chappie

What better time is there than 1:30 a.m. for Marmite-buttered popcorn? I wonder how it would taste in a caramel, sort of a sweet/savory caramel, then mixed with popcorn and formed into balls...

Nearby in St. Michaels a bakery opened a few years ago specializing in Smith Island cakes (I think they have a bakery further south, too), and they're sublime. For our wedding, instead of a big fondant-covered, frilly decorated cake, we served 12 Smith Island cakes in seven different flavors. They all but disappeared.

Came up with a new use for Marmite this afternoon. Melted some down with butter and drizzled over popcorn. I highly recommend.

I had some fantastic grilled sardines at a Portuguese restaurant in Montreal whose name escapes me. Also, at a Korean place in Glen Burnie, along with all the banchan and a bubbling cauldron of egg-custard soup that appeared on the table were a pair of longer, deliciously charred, crispy oily fish. The servers, who didn't speak much English, never really answered my question as to what type of fish they were, but I was thinking maybe smelt? Is smelt related to sardines? I like this one brand of canned Portuguese sardines called Bela Olhao, the plain kind packed in olive oil. They're cheap, firm and definitely not "fish oil-flavored sludge."

Any kind eGulleteer who isn't feeling like an eProfiteer and would, if I wired some money via PayPal or something, buy me a couple jars and ship them by whatever is the lowest-cost method? I know I'm going out on a limb here, but eBay is looking too pricey right now. Or, I can seek a source in the U.S. which I doubt will arise.

Am I wrong, or isn't it true that honeybees still haven't rebounded from the parasite epidemic that decimated them in the early 1990s or so? When I was a kid running barefoot all summer, I'd get at least three stings a week from stepping on them as they foraged on clover. Then they all but disappeared entirely. A few springs ago I was sitting at an outdoor cafe and noticed a bush covered in honeybees, noting how it was the first time I'd seen such a sight in years.

Still looking for a comprehensive report about the Guinness Marmite. I wish they would sell it here in the States...

I've found the best bread (also for paninis and all sorts of other uses) with Marmite is Trader Joe's Tuscan Pane, which comes pre-sliced for under $2, I think. Toasted, loaded with butter and then smeared with Marmite ... I could eat it all day.

Whoa. I love the stuff but that there is just plain frightening.

I've been reading about the new limited-edition Guinness Marmite, and wondering if any of you on the other side have sampled it. If so, how does it compare? I'd love to track down a jar here, but I don't think it will be possible. Any help?

I'm hooked on it. Found that our local natural-foods store keeps it well-stocked. I don't refrigerate it, go through a jar pretty quickly, and have used it in stews and, most recently, a Welsh rarebit, with great results. Here's the thread I started on Marmite in the UK forums: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=98288

We apparently were going to do Pine Creek Cookhouse, but somehow it got dropped from the 10-person itenerary. Of the five nights, we ate out three and though none were "cheap," we had wonderful food for pretty much a fair price. All said and done, it wasn't much more expensive than eating out here in Easton and St. Michaels, Md. at the better restaurants. We don't go out too often here, but, hey, what's vacation for? So, here's where we ate: Wild Fig, which was excellent. Our host knows the owners, so we were gifted with a bunch of appetizers on the house to start. I rarely order "The Chicken" off a menu, but this one promised my favorite veggie, broccoli rabe, so I did. Wow. Perfectly juicy "airline cut" chicken, crisp skin, with the aformentioned rabe but even better — the most delicious polenta I've ever had. It made its way around the table and we went home with an extra order, which didn't make it until 8 a.m. All said and done it was about $45 a head, quite reasonable for a memorable meal. Next big dinner was Campo de Fiore. Pricier ($75 a head) and not quite as good as Fig. Smoky charred calamari were nice, and I had a pasta with lamb and goat cheese over vegetable ragou. Best dish on the table was the osso bucco, also the costliest. We didn't have dessert here. Final dinner was Takah Sushi, and since we brought 10 people we got the private room. It was definitely expensive, but I never feel bad buying quality sushi even if it's not world-class. Fun dinner, and we ended it with a sexually explicit fried ice cream and banana dessert. Hilarious and quite good. Aside from the big meals, we stopped at the Red Onion, where I had a couple of their $2 "shooters" (mini-burgers, or sliders) and loved them. My wife and I went snowmobiling one day and stopped on the way back at the Woody Creek Tavern, which was perhaps my favorite place there aside from the Fig. The atmosphere reminded me of dives back here, and the Limosin beef burgers were so good my wife — who almost never eats red meat — finished her surprise order before I did! I skiied two days, both at Snowmass but on different sides of the mountain, and reenforced the truth that I am out of shape. Still sore! But beautiful skiing nonetheless. Hadn't done it in five years, and will try snowboarding next time. Overall, I thought Aspen was beautiful, expensive in general, a little pretentious yet somehow also quite relaxed and welcoming. It was a great trip.

I am sorry but that can't be good. Oh, I'm sure it's "good" in the sense of rich, bored diners who have "tried it all" and are tickled with the idea of it, believe they are supposed to find it both ironic and yet somehow brilliant and henceforth proclaim it to be good. But seriously. I'm going to melt down some Junior Mints into a pot of Yoohoo and pour it over roasted lamb.

Speaking of >50,000 BTU, there was a thread here or in the old Adventures in Eating forum a few years back about someone finding a mega-power burner overseas and having it shipped here from, I think, Thailand. Does anyone know where this thread is?

Scrappitalism: an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by makers of pork breakfast products. There is also Chappitalism, which right now would be some sort of economic system of not balancing one's checkbook, waking occasionally to money-panic sweats and then willfully forgetting that one's income is woefully lacking for weeks at a time.

It is surimi. Processed fish paste with things like beef blood plasma, sorbitol and sugar added. I used to work on a ship that made surimi for the Japanese market, off the coast of Washington.

Great news. My local natural-foods store has restocked their supply (I had bought the last one a few weeks back), with a row of some 12-15 jars on the shelf. I only picked up one today, but I might grab a backup next time, just in case. Thinking of making a Marmitey beef and Guinness stew soon.

Daniel, do you run some sort of restaurant or crack shack on the corner in which the public can sample some of your arcane delights?

A 2003 Washington Post story about how the body may treat fructose more like a fat than other sugars: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A...anguage=printer And I also read a study within the past year, I think, (maybe also in the Post? I'm looking for it ...) that suggested the body doesn't register consumption of HFCS as caloric intake. The test subjects would eat meals and be served either sugar-sweetened beverages or the HFCS variety, and those who drank the corn syrup ate more than those who drank the table-sugar type. The gist was that people who drink HFCS sodas all day long don't automatically regulate their caloric intake accordingly. Something... I'll find it, I swear. Surprised it wasn't brought up already.

Well, I finished the jar yesterday. Filled it up with boiling water and drank the remnants down. Now off to find a replacement.

This was not in a restaurant, but ... When I was 17, a rather average film called "Silent Fall" was filmed in my hometown of Easton, Md. My parents had split a few years earlier, Mom moved into a different house and my sister was grown, leaving just Dad and me (on weekends) at the sizable waterfront home I was raised in. So when a realtor told him some of the actors were looking to rent something on the water, he offered. They didn't even want us to move out. So off and on for the next month or so, the late J.T. Walsh and a native American actor named Zahn McClarnon stayed with us. J.T. kept us up with fantastic stories and he felt like a longtime friend by the end of his stay. One afternoon we went fishing and caught a couple of rockfish. Dad was leaving for a business trip, so I was left behind to help cook them with J.T., Zahn and two guests: a 16-year-old Liv Tyler and her mom. I'd never heard of Liv before, but she was tall, beautiful ... and about 10 years older than me in most matters of life, even though I was technically born first. As I fumbled around trying to come up with things to say, I think she was making eyes at Zahn, who I think was about 28 at the time. But the rockfish was delicious, and Dad was jealous.

A girl who works with my wife is honeymooning in Australia in a few months, and I'm going to have her bring me back a big jar of Vegemite so that I can have an official VegeMarmOff taste challenge.

I think I'm going to start selling Granpappy Chappie's Old-Fashioned Backhair Syrup.

Was browsing through the forums and realized I never followed up here on how my big batch of whole-lemon plus lemongrass ... cello turned out. It's delicious. I also added two grapefruits (compared to probably 25-30 lemons and a massive bunch of lemongrass) and I swear you can just taste the grapefruit early on. Using the whole fruit makes it slightly different than regular lemoncello -- for instance, it partially freezes -- but I like it. Next time I'll go the traditional route. I was thinking, with so many grocery stores selling clementines in the winter that they might make a good 'cello, but I fear they are shellacked and/or waxed to a great degree. Any way to get rid of this? Having an abundance of lemongrass, I also slipped some into a bottle of good vodka, and stashed it in the freezer for a month. This demands a repetition.

Two weekends ago we had a party at my father's house as he and my stepmom are out of the country for a month. Along with sangria we served a bunch of Vietnamese beer and a keg of Yuengling that somehow became a quarter instead of the full-on half a friend was supposed to pick up. When the little keggy ran out, people scavenged the fridge for the ramshackle assortment of beers inside. Some were Dad's Miller Lite cans (the best beer is a beer on sale, to him), others were the more refined selections brought by our age 20-something to 30-somethingish crowd. When I woke up and began gathering the empties I did a double-take at one crusty, half-drunk bottle sitting on the counter. It was an ancient Young's Ram Rod, and I am not kidding when I say my dad has kept it in one fridge or another, through kitchen renovations, probably my parents' divorce in 1991, various girlfriends and now a marriage -- for at least 17 years. Not that it was special or anything, but he's a notorious pack-rat, and it was unopened, so .... I wonder how it tasted. I couldn't find the culprit (or at least get them to confess) but I noted the bottle had about 1/3 of its contents remaining.