jhlurie

Okay, this was obviously Jason's plate. Did he let anyone else have even one?

I suppose this is an example of a statement than can be both true and wrong at the same time. True, that Indian food of any real spicyness might keep American palates away, but wrong in the sense that it's a crying shame if it's actually true.

Man are you getting ripped off Pan, if you aren't getting at least 10 panchan at your local Korean restaurants! Heck, usually you just keep askin', they keep bringin'.

It's not over yet! Unfortunately, my suprprise date tonight (that supposedly was going to last until tomorrow ) is cancelled because it turns out I have to work tomorrow Not cancelled really, just postponed, but because it will now take place outside the bloguniverse it will be of no interest to all of you.. ← You can still turn it into a restaurant report in the Elsewhere in Europe forum, of course.

This new "Take 5" bar, from, Hershey's is actually fantastic. It's got a much stronger salty quality than sweetness, and that makes it somewhat unique among mass-packaged candy bars. The list of ingredients (pretzels, caramel, peanuts, peanut butter, milk chocolate) seems ordinary, but it's actually more than the sum of it's parts, due to a fairly interesting texture. It's also MEGA-caloric. 220 for 1.5 ounces. Whooooooo!

This might do the trick: http://www.girlscoutcookiesabc.com/atc/

Hey, Manhattan Chili Company serves it... but WITHOUT pasta. The hell?

My memory was that Cincinnati chil = Cinnamon and Cloves (allspice I think often substitutes for that). I think it's correct, and this link kind of supports that. Plus the whole 2-way, 3-way, 4-way, 5-way thing. Oh yeah... and the insistence on Oyster Crackers. Also, Vinegar is usually key too, isn't it?

Recently I had the new "cookie" products from Reese's and York, and they seem to tread VERY close to G.S. Tagalongs and Thin Mints. The major difference is that the Reese's and York cookies seem a bit "heavier", which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But the flavors are fairly close. Target has them in big value-sized packages, but my local drug store was selling them in little 4 packs.

That's not exactly a counter to my argument. It's not the use of the utensils themselves that came with that knowledge I think, but the cultural and class tension between those who use them and those who don't. It's the elaborate etiquette I'm talking about here. The Europeans may have been more representative of this than the Asian cultures though.

Ah, the famously lame "international feed". I've heard that in the U.K., for example, they have Rugby players vainly trying to explain the game to that audience. Not that the American commentators are all that good anymore either. I'm a real dissapointment. I had a normal dinner and didn't snack during the game at all. Well, okay, there was that one stick of gum. I swear, it must have been the absense of John Madden. Just listening to that guy usually makes me hungry.

I actually broke down a little and watched last night while eating dinner. I hadn't really bothered since the first episode, but the one last night was mildly foodish--they ran an Inn. One contestant made the world's worst Chicken Pot Pie and got totally "Flayed". The ingredients were all wrong due to what was available--for example she had to use Vegetable stock instead of chicken stock, zucchini as one of her vegetables, and I'm pretty sure what was totally the wrong kind of potato for a pot pie. But Flay and company didn't care. They just hated the mushy crust and low flavor profile. The worst was this woman who they seemed to show as a total "A" personality type, who refused the help of her team when forced to make Poached Eggs for Bobby Flay. Let's just say she did it about as badly as you could. A team member told her over and over to use some vinegar to help hold the egg together, but she refused. She fell apart so totally in front of Flay when he grimaced at the result that he started coddling her to get her to stop crying. Then, in a move that was supposed to make her feel better but actually made the woman feel worse, he took her back into the Inn kitchen to teach her how to do it the right way. The first thing he asks? "Where's the bottle of vinegar?" Most of the rest of the episode was pretty stupid. They had to make wreaths out of fruit, for example. I could feel my brain going dead watching that part. The woman with the Egg disaster also made a flavorless bowl of badly heated chicken soup. There was some deal with a guy and his grandma's Cinammon buns, but they revealed so little of how he actually made them I couldn't get into it, even though Flay & Co. loved them.

It's always seemed to me, Bux, that most "manners" based around not using your hands to eat developed as some kind of a reaction to a period of history where people began to understand about disease, but had incomplete knowledge. I suppose it's undeniably true that you are more likely to get sick from flesh than metal or wood, but it seems to me that hygiene has improved a bit in the past few centuries. Ah, but that's how it started in the west--as a classist division. Peasants ate with dirty hands and knives only at one point, didn't they?

Yes, it is. Which is why some sniping is both expected and allowed. But after TWO public warnings I've just come back here to see that that not everyone is willing to drop it. Rather than punish those who are using this thread productively by closing the whole thing, I've instead simply deleted those new attempts to restart the old argument. All I can use to answer this question is observation. I've often observed use of fingers, at least by Chinese, to remove bones, although I've also seen some pretty elaborate deboning work with a combination of a sharp knife and chopsticks.

Yup.

I know I defended this a bit before, but this is Au Bon Pain, so the ingredient quality isn't likely to be better than mediocre.

2nd warning, folks. No, make that FINAL warning. Next time the discussion turns to the relative worth of each other's cultures, or attacks on the quality of restaurants people visit, this whole discussion goes bye. But here's another rule. If you think another poster is being disrespectful or snide, DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT, burden the rest of us with a public sniping match. Report the post, using the mechanism provided or PM myself or another Site Manager. If you fail to do so and take a discussion off-topic to make that kind of point, you're creating a problem just as surely as the person you are battling and we will act just as decisively to end this whole thing.

It doesn't sound horrible, just horrible if done badly. Too sweet, sure, but I'd count on it being a snack, not a meal. I suspect they list it in the "Baked Sandwiches" area of the menu because they don't have a "desserts" area. It could have been under "bakery" just as easily, except those all seem to be grab-and-go items.

To me this last statement is the truest so far. If it's done incorrectly it's usually due to ignorance, not rude intent.

Target has a house brand I just spotted for the first time today (with the boring name "Market Pantry"). I tried a flavor called "Dr. Spice", which is NOT Dr. Pepper-like but is actually close to Pepsi Holiday Spice. Cheap stuff too--it was a fairly ridiculous $1.79 for a 12 pack.

I'm tempted to can this entire discussion because obviously some tempers are running hot here. But let's try something simpler first--a simple appeal to "cool it". Traditions differ. The way that people react to traditions differ. The way people joke about traditions or reactions to traditions differ. If something offends you, fine, we aren't looking to control that. But we expect a level of civility here when discussing that reaction--both from the person who was offended AND anyone reacting to that perceived offense. Starting... Now.

Folks. A point of Foodblog etiquette (actually this is a best practice all over eGullet). Try to not quote an entire post if that post is very picture-laden. It makes reading the thread a lot harder. Use the quote button and edit the quoted material down a bit if possible. Don't change the context of what's been said of course, but try and leave only the section you are referring to, or at least a few representative images. This isn't a rule, per se, so there are no stones being cast here--it's just something we'd like you to consider going forward. As Soba is fond of saying... we now return you to your regularly scheduled blog...

My life has pretty much been a series of stages where I add to or reevaluate my palate. I'd always assumed it was much the same for most folks. As a kid, I hardly ate cheese at all, for example. Now I can hardly imagine not doing so.

Heh. That's souper.

A silly but effective restaurant name like "Chilepenos". A cheese smothering. An Enchilada stacking, runny egg and all. Some green chiles and some red. A "chilemeter". A freakin' lovely sopapilla... Who could ask for more? Really? Man I sound like a rambling idiot, but I love this stuff. Okay, this one I've never heard of. Let me ask a delicate question. Even if you are acclimated to the chiles, doesn't this concoction tend to... er... "run" though people a bit? Ick. Please try and answer more delicately than I asked.