Edition: U.S. / Global

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Dining & Wine

The Best in the Box

By MELISSA CLARK
Some of the 27 candies sampled in a blind tasting.
Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

Some of the 27 candies sampled in a blind tasting.

The Dining section conducted a blind tasting of 27 candies to find the best American small-batch, handmade chocolate-covered salted caramels.

Restaurant Review | Maysville
Kyle Knall, Maysville’s chef, and Sean Josephs, the owner of Maysville and of Char No. 4 in Brooklyn, have built a restaurant that feels thoroughly American.

Nuance Meets Its Kentucky Roots

By PETE WELLS

A new restaurant on West 26th Street named after the birthplace of Kentucky bourbon is a confident restatement of the American tavern.

Jesse Schenker, chef at Recette, has lost roughly one-fifth of his body weight.

Winning a Losing Battle

By JEFF GORDINIER

Jesse Schenker, the chef at Recette, has shown that even someone constantly surrounded by food can control his consumption enough to shed 55 pounds.

Pub cheese from Alder, where more down-to-earth food will be served.

Pub Grub With ‘a Wink and a Smile’

By JEFF GORDINIER

Wylie Dufresne, the pioneering, science-friendly chef at WD-50, plans to open a restaurant specializing in what some might call a cubist spin on pub grub.

Tasting vodka at Anchor Distilling Company in San Francisco.

Hops and Spirits Renew an Old Friendship

By ROBERT SIMONSON

The Dutch of yore flavored gin with hops, and now modern distillers are discovering they were onto something.

Letter From Paris
The mayor of St.-Péray, Jean-Paul Lasbroas, examines a dish.

Forget ‘Top Chef.’ Here, Meatballs Compete.

By ELAINE SCIOLINO

In France, there are a lot of cooking contests, including one for the slightly flattened meatballs that are a specialty of the Ardèche region.

City Kitchen
A bowl of basic polenta.

Winter’s Balm: A Bubbling Pot of Polenta

By DAVID TANIS

Grilled with a spicy tomato sauce or baked with a rich stuffing of spinach and cheese, made-from-scratch polenta is a meal worth the cooking time.

A Good Appetite

In Praise of Turnips, Year Round

By MELISSA CLARK

Try them braised in stews or simmered in soups, slivered into salads or simply sliced, buttered, salted and nibbled raw.

Video: Julienning Turnips

Melissa Clark shows how to julienne a turnip into matchstick slices without using a mandolin or food processor.

Two new copper stills, imported from Scotland, were delivered last week to the Kings County Distillery in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Distillery’s Small Batches Will Soon Be Less Small

By PATRICK McGEEHAN

Two copper stills, custom-made in Scotland, arrived last Monday at the Kings County Distillery in Brooklyn, which in 2010 became the first legal distillery in New York City since Prohibition.

The Pour
Paul Lukacs in his wine cellar.

Drinking Wine, From a Chore to a Choice

By ERIC ASIMOV

In his new book, “Inventing Wine,” Paul Lukacs makes the point that the idea of “tradition” in wine has been thoroughly mutable.

Hungry City | Lao Dong Bei
The restaurant is narrow and bright, with just six tables and little in the way of décor.

Come and Get It Before It’s Hot

By LIGAYA MISHAN

Lao Dong Bei specializes in the cuisine of China’s Dongbei region, which hasn’t yet succumbed to the American palate. Don’t wait for it to join the American-Chinese canon.

Opponents of genetically engineered food protested last month at Lafayette Park near the White House.

Genetic Changes to Food May Get Uniform Labeling

By STEPHANIE STROM

A move by Wal-Mart to require labels on products that contain genetically engineered ingredients could be influential in developing a national labeling program.

Dining in the Region
Long Island Dining | Mineola
Hush puppies come with a honey mustard dipping sauce.

Making Room for Southern Cuisine

By JOANNE STARKEY

An 11-month-old restaurant in a 1940s railway-car diner serves smoked barbecue ribs, fried chicken and pulled pork po’boys.

Connecticut Dining | Bloomfield
Tiramisù terrine with chocolate ganache, espresso anglaise and hazelnut gelato.

Big, Bold Italian Food, No Skimping on Cheese

By RAND RICHARDS COOPER

At Carbone’s Kitchen in Bloomfield, flavors are rich and crowd pleasing, servers are friendly, and no one begrudges the glutton his due.

Westchester Dining | Larchmont
Things get hot in the kitchen.

Authentic Thai Fare, With Heat Held in Check

By ALICE GABRIEL

Despite a pungent eponym, there is nothing off-putting about a new Thai restaurant in Larchmont.

New Jersey Dining | Classes
Desiree Macey, standing, guides participants through the process.

Making Mozzarella, a Hands-on Affair

By TAMMY LA GORCE

With several places in New Jersey regularly offering cheesemaking classes, mozzarella may be the favorite.

Front Burner
Florence Fabricant Recommends...

Florence Fabricant Recommends...

By FLORENCE FABRICANT

This week, a scale that measures and folds away, take out from Taste of Ethiopia and pickles from Boulton & Watt.

Danny Ye.

Off the Menu

By FLORENCE FABRICANT

A preview of Harlow, reopened by Richard Notar; Just Bread by Bien Cuit and Clarke’s Standard open; Governor closes.

Girl Scouts Embrace Social Media

February 6, 2013

What We're Reading

February 6, 2013

With Chocolate, Go for a Fortified Wine

February 5, 2013

More From Diner's Journal »

Graphic
Chocolate Caramels Worthy of Your Sweetheart

More and more of the country’s finest artisanal chocolate markers are producing caramels. So which ones should you give your Valentine?

Slide Show
Lao Dong Bei

Inside the restaurant in Flushing, Queens, which serves up a relatively new cuisine: that of the Dongbei region of China.

Slide Show
Maysville

Inside the new restaurant that is a winning blend of the refined and the unpretentious.

Slide Show
The King of Cakes

In New Orleans, the king cake reigns supreme — just don’t find a baby in your slice.

Graphic
Blueprint | Pouring Ribbons
A Bar That Serves the Bartender

At Pouring Ribbons, a second-floor saloon that opened in September on Avenue B in the East Village, a new workplace model was created to give the bartender a fighting edge.

Interactive Map
New York Health Department Restaurant Ratings Map

Interactive map of health violations at restaurants in New York

Talk to The Times

Pete Wells, Restaurant Critic, Answers Readers’ Questions

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

Pete Wells, the chief restaurant critic of The New York Times, is answering selected readers’ questions.

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