ghostrider

I live in Rutherford &, while there's a lot that I love about the town, it's a mixed bag food-wise. Cafe Eros / After Athens (different rooms, same establishment) are a bit uneven. Eros does a terrific Greek salad & has nice panini & desserts. Athens has a "village salad" which is a bit different (I've forgotten exactly how, it's been a while) and has a full dinner menu. I've had some very good meals there and some so-so. Don't overlook Trattoria Corrado, right around the corner on the station circle, which is everything a local trattoria should be - consistently good cooking, a nice light touch where it's called for (this is not a typical red-sauce place by any means), a deft hand with fish, terrific homemade ravioli (a special, not on offer every night), and reasonable prices. It was IMHO the first really good place to open in town (apart from Matisse, which is in a different price class) after we moved here 15 years ago. I think they've been around for close to 10 years now, which says to me that they're doing a lot of things right. I have never had a bad dish there & I've had many very good ones. Spring Grill, a Thai/pan-Asian place, does what they do very well. I get frustrated by their limited menu, and while they're a bit pricier & less robustly spiced than some other Thai options in the area, if you're in the mood for what they have, they're a good choice. Mignon is good but I'm not a big steakhouse guy (prefer to sear my own). They have very good pork chops there too. There's a new Turkish place, Enginar, that is set to open soon. They were handing out menus at our Labor Day Street Fair & they look promising. Of course the proof will be in the eating. I'll report back ASAP.

Oh yes! I am very familiar with these appliances, there were several designs that allowed the plates to remain parallel while pressing a sandwich. In fact they were known as "Sandwich Press" or "Sandwich Iron" and the early ones did not have reverseable plates. You had a separate appliance that was a waffle iron and often they were made to match, with identical handles, decorative elements and size. (Have you guessed that I have collected some of these?) I am at my office and do not have access to my own photos. Here is an example of one of the vintage sandwich grills which were very popular in the 30s and 40s. Note: This one is less commong than many you see on ebay because it has the white or "ivory" bakelite handles. Most were black or brown because the white tended to discolor over time. Very rare are the ones with red or green bakelite handles - often these colors turned black after years of use. ← Ah, so I didn't imagine this! Thanks for the info. I remember black handles, & I don't think ours had the waffle feature. I also remember hot ham & cheese and even hot roast beef sandwiches, perhaps some meat loaf as well. I may even have had grilled Spam sandwiches, there was a spell when I really liked that stuff.

OK you've got my attention now. The price is right too. I will have to try those.

"Blanch in the fryolator." Now that's a phrase to conjure with. Nice one.

This thread is suddenly reminding me that, when I was a young teen in the early 1960s, my mom had acquired an alectric sandwich griddle / press - I'm not sure what to call it. Of course we never said "panini grill" back then. Instead of being hinged to the base, the top element slid up & down on two vertical rods, so there was no problem grilling extra-thick sandwiches evenly on both sides. This was clearly a device ahead of its time. I think it was big enough to do two sandwiches but I'm not certain about that. I don't remember who made it, but it sure turned out fine grilled sandwiches! Wondering if anyone else remembers anything like this from days of yore?

I'd be curious to see how those compare, pricewise, with the fresh ones at WF, which seem to be available year round, & are also really good. I think the fresh ones are around $6.00 / lb but I'll recheck that next time I'm there.

On the differences between WF and Trader Joe's, menton is perfect. ← Agreed. I wouldn't drive a half hour to shop at WF on a regular basis. (I wouldn't drive 10 minutes to shop at TJ's on an irregular basis but that's another story.) There's a WF in the town where I work, so I shop there regularly. If I didn't work there, I would still drive there once a month or so for some items (principally cereals) that are essential to my diet. There's no other store in this area that carries no-added-sugar Familia. WF is the only source I've found since ShopRite dropped it from their stocks. WF has consistently had the cheapest Jersey Fresh corn in this area. (Emphasis on Jersey Fresh; sure, you can find cheaper out-state corn elsewhere.) They also have consistent low prices on other cereals, chocolates, mineral waters, occasional seafood sales, etc. (ShopRite has jsut recently begun to match WF's mineral water price with the occasional sale on their own house brand.) Of course, if you're basing your diet on cost, you aren't buying these items anyway. Now, I would never try to argue that the pricey items at WF aren't more expensive than comparable items at other supermarkets, though there's a grey area in how you define "comparable." E.g., WF's chickens are more expensive than those at ShopRite; to me, the superior flavor is worth the price differential. But if you are shopping purely on price, yes, you may choose to go elsewhere. Or you may figure that what you save on that case of mineral water at WF pays for the chicken.

As a blanket or categorical statement, that is untrue. WF has pricey stuff & cheap stuff, like any other supermarket. There's an intriguing psychological thing going on that makes people focus on the pricey stuff. I don't fully understand it yet.

....when you are savoring a particularly delicious mouthful of food, and you realize that you're already thinking of the phrases that you're going to use to describe said mouthful, as if that process had become an autonomic response.

It's pretty easy to find whole uncut Citterio & get it sliced to order at delis in this area. Here it's $10/lb vs the same $20/lb for San Daniele. The Citterio is good for the price, tho the San Daniele seems to me to have more richness & depth of flavor. I don't think any imported prosciutto is quite the same over here, though, just as you can never get a Bel Paese that has the freshness & creaminess of the cheese you buy in Italy. (And maybe that's for another topic.) The prosciutto here doesn't seem to have quite the same glow to it, and it always seems a bit drier than I remember it being over there.

We made it down to Baltimore for the Pigtown Festival last weekend. It was great fun. While there was less food on offer than I’d expected, and no BBQ – the Iron Pig competition seemed to involve 3 BBQ guys with portable smokers cooking small amounts for judging only, when I thought they’d be cooking slabs of ribs for the multitudes – there were enough typical street fair eats, events (the Running Of The Pigs was more like The Sauntering Of The Porkers) and good bands to make it all a good time. Food update: after trying crabcakes at two other venues over the weekend, and consuming two other sets of fries and one cole slaw, my iniitial impression from earlier this year, that it’d be hard to find better renditions than those at Broadway Market, has been seriously reinforced. It wasn’t that I had bad crabcakes, fries or slaw elsewhere, but they didn’t create the kind of revelatory experience that makes you just stop and savor every bite. Vikki’s Fells Point Deli and the fries place at the north end of the north Market building still rule. Sadly, Sunday was our only day for lunch in Fells Point, and the Market, apart from the excellent gelateria at the north end of the south building, was closed. Jimmy’s Restaurant, nearby just down Broadway, was a good stand-in, delivering a nice orange roughy sandwich and a classic open-face brisket with onion-tomato gravy. The Fells Point locals obviousy love this place, it was hopping. We went back to the gelato place afterwards, which is why I said “excellent” above; they’ve got the hazelnut, my favorite flavor, quite right. For dinner on Saturday, we'd had our sights set at Mama’s On The Half Shell. However, my stomach had gone a bit strange as we got to O’Donnell Square on towards evening, and I knew I wasn’t going to be up for a seafood dinner. I needed some sort of mild chicken & pasta dish. That wasn’t on the menu at Mama’s, but was available right next door at Granite. They do a fine grilled chicken breast there. I had mine with penne, sauteed with roasted red peppers and spinach, in a light sauce with a touch of garlic; it was just what the doctor ordered. My SO had hers with the top-notch Granite salad, which our server said had been lauded in the Baltimore Sun that week. (I can't find that on the Web right now but there is this earlier review.) Granite has an ultra-modern look with some interesting mirrors on the walls, subtle but effective lighting, big open windows looking out on the square, and a great staff that delivered excellent service. I wouldn’t hesitate to go back, though I still want to try Mama’s. There’s a good choice of restaurants – and bars, if you’re young and like to drink and yell at a football game on TV! – in O’Donnell Square. It was nice to stroll around and see the life in the square, surrounded by all of these places that are thriving because folks who live in the area patronize them. Canton is somewhat off the beaten tourist path, I suspect, which makes its vibrancy seem that much more real. And it's an interesting water taxi ride to get there, to say the least. Here’s to Charm City. See you again in the springtime, if not before.

Allowance of water bottles apparently varies from one airport to another. I have this as first-hand info from friends who've flown very recently. But the bottom line is that you can't count on being able to take water on with you.

I have long been mystified at how easy it is to find good fresh haddock in New England and how difficult it is to find in the NYC/NJ area. I mean, it's not that far. Perhaps it's just a habituated-taste regional preference kind of thing. Or do I mean halibutuated-taste?

I too disagree about salt in pasta water, based on my experience & preferences. It may depend on your local water though. Grains, though - rice, oatmeal, etc. - taste peculiar to me without salt. I always add a smidgen. Low-salt diet for 3 years here so I'm acutely sensitive to the taste of the stuff now. There's a whole spectrum of restaurant foods out there, salt-wise, though I've found only a few dishes to be inedible in that time. (Most have involved rice.) I appreciate restaurants where the staff knows the seasoning level of the various dishes on the menu, and where the chef will cooperate in leaving salt out of freshly cooked entrees. I also keep to such a strict low-salt diet at home that I don't worry about it too much during the occasional meal out; I do my best to order a low-salt meal, but if it doesn't pan out that way, I'll enjoy it anyway, since the occasional aberration doesn't seem to affect me.

I use my garlic press all the time for pasta con aglio e olio. I bought it in Italy over a decade ago. It's got bigger holes than the one I inherited, which seemed more like a garlic juicer than a press. I abandoned that one long ago. The Italian one, I figgered, if it works for the Italians, it works for me. Yes, it leaves behind the toughest outer layer of the clove. That's not a bad thing. I will still chop cloves for Asian stir-fry dishes, but for the pasta, it's the press every time. What gadget do I never use? The squeeze-suction-powered pan juice degreaser. I just don't roast things that big anymore.

I happened to drive by their sign on Grove St. today, which still says "View Restaurant" in huge letters, and "The Skyline" in tiny-almost-invisible letters directly above the word "View." Nomenclature of the old place aside, shouldn't they put up a new sign if they have a new name?

Well, I know where the Chappaqua exit on the Saw Mill is, and that's about it. I was going to ask if you bought your coffee &/or tea from Simpson & Vail over in Pleasantville, but looking at their website, I see that they've moved to Connecticut. I have no idea when that happened or whether any of your time in Chappaqua might have coincided with their tenure in the area. Back when S&V were located in NYC, I was just learning about the pleasures of real (non-supermarket, non-teabag) tea, & they were my first serious tea merchants. I drove up to their store in Pleasantville a couple of times after they moved out of the city, but that became impractical so I mail-ordered their stuff for a while before I found other sources. Another side trip down Memory Lane. Please carry on.

I cook chicken breasts a couple of times a week during this season. I find them to be a good complement to the vegetables of summer - corn, green beans, snap peas, squash, zucchini, etc. Beef, pork and chicken thighs usually seem too heavy, since I don't spare the butter on my corn - this is one concession to a cardiac-friendly diet which I will not make - so it's down to seafood or chicken breasts for a light source of protein, and I can't always find the right seafood at the right price. I usually pan-sautee my chicken breasts in olive oil, sprinkled with different combinations of herbs for a bit of variety. (If their thickness is too uneven, I'll pop a lid on the pan for more even cooking after the initial browning, leaving it tilted to prevent dehydration.) I can't say that I crave them, but, keeping a modicum of dietary sense in mind, I think they're pretty darn good. I do crave the corn and other vegetables, so things balance out. When corn season sadly fades, the aforementioned "heavier" meats show up on our plates with increasing frequency. Seasonal variety isn't a bad thing.

No, you are not. I've been known to use a bit of ketchup if I've gotten stuck with some really bad fries that need something to mask how awful they are. But with good fries, I want them either plain or with a dash of malt vinegar. That said, I would like to try that curry sauce at some point. So far, I haven't run into it.

Well, I've posted about Five Islands Lobster Co. a few times, so may as well add it here. It's at the very end of the road on Georgetown Island (heading north, take your first right off Rt. 1 after you cross the Bath Bridge and drive 14 miles). Great lobsters & lobster rolls on a working fish pier (which some may recognize from a car commercial, I've forgotten the brand of car now). En route, there's also the Robinhood Free Meeting House for casual upscale dining.

That's why I use MSN MapPoint. Quick & always accurate (so far, in my experience). Try 73 Congress, it points to somewhere near Merrill, see if that looks right. I used to use MapQuest but they changed their software and are now too slow a load.

Taj Palace. Yes, they are decent. Kinara down in Edgewater (ironically, also across from a Whole Foods!) is also pretty good. Neither of these places really knock me out, but I'd settle for one of similar quality a lot closer to home. I'd just like to be able to get some Indian takeout once in a while w/o 40 minutes of driving.

You're welcome! I'll leave it to you to start a thread in the NY Forum, assuming that you'll get there before we get back.

Thrice so far this blog has mentioned hazelnuts + chocolate (= my favorite flavor combo in the world). This bodes well. I vote for peaches, my favorite fruit. Carry on! (Edited to change "twice" to "thrice" - the perils of speed-reading.)

Ooops, got name wrong, it's Lima's Taste, corner of Christopher & Bedford. Their website Kitchen & service were a bit stressed on a Saturday night, but overall it was pleasant. Food ranged from "interesting" to exceptional, we felt. Our standouts were ceviche mussels, shrimp causa, pollo y ensalada, and particularly the grilled ribs. Escaveche, which was unfortunately my entree, featured a nice chicken breast in a sweet-vinegary sauce that was just too sweet for me; some may like it. Aji de pollo was tasty and rich. (For my system, alas, rich is a negative quality.) Be aware that when they say "crispy onions," they mean flash-cooked red onions that are close to raw. I was expecting fried onions for some reason. We definitely want to go back & I'm ordering the ribs next time - our friend gave us one rib each to taste & I was instantly jealous - nice char, vinegary & spicy marinade, very good. Place is loud - hard surfaces everywhere, rock music over the stereo system, while Clockwork Orange with no audio played on the flat-screen TV on one wall. That was rather bizarre.