hathor
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Posts posted by hathor
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I travel for lamb meatballs with a mint/yogurt sauce.
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My biggest mark-up standard item is easily salt. Uguni salt isn't all that bad in Japan, and French sea salt is very reasonable in France. Here, I pay upwards of $15/pound -- easily five times the local going rate.
Dairy products are number 2 -- sometimes I just gotta have me some clotted cream or Delitia butter.
Next up, spices. But spice mark-up has historically been the cause of the creation and loss of vast fortunes. Still, people who care about the provenance of their saffron or peppercorns are going to pay more than people who are OK with supermarket spices.
I forgot about salt. Sicilian sea salt is about .80euro cents for a kilo box. It's gorgeous totally unprocessed salt, and crazy cheap. It costs a small fortune in NYC...I near had a heart attack in Whole Foods. The most reasonably priced sea salt I can find is at the Sunrise Japanese Deli. I find that odd.
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It's funny, but I always find myself bringing back cans of tuna and anchovies. And from the duty-free shop, Campari and last time, Suze.
That's only because I bring you back the fennel pollen. It's dirt cheap in Italy and the price of saffron here in the States. why??
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Man does not live by salami alone. Besides, I have a crush on Wolverine, so I'm cool with this.
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Anyone have an update? There's regret notices on his blog and references to a guy named Bart.
Just found this: Battle Royale at the Piazza
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Anyone have an update? There's regret notices on his blog and references to a guy named Bart.
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It drives me insane that chef jackets are made out of cotton, poly cotton when there is a plethora of high tech fabrics that would work infinitely better. I've contacted a few makers and they aren't even remotely willing to move beyond the old stuff. grr...
Tie dye your jackets.
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Re subsidies in other countries: For the last 30 years or so Italy subsidized tobacco and they are in process of phasing it out. While you could debate the sanity of subsidizing tobacco in the first place, that's not my point. I live in Umbria and we are water challenged. Tobacco takes a huge amount of water, it's the only area crop that requires vast amounts of irrigation (particularly in July/Aug, the hottest, driest months). So there will be an immediate benefit to ending the tobacco growing.
However, there is considerable worry among our local farmers that they will be able to replace this cash crop. These are small farmers, it's going to kill more than a few when the subsidies end.
A complex issue indeed.
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I did some research on this a few years ago. Google around, you'll find what you need. I think it was the State of Michigan that had an excellent template.
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I use my Compact-Macro Lens 50mm most of the time. Flickr stream here.
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If anyone can do it, Andrew, you can! I have faith.
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Dude needs to sell copies.
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Pizza. I can't throw logs into my oven and I really like wood fired pizza.
Chinese. I live near Chinatown when I'm in NYC. They do it better than I do.
I was going to say Indian, but actually I'm getting much better at it, and my garlic nan rocks.
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I don't take this in the nature of a bitch fest. And I speak only for myself.
I KNOW why restaurants upsell, but there is a way to do it where you don't feel like you are being scammed.
Yes, tell me about the truffles. Tell me how much. Let me make an informed decision.
Tell me about your wine, but don't recommend one of the highest price items without some sort of discussion about
my likes, budgets, etc.
Which comes to the concept of service. The Europeans have much more respect for waiters/waitress, it is a respected profession, so there is an expectation on both sides of professional behavior. Which is why the truffle thing really bugs me because it's a restaurant in Montefalco that I've blogged a few times but they've gone way overboard on the
oversell to stranieri (foreigners) thing. If we go in, just me and my husband, it doesn't happen. We send some British friends and they get SLAMMED. Not right.
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Being upsold. Do you want white truffles on everything?? And they don't tell you the cost.
Or, I think you would enjoy this $100 bottle of wine, and I just sat down...and the place is a 9th Ave. Trattoria. (translation: not where I would spend a hundred bucks on wine without giving it a lot of thought) Give me a break and lay off the sales job. (gee...I sound like Weinoo)
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There are a couple of mozzarella bars in Rome. Not sure if they 'work' or not, doesn't really speak to me.
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I found out it is called Stinco in Italian. LOL The whole family was saying ahhhh Stinco
tracey
And the plural of stinco is stinky! (stinchi) I'm serious.
Absolutely I would sit at a communal table! We love sitting at the bar and having pick up conversations. We've met the most interesting people. Vintners, solar energy engineers, mind/body/soul healing guru...people not in my normal circle.
And if they aren't interesting (code word: beige} you don't bother talking and carry on as usual.
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Toasters are the evil work of the devil. You get seduced, you start to love toast again...and wham! only one side of the damn thing works.
Why????
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Is that a capicola stuffed with forcemeat (left-hand side, between the ham and slices of belly)?
Yeah..I think so. It was salumi stuffed sausage. By this point we had lost our marbles...
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We're in earthquake zone in Umbria. A couple of years ago, SISMA, the Italian FEMA but devoted to earthquakes, used our town as an exercise in preparedness. They buried a car under rubble and had a dog find the live volunteer in the car. Rescued people out of windows. Had us do a mock drill with our block captains. And gave us SISMA bags to hang near the door with color coded T-shirts, flashlights etc. Makes me realize it's time to check the batteries on those flashlights.
Everyone in town participated and told horror stories about where they were during the Assisi quake. After the exercise, SISMA fed everyone in town a big lunch.
Never thought to put some food in there, but it's going in now.
Earthquakes are no joke.. my heart and prayers go out to our Japanese neighbors.
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OMG. Weinoo, my husband and I took a road trip to Ridgewood this week. I'm still in recovery mode. To say they are generous with samples is a VAST understatement!!
The sheer variety of sausages and salumi is beyond comprehension.
Have a craving for Eastern European sausages..this is the place. Mamma freakin' mia.
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A few months ago, we were invited to a dinner party at a restaurant. Most of the 10 attendees are vegetarians, a vegetarian selected the restaurant. When it came time to order every single person, except my husband and myself, requested something off menu. It was so bad, the waitress had to get the chef to come out and verify what could and could not be done.
To a certain extent, this is about control. The following is only an observation. There is a certain righteousness in the vegetarian world, a sense that they are eating a kinder, gentler diet and making the world a better place. I'm not here to debate this...I'm only observing, ok?? When 8 out of 10 diners all have special needs, is this really special needs or about the need to feel special, to have the chef specially prepare your meal?
I'm with David Chang on this one. If I go out to eat, I want to see what the chef is doing. Thrill me, inspire me. The worst that happens is that I won't like the dish and I'll go home hungry. The best thing that happens is I find out I can like chick peas.
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I watched Chopped last night and decided I don't like combining cruelty, cooking and competition. I also lose the whole thread when there are so many commercials...I kept forgetting what I was supposed to be watching.
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This is the reason cans were invented.
Hand-held citrus juicers
in Spirits & Cocktails
Posted
Why is it so hard to make a decent juicer?? Not electric, the hand squisher kind. I've been through 3 already and the current one spits out a thin stream of juice at eye level.