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morda

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Posts posted by morda

  1. Where are you coming from? I'm just wondering what options you normally have.

    I know this isn't really a restaurant, but I might be tempted to swing by the new Whole Foods on Woodruff Rd. and sample their various food bars for a casual option. But I'm in Clemson so I always make it a point to go to Whole Foods, Earth Fare, or some other specialty grocery whenever I'm in Greenville. There's always something I need/want.

    Blue Ridge Brewery on the main drag is a good choice for casual on a Sunday night, but I don't know that they'll be open on that particular Sunday. The food is decent, with an interesting variety of game meats (haven't tried any of that). My favorite reason for going there on Sunday nights is that they have that special Sunday liquor license so you can get beer. :biggrin: Oh, avoid the fried shrimp, it was tasteless last time I went.

    I've never been to Barley's, but I would hope they have the same deal ragarding the beer.

    Edited for egergious spelling errors.

  2. Well folks, things have changed. The husband is home now and I just opened the package. Lo and behold, the crabcakes are COOKED. They have a distinct brown color. I'm warming them up in the oven as I type. The only confusion now what we got exactly. From the price my husband claims he paid (around $35), it doesn't seem like we could have gotten 3 jumbo lump crabcakes. But they sure look like lump-like. Backfin would be more shredded, wouldn't it? Maybe I should take a picture and post it...

    Off to find the digital camera,

    morda

  3. My husband was in Baltimore this past week and I had lurked around the board to get him some good eat recommendations (he went to Pazo, btw). After reading about Faidley's I told him it was imperative that he bring some crabcakes home to me. Well, apparently there was some miscommunication between him and the order-taker, and my husband is now on the way home with 3 uncooked crabcakes (and no coddies :sad: ). I think they sent along cooking directions as well, but here's my real dilemma. I'm not much of a deep fryer, although I can do it if forced too. But I really don't feel like heat up a whole pot of oil just cook three crabcakes. Has anyone had them broiled or baked? Will I be doing a major injustice to them? Should I just suck it up and go buy a big container of oil (peanut? canola?) and start cutting up potatoes?

    TIA!

    morda

    Edited to add: I assume from their baseball-like shape that they can't be pan-fried. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

  4. Thanks, GG. Yes, normally 33 Liberty would be my first choice (or sushi at Sushi Koji). I had seen the link from some other discussions and Devereaux's is on the list. Should I take its exclusive from your list of suggestions to mean that you think the others are better choices?

  5. I'm an ABC if that's relevant...

    1. Do you eat brown rice or regular rice, or do you have no rice?

    White rice, or if specificied, jasmine rice

    2. Do you put the rice into a bowl or plate and then top it with your entree? Or do you alternate bites of rice and dish?

    I put some rice in a bowl. Then, for sanitary reasons, I use a serving spoon to scoop a bit of the entree into my bowl. Eat a few bites and repeat. If I'm positive all the food will be consumed in that meal and I'm eating alone or just with my family, I might take bites directly from the entree dish with my chopsticks.

    3. Are you a chopstick user or a fork and spoon user?

    Chopsticks.

    4. Do you eat everything, all the vegetables but not the ________, or only meat?

    Some of everything.

    5. Are you one of these people who think that fried chicken wings covered in hot sauce on top of pork fried rice constitutes proper Chinese takeout? :blink:

    They have such dishes?!?!

    6. When ordering takeout, do you always get the same thing or do you try out different things?

    Get something different everytime.

    7. What's your favorite place and your least favorite place, and could you please describe them?

    My favorite chinese takeout place was my parents'. :) Might be unfair tho since I was basically eating my mom's cooking when she had access to a restaurant grade gas stove and deep fryer, buckets and buckets of homemade chicken stock (made on chicken delivery day), made-from-scratch dumplings, etc...

    As for my least favorite place, I've never tried a bad place more than once so I can't really rate them relative to one another.

    I love the idea of chinese takeout, but I rarely find a place where I can stomach the food. So, on average I only have chinese takeout a few times a year. Right now I live in South Carolina and unfortunately not in one of the cities so I'm out of luck. The chinese restaurants range from mediocre to bad (I didn't even bother trying the one the local college kids told me was just "ok".) However, I've had good luck when I live in Boston and the metro DC area.

  6. Hi all--

    I'm trying to arrange a dinner this weekend in Greenville with some friends. We've been to 33 Liberty several times and love it, but my friends want to try a different restaurant. They've suggested Devereaux's. I've read a bit about it and it seems worth a try, although I'm a bit worried that it's on the very expensive side, rather than the somewhat expensive side.

    So I guess my questions are: Is Devereaux's a good choice? How expensive is it? And does anyone have any other worthier suggestions for a nice dinner out with friends? It can be any type of food (not just Southern or continental), as long as the restaurant is somewhere between very nice and upscale.

    TIA!

  7. This isn't in NC, but close enough to the border with SC to be worth mentioning:

    Split Creek Goat Farm

    Yummy cheeses and fudge. They goat milk and chicken eggs as well. And the farm is a sight to see..all the animals are peacefully coexisting and looking happy and healthy. I went by this weekend and saw the cutest week-old baby goats. They are having a "Spring Festival" on April 17 which sounds like a lot of fun.

    They say that they will be featured National Geographic Traveler Magazine sometime in the near future.

    morda

  8. This item is part of a review of Two Urban Licks in midtown Atlanta and comes from last week's Creative Loafing:

    the full article

    To churn out the daunting volume of meals, Serpas has wisely created a succinct menu that's heavy on apps and smaller plates. (It's worth mentioning that the roving Richard Blais has indeed turned up on staff at Two as sous-chef, but the culinary vision remains Serpas'. Word is that Blais is being groomed for another Amick/Rushing restaurant in the works.)

    Thanks for the info, Gifted. I had heard about Blais being about Two Urban Licks, but the posts were a couple weeks ago so I wasn't sure if things had changed.

    Speaking of Two Urban Licks, has anyone been? Does it live up to the hype? And does anyone know what dinner for two would cost (say, food only, before tax/tip/alcohol)?

    morda

  9. Hi everyone...

    So I missed Blais at Blais, and I guess I've missed Blais at Bazzaar. Anyone know what he's up to at the moment? Or is there anything else in Atlanta at the moment that is Not-to-be-missed? I have a night or two in Atlanta next week and I'd like to do some culinary exploration.

    I'm also interested in some inexpensive places for our other meals (2 lunches and a dinner), so any suggestions are appreciated. I think we may be staying in the Buckhead area, if that makes a difference.

    TIA,

    morda

    Edited because it's spelled Bazzaar and not Blazaar

  10. I've only made a couple of cheesecakes, but I just made one recently and it was the only one that hasn't crack. It was also the easiest cheesecake I've ever made.

    1) I didn't have a crust. John Thorne's "Simple Cooking" convinced me it's not necessary for taste. However, for nice presentation some kind of crust is necessary.

    2) I baked in a springform pan, but not in a water bath. I put a second pan underneath in case my springform leaked, but it didn't at all.

    3) I baked it one hour, took it out when it was still jiggly (a little too jiggly for my taste, but I've overcooked cheesecakes before and I did not want to overcook this one).

    4) Cooled it on the counter one hour, stuck it in the refrigerator.

    No fancy waterbaths or hours of cooling in the oven, so I agree with the others that overbaking is probably the reason for cracks. Leaving the crust off saved me a lot of time too. I need to work on the texture (a little too fluffy, even though I was careful to mix very slowly and minimally), but the taste was fantastic--not overly sweet, wonderfully sour.

    morda

  11. Hi all--

    I'm thinking about making the Whole-Wheat Meat Samosas from Madhur Jaffrey's Step-by-Step Cooking for a party tomorrow, but some folks are vegetarians, so I'd love to do some potato filled ones as well. Anyone have a tried-and-true recipe? Alternative veggie fillings are welcomed as well.

    Also, recipes for sauces to serve them with would be great as well.

    TIA,

    morda

  12. After reading the Pure Food and Wine thread in New York, I'll probably cringe the next time I see "tartare" on a menu after anything other than "steak."    :blink:

    I find that tartare is a useful word on a menu. For example tuna tartare. I'm not sure what other term non-Japanese restaurants could use, other than "raw", which sounds less appetizing.

    I have a strong adversion to the terms low-fat, lite, light, and reduced, but that has more to do with the product than the words.

    Here's a fun one I've seen pop up: lower-carb. Lower than what? I bet they lower the total carbs by just reducing the serving size.

    morda

  13. I've been on a papaya kick for a few months.  Those big Miradols last a week.  I'll cut a ring off, slice it in half, dispose of most but not all seeds (they are extremely good for you) then squeeze some lime all over it and Voila.  That, a slice of bread if it's fresh and a zillion cups of Green Mountain Dark Magic makes my morning. :rolleyes:

    For some reason, I read that as Vodka, and thought "whoa, that's some breakfast, johnnyd".

    Me, I don't eat breakfast. If it's warm out, I drink some OJ or a yogurt shake. If it's cold out, it's milk tea.

    morda

  14. Peach and apricot stone (kernals)

    Might want to think twice about that one, unless you have cancer:

    Cyanide in fruit seeds

    Apples are one such fruit: their pips (seeds) contain amygdalin, a cyanide and sugar compound that degrades into hydrogen cyanide (HCN) when metabolized. Cyanide itself is a poison that kills by denying blood the ability to carry oxygen and thereby causes its victims to die of  asphyxiation.

    It goes on to say that you can't really eat enough apple seeds to for this to be dangerous. But...

    Cherry, peach, and apricot pits also contain amygdalin; the latter two, at least, in potentially harmful amounts. Fortunately, peach and apricot pits are sufficiently large and hard that few people intentionally swallow or chew them. (The unapproved anti-cancer drug Laetrile is a semisynthetic derivative of amygdalin; a cheaper version of laetrile produced in Mexico came from crushed apricot pits.)

    But my mom likes to eat them too :smile:

    morda

  15. Okay, I'll vote on the no tipping side. I've never tipped on take-out. Never really occurred to me, actually. The kind of places that I usually get take-out from are inexpensive. If I tipped 10%, it would probably come in less than a dollar, which seems weird (here, take some loose change from my pocket...). If I'm going to tip a couple of bucks, I might as well sit downn in the restaurant, eat my dinner, and tip the usual 20% to get someone else to clean up the mess.

    The way I see it, either the kitchen plates the food, or puts it in a to-go box. I can see tipping if for some reason the kitchen plates the food, then the waiter or bartender has to box it for you. But do places really operate that way?

    Question for those on the tipping side...what level of establishment warrants a tip? For example, do you tip if you get a to-go at McDonald's? Mom-and-pop Chinese takeout? Or just restaurants where the majority of their business is sitdown?

    morda

  16. Fish eyes.

    Works like a charm, every time.  :biggrin:  :blink:

    Soba

    Fish eyes. Okay. I eat about anything else. But how does one eat fish eyes? How do you prepare them?

    Well, one doesn't really purposely prepare fish eyes as a stand-alone dish. It's just a little extra special treat when you're eating fresh, whole fish. Like the orange and green bits in blue crabs, or the tomalley/tamale in lobster.

    I've only ever eaten the eyes from steamed fish, not sure why. Will have a try fried fish eyes next time I get a chance.

    I like to chew on what I guess must be shoulder ligament from beef steaks (I seemed to find them in only in ranch steaks). It's very white and very chewy. Totally undigestable, but kinda like natural gum. Anyone have an idea of what it might be?

  17. Mere dislike, though, is something else entirely. Bitter and spicy foods are unpleasant to most children, and quite rightly. Bitterness often goes hand in hand with toxins, so it makes sense that our instinct is to spit out bitter foods. As we age, our sense of taste becomes less sensitive, so once unbearably bitter foods become more palatable. So, many of the so-called "acquired tastes" are significantly bitter -- coffee, beer, olives, many vegetables -- or strongly flavored like spices.

    My mom keeps telling me that I'll eventually acquire a taste for bitter melon, but it hasn't happened yet.

    I think it's interesting that people have texture issues. I love texture in food, be it crispy crunchy or gooey chewy slimy. And I've liked most of the slippery foods mentioned so far (oysters) my whole life, but it wasn't until I was older that I acquired a taste for the bitter ones, like coffee and olives.

  18. I read that there is powdered alcohol on the market now--perhaps the alco-pops were made using that?

    I just had another thought...what does gelatin do when you freeze it? Perhaps a small amount of gelatin (or some other binder) might give pops some stability.

    I realize my suggestions do not sound tasty...

    morda

  19. quite. i just wish most of the variations weren't syrupy, fruity travesties that seem mostly suited to pleasing mid-20s palates honed on the fineries of spring break. i'm rather a stickler in believing that booze should be tasted and enjoyed.

    I promise you, us mid-20's don't get spring breaks anymore than you do :raz: The spring break palate is developed specifically for those in the 18-22 year old range.

    I admit that I'm not a big fan of martinis myself, but perhaps it's because I've never had a properly made one (i.e. not just a "chilled spirits in a cool glass"). I have some M&R vermouth and some gordon's gin/absolut vodka in the kitchen cabinet...and some green olives in a jar (just regular grocery store ones). Anyone want to give me a starting ratio to try? Or do I need to make run to the liquor store first?

    On a related note...what about dirty martinis? I understand that they have some of the olive juice poured in. Is that considered sacrilege? I have so far perferred those.

    morda

  20. Other than mac and cheese (Kraft or generic) once in a while, I don't eat much of this type of stuff. And I've never actually had Hamburger Helper (or any of its newer incarnations). But I have to admit that the advertising DOES work and occasionally I'm tempted to buy some meal kit. I'm always disappointed. Same with frozen dinners...I love the idea of just popping something in the nuker and eating in front of the TV, but they always leave me unsatisfied and hungry. Who said, "It tasted awful--and the portions were so small!"

    Canned ravioli, on the other hand...I have a weakness for that. Chef Boyardee, of course.

  21. i always take a saucepan, drop a stick of salted butter in it, and boil it off on medium, until it get's brownish and nutty smelling (not melted butter smelling).

    Madhur Jaffrey recommends using unsalted butter, rather than salted. The procedure is otherwise the same.

    As for using ghee, one of the benefits is that there are no milk solids to burn. Perhaps that is the purpose of using ghee in your particular recipe?

  22. I have to admit that I've never even eaten kringle before. And yes, I'm going to attempt to make it, without even knowing what I'm aiming for...LOL! But not until next week, when I get back from my trip. And maybe in the meantime I'll try to get a Racine one from Sam's to educate myself...

    Edited to say MEANtime, not mind time...

  23. Do your measuring by weights rather than by volume and you'll come closer to the expected yield.

    I did, that's how I knew my cookies were 13 grams rather than 12. Just obought a nice digital scale for baking purposes

    Is it possible that you're comparing pre-baking weight to post-baking weight? I know that for meat (say, a quarter-pounder from mcdonalds) they are quoting you the pre-cooked weight. I would guess that water loss would make the cooked weight less.

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