MarketStEl

That's a red flag screaming, "ORDER SOMETHING ELSE OFF THIS MENU!" I thought that too and peeps from Buffalo say the same thing about "Buffalo wings". However, a vendor in Logan Square, right outside the Academy of Natural Sciences (the corner left of the main entrance) advertises “Philly cheesesteaks”. I guess it’s for tourists. He was bragging big time how only he and Tony Luke’s make a real cheesesteak. Alas, I was pretty full at the time and had to settle for soft pretzels and water ice for the three generations with me. I think Logan Square is close to the Mother Ship. ← That vendor was pulling a fast one on you, in all likelihood. Which is not to say that he didn't make a good cheesesteak. I've had some fine ones from trucks and carts around here, but on the whole, few mobile steaks stand up to the best of the fixed-location purveyors. Logan Square^WCircle is close enough to some Cheesesteak Pantheon spots to qualify -- but the best of the best locally IMO are quite removed from the Parkway. They have cheesesteaks in Iowa? Recalling the "Philly Mignon" franchise's mercifully short life at Independence Center in suburban Kansas City, I can only cringe at the thought of what these must look and taste like.

You were doing fine until you hit the pumpkin soup, which I agree looks all wrong in black and white. But let's compare those mussel shots, shall we? I'm not sure David was completely off base with his suggestion.

grumbleKelly Drivearrggh... (Though the original name will always live on in the lovely Grover Washington tune inspired by the road. Yes, it's about the one in Philly, not NYC, but no Philadelphian would make that mistake, would they?) As for truth in advertising, did you read about the "margherita pizza" I had in Fairmount? At least the waitress there sympathized with our protestations that what we were served wasn't the pie listed on the menu. As she told her side of the story, it became clear that the owner of this restaurant understood P.T. Barnum's old maxim: "No one ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American people."

You'd better believe it's the answer to Wonder Bread. Bimbo is the world's second biggest bakery after General Mills. It rules Latin America, parts of Europe, is very strong indeed in the southern US (a large number of popular brands in Texas like Mrs Baird's are in fact now owned by Bimbo). It's a model of business management, run by the Servitje family who arrived here from the Basque country in the Spanish Civil War. I don't know what your tolerance for or interest in trivia is (mine is extremely high), but you might find this tidbit amusing: The US company that now produces Wonder Bread, Interstate Bakeries Corporation of Kansas City (the US' largest wholesale bread baker; General Mills is into so much more than bread -- they were the biggest flour miller in the US, for instance, even before they bought crosstown rival Pillsbury), is operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Check your vegetables! Well, the tomatillos I see are all at the street stalls on 9th Street and the full-time produce vendors at the Reading Terminal Market. There's more (besides what you've shown thus far)? What are some of the big franchise operations in Mexico, and what do they sell? I can only imagine. I suspect that what we read and see in the US media, focused as it is on illegal immigration, doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of contemporary Mexican society. I got to see former President Vicente Fox on a popular US "news analysis" program, and he struck me as right at home among heavyweight world leaders, giving his blowhard host as good as he got. Going any further here gets way OT, but let's just say I'd trade places with you in a minute.

Up until this point, I figured I had no good reason to visit Ann Arbor, even though Midwestern college towns are by definition cool places. After looking at that drool-worthy money-shot food porn photo of your Classic Double, I must now figure out an excuse to head through Ann Arbor on a fall Saturday. At least until you open permanent digs in Detroit. I was also about to say that you look better than your avatar -- until I noticed that you replaced your avatar drawing with an actual photo. Nice, classy chalkboard sign you have at your stand. Your own handiwork, something a friend did for you, or did you hire an outside pro?

No need to register to use the Foundation Center's 990 database, linked from serpentine's post above. Most recent data appears to be for fiscal year 2006.

You have me there. I've never run across this chain in Mexico City. But then it is huge. Chicken soup is almost universally good in Mexico City. And I would bet that within a decade many Mexican franchises will give American ones a run for their money. Lots are experimenting now, and many are quite excellent, or at least I think so. Rachel ← Mexican franchises haven't yet hit Philadelphia, but Mexican restaurants sure have. Most of the new good ones are in the general vicinity of the 9th Street market, better known as the Italian Market, and I've said on several occasions that it's a fortunate coincidence that the national flags of Mexico and Italy use the same three colors. Most of the restaurants are run by immigrants from the state of Puebla, who also now make up a good portion of the kitchen staffs in a number of Philadelphia's better restaurants. They are uniformly inexpensive, and uniformly good, though some of the dishes give gringo patrons pauze (cabeza de res at Taquitos del Pueblo, for instance). And they've introduced scores of Philadelphians, who up until now had only Tequila's (a fairly fancy restaurant specializing in Central Mexican fare) and Tex-Mex to choose from, to a wider range of Mexican food. But all I've noticed in the way of Mexican foodstuffs -- largely from poking my head into the tiendas along 9th Street -- are new varieties of hot sauces (Bufalo, Valencia, El Yucateca...), new beverages (note to self: see if you can find aguas frescas locally), and Bimbo, which appears to be Mexico's answer to Wonder Bread.* The baking concern has decorated "Team Bimbo" cars cruising the streets promoting -- what, I don't know, besides the bread. What might we expect when the franchisors figure out NAFTA and invade the US? And pardon my free-associating on the restaurant name above, but I wonder whether you have run across the fast-food delicacy called the "quesadilla Suiza" anywhere in D.F. I had one of these at a taqueria in San Francisco's Mission District; as I wrote in this description of the day I ate San Francisco, it struck me that "quesadilla Suiza" was Mexican for "cheesesteak." Are they common street fare down your way the way cheesesteaks are up here? One more comment: Your explanation of the ins and outs of using water -- along with your earlier statement quoting someone saying something to the effect that Mexico could build reliable water-treatment systems for just about all the urban population for what Mexicans spend on bottled water -- strike me as a prime example of the one-foot-in-the-First World, one-in-the-Third character of the country. *Edited to add: And tomatillos. Completely forgot the tomatillos. They were unheard of a decade ago and ubiquitous now.

Cute backstory for this Southern regional chain: But tell me: Where did Zach and Tony attend college? I'd want to head there to try the wings first before passing judgement on Zaxby's.

Agua de jamaica is...? Ginger beer? Something else?

Add me to that list. The Clemens Family Markets chain in the Philadelphia area (since acquired by Giant/Carlisle, Pa.) used to run radio ads that began: "Okay, all those of you listening who actually like shopping for groceries please raise your hand." [pause] "We thought so." That commercial wasn't aimed at me, as I was one of the hand-raisers.

You already provided the answer, but I was going to say that Sanborns sounded like a cross between a coffee shop and a drugstore -- or more accurately, it sounds like what US drugstores used to be like (surely I'm not the only eGer old enough to remember drugstore soda fountains and lunch counters) -- so my guesses would have been eithter Starbucks or CVS, and I see from Wikipedia that in the past, CVS would not have been a bad guess, though still wrong, for Walgreens owned Sanborns from 1946 until 1985. I was also going to ask if the Sanborn in question had a business partner named Chase. Wikipedia answered that question for me as well (No). This Slim fellow sounds like one fat cat. I'd kill for a lunchtime chat like the one you had in Sanborns, mediocre food and all. But I wouldn't even have the faintest idea who Mayán's son is. Edited to add a comment about English-language names in the Spanish language: I cannot resist a chuckle whenever I see references to things like "Avenida O'Higgins" in a South American country (after one of South America's great liberator heroes, Bernardo O'Higgins) or the Mexican department store chain Liverpool. Something about these people and place references just seems...wrong...no matter how appropriate they may be -- more out of place, in fact, than the English-language words the Académie française fights assiduously to keep out of the language. OTOH, I guess this just goes to show that globalization is really nothing new.

I do know that the IRS Form 990s that 501©(3) non-profit organizations must file as a condition of their tax exemption are publicly accessible. A friend of mine who works for one such nonprofit showed me a database of Form 990s, including the one filed by the 501©(3) nonprofit cultural organization on whose board I now serve as Vice President of Marketing (I'm pretty sure I don't need to spell out which one). The Form 990 contains data on income and expenditures, though I don't think it goes into fine detail on the latter score; IIRC, it does include info on the salaries of the five highest paid staff members and some other broad expense categories. There should be some way for an interested party to obtain the Reading Terminal Market Corporation's 990s if he or she so desired. Whether or not they will make for engrossing reading is another question entirely.

Now that I'm reading the Daily News regularly, I wonder what folks' opinions are of the "Chain Gang." Like the Mystery Muncher in the Inquirer "Wknd" section, the Chain Gang are completely anonymous, and as their name implies, they focus exclusively on chain restaurants. This strikes me as a very People Paper thing to do. And they don't lower their standards, either, except to the extent that they judge chains relative to one another on a scale of "links". But in their assessments of chains such as Maggiano's Little Italy (3 links out of a possible 4, FWIW), they make clear that they consider the chain places a world apart from (and in most cases inferior to on an absolute scale) independent restaurants. As many chains are more large-group and family-friendly than some independents, I guess this column does readers a service, especially when it warns them away from The Olive Garden (one link: "you may as well eat at home").

There are two Popeyes near me. One is in the Gallery mall, which is real convenient if I should want to get a Popeyes fix on the way home -- the mall is attached to Market East Station. If it's after 7 at night, though, the next closest one is at Broad and Catherine streets, about 3/4 mile from me. To get to it, you walk past a KFC two blocks closer to me. Make that a former KFC. The store closed right around the beginning of this year. There's a sign on it promising something else in its place, but that something else hasn't yet materialized. I guess that's proof positive of people's preferences around here.

Coincidence, or what? I spent my lunch hour Monday listening to a professor of Spanish language and literature on our faculty at Widener give a talk about a controversy about five years ago in Cuernavaca, which IIRC is about 50 mi S of México, D.F., wherein the US warehouse-club chain Costco (which apparently has a retail partnership with a Mexican firm) was going to build a store on the site of an abandoned but historic local hotel. He happened to be in town with his Summer in Mexico students when the controversy boiled over into a demonstration, with protesters occupying the site until they were forcibly removed. The upshot of the whole fracas was that Costco built its store but salvaged the murals that had decorated the hotel's atrium, which was reconstructed inside a $1 million museum devoted to the hotel and its history on the site. He used this incident to raise all sorts of questions about Mexican society and culture, economic globalization, the urban/rural, rich/poor divides in Mexico (not as simple as they're made out to be on this side of the border, he said), and efforts of Mexican writers to make sense of it all (he gave as a specific example a short story by Xavier Velasco, "El Origen de los Hospices" -- a play on words in two languages, btw). (I will have a report on this talk in tomorrow's edition of What's Up @ Widener and can post a link for anyone interested.) That may be an awful lot to hang on a foodblog, but paradoxically, your kitchen shots brought some of those issues right up to the surface. It strikes me that Mexico has long had one foot in the First World and one in the Third, and that fact alone makes it a fascinating place to study -- not to mention the source of the people who make Philadelphia's restaurants run these days (most of these coming from the state of Puebla). I'm looking forward to your takes on Mexican society and culture as reflected in its foodways. Oh, yes, I must ask: You don't take the Métro?

I recently took the bait in an online ad and "took the Boca Java challenge." I was actually quite pleased with the result. Boca Java is an online coffee roaster whose chief distinction is that it sells coffee the way Dell sells computers: They don't roast the beans until you place your order. The beans come in half-pound bags (not vacuum-packed) with the roasting date on a sticker on the back. I can honestly say that their beans definitely passed the smell test: I haven't been hit with a more powerful aroma ever. And the quality of the coffee they made was also first-rate. Like Gevalia, they operate on a subscription basis: once you place your initial order, the company will schedule deliveries to your door at regular intervals; you can go to their Web site ahead of the ship date to change the varieties you get and when you get them. (I just hope they don't make it difficult to cancel your subscription, though I don't see myself doing that soon.) I note that they got a nice plug from "Supermarket Guru" Phil Lampert on Today. Any of you tried their coffee yet? Your impressions, please?

Four years out, I can report that the independent coffee houses in Philadelphia are doing no worse for Starbucks' presence. Indeed, it's not all that unusual to find a really good independent (La Colombe, e.g.) or local chain (Bucks County Coffee, Brew Ha Ha! [which sources from La Colombe]) just down the block or on the next corner from a Starbucks, and both have plenty of customers. What Starbucks has managed to do is grow the market for better quality coffee in general along with their own growth and expansion. This may be as close to a win-win situation as you will find in retailing. Starbucks the company I admire and respect. Starbucks the coffee I don't care for all that much, though I won't refuse it if offered. Their tea (Tazo) is quite good, though.

Flat Earth crisps have been available in the Philadelphia area since roughly March of this year. I've tried two of the veggie varieties, but none of the fruit ones yet. The sun-dried tomato flavored crisps are all right; the cheddar flavored ones aren't cheesy enough for my taste. Both have a taste I would characterize as sweet potatoey.

you can get it mild. and really, the spicy isn't that spicy. ← What jsmeeker said. I was about to say "Remind me never to invite you over for dinner" until you added that coda about liking food with flavor now, Tracey. (Did you read the thread about Baby Boomers' fading taste buds over in Food Traditions & Culture?) Hey, if Wendy's can slap stickers on their doors boasting about their listing in the Zagat Fast Food Survey, why shouldn't Popeye's be listed in the Zagat Guide for its home city? What they serve is several notches above fast food in overall quality -- probably one of the best meal bargains around. I still remember Popeyes as one of the things that got me through a summer of selling dictionaries door-to-door in a dirt-poor part of central NO. Well, it's really not a "chain", as the stores are all independently owned*, but I know some people (most of them Penn students in times past) who swear by Crown Fried Chicken, whose outlets are found mostly in working-class African-American neighborhoods in the Mid-Atlantic region. Their birds are also pressure-fried; they're greasier than Popeyes but tastier than KFC by far. As for my choice for best, I too "Love That Chicken from Popeyes." Spicy, of course. (Relevant trivia: The company that franchises Popeyes outlets is called AFC Enterprises; the acronym originally stood for "America's Favorite Chicken." The name appears justified if this poll is any guide. The company used to franchise Church's stores as well, along with Seattle's Best Coffee, Cinnabon, and Torrefazione Italia, but they've shed all of those to focus on their best-known brand.) *edited to add: or perhaps more accurately, it's a chain in the sense that those associations of independently owned grocers supplied by a common warehouse and trading under a common name are chains.

This may be a bit out of your way, but you might want to try this five-time Daily Times "Best of Delco" winner right across from the Chester train station.

I hope they haven't gotten rid of the long rows of tables!

Sounds like a good excuse for a side by side taste test. I'm sure you'll be able to find volunteers to do the tasting. ← I have found I have more success cooking a burger perfectly if it is frozen...you get great char without overcooking. I often now get just shy of fully cooked yet still drippy juicy. So, you will have to relearn to cook from fresh or keep em frozen tracey ← Tracey's basically right, but her post leaves a question unanswered: Define "fully cooked." Most hardcore burger lovers want their patties no more thoroughly cooked than medium at worst, for past that point, most of the juices cook right out of the burger. However, I have encountered exceptions to the "a well done burger makes a great hockey puck" rule; the Five Guys burger-joint chain in the Northeast US is one. Health department regulations in some areas may require you to cook your burgers to a specified internal temperature, and where this is the case, the temperature is high enough to preclude offering any degree of doneness less than well. If cooking from frozen allows you to serve a burger that is well done yet still juicy, then maybe you shouldn't mess with success. However, Five Guys' patties are fresh, not frozen, and hand-shaped (or look it), so I don't think that cooking from frozen is a must. But you would have to do a few trial runs if you're not cooking from fresh now, unless you can serve medium or medium-rare burgers already; in that case, you can probably cook from fresh without much trouble.

Since the blogkeepers haven't closed this puppy yet, let me also say Merci pour un blog très interessant. Thanks for giving us a glimpse of Montréal's edible side. Allez bien et au revoir.

Since we Boomers realized we needed the added stimulus, that's when. I've noticed my sense of smell is much less sharp than it used to be. Smell and taste are linked. I love spicy foods. That last doesn't necessarily follow from the former, but the article strongly suggests that it does so more often now. And the sensation of having your sinuses clear right up after one bite of habanero-flavored anything is nothing to sneeze at. I also note the article concludes by stating that the marketers face a dilemma: That's simple to fix. Since most of us Boomers have more than a little bit of Peter Pan in us, all they have to do is call these things "grown-up foods for grown-up tastes." (Fergus M. Clydesdale. They had to make that one up, didn't they? Why isn't he working for Anheuser-Busch?)

"Market day" -- one particular day of the week when people shop for food -- has an ancient pedigree. In Philadelphia, it stretches back at least to 1742 (and probably earlier), when farmers would travel from the hinterlands around the city to sell their wares in the market "shambles" along High Street. Those shambles proved such an important part of city life then that they eventually gave High Street its present name, Market Street. The Food Trust has revived the custom with a Sunday farmers' market in Market Street's younger sister, the New Market (1745/1803) on Second Street in Society Hill, that has proved enormously popular. If the food is only going to be available on one or two days of the week, then it would behoove one to do the grocery shopping on that day. And even after that was no longer the case unless you wanted to buy food fresh from the farm (or closer to it), most people's work schedules militated against doing much shopping during the work week. This may seem paradoxical, then, but it seems to me that the main thing that has disrupted the "market day" habit now is the increasing demands placed on our time even on our days off. Many of us are less inclined to set aside a block of time to do shopping in bulk. And for people who prefer to use the freshest possible ingredients, it is probably preferable to do shopping in smaller batches, perhaps stopping by a greengrocer or butcher on the way home, as French urbanites have long done. As for me, I still do the bulk of my shopping once a week, on Saturday, the day that has become "market day" for most Philadelphians, judging from the crowds I encounter in the supermarkets on Saturday afternoons. Thanks to the Head House Market, though, I now do some of my shopping on Sunday morning.