MarketStEl

And one of the quiz questions pops up in the article: Dr. Utermohlen was the researcher who designed the test for the BBC Health & Science site.

So what hope do we with little more than countertop grills at our disposal have?

FWIW, my friend is a relatively recent arrival from DC, having lived here six months. Neither he nor I know whether the women were locals or visitors, and since they weren't the ones asking for directions, it's not relevant anyway, just as their sexual orientation was. (However, we queer folk tend to have our Gaydar on at all times, so it shouldn't be surprising that my friend noted it too in his telling.) And everything else I related besides the gin substitution happened to my friend, not those women, so it comes to you secondhand--from the source via me--no different than a typical newspaper story. Keeping in mind that every text has two authors, the writer and the reader, you could go back to my post above and conclude from what I wrote there that it was my friend, not the waitstaff, who had the attitude problem. I did accurately characterize the larger point, which was that a friend of mine had an unsatisfying experience there. I would think that after saying that, it would behoove me to provide details to the best of my ability so you could learn how he came to his judgement. All I had to go on to furnish those details was his own account of his own visit. I know that most observations posted here are first-hand, but if second-hand accounts are considered unreliable on their face, well, we may as well be done with the entire journalistic profession save for those reporters who live their stories or report on documents they uncover.

Thanks, Doddie, for inviting us to be voyeurs as you went about your life this week. I certainly enjoyed the show! Ramyeon noodles look an awful lot like Japanese ramen noodles, which have become ubiquitous in the US -- they're a staple of broke-graduate-student pantries everywhere because they're dirt cheap (a supermarket near me recently ran a 10-for-$1 special on two-serving packages) and versatile. I am fortunate enough to live down the street from a convenience store owned by a Korean fellow (there's a picture of it in my first foodblog), and that store stocks a decent selection of Korean products, including ramyun noodle soup in several flavors that the Japanese manufacturers don't make, including two or three hot and spicy varieties. I don't buy these that often because they're about 50% more expensive than the Japanese products at the supermarket, but I do love their flavors. The store also stocks an aloe vera drink on occasion as well as plenty of ginseng products to boost alertness and mental performance, including one whose label says that ex-Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin drinks it. Or that it's used by the Russian space program. Or something like that. I've been having problems staying awake and alert in the middle of the afternoon lately; maybe I need to start drinking these. According to a local discussion board I also frequent, the store is going to be replaced by a chain sandwich shop out of Chicago later this spring. Good luck, and happy eating!

"Budget-conscious food shopping" is something I've harped on occasionally here. I don't know whether I've been at all helpful in providing tips there, but I hope that when I have ventured off into this territory and you've been listening in, I've offered something useful to you. Some of the topics you raise in this post, IMO, are subjects that very much deserve full discussion on eG. Not everyone will be able to prepare the kinds of dishes we often see on the "Dinner!" thread in the time they have to cook. (I'm currently reading a book I got from Pontormo about cookbooks as agents of social change; it includes a chapter that argues that convenience foods were actually agents of women's liberation -- and it's an argument I understand.) I hope that the extra time you now have will allow you to raise them in the appropriate forums. Best of luck, and see you on the boards.

Wit' Whiz? Jim Edited to explain an inside joke. "Wit'" is South Philadelphia slang for "with". "Whiz" is short for Cheez Whiz Whiz is a fairly common topping for Philly cheese steaks. Jim ← A SEPTA ad from the campaign where I got the teaser photo for my first foodblog featured a trolley operator with the following quote: "There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who like wit. And those who like witout." "Wit" and "witout" properly refer to onions, though. The syntax is: "[optional:Mushroom] Cheesesteak, [Whiz|Provolone|American] [wit|witout]." (The Heineken brewery had an outdoor ad campaign locally that portrayed their beer as quintessentially Philadelphian. Coming as it does in bottles that are almost the color of Eagles uniforms, this was not a difficult stretch to imagine. One of the ads featured a bottle and the legend, "Cheesesteak, Heineken with." Nice try, but that would have been one soggy cheesesteak.)

Cabot sells a nice sharp cheddar, presliced. Judging by how nicely it melts, I would guess that it is process cheese, but without the blandness of basic American. Jim ← Cabot does produce both process Cheddar varieties (the flavored Cheddars you find in the regular dairy case of your supermarket) and a process American, but I can tell you, having used them, that the sliced Cheddar is not a process cheese--or if it is, it is made without emulsifiers; otherwise, you wouldn't have been able to find this cheese at Whole Foods, which used to carry it. Looking through the Cabot Web site to find out more about the sliced Cheddar, I did stumble across a new specialty cheese that we should tell the folks on the Potato Chip thread about: Cabot Harpoon IPA Cheddar Cheese That's right, beer cheddar! Outside of Massachusetts and New Hampshire (and the Vermont creamery, of course), this variety is available only at Trader Joe's.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Pass the wet ramen noodle, please. I must still be semi-senile from a massive chocolate overdose.

I'm catching up after two days offline, learning new tricks for my trade and enjoying the atmosphere--and the food--at a luxury resort hotel in "The Sweetest Place on Earth." (I've posted photos of the last day's lunch over on the "Lunch!" topic in the Cooking forum.) I must say that I am enjoying the sightseeing as much as I am the food. Since much of what follows will pertain to the former and is OT for anything but a foodblog, I will start with comments on the food first. I notice that you rely on very fresh ingredients for everything you cook, and that your use of convenience products is limited to flavorings and seasonings. Is this the norm for most Koreans still? Is this a "luxury you can afford" due to lack of competing pressures on your time? Do you make the time to cook properly regardless what else you do? Or are these dishes just easy to prepare? (Most of them look it.) Now, on to the architecture and other stuff -- but please note the comment at the end of this post. Restaurant architecture in Korea looks a lot more varied than its US counterpart does. I don't recall seeing too many artificial grottoes like the one below over here: and with the exception of certain fast-food seafood chains, tricked-up Cape Cod houses usually house banks, not tofu palaces, in the US. (And no self-respecting bank would be caught dead with this much fluorescent signage on its exterior.) Love that rock roadside sign, BTW. Are naturalistic stone treatments a common architectural element in Korea? Thanks for the explanation, nakji. It appears to me, based on an admittedly small sample size, that some Korean emigres have brought that style of entertainment over to the States with them. Somewhere on the Pennsylvania board is a chronicle of a fabulous Korean pig-out that KatieLoeb, Greg Ling, the head chef at Django, a couple of other people whose names escape me now and I had at a Korean restaurant in a strip mall in Olney, followed by a round of singing in one of the restaurant's karaoke rooms (no karaoke photos, sorry!). Karaoke in American bars/restaurants is usually not a quasi-private, family-room-style affair; if it's that experience one wants, one usually has a living room or family room in which to have it. I think it would help create a sense of community too, because you'd get to know your neighbors. Its so easy to cozy up at home and never get out into the world, and here, people are doing that more and more. Apparently a new trend in high-end remodels is to put a mini-fridge and coffee maker in the master bathroom. I guess that way one doesnt even have to face the kids and pets in the morning. (Not to say that its a fantasy I couldnt buy into .... ) ← Here's something funny for you, Kouign: You could hardly find someone who is more urban than I. I live in an apartment building and do a fair bit of socializing outside it in neighborhood clubs or at other activities. However, the people I know best and socialize with most are not my neighbors -- I am acquainted with only two of the roughly 20 other people who live on my floor and know most of the rest only by sight. In my entire building (90 apartments housing roughly 160 people), I am acquainted with only four other neighbors, three of whom I know because I met them in another setting outside the building. (One of those three met me because he came up to me in a nearby bar and mentioned that I never seemed to say hello to him. ) Rather, my main social circle consists of people who live elsewhere in town -- in many cases outside my neighborhood -- and come to some common "third place" like a bar or clubhouse to socialize and entertain one another. I'd say more on this, but this is a foodblog, not an urbanism forum. PM me if you're curious to hear more. Dejah - here's the actual page where I wrote it 29 years ago. Yes, I still have the notebook. ← You had a great deal of talent at a very early age -- that teacher was right to encourage you. Your career path as a writer in some ways parallels mine. I guess not all of us were destined to write the Great [Fill-In-The-Blank] Novel or Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism or literature. That doesn't mean we aren't happy in our work. I know I am, and it looks to me like you are (were?) too. (Confidential to mizducky: Somewhere in a file cabinet drawer around this house, I still have the Adams B-41 Comment Book, including a rather arch comment you made after a classmate of mine came up from Princeton to visit me over a weekend and managed to rub you and most of my roommates the wrong way.) Now for the comment: This blog is almost at an end, and the only fridge we've seen so far is one in a restaurant that held beverages. I realize that you've given us a wealth of visual and literary delights on this blog, but some traditions must be upheld. I've shown you mine, now you show me yours.

Since I tend to surf only a few of the eG Forums regularly, I know I've missed some wonderful and gut-wrenching contributions from you, but what of yours I have seen speaks volumes. It's an ill wind that blows no good, and the good that will come from this is that you will be a more frequent contributor to the conversation. Maybe I will learn to love okra in its unaccompanied state someday (I tend to at least combine it with tomatoes when I prepare it). Okay, fried okra is plenty tasty. And yes, cake is better than pie--pumpkin pie excepted. Good luck, and I hope you continue to maintain your good humor through what is obviously going to be a long, slow, painful recovery that may never be complete.

Another of my sporadic contributions to the ongoing chronicles of What We Cooked (or, in the case of lunch, What We Ate Regardless Who Cooked It). I'll just begin by saying that after today and yesterday, if I don't see another chocolate anything for the next month, I won't complain. That's because I've spent the past two days at the Hotel Hershey, a luxurious resort facility in The Town That Chocolate Built, Hershey, Pa. The College and University Public Relations Association of Pennsylvania holds its annual conference here, and this was my first time in attendance. We wrapped up the affair with lunch in the hotel's famed Circular Dining Room. When Milton S. Hershey built the Hotel Hershey in 1932-33 as a way to provide employment for his workers during the Depression, he insisted on building the hotel's main dining room on a semicircular floor plan. As a hotel brochure explained it, Hershey noted that if you tip a maitre d' poorly, you often get seated in an out-of-the-way corner of the restaurant. He didn't want that to happen here, so he built a restaurant with no corners--and a panoramic view of the hotel's garden terrace and the Hershey Gardens beyond. The lunch buffet was fabulous! I'm sorry I didn't get more pictures; I felt a little self-conscious working in shots of the food while fellow CUPRAPers were helping themselves to it. "These for eGullet?" my Widener Law colleague Mary Allen asked me as I moved in to shoot this: Seared Pink Snapper with Thyme Beurre Blanc I also had some of this: Roast Angus Beef with Sauce Chasseur and this: Assorted Cheeses: Blue, Pepper Jack, Brie but not this: Assorted cold cuts and sandwich cheeses Instead, I also had a tangy chilled crabmeat and seafood salad that I thought was even better than the snapper, roast turkey breast with okra remoulade, fusilli with mixed vegetables and cream sauce, and <mumble>, a mushroom-seafood bisque. Finally, there was dessert. Clockwise from extreme right: Fruit medley, mini chocolate cream tarts, chocolate cheesecake, chocolate tarts topped with dark chocolate wafers, chocolate tarts with pretzels dipped in white icing, <mumble>, chocolate bread pudding (in chafing dish), chocolate mousse (behind plant), chocolate mousse tarts with shaved dark chocolate. I had the chocolate bread pudding and the chocolate cream tarts. As if that weren't enough chocolate, every dessert we were served at the other meals at the conference incorporated chocolate, there were mini-Hershey bars (milk, Krackel, Mr. Goodbar, Special Dark) in bowls at every table at the conference sessions, and the housekeeping staff placed four Kisses on your pillow at nightly turndown. I was surprised that they didn't serve us mole poblano chicken at some meal. I'd totally do this again -- same time, next year. I'm going to start saving now so I can afford the chocolate facial and wrap at the hotel's spa.

I think there's general and widespread agreement on the importance and value of Foobooz. PhilaFoodie is also useful and interesting.

Where are the anchovies? Welcome to the world of fashion, V., where function rides in the back of the bus and one-upmanship is in the driver's seat. My roomie told me recently of the reaction he got from a friend at a local club to the L.L. Bean winter jacket he was wearing. "L.L. Bean? I wore L.L. Bean...five years ago," the friend told him, with the obvious purpose of showing my roomie that he was so past it it was painful. Now, both my roomie and I wear L.L. Bean because their stuff keeps you warm and is built to last. Those who understand the function an item (or technique, as in this case) performs will (we hope) be less inclined to go with the whims of the trendy. (Or as I responded to the roomie after he related this incident: "That's the beauty of Brooks Brothers. It's never in fashion, so it's never out of fashion.") But since (as with the wine showoffs described in that Washington Post article on the new BYOB thread) many people engage in activities like this mainly in order to meet their need for status validation, you're going to have things like people declaring foam over when it will never be over. The fact that the technique is of very recent provenance for a lot of foods made it trendy. It will last because it performs a real function, as you demonstrated. The trendoids will move on and everyone else will continue to enjoy it.

Sorry I'm late. By the time I got up to speed with reading the timetable, this blog had already left the station. But I'm glad I made it. My first burning question concerns your home town: You say you live in a small town of only 7,000? Sure you didn't lose a zero? It looks to me like your apartment complex alone could hold 7,000 people. I couldn't imagine high-rise apartments like those in any US town that small, unless it was a small suburb of a large city. My second question just struck me after looking at all those huge blocks of tofu at your farmers' market. Just how is tofu made? Everything looks delicious, and your kids are adorable. As I haven't hung out on the Dinner! thread in quite a while, this is as much an introduction to you as to your cooking and your community. Blog on!

You and Jeff L are right. That fact was completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand, and my friend included it only by way of observation. However, I only post about the locations of gay bars when I might want somebody to find one. And queens do get into Oscar Night a little more than straight bar patrons do, IMO. By legal standards, this indeed would not stand up in a court of law, but where do you think newspaper feature columnists get much of their material from? My only sin according to the standards of that profession was in not calling the restaurant to get their side of the story. (Back in my Boston days, I wrote a similar essay for the now-defunct Allston-Brighton Citizen Item about a woman who was upset over a sweetheart-deal sale of a public building to a local university and who tried to confront the politician who arranged the deal at a campaign fundraiser. I called the pol's office to get their side of the story, but all they said was "There's no story there," a view with which I disagreed. So I ran the story entirely from her point of view, noting only that the pol declined to comment for the article. Again, not admissible in a court of law, but it does provide information on a matter of public interest -- and it presumes that the reader is intelligent enough to add sufficient grains of salt if he or she feels they are needed. So it is here as well. I'll borrow the Fox News slogan here: "I report -- you decide.") This one anecdote certainly won't keep me from checking out Osteria, especially in light of all the other comments about it on this board. Nor would I suggest that it keep any of you from doing so. Maybe, and I tend to have little patience for people who can't figure out the Philadephia street grid either. But unlike the numbered streets, not everyone has memorized the sequence of east-west streets or knows which street is six blocks north of City Hall. (Keep in mind also that some major cross streets--Spring Garden [edited to add: 550 N] is one--are actually midblock streets on the numbering grid; because of this, simply counting six blocks off heading north from City Hall would have left the patron at least one block shy of the restaurant--two if the traveler counts Cherry Street erroneously.) Had the waitress said "Broad and Wallace," it probably would have prevented my friend from asking the question, and it's also true, as I pointed out in my first foodblog, that Philadelphia street signs include the house numbering coordinates. But I wouldn't put this question in the same category as asking a SEPTA driver "Does this bus go to 69th Street?" when the destination sign clearly reads "69th St Terminal". It may show the diner as a clueless newbie, but it should be answered courteously if asked. (Edited further to add: And yet I may have to allow your diss of my friend's orienteering skills. I had to tell him how to locate Market East Station the other day, and he lives about three blocks from me.) I'll post my own comments after I've visited. And as I pointed out above, the lesbian reference was gratuitous here, and you all rightly called me on it. My friend only mentioned it because he saw something (the gin-switching) that later served to reinforce his own sour impression--all the other experiences related here were his own.

Reminder: I've proposed rescheduling the Fairmount trip for Saturday, March 24. So far, no PMs yet. Is everyone busy on that day?

This should tell you something: Lately when I've gone to the supermarket, I've only been able to find Coke Zero in 2-liter bottles. The 12-packs of 12-ounce cans seem to fly out the door when Coke products are on sale. I'd love to see it on the shelves of my local stores in 20-ounce 6-packs. No such luck yet.

Agreed with most of what's upthread, but there are a few things, like pureeing vegetables, that a hand (immersion) blender makes so much easier and that can't really be done with a hand mixer.

Got a dissenting opinion from a friend this evening who dined there last weekend. He noticed a lesbian couple seated next to him at the bar, one of whom had asked the bartender for Bombay Sapphire and was served Bombay instead. According to him, when the woman noticed the difference and commented on it, the bartender dismissed her concern, saying "They're the same thing." (At least the bartender did not charge her for Sapphire.) The bartender, as he described him, also didn't really know much about the food; when my friend asked what was in a (mumble -- a seafood bisque? Something liquid with seafood), he was told something like "Shrimp, and mushrooms, and other stuff -- you'll like it." He pressed for more detail and got a similar reply. When the pizza he ordered arrived, he told the bartender that it was burnt; the bartender urged him to try it anyway -- twice. And when he called to ask where the restaurant was located relative to City Hall, the staffer who answered the phone didn't know and (again, as he related to me) sounded annoyed when he asked her if she could find out. In sum, it sounds like he encountered Waitstaff With Attitude. If the place is overstaffed, this problem may eventually solve itself. But consider this a data point for the overall set.

Two leading suppliers of bread to local sandwich shops are Amoroso's Baking Company and Villotti-Pisanelli Baking Company. Amoroso's is on South 55th Street in Southwest Philly, right by the R3 tracks, which means I see the place every morning. Villotti-Pisanelli is on 11th between Fitzwater and Catherine in Bella Vista. Neither of these outfits' bread holds a candle to Sarcone's, two blocks east of V-P on South 9th Street at the northern tip of the Italian Market. However, they are better known as supplier to the area's best hoagie shops, including their own deli just up 9th from the bakery, at the corner of Fitzwater. And best of all, unlike the other two places, you can buy their bread at retail direct from the bakery, which is housed next to the retail store on 9th Street. If you want to do that, though, plan to visit very early in the day, as their bread sells out quickly. (Edited to add: Make that "unlike at Amoroso's." Vilotti-Pisanelli also has a retail store at the bakery that sells surplus bread. The bread Sarcone's sells at its store is baked fresh that day--that's why it sells out so fast.) You can probably find Amoroso's bread at a supermarket near you, as they have distributors from coast to coast. It's not the greatest bread, but outside Philly, it's probably among the best you will be able to find for this purpose.

Highest professional standards, I see. Well, it is a community weekly, though generally regarded as one of the best of its kind in the state--but that's mainly on the strength of its news reporting, not its criticism.

That's one degree of separation too many, Andrew. And most of us on this board could probably construct our own networks that cross the various sub-communal boundaries (e.g., gayfolk and foodgeeks) with no more than two degrees. As I think I said on my first visit to M, I fully intend to drop in on Katie at happy hour, which sounds like a really great deal (half-price drinks 4:45-6 pm, and all the stuff they stock at M is top shelf). However, to do so, I'd have to either leave Widener at an absurdly early hour or convince a friend or colleague to drive me in and then figure out where to park. Though it is interesting that I don't seem to run into any of you in the normal course of my week, and I think I get around. About as close as I get is Paul Steinke, who I bump into on roughly every fourth visit to the RTM, including yesterday.

How far afield from the Convention Center are you two willing to travel? I would also try to persuade her to try Szechuan Tasty House if I were you and in the area, but if that fails, you certainly don't lack for options. In the 1100 block of Walnut, two blocks south of the center's front door, you have both the Caribou Cafe, an excellent French bistro, and Moriarty's, home of the best Buffalo wings in Philly and good pub fare. Over on Drury Street--the little alley just south of Chestnut that runs from 13th to Juniper--is McGillin's Old Ale House, the city's oldest continuously operating restaurant. Lots of old-time character, great beer list, and food that goes well with the beer. (There are photos of this place in my second foodblog.) You might also want to try Vintage, the wine bar and restaurant on 13th below Sansom, which has good light fare as well as lots of interesting wines by the glass. These should do for starters, I hope. I'm sure others will chime in.

I'm in the middle of Herr's country, and I will second your opinion of Herr's barbecue potato chips. When it comes to plain chips, though, Herr's are clearly inferior to Utz, which you can also get here but not where you live. Kettle Spicy Thai and Cheddar Beer chips -- yum!

The South Philly review has no media clout, that being said it is still possible for the publication to have a knowledgeable writer. Her style is antiquated and doesnt reflect current eating trends or requisite food knowledge so it seems. Critics are only as good as thier worst reviews. ← Nota bene: The South Philly Review and Philadelphia Weekly are sister publications and have been since PW predecessor Welcomat was established in 1971. (Edited to add: The Review was founded in 1948.) My guess is that the editors of the former know their audience, for better or for worse, every bit as well as the editors of the latter do. The Welcomat (which was founded as a community weekly and evolved into an opinion forum under longtime editor Dan Rottenberg; I wrote a few essays for that paper not long after arriving here in 1982) changed as its audience did--or perhaps more accurately, changed to attract a different audience. That audience doesn't yet live in South Philly, though it is moving in and has pretty much completely colonized Bella Vista. Unfortunately for those readers, South Street is the demarcation line between the territories of the SPR and PW.