bleachboy

As for myself, I truly enjoyed Iron Chef America, and look forward to the episodes to come. They nailed the chairman, and Alton Brown really does a great job as the replacement for Hattori. I do agree with the poster that mentioned that they'd like to hear more comments from the Peanut Gallery -- that was often one of the most fun elements of the Japanese Iron Chef. Especially when you'd get a giggly actor girl who turned out to be a serious foodie and would start schooling Hattori on how the dishes would turn out. I agreed with the judges in the Flay vs. Sakai battle, but I did not agree in the Batali vs. Morimoto battle. I won't post spoilers in case you haven't seen the battle yet, but I thought Morimoto's dishes looked just a tiny bit better than Batali's. In my opinion, the Batali/Morimoto matchup was a much closer call than Flay/Sakai. As an aside, the dish that Sakai produced that was trout tartare in a ring mold surrounded by small, perfectly arranged cucumber slices -- is that a tradidional French dish? I have had the exact same dish at Daniel (NYC), but with tuna.

Why didn't Trio make the list at all, I wonder?

Man, I thought only the Shipley's here in Nashville sold those half-assed kolaches. They had a sign advertising them on the wall -- a hand-written Marks-A-Lot sign. They really do. suck.

Then again, adding that to the rule list might just add to the "flavor" of the place. Like a "No Selling Cat" sign I saw in a place in New Orleans.

We used to have one of these in Nashville. When I lived on 17th Ave. S, there was this place like three blocks away that served these "Indian tacos" with the puffy, utterly delicious fried bread, topped with typical pinto beans, cheese, sour cream, lettuce, etc. The food was nothing special, so to speak, but it was totally righteous. It was run by a bunch of folks that looked like aging Deadheads, that would be playing folk music on guitars and stuff every time my roommate and I would come in for lunch (the only meal served). They went out of business very fast, which was a bummer since the food was tasty, cheap, and close at hand -- great when I was that age.

Always save it, yo. Duck fat is the fat of the gods.

At one point in the episode, Chodorow mentioned that he had spent US$4 million starting the restaurant. If that's true, and assuming (this is a wild guess) that he can resell the property for $3 million, that means that by the time he stormtrooped into the place, he was out $1,600,000. Frankly, I was rooting for him. If that had been my investment capital, I would have been up Rocco's ass about six weeks into the operation.

Their lead singer owns a barbershop in Nashville. My friend Ben and I used to go to Outback (or an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet) after long nights of partying with serious, serious hangovers. A steak and fries covered with cheese and bacon to set us right. And Olive Garden's salad-and-breadstick are a craving I cave in to pretty much annually.

Jarritos Pina!

I'm a little confused by about the last 3-4 posts for some reason. However, I will say that as a huge Iron Chef fan, I'm totally pumped about the new Iron Chef America. FoodTV has done a great job promoting it! I guess I'm a little susceptible to this sort of thing.

Wierd! I have eaten kolaches in Tomball, TX and Nashville, TN and they have always been gigantic pigs-in-a-blanket. I never had any idea they could look like a Danish.

My wife is one of those "vegetarians" who eats fish. This past week I saw this called a "pescatarian" (sp?) on a menu. But we're extremely easy to cook for. Given that I will eat anything, and she will eat anything that doesn't flagrantly contain beef/chicken/pork/duck/etc, just fix seafood and/or vegetable dishes. She's very polite, and knows that especially in fine dining situations she's probably eating more veal stock than she'd like to know about, so typically we'll eat what we're served. Frankly I think when people dictate super strict food rules ("no salt, no vegetables, chicken only" or whatnot) they are being very, very ungracious guests. Unless they have an allergy or medical condition, of course. Half of my wife's side of the family is seriously diabetic, so I can sympathize there.

No, Raych, they're wrong. The shrimp tempura on the vanilla bean is unbelievably kick ass.

I'd be happy to meet up with some folks on May 1. I'll be there with mh1 and a friend of ours.

Tarka, I don't know how I missed your post the first time around, but now that this has been bumped, you captured the essence of the Trio experience perfectly. Hear hear!

Does anybody know of one of these that can stand up to the heat of, say, broiling? It would make lots of cooking chores much less of a headache, but mine says it's only oven-safe up to 400 degrees or something, and I haven't yet seen one that doesn't come with such warnings.

Nazi! Seriously, Jonathan and Moby, amazing job. Thanks!

Wow!! Great sleuthing, balmagowry! It wouldn't surprise me a bit if they started out as a savory food item. Pies started out the same way, and you can still find shrimp and alligator sausage cheesecake at Jacques-Imo's (It's delicious!) But the Greeks in 776 BC (!) -- totally unexpected.

Well, no, it's probably not a catch-all, and I don't doubt that your butcher is serving you delicious beef. However, the assertion that Angus beef is somehow tastier than other breeds of cow has only recently flown onto my radar. Hardee's and Back Yard Burger prominently advertise their use of only 100% Angus beef, a fairly recent development, and suddenly Kroger's has "Angus beef" stickers on their beef -- they used to just say "Choice" or "Select". All this leads me to suspect that somebody in marketing looked at our Hummer-loving society, and realized that "Angus" (or "Black Angus") had a good ring to it, and decided to start pushing it, since you just can't say "Platinum beef".

This is the key. You're eating "Certified Angus Beef® Brand" beef. Just because you're eating "Iowa Pride®" brand pig, doesn't mean it's from Iowa or that anyone's actually proud of it. It's just the brand name. It's all marketing!

That's a good question... Where are all the the culinary anthropologists when you need one?

I use an F. Dick multicut on mine, and it works great. It's not really a "regular old steel" but AFAIK it's made of the same general materialls as a regular old steel.

I second that opinion. I know of nobody in my immediate family (my wife and I excluded) that would ever dream of eating sushi. I do have a lot of friends who like sushi, though, but they aren't "hicks". Most of the "hicks" I talk to won't eat any sort of meat (even beef!) that's not well done.

Brooks, Thanks so much for the wonderful blog! Bon appetit!

I plan on getting down there ASAP. But in between house hunting and a trip to New Orleans at the end of the month, and a bunch of good wine tastings coming up, it may be a little while. It's only a four hour drive for me, though, so I'll probably make a weekend out of it sometime soon.