MarketStEl

(emphasis added) NOOOOOOOOooooooo..... ← That's what I told my mom when she told me. Made me glad I never go "home" for Thanksgiving. ← Mind if I ask your race or ethnicity? --Sandy "click the link in my prior post" Smith ← My mother's family is Japanese-American, my father's family is Caucasian. I don't go "home" for Thanksgiving because "home" 400 miles away, and my husband rarely gets the day after Thanksgiving off. My sister lived in the South (Jacksonville, FL) for about 5 years, and developed a taste for things like deep fried okra, boiled peanuts, sweet tea, grits and velveeta. We did grow up eating Kraft Mac N Cheese though... Mom used to put sliced weiners, chunks of ham, or a can of chili in it. Her sister, my late aunt Ivy, used to put 2 whole bunches of cilantro into her Kraft Mac N Cheese, turning in Mac N Cheese that made a journey to Chernobyl and back. ← ...um, that's not Chernobyl, that's Three Mile Island. Chernobyl is the chili I made for a potluck party tonight: 3 pounds ground beef, browned and drained 1 39-ounce can chili seasoned beans, undrained 3 6-ounce cans tomato sauce 3 small onions, chopped 8 cloves garlic, minced 4 jalapeno peppers, chopped 1 poblano pepper, chopped 4 dried ancho chilies, crushed 1 dried habanero pepper, crushed 1 1/2 tablespoons each chili powder and cumin 1/2 tablespoon each ancho and chipotle powder 2 bay leaves Toss all this into a Crock-Pot, turn it on High, transport it to Northeast Philadelphia 8 hours later. I brought sour cream and shredded cheese along so the guests could cut it. The cheese was not Velveeta, but it was Kraft. Edited to add: Okay, Green Bean Casserole remains a Caucasian thing, I guess -- your sister had to get it from your father's side of the family, right? Right? You still there?

You could always get the ball rolling in Cookbooks & References, Karen. (Which reminds me: Should I post a photo of my condiments?) Greetings, kinda-sorta-neighbor! Though you're in the "New York" part of the state rather than the "Philadelphia" part, I trust that we will see some tomatoes during this blog? After all, they're in season. And speaking of Jersey tomatoes, have you all heard that Rutgers is atoning for the sins of the past? So you've only posted twice, and I already have a couple of questions: What town's library is that? Is it the town you live in? If not, where do you live? (BTW, cute play on the old joke: "You live in New Jersey? What exit?") And what is toast dope? What goes into it? Do you need to butter the bread before applying it? Blog on!

not on page 2 ← I was referring only to the steak "photo" on the first page of the Web version.

There was a rather intriguing one on P Street NW just west of Dupont Circle that I passed by this past spring (I was in town for a joint performance of the Philadelphia Gay Men's Chorus and the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington). It had several good reviews posted inside the entrance. I didn't jot down its name. Most of what's now on the stretch of P Street between Dupont Circle and Rock Creek Park wasn't there when I was last in Washington. I also have this vague recollection that the Paramount Steak House on 16th Street NW just down from the "Soviet Safeway" also draws a predominantly gay clientele -- if it's still open.

True. But you'd be amazed what you can do when necessity dictates.

(emphasis added) NOOOOOOOOooooooo..... ← That's what I told my mom when she told me. Made me glad I never go "home" for Thanksgiving. ← Mind if I ask your race or ethnicity? --Sandy "click the link in my prior post" Smith

1) Where I come from, we much prefer the second term in the Strip Loin Lexicon. 2) As was noted in subsequent posts, that photo is actually altered -- it's an illustration-cum-caricature. I'm looking for one with a religious icon so I can put it on eBay. Then I wouldn't care that it were tough and fatty. ← I wouldn't get my hopes up too high, Charlie. There were no takers for that eggplant slice. I've done stories in years past where I was acquainted in some way with one of the parties involved in a dispute and sympathetic to the acquaintance's point of view. I even ran one after the other party's spokesperson flat out told me, "There's no story there"; I disagreed and exercised my right as a columnist to run the story I thought was there. The story here isn't as big as Steve Volk made it out to be -- but he really wanted to tell another story, which he worked into the spaces between the particulars of the lawsuit. It's about foodies in the pejorative sense of the term: The people who, when they speak of heirloom tomatoes, give off the air that they keep theirs parked next to the Bentley in their driveway. Only snobs like these, Volk implies, would care so much about a lawsuit filed by a restaruant owner whose pride has been wounded against the most influential restaurant critic in the region. Of course, you can pick up from some of the direct quotes that the people in the business -- including the restaurateur's suppliers -- don't share this view. But poor Craig LaBan, who goes to these extremes to preserve his value as the diner's advocate for no good reason (or so the story asserts), is simply another manifestation of the sickness that's afflicted this otherwise no-nonsense city. He even invokes fellow PhillieGulleteer Holly Moore -- not identified as such in the story -- in support of his thesis. Granted, he and Vadouvan in some sense post past each other, but I've never seen any sign that one considers the other somehow illegitimate for his food passions and preferences. Maybe it's Steve Volk who's making a bit too much of this fracas?

Yeah, but Plotkin still doesn't have a leg to stand on, because the damage was caused by the protected expression of opinion, not the inaccurate description of the steak. Edited to add: Maybe $1 in damages for the misrepresentation, but that's it.

How many years have the five Dillons stores in the Kansas City exurbs been open? (There were no street addresses beginning with "222xx" when I lived there. ) Dillons was strictly a small-town chain in my youth. Trivia: These stores mark the return of the Kroger Company to the Kansas City market. Kroger had been one of the area's major chains for several decades -- I still remember their ads touting "4,197 Everyday Low Prices!" -- until 1973, when they abandoned Kansas City and several other (unionized) markets in the Midwest and shifted their focus to the (non-union) Southeast. Demerits to Kroger for not at least trying to tailor the images on their Web site to the regional brand. I also see the chain has a store in Missouri now, in Pleasant Hill. I guess this is just the first of many to come.

Scottsbluff, Nebraska? Who knew? Besides Nebraskans, that is? I need to stop hanging out here so much and read more. I wonder whether Ruth Reichl lurks on this topic?

(emphasis added) NOOOOOOOOooooooo.....

There's been a flurry of activity on the street floor of my building at the 12th and Locust corner: Knock, the new restaurant owned by Bill Wood (the "Woody" formerly of Woody's, Philly's default gay bar), has had three consecutive dry-run private parties these past three nights. It officially opens for cocktails tomorrow and for dinner Saturday, according to Wood. I don't know whether Woody intends this place to be a "gay restaurant," but it is sure to be very gay-friendly. Given that many Woody's customers have expressed disappointment with changes made by that bar's new owners, I expect to see a decent crowd in the bar starting on Day One, even though he is running this as a restaurant first and foremost. Woody's had a reputation for serving very good pub fare and an excellent Sunday brunch, so I expect Knock (get it?) to offer no less. Woody's current owners, two brothers (one gay, one straight) who own two other popular gay clubs, one of which has a pretty good restaurant (Bump, mentioned upthread), thankfully haven't messed with the food. Yet.

I see you take a similar approach in hoarding mayonnaise to mine, nonblondeJamesBond. (Well, in your case, nonblondeJaneBond.) My jars accumulate because whenever Hellmann's goes on sale, I buy some. Usually, Unilever runs coupons in the Sunday newspapers (and Thursday Philadelphia Daily News) the week it goes on sale at one of the four biggest area chains--Acme, Genuardi's, ShopRite, Super Fresh--so I can add the coupon (which is always good on two jars) to the sale price. If there's no sale at Acme or Super Fresh, the coupon usually has an expiration date far enough in the future that I can hang on to it until there's a sale at one or the other. I believe the frugality gurus call this "making your pantry an extension of the supermarket shelf." I recall that Lori in PA, our South Central Pennsylvania foodblogger from last summer, did this on a grand scale. Remind me to point you in the direction of Gates Bar-B-Q so you can upgrade your barbecue sauce. But as I don't know how far Calico Rock is from Memphis, it may well be that better barbecue sauce is just a short drive away from you, and you won't need to order it online. Not quite directly on topic, but close enough I'll ask it here: Has anyone besides me tried Hellmann's canola oil mayo? Has anyone noticed a significant difference in taste or mouthfeel if they have? I sure didn't.

I just polished off the hot and sour soup (yum!) I took home from last night's meal. Roomie consumed the meatball, broccoli, and three-cup chicken on the spot when I walked in the door around 11 last night. I should have taken some of the pork stew too. Like Jeff, I don't like pig intestines either -- the smell of chitlins boiling turned me off to them almost completely, and their taste and texture finished the job. Or so I thought until I had this stew. I could down an entire pig intestine prepared this way. (What was it Kent Wang said in his foodblog about traditional Chinese cooking and soul food having much in common?) Those meatballs almost violated the B. Kliban Rule ("Never eat anything bigger than your head"). One nice aspect of last night's meal was the wide variety of tastes, textures, and levels of heat. However: It also showed us fiery food fiends as wimps inside. All of us who ate the soft-shell crabs loved them, but we were very careful not to eat the chopped hot peppers! I think our tongues were still smarting from our visit to Szechuan Tasty House many months ago. (The long hot peppers with the pork belly were fine.) All of the hot dishes were hot in the right way: They didn't assault you with heat up front but rather kicked your taste buds in the tail on the way down. I enjoyed meeting percyn, Diann (mad props for bringing that plum wine, which was a perfect liquid finish to the meal), jaredrakes and his SO for the first time. (That wine smackdown turned out to be half Riesling, half Gewurztraminer, BTW; SaxChik and I got our wires crossed at the Exton State Store on the way there. Aside on the location of the State Store: Just because they call it Main Street doesn't make it Main Street. Aside on the store itself: As big as 1216 Chestnut, but a higher percentage of its shelf space is devoted to wine, and they have a wider selection of fine wines to choose from than the Center City superstore.) And now that I've eaten here, you can't say I didn't warn you: Nearest SEPTA service: Bus Route 92 (no Sunday service) from King of Prussia Transportation Center or Malvern Regional Rail station to Pottstown Pike (Route 100) at the Exton Square Mall entrance; continue north on Pottstown Pike about 1/8 mile to the Fairfield Square Shopping Center on your left just past Swedesford Road. Or Bus Route 204 (seven days a week) from Paoli Regional Rail station to Pottstown Pike and Swedesford Road; the shopping center is at the intersection. But if you're smart, you'll bring a friend who drives along with you. He or she will thank you for it.

I think it's more the show LaBan makes of protecting his anonymity more than the desirability of remaining so that Stalberg was referencing with his "takes himself too fucking seriously" comment. That Zorro mask was part of the show, even if the haiku about the cheeseburger and the song it spawned clearly indicate LaBan has a sense of humor. Or wit. Or something like that. After all, as Volk said, if his picture's already appeared in two local publications, no matter how small their circulations, can you really say he is still anonymous? I told Steve Volk that I thought that Plotkin didn't have a leg to stand on, on the very First Amendment grounds he mentions in his story, but that indeed doesn't cover the inaccurate characterization of the steak he ate. And yet even here I don't think that Plotkin can seriously claim that it was the misrepresentation that caused him to lose business; I strongly suspect that customers stayed away because LaBan called his meal there "expensive and disappointing," his salad "soggy and sour" and his steak -- whatever cut it was -- "miserably tough and fatty." Somehow, I don't think the following correction would have mollified him: On those grounds, I stand by my unused original statement. However: Even if the piece is basically a plea for sympathy for Plotkin, I think Volk did touch on something important with his closing sentences: I see signs of both these uses of food on this board and elsewhere. I think it's important that we give primacy to the latter. --Sandy, wondering why philafoodie and I were mentioned but not quoted in the article; what are we emblematic of, other than maybe being addicted to food or online discussion boards and blogs?

Only 200 miles? Why, that's right around the corner! I'd have to make an appointment and see what Southwest is charging today. Funny thing is, this place has been here forever -- I used to pass it all the time on frequent Smith family jaunts to Lake Jacomo, Unity Village, Longview Farm, Lee's Summit, or Lake Placid (a small lake at the upper tip of the Ozarks about 20 miles S of Sedalia, closer to Ver-SALES). How many of you remember when Blue Parkway was US 50, not MO 350? I go back that far. LC's was definitely "undiscovered" back then. (My family hadn't discovered it either, for all we drove past it.) Some guy up this way--a Baptist preacher who founded a university; you may have heard of the place, a guy named Cosby went there--made tons of money for his school with a speech about "acres of diamonds in your own back yard." I guess that phrase could describe the relationship Kansas Citians had to their barbecue joints in the 1960s, when the respectable folks still ruled the roost: All these riches, and they went totally unappreciated except by their customers, because they weren't refined enough. Holly Moore is right: God bless Calvin Trillin for awakening his fellow Kansas Citians from afar.

Maybe you just haven't been to the right part of the US yet. Herr's has a Heinz Ketchup flavor chip in its product lineup. (Click on the link on the page to see a bag.) I see they also have some flavors I haven't encountered yet on shelves in my immediate area: Baby Back Ribs and Bacon and Horseradish. The latter is a dip-and-chip-in-one combo; but I wonder if the "Baby Back Ribs" chip will be interesting or a disappointment like their Philly Cheesesteak flavor.

Hugs 'n' kisses back atcha! I had a load of fun following you through your part of Spain, and it's a shame they won't allow jamon iberico into the United States. Which allows me to free-associate: To the person who expressed disgust that anyone would describe Boar's Head as the best of anything: Keep in mind that in much of the US, the supermarket deli counter (if indeed the supermarket has one) is what passes for charcuterie, and many Americans wouldn't get the distinction (I haven't yet really myself). And since really good deli meats are largely confined to specific parts of the Midwest and Northeast, most of the rest of the country has to calibrate by the premium brands with national distribution, Dietz & Watson and Boar's Head. Maybe if we described it as "barbecue without the heat," folks might understand better. If you can't answer this last question in the blog, I'd appreciate a PM if it's possible: How recently was the cathedral in Salamanca completed? I thought the astronaut in the stonework was cute, and I tend to get a chuckle out of current or contemporary or self-referential carvings in Gothic structures (like the sculpture of the architect holding a model of the Woolworth Building in its lobby, or the one of F.W. himself counting coins in the same space).

Those $15 cotton bags haven't made their way to any Philadelphia-area Whole Foods stores I'm aware of. Perhaps that's because WFM's management is familiar with this town's reputation for frugality, even if we do tip well in restaurants; I'm pretty certain that most Philadelphians don't suffer from the sort of status anxiety that would make them choose a $15 designer shopping tote over WFM's own $1 totes. BTW and FWIW, A&P's German parent is also aboard this bandwagon; my local Super Fresh has a display of 100% recycled post-consumer composite shopping bags in four different designs. Proceeds from the sale of these (99c each) benefit the Elizabeth Haub Foundation for Environmental Law and Policy, the American and Canadian affiliates of a German fund founded by the mother of Tengelmann's current CEO. The North American funds are named in her honor.

I see I haven't rummaged around nearly enough in RecipeGullet yet. I haven't gotten around to making the onion confit I asked about well over a year ago, but I just made the roasted cauliflower for the first time last week. Absolutely revelatory, and so simple! Does this trick work with broccoli too?

Since it's called "pasteurized prepared cheese product", the short answer is that substances other than cheese account for at least 51% of the product by weight. (There's a whole hierarchy of terms for cheese and cheese derivatives spelled out in the Code of Federal Regulations. I believe that the hierarchy from most cheese to least cheese runs: Cheese Process cheese Process cheese food Process (or prepared) cheese food product Process (or prepared) cheese product Process (or prepared) cheese spread and there may be one more level down. The 50% cheese line lies between "cheese food" and "cheese food product", I think.) However, milk is the first ingredient listed, followed by water, milkfat, whey, whey protein concentrate, sodium phosphate (the first I would not consider natural for cheese -- though real cheese doesn't have water added to it either), and milk protein concentrate, so it looks to me like Velveeta may well be mostly dairy ingredients. It's just not mostly cheese. Edited to add: Went to a party in the northern 'burbs yesterday, during which a clamor arose for some sort of Mexican dip from one of the guests. One of the hosts went into the fridge and handed me first a bag of Mexican four cheese blend from Costco (pray tell, what is "queso quesadilla"?), then a half-used-up two-pound box of Velveeta and a can of black beans. Guess which cheesy item I used first to make a dip (with half the can of black beans, some chili powder, and bottled Chi-Chi's salsa). Guess how long it lasted. Guess who made more with what remained of the You-Know-What and some of the four-cheese blend. Some of this remained at the time of my departure, having congealed into a cement-like substance as Velveeta dips usually do at room temperature. This does not harm the dip at all, as nuking it for about 30-45 seconds restores the gooey consistency.

1) probably accounts for a lot of the difference. Instead of production quotas, we have deficiency payments (guaranteed price floors for the producers). 2) Kraft is the largest, but far from the only, mass-market cheesemaker in the United States. Borden -- its longtime chief rival -- has a good share of the market for individually wrapped (IW) slices in parts of the country. Land O'Lakes, the Minneapolis-based dairy cooperative best known for its butter, is also a major cheese producer and competes with Kraft in both the dairy case (block natural cheese and IW slices) and at the deli counter (where Kraft is a player only through its subsidiary Hoffman's). Regional producers like Cabot in Vermont, Sargento and Frigo in Wisconsin, Heluva Good in New York State and Tillamook in Oregon, also increasingly sell cheese through supermarkets across the country; Cabot and Tillamook also produce outstanding aged Cheddars for the specialty market. You can get Cheddar from all of these producers in blocks or slices, and most of them make IW American slices as well.

I must be getting good at tuning some things out, for I walked right past those TD Banknorth carny barkers and didn't think much of it one way or the other. That, or I've become numb to commercial shills everywhere. (And speaking of things that are like kudzu, how about those ads?) There's already one big food-related sponsored event at the RTM now: the annual Pennsylvania Best Chef (Southeastern Region) competition, which is sponsored by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, Sysco Foodservice of Central Pennsylvania and a bunch of other food companies. And did any of us miss Scrapplefest this past spring?

That tally is down from six bottles of barbecue sauce, three of which dated to my last trip to Kansas City (June 2006, my 30th high school reunion*) and three of which came off local supermarket shelves. I am now down to one from each category: a bottle of essensia Southwestern Chipotle sauce -- not bad for a supermarket sauce (HFCS is the fifth ingredient listed and it does have a nice peppery taste that the syrup doesn't overwhelm) -- and a bottle of Gates' Extra Hot that I'm saving for a sauce-worthy occasion. I just polished off a bottle of Cattlemen's that I had purchased because I heard this sauce was pretty good (IIRC, this is or was a Sysco product, and I guess restaurant owners got such good feedback about it from customers that they decided to sell it at retail); it was syrupy sweet, not molasses-y sweet, and had no discernible kick to it. That bottle had been sitting in my fridge for nearly 18 months while I went through a bottle of Charlie Podebarac's Cowtown sauce (real good, nice vinegar-and-pepper tang) and a bottle of Fiorello's Jack Stack Spicy (a little sweeter than Cowtown, and unusual for KC spicy sauces in that it derived its heat from a hot pepper sauce). I finally decided to put it out of its misery on some roast pork I had cooked week before last. *I had a load of fun. Have I told any of you that I have one of the co-CEOs of Russell Stover Candies for a classmate, and the other (his brother) was in the class ahead of ours? We didn't travel in the same circles in high school (yes, there are cliques even in a class of only 52 boys), but he greeted me like a long lost friend when I returned for the reunion. I have a photo of him from the reunion in an online photo album; link gladly provided if anyone's curious.

So why did the market not offer Rick a lease? Was he generating too much income and adversely skewing the rents of the other less profitable sandwich purveyors? ← My understanding was more like: He was resisting the new lease structure and its associated requirements to the point where even after the basic points had been agreed to by all relevant parties, he still continued to object to details. Extrapolating from that assumption, my guess is that the management got exasperated and decided there was no reasoning with the guy, and by the time he was ready to play along with the others, they had thrown up their hands (literally). I'd like to toss out another question that is more relevant than it appears: Who does the Merchants' Association represent? Caution: Occam's razor may not deliver a clean shave here. The simplest answer -- "the merchants" -- may not accurately reflect how all merchants feel. I've heard comments that suggest that some merchants did not feel the association was addressing their day-to-day concerns but rather spending too much time fighting the new leases. I have gotten the impression as I've learned more about the whole standoff that the fresh-food purveyors and restaurants don't quite see eye-to-eye about how the market should be managed, and that at least some of those merchants in neither category are closer to the fresh-food folks (or maybe just those named Iovine) in their views. But once again, let me caution you that even this is too simple a statement.