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Veselka has the best diner oatmeal I have ever had. Not steel-cut, but cooked with lots of milk and very creamy. Perfect.

Veselka in NYC

My first was "The French Chef Cookbook," which my mom and I used to adapt the Steak au Poivre recipe for hamburger...life at home was never the same.

ribeye

I too have the Zojirushi that is pictured above and it is marvellous. It does take an exceedingly long time to make brown rice but it is perfect, and stays warm for a long time without drying out.

The manual seems to be quite hesitant about endorsing doing any fancy cooking in it, but it certainly has handled some simple stuff I've done, like using stock instead of water, adding herbs and some diced vegetables. But I am not sure it would do the steaming that some of this week's Times recipes proposed.

The first time I went to Shopsin's (original location), I was in a booth with the friend who brought me (and was a regular there).

A couple of Kenny's young children came and sat in the booth with us. Their noses were dripping; they had serious colds. It was rather disgusting, though it did reinforce the notion that Shopsin's was different than other dining establishments.

Perhaps my revulsion would not have run so deep had I had my own children at the time (as I do now), but it did mark for me the limit to which I am willing to trade hominess for cleanliness at the restaurants I like to visit.

Ceriello's also has great rib-eye steaks. It is a fine butcher and easy to underestimate because of its lack of Manhattan reputation before it located at Grand Central. I don't find the butchers there to be flexible about preparing anything special while I wait, but the prepared cuts are excellent.

I lament the closing of Kurowycky, but I will truly be devastated if the same fate befalls the East Village Meat Market, otherwise known as Baczynsky, on Second Avenue between 8th and 9th... and the parallel applies, as it is only a couple of doors down from the useless Max Brenner, purveyor of not-good chocolate (a notion I hardly knew existed).

East Village Meat Market is a great establishment, with house-cured bacon to rival anyone's, and many other great prepared meats and sausages, as well as being a fine neighborhood butcher shop. Long may it smoke.

I don't have a problem with BLT Burger other than that the service is terrible--non-existent, apathetic, incompetent--and that the fries are totally pre-fab. I am not offended by celebrity chefs doing burgers, but BLT Burger deserves to die simply because it is stocked with employees who seem not to care a whit about serving their customers.