Jason Perlow

There's a ton of fresh mint growing in our backyard. I intend to harvest it soon and make an herbal tea out of it. We do it every summer, tastes great over ice, mixed with black tea or just by itself.

This pretty much uniformly sucks. Brett should go rogue with his own blog.

Yes. If we're talking Broward, there's a hardcore Chinese restaurant in Lauderdale Lakes called Silver Pond (no relation to the NY/NJ ones). It's in an asian shopping center with an asian bakery and an asian supermarket. We ate there and had some really good authentic dishes. I've also heard good things about a place called Hong Kong City in Tamarac for Dim Sum. I've also heard good things about Pine Court Chinese Bistro in Sunrise.

Hey Randi -- great to see a familiar face This is definitely good news and I'll have to check some of those places out. As to Chinese, during our last house hunting trip I found some really good places just outside Ft. Lauderdale serving legit Cantonese food and Dim Sum, and also some decent Vietnamese stuff. So the situation isn't quite as dire as I thought. As to businesses closing -- I definitely noticed the retail vacancies but Jersey has been whacked equally bad.

Wait, 72 HOURS? What about the brine?

I am intrigued but that requires a Sous Vide machine... Price of the book notwithstanding, ($450) That could get very pricey if you want one that could hold an entire brisket! I mean, I could hire a person to send me several pounds of pastrami from katz every week for a year and it probably would still be cheaper... lol

Over the years we have collected a great deal of cookbooks due to publishers sending us sample copies but many we have given away. When we were cleaning out the house and packing things up for our upcoming move to Florida, my wife discarded at least 100 cookbooks, this is one of the few that she decided to keep. The copy that we have is dogeared and has scribbled notes in it. that should tell you something.

If I have a choice I would much rather drink McDonald's coffee and not Starbucks or even Dunkin donuts for that matter. Starbucks just tastes burnt and Dunkin' Donuts varies greatly by location. I'm really impressed what McDonald's has done with the coffee service over the last couple of years and I'm actually quite impressed with the quality level that they've been able to maintain at many of the franchises.

I hope so. I'll find out soon enough anyway!

Yes, good for spinach dishes and adding to yogurt sauces.

Beef Bourgignon is definitely better on the next day. I don't know why but it just is. So are Ashkenazi Jewish stews such as briskets and the like.

I'm not crazy about the stuff but actually I've had it added to chicken stocks for soup such as matzo ball and it's not bad, don't use too much though.

Mayonnaise. As good as freshly made mayo is, it doesn't taste like Hellman's. And on a BLT or turkey club, I want Hellman's. As to the Mae Ploy, it's good but has a ton of sodium. In NYC there is at least one store in Chinatown that sells freshly made curry pastes. Great stuff. Edit: someone mentioned the place on Mosco, that's the one. Right by that cheap fried dumpling joint everyone likes.

Late people don't get to eat. Period.

I've been told there are some really good seafood restaurants in Annapolis. Anyone got recommendations?

I wing it. Always. There are really two kinds of sauces in my opinion, mop sauces and also straight up BBQ sauces. A mop sauce you use when smoking any kind of meat and you want to keep it moist. For that reason, it needs to be pretty liquid. I usually take a big bowl and fill it with whatever fruit juice I have lying around (apple/orange) and add cider vinegar, mustard and hot sauce and whatever other seasonings I want to add, such as more of the rub that is already on the meat. This I apply liberally to whatever I am smoking every 30 minutes or so, such as ribs, pork loin, pork shoulder, turkeys, chickens, etc. This I will then reduce with sugar or add molasses or other ingredients to have a glaze at the end if the mop itself isn't sufficient. I'm not really fond of most regular or commercial barbecue sauces, but I try to find ones that are molasses rather than HFCS-based. Weber actually has a very good line of molasses-based BBQ sauces which are a good starting point, but I've had a tough time finding them. If meat is properly rubbed and smoked, and has a good mop, you really don't need a BBQ sauce.

So on June 27th, my wife and I are leaving New Jersey and heading to South Florida... For good. We're planning on driving down, and have it take about a week or so, so we can stop off at various places to eat, take our time, have fun during 4th of July weekend, et cetera. Here's the route: We'll be passing through parts of New Jersey, Deleware, Maryland, Washington DC, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and the Northeast tip of Florida. I'm particularly interested in hitting various BBQ places in the Carolinas that I haven't been to before, and good southern food places in general. I think we definitely want to hit Charleston and Savannah as I've never been. But I'm up for anything. Ask me to hit it, and I'll grab the camera and post all about it if I do.

The recipe in Modernist Cuisine is unbelievable, I've got some short ribs in right now. Mhyrvold's book? That would be a very expensive pastrami if I had to pick up that volume. Maybe I will ask him for the recipe. I heard Ruhlman's recipe in his charcuterie book was very good as well.

I heard about Anthonys. The company actually contacted me already. LOL. Deli is definitely going to be a major, major challenge. I might actually have to attempt to make my own pastrami. That could be interesting.

Yeah, no question about the dogs, although that's something I take advantage of less frequently than everything else. I love Jersey-style rippers though, even though my favorite place, Callahan's, closed a number of years ago. Indian Food in Florida is not nearly as dire as it sounds. There's a ton of new Indian restaurants opening up, particularly from Jersey Indian expatriates. If that makes sense at all. I don't want to talk about White Manna. I have issues.

I didn't make it to the Block Party this year, because I had a ton of packing to do last weekend. However, I managed to go to the Ubon's party on Friday night. Ubons is re-launching its BBQ sauce -- they've gone back to an older formulation that is tangy/vinegary rather than sweet. It's manufactured by a company based in North Carolina. I like it better than what they've been using the last several years. The one thing I regret about not going this year is being able to try the pork from the new pitmaster from South Carolina, Rodney Scott, who set up his own Mad Max-style home made smoker which looks like it's made out of oil drums. I heard his stuff was awesome.

If you've been following my blog, Off The Broiler and my posts on eG Forums for the last 10 years, you probably know I've covered a lot of ground when it comes to food and dining in New Jersey. It's been a hell of a ride, to be sure. Jersey has a ton of great food. But my Jersey glory days are coming to an end. My wife Rachel and I have sold our home in Bergen County, and we are packing up shop. At the end of this month, we're moving... to Florida. Broward County to be exact. While I am very excited about the change of venue and scenery, and extremely interested in pursuing the local food scene there, I am going to miss a ton of things in NJ, even though I will probably be travelling back here at least several times a year. Here are some of my favorite things: 1) Top Notch Italian-American Food Northern NJ residents have access to a ton of great Italian-American food, whether it is in Jersey itself or in nearby NYC, particularly in the Bronx on Arthur Avenue. 2) Pizza. See above. 3) High-Quality Asian Cuisine. No question Jersey excels at Asian food, particularly Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese and Japanese and Thai cuisine. While it exists in Florida, the state appears to have something of a "hybrid restaurant syndrome" where you see things like Sushi combined with Thai, Chinese mixed with Vietnamese, etc. Jersey excels at specialization. Jersey also has a ton of great Asian supermarkets. Florida has some, but not to the extent what we have here. 4) Decent bagels. It's pretty much a given that Florida's bagels are going to suck in comparison and I may have to end up getting them FEDEXed or learn actually how to make them. 5) Deli. Yes, Florida has TooJay's, but it's not in the same class as say, Hobby's Deli in Newark or any of the good Italian delis in North Jersey. All of the decent delis in Miami, like the Rascal House, are long gone. No pastrami which is even remotely comparable to Katz. 6) Newark's Ironbound / Paterson Main Street / Fort Lee-Palisades Park / Iselin Yes, Florida has no lack of great Latin American restaurants, and Miami has an amazing Cuban community, but it's not the same as the melting pot that is Newark's ironbound where you can get some of the best Spanish, Portuguese and Brazilian food in the entire country. Similarly theres nothing in Florida that's even close to Main Street in Paterson where all of the major Middle-Eastern cuisines are represented. Or the incredibly authentic Korean food in Fort Lee and Palisades Park. Or the Indian food in Iselin or Jersey City. I could go on with similar cultural enclaves that just don't exist in South Florida. 7) Vibrant restaurant towns There's certainly fine dining in Florida, but there aren't "Restaurant towns" like you see with say, Montclair, Ridgewood, or Red Bank. The towns in Florida are giant sprawling things rather than population-dense, so you have to drive a lot more to get what you want. 8) BYOB I loved being able to shop at local liquor stores, and bring my own wine to restaurants. It was one of the reasons why I became so interested in wine and kept my own collection in the first place. Now I'm just going to keep barely enough wine to drink for stuff I cook at home, because in Florida virtually every restaurant has a liquor license. However, the flip side is I won't be able to necessarily depend on the quality of a restaurant's beverage program.

guilty

It was also explained to me by a Chinese friend that the Chinese traditionally prefer not to drink ice cold drinks with hot meals, as it affects the Chi. That's why they drink hot tea, although this practice is changing. I frequently see Chinese families at Dim Sum having Cokes and Ginger Ales along with their hot tea.

HEY. -I- use the A620. It rulez. Just learn to use the manual and program modes a bit. It looks like you are doing an excellent job with it, however. One of the ways I am able to improve food photos with that camera is setting it to flower mode and then flash off (pushing down on the control ring in the back, then up on the control ring) control knob to Program mode (P), setting the white balance to custom and taking a shot of the white on the napkin, setting ISO 400 (if at night or in a dark room).