Remember I lived in the South, but most of the fried chicken I was served was a disappointment in one way or another. The most consistently good fried chicken in Atlanta — the boneless breast at Agnes & Muriel’s — was also way too heavy to have more than occasionally. As everyday stuff, I preferred the chicken at Mary Mac’s or the Dillard House, which was obviously homemade but otherwise nothing special. I never got around to trying Scott Peacock’s award-winning fried chicken at Watershed, although I did really like the restaurant itself. But with Hill Country five blocks from work, now I don’t have to.

You can’t eat this stuff every day, but I could definitely imagine eating it once a month. And did I say “pie”?

What to do:

• Wash about half a bunch of asparagus, break off the woody ends, chop into roughly 3/4-inch pieces, and nuke them in the microwave in a covered bowl for about 2 minutes.
• Take an ordinary saucepan, pour in a quart (32 ounces) of stock (I used a Tetra-Pak of chicken stock), and turn the heat on low.  You want it to be hot, but not boiling.
• Chop a medium onion — minced if you’re a good chopper, or just rough small pieces, it doesn’t really matter.
• Put a second (heavy, if you have it) saucepan on the stove.  Melt about 2 tablespoons of butter over medium heat, and when it’s sizzling, drop in the onion.  Cook for a few minutes until the onion has started to get soft (but not brown).
• Measure about 1 1/2 cups of Arborio rice, pour it into the buttery onion, and stir it around.
• Add some salt and pepper.
• Pour about 1/2 cup of white wine (whatever you have handy) into the rice-onion mixture, and stir it over medium heat for a few minutes until most of the liquid bubbles away.
• Add about half a cup of stock to the rice mixture.  (I just dip a mug into one pot and pour it into the other.)  Keep the heat medium-high on the rice mixture and stir/scrape intermittently with a wide spatula, to make sure it doesn’t stick to the bottom or sides.
• As the stock bubbles away from the rice mixture, add another half-cup of stock and stir.  As it cooks, the mixture should be neither soupy nor dried out.
• Keep repeating this.  It will take between 20 and 30 minutes for all the stock to be absorbed into the rice.  Stop adding stock when the rice tastes cooked but still a little chewy.  You may have a little stock left over, which you can feed to the cat.
• In between dealing with the rice, grate about 1/2 cup of good Parmesan and set it aside.
• When the rice is done, fold in the grated Parmesan and adjust the seasonings.  Then fold in the asparagus you cooked in the microwave.  Then serve with a crusty bread.

Are there any tips that minimize the stench of boiling cabbage and cabbage-like substances that actually work? A beloved member of my family (now deceased), who will remain nameless to protect her reputation, once said that if you put a piece of dry bread in the steamer, it soaks up the fragrance, but to be honest that always sounded like voodoo to me. (Plus, this woman once tried the fad of cooking fish in the dishwasher, but didn’t seal the packets very well — or maybe she added too much detergent, I forget — and ended up with a big mess. So I’m inclined to discount her advice by 40 percent right off the top).

At Fairway recently I came across the label below, which promised, in part, “Unsurpassed! The best domestic cheddar you will ever taste.”

“Pish tosh!” I replied, in my head. “Yet another example of marketing language getting out of hand.” But I bought.

Boy, was I wrong.

I think I can safely say not only that this Grafton Village is the best domestic cheddar I’ve ever tasted — it’s the best cheddar I’ve ever tasted, period. And it’s not just the cheese itself — it’s the milk underneath, which has a quality to it that my city-trained palate has trouble describing. “Roundness” is what comes to mind. Never mind comparing this to Kraft — very few of the expensive cheddars I’ve ever tried is anything like this. It’s so intense that I can only eat a limited amount at a time, not because it’s “rich” (i.e., full of fat) but because the flavor is so sensually intense.

The only cheddar I can think of that impacted me this way is an aged English extra-super-sharp cheddar that was brought back to me (probably illegally) on a plane as a gift several years ago, but that one was appealing in a very different way — it was semi-dry, crumbly, almost crystalline in parts, more like a Parmigiano-Reggiano. This Grafton Village, in contrast, tastes of bright fresh ripeness — you can tell, if you’ll pardon the expression, that it came out of a cow who was in the blush of good health when she gave us our gift of milk, surrounded by loved ones, probably in some sort of dell or vale with the sound of a fresh bubbling brook blowing into the barn on a spring breeze.

This sort of ripeness is a kind of taste that has basically been selected out of American industrial food production — things are vastly better in America, foodwise, than they were twenty years ago, but industrial dairy still sucks. My mother used to say that dairy products were better, fresher, brighter when she was a child, and I think this may be what she meant.

Grafon Village is the perfect centerpiece of a light summer lunch, which you can see at right. Seltzer courtesy of Sodastream. The only thing that would make this lunch better is a whole scallion (I forgot to buy them), and perhaps a dill pickle so gently pickled that it tastes like a cucumber you dipped in the sea and then set down for a few moments in the same room as a garlic clove. And, of course, home-baked bread, but I’m out.

Two downsides, easily solved. One downside is that the coffee, once adulterated with milk, isn’t always quite hot enough (solution: hot milk). Another downside is that it only makes about 7 ounces at a time (solution: have more cups).

At first I thought the coffee was also too weak, but that turned out to be easily solved: grind finer, and pack more coffee into the filter cup. I fill the thing all the way to the rim, and tamp it down slightly.

The quality of the beans makes a big difference, too — as big or bigger than when brewing via the conventional drip method. Obviously Gorilla makes an excellent cup, but I’m not in Park Slope every week.

I’ve tried a lot of the beans that are easy to get hold of in my neighborhood (including Peet’s and Porto Rico). And I’m a little surprised to say that as a staple coffee, I’ve found that the Whole Foods “365″ everyday-value French Roast whole bean is the one I like best. It makes an exceptionally good cup in this thing, good enough that I’ve made a special trip there to get some more.

The thing is only 30 bucks — I’m thinking maybe I should just get one and try it. I’m attracted to the idea of “coffee concentrate” — I can think of a lot of interesting things I could do in the kitchen with that. I love my coffee, but I’m one of the people who’s bothered by both the acid and (at times) the caffeine, so this seems like an alternative worth exploring.

Buy yours from Amazon at this link and I’ll get a little something out of the deal… and you can also read, like, 200 reviews, most of which look pretty positive.

Hint: 1 cup of flour weighs about 4 ounces, according to the Internet. (And if you’re one of those people who panics if the proportions are off by 5 percent, buy a scale.)

I’m particularly proud of yesterday’s bread. With practice, and some tinkering with the proportions and the rise times, the bread is looking classier and classier, as you see below.

This was made off the standard recipe, except that (1) for the first time in ages, I used only King Arthur white bread flour, with no other flours or grains added; and (2) it got a seven-hour first rise and a two-hour second rise.

I think I prefer having some other grains in the mix, and I think it needs a longer second rise (and a shorter first rise), but this is still exceptionally good bread (as good in its way as any artisan bread you can buy at the store, or better) — and I made it with my own hands.

The two orange squash in last week’s photo turned into the side dish you see above, with a bonus serving of toasted squash seeds, which those of you who lived through the 1970s in a yogurt-and-macramé household, as I did, will recall as one of nature’s treats. The squash were a little immature, so the flesh wasn’t quite as sweet as it might be, but on the other hand it was richer and subtler than what you get in the store.

And, finally, the meatballs. We use a freestyle adaptation of Mark Bittman’s spaghetti-and-meatballs recipe from this book, which has gradually become the first cookbook I reach for. This being the 10th batch of meatballs or so, I don’t even look at the recipe anymore, but from memory here it is more or less. Like almost everything I cook regularly, the recipe is really forgiving (otherwise it’s not worth building a habit around). For the chopping, I use the chopper attachment to my hand mixer, which leads to slightly chunky meatball innards; the results would be more even and consistent with a real food processor.

Get out a big bowl and dump into it:
1 pound ground sirloin plus 1/2 pound ground pork, broken up with your hands into small chunks to aid in combining
1 large carrot, chopped fine
2 shallots OR 1 medium onion, chopped fine
2-3 large garlic cloves, chopped fine
1 cup stale breadcrumbs OR 1 cup virtually any leftover cooked grain from the fridge, e.g., cooked rice
About 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley, if you have it
About 1/2 cup grated good or good-ish parmesan, romano, or other dry or dry-ish cheese (don’t use crap, but it doesn’t have to be the gold-medal stuff)
2 raw eggs
A spoonful of Asian chili garlic sauce, some dried chopped jalapenos from the spice rack, cumin, and quite a bit more salt than you think you need

Mush all this up with your hands until you have a big lump of raw meatball substance. Form into meatballs of your preferred size, and cook in a large, deep skillet in hot olive oil, turning very frequently, until browned all over. Remove meatballs from pan.

Pour off most of the oil, then pour a jar of high-quality marinara sauce into the drippings. (It’s worth not skimping on the sauce; don’t ruin perfect meatballs with a jar of Ragu!) Warm the sauce, then add the meatballs back in and coat all over. Serve over the pasta of your choice.

As a devotee of The Big Bang Theory, Matthew was curious about the Cheesecake Factory. As someone who’s game for anything, I agreed, and (bracing ourselves for the ridicule of our mutual friends, which did indeed forthwith rain down upon us), we met in front of the Prudential Center branch of America’s favorite sitdown gorgefest about 8:30 the other night.

The last time I set foot in a Cheesecake Factory was about 7 years ago for lunch at the Sherman Oaks Galleria, and the last time I ate in one for dinner was, what, 20 years ago? I hail from that suburban-escapee American social stratum in which the people over 60 (and a few of the younger set who never quite grew up and broke away) enjoy the Factory non-ironically, and the people under 60 sneer at it ceaselessly and set foot in it only when invited by an elderly relative. But I might have to change my tune.

Commercialized? Sure. My cocktail was watery. The menu was too long, covered in advertising, and a bit pretentious for what they’re serving (which you might call “large-portioned high-middlebrow American festival cuisine”). But I’m afraid that with those, I’ve now exhausted my complaints.

I ordered corn fritters, and a chicken cutlet dish with a fake Italian name that came with a football of mashed potatoes and a garden’s worth of asparagus. Matthew had the hibachi steak — which came with a like portion of potatoes — and a ten-pound vegtable salad. And I must say that everything was delicious. The portions were gargantuan, with enough chicken and potatoes on my plate to feed three hungry adults. The corn fritters were absolutely perfectly done, light and fluffy — the sort of dish I’d try and fail to duplicate at home. The chicken cutlets were pan-fried light and floated on an unimpressive but inoffensive sauce. In fact, there was nothing served to either of us that I wouldn’t consider ordering again, which is actually pretty rare when you think about it. In fact, typing this right now, I’m getting hungry.

Incidentally, we skipped the cheesecake, having each consumed about 2,000 calories by the time the dessert menus came. So I guess I’ll have to go back.

It got a six-hour rising, and consequently is soft and crumby despite being heavier on the whole wheat (proportions roughly 2 cups King Arthur whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup cornmeal, 1/2 cup toasted buckwheat groats [kasha], 3 cups King Arthur white bread flour). I wasn’t sure what the kasha would do — in the dough, it was a little lumpy, and I was afraid it would interfere with the rise — but it’s fine; it gives the bread a nutty overtone without hurting it at all.

The Boon Companion (who is the one who deserves the credit for “groaty to the max”) said “this bread tastes really… er… healthy… and that’s sort of a compliment” — but I’m happy with it. And if I do this 50 more weeks in a row, I’ll be a master of flavors and textures.

NYC fruit stand prices seem like the punch line of an old “make it up in volume” joke. Given that supermarkets sell the very same thing for $3.49 — and this is not second-quality merchandise — how does this guy manage at $2? Obviously his overhead equation is different, but still, his inventory begins to rot (especially on a day like today — we’re approaching 80 degrees at 8 in the morning) the moment he sets it out. Margins for a fruit seller on New York streets must be exceedingly thin.

When I first arrived here, and realized that it was very common to be served coffee with the milk already added, my reaction was, “ew! What if they put in too much milk? Or too little?”

But I got over myself, after realizing that (1) once you’ve decided to add milk in the first place, coffee is equally delicious with milk added in a pretty wide range of amounts, (2) people who add milk to coffee for a living know how much to put in, and (3) who gives a crap?

If you’re on the way to work and you stop at a coffee cart to grab a cup, the guy in the cart knows what to do. It’s fine — let him put in the milk. And the same for sugar. I know how much sugar I like when I’m preparing my coffee myself. Sometimes the cart guy puts in too little; sometimes he puts in too much. But it’s fine. The coffee always seems to come out somewhere in the “drinkable” range. And it’s nice to save that extra time and effort.

Now, after a few years of doing it the New York way, I can’t stand being forced to adulterate my own beverages, and when you’re outside New York, you almost always do. And increasingly I’m finding New York is just like the rest of the world. This is presented as a convenience — “make it your way” — but, really, at 8:45 in the morning, when my briefcase is over my shoulder and the newspaper is under my arm and I’ve got a CVS bag in one hand and my wallet in the other, really, I have to walk over there, put everything down, take the lid off, and add my own milk?

Even worse is “we’ll add the milk, but you have to add your own sugar.” Really? I’m talking to you, Wichcraft 20th Street, and you, Zaro’s Penn Station. Penn Station! All day long people come in there with bags and luggage slung over their shoulder, hot and sweaty, their hands full. You’re adding the milk already. You can’t add the sugar? There’s nothing as generic and fungible as a spoonful of industrial sugar. I don’t care if it’s Domino’s Golden Crystals or Sysco sugar — it’s sugar! Get yourself one of those metal bins like the coffee cart guy has, and add my damn sugar.

Thank you for your consideration.

Perfect consistency, fresh and doughy inside with just a little crunch on the outside, a little glaze (on the top, not on the sides) but not too much, glaze has a slightly candied consistency (chewy). And the thing is not so big that you want to go to sleep afterwards. Bravo!

It is $2.50, which I wouldn’t spend every morning, but I don’t mind paying a $1 happiness tax to get something so perfect.

I also have something grumpy to say about Wichcraft, but I’ll save that for another post, so I don’t pollute the beauty of this moment.

I found myself in Boerum Hill about 9pm Sunday and decided to walk 2 blocks to check out the famed Mile End, which has allegedly brought Montreal-style smoked meat to New York. I’ve had this clipping stuck up on my refrigerator for 6 months, so it’s about time.

Amazingly, 5 nights a week Mile End is open until 10, and they dispense take-out sandwiches right out a window onto the street. I took one home. The claims are true: the slow-smoked, peppery slices, thin and a little fatty, are almost buttery in their smoothness, infused with the smoke flavor you only ever find in the products of barbecue joints in the middle of nowhere, piled onto good rye bread with mustard. Best eaten with a half-sour or two contributed from your refrigerator, and maybe a seltzer. Sorry, no photos of the sandwich, it didn’t last.

As a result I’ll be eating roughly a pint of blueberries per day from now until they disappear, and I’m reacquainting myself with the relative sweetness and deliciousness of the wares available from my various blueberry sources. (Last year, Jersey blueberries from Fairway were the most reliable, but the Mississipi blueberries I picked up this week at Fairway gave them a run for their money.)

I’m also musing on the following Dr. Science question: Crush a blueberry, say with a rolled-up newspaper, and it stains the newspaper blue (or, more precisely, purple). Crush a blueberry in your mouth and dribble the juice on, say, a kitten, and it stains the kitten blue. (I think.) But crush 500 or 1,000 blueberries in your mouth and swallow them, and the blue, uh, disappears! (Please don’t ask me to explain what I mean. Just ask a five-year-old.) Where does it go?

I’ve done my research (thanks, Internet) and am not satisfied with the answers — many of which seem to contradict the premise of my question by suggesting that the blue is in fact, uh, reemerging at the end of the, uh, rainbow, I’m just not noticing. (Not bloody likely!). So this will have to remain one of biochemistry’s little mysteries for now.

In the meantime, as long as you’re not worried about swelling up like Violet Beauregarde (and if it hasn’t happened to me yet, it probably isn’t going to), join me in enjoying one of summer’s treats. They’re delicious and good for you — and, at least here in New York City, at the moment they’re everywhere.

The press was largely approving (with the obligatory acknowledgments of the end of the Old New York and its replacement with a commercialized simulacrum of itself), and I have to say that (my obligatory acknowledgments aside, which should be taken for granted) I agree. They did a respectful job of converting the interior of the historic church building into an interestingly-laid-out space with small retail areas (most of them larger than kiosks, smaller than shops) on three levels. The interior was larger than I expected and the retail mix was much better than I expected, and I could imagine coming back and browsing here for longer than I did.

The biggest surprise was a large gourmet food hall on the ground floor, with a fresh produce stand in the courtyard. The food hall is no Harrods or even Zeytuna, but it was quite a bit more capacious than I expected. I picked up some Tanzanian peaberry coffee beans roasted right on the premises.

I do feel sorry for the girl whose job it is to smile and say “Hi, welcome to [name of food counter]” to everyone who comes around a certain corner — that must get old after about the 3,000th time.

This isn’t really the time or place to talk about Fairway the supermarket, other than to say that this small local supermarket chain — the chain is small, not the stores — carries the best combination I know of fresh produce and meat and cheese and baked goods, affordably priced and creatively sourced gourmet and specialty products, and ordinary groceries. I think after a particularly difficult case of weekend shopping exhaustion I once described the Red Hook Fairway (the Brooklyn outpost, full of Park Slope stroller families in their Zipcars on “big weekend shop” excursions) as “imagine that Trader Joe’s had a baby with Ikea,” but that isn’t quite sufficient, because the raison d’être of Fairway is its produce and meat and cheese, which are truly spectacular.

But I digress. Today’s topic is Fairway’s upstairs restaurant, which (like Henrietta’s) aspires to a cuisine that might be called “fresh and honest,” although with the look-how-fresh-and-honest-I-am brassiness of a New York place. And I have to say I’ve consumed plenty of excellence at Fairway Cafe, which shares some of the traits I like about Henrietta’s (starting with the open kitchen, which I neglected to mention about Henrietta’s last night). It makes a steak that is very good indeed, along with great cafe dishes like chicken schnitzel; traditional sandwiches (like egg salad on black bread) are exceptionally sharp and good; the by-the-glass wine list is extensive; the desserts are classics, and much less snooty than the ones at Henrietta’s. Salads are well composed; vegetables are always fresh. It won’t do for everything Henrietta’s will do for (I wouldn’t take a client there, for instance), but it’s the sort of place that I want to want to eat in four times a week.

The food itself, in other words, is steady, in the best sense. The sourcing is not as fastidious as Henrietta’s, but it’s quite good (hello! it’s inside of Fairway — there is no better retail source for consistent fresh food in New York City). And the prices are reasonable.

The problem with Fairway Cafe is that the service is irregular. The staff have their friendly and competent moments, and everyone means well, but there are times when it takes forever to get someone’s attention and another forever to get what you wanted. (At Henrietta’s, all I have to do is look in the general direction of “up” and someone is at my side asking what I need.) Plating at Fairway can be slapdash; I’ve had orders go in a little wrong; and generally the experience just doesn’t feel tight.

I am endlessly giving Fairway Cafe second chances, because when it is good it is very good indeed, and I like the setting (looking out on Broadway from a big second-floor window, left alone to read a good book while I eat a delicious and reasonably priced meal). I keep bringing friends there in the hope that they’ll have a one-of-its-best-days experience and see the magic that I see. They rarely do. Maybe with a little pressure from my millions of readers they’ll tighten up the ship just a bit and it will become the place it deserves to be.

In dozens of small ways, it feels like the management understands what its guests need in order to be comfortable and work efficiently, and this reveals itself over time — you may not completely get it on your first visit, but come back (presumably after visiting some less-impressive hotels in the interim) and you will. Given its location, the Charles is basically a business hotel for people whose business has a cultural or intellectual component, and in the decor and furnishings there’s some whimsy and thoughtfulness (of the let’s-not-get-caught-trying-TOO-hard Boston variety, to be sure, but still). Even the underground parking facility (which is independently run) is a “green garage.”

Besides, in the closet they give you real hangers. You can probably even steal them. I bet they won’t even care!

But what I really love about the Charles is Henrietta’s Table, which I think may be my favorite restaurant in America. That sounds like a wild claim, but I’m sitting here trying to think of another restaurant, anywhere, that I’d be happy to eat in four times a week for the rest of my life and I don’t think there is one.

Henrietta’s calls itself a “fresh and honest” American restaurant, but that doesn’t begin to cover what I like about this place:

Fresh ingredients, locally sourced and thoughtfully prepared. This isn’t the kind of restaurant where the plates are gorgeous (although they often are); it’s the kind of restaurant where you can assume that if there’s a tomato or a beet or a pork chop on your plate, someone chose it for flavor, from a reputable source, and it will deliver. There’s an emphasis on regional and local ingredients, and they report the provenance of ingredients when they can. Tonight I ordered something that in most restaurants would be forgettable or even worth avoiding — a dish of stone-ground grits with fresh vegetables — and it was flavorful and balanced without being gratuitously rich. On my salad plate were probably the tastiest tomatoes I’ve eaten in three years. The last time I was here, I had a steak, and it was the second-best steak I’ve ever had. In my whole life. (The winner: Magnolia Steak in Norfolk, which (alas) is now closed.)

Daily menu, but very little attitude. Most places that have a menu that changes daily feel like they’re trying too hard, but I rarely get that embarrassed “jeez, ratchet it back a little” feeling here — except sometimes when the dessert menu comes, but the desserts are so good that all is forgiven.

Extensive wine-by-the-glass list, many under $10. To do this they need a lot of turnover, which they get (it’s a large hotel, and there is a lot of community patronage, too — another indication that they’re on to something). Tonight I had a Long Island Cabernet Franc that was so good I’d stock it at home.

Absolutely the most reliable, hearty, no-tricks American breakfast I’ve ever had. Perfectly consistent from visit to visit. Eggs cooked exactly to order; gigantic portions of ham and sausage; superb breakfast potatoes (note: roughly 1 lb. butter per lb. potatoes); honest wheaty bread and very good biscuits (second only to America’s best biscuit, Atlanta’s Flying Biscuit). Strong coffee of a quality that’s hard to duplicate at home. Fresh, rich butter; preserves in abundance.

Spacious dining room, with comfortable farmhouse tables and a large outdoor patio in good weather. The place never feels full, even when it is.

The very best kind of service: attentive without ever crowding you, anticipating what you’ll need, backing off when it’s clear you’re enjoying your food and friends.

All in all, Henrietta’s Table is nice enough for informal entertaining (e.g., a business dinner that isn’t too stuffy), but you don’t end up paying as much as you might expect. It’s very possible to get through dinner for under 40 bucks a person, including dessert and a glass of wine. At a restaurant of this caliber, that’s difficult to match. And that’s why I’ll be eating there, what, 6 times between now and Friday?

I happened to read this while on an enforced coffee “fast” (during my long weekend in the country with a large group, where our sleep/wake schedule didn’t make it convenient to have coffee at the times and in the dosages I normally do). I really, really felt the lack. Consequently I am having a cup of strong coffee now that I’m home, at 11pm on a school night, despite knowing that it’ll put me to sleep late and mess me up in the morning. But it is delicious, especially with these cookies that my houseguest left me as a hostess, er, host gift. Thanks, houseguest!