NYT Articles on Food, Drink, Cooking, and Culinary Culture (2005–2011)

An article last Wednesday about home cooking in the style of avant-garde chefs omitted the name of the Web site that showed a picture of the innovative clam chowder prepared by José Andrés at the Minibar restaurant in Washington. It was egullet.com.

Oyster Bar and Restaurant (Sam Sifton)

Recipes in today's section:

1. Peas With Halibut

2. Glass Noodles With Crab

3. Rice Noodles With Chicken

4. Roasted Rabbit and Potato

SobaAddict70 · May 10, 2004

NYTimes Weekend Update

Friday, 7 May 2004 -- Sunday, 9 May 2004

A. Dining In/Dining Out Section and the Sunday Magazine

Fried belly clams, scratched from the mud of southern New England, are terrific this time of year, fat and packed with flavor. Likewise the cherrystones on the half shell and the Glidden Point oysters and the bluepoints and the gigantic West Coast behemoths and all the rest.

Click here to discuss the review or contribute your experiences.

The tasting, a fund-raiser, held with Earth Pledge, a private organization whose agenda includes sustainable agriculture and the promotion of local products, drew about 500 $125-, $150- and $250-a-ticket guests to Capitale, a restaurant.

Nigiri Sushi In The Style Of Italy (Pilar Viladas With David Farber)

This sushi with an Italian accent is based on raw fish but often adds fried elements, or sauces made with lemon juice and vinegar, or anchovy brine, or even garlic and extra-virgin olive oil. And it is served on Arborio rice. This cross-cultural amalgam proved to be one of the taste sensations of the fair.

Recipes in this issue:

1. Yellowfin Tuna With Herb-Flavored Vinaigrette

2. Moreno Cedroni's Sushi Rice

B. Elsewhere in this weekend's Times...

In truth, Italy does not grow enough olives to meet even its own demand, let alone foreigners'. Spain, not Italy, actually has the world's largest olive harvest. As a result, Italy is one of the world's leading importers of olive oil, part consumed, the rest re-exported with newly assumed Italian cachet.
The industry has a ready justification: what is important is not where the olives are picked and pressed, but where the oil is refined and blended. The olive oil is Italian, the argument goes, because it has been processed by skilled Italian experts who choose oils from around the Mediterranean to create an oil for the foreign market.

A Spanish Or Grecian Olive Oil In Sheep's Clothing (Clifford J. Levy)

More fruit and vegetable vendors, many of them Italian, moved to the market after Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia expanded it along Exterior Street in 1935. When Hunts Point opened 30 years later, those vendors moved out and Puerto Rican vendors moved in. The Bronx Terminal Market carved a niche as a tropical fruits and vegetable market and catered largely to the growing Hispanic bodega business. It came to be known as the largest Hispanic wholesale foods market in the country.

The End Of The Bronx Terminal Market... (Andrea Elliott)

Today that vibrant market is a memory. Instead of five buildings crowded with shoppers and 200 or more vendors carrying a cornucopia of tropical foodstuffs and mainland merchandise, there are just Mr. Lifschultz and seven other merchants clustered in one area of the shabby, mostly vacant single building still in use. And they are largely trying just to survive as they cater to what is often a slow trickle of customers.

....And The Return Of La Marqueta (Joseph P. Fried)

There was some weight gain — 18 pounds by the end of the experiment — and also mood swings, loss of sex drive and nearly catastrophic liver damage. His general practitioner, Daryl Isaacs, likens Mr. Spurlock's all-Mac diet to the terminal alcoholic binge undertaken by Nicolas Cage's character in "Leaving Las Vegas" and worries that his patient may succumb to liver failure before the 30 days are up.

You Want Fries With That? (A.O. Scott)

Per Se is careful to present cocktails that are not palate-killers. The house drink is vodka with Pineau des Charentes, a hybrid of Cognac and wine-grape juice. Pineau is naturally sweet and makes a very smooth cocktail with a simple taste that is elusive to the point of erudition — much the intention of the house. (It's also $17.) With a severely designed garnish that changes seasonally (on Wednesday, a raspberry bookended on an acrylic skewer by two sliced grapes), the Per Se is as cerebrally cool as it is cold to taste.

Cocktails At Per Se (William L. Hamilton)

Click here for related discussion regarding Per Se.

The food marketing landscape in Manhattan is changing, with national chains arriving or scouting for locations. Whole Foods recently opened its flagship 58,000-square-foot store in the basement of the Time Warner Center and is building a trilevel 50,000-square-foot store on 14th Street facing Union Square.
These are huge stores by Manhattan standards, where most groceries occupy 7,000 to 10,000 square feet, according to retail brokers.

When One Whole Foods Is Not Enough (John Holusha)

"I am startled by the number of restaurants that have opened this year, with these seemingly endless budgets," Mr. Nieporent said. "And I know the rents are high. So it sort of defies the logic I've always brought to how I operate my own businesses. I guess the good news is that there must be enough customers to subsidize all these new openings."
Mr. Nieporent, for one, said that he was skeptical of the current mood. After all, he said, it doesn't seem that most people are any richer.
"At least it doesn't seem that way in the circles I roll around in," he said.

Recession? What Recession? (Alex Kuczynski)

Click here to discuss the article.

Have a good week, all.

Soba

SobaAddict70 · May 16, 2004

NYTimes Weekly Update

Wednesday, 12 May 2004

Friday, 14 May 2004 -- Sunday, 16 May 2004

A. Dining In/Dining Out Section and the Sunday Magazine

Whatever happens next in Mr. Keller's drama will depend on the talents and abilities of two behind-the-scenes players: his chefs de cuisine. Alert restaurant customers already know that when a second in command is announced on a restaurant menu under the title of chef de cuisine or executive sous-chef, it signifies that the chef whose name is on the marquee might be a few blocks, or a few time zones, away.

When The Name On The Door Is Not The Name In The Kitchen (Julia Moskin)

Pink is inescapable at the American Girl Cafe, a 140-seat restaurant on Fifth Avenue at 49th Street that has become a destination of choice for 4- to 12-year-old girls from all over the United States.

The American Girl Cafe (Julia Moskin)

At 78, Ms. Sheraton is still working (she's writing the foreword to the new Rao's cookbook, having put that restaurant on the map with a three-star review in 1977) and still traveling (she's off to Italy this month for Smithsonian Magazine, then Paris for Town & Country Travel). She is just as full of beans — and opinions — as ever. "I'm too young to be this old," she said dryly.

The Pleasures Of A Former Critic (Alex Wichtel)

Recently, I made the same journey here that I made a decade ago, from Cape Town to Stellenbosch, to Paarl and Helderberg, to Franschoek and Somerset West. I tasted, I questioned and I listened. And I discovered that South Africa has begun to make world-class wines.

Winemaking, South African Style (Frank J. Prial)

In his painting ''Luncheon on the Grass'' (1865-66), the cloth on the ground is covered with pates and grapes and what looks like one of the roasted game birds he was partial to. In ''Luncheon'' (1873), the meal is over, and all that is left on the outdoor table is a silver coffeepot and a bowl of peaches, along with some bread and a bit of red wine in a glass.

New Orleans Masterpieces (Julia Reed)

Recipes in Sunday's section:

1. Creole Crab-Meat Soup

2. Justine's Pineapple-Mint Ice Cream

3. Martha Pearl Villas's Pound Cake

Restaurants: Asparagus On The Menu

Mionetto, whose prosecco is ubiquitous, has rolled out Il Rosé, a dry low-alcohol (10. 5 percent) strawberrylike Italian pop wine under a crown (soda pop) cap.

Sidebar: Wine Under $20 (Howard G. Goldberg)

I learned about the genesis of this dish from Suvir Saran, an Indian chef in New York. In the version he cooked for me, Mr. Saran tossed cauliflower in a slurry of cornstarch and egg, then deep-fried it. The crust was exquisite, and the cauliflower perfectly cooked. But it was what happened next that really got my attention: He finished the cauliflower in a sauce, made in about three minutes, containing nothing more than ketchup, garlic and cayenne pepper.

At first I was skeptical that we would find many wines that fit our criteria. But a modest search produced scores of bottles for $25 or less, far more than I had imagined. Many of these came, as I suspected, from Bordeaux's lesser-known appellations, like Fronsac, Côtes de Bourg, Moulis, Listrac and Côtes de Castillon, or were simply labeled Haut-Médoc, meaning they came from the Haut-Médoc region, but not from one of its more prestigious communes.

Zona Rosa (Amanda Hesser)

Sidebar: If you point your web browser to the NYTimes Dining In/Dining Out web page, you can hear an audio online presentation given by Eric Asimov, Amanda Hesser, Florence Fabricant and Frank J. Prial on a selection of Bordeaux wines for $25 and under. Click on the box entitled "Bordeaux Understudies: From 2000, $25 and Under" to begin the presentation.

The black bean soup does not look like much — a puddle of mud, at best — but its dense, clingy texture contains a spectrum of sensations. A tingly heat fills your mouth with each spoonful, and there is a suggestion of sweetness beneath the layers of bean and onion, garlic and epazote.

Tostones or maduros, fried sweet plantains, come with most of the main courses, along with rice and beans. The best selection is masitas de puerco..., chunks of pork marinated in mojo, the Cuban garlic-and-citrus condiment, and then quickly sautéed until the exterior turns crisp, leaving the inside juicy and tender. The pork is topped with grilled onions and served over a delicious sweet mash of corn and boniato, a tuber like a sweet potato but with a stiffer texture.

Cafécito (Eric Asimov)

And so there is a salad of arugula, bresaola, Spanish almonds and thyme honey — a perfect Venn diagram of spice, salt, sweet and nutty. Also a pale bath of melting pecorino studded with warm hazelnuts, pepperoncini and a drizzle of acacia honey that, spread on warm toast, has pretty much the same effect squared.

Craftbar (Sam Sifton)

Rosés, some consumers feel (inaccurately), are too minor to warrant critical attention. But rosés, too, have gravitas, and the bright hues of Wölffer's Francophile versions, copper-and-coral colored, caress the eye; as for refreshment, the rosé is to South Fork partygoers what fountains are to Italian gardens.

La Canard d'Orleans (Pableaux Johnson)

Duck lovers swoon over the chef's crowning garnish — a wafer of skin flash-fried like a Cajun pork crackling. Since Mr. Sonnier and his wife, Mary, opened Gabrielle in 1992 in the Mid-City neighborhood (home of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival) the duck has had such a fierce following he could not take if off the menu if he tried.

La Caravelle's kitchen was an incubator for some of New York's better-known chefs, most of them not French. Michael Romano worked with Mr. Fessaguet until Danny Meyer tapped him to become the chef at Union Square Cafe. David Ruggerio, who went on to Le Chantilly and who is currently the consultant for Sushi à Go-Go near Lincoln Center, worked at La Caravelle as well, as did Tadashi Ono, the chef of Matsuri in the Maritime Hotel; Cyril Renaud, the chef and owner of Fleur de Sel in the Flatiron district; David Pasternack, the chef at Esca; and Julian Alonzo, the chef at 8 1/2 and a consultant at the new Blvd.

La Caravelle: 1960 -- 2004 (Florence Fabricant)

And The Winner Is.... (Florence Fabricant)

Off The Menu

At the ceremony on Monday, Chanterelle was named outstanding restaurant in America, an award that is given to a restaurant that has been in business at least 10 years. Eleven Madison Park won for best service, Allison Vines-Rushing of Jack's Luxury Oyster Bar was named rising star chef of the year and Babbo won the award for outstanding wine service. Prime Burger was one of four restaurants named American Classics. The design company Avro Ko won for best design and graphics, for its work at Public.

Pork is a suitable choice with a relatively modest-priced Bordeaux. Why spend more on the frame than on the painting? But instead of a hog roast, for which I would need a case of the wine and a very convincing argument against beer, I decided on grilled center-cut pork chops.

Over The Counter Statin....In The United Kingdom (Lizette Alvarez)

Recipes in this week's update:

1. Slow Roasted Duck With Orange-Sherry Sauce

2. Hash Browns

3. Stir-Fried Chicken With Ketchup

B. Elsewhere in the Times...

Much of the new competition in the American market has been in the superpremium category, buoyed by the recent success of Grey Goose, a French vodka priced at around $30 a bottle. According to Adams Beverage Group Research, Grey Goose sold 1.4 million 9-liter cases in the United States in 2003, up from just 100,000 in 1999. (The most popular vodka in the United States, Smirnoff, in the premium category, sold 7.2 million cases last year, while Absolut, at No. 2, sold 4.5 million.)

Raising Vodka's Profile

But the decision to permit the sale of simvastatin, marketed as Zocor, has divided the medical community and angered consumer rights organizations that say too many questions remain unanswered.
Dr. John Chisholm, chairman of the British Medical Association's general practitioners committee, said there were concerns about possible side effects and appropriate dosages, particularly for people suffering from heart disease who may need higher doses and not know it.

According to the information printed on its slender blue-and-silver can, Red Bull "improves performance, increases concentration, improves reaction speed and stimulates the metabolism."
But if its ingredients are any guide, the boost provided by Red Bull and other energy drinks — SoBe Adrenaline Rush, Snapple Fire and 180 Orange Citrus Blast, for example — may differ little from the lift offered by a strong cup of joe.

Breakfast Of Champions (Vicky Lowry)

Those who want to avoid the pack take refuge in the city's many grungy diners, where you can get a $7 hamburger special and sit in a booth for several hours. The House of Pies, in Los Feliz, an enclave of writers and directors, is not popular for its décor (tacky floral) or clientele (retired), but because its pie is excellent and the tables are large. No wonder Quentin Tarantino ("Reservoir Dogs") and Charlie Kaufman ("Being John Malkovich") wrote scripts there. Jon Favreau wrote "Swingers" at the 101 Coffee Shop nearby.

Where Screenwriters' Take Solace And Inspiration (Janelle Brown)

Have a good week, folks.

Soba

SobaAddict70 · May 21, 2004

NYTimes Weekly Update

Wednesday, 19 May 2004

Dining In/Dining Out Section

It is amazing that people talk about the Mediterranean tradition of vegetable-dominated meals and the fact that Chinese cooking is largely composed of vegetables accented by bits of meat, while continually cooking Italian and Chinese meals centered around meat.

Changing Of The Guard (Amanda Hesser)

New York's restaurant industry, which likes to pride itself on being multicultural, has really been anything but diverse at the top. Even today, all five restaurants that have been awarded four stars by The New York Times — Le Bernardin, Daniel, Bouley, Jean Georges and Alain Ducasse — are French. Traditionally, when new restaurants flouted the French model they were considered lightweight, unserious.
But nowadays any restaurant, no matter what its cuisine, no matter what its décor, has the potential to become the next Daniel. This winter, Marcus Samuelsson, the chef at Aquavit, opened Riingo, a handsome multilevel restaurant serving food with influences from Japan, Sweden, France and Mexico. Marco Canora left Craft to open Hearth in the East Village, where he is presenting an ambitious menu of refined seasonal American cooking served by waiters in jeans.

But the dish also has homey aspects, and it is easy enough to duplicate on a backyard grill. Mr. Phan first soaks the meat in a mixture his mother made when he was young, a marinade of sugar, chilies, shallots, lemon grass and fish sauce that gives a distinctively flavored Southeast Asian crust to the lamb once it has been seared over blistering heat.

The Chef: Charles Phan (Mark Bittman)

Which, admittedly, is not everywhere. Matt Betters of Brothers International, the importer and distributor in Oakfield, N.Y., said limited quantities can be found in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Long Island and other parts of New York State and in at least one New York City shop, Astor Wines and Spirits. The line includes a red, a white and a slightly effervescent vinho verde. A Lost Vineyards Argentine series will begin to arrive in June, Mr. Betters said.

Wine Talk (Frank J. Prial)

In town and country restaurants across Germany, chefs vie to produce special asparagus menus. The least imaginative among them will offer a half-dozen standard variations, perhaps including asparagus with ham, cream of asparagus soup, asparagus with scrambled eggs, asparagus with cheese sauce, asparagus salad and asparagus with Wiener schnitzel. I have even seen (but never tasted) asparagus ice cream.

Vegetable Of The Season (R.W. Apple, Jr.)

Just about now, your eyes will begin to glaze over because you have had more than enough food, and enough heat and fat to sate you for a lifetime. You have also begun to realize that there is a lot of repetition in this food: that's because the cooks rely on Paul Prudhomme's Meat Magic and Seafood Magic to season many of the dishes, rather than their own blends.

Jacques-Imo's (Amanda Hesser)

Click here to discuss the article or contribute your experiences.

Click here for related discussion on the original Jacques-Imo's restaurant, deep in the heart of New Orleans. :wink:

Mr. Bello's cooking is quiet and engaging. He takes the bistro repertory and adds Mexican touches that tweak the dishes in unexpected directions but do not overwhelm them. Nor does he settle for easy choices. He'll offer a chayote gratin, but no French fries. Typical of Mr. Bello's gentle approach is an appetizer of steamed mussels..., subtly different in their spicy broth of tequila, lime juice and serrano chilies.

Itzocan Bistro (Eric Asimov)

Moutarde Violette (Melissa Clark)

At a rustic restaurant near Brive, Mr. Denoix, 46, explained the mustard's genesis over a traditional lunch of miche (slices of steamed bread) and boiled beef, accompanied by little pots of it.
Ground mustard seeds need to be mixed with a liquid for the flavor to bloom and the distinctive heat to be released. While water will work, mixing the seeds with something acidic also acts as a preservative.

At a time when hot new restaurants seemed to burst on the scene every day, Carême was the most talked-about chef. He cooked for world leaders and popular artists, insisting on seasonal ingredients, or exotic ones he had grown in hothouses. He constantly traveled to cook for thousands of people at special events. He had best-selling cookbooks. All that was missing was a television show. But television didn't come along until he had been dead for almost 100 years.

Before Mario And Emeril...There Was Antonin (Florence Fabricant)

Those who rail against fast-food as the essence of soulless conformity might find themselves stumped by I-am-Asian.com, a McDonald's Web site for Americans of Asian or Pacific Island descent, like me.

The Benetton Of McDonald's (Lawrence Downes)

No. 1 Chinese (Sam Sifton)

Recipes in today's section:

1. Lemon-Grass-Grilled Rack of Lamb With Tamarind Sauce

2. Tamarind Sauce

3. Chickpea Soup With Spinach

4. Spicy Cold Celery

5. Escarole and Bell Peppers With Olive Oil

6. Braised Eggplant With Mushrooms

7. Tofu Salad

8. Rice With Cheese

9. Scallion Pancakes

Soba

SobaAddict70 · May 24, 2004

NYTimes Weekend Update

Friday, 21 May 2004 -- Sunday, 23 May 2004

A. Dining In/Dining Out Section and the Sunday Magazine

Orange beef, shaved and fiery, has only the smallest, sweetest link to the dish of memory; it's actually better here, which makes it worse. And in the matter of versimilitude, the famous General Tso's doesn't do much better. It's all tender white meat, carefully sauced (that is, there is no pooling beneath, no sheen of grease), with perfectly steamed broccoli. That is, obviously, not the point of General Tso's chicken. Furthermore, there is something that appears to be close to fresh corn in the greasy egg rolls, and the fried wonton wrappers seem to have been lightly dusted with five-spice powder. What is this, a fancy restaurant?

Click here to discuss the review or contribute your experiences.

They are the demon spawn of Jolt Cola, a briefly popular drink that delivered a mighty wallop of caffeine in a 12-ounce can. The basic idea, to achieve espresso-grade liftoff with a cold, fizzy cola drink, was just slightly ahead of its time.

Energy In A Can (William Grimes)

Restaurants: Outdoor Cafes

''Between me and you, not too many Emilia-Romagnans really,'' Giancarlo Quadalti says, leaning on the bar at Teodora. ''I been born 40 years and been cooking 27 years, and I think I'm the only one in New York. Some say they are from Emilia-Romagna, maybe there is a waiter, but I don't think there's another chef.'' He forms a cappelletti (little hat) filled with veal, chicken and cheese around his pinkie to illustrate what he submerges in his unbelievably sweet and delicious capon broth (brodo di cappone).

The Authenticity Debate (Jonathan Reynolds)

Recipes in today's issue:

1. Giancarlo Quadalti's Capon Broth

2. Passatelli

3. Tagliatelle Bolognese

Click here to discuss the article.

B. Travel

We sat down under a hovering old sycamore and soon were treated to one of the best meals I've had in Greece: Crisp, fried zucchini blossoms with a creamy garlic sauce; incredibly flavored runner beans, lightly stewed with whole, fresh plum tomatoes and mint; pan-fried wild goat; rabbit casserole; local cured pork cooked with eggs; snails seared with vinegar and rosemary; a wild greens omelet called sfouggato; and local wine by the carafe.

Home Cooking, Grecian Style (Diane Kochilas)

Making such combinations work requires the kind of sure palate Mr. Barker possesses. He lends zest to a hanger steak with Roquefort butter, pairs sea-sweet scallops with salty country ham, and flavors risotto with oysters and peppery arugula, a combination made in heaven. (On the other hand, while I have never tasted his grilled shrimp in Spanish leek and potato sauce with chorizo, tomatoes and romesco, it sounds overwrought; I'd rather have shrimp and grits any day.)

Magnolia Grill (R. W. Apple, Jr.)

Click here to discuss the review or contribute your experiences.

My husband, Lindsay, and I had caught a first glimpse of an oft-neglected side of the city three years ago, and during recent visits, it had gradually come into focus - a secret Venice, full of local specialties and casual meals most visitors miss, with no hidden charges, no dumbed-down tourist menu and no fish on Mondays when the Rialto market's pescheria (the source of fresh fish) is closed.

Venice: Off The Beaten Path (Dana Bowen)

We were also unable to penetrate the principal cities of Ajaccio and Bastia, beaten back by streets choked with traffic and tiny, solidly packed public parking lots, even though the height of the season had passed. So on some days we picked up local cheeses and ripe peaches in village markets or enjoyed impromptu plates of Corsica's wonderful hams, salamis, coppa (meaty cured pork shoulder) and lonzu (loin) and wine at little beachside bars after a swim in the gentle turquoise sea.

The Cuisine of Corsica (Florence Fabricant)

The service is one of many online destinations for those who want to find good food while on the road or at home. And like restaurants themselves, the Web sites with the greatest ambitions frequently fall short, while those content to serve a niche succeed nicely.

Online Reservations Come Of Age (Bob Tedeschi)

Obviously, I couldn't choose seafood with such a red wine, although that was the restaurant's specialty, so after much deliberation I chose the Iberian pork cheeks with oloroso sherry on a swirl of apple and pea purée. The wine was indeed beautiful, very young but bursting with fruit.

Essay (Dawn Drzal)

So Mr. Delanoë has decided the time is ripe to polish Paris anew. And he has found a good excuse for doing so. Along with London, New York, Rio de Janeiro, Moscow and a half-dozen other cities, Paris is bidding to play host to the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. Many experts consider Paris a favorite because it already boasts good sports facilities. Wherever they are held, however, Olympic games always offer the occasion for urban renewal. And, in Mr. Delanoë's view, Les Halles is a prime candidate for a makeover.

A Modern Day Makeover For Les Halles (Alan Riding)

C. This weekend, in the Times...

So out went the peas and pearl onions, and in came Hungry-Man XXL Angus Beef Meatloaf and the Hungry-Man Hearty Hero Cheeseburger. To drive the point home, Hungry-Man conducted a sweepstakes tied to the syndication of "The King of Queens," the sitcom whose main character often drinks beer and watches football.

Big Makeovers For Modern-Day Big Eaters (Brendan I. Koerner)

"The risk of transmission from sheep to humans is very, very low," said Olivier Andréoletti, a prion specialist at the National Veterinary School in Toulouse, France, and lead author of the study, which was published yesterday in Nature Medicine.
The prions were found at one five-thousandth the concentrations that are found in sheep brains, and therefore likely to be much less infectious.

Mad Sheep Disease? (Donald G. McNeil, Jr.)

The corporation that bought and closed Balducci's, the Greenwich Village store that had epitomized the New York fancy food shop, is reviving the name in a big way. The company, the Sutton Place Group, says it will open a 17,000-square-foot Balducci's supermarket at Eighth Avenue and 14th Street next winter.

Balducci's Comes To Chelsea (Florence Fabricant)

Click here to discuss the article.

An article in The New York Times in November reviewing the latest research on the affect of alcohol on fetuses (like the possibility cited in one study that even a glass and a half of wine could harm an unborn child) ricocheted in and out of the e-mail boxes of pregnant women.
Two months later, the journal Science released findings that farmed salmon contains levels of PCB's and dioxins higher than what is considered safe by the Environmental Protection Agency. (The chemicals, in high doses, have been linked to impaired mental development and immune system function in developing fetuses. A Food and Drug Administration official said that there was no health concern.)

It's A Miracle You Can Even Give Birth (Alex Kuczynski)

Everything about Mas has been almost obsessively considered, and that is fine when you're keeping company with one of its cocktails, which wear the attention well. The details of the small establishment — the parchment lighting, the suavely suited owners, the casual correctness that informs the seasonal menu and the ambience too — are just more conversation to be overheard as you sit and drink. Mas, which is "farmhouse" in French and which is French-American in intention, is like a tasteful apartment or a tasteful auberge where you and your cocktail might be staying as guests. It values its accent — the one that shares the knowledge, with a subtle smile and soft eye contact, that you've lived there too.

Ginger Daiquiris At Mas (William L. Hamilton)

Have a good week, all.

Soba

SobaAddict70 · June 3, 2004

NYTimes Weekly Update

Wednesday, 2 June 2004

Dining In/Dining Out Section

Mr. Hoffman has been a Greenmarket regular since 1981, so he anticipates its seasonal swings and has an eagle eye for first sightings. Surrounded by spring's leafy green frenzy of early roots, he announced, "Turnips should be in." And there they were, tiny white bulbs dangling next to heaps of beautifully variegated breakfast radishes. He bagged bunches of them both and trailed off in search of something else. A dish was in the works.

The Chef: Peter Hoffman (Dana Bowen)

"I can eat more peacefully, seeing that she's having a good time," Ms. Vlak said. "I can also eat a complete meal without wearing it. And finish a sentence. It's fabulous. I heard about this at a party, and people were just lighting up, saying, `Is there really a place to bring children that isn't a diner?' "

Children In Fine Restaurants Revisited (Alex Wichtel)

And then it all ends abruptly in October. Against the long months when farm stands are populated exclusively by beets and rutabagas, past generations got out their Mason jars and big sterilizing pots and canned. But freezing is faster, easier and less sweaty.

Frozen Summer Goodness (Julia Moskin)

The first time I made brownies without my mother was in the late 1960's, using a recipe from Paula Peck, the cookbook writer. Over the years, I tinkered with that and a similar version by Marion Cunningham. As my daughters learned to cook, they experimented a bit further. But we never really strayed from the originals.

Rhubarb Revolution (David Karp)

There is no menu, so the courses just begin appearing, starting with a tiny salad of fiddlehead ferns bathed in white miso and scented with kinome, an herb that tastes of lemon and mint with a peppery kick. Next might come a tiny coupe glass, filled with a dollop of toro, a heap of osetra caviar and a squeeze of sudachi (a variety of lime, tiny as a kumquat). You are given a red lacquer spoon to spread it onto crisp toasts cut into perfect dominoes.

Masa (Amanda Hesser)

Click here to discuss the review or contribute your experiences.

I remember my first meal on a trip to France as a student, a simple plate of grilled steak and haricots verts, and wondering how everything could possibly taste so good. I wondered the same thing one afternoon after tasting Mr. Liberatore's mushroom soup..., a creamy broth that was deep and rich, with fat slices of mushroom occasionally floating to the top. The humble croque-monsieur...seems almost majestic in his hands, like French toast encasing ham and cheese. It is the best I have ever had.

Le Quinze (Eric Asimov)

In New York, at least, rhubarb cultivation seems to be reviving. With a multitude of small plantings, farmers across the state are exploiting diverse niches, and chefs at the most expensive restaurants prominently offer rhubarb during the prime local season, May and June.

Rosé has had a bad rap. There was a time in this country when we drank oceans of rosé, much of it sweet, bubbly, innocuous Portuguese stuff, because we didn't know what else to drink.
Then there is the swill they pour by the tankload every summer all along the French Riviera. Rosé, hah! — it's cheap white wine with a touch of cheap red. We don't even call our most popular domestic rosé rosé; we call it white zinfandel.

Wine Talk (Frank J. Prial)

Few beers can conjure so much romance and salty seagoing adventure as they do. The India pale ale style was developed in Britain in the 18th century, as a way to provide the empire's colonial troops in steamy India with rations of their beloved brew. Beer did not often survive the marked changes of climate on long trips to tropical destinations. Efforts to brew it aboard ship failed, and India lacked the moderate climate necessary, in those days before refrigeration, for successful brewing.

Ales of The Times (Eric Asimov)

Sidebar: If you click on the hypertext link for the article above on the NYTimes Dining In/Dining Out webpage, you can hear an audio online presentation given by Eric Asimov, Florence Fabricant, Amanda Hesser and Garrett Oliver, brewmaster of Brooklyn Brewery and author of "The Brewmaster's Table" (Ecco, 2003), on a selection of ales. Click on the box entitled "India Pale Ales: When Bitter Is Better" to begin the presentation.

For example, the females mate only when they are most at risk, after molting, and their flesh is jelly-like. The female seeks the most dominant male, who will greet her by standing on tiptoe and madly waving his swimmerets, the two little appendages on the lobster's underside where the tail meets the torso. The female lobster does a little dance and places her claws gently on his head, an act that scientists call knighting the male, before moving into her chosen's hideout.

The Secret Life Of Lobsters (Florence Fabricant)

Healthful Low-Carb Cookies... (Ginia Bellafante)

It was within Ms. Frankel's uptown circle that Bethenny Bakes got going. She had had a special events firm in Los Angeles and had run natural food restaurants in New York. While lying on a beach in East Hampton three years ago, she mentioned the cookie idea to a well-connected friend, who put her in touch with an investor, whom she nicknamed Keebler.

Recipes in today's section:

1. Spring Morel and Turnip Stew

2. Poached Rhubarb and Asparagus Salad

3. Custardy Rhubarb Pie

4. Brownies

Soba

SobaAddict70 · June 9, 2004

NYTimes Weekend Update

Friday, 4 June 2004 -- Sunday, 6 June 2004

Dining In/Dining Out Section and the Sunday Magazine

The menu runs to tricked-out versions of Americanized Mexican food: taquitos and chalupas, stuffed respectively with lobster, black bean and queso fresco; and charred mushroom and aged goat cheese. There's the requisite ceviche tasting, and shrimp tamales, and "hand-hacked" guacamole.

Ixta (Sam Sifton)

The letters, and occasionally the voice-mail messages, all expressed the same sentiment: How could you? In a world where millions of children go hungry, where famine haunts broad swaths of Africa and Asia, where the $200 spent on a bottle of Bordeaux could go far to alleviating a destitute family's misery -- how could you?

In Defense of Fine Dining (William Grimes)

Recipes in this weekend's section:

1. Millionaire's Pie

2. World Cocktail

In the 80's and 90's, Whole Foods opened up new branches and bought up other natural grocers, poured enormous resources into beautifying its store decor and established its quality standards. The company acted, in the words of one executive, as ''the editor'' for its customers, drawing a bright line between what is and is not a ''whole,'' or unadulterated, food.

Deconstructing Whole Foods... (Jon Gertner)

Soba

SobaAddict70 · June 18, 2004

NYTimes Weekly Update

Wednesday, 16 June 2004

Dining In/Dining Out Section

"To me," said Mr. Oliver, the brewmaster of Brooklyn Brewery, "beer and wine are both beverages meant to be served with food. And good beer, real beer, often offers things that most wine does not, like carbonation and caramelized and roasted flavors — aspects that sometimes make beer the preferable choice.

When The Right Wine Is Beer (Mark Bittman)

Sidebar: If you point your browser to the article's web page, you can hear Garrett Oliver, brewmaster of the Brooklyn Brewery, gives readers a virtual tour of the brewery. Click on the box entitled "A Tour of the Brooklyn Brewery" to begin the presentation.

His logic was this: He had roastable vegetables. He had tender lettuce. And back at the restaurant, he always keeps on hand a supply of romesco, the garlicky Catalan sauce, puréed with bread, almonds and ancho chilies. He would add the romesco to a vinaigrette for a great big summer salad, the kind, he said, you might serve at an outdoor luncheon with vegetables cooked ahead of time and copious amounts of crisp, cool wine.

The Chef: Peter Hoffman (Dana Bowen)

The Mexican version is lighter and brighter, I think, and seems a tad more versatile (the Italian salsa is used primarily on pasta). Both stretch the definition of sauce. Once, you would have called these preparations salads: a sauce was cooked, a sauce was smooth, a sauce was usually complicated. Fortunately, Americans' horizons have expanded, and we routinely throw fresh things like this together in 10 minutes.

Biodynamics, its advocates assert, maximizes the personality of a given plot of earth. Like a homeopathic doctor, a biodynamic farmer analyzes the land and determines what is out of balance. The aim is to turn the land into a self-sustaining, self-regulating habitat. "It's like removing kinks from a hose, so the highest potential of that property can be realized," said Mike Benziger of Benziger Family Winery, who began converting his Sonoma Mountain Estate to biodynamics in 1996.

DiPalo's Fine Foods -- A Tradition In And Of Itself (Alex Wichtel)

The Kobe beef, which comes from Texas, is so deeply flavorful that it almost makes you swoon, and if the $180 price tag on a seven-ounce fillet makes you stagger, you can order, instead, paper-thin ribbons of rib meat, which are $30. You cook the ribbons yourself, on a hot rock that a server brings to you. Then you dip them in a sesame sauce, a soy sauce or sea salt (the best choice), each of which fills a separate chamber of a series of gorgeous condiment plates.

Megu (Frank Bruni)

Franny's belongs to a new wave of pizzerias popping up in Italy and the States, where high quality ingredients, like house-cured meats and farmstead cheeses, elevate humble pies. Ms. Stephens and her husband, Andrew Feinberg — the chef in the Mets cap at the wood-burning brick oven — worked at Savoy in SoHo and spent a year in the Berkshires, making cheese and befriending farmers. Their menu is seasonal, changes daily and proclaims their ingredients' sustainable provenance.

Franny's (Dana Bowen)

Let's hear it for his way. In a city besotted by the blocklong Whole Foods in Chelsea and its gargantuan twin (60,000 square feet), which recently opened in the Time Warner Center; where the 125th Street exit to the expanded Fairway is backed up every weekend; where Citarella grows like Topsy, acquiring Rosedale Fish Market last month; and where the SoHo classic Dean & DeLuca has cloned itself all the way to Madison Avenue, DiPalo's is one of the last holdouts of a bygone era.

He has said he wants to recreate the original Le Cirque in the East 60's. Many customers have told Mr. Maccioni they preferred the original restaurant because of its location and cozier setting. Each restaurant had about 130 seats, but the original had only one room, not two like Le Cirque 2000.

Classic Le Cirque (Florence Fabricant)

NYC's Own FTV (Jennifer Steinhauer)

"What's Cooking at Gracie," the low-budget, cheerful offspring of NYC TV, the cable station run by the city, chronicles the culinary adventures of Feliberto Estévez, the chef at Gracie Mansion since 2002. He hopscotches his way through the city's ethnic enclaves in search of ingredients with his two sidekicks, a former Miss Virginia cum talk show host named Julie Laipply and a press aide to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Jordan Barowitz.

Letters

Recipes in today's section:

1. Summer Salad With Romesco Vinaigrette

2. Romesco Sauce

3. Goat Cheese and Apple Omelet

4. Pasta With Lobster, Chorizo and Peas

5. Spicy Crab Cakes

6. Guava Crème Brûlée

7. Grilled or Roast Salmon With Salsa Fresca

Soba

Abe Froman · July 8, 2004

Any chance you have last weeks available, Soba?

I made the grilled shrimp recipe last weekend, loved it, but can't find it on the site (their search stinks). Pretty sure I have it memorized, but wanted to make sure. For those who didn't see it, it's a buttermilk marinade with ginger/garlic/jolepeno(I threw in lemon basil and shallot as well), skewered with mango and finished with lime.

a great summer app.

SobaAddict70 · July 9, 2004

My apologies...I have not been updating the Times DIGEST on a regular basis as of late.

If someone would like to split the DIGEST duties with me, feel free to PM me.

Thank you and regards,

Soba

SobaAddict70 · July 14, 2004

NYTimes Weekly Update

Wednesday, 14 July 2004

A. Dining In/Dining Out Section

Consider these almost unheard-of restaurant prices: A bottle of 2003 sauvignon blanc from Cloudy Bay, the exceptional New Zealand winemaker, goes for $35 (it's $30 at Sherry-Lehmann). A 2002 Carneros pinot noir from Jed Steele, suggested retail price $18, sells for $24. How about a bottle of 2000 Swanson Alexis, a good Napa Valley Bordeaux blend? Sherry-Lehmann sells it for $48, Landmarc for $50.

The Chef: Peter Hoffman (Dana Bowen)

His bicycle basket overflowed with cherry tomatoes, two kinds of string beans, favas, garlic, herbs and purslane, a succulent weed that shoots up through cracks in sidewalks (though these were farm-born). Anchovies could make any of them a meal.

Now boneless, skinless breast has become the paradigm of white meat and the meat of choice for many Americans, a staple at every fast-food operation and national chain, where chicken breasts often appear in salads and pasta as well as main courses.

Resurgence Of Wild Salmon On Restaurant Menus (Marian Burros)

After rising for a decade, sales of farmed salmon have fallen, and the wild salmon industry, which had taken a beating in competition with lower-priced farmed fish, is experiencing a small rebound. In the first three months of 2004, imports of farmed salmon were down 10 million pounds, and total sales of farmed fresh fillets were down to $140 million from $158.1 million for the same period last year, according to Howard Johnson of H. M. Johnson and Associates, a market research firm in Jacksonville, Ore. Most farmed salmon sold in the United States comes from abroad.

If a chef believes that a steakhouse needs this much teasing, tweaking and tarting up — I will get to the décor momentarily — then why bother with the genre at all? (Boredom, perhaps. The chef here, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, has rummaged through so many other genres already.)
The V refers to Mr. Vongerichten, who has reached the kind of celebrity status that accommodates ellipticity. Just across Columbus Circle, only a few hundred feet from V Steakhouse, is one reason: the restaurant Jean Georges, his New York flagship, which soars on the strength of food, not frivolity.

V Steakhouse (Frank Bruni)

Many people assume that ramen means noodles, but noodles are only one component of the complete ramen dish. The noodles themselves are of the type called chukasoba, or Chinese-style soba noodles. Unlike soba noodles, which are made of buckwheat, curly chukasoba noodles are wheat and have a springy elasticity that lets them remain squiggly even when cooked.

Minca (Eric Asimov)

"Eighty percent fruit," he said proudly. Eighty percent or not, the result was incontestably fruity, with all the bright fragrance and flavor of the tobacco-box peaches, pesca tabacchiera, that he had used. The variety, grown on the volcanic slopes of nearby Mount Etna, looks like a gently squashed peach and resembles the snuffboxes that Sicilian gents carried when a pinch of snuff was a gentlemanly thing to take."

Sicilian Classics (Nancy Harmon Jenkins)

Chain or not, McMenamins is a bona fide regional phenomenon. Operating in western Oregon and Washington, it owns pubs and taverns, restaurants, music clubs, pub-theaters and even resorts. Many are in renovated old buildings or historic properties, made comfortable and inviting but with vintage character preserved.

When Is A Chain Not A Chain? (Christopher Hall)

But come next May, those who don't live next door to Nobu or Next Door Nobu need journey only to 40 West 57th Street, between Fifth Avenue and the Avenue of the Americas. That's where the Nobu owners — Mr. Matsuhisa, Robert De Niro, the restaurateur Drew Nieporent and others — plan to open Nobu 57, a two-level, nearly 13,000-square-foot, $6 million Midtown outpost for the chef's new-style Japanese cooking.

Nobu 57 (Mervyn Rothstein)

We can all thank Le Cirque for the omnipresence of crème brûlée, and many great chefs (Daniel Boulud and David Bouley, to name just two) have passed through its kitchen. But Maccioni divined, from an early age, that the restaurant business in New York is less about food than about entertainment. In a city hooked on status and power, celebrities are the ultimate entertainment. While celebrities enjoy a good meal (Ronald Perelman prefers his flounder ''burnt to perfection,'' according to Boulud), what they like best is close proximity to other celebrities.

The Secret Behind Le Cirque (Adam Platt)

I have been working at Hue, a Vietnamese restaurant and lounge in the West Village, since shortly after it opened last summer. From the beginning it was a hit with a young, fast crowd because of one of its owners, Karim Amatullah. He has been in the night life business for years, starting as a promoter and most recently as an owner of Halo. So many celebrities have been coming that we have grown selective. Once, Chad Lowe's assistant called and asked if he could have a table in the next hour. "Sorry," I said, "we're all booked."

The Hostess Diaries (Coco Henson Scales)

Recipes in today's section:

1. Anchovy Pistou

2. Cherry Tomato and Grilled Bread Salad

3. Goat Cheese Cake With Poached Sour Cherries

4. Spicy Roasted Chicken Thighs

5. Sautéed Chicken With Green Olives and White Wine

6. Baked Mustard-Herb Chicken Legs

7. Chicken Kebab, Turkish Style

Elsewhere in today's Times:

The Agriculture Department's new testing plan for mad cow disease, which calls for testing up to 220,000 cows by the end of 2005, is seriously flawed and will result in "questionable estimates" of the prevalence of the disease in the nation's cattle, according to a draft report by the department's inspector general.

Serious Flaws In Mad Cow Testing (Donald G. McNeil, Jr.)

Soba

SobaAddict70 · July 22, 2004

New York Times Weekly Update

Wednesday, 21 July 2004

Dining In/Dining Out Section

Eight of our top 10 wines came from the Dry Creek Valley, including our first 3, and the most striking characteristic of these top wines was their harmony and purity. Both our No. 1, the Rosenblum Rockpile Road, and the No. 2, the Ridge Lytton Springs, were full of classic zinfandel pleasures — big, smoky, spicy, concentrated fruit flavors — but they never felt hot or unwieldy. Sitting in our tasting room, surrounded by the beautiful garnet colors of these wines refracting the light, we could dream only of grilled sausages, rotisserie-roasted lamb and the like, which the wines would complement so well.

When The Quest For Local Vegetables Becomes An Odyssey Of Epic Proportions (Julia Moskin)

Sidebar: If you navigate your web browser to the NYTimes Dining In/Dining Out web page, you can hear an online audio presentation given by Eric Asimov, Florence Fabricant, Karen King (beverage director at Gramercy Tavern) and David Gordon (wine director at Tribeca Grill) on a selection of zinfandel wines from the Dry Creek Valley of Sonoma County, California. Click on the box entitled "Dry Creek Zinfandels" to begin the presentation.

No one doubts the value of getting fresh, seasonal, local produce to New Yorkers — and not just the ones who shop at farmers' markets. And there are innumerable ideas — large and small, current and projected — on how to do the job.
One key project would be the development of a wholesale farmers' market where supermarkets and bodegas could buy local produce at competitive prices.

Sidebar: If you point your web browser to the article, you can hear an audio presentation given by Julia Moskin that examines the article in depth. Click on the box entitled "Using the Greenmarket Model" to begin the presentation.

Click here for related discussion regarding the local food movement and controversy surrounding the New York City Greenmarket.

Maine lobsters, vastly more flavorful when eaten hours after they are caught than when held for days or weeks in murky tanks, have symbolized seafood luxury since the era of Diamond Jim Brady. New England oysters of impeccable quality are available year-round, thanks to the icy waters of the Northeast, in addition to seasonal treats like striped bass and the sweet little bay scallops from the Cape and Nantucket, which are equally delightful sautéed for a few moments or served raw, as seviche.

Boston Eats! (R.W. Apple, Jr.)

He said that he and his wife opened Ici so they could walk to work (they live a few blocks away), keep their 1- and 3-year-old sons underfoot and do things their own way. That way involves produce from nearby farms. It involves grass-fed beef from Arizona for the hanger steak, which is served in a terrific red wine and shallot sauce, and organic poultry for the roasted chicken, which comes with lemon-flavored couscous. It involves a comforting spaetzle appetizer with fresh corn, shards of dark chicken meat and tarragon.

Ici (Frank Bruni)

Click here to discuss the review or contribute your experiences.

The classic meze ("middle," as in middle of the day) like muhammara, a smoky roasted red pepper and walnut purée, and cacik, that timeless marriage of yogurt, garlic and cucumber (here given extra richness with superbly creamy, tart Turkish yogurt) are a great way to jump start your appetite.

Maia (Matt Lee and Ted Lee)

It turns out that grilling pieces of plum, nectarine and mango is not much different from searing any one of them face down in a ripping hot pan. The temperature rages but the pain is brief.
The grill is not intended to scar the fruit or fan its flesh with aromatic smoke. In fact, soft fruits do not really cook at all. Sprayed or brushed with grapeseed oil, they warm, soften and glow. Turn the seared halves carefully with tongs and let their backsides heat up. Paint their faces, toward the end, with a sweet, racy glaze, and they shine.

Fruit Packed With Conceptual Allure (Kay Rentschler)

One of my favorite midsummer stove-top dishes is a kind of ratatouille topped with a piece of fish. It is as natural a recipe as any I know: you cook any mixture of vegetables and herbs in olive oil until they are tender, then rest a piece of fish on the stew and steam it.

I used to use lemon juice and oil, along with some garlic and maybe a quartered onion, to marinate the chicken. But using buttermilk, instead, for the necessary acidic component (which ensures that the meat is tender), makes this chicken less Mediterranean and more down home. Buttermilk, which is usually associated with fried chicken, somehow conveys the aromatics better: you really get the full value of the rosemary, pepper and garlic. If you want to substitute maple syrup for the honey, you can.

Wine Pairings (Florence Fabricant)

Click here for related discussion involving roast chicken.

Ms. Chun chose green cardamom because it is the most aromatic variety of Elettaria cardamomum, a descendant of the ginger family indigenous to India and Sri Lanka, which is now grown for export in Guatemala. Its small pods and tight clusters of sticky seeds perfume baked goods, rice, coffee and spice blends across Middle and Far Eastern cuisines. Interestingly, Scandinavians use it, too, thanks to Viking traders and their adventurous appetites.

Temptation (Dana Bowen)

Recipe in this article: GRILLED SKIRT STEAK WITH MIXED PEPPERS

New Orleans Markets (Pableaux Johnson)

Recipes in today's issue:

1. Buttermilk Roast Chicken

2. Strawberry Sour Cream Streusel Cake

3. Grilled Mango With Sweet Sticky Rice Cakes and Pistachios

4. Grilled Nectarines With Cinnamon Toast and Berries

5. Grilled Plums With Star Fruit

6. Fish Steamed Over Vegetables and Fresh Herbs

Ms. Estes walked the maze of 20 or so market tables, looking at late-season Creole tomatoes, fresh yellow squash and the year's last crop of Louisiana blueberries. After quick negotiations with a vendor, she ripped a few slips from the book and traded them for two pints of the sweet berries.

Click here to discuss the article.

Each Saturday, Mr. Griffin wakes up at 3 a.m. to load his truck for the two-hour drive north from Watsonville, Calif. This week he brought with him 1,200 bunches of effulgent organic basil, which he stacked in a grand green pile on his table, hoping to attract customers through the overwhelming smell.

What New York's Greenmarkets Wish They Were (Elizabeth Weil)

Click here to discuss the article.

Soba

SobaAddict70 · August 26, 2004

New York Times Weekly Update

Wednesday, 25 August 2004

Dining In/Dining Out Section

They ask for Silver Queen, they rhapsodize about the milky sweetness of Silver Queen, they cheer for Silver Queen the way they cheer for the Baltimore Orioles and the Washington Redskins. But few if any of them actually eat Silver Queen, unless they grow it in their own backyards, because almost all farmers hereabouts stopped growing Silver Queen many years back.

When Silver Queen Grew Tall And Green (R.W. Apple, Jr.)

We like our "preserves" to be as alive in our kitchen as a fresh salsa, to consume in a few weeks. Since we treat these jars as fresh condiments and keep them refrigerated, we almost never perform the extra step of processing them in boiling water (as Grandma did to kill mold spores, a requirement for long-term storage), unless it's desirable to cook the fruits or vegetables gently in glass.

A Moment Of Perfection (Matt Lee and Ted Lee)

For this particular feat of culinary chiaroscuro, Mr. DeChellis had dreamed up a complementary pickle — red watermelon flesh bathed briefly in a brine of watermelon juice and rice-wine vinegar spiked with powdered sansho peppercorns, which smell pleasantly herbal, like hops, and taste like lime zest and tarragon.

The Chef (Matt Lee and Ted Lee)

Broadly known as yakitori, some of the skewers are practically unseasoned, like many other Japanese grilled foods: the salt-grilled fish served in many homes as a quick weeknight solution is a perfect example. But there is a whole and especially appealing subcategory of yakitori, known as kabayaki.

Where To Eat When The Party Comes To Town (Florence Fabricant)

"I think next week would be a good time for New Yorkers to dine out," said Phil Suarez, Jean-Georges Vongerichten's business partner. "The hot places will be jammed, but there still might be chances to get tables because people might cancel. Many other places may not be as busy."
If there is any category of restaurant to avoid, it is probably the steakhouse. In fact, those who are tempted to check out the new Capital Grille, which opened last week, would be advised to wait.

Mr. Neroni has done some globe-trotting, and his menus reflect the stamps in his passport. Both Japan and Spain are present in a foie gras appetizer, which has a sharp dashi broth around it and cabrales blue cheese on top. France appears in a pissaladière tart beside the scallop appetizer. Italy asserts its influence in the pesto on linguine and in the wildest of several unconventional desserts. It is a strawberry-flavored risotto with grated Grafton Cheddar and — like another dessert, a bay leaf panna cotta with fennel — tastes precisely as disconcerting as it sounds. The best dessert, alas, is the long-extant one: a warm chocolate cake with peanut butter ganache and vanilla ice cream.

71 Clinton Fresh Food (Frank Bruni)

When the space opened in his neighborhood last year, he built a bar-flanked open kitchen and shipped elaboratedly carved wood benches from West Africa, which now snake through the room. He named it Yolele, which means "let's play" in Fulani, the language of a nomadic tribe that travels through Senegal. Mr. Thiam's newest venture, Dakar, in Clinton Hill, will start serving soon.

Yolele (Dana Bowen)

Eating Well (Marian Burros)

In the previous five sets of guidelines, sugar consumption was addressed among the specific recommendations, which are what most people see. In 1980, it was, "Avoid too much sugar." In 2000, the guidelines said, "Choose beverages and foods to moderate your intake of sugar." But the same 2000 advisory committee also wrote: "There is no direct link between the trend toward higher intake of sugars and increased rates of obesity," and, "There is no consistent association between intake of total sugars and nutrient adequacy."

Max Bartoli, the chef who owns the diner with Pilar Rigon, will explain if asked. There are sagras for a million things — lasagna, grapes and watermelon, for instance — "for each item which each town is proud," he said. In Riccione, the Adriatic beach town where he spent summers growing up, August brings a sagra, when fishermen cook their catches. "You walk for 15 miles on the beach and get everything free," he said. "It's the most beautiful thing."

All About Sagras (Dana Bowen)

I carefully arranged the leeks, clenched my fingers in the appropriate manner and began to chop. The knife seemed perilously sharp, and my fingers suddenly seemed larger and more numerous than ever before. Robert came back in the kitchen, and I could feel him silently taking in my work, but did I detect a patronizing smile? In five minutes I had done what took him a few dozen seconds. The leeks bulked like jungle underbrush.

What Happens When Kitchen Fantasies Collide With Reality (Tom Vanderbilt)

Mr. Zambrana estimated his current attic inventory at 200 cases, saying that the station, which is open 24 hours a day, sells 20 to 40 cases a week. (Florida does not limit the hours when wine can be sold.) None of it — well, very little — is plonk. He said he cannot keep some stock in the store; the three cases of Cask 23 cabernet sauvignon from Stag's Leap Wine Cellars that recently came in were gone in less than 20 minutes, he said.

Pumping Regular, Decanting Premium (Manny Howard)

Letters

Recipes in today's section:

1. Grilled Chicken on Skewers

2. Seared Octopus With Watermelon Pickle

3. Peach Preserves

4. Green Tomato Chowchow

5. Brandied Plums

6. Dill Cucumber Slices

Soba

SobaAddict70 · September 1, 2004

NYTimes Weekly Update

Wednesday, 1 September 2004

A. Dining In/Dining Out Section

All articles referenced in this section of the Update can be found on the NYTimes Dining & Wine web page.

The menu will be revised seasonally, and, typical for Mr. Kunz, will include Asian influences. A blanquette de veau planned for the fall menu will be simmered in coconut milk, not cream. Shrimp will be dressed with a kaffir lime rémoulade. The restaurants in Vienna and in Eastern Europe he visited last year will also have an impact. Diners will find pumpkin oil, elderflower essence and house-cured sauerkraut on the menu, and the house white wine will be a grüner veltliner.

The Triumphant Return of Gray Kunz (Florence Fabricant)

Click here to discuss the article.

It's the terroir," said Norbert Breil, a grower in Lizac, just east of Moissac. "The chalky clay soil of the hillsides produces the best greengages."
To prove the point, he offered a ripe fruit with greenish-yellow skin speckled with carmine dots and tender golden flesh packed with distinctive honeyed flavor. I squeezed a drop of juice on my refractometer, a device for measuring sweetness, and it registered 30.5, almost off the scale.

A Rapturous Sweetness (David Karp)

As a result of the ban, the legal supply of Caspian caviar in the United States — the osetra, beluga and sevruga that sells for up to $3,000 a pound in the West — is likely to dry up once the 2003 harvest is consumed. Prices are already rising.

Worldwide Ban On Caviar (Christopher Pala and Florence Fabricant)

There are additional reasons, and some of them also appeared on our table that night. Surprisingly tender venison medallions — seared rare, which is the restaurant's recommendation — were ennobled by an accompanying reduction of crème de cassis. Dover sole meunière was precisely as moist, lemony and buttery as it should be.

LCB Brasserie Rachou (Frank Bruni)

Click here to discuss the review or contribute your own experiences.

The menu is large enough to cover the familiar territory, like chicken tikka masala and its ilk, and a handful of more unusual and rewarding options. Be certain to order appetizers: they are among Angon's best offerings and it will take longer than you anticipate for the kitchen to turn out the main courses.

Angon on the Sixth (Peter Meehan)

It is so good, in fact, that the little cellophane bag of the cookies that I bought last winter on my way to Barolo disappeared before I got there. They were unlike anything I had tasted: purplish-gray in color, they had a buttery, nutty, almost smoky flavor, with a slight caramel bitterness.

Pizzoccheri (Melissa Clark)

The salmon owes something to trout with almonds, the famous French dish, but in this case the fish is a beautiful coral salmon baked in the oven. The fish is filleted when it is done, and served with a scant saucing of lemony butter and a scattering of toasted almonds. No frying is involved, and the tone and taste is, over all, much lighter than the French original.

Supermarkets commonly sell roasts with four to seven ribs (there are twelve ribs in all). Usually three or four ribs will serve at least six. More ribs mean better-tasting meat, but more important than the number of ribs is the meat's quality. If you can find and afford it, look for meat graded "prime" (few supermarkets have it). "Choice" meat (what you usually get in a supermarket) is more than acceptable, but "good" meat is so lean that the whole point will be lost.

Changing of the (Food) Guard (Marian Burros and Rozanne Gold)

Succeeding the French-born Roland Mesnier as pastry chef will be Thaddeus R. DuBois, who despite his French name was born in California and raised in Idaho.

Mr. Schwartz, in an interview on Monday, said his integrity as a journalist had been compromised but refused to be any more specific: "I think I should only say we had a disagreement and decided that it would be best for me to leave."

Arthur Schwartz No More (Frank J. Prial)

Consider the red wines of St.-Joseph and Crozes-Hermitage in the northern Rhone Valley of France. Those wines are not royalty; in the northern Rhone that status is reserved for Côte-Rôtie and Hermitage. But in a sampling of 24 wines from St.-Joseph and Crozes-Hermitage, two decidedly middle-class regions, the Dining section's wine panel found wines that, with their smoky, meaty aromas and particularly in their balance of herbal, fruit and spice flavors, were instantly identifiable as northern Rhones.

When The Line Between Problem And Solution Becomes Blurry (Dale Buss)

Sidebar: If you point your browser to the Times Dining & Wine web page, you can hear an audio online presentation given by Eric Asimov, Florence Fabricant, Bernard Sun (sommelier at Montrachet) and Chris Goodhart (wine director at Balthazar and other Keith McNally restaurants in New York City) on a selection of northern Rhone Valley wines. Click on the box entitled "Wines of the Times: Middle Class Heroes" to begin the presentation.

Recipes in today's section:

1. Salmon With Thyme, Lemon Butter and Almonds

2. Chocolate Raspberry Shortcake

3. Grilled Roast Beef

4. Buckwheat Cookies

B. Elsewhere in today's Times....

Frito-Lay is offering reduced-fat Doritos in school lunch rooms. Oscar Mayer has added apple sauce and other healthy choices to its Lunchables meal-kit line. Kraft has come out with a sugarless Kool-Aid that is being marketed in magazines like Diabetic Cooking and Diabetes Forecast.

James Johnson, a former Windows employee who has been serving mojitos and hors d'oeuvres at Noche, never shares how he could not work for nearly a year afterward. Ahad Ahmed, another Windows veteran at the buffet, keeps to himself the memory of a colleague's little girl crying - oh was she crying - because daddy wasn't coming home.

Memories of the 107th Floor

Soba

SobaAddict70 · September 9, 2004

New York Times Weekly Update

Wednesday, 8 September 2004

All articles for this week's update can be found on the New York Times' Dining & Wine web page.

Soba

==============

Along with ashtrays in the teachers lounge and dodge ball, the days of the homemade bag lunch seem to be numbered, as school cafeteria meals become more sophisticated and as pressure on working moms and dads cuts into precious morning hours.
At the same time, ready-to-eat meals with slick packaging beckon from grocery store shelves, as irresistible to youngsters as an astronaut's dinner designed by Willy Wonka. Even the bag-lunch-child's best friend — the peanut butter and jelly sandwich — is on the decline, as many American schools move to ban peanut products, out of concern for the nut-allergic.

The Bag Lunch That Never Left (Matt Lee and Ted Lee)

The jicama was sensational, so packed with moisture and so faintly sweet that it could have been a new, undiscovered fruit, and the cilantro and avocado that came with it were like idealized essences of themselves, so flavorful that they seemed to have been cultivated in a more verdant universe.

Per Se (Frank Bruni)

Click here to discuss the review or contribute your experiences.

Bonus: If you navigate your web browser to the Dining & Wine web page, you can hear an audio online presentation given by Mr. Bruni on Per Se.

One Thursday, with the place packed as usual, our waiter cut gracefully through the crowded tables, displayed our branzino with a flourish and offered to fillet it. Yes, we said. Fish held high, he melted back into the throng. In an instant later he was tableside with the branzino bisected and displayed on separate plates. Nice moves.
Filleted, it proved to be even better than it looked whole; it was firm-bodied yet light, like a fine Dover sole with more assertive flavors.

Extra Virgin (Frank J. Prial)

The tropical barbecue stand produced what it dubbed a tamarind pork sandwich, although neither I nor a friend could detect that seasoning. Falafel from another stand was mushy and dreary, but no matter: it came with an advertised choice of spicy harissa or coriander-cardamom dressing. A Mexican "ensalada del mar" featured, in addition to halibut, roasted pepitas and a cilantro-pepita dressing. All of this was spelled out on the wordy menus. We are all recipe-compulsive now, intent on ingredient-by-ingredient specificity.

Gourmet Food At The U.S. Open (Frank Bruni)

Besides a great burger, and some borrowed electricity for our R.V., we also got a great recommendation for our next stop from our waitress, Teresa Karpowecz. When you get to St. Louis, she said, go to O'Connell's, an Irish pub with the best burger in town. Not surprisingly, St. Louis, credited with inventing the modern-day hamburger at the 1904 World's Fair, had the best burger scene of the places we visited.
"Ask for it with a side of au jus sauce," she encouraged.
The ground sirloin burger au jus — and you have to ask for it that way — proved to be one of the best burgers we encountered.

In Search Of The Great American Burger (Nic Covey and John Hammond)

At three Wegmans stores in New Jersey, customers use an A.T.M.-like touch screen to find wines by country, grape variety, price and other criteria. Each unit has a bar code reader and a built-in printer. Buyers curious about wines can scan in the code, read the text on the screen and print it.

Wine Goes Digital (Sam Perkins)

I attended a Rosh Hashana dinner at the home of the Israeli ambassador in Washington. At the center of the table were two bowls, one filled with apples and the other with pomegranates. At each place setting was a plate with a plump fresh date.
David Ivry, the ambassador at the time, picked up the apple, then the date, and said the traditional prayer over the fruit, which represents the harvest. He asked each of his guests to take a bite, first of an apple, then the date, one of seven fruits of the earth mentioned in Deuteronomy.

Global Rosh Hashanah (Joan Nathan)

Mr. DeChellis had just arrived by skateboard at Sumile in the West Village, where he is chef, bearing snow peas, English peas, pea sprouts, and an impressive mix of local leaves from the Union Square Greenmarket. He was making Sumile's house salad: julienned snow peas, lettuces and sprouts. This he would toss with his solution to the loud dressing problem, a refined radish-based "water," inspired by an early memory of a white rabbit eating a path through his mother's garden in Clinton, N.J.

The Chef (Matt Lee and Ted Lee)

The first integrates the cooked tomatoes with pasta, good olive oil and, of course, basil. I've added at different times a little minced garlic, chopped or puréed olives, a bit of dried red chili flakes or freshly grated Parmesan. I add these singly, not in combination, because this is a situation in which you don't want to sully the tomatoes' flavor.

Ketchup Politics (Andrew Bushell)

Bush Country Ketchup was first sold in April by two 26-year-old former college roommates. Two months later, a group of friends from the Upper East Side came out with W Ketchup, which has been more of the media darling of the two products.
In fact, W was sold at the Republican National Convention's G.O.P. Marketplace last week, while Bush Country Ketchup was banned.
The reason? A labeling issue: Bush Country Ketchup's label sports an elephant trampling John Kerry.

Recipes in Wednesday's update:

1. Prosciutto, Havarti and Apple Sandwich

2. Cold Udon Noodles With Carrots and Egg

3. Tunisian Artichoke and Orange Compote

4. Chicken-Stuffed Figs, Onions and Eggplants in Tamarind Sauce

5. Georgian Chicken in Pomegranate and Tamarind Sauce

6. Moroccan Beet Salad

7. Lettuce, Sprouts and Snow Peas With Radish Water

8. Grilled Tomatoes and Scrambled Eggs, Chinese-Style

SobaAddict70 · September 17, 2004

New York Times Weekly Update

Wednesday, 15 September 2004

Dining In/Dining Out Section

All articles in this week's update can be found on the Dining & Wine web page.

Soba

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We were stunned by the sweet, magically tender shrimp, cooked on a wooden skewer, and the ruddy scampi, which were so plump they could almost have passed for baby lobsters.
They were rockets of flavor intensity that scored direct hits with us both. The young waiter told us why: "They were alive when they came in this morning, and they're barely cooked — two or three minutes on the grill, depending on size."

Meals Fit For Poseidon's Table (R.W. Apple, Jr.)

While I was busy pushing foie gras around my plate at fancy French restaurants, a culinary movement was gathering force, a coalition of food journalists, cookbook writers and television chefs in pursuit of a single goal: putting a respectable meal on the table in 30 minutes or less. Not so long ago in these pages Pierre Franey addressed the same audience of harried home cooks in a column called The 60-Minute Gourmet. Like the four-minute mile, that standard now seems almost quaint. Thirty is the new 60.

Thirty Is The New 60 (William Grimes)

Click here to discuss the article.

For instance, my mother made ratatouille endlessly when I was a child: there was always a pot of it either on the stove or in the fridge. I have always cooked it the way she did. This week it suddenly occurred to me that I did not have to mimic her methods exactly, comforting though that is. I decided to make a change.
Adding some butternut squash may not seem revolutionary to you, but it made the dish come alive in a wonderful way: the ratatouille tasted familiar, the way it should, but this new ingredient bolstered it sweetly and substantially.

Another night our meal started with a Lilliputian bowl of pickled vegetables in a cold miso broth and along with it a broiled rectangle of tofu with a pinprick of wasabi on top. Again, so simple. Again, so good.
If the lengthy list of daily specials includes oysters, order them. The Kumamoto oysters that several friends and I had one night were first-rate.

Donguri (Frank Bruni)

Click here to discuss the review or contribute your own experiences.

Uminoie serves an idiosyncratic blend of food cooked in the style of Goto Island, west of Nagasaki, where Ms. Tanaka grew up, and in the style of Ms. Okui's mother, who is from Tokyo. Goto's cuisine is distinguished by the use of ago-dashi, a broth made by briefly simmering dried flying fish, in lieu of ichiban-dashi, the dried bonito and kelp stock commonly used in Japanese cooking.

Uminoie (Peter Meehan)

Click here for related discussion regarding little-known Japanese restaurants in New York City.

The cooking is the work of a moment, involving nothing more than the crab meat, a fair amount of garlic, good olive oil, perhaps a chili or two. For technique, just be sure to turn off the heat when the garlic turns "blond" rather than brown. If you like, you can add a cup or so of cherry (or grape) tomatoes as soon as the garlic colors; continue to cook until the tomatoes collapse. And don't cook the crab meat because it was cooked before picking; just warm it up.

Summer Fruit Showcase (Kay Rentschler)

Bits and Pieces

A crostata, a free-form Italian version of the French galette or croustade, is a low-rise tart, large or small. No stays or straps required. Roll it out, fill it up, crimp it over and slide it into a blazing oven.
This means freedom from blind baking with pie weights or beans; freedom from the forced symmetry of arranged fruit slices and glazed maquillage. A crostata is light and unencumbered, the perfect showcase for late summer fruit.

You probably know of montepulciano d'Abruzzo, the rustic, inexpensive red wine that is often confused with vino nobile di Montepulciano, a Tuscan red wine of a different caliber. In fact, as we learned, Abruzzi may have something more to offer than the fruity cheap stuff, which itself can be a pretty good thing, by the way.

Sidebar: If you navigate your web browser to the Dining & Wine web page, you can hear an audio online presentation given by Eric Asimov, Florence Fabricant, Christopher Cannon (owner and wine director of L'Impero) and Albano Ballerini (chef and owner of Aliseo, in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn) on a selection of Italian Adriatic red wines. Please click on the box entitled "Wines of the Times" to begin the presentation.

Recipes in this week's update:

1. Pasta With Braised Lamb Shank Ragú

2. Peppered Rib-Eye Steaks With Watercress

3. Salmon With Lime Herb Butter

4. Glazed Onions

5. Caramelized Peaches

6. Seasoned Tuna Steaks

7. Ratatouille With Butternut Squash

8. Herbed Couscous

9. Pasta With Crab

SobaAddict70 · October 25, 2004

New York Times Weekend Update

Friday, 22 October 2004 -- Sunday, 24 October 2004

A. Dining In/Dining Out Section and the Sunday Magazine

Today, at $75 it is one of the pricier Long Island wines, and on Monday, some 37 12-bottle cases remained at the winery. Even if Macari's tasting room restricted sales to one bottle per customer, this deeply ruby-colored, sophisticated wine would become a memory fairly soon. Alexandra, named for the wife of Joseph Macari Jr., and co-owner of the estate with him, is more ingratiating than before. It seems less sumptuous but more elegant. Properly stored, this wine has five years of life left.

Grocery Lists As Culture (Amanda Hesser)

For the past decade, Bill Keaggy, 33, the features photo editor at The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, has been collecting grocery lists and since 1999 has been posting them online at www.grocerylists.org. The collection, which now numbers more than 500 lists, is strangely addictive.

Recipe:

Potato Salad with Sweet Pickles

B. Elsewhere in this weekend's Times...

The agreement applies only to beef products from cows younger than 20 months. It is to be reviewed next July, and American officials hope the age limit will be lifted later next year.

Japan To Resume Importing American Beef (Todd Zaun)

Mr. Vongerichten, whose restaurants include Jean Georges and Spice Market, owns a seventh-floor condo in the southernmost of the two Richard Meier buildings on Perry Street, at West Street. (Mr. Meier also designed the interior of 66.) Ms. Lenz said the Perry Street apartment is almost ready and Mr. Vongerichten expects to move in next month. The chef also has plans for a restaurant in the Perry Street complex, but a spokesman said it was not yet known when it will open.

Jean Georges' New Digs (William Neuman)

Click here to discuss the article.

Soba

SobaAddict70 · November 5, 2004

New York Times Weekly Update

Wednesday, 3 November 2004

In several weeks of immersing ourselves in Astoria, we found the dining scene to be diversifying further. There's the retro-hip Cup, but also among the new restaurants are traditional French, Asian fusion, American steakhouse, nuevo Latino and even a place or two that puts a fresh spin on Greek cuisine. Restaurateurs say they're adapting to the latest wave of new arrivals: Ex-Manhattanites and Brooklynites priced out of those boroughs. And though there are signs of gentrification that might be familiar to residents of Fort Greene or Smith Street, the aroma of grilled lamb still drifts down side streets, and night owls still duck into Uncle George's for after-hours spanakopita. For now, the new restaurants are making the pattern of Astoria's culinary quilt crazier than ever.

Where Style Reigns In The Restaurant Calculus (Matt Lee and Ted Lee)

I have not changed; it's the wine. In small but sure ways, California chardonnay is inching back from an extravagant, overwhelming style that was as subtle as a two-by-four over the head. Instead, a small group of winemakers are moving toward leaner, purer styles that emphasize the more delicate flavors of the chardonnay fruit and the fine-spun qualities of the vineyards from which the grapes came, rather than the brass-band sound effects that can be layered onto a wine in the cellar.

The other compromise is the ricotta. Mr. Carsberg is able to get fresh ricotta made from sheep's milk, and the stuff is delicious; one is in danger of eating it all, with a spoon, before cooking with it. I haven't readily found such good ricotta, but any high-quality ricotta will produce delicious dumplings. Look for it in a good cheese store or reputable Italian market, rather than in a supermarket; the industrial, plastic-packed ricotta is not a whole lot different from cottage cheese.

The Chef (Mark Bittman)

Critic's Notebook (Frank Bruni)

And so on the early October night when Mary explained her butchering methods, I ate not only bear but also bowhead whale. I tasted boiled whale blubber, with a shameful result I will reveal shortly. I nibbled on dried bearded seal.

I ordered that roasted duck salad on two occasions, rationalizing that I was performing a vital check of the restaurant's consistency and almost believing my argument. The truth: I was wild about this dish, and only partly because the ribbons of duck were more tender and flavorful than meat at many similarly inexpensive Asian restaurants, which tend to stint on the quality of flesh. What struck me even more forcefully were the variety and coordination of vegetables, herbs, spices and accents in the salad.

Sripraphai (Frank Bruni)

Click here to discuss the restaurant or contribute your experiences.

Click here to discuss the review or contribute your opinions about Mr. Bruni's style of reviewing.

Salads were overdressed one night, but they are beside the point: no one goes to Austrian restaurants to load up on vegetables. That is why the eggplant terrine, layers of roasted eggplant interspersed with sweet red pepper capped with a half-inch-thick layer of creamy goat cheese, was such a surprise. We ordered it with clinical disinterest and finished it with gusto, forks stabbing across the table to get the last bite. The other charcuterie — a house-made country pâté and a dense, buttery chicken terrine, with cranberry compote — are just as good.

Thomas Beisl (Peter Meehan)

Shea Gallante, the chef of Cru in Greenwich Village, said that lovage tastes like "a super-concentrated celery — like celery with a punch, like celery on steroids." He added a caveat: "You've got to be careful using it. Too much can make a dish go from dead on to dead wrong."

An Herb In Celery's Clothing (Melissa Clark)

When Fresh Isn't A Selling Point (David Karp)

Traditionally our neighbors made it by cooking down late-season fruits in homemade red wine to form a rich, dense jam. In Italy apples, pears and quinces would have been the favorites; in New England we added cranberries. Ms. Maiolini still makes savor by a lengthy process that involves cooking the ripe fruit for seven days. ("That's how my mother made it," she said. "It has to be made that way.")

A Fruit Butter Called Savor (John F. Carafoli)

Restaurant Sampler

1. Butternut Squash Soup with Chestnut Dumplings

Recipes in today's section:

2. Savor

3. German Potato Salad with Lovage

4. Prosecco and Lovage Cocktail

5. Broiled Chicken with Piquillo-Tomato Sauce

Soba

SobaAddict70 · November 10, 2004

New York Times Wednesday Update

Wednesday, 10 November 2004

A. Dining In/Dining Out Section

"Ramen?" you ask. "That plastic-wrapped block of dry noodles and powdered soup?" But freshly made ramen is another thing altogether. In Japanese ramenyas (ramen shops) a bowl of ramen holds a house-made soup, springy noodles, the chef's own tare (a mix of soy sauce, sugar and rice wine to flavor the soup) and exactly six traditional toppings. The wait at top Tokyo ramenyas can be up to three hours.

Ramen, Ramen Everywhere (Julia Moskin)

Sidebar: If you navigate your web browser to the New York Times’ web page, you can hear an online audio presentation given by Julia Moskin regarding ramenya restaurants in New York City. Click on the box entitled “Ramen in New York” to begin the presentation.

Sidebar: Below is a list of ramenya restaurants in New York.

CHIKUBU, 12 East 44th Street, (212) 818-0715. Ramen on Fridays and Saturdays.

HONMURA AN, 170 Mercer Street (Houston Street), (212) 334-5253.

MINCA, 536 East Fifth Street; (212) 505-8001.

MOMOFUKU, 163 First Avenue (10th Street); (212) 475-7899.

NOOCH, 143 Eighth Avenue (17th Street); (212) 691-8600.

ONIGASHIMA, 43-45 West 55th Street; (212) 541-7145.

RAI RAI KEN, 214 East 10th Street; (212) 477-7030.

SAPPORO, 152 West 49th Street; (212) 869-8972.

SOBA-YA, 229 East Ninth Street; (212) 533-6966.

SOBA NIPPON, 19 West 52nd Street; (212) 489-2525.

With more than 20 years of hunting down holiday gifts and thinking there can't be another next new thing, I'm always surprised when something turns up. This year it is fresh Alaskan king salmon in the middle of December, rice pudding for the inner child in every grown-up and a $20 gadget that makes foam out of skim milk.

Surfing For Gifts On The Internet (Marian Burros

And this is the time of year to return to it: those lovely warming casseroles that are not the province of the high-end restaurant chef. In a way, though, we are more confident now. We don't have to go by the book, laying out a spread that would be identical to that cooked in small villages in France. So a coq au vin doesn't need to be made the traditional way, and dessert can be a sort of amalgamation. French toast is, in fact, American, though it owes something to the pain perdu of France, and is a perfect finale to a wintry dinner.

The Minimalist (Mark Bittman

A stalwart part of that repertory is baked ziti, basically a short-cut lasagna, with fewer ingredients and less hassle. You make a tomato sauce, toss it with mostly cooked pasta and a load of mozzarella, and bake it. A staple of potluck dinners, a pound of pasta treated this way will serve at least six people.

Both soba and udon noodles are often served topped with tempura (fried vegetables or fish), but some New York restaurants are serving tempura separately. "Our American customers want the tempura to stay crispy," said Satoru Chida, the chef at Onigashima. "But Japanese like it both ways, paripari" — crisp — "and yawara kai," or soft and gooey.

Japanese Noodle Magic (Julia Moskin)

A new generation of coffee makers promises just that, in record time. The at-home brownie frappuccino remains a distant goal, but several machines now on the market serve up espressos and frothy coffees at the touch of a button. Some take their cue, and their price points, from the nearly professional-grade machines that companies like Rancilio, Capresso and Saeco introduced to the market in the late 1990's. Others take dead aim at the Mr. Coffee consumer ready for an upgrade.

In Search Of The Perfect Cuppa (William Grimes)

More muscular than spaghetti, less clumsy than fettucine, bucatini has a split-the-difference appeal all its own, so the dish starts on a propitious note. Then the music swells with a pesto that pairs pignoli with Sicilian pistachios, giving the whole production a heightened, deepened nuttiness. Fagiolini lend a bouncy beat; toasted bread crumbs rumble in. A rich, riveting symphony is born.

Tempo (Frank Bruni)

Peruvian cooks have a way with rotisserie birds, thanks to the country's Chinese immigrants, who introduced exotic spice blends to the local larder. Here, the chicken is tongue-numbing, marinated in sticky-sweet dark beer, then rubbed with garlic, oregano and fennel, and roasted to a blackened crisp and juicy underneath.

Mancora (Dana Bowen)

The wines for this tasting were generously provided by Bill Plotch and Jim Smyth, Burgundy lovers who had amassed a wealth of 90's and were eager to try them in a congenial setting. That meant outside of the usual clinical tasting arena of harsh lighting and spit buckets. Instead, they arranged for the wines to be served with dinner at Le Périgord, a dignified French restaurant on the East Side of Manhattan. The menu called for 13 wines with four courses, and to insure that not a glass was wasted, a group of 12 was assembled, including my colleague, Frank J. Prial; Daniel Johnnes, wine director of Montrachet restaurant in TriBeCa; Geri Tashjian, an owner of the Burgundy Wine Company in Chelsea; and Douglas Polaner, a wine importer.

2. Cinnamon Plums With French Toast

Recipes in today’s DIGEST:

1. Coq Au Riesling

3. Baked Ziti

B. Elsewhere in the Times…

By Monday's chilly dawn, nearly 60 men and ladies had formed a line on West 31st Street that snaked toward nearby Pennsylvania Station. Some slouched along the building's brickface, eyes rheumy, coats inadequate. Others chatted around their shared need of food, but never about it. Everyone waited for the 7 o'clock tolling of the church bell, which announces the first Mass of the weekday, but is interpreted by some as the moment when a certain side door will open.

Our Daily Bread (Dan Barry)

When Hakan Swahn, the owner of Aquavit, began looking for a new home for his renowned restaurant two years ago, he was determined to find space that was within a five-minute walk of its longstanding home at 13 West 54th Street.
In just a few weeks, Mr. Swahn had four attractive offers, and next month Aquavit is scheduled to reopen at a larger, sleeker and better-laid-out site at 65 East 55th Street. The restaurant's current location has little street exposure and insufficient kitchen space. It is moving to the ground floor of a modern office tower, with an enviably long storefront, a larger bar and a private dining room. Mr. Swahn, meanwhile, will pay about 30 percent less in rent.

Aquavit’s New Home (Sana Siwolop)

Soba

SobaAddict70 · December 8, 2004

NY Times Weekly Update

Wednesday, 8 December 2004

A. Dining In/Dining Out Section

Tamaya were like falafel: densely spongy dumplings, or really cakes, of chickpea and fava bean. They were also an excuse to use more of the restaurant's terrific bread and tahini, building blocks for a satisfying appetizer sandwich. Other standout starters included a baked bell pepper stuffed with rice and — more surprising — Egyptian crab cakes, packed with sweet meat.

Casa la Femme North (Frank Bruni)

Click here to discuss the restaurant or contribute your experiences.

Maggie Brown is at her best during weekend brunch, when the sun streams in through the windows and the kitchen turns out fluffy stacks of pancakes and sizable omelets...If you are Southern, as many of my dining companions were, you will want your own order of the popover biscuits with raspberry compote....

Maggie Brown (Dana Bowen)

In the spring of 1960, as I turned the typewritten pages of a huge tome on French cooking written by a Smith College graduate named Julia Child along with her French cohorts, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, I couldn't contain my delight at what I was reading.

What Makes A Good Cookbook? (Judith Jones)

Sidebar bonus: If you navigate your web browser to this article's web page, you can hear an online audio presentation on Julia Child. Click on the box entitled "Remembering Julia Child" to begin the presentation.

When Marcella Hazan comes to New York, Italian food is not uppermost on her mind.
She teaches it, of course, as she did recently at the French Culinary Institute. And she eats plenty of it, at the ceremonial meals honoring her role as perhaps the premier interpreter of Italian cuisine for Americans. She talks about it nonstop, especially these days with the publication of her sixth book, "Marcella Says," (Harper Collins, $29.95), an outpouring of her classroom thoughts and advice.
But whenever she gets a chance to break away from the risottos and braised veal, she and her husband, Victor, eat Chinese.

When Marcella Eats Chinese (William Grimes)

"It is a normal family meal," Ms. Bastianich said, but then allowed that a simple soup likely would have taken the place of the unusual layered polenta dish, a mixture of yellow and buckwheat polenta with savoy cabbage, bacon and mushrooms. After all, there were eight other dishes, including turkey cutlets.

Meals at Casa Bastianich (Marian Burros)

Salt fish is given an initial blanching or soaking to rehydrate it and to remove excess salt, then cooked with peppers and onions. It flakes into a salty-sweet-spicy mixture that, when sandwiched between sliced halves of johnnycake and drizzled with Matouk's, makes a wonderful breakfast. I think so, anyway. Squeezed in between boisterous locals, I find eating the sandwich to be a moment of near-perfect happiness.

The Food Capital of the Carribean (Anthony Bourdain)

We were drawn to Calvados partly for seasonal reasons; its warmth seems to insulate the spirit as daylight diminishes and the temperature drops. But we were curious, too, about the state of Calvados today. As with many categories of spirits, Calvados has moved toward the high end in search of connoisseurs who seek out the best, whatever it might cost. Yet, like rare and expensive rums and tequilas, which after years of aging in oak barrels can take on sweet, caramel flavors that smother their individual traits, the character of Calvados does not always lend itself to the most expensive treatment.

Spirits of the Times (Eric Asimov)

Sidebar: If you navigate your web browser to the article's web page, you can hear an online audio presentation given by Eric Asimov, Florence Fabricant, Garrett Oliver (brewmaster of the Brooklyn Brewery) and Dale DeGroff (author of "The Craft of the Cocktail" (Clarkson Potter, 2002)) on a selection of Calvados. Click on the box entitled "Wines of the Times" to begin the presentation.

Two Century Old Scotch (Sarah Doyle Lacamoire)

"Our food is very unique to the area, so everyone really embraces it," Jackie Thomson, the cafe's manager, said recently. "We found there to be a real demand for this sort of thing."

Recipe: Ricotta Pudding

Add a splash of Calvados as you deglaze the pan in which you sauté pork chops and apples to transfer the essence of apple to the sauce. Use it to spike the drift of whipped cream or crème fraîche that glorifies your apple tart.
I often start a choucroute garnie by sautéing apples with onions and stirring in a little apple brandy to deepen the flavor.

2. Cranberry and White Chocolate Cookies

Recipe: Apple Bread Pudding with Calvados Sauce

Recipes in today's issue:

1. Chocolate Guinness Cake

SobaAddict70 · December 8, 2004

New York Times Weekly Update

Wednesday, 8 December 2004 (continued)

B. A Pride of Cookbooks

Mr. Schwartz is a native New Yorker who spent a long spell as a food editor and writer at Newsday and The New York Daily News as well as at WOR radio. That background accounts for the book's journalistic sensibility, which mixes with the persona he developed as the outspoken and sometimes cranky host of a talk show devoted to food.

Chasing The Elusive Egg Cream (Kim Severson)

The menus, arranged by season, are simple, with two well-balanced courses in each. In summer, black bean and zucchini quesadillas are followed by chilled cucumber soup with mint. In winter, green apple and celery salad with walnuts is a crunchy and piquant foil for kasha with root vegetables and mushrooms.

For The Vegetarian In All Of Us (Denise Landis)

The book is named for Mr. Keller's bistros in Las Vegas and in Yountville, Calif., but its viewpoint is more general. A paean to bistro cooking from Mr. Dégustation himself may be the best book ever about bistros and bistro food. The text reveals the chef's deep, technical understanding of basic soul-warming bistro cooking, and what goes into elevating it to the culinary masterpieces that are more often dreamed of than tasted.

Food Fantasyland, In Spades (Florence Fabricant)

Each of the carefully explained recipes — for such gems as chicken with olives and preserved-lemon sauce; zucchini with gremolata; and wild rice with mushrooms, cranberries and walnut oil — provides suggested pairings with other dishes in the book, with interesting variations and often with suggestions for what Mr. Portale calls flavor building: adding an extra fillip to make the flavor more intense or change it slightly.

From A Professional, With Love (Marian Burros)

She offered a crash course in tactile education and gave home bakers a feel for soft, sticky doughs and a taste for bread with a big, open crumb and shattering crust. These weren't just favorite recipes: they were a collection that reflected the range and rewards of an American movement toward bread baking as an artisan craft.

A Bread For Every Basket (Kay Rentschler)

In trying not to scare anyone, Mr. Smith suggests some unnecessary shortcuts like using salad dressing mix instead of dried herbs and keeps ingredient lists short. But the recipes I tried, including a Greek lamb salad and cauliflower and Parmesan soup, are functional and tasty. The book's best innovation is plus-size master recipes called "Kitchen Workhorses," like Italian pot roast or a seven-pound pork loin that are repurposed into other dishes.

One Pot Wonders (Julia Moskin)

Interview With The Prince of Tides (Richard Sandomir)

Amanda Hesser, the food editor of The New York Times Magazine, is compiling a New York Times cookbook to be published in 2007 by W. W. Norton & Company.

Readers' Recipes Revealed

C. Elsewhere in today's Times...

Despite an overall increase in the world's wealth, the United Nations' food and agriculture agency says in a report to be released Wednesday that after a slow but steady decrease, the number of chronically hungry people rose to nearly 852 million in its latest survey, an increase of 18 million since 2000. At least five million children are now dying from hunger every year.

Food Inequality The World Over (Elizabeth Becker)

The states' central argument, presented by Solicitor General Thomas L. Casey of Michigan and Solicitor General Caitlin J. Halligan of New York, was that the 21st Amendment gave states such blanket authority over the "importation" of alcohol as to trump the constitutional principle that applies everywhere else in the national marketplace: that states cannot discriminate in favor of their own products.

Supreme Court Roundup (Linda Greenhouse)

Soba

SobaAddict70 · January 13, 2005

New York Times Weekly Update

Wednesday, 12 January 2005

Dining In/Dining Out Section

Crisp, mineral-laden whites, made from grapes that can be traced back to ancient Greece, belie the image of Italian white wines as mere thirst quenchers. Fascinating reds are being produced from grapes so obscure they cannot be found in even the latest wine guides. Most important, though, are the fine red wines made from aglianico (pronounced ah-lee-ahn-EE-co), another grape with origins in ancient Greece.

A Mix Of The Ancient And The Modern In Italy (Eric Asimov)

Aglianico Wines of Campania and Basilicata (Eric Asimov)

Sidebar: If you navigate your web browser to Mr. Asimov's column, you can hear an online audio presentation given by Mr. Asimov, Florence Fabricant, David Lynch (wine director at Babbo) and Chris Goodhart (wine director at Balthazar), on a selection of aglianico wines of Campania and Basilicata. Click on the box entitled, "Wines of the Times" to begin the presentation.

The federal government issued new dietary guidelines for Americans on Wednesday, and for the first time since the recommendations were introduced in 1980, they emphasize weight loss as well as healthy eating and cardiovascular health.
The guidelines, which follow several years of reports that Americans are fatter than ever, recommend eating many more fruits and vegetables, more low-fat milk, more whole grains and increasing exercise to as much as an hour and a half a day.

U.S. Government Releases New Food Pyramid (Marian Burros)

Over lunch at Union Pacific, which closed late last year, Mr. Tourondel said he found fish the same way many people find themselves on one career path or another. He fell into it 17 years ago during his first kitchen job in New York, at Beau Geste on the Upper West Side.

The Chef (Dana Bowen)

Mr. Field assumed that the artisanal food movement, having refashioned cheese, bacon, tofu and peanut butter, would be ready to embrace his ambitious rarefying of the pickle. Last year he started selling Rick's Picks at the Green Market in Union Square and through his Web site, rickspicksnyc.com. He soon received endorsements from Food & Wine and O, the Oprah magazine, and began to sell his pickles to specialty stores around the country, including Murray's Cheese and Artisanal in New York.

The Pickle Meister of Brooklyn (Ginia Bellafante)

The menu is elaborately segmented in a manner that strands you with too many questions about how and how much you should order. Beyond the "raw fishbar" at the start, there's a section for shellfish, another for soups and still others for fried fish, kebabs, seafood entrees, meat entrees and sides.

Lure Fishbar (Frank Bruni)

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The meat comes from big, black computerized smoking pits in a back room, vented to high heaven and fueled with a mix of apple and hickory woods. But the mix of technology and wood isn't working. The Texas brisket ($13.50) tasted so much like deli-sliced roast beef that the Texan in our group almost wept. On two visits, the pork ribs ($13.95, $17.95 or $20.95) were nearly void of pork flavor and so overcooked that the meat came clean off the bone in one chunk. A third visit last week brought a better version, greatly cheering two Syracuse University alums who lived on them in college.

Dinosaur Bar-B-Que (Kim Severson)

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"In Japan," she said, "the idea of focusing on a small aspect of something and then exploding it into many possibilities is an appealing notion, in both life and aesthetics. Working in a limited set and not letting it inhibit you but allowing it to take you to another level is part of the pleasure. Think about using just ink and paper instead of the whole palette of colors and media in painting; in the same way, the limits of cooking with plants force me to be more creative, to explode, almost into infinity, all of the possibilities."

The Minimalist: Na Kaiseki (Mark Bittman)

At its news conference here, it offered a small sampling of what parents must contend with when they take their children to the grocery store, including an Oscar Mayer pizza Lunchables kit with 45 grams of sugar and SpongeBob SquarePants, the star of the moment, featured on boxes of Pop Tarts in which more than half of the calories come from fat and sugar.

SpongeBob SquarePants For Nutritionist....? (Marian Burros)

Less Antibiotics In McDonald's Meat (Marian Burros)

Recipe: ROASTED BEET FARROTTO

Letters

4. Green Beans With Walnut-Miso Sauce

Recipes in this week's update:

1. Salt Cod Auvergnate

2. Sautéed Dandelion Greens

3. Burdock and Mushroom Sushi

5. Kabocha Squash Soup

6. Sesame-Soy Custard

SobaAddict70 · January 17, 2005

New York Times Weekend Update

Friday, 14 January 2005 -- Sunday, 16 January 2005

A. Dining In/Dining Out Section and the Sunday Magazine

Across a fully equipped double kitchen, a roaming spotlight illuminates the stony face of Iron Chef Bobby Flay, standing atop a pedestal with arms crossed, radiating chefly power. In a few seconds, the two men will face off in a battle of culinary honor that only one can win. This is the law of "Iron Chef America," a new series that begins on the Food Network on Sunday night.

Culinary Samurai, With Wusthofers Instead of Katanas (William Grimes)

For the most part, Bistro du Vent is not blazing new culinary trails but treading a familiar, deservedly beloved path, and so the appetizers include oysters, a spin on onion soup, a salad with duck confit, country paté and, inevitably, frisée aux lardon.We were especially taken with medallions of pistachio-filled pork sausage on a cushion of lentils.

Bistro du Vent (Frank Bruni)

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Good Eating: In Honor of National Soup Month

Click here for related discussion regarding 52 soups in 53 1/2 weeks.

Wedding cakes, after all, are unusual cargo. A 300-pound tuna destined for Masa carries a risk, but a $25,000 Ron Ben-Israel sculpture of eggs, butter and sugar en route to East Hampton for a wedding is something else entirely, especially when you add to the journey a 90-degree day, a traffic-choked Long Island Expressway, a flight of stairs, a wet lawn.

Unusual Cargo (Matt Lee and Ted Lee)

Wine Under $20 (Howard G. Goldberg)

B. Elsewhere in this weekend's Times...

Charlie Bell, who began his McDonald's Corp. career as a part-time worker in a suburban Sydney restaurant and later became chief executive of the fast-food icon, died early Monday of colon cancer in his native Australia. He was 44.

In Memoriam: Charlie Bell (The Associated Press)

Have a good week, folks.

Soba

SobaAddict70 · January 20, 2005

New York Times Weekly Update

Wednesday, 19 January 2005

Dining In/Dining Out Section

The places that are packed this week will still be packed next week for three reasons: first, location, location, location (Charlie Palmer Steak is across the street from the Capitol); second, owners who know how to coddle the right crowd (Cafe Milano); third, and most infrequently of all, wonderful food (Citronelle and Il Laboratorio del Galileo) that would shine anywhere.

A Hot Time In The Old Town, Tonight (Marian Burros)

Related discussion regarding this article can be found here.

Click here for discussion regarding Citronelle.

Click here and here for discussion regarding Il Laboratorio del Galilieo.

Click here for discussion regarding Charlie Palmer Steak.

Click here for discussion regarding Equinox 818.

For those who, unlike me, tire of pho, the famous anise- and clove-scented beef noodle soup, and cha gio, the crisp little spring rolls, and the many manifold delights of Vietnamese cooking, Falls Church and the other communities across the Potomac from Washington offer ample opportunity to indulge in other Asian cuisines. (According to the 2000 census, Fairfax County, which surrounds this little city, has 23,044 Vietnamese, 2.4 percent of its total population, and 126,038 Asians in all, or 13 percent.

Vietnam-by-the Potomac (R.W. Apple, Jr.)

A rite of the grape harvest in the Christian villages dotting the Lebanon mountain range (and occasionally in Muslim villages, despite Islam's taboo against alcohol) is the perfectly legal distillation of homemade arak.

Homemade Arak, In Lebanon (Neil MacFarquhar)

The duck confit ravioli, the salad of baby beets, the sticky toffee pudding with poached quince and that chicken liver mousse, which is seasoned with restrained measures of cinnamon, clove and allspice, are reason aplenty to wander in and reward enough for having done so. Their appeal is basic and its potency sneakily intense, affirming an oxymoron beyond this restaurant's name. Little Giant's dishes speak in a loud whisper.

Little Giant (Frank Bruni)

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Brown is a place for those disposed to lingering, and its menu offers plenty worth lingering over, even for breakfast. There's a range of baked eggs ($6.50 to $11), and the Tuscan breakfast platter ($9), an ample spread of creamy herbed ricotta, prosciutto, and wildflower honey with a tangle of lightly dressed greens.

Brown (Peter Meehan)

Lunch with John Grisham (Frank Bruni)

He loves Le Bernardin. "Every time I go there, I always try to get one or two fishes I've never heard of," he said. "You can do that there."
He liked WD-50 on the Lower East Side because "they had some really crazy stuff."

Recipes in today's update:

1. Roast Duck with Blueberry Sauce

2. Belgian Endive and Grain Mustard Salad

3. Lentils with Bulgur and Herb Salad

4. Whole-Grain Crostini with Beans and Greens

5. Vietnamese Stir-fried Vegetables with Chicken or Shrimp

Dining In Washington, D.C.

Noodles and More

Arak in the U.S.

Spirits of the Times (Eric Asimov)

SobaAddict70 · January 26, 2005

New York Times Weekly Update

Wednesday, 26 January 2005

A. Dining In/Dining Out Section

It is now the default liquor in cocktails once made with gin, and with its glossy merchandising it has set a marketing standard for high-end spirits that the other liquors are all struggling to emulate. It's quite an achievement for something that the government defines as "neutral spirits, so distilled, or so treated after distillation with charcoal or other materials, as to be without distinctive character, aroma, taste or color."

Sidebar: If you navigate your web browser to the article's web page, you can hear an online audio presentation given by Mr. Asimov, Florence Fabricant, William L. Hamilton (author of the Shaken and Stirred column in the Sunday NYT Styles section) and Eben Klemm (director of cocktail development at the BR Guests Restaurant Group), on a selection of vodkas. Click on the box entitled "Spirits of the Times" to begin the presentation.

Related discussion of the article can be found here.

"The fourth floor," I said. He stared at me quizzically. I gestured to one of those signs. I repeated my answer. Finally he climbed aboard an elevator with me. But I could tell that he still had doubts. He seemed unable to believe that one of Manhattan's most ambitious new restaurants was high above the street in a corner of a shopping mall.

The Mother Of All Food Courts (Frank Bruni)

Few things are better to eat than fresh pasta. (We're not addressing health aspects here, simply enjoyment.) Loaded with eggs, bound gently by flour, readily accepting and easily enhanced by just about any sauce you can think of from warmed olive oil with garlic or melted butter with Parmesan to the most complicated stew of shredded meat, it's incomparable.

Taci's Beyti (Kim Severson)

Better yet were slices of duck breast with a gentle red curry sauce. Better still were rectangles of rare ahi tuna, crusted with ginger and arranged like the spokes of a wheel around a succulent mound of braised oxtail and sprightly arugula that rescued the fish from its current overexposure.

Sapa (Frank Bruni)

Click here to contribute your experiences.

Discussion regarding Mr. Bruni's performance as main restaurant critic for the New York Times can be found by clicking here.

My brother, who is not a swooner, did just that when he took a piece of warm sesame-crusted bread and scooped up a glistening pile of puréed eggplant ($4.50). The flavor was both smoky and bright, punched up with a hit of garlic. "Just like being in the Turkish countryside," he said.

During the course of a night 10 barrels or more may be tapped. And though the general procedure is to grab a splash of cider from the streaming txotx and then head back to the table, the occasional barrel warrants a second helping. There is much discussion about the subtle differences from one to the next, and guests sample as much as they please before the barrels are sealed.

Tales Of A Cider House (Peter Meehan)

Dining Out Downtown (Jennifer Steinhauer)

"It's a good time of year for clams," he reasoned, crediting winter's cold waters. He is keen on the burly, full-flavored quahogs from Long Island and Rhode Island, but said smaller cherrystones will do.

The Chef (Dana Bowen)

Hamburger America (Melena Ryzik)

No New York or Los Angeles restaurants made it into the film (including one of his local favorites, the Corner Bistro in the West Village). "Anybody can go to New York or L.A. and get a burger," he said. "But I want people to go to Milwaukee and get a burger. I want people to think about Oklahoma and think about burgers."

Even the advanced technology may soon become more accessible. Mr. Adrià plans to start marketing calcium chloride kits, which chefs use to coagulate liquids in order to form a thin shell. He used it to give pea soup the texture of egg yolks, and to create melt-in-the-mouth rum lozenges for a "piña colada" topped with spun sugar.

Beyond Foam (Melissa Clark)

Recipe: Liptauer Cheese Spread