MarketStEl

I definitely want to be on hand for this one. Please to not be posting details on time/participation in posts that disappear.... --Sandy, practicing broken English

There are a few dozen jokes waiting patiently to be made here, of course. But I wonder whether this might be the first in a series of significant public declarations stating what a lot of the coffee geeks have been saying for years about Starbucks. Let's not forget that the speedy rise of Starbucks was built largely on a marketing campaign predicated on the assumption that their brew was better quality than everything else available at chains. McDonalds is many things, but stupid about marketing ain't one of them. If Holly Moore weighs in on this, he'll likely remind us that McDonalds was built on providing quality eating experiences to the masses when most people thought it was impossible. If nothing else, the report certainly made me want to try McD's brew at the place down the street from my house. But what do I know, given that I've been known to grab an "inoffensive" Dunkin' Donuts cuppa now and then. ← Consumer Reports' assessment of Starbucks coffee mirrors my own. And has it been only the coffee geeks who have been dissing "Charbucks" in this fashion? I knew that McDonald's improved its coffee blend in the middle of last year. There was a big ad campaign promoting their new Premium Coffee at the time. (Come to think of it, they've been running a promotion around these parts very recently, where their coffee is 69c no matter what size you order. Given what CR says about it, that makes it a real bargain. I think Dunkin' Donuts' coffee is better than "inoffensive," though. (And their current ad campaign, featuring a guy who heads to a convenience store for "coffee" -- with air quotes as he [and everyone else in the ad] says "coffee" -- is clever.)

Thousands for the processed stuff you mean? Or did you mean for thousands of years we've eaten bread? Bread, yes a long long time. White bread no not so long. Hundreds of years might even be an exageration. ← I guess a distinction must be made between white bread and bread that is white. My "thousands of years" comment referred to the traditional breads, which obviously were not made from whole grain flour, for otherwise they would be darker in color and have a sweeter and nuttier flavor. You are correct that "enriched bread" -- the stuff most of us think of when we use the term "white bread" (often as a pejorative) -- is a 20th century invention. And, of course, the process of "enriching" it is what I referred to in that earlier post: Adding back what was removed in processing. Though I must wonder where this variety of wheat that produces a white or off-white bread without removing the hull from the grain comes from. (This variety is the source of the flour used in those new "whole grain white" breads.) Moving back to the larger topic: I think the basic problem that has some people exercised in this discussion cannot be solved without a far more sweeping and radical transformation of society than is possible to discuss in this forum or maybe even conceive as actually happening. That is because you cannot address the needs and desires of large masses of people with small-scale methods. Unlike with computers, where you can harness millions of microprocessors in tandem to perform the work of a single huge supercomputer, it seems that millions of small, independent organic farms cannot feed billions of people adequately, and they certainly can't at a level people in Western societies have become accustomed to. On second thought, maybe the computer analogy is not totally inapt, for what it seems has to happen is that farms are not only consolidated, but networked--individual farmers contract with large processors/distributors. The point remains that many of the other values some in this discussion have advocated are of necessity diminished or discarded as the quantity of people served rises. Put another way, unless we broke up the United States into several hundred small countries, Earthbound Farms was inevitable. Another thing I think people have missed is that even the industrial revolution in food production offered benefits as well as disadvantages. I'm currently reading a book Pontormo generously sent me, Secret Ingredients: Race, Gender and Class at the Kitchen Table, one of a spate of books in which (mostly feminist) scholars look at literature about food and cooking and discover all kinds of social ferment buried among the recipes. The first chapter of the book makes a claim that I think many will find startling: Convenience foods were a steppingstone on the path to women's liberation. Articles in women's magazines praising the time savings these new canned and processed foods offered stressed how they freed women to pursue other avenues for (self-)development; readers who might have felt guilty about the lack of creative input their preparation involved could have that guilt assuaged through recipes incorporating the new convenience foods into other dishes; and finally, books like Peg Bracken's bestselling I Hate to Cook Book struck a blow against the tethering of women to home and hearth, a move those new foods made possible. Those of us here who are pursuing artisanally produced and/or organic foods for their virtuous qualities are IMO still a minority of all cooks and consumers, and even those of us who pursue them because they are higher in quality and taste better are still a minority, albeit a larger one. The great bulk of us are looking for ways to get dinner on the table with a minimum of time and hassle for whatever reason, and because of this, we get such absurdities as Slow Cooker Helper and Crock-Pot Classics, products designed to save even the minimal prep time involved in cooking using an appliance that saves time for the cook by doing the cooking while the cook's doing other things. Unless and until this changes, Pollan's admonition that we all "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants" will have to make room for things that he--and many of us--probably wouldn't regard as "whole." John Mackey recognizes this and has gotten rich by squaring the circle as best he can.

Thanks, sunra. Speaking of your handle: Did you know that he lived in Germantown and was listed in the Philadelphia phone book? scase: Any further info pertaining to my last PM?

Having finally slogged through all six pages of posts on this topic, I am reminded of the old joke that runs: "Having read about the dangers of smoking, drinking and eating, I have decided to give up reading." I had marked a bunch of posts on this discussion for comment, but as I now realize that I'm likely either to repeat someone else's point or make this post interminably long by addressing each one individually, I'm just going to do a riff on what I think everyone has said here. There may be occasional references to actual words posted; these are purely accidental. Frankly, I really don't see what is so controversial about the advice above. I guess what makes it so contentious is the elaboration of the injunction. And yet if I understand Pollan's point accurately, our attempts to isolate nutrients probably makes them less effective than they are in their naturally occurring state. Consider white bread, for instance. This indeed may be one of the world's oldest processed foods, and people ate it for thousands of years without much worry. But once we learned about nutrients, and found out that removing the outer hull of the grain also stripped it of a lot of nutrition, we ended up adding the missing nutrients back to the refined-flour bread. Are they as effective added back discretely in this "unnatural" state as they are in whole wheat bread? Maybe, but signs cited here suggest maybe not. (Somewhat relevant aside: Some of those who smoke marijuana for legitimate medical reasons [e.g., to ease the pressure on blood vessels surrounding the eye related to glaucoma] argue that the THC in marijuana is more effective than the pill form, Delta-9 THC [Marinol]). Or as a doctor I had in Boston many moons ago said, "You don't need to take any supplements. A salad a day will give you all the vitamins you need." I don't seem to have many problems with most of the products of modern food technology -- and it's likely that modern scientific research will unearth more information about nutrients and benefits. But will the resulting fortified foods deliver them as effectively as the non-fortified stuff you find in the produce department? Quite likely not. And that's not how we should eat anyway. Daniel Rogov had that exactly right: If it tastes good, eat it. I'm getting tired. More later if I tihink of it.

Update on the Boar's Head/Dietz & Watson Tango: Super Fresh deli counters--or at least those at their two Center City locations--once again have Dietz & Watson deli meats in their 'premium' section. Knowing Philadelphians' attraction to old familiar names, I'm guessing that sales fell when they switched to Boar's Head last summer. And yet Boar's Head continues to stake out new territory in this area. 11th and Spruce, for instance. There's a new deli/convenience food market at the corner space that once housed Wok & Tofu before the apartment building that contained it burnt down. Called Spruce Rana, and (AIUI) related to a simliarly named deli/market in Society Hill (or was it Old City?), the store features a good selection of Asian specialty fare in addition to the usual upscale convenience store items. The store had an open house for the neighborhood last Saturday where they served a number of very tasty seafood-and-noodle salads and Korean dishes that they said would be on their menu of prepared foods to take out. I'm waiting for the kimchi ravioli they served that night to reappear. Today was the store's first official day in business. They have a full deli counter, carrying Boar's Head exclusively. The owner/manager asked me when I placed my order whether I had heard of Applegate Farms. I said I had but had never tried their products. She told me that several customers had asked them to stock Applegate and that she was looking into it. I told her that I thought that Boar's Head was an excellent line, and she agreed, adding that she thought it superior to Applegate as well. Their prices are pretty good for a shop that stocks Boar's Head, which can often run slightly higher than D&W (not the case at this market).

Of course, all the local pizza places here in Philly's Wash West (with a few exceptions) deliver. I think, but am not sure, that the all-night diner near me, the Midtown II, also offers delivery. There are also two delivery services that deliver meals from several full-service restaurants, DiningIn and Entree Express. I don't know whether EE is still in business or not. DiningIn does business in four cities, including Philadelphia. From where I live, I can choose items from more than 70 eateries, including a few ice cream shops, a couple of diners, at least four Steven Starr establishments, most of the local outposts of the major restaurant chains that don't do takeout, and about five pizza parlors located beyond walking distance from me, on DiningIn.com. Entree Express has no online presence.

I also left off the bottom of the processed cheese hierarchy from my earlier post. The lowest quality grade of processed "cheese" is Pasteurized processed (or prepared) cheese product Any resemblance between this foodstuff and actual cheese is coincidental, in my experience. Edited to add: It appears that the primary distinction between processed cheese and natural cheese is that the former has at least extra salt(s) added to it and is heated before cooling into a loaf. It apparently keeps longer than natural cheese as well, according to the brief history of Kraft process cheese on Kraft's Web site. J.L. Kraft obtained a patent for process cheese in 1916. I have seen some restaurant menus that referred to processed cheese as "Kraft cheese"; I assume that these days, that means they are using processed cheese made by Kraft.

Show me the emulsifiers in Applegate Farms American cheese. Here's the product description on the manufacturer's website -- http://www.applegatefarms.com/am_cheese.shtml -- and you can click from there to see the ingredients. ← Sodium citrate is not an artificial ingredient, but it is something not ordinarily found in natural cheese. According to Wikipedia, it's also known as "sour salt" and used as a flavoring agent or preservative. You are right, though--there are no emulsifiers in this cheese. Strike what I said above about emulsifiers. I stand by the rest of my statement about American cheese being processed--but will also note that 21 CFR 133.169 is just confusing enough that it looks to me like a cheesemaker could just take a chunk of Cheddar or Colby and slap a label reading "American cheese" on it.

Hey, just thought I'd let you all know that over in the "Ready to Eat" forum, another bunch of cheeseheads are discussing the joys of slummin' it. Edited to add: Of course, I've also chimed in.

Yeah, annatto contains an orange pigment. I always thought American "cheese" was just a so-called "cheese food." But what it really is to me is absolutely murdered cheddar. I've always liked my cheddar extra sharp. ← There is no such thing as non-processed American cheese. It may not be labeled with the word "process" (not "processed"), but American cheese is by definition processed--it's a combination of either natural cheeses or the ingredients that make them up and emulsifiers. The emulsifiers are what give it its superior meltability; the fat in natural cheese eventually separates out when heated. Because of the added ingredients and emulsifiers, process cheese cannot have the same degree of sharpness as natural cheese. Cooper Sharp and some sharp process Cheddars (such as the Master Choice store brand sold at my local Super Fresh) come close, though. The wording on the label, at least in the United States, is actually a guide to the ratio of cheese to emulsifiers and additives. The hierarchy, from cheesiest to most additive-laden and watered down, is: American cheese Pasteurized process American cheese Pasteurized process American cheese food Pasteurized process American cheese spread as explained in Title 21, Section 133, Subsection 169 of the Code of Federal Regulations ("21 CFR 133.169"). The definitions are guaranteed to either put you to sleep or leave you slightly confused. They do include the list of cheeses that are required before a cheese can be called "American"; at least one cheese from the list must be part of the product. Yeah, in general, processed cheese sliced at the deli beats prepackaged cheese slices, but I've had a few brands of individually wrapped slices that I think hold their own, in particular Heluva Good. American cheese is what it is. You either like it or hate it, but it's true that nothing melts better. I think I've already sung the praises of the blocks of America's Choice New York State extra sharp Cheddar elsewhere. Master Choice American cheese isn't as good as New Yorker (now a Land O'Lakes brand), and neither of them are as good as Clearfield, IMO. (I think I need to re-evaluate Dietz & Watson and Boar's Head American soon.) Boar's Head has a deli double Gloucester cheese, BTW. It's a good bit milder than the genuine article. I prefer the Master Choice processed "ultra sharp" Cheddar to this cheese; the only problem with the Master Choice cheese is that it tends to crumble when sliced real thin. And if you're reading this, mizducky, you were absolutely right about Laughing Cow Light.

What Katie said. Hmph.

Who does the cooking in your home? I do all of it, by choice. Roomie and partner may nuke things on occasion. Do you eat foods from take-out or restaurants or buy ready-made foods often? Partner loads up on prepared dishes (mostly pasta salads) from DiBruno's once a week and eats those on days when I'm not cooking; the number of such days has increased since I started going out more in the evenings. Both of us will pick up rotisserie chickens from Whole Foods on occasion, but usually, if I feel like roast chicken, I'll roast one myself. Every so often on a night I'm not cooking, partner may order something to take out from More Than Just Ice Cream, a casual eatery on the street floor of our building. I like to eat out, and so do partner and roomie, but none of us are frequent diners. All of us "love that chicken from Popeye's," though, and I will bring some home as a treat on occasion. (Partner, however, prefers mild. ) Do you cook absolutely "from-scratch" using unprocessed ingredients often? I don't know if I'd say I do this often, but I do it often enough, and certainly more often than I did, say, 20 years ago. The one "processed" ingredient I use most often is frozen vegetables; as partner Hamburger Helper, that also shows up often enough in my menu rotations, but it shows up less often now than it did, say, five years ago. I hereby request that I be taken out of the kitchen and shot should I ever succumb to Slow Cooker Helper or Crock-Pot Classics or anything like them. Are you single, married or living with other(s)? Legally single, living with a partner and a roommate; we have never registered our partnership. Do you have children? Nope. As close as we get are our two cats. What sort of work do you do? I'm a writer/reporter/editor/flack. I work at a smallish private university in a faded industrial center about a half hour's drive and an hour on SEPTA from central Philadelphia. I also do freelance writing and editing. Ask me for samples of my work if you're looking for a fast and talented writer/reporter/editor/flack to help your efforts. Do you feel you have enough time to cook the sorts of foods you like to eat? Most of the time, yes. The Crock-Pot is your friend. I'm interested in the questions of time, culture, society, money and class. As they relate to food and how it fits into our lives, of course. I don't like spending money if I don't have to and shop for groceries accordingly. But I also enjoy the sensory aspects of shopping for food, and if I run across something that I think is worth it, I will spend money to get it. I consider my background middle class, and I don't mean aping-the-wealthy "middle class," either, but in the kitchen, there's a little bit of "down home" in me, as I suspect there is deep down inside most African-Americans. I think that food and cooking are great ways to bring people together, but I don't use them in that fashion as often as I like. As a question for "extra credit" , is the form of your daily cooking/eating/dining different than it was in your family when you were growing up, and if so, how is it different? Most of the time, we don't "sit down at the dinner table" the way I did at Grandma's growing up or at home before my parents' marriage began to deteriorate. Instead, I pull out the trays and we eat while [reading|watching TV|working on the computer|posting messages like this one]. Company, however, deserves the dinner table. My cooking spans a wider range of cultures and cuisines than the cooking I grew up on did.

I've become a total Crock-Pot chili convert. I haven't made chili on the stovetop in years. But I do have to force myself to remember to use less liquid. On my one visit to Canada of any length (so far), I visited Eaton's flagship store at Toronto's Eaton Centre, but never made it to the Bay up on Bloor. What happened to Eaton's? I take it it's defunct? I would think that it would be interesting to work for a retailer with as storied a history as the Hudson's Bay Company. I contemplated buying another point blanket to replace one that my partner lost when he left it at the cleaners too long, but when I went to order it from L.L. Bean (one of two US retailers authorized to sell Hudson's Bay Company point blankets), I found I couldn't afford one.

I don't think that's a bad idea, even if my topic title is restrictive on that score. Certainly there are other critics in this town worthy of critique, and they should not be spared commentary.

I'd be willing to suspend the Review Tour to check out the places in Fairmount--I've been to Rembrandt's but have yet to have their pizza. Their sandwiches and live jazz are both very good, though, so I'd anticipate the pizza's the same. I'm waiting to hear some feedback about another event that weekend, and once I know that, I will go ahead with a definitive date/time/itinerary, for it appears that there are plenty o' folks rarin' to go on a pizza run that weekend.

That's a good one. That review -- probably his best trashing of a restaurant ever -- also ended with a tour de force sentence which listed all the things that went wrong on his review visits and then ended logically enough, "well, then, who can you trust?" I think the only thing he liked about the place was the restrooms that made you feel like you were going to the john under water. Any other elegant/witty lines folks out there recall?

I prefer Sunshine (=Keebler now) Krispy to Nabisco Premium, Premium to Keebler Zesta, and Red Oval Farms Stoned Wheat Thins to all of 'em. I usually keep a box of Krispys on hand as well as the Stoned Wheat Thins, though. Being a confirmed cheesehead, one thing that upset me when Keebler acquired Sunshine Biscuits was that they discontinued the Mild Cheddar flavored Krispys. I've never eaten saltines spread with butter. Peanut butter, yes, usually topped with a slice of Cheddar. (I guess that if I were to add another cracker and press down on the PB side, that would be "Brownstone Park"?) One problem about buying foods for people who must limit their sodium intake is that most of them are incredibly bland. Premium Unsalted Tops taste like sawdust, for instance. (Though my partner managed to find a brand of organic "saltines"--they looked like pale Ritz crackers--at Whole Foods that tasted even blander yet had a higher sodium content! He has since found an all-natural oyster cracker at the same place that is lower in sodium but not bland.) The low sodium Stoned Wheat Thins are an exception to this rule. Slurpees never caught on in Philly, probably for two reasons: --Wawa dominates the convenience-store market in the region, and they have nothing that even resembles a Slurpee. --Most folks around here eat water ice (pronounced "wooder ice") during the warmer months. Water ice (aka "Italian ice" elsewhere) is very close to a Slurpee in consistency, only not quite as liquid.

Your wish is my command.

As Vadouvan pointed out in another discussion on this board, the work of our region's top restaurant reviewer, Craig LaBan of The Philadelphia Inquirer, probably deserves a thread of its own much like the one on the New York board devoted to the Times' Frank Bruni. There are several aspects of his work that we can discuss. One, does he know what he's talking about when he writes a review? Two, has he fairly critiqued a particular establishment? Three, how does his style sit with you, the reader? I'm sure we can come up with more questions to bat around. To start this ball rolling, I'll address Question Three, as I'm more comfortable dealing with that than with the first two right off the bat. I still remember reading the column in which Craig LaBan introduced himself to Philadelphia. It began with a description of a story he wrote as a reporter for The Times-Picayune in New Orleans. The story was about a local soup kitchen (IIRC), and it was supposed to capture how the kitchen operated and its relationship with the homeless people who patronized it. I don't recall the exact phrasing of the anecdote, but the thing that left the greatest impression on both me and LaBan was his editor's question when he turned in the story: "But did you eat the meal?" In order to really get at what this place was about, his editor said, "you've got to eat the meal!" After that, LaBan spent what seemed to me like an interminable number of column inches explaining how profoundly that exhortation influenced him and his approach to writing stories, and how, as the Inky's new restaurant critic, he would never pass judgement on a place without experiencing it fully -- literally, eating the meal. "Nice sentiment," I thought to myself as I finished the article. "But this guy overwrites horribly." Given my own occasional tendency towards prolixity, this may strike you as a case of the pot calling the kettle black. But I did think that his first several reviews for the Inquirer said in 2000 words or so what could have been said more effectively in 750. I no longer think this, and the funny thing is, his reviews are still a good bit longer than 750 words. But they're packed with protein now, not fat. He has improved his eye for a good anecdote--which his opening column demonstrated he could spot--and he has a lively style that is fun to read. That, combined with a solid knowledge of food, cooking and ingredients, makes him a first-rate reviewer and one of the Inquirer's better regular columnists (so you can understand how I calibrate my meter, this group includes Trudy Rubin, Andrew Cassel, Stephen A. Smith and often but not always Tom Ferrick Jr.) But all this is commentary on style. Let's get down to substance. Take it away, folks.

Neither was La Scala's. Pizza by Marc Vetri? That immediately puts it on the list of places due for inspection.

Start with the carcass of a roasted turkey (which should clue you in to when I make turkey stock). I usually remove large chunks of meat from the bones and leave on bits of connecting tissue and shards of meat too small to bother with. Separate the bones so they'll fit in the Crock-Pot (mine has a 4-quart vessel). Slice one large or two medium onions, two carrots and one rib of celery. Put the bones in the Crock-Pot and add the veggies. Optional: Sprinkle some Old Bay (about two teaspoons or so) over the solid ingredients. Pour water over everything (eight cups usually fills my Crock-Pot). Add salt to taste (I usually omit this step to keep the sodium content down). Cover and cook on High for 8 to 10 hours. If your Crock-Pot is close to full, the water will reach a low boil after about 3 hours, and some of it will boil off as steam, forcing itself through the crevice between lid and crock. My own slow cooker (a roughly 30-year-old Hamilton Beach "Crock Watcher" with removable crock) has a feature where it will cook on High for the first two hours, then shift to Low for the rest of the cooking time. I sometimes use this setting instead of cooking on High for the entire time. Strain liquid and allow to cool.

I think New Haven is a must for this year. The Brooklyn trip was also my initiation into the club, and that was a fantastic outing. There was a pizza place on the Yale campus of some repute whose name escapes me, but their pie was certainly better than anything available in the vicinity of Harvard -- about the only area in which Yale is clearly superior to America's oldest college. And from the looks of Pepe's, the place near Yale wasn't even the best in town. And if the "Best of Philly Review Tour" isn't ordeal enough, perhaps we could consider a truly impossible quest: The search for the true Famous Original Ray's Pizza? Back to the Review Tour, though: Let me throw out the weekend of 2/23 as the next date for a tour segment and West Center City as the geographic area: Mama Palma's, Pietro's, Towne Pizza. Who's game?

I've yet to make soup in a Crock-Pot, but I have made several batches of turkey stock in one. I'm still not sure what I'm doing wrong, because mine is on the cloudy side and becomes gelatinous when refrigerated. But it makes a decent enough base for a turkey noodle soup. It looks like I should try using an uncooked bird for a soup base if the pictures you provided are any guide. I'm going to guess that the miscellaneous parts yielded more soup than the whole bird did, but that the whole bird had a stronger chicken flavor. Did I guess right? Shifting gears: Since this blog has also produced comments about winter, I will share with you a sentiment I once read on a T-shirt that I wished I owned: "Those who cannot handle winter don't deserve summer."

now, how would you know that? do you have meat grading experience that you haven't told us about? ← Not at all. I'm just using that handy reference guide Andrew Fenton posted a link to back in Post #71. It's got lots of pretty pictures and all, and I think most of us can eyeball a cross-section of meat and make a link with one of the pretty pictures. I should have qualified the above with an IMO.