Jason Perlow

Ernest Hansen, inventor of the Snoball Machine, passed away earlier this month: http://www.nola.com/archives/t-p/index.ssf...1600.xml&coll=1

I really need a very good reason to try the one in the Bronx, considering every time I am in the Belmont/Arthur Avenue area I'm pretty much committed to eating Italian food.

I've had this one in the hopper for a while but I finally got to it today: Podcast #8: Chef John Besh, Restaurant August

I like the Puerto Rican/Cuban method myself. Rub the Pork with Adobo seasoning and little bit of mustard, cut a lot of slits into the meat and stuff with crushed garlic mixed with olive oil, and then marinate the roast in a big freezer bag in a lot of citrus juice (orange, lime, and some sour orange -- if you can't get sour orange I like to use a combination of lemon, lime, grapefruit, and orange juice, or Goya's "Mojo" marinade.) with crushed chile pepper and black pepper overnight. Then slow cook for a few hours. I use this method for marinating pork roasts and pork tenderloins as well. Also works great for Chicken too. This variation calls for vinegar instead of citrus juice: http://members.tripod.com/~apadilla98_2/re...echon-asado.htm And the 3 guys from Miami version: http://icuban.com/food/lechon_asado.html

Really? I'd like to kick him in the nuts, smack him over the head with a baseball bat, and dispose of him in a wood chipper, personally.

Say what you want about Miguel. He doesn't have the on-screen panache as some of the others, but he works hard and he has a lot of real kitchen skills. I think after Top Chef, he'll probably end up as a sous at one of the top restaurant kitchens in the country. Any 4-star chef would be happy to have Miguel as a right-hand man, and I'd consider myself priveleged to eat his food.

Just remember, Tony. Anyone in front of a TV camera are all a few steps away from becoming "D-List celebrity fucktards". That's the natural course of evolution. Alan Thicke is totally unwatchable, true. But he has a lot of money, actually. He wrote a lot of themes to various 80's sitcom shows and got a lot of bank for it, and he also produces a lot of crap like this.

I'm pretty sure he got that laser-ed off. I certainly would.

You can make concasse but its time intensive. Doesn't come out the same as manufactured paste though.

I tried it when I was in Texas and I really liked it. I havent seen any in NJ yet, though.

You wouldn't happen to have a local Jersey source of these, would you? I've been fairly happy with the imported Italian canned bulk tomatoes I've been buying in the Bronx from Teitel Bros. Is there really a huge difference between those and actual DOP San Marzanos? $3.69 for a 14oz can just sounds freaking outrageous to me when I can get regular Italian canned tomatoes for like $1.40 per 35 ounce can.. Thats like less than 10 percent of the price of those DOPs. Our existing canned tomato discussion, BTW, is here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=61833 Also, this importer appears to have decent prices on DOP San Marzanos in cans, but you have to buy 50lbs of them at a time for him to even do business with you: http://www.sanmarzanoimports.com/prod01.htm

Well, quite frankly, even when I make "fresh" marinara from tomatoes we grow here in our own garden over the summer, I still end up adding -some- tomato paste product to it, because you really can't get that concentrated tomato concasse-like flavor strictly from cooking down fresh tomatoes in the home kitchen. Most of the pasta sauces I make have a combination of fresh tomatoes, canned as well as paste to balance out the texture, mouthfeel and flavor. Its only when I want a completely fresh barlely cooked tomato sauce made from just plain chopped up tomatoes and some garlic and basil added do I only use fresh tomatoes.

At the Plaquemines Parish Heritage Seafood Festival in 2005 they did: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=68441

Am I the only one who thinks that's a comically bad name for a coffee product? All I can think of when I see it is Cheese Whiz or "taking a wizz". ← Well, they're not a product, they're a Pod reseller/distributor: http://www.coffeewhiz.com

Of the Pod systems the Senseo probably is the one that makes the worst coffee because of the fact that the Douwe/Egberts pod coffee marketed by Philips/Senseo is totally artificially-flavored garbage (and the fact they are not individually foil-wrapped and nitrogen sealed, causing it to be stale on arrival) would lead any coffee snob to believe that Pod-based coffee sucks. Simply switching to a Podhead or CoffeeWhiz pod is going to improve that coffee tremendously.

This is correct. Which is why, if you go the Pod route, you want to buy them from a reputable small scale producer, like Podhead, or a wholesaler like CoffeeWhiz that moves a lot of volume and has good relationships with companies like Green Mountain and Baronet. PodHead and Green Mountain (as well as Baronet) both use the Nitrogen process you describe and I have had very good results with their pods. In any case you want to consume pods within 3 months of their manufacture date.

These are all excellent points. The Barilla stuff is very basic particularly if you get their "sugo" or "passata" which really is just tomatoes that are cooked and passed thru a food mill/strainer, perhaps with a small amount of basil and garlic added.

Ah, another reason I should check the TJs stuff out. I really like the Trader Giotto's pellegrino -clone of citrus sodas line.

As I am in Edgewater/West New York often, PF is on the border, sharing its space with a Condo/Townhouse development called Port Imperial. It is not in Weehawken, and it is several miles north of the Lincoln Tunnel off River Road. Menton, mapquest is a good tool. ← Yeah, its technically West New York which puts it in Hudson, whereas Edgewater is Bergen (stores are closed on Sunday there whereas right over the border, they aren't. I remember when the Target had its Grand Opening, on a Sunday, and the cops were called in to close the store down!). Doesn't matter. I live in Tenafly, which is in Bergen County, and I can get to P.F. Chang's and New York Waterway in probably 18 minutes when traffic is not severe, and so can Menton if he wants. Just take Palisades Avenue until you hit the GW Bridge ramp, and instead of going on the ramp, continue to take the side road until you hit River Road/RT 5. I've never eaten at a P.F. Chang's though. It happened to be the focus of derision on last night's South Park episode, BTW.

Our man on the scene is working diligently.

Yeah they do. Edgewater. That might be Hudson though, although thats totally unimportant, proximity wise.

RAGU is Unilever's low-end pasta sauce brand. It uses a lot of High Fructose Corn Syrup and also it is made using commercial tomato paste in a matter of minutes. I don't reccomend it. Its basically ketchup. On the upper end of the scale, as I mentioned above, is Unilever's "Bertolli" brand (previously known as Five Brothers) which is made using fresh tomatoes and is a one-day process. Its much closer to homemade tomato sauce than other commercial brands. Unilever is a GIGANTIC company that makes everything from Pasta Sauce to dish soap. They have good products and they have mediocre products. Their corporate headquarters is here in Northern New Jersey, about five minutes from my house. Rachel worked there for a little while, which is why I know about their production methods.

Barilla is fine. Also, I know from authority that "Five Brothers" is the upper-end Ragu (Unilever products) line, where they take fresh tomatoes and process it into sauce over the course of a day. If you stick with the basic marinara and then "doctor" it, you can get good results. I have always stuck with very basic marinaras if I buy bottled sauces, and then spruce it up with fresh basil, herbs and garlic. Mind you I prefer to make my own fresh marinara sauces, but the bottled ones are great in a jiffy if you want a decent quick meal. Re-Edit: Five Brothers is now rebranded under Unilever's "Bertolli" brand: http://www.fivebrothers.com/products_pastasauces.aspx http://www.unilever.com/ourbrands/foods/Bertolli.asp

Specifically though, Isan style-larb (Larb Nua Isan) is a bit different from the Thai larb that is eaten in say, Bangkok. Isan larb is VERY spicy due to use of a lot of crushed dried chilis and also has a lot more sourness. I've also had it made with beef, not with Chicken or Pork, but I suppose it could be made that way. Its also got mint in it, as well as diced lemongrass, which I have never seen in a Bangkok version.

Laos is a landlocked country that is directly between Thailand and Vietnam, with Cambodia directly south and China to the north/northwest. Thus it is a confluence of the cuisines of all those countries, but it is most highly influenced by Isan (Northern Thai) cuisine and the food of the Mekong River delta and the Khmer people, as well as Indo-French influence from Vietnam. Larb, which is a popular dish in Thailand, is actually the national dish of Laos. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuisine_of_Laos