jhlurie

Babs.

I managed to get a small supply too, and while I haven't tasted them in anything yet, they seem to SMELL right. When they are no longer potent, the smell either dissapears or becomes kind of musty. These smell right on. By the way, don't bother to go to Foodmart anymore. I think the few of us who went after Steven's post have succeeded in cleaning them out. It looked like I snatched the last two bags. Now transfered to Mason Jars in a lame attempt to keep them fresh until I can borrow someone's vacuum sealer. I promise I won't open a jar up next to anyone's lemon tree...

Not to mention that Tony has brought up something I'm not sure I've seen yet in this discussion. We've spoken about home cooking vs. fast food, but he's brought up "street food", and it's made me think (rare for a Bourdain rant, where at the end I'm usually too stunned to process fully). Elsewhere on eG, I've brought up this little grocery store I occasionally go to with a Taqueria in the back. The guy charges $5 for 4 soft tacos, over-filled with fresh flavorful ingredients. I see people spending the same amount of money, or often more, over at Taco Bell, and for me that definitely pushes a Bourdainesque "rant" button. Maybe they don't all have an authentic Taqueria in their area, fine. I didn't have one until recently. But there's got to be SOMETHING. Hell, there used to be a little Taco stand at a mall I once lived by that was infinitely better than Taco Bell, and the guy was still using hard corn shells and cheap chopped meat he'd cooked up in a big pot. It doesn't take much. McDonald's itself, back far enough, used to be a place like this, before it became all about eternal expansion and setting a standard menu. Putting Bayless' dreams of a substainable organic future aside, the claims that BK is "fresh" and some of the best whatever it is around is an affront to small businesses that really ARE doing those things. And while BK as a corporation has no reason to care about this, we certain should.

This is the funniest thread ever.

Okay, I decided if I'm going to continue to knock on the Crappy Baguettes and Bayless, I had to at least TRY all of the sandwiches (I'd only had Crappy Baguette #1). So I bopped on down to my local Burger King and bought a "Savory Mustard" and a "Smoky BBQ". Crappy Baguette #2, the Savory Mustard, lacks one of the few good things about Crappy Baguette #1--the onion/pepper mix (hardly fresh as they claim, but at least decent). It consists simply of the too-chewy not-crust-enough bread, the too chewy not-firm enough reconstituted chicken patty, some mushy tomatoes, a smattering of lettuce, and what indeed is actually a reasonably savory mustard sauce. The fact that the sauce isn't the nightmare that the sauce from the "Santa Fe" is hardly saves the sandwich. The onions and peppers on the Santa Fe at least gave you something to bite through with a slightly different texture. Since the too-chewy bread and the too-chewy "chicken" have almost the exact same texture, its just... weird. Unrelieved chewyness. Ick. Crappy Baguette #3, the Smoky BBQ, is surprisingly not total shit. The sauce isn't nearly as sweet as I'd feared, and the onions and peppers are basically the same as the Santa Fe. Without the nightmare of that gloppy red sauce from the Santa Fe, the only barrier to this being at least edible is the chewy, chewy chewyness of everything. And as I said before, at least the onions and peppers have a slightly different kind of chewyness to them. That said, I'm not going to feel even a twinge at continuing to make fun of Bayless' "some of the best BBQ around" statement (in fact, that just gave me an evil idea for the Hot Topics ), because Mr. Bayless, I've served BBQ. I know BBQ. BBQ is a friend of mine. Mr. Bayless, this is no BBQ.

Has anyone posted The Bacon Poem?

Nice to see eGullet enshrined on the ZCarb website as part of that Time Magazine article. I don't know about Coastcat, but I'm still waiting for my case of complimentiary low carb chocolate bars. (kidding) I suppose, as a follow up, I'm obliged to try the Dark Chocolate ZCarbs, so I'll go hunt in 7-11. But I will not, I repeat NOT, buy any more of those putrid Carbolite things. EVER.

Don Quijote is okay, I've had a few good meals there. But I've also had some fairly crappy ones. Tapas de España, in nearby North Bergen, is far far better--"Newark" quality, in fact. Stay away from the always mysteriously crowded "Big Red Tomato" on Anderson Ave., by the way. It's just NOT worth it.

Enough with the hedging and qualifiers. Lets just start naming stuff. S'mores Pu-Pu Platters creme brulee (if the final step is done at the table with a blowtorch) Bread pudding, soaked in Rum Mongolian Beef

Anyone besides me see the Halloween Pringles?

The Peanut Butter has been slightly hardened in some way to form the outer shell, although not too much. The chocolate inside is a bit more like fudge than chocolate. Overall the tastes are fairly similar to the original, but the change in both the order of eating them and the "amount" of each ingredient makes it a different eating experience.

Note to Self: Raise capital. Open Mexican restaurant in London with said capital. Hire at least one Mexican Abuelita to supervise.

If you have ANY liking, any at all, for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, go find a nice Halloween bag full of Reese's Inside Out Peanut Butter Cups. The reversal might seem to make no difference at all, but in actuality it does. The texture, the ORDER of the flavors is different, and pretty cool. I haven't frozen one yet, but room temp they are worthy. Click here for info on the last 5 "Special Edition" products from Reese's. The las before this, the Honey Roased variety, was actually pretty good too.

The real question is can you find soft corn tortillas? Not that an overwhelming number of dishes are made with them, but I've always found their presense to be a sign that a geographical area "gets" Mexican. You've got to be able to make or get, at a minimum, a REAL Taco.

I know. Maybe Rick was standing around a dumpster. So he actually meant "some of the best BBQ around this dumpster" without sounding out the last two words. And BBQ afficianadoes around the country are screaming at the idea that "flame broiling" followed by "heat lamping" followed by "crap saucing" equals "BBQ". Heck, was the McRib BBQ?

Marlin is actually far superior to Swordfish. There was a reason Hemingway's wacky Old Man spent all that time trying to catch one.

Geez, was this today? Sorry guys, I actually meant to try for this one. I guess I missed the company, if not the burger. Not that it was the issue with me this time (since I just plain tuned out eGullet for the most part this week, and have also been having car trouble) but you guys have a bad track record for dates. 1.) same day as Pig Pickin' 2.) same day as important World Series Game What's next? The saturday after Thanksgiving when tons of people are away?

In my mind its always been more sound to ask for a single plastic bag around a single paper bag. Whoa... hold your outrage, I have a rationale. People who ask for plastic bags get about five times as many bags, and inevitably when they get home those bags clutter up a closet unused for the most part, until the person gets sick of all of those bags and throws them out en-masse. People who ask for paper bags usually get the bags wet, or tear them, and so they don't reuse those either. The paper-in-plastic people tend to line their smaller trash cans at home with the bags, and thus re-use them in a useful manner--tieing off the plastic bag handles across the top often even being enough to seal it without having to bag a larger trash bag around them. Also, if you do want to re-use bags at the supermarket a second time, I believe the paper-plastic combo "holds out" the best for re-use. Obviously canvas, or perhaps even a backpack is the best choice. But even these days people sometimes look at you like you are planning to shoplift if you walk into a store with a bag.

Really, the key to getting good Mexican food in any part of the world is to invite some Mexicans to come live there. Preferably from Puebla, Mexico, which apparently turns out many of the best cooks. Trite, but true. You don't want to walk in and see an Irishman over the counter.

I like the Pringles commercial in Spanish I used to see a few years ago, where everybody disco danced and the little guy on the can was animated and his mustache danced around.

See argumentation for this point here.

The weakness in your "democratic" scenario ExtraMSG, is that the Zagats choose which entries make their ways into the books in the first place. Also, if you read FatShaw's article (as opposed to non-FatShaw), he points out some other weaknesses in the system which do a pretty good job of negating the rest of the value of the guide. It's FAR from democratic. It just has a nice democratic disguise.

Groan. That's so bad, I'm going to have to counter with a Pringles themed Fanta Shokata film: http://www.fanta.dk/showmovie.asp?mid=4C40...F1-29F02A91DDF8

One advantage of Pringles. They are virtually ALWAYS on sale somewhere. If you live by a Rite-Aid Pharmacy, for example, they are 99 cents this week.

You know its funny. You'd think if you Google-searched for "Burger King Baguette" eGullet would pop right up. Nope. But the people at MommieTalk.com are right on the case sailing high on Google and talking about how "awesome" the sandwich is. Tons of "Mommies" on eGullet. Why can't you guys talk about how Awesome the Baguette is?