chappie

We are taking our honeymoon in Guatemala, focusing on Lake Atitlan but likely starting in Antigua, at the end of September. In Atitlan we'll stay at La Casa Del Mundo, which I have heard boasts fantastic food, but I'm looking for recommendations for other places.

Ah Leung, have you ever considered putting out some sort of guerilla-style cookbook: you, your camera and your fabulously crusty magic pan? At least for us eGulleters. I know I would buy it.

Is it just me or did that captain have a slight nervous twinge to his smiles? As if outwardly, vocally, "Yes, I am happy Bobby Flay is here," but inwardly, "Shit. I really, really don't want to get shown up infront of my boys, and I wish I had a van full of top-dollar steaks and an astute blonde assistant." He didn't really have the time to prepare for Flay, so I'm glad he won also. Flay seemed also to be glad. I'm sure he kind of recognized it wouldn't have been so cool to beat this guy in this situation.

I used to loathe the stale show Bobby Flay taped inside amongst his butcher, his baker and some sneering socialites, in which his ever-worsening cohost basically held a glass of wine and mingled. From the look on his face he hated it, too. Lately I've really enjoyed the food he's been making on his solo show, Boy Meets Grill. I've come to realize the arrogance I sensed in earlier incarnations has either been tempered or was a result of bad format. But I'm not so sure about this new gig in which he surprises some small-time champ (chowder, chili, etc.) with a "throwdown" challenge. Last night I watched as some young, eager Marine captain — The Man before his men — was duped into believing he was submitting an audition tape to Food TV, when in fact they were setting him up for a Flay throwdown. Here the guy is, in his 110-degree corner of desert where he has built up his own slice of turf and where his men seem to totally enjoy the perks of serving under a steak-grilling prizewinner (on days off he grills, and they get a break from MREs). And up comes Bobby, with a Hummer full of top-dollar slabs of beef, sauces and assistants. On one hand, the Marines and their captain all seemed thrilled Flay — a celebrity, and probably a culinary idol of sorts to the captain — showed up to hang with them. On the other, I was wincing thinking of Bobby Flay, the multimillionaire TV star, crushing this guy's little food heaven. It seemed a tad invasive. It didn't matter anyway. The judge picked the captain's steaks and the pecking order on this chunk of molten sand was intact. But I think the more of these "challenges" Bobby wins, the more the audience is going to lose its taste for the show.

I bought a few bottles of Cuervo Tradicional, light amber colored, in an off-the-beaten path liquor store in the Yucatan. Enjoyed it from the freezer in a small glass, sipped straight up.

Where did you get the smoked eel? I've seen it canned in Asian supermarkets.

Escolar is by far my favorite sushi, and I get two orders of it every time I visit Joss in Annapolis, Md. -- saving one for 'dessert.' It has a buttery flavor unlike any other fish, in my opinion. But I have heard that one shouldn't consume too much of it in one sitting, as it has purgative properties.

Yeah, I am certainly not paying $10 apiece for four filters that I may or may not be able to use again! I really want to try the method, though, so what about some sort of box contraption with a filter on the fan end (to keep dust, etc., off the meat), something inside to hold the meat in layers, and something on the outbound end, maybe even cotton sheet. There has to be a cheaper way of doing this. I did see a pack of three filters for $7, but they were fiberglass. My last resort is to check this heating/air conditioning supply store nearby and see if they have el-cheapo paper filters. Jerky or bust.

Great idea... We in fact have a great small-town hardware store just like that and I'm ashamed I just now thought of going there. The kind of place that will give you 15 minutes of service just to find three 10-cent screws. I'm curious whether or not I can re-use the filters after one run of jerky. I would like to eventually (if this works well) come up with a device maybe with two filters enclosing it but something reusable or very cheap lining the inside. Maybe watercolor filters as suggested, or maybe screens.

Well, Alton's whole theory (and I plan on testing several methods to compare and to see if he's right) is that both oven and dehydrator methods add heat, even though in small quantities, that slightly cooks the meat, which is not what he was looking for. Most of the commercial dehydrators, he says, don't have fans powerful enough to dry it without the help of a small heating element. So I do want to try his method, to see if it results in a chewier, more authentic jerky than the crumbly stuff I've had from dehydrators. Once I find the right filters I'll experiment and report back; the trouble right now is finding the filters.

Gigi4808.... That was perhaps one of the best posts I've ever read on eGullet, and I was both nodding my head and laughing the whole time. Seriously, this line needs to be nominated for something: "If I invited any of my friends over for "Sammie's" they would probably call my doctor and tell him my brain tumor has taken a turn for the worse (please note I actually have one so I am not mocking those who do)." Ouch! As a little anal sidenote, I have seen where Rachel will touch the sink handle with her chickeny hand, use a splash of soap while her hands are under the water (which instantly washes off the soap), then touch said chickeny handle again. If you aren't going to do it right, do it off-camera. As a second sidenote, my mom watches the hell out of all Food Network shows, prints the recipes and makes them. I had dinner with her last night: Rachel Ray's "Cowboy Spagetti." Not bad...

Good Eats the other night featured a recipe and technique for perfect jerky using a box fan and four "paper or cellulose — not fiberglass" air conditioning filters (the kind with the accordion ridges). Fill ridges with jerky, stack, bungee to fan and turn on medium for 8-12 hours. I'm dying to try this and have already taken apart our crusty fan to clean away years of cat hair, dust and unidentified gray gunk. But after trips to two different home-supply stores, I cannot determine which filters if any are made of paper or cellulose. Nobody at the stores seem to know, and nothing on the label indicates the filter's composition. Can anyone help with this? I've got my marinade ready and waiting...

This is a terrible show that only deepens my growing distaste for the Food Network, which has gone from straightforward, instructive shows eight years or so ago to showing the viewer the cold, marketing-minded guts behind its modern trend toward useless food-as-style content. Watching the panel — Bobby Flay, that insanely critical marketing woman and the senior VP of whatever — pick apart these people after throwing them through another hoop (not to mention hearing the former Double Dare host's voice) is painful television. Painful television that I've watched a bit, yes. So it all comes down to an Off the Hook! Wild! Put Tequila In It Bro! persona versus a cartoon character whose schtick and manboobs are excruciating to watch. Bobby Rivers' big cousin from down South?

I'm always slightly amused when people refer to "black licorice." There is no such thing as red licorice. Red Twizzlers, yes, but not red licorice.

From what I've read in the past, jellies must undergo a lengthy procedure of first plumping with freshwater, then drying, then re-salinating with brine, before becoming edible.

We had a pet pig when I was 10, and I was quite close with Mork (the Pork) as we called him. Found him to have twice the brains and sense of humor of the next-best dog we'd ever had (and we'd been through some great dogs). Still love bacon, though.

When my parents were first married in the late 1960s, they were invited to dinner at the home of some wealthy acquaintances — a family who owned a successful pet food business. Their friend's father produced some gorgeous steaks off the grill — Mom described them as the best pieces of meat she'd ever eaten. Only when the last bites were swallowed did the hosts mention they'd just eaten cheval. Mom was horrified, being a lifelong rider and lover of horses, but she still had to admit, "it was damn good meat." I've never tried it, but I understand it's one of the few edible mammals that get better with age. (Um, pre-death age, that is...)

It is 3:55 a.m. and I not only completed a double-double of 10 (or 12 or 13) cans of cheap beer (Shaefer) and 10 Foster Farms corndogs, but around 2:30 or so we got a second wind and fired up another corndog from the crates the party hosts gave away. They're so f**king good the 11th goes down and smooth as the first. The triple-double eluded me, however. I had imagined the tater tots to be the easiest component (besides beer), but I only ended up eating 24 of them. Tiny heartburn grenades x100. Already I am planning a Corndog Day party next year for the Eastern Shore. I want referees and much more hearty corndoggery, less half-hearted socializing, more gristle and gnaw. Less networking, more heroic corndog chanting.

With less than 48 hours until tasting, I am finally headed in a general direction. My fiancee bought two enormous lobsters the other night, so I've made stock with their carcasses. I also have a friend bringing me some packs of conpoy — a dried Asian scallop — from D.C. I'm thinking of soaking those, then using them with fresh scallops (maybe grilled, or crusted in a pan?) andouille, corn (also, perhaps grilled?) cream, thyme, etc. From what I've read in the China forum here, the conpoy will break apart and just add flavor and perhaps a little silky texture. Instead of the fresh scallops also, I could do shrimp. I had even toyed with the idea of collecting hundreds of periwinkles from the marsh and using them somehow, but this seems unreasonable.

Also I found with my leftovers that a splash of soy was a nice addition. I'll pick up some maltose at Great Wall in Fairfax next time I'm over there, though, so I can try it the way it was meant to be. Keep up the great work, hzrt8w — your pictorals are great and I'm looking forward to making tomato beef in the next few weeks.

Ah, you mean "pinkies," as my mom used to call them when we were raising a baby corn snake (Bisbee, purchased in Arizona, named after an old mining town there and smuggled home to Maryland inside a sock tied up in my sister's sweatshirt pocket) about 20 years ago. This was a time when we already had multiplying mice from an earlier attempt at raising a snake, this one kept outside in a chicken-wire cage that held him in for, oh, 12 hours. Squeamish for perhaps a week, mom quickly took to Bisbee and routinely awaited a litter of newborn rodents, which she'd freeze in a little dish. A pinkie factory. In the early stages, Bisbee couldn't eat whole one; I vividly remember Mom taking one out of the freezer, thawing it in the microwave and carefully cutting it into smaller pieces. Sheer horror.

Well I made this Saturday, using the palm sugar/water/honey mixture and I think from all descriptions here that maltose must be the way to go for its stickiness. I also used about seven cloves of garlic, to which I couldn't keep myself from dashing some crushed red pepper flake. (This may be heresy, but I also used four or five Sichuan peppercorns -- and liked the result). It's a great dish I'll definitely tinker with on my own. I couldn't find cilantro, which surely would've helped. Oh, and (perhaps more heresy?) I added broccoli.

This may have been mentioned already, but I used to enjoy Tokyo-Tapei. They serve decent sushi, but on the Chinese side of the menu, besides the standards (which I never tried), they offer great handmade noodle soups and homey dishes like leek cakes and such. But the soup alone is worth the trip.

I finally made this Saturday night in my le Creuset. Since we were out of butter, I used just olive oil, about five pounds of onions, a touch of salt, fresh thyme and white pepper near the end and a splash of balsamic. Started on the stovetop on low then placed in a 200 degree oven overnight with the lid on. It is amazing stuff. We too made a pizza with simply the onion confit, a sprinkle of crushed red pepper flakes, more thyme, a drizzle of balsamic and fresh mozzerella. I will say, however, that despite the lengthy cooking, you are still ingesting quite a concentrated amount of onion. Let's just say the house experienced some noxious breezes late last night...

Dad has always had at least one overflow feature where he will archive ancient game and fowl, oblivious to the freezerburn it will accumulate. In one of these, years ago, he placed an albino squirrel we'd found in the yard, hoping to one day thaw it out and stuff it. Many cleanings and changes of freezer since, it remains unaccounted for. I am still trying to scan my mind for any repressed gustatory memories of a tough, freezerburned mystery-meat dinner. He does make soup and stew a lot, so perhaps it ended up in one of those.