jhlurie

I agree. The ingredient means nothing. A good chef can make something ambitious from the basest most "common" ingredient. To me the bigger concern is that the ingredients should be ones where the taste is distinctive enough to force creativity to feature it prominently in the dish. "Chicken", for example, would be a horrible ingredient (unless it was Fresh Kill). Pizza dough actually intrigues me. I could see an interesting struggle with that. While I agree that it stretches the requirement for a distinctive taste, in trade it gives them a difficult substance to work with, where they've got to really think hard about how to not have it overwhelmed by whatever else they use it with/in/under/outside of. Also, I note that the listing says "Hamburger" and not "Hamburgers". Ergo, it's the meat they are interested in, not the "patty". That seems a bit more open to creativity.

Well remember Tony's reactions (in this very topic), when news about this show was released: Its my impression (from that and other things I've heard) that the planning for this show was done completely outside of Bourdain's influence. I don't think it was necessarily a matter of him not wanting to be associated, as much as it was perhaps it being inevitable that it would happen that way once Hollywood became involved. He's a practical sort and I think was busy happily counting his money. It's actually in FOX's best interest to make the show good though. While FOX has a lot of crappy reality shows, they've actually got a reputation for having some decent sitcoms (The Simpsons, Malcolm in the Middle, Arrested Development, Bernie Mac's show).

It needs marketing first. I haven't watched a lot of TV in the past week or two, but I imagine I should have seen at least a commercial or two for it. As for Diet Coke with Splenda, while I don't recall a commercial for that either, I HAVE seen several very big, very strategically placed billboard ads for it. "New" Pepsi One I only heard about by reading the outside of a 12 pack sitting in a store (although I didn't buy it that day).

Yeah. I remember all of this now. That mid-cal stuff was kind of like a bad dream. I mean what was the point?

And today I've seen both 2 liter bottles AND 12 packs of 12 ounce cans. So it seems Coke is taking this product fairly seriously (unlike C2, where they dropped the ball on distributing it in all of the standard packaging).

As Jason Perlow has pointed out in the original Cola Confusion topic (about Diet Coke vs. Diet Coke w. Splenda vs. Coke Zero vs. Coke C2), Pepsi has recently introduced a reformulation of Pepsi One using Splenda. What's totally confusing me is how this fits in with Pepsi Edge (the Splenda Pepsi product introduced last summer). Is Pepsi One version 2 a repackaging of that product or a complete replacement of it? So has anyone here actually tried the new Pepsi One yet? So far there's been a lot of hatred of the other Splenda Colas released so far (personally C2 is the only one I've totally loathed).

I've tried this now. It's not simply a renamed Diet Coke--it tastes totally different. It's actuallly pretty darn good. And both the "regular" Diet Coke, the Splenda version, and the endless flavor variations were on the shelf right next to it. At this point I don't know if this stuff is being sold in anything other than 16 oz. bottles.

Perhaps we could perk this topic up, and make it into something with more weight, by breaking it into several parts: a.) first thing ever cooked with parental (or teacher) assistance b.) first thing ever cooked independantly c.) first serious full meal ever cooked, describing all of the parts d.) first "gourmet" meal ever cooked Answering, of course, only the ones you are sure about. I'm gonna have to think about this one myself though. I'm actually not entirely sure of any of them.

At the Katz Deli in NY too... (although they call it "pastrami" there)

Why that's Sam Kinsey, along with Ellen Shapiro, and some other large dude with a baseball cap and bizarre fish pants.

Do you feel more young and hip now that you've bought this? Seriously, that press release for this is hilarious. The whole idea of "youth oriented soft drinks" cracks me up. Mountain Dew and Pepsi have had some success with this marketing approach in the past though, so we will see. Not that I don't believe they couldn't have formulated a Diet Coke aspartame variant with a more "real Coke" taste. It's just funny how they have to position it in such a way that it doesn't threaten any of the many other products they've rolled out. Heck, "Diet" isn't even in the name.

Okay, walking by a refrigerator case yesterday I spotted something called "Coca Cola Zero". I didn't have time to stop and buy the thing, but today I looked it up. Apparently, it's a new Coke. It's not "regular" Coke. It's not "regular" Diet Coke. It's not even Diet Coke with Splenda. It's a new product reportedly different from all of those. Zero calories, but that's nothing new. Using Aspartame, just like Diet Coke, and not Splenda, like Diet Coke with Splenda. So now I'm totally confused. Coca Cola Zero website According to the press release there, CCZ is aimed at a young market. Because I guess Diet Coke is for old fogies or something. And the Splenda Diet Coke? Who knows why they bothered to introduce that if this Coca Cola Zero was also being rolled out this month. Reportedly, CCZ tastes "like real Coke". Now I'll have to go buy one.

Actually, after reading this thread, I'm waiting for people to also talk about: Hardware Store Hamburgers Video Store Mexican (actually that one exists) Pharmacy Meatloaf Dry Cleaner Fruit Shakes Shoeshine stand Frites

Yeah, actually I ate at a location of this chain recently as well. For what they are charging, it's quite a deal. Some things, like the kalbi (short ribs), the fruit crepes, and some of the sushi (I had dinner, so I can attest the quality does seem fairly high at dinner) are top notch. The various salady things, and most of the other cooked dishes are fairly sad I actually didn't know until recently that it was part of a chain--I went to the one in Little Ferry, NJ, not the one you are reporting on. The Manhattan one has the same prices though, and I've been told the relative quality of most of the dishes is almost identical. Actually that 30% premium rule, I thought, only applied to when people picked the higher quality fish off the top of the rice from the Nigiri preparations of sushi and leave the rice sitting behind at the buffet table. List of Minado locations Minado menu Prices

I do think that cold toast is absurd, and yet I also kind of appreciate that pre-made toasty bread made by a company called Bimbo. In reality what they turn out being is like huge slab-like croutons, and I can see the utility of huge croutons.

Hey, 3300+ views in just over 2 days is nothing to sneeze at. If you have access to a good vacuum sealer, rather than freeze the bacon I'd say vac-pac it up. Bacon summer dishes? Well how about crumbling some up and making a homemade bacon-based salad dressing of some kind? It could also be used as a garnish in other salady things, as well as in a lot of noodle dishes. Oh, also... a pizza topping.

Yup. That method usually gives a nice texture on the outside too. Okay, on the meatloaf front, here's the big debate... red sauce or brown?

It's a seperate product from "regular" Diet Coke. It's a weird bit of marketing though, because the label is virtually identical to "regular" Diet Coke, as can be seen in the close-up photo I posted earlier in this thread.

Wouldn't those conditions eliminate Virgil's? Unless they are doing something I'm not aware of. I think it all depends on how generous you are with the term "emulate".

"Chewy" is a nickname for Chewbacca, not something I want in any pizza I eat. Gummy? Yeah... right. I've been to Missouri quite a bit and I know the dearth of anything Italian-ish there. But it makes me wonder why more clever lads from Brooklyn or something haven't moved out there. I only know of two decent Italians restaurant in the entire Kansas City region, for one example, and Lidia Bastianich's place isn't exactly going to be serving pizza!

Just tried one which WON'T win "best orange". It's not horrible, but its pedestrian. The "new" Pepsi owned "Tropicana Twister Orange Soda". Admittedly I've only tried the Diet, but you know what I think this is? The old Orange Slice flavor repackaged. At the same time, Pepsi is ALSO still marketing the non-carbonated but soda-isle distributed Tropicana OrangeAde (in both Diet and non-diet versions). That's actually a bit more interesting than the "Twister" soda, although still not in the class of some of the sodas named earlier in this topic.

I'm more impressed you can grow things so well in soil that color! Unless the photos aren't representing it well. Do you use a single patch for your garden every year, or do you move it around a bit? (the outside parts I mean, not the greenhouses)

Yeah, it would be a bit wacky if beef wasn't essential to this. Maybe there should be a rule that whatever is made, no matter what it is, has to contain at least half beef, so things don't get totally crazy with Turkey this and Buffalo that. Although that reminds me, my dad recently has been hawking a burger formula which is 50% Venison. He claims it works shockingly well mixed with Beef.

While I'm a fan of picking one and championing it, preferably using sophistry and conniving as if they are rational, I'd be very happy to hear from those whose hearts are torn asunder if forced to choose between chopped meats. ← Someone could really screw things up if they used the left over meat for meatballs and reported on that as well.

From the recipes it doesn't seem very hard. One of the recipes (the good one, I bet) is VERY time consuming, but it's not labor time--it's just "sitting around and waiting time".