ghostrider

That's true in Jersey also; I suspect it's a regional usage. I understand it as much as I understand why they pronounce capicolla "gabba-gool"; which is to say, I understand it not at all. But I digress. I've always used the braising method to make curries, and never added thickeners, going for a natural reduction. From my American perspective, "braising liquid reduction" is accurate but far too unwieldy. I'd be more likely to refer to it as "sauce" than as "gravy" - gravy to me is something that you make separately & then pour over stuff - but neither seems entirely accurate. Really, it is what it is, and at the moment of serving, I would simply call it "this."

What do you brush your teeth with so that you can keep them healthy and intact for a lifetime of good eating? Tom's Of Maine was recently acquired by Colgate-Palmolive. So now we have a small, independent company that never tested its products on animals owned by a large corporation that allows animal testing on some of its other lines (at least according to some quick Net research). Where do you draw the line? I don't view large corporations as necessarily, or inherently, evil, but I do have certain standards, peculiar though they may be, and I try to gear my purchases accordingly. Edit: well, the more you google, the more you can learn. Never mind.

There's a product called Nature's Miracle, to be found in pet stores, which is the first thing I've found that actually gets rid of the odor of cat urine. It's designed to do that specifically (there are cat & dog versions), so I have no idea whether it'd work on tuna oil, but if nothing else works, maybe it's worth an experiment.

Heart disease / low sodium diet here. Yes, salt, properly used, does bring out other flavors. I learned that well in the 30 years before I had a heart attack. Now I'm learning how many restaurants over-use salt, at least to my newly altered sense of taste. And I've learned how to cook quite well without it. So I don't view it as a basic or essential skill. That thought had occurred to me too. I suspect that the answer is "yes," since one doesn't always have the time or the wherewithal to go after the best stuff every night.

Salt is a cop-out. It's too easy to make things taste better with salt. Yes there is a method to it, but so what. Try keeping your cooking flavorful and satisfying while using no salt. Makes life a bit more interesting. Not strictly a cooking skill, but in terms of "the qualities (which I think are a separate matter from skills) that make the difference between an okay cook, and an excellent cook", I think that you have to add shopping (unless you have a personal shopper). If you don't know how and where to find the best and freshest ingredients, I think that your results will be inherently limited.

Chinotto, long a fave of mine, is made not from quinine, but, prosaically enough, the chinotto fruit. See here for some explication. The San Pellegrino version contains both HFCS & sugar. I'll have to try some other brands if I can find them for comparison.

Ditto to all of the above. Especially the dogs, now I'm jonesin' for some rippers.

In my block, the ice cream truck is patronized by the kids who are otherwise playing street hockey / football / baseball, depending on the season. Somehow that strikes me as the way things should be. Though, similar to maggiethecat, I have grown to loathe the theme from "The Sting."

Since I hope to get down there one of these days, I'm curious as to exactly what that comment means. Is street crime an issue there? If not, what are you talking about?

Yes it is. Didn't know Weird NJ had done it. I just discovered it after living just across the Passaic 15 years.

I hesitate to add a not-strictly-food post, but if Tommy can get away with talking about looking at trees whilst eating dogs, maybe I can do something similar: Next time you're at Rutt's Hut to enjoy some of their dogs, take a very short drive a couple blocks up Delawanna to the corner of Vickers, & just gaze at the house there whilst chowing down, & ponder what its story may be. It is one of the most architecturally interesting houses I have encountered. It's worth the under-2-minute drive, trust me.

With regard to this area, my impressions may be skewed by the fact that every Chinese restaurant menu in Jersey seems to make a rigorous distinction between "prawns" and "shrimp" to indicate size. I'm pretty sure that I've seen prawns on non-Asian menus also but I don't recall exactly where. "Scampi" is probably the more common term now that I think on it.

I'm not so sure that that is true in the US - I've always taken prawn to refer to the larger species. I have the impression that I picked up this usage on childhood trips to San Francisco in the early 1960s. ← That is interesting, I haven't heard an American use the term prawn very often. Do you think that this is an east v west coast thing? ← I'd wondered if it was a case of regional usage. I grew up in the Midwest & never heard the word "prawn" until we made those trips out West. I remember being struck by it at the time since I was always intrigued by language and new words. We made several trips to the Gulf Coast (Biloxi MS area) around the same time and I don't recall encountering "prawns" down there either, with all of the shrimp that we ate. Of course these are just hazy recollections from my very early teen years. These days, "prawns" seem to appear frequently on East Coast menus, and the term is used to indicate the larger shrimps. I don't know whether that was true 40 years ago. I have the impression that it's still not a common vocabulary item in these parts, though; the signs at the fish counters which I frequent never seem to refer to prawns.

I'm not so sure that that is true in the US - I've always taken prawn to refer to the larger species. I have the impression that I picked up this usage on childhood trips to San Francisco in the early 1960s.

I knew there would be a thread on this show. The NYC PBS station (13) has just started running a couple of hours of Posh Nosh on Sunday nights/early Monday morns, right after an hour of Python. I had never seen Posh Nosh before - this is the price I pay for not paying the price of cable - but it's a riot! Couldn't help but notice this above - the perils of prognostication:

Re-reading the first paragraph, I realize that I didn't comprehend the apparent extent of the planned fabrications when I first read this. Now it sounds like a dangerous game. Lying to bolster a skill that you know you have is one thing, making up a background out of whole cloth is something else again.

I can't speak for the food industry, because I have no experience in it. But if you've been trying to get a job and you keep finding nothing but closed doors due to the "we won't hire you because you have no experience" / "how the heck do I get experience if no one will give me a chance?" Catch 22, lying on your resume may be your last option. But you better have the chops to back it up if you do get hired. How you deal with the ethical issues is between you & your conscience.

Protein class? Is that really what they call it?

I don't know if u.e. lives in the US, but I'll point out that the Carapelli brand has a "Best if used by" date on their labels. I've found the date to be roughly 18 months from date of purchase. Unfortunately there's no actual harvest or bottling date. The company is based in Florence but they use oils from all over the Mediterranean, & spell out the details on the labels each of their 4 varieties of oil. Even their best oil may not give you the fresh/fruity zing that you seek - it's not my favorite, and my experience is that you'd have to commit to spending 2-3 times as much as they ask to get the flavor that you want. But Carapelli packages decent, reasonably priced oils that I find useful in cooking, and I give them points for clarity in labelling.

Interesting. We were in Germany & Austria that same trip but never encountered the cold cuts & cheese there. OTOH, just a few years ago, in Verona, we encountered the Italian version of this - prosciutto, pancetta, salami, a couple of other cured meats. They also served champagne - that was one happy hotel! Only place in Italy we encountered such a spread.

Klary, the various breakfast items in your blog triggered one of the few memories I have of Amsterdam from 1962 (I was 13 at the time) - a typical hotel breakfast consisted of bread, cheese & cold cuts - not what we think of as "breakfast sausage" here in the US, but the kinds of sausage that we would normally have for lunch. I remember that this struck us at the time because we did a grand tour that summer, spending close to 2 months in many different countries, and no other place had anything similar at that time. So I'm wondering to what, if any, extent this still represents a "typical" Dutch breakfast 44 years later. Of course, hotel breakfasts don't always represent what folks typically have at home, so I have no idea if we were being served anything that was common in homes even then. (Suddenly I'm amused at the fact that, from all the wondrous things we saw that summer, I still remember odd bits about the food. No wonder I'm here on eGullet.)

The Gulf of Maine Shrimp thread on the New England forum might have some relevance here. The difference the in color & flavor of these guys vs. the farmed stuff is just so apparent. Sadly, they haven't been a big hit yet with the average consumer.

Ah thanks. I knew it was a long shot w/o the name of the vinyard that her husband manages. Bet you had a great time though. Back to Rosemont Bakery - do they have a place to eat there, or is it strictly takeaway? With the folding of the PPM, I am at a loss for quick comfortable lunches on a run through Portland that we have planned for June.

I don't see the point to gas grills, compared with wood/charcoal, so I'll confine myself to 3 charcoal-related suggestions: 1) Get one with a grill rack where the height is easily adjustable. (Someone above mentioned an adjustable-height fire grate, which I suppose achieves the same purpose; though raising & lowering the grill strikes me as simpler than adjusting the height of a tub of burning coals.) 2) Make sure that the model you get has plenty of adjustable air vents, top and bottom, so that you can control the air flow, and thereby the temperature and amount of smoke, at the grilling surface. 3)Get a charcoal chimney starter, like one of these, so that you'll never have to deal with the stench of lighter fluid infusing your food. (I got a cheap version that I found at Home Depot, works like a charm.) Happy grilling!

Do all of those come from Rosemont bakery? What is Molinari salumetti? (For that matter, what's a Humboldt Fog?) Is there a lunch to be had out of any of this?