Chris Amirault

Great ideas! Let's hear it, NH! Maine, whassup? And CT...??

Sorry... off not sleeping with the new kiddo... RI calimari is as you say, and it is ubiquitous here in the Biggest Little State in the Union. HungryChris has a good basic recipe, the likes of which can be seen all over the state: Like most things, the vast majority of these served in restaurants really suck. Specifically, the calimari is very much overcooked, in order, I think, to crisp up the breading sufficiently. But the combination of butter (mandatory), pickled peppers (ditto), and the squid is wonderful when it works. I've never asked about the origins of the dish, but will try to snoop around and see if I can find anything out.

I believe that it was Woodman's in Gloucester, Mass. So says just about everyone round these parts, including my grandfather (no longer with us), who fished cod out of Gloucester for forty years from a berth down the street. (Oops -- I see that Holly already said this. Sorry....) Different styles abound. I'm partial to the sweeter ones at J. P. Spoonem's (terrible name, I know) on Broad St. in Cranston (just south of Providence and a few blocks from our house). Jigger's Diner on Main St in East Greenwich has pretty good ones, too, less sweet and more toothy. As for recipes, I think that (as with many other things) John Thorne's chapter on corn meal in Simple Cooking is definitive. A very important thing to add: the Rhode Island staple, the New York System weiner: bun, chili sauce, mustard, celery salt, minced onions, and a wee little weiner. One of the best things you can put in your mouth for consumption; one of the worst things to have put in your mouth after consumption. Erp. [edited to add the hallowed weiner and to acknowledge Holly -- ca]

I'm definitely not in the "fires are part of home cooking" camp but rather in the "fires scare the shite out of me" camp. Here's the funny version of the tale from the "I Will Never Again..." thread. The less funny version involves what happened to my gastrointestinal system as a fireball shot out of the pan and exploded.

Nullo, I've never seen tamarind with added sugar. I wonder if you're looking at tamarind drink mix? (Tamar hindi is the Egyptian - Arabic? - name for a wonderful drink - think lemonade, but with tamarind instead.) I can't remember where you live, but I'm pretty sure you're in the eastern half of the U.S. If you can't find tamarind pulp in an Asian grocery, try looking in a Middle Eastern grocery. That's where I get mine. ← As you can see here, tamarind is a fruit that looks like a brown pod with fat little beans in it. You can buy it in the pods, or in blocks of mashed fruit that you have to dilute with water as in this diagram, or in prepared canisters of the liquid. If not that, then... well, sure, maybe vinegar with palm or brown sugar to cut the sourness?

Welcome, Julia! [snip] Glad the cook-off prompted you to post and cook, Julia -- that's the idea! Meanwhile, yes, we'd love to see your modified soup recipe. (You might want to read the rules about posting recipes here.)

Now there's a topic. ← I agree! Here's the thread.

This is brilliant. I can imagine using this stuff for a whole host of things, esp meat tossed on the grill soon after being swabbed with it.

Great work -- and as Steven says, let's see more of it. My favorite quote: I guess those salmon were raised on Animal Farm, eh?

I'm a very proud resident of Providence, and believe that we have more than our share of outstanding food neighborhoods. I'm interested in other food hoods in New England, places where you can walk from shop to shop or cafe to cafe and get great foodstuffs, meals, drinks, and so on. My two nominations in Providence would be Atwells Avenue on Federal Hill, long-time home of the Italian-American community in RI, and South Providence, where dozens of great shops, food trucks, cafeterias, and cafes filled with Vietnamese, Cambodian, Thai, Dominican, Puerto Rican, Guatemalan, and other goodies line Elmwood Avenue and Broad Street. (I go into great detail about Providence in this thread.) What about your New England burg? Where are the places where you withdraw a wad of cash, park your car, and return a few hours later with several bags of goodies and a full stomach?

Those are great tips. I hadn't heard the one about adding stock as you cook, sorta like risotto or polenta. Makes a great deal of sense, and might actually get me to use those glass noodles, which scare me a bit (and if you read below you can see what scary ingredients do!). Thanks!

Tepee, how did you prepare the glass noodles?

Now THAT is a great bloody mary idea!!!

Along with olives, bread, charcuterie, and cheese, I'd add ripe fruit and toasted nuts to the nosh selection. While this may be a bit off your plan, a small menu of reliable larger dishes that go well with wine -- quick sautees, non-vinegary composed salads, etc. -- would enable those who want a meal to visit your bar. I also think that you should offer different sized pours as standard for single glasses, which here on the east coast is pretty unusual (at least in my experience). Finally, as someone who likes wine but doesn't have the budget for extensive comparisons, I agree about flights, particularly in a wide range of prices. I would go to

Didn't Tabasco do something like that this past year?

That sounds fantastic! You ought to put it over on the Recipe Gullet.

Given (save for NulloModo!) the devotion and interest shown on this thread to sriracha, I think we should put our collective heads together and come up with a marketing campaign for the product. What would be a good slogan? ...a billboard? ...a jingle? "You're tongue'll do the cha-cha With a mouthful of sriracha!"

Barbara Tropp has a great recipe for salmon patties in The China Moon Cookbook that is immensely improved by the repeated addition of sriracha.

Looks great! Nice serving platters, too!

Ohhh.... Yeah.... That's what I'm talkin' about....

After reading Fifi's reference to sriracha in this post to the fried chicken cook-off, I had the thought, "Of course the sriracha was better than Tabasco. Sriracha is always better than Tabasco. And almost everything is always better with sriracha." I found six pages of hits when I searched on eGullet for "sriracha," but there's no thread devoted exclusively to it. This, it seems, is a travesty. So, I ask you to share your feelings about the holy hot sauce. What foods must be consumed with it? What surprising pairings have you created? (E.g., grilled cheese sandwiches are immeasurably improved by sriracha. Thank me later.) Ever try to make it yourself? Do you have any loving portraits to share? Give it up for sriracha, people!

Snowangel has been hard at work over the last several months, gathering recipes from the forums to put into RecipeGullet when it returned. By all means, encourage people from the cook offs etc to copy their recipes into RG, but please do a "search for user" first to see if the recipe is already in the archive, otherwise, we'll end up with a bunch of duplicated recipes. On a go forward basis, all recipes must be entered into the archive, and not placed on the threads. It's really easy to link to a recipe within a thread and that's what we should be doing from now on. ← Ok, got it. Onward!

I think that we all should encourage members to move recipes to the new location from threads that were active while Recipe Gullet was down. I'll drop a note at the cook-offs....

I was glad to see this when I went to reply to this thread: I am very glad to see that y'all are pushing ever harder on donor memberships; we all should step up to support your excellent work. And on that high-minded note, let me add a comment on maggiethecat's wish: As I spend much of my time now supporting my partner as she nurses our newborn, I agree udderly. However, you've been beaten to the punch, and crassly at that. Okra logos, on the other hand, I can't find anywhere....

Kristin, I'm very much looking forward to reading your blog. But I wrote to say that your children are absolutely adorable!