This was a hectic weekend—my dad was in town and I am still recovering. Some thoughts . . .

Cue needs a bathroom closer to the restaurant than the theater’s fourth floor. My dad and I were directed to the building’s apex by Guthrie staff as we exited the restaurant. I asked twice if it was the closest option as my near eighty-year-old father needed ‘to go.’ Sheesh! Was it something we said or is there really no other choice other than on that floor? I have a hard time believing that.

I Nonni and Buon Giorno Italia Market do some killer prepared foods these days. And they cater. The steak pizzaiola, the porcini stuffed hens, the antipasti, the sweets, and the service were shockingly good in terms of quality and made things easy on my wife and me. I think it is one of the best kept secrets in town. Check them out the next time you want someone else to do the cooking. The deli is also now carrying Biellese coppa and salami, and Paul Bertolli’s Fra’Mani salumi from Berkeley California—amazing stuff.

Speaking of the Marchionda family, their new restaurant, Il Vesco Vino, looks great. And its wine list, made up of mostly hard-to-source Southern Italian labels, is all available in one-third, two-thirds, and full-bottle pours, making pairing wine with food much simpler for two to four diners.

Tom Pham's new Temple restaurant is under construction, and according to my peeps will be very, very red and very, very cool. According to Pham’s flack, the Harmon Place eatery and bar will offer French Indonesian fusion food, and its 12th and Harmon address will—in addition to Doug Anderson’s new eatery, Nick and Eddie’s, and the existing Auriga, Lurcat, 20.21, etc., etc .—cement the Loring Park neighborhood’s position as one of the more interesting restaurant rows in town.

Speaking of 20.21, I had dinner there this weekend in honor of my friend Carol’s birthday (congrats CGM!) and the menu that the kitchen threw out for us was as good as good gets. The new short rib dish that Scott Irestone is executing—thinly sliced, Korean-style grilled and glazed ribs served with homemade kim-chee—is one of the best new dishes I have tasted in recent memory.

Happy Halloween, everyone. This year, if I can find the right wig, I am thinking of going as Steve Marsh.

OK, time to put some fat back on the bone. This is the best mac and cheese recipe I have ever used . . . a little tricky to make because of the egg. If it overcooks in the oven, it gets grainy, but if you are careful, the result is a creamy and cheesy dish with a buttery and crispy, crunchy mantle on the top. It can't be beat. Use some of the five-year-old Grafton cheddar, or a good sharp English cheddar. If you use a local cheese, be sure it is aged and sharp—the results will be self-evident.

The Best Macaroni and Cheese
1 c. fresh (not dried) breadcrumbs from artisan bread
3 T. melted butter
1/2 lb. uncooked macaroni
4 T. butter
2 large eggs
12 oz.-can of evaporated milk
12 oz. aged cheddar cheese, grated (makes about 3 loose cups)
1/4 t. tabasco
1 t. dry mustard
2 t. salt
1/4 t. ground black pepper

Toss breadcrumbs with melted butter and reserve. Cook macaroni to al dente, drain well, place back into the pot it was cooked in, and toss butter into the pot. Stir. Combine eggs, half of the milk, half of the cheese, tabasco, salt, pepper, and mustard. Stirring the macaroni and butter over medium-low heat, add the egg mixture, and stir until cheese melts and sauce begins to thicken. Add remaining milk and keep stirring until sauce begins to bubble on the edges of the pot. Pour contents of the pot immediately into a greased baking dish. Sprinkle with remaining cheese and the breadcrumbs. Place in the top third of a 425-degree oven and cook for 7-12 minutes, until breadcrumbs get toasty crisp, or place under a broiler (be careful not to burn the crumbs) to crisp. Serve immediately.

The restaurant business is an evil and pernicious mistress some days. The suits who own Five Restaurant & Street Lounge notified Heidi and Stewart Woodman on Tuesday, October 24, that they are no longer employed by the company that owns the restaurant.

Not only was Five one of the better restaurants in town, Food & Wine Magazine recently named Stewart one of the Top Ten Best New Chefs in America. The restaurant was also featured in Travel & Leisure Magazine and many other publications. In addition to great food press they have had, according to an e-mail Stewart sent me, the Woodmans have also been in conversations with a national TV show on which they would provide a cooking segment. The goose was hanging high, wasn't it???

Look, there were problems that many of us saw from a mile away when the restaurant opened, from design issues to multiple rooms within the same complex with different hours of operation and end use . . . all of which are tough issues to overcome, but Stewart and his wife are two of the most talented food people in the five-state region. As an owner, you have to figure out a way to work with the talent. And ownership has always been very clear on the Woodmans' extremely personal and almost religious approach to using only the best ingredients, staff, and equipment. And that ain't cheap to do. But the Woodmans are not shy about their take on their own craft! So survival tactic or not, having the ownership retool the expectations and the ground rules is their prerogative, but the onus was on them to create a template for everyone to work and be happy with a concept, not to create a situation where you are forced to evict your star player! Over the last few months, business had slowed (you could see it if you stopped into the dining room on a weekday) and the recent e-mails from the restaurant's GM touting drink specials and a new, reworked bar always spell trouble to me, but this is shocking. Unless there is something I don't know, which could be the case. Stay tuned.

The Woodmans' official first comment came in my e-box this morning . . . They view the announcement of their "departure from 'Five' as a fantastic opportunity to look at a number of possible new ventures." They are right. Five's ownership is who's in real trouble. The best thing about Five were Stewart and Heidi.

What's your take? Anyone been there recently? Any thoughts on how or why, on the first anniversary of the restaurant's birth, you would toss the baby out with the bath water—and who will be Five's new customer!!?!?!?!?!?!?

Last week I spent the day with Anthony Bourdain at the Red Hook ball fields. Essentially it is an outdoor food fest with a Latin flair, worth checking out any time you are in NYC. I was shooting some of the founding fathers and mothers of Chowhound.com, eGullet.com, and many other popular sites. Here are a few of our/their other favorite "ethnic eateries" in the outer boroughs of NYC. Why is this important? Because in an age when Manhattan reservations are hard to come by, assuming you can afford them, everyone is always looking for the better choices, especially in the farther reaches of the rest of NYC. You should be able to Google any of these names for more info . . .

*Sripraphai . . . Woodside, Queens. The absolute best Thai in NYC, according to many.

*Spicy Minna . . . Incredible Bangaladeshi. A hole in the wall. Always empty. Utterly delicious.

*Kabob Cafe . . . Can't-be-beat Middle-eastern in Astoria, Queens. Restaurant the size of a postage stamp. Rugs hung on the wall. See pics of Tony and I with the chefs.

*Tanoreen . . . Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Middle Eastern. This place is so good no one will take their friends for fear of over-running the place with amateur eaters.

Here is a great recipe for the end of apple season, as many of us get tired of eating them out of hand, and need a way to utilize all the apples in the fridge that have seen some better days. Many of the late-season apples are perfect to use for this delicious muffin; almost any will work.

Make an extra batch, these don't last long on the kitchen counter.

The Apples
1 lb. cored, peeled, and diced apples
1T. butter
1T. sugar
1/4 c. dried currants (any dried fruit works here)

Place apples, butter, and sugar into a large sauté pan over high heat and caramelize apples. Stir in currants and set aside to cool.

The Muffins
1 c. all-purpose flour
1t. baking soda
1 stick unsalted butter
2/3 c. brown sugar, plus some extra for tops of muffins
2 eggs
2 T. buttermilk
1/2 t. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together flour and baking soda and reserve. Mix butter and brown sugar in a tabletop mixer until creamed. Add eggs one at a time, then add buttermilk and vanilla. Add dry ingredient mixture. Fold in apple mixture—but do not over-mix. Spoon batter into a buttered 12-cup standard muffin tin. Top each muffin with some brown sugar and bake for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Serve warm.

After a few days in New York, I am officially having fun. Here are some of the reasons why:

+ Hanging out and slicing salmon with David, who has been in the center position at the Zabar’s fish counter for most of his thirty years there.

+ Grabbing breakfast at the ultimate NYC eatery, Barney Greengrass, with Gary Greengrass, whose grandfather and father took care of my grandmother back in the old neighborhood.

+ Having my friends Clark and Alice take me to Dim Sum Go-Go (5 East Broadway) for roasted duck dumplings, which are a MUST for the next time you visit the Big Apple. We also ate some funky treats at the Congee Bowery Restaurant (207 Bowery), and I ate fish flown in from Tsukiji Market in Tokyo with Yoshi, the sushi genius at Jewel Bako, one of the best Japanese restaurants in the world. I am stuffed.

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I think MSPMAG.COM is my new favorite website! Why? Glad you asked . . .

+ Our recipe database includes all of my blog recipes, and hundreds more that I keep sending into the interactive media mavens who run the site. They also have logged recipes from local chefs, recipes on restaurant menus, and recipes from chefs' personal repertoires. AND . . . our entire Restaurant Guide is online and is searchable, which means you can keep up with my editor’s choice selections for the best in local dining. There are reviews of restaurants, travel and eating stories, and plenty of other food-related magazine content now available on the site . . .

. . . such as my Cookbook of the Month selections, so you can keep up with the books, some old, some new, that I am enjoying working out of these days.

Red Hook, Brooklyn, is the next big thing, and the Red Hook Bait and Tackle is just about the most organically hip scene I have stumbled across in the last ten years.

This is the crowd (see pix) we discovered at 8 a.m. on Sunday morning when Tony Bourdain and I ambled in for an impromptu scene for one of the shows that we are shooting here in NYC this week. There was hardcore new-wave porn on the vid screen, everyone there was still high from Saturday night's party—they had never left the joint—and Tony felt like a raindrop entering the river. He had been out drinking with Mario Batali the night before (those two always go late) and had a 7 p.m. date with Gordon Ramsay that promised to be a late one also. I don't know how these guys do it. I took him to the B and T, then on to Soccer Taco stalls at the Red Hook Ballfields for Latin and South American foods, and then on to Moonshine, a legendary bar where they make some of their own booze and you can grill your own meat, and then to visit legendary metal artist Steel Neal.

. . . Batali is PO-ed about his TV shows getting canceled . . . and so am I. He was the best thing on the network.

. . . Gordon Ramsay's new NYC restaurant is INSANE, a fifty-seater modeled after Ramsay's Hospital Road eatery in London . . . Neill Ferguson is the chef, the food is amazing, the room is stunning, and the remodeled Rihga Hotel is gorgeous.

. . . Beirut changed his life, and he is still shaken by the experience.

Bourdain is one of the wittiest, most charming and gracious people I have ever worked with. He made the first days of shooting a breeze for me, loaded me up with pointers such as, "Do what you want, how you want, and tell the network about it after you get home," and is taking me out for the day on Thursday.

I'll let you know if I survive.

Belgian-style beef stew is the perfect solution to the "What can I make once and eat twice?" question. This is a simple and easy recipe that I have been teaching for years to first-time braisers . . . the darker and stronger the Belgian beer, the better, but Samuel Smith's Nut Brown works well also.

Beef Carbonnade
2 T. canola oil
2 onions, sliced
3 lbs. beef chuck, cubed and trimmed for stew (arm roasts work great, as do most stewing cuts)
bouquet garni of bay leaf, 3 thyme sprigs, and 3 parsley sprigs
1 c. beef stock or rich chicken stock
1 bottle (12 oz.) Duvel or other strong dark Belgian beer
10 new potatoes, quartered
2 c. diced carrots
4 cloves garlic, sliced
1 T. dijon mustard
2 T. red wine vinegar

Place 1 T. oil in a large Dutch oven or casserole pan over medium heat and brown the onions and garlic, being careful not to scorch them. Remove onions and garlic and add the second T. of oil. Add and brown the beef in batches if need be. Add onions back to pan, add bouquet garni, stock, and beer. Bring to a light boil, cover, and bake in a 325-degree oven for 90 minutes. Add potatoes and carrots, stir, and bake for another 25-30 minutes until potatoes are tender. Gently stir in mustard and vinegar, then remove and discard bouquet garni. Season with sea salt and freshly ground white pepper, and serve.

This recipe can be done completely on the stovetop as well. Cook at a very light simmer, covered, for the duration of the cooking time. Serves 8.

When should a dining critic visit a restaurant and when should they write a review? What constitutes a review? Is it a preview notice for the readers or is any written word from a critic technically a form of dining criticism?

My last blog raised the issue of whose voice is mattering most these days, the dining columnist or the average Joe. With the growth of internet communities the zone is getting grayer as many of us log on to sites like Chowhound to get a taste of what our fellow diners think of restaurants. I use sites like these when I travel, and I have found ways to utilize them to my best advantage when planning food trips to other cities.

This month the issue of when is it OK for a columnist to visit a restaurant and write about it has been burning up the water coolers in my world.

Most dailies and monthlies run benign previews of or first looks at restaurants as soon as they open as a heads-up to the reader. Then each entity sends a reviewer to check out the restaurant on whatever timetable the company has established as appropriate, sometimes two weeks, sometimes a month, sometimes ninety days, depending on the media company’s policy.

Recently the Pi Press sent Kathie Jenkins to the Chambers Kitchen, the new Jean-Georges Vongerichten eatery in the Chambers Hotel, to dine and write a conventional heads-up notice as part of her Small Bites column, which are intended as “first glances, not definitive reviews,” according to the paper.

In the Small Bites column published on September 14, Jenkins highlighted several dishes favorably, and knocked the restaurant for shoddy service. The Chambers people were, according to all of my buddies in the food world, pretty ticked off, since the press release sent out to the whole world noted the opening of the restaurant was on September 14 and apparently Jenkins had “managed to get a reservation via one of her friends during the ‘family & friends’ pre-opening” earlier in the week, according to the Chambers' PR rep who I spoke to. Jenkins may have been trying to scoop the Strib on the preview notice, but that seems like a weak reason to walk into a restaurant before it opens, and she may have felt that if the door is open, hey, then they are open and ready to be talked about, good or bad.

What do you think? When is a restaurant ready to be written about, and how should it be treated? Any differences between a day-old eatery and a six-month-old toddler restaurant? Theatrical performances are reviewed on opening night; what about restaurants?

Here is something that has been a hot topic at some recent dinner parties over the last few weeks, and a lot of people keep bringing it up to me . . . so let me just throw this idea out there:

The recent Brix review in the Star Tribune marks the third time in recent memory that Jeremy Iggers has referred to what his dining companions think and feel about a restaurant's honesty and authenticity quotient (Masa and Peninsula being the other two) regarding the food style and quality. And not just a mention either . . . in the Brix review (both he and they liked the place), Iggers's lead graph referenced some friends who spend half their year in Rome and that it was their feeling that Brix could hold its own with their favorite trattorias in that city. Wow! Having spent a lot of time there (Rome, not Brix) that’s quite a bold statement. It seems to me that unless Brix’s chef Cory Henkel is the second coming of Mario Batali, then Jeremy’s friends need to ease up on the limoncello, or find some better restaurants when they are back in bella Roma!

There are many great restaurants in this town, and each year the number of restaurants that are nationally competitive grows, but my experience tells me that there is not an Italian restaurant in our five-state area that is comparable to any of Rome’s best restaurants when it comes to the quality of what’s on the plate. And that's not a knock against restaurants in the Upper Midwest. Rome is one of the world's great food cities! I like Jeremy’s stuff, and have read him weekly for fifteen years, but as a reader I am buying the Strib to glean the dining critic’s viewpoint, not what the critic’s friends think of the place. Is that just me being weird? Does anyone care what my buddies think about their dining experience at a restaurant I am reviewing? If you have an opinion about this I would love some of our blog readers to let me know what they think. Are today's dining columnists going the way of the dinosaur? Is this my La Brea tarpit (copyright Dan Cole)?

Keep the apple train rolling all month long with these two great recipes combining two of our favorite ingredients, pommes et porc! These two have a natural affinity for each another, especially when you use acidic foods like vinegar or mustard or both to cut the sweetness of the apples and the rich, melting fat of the pork.

Apple Cider Roasted Pork Shoulder
3 T. fresh rosemary, chopped
2 T. flour
2 t. kosher salt
1 t. ground white pepper
1 trimmed, natural bone-in pork shoulder weighing 3.5 lbs.
3 T. canola oil
2 T. butter
1 large minced yellow onion
2 T. minced garlic
1 c. Calvados or applejack
1 c. natural apple cider

Combine rosemary, flour, salt, and pepper. Rub this mixture onto the roast. Place canola oil in a large pan over medium heat. Brown roast in pan. Reserve roast to a roasting rack set into a roasting pan.
Place into a 450-degree oven for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, in a sauté pan over medium heat, add butter, onion, and garlic and cook until lightly caramelized. Add Calvados and cider and reduce by half at a medium boil. Pour this mixture into the roasting pan when the initial 20-minute high-heat roast is over. Turn oven down to 340 degrees and cook for 2-1/2 hours, basting each half hour. Let roast rest for 20 minutes, then slice and serve with pan juices spooned over.

Roasted Whole Pork Loin with Apricots and Mustard Sauce
1 8-bone natural pork rib roast, bones frenched and well-trimmed, at 4 lbs. (Commodity pork won't work here at all; you need a farm-fresh natural product from a local store featuring species-specific hogs or a farmer's market. I like Clancy's in Linden Hills, Lorenz Meats in Cannon Falls, or any of the wonderful vendors at the St. Paul Farmer's Market.)
3 large carrots, diced
2 onions, diced
1 c. whole dried apricots
1 c. whole pitted dried plums
2 t. dried tarragon
1 full head garlic cloves, cleaned
1 T. hazelnut oil
1 T. grape seed oil
1-1/2 T. butter
1-1/2 T. flour
2 T. whole grain Dijon mustard
1 T. brown mustard
1/2 c. white wine
1 c. chicken broth
1/2 c. apple cider

Season pork with salt and pepper and lay into a V-shaped roasting rack and place the rack into a roasting pan. Scatter carrots, onions, dried fruit, tarragon, and garlic cloves around the pork and drizzle pork and vegetables with the oils. Roast at 350 degrees for roughly 90 minutes or until internal temperature of the meat is 145-150 degrees. Whisk together butter, flour, and mustards and reserve.
Let finished pork roast rest on a platter for 15 minutes while you make the sauce. Place roasting pan on a stovetop burner set to medium, tilt pan, and skim off any accumulated fat, leaving browned drippings and vegetables behind. Deglaze pan with wine, broth, and cider until reduced by 30 percent. Skim again, and whisk in the mustard mix in thirds. Simmer until thickened, season, and serve the chunky farmhouse 'sauce' with the pork. Serves 6.

Yesterday I attended a wine tasting hosted by Andy Blue where I watched a few dozen local grape juice aficionados sample forty wines in eight blind flights of five wines each. La Belle Vie did a great job handling the technical issues and providing me with all the bubbly water I could drink, as well as a stunning cheese board. Blue is a NYC transplant to LA and one of the great wine/food/travel writers and bon vivants of our time. Small world, we went to rival local high schools and grew up around the corner form each other. Blue has spent the last few days hanging out with our mutual pal, the legendary travel guru emeritus (and one of my idols) Rudy Maxa. While I was in DC for the last few days I missed out on slogging around the local restaurants with my friends, both old and new. Blue was particularly fond of his meal at Alma and had the “best time he has had in ages” closing down Nye’s Polonaise on Tuesday evening.

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The Twins . . . oy vey . . . stick a fork in them, sad to say. If we are relying on Brad Radke’s ailing shoulder to get the first win in what we all hope is our inexorable climb out of the mire, we are in bigger trouble than we think. If Liriano was healthy, I would be making plans to head home to NYC to watch the Twins take on my Yanks in the ALCS. Right now it’s looking like my set of Metrodome playoff tickets is essentially worthless.

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Did you go to Cue on Tuesday for the locavoreal repast? Want to go back for lunch? If the idea of eating a three-course mid-day meal of rabbit loin, lamb, and frangiapane for dessert, all paired with a nifty wine flight sounds good to you, Cue is offering the meal as a Sunday in New York promotion . . . $50 buys you lunch at the chic Guthrie boite and a parking spot . . . oh, and did I mention you also get a ticket for a conversation in the Wurtele Theater between Joe Dowling and Neil Simon thrown in for good measure? Yes, that Neil Simon . . . check out Cue's website for details. I can hear the nattering nabobs already . . . "Two Cue mentions in one week” . . . Sure, they have some nifty opportunities for readers to attend something that is reasonably cool and I want to make sure you know about it. If you know about other slick eating events around the Twin Cities, let me know, I would be glad to pass on the info.

Looking for something to do tonight? Check out the Eat Local Challenge taking place this evening at Cue at the Guthrie. According to Cue’s flack, “The concept is a 100-percent local meal, made from ingredients sourced exclusively from within 150 miles of the café.” Eating locally, especially hyperlocally, is the hottest trend in the food world, Twin Cities locavores are aware that most food travels a huge distance to reach the average American dinner plate (2,000+ miles according to the Worldwatch Institute). Eating locally reduces the impact that we have on the environment, can taste fresher (duh), solves many of our current food safety woes, and we all know that spending our food dollars close to home helps to keep local farmers in business. Check out Cue's website for details.

Cooking over an open fire just got easier for the Zimmern family. I am in love with my new Hoe-Joe. If you are sick and tired of scorching your knuckles and burning your old broomsticks trying to maintain large outdoor cooking fires, firepits, bonfires, booya conflagrations, and the like, then this heavy-duty fire rake is for you. It comes in two sizes, the junior model (eighteen-inch handle) is perfect for moving hardwood charcoal around even the smallest kettle BBQs. If you love too cook over real heat, this baby is a godsend, and not just for us gadget freaks.

Anyone planning on cooking for Monday night’s ‘break the fast’ meal to mark the conclusion to Yom Kippur will love these easy, do-ahead recipes. Anyone who is not observing will also love them—you don’t have to be Jewish to love great food, but it helps. Order a side of salmon and some bialys from Barney Greengrass and you will be set for the night.

Eggplant Salad
3 large eggplants, 2-1/2 lbs. each
2 T. olive oil
1/3 c. extra virgin olive oil
2 t. dried oregano
4 chopped scallions
2 c. flat parsley leaves
1 T. lemon juice
2 T. red wine vinegar, or more to taste
2 ripe, diced, skinless seedless tomatoes
2 large garlic cloves
2 T. salt-packed capers, refreshed and drained
6 pita bread discs, cut in eighths and toasted

Brush eggplant with the tablespoons of olive oil and broil on a baking sheet for 25-30 minutes, turning often until skin blackens and eggplant is cooked. Let cool, then peel and chop meats and reserve to a colander to drip off excess liquids. Place oregano, scallions, garlic, and half the parsley in a food processor and pulse until well processed. Fold into drained eggplant, then season with oil, lemon juice, and vinegar. Add tomatoes. Chop remaining parsley and capers and fold into the salad. Season with salt and pepper and serve with toasted or grilled pita.

Henriette’s Chopped Chicken Liver
2 lbs. fresh chicken livers
1 large yellow onion, minced
1/4 c. rendered chicken fat (schmaltz)
1 t. minced parsley
2 hardboiled eggs
1 box matzoh

Drain and pat dry the livers. Sauté onion in 1 T. schmaltz over medium heat until lightly caramelized (just past beige). Reserve. Fry livers to medium (pink) in 1T schmaltz in the same pan over medium high heat. Reserve livers. Grind liver and onions through a food mill by hand or pulse in a food processor. Add parsley, grate eggs, and fold into mixture. Add remaining schmaltz (or more to taste). Season with salt and pepper. Chill chopped livers. Serve with the matzoh.

Noodle Kugel
1 lb. extra wide egg noodles
4 c. cottage cheese
3 c. milk
2/3 c. melted butter
1 c. sugar
6 eggs
2 t. salt
1-1/2 c. sour cream
1/2 c. raisins
1/2 c. minced dried apricots
1/2 c. sliced almonds
1/4 c. brown sugar
1 T. cinnamon

Cook, drain, and cool noodles. Combine all ingredients, reserving almonds, brown sugar, and 1 t. of the cinnamon for sprinkling on top of the casserole. Butter a large pan or two small ‘brownie pans.’ Sprinkle kugel with reserved ingredients and bake at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes until set and golden brown. Serves 10-12.