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lyz2814

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Posts posted by lyz2814

  1. I remember the Genuardi's thing. The commercials were like "we hear your comments, and we're gonna bring back your favorite brands..." Safeway also ran Zagara's into the ground. It was a really ritzy supermarket, and Safeway stopped the daily, local deliveries of produce, and insisted on carrying the "top 100 products" even though they totally didn't go w/ the gourmet feel of Zagara's.

    I'm related to the Genuardis, btw. The Norristown ones, anyway.

  2. A tradition in my southern-italian/sicillian family has been the making of Crustella, a special xmas cookie.

    Rather labor-intensive, and I don't know if anyone except us still makes them.

    It starts w/ a stiff dough. It definitely has eggs in it. You roll it out pretty thin. My dad actually uses a pasta machine (the rollers w/ the crank). Then you cut thin strips w/ a pastry wheel.

    Here's where it gets busy. You sit down w/ a strip and some egg white and pinch little cups into the strip of dough. Then you spiral the strip around itself, forming a rosette full of these little cups. We'll often spend an afternoon just forming the dough, w/ dad or pop-pop rolling it out , and Nanny (RIP), mom and I sitting and making the rosettes. There's usually conversation or menu planning going on...

    Then you deepfry the rosettes. They turn golden and crispy (you could eat them now. w/ some powdered sugar on top..).

    Then you fill the rosettes. Melt honey, and a little blackberry or grape jam. Mix in finely chopped toasted walnuts (sometimes there's peacans, sometimes almonds, and very occasionally black walnuts). Then this sweet, nutty mixture gets spooned into the rosette shells. Those little cups hold the yummy goo.

    Eating them is crunchy, rich and sweet. They keep forever, and we usually hide away a tin for summer.

  3. maries blue cheese.

    I make balsamic dijon vinaigrette, and keep that in the fridge. Sometimes I make it w/ rasberry vinegar and a little sugar if I want something sweeter (for bitter greens, etc.).

    I very occasionally buy the HVR packets, and make my own "lite" ranch w/ yogurt, mayo and buttermilk. I usually add a lot of cracked pepper and some chipotle paste--spicy ranch.

  4. I have eaten at a Pho 75 in the NE. Is that the place you are talking about? Really great and cheap. I was w/ NAVICP guys and Major Beverly-Blanco (handsome old-school navy guy) was kind enough to introduce me to vietnamese-style coffee.... -sigh- :)

  5. I was in NYC that same day (up from philly), and stopped at Katz's. But I got too intimidated, so I just smelled the smells. Since I was shopping (and sneaking into the Met--open on a holiday Monday) all I had all day was an orange bundt cake from some Village bakery. It was yummy.

  6. Thx soba! I am practically a no-weight when it comes to wine (I grew up drinking homemade wine), and would love to learn more about different pairings. Are we supposed to be ashamed of our inexperience? I'd like to think that we're prejudice-free :)

  7. funny thing about DiNic's....My dad got Lyme Disease the summer I was to graduate from Drexel. The disease affected a nerve in his heart--slowing down the beats--so he had to spend 2 weeks in the Pennsylvania CCU w/ this crazy pacemaker, while everyone waited for the antibiotics to fix him up. Everyday I visited, he'd insist I bring a DiNic's pork sandwich (w/ peppers and sharp provolone) from the RTM. I drove the nurses crazy w/ the awesome smell. Dad was healthy, and didn't require the usual heart-patient gruel, so a really good sandwich fragrance was something new to them. heh.

    Dad's all better by the way, and DiNic Sr. still remembers me as the girl buying roast pork to help her dad get well.

  8. wow, soba, sounds great! I intend to visit (by myself) sometime in June, so I was glad to hear that sitting at the kitchen counter was a good experience.

    How did you do the wine? A different glass for each course? Was that part of the menu? Or did the sommelier make choices for you?

  9. I have watched her show. The following are reasons why she must be stopped:

    -She decorated a store bought cake with canned frosting and CORN NUTS!

    -All of her beverages are either mind-numbingly sweet, syrupy crap, best suited to making your 5 year old into a tasmanian sugar devil, or are full of mixed liquors--guarenteed to send you to worship at the porcelain altar the next day. She even engourages one to serve these "shooters" or whatever TF they're called, for your 10th anniversary, in order to "make it like your first! <nauseating giggle>" When you apparently passed out insensibly, mid-foreplay.

    -she uses live fish for party decorations, and wraps marshmallows in canned fondant for kids parties.

    -she uses breakfast sausage in asian wontons, and Stove Top to fill her Steak Pinwheels

    --She makes cookies from canned frosting and graham cracker crumbs.

    -her show contains a curious phenomenon, named by the TWOP boards as "Milli Vanilli Hands." She's often shot from the neck down, especially when demonstrating some sort of technique, like chopping, or shaping. . . Like its's not really her. Since the particular dish she's working on usually looks horrible, and then out-from-nowhere comes a much better specimen of the same dish, it is clear that she is very very reliant on her food stylists, and that she just doesn't have the chops.

    -she bombed on The View, of all places. Joy and that Vierra woman declared a lot of her stuff to be gross, unhealthy, or hardly time-saving.

    She. Must. Be. Stopped.

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