vengroff

In the early '90s I used to go to a place called Venus Seafood in Boston. It was just across the water from South Station near the Computer Museum. I was a poor graduate student at the time and Venus offered the perfect combination of being accessible by the T and being inexspensive. There was seafood at one end, beer at the other, and rows of picnic tables in between. I understand that Venus was forced to close when a bridge extending off I-93 was built right through it. It's probably a long shot, but do you have any idea if they relocated or re-opened under a different name?

Congratulations to all! I didn't realize they had a seperate ceremony for the journalists. It reminds me of the oscars. A friend of mine won two for his computer graphics work, but they were awarded at a special star-free geek ceremony the night before the main event.

Tapas: The Little Dishes of Spain, Paella!: Spectacular Rice Dishes from Spain, and Delicioso!: The Regional Cooking of Spain. Delicioso has some tapas that are not in the Tapas book, so I could make some of those.

Penelope rules! I have three of her books.

Sounds great to me!

Thanks, guys. It was indeed served straight up, on top of the potatoes. There was garnish on top, but it was not smothered in a sauce. I'm sure you are right about the brining.

You might want to hit the South and Southwest Forum with this question. We've got some Carolina-based eGulleteers who may be able to point you in the right direction.

I won't belabor every dish we sampled, but I think the pork loin I had deseves special mention. My initial choice had been lamb (double cut chops plus braised shoulder, with favas and canellinis), but our server spent so much time talking up the pork loin that someone at the table just had to break down and order it. Pork loin, of course, is notoriously overcooked, dry, and stringy. For that reason I almost never order it and rarely cook it at home. It also tends to be paired with sweet fruity glazes or sauces, which I generally don't care for. In this case though, the loin was described as being cured, so that it required less cooking time, and therefore remained moist and tender. It was served with a mixed mash of potatos and sweet potatos, and haricots verts. I had never heard of this curing then roasting technique applied to pork loin. I'm hoping some of our curing, smoking, and all around pork experts here on eGullet can give me some additional background. Whatever was done to this loin, it worked. The thick slices were pink and juicy. The texture was like that of a medium rare prime rib, but with a gentle pork flavor instead of the overt beefiness. I would not have guessed this texture could be acheived from pork loin. Either I've been eating pork loin at the wrong places, or Jay Comfort has figured out something about cooking it that nobody else knows. I thought the sweet potatoes were too sweet, but that's probably just me. I did, however, like the sauce of what looked like English mustard that came with it. One other thing worth mentioning is the chef's cheese selection. I don't expect a fromagier and a sixty cheese selection wherever I go, but Poste has gone too far to the other extreme. The chef's cheese selection is one cheese. Not a selection of three or four cheeses, but one cheese that he has selected that day. The day we were there it was a perfectly acceptable Morbier, complete with the little line of ash down the center. Nothing at all wrong with that, but why not add a Camenbert and something blue to round out a nice little trio? Hopefully a couple of my dining companions are lurking here and will chime in with some comments on their meals.

I'm going to Poste soon to try out Jay Comfort's cooking. Any particularly special items I should look out for?

I like Patron and Cuervo Reserva de la Familia (very smooth, nothing like the cheap Cuervos).

That settles it. Next time I'm in NYC I'm starting at Payard, then heading downtown to ChikaLicious for the main meal, followed by a nightcap at Rice To Riches. Or maybe the reverse order. Payard is probably the best spot for the finale.

I had the opportunity to try all the entries. There were twenty something of them--ramp rolls, ramp pate, ramp pasta, ramp chili, ramp balls, shrimp rampafeller, potato ramp soup, Italian ramps with sausage and marinara, smoked trout dip with ramps, the list seemed endless. Here's proof that I made it through at least a few bites of all of them: One of the ramp pates finished in second place behind ramp rolls, but I am pretty sure it was not the one whose ingredients I showed above.

In addition to the cooking, there was a prize up for grabs for the best decorated booth. Some stuck with the basics, like this woman from Kentucky, who went with balloons and "ramp mints" designed to freshing your breath after eating ramps. Her wild mushroom and ramp stroganoff was quite good, and was the only entry that added additional wild ingredients to go along with the ramps. Others went for costumes, like these radio station guys in hula gear, and their rival radio station in their biker gear, But the booth to beat was the French-themed one. It was staffed by a French chef and a French maid, dressed in skunk costumes. OK, so they look like black sweats, but they have a white stripe pinned to the back, so that's good enough for me. They served a fine vintage Chateau Le Stink to go with their ramp pasta. In the end, the French came out on top in the decoration category; it was a fashion/cooking competition, so how could they loose? The only serious threat came from the crowd favorite decoration, the old reliable, always good for a laugh, ramps in a bedpan.

Same question as last year, WTF is The Ivy on the list? Does eating in a room surrounded by a crowd of London's B-list celebs really count for that much? Frederick's in Camden passage serves about the same level of food, and nobody would, or should, put them on a list of the world's top 50. Also, why would you pick the London branch of Nobu over the various others? The service there is generally awful.

Moving on, here's a dish that we big city folks really liked. Liver and ramps. If liver goes with onions, why not ramps? I couldn't help noticing how many of the cooks here had beautiful mirror black cast iron cookware. I drive a black car and I have trouble keeping it as shiny as these well seasoned pots and pans. Beef with ramps and peaches was also remarkably tasty. The sweetness of the peaches balanced the sharpness of the ramps, which were flash cooked just enough to wilt. Most of the rest of the dishes that used cooked greens pushed them to the mushy gray-green point of no return. For kale, maybe that's appropriate, but ramp greens are far to delicate. Perhaps the judges deducted points for using stainless steel, because although we though it was one of the clear leaders, the judges did not place it in the top five. We also thought the other ramp and fruit dish, a sort of salsa of fresh ramps, pineapple, and crispy bacon bits dressed in rice wine vinegar was quite good. Serving it with corn chips may not have brought the most out of it, but as an accompaniment to simply a grilled red snapper it would have been fantastic.

And so, on to the cook-off. One of the first stations I came across during the setup phase was this one: I had no idea what this combination of ingredients was going to be used for. Ramp con queso? I just wasn't sure. Eventually, I found out that this was going to become a ramp pate. The key item in the picture is the meat grinder. All the ingredients, ramps, velveeta, baloney, pickles, etc... go through the grinder and are then spread on crackers and garnished with a slice of swiss cheese. Ramp pate, like the ramp egg rolls I mentioned before, is a classic ramp dish and there are multiple variations of it. Here's a look at the preparation phase:

Maybe the crappy espresso tastes better after a plate of the mushy pasta you get at a lot of American Italian places...

No, do you know? I asked around a bit at the festival, but there was no clear answer. One wise-ass said, "I don't know, why's an effin' potato called a potato?"

Rampy!

OK, here's the last of the pre-competition posts. Although there was plenty of deep frying going on at the festival, including twinkies and oreos, as mentioned in another thread, there was on dish that stood head and shoulders above anything else that came out of a vat of bubbling fat. Not only was it the king of all things fried, it was one of the absolute best ramp dishes I've ever had. For the past several years, this man has been driving in from Ohio, to the delight of festival goers, to share his crispy batter-fried ramps. Think of the best onion rings you've ever had. With a light crisp tempura-style batter and thin slices of onion. The kind that form a tangled network of crunchy onion as opposed to discernable individual rings. Now add the flavor of garlic and some crisp greens, and you've got these ramps. Several inquiries over the years have somehow failed to convince Bobby Flay to come out and try them. Food Network's loss is eGullet's gain. These things are phenomenal. Behind the scenes, these things are fried up by the bushel. First it's a quick dip in the batter and then into the fryer until cripsy golden brown. They are served hot, with a creamy ramp dipping sauce.

Before we move on to the cook-off portion of the festival, there were a few more fundraising vendors to go along with the ramp dinner and ramp egg rolls. First up was the Rotary Club, which brought in a 17' grill trailer and grilled 100 chickens marinated and mopped in a secret recipe ramp oil. Fresh coals were added at regular intervals, as the chickens were flipped over and mopped with the ramp marinade from a recycled bucket that originally contained sheetrock joint compound. Included with every half-chicken purchased was a brownie from the women's basketball team at the local college.

One of the more popular ramp dishes being prepared at the festival was ramp egg rolls. I'm not precisely sure what the cultural origin of this dish is, but there were several variations either entered in the cook-off or for sale. This one was prepared by a group of ladies from the local historical society. It was filled with ramps, cabbage, and carrots, and was served with a honey mustard dipping sauce.

Here are some ramps fresh from the woods just outside of town: One of the gentlemen I spoke to at the festival told me how important he remembers ramps being when he was a child. They represented the end of a long hard winter. He and his siblings would fan out into the woods and gather all the ramps they could carry home. His mother, who always prepared for the worst, would then give in and release the extra stock of bacon she was hoarding in case winter went another six weeks. The ramps were treated like greens, and cooked to within an inch of their lives in a big cast iron pot. Beans, bacon, and cornbread completed the meal. In more recent times, home cooking of ramps has waned, but the traditional ramp dinner has become a stable at community fundraising events for churches, volunteer fire departments, and other civic organizations. At the festival, ramp dinners sold out quickly. The older attendees were particularly enthusiastic about them. Cast iron remained the cooking vessel of choice, although the hearth was replaced by a gas-fired grill. Here's the complete meal, festival style, with plenty of extra pork in the beans:

Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

This weekend, I attended the 14th Annual International Ramp Cook-Off and Festival in Elkins, WV. For those of you who have not had the pleasure of tasting ramps, let me provide a brief introduction. Ramps are a species of wild leek native to Appalachia. They are not, as of yet, commercially cultivated, but they are eagerly gathered from the forests where they appear each spring. Their flavor is like a combination of leek and garlic. Raw, they are quite potent, but they mellow with cooking. Ramps can be sauteed, roasted, or grilled, and can be used in almost any recipe that calls for leeks or onions and garlic. The greens are also edible. Quickly sauteed, they resemble spinach sauteed in garlic. There was a lot going on at the festival, so I'll post descriptions and photos in a series over the next few days. For starters, here is a pristene raw ramp as presented to be at breakfast at the Iron Horse Manor B&B. (N.B. If your PC has speakers, be sure to turn them on when you visit this site.) The standard way to eat a raw ramps is to dip them in a small pile of salt and then eat the white and purple parts straight. They are definitely strong, but no more so than a good strong red radish.