Pat

cream of potato and chile soup braised pork shoulder with onions and tomatoes over couscous

pork shoulder in the crockpot

Trattorio Alberto on Barracks Row: house salad, cannelloni with spinach and meat in tomato cream sauce, and Peroni to drink. My husband had the Caesar salad and Fettucine Alfredo. It was what we expected--no more, no less--and was just what we needed for dinner tonight. I'd been away for a couple of days, had just gotten home and wanted to go out to eat something. My husband wanted pasta and didn't want to go far. Two salads, two plates of pasta, two beers: $55 after tax and before tip.

Thank you. I'm intrigued by this concept.

Tom's First Bite

I like the consomme jelly concept and am wondering if any of my 1950s-60s cookbooks might have tips on seasoning that to make it more than just a garnish.

Slice of buffalo chicken pizza at Whole Foods Old Town--much better than I would have thought. I pointed at it thinking I was getting cheese pizza, then realized what it was. It was a lot better than the cheese pizza slice I had there a month or so ago, which was the only other pizza I ever got there.

It's a new recipe, using cabbage leaves instead of grape leaves. The directions are not all that terribly clear either It's late and I should go to bed, and now I'm wanting to dig out the bottle of Jameson's . I really only like it late in the day. It's like a bedtime story. Even if the cheese and crackers doesn't taste great, keep it in the routine. What my parents often had as an appetizer was sardines on saltines. I think that usually went with beer or coke, but my dad had it with whiskey sometimes. The sardines were nothing special, but I can never find them the way they used to be. I guess that's in my head.

Sometimes simple is just the right thing, though I'd save the Jameson's for after dinner .I was making dolma that were no way going to be finished in time tonight, so it was a quick improvised (and very good) meal of chicken andouille sausages, black beans, tomatoes, and fried egg, over corn tortillas, topped with grated mozzarella.

There's nothing I won't cook because of the smell, but fish and cabbage are foods that linger in the air long enough that I don't make them frequently. Reheating leftover fish is pretty bad, so I try to make small portions so as not to have leftovers. When I lived in a university dormitory in England as a student, there was a lot of curry cooked in the kitchen near my room. It got to me at first, but I got used to it and now the smell of curry doesn't bother me. It even makes me nostalgic, I suppose. The absolute stinkiest our house gets, though, is when our cat gets her favorite canned food: California Naturals Salmon and Sweet Potato. She devours this stuff. It's her absolute favorite food and it reeks to high heaven. When I just stocked up on some more and was taking to the women at the pet store, they commented on how it's notoriously stinky and some people won't buy it because they don't want their house to smell. I guess it's obvious who rules our house .

bread, cookies, roasted meats and chicken, and (oddly?) fried onions and garlic

leftovers... puff pastry cups with smoked salmon and cream cheese puff pastry with whitefish spread stuffed mushrooms steak and cheese sandwich (leftover t-bone, sliced, on multigrain baguette, with fried onions, garlic, mushrooms, and melted p'tit basque cheese)

Last night butter lettuce salad with tomato, cucumber, chopped ham, and balsamic vinaigrette broiled t-bone steak stuffed mushrooms, more or less according to this recipe. I used whole grain bread crumbs and red onion instead of green. Tonight I'm making a stuffed boneless leg of lamb with meat from Costco. After attempting to remove the netting, stuff, and then put the netting back on, I think I'm going back to cutting off the netting and using kitchen twine in the future. Unless there's a secret. Is there a secret to getting the net back over the lamb? The stuffing is an enhanced version of the leftover stuffing from last night. There wasn't much, but I'm glad i saved it. The stuffing is last night's whole grain bread crumbs, garlic, onion, spinach, and ham...with more bread crumbs, garlic, thyme, parsley, proscuitto, and crumbled feta. Otherwise, just olive oil and black pepper. I'm roasting potatoes and carrots to go with the lamb. ETA: Everything came out well. My husband particularly loved the potatoes. I threw a couple of tablespoons of duck fat into the roasting pan to roast them . They were most excellent.

That's an interesting point. I like to dip fries into mayo but having them drowning in it is not appealing. The only thing I like poured onto fries is ketchup, and I don't like too much of that. If fries get too soggy with ketchup to pick up and eat, blech. Some vinegar sprinkled onto fries is okay, but I don't like too much of that either.

Something inexplicable possessed me (actually it was a friend I was with who wanted to order it ), and several months ago I ordered fried calamari at 3 Brothers :). Being short, I couldn't see too well into the back, but my friend watched them dump the tiny frozen uniform rubber bands into the fryer. That was some bad fried calamari. At least we got it really quickly .There are places that do it well, but it seems like one of those foods that varies a lot in terms of how it comes out. I don't know what the reason for that is, but, in my experience, there seems to be a lot of variability even at places where I have thought it good. One place that I recall thinking it was fabulous (maybe faulty memory) was whatever the restaurant-bar was in the space where Kinkead's is now. I used to go there just for the calamari, but I can't remember the name of the place now.

These sound like Chinese tea eggs. I've only heard of them but haven't made them. You want to marble them and infuse them with flavor. I'd say do the first boil for 3 minutes or so.I think I'd just tap them on the counter or in the empty pan to crack the shells. Steep should mean turn the heat off and let them sit in the water.

I read that in one of those two publications and can't find a link either. Could it have been in City Paper? It said the movie theaters would likely be shut down and that the only restaurant with a contract well into the future was Thunder Grill, but that America and others were confident they could renegotiate and stay.I think it might be that the new owner already took over and the past fuss about problems the one food court vendor had with them was an early sign of what was to come. from Tim Carman last year: http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/display.php?id=2170 I'm pretty sure Ashkenazy is the same company I saw mentioned in the recent article I read about the upcoming changes.

I have not made those, but I have a smoked salmon gougeres recipe I was planning to try tonight that only uses Parmesan. I can tell you if that one works, but I don't know if that's too helpful .

Chicken andouille sausages wrapped in puff pastry Smoked salmon and dilled cream cheese on puff pastry squares Broccoli slaw with dried cranberries and marcona almonds

Yup, you usually come home with more in the take-out box than you left on the table .

multigrain baguette slices with a deli assortment: homemade cream cheese spread with capers, dill, and horseradish smoked salmon* proscuitto whitefish spread* cucumber slices red onion slivers green olives with pimentos My husband also had a leftover piece of the chicken cordon bleu-ish. *from Costco--Blue Hill Bay, distributed via Acme in Brooklyn

I just finished some tiger's eye beans from last night--in their pot liquor with a little P'tit Basque cheese melted over the top. Very hearty, filling, and delicious

I know someone who happened to be eating dinner there the night it was taped. He said that his meal was great but that's always the case when he eats there.ETA Eric Ripert was in the kitchen with Bourdain that night.

chicken andouille sausages with onions and garlic brown rice tiger's eye beans from Rancho Gordo I cooked the beans in the crockpot, which I hadn't tried before. Since it was already pretty well into the day, I started them on high, figuring I'd get a head start and then turn them down. I waited too long to check, and after 2 hours on high, they were at a hard boil and had been for some time. They were already starting to break open. I turned them down to low for 2 hours and then kept them on warm until dinner. They tasted fine but were fairly mushy from overcooking . I had no idea beans could cook that fast.

I'm wondering the same thing.