ghostrider

There's an oil from Sardinia that pleases my palate much more than some Tuscan oils I've bought for thrice the price. (This comment is about flavor, not price.) The lesson I took away is that the region doesn't always guarantee the quality. I'd really like to try the Manni to see how it stacks up, but I've taken enough flyers on pricey oils only to be disappointed. I'd certainly welcome comments on the taste, color & texture from anyone who's tasted it.

As a point of comparison with regard to olive oil marketing & hype, folks might want to take a look at David Rosengarten's Fresh-Pressed Olive Oil Club. I wonder which offers the better value. I also wonder whether either offers any real value. (There is a brief discussion of the Club on eG here.)

Got a batch of Macouns at the R'ford farmers market yesterday now that peach season is done. Yum. The late-season corn has been outstanding this year - still nice, fully developed ears, not at all rusty or wormy, & oh so sweet. I don't recall it ever being this good this far into October, but maybe my memory is skewed.

#4: I'd subtract 5 days for Venice, but that's just me. Folks either love it or hate it. Me, wherever else we go in Italy, 4-5 days in Venice are an absolute requirement. Venice is quieter than many places even in midsummer - no cars - in March I suspect it'd be dreamy.

Sigh.... more wonderful Umbrian photos...... I'm familiar with that world's largest Christmas tree by reputation & photograph, though not in person. Gubbio is where St Francis struck a deal with the wolf. Fascinating story about the skeleton of an extremely large wolf being found under the portico of a Franciscan church during renovations. Gubbio (outskirts) is also where geologist Walter Alvarez found that thin layer of iridium in exposed rock strata that led to his theory of the giant meteor impact that ended the era of the dinosaurs. Talk about your deep time. All of which make me think that I should find a way to construct a wolf and dinosaur-themed meal. In the meantime, thanks, Kevin, for the mentuccia suggestion. I'll have to look into that too. Let's see if everything really is available somewhere in NYC.

Thanks. Those ribs look terrific! I haven't been quite able to duplicate the herbal flavors we found on the grilled meats in Gubbio. It's probably the fennel that I've been missing; it wasn't a dominant note but it may well have been in the mix. Must try. I kept the labels from the herb packages that I'd bought there, a product of Francescano Natura Assisi. Erbe Aromatiche: thyme, marjoram, rosemary, powdered sage, parsley. Recommended for grilled meats. Aromi dell' Umbria: thyme, marjoram, rosemary, oregano, savory. For roasted & grilled meats, fish; also includes a tomato sauce recipe.

I'm not sure what the protocols of this type of thread are, other than folks cooking Umbrian dishes, but since hathor's blog put me in a reminiscing frame of mind, I'll just offer a couple of observations based on a week in Umbria. Our time was divided between Spoleto and Gubbio, both wonderful places, each with its own distinct character. The cuisine in the Spoleto restaurants seemed more varied and pan-Italian. I guess you might expect that, given the festival that blows into town every summer and the town's proximity to Rome. What I remember most, though, is that every restaurant seemed to have a bottle of wonderfully green and fragrant olive oil on the table. It didn't matter whether the place was an upscale ristorante or the humblest trattoria, the oil was intensely sweet and good. I've never found another town where the table oil was that consistently delectable no matter where you went. You can generally count on good oil in Italy, but Spoleto's kicked it up a notch; the town seemed blessed with superb oil, at least in that year. Spoleto had a great little market square part way down its hill (one thing both towns share is steepness!) where I was able to stock up on fruits and cheese. Gubbio's cuisine was more stark and simple, just as the town itself seems more rugged than Spoleto. Many of the restaurants had an open hearth for the simple grilled meats that are a staple there, as noted elsewhere. I was most struck by the herb mixtures that were rubbed onto the meats before grilling, even the excellent beef; it was a intriguing combination of floral and meaty flavors that I haven't found elsewhere. Maybe I was attuned to it, but the food shops in Gubbio seemed to have local herb mixtures more prominently on display than in other areas I visited. I wondered whether that was a particularly local tradition and what lay behind it. And of course there were the truffles, but I'd just be redundant so I'll stop here.

Just looked at the map & now see how (relatively) close you are to Gubbio. I'll never forget hiking on Monte Ingino and sitting on an outcrop for a spell on a sunny summer day, savoring the view of the town and plain below, surrounded by the heady scent of wild mountain thyme. Startling thing to stumble across. I bought some local herb blends the next day and used them at home over the next year to reconnect with Umbria. Wondering if the woods and hilltops around Montone are similarly perfumed in summer. This question probably comes in too late. Anyway, thanks again.

I think you're right - they're not in Britain, but are refrigerated in Canada. ← Just playing catchup on this wondrous blog, savoring every page & every image, but this reminds me that refrigeration of eggs may be a relatively recent North American thing. When I was growing up in the 1950s in St. Louis, we used to drive out to the little town on the Missouri river where my dad grew up to buy, among other things, farm fresh eggs directly from the local distributor. They were most assuredly not refrigerated then. I remember that there was some sort of mechanical conveyor belt contraption that separated the eggs by size, not unlike a multi-level train set for eggs. I'm not describing it well but I remember being fascinated by it every time. Omigosh is this blog over already? I will still be reading it long after it closes, I fear, so let me say thank you - multi grazie or something like that - many times over. I've long been enchanted with Umbria. Gubbio is one of my favorite places in this world, I've always wanted to see more of the region. You are lucky indeed to live there and I'm grateful for all that you've shared with us, Amatriciana is my favorite pasta dish. Nice to see your twist on it! Not to mention that lovely chunk of pancetta.

Yeah, that worries me. Do they advertise? We had a superb fish market here in Rutherford for a couple of years, right next door to the ShopRite. They didn't survive. DSF clearly has high visibility to local commuters, but does anyone else know they're there? I'm a prime example, they'd have gotten some business from me but I didn't know that they existed. Ah well I will mention this to them when I stop in, it's all I can do.

Thanks for those good details. My life is chaotic right now, but next time I'm ready to cook some fish, I'm definitely making the trip over there.

Mixed reviews of this gizmo on Amazon. I had never heard of this thing so I googled it. Nice to know that it "Makes up to 220 Cubicals at once!" Now when I see a recipe calling for cubicals, I'll know what to do.

I noticed this place on a drive-by last night, located in a space that used to be a sports bar on Stuyvesant Ave. in the block SW of Lake, just up from the Lyndhurst NJ Transit station. I thought it was brand-new but this article tells me that it's been 6 months since I've been over in that part of Lyndhurst. I can't get Google to find any previous mention of this place on eG. Since it's likely to be several weeks before I can get over there at a time when they might be open, I'm wondering if anyone else can report on this place.

That seems to assume that there is never any net advance in knowledge. Much human history indicates otherwise. In this specific case, the certainty doesn't completely run the other way, though it may in the minds of those who are pushing this ban. But Jane Brody's related piece in the Times a couple of weeks ago adds some interesting perspectives on potential problems with trans fat alternatives. Brody makes me think that this proposed ban is rash and the consequences haven't been fully thought through. If the alternative is a bucket of McNuggets fried in palm oil, what is gained? And the answer will probably be more regulation, making "Where will it end?" ultimately a very good question.

This is an interesting distinction, as I see the same labels at fish counters in my area. Are these labels not to be trusted?

Wouldn't that be more down to the difference between fresh & frozen shrimp than wild vs. farmed? I think you need to do more taste tests, burdensome though that may be.

This is a very good point that I hadn't considered before. It should also be disseminated as a major rationale for just throwing the bags away. Without this rationale though, the instruction gives the false impression, IMO, that under no circumstances would cooked spinach be safe to eat if it has been contaminated. That is simply inaccurate. FG's eplanation makes a lot of sense, however, as to why someone should not attempt to cook the stuff. ← Well, I think it makes sense if you are handling the spinach with less care than you'd apply to raw chicken breasts. If we have to proect those people, fine. But everything Steven mentions would occur to me automatically if I were dealing with a bag of spinach at this point. There is new info on the FDA website as of yesterday. The link above is well worth rechecking, particularly if you live in WA, OR, ID or MT; there's a new list of contaminated products that don't mention spinach in their brand names - e.g., "Tabouli & Goat Cheese Salad, QFC ." Curiously, with the 9/22 update, the FDA has removed the info quoted above, re cooking spinach to destroy E. coli & avoiding cross-contamination, from their webpage on the outbreak. This is the kind of thing that makes it harder to trust any source of information these days; why, with no explanation, would they remove what seemed to be sensible and detailed advice?

I think the AMA is wack to attempt to regulate sodium in food. Stick with clear labeling of sodium content, get the information on the risks out there, and let folks decide for themselves. I've been on a low-sodium diet for 3.5 years now. The research I did when my doc recommended the diet indicated that maybe 1/5 of folks with high blood pressure have it because their systems are salt-sensitive. There is no simple test for the sensitivity so. to be safe, physicians routinely recommend the low-sodium diet for anyone with cardiac or hypertension issues. It's not a bad idea, it won't hurt you, and sometimes, as with hazardnc's FIL, it works wonders. I see nothing in the Times article that indicates that the AMA has any new evidence indicating that more of the populace is at risk. Given that, I think they're just throwing their weight around, as some organizations are wont to do in order to justify their existence.

I met a farmer in Maine some years ago who had built a smokehouse & was trying to get a cured meats business off the ground. He had superb country hams, and the bacon, oh my, the bacon.... He also had many stories about the insanity of gov't regulations, and not just the USDA. Some agency, perhaps OSHA, made him add a full bathroom to the smokehouse even though he had no employees & his farmhouse was directly across the road.....

Some supermarkets have their own house brand of peanut oil - Shaw's does (or did a couple years ago). It was a bit cheaper than the Mr. Peanut brand but not a substantial bargain. I recall it being a bit lighter in color & flavor. Haven't found any house brands here in Jersey. If Trader Joe's has one it might redeem them.

As a kid in the 1950s & 1960s, I enjoyed a lot of unusual food items that my peers just gawked at, but I never could abide the Kraft Parmesan, which, yes, was a staple in our house too. I always had my spaghetti cheese-free. The pre-grated cheese at most Italian restaurants, which I tried a few times as I grew older, didn't seem much better. This sad legacy kept me from trying the freshly grated stuff for a couple of decades. What a waste, and what a revelation when I finally did. I always grate my own now (though I've come to prefer romano on most things).

This formulates what I was thinking. It does make sense, assuming you have enough trade that wants to distinguish itself as non-Starbucks. What intrigued me about the St Louis places was the in-your-face locations of the competitors. In the areas I travel here in Jersey, I generally find the independents in the same town as a Starbucks but some distance away. It'll be interesting to see how they all fare.

There's probably something in that. Also, while there obviously isn't a causal connection between expensive & better, sometimes you do get what you pay for. If anyone can find me consistently good chicken breasts, preferably non-factory-farm, somewhere other than Whole Foods, I'm open to suggestions. I used to go over to another town for the Bell & Evans at the Stop & Shop, but they weren't always in stock. I would settle for Stop & Shop's own brand of "naturally raised chicken," pretty clearly designed to compete with WF's. While they were cheaper, they were always tough, which explains why the Bell & Evans would sell out even at a higher price. It all became not worth the trip. I could cite similar instances with seafood & certain produce items. Switching gears, I think people keep comparing TJ & WF because they both have a certain foodie appeal. They are based on different concepts & offer different sets of goods, but they both purport to have a certain emphasis on quality & flavor that is going to appeal to customer bases that overlap significantly.

On a recent trip to St. Louis, I noticed that each of the 3 Starbucks I passed on my daily route while there has a local independent coffee shop open, or about to open, in the immediate vicinity. One Starbucks has a well established competitor less than a block away on the opposite side of the street; one has a new shop that opened earlier this year directly across the street; the third has a shop that's just about to open half a block away. All of these shops are in well developed mixed-use neighborhoods, where pedestrians who live, work or shop in each area will have their choice of coffee establishments - i.e., we aren't talking strip-mall land. I realize that 3 shops do not make a trend by any means, so I thought I'd ask whether anyone else has noticed similar happenings in other parts of the country. Are coffee drinkers getting tired of the sameness of Starbucks, and are entrepreneurs seeing an opportunity by offering a more distinctive product? Or did I just happen to be in 3 neighborhoods that have enough trade to support pairs of coffee shops?

I guess Rutherford is technically a semi-dry town. The rules are noted above. Also, there are no public bars. (Places like the Elks have their own bars, I suppose due to the above-mentioned club licenses.)