Jason Perlow

Do the officers have their own mess on the Virginia or is that just stuff you see in the movies?

For those who don't understand the terminology: "Boomer" is slang for SSBN, or nuclear ballistic missile sub, whereas the USS Virginia is an SSN, an attack sub, or a submarine designed to kill enemy Boomers, enemy SSNs or other ships. A "Boomer" is much larger than an attack sub, therefore having more storage capability.

Bubbleheadchef, could you post a sample week's menu? Also, how many sailors can eat at a time in Virginia's mess? And how many "seatings" do you have daily? I assume also you don't have to boil water or keep water, since the Virginia has a desalination system and instant-hot water as a byproduct of the turbine and nuclear reactor heat exchange, right?

I think that space is cursed.

On the Bush Family Cookbook thread, where we discussed its author, a Navy cook, I mentioned that the best food in the entire military is cooked about US Navy subs and that it would be great if we could get one of its chefs on eG Forums to answer some questions -- and what would you know, one just popped up to do just that! BubbleheadChef serves as head cook and Chief Culinary Specialist aboard the U.S.S Virginia, the first of its class and the most advanced attack submarine in the entire world. Please feel free to ask him questions about submarine cooking and food. Wikipedia: USS Virginia, SSN-774 Wikipedia: Virginia Class Submarine I'm going to start -- how extensive are the cooking facilities aboard the Virginia?

Welcome to the site Bubblehead, do you serve aboard a boomer or a Los Angeles class sub?

Just got in my Podhead.com pods -- I'm really impressed with them so far, just had cups of their Kona blend and their Roasted Almond flavor. I ordered the mixed batch of 130 pods for Melitta. The Podhead Melitta pods are very densely packed compared to regular Melitta or Senseo pods, and produce a very strong coffee, even at the 8oz setting. With the coffee, Podhead supplies a teflon O-ring adapter that you lay on top of the Melitta pod holder so that it creates a tighter seal and allows it to extract the coffee better.

The Keurig that I think might work best for her office is the Keurig B100P, which can take a direct water line in addition to over-the-top water filling. It says offices with 15-30 employees, but for 50 employees with only some of them being coffee drinkers, its probably fine. The B2003 might be overkill -- although it has some nice features over the B100P, including a hot water dispenser and auto K-Cup ejection. Keurig B100P Keurig B2003

The key to both Dim Sum Dynasty and Silver Pond is getting there at the right time. You don't to go Silver Pond, for example, after 1:30PM -- and you never, ever want to take anything off a "Mixed" tray. Ever. You follow that rule, you will never get cold fried items at Silver Pond again. At Dim Sum Dynasty, they told us the best time to be there is at 12 noon, because then a lot of stuff is just getting out of the steamers and the fryers and they are putting them in the oven to keep warm.

Its the Japanese transliteration of "Croquette" from English to Japanese Romaji spelling. Like "Aisukurimu" is for Ice Cream.

I have a small Bialetti pot. Still takes at least like 5 minutes to make one, though, not counting grinding fresh beans

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with it when it's made well. But its a bastardization of real, authentic Indian food, and theres plenty of places in the UK that make it badly and its become somewhat of a symbolic dish for Britain's trashy equivalent to some of our more "regrettable" dishes and Middle America mediocrity people are lamenting above. Trashy food isn't unique to the US, not by a long shot.

On Amazon, they they just got in the "holiday" Senseo, which is bright red, and has a shorter spout so that you can use bigger mugs for doing double shots for 8oz coffees. In addition to two packs of coffee It also comes with pod holder cans and a special travel mug designed for the shorter spout setup. <iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=egulletcom-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B000AANXFY&=1&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&lc1=0000ff&bc1=000000&bg1=ffffff&f=ifr" style="width:120px;height:240px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe>

Right, because the Melitta pods are not designed to be under that much pressure and they'll rupture. But the inverse is the exact opposite -- Senseo pods work GREAT in a Melitta.

It has to use pressure by the virtue of the fact its the only way that you can brew coffee that quickly. I concede it's not the same thing as drip coffee, or even French Press -- its sort of some weird hybrid that is closer to American style coffee, or rather, Cafe Americain or Americano/Cafe Lungo as you would order it in Europe at a Cafe.

Rich: I agree the Senseo coffees are better than the Melitta brand ones, and they work fine in the Melitta machine. But I just ordered a bunch of gourmet pods from Podhead, which are supposed to be excellent, so we'll see how those do.

I think the newer batch of Melitta One:One units make much hotter coffee than the ones when they were first introduced. I can say that with confidence because the coffee that comes out of mine is definitely hot enough to burn your hands and requires that you let your beverage cool down for at least 30 seconds before sipping. It is literally steaming, piping hot. True, Melitta doesn't have as powerful a pump as the Senseo -- but it also doesn't try to produce a crema or try to make an ersatz-espresso like the Senseo does -- it makes regular, good old American coffee. And it works really well with tea bags -- whereas the Senseo pump is actually powerful enough to rupture them. The machine I am really looking forward to playing with is this unit from Simplehuman: http://www.simplehuman.com/products/coffee/index.html eGullet friendly Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00...Y/egulletcom-20 I should have an evaluation unit in a few days, I'll let you know what I think of it shortly. I'm also going to try to get a Bunn and a Keurig as well.

I just ordered my second batch, I suspect by now they will be orange this time as well, and with even looser skin.

It appears I may be in error about IBC haing a diet cream: http://www.ibcrootbeer.com/ They have a Diet Root Beer (which is very good, I've had it a number of times) and a regular cream, but no diet cream. Boylan Bottleworks, which has regional distribution to NJ and PA, has quite a few diet sodas, including their "Cane Cola", Birch Beer, Root Beer, Black Cherry, and like Stewarts, a DIET CREME: http://www.bevnet.com/reviews/boylans/

You may need to go to a beer/beverage depot type place as opposed to your supermarket. We have a lot of those here in Jersey, I'm not sure about Philly.

IBC has a diet cream. So does Stewart's, I and think they have Philly distribution. http://www.bevnet.com/reviews/stewarts/

And where would you suggest getting fried clams of equivalent or superior quality in NYC?

I always get a Black Cherry to go along with my Cel Ray, so I can take alternating sips between bites of my pastrami sandwich and kasha knish when I go to Katz. If I had to make a Sophies Choice though, and only two flavors could live, I'd have to send the Cream soda on its way. Some would say the Cream is their most important flavor, but its a pretty insipid Cream soda compared to other vendors, like IBC, as far as I am concerned.

Speak for yourself, oh denizen of the land of bad dental work, bad footballer kebabs and the mushy pea. They may very well be bad for you, but I don't think we all agree they taste awful. Green Bean Casserole is a Thanksgiving staple. If it tasted awful I don't think that many of us Americans would have such a fondness for it. I beleive Rachel and I tried an experiment a few years back in trying to make Green Bean Casserole with fresh green beens, fresh dairy products, fresh mushrooms, fresh deep fried onions, fresh pearl onions and everyone in our familiy universally rejected it. It tasted WRONG. Does Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup have about eight zillion grams of sodium per serving? Sure. Are Durkee Onions dangerous enough to be classified as a WMD? Definitely. But taste awful? No.

No way did Dr. Brown's drop regular Cel Ray. No way, no how. Diet, perhaps. But kill off their most important flavor? Hell no. There would be a riot.