MarketStEl

Your Eastern butter dish must have a shorter lid than mine. You can't get much more East Coast than Philadelphia, and yet we can get one brand of butter in Western sticks. Keller's Creamery of Harleysville, Pa., makes and packages its butter in both styles, and the Western-style packages of Keller's butter -- which the SuperFresh near me labeled "modern quarters" (as opposed to the more common "Elgin quarters" in this part of the country) -- are much more commonly found in this area. The Keller's "modern" sticks fit fine in my Elgin-quarter-sized butter dish with lid.

$5 and $6 dosas. Be fun to go as a group. They have 7 or 8 kinds. Over on chowhound some folks loved their buffet. I can't get excited about buffets. But ever since that article in the Times (From Mumbai to Midtown) a year or two ago I've been mad for dosas and chaat. I may make every tuesday or wednesday a dosa day. Thursday is tiffin day. Friday is tiffin leftovers. Makes up for not having married an Indian woman. 6pm Tuesday, anyone? ← Not this week -- I gotta save my money for the annual CUPRAP (College and University Public Relations Association of Pennsylvania) conference in Hershey starting on Wednesday. I don't think the registration fee includes all meals. Maybe the following week, or the week after that?

This just in: With all but two of the confirmed participants unable to make it tomorrow, I think it best that this excursion be rescheduled. Y'all wanna check your calendars for March 24, same time, same itinerary?

The senior citizens club that my grandparents used to participate in used to get surplus cheese occasionally. Grandma was given some, and since she and Grandpa are lactose intolerant, they gave it to Mom. It tasted like salty, yellow, greasy wax. The same stuff the schools used back then (late 80s, early 90s). ← I'm guessing that the government must have used more than one producer for their surplus cheese. My mom's sister worked for a mental-health agency in Kansas City and had access to undistributed USDA surplus commodities, so we occasionally got big 5-pound loaves of government American cheese. It was every bit as good as the Kraft American we bought at the supermarket.

Given how you've described your fiscal condition, Neuronix, maybe New Samosa might be a place you should check out. Again, perhaps a group inspection is in order.

I love playing with the language ("Hospitality Management Students Offered Swiss Stake" was the headline I gave a news release about Widener's semester-abroad program at Les Roches in Switzerland), but Bruni was masturbating with this review. Not having read the Bruni thread on the New York board, I don't know whether this review was par for the course for him or over the top. But if this was representative of his style in any way, I can see why he is less highly regarded in New York than LaBan is here. The article's not about you, Frank. It's about the place you're reviewing.

bump up... Just a friendly reminder that we're on for tomorrow, March 3. The excursion starts at 2 at Illuminare. Since it looks like we need to make Osteria when it opens, we may be wolfing down the pizza at Rembrandt's. Unless, that is, everyone's comfortable with the prospect of eating at the bar at Osteria.

Besides the waitresses, you mean?

Seas that are realy old and no longer flow. ← So how many million years ago was there a sea where southern Kansas is now?

Thank you for the backstory, Steven. I do have one question: Temple had glory days in football? I remember Cosby busting Temple football's chops in a comedy routine called "TV Football" off one of his late-1960s/early-1970s albums. As he put it, "It was always 1st and 49 on our own 1." 1) Why visit only when you have guests from out of town? Or do you live too far away to make it a regular place for grocery shopping? 2) Definitely not Jewish deli, either, but what about Spataro's? 3) If you have an owner who is committed to giving his customers the best, as Steven is, then informed critical conmments can be useful feedback, as he recognizes.

No stores east of Troost, or north of 47th and west of State Line Road, right?

Wonder if there are any stats on traffic or changes in sales volume at State Stores in the Southeast? If that $2 million ad budget can be shown to have measurably increased traffic or sales or both in the region where the Chairman's Selection program has had the most impact, it might suggest that that $2 million was money well spent -- especially if the increased revenue generated thereby exceeded the amount spent on ads. But that would mean that the PLCB was being run like a business, which would be curious to learn such things. It seems here that the only thing current PLCB management is interested in is discrediting the board's former chairman, or at minimum diminishing or dissing his accomplishments. If it weren't for the fact that the PLCB does generate serious revenue for the Commonwealth, I'd say that this resembled academic politics, of which it has been said that they are so vicious because the stakes are so low. There seems to be plenty of petty behavior going on here.

You mean this new Samosa? Maybe we should meet there sometime. BTW, over on Phillyblog, there's news that the convenience store up the street from me at 12th and Walnut is closing, to be replaced by the first Pennsylvania outpost of the Potbelly Sandwich Works. Somehow, the discussion managed to veer into the subject of hair loss before getting back on track.

Recall earlier comments of mine to the effect that the PLCB is a big issue only in the Southeast? I think this backs up my point. (Although he did say "eastern Pennsylvania." I would be interested to see a breakdown of sales at Southeastern Pennsylvania, Lehigh Valley and Northeast Pennsylvania stores for "Chairman's Selections." I'll wager that the lion's share of sales volume for this program comes from the Southeast, and that it is probably as much as or greater than sales for the other two eastern regions combined.)

Hey, I'm game whenever anyone wants to sing for (or after) their supper, funds permitting. Edited to add: Speaking of singing, we have a concert coming up in two weeks. I'd love to see some--or all--of you in the audience. If lancastermike can make it (I think he and his wife are planning to), so can you.

"greater Annapolis" It's the best-sited and most charming of the state capitals I've visited, and quite likely the most charming of all 50, bar none. But if you can get to downtown Baltimore from there on a Maryland Transit Administration bus, which I believe you can, then you're a suburb, I'm afraid. (Unless I have the relationship between Annapolis and Baltimore backward, much as Harry S Truman would insist I had the relationship between Independence and Kansas City backward.) Oh, and we don't have to have all of these places open 24/7. Until 10 pm weeknights and midnight weekends will do just fine for most of them; after midnight on the weekend, we're probably too plastered anyway to appreciate anything finer than the Midtown II or 13th Street Pizza.

Could someone please post to this thread when the discussion is available on the archive site? My interest in the three-part Frontline documentary "News War," on the challenges facing the journalistic profession and the newspaper business, trumped my interest in the ongoing conversation. Part Three of the documentary aired at the same time as the discussion on the East Coast.

As my partner has high blood pressure and my roommate is on dialysis, I cannot cook with salt beyond small amounts any more. I've gotten used to doing such things as using Old Bay in its place, even though it changes the nature of the dish I'm preparing. (The roomie with the failed kidneys means that I can't use common salt substitutes like potassium chloride either.) But there are times when I would like to salt my own dishes. I buy coarse rather than fine sea salt because, as Fat Guy noted, it doesn't matter what size the grains are when you're using salt as an ingredient in cooking. But it does matter at the table, and there, a salt mill is IMO a convenient way to get the grain size down--certainly more convenient than a mortar and pestle. Put me down as a "not stupid" vote too.

The first free restaurant meal I ever ate was at a Shakey's across from the KU Medical Center in KCK. Said Shakey's was also a 5-minute drive from Pembroke-Country Day, where I attended high school. Seniors and juniors in good academic standing had off-campus privileges, and this place was popular with my classmates for its pizza buffet on Tuesdays at lunchtime. It probably won't surprise you to hear that a popular stunt kids pulled all the time went by the name 'dine 'n' dash.' I don't think I need to explain to you what it entailed; suffice it to say that the walls of the senior class candy store were papered with restaurant checks. The variant on this at Shakey's was for one boy in a large group to purchase the buffet, take his plate, and go through the line, then hand the plate off to the others in his party. The first time I went there, I went with a classmate, and both of us paid for our plates. A bunch of others didn't. Management chose this day to crack down on the plate-sharing. They kicked all the freeloaders out of the place and gave those of us who paid for our own plates a voucher good for a free lunch buffet at a future date. I guess that virtue isn't always its own reward -- sometimes they give you extra recognition anyway.

This is dangerous. Kettle Brand chips are already great, and now they're experimenting with flavorings. (I noticed some other new varieties on my last foray into Whole Foods.) Returning the favor: If you're looking for this kind of taste and crunch on a budget, you should check out the Archer Farms line at Target. Great quality at an equally great price. (You can find some products in this line, including the chips, at regular Target stores as well as Super Target.)

I certainly can. Recall my first foodblog? As "process cheese spread", Velveeta can contain as little as 51% real cheese. The liquids (water, milk) and emulsifiers added to make up the other 49% give it that superior meltability. As I said about American cheese upthread, Velveeta is what it is. And what it is is unnatural. If you don't have a problem with that, it's perfect for the tasks it's called upon to perform, which usually have something to do with melting for sauces or dips.

Yeah, hand me the knife right now. No, not for that -- so I can slice some tomatoes to put on this hoagie. Completely forgot about Pandora's Lunchbox. And they are now open at hours when I'm around the neighborhood. They do much more than pizza well, though. I also see the vegetarian Indian restaurant, Samosa, has also reopened under new ownership that I assume hails from the Caribbean because the sign over the door states that the place now serves "East and West Indian Vegetarian Cuisine." Vegetarian Caribbean fare? This I gotta see.

Wish I had seen this then. I think I may even know the bartender in question. Lula's friendliest bartender -- who was the place's "rainbow connection" (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) in its final days -- landed there and I think works weekends. Edited to add (I always seem to do this, don't I? Maybe I should get in the habit of hitting "Preview" before "Submit"): To Jennifer Hudson: You go, girl!

I'm not sure which one Ducksredux is referring to, but there is a Turkish place called Konak on Vine between 2nd and 3rd. http://www.konakturkishrestaurant.com/ I don't consider myself a connoisseur of Turkish cuisine, however, I did go there one night with a Turk friend of mine, and he's quite fond of the place. They have a $2 Tuesday deal there, where you can sample a wide array of small dishes @ $2/plate. __Jason ← I know it's not that one. I live at 12th and Locust, and Jason obviously lives in the vicinity, as the places he had mentioned upthread are on either South 10th or South 11th between Sansom and Spruce.

I miss the actual Bob's Big Boy statue. I loved seeing it and, up until the point where I was actually made to eat the food, I always asked my parents to take me there. The food, at least by the time I got to eat there when the place was on its last legs, was horrendous. I'm sure the food was good at some point, but by the time I got there, after much begging, it was really bad and went right along with their really bad service. But I really miss seeing the Big Boy alongside major thoroughfares and the now seemingly sad excitement that the sightings elicited. ← HMS Host (formerly Host Marriott, the company that got the restaurants, the institutional contracts and all its former parent's debt when Marriott Corporation split itself in two; Marriott kept the valuable stuff, namely, the hotels and the land they sat on) owns the rights to the name "Bob's Big Boy" and its trademarks; you will still find "Bob's Big Boy" restaurants at turnpike service plazas they manage or operate concessions in. One of these is the Maryland House on the John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway (I-95) outside Bel Air, Md. Unfortunately, it wasn't open when we rolled into there at 2 a.m. this past Sunday morning. In the South, I think these restaurants were called Shoney's. Isn't Shoney's still around? No, but I think that White Castle has remained very consistent and has not declined over the decades. Chicken Delight was obviously national. I remember that slogan and jingle too. There was exactly one Chicken Delight in the entire Kansas City metro area -- at 43d and Main streets in Kansas City.* Yet it advertised all the time on television in the '60s. The thing I remember about Godfather's -- which I wasn't around for when it got started -- was that when the Clinton health-care proposal was being hacked to death by a thousand cuts, the CEO of Godfather's Pizza -- a black man, BTW -- was the point person against whenever TV news programs decided to do pieces examining the plan's impact on small businesses. His counterpart on the pro side was often Judy Wicks, proprietor of the White Dog Cafe here in Philadelphia. She usually said at some point in the discussion that all the plan's approval would mean is that she might have to raise her prices by a dollar. I know this chain wasn't strictly an East Coast deal. We used to go to one at 61st and Prospect all the time when I was a kid. The Kansas City stores sure didn't sell fried chicken. Now, if you want to truly get regional: There have to be some Missourians and Kansans on this board old enough to remember Smaks, right? And that talking-seal mascot they used in their TV ads? (I think he was called "Smaky".) Smaks was Kansas City's homegrown answer to McDonald's. For those of you who are familiar with Winstead's -- either by having eaten there or having read Calvin Trillin wax rhapsodic about it -- Smaks hamburgers were as thin as Winstead's and as greasy as Winstead's but nowhere near as tasty as Winstead's. And then there was the hamburger chain that led to a great deal of gender confusion on my part. That's right, Sandy's. They only operated on the Kansas side of the metropolitan area, and I think the chain as a whole had stores only in the western part of the Central Plains. Their signs featured a Scottish lass dressed in a kilt, which takes the gender confusion one step further, for kilts are male items of clothing. *Quick usage lesson for those of you who haven't heard me expound on this: Kansas City is in Missouri. Kansas City, Kansas is in Kansas. I learned this weekend from another expat--one of five I ran into at the same afterparty at the Capitol City Brewing Company in DC--that Kansas City Kansans now refer to their hometown as "the 'dotte" (truncation of Wyandotte County, which is now coterminous with the City of Kansas City, Kansas).