balmagowry

OK, now you've got me confused. On the left as you enter town from which direction? Are you saying the former-diner-now-chinese-restaurant was the place in question? That would work if you're coming from the west. But if you're coming from the east, then the Delphi is on your left just as (well, OK, just barely before) you enter town. And as of now, there's no other diner, or diner-like thing, on Main Street. Except Glen's Dinette, on the north side of Main in the middle of town, but I believe that's been there since the Flood, and it isn't really a diner, as such. Maybe I need to post a map, or something. I can't even picture where this diner would have been. There are, however, a couple of fairly new enclaves, those genteel upscale mini-strip-mall things, and either of them may well have replaced a diner. Considering how close it is to the Delphi (and also to the Carousel on Higbie Lane, also in WI), I can see where another diner in town might have been overkill at some point. Babylon never got quite as down-at-heel as Bay Shore did, but it certainly had its seedy years from an economic standpoint - followed by a substantial rebirth around 10-15 years ago (Bay Shore is just starting to do the same now). I still mourn the loss of that strange variety store on Deer Park Ave. - shouldn't, because the expanded Sherry's which has moved in there is a marvelous resource for me. But that old place had such character! and such weird superannuated merchandise! Oh well. Win some, lose some, I guess.

Um... you were right. It was.

Yup, it was. But look - I found it! Lately I've begun to wonder (I think I mentioned this on the Yogurt-Making thread) whether "Balmagowry" might not turn out to be some intricate corruption of "creme bulgare." Reaching, I know.

Oh Mongo, I'm so sorry; I certainly never meant to disillusion anyone. But think of it this way. Cary Grant may have begun life as Archibald Leach, but as far as I'm concerned Cary Grant is his real name. So... extrapolate. The balmagowry name has not been explained here, but I know there was some discussion of it a little while back - I'll hunt it down and link it later. Not a light task, as I fear it may be buried somewhere in the Cookbook Tally thead....

In Babylon itself? No. But this place is also on the south side of Montauk Highway and it's barely outside the limits of Babylon Village - I trust you're not, um, confusing the two? No, of course you wouldn't be, you're a local. Sorry. Where was it? There's a place right in the village, on the north side of Montauk Hwy, that bears all the architectural hallmarks of having once been a diner, but it has long been converted into a Chinese restaurant. It's just a door or two west of the old Town Hall, practically across from the movie theatre. Ring any bells? BTW, I have a feeling they're a little less lax about carding these days....

I've been thinking about this diner thing; there's something lurking in my mind that I haven't yet expressed. The reason I wanted to go there the other night - well, mainly I just wanted to. But as I think I mentioned up-thread, I was also bearing in mind Lucy's experience chez M. Pierre, and the comparison between the two places, thinking it might be amusing. In the event, I'm not so sure "amusing" is the word. There is no comparison, you will say - and of course we all thought exactly that when Lucy suggested that a bouchon was the equivalent of a diner and then immediately proceeded to explode that definition by showing us the bouchon. The thing about the Delphi, though, the thing I'm trying to get a handle on, is that there's something unpretentious about its pretentions, if you see what I mean. Yes, there are sections of the menu that are over-ambitious and incongruous, and the gussied-up dishes under that heading are not often well-executed. Yes, the place itself is tarted up with chrome and neon and gaudy pictures. But underneath all that crap it's still a diner. It does diner things well, and a few non-diner things superbly, and it has nothing to be ashamed of. The staff is friendly - not obtrusively so - and obliging. And sincere. Not a one of 'em but really cares that you get what you want and are content with it. At heart it's a neighborhood place, and it walks like one and quacks like one. Weirdly, there's something endearing about the things they occasionally get wrong (such as an inexperienced busboy, the other night, letting dishes clatter and make a hell of a racket when he cleared a table - no wonder he's on the late shift...). I'm not enough of a regular to be acquainted with any of the staff, but there are some such and you can tell that they love the place and it loves them. My father and I went out to dinner to mark my mother's birthday, the first one since her death. He loves the Outback; she wasn't crazy about it but would go there (and enjoy it once she got there, I might add) to indulge him. So when he proposed it I of course agreed. Trouble is, it was a Saturday night and the lines were... well, it was Saturday night. We decided to try something different. Thinking about what might have amused my mother, I suggested the diner. (And that was the night I first tried the aforementioned veal chop. And a glass of quite execrable wine, which under the circumstances I strangely enjoyed.) On an extraordinarily difficult occasion, it proved exactly the right place to be. It's that kind of place. Despite the oceans (literally) of difference in decor and cuisine and culture, the bell that all this rings for me is the honesty that Lucy evoked in her portrait of M. Pierre's bouchon. One is lyrical and poetic; the other solid with a veneer of silliness; but at bottom they share that quality you look for in a place of comfort food; they're genuine. They're real. Both are guided by the same principle; and the same impulse might guide you to either one. Hey, it's a diner. I'm lucky to have it nearby.

Good morning. Some like it cold. Don't you hate it when the first thing you see in the morning is an unexpected temptation lying across your path? I don't know where these things come from... but I'm a sucker for them. :sigh: No fair - not before coffee!

Nah - 'fraid not. We were in Ballmer from '59 to '61, then in Pittsburgh for a year, and when we came back to NY it was to the 106th & Riverside address. The S&SM was too far south to be within my normal orbit, except when I went to play with the cousins on 88th & WEA. Oh Mags, I hate to disappoint you again - but no, on all counts. I wasn't a gum-chewer (can't even remember whether I wanted to be; which I suppose probably means I did want to and was thwarted and thereby permanently warped), and I was anything but cool. Oh - and I went to school on the East Side, so most of my precious-little playground time was spent across town.

Ain'tchew up past yer bed-time, young 'un?

Dang, shoulda snagged a picture of it! It isn't round, but in other respects it is of course exactly as you picture it. And of course it has a counterpart, or rather a counter-part - i.e. smaller cases along the counter so that the counter-sitters (not to be confused with counterfeiters) are equally tempted.

Cool! My uncle & family lived at 88th and West End - and I subsequently lived at 106th & Riverside and at 90th & Columbus... there's something about that neighborhood, I guess. As to the birth-date, hell, I don't see any reason to be coy about it: 1957. Close?

They ARE? Uh-oh. They come up fine for me, but maybe I'm the only one who sees them. Anyone else? I'm assuming these are the ones that start with the Friday afternoon interlude - they're all stored off-site and linked. If this is really a problem I can bring them over to ImageGullet... only it'll take time. Jinmyo, would you mind trying something? Just click on this, which is the page where the images are stored, to see if it loads for you - and let me know. I want to try to figure out where in the process this problem is actually occurring.

DINNER AT THE DINER, PART TWO The Boy is determined to do his share for eGulletude. Brave soul, he orders both the Sliced Steak Wrap (and do please look at those fries - aren't they just the beautiful quintessence of fry-hood?) and the small Chef Salad with vinaigrette on the side. "Wait! Wait!" he says as I shoot a picture of the latter. "Wait until your food stylist has made it GLISTEN with vinaigrette!" Moments later, it does indeed glisten with vinaigrette. The vinaigrette itself is unexciting, actually just oil and vinegar, kinda heavy on the oil, with nothing to bind or season it. The rest of the salad, however, is good standard fare, nicely presented (The Boy, food stylist to the stars, wanted you to see it in cross-section too), everything fresh, and a lot of food for the money, I might add. Something about that scallion talks to me.... I'm not at all sure what it's saying, though. Just as well, I'm sure. Ooops. I just realized something: That serrated knife... they must have meant for me to eat this gyro like a civilized grown-up person, right? Guess what? I didn't. 'Long about this time, The Boy starts showing signs of impatience, signalling to the waitress. You saw how good those fries looked, right? You saw how unfairly they were all congregated on his plate, right? All I did was try to remedy - very gradually - a patent injustice. Waitress comes along. "Hi, what can I get you?" He replies, "Could you please bring the lady another order of fries, so that I can have some?" Well, I never! But just look at the darlings...! After he has extracted his usurious pound of flesh, there are still enough to satisfy even me. What a wise Boy he is, after all! Good things, even this one, come to an end at last. Either The Boy's eyes were bigger than his stomach or he was prudently thinking about tomorrow's lunch. While he deals with the check I linger behind for a moment, to get a final shot of the place, including the bar. And then out we go again, into the dripping night.

OK, I'm back. And I stumbled across something exciting for tonight's dessert - something so exciting that... I'm going to stay infuriatingly linear and not tell you about it until I reach that point in the narrative. Heh heh. Gotta keep 'em in suspense. More diner adventure coming up.

I thought you meant your soul is in worse condition. Does it have inlay around the edges? Probably. In "contrasting colors of telephone... black and white... white." I wouldn't know, though - I haven't been face to face with my soul yet, I don't think. I might even mean that. Or I might just be being glib.

Friday night: Dinner at the Diner! The Delphi Diner, West Islip, on a chill rainy night. A great refuge for late hours. Or any time. The Sumpawam Creek, in front of my house, is the eastern border of Babylon Village and indeed Babylon Town. T'other side of the creek is the swanky part of West Islip. For those who are familiar with such things, we are about four blocks south of Montauk Highway. The diner, on Montauk Highway itself, is within easy walking distance, but this is not the weather in which to walk it. (For those who aren't familiar with such things, I should perhaps explain that Montauk Highway is hardly what most people think of as a highway - it is, in fact, our version of Main Street USA. To be po-yetic for a moment, think of the South Shore towns and villages as a series of pearls - Montauk Highway is the string. And as it passes through each of those villages it undergoes a temporary name change; for a few miles of Nassau County it's called Merrick Road, but in most places, including this one, it is called "Main Street." And it looks it, too - in fact, Bablylon Village's Main Street looks rather like that of Peyton Place. But I digress, don't I.) The Delphi is in many ways an absolutely quintessential Lawn Guyland diner; like most of them, at some point in the past 20 years or so it has been gentrified - upgraded from a frowsty relic of the 60s into a chrome-and-neon post-prom palace. Also like many of its kind, it either is or purports to be run by Greeks - hence the oracular name and logo. It has the usual HUGE menu, through every passion ranging, half good old family favorites, half delusions of grandeur. Delusions of grandeur, however, are not to be confused with delusions of adequacy. The Delphi is more than adequate: it varies from excellent to stellar. One night, for instance, I went out on a limb and ordered the broiled veal chop; to my astonishment I was presented with a piece of meat I can only describe as beautiful inside and out. A revelation. A major, major chop, thick and tender and perfectly cooked, and of a flavor that wouldn't disgrace (uh-oh, I'm really behind the times here - don't know from the current popular places - had better play it safe-ish) the Four Seasons. No, seriously, I swear! Had the veal chop again on a couple of subsequent occasions: consistently, just as good. Does someone know someone with a truck? Gotta wonder. I haven't tried their steaks, but they also do well with pork chops and hamburgers, though of course I haven't yet been able to persuade 'em to serve the latter as rare as I like 'em. Sandwiches and salads, good, fresh. French fries? Just right. Seriously excellently just right. Crisp edges, good flavor, not greasy. There's a page of fancy pasta dishes that I can take or leave, usually. Some of that stuff tends to get a bit overdone - especially if there's shrimp involved. And OK, the turkey they use in sandwiches is sometimes a bit dry. And their fried chicken is a little greasy, maybe. But I know I can walk in hungry and come out happy, and there's a lot to be said for that. And oh no - even here there is now a low-carb insert! I considered getting a turkey club for the sake of the Gullet - you can't get much more typical than a turkey club - but mindful of that dry turkey I decided instead to investigate the Greekness of the Greek part of the menu. Behold the Delphi Gyro. Looks like the meat really is cut from an actual gyro, but it's then browned. Don't know whether this is in the interests of making it more appetizing or because, perhaps, the gyro isn't necessarily set up to gyrate as it sposeta in front of a heat element. (That's why they have those big opaque double doors to the kitchen....) I don't know how much demand they get for it here - might not be practical to do it the way the echt Greek joints do. Whatever - it's good. The tomatoes are a bit pallid, of course, but everything else is fine, the tzatziki nice and zingy. Before I move on to what The Boy ordered, I gotta take a quick run out to the market before it closes, something for tonight's dinner. Since I wanted to try posting in shorter segments anyway for bandwidth's sake, shall post this now, and then when I get back I'll put up Dinner at the Diner, Part II. To be continued.... [EDIT to add clarification re Montauk Highway]

Interlude: Friday afternoon. Home from the gym. Grab a glass of this stuff: They sell it at the market that I'm going to - or should I say went to? sheesh, this time travel is confusing - tomorrow or rather today, i.e. Saturday. I've become rather fond of it. It needs some fiddling and futzing - on the one hand it's too thick and intense and on the other it lacks definition, so I usually squeeze a little lemon into it, and put in enough ice to dilute it some. Refreshing. Then straight upstairs to... BLOG! Here is Murphy, on my chair - the same perch on which I first presented him. The shot is taken over my left shoulder as I sit in the chair. When my old familiar chair died, my chief criterion for choosing a new one was that it be as Murphy-friendly as the other - i.e. have a straight horizontal surface at the top of the back so that he could perch as he liked. This chair is perhaps a little too Murphy-friendly. Not only can he perch up top, he can insinuate himself into the space directly behind me and take up, for a relatively small cat, an absolutely amazing portion of the seat. Next: Dinner at the Diner, than which nothing could be finer, unless it's maybe... well, when the Diner is what you want, why then the Diner is what you want. [EDIT for clarity and to correct a typo]

Vindicated!!! Thank you, Owen. We've been buying Eight O'Clock since it came in only one flavor and was only sold at the A&P (gee, I must be old), back before dutch conglomerates started owning all the old stores anyone ever had. It gives me a comfy feeling to know that I can still get it and it's still good. What a shame about the Patchogue house! Patchogue is a nice day-sail from here.... Yes, indeed, on to the food - and here I've been guiltily blabbing on about computers, no less. Tsk, tsk, shame on me.

It really is wonderful - it's hard for me to understand why this machine (the Toshiba Libretto 70C) never caught on in this country. Apparently it had a solid following in Japan, and Toshiba has continued to develop the machines for that market. I guess other people don't share my obsession with form factor. This should have been the successor to the original reporter's computer, the old Tandy 100 series. At fighting weight it comes in at just over 2 pounds (just under if you use the smaller battery, but for only an hour's worth of power I rarely bother), and until I started working more with graphics it did everything I could wish for. It's a P120, 32 MB RAM (its limit, alas), and I put in a 10-GB drive a couple of years ago. The big battery (pictured; protruding slightly when the machine is closed) will go 3-4 hours. I have a spare, and I have power adapters sprinkled all over the house and cars. The card is a WiFi; wherever I go around the house - or if I'm near a Starbucks - I have broadband internet; if around the house I'm also connected into the rest of our network, which makes it easy to back up files to the big computer, etc. Yes, I too use one computer or the other for real writing; couldn't possibly blog in longhand! In some situations I don't take Shtinky with me - I carry the paper notebook in that picture and scribble abbreviated notes in it, especially in the garden, as I don't care if it gets a bit mucky. Then when I transcribe the scribbles to the computer, that's when they get expanded into prose. (The one exception to all this is verse - somehow I'm used to doing that in longhand and in my head. As, for instance, in, ahem, this case, said she, modestly. The typefaces and the faked-up image of the saint with the egg were afterthoughts; the sonnet was complete in my head before I wrote it in longhand, corrected it, then transcribed it. Something about the act of writing with a pen is conducive to versification, I find.) Yes, that's not unlike my progression from scribbled notes to frenzied typing. In my case, however, Shtinky often covers both bases. Anyone with small fingers and good priorities. I bought Shtinky on eBay in 1999 so he could accompany me to Morocco (he was already "obsolete" by then!), and he's been traveling with me everywhere ever since. Into the city for trips to clients or libraries; anywhere out of town. One year I did all my taxes (corporate and personal) on a flight to Denver; I have to confess that for two lecture gigs last year I was still so deeply discombobulated (one of them was the day after my mother's memorial!) that I didn't finish writing out my lecture notes until I was in the car on the way to the gig (we had a printer with us too, on that occasion) or, in the second case, on the plane to New Orleans (hm, we brought a printer then too). When I was still working with the ballet company I traveled with Shtinky and a printer and did all my cues, plots, paperwork etc. on Shtinky - even the programs, on one insane occasion. The Borgias article was written on Shtinky - some of it here, some in Massachusetts. Shtinky, to me, is continuity. He has one PCMCIA slot - not CardBus, alas, which occasionally makes for trouble - but he can therefore connect to the CF card from my camera, any kind of network, a CDRW drive, etc. He also has a port replicator with all the "heritage" connections, so he can drive a big monitor or a parallel printer. Weirdly, considering when he was made, he does have InfraRed but will never have USB, one of his few really serious drawbacks. Soul mates...? I bet yours is in better condition than mine. Does yours have inlay around the edges? Thank you. The floor in question appears in the kitchen and both bathrooms, one of which adjoins the kitchen and occasionally (like when a bag of dog food hasn't yet been decanted) does double duty as an auxiliary pantry. The countertop... I wish it were countertops! It is one decentish little piece of butcher-block counter adjoining many feet of elderly linoleum-covered counter. You can't expect me not to be a little selective in choosing my backgrounds, can you?

The plan thus far: I've put off Gilgo till tomorrow; shall do some pruning and stuff here and otherwise dewote meself to bringing this monster up to date. I find myself pondering the etiquette of the foodblog at every turn - there are so many things I'm tempted to incorporate but that wouldn't quite be fair game. So when in doubt I will put (or find) things elsewhere and link to them. Can't hurt the performance of the thread.... For instance, I just posted this on the Garage Sale thread. A lot of the stuff that turns up in my pictures is originally the product of garage-saling, so I'm kind of glad to have had a chance to pay tribute to that since, slave to the blog, I didn't go out of my way to look for bright-colored signs on telephone poles this morning.... Tomorrow, however, I may break down and check out a few, all in the interests of advancing the cause of bloggery. (Rum, bloggery and the lash... oh, never mind. )

I broke it; I bought it. Actually, I had noticed this too, and of course Rachel is right. I think the solution will be to break future posts down into shorter segments - maybe use fewer photos, too. At some point soon, BTW, I'm going to shift to storing photos elsewhere on the web and linking them in, because otherwise I'll eat up all my eG space in no time flat, at this rate. Don't know how that will affect performance, but we'll monitor the matter. Small world, ain't it. It was my father who worked on Broadway; I only (much later) got as far as Off and/or Off-Off-Off.

Vade retro, Satana! I'm suppopsed to be foodblogging - I probably shouldn't be looking at this thread, let alone posting to it with pictures! But what can I do? My whole house is done in '90s-Garage-Sale, and my kitchen especially has benefited. So have the kitchens of my friends, when a great find duplicates something I already own. In the latter category the highlights would be a virtually new Cuisinart with all parts and blades, for a friend who was tiured of lugging hers back and forth between beach and city; for the same friend, the large Magnalite Oval Roaster. My garage sale season (around here they use yard, tag and garage interchangeably) began a week ago. Here's last week's haul: I figure you can't ever have too many good balloon whisks, rubber spatulas, spreaders etc. Or measuriing spoons, until such time as the world comes to its senses and rewrites the whole history of cookery (at no charge to the owners of the books!) to measure by weight. It doesn't really show in the picture (I was in a hurry 'cos I feel guilty), but the bowl on the right is the rare RED Pyrex bowl - rather faded, but that's another thing you can never have too many of. Also, I'm intrigued by the little black thingy - but I'm not going to stop to mess with it now. This woman also had many many boxes of cookbooks; tragically, however, only one that I actually wanted. How that can be... I don't know, but there it is. In the interests of time I'm not going to do the full inventory, but here are a couple of highlights from previous seasons: Silver plate; set complete. (Detail showing knife) Bought at a so-called estate sale; I sweated it out for three days because I didn't want to pay $75. Toward the end of the third day I got it for $25. Majolica tureen. I still haven't quite decided whether this is neat or gaudy or both, but I don't care - I love it, especially for serving cold summer soups. And check out the spoon: Who could resist? I could spend the rest of the day on this. I mustn't. I won't. Back to bloggery.... EDIT because I'd screwed up the picture placement.

The ones I've seen are mostly held in open fields. They are called car boot sales because the items are transported in - and sold from - the boot of one's car, i.e. what we in this country call the trunk.

Because there is a lot I must do outdoors, making hay while the sun shines and gathering rosebuds while I may and so on, I probably won't get to start on the really meaty posts until afterward. But I can give you a preliminary rundown of new activity so far, and a teaser menu of what's on the agenda. First, of course, will be last night's dinner - a quintessential Lawn Guyland diner experience, complete with wisecracks and zealous food styling by The Boy. There isn't much to say about today's breakfast, except as in progress at the moment.... The yogurt did set, but either it didn't like those extra milk solids or it went on incubating too long (well, I'm sorry, but I need some sleep!); anyway, the upshot is... I just don't like it. It has a thin, sour, weak taste and an unappealing runniness. (If fifi happens to be reading this and gets worried about the anomalous behavior of the yogurt, I remind her that the starter I'm using is unusual in that it has only acidophilus and none of the other, supposedly essential, bacteria like bulgaricus and whatever that other thingy is. So I imagine it can't be expected to work like normal yogurt cultures.) That's OK - Luke loves it! I forgot to mention yesterday that I normally pour the whey on his kibble; now he will have his very own yogurt instead, at least until this quart runs out or becomes too disgusting to keep. Lunch will be last night's leftovers: The Boy ordered way too much. This morning after my class I went, camera in hand, to Sherry's, the local health food store, to inquire after Brown Cow yogurt; then to another local store for bread, fruit and milk. Copious pictures from both these excursions! At some point during the week I'll take you on a little tour of Babylon's gastronomic resources - restaurants, markets, etc. - from the sublime to the ridiculous. As for the rest of today - roses to prune, seedlings to move, germination to document, beds to dig. Some of that happens here, but the heavy labor is to be done in Gilgo, so I assume I'll be spending part of the afternoon there. If past experience is anything to go by, this may result in an invitation to stay to dinner - i.e., stay to cook dinner. Because of this I can't accurately predict dinner plans as yet. But I do have a fallback position, just in case..... Let's see, what else? I have investigated the tide tables and weather forecasts for this week, and it looks as though a clamming attempt may be feasible toward Wednesday or Thursday. I always used to pride myself on being the first idiot in the water every spring; but I'm not sure I'm ready for that (or it's ready for me) just yet. We'll see. I'll get you a better picture of her at some point - she's no teak-decked beauty like yours but she does have lovely lines. Like my house she is a cosmetic disaster at the moment - the brightwork is a disgrace - but what the hell. Yes, she's lots of fun, weather helm, points high. Crucially for this part of the world, although she has a heavy keel she only draws 2'-11" - which is exactly the depth of the shallowest part of the Great South Bay. Which is where I sail her, mostly, and there's plenty of room to play. I am not a racer, but I would drop everything and cruise to hell and gone if I could. Just as well I can't. Some fantasies are meant to be fantasies. I can sail over to Gilgo, and have done so on occasion - wind permitting, this takes about 2 - 2-1/2 hours. Theoretically I keep her in the water two winters out of three - haul her for maintenance the third year. But alas, my beloved local mom-&-pop boatyard, the one conveniently visible from the window in front of me, has been taken over by a company that... doesn't DO sailboats - so she's been in for four years straight now and her bottom must be foul beyond belief. Must... find... new boatyard.... Will address your floor and Shtinky questions a little later - must go map out the rest of the day so the all-important dinner can be planned!

I can't believe I said anything so idiotic. Of course it isn't weird. Or rather, who cares if it's weird? This is the Time Travel Foodblog, isn't it?????? So - (Mr. Boy is home today. Black --> ) as bleu would say... good morning.