reservations at Le Petite Robert, where I have been eager to eat since chef Robert Cubberly did such a wonderful job at the Outstanding in the Field dinner at Frog's Leap Winery. My report to the friend: And listen up, you Alton Brown fans. He sat at the table next to us with his wife, Deanna, and daughter Zoë (affectionately known as "Stink Bomb"). I introduced myself as he was leaving, because one of my stepsisters is among his best friends. He was tickled to pieces to hear her name, and he's got a great handshake. I thanked him for his great participation in the eGullet Q & A, and he was nice about that, too. They are both very funny people, and Zoë was spinning around like a total spaz..."And we give her sugar! What kind of parents ARE we?" they chimed. After he left, Robert Cubberly said that AB comes in all the time. He even mentioned it in San Francisco magazine, "When I want to eat French food, I go to Le Petit Robert." Big thumbs up. Wines by the glass, carafe, or bottle. Very reasonably priced. I think our whole evening, with three starters, the quail, and three glasses of wine each, was about $80. Nikki treated, so I am not sure about that. If I lived in SF, that would quickly become a place I would adopt. It was a beautiful meal. Go there.

YES YES YES YES YES. Go to Justine Miner's restaurant. God, I had forgotten she was in the Haight. RNM website. (RNM is in honor of her father, who died quite young: those are his initials.) She did one of the five (only five) perfect Outstanding in the Field farm dinners: Swanton Farm dinner with Justine Miner. Her dishes were just fantastic, and she could handle the outdoor grill, which is not something that all chefs can do. I love what Patricia Unterman wrote about her. Including this: "Right now I would drive across town just to sit in front of Miner's calm kitchen and work my way through the menu." I endorse this idea completely. MsMelkor, I thank you for your good suggestion. (Kiliki, would you e-mail me at tana@tanabutler.com? I'd love to give you a little bit more info.)

The 22nd.

My most-trusted foodie friend in the city says this: EOS website: warning: their web designer doesn't know how to to rotate photographs, so be prepared to crane your neck.

Find out where Carolyn Tillie is working when you're there, and visit her at one of her wineries. She's one of eGullet's best sources for All Things Napa. If you're lucky, she'll introduce you to her pet wine vine.

I'll send a new Joy of Cooking as soon as I can get my ass to the post office. No, really, I ride a donkey!

I am delighted to see your font again. I've been wondering how your anniversary plans were turning out. If money were no object, I'd go to Le Bernadin. Alas, it's always an object. (I think my daughter is getting her first job at Gayle's! How happy are we?!)

Hmmm, I'm trying to figure a way to work Manresa in here. It's worth a night in Los Gatos (you could stay there en route to Monterey area). Do you have lodgings yet?

Carmel, Monterey, Pacific Grove thread, newly revived with two endorsements of Passionfish in Pacific Grove. In Sonoma, drive to Jenner, next to the ocean. Stay in one of the cottages at the Jenner Inn, and eat at River's End restaurant. Local, seasonal, organic, beautiful, and utterly quiet--on the mouth of the Russian River and the edge of the continent. The loudest thing there is the ocean, or the barking seals. It's gloriously beautiful there, and you will love the place. It's rustic without being hickish, and the food is great. And no cell phones work there, hooray!