MarketStEl

...with a Kansas City-style sauce? The Hudson Valley is lovely, and I haven't been up that way in quite some time, but the last time I visited, I did stay at a guesthouse in Newburgh, on a lovely residential street a few blocks uphill from the river and just a stone's throw from a public housing project. I will have to file this for reference for the next time I'm in the area.

My partner's sister gave us a big Omaha Steaks gift bundle--strip steaks, filet mignons, pork chops, flounder fillets, potatoes au gratin, burgers and hot dogs. His nephew gave him one of those Figi'ssnack-size cheese-and-sausage samplers. I was silently hoping someone would give us some of that Trappist cheese from the monastery in Kentucky, but alas, it was not to be this year. No cookbooks, no gadgets, no tools this year. (Last year was the Wusthof chef's knife.) Remind me to put cookware on my Amazon.com wish list for next year.

Decent? Available readily? On Christmas Eve? This might be a "Choose any two" situation. Unfortunately, the place that I went to for good sauce--the Spice Corner in the Italian Market--no longer carries BBQ sauces. However, it might be worth calling them to see if they know of a place that still does. If Austrian BBQ sauces are as lame as you suggest, you may even be able to get away with carrying a bottle of KC Masterpiece with you. You could do worse, and at least it's widely available. If you can find Stubb's in your supermarket, I'd try that sauce first.

I hope that at least the relationship survived this unfortunate event.

According to Snopes, Denny's Beer Barrel Pub calls their ultra-humongo-monsterburger "Ye Olde 96er" (after the weight of the raw patty in ounces). They have a couple of more reasonably sized monsterburgers as well: the little ones weigh in at two and three pounds respectively. However: I wonder if the restaurant is having a change of heart? The link from the Snopes.com item on the burger to the page on the restaurant's web site describing it no longer works. You may want to phone or e-mail them (info for both on the restaurant's web site).

I have this vague sensation of having seen a program that featured Ainsley Harriott making house calls on unsuspecting cooks on an American cable or broadcast channel not too long ago. I remember that he had one of those huge smiles, an ebullient personality and an infectious enthusiasm. I also see from the BBC web site that Harriott is the current host of the original British beat-the-clock cooking game, "Ready Steady Cook". He'd make a good addition to the Food Network lineup if they could agree on something for him to do. He'd also make Al Roker less of a token.

Okay, gotcha. I'm trying to envision one of these in a 10-inch skillet. I'm having better luck seeing it on a tabletop grill, although it'd have to be a big one. Or on a broiler pan in the oven. The restaurant, BTW, is in central Pennsylvania, WNW of State College. IOW, near no one foolhardy enough to try eating a six-pounder in one sitting, except for the occasional lost Penn State student.

Edited to add: There's no such thing as too much cheese. Channeling Homer Simpson: D'OH! I've been looking at one of these big guys in your avatar all this time and never realized it. Am I right that the restaurant is in Western Pennsylvania? How is it that you guys didn't make that WQED program "Sandwiches That You Will Like"? And how come you aren't posting on the Pennsylvania board? Too Phillycentric?

I'd answer a hearty yes, yes, and yes (well, maybe not just mayo and cheese, but mayo and cheese in the context of a burger, definately). ← This must be an East Coast thing. My poor Midwestern brain just couldn't wrap itself around the idea of a burger with mayo. Even after consuming a Burger King Whopper--which has mayo--in Overland Park as a kid.

Judging from the comments on this thread, I'm guessing that few people clicked on the Snopes.com link early on that confirmed the "urban legend" about a SIX POUND hamburger, complete with photos and history. It's served at an independent restaurant called Denny's (no relation to the national chain) somewhere in the good ol' Keystone State. Probably Western Pennsylvania--it sounds like the sort of sandwich that would play well there. The 2/3-pound Monster Thickburger "obscene"? Next to this baby, the Monster is a mere tadpole. And where's the opprobrium for the owner of this establishment for this obvious exercise in excess? Though the owner apparently understands that this is more a form of wish fulfillment than something actually meant to be consumed: he has a standing challenge in which he pays for the burger ($23.95), gives you a T-shirt and cash if you can down all six pounds within three hours. Needless to say, nobody's done it yet. In any case, it seems to me that if we're going to get all righteous about corporate responsibility when it comes to marketing single-serve heart attacks, we need to be uniform in our outrage. While I'm at it: I think Fuddrucker's -- to which I've been once -- has a 12-ounce (3/4-pound) burger on its menu. But it's a large single patty on an oversize bun, so it doesn't appear as out of proportion as the Monster Thickburger. Once again, appearance is everything.

That's nice. But how will the coffee taste?

Thank you, Pedro, for pushing this event forward; thank you to everyone who assisted in translating the questions and creating the time and the space for Ferran Adria to answer them; and thank you, Sr. Adria, for agreeing to spend some time with us discussing food, cooking, and your philosophy of gastronomy. I may never get the opportunity to dine at a Fast Good, let alone elBulli, but I found this exchange as satisfying as a ripe tomato with a little salt sprinkled on it (to inject another example of simple "ideal" eating).

Hey, you can always make your own Cheeseburger Macaroni. Take any mac and cheese recipe you like and add ground beef, browned and drained, seasoned as you like, before baking or serving. Want Chili Cheese Mac? Add kidney or pinto beans, cumin, chopped onion, chili powder, crushed garlic, tomato sauce or diced tomatoes (don't drain the juice) and whatever combination of peppers (bell, ancho, habanero, jalapeno...) you like to the beef. Then, instead of adding it to the mac and cheese and baking it, add the grated cheeses directly to the chili, stir in the macaroni, and simmer the whole affair on the stovetop for a half hour or so. Or try doing it Cincinnati style: Brown the ground beef with the chili powder, crushed garlic and other spices, but do not add the onion. Add the tomato sauce and simmer. Serve atop cooked pasta, usually spaghetti. This is a "2-way." For a "3-way," add the beans. For a "4-way," add chopped raw onion. For a "5-way," top it all with grated cheese.

Since the beer I just described is fictional, but probably bears a strong resemblance to my own Worst Beer I've Ever Had nominee, I may as well go ahead and post the genuine article: Moosehead, which I usually referred to as "Moose Piss." The label said it came from "Canada's Oldest Independent Brewery." I figured that was because no other company wanted to touch it lest it contaminate their existing product lines. Since Molson's been brought up, I will simply state that I very much liked Molson Export (sold in Canada as Molson Ale). Pity it's harder to find on this side of the border than the very bland Golden and the slightly better Canadian. And while we're talking commercials, there was a very good Molson TV commercial from a few years ago that featured a couple of Americans who, upon running out of beer, start hiking across Canada to buy more Molson, to the strains of a Canadian rock band whose name escapes me singing "I'd walk one hundred miles" or something like that. They get the case, make it just over the US border, and promptly drop it, breaking all the bottles--right in front of the band, which stops playing. I think one of the band members at this point says, "You know, you can get it in the States."

long-delayed followup: You're obviously channeling the Firesign Theater, Michael. "It's In the Water" was their ad slogan--a ripoff of Olympia's "It's the Water"--for "Bear Whiz Beer": "See that bear lappin' up that clear mountain stream? Kinda makes a guy thirsty, doesn't it? Well, that's why I like to lock my lips around a tall can of cool country Bear Whiz beer. "It's like my father said--'Son, It's In the Water. That's why it's yellow!' [sound of sipping] "Bear Whiz beer."

Quick followup: Delilah's has an outlet in the 30th Street Station food court, which is very close to my current employer. So I went and had lunch there today: turkey meatloaf, collard greens and macaroni and cheese. The turkey meatloaf was a little on the dry side, but nicely seasoned (with a tomato-y barbecue sauce topping); the collards were, as we say in the 'hood, bangin'; but the mac and cheese, though it was as rich as I thought it would be and very down-homey in consistency (real down-home mac and cheese isn't creamy, it's gooey), it was rather bland. I suspect this is nothing that aged Asiago and blue cheese in place of the Muenster wouldn't fix.

10 1/2 cups of cheese in all, seven different varieties. Wow. I've died and gone to heaven. And with the saturated fat content in this dish (the stats lack the data for the white cheddar, Asiago and Velveeta), I may well after eating it. But hey, you only live once. I'll probably scale this down to work with 1/2 pound of elbows and take it from there.

If you've found one that is, I'd like to know its name. So far, I haven't run across a store brand that is even close to Philly in all areas. Some taste about the same but do not have the same consistency; most are either thinner or drier. Many are saltier, and as I noted above, America's Choice is sweeter.

I thought that everybody loved Ramen.

Thanks for the clarification, and in light of how the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose metropolitan area is named (San Jose is now the biggest of the three), it makes sense. Of course, in my hometown, the policy still leaves things unclear, as both core cities have the same name. The Bureau tries to solve this problem by listing Missouri first in the state portion, but it seems to me that many people do not pick up this clue.

Just FYI: Seven million, according to the 2000 Census. And the Washington-Baltimore area (named contrary to the standard Census Bureau practice of listing the largest central city first; maybe a little hometown pride on the Bureau's part?) is the fourth largest metropolitan area in the country; I hope this wasn't a case of coastal Midwest-dissing, as I suspect the metro you left out was Chicago. But as for the "cozy little city" part: I live in the fifth-biggest city in America, the core city in the sixth biggest metro (six million inhabitants, about a million fewer than the Bay Area). Like so many other non-natives, I have come to love this city and believe it's an underrated gem. But I also recognize that in many ways, it's not really a big city but rather 150 small towns occupying the same political space. That small-town feel is one of the things many new Philadelphians like about the place (though it does have its drawbacks, needless to say). I would not consider it a slight in the least for someone to refer to Washington as a cozy little city, if by "little" he refers to the sense of intimacy that develops in close-knit city neighborhoods. OTOH, Washington is the biggest company town in America. I suspect that it is the type of talent drawn to work for that "company" and its suppliers (supplicants?) that has helped fuel the fine dining surge there. And I have had more than my share of wonderful meals in Washington restaurants on my visits there. Nonetheless, I still notice one thing that appears to be lacking, and I would appreciate being corrected on it if it does: a good indigenous food or cheap eats culture. Unless you want to appropriate next-door-neighbor Baltimore's crab houses and Old Bay as Washingtonian, that is. What is the DC equivalent? The Little Taverns are no more, so that's out, as are the Marriotts' Hot Shoppes. What occupies this place in the DC dining firmament? (In Philadelphia, this is the territory occupied by the Holy Trinity of the cheesesteak, the hoagie and the soft pretzel--the last of these a peculiarly indigestible delicacy unless you happen to purchase one from the Fisher's stand in the Pennsylvania Dutch section of the Reading Terminal Market.) Edited to elaborate a bit further: I can think of very few cities that have top-flight fine dining establishments that do not also have some sort of more plebian indigenous food traditions to draw on. New York pizzerias, Chicago hot dog and Italian beef stands, Kansas City barbecue joints, and the aforementioned crab shacks and cheesesteak shops all fit into this pattern. (Well, almost all: I would not put the fine dining scene in my hometown of Kansas City on the same plane as those of the other cities we're talking about, including Washington--even though the American Restaurant there holds its own with the best anywhere.) Washington does not appear to me to have this sort of tradition in its culinary history. That may have something to do with the circumstances that led to its formation and the time period in which it experienced the greatest growth (namely, the New Deal era and afterwards). Since Washington was not established as a hub for trade or industry the way most of our larger cities were, there is less of a working-class food tradition to draw on, and that, I suspect, is why some might view the city's rise as a dining destination as having a bit of unreality about it--like so much else of life "inside the Beltway" viewed from a sufficient distance beyond it.

Steakhouses we've got, I realize, but Argentinian ones, I believe, are lacking. (And not only in Philadelphia.) I've not been down there, but friends of mine have, and they were impressed by the steakhouse culture of that country. And while we're in South America: Are there any Brazilian restaurants here? I have this vague recollection that there once was one.

I have. The only thing Belgian about the place is the beer. They do serve good food, though--a mix of pub fare and contemporary American. Their chili is one of the few I'd bother to order out.

Good Caesar salad, or good Caesar cocktail?

Oh, only you, me, Gary, one of Gary's fellow professors, his wife, and the readers of Citysearch.com, who--unlike their reviewer, who thought it only average--rave about the place. They've got a great early bird special on mussels--a dinner size portion at the lunch price, which is about what you'd pay for a top-flight cheesesteak or not much more than that. I also thought their Belgian fries were excellent. I assume you've been in the upstairs room with the coffin table and the black Last Supper painting?