Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Ruhlman.com for its integrity and professionalism and its pictures

It is not a state but in Quebec, my province, the ultimate food is foie gras hands down!

fifteen years ago sitting at a dining table on a cruise ship our tablemate discussed his job as a meat inspector for the government in a city i do not remember. He told us then, that if we even had the slightest idea of how meat is prepared produced and packaged for consumption we would never eat meat again. He refused to tell us, to him, it was not a subject to be spoken at the dinner table it was so disgusting.

Oh and one more: I was a latch-key kid in grade school which was down the block from where we lived. Each day at lunch school would let out and together my friends and I would walk home for lunch. There would be a can of Campbell's condensed tomatoe soup opened standing in the pot to be used: into which I would empty and fill with one can of water....and an egg salad sandwich in the fridge

Timing everything just right for me to meet up with the kids for a walk back to school and having been able to finish watching Johnny Jellybean on tv...(for all your canadian readers aged in their early 50's)

OOPS, I mean 'Joe"....

Ditto for my brother-n-law and he had to give up all alcohol...which brings me to another point...what if a critic or baker gets Diabetes? How would that affect his/her job?

Tuna salad, tomatoe, swiss cheese or norvegia, and a slice of canned pineapple : grilled

2 different flavored cheeses and the canned pineapple slice for the sweetness

really well written and interesting post...cannot wait for the next secret ingredient...lately i have been pursuing preserved lemons....

hannah, why do i suspect this column is what you are really after..creating that niche for your wrting, me thinks, is your primary goal....so perhaps u need to go undercover;but i suspect ur first restaurant job will be your last if this is how you are going to proceed...so make sure the next 'suit' is really rich.....and don't get me wrong i love ur writing but i just don't see how dishing the dirt is going to bode well for your future bosses...

i think in this era of recession, that restaurants who want our business pay their servers a little more and take the price off the patrons so that we can go out and enjoy ourselves without the worry of 20 percent added onto the tab + tax...the restauranteur should shoulder some of the cost instead of the patron paying all profits. if a restaurant can cut costs like craftsteak as an example, then imagine the actual profits being made, like a store having a 50% sale....except we don't have to pay the saleshelp a tip for the sale she just made.

I am a Diabetic, so how can I possibly enter your contest. Could it be that such contests are predjudicial and presume everyone can eat chocolate...on that note I would take an extra needle for anything that jacques torres makes, and i am only going on the visual; he actually makes confectionary so sensually appealing that at times I can actually envision the taste....i am entering like a blind woman enters a house of strangers...

ditto for Megs915: the Cuisinart 4 cup was a hostess gift and left it in the box until the one day i tried it out....now i put up rice each and every day without a thought....does stick sometimes but not enough to purchase a Zojirushi for big bucks....i cannot believe that rice can be this easy.....

why can't a bagel just be a bagel?