Chris Amirault

Good morning! Just checking in before making breakfast for the whole clan. It's still really miserable outside, one of those mornings that makes you really appreciate Miss Silvia! Yes, they do change seasonally and even weekly, but honestly, Michael, I don't go often enough to know how much. They have some particular farm sources (a primary one in Little Compton RI, I believe) upon which they rely for certain ingredients; all of their fresh tomatoes, for example, come from there. When they don't have fresh tomatoes (last night they had a green tomato sauce on the menu, but that was it), they use only the San Marzano. We went looking last night for their midnight pasta, a variation on carbonara with fresh peas and radicchio, and that wasn't there (no peas, presumably); that's why we got the tagliatelle. I've never been to Italy -- a tragedy, I know! feel free to send airfare and hotel to help me right this terrible wrong -- so I can't say definitively whether or not it is authentic. But it didn't have that granular quality of all of the other granitas I have had or made. For example, when I've made granita using the sheet pan method, breaking it up with a fork every 15 minutes or so in the freezer, it makes sea-salt-sized grains. This grains in this stuff were literally the size of powdered sugar, barely discernable as grains. More soon!

This is going to be quick, but I wanted to get the images from dinner up tonight. We went, of course, to Al Forno: We started with their signature grilled pizza, this time with San Marzano pomodoro and sweet pumpkin, and it was, as always, outstanding: Pasta was tagliatelle con i fungi, with a perfectly poached egg on top. The pasta was a bit stuck together in spots, but otherwise this dish was excellent: I drank a swell glass of 2003 Luigi Ferrando Erbaluce di Caluso with those two dishes. Finally, we had the one misstep of the night, a set of five pulled pork "po' boys" (not really, but hey) with shoestring potatoes. As Andrea pointed out, the dish really revealed why shoestring potatoes don't often work, as they were cold within five minutes of arriving at the table. The po' boys were perfectly fine, sage-y, but unremarkable: I had that with half a glass of Red Hook ESB. Finally, we finished with a very light and wonderful espresso granita, which had the texture of moist winter snow, topped with whipped cream: A great celebration, all in all!

Breaking News: I just got the thumbs up on permission to snap photographs tomorrow at the Johnson and Wales open house, featuring baking instructor Mitch Stamm (boulak here in eG land), and in the University's Culinary Arts Museum. Thanks to Miriam Weinstein at J&W! Be sure to tune in tomorrow late afternoon for those, Wildcat fans! Any alums out there who remember HAL 6?

Here's the front of Al Forno restaurant in Providence RI: You'll be seeing more of that from the inside, front of house. Thanks to Brian at Al Forno, along with Phil, Josh, Tomas, and Adonis, I am happy also to show you the back of Al Forno as well. This mid-afternoon, I came by the kitchen to see what life is like as the cooks and chefs prep for a busy weekend (it's Brown University's Parents Weekend, apparently ). Here's what I saw! That's Phil prepping: Tomas making dressing (I think): Phil and Josh at their station (other side): Josh had been on eGullet and praised it, so he got more face time: More prep (I saw squash, cauliflower, tomatoes, potatoes, and perhaps some squab or quail): Food machinery porn: The wood grill whence wonderful pizza comes: As you can imagine, I'm clock-watching now!

Click here for the sriracha thread! We need a harisa thread too....

Thanks, Farid! You're right: a bit of lime and some sriracha would be good. In fact, sriracha would be good on a LOT of work food.... Does anyone indulge in rooster sauce while on the clock?

Lunch: Oh, and on the linguica/chorice front, cooking.com's cooking glossary says, Sorry for the delay on that definition!

What a wonderful story, Susan! I'll try to give a few responses/footnotes. Well, just as long as you don't ask for sauerkraut on your weiner, you'll be fine! I've never been, but I have been told by many that the museum is truly great -- and perhaps all of us will get a chance to judge tomorrow, eh? Del's frozen lemonade is a summer fixture here in RI! It's sort of like a wonderful Slurpee (without the intense awareness that you are eating chemicals). If it were July, you'd all get a virtual Del's, believe me!

I would really be interested to talk about this phenomenon. In his new book, Turning the Tables, Steven Shaw talks about the importance of recognizing those special places -- neighborhood joints, old stand-bys -- that often don't get big buzz on food boards, don't get articles in the press (they're not "news"), and generally appear to fly off the radar screen. I really agree with that. What's more, Al Forno is a punching bag more for its previous accolades (best informal restaurant in the world said International Herald Tribune; lots of other awards, too) than for any significant decline in food or service. (Yeah, it's a bit more expensive than it should be.) Would that we all could be taken down a few notches for being the best at something for twenty years. Like Al Forno, the restaurants that we go to most often (Lucky Garden, Haruki in Cranston, the Red Fez, Flo's -- and the dear departed Empire ) are places that we know we like, that have people whose enterprises we want to support, and in which we feel comfortable, well fed, and part of the community. The cuisine, price point, ambiance all vary, but those things remain the same. We also function on a tight family budget. Both of us work in education, and we have the usual family expenses (plus some new ones that are approximately seven months old ), so we don't want to drop $140 to find out that the food quality varies wildly from meal to meal, or that things are skidding downhill after a quick, hype-driven media frenzy, or that the buzz is more about the hipster fish tanks in the entranceway than about the fish that have been removed from the tanks, cooked, and plated. (Just as an example. Ahem.) I know that Providence gets points on the foodie scene when it has new places to trumpet. But those of us who live here, I think, really value places like Al Forno, New Rivers, Neath's, and the like, places that have deservingly stood the test of time. To write them off as dinosaurs visited only by the stodgy few is to miss, entirely, the point. I'll bet that's true for many people in the eGullet Society. I notice, for example, that next week's blogger is going to Tru and not to Alinea -- how untrendy is that? Is it true for you?

So, I have a question. How do you cook rice in your dolsots? Don't you need a tight seal to cook rice? The two granite ones I have do have bases that seem like bakelite or something, but they may just be plastic, and I can't imagine they'd make a tight seal. Ideas?

Good morning! I've got a few minutes before I've got to brave the rain. I'll spare you the shot of the Kellogs Raisin Bran in a bowl with 2% milk -- deal? Glad that there are some Marty Robbins fans out there. Yeah, the wicked Felina probably had a dress and not pantalones in the song, but perhaps her evil turned her into a gunslinger, si? My folks are here to take care of Bebe during the day and evening, when Andrea and I are going out for dinner. Wow! First try! Yep, we're going to Al Forno. While many believe that Al Forno has slipped a notch, I really think that it is consistently fantastic. I'm certainly not the only one who thinks that, but in an age where the newest and hottest is celebrated over all, people enjoy slamming their old favorites. Not us. We're going back tonight not only because it's the location of our first date, but because it's the high-end restaurant in this region that we most consistently enjoy. When Johanne Killeen and George Germon opened Al Forno (in the space that now houses New Rivers), they really were among the first in town to do a number of things that have become commonplace: desserts to order, local sourcing, and -- famously -- grilling pizza. While the cuisine is steeped in the general themes of Italian cooking (particularly oven roasted, or al forno, preparations), it also borrows from Providence: you might see Portuguese food, say, or a local sausage maker's wares. They've tried other ventures (including Lucky's, which was wonderful), but have consolidated around Al Forno for some time. I learned how to eat well at Al Forno. I would save up my money in the years during and after college so that I could go there, often alone. Hardly a regular, some of the folks working there came to recognize me, and I have always been treated really well. Once, George came to my table to ask how things were, and in the course of conversation, I mentioned a cassoulet that he used to have on the menu at Lucky's. The next time I came, it has reappeared at Al Forno. I'm hoping to get down there midday today to see if I can get us the kitchen table, a deuce right at the edge of the kitchen entrance downstairs. It's where we sat on our first date, and it's a great place if you're interested in all that back of the house stuff . If I do get a chance, I'll take some photos. Has anyone here got any nice memories of Al Forno to share? I'd be very happy to hear about them!

Time for bed; the gingered gentleman wasn't so gentlemanly after all! Tomorrow, our (local) anniversary dinner, at the site of our first date -- and, many would say, the first truly great Providence restaurant. Ta!

Fleshy, it sounds like. Yes? Makes sense to me......

It was, indeed, delicious. And it tasted not at all like a shit-vomit roadkill stew.

Perhaps that wasn't the most effective comparison. Trust me, no nuts or yogurt in the salad, and no leather bustier in the bedroom. At least, I think.

The iceberg argument makes sense, but this "history" of the salad seems bogus: Puh-leez. I don't know a single soul on the east coast who ate organic anything until the 1980s, and my mom would have been more likely to try S&M than to try putting nuts or yogurt in salad in 1968.

You're on! As for where, we're inveterate junk shop, thrift shop, yard sale, and eBay buyers. That item came from a yard sale, I think -- but I can't be sure.

Glad you like the bread box, Marlene! This is another example of simple but smart kitchen design. For those of you who don't have one, bread boxes really do keep bread in good shape. As for your second question, we ask every parent at the school to tell us about allergies, and there is a list posted in each room with kids and allergies. In addition, we can get rid of any foodstuff that creates problems. After a girl who kept kosher accidentally ate a ham sandwich two years ago (!!!), I just got rid of pork throughout the school. Unlike on eGullet, there are no big hog fans, and many people (including not only people who keep kosher but who eat halal, vegetarian, etc.) were happy about it. Ditto peanut butter this year: we have a kid who is violently allergic to peanuts, so we just got rid of 'em. Unfortunately, we don't have a kitchen on site that's big enough; we basically have a home-sized kitchen in the basement. So we use Sodexho food services, and they bring slightly better than the usual fare. Some good stuff, some pretty bad, but all of it generally nutritious and varied.

God, this thread pollutes the mind. Here, after days of preparation, is my version of cassoulet from the cook-off, a dish of which I am very proud -- which in this context looks like... well...

Doing the dishes now while enjoying a gingered gentleman: bourbon, lime juice, ginger syrup (thanks Sam!), topped with soda. Very nice, though I'm still fidding with the proportions.

I have to say, it's been a pretty jittery experience teaching her how to use knives. You kind of have to take a leap of faith that your kid is responsible, that you're doing a decent job of teaching, and that you can always staunch the bleeding until you get to the hospital .... But Lulu's perservered, and she really takes seriously my insistence that she think before she cuts, particularly about where her fingertips and fingernails are.

Forgot to give props to the purveyor. Sanchez Market is on Broad St near Public, and it's a great place for many Mexican and Latino items: Here's their chile wall, which also has other things (epazote, Mexican oregano, etc.) in a pinch: And here's their vegetable and fruit room, within which I bought the El Gordo gorditas from earlier in the thread: Those gorditas are made at Tortilleria Pixatla over on Federal Hill. Unfortunately, they make them from masa harina and not masa, so my search for good masa to use for tamales continues....

Tonight: Everything! That's the name for a kind of Mexican dinner that involves, well, whatever you want. It comes from Lulu's mom's family, and we tweak it over here to include a few of our favorite things. Lulu was helping out tonight with selection, prep, and service. About once a week, she's in the kitchen taking on a few responsibilities. So, tonight, she was eager to show off her knife skills: I'm very proud of her clean lines and fingertip protection both! She used that diced red onion for her salsa: Muir Glen diced tomatoes, cilantro, onion, cumin, ancho powder, and some salt. Finally, a squeeze of lime with the reamer: Then, in front of Felina, our Mexican chica on the bead curtain from Bisbee AZ (extra credit if you understand that reference), Lulu holds up Andrea's mom's tortilla skillet, on which we toasted up some gorditas: And dinner is served! Along with Lulu's salsa, there's some grated cheese, cilantro, a rough salsa with onion, cilantro, black pepper, and salt that we had with our carnitas in Bisbee recently, some pork shoulder simmered in chicken stock, onion, garlic, jalapeno, and some refried pinto beans made with lard rendered using Fifi's great method in RecipeGullet: Lulu's first gordita: My first gordita: Bebe's dinner: After that, we dug in!

Weather update: the next seven days (including the rest of this foodblog) will be stormy, cloudy, and cool. No backyard grillin', I'm afraid!

But I don't eat like this at home, and, really, my job isn't that stressful. And, Mel, I work in an office, not a classroom. No, I think that the fault lies a bit closer to my belly...!