Hi Kaleo, I found lollipop lids on eBay for all but one one of the Rocky Mountain pans . It was actually the woman from http://www.4and20kitchenantiques.com who kindly alerted me to fact that these particular lids were being offered on eBay. They were shipped from France and fit the Rocky Mountain pans exactly.

I may send the lids off to Rocky Mountain for polishing -- I know it's silly since I could do it myself -- but I would rather leave it the professionals. One perhaps silly question, I can't tell what the lids are lined with. All I can see is that the copper shows through a tiny bit on some of them. Does that mean the lids are tin-lined? Should I bother getting the lids retinned?

By the way, I sent my Lamalle oval fish pan that I bought on eBay off to Rocky Mountain for retinning and polishing and it came back looking beautiful. Now i just have to cook up some fish in it and see how the pan does performance wise.

So far all the copper that I have bought is tin-lined other than the Falk "Try Me" piece that I bought.

I am thinking of buying a large copper skillet that I want to use primarily to make shahshuka -- a Middle Eastern dish were you saute garlic and spices and then simmer tomatoes for 10 to 20 minutes and then finish the dish off by poaching some eggs in the tomato mixture. I was wondering if I would be better served in buying a stainless lined skillet for this particular pan since I am primarily going to be using it for something acidic. Thoughts?

It's so strange -- I can't imagine why anyone would want a "table service" fish fry pan. I hope it ends up working for the purpose of actually cooking fish, not serving fish. It's also on the smallish side, so it will fit on one burner, but also won't fit a very large fish. And it has a kind of cheapish steel handle.

I don't think I will be buying any more pans on Ebay. The seller listed it as "very nice, very gently used condition" and the condition of the tin lining was not apparent in the photo. The seller and I have a different opinion on what is very nice condition -- the copper itself was okay, but not the lining.

When I contacted Peter last year, he said he had pans left, but that all the covers were gone. I guess I could ask him again about covers, but I would doubt he has any. When I contacted him last year, he said he had pans, but it would take awhile for him to add the handles and he would contact me for payment when they were finished and then I guess he just forgot about me. I'm glad I recontacted him recently because he promptly sent out a set of pans.

You are right that St. Benoit is the best yogurt I have ever tasted. I also like Pavel's, but it is a distant second to St. Benoit. Unfortunately, Whole Foods is the only place I have seen St. Benoit. I was recently shopping in another store and had to content myself with Pavel's.

Hi Kaleo,

I finally got my Rocky Mountain pans. Peter was supposed to call me last year when they were ready, but he never did and I forgot about it. I finally contacted him recently and he shipped out the pans. I love them -- they are so beautiful that it makes me want to find uses for them. And the copper is so thick.

Now on to finding lids for the pans.

Also, I recently bought a "Lamalle" tin-lined copper oval fish pan on Ebay and was very disappointed. I had thought Lamalle was serious cookware (he was apparently a Frenchman who was importing copper cookware in the '60's and '70's), but the pan is so light that it cannot possibly be more than 1.5" thick. The tin was also in poor condition, so I sent it off to Rocky Mountain for retinning, so it was not any bargain when factoring in the retinning. I still thought I would keep it and give it a try for cooking when it comes back from Rocky Mountain.

I have eaten at Emporium Thai five or six times over the last month and the food is consistently mediocre. I am done giving it a try. I don't think they use quality ingredients and the food does not taste fresh.

The sticky rice is gross and gummy. Perhaps sitting around and re-nuked? The som tom, one of my favorite foods in the world, has a funky, unappetizing flavor.

I don't think anyone who likes this place has ever really had good Thai food.

Hate the stuff. Hate the taste, hate the smell. Cannot stand anything coffee flavored -- coffee ice cream, coffee candy, etc.

I don't know what it is. It's not the bitterness because I love bitter green tea.

And it's definitely not genetic -- my mom thinks a cup of coffee is exactly the right thing to drink before heading off to bed, to say nothing of in the morning and afternoon.

Also, I tolerate chocolate but I don't love it. Kind of reminds me of coffee

I most certainly would not recommend Bibi's on Pico Blvd.. I recently ordered some food from Bibi's and ending up trashing it all. The hummus tasted like it came out of a box. It was awful and ended up in the trash. The pizza tasted like it had fake cheese - it tasted awful andthe "cheese" would not melt when I reheated it. A $16 pizza got trashed. The rugelah had a very weird "burnt" taste. Again, into the trash. The Mediterranean salad was similarly awful and ended up in the trash - old iceberg lettuce, what tasted like fake cheese, canned garbanzo beans and a very weird tasting dressing.

Every single thing was inedible. Never again.

Never even heard of Sip Tea, but just checked out their website. Vanilla Hojicha, Pineapple Mango Papaya tea and Chocolate Mint Rooibos really tells me all I need to know about them and the likely quality of their wares.

Does anyone know a good place to buy organic chicken breasts at a good price? I've been buying them at Whole Foods, which is very pricey (as Whole Foods usually is) and thought there might be somewhere else slightly cheaper.

Blistered little gems. My favorite salad in all of L.A.

I haven't tried it there, but Te-eem Grill (little hole in the wall and closed on Friday nights and Saturday) makes shashuka. Ask them to throw some zhug into the sauce and it should be spicy enough. I always make it with zhug at home.

7422 Melrose Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90036
(323) 944-0013

Liu, Thanks so much for the link -- I've never seen such a profusion of Assam tea offered. Leaving for a trip, but will pour over this when I return.

The only sencha that I sometimes buy locally is SPIRIT OF OHSAWA ORGANIC GREEN TEA available at Erewhon Market on Beverly Blvd. near Fairfax. American Tea Room in Beverly Hills (which took over the old Palais space) also has some good sencha, although extremely overpriced. http://www.americantearoom.com/jagrtea.html Even though I live in the neighborhood, I have had it shipped because parking is a hassle in Beverly Hills and if you order over a certain dollar amount (which isn't hard with their prices), they will ship free and you will have it the next day.

Other than that, I have been ordering all my sencha lately either from Mariage Freres in Paris (just got a shipment today, Monday, for an order I placed late Thursday night - it will be here from Paris quicker than if you ordered from most U.S. merchants) or from the Green Teaist http://www.thegreenteaist.com/product... which has decent sencha. I"ve had less luck re quality ordering directly from Japan. It seems counterinuitive to order Japanese tea from France, but Mariage Freres manages to get their hands on good stuff.

I know sencha and I can tell you there is no way in hell I would walk into Teavana in a mall to buy it. It's like wine -- once you have drunk the great stuff, it's hard to go back to Two Buck Chuck.

Now if I could only find the world's best Assam. Mariage Freres has decent Assam, but I'm not convinced it is the world's best.

I didn't know such a thing as tiffin services existed in LA. I feel like I died and went to heaven. I love Indian food and I'm allergic to onions and for $3 extra, they will prepare the meal without onions. I am definitely going to order and will report back.

I can't imagine that anyone could drink more green tea than me. I drink it hot, I drink it cold; I'll whip up some matcha. That being said, in all the years I have drunk copious amounts of green tea, I have never noticed any health benefits from it. It doesn't particularly energize me, doesn't help me concentrate and it certainly has never helped me to lose weight. I just happen to drink the stuff because I love it. Not sure why you want to go on a "green tea diet" or what you hope to gain from it.

I like the food at Sotto, but the OP is looking for somewhere (1) pretty, (2) a wonderful atmosphere and (3) where you can hear yourself talk. I think Sotto fails on all three.

So sorry to hear that Tsukiji is closed. Used to love that place.

I went to Thai Boom once based on recommendations on this Board. Eh. I mean you could say it is good compared to Natalee or Tuk Tuk, which are God-awful, but that's not saying much.

I can believe that. I'm sure at their price point, they are not using the highest quality meat and fish, but for instance, when I have ordered the shrimp curry, I really enjoyed it because of the freshness of the herbs and spices.

My only complaint is that sometimes the food has come out a bit lukewarm. Also, the one dish I was disappointed in was the Kerala Special Avial. I don't know if it is because I'm not a huge okra fan or if it was because it was one of the dishes that came out lukewarm. The night everything came out lukewarm they were slammed by a huge Indian tour group, so perhaps that explained the problem.

No, there is no good Thai food on the Westside.

Yes, there is a lot of mediocre Northern Indian food on the Westside. For Indian nowadays, I am really enjoying the Southern Indian food at Mayura on Venice and Motor. http://mayura-indian-restaurant.com/ It's not fancy. It's not the best Indian food I've had, but some of the dishes are really excellent and it's cheap and convenient. It's thronged with South Indian families.

I just had the buffet for lunch today. $12.95 includes the buffet, a free drink (a pretty good mango lassi) and a plain dosa. The buffet today had a killer spicy mango chutney. The dosas are excellent. My favorite thing at Mayura is the appam -- when they are brought out steaming hot (this is not part of the buffet) and dipped into something spicy -- it's as heavenly as anything you might eat at some 4 star restaurant. The one thing I haven't yet had at Mayura and which I want to try is the uttapam - they have a half dozen different ones. I do like the uttapam at Bombay Cafe (I think they only have one variety), but Mayura is just cheaper, easier and more fun. Given all the women in saris and little Indian children running around, it gives me the illusion that I am in India. I don't think I ever recall seeing any customers in saris at Bombay Cafe.

1. Don't know if they are available in your area, but I'm a big fan of LaTortilla Factory Smart Delicious Tortillas. The small ones are 50 calories and the large ones are 100. High fiber, reduced carbs - fewer calories than 2 pieces of bread for a sandwich. I find a can of tuna, doctored up with some spices and rolled into the big tortilla to be a very filling lunch. In fact, if I wasn't scared of mercury poisoning, I would eat it every day.

2. I love the Weight Watchers peanut butter sundae cups. I find them delicious and filling when I'm craving something sweet. The only other Weight Watchers dessert I tried was the key lime pie, which I did not like.

3. Do you have a Trader Joe's near you? My favorite Trader Joe's low-cal convenience food are the frozen turkey patties. You can pan fry them from frozen with just a little bit of oil. It's just ground turkey and a little seasoning -- no junk in it -- but saves you from the trouble of making your own patties. Very filling. The Trader Joe's frozen salmon patties aren't bad either (I did not like the fresh ones -- too thick and hard to cook up evenly). Anyway, if you have a Trader Joe's and prowl around, I think you will find a lot of reasonably healthy, low-cal semi-convenience foods hidden among the mostly high calorie junk (some of the Trader Joe's prepared meals are in the 600 calorie range or so).

I have this Emile Henry pizza stone. http://www.williams-sonoma.com/produc...&

I bought it because I thought it would do wonders when cooking up frozen pizzas. I have it on the top shelf in the oven. I don't think it does anything. Perhaps these are only useful when making pizza from scratch?

Perhaps I should just retire the stone to the lower rack to keep the oven temp more stable as one poster says?

Also, I wasn't aware I was supposed to season my stone.

If you like Thai chiles, for $15.95 inclusive of shipping, you can have a large pack of the best, freshest Thai chiles shipped to your door.

http://importfood.com/fptc0601.html

The quality is impeccable. I put them in an old Tupperware container with a vent left open (the vent is in the Tupperware since it was made for microwaving) and some paper towels to absorb moisture, and they have stayed impeccable for weeks.

These are better quality chiles that I have ever been able to obtain at any supermarket, including Whole Foods, probably because they are much fresher than anything except what you might find at a Farmer's Market (and frankly, I've never found anything this good at a local farmer's market).

These chiles are quite hot. I have a high tolerance for hot foods and usually have to throw at least 3 chiles into a dish to make it hot enough for my taste, but with these babies, one will do.

In past years, I have grown Thai and other hot chiles, but last year's crop was a disaster for some reason, so with this source, I am not even going to bother this year. Rather, I'll leave it to the professionals.

I did buy them from Amazon, relying on the good online reviews. I generally prefer Amazon to my local store because my local store is likely to have exactly one set of measuring spoons while Amazon will have a large variety.

I have found some good products that way -- my Zyliss silicone spatula comes to mind, although probably made in China -- but I got burned with the CIA spoons. In general, I prefer not to buy Chinese-made goods, but sometimes you have no choice.

"IMO, as long as you pay decent money, even made in China products can be good."

Actually, the CIA spoons that I ordered from Amazon were even more expensive than the ones you recommend, and they are junk.

In general, I would agree with you, but I just happen to think that Hama Sushi in Little Tokyo is really good sushi at a relatively low price. And I've eaten $600 per person sushi meals. Obviously, Hama Sushi isn't in that class, but it's good. Maybe their overhead is low in Little Tokyo but the restaurant costs significantly less than other places with sushi that isn't as good.

The Pademo spoons look interesting, albeit probably made in China.

Yes,that's what I was afraid of - that it is impossible to buy anything not made in China.

It's really sad - now when I buy any cookware not made in China, I think about whether I should stock up on the rest of the line because probably in a couple of years, whatever I'm buying will be made in China by the lowest bidder. After recently buying a high quality stainless steel mixing bowl in Japan, I immediately went out and bought the next size up as well, with the thought that if I didn't do so, in one or two years, they either wouldn't be manufactured in Japan or, even if they were, would no longer be available for purchase here.

Went to Hama Sushi in little Tokyo recently after a long hiatus and it was excellent. And less than $30 a person even with sweet shrimp, fried heads and toro.

For all those chili-heads out there, I wanted to share my new discovery.

For $15.95 inclusive of shipping, you can have a large pack of the best, freshest Thai chiles shipped to your door.

http://importfood.com/fptc0601.html

The quality is impeccable. I put them in an old Tupperware container with a vent left open (the vent is in the Tupperware since it was made for microwaving) and some paper towels to absorb moisture, and they have stayed impeccable for weeks.

Thai chiles, or any other hot chiles other than habanero, which I don't like, are impossible to find at my local markets. (Sorry, but wimpy jalapenos don't count). I could drive across town to a Thai market, but these chiles are of better quality than I have seen in my local Thai markets.

In past years, I have grown Thai and other hot chiles, but last year's crop was a disaster for some reason, so with this source, I am not even going to bother this year. Rather, I'll leave it to the professionals.