Kate Krader's Year of Awesome Eating

F&W’s restaurant editor Kate Krader looks back at? a year of eating out and recalls her craziest, ?most thought-provoking and most delicious moments. Fried Chicken at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen

A small seafood bar with a great playlist becomes my go-to spot
When I lived in Brooklyn, I spent most of my time eating in Manhattan. Then a little place called Bergen Hill opened not too far from my apartment, and I found a new favorite neighborhood spot. In the midst of a boom in big Italian restaurants, Bergen Hill is a corner seafood bar with a smart, concise menu from chef Andrew D’Ambrosi. From a tiny kitchen, he serves inspired crudo like salmon with apple tzatziki, as well as lightly cooked dishes such as seared sea scallops with spicy agrodolce peppers and butternut squash puree (pictured). Bergen Hill has two other things I require from my local spot: a terrific wine selection and a great playlist. The latter is curated by co-owner Daniel Kessler (whose other job is guitarist for Interpol). We got to be friends, and every once in a while after dinner, we walk a block over to the legendary pizza spot Lucali and have pizza for dessert. 387 Court St.; bergenhill.com.

The year’s best fund-raising dinner party
I’m all for saving the world, but I’m pretty much done with fund-raising dinners. With a few notable exceptions (Mario Batali Foundation galas; Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation events), I would donate money just to skip the unappetizing food. Then, in April, I got invited to the Spring Benefit for Edible Schoolyard (which promotes gardens and healthy eating in schools). A vast space in downtown Manhattan was the setting for a legendary dinner party, with 23 of the city’s top chefs each preparing a special menu for his or her own table. Momofuku’s David Chang seared giant rib eyes; Mission Chinese Food’s Danny Bowien served a crispy-skinned suckling pig. There was no bad place to be in the room, but I hit the seating jackpot: the table presided over by the incomparable Ruth Rogers and her crew from London’s The River Café. Rogers prepared dishes I’d read about but never tasted, including toasted slabs of bread with November 2013 I Canonici olive oil, out-of-this-world anchovy-packed bagna cauda with spring vegetables and, best of all, deep, dense chocolate nemesis cake. esynyc.org.

Epic evening with veggie burger goody bags.
It should surprise no one that Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson throws a great party. After all, the drummer entertains millions of people as bandleader for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. And he’s obsessed with the creative community that the food world now attracts. “My salons are places for the best chefs to cook for people I know from various worlds: music, art, comedy, academia,” he says. (Chris Rock, Carl Bernstein, Björk and David Cross are some of the “people he knows.”) “The salons are parties, but they’re also master classes in how good food can bring people together.” Truth. This winter, Cronut creator Dominique Ansel previewed his ice cream–filled crêpe suzette “sushi,” flambéed to order. At Questlove’s spring salon, The Spotted Pig’s April Bloomfield served pan-smoked pigeon— legs with the claw attached, holding a bright green ball of spherified sweet pea soup, which exploded in your mouth when you bit into it. It looked dramatic and tasted delicious. Questlove is such a good host that the party had great goody bags, too: Brooks Headley’s to-go veggie burger for a late-night snack.

The best chefs in the world throw a surprise party.
“Shhh,” said René Redzepi. “Hide behind the wall.” When the world’s best chef tells me to do something, I comply. Obediently, I crouched down behind Ben Shewry, Magnus Nilsson and Blaine Wetzel, amazing cooks who had traveled from Australia, Sweden and Washington state respectively. They were among the 30 chefs from around the world who’d come to surprise their friend Wylie Dufresne at his avant-garde Manhattan restaurant WD-50. (It breaks my heart to say that WD-50 is closing this fall; Dufresne is looking for a new space, though.) The extraordinary event was organized by the unconventional chefs collective Gelinaz with help from S. Pellegrino. “Surprise!!” we yelled when Dufresne came in. And then we sat down with him to dig into 10 courses the superstar chefs had prepared in his honor. The astonishing dishes included shrimp noodles served on an ice block and hollowed-out apples stuffed with foie gras, but the most talked-about dish was a decadent bucket of fried chicken and biscuits. What made this riff on WD-50’s signature cold fried chicken so crazy? It was served with an insane amount of Petrossian caviar (every table got a giant tin), and each bucket was emblazoned with Dufresne’s face. Alongside was a pile of Kraft singles, the chef’s favorite cheese. “I just had caviar on American cheese,” Dufresne told me proudly. I asked how it was. “If you have to ask, I’ll have yours,” he replied.

Plus a s’mores tutorial with Aziz Ansari
The luxurious Walland, Tennessee, resort Blackberry Farm is renowned for experiences like truffle hunting with adorable Italian-bred dogs. It’s also known for tours of its vast estate, where much of chef Joseph Lenn’s modern Southern menu is sourced, from salad greens to lamb to cheese (beer and whiskey is produced in-house, too). I didn’t realize that Blackberry Farm also makes the world’s best Sex on the Beach shots. I discovered this somewhere between exquisite white-barbecue-sauced quail and sweet roast shrimp, served with John Cope’s corn puree and smoky barbecue shrimp emulsion. The ’80s shots that appeared on the table were a gift from my buddy, the comedian Aziz Ansari, who was in town for a show and sitting nearby. They were the most ridiculous thing he could think of, but they were so good, I wanted to order more rounds. Instead, we found a luxe fire pit and Aziz showed off some unexpectedly good s’mores-making skills. blackberryfarm.com.

Three incredible Southern cooks join forces to create an off-the-charts cookout
There’s a lot of food to freak out about at the F&W Classic in Aspen. Our most recent class of Best New Chefs serve their signature dishes, while Grant Achatz creates miraculous edible green apple balloons and José Andrés runs around roasting pigs and slicing Ibérico ham. Still, I couldn’t believe my outrageous good fortune to be at a cookout with three of the South’s great chefs cooking side by side. Hugh Acheson, whose newest spot is The Florence in Savannah, was serving best-ever pimento cheese sandwiches, with crisp bread-and-butter pickles slipped in with the chunky, spicy cheese spread. It’s his version of the famed one served at the Masters golf tournament. “That recipe is kept in a vault; I cracked the code,” he told me. Alongside him was Mike Lata of Charleston’s The Ordinary, whose incredible Carolina oysters were smoked over hay, then barbecued and finished with fennel butter. Sean Brock, chef-owner of Husk in Nashville, was working the deep fryer, producing baskets of hot chicken. It had such a crispy crust, such lingering heat, I couldn’t stand it. “I took all my favorite fried chickens—Gus’s, Prince’s, some gas station versions—and here they are, in one,” he said.

A star-studded omelet in Los Angeles
For months I followed the launch of Petit Trois in Los Angeles on social media. I watched chef Ludo Lefebvre and his partners Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo transform a dingy Thai restaurant space into a softly lit bistro with black-and-white-tiled floors and an open kitchen outfitted with copper pots. People began talking about dishes on the casual French menu: confited chicken leg with brioche butter; steak tartare; insanely good bread and butter. Most of all, I heard about a Boursin cheese omelet. For dinner? I thought. Weird. (I don’t like omelets, and haven’t thought much about Boursin for a few decades now.) Lefebvre had different ideas. He grew up eating them—for dinner, not breakfast—in Burgundy. He also loves the taste of Boursin. “It’s the French Velveeta,” he says. “You find it in most French home refrigerators. And it melts so well.” Indeed it does. When I got to Petit Trois, it was the first thing I ordered. It arrived, a puffy omelet with airy eggs and creamy herbed cheese overflowing from the sides. But I felt a little late to the party. A few weeks earlier, Justin Timberlake had Instagrammed his empty omelet plate with the caption, “Los Angeles, you are NOT ready…. #PetitTrois.” In fact, JT (pictured, with Lefebvre) was sitting next to me the night I was there, back for another omelet. 718 N. Highland Ave.; petittrois.com.

Fourteen brilliant courses at Next.
The server set down a stone bowl of batter-fried sweetbreads and banana coated in a thick caramel, and a bowl of ice-filled vinegar broth. “This dish is called Pulling Threads,” he said. “You’ll see why.” He instructed us to dip each caramel-coated piece in the vinegar for 10 seconds, then bite. The cold liquid turned the caramel into a crisp shell; the burnt sugar formed strings as we lifted the sweetbreads and bananas, giving the dish its name. It was one of the brilliant courses on the Modern Chinese menu at Next in Chicago from Dave Beran and Grant Achatz. A centerpiece was actually okra hot-and-sour soup; an array of five stacked bowls turned into Duck in Layers with juicy smoked slices of breast meat (pictured). A giant fortune cookie held the menu, a record of all the cool things I ate. 953 W. Fulton Market; nextrestaurant.com.

Learning to slurp noodles
I first read about Ivan Orkin—the Jewish guy whose ramen was a sensation in Tokyo—a few years ago in Lucky Peach magazine. Then he launched a series of sold-out pop-ups around New York City—at Momofuku Noodle Bar, at the Ace Hotel. I tried the superrich triple-pork mazemen (the brothless ramen) and even bought an Ivan Ramen poster, but I can’t say I truly understood the fuss. Finally, Orkin opened a sleek spot on the Lower East Side that looked like a diner, except for the giant comic book–style panels illustrating the art of the slurp. First I was captivated by monkfish-liver-packed dirty rice. Still, I was there for the ramen. My friends and I ordered all six options, and I became an Ivan Ramen convert. His Tokyo Shoyu has a rich soy sauce and chicken stock broth (I prefer not to know how much fat is in there) garnished with a mound of pork chashu, the marinated belly. The Spicy Red Chili Ramen had fantastic burn and an equally rich broth. Orkin’s noodles, made especially for him by Sun Noodle, have terrific suppleness. By the end of the night, I was loudly, proudly slurping my ramen. 25 Clinton St.; ivanramen.com.

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Frank Bruni's 24-7 Italian Eating Adventure

Would eating only Italian food for five days make you ecstatically happy or desperate for a bagel break? Writer Frank Bruni tries it out in New York City and Atlanta. Writer Frank Bruni challenges himself to eat only Italian food for five days.

You’d be hard-pressed to find an American with an eating life as steeped in Italian food as mine. My mother started me on spaghetti with marinara sauce perhaps six hours after I conquered strained bananas, and when my father took us out to eat, which he did often and exuberantly, it was Italian followed by more Italian. Later on I lived in Rome, where a plate of bucatini all’amatriciana is never more than a half-block away. I wallowed in Italian. I marinated in it.

But I only recently realized I’d never eaten exclusively Italian, for days on end. I’d never confined myself to those ingredients and dishes that can be credibly found within the contours of a boot-shaped country. I had this epiphany when I challenged myself to go on a five-day enforced food march, to test the appeal, not to mention the elasticity, of Italian cuisine.

The challenge hit hardest at the start of one of those days when I stood on a corner near my Manhattan apartment, hungry and inconsolable. My multiday experiment demanded that I dip into the restaurant on my left, where an Italian-style breakfast cheesecake—in Italy, breakfast is treated pretty much like dessert—awaited me. But straight ahead was my favorite bagel place, and right then, I would’ve killed for a bagel. I wasn’t sure I could ignore the allure of a sesame one with lox spread.

Even when I was a resident of Rome, I’d let American impulses creep into my diet. It was the force of habit, the lure of greater variety. While there were plenty of pizza places near my office and cheese stores with the fluffiest, most ethereal sheep-milk ricotta I’d ever tasted, I’d still opt for peanut butter sandwiches for lunch.

When I left Rome in 2004, Italy followed me back to New York, where I spent the next five years as the restaurant critic for the New York Times and often found myself eating that food for dinner after dinner. Italian was just then claiming dominance in restaurants across America, and every other ambitious new place peddled house-made salumi or gnudi, or both. But for breakfast, I’d eat decidedly un-Italian cereal or—you guessed it—a bagel. I craved a change of pace. More specifically: I simply assumed I needed it. But did I? Does anyone?

My all-Italian experiment was an attempt to answer that question. Luckily for me, it was staged at a moment when Italian cooking had pretty much conquered the globe. No matter where I travel, in or out of the United States, I notice an enoteca on this corner, a pizzeria on that one, a trattoria down the way. Just when you think the ardor for the cuisine has reached some apotheosis, restaurateurs find a new noodle. They mine Italian cuisine for traditions somehow not yet fully mined. With food—as with art and architecture—Italy, it turns out, is inexhaustible.

This became apparent on two separate occasions, when I panicked that my experiment would either fail or leave me miserably frustrated.

The first concerned a quick, impromptu out-of-town work trip to Atlanta. I write a twice-weekly Op-Ed column for the Times, and for a special one on my relationship with my father, I had to take a quick trip to Atlanta, where he lives during the winter, to interview him over lunch. Atlanta does not have Italian roots as deep, or an Italian-American population as robust, as New York has. And I didn’t just have to find an Italian restaurant in which to interview Dad, I had to find one within a mile or so of the Buckhead rail station, where he was picking me up. I was determined not to go to the Olive Garden.

I soon found what I was looking for: a place called Pricci, where I was served a lovely arugula salad and Dad got his beloved penne. There were some calamari and a shared pizza in the mix, as well. I’m convinced that no other ethnic cuisine within that one-mile range, not Spanish or Mexican or even Chinese, could have left us as satisfied. I hadn’t fully appreciated that before.

My second revelation concerned a dinner back home in Manhattan one night, by which point I was getting a little antsy—not so much because the experiment had begun to bore me, but because I was getting worried that it would. Between the lunches and dinners so far, I’d consumed a great deal of prosciutto and no small measure of Parmesan, and both olive oil and tomatoes had played recurring roles in my regimen.

As I headed from my uptown home to a new downtown restaurant named L’Apicio, I wondered if I’d find anything on the menu to perk me up. L’Apicio extends the mini empire of several New York restaurateurs who have already ridden Italian to considerable success with the West Village restaurants dell’Anima and L’Artusi—they like apostrophes, these restaurateurs—and the natural-wine-focused Anfora. But L’Apicio doesn’t merely mimic its predecessors; it finds a relatively unexplored area of Italian cooking to focus on. It exalts and elevates polenta—supposedly lowly, porridge-like polenta—like never before.

At L’Apicio, I discovered polenta with a mix of sautéed wild mushrooms and polenta as the base for braised short-rib ragù. The polenta the restaurant prepares isn’t a wan, watery, sorry stepsister to pasta; it’s silky, rich and nutty, and it made me think that I know what the next big Italian food trend will be.

As I ate the polenta, I was struck by just how nimble and malleable Italian cooking has proven to be, and how much terrain it permits chefs to explore. And by how aggressively chefs outside of Italy, especially in America, explore it.

In any given locale in Italy, you tend to encounter the cooking of that region, over and over again. In and around Rome, you’ll be inundated with pasta all gricia, which is like carbonara minus the egg yolks, and in and around Bologna, you’ll keep tripping across ravioli stuffed with pumpkin, or tortellini in brodo. Restaurants stick to the local playbook.

But in New York, different chefs explore different regions of Italy, and their cooking is less monochrome than rainbow. I got lunch one day just around the corner from my apartment on the Upper West Side, at Salumeria Rosi, where the chef, Cesare Casella, focuses on Tuscany. Within a few miles, I could have had lunch at restaurants where the chefs focus on Piedmont or Puglia or Emilia-Romagna.

I was reminded, too, of the many ways Italian food excels. For breakfast, within steps of my home, I could’ve had a slice of frittata, which is Italy’s answer to the omelet. For dessert, also within steps of my home, I have phenomenally good gelato. Italy does ice cream better than perhaps any other country, and sandwiches, too. On two separate lunches over the five days, I had panini, and both instances confirmed Italy’s superior grasp of sandwiches made with salty meat and saltier cheese.

About that bagel, the one shouting my name. I obsessed over it, and I set about trying to rationalize it, but in the end, I turned away—not because Italy had its exact analogue, but because Italy had so much else to entice me. It can’t answer all my hankerings, but it can sate my hunger and sustain me in grand and varied fashion nonetheless.

New York Times Op-Ed columnist Frank Bruni, the paper’s former Rome bureau chief, is the author of Born Round.

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Is Seasonal Eating Overrated?

Are chefs who exalt seasonal ingredients showing dedication or a lack of imagination? One restaurant-goer plots a mini revolt.

For a couple of weeks last winter, I went on a kale-eating spree. I didn’t do this on purpose, exactly. I was making my way through a list of newish New York restaurants I wanted to try, or to revisit because fall had surrendered to winter and I knew their menus would have changed. Most of these places had Dickensian names, names broken by ampersands, or names that sounded like old Vermont family farms. Many had menus freshly jotted on chalkboards, the provenance of the main ingredient in each dish noted. And every last one of them was serving a kale salad. Not long into my dining tour, right around the time I confronted a version with apple and dry Jack at a restaurant a block away from where I’d just had a version with apple and cheddar, I began to regard kale salad the way, as a kid, I viewed my mom’s second flounder dinner in the same week: with resentment.

My spree came to an end at a perfectly lovely, smart young Italian restaurant in Brooklyn. It’s not that I was looking forward to carciofi—I knew not to expect out-of-season artichokes at a place known for its market-driven menu. But I didn’t expect to be offered a kale salad. I felt betrayed, sitting there on my stool clutching a season-befitting quince cocktail. I felt like a road warrior so disoriented by sameness, I didn’t know what hotel I was in anymore, never mind what city.

What followed my kale bender, as often does benders, was a mild depression. What’s wrong with me? I thought. Of all the things to complain about, I was criticizing chefs for systematically removing stringy asparagus from my winter plate and replacing it with the sweetest, tastiest, most environmentally beneficent produce around. The proliferation of seasonally driven menus, albeit a trend mostly still confined to a certain kind of restaurant in a certain kind of town, promised better dining experiences and a smaller culinary carbon footprint for America—a win-win. Come spring, I could count on more chefs than ever to rain morels, fiddleheads and ramps down on me. And I was dreading it.

“I came back from Rome in the spring of 2004 to a rampapalooza,” recalls journalist Frank Bruni, the former restaurant critic for the New York Times, reflecting on the early days of seasonal fever. “I remember thinking it was great that chefs were exalting the seasons, but also: Do I need to eat this many ramps?”

I remember those days, too. I was practically braiding ramps into headbands, reveling in Mario Batali’s embrace of spring produce, in Dan Barber’s more priestly devotion to seasonal ingredients, and in the way powerful tastemakers like these chefs were beginning to alter menus all over New York City. Ramp season—and rhubarb, asparagus and strawberry season—was like Christmas. But then Christmas started coming every day. And even more distressingly, seasonally driven menus began to feel less like a genuine celebration of good ingredients and more like some kind of manifesto. “Ramps speak to a lot of different restaurant vanities right now,” Bruni says. “They have become more of an ideological, moral statement than a gustatory one.”

To be fair to ramps, they didn’t start this trend. The 21st-century seasonal-food movement began four decades ago, when Alice Waters founded Chez Panisse in Berkeley. She established the hallmarks of seasonal cooking: locally grown ingredients, simply prepared. These days, the “simply prepared” part is what many critics of slavishly seasonal menus lament. It’s not the zeal for seasonal produce that’s the problem, they say; it’s the lack of imagination that chefs bring to the task of cooking it.

But the point isn’t that a dish has to be complicated to be worthwhile, or that a gratifying restaurant experience requires culinary acrobatics that a home cook could never perform. I’ve had enough plates of first-of-the-season asparagus kissed with grill heat and olive oil to know that the simplest dishes can have the power of a thunderclap. My problem with seasonal menus is homogeny. It’s not knowing where I am and whose food I’m eating. It’s feeling like the chef cares more about being in sync with the season—and if I’m being paranoid, the culinary zeitgeist—than he or she cares about creating an original dish, or for that matter, pleasing me.

It’s still a question worth asking: Is damnably simple food the problem with all this seasonal cooking? The answer, even on the other side of a kale spree, is no. “It’s our job to seek out the best ingredients,” says Jason Fox, the chef at Commonwealth in San Francisco. “We can’t pat ourselves on the back for that and then not take considered steps to turn those ingredients into something magical.” When Fox gets his hands on spring’s first ramps, he might whip them into a chilled soup garnished with tempura-ed ramp tops, baby fava beans and a dollop of aioli spiked with Meyer lemon. Seasonal, yes. But also totally inspired.

Feeling less like a fool and an ingrate, I began to look at the bright side again—and it proved, of course, to be a big, beautiful bright side. At Chez Panisse, the chefs continue to unfurl hyper-seasonal menus daily. But fried rabbit with sweet-and-sour onions, currants and broccoli? That doesn’t make me tired; that makes me hungry. Even if too many chefs let “seasonal” stand in for “good,” there are restaurants in every corner of the country doing ingenious work with the best of what’s grown around them: Commis in Oakland, California; Le Pigeon in Portland, Oregon; Lantern in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to name only a few. The chef at the restaurant I work for in Brooklyn changes his menu regularly, without fanfare. You’re not expected to applaud him for noticing that celeriac is in its prime—you are expected to applaud him for thinking to marry it with mascarpone, scallions and Piave.

Fingers crossed, we’re in the midst of a significant but finite period in the evolution (or perhaps, more accurately, devolution) of American cuisine, moving back to an era before factory farming and before anytime-anywhere produce was the norm. If so, I expect only more seasonal food to come. I also expect, or at least hope for, a rebalancing. Let a reliance on seasonal produce become a given. Let fearless, pioneering restaurants that apply original ideas and techniques to seasonal produce prosper. And equally important, let stellar restaurants without a seasonal flag fluttering out front continue to thrive. We need them to remind us what going to a restaurant is supposed to be about in the first place: pleasure.

When Sara Jenkins opened her second New York City restaurant, Porsena, last winter, she created a minor stir by declaring that the menu wouldn’t be especially seasonal. “I buy not-local asparagus in February,” Jenkins told me. “Even in ancient times, food was shipped left, right and center. We get so obsessive about things that we tend to make eating a chore. It’s one thing we’ve never really picked up from Europe—how to take great pleasure in eating.”

In that spirit, I resolve to stop thinking of eating a cherry tomato in January as the equivalent of smoking a cigarette inside or telling a politically incorrect joke. And the next time I see a grim-faced soul ingesting what’s clearly not his first kale salad of the season, I’ll quietly slip him the following recommendation: any month but August, the sliced tomato salad at Peter Luger Steak House in Brooklyn (or any steak house, really). And a bowl of seasonally agnostic spaghetti with clams at Porsena, which is no slave to the farmers’ market—only to excellent cooking.

Katherine Wheelock is a writer and editor who also works for the restaurant Roberta’s in Brooklyn, New York.

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Eating (way too well) in Paris: Third stop at Le Gourmet

Yet another interesting stop in our culinary adventures in Paris, the Le Gourmet restaurant offers great French cuisine for prices I hadn't seen in Paris in 15 years.

Lunch time, where to go?

This is the third installment of the series of articles which I set about to write a couple of weeks ago on eating out well in Paris. I love food, I love good cuisine, and I want fellow travelers to enjoy Paris to the hilt. That's enough reasons to guide them to those places I am certain they will enjoy.

Lunch time in Paris is restaurant time. People who work in the city do not carry their lunch bags with them. They rarely enjoy the benefit of a corporate catering service, but even if they do, such catering is hardly a feat for anyone's eyes and taste buds.

Small restaurants perform a vital service: they feed the locals rather satisfactorily, inexpensively, and in record time.

What applies to locals applies to travelers, and your next culinary stop happens in just such circumstances. After a long morning walk in the quaint streets on the slopes of the Montmartre hill, you feel nicely hungry. Your steps lead you to Place de Clichy, a busy crossroads between the 17th, the 9th and the 18th districts (metro station: 'Place de Clichy').

Time for a gourmet experience!

Le Gourmet

You may be hungry, but you are no fool. You want to eat well, and spend your heard-earned cash on food worth this name.

In my considerate opinion none of the eateries positioned around Place de Clichy are worth the money they ask for. I find their cuisine either overpriced, or downright vulgar. I never had a satisfactory lunch at any of these places.

So where to go? Not far away.

When you are on Place de Clichy, turn yourself so as to face the downward slope, with the metro station in your back. Aim at Rue de Clichy, left of Rue d'Amsterdam. Walk down the street for about 200 yards, and turn left in Rue de Bruxelles. Walk another 200 yards. There you are on the right sidewalk.

Your next favorite food stop is located at No. 19 rue de Bruxelles.

Name: Le Gourmet.

Identifiable sign: its French bistro-style facade. And a crowd.

Entering the bistro

If you happen to walk in at around noon thirty, you may have to wait just a tad. The place is packed. I have been to this restaurant numerous times, and I still have to be there the day it is not packed at lunch time.

My advice: come at around 12:00 am, and grab a spot before everybody else does.

The place exudes old charm, with dark wood panels, old posters, menu slates marked with chalk on the walls, a traditional bar, a mosaic floor, bistro-style chairs and tables. It smells good, though cigarette smoke can become an issue at times when the facade door isn't left open.

The owner and chef bought the restaurant about 2 years ago from its first and long-time owners, an elderly couple who retired after having steered the ship for longer than any local can remember. The new owner liked the decor, and decided to preserve it as-is, except for the facade which was changed early in 2006.

In this very Parisian setting, patrons feel immediately welcomed and are quickly seated either by the boss or a smiling waitress. This is lunch time, and they know patrons are in a hurry. No unnecessary delay.

Seated, and menu in hands

The menu is in fact chalked on the slates that hang on the front and back walls. A remarkable feat for such small a restaurant, the menu changes every day.

Anyone who lived in Paris for some time knows that restaurant menus do not change beyond the 'plat du jour' - the main fare for the day. Even the 'plat du jour' does not change that much: from one week to another, the same courses tend to get back on the menu.

Not so at 'Le Gourmet': the menu changes everyday and no two weeks are alike. True diversity. Even if you were to eat there every day for 20 days, you could try 20 different courses.

Gourmet cuisine is a mission

The boss comes from the province of Touraine, in Western France. He likes to work on French traditional dishes, and his cuisine draws its main inspiration from the famous Burgundy and Lyons regions.

Among the 'terroir' dishes served at Le Gourmet, you can taste veal knuckle (souris de veau), prime cuts of veal (onglet de veau), roasted gilthead bream (daurade royale rôtie), stewed duck (pot-au-feu de canard), pike dumpling (quenelle de brochet). And the list goes on.

To get fresh products from his favorite suppliers, he wakes up at 3:30 am every day to go to the wholesale market (the Rungis market, situated south of Paris). He buys only what he needs for the day, loads up his truck, and heads back to his restaurant where he's spend the rest of the morning to cook for lunch.

The chef's motto is "fresh products, traditional preparation". He uses butter, not margarine. He doesn't buy frozen products, and no off-the-shelf sauces as he prepares his sauces himself. He is light-handed on spices which he thinks 'are all too often used to hide something'.

Appetizer, main course, dessert, wines

Le Gourmet's menu typically offers a choice of 4 appetizers (such as a warmed up goat cheese served on a loaf of country bread), 3 or 4 main courses (meat, fish, poultry), and 4 desserts.

The choice of desserts is also 'old-school': depending on the day, your selection may include chocolate whipped cream, baba au rhum (a spongy cake saturated with dealcoholized rum), biscuits with ganache (a mix of chocolate, cream and butter), orange cake, fondant cake, floating island (beaten egg whites floating on a French custard), red fruit pies, and so forth.

Light wines get the lion's share of the wine list. The chef's hometown is Valencay (in the heart of the Touraine region), and he purchases his bottles directly from local producers. The list comprises a variety of well-thought-of vines: Gamay, Cabernet, Valençay, Bourgueil, and Saumur-Champigny.

All this for how much?

Beyond the quality of the food you are served at Le Gourmet, the check is another pleasant surprise. For a meager EUR13 (about $16), you have a full meal served in record time in a most pleasant atmosphere. For just a few more bucks, you have the wine to complete your experience.

To be honest, there are very few Parisian restaurants which will give you that much for such a low price. Le Gourmet wins my vote any time, any day. I recommend it to you wholeheartedly.

Where?

Le Gourmet

19 rue de Bruxelles

75009 Paris

Tel: 33 (0)1 48 74 53 42

Subway station: Place de Clichy

Lunch and dinner

***About the Author***
As Senior Editor of a free Paris guide, Phil Chavanne offers scores of valuable tips on Paris hotels, restaurants, monuments, and other sightseeing opportunities. Click here now to get this information and the inside scoop on the French capital.

Lose Weight and Feel Great! Eating the Delicious Food Your Body Was Designed For

So have you linked it all together yet? How you feel, act, and look all correlate so deeply with what you eat!

I can remember spending the majority of my first years in high school wondering why I felt so low, depressed and unenergetic, all the while devastating my young body which daily Wendy's Double Cheese Burgers. But my appetite was insatiable and my mind was ignorant to the devitalizing effects of my eating habits.

Almost miraculously, through YouTube's video suggestion program, I stumbled upon Philip McCluskey's account. The tidbits of wisdom dispersed throughout his inspiring videos enlightened me to the fact that my poor food choices were holding me down - physically, mentally, and even spiritually. He helped me reach the conclusion that the quality of the food you eat greatly affects the quality of the life you live. Food is in fact supposed to energize and satisfy you! Not leave you drained and unsatisfied.

If you want your "food to be your medicine" for living a better life as recommended Hippocrates, the Greek father of medicine himself, you have got to start incorporating raw living foods into your diet! When you eat cooked foods - those are foods which have been heated to a point where natural enzymes available in the food die, and your body must accordingly waste energy building its own enzymes to digest the food - you yourself become depleted! You are depleted not only of the energy used by your body to digest the food but also of the nutrients needed to be happy and healthy.

Within three days of finally saying 'adiós' to my secret destroyer the cheeseburger and eating a predominately raw diet of bright delicious fruits, vitamin-rich greens, and protein-packed nuts and seeds, my energy levels were through the roof! I had lacked the drive, focus, and passion to manage efficiently my huge college-preparatory workload. But raw foods awakened me to my own capabilities. The restless nights spent finishing homework and worrying about making it through the next day ceased completely. Newfound alertness and drive meant getting things done fast with good result. I was freed not only of stress and time-confinement but also of excess body fat. With no [zero!] increase in the little amount of exercise I was doing, my unsightly stomach shed away. The best part is I was too busy enjoying my new vivacity and abundance of free time to notice my body getting more and more healthy. It wasn't until I saw the lines separating my once fat-buried abs that I realized the wonderful physical effects of raw living foods.

I know now that raw foods are the way to go! And it's because they contain the enzymes sufficient to help digest themselves - so they don't rob the body of the energy you need to live happily and healthily! Living foods - appetizing fruits, juicy veggies, and filling nuts and seeds - are packed with the vital nutrients needed to achieve a thriving mind and body! I can't stress the transformation I've undergone due to incorporating raw food into my diet. But I can refer you to the more well-known story of the man who introduced me to the wonder of raw foods.

Philip McCluskey lost 215 pounds on the raw food diet. Like me, he admits to having little passion for life before raw foods. But they have revitalized him. Since his switch to raw foods, he's become a successful author and motivational speaker. When you eat what your body was designed to eat, the mind, body and spirit can thrive almost effortlessly.

There's only one regret I have about switching to a mostly raw diet and that's that I didn't do it sooner! Well actually, two regrets. I would have liked to know of the wonders of delicious raw gourmet food on the onset of journey. A common complaint among those I'm convincing to feel the joy of raw food is the vast taste and texture difference of the foods. Philip solves the inconvenience by introducing easy to prepare raw meals that out-taste your favorite delicacies. Raw Food, Fast Food outlines simple recipes for savory soups, mouth-watering burgers, tacos, smoothies and more. The difference between a conventional cookbook and his own is that all the simple delicious recipes included in his are designed to reinvigorate you naturally with energy and nutrients - while still satisfying your taste.

Raw Resources:

Philip McCluskey, Raw Food Chef
Raw Recipe E-Books

Yuri Elkaim, Certified Nutritionist
Raw Food E-Book for Weight Loss

Angela R Parker

How To Benefit From Eating Low Fat Foods

Often it seems that the world is simply obsessed about losing weight. But, even though there are more diet products and books designed to help you get rid of body fat and promise easy weight loss, the fact of the matter is that Americans are getting fatter with each passing year. Many medical professionals suggest that one basic way to achieve a healthy weight is to start by adding more low fat foods into your daily menus.

Many people have the mistaken idea that when you focus on eating more low fat foods that you have to give up a lot of taste and flavor. But in reality, if you know a bit about cooking and seasoning, it is easy enough to reduce the amount of fat in a dish and still have lots of good flavor that will make the meal palatable to the whole family and that won't make them feel like they are dieting.

One of the tricks to using low fat foods in your meal planning is to find really great cooking recipes. There are many books on the market, as well as specially targeted websites, that have collections of recipes for low-fat cooking. These recipes focus on adding flavor through using spices and flavorings and on different cooking methods that allow you to cook using less fat and oil during the preparation.

With a good selection of healthy recipes in the kitchen, there is no longer any reason that low fat foods cannot be a main part of a families regular diet. Even finicky eaters can enjoy health food and snacks even cookies. I recently wrote a review on the cookie diet and where to buy cookie diet cookies [http://loseweightplans101.com/healthy-snack-food] that was very interesting. well. There are many chicken recipes, beef recipes, salad recipes, and even dessert recipes that are very tasty but that help to keep the fat low and the nutritional value in the meal high.

In addition, these days you can find many types of prepared gourmet food choices in the supermarket that has been prepared in such a way that it can also qualify to be in the low fat foods category. In addition to pre-packaged foods that are low-fat, many times the deli departments of modern supermarkets have many freshly prepared side dishes and main dishes that have been specially made to be low fat, low calorie healthy meals. This is a wonderful timesaver for busy families and a terrific way to get fast, healthy food instead of relying on fast food restaurants for convenience.

Even if you only replace a small percentage of your regular foods with low fat foods, like the foods in the negative calorie diet plan [http://loseweightplans101.com/negative-calorie-diet], you can significantly improve the overall quality of your meals and help your body lose fat and lose weight. It is actually better for your body to make small changes to your diet over time, and as you do you will find you enjoy better health and that it is easier to maintain a proper weight when you eat more healthy food.

For a free report by Susan Pitts "Weight Loss Plans Exposed" that uncovers the most popular weight loss programs on the market today, and how you can benefit from them, visit her site and sign up today [http://loseweightplans101.com]

Don't Kill Your Dog: Understand the Dog Food Ingredients He's Eating

It is often confusing when you go to buy dog food to try to identify what is important on the label and why some foods are priced so much higher or so much lower than the rest. It is important to buy a good quality food that meets your dog's needs, but the quality of the food is not always guaranteed by the price. Many of the very high priced dog foods or "gourmet" foods are no more nutritionally balanced than the premium foods offered by large or small dog food companies. Typically the very low priced dog foods should be avoided as they are largely made up of filler type ingredients and little protein and very little nutritional value.

What's On The Label?

The ingredient portion of the label must list all the food items and additives that are contained in the food. In most developed countries the items in dog food are controlled by a federal agency to ensure they are appropriate for consumption and are not a danger to the animals. The substances in dog food must by generally recognized as safe, or GRAS. No diseased meat, improperly processed meat or vegetable material or other items may be used in the food.

The items listed on the ingredient portion are listed by natural weight at time of processing, starting with the heaviest item and working down. That means that the meat is weighed in its moist, natural state just like the soy meal or ground wheat will be listed in their natural dry state on the ingredient list. Since processing removes most of the water, especially in dry food, the first ingredient on the list may not be the predominant ingredient in the final dry kibble. In reality most dry foods will list beef, chicken or meat as the first ingredient but on full analysis of the final dry ingredient there will be far more of the wheat fillers in each kibble. Avoid dog foods that list animal or meat by-products as the main ingredients as these have almost no nutritional value for the dog.

Since there is almost no way to know how much of the original ingredient is in the final result the information on the ingredient label is not as useful as it may seem. The better information that is provided on the label is the actual analysis of the feed, which is based on the final product and its actual breakdown.

The analysis will list the crude protein, carbohydrates, fat, vitamins and minerals. Generally a dog should have between 21 and 26% protein in the diet depending on their age and level of activity. The more active a dog is the more protein they will need to sustain energy levels. Puppies and senior dogs should not be fed high protein diets as it can cause problems in puppies with bone growth and may cause excessive weight gain in older, more sedate dogs.

How much to feed?

If you are feeding a good quality premium dry dog food it is important to follow the feeding recommendations. Poor quality foods will have you feed more and will lead to increased mess to clean up. Premium dry foods usually are fed by current body weight of the dog as well as the growth stage of the dog. Be sure to feed the correct food for the correct growth stage to optimize the benefits to the dog.

If you are in doubt about the correct feeding amounts or are concerned that your dog may be gaining or losing weight due to the food immediately seek the advice of your vet. Often rapid weight loss or gain has nothing to do with the food but may be a serious health concern or even a genetic condition.

Vets also recommend feeding your dog from an elevated dog feeder to reduce the amount of air ingested when eating.

Eating Better Than Humans - The Pet Food Trends

If the United States is in a recession, no one has told the pet industry. In fact, while people scrounge for jobs and ways to feed themselves, pets are living the high life more than ever and quite often eating far better than their human counterparts. While old school brands like Purina and Ol' Roy aren't going anywhere, there has certainly been a massive swing towards the organic and holistic side of the pet food market. Not aware that side even existed? You are not the only one but it is hardly new.

The Trend That Wouldn't Die

About a decade ago, roughly in 1999, it became a popular trend in parts of Australia for dog owners to set aside the weekend and prepare a week's worth of gourmet food for their pooches, then portion it into meals and freeze it all, bringing it out to be warmed up as needed. At the time this seemed ridiculous. It still seems ridiculous but quite a few other people and even entire countries have caught the fever. Now, we just have more options for how to get that gourmet food. It hardly has to be cooked by the owner anymore: there are a slew of posh and pretty pet eateries who would be more than happy to do it for you, for what many consider a reasonable price.

In 2011, though, it is not just about convenience but healthiness as well. How many of us have time to not only make gourmet frozen meals for our pets but also to grow it with organic fertilizers and make sure every part of Spike's food is additive and filler free? Our canine companions are enjoying such extravaganzas as blueberry compote, venison, duck, veal in a light sauce, ginger snap cookies and even peanut-carob Isabooscotti. Celebrity cooks like Rachel Ray offer pet-friendly dishes you can share with your dog and in the UK, Butcher's Pet Care now proudly offers a gastropub menu for the pooch who must accompany his human to the local Brakspear chain of pubs. No longer does the family hound have to suffer the humiliation of being left outside with naught but a bowl of water and maybe a nibble while his owner has a laugh in the pub with a pint or two. It is indeed a marvelous and progressive world in which we live despite there being no evidence at all that the human-grade foods are any better for our pets than the old tried-and-true Puppy Chow, even after studying thousands of dog diets and their outcomes. It should be noted that the 'old men' on the pet food block are not exactly shaking in their boots.

With the Strength Of A Bull Market

The trend, though, shows little sign of slowing and a savvy editor named Jessica Taylor asserts that the big push on antioxidants like pomegranate and grape seed in the realm of people will be the next big thing in the pet realm, too. Hard to doubt it. With Americans alone shelling out nearly fifty-five billion on their pets last year and with a seven percent increase in veterinarian services, it does appear that more pet owners are not just providing for their furry friends, they're investing in their longevity and even mental well being. Pet psychologists and therapists are being frequented more often these days and even pet psychics do not seem as far-fetched as they did just five years ago.

Incredible attention to detail and improvements have been made such things as indoor dog litter boxes. In Los Angeles, you can even hire a litter box specialist to come in and take care of all the poop-scooping for you. Real sod or life-like artificial turf, complete with a partial wall and fire hydrant can make your dog, regardless of size, feel just like he's going potty outside. These are indeed the marvel of modern technology.

The point is that pets are not going away; they have been with us since time immemorial and we are willing to spend more on them than we are on ourselves. We desire to bring them closer to us and spend obscene amounts of money to dress them in the cutest new fashions or to make sure they are insured in case they break a leg or get sick. Chemotherapy is absolutely an option if your friend develops cancer and nothing we would do for ourselves would we deny our animals, and then some. From mineral water for dogs to pumpkin puree labeled as dog food but that can easily be used in human-consumed pumpkin pies, to other human-grade goodies, gourmet meals and snacks, the pets are getting pampered more and more with each passing year. How much of it the animal understands is really beside the point; we pay for it and we want it for them. After all, love is priceless.

If you are looking for teacup puppies, don't look any further because you are in the right place. We specialize in Teacup Puppies and take pride on how we treat our Yorkies, Maltese, Chihuahuas, Teacup Pomerainian, Teacup Poodles, Pugs, Bostons and other breeds. We also ship our puppies with Delta or Continental because it's very safe and offer a Nanny Service. Visit us at http://www.PuppiesForSaleSite.com.

Dan Barber’s Tips for Cooking, Eating and Living Sustainably

Blue Hill chef and sustainable food activist, Dan Barber, joined farmers from Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture on Food & Wine’s Facebook page to answer fan questions about cooking and eating locally.

Dan, how can we bring the locavore movement to medium-priced restaurants?
Dan Barber: It’s a hard one. It is about making choices, and changing your menu often, maybe daily. Buy the whole lamb, use all the parts and there will be a savings overall. But that means you cannot serve loin of lamb every night.

Over the past century, most industrialized nations have transformed from having a majority of the population working the land to a minority. One of the bigger challenges to being able to feed most of the population with sustainably-grown food seems to be that we’ll need a larger farming workforce. How can we address this issue?
Stone Barns: You are absolutely right, we will need many more people to be involved in the food system, either as producers or active food citizens. At Stone Barns, we are working to train the next generation of farmers in sustainable practices. There are a tremendous # of entrepreneurial people interested farming as a career, some who are generations removed from working the land. Chefs Make Change donations go to support this work. It’s also about all of us being active food citizens—from what we buy, to asking for this kind of food in our restaurants, markets and schools.

Is there any reason why an “heirloom” tomato should cost $7/lb when a standard tomato in the same market (also locally grown) costs $2/lb?
SB: Some of it may be perceived value, but heirloom crops can be challenging to grow. With tomatoes, we might lose as much as 30 percent of the crop to breakage, bruising, etc. We’re working with seed breeders on hybrid varieties that will have both great flavor and nutrition, and a bit more resilience.
DB: And if cooks, at home and in the restaurant, would be willing to purchase the bruised and less then beautiful tomatoes to make sauces or tomato water, the farmers could charge far less.

How ascetic should we northerners be in the winter? For example, citrus is such an important element in the kitchen and I have to admit that some of the organic blueberries coming from Chile are quite tasty.
DB: I’m not a purist—we use plenty of citrus in winter. (And I don’t feel guilty about buying it.) But I draw the line at blueberries in January. I’d rather wait for when the local berries arrive in June. Then I eat them by the pint.

San Marzano tomatoes are so expensive, and I would like to use some of the local tomatoes anyway. What are comparable paste tomatoes that can be grown in the US?
DB: Try to find Jersey Fresh—delicious. It is a crushed product, but cold be substituted in some recipes.

What are some of your favorite ways to eat locally in the winter?
DB: I hear a lot of complaints about farming (and eating) in the Northeast at this time of year, but the climate is perfect for root vegetables. In the cold weather, the vegetables convert their starches to sugars in order to survive, so we get the sweetest possible carrots and turnips. As far as techniques go, we just got a new grill, and we’ve been having some fun with that.
SB: If you have a backyard you can put up a very simple covered, low tunnel structure to grow spinach, mache & kale. Check out this video of winter on our farm and harvesting in these tunnels.

I was wondering where you find inspiration when having fresh vegetables is kind of limited?
DB: This year, we made a big push for preserving, and it’s been a great way to make it through the winter doldrums. But the things I’m most excited about take advantage of the cold—like the crop of overwintered parsnips Jack Algiere planted last March that he’ll harvest next month, or the ice spinach growing outside in winter tunnels.

What I should look for when selecting an heirloom tomato at a farmer’s market in the summer?
DB: Well, Jack just said, “tell her not to squeeze it, the price will only go up more.” The only way to know is to taste them. Heirlooms have such a variety of flavors—from the sweet to tart.

What are some of your favorite restaurants across the country?
DB: As far as restaurants go, maybe Oleana in Cambridge or Husk in Charleston? Those have been some of my favorites this year.

Favorite dessert?
DB: Apricots, straight from the fridge.

Chef Dan Barber. Photo © Andrew Hetherington.

View the original article here

Happiness - Eating Your Way to Happy Gourmet

If you ask people what makes them happy or what might make them happy; they will put together a list of things which include wealth, the eating great food, healthy family, travel and various personal items. These personal items might that be a car, a boat, a home, jewelry or clothes. When it comes right down to it the people that are the happiest when they feel pleasurable and that often comes with good food.

Many retired people would simply like to live in a very nice house and go out to dinner quite often eat different kinds of gourmet food. Sounds like a plan, doesn't it? This is why many folks are unhappy during recessionary periods when they are forced to cut down on their personal spending monies. This means they cannot go out to eat at fine restaurants around their area as much.

 

Sometimes being stuck in the house each evening without going out for fun in food can cause depression. This is why it is important to consider your happiness when budgeting your family monies. And why you should consider spending some of your money on happiness enhancement by going to gourmet restaurants or cooking at home great gourmet food.

 

So, you ask am I saying you can eat your way to happiness? Well, yes, actually I am and you might think it is funning but it is true. You really can eat your way to happiness. If you cut out eating at your favorite restaurants or eating your favorite foods you will cause depression and an unhappy depressed worker is more apt to lose their job.

Happiness is a lot about living and enjoying life, so whatever you do, do not cut out your happy eating habits. Think on this.

Lance Winslow - Lance Winslow's Bio. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/.

Proper etiquette in eating Japanese food Gourmet

The Japan is a wealthy country with a history of honor, of hierarchy and etiquette. Actually, they give so much emphasis on these values that they include when partakers of their gourmet food.

Japanese have their own gourmet food such as sushi, sashimi and nikogori. But there is a lot more to put only pieces of these exotic and delicious food in the mouth. Truly experience Japanese culture that is so prevalent in preparing and participating in their kitchen, must practice their unique table etiquette.

First, be sure to say "itadakimasu" before starting a meal. This means, "I receive" in English. After the meal, say "gochisosama deshita", meaning "which was a feast" in English. Telling this to your host or the restaurant staff shows that you can appreciate the gourmet food that have prepared for you.

Take note that, before eating, Japanese restaurants or houses will put a hot towel or a plastic-wrapped the wet napkin on the table. You must use to clean your hands before eating. Ever clean towel or paper towel on your face or any other part of the body. It is considered rude if you do so.

To eat rice or soup that is provided, take the bowl with the left hand and use chopsticks with your right. Although okay sipping soup or noodles directly from the bowl, don't do it with rice. Also, do not pour soy sauce on your food. Instead, soak a bite plate sauce.

It is good to be slurped noodles. It shows the host that you like her cooking.

In addition, eating rice, you should not leave sticking chopsticks vertically in rice. In this way is a ritual that is offered to the dead. Chopsticks cannot be used to spear food, to point to someone else, or to transfer the food to someone else. In this way is rude and is not recommended.

When getting a mouthful of gourmet food that is shared by all, turn the chopsticks around to collect the food because it's considered cleaner. If you want to share the food to someone else, take your dish or bowl and go directly to the person or the Bowl plate.

Finally, make sure that you have finished your meal to the last grain. Also, do not ask for special gourmet food in addition to those that the host has served. It is considered rude to ask for something else, especially in a corporate environment. Good manners will show that you respect the selections of your host.

And there you go! Now you are ready to participate in Japanese cuisine.

With your food gourmet espresso to enjoy some of best espresso machine, as these saeco espresso coffee machines.