therese

They were lovely.

Sorry about your sinus infection and sorry about your truly hideous flight home, but at least you got to enjoy some of our pleasant outdoor dining weather. Later in the summer it's actually too hot to eat outside, so you came at a nice time. Spring and fall are the best times to visit Atlanta. FYI, Sheraton and W (and Westin, for that matter) are all the same company, Starwood. So the hotel's not been sold, it's just being "re-branded," most likely in the context of some much needed fixing up.

Other things I bought at Super H Mart yesterday: My purchase of this last item is the sort of thing that makes my husband think that I'm just a wee bit unhinged. I brushed my teeth with it this AM, and it does taste a bit salty: a little like baking soda toothpaste, a little bit like clay. I always buy toothpaste when I travel.

Vidalia? ← Yep. Vidalia onions have changed in appearance since I first saw them (probably 20 years ago). Back then they were they were virtually always pretty small, and "flatter" than usual onions, so there was much less yield of usable onion per item and per pound. They also went bad much more quickly than other onions.

Two for two. The oxalic acid/oxalate is also what makes your teeth feel funny when you eat those items. It's also one of the few nutrients that's primarily absorbed in the large intestine rather than the small intestine.

I'm also making some soup base (to which I'll later add fresh basil or arugula or leftover corn or whatever I feel like) for lunches this week). I'm using the following ingredients: What word on the red mesh bag label is covered by the onion in front of it?

Another trivia question... I really like this stuff. I'm cooking some into a compote to eat later this week in my lunch, along with vanilla yogurt (which I make starting with plain yogurt, as I don't like commercial flavored yogurts). What is it? What medical condition do I almost certainly not have?

The white fluffy fungus is the one that's used in desserts, right? At least that's what it seems to always show on the package. I've yet to have what I'd describe as excellent quality fish maw soup. So far it's left me cold.

Lunch today was from "deli" equivalent of Super H Mart. Stir-fried fish cake: Vegetables. I think of these collectively as nah mool or na mul or however you want to say it. I don't know if that's strictly correct. The label on the container "Three Wildweed" and lists only bean sprouts and spinach. I think the brown stuff is some sort of fern, as you occasionally run across a fiddlehead. Lychee fruit for dessert. Fizzy mineral water to drink.

I don't know the official name either, but yes, that's what these are. The small English label on back describes them as "Bingsu Rice Cake." Here's the whole package: I decided to get some because I can't get patbingsu readily near my house, and I don't particularly like the versions I can get. I don't like the inclusion of ice cream, and the fruit's often not fresh (and typically includes, horrors, canned fruit cocktail), and the serving's way too large, and I like a bit more rice cake, and well, I'm just picky. Unfortunately I didn't buy any more sweetened red beans, and apparently I'm out of sweetened red beans. I'm wondering if perhaps the kids decided it would go nicely with ice cream... Just as well, though, since I breakfasted on tea and:

Yeah. I'm relieved to not be giving at eye witness account of the little guy's gliding prowess. He was pretty scared, and had we not been standing in his way would likely have swooped over to our bed. So as to keep this at least nominally food-related I'll point out that flying squirrels are omnivores, and are themselves an important prey animal (presumably for owls).

No correct answer on this one yet, so I'll give a clue: What is this item? It's typically eaten with beans.

Help identifying the other items I photographed would be welcome:

Which is going to come in very handy indeed in this instance, though it's unlikely your Italian teacher taught you this particular term, or at least not in this particular context.

I'd love to, but can't. Photos are prohibited inside DFM, just as they are inside Super H Mart. And unlike Super H Mart the rule about photos is very clearly displayed. I went ahead and shopped at DFM on Saturday (before the blog started) with that fact in mind. I will show you items that I bought there this week, though my husband's decision to stain our deck this weekend is putting a bit of a crimp in my plans to do a lot of grilling. It's hot as the dickens here right now, so he's taking a break. Because DFM sells such an enormous amount of produce they only use local producers if they can get a guarantee of sufficient supply. So the local stuff will be at DFM when it's at peak, often just for a couple of weeks. When they can't get decent volume of excellent quality they just don't stock it all. Right now there are peaches and Vidalia onions, but we'll soon see corn and beans and so forth, and late summer brings muscadines, one of my very favorites. Because much of our produce comes from the far south of Georgia (where it's flat) I don't consider Florida produce much of a stretch. There are lots of farms in the area, many of them near Athens, GA (where the University of Georgia has a big ag program; I visited several of them last summer) and many of the farmers come to Atlanta on Saturday AM for the Morningside Market. Local produce (all organic), eggs, flowers, and a limited selection of meat. Until last weekend I was doing a CSA with one of the farmers there, but finally got fed up with his lack of business skill and some not great produce, and decided to terminate the agreement. It wasn't worth getting up early on Saturday AM, frankly. I will probably go to Morningside next Saturday if I've got time and take some pics. The best example of a local dairy is Sweetgrass Dairy. A serious operation, with goat, sheep, and cow's milk cheeses. I buy them across the street from Morningside Market at Alon's. It's too far from Atlanta for a convenient day trip, unfortunately. Not really, as the immigrant population doesn't live anywhere near the Morningside Market, and aren't likely to drive into town to buy very, very expensive bok choy. Were it not so close to my house I probably wouldn't shop there either.

Well, that's a start. What was Carmela's main dish? ← So, Carmela's waiter describes her dish as "Canard croisé cuit sur son coffre, cuisse confite aux épices, jus de miel citronnier et fenouil" I wasn't able to catch the "confite aux epices" part of it, but managed to find the full description by plugging "canard croisé cuit sur son coffre" into google and came up with this description of a wine dinner at Le Grand Vefour. The entry is from September 2005, so I gather that the dish was being offered there at the time the episode would have been filmed. So, based on this hint, does anybody recognize an earlier reference in the same episode of The Sopranos to some component of this dish?

Were it ginger it would be pale, but it's not. I just happened to have some candied ginger in the house (leftover from a Christmas party, where I served it in a crystal bowl on the dessert buffet along with dried figs, very pretty) and have taken a picture for comparison:

While we're figuring out just exactly what Carmela chose for dinner at Le Grand Vefour I'll pose another question. Much easier as it's just a simple ID:

Well, that's a start. What was Carmela's main dish?

Okay, so nobody here watches the Sopranos? Maybe a hint is in order: Carmela and Rosalie are dining at Le Grand Vefour (which is located at one end of the Palais Royal, where I stayed recently with my children---there's a picture of them running in the garden upthread). The waiter makes a point of describing their main courses to them. Did you notice what Carmela's was? And did you notice the accompanying vegetable? This same vegetable was named earlier in the same episode, in an entirely different place and in an entirely different context. What was the vegetable?

Vide supra. Definitely a rodent, so once I'd ruled out tree squirrel and chipmunk there weren't too many other options in this part of the word. Possibly. I don't actually buy too much produce at Super H, as DFM is much closer by and has a better selection of things I actually use. Well, having never been to Upper Darby I can't quite say, but since the ethnic mix seems to be the key I'd have to say that Buford Highway is the area that shows the most mix, with all sorts of Asian and all sorts of Hispanic restaurants and businesses mixed in together. Several of the large markets I use are divided into sections: Korean, Vietnamese, Mexican, etc. The area is poorly served by MARTA: no train, and some bus service, but many local Hispanics rely on privately run shuttle bus services. Or they walk, which is truly frightening as much of this road has no sidewalk (so they walk in paths along the roadside) and crosswalks are infrequent (so you see families with strollers crossing in heavy traffic). The road was never designed for pedestrian traffic, and these issues are now being addressed.

Excellent work, patti. Yep, a flying squirrel. You can find some more information about them here. Did you recognize it from having seen one before? Or, like me, did you figure it out from its appearance? We still have no idea how it got in the house, of course.

Hey therese! Is this one of the spongy desserts? I noticed you got the daikon cakes as well. Did they have a sautee cart for those and some of the other dumplings? What was in the egg roll sprinkled with sesame seeds? ← The dessert pictured here was gelatin-based. Sweet but not overpowering, and possibly Asian pear-flavored, based on the consistency of the little bits of fruit distributed throughout. No rolling saute cart, I'm afraid, but the cake did have a nice crisp on it, so I wasn't too upset. The eggroll sort of thing was actually a baked pastry with a sweet glaze on top, savory meat filling inside. We liked them so much we got a second order:

It is a weird combination of fatty and gelatinous, I agree. And so I find it all the more bizarre that one of my children (my son, who is 15) loves it, loves it so much he'll ask for mine and his dad's, and is likely one of the very few diners under 21 to have ever asked for a marrow spoon when we dined at Rules in London a couple of years ago. It's possible that I may have gone a bit overboard in exposing my children to interesting foods.

Nope, not a tree squirrel or a chipmunk, or even a rat. These animals are reportedly very common, but rarely seen.