jhlurie

Yesterday, on a completely random task, I was in Lord & Taylor's in Manhattan and saw something slightly unusual--a nice little display by the first floor elevators for the famous See's Candy--which normally is pretty much only marketed in California. It kind of struck me as a big deal that folks who otherwise have to haul the stuff cross-country in suitcases or mail order it might want to KNOW that a store in New York sells it, and while considering how to post about this it occured to me that there are any number of snacks and confections which are normally only regionally marketed, but who's availability through special channels could be documented here at eGullet. One item like this which I love is Sifer's Valomilk. Sifer's Valomilk--for those not familiar with it--is a peanut butter cup-shaped snack, which is instead filled with a kind of marshmallowy stuff. GOOD marshmallowy stuff, with CANE sugar supplementing the typical corn syrup, along with egg whites, Madagascar vanilla and a few others. As far as I used to know the only way you could get this candy was to either live in the Kansas/Missouri area or mail order it. Until I visited a Cracker Barrel restaurant, and boom--there is was. Right next to the Moon Pies. "Mail order" is always a good answer for items like this, and it would be enough to simply document the item's existance, it's home region, it's desirability, and suggest mail order as a solution. Because you never know... once you put it down in a post here, someone may indeed know a store which caries it elsewhere...

Pathmark frequently plays second-fiddle to Shoprite in terms of sales, but I was in one today and saw a few "get right on it" kinds of deals. First of all, they had about the best sale on canned soda I've seen in a major supermarket for a while. The basic part of the sale was om all Coke brands, 4 twelve packs of 12 ounce cans for 10 bucks. Already that's pretty good. But on top of that, there's a combination deal (at least in the Pathmark in Fort Lee) that rewards you with a free 8 pack of 16 ounce bottles along with any purchase of 4 twelve packs. So you get... er... 704 ounces of soda--in small portions and potentially as many as 5 varieties--for 10 bucks. Period. Clementines, which I've noticed hovering between 5 and 7 dollars a crate are $3.99 this week. Again, check your local store (you can do this online at the Pathmark.com website by displaying your local circular)--this could have been a Fort Lee price. Another price which seemed pretty good to me was $1.99 for a 5 pound bag of sweet potatoes. It was a big sale week with a huge circular, but the above is what I noticed.

Glad to here that Rosie. I've avoided talking about the place because Marika Villik is a good friend of my sister's and I considered it a conflict of interest. I've been told by several people that one of the major downsides of Table 8 has predictibly not been helped by the review. It's packed.

I tried Cuban Pete's a few weeks ago, and reporting on it here kind of slipped my mind. But I'm not fuzzy at all on the meal, because it was actually fairly memorable. First of all, the Ropa Vieja is great. I love most forms of the beloved beef brisket, but they do it right here. The portion is healty, and some nice black beans, and a couple of sweet plaintains are thrown in to boot. The Cuban sandwich is very good, although not record breakingly good. As far as the tapas goes, we sampled a variety, and most were very good to excellent. As with tapas in many places, the portions are skimpy almost beyond belief for the price, but well... if you've got the money, spend it. The dates in bacon and the goat cheese fritters are the best of the group I had. The chorizo and stuffed peppers were good as well. Dates wrapped in bacon is apparently a fairly easy dish to make at home though, so as one of my table-mates recommended... perhaps it should simply be consumed there instead. The only sangria we tried was the mojito white wine one. Good, but as both people consuming noticed, not nearly cold enough. One HUGE complaint--the bread situation. When we asked (and we HAD to ask) we were presented with these skimpy little crackers--and just two of them. Mind you we were eating TAPAS, and many Tapas dishes are traditionally scooped up and consumed with a nice hearty bread. Well it ain't happening that way at Cuban Pete's, and that just sucks. As good as most of the food was, I'm determined to never consume the tapas there again--at a minimum--because besides the portion/price ration being skimpy, the absense of the bread just makes me burn. I'll go back--in fact I intended to yesterday for lunch when visiting Montclair, and only skipped it because my group decided we wanted a place that actually HAD a lunch menu. Apparently Cuban Pete's daytime menu is identical to their dinner menu. No big deal, of course, but people here should be aware of that.

It's also gone way up in quality, even though it was already very very good. It's now well worth the 15-20 minute shlep from the area being discussed in this topic. My knowledge of this area is scattered--it's been a few years since I was in this area often, but I'm still in and out of the area a lot. Forest Ave., as I recall, is kind of a wasteland for good food, but on Kinderkamack Road a few which have been mentioned are okay. Badlands has always been worthy, Pimaan is at least okay, as is Sanducci's and It's Greek to Me. Otherwise? Maybe head to Hackensack.

Strangely enough there's now a "Cherry 7-up Plus". Which is odd, since Cherry 7-up still exists as its own product line. I'd rate Cherry 7-up Plus as better than the Mixed Berry original flavor, but not as good as the Island Fruit. And I've started seeing individual and 12-can packs, in addition to the ubiquous 1.5 and 2 liter bottles, with all 3 flavors. Usually that's a pretty clear sign that the brand/flavor is succeeding, right? Oddly enough, back in August it sounds like they were marketing this as real "chick soda" See this BevNET article for support: http://www.bevnet.com/news/2005/08-24-2005-7UP.asp

Well, Mexicali Rose is even WORSE now. Actually, despite it being non-ambitious, I never thought the old MR was all that bad.

Does John Lithgow sing and dance about it? Or maybe some Canadian musical-comedy star? What rhymes with "Gardennay" anyway? Every day? Flambee? Chardonnay? Salt is fairly high on the ingredients list. The real question would be why?

I love the rugelach from "Not Just Rugelach". It's so good it kind of makes the name seem silly, since it very much IS the main reason to patronize them. They often operate out of Bowling Green park, so I've had it from there a few times when working downtown. The chocolate hazelnut is my favorite too.

Heck, you know how much I hate canned soup. We're talking like... two or three times a year in an emergency. I'd rather cheat and make it a LITTLE better than just eat it as is (although I'm trying that Campbell's Gold Label soup as an eGullet experiment, so I'm not really counting that). I live about a block away from a decent chinese take-out restaurant. So most of my ad-hoc soup needs are taken care of. Frankly I've always been one to throw random leftovers in my soup. This is just an extension of that.

I'm actually quite fond of the stuff, but I agree that it just plain sucks if used DIRECTLY as a pasta substitute. For one thing I just don't think it mixes all that well with tomato sauces. But there are about a hundred better other ways to use it (mostly more in places where other kinds of squash might work) and the mouthfeel of the stuff is can be much better if it's cooked a bit more (presumably as an ingredient in something else) after you extract it from the gourd.

I actually kind of liked the peach. The chemicalyness is typical of all Frecsa, I think, and either you get used to it or not. The peach actually mitigates it a bit, I think.

Why don't we redirect discussion of that particular topic here.

I've seen two versions. In one he's in a tux, dancing around a restaurant with lots of waiters. In the other, he appears to BE a waiter, but he looks like he's in a kitchen or something. Here's what the NY Times says: In the commercials, Mr. Lithgow performs over-the-top songs about Campbell's Select and a new variety, Select Gold Label, that were written by David Yazbek, who also wrote the music and lyrics for the songs Mr. Lithgow performs in his hit Broadway show "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels." A show which Lithgow is currently appearing in.

I like ramen, but what bothers me is that the broth is never worth it. What tends to happen when I try to doctor ramen is that I pretty much wind up moving the noodles into something else. I'll often dump ramen soup into a wok and add stuff, and in that circumstance a lot of the broth evaporates anyway.

As I mention in the Campbell's Gold Label Select Soups Topic, I usually dislike canned soups intensely. But like everyone, I keep some on hand for emergencies. In recent years my preference is to keep REALLY simple condensed soups and then doctor them with my own ingredients. I'm not sure it's getting over the base problems of all canned soups (over-salting being the biggest one, but also the included ingredients are almost always overcooked), but I find it helps. I've found over the years that there are a LOT of things you can doctor soup with--more than just the obvious spices. So I propose we discuss and exchange suggestions. The types of soup I usually bother with are: basic condensed vegetable/alphabet soup condensed Cream of Corn or Cream of Chicken basic beef broth/consomme basic chicken broth/consomme condensed chicken noodle Usually what I work with is based on what I have around, but some of the most useful I've found are: Sricachi Tofu (firm, but crumbled) Cabbage Lemon Juice Fresh Herbs (yeah, an obvious answer, I know) Soy Sauce (but not usually) small or stringy pastas milk cream parmesan cheese left over chicken Assuming you guys ever bother to do this, what do you use? Also, I never microwave soup. It's just a quirk, but I suppose simmering fresh ingredients as a matter of course would require a burner anyway. We should probably put a maximum time limit on how long is reasonable to prepare something like this. I mean this IS supposed to be an compromise to making REAL soup--so it's not worth a lot of effort. I think if it takes more than 5 minutes it's a waste of time. Obviously that makes using leftovers or pre-cut ingredients favorable.

Actually, for the volume of soup (18.3 oz) I didn't think the price THAT bad ($2.99 normally. Plus it was on sale--50 cents cheaper. My dinner was a bit light tonight, so I added the blended red pepper black bean soup as an extra. I ignored my usual tendency with canned soups and resisted doctoring it--preferring to try it straight first. It's not bad, but it's not spectacular. It's a bit "cleaner" than most canned soups--the tastes are a bit sharper and most accurately representing the ingredients--but I suspect that has as much to do with vacuum sealing instead of canning as it does any real improvement in the quality of the ingredients. Despite the name ("blended red pepper black bean soup"), it's clearly mostly a tomato soup. A decent tomato soup, but still. The black bean actually is more noticeable than the red pepper, but that's probably because they mean sweet red BELL peppers, not hot red pepper. Here's the ingredients list: The fact that the black beans are in a "flake" form is a bit annoying, but I suppose it's because they were determined that these soups would be completely liquid. 1640mg of sodium (the package is arbitrarily divided into two portions) is another huge problem. Once again, even in a "premium" soup, they can't resist salting it up beyond all reasonableness. On balance I think that Mr. Lithgow better keep on dancing if they want to make a success of this. Then again, I've only tried one flavor.

I suppose that most of you without Tivo commercial skipping have seen the ludicrously strange, but oddly enjoyable commercials with John Lithgow singing and dancing about the new line of Campbell's Gold Label Select Soups? I'll admit it. I've never deluded myself into thinking that Lithgow is some great actor--despite the two Oscar nominations I think he's no better than serviceable--but I'm a sucker for his comedic approach. So apparently that also means that if he sings and dances, I will buy stuff. Canned soup in this case, which as a rule I dread. To be accurate, it's actually vacuum sealed BOXED soup. Like so... The above is actually the flavor I intend to try first. I'll post back after I've forced it down my gullet. So has anyone else tried this junk yet? Did the power of Lithgow compell you?

Seeing as how onions are pretty solid, I'm assuming there must be some convenient way to hollow one out?

No Sam. He's no more real than Mr. Whipple, apparently. ← Should we have a seperate topic on food pitchmen who don't really exist? There's tons of them. And that's not even including the ones who are "real", but semi-fictionalized in how they were portrayed (Col . Sanders would be the most obvious one, since I believe they had some actor playing him for years, but even Dave Thomas or the Perdues would probably qualify, since these sharp businessmen were always made out to be buffoonish in those spots). Regarding "the schmear"? My family almost always went with the whipped variety, since commercial cream cheese is commerical cream cheese and it might as well be convenient if it isn't going to be as good as the stuff in a real deli or bagelry anyway. Or at least that was the thought process before most of the good delis and bagel places started to fade with the progression towards the 21st century. And yes, we bought Temp-Tee. We certainly didn't see it as goyish--it seemed to be the height of non-goyishness, at least in my grandmother's house. I DO recall it being at least somewhat better than the others--I think Nancy may be spot on with the texture description. Frankly, it's been a few years. I have to go seek some out maybe.

Chicken is harder than pork I think. Pork definitely changes color as it starts to go. I'm wondering if freezing the chicken might help--if in fact that might kill anything that's starting to er... inhabit it... or at the very least equalize any inconsistencies in taste. Sure, the best chicken is NEVER frozen, but once you've accepted meat that's approaching spoilage, I think you are probably going to be using it differently no matter what. Actually, I think the whole topic of meat spoilage is pretty relevent here. I'm adjusting the topic title a bit so we can talk beyond chicken.

Okay, so if I'm getting this we aren't talking about staples, sauces, produce, or other kinds of ingredients... the idea is that you want suggestions for "ready to eat" foods? If you can confirm that it might be worth a minor topic title change, using that phrase. Actually I think this has to include two subclassifications. 1.) complete meals 2.) cooked or prepared ingredients which can be quickly combined into a meal without any major cooking or prep time. This might include produce, but if it does it would probably have to be produce which doesn't require cooking or major chopping, cleaning, or extensive application of heat at the time of use. Meaning that such can be done beforehand en masse without easy spoilage, or that it's something easily prepared at the moment of serving. Are my assumptions correct here? Also, you perhaps need to discuss if you have a vacuum sealer or not, or at the very least very good tupperware.

I think that Kitty Litter Cake is the raison d'être for this topic. Gross, just plain wrong... but entertaining. It wounds me to know something like this exists, but it's amusing as all hell.

I know a guy who wears Fish Pants.

Well, that's burgers. In terms of Chicken Sandwiches (an expansion market for them, because America is apparently Chicken Sandwich crazed) they've come up with about 6 or 7 of them in the past decade (they currently sell about 4 different kinds, I believe).