Holly Moore

Here's a link to the Camellia Grill on my site. Hours are there. Did I mention they have syrup pourers full of melted butter along the counter? With no car Elizabeth's may be a problem. Pretty far out of the French Quarter. Have a Lucky Dog for me.

Maybe it is part of your French Market tour, but Cafe du Monde for chicory coffee and beignets either first thing in the morning or last thing at night - or both. Lines get long in the morning if you are not there early. If you have a car, there are less crowds and more locals at Morning Call in Metarie. Only one second lunch? A nice morning jaunt is the St. Charles streetcar to the Camellia Grill, diner like with linen napkins and New Orleans style. My approach to New Orleans is to eat like you will never return again - at least a couple of times a year.

In Stevens Point, where I lived for two wonderful springs, summers and autumns and three cursed winters we used the cheapest beer at the IGA - usually Point Beer. Just checked their website. Things seem to have improved since the 70's. Too this day I still order in my fresh brats from Usingers.

If you can handle chicken fried steak and a cobbler for lunch - Hoover's, for sure. Or Hut's Hamburgers for a great burger and Texas size onion rings. Me, I'd rent a car or bum a ride to Lockhart or Elgin - or both.

Much better memory than mine, Barb. That sounds right.

For a hotel, if budget permits I'd recommend Trisara. Their pool villas are spectacular. Made it tough for me to want to head out and explore Phuket. Trisara is out of the way, but their cars will take you wherever you'd like to go. They have a very good Thai chef and a hit/miss American menu.

A little before then - Conversations on the 1600th block of Pine. And, maybe Philadelphia's first croissant baker, a french bakery on the 700 or so block of Walnut - I'm thinking maybe La Bagliatelle or something similar or totally different. There was an outstanding casual French Restaurant close by.

I pretty much like the Green Eggs Cafe - they are on the cusp of becoming a regular weekday breakfast hangout. Especially late breakfast as they serve breakfast til 4 PM. Weekends I'll avoid - weekends are for Carman's Country Kitchen. I have been to Green Eggs for three breakfasts. Generally fine, but always a quirk and in one case a problem with a dish. First breakfast, and the problem, their Philadelphia Eggs Benedict. Mucked up Eggs Benedict - pretzel roll instead of English muffine (or Holland rusk - anyone in Phila using rusk?). Pork loin instead of Canadian Bacon and Bernaise sauce in lieu of Hollendaise. The pretzel roll was too brawny to easily cut through. The pork loin was cut too thick to easily cut through and lacked any flavor to break through the eggs and Bernaise sauce. The eggs were perfectly poached. Second breakfast - Creme Brulee French Toast. On the menu as vanilla bean custard, fresh berry compote, drizzled with vanilla angleise, warm maple syrup and topped with chantilly cream. It came together nicely, but was not as decadently rich as it sounded. Also, I hear creme brulee, I immediately think a brittle layer of caramel. Not there. My most recent breakfast, Eggs Benedict. Almost perfect and a great value at $7.50 If only the kitchen had better toasted the English muffin. There was a little color to the top of the muffin, but the bottom was uncooked. The place has a nice feel. A beautiful renovation. Service was friendly, prompt, though I had to request any coffee refills. Two items I'd like to see on their breakfast menu - chipped beef on toast and a homemade corned or roast beef hash. All in all, high on my weekday breakfast list with a potential to be number one.

In theory the chefs were cooking produce from the White House Garden. In one shot on the show I noticed a red rubber band around the broccoli. Figured the broccoli, at least, was store bought. Alas, I did not "connect the dots." Kevin Pang of the Chicago Tribune wrote Food Network admits 'Iron Chef America' vegetables were not from White House garden Though the episode opened with the chefs harvesting their produce from the White House Garden, it would not be fresh if saved for the actual competition. Rather than fly up another batch from the White House, the producers elected to pop out to a local market.

Agreed. What I particularly like about Cajun Kate's version is that I will have dripped enough on and about me that I can savor the aromas all the way home in my car.

New chugging game - every time Rebeca breaks out in tears and says she doesn't want to let down her family.

Last week I picked up a three and a half pound, two rib USDA choice, store brand roast from a local ShopRite. Let it sit in the fridge for a week. Split it in half. Saved one steak. Rinsed the other and warmed it up some out of the fridge for a couple of hours. Preheated the salamander. Threw it onto the salamander, full fire, lowest rack position. Maybe 10 minutes on the first side, 6 or 7 on the other. It was one of the best steaks ever. There was a bit of char, but as I think I posted up-thread, I like the flavor that a slight char adds to a rib steak. With supermarket beef, it is always a roll of the dice. Marbling wasn't all that impressive, but for $6.99 a pound, bone in, I lucked out with a magnificent specimen.

I did get into Big Chef Little Chef - maybe because I have a background (way back) in restaurant corporation new product development. The irrational initial concept of bringing in a super chef - the inability to explain expectations - I can think of a dozen similar corporate executives in my past. This CEO - not even willing to share food and labor cost goals - extremely not getting it. Blumennthal's not understanding customer expectations (guilty, I've been there). Restaurant staff resentment to change - in my experience totally dependent on the restaurant manager's lead. Unanticipated operational issues - often the case. I want to see if Blumenthal comes to understand his target customers - if the corporate CEO figures out how to provide Blumenthal with useful direction. Unlike just about every other reality show, these are real world issues. The US answer has been to turn rest stops into franchise row food courts. I'm really hoping Blumenthal does come up with a better answer for Little Chef. Interesting question by Tri2Cook. Could a Grant Achatz go into an Iron Skillet truck stop operations and implement improvements that would find acceptance at the customer, staff and corporate level? It would probably be a struggle, but I'm betting he and his staff could (and should). I may be totally gullible here, but this strikes me as the most honest, unscripted reality show (except Cops) that I have come across. Incidentally, Ray Kroc turned to the executive chef of one of the Chicago Hilton's to develop the recipe for McDonald's tartar sauce for the Filet-O-Fish. He came up with a recipe that required the sauce to be prepared fresh each day, with any leftover sauce discarded at the end of the day. A totally new concept for McDonald's that met with tremendous resistance by some franchisee's and restaurant managers, and succeeded - though that may have changed with McDonald's diminished commitment to fresh quality over the past two decades.

Thanks to NY Times "What's On" I discovered that DirecTV offers Planet Green (286). On Planet Green tonight (Wed Jan 6) two shows of interest: Big Chef Takes on Little Chef: The Fat Duck's Heston Blumenthal tries to revive Little Chef and tradition British cuisine. Apparently Little Chef is a chain of roadside cafes in financial distress. Conviction Kitchen: Chef Marc Thuet and his wife Bianna Zorich attempt to open a restaurant in three weeks using a staff of ex-cons with no kitchen experience.

There was a time when every kid I knew had at least on Pez machine. It was an era of sharing - offering to flip a Pez to anyone within arm's reach.

Painful to watch - and not in a good way.

Frustrating editing. The chocolate work was incredible, but the extremely rapid cuts made it impossible to savor the individual pieces.

Only a soupcon of offense taken, if that. Some of my best friends are bloggers.

I am not a blogger, not that there is anything wrong with that. Just that HollyEats is not intended as a blog. I was a chef for exactly two days, so perhaps Chef Holly, emeritus, could work.

Seems to me that the general public using the term "Chef" in addressing a chef is a relatively new tradition. I started to encounter it in the 90's. Don't remember it outside the kitchen before then. Could it tie into the evolution of foodie-ism to a near religion and the resultant need for deities?

Manifold Destiny: The One! The Only! Guide to Cooking on Your Car Engine!

Saw this earlier and wondered then why salt at all before frying? The article doesn't show my preference which is to only salt the finished product. I fry in butter in a cast iron skillet with no salt, except what might be in the butter if I use salted.

I have been seriously considering retiring to New Orleans in the next year or two. After reading this thread, Austin may jump from second to first choice.

Gotta get back to Moe's. The fried pickles at Supper are similar to ones I have had in Mississippi. I learned that if one orders Supper's dog with "lots of fried pickles" the serving of fried pickles comes close to doubling.

Fortunately American cuisine has evolved to local sourced and fresh. The article cited above from the San Francisco Examiner says it all about Bouchon's rationale for going frozen: It is a business decision. Of course Bouchon's menu romances "pommes frites" and not the source, "Lamb Weston Private Reserve." I just Googled a picture of Bouchon's fries. They are cut shoe-string. So frozen is fine. Even from fresh, a restaurant can not do an exceptional shoe string french fry, much less a consistent one. No shoe string fry, frozen or fresh cut, will measure up to a well prepared 1/4" or 3/8" fresh cut, twice fried fry.