Jason Perlow

Dunno. We bought like 2lbs of cold cuts (1/3lb of each meat) plus like 1/2lb of provolone and a mozzarella but we had some left over. We did one layer of meat for each kind of meat, but we have like 6 kinds of salumi on it -- 3 kinds of salami, mortadella, cappicola, and some kind of sliced/store baked ham from Fairway.

MMMMMM!!! with that killer horseradish sauce. We actually still have a RR here in NJ but no RR burger. ← The Roy's of like 25 years ago, though. After it went thru several restructurings and mergers, the Roy's burger ain't what it used to be. I remember being able to go to the salad bar and pile that burger on with trimmings. And it was decent beef too. Hardee's also had a pretty damn good burger years ago as well.

For our 4th of July Picnic tonight (our town does a fireworks display on the 2nd in the town park) we've decided to make a really big sandwich for a bunch of people, along with traditional picnic salad accoutriments. I submit to you, The Sangweech. Here we have an entire hollowed out ciabbatta loaf purchased from Fairway Market in NYC, piled on with various types of Italian cold cuts, provolone, fresh mozzarella, arugula, basil, artichoke hearts, and preserved red peppers, with vinaigrette dressing. The sandwich will be wrapped in wax paper and compressed, refrigerated for several hours so all the flavors will mix into the bread. Sangweech, fully compressed and put back in the bread wrapper, ready for the picnic.

Tehina/Tahina (also Tahini) is a critical element of Middle-Eastern style hummus. Its sesame paste. Greek Hummus, or Revithosalata, doesn't have Tehina in it. Or at least it doesnt unless you eat it on Rhodes, which Paula will tell you. :) The Italians also make a fairly basic chickpea dip similar to hummus, but I think it only has chickpeas and olive oil in it, with perhaps some garlic.

Personally, I have not really seen a major difference between brands of canned chickpeas -- Be it Trader Joes, Goya, Progresso, or even generic supermarket brand stuff. They all come from essentially the same strain grown in the Americas and have essentially the same texture as well. If you can find middle eastern brands of canned chickpeas you should try them. Hummus is really a trial and error thing and you have to make it according to personal taste. You want to have good extra virgin olive oil -- and olive oils depending on the producer and country of origin can vary tremendously in flavor. Greek Olive oil is very good in hummus, and I also like Sicilian. Then you have to consider the Tehina -- Israeli tehina is very good, but so are the Turkish, Egyptian, and Lebanese brands, if you can find them. Then there is the domestic stuff like Joyva. Personally, I prefer the Israeli or other middle eastern stuff over Joyva. In addition to the olive oil and tehina you want a nice amount of fresh lemon juice as well as a good amount of garlic. I personally like a lot of lemon juice and garlic in my hummus, and you'll want to add a decent amount of salt and pepper as well, and some cumin. I also like adding some good Spanish or Hungarian smoked paprika to it. Finally, there are the "optional" elements such as sun dried tomatoes, olives, capers, hot chili peppers, etc which are blended in. For condiments I like chopped ripe tomatoes, chopped bell pepper and chopped cucumber -- this combination is also known as "Israeli Salad" when mixed together, and if you want to get fancy you can add crumbled feta to it, in which case it becomes Shepherd Salad. Texture is also another consideration -- Israeli-style hummus is very creamy, whereas the arabic countries are a bit more pasty in texture. Again, its a personal preference thing. Texture is going to vary depending on how much olive oil you put in and how far you go with your blender or food processor. After the hummus is mixed up and the texture is where you want it, I like ot serve it with some olive oil drizzled on the top, with some chopped parsley and another dusting of paprika. BTW the tips above also apply to Babaghanoush.

BTW in addition to Wild Ginger, Englewood also has Daruma which is a very good sushi restaurant that opened in the last year. My section-mate at the New York Times, David Corcoran, liked it a lot, and every time I have been it has been exceptional. I'll also add support to Rosie's ZEN recommendation as well. Great place, wonderful appetizer selection as well.

We've had some former threads on this subject: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=4544 http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=32914 BTW Tamaya Restauant in Fort Lee is very hardcore, attracts almost entirely Japanese clientele. Tamaya Restaurant 2347 Hudson Ter, Fort Lee, NJ 07024 Phone: (201) 585-7009 Also lately I happen to like Minado in Hackensack / Little Ferry by the Han Ah Reum. For buffet style-all you can eat I happen to think its pretty good. Certainly way better than East in Bergenfield, which I refuse to eat at anymore.

Cachaca is also a cane spirit similar to rum.

Barbancourt doesn't "taste" like Rhum Agricole, though. The White Rhum St. James, which has fairly decent US distribution, can be used for a Ti Punch.

Rhum Agricole, or Agricultural Rum, tastes very different from Industrial rum (Rhum Industriel) because it is made from fermented cane juice rather than the fermentation of molasses, which is a byproduct of sugar refining and is how 90 percent of most rums are made. Thus Rhum Agricole has a very fermented "caney" kind of flavor. It's spelled "Rhum" because most agricultural rum is produced on the French East Indies island of Martinique, and thus has a French spelling. Some is also produced on Guadeloupe. You definitely should not try to make regular rum drinks with white rum agricole or rhum vieux for that matter. I once tried to make a Mojito with it and it was pretty disgusting. Ti Punch is pretty much the single application for Rhum Agricole Blanc, although if you add grapefruit and orange juice it becomes a "Island Planter" When Rhum Agricole Blanc is left to age in the barrel (which are used Cognac or Armagnac barrels) from anywhere from 3 to 20 years, you get Rhum Vieux. Rhum Vieux is pretty much drank neat or with a teeny bit of water added to release the flavors, like you do with a fine whiskey. http://www.caribbean-spirits.com/rhumagricole.htm

Sam's Wine, in Chicago mail orders. http://www.samswine.com/Products/Product.aspx?SKU=10029279

They key to this drink is getting the Sirop de Canne to have with the Rhum Agricole. If you can't find Sirop de Canne (the two prominent Antillean brands are Dormoy and Clement) or the stuff from the health food store that Sam mentions, use Sugar in the Raw (or any raw turbinado) instead. Its not the exact same taste, but I had it that way on St. Martin in a number of bars and I found it just as enjoyable. In addition to white rhum agricole I also like to make it with Rhum Vieux Agricole (aged agricultural rum). Rhum Agricole is essential for the flavor of the drink. You can certainly make it with regular white industrial rum with regular white sugar, but at that point, it essentially becomes a Caipirinha.

Phenomenal meal at Gary Danko this evening with my friend Esther. Here's some cellphone-style pictures of what we ate. Not up to my usual photographic standards but you'll get the gist of it: Cellphone Food Porn (Gary Danko)

America, after close to a 1 year hiatus, is re-opening shortly with Jamie Milkman as chef (formerly of 90 Grand Grille in Englewood) and with a new owner (Joseph Sanzari, of Sanzari's New Bridge Inn, and Bergen County contstruction bigwig)

According to the IT'S-IT website Safeway is one of the chains that carries them, so I will try Safeway first.

← Yeah, it certainly is usable at 5 years if its stored properly, but if its a really good first pressing it will lose its bite after about 2 or 3 years. Depends where the stuff comes from. 2 to 3 is probably a good timeframe to use it, but if kept cool enough, it can certainly go longer.

Okay, its Sunday evening in downtown San Francisco near the Metreon Center and I have a major ITS-IT craving. I tried Wallgreens, but no go. Who can help?

Depends on where the shrimp came from. The Louisiana shrimp season only started a few weeks ago, for example.

If you are lucky enough to live in an area with a strong shrimping industry with heavy local consumption, like southern Louisiana or in certain parts of New England, or perhaps even in other certain areas of other Gulf states like Florida you will in fact be getting fresh shrimp right off the boat. However depending on the season, even places like New Orleans use frozen shrimp in restaurants, just because the demand for the product is so high.

This is complete bull donkey. In fact, I would say 90 percent of the "fresh" shrimp you get in most supermarkets have been previously frozen. A lot of the jumbo shrimp is coming out of Mexico and Venezuela now and they freeze it right on the boat.

Its actually pretty common for Korean men's clubs/restaurants to double as bordellos, especially in the Fort Lee/Palisades Park area. In fact they more or less advertise it in Korean on the signs as "Room Salon", which is code name for male entertainment/escorts. The local towns usually don't ask questions and essentially permit it. I guess a guy in Ridgefield pushed his luck.

The Whole Foods internal brand, "365" is actually pretty decent olive oil.

Olive oil has like a 2 to 3 year shelf life. Provided you keep the large can in a relatively cool place, it will be fine. Its important that you know when the olive oil was pressed, so you really want to buy it from a reputable purveyor that can tell you when he got it and from what year's harvest it came from.

I love Chick-fil-A, but there's only one of them in the entire NY/NJ metro area, so I don't have a chain-wide point of reference.

I'm not quite as enamored of everything at WC. The hamburger variants are always great, but I've rarely liked anything chickeny there. And the sides? Honestly... I don't think White Castle has ever had a really decent side item. The fries suck, true. The onion rings, however, are very good. The NEW fried chicken breast sandwiches -- not the chicken rings --- that they launched like a year or so ago are good -- I like them as a folly to the burgers, so you have something to alternate off of. They need pickles on them (which you need to ask for) and you definitely need to get them with cheese.