ghostrider

Yeah, you meant Edgewater. Went there once - the Whole Foods - it is big indeed. Lovely views of Manhattan from the parking lot too.

We have a ground-floor room air conditioner which the previous owners of this house installed in the kitchen/dining area wall. We also have a pretty good range hood that sucks the stove heat up & out. So, this being prime corn season, I'm still cooking, even though the heat has been mid/upper 90s these last 2 weeks. Fall, like Heaven, can wait as far as I'm concerned. There's corn to be et, dadgummit!

My favorite readily available carbonated water is Gerolsteiner. I buy it even when others may be on sale & cheaper; it quenches my thirst like nothing else. For still water, it's gotta be Poland Spring. My SO is a Maine girl & will allow nothing else. End of discussion. (I live in the same North Jersey town to which Phaelon56 referred above. The chlorination level of our tap water is truly appalling. We have a filitration system which improves it, but I still don't like it.) On a trip to Virginia I discovered a water called Grayson which was excellent, but it seems to be a regional item. My favorite ever is a Swiss water called Valser, website right here for the curious. To me it has a unique freshness; must be the way my palate reacts to the particular mineral content. I was pleased to find it available at D'Agostino in NYC in the late 1980s, shortly after discovering it on a trip to Switzerland, but it disappeared after a couple of years. Here is a peculiar page I've found giving mineral contents of certain waters. Sheds some light on why Evian tastes so dull to many of us.

The Hasbrouck Heights market shut down at 5:00 today, I barely made it. I didn't think to ask whether this was due to the extreme heat or a permanent change. It was too hot to hang around & converse. Agreed. Before this week the white had been better - larger kernels and sweeter, it must develop earlier - but there always comes a point in the season where the bi-color becomes the better.

My brain is starting to hurt from trying to imagine a fresh, seasonal waiter named Kosmo.

So far this year, I'm finding that the best farmers' market corn is to be had from the Von Thun Farms stand. Their page of "Tailgate Markets" at the above site seems to be last year's, since this year I found them at the little Hasbrock Heights market on Tuesdays. I hate to diss my own town's market, but Von Thun's corn has proven to be worth the extra few miles. Though I'm still finding better peaches & lettuce at the Rutherford market. Shopping around is part of the fun of summertime.

Useful site with search facilities for both roadside stands & community farmers' markets right here:Jersey Fresh site I've been getting superb peaches this year from Matarazzo Farms at the Rutherford Farmers' Market. They do a few other farmers' markets & may have their own roadside market, check the site.

My gut feeling was that it was a post from someone excited to have such a place around. Sorry I didn't get a chance to post that thought earlier. Glad to have you around!

Why do we think that middle America pays any attention to Tony Bourdain? For that matter, why do we care what middle America thinks? What have they ever done for us (other than send me here)?

That's what I figured. Now I'm wondering if "celtic vinegar" is a made-up term. It qualifies as a "googlewhack" - a search yields only one result, which is, of course, the Hugo's menu page. Edit: ooops, not a true googlewhack. That's two words which yield only one result without enclosing them in quotation marks.

What the heck is celtic vinegar? Nice to see the automated censor hard at work on those shitakes. That's weird, why didn't I get censored when I typed shitake? Ah perhaps dinwiddie does his typing elsewhere.

Doesn't seem to be on any given night, seems to be Tuesdays. They should have informed the original poster when he/she called to inquire about reservations, but apart from that, why shouldn't they operate this way? If their local clientele supports it, more power to 'em.

The Hasbrouck Heights beans were decent, the corn exceptional. Not quite at season's peak but very close. Decidedly worth the detour.

Went to Hasbrock Heights because I'd run out of produce & it's not that far. It's really just two farmers set up along a street there. But good looking corn, & one farmer had much better beans than were available in Rutherford last week. Got some more peaches & sugar plums. All in all, worth the trip. Particularly since I'd just come from Whole Foods, where all they had were California peaches. Man, that's just so depressing. Thank God for farmers' markets, large & small.

Oh. Guess it's been a couple years now since I was up there. Wonder where Montvale is. Well that's why there's MapQuest.

They have a branch in Garfield too. Or is it just a coincidence of names & they are unrelated?

Rule #1: it's football. Since I cook much more than I dine out, I'd really like to live some place with more ready access to local produce. Suburban NJ is a mess in that regard unless you want to spend a lot of drive time. My town has a serviceable farmers market from July thru Oct - I'm pretty happy with that - but the rest of the year, fuggidaboudit. Of course the American production/distribution system is geared to bringing produce from California & Peru to my doorstep, not to trucking local produce 1% of the distance. I don't get it. Me, I'd rather retire to almost anyplace in Italy.

Rutherford market opened this week. Hooray! Snap peas & beans looked pretty bad, the climate has not been kind to them, I fear. Bought some beans, haven't tried them yet. Fabulous red lettuce & peaches. Omigod peaches. At last. And corn. Not very sweet yet, but the freshness..... Still the best so far this year. And it's only gonna get better.

Notice the careful phrasing of the sign - "...has no plans..." Typical corporatespeak when they want to say something that could change overnight. Montclair WF will remain open if they continue to attract enough trade to maintain profits. If they don't, they'll be closed sooner or later. They are masters at fine-tuning their prices to get the maximum that each location will bear - e.g., the same cut of beef will cost you $1.00 per lb. more in Ridgewood than in Montclair. I'm sure that they'll make every effort to keep the Montclair operation profitable.

I am a rounder, always have been. My parents were channelers, I guess it was an early act of rebellion. Until this thread arrived, I'd thought that I was the only rounder on the planet. Seriously. All of my friends think I'm weird. They also think that I eat corn weirdly. But now I know that I'm not alone! Oh joy! It's the magic of the Net.

WHat I find odd about this is that it seems to imply that the person taking the reservations asked your friend, "Hold the phone a minute, let me see if chef Charlie has any questions for you." Or chef Charlie was listening in on the conversation. Or something similar. I mean, how else would the reservation-taker know even to ask the question? Unless of course it was a ruse to ensure timeliness. In which case it's transparent. It's not an unreasonable question, given what's said above about the subway commute to the place. I would have to answer "I'll be on time, assuming that the subways run as I expect them to." Because you can never be sure.

Friday at Belgiovine's Deli in Montclair, where I work, was the deadest it's been in nearly 3 months. Traffic on Bloomfield Ave. was unnaturally light. Can't speak for Saturday cuz I just work weekdays. But I think people are starting to take off for those weekends at the Shore.

Kudos to your dad for getteing it started the right way & sticking to his principles.

Also Church St. Cafe in Montclair, at the foot of Church just above Fullerton. I've no idea what their food is like but looks like great ambiance.

Thanks for that day-of-the-week summary Rachel, that's very useful. I am tempted to make some comment about the superiority of state vs. federal websites but that may be getting too political.