Carrot Top

OK I'll confess. I started this thread just to get some real good stories. And boy, was it ever a success. Each of these is a gleaming little jewel in its own way, and I've read each with a satisfied sigh, as I am sure many other readers have. I could not think of what the best meal of my life was. I do know what the best 'food experience' of my life was, but it was not a meal. It was riding my bike at seven years old, with a new 'transistor radio' hanging on the handlebars, sometime around 1963, eating cotton candy which had been bought at the local Mom and Pop store. It was ultimate joy. Other times have been my first taste of homemade bread with good cheddar cheese, the first roast beef sandwich from a New York Jewish Deli, steak at Peter Lugers, a carpaccio of salmon at le Bernadin, a pile of three sorts of caviar at Petrossians with champagne to slurp along, and a marvel of a ripe Reblochon bought on a market street in Paris. But it all pales compared to this meal: A tomato salad. It goes without saying that the tomato must be perfect and from a good garden. A hint of red onion so very finely slivered...olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Good crusty bread warmed, to wipe the plate. It should be eaten in bed, surrounded by books, with the TV set on low, showing Law and Order. I considered whether this meal would be better experienced in that state that happens once in a rare while...the state of marital bliss. But then decided...no! This meal is best if you can sit smack dab in the middle of the bed while you can freely rumple the covers whichever way you please. Wear a t-shirt, and feel free to drip a bit of yummy stuff on it. It adds to the experience. Ahhhhh...heaven. That, is the closest I can imagine, to the best meal of my life.

Hmmm. It is not so much the taste of the dragonfruit that is good but maybe the texture, to me.... It is available once in a rare while here (in southwestern Virginia) because the small city I live in has an international population drawn to the university here. Tamarind, in my experience in living here and there in the US, is more widely available. It used to be that you could only find it in the Hispanic grocery stores, but now it is more often found in the usual chain groceries.... Indonesia, huh? Now there is a land of many fascinating tastes! P.S. That photo of a soursop almost looks 'painterly'. However that photo was taken, it did something special to the subject.

Mmm. I dunno. I have a hard time thinking of her as that. To me, she is and will always remain what my (then) six-year old son called her when she first became well-known: Jennifer Low-Pants

Here, I'll add myself to the Hall of Shame. It is even a worse perversion than yours, Soba. My mother used to serve (fancy word there, huh?) Franco American Spagetti. The kind in the can, no meatballs, just gooey spagetti drenched in a soupy mess of a orangy-red dyed sauce. Every once in a rare while I get a terrible hankering for it. I buy it, trying to hide it under other things in the grocery cart. As I approach my house, my mouth starts watering and it is all I can do to not eat the stuff cold out of the can. A brief microwaving later and I am sated. Adding insult to injury, it is impossible to eat this stuff without dripping or splattering it on yourself. Impossible.

The title you wrote for this made me laugh...sounded like a disco song from the 70's. Then the photos continued my little fantasy by looking like some one sort of left over from the 70's who just took a few too many drugs... I love dragonfruit and tamarind. Wonderful photos and a nice reminder to get to stop by that section of the supermarket and pick up some....

Spagetti and meatballs...is also something that is fun and 'educational' to make with your kids. Not to mention that this is one instance where they truly can be very helpful even if they are quite young, as the mechanics are simple and the supervision level low. As you are standing there making the sauce and chopping anything that needs chopping, just give out directions like 'Get the big bowl, etc etc'...and so on, through the entire process of having them make the meatballs. The only time they may need assistance is with cracking the egg... It keeps them busy and they LOVE shaping the meatballs. I have them put the finished product on sheetpans....in this house it is neccesary to have two separate ones so brother and sister who are only a year and a half apart in age don't fight over space...! Then we bake them lightly in the oven before popping them into the sauce to finish. My favorite sauce (which is not made all that often because I detest detail-oriented grocery shopping) is made with browned spareribs and garlic which are then braised with chopped Italian tomatoes...the sauce is finished with cut pieces of Italian sausage and the meatballs simmered in the sauce for another twenty minutes or so with some chopped oregano and parsley tossed in for the last five minutes of cooking. Comfort food. And it freezes well.

This Central Park mushroom education thing has been going on for at least (oh please, I cannot believe that I know this...) thirty years. Look in New York Magazine in the section of 'Things to Do'. It is usually listed there.

Gosh, Behemoth...I was reading your post with such intent fascination and so quickly that for a minute I thought you wrote 'the massive portions of vinyl siding at Applebee's'...

Mmm. A feast. The only thing I could remember about Penn. Dutch cooking is that you must have 'seven sweets and seven sours' on the table (shades of the Seven Samurai and the Seven Sisters... yikes) and a dish called Schnitz un Knepp which is dried apples cooked with country ham and dumplings. Surely a whole roast fresh ham replete with cracklings would not be out of order, though...

Steven, I am in agreement with that too. You need the numbers, the demographics. As Maybelline mentioned (and I really had to laugh at thinking of hearing this in what I guess might be her marvellous Southern drawl)...you need the Guidos. Listen, I don't mean this in any insulting way to anyone, please. I've been both rich and poor and am half-WASP half Jewish and have been married to an Italian. AND at the present moment I stay home and raise children. Nope, not in a hip urban area! And as for the numbers hitting the New Orleans/ or Las Vegas areas...that is just a different form of culture, isn't it. A different form of Art, of Money, of Fashion (ooh la la) and of Design. But there still is that edge. Not the New York edge, but an in your face edge nonetheless... And it's that edge that must be captured in designing that sort of menu...IF that is truly what the client means when rapidly throwing out that phrase. I must say this topic is almost as wonderful as religion or politics for a good debate!

While I can 'see' and intellectually understand these extended urban area demographics...honestly I can not 'feel' them. Yes, they are in proximity to cities, yes the people have money to spend and are professionals...BUT...the areas that have the urban hip 'feel' do move and grow, but they tend to do it within city limits or close enough to be sort of cuddling up to the city. Hip urban areas grow, change, move...entire neighborhoods are created that are defined as hip and urban where other parts of cities just...are not. They are other things, but they do not have that 'edge'. My take on it is that that edge is created by proximity to culture. To art, and I mean the Art World. To money, and I mean Big Bucks. To Fashion and Design...of the Haute variety. That 'hip urban' feel is created by people who are living creative lives and pushing the limits of what has been presently 'acceptable' to date. People are drawn to 'hip urban' from all over...because it is not the way they live their lives in general. People will pay to be around the creativity and the unconventionality. History tells this. They will come to be entertained, to see a living 'story' that is beyond the sort of life they might dare to live themselves. It's gotta be 'punchy' and in-your-face to be 'hip urban', really.

This is an interesting comment, as arts do tend to draw from each other and grow. Can you give some examples of specific areas that are good examples of the 'New Urbanism'? Are there any major names of architects/designers that create solely within this paradigm? (And if so, are any of them associated with 'name' restaurants?) What is coming to my mind at the moment in terms of this is that place they built right outside Miami...naturally right now I can not remember the name of it...the copycat 'New York'. Would this place be considered New Urban or simply still a mall of sorts... Just curious.

As a side issue I'd like to mention that the Chianina breed does exist here in the US but from the little I know, is generally mixed with other breeds to produce a product that is more likely to be to American tastes. There is an organic farmer near me who does this...and there is also an experimental state-run farm over the border in West Virginia which is doing tests on both Chianina and Charolais.

My reference is 'Northern Italian Cooking" by Francesco Ghedini. Out of print now but a great book if you ever see it somewhere... No, he does not mention the rosemary or Parmesan but does mention the lemon. I am not sure in describing the cut of meat if he was as verbose, and with such a catchy phrase! as in the previous threads, but the cut was the same and this new phrase is quite pithy...so we can all picture exactly what is meant here....

In agreement with everyone above but would like to add that the famous quality of Florentine steak is that it comes from Chiannina steers...which are grass-fed cattle. If you can somehow obtain grass-fed beef, you will be closer to the actuality...the only other thing I've seen is that often it is advised to squeeze a lemon over it at the end. So let's see...if you can purchase a farm, grow some grass fed cattle, butcher them correctly, install a wood-burning grill, all before this weekend...hey! You're all set...

You had asked what areas we all live in...I've lived in big and small cities, big and small suburbs, and totally rural areas. This is a fun thread to read. To go to the side of the topic again (sorry)...it is likely you are already doing what I'm about to mention...but in this process of menu development be sure to document everything. It can be a simple re-stating of what you believe your client's directions were...but it is useful. Not only for billing purposes but also...if there is a partnership involved in making menu decisions there can be unspoken or unrealized differences in goals or ideas. If the direction given by the 'point person' is clariifed on paper, any differences can be noted and hopefully sorted out. Edited due to earlier exhaustion...tomorrow is first day of school for kids here!

Mmm...yes, I see a difference. But of course there are exceptions to every rule. One might find a suburb somewhere that exhibited more 'city-like' aspects than certain cities, somewhere. If I were you, I would attempt to more clearly define what this person (I am assuming they are your client or potential client) means when they say 'hip urban feel' and 'suburban'. Ask for specific examples of urban areas they particularly like and suburban areas that they think do not have the aspects they are interested in, then study these areas to get a better feel for what the ultimate goal is. You might want to go so far as to ask which actual existing restaurants hold the qualities they are seeking...but if you open this door, be ready to be besieged with a list that you will learn a great deal from, but which ultimately you may be asked to almost-copycat from. A fine line to cross or not, here...

Must put my two cents in and say I agree. If it is adversarial, there is something wrong with the picture. One hand washes the other, so to speak...(and I am not talking under the table stuff here, just business as usual)...and there are reasons that vendor prices fluctuate...reasons that the vendors have to work with in order to make their profit and reasons that restauranteurs would be well advised to avail themselves of understanding in the area. Although a very tough business, this is still a business filled mostly with honest people who want to provide good service and maintain a good reputation.

I read something on this in a food history book sometime in the past...and it said that it is just one of those cultural phenomenas that occur when a group of immigrants to a country is learning the language. When the huge influx of Italians came to America around the turn of the century, the word 'gravy' started being used by them to descibe their tomato sauce, (which resembles 'our' gravy in that it is ladled over pastas and meats as we ladle ours over potatoes and meats...) to the other people in the neighborhood who did not understand what they were talking about. Slang, an adopted word, pure and simple. And as for tomato sauces...gee, I can not remember EVER having had a bad one! Can you?!

:laugh I love that last line... As James Thurber wrote: Looks can be deceiving-it's eating that's believing.

That sounds like the way I heard they serve hamburgers at McDonalds in the south-west of France...topped with a sliver of foie gras.... Sigh.... This however sounds like the stuff of urban legend, but who knows. Could be...but I seem to remember the source I heard it from being relatively reliable... Just tried to check by going to McDonalds.fr online and though it was highly entertaining, there was no info on this nor any e-mail address to contact. Might be like some of the McDonald's in Maine, where they serve lobster rolls, but the corporate website does not offer that detail. Hmm. Guess someone needs to go find out!

To my (ex) Italian MIL and many other natives of Italy I've known, 'gravy' means ragu (they also say something that sounds like ooraoo which means the same thing) which of course is any variety of a tomato sauce. 'Cream Gravy' has no roux or thickener...it is just cream poured into the pan to deglaze the drippings of a sauteed pork chop or slice of ham...and it is heaven itself....

That sounds like the way I heard they serve hamburgers at McDonalds in the south-west of France...topped with a sliver of foie gras.... Sigh....

I think braunsweiger is smoked liverwurst... ...and as for my contribution to the thread of 'how to eat it', I had an Armenian boyfriend once who made great sandwiches with thick sliced black bread, braunsweiger, and thinly sliced cucumbers. The crispness of the cukes against the buttery-ness of the braunsweiger with the slight bitterness of the bread was marvelous. Or at least I believe it was...I hope it was not really the effect of all that good beer that had to be consumed along with it...

There is a wonderful story by MFK Fisher called 'Fifty Million Snails' in the book Serve it Forth (also in the collection The Art of Eating). Unforgettable...