Minor's chicken and lobster base

mandolin, a vertically held slicer with various blade settings. They

almost everybody in the meat business is funny — just as almost everyone in the fish business is not.

lightweight, easy-to-sharpen and relatively inexpensive vanadium steel Global knives, a very good Japanese product

Rested and ready after a day off, the chef is going to put his best foot forward on Tuesday; he's got his best-quality product coming in and he's had a day or two to think of creative things to do with it. He wants you to be happy on Tuesday night.

Cooking is a craft, I like to think, and a good cook is a craftsman — not an artist. There's nothing wrong with that: the great cathedrals of Europe were built by craftsmen — though not designed by them. Practicing your craft in expert fashion is noble, honorable and satisfying.

Red wine, beef, some button mushrooms and a few pearled onions, bouquet garni, maybe some broad noodles or a simple

Stockpots, saucepans, thick-bottomed saute pans are

and their comrades, the Refugees, usually émigrés and immigrants