slbunge

This thread has me thinking about a drive we made last summer in search of the Clam Box in Ipswich that I had read so much about before moving to Boston. Turned out to be the final truly hot day of the summer. The town and the restaurant were packed. We have limited on experience with fried clam bellies and found them to be quite tasty. We paid extra to get 'local' clams which was a recommendation from people in line. The breading (or dusting) was light and the flesh was tender. In all, for the volume this place does, I think they have a nice touch with the fryer. Ahhh, summer. This was lunch, outside at the picnic tables. My lunch is on the left (without the offensive red stuff my wife likes) and is actually the big bellies. For comparison sake, a closeup of the two sizes.

Perhaps I haven't been paying attention to the menus but we had a guest in last night and went over to the Barking Crab in Boston and saw the version of calamari mentioned in the original post. Dusted and fried rings and tentacles served with pickled pepperoncini and a superfluous little cup of cocktail sauce. I believe they called it something like 'hot and spicy calamari' on the menu rather than Rhode Island. It was quite good. The peppers had a nice heat/sour combination and weren't enough to get the calamari all soggy.

The thread started by elrap about Rhode Island Calamari got me thinking about dishes that are native to New England. A few that I can think of include: Fried Clams: I'm not sure who was the first to batter and fry these tasty little creatures but I'm guessing it was folks in New England (as opposed to Long Island or New Jersey). Indian Pudding: warm dessert of cornmeal and milk with cinnamon, ginger, and plenty of dark molasses. Boston Cream Pie: not a pie at all, of course. Lobster Roll: the best $20 sandwich you can buy. Johnny Cakes: I have seen plenty of recipes but still have never seen these on a menu. Partly because I haven't spent nearly enough time in Rhode Island. (Recommendation please! Chris?) These are only ones that roll right off the tip of my tongue. What other foodstuffs, popular or not-so-popular, are native to this part of the country?

<Bump> Anyone know the status of the Boston area Penzey's? Is it open? If so, where? It isn't listed on their website.

I haven't really spent much time in the rest of New England but my favorite food neighborhood in Boston area, by far, is the North End. It certainly doesn't offer ethnic variety, but even with throngs (and I do mean throngs) of tourists, the place really holds it's own as a real neighborhood with very good food. Here are some of the highlights, all are accessible on foot by walking a total of about 8 blocks. Shopping: Two outstanding butchers literally around the corner from each other: Abruzzese and Sulmona (I believe that Abruzzese is on Salem and Sulmona is on Parmenter). A great Italian greengrocer: the place is known as Alba's for the owner but there is no sign (Parmenter street between Salem and Hanover). A dry-goods purveyor for beans, herbs, spices, and coffees: Polcari's (corner of Salem and Parmenter). A candy shop with nuts and dried fruits for baking: Dairy Fresh Candies (Salem Street). A solid Salumeria for cheeses, cured meats, and canned goods: Salumeria Italiana (on Parmenter). A very good fish monger: Giuffre's (Salem). A great 'wine for the masses' wineshop: Martignetti (Cross Street between Salem and Hanover). An excellent wine shop with hard-to-find Italian aperitivi, liquori, and digestivi: Cirace and Son (North Street). For baked good there are two very solid bakeries: Maria's (Cross Street) and Modern Pastry (Hanover Street). Both are head and shoulders above the overly sweet and intensely popular Mike's Pastry. Eating/Drinking: For coffee shops to pep you up halfway through the trip, there are some great ones. My favorite is Caffe Dello Sporto on Hanover. I want their espresso to be better, though. Restaurants abound but there a few worth mentioning with respect to eating while shopping and before leaving the neighborhood to head home with your bounty. For fantastic Italian American lunch food you must make the effort to get to Galleria Umberto (Hanover) during weekday lunch hours to try their arrancini and other hard-to find classics. Another great lunch spot is the Daily Catch (Hanover) which is so small that basically every table is the kitchen table (you'll see what I mean when you go) but the food is wonderful, particularly the house specialty black pasta with chopped squid, garlic and oil (menu lists it as aglio olio). For a quick bite, I'm a huge fan of the pizza slices at Ernesto's (Salem). That's my long-winded vote. You will not leave the neighborhood hungry. I also suggest shopping there sooner rather than later. With the destruction of the elevated central artery that separated the North End from the financial/government district, I worry that there will soon be intense pressure for the neighborhood to gentrify. That sort of pressure may make it difficult for a small shopkeeper to continue to do what they do best at their little corner of the world. Longtime residents will probably tell me that this has already happened but I still think the neighborhood's food is outstanding.

The short answer is yes. The long answer will be left to another thread. I have bipolar feelings about the current incarnation of the magazine.

Not trying to nitpick but the Himalayan restaurant in St Paul, MN serves them stuffed with yak meat. I haven't had the yak version but it is on the menu (click). I'm curious where they source the meat.

I find the Venetian model of offering an array of chicchetti at the bar to be very appealing. Small morsels of prepared food that can range in substance from a half a hard cooked egg topped with a small fillet of anchovy to a sizeable chunk of mortadella or even a savory little tart that is maybe two bites worth. Perfect for a nibble on the way home from work or even later in the evening. (Also found it was perfect for an irritating American tourist who seems to always be hungry.)

Roasting them simply coated lightly in olive oil with a bit of salt is my favorite. I usually scrub them and cut into chunks and forget trying to peel them.

I'm not familiar with the chefs from Chicago, nor their restaurants, but I did want to mention that in the very tough world of being a chef and running a restaurant, I think Lucia Watson has done extraordinary things. Her restaurant has been open for 20 years now in the same location (although the winebar was not part of the original space) and it is consistently held in high regard by diners in the area. I have eaten there many times in last 15 years and have always had good service and the meals have been consistently excellent. Wonderful that in a topsy-turvy world of the restaurant industry she consistently shines as she works at her craft.

I wasn't trying to toss in a red-herring argument. I was simply trying to point out that irradiation of food doesn't turn the system on its ear and make heirloom tomatoes (or peaches or plums) instantly available. There are all sorts of forces at work.

You know, as long as we are on tomatoes, I think that discussion of irradiation and making a connection to that being needed to make heirloom tomatoes economically viable for widescale sale is sort of pointless. Supermarket tomatoes are what they are because they were bred to be packaged and shipped long distances. Their flesh being firm is absolutely intentional. Their shape being nearly perfectly uniform aid both the ability to package efficiently and to pick easily. To some degree, they are what they are because of consumer's concept of what a tomato should be (big, round, red, unblemished, smooth, etc). Irradiation doesn't make it easier for an heirloom tomato to arrive from Mexico (or even from three states over) in-tact. Nor does it make the tomato more regularly shaped. Nor does it make it easier to pick or grow. Nor does it even out the color or blemishes on the skin. This is true beyond tomatoes, just using them as a vivid example because of their fragility. I think that irradiation will likely just provide improvement in defense against mold and bacteria and certainly longer storage-life for the same damn tomatoes I don't like already. They can then be shipped in from Thailand instead of trucked in from Mexico. For me, this is an economic issue (I say that because I think the technology is actually safe) that I imagine will have marginal impact on the way I eat. The delicate fruits and vegetables I love will still be a pain in the neck to get to market and I will decide if the price is worth brining it to my table. However, I think this does bring up issues about where we really want our food being produced and is the drive for cheaper and cheaper food (that people in the US certainly value less and less) really what we want.

Actually, I don't think this is a good argument at all. Using radiation has at least as much benefit to the producer as it does to the consumer. So it seems to me that if the 'general public has very little understanding...' then agri-business can pay for the public relations campaign to educate the public about the safety of irradiated foodstuffs. That will lead to a mix of people who think it is terrible and avoid it, those who know about it and buy it, and those who saw on TV that it was safe and that is all they care about. If labeling laws were dependent on the general public's level of pre-understanding about the issues then nothing would be labeled. Side note: though you may not have intended it, I think you may have slandered Ms. Carson. The research and opinion that she presents in her book is absolutely based on scientific method: that of observation analysis for cause rather than laboratory experimentation. Your opinion might be that the public and governmental response to her work was hysterical (though I think it is poor word choice) but if you read the text, her method and was sound.

I'm a nutcase who thinks it may well be safe but doesn't neccessarily think it is a good idea. Our food supply is already quite safe. If we are talking about cutting down on waste, can't some of that savings be used to go to labelling food that is irradiated. That way, I get to vote with my wallet whether I think it is a good idea or not (and I'm sure I would be in the minority). I am willing to pay more for 'HEIRLOOM' tomatoes, potatoes, beans, etc that are produced locally by small-scale farms to provide support to the once thriving rural economy. This is all sounding very much like the rBGH hoopla of years ago...I was on the losing side of that labelling battle as well. Oh, and I'm all in favor of immunization of children and pets.

I assumed we were talking about irradiating fresh foods, tomatoes being one lilkely culprit. Perhaps I'm wrong. Canned foods are essentially sterilized via current production methods.

You would package (or already have it in a package) so that everything is sterile inside the package. Yoghurt, will of course, pick up all kinds of yucky molds and bacteria even if you leave it in the refrigerator after you have opened it. This will happen less fast if you don't open it. ← I was thinking that was probably the case. Thanks for confirming.

I'm not suggesting we autoclave tomatoes (athought it might be fun), however it seems that if the goal is longer shelf life, creating a bacterial vacuum inside of a plump, ripe host might have it's drawbacks.

Just curious, if we irradiate food and kill all of that harmful bacteria, mold, etc. are we not creating the perfect environment for another bacteria, mold, etc to set up shop and colonize uncontested? Has there been any evidence of this being a problem? As an example, yogurt with active culture lasts far longer than milk for the simple reason that the yogurt has been intentially inoculated with a colony of safe bacteria cultures (e.g. lactobacillus acidophilus) that resist the growth of other 'less safe' bacteria cultures. Perhaps it is because the irradiation occurs downstream of the picking and packaging where most of the damage occurs making this a moot point.

Admin: Threads merged There is an article in May 2005 Food and Wine about Audrey Saunders titled "Mixing it Up with a Cocktail Purist". The article is fun to read, loosely built around time the author spent with Ms. Saunders where she was divining the recipes for Champagne cocktails from a 1939 book titled The Gentleman's Companion, Vol II by Charles H Baker, Jr. Ms. Saunder's discusses her purist approach to the cocktails she will be serving at her new bar, the Pegu Club. Entertaining read. Is her new bar open? If so, have any of the avid cocktail fans from eGullet stopped in for a drink?

The idea of a stone in a regular home oven is that the stone actually has poor thermal conductivity and high thermal mass: think of it a storage vessel for heat. For thin crust pizza at home, you want the stone to be the driving force in cooking your pizza. After heat-up, when open the oven door and throw a pizza, the stone's resistance to conducting heat quickly and it's thermal mass allow it to resist a drop in temperature. So, if the stone was 500degF before opening the door, it will drop to only, say 490degF by the time you close the door again. The oven racks and the air temperature may have fallen by nearly 100degF. So, now, the crust will sit comfortably over a 490degF heat reservoir that has plenty of driving force to provide heat and quickly turn the moisture in the dough to steam very quickly. Result is a crisp crust. Keep in mind, also, that because the stones are poor thermal conductors, you want to heat them in the oven for a long time prior to baking (usually an hour). If not, you will not have filled the thermal reservoir, per se, and the performance will suffer.

The short answer is that anything that will increase the thermal mass of your oven without breaking into smithereens when heated is fair game. Oh, and it should be large enough (in total or in parts) to be able to cary a pizza crust or a loaf of bread.

Sorry, I missed this post a while ago. When in New Orleans last, I made reservations at K Paul's and requested the cake. When the day arrived and we made it to the restaurant, both hosts and our server knew of our request but, sadly, the chef said that he was not happy with the coconuts available so the cake was not available. When I found the recipe I decided to make it for my wife's birthday. The cake was outstanding. Great crumb to the cake. Rich soft filling that was not terribly sweet. Nice creamy frosting. Though the cake is work, it was fun to make, particularly for a special occassion. Regrettably, I only have one picture of the end result and the photographer (me) quite obviously should not quit his day job.

Keep trying. One time, and I can't say when, you will start to crave that bitter taste.

Formaggio Kitchen is a fantastic cheesemonger that is local for me but sells on the web (click). We have had excellent luck with the 'small-batch artisan roasted' coffee from Ancora Coffee Roasters in Madison, WI (click). Have purchased specialty grains and items for baking at King Arthur's online store (click).

The historical information I read (thanks Google) indicates that Angelica was originally grape juice and brandy, both from mission grapes. I assume the juice was unfermented. The Bonny Doon info says the grape juice is 'lightly fermented'. And yes, it is somewhat reminiscent of some of the tawny ports I have had (I'm no expert).