ghostrider

I certainly keep secrets from eG, but never when I've had an enjoyable meal at a restaurant. I want these places to stay in business. It's all about sharing the love, y'know? Conversely, I've become more reluctant to slam a place on line. When I first joined eG, I thought that I should always tell all, good & bad, because the important thing was to report the facts. I've become more temperate since then, particularly after a couple of experiences when restaurants redeemed themselves after what, with more perspective, were clearly one-off instances where something had gone wrong. Now I take the attitude that there has to be something really egregious about a negative experience to be worth the time it takes me to write about it.

I think it depends on the temperature that you're going for. If you're cooking at a high temperature, the oil is more likely to burn, or get superheated & then splatter, if you have it in the pan from the start. You may forget to watch it closely while you're doing something else. Adding the oil after the pan is heated makes it easier to stay focused on the pan and add the food to be cooked at the optimal moment. If you aren't starting out at a high heat, you have more leeway.

Crust. I am man hear me roar. CRUST!!!!!!

Hmmm. I'd venture to say they might have been frozen and thawed for display. Sounds like it's possible but I wonder... BTW, How did you prepare/serve them? ← The sign on the shrinp bin said "Fresh/wild caught." Can we believe the signs at WF? Frozen - now that you mention it, they were sitting naked on a bed of ice with no shells to protect their tender flesh, so maybe that had an effect. This was my usual lemon juice & linguini preparation, which I've done a dozen or so times. The difference this time was huge. WF seems to do a good job with the handling as long as they leave 'em in their shells; apart from this instance I've never had a problem with freshness. (Can't say the same for Stop & Shop, which stocked them intermittently last year.)

CaliPoutine: Unless your regular grocery store has an organic selection, it's literally impossible to find any bread product that doesn't either have partially hydrogenated oils or high fructose corn syrup. I attempted to find a single loaf of commercial bread the other week and gave up after 30 minutes of reading labels. Fortunately, Triscuits are still pretty healthy. ← Whoa! Is that really true where you live? I understand your point about the factory breads, but here in Jersey the groceries are hooked in with bakeries that offer a line of breads with no oils or sugars. Not organic breads, just simply made loaves.

There's also the excellent tradition of pikilia, platters of roasted, grilled and/or fried items designed for a shared meal. Had one just last weekend. Never had a tapas meal that was any better. Does this represent great heights? Maybe not the pinnacle, but it's at a pretty good altitude.

I'm in the store 2-3 times a week & always check the shrimp situation. There were none to be seen for a full 2 weeks, then they reappeared the week of 1/22. I was going to ask the fish person about the changes but it was someone brand-new who'd never been behind that counter till this week. I didn't think she'd know anything so I didn't bother. I do have the phone # of the Seafood Team Leader (what is a "fishmonger"? ) from the previous counter guys, I may call him at some point. EDIT UPDATE 1/31 6:53 PM: We had the shelled shrimp last night. It was bland & had a peculiar crumbly texture. Not a hint of ammonia but otherwise seemed a bit old. Not much of the usual sweetness left to them. If that were my first exposure to Maine shrimp I would definitely be wondering what all the fuss was about. I'm thinking that this may be just the way they get when they've been too long out of the shell even if they aren't technically too old for consumption. The shelled ones are moving almost imperceptibly. One of the regular counter guys was there today, he said that they were trying different things to see what sells best & will probably revert to shells on next week. Apparentlly they have a choice of how they come from Seafood Central Distribution. I mentioned the lack of flavor to him, he said something philosophical & commented that the shelled shrimps didn't look as appetizing as the ones with shells on. I thought they looked OK but lacked that brilliant color you get with the whole animal.

My local Whole Foods is trying a new tack in their efforts to move the shrimp: $9.99 / lb, shelled & deveined. I bit, & bought, since the alternative was to go another day without eating some Maine shrimp. It's an interesting approach: bring the price UP to appeal to the moneyed class that shops there, & offer convenience to those who actually cook the stuff themselves. I mean, if it costs almost as much as previously farmed frozen shrimp from Thailand, it must be almost as good, right?

I read somewhere that amatrciana is often eaten w/o cheese because it's already so rich with the pork fat. I'd already reached the same conclusion & stopped adding the parmigiano before I read that. Con aglio e olio (+ parsley & peperoncino, of course) is still the quickest. And it takes mass quantities of cheese very well! ← I've found that my version isn't too rich...though the one I have at my local Italian definitely is, and I usually forego cheese on theirs... ← I suspect that I need to pour off more of the rendered pancetta fat. But it's so difficult to be that disciplined.....

King's mountain, I believe. Leading to the possbility of a BergBurger for those with large appetites.

Ah, I should get a digital camera. I've been doing that one for years. (I prefer pancetta.) Lovely photos! I read somewhere that amatrciana is often eaten w/o cheese because it's already so rich with the pork fat. I'd already reached the same conclusion & stopped adding the parmigiano before I read that. Con aglio e olio (+ parsley & peperoncino, of course) is still the quickest. And it takes mass quantities of cheese very well!

So can you recommend a good green-sauce place?

Now this is curious. I love oatmeal, because to me the whole oats have suffcient chewy texture. I draw the line at Cream Of Wheat. Grits & polenta are right out too. Funny how specific our textural sensitivities get.

Do whatever Whole Foods in Jersey does. Maybe they have it in NYC too, for all I know. The real question, how do we turn it into a Broadway show?

That's exactly what puddings & tapioca (& caviar, for that matter) do to me. Pork fat, OTOH, bring it on! Material here for a scholarly study I suspect.

I'll readily confess to being one of those Westerners. I cannot abide pudding & tapioca & other such concoctions. I question how real the "divide" is, though. The supermarkets are full of them. My SO (Irish ancestry) eats them all the time. I grew up in a household where these things were served several times a week. My parents loved them & spent years trying to get me to like them. Didn't work. This begs the question of whether ths predilection is something innate (but not directly inherited - maybe it skips a generation ) or learned (it was a way of transferring my dislike of my parents). I question the "learned" theory since we ate a # of unusual items for that time & place, & my dislikes were very texture-specifiic.

Holding the tail acts as an anchor so that you can "unwrap" the body. After that, pinch the tail. If I'm reading this right, you are pinching the tail first. Another variation (a bit faster too) is to aim your thumbnail at the legs and pull to the right (right-handed people) and around the back. This unwraps the shrimp quite neatly - especially when cooked because then you can pop it in your mouth just before pinching it out of the tail section. Works well for larger shrimp. ← Ah, yes, I was pinching the tail first. (Hmm this is sounding a bit risque.) I'll have to refocus. We are talking about peeling raw shrimp, right? You mention "when cooked" above. It makes sense that the cooked ones would hold together better & be easier to peel, but I seem to prefer cooking the raw ones. Maybe I need to rethink my whole approach.

Yep, I thought I'd noticed a fall-off in volume at the SR over the past year, but wasn't really sure because I'm a late-night shopper. I was corrected today - the new Secaucus Walmart is not a Supercenter with full grocery department. I thought it was. So it's the Costco and the bigger, more modern supermarkets that have taken the trade away. I'm also wondering who is going to donate all those Thanksgiving turkeys and Easter hams to the Rutherford Elks now. I suppose they'll adapt.

Finally got to this place this afternoon, I suppose giving another little kick to my expiring ShopRite in the process. What I expected. Huge & overwhelming. Produce pretty consistently triple the price of that at the Rt. 17 Farmers Market. Good prices on mineral water & bulk cereals as usual. Selection of prepared foods to rival that at their Union Square outpost. Highlight of the experience had to be getting deliberately shouldered by a young man in thug's clothing in an apparent game of sidewalk chicken as I approached the store's entrance. Not gonna be good for business if that keeps up.

I walked into my local store tonight and noticed that some of the shelves seemed strangely empty and the usual weekly sale banners hadn't been put up on the front wall. When I checked out, I asked the cashier jokingly if the store was going out of business. She replied "Yes." I had to ask her two or three times before it sunk in that she was serious. This is probably just a blip on most folks' radar, but it's got me in a state of shock. When you've been shopping at a place for 16 years & it suddenly decides to fold, it's depressing. Granted, it was never a great store. Their produce wasn't kept well, & it was obvious that they had ongoing problems with antiquated BOH refrigeration equipment. Still, they always had the basics, and I could count on them for good beef, a decent deli counter that always met my needs, and good prices, particularly if you watched the weekly sales. Of course, their big advantage was location. A lot of apartment dwellers & seniors without cars relied on them and are going to have their lives really messed up when the store shuts. I feel horrible for the little old lady who lives down the street from us who always walks slowly down to the store using her wheeled grocery cart as a walker, and then makes her way back up the hill and down the avenue to her home. She seems to enjoy her independence. What's she going to do? This sucks. The closest alternatives, depending on which side of town you're in, now become the Stop & Shop in Carlstadt, which has its virtues but is consistently overpriced on staple items, and the big new ShopRite in Lyndhurst, which for all its glitz has never had produce substantially better than that at the Rutherford store and usually has deli & checkout lines that are good for a 10-point spike in your blood pressure. Either way, you've got to have a car. Wherever I wind up, it's all going to take up more of my time, and that irks me. But I at least still have options. I guess those stores & the discount megatubs of food at Costco & Walmart between them just drained off too much of the town's clientele. The people have voted with their wallets, as they always do. It's a tough business with thin margins, I know. I wonder if Walmart was the final nail in the coffin. The timing makes them suspect for sure. Me, I really liked having a local grocery, one that we could walk to when the weather was decent and often did. I guess that simple act has become a luxury in today's America. It was nice while it lasted.

...formerly known as Paulie Pizza. yeah. Paulie was always good for a 3 am slice. another place that hasn't changed in forever. sadly, the pizza isn't as good. i also love how the "new" owners have never bothered to get a real sign - they still have just a banner up over the old Paulie sign. ← You're right. It just adds to its incredible charm. Sorry to hear the pizza's suffered. ← Not only have they slapped up the banner, but they've also strategically painted over certain letters in "Paulie" so that the two signs atop the building now read: P IE PIZZA Amusing in its way, I guess. (Note: the Forum software collapses multiple blank spaces, so I can't move the "IE" as far to the right as it really is, but you get the idea.)

The shrimp are back at my local NJ Whole Foods locations too this week. Maybe somebody in WF management reads Down East. Johnnyd, I have been trying your peeling technique, actually evolved something very similar the week before your most excellent illustrated guide. It works consistently on about 2/3 of the shrimps, but I consistently have the same problem with the other 1/3 - when I squeeze the tail section of the shell, it separates from the main piece of the shell, which remains wrapped around the body of the shrimp. I then have to give the underside of the shell a little slice with a paring knife; if I try to pull it off without that step, it still remains attached & the shrimp itself tears in two. I'm wondering if this occurs because you are dealing with fresher shrimp than I can get, & something begins to happen to the shells & their bond with the shrimp the longer they've been out of water. Or maybe you were just born with better hand skills than I can ever hope for.

Agree with posts above. I think "hamburger sandwich" would be considered redundant in the US. Wondering if that's a more common phrase in the UK? Been too long since I've been there for me to remember.

I think the intent is to have standardized serving sizes for particular products so that you can quickly compare different brands, regardless of whether that serving size is reasonable. E.g., the standard serving size for both cold cuts & cheese is 2 oz. It does make it easy to see whose low-salt / low-fat claims are for real. I only recently discovered that the difference in sodium between low-salt cheese & most normal cheeses is so small that it's pointless to confine yourself to the low-salt stuff.

Everyone interested in this topic should grab a copy of the latest (Feb.) issue of Down East magazine & read the cover story about Maine Shrimp carefully; particularly the comments from a certain former sea urchin diver..... And keep buying those shrimp!