daniellewiley

Our dinner a few weeks ago was phenomenal as well. We had many of the same dishes that Ron had. I'm so glad he got a great shot of that BLT In Hand - we ate ours too quickly! My pics are up here with some commentary: Butter Pictures I'm still working on my writeup, but I'll be sure to share it once it's done.

Oh yeah, Pizza metro rules. Like I said, I am probably forgetting something. But that place rules. I like to just sit in there and absorb the atmosphere - all old school Italians. And the pizza is awesome. And cheap. When my then-fiancee (now wife) was in the hospital, the food she most wanted me to bring her was Pizza Metro pizza. ← Would we be ok going with two little kids? (two LOUD little kids?)

Just made a reservation for tomorrow night - I'm excited! I'll be sure to report back...

Our daughter's preschool teacher recommends Pizza Metro on Division. I haven't tried it yet...

So.... we've been here for nearly three weeks now. We tried a thin crust from Art of Pizza - mediocre. We tried deep dish from Lou Malnati's in Lincoln Park - mediocre - Michael disliked the sauce. I didn't mind the sauce, but found the sausage uninspired, and just wasn't blown away. Tonight we ordered a deep dish sausage pie from Pequod's. The crust wasn't flaky enough, IMO. I liked the sauce, though it was heavy-handed. I loved the burnt cheese on the edges. The Pequod's salad was damn good (but that's another thread). This is getting closer, and we'll order again, but I'm still not feeling it. Will we ever find something perfect?? Next up are Gino's and Uno or Due.

It may not be dockhl's thing, but I sure would like to know about that resale place. Details, pretty please? As far as things to do, the Architecture Foundation has great walking, bus, boat and bike tours. I'd love to know about this place too - we just moved to Chicago and are on the Brown line. Sounds like a great place!!

Dylie LOVES to cook. The fish was an especially exciting project for her because we never cook it at home. I'm deathly allergic! Randi was a great cooking teacher, and Dyl had a blast helping with the preparations.

We have had a babysitting disaster, so my plans are changed. I can't make any of the Friday events. Is someone willing to take over as lead on the culinary archive trip? This shouldn't involve anything more than letting them know we have arrived. Also, I will likely have to bring both kids Saturday. Tammy - is that going to be a disaster??

To be clear, enough for 35 eGullet Society members equals enough for 175 normal people. ← Thanks for the reminder. Whoever has the absynthe better start diggin' deeper - I think it's going to be popular after all of the "thirsty work" we'll be doing. ← Sadly there is but the one bottle. Since there may not be enough to go around, any thoughts as to how it might be an ingredient? ← YES!! Look what I just found: Absinthe Cake

One of the things I liked about this is it lets everyone see how the money is dispersed. That way, we can try to figure some of the logistics out ahead of time.

Destroit, Foie would be AWESOME. :-) All, we had some discussions off-list about how to collect money in advance and make sure it is dispersed properly for the shopping ventures. I just read about a new service that is still FREE!! because it is, well, new. What do you all think? ChipIn.com

Here are aa bunch of cute ones, made by Tana Butler, a former eGer: http://www.cafepress.com/gastrogear/ They are all available in kids sizes.

I'm happy to head up another side or a chicken dish - Sparrow Meat has FABULOUS chicken - I really like BBQ'ing them whole, and would be happy to oversee that. I'll also need numbers ASAP for the Culinary Archive trip. I need to coordinate that and they'll need a rough estimate of the number of people to expect. Oh, and Michael is a no go again this year. He'll be up north at a golf outing for work. :-(

Yum, I love chicken salad in an avocado half (crab salad too, actually). I chop my chicken very fine and add mayo, salt, pepper and lots of celery seed.

Me again. I think I said it before, but from what I've read, quality of the ingredients varies from franchise to franchise. That said, there were tastes and textures that could not have been strictly up to me. The main sauce ingredient of three of my entrees was a condensed cream soup. I don't care for the taste OR texture of this, but it would have been impossible to change it. Also, I had a problem with the texture of the chicken breasts - something I could not have done anything to fix or avoid. Something I COULD have changed was the inclusion of dried herbs. The quality of the ones I have at home are much better. And, I don't think I complicated things any (making the final prep more time consuming). Because I looked upon this as a bit of an experiment, I did all final cooking to the letter of the instructions on the sticker.

I discussed my experience upthread (and linked to the section of my blog that discusses it ad infinitum), but to reiterate: I like the concept. It's nice to have homemade meals waiting for me in the freezer. And, I enjoyed the night out with friends. But, the franchise I visited (Dream Dinners) featured processed, poor quality food. The recipes were not terrific, the spices were stale-tasting and many of the dishes required quite a bit of time to prepare (36 hours to defrost, marinating, mixing, over an hour in the oven, etc.). With that much time and my own, better ingedients, I'm much better off doing it myself. When I finally get moved and have some more time to myself, I plan to have a night at my house to do this with friends. I think it would be fun.

Wow, that's some question! I think a smoky quality is pretty sexy, probably stemming back to my college days of dating musicians and various other barflies. That would point to scotch, right? Though that isn't one of my favorites. maybe i should just give him cheap beer and a cigarette.

OK, I'd like to make some romantic cocktails tonight , and I am looking for suggestions. Basically, the sky is the limit, as my bar is rather empty, and no matter what I make I will need to be buying supplies.

We have the very same shelves - Hold Everything?? We've used them all over the house for various items, from cookbooks to kids' toys. Pretty versatile shelves...

I think you're talking about Mon Jin Lau, which is one of my all time favorite restaurants. I frequently picked it for my birthday dinner when I was a teenager and in college. They were doing Asian fusion before fusion was a word. ← Unless they've changed things drastically in the last few years, Mon Jin Lau doesn't do the "write on the paper tablecloth" thing. They've got more class than that. One expects to see such things at semi-upscale (and not oversaturated) chains like Macaroni Grill. Perhaps it was a place along those lines? ← I was at Mon Jin Lau Saturday night, and our waiter absolutely wrote his name (Sebby) on our table! The food was very good, though.

Yay, I'm glad to finally put a face to the name, blog, and faucet. (Kathy helped me out with a faucet project I had to write for work.) Really enjoying this blog - your school lunches are particularly inspiring. I have such issues with those!! I do have a question with the pizzas you send with Ryan. You said you reheat them in the toaster oven. How do you keep them warm? Or do you just reheat them to defrost and he eats them cold? I like the pizza idea. Dylan loves pizza.

wow. In my next life, sign me up to be YOUR baby!!

We tried Cheerios recently, but he couldn't really pick them up well. I think he just dropped them all, and didn't manage to get any in his mouth. He has 2 teeth (one just erupted in the last few days), but they can't really do much. There's also those teething biscuit things. I seem to remember someone posting about English rusk biscuits.... Must look for this... ← We did cheerios tonight. He couldn't pick them up very well, but enjoyed them when I gave them one at a time. He didn't choke at all tonight. I also gave him an Earth's Best teething Biscuit. He LOVED it. I tried putting a cheerio in the palm of my hand for him to pick up with his fingers and he leaned over and ate it out of my hand like a dog.

Mr. Dax (I get a kick out of the fact that Danielle and I have boys about a month apart with rhyming names) just had his first "finger" food. He doesn't really have the pincer grasp thing yet, but I was nibbling on some veggie chips (like Pirate Booty) while fixing lunch, and he was getting antsy, so I handed him a chip. I wanted to get the camera, but figured I'd stick close by in case he had any chance of choking. Though these little puffy chips probably melt away even quicker than cheerios. I get a kick out of it too! Has Dax done cheerios? Max tried this weekend and was choking a bit. the little bugger has no teeth, so i think it's harder? not sure. maybe I need to try again. he just really really wants finger food. pirate's booty is a good idea...

What about the suburbs?? If you could pick any suburb (one with an easy commute to Manhattan), which would you pick, based on the food alone? ← Are we counting outerborough locations as suburbs? Because some of them have some pretty good food in their own right... ← Sure! I won't know all of the details till tomorrow night, but looks like we'll need to be somewhere within an easy commute to midtown. (yay!!!!) All of my college friends are in Brooklyn, so I'm certainly considering that, but with the kids and the dog, I'm wondering just how much is feasible within the city limits. The food thing is really important to me, obviously. My parents are pushing Long Island HARD, but I didn't like growing up there, so I don't know that I'd like it now. Other people are saying Jersey, or Stamford, CT. There are so many variables!!