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shelly59

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Posts posted by shelly59

  1. I recently was given my great-grandmother's stemware consisting of various sizes of cut crystal. It is really lovely,but I have no idea what any of it was used for. Is there a forum here or a website that could guide me? I would love to be able to use the stemware correctly, as she was very fussy about such things. :smile:

    Thanks.

  2. Up-date:

    We three, my nephew, my sister and I, attended the 9:30 Grand Tasting Menu at Vetri last Friday night. Let me just state for the record that we have NEVER had better service from nicer people. From Chef Vetri to the person who greeted us at the door, every single person we encountered was informative, kind, thoughtful and made us feel very welcome and comfortable.

    The meal was really wonderful, and, of course, I cannot remember it all as it was a non-stop progression of one delicious bite after another. Not one entree let us down. It was really fun to just sit back and be surprised by each course. :smile: I do recall the Sweet Onion Crepe with Truffle Fondue as I loathe onions and this was outstanding. :cool:

    Jeff Benjamin came to our table first and spoke with Michael and us for a bit. Chef Vetri took the time to come to our table a bit later, spoke with Michael and autographed Mike's copy of his cookbook (Thanks for the suggestion, Kretch!!) Both he and Jeff could not have been more gracious. Both addressed Mike's interest in cooking ( NICE TOUCH!!), which was a nice thing to do.

    The whole evening was money, time and effort very well spent. Thanks to all for all the help here. Could not have pulled this off without the help of everyone here. :wub:

  3. Wow, thanks so much for all the input. :biggrin:

    After speaking with my sister, I reached out to Vetri and they could not have been nicer. We have a reservation for the 9:30 Grand Menu seating on the 24th of this month. I did let them know that he was very interested in meeting Chef Vetri, but if Chef Vetri is not available that night, I am sure that my nephew will be just as thrilled to speak to the Chef de Cuisine.

    I am keeping Le Bec Fin, Fogo, Buddakan,b Fuji, etc., in my back-pocket. He still has 2 more years of high school to go. And a birthday coming up! :wink:

  4. Food trumps bragging by a long-shot. Our agreement was that if he made the grades we would go to the best place food-wise. Naturally if he can get both... :cool: , but he really enjoys going out to good restaurants. Meeting the chef would be awesome.

    Vietri looked like a place he would love, especially if he got to go behind the scene and meet the Chef. The Tasting Menu looked like a wonderful experience as well. I wonder if they would do it for just 3 of us?

    Trying to find out if he likes French food as LeCroix looked nice, too.

    I really am appreciative of the responses. I would NEVER have come up with meeting the chef and I know that is something he would go for in a big way as he is contemplating going into a Culinary program for college, or Chemistry, he is torn right now! :huh:

  5. At the beginning of the school year I made a deal with my now 16 year old nephew that if he pulled an A average each marking period I would take him to a really cool "brag-worthy" place in Philly. Well, he came throught (YEA!!!) and it's time to pay-up. :biggrin: So, he is a fairly sophisticated foodie and, being 16, is looking for bragging rights as well. Money is no object. I welcome any suggestions.

    Thanks.

  6. Wilmington person here.

    First, be VERY cautious about roaming around the hotel area after dark, NOT the best place crime-wise. Not trying to scare you, but thought you should know that. You are VERY close to a high crime area. Cab rather than walking, imho. :unsure:

    Ok, now on to the food. :smile:

    http://www.blueparrotgrille.com/ The Blue Parrot - Really good Cajun menu

    http://www.domainehudson.com/menu.html - Domaine Hudson - Expensive and worth every penny

    http://www.mororestaurant.net/menu.html - Moro - VERY expensive, also worth every penny

    http://www.orillastapasbar.com/main/ORILLAS-Home.asp?p= Orillasta - Tapas - haven't been there, but have heard good things

    Harry's Seafood has already been mentioned, but here is the website anyway. Good seafood, expensive.

    http://www.harrys-savoy.com/seafood_aboutus.asp

    One more, lol

    http://www.ameritage-bistro.com/ - Ameritage - French food, mid-range price wise. I loved it when I went, has been a while, though.

    Hope that helps :cool:

  7. My sister brought a bottle of lemon-infused olive oil with her when we all went to the beach. I fell in love with it. However, I had massive sticker-shock when I came home and sauntered into my neighborhood grocery store to pick some up. $19.00 for a 6 ounce bottle!! :shock:

    I would like to make my own, but I have a little red flag waving in the remote recesses of my brain...something about organic substances and oil and botulism. :hmmm:

    I may be making something easy into something difficult ( I have a special knack for that!) but, in an abundance of caution, I thought I'd ask here. COuld anyone address my concern and, would anyone care to share their infused oil recipe?

    Much thanks. :smile:

  8. I have been following this thread for a while with the hopes of getting a chance to get to The Violet Hour sometime. well, I am in Chicago this weekend to see my sister and we are looking around for a really nice place to have drinks & food . I would LOVE to try TVH. Is there good time to just come in for drinks & food? Do we need reservations? Much thanks.

  9. Chufi,

    LOVE all of your recipes and have put several of them into regular rotation in my house, much to the delight of people who eat there :-)

    I recently had a very sweet-spicy-fruity cookie called a leckerli. It was part of a gift basket of gourmet cookies. A friend of mine's mom said that it was Dutch, so I thought I would come here and ask about it. It was very sweet & spicy, filled with candied fruit and was in a bar-shape. Are they Dutch? Are they difficult to make?

    Much thanks for all of your help and insights, they are invaluable.

  10. Wow! This is GREAT!! So many good ideas. I knew I could count on people here.:wub:

    Jaz & Daniel, your drink recipes sound delicious, thanks. Can't wait to try them myself. :smile:

    I know we will be utilizing the Italian soda idea as well as stocking some of the more exotic juices, purees and fresh citrus as suggested here. The bitters SHOULD be on the bar list already, but I will double check that and make sure. I had quite forgotten about mulled cider, everyone I know likes that, so that's on the list.

    I think it will be really nice for people to have a variety of options, alcoholic and non-alcoholic. Especially as we are going all-out for the food and the decorations and the music. Now everyone is included in all the fun.

    And that's what really matters, yes? :biggrin:

  11. Last week I sat in on discussions about our firm's Christmas party. The bar will be well stocked with top-shelf alcohol, mixers, liquers, etc., and a nice whiskey punch is planned. So far, so good.

    However, when I mentioned that about 1/4 of our people do not drink alcohol for various and sundry reasons and that we should look into some tasty, adult drinks for THEM, the reaction was basically, "Well, tough sh*t on them, They can drink 7-Up." :shock:

    WELL!! The rules of hospitality I was raised on don't allow me to not be gracious to a whole sub-set of guests. :angry: SO I kicked-up a fuss...and got reseach duty, lol!! :cool:

    SO, I am asking - ARE there sophisticated drinks that are NOT alcoholic? ARE there better N/A punches that do not include cans of shredded pineapple, lime sherbet and 7-UP? ( Don't ask, you REALLY don't want to know :blink: ) I know it may seem funny to come to the Spirits and Cocktails threads for N/A drinks, but I lurk here a lot and noticed that there are some crazy-creative people out there who deal with drinks on a regular basis. SO I thought I might get good feedback here.

    Much thanks.

  12. My 14 year old nephew recently got back from 10 days in Athens and Paris and fell in love with a non-alcoholic drink he had in Athens in one of the local bars. :wub:

    All he can remember is that it had grenadine and banana in it. I have tried grenadine with banana nectars/purees here, but he says its not the same so I suspect that there was something else in it.

    Does this ring a bell with anyone?

    Much thanks.

    Forget it. I got the answer on another website,

  13. While busily reliving past server incidents, mine and everyone else's, a thought popped into my brain. Is it possible to tip the KITCHEN for wonderful food, even though the service was rotten? I have had that happen a few times...indifferent or bad service, but REALLY good food. I am a very generous tipper and am happy to reward a job well done.

  14. LOL, thanks for the support all. Truth be told, I was more bemused than anything else. When I take food into work, I am cooking for a small group of people whose opinions I value. They enjoyed the real stuff.

    The rest of the place? I tend to be tolerant because I was once just like them. I was dead serious when I stated that some of the people had NEVER had real whipped cream in their lives..how sad IS that, I ask you? :sad: But I didn't taste it until my freshman year in college and was in a swanky cafe that served fresh strawberries and raspberries in real cream. Same semester I had my first: bagel, loks, gefilte fish - anything Jewish, actually - champagne, oysters, French Onion soup, caviar, Foie Gras, and many other things. I was lucky. And being open-minded and with people who didn't make a big deal out of the fact that I was new to so many things helped as well.

    AND, the woman who left work to get the Cool Whip to begin with is completely uncouth anyway, so I don't get twisted over the stupid things she does. Especially as I did convince two Cool Whippers that the Cool Whip really wasn't as good as the real thing. So..VICTORY!! :biggrin:

  15. I'll bet that people ate that crap, though, Carrot Top. :rolleyes:

    I brought homemade strawberry shortcake into work one day last summer as I had gotten my hands on some lovely strawberries and made a bowl of REAL whipped cream to go with it. One of the women immediately ran out to the local 7-11 and bought some Cool-Whip to go with it, too. Why you ask? MY whipped cream "looked weird", too "heavy", had too many calories, it was just "not right". Some of those people had NEVER had real whipped cream in their lives. So, the Cool -Whip was demolished as were the shortcakes and the strawberries. :rolleyes: How SAD that people actually PREFER the fake over the real..

    And my whipped cream? I took it home to enjoy on coffee and warm, ripe strawberries and anything else I could think of. :cool:

  16. shelly59 @ Jun 1 2007, 08:07 PM)

    Heavens! Very old people, or diabetics, or people with Cystic Fibrosis, or with kidney problems, or pregnant women or anyone else who has issues with, um, needing the necessary more often than others, must have a FABULOUS time trying to eat out in France. What do they do? Just stay home?  Good grief.

    As I see the previous posts of this thread have not been read very carefully, since the initial question has been answered long ago, I would like to quote Forest's wise words (from this same thread):

    :smile: Oops, sorry, I was kinda/sorta kidding. It all just seems so over-the-top I had to give a wee tweek. Sorry that didn't come across. Guess I need to learn to use emoticons more effectively :laugh:

    BTW, my 14 year old nephew is leaving for his first ever trip outside of the US on June 5th and Paris is the 1st stop. He can't wait! I told him Parisians are nice people and not to believe a word to the contrary unless proven otherwise. :wink:

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