MarketStEl

I can't really add anything to what everyone else who's salivating over the upcoming installments has said already, except: I assume that the period authenticity here does not extend to the clothing you and your guests will wear or the setting for the feast, but that it will extend to the music chosen to entertain the assembled guests, if not necessarily the technology used to deliver it. Looking forward to reading about the runup to what looks like will be a Lucullan feast.

yeah, what she said! ← You may as well arrange a group outing for the Philly contingent when next you're in town. This has been a beautiful tour of an absolutely lovely countryside. Thanks, too, for the brief introduction to mushrooms I'll probably never see in or around Kennett Square. Stay well, and see you around.

Could you give me a link to or phone number for the place where you ordered the brick cheese? I remember eating brick cheese -- Kraft sliced! -- as a child and haven't seen it in decades. It appears to have since become a strictly regional thing, unavailable beyond Wisconsin now.

Pardon me for riffing off two posts in succession, but ermintrude's is also worth elaborating on. Because America is a nation of immigrants, many of the culinary traditions we have--and many of the foodstuffs we use--are derived from some foreign practice or locale. Since no indigenous equivalents existed, our habit historically has been to appropriate the names of the places where they originated for our own adaptations or approximations. I have seen historic photos showing bottles of water from the famous Saratoga springs in upstate New York bearing the legend "Saratoga Vichy water." You could call this an inferiority complex of sorts--if the water's good enough, it shouldn't matter that it's not from France--but it might also be (or have been) an easy way to get other Americans to accept products whose provenance tells them nothing about what to expect the way "Champagne" does when buying sparkling wine or "Roquefort" does when purchasing blue-veined cheese. The country is now old enough to have developed its own regional specialties and traditions, and thus no geographic crutch is needed, say, to get a wine buyer to accept "Sonoma" or "Napa Valley" as marks of quality unto themselves or to specify Maytag blue cheese--or, for that matter, to distinguish Colby cheese from its cousin Cheddar. But that leaves a lot of products that we've come to know by their associations with their European (or other) forebears, "Parmesan cheese" being one of them.

Wonderful post, CtznCane, and you raise some valid points. Over on Phillyblog, there is a live discussion in which a freelancer preparing an article for the Inquirer's Food section is soliciting people's favorite "cheats" -- pre-made/canned/powdered/boxed/what-have-you products that you slip into your "home cooking from scratch" while no one's looking or when you're feeling lazy. I lamented the deprived childhood of a fellow poster who grew up eating Kraft Macaroni and Cheese from the blue box and never experiencing homemade, then turned right around and commented that my cheat of choice is Hamburger Helper--a choice that another poster considered even more sinister than the blue box. I think anyone who has had a meal from a mix would agree that it's usually* just not as good as the same thing made fresh from raw ingredients you supply. And I think that most of you out there who love Cheddar cheese would probably agree that given the choice, Cabot and Tillamook are preferable to Kraft extra sharp, and that Grafton Village or one of those English farmhouse varieties are even better still (and Pennsylvania Noble even better than those). But to suggest that the person who finds Kraft just fine is somehow unworthy of our respect? That's stretching it. And it certainly won't help anyone convince the person so snubbed that they can indeed do better (and in the case of Cabot or Tillamook, for not too much more than they're paying for Kraft). I guess the problem is that it's an exceedingly fine line between asserting the superiority of something and coming off as a snob, and people trip over that line all the time. *I also posted on Phillyblog that my partner absolutely loves Hamburger Helper Cheeseburger Macaroni, and that try as I might, I simply cannot duplicate its flavor making hamburger mac 'n' cheese from scratch. Edited to fix a punctuation problem, with a nod to the author of "Eats, Shoots and Leaves."

I hadn't heard that the Communists--er, Party of the Democratic Left--had become party animals, but I guess that's one great fringe benefit of the Soviet Union's implosion. Edited to add: Slow Food is now one of the beneficiaries of the annual "Farm Aid" benefit concerts organized by Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp. This year's Farm Aid concert was staged in Camden, N.J., about as far from bucolic as it is possible to get. But the organizers wanted to make a point: The farm and the city are closely linked--which is why they chose a city in a region that happens to have lots of productive farmland around it, land that in many places is threatened by development pressure. I'd meant to toss in the post in which you mention that your son is currently at UArts. That's just a few blocks from where I live in central Philadelphia. Does he go out to eat much? What's his take on the city? Our dining scene? Local culinary traditions? Our mayor, after dithering all summer because a political rival got the bill passed, just signed legislation banning smoking in most public gathering places in the city, bars and restaurants included. There is an exemption for corner taprooms that get almost none of their revenues from food--the threshold is so low that if you have a permit from the state to be open on Sunday, you can't get the exemption--and for outdoor cafes. Even with this, some of the bar owners are grumbling still (the restaurateurs are largely quiet; the Pennsylvania Restaurant Association has come around to backing a statewide ban on smoking in restaurants and bars). I suspect that the grumbling barkeeps will see their business rise, not fall, in the wake of the ban, just as it has everywhere else. Related to this: So the Italian government has apparently figured out that removing the subsidy to tobacco growers will result in less of it being grown--and presumably pricier cigarettes and a concomitant drop in smoking. Wonder if the U.S. government still hands out money in this fashion. I have a Todd Rundgren song that you could probably relate to. Warning: This is a link to a YouTube video of Rundgren performing the song on a late-night talk show whose name has been left obscure. Given the limited bandwidth you apparently have to work with, watching this might simply provoke more frustration of the type you've posted and Rundgren sang about. Maybe it might be better if you just read the lyrics. Thanks for the photos of the surrounding countryside! I'm pretty sure that sunflowers are grown for oil as well as seeds; if that's the case, I wonder how the growers get any out of plants that have been parched to that point. They grow wild in Kansas, hence the state's nickname. I had also asked you about how that co-op grocery store worked. Cooperatives are not unheard of over here--the best-known ones are the farmer cooperatives that furnish their members with supplies at favorable prices and market their products, such as Cabot and Tillamook in cheese, Ocean Spray in cranberries and Farmland for meats. The co-op grocers I was familiar with (I belonged to the Boston Food Co-op for a few years in the early 1980s) were definitely counterculturish affairs that emphasized healthier eating and sold lots of items in bulk. Members were expected to contribute time each month towards the running of the store as well as a membership fee, in exchange for which we got to shop there for good food at good prices. But I've also run across co-op grocery stores like the one in Swarthmore, which I mentioned in my foodblog, which are for all intents and purposes indistinguishable from regular supermarkets except perhaps for their product mixes. (Swarthmore's, befitting its community, runs towards high-end specialty foods.) They are professionally run and membership is not required to shop there. (I haven't checked on this yet, but if it's like my college bookstore, the benefit you get by joining the "coop" is a rebate on your total purchases for the year.) I would think that if this co-op is true to the values of the democratic Left, the price you would pay to shop there is having to work there for at least a few hours each month (you know, the workers control the means of production and all that good stuff). Is it? Or is it a co-op where they just take your money and smile, and give some of it back to you at the end of the fiscal year? Do they overtly promote any other values, such as natural/minimally processed foods?

Done! Glad to hear that you're still focused on your goal and working towards it, and that your reputation is spreading among the fans. And be sure to invite us all to the grand opening!

Did you want to say something, Osnav?

Great opening shot! Though if the town's as dense as it looks in the opening shot and has only 800 residents, it can't be too big around--what? the main street is 2 blocks long, maybe? What are the principal foodstuffs grown in your part of Umbria? And do you belong to Slow Food? With a name like that ("coop"=shortened form of "co-operative"), I'm not at all surprised. Is it a membership organization? Are members required to contribute labor if it is, and are there any benefits to joining (e.g., patronage rebate or lower prices)? The Italian Communists are still around? What do they advocate these days? Looking forward to seeing lots of lovely scenery and equally lovely food.

I want Russ's friends. That said, when I want some music when cook, I tend to like some funk, soul or R & B: Lee Dorsey, the JB's, Irma Thomas, etc. If it gets me moving, it gets me cooking. But I confess, on an average night, when I'm making dinner, it's probably gonna be NPR in the background. (God, I'm square.) ← A bizarre image of you chopping vegetables to "One Nation Under a Groove" just popped into my head. I'm probably going to need a stiff drink to exorcise it.

Your square and rectangular plates are great. I adore square plates. Where did you get yours? Anybody have any reasonably priced suppliers? Great blog, BTW - I'm so full from dinner I could burst, but you're still managing to make me salivate... ← You won't believe it, but the square & rectangle plates were from Target. Love that place. ← Oh, I'd believe it. I was talking with a friend this afternoon after fixing a late brunch, and we both agreed that we Target. They have managed to combine good design and good (even high) quality with low prices. (We do note that the company has signed on a slew of Big Names --Michael Graves, Todd Oldham...-- to produce high-style merchandise for their stores.) We were wondering what Target understands that (sorry, Martha) Kmart misses?

Twist my arm, Jeff... Maybe the week of 10/22? (Monthly payday for my day job is 10/25, and I should have some change from resume work in my pocket as of 10/20. I also have an ulterior motive for suggesting this week.)

Even here, the subjects "music to cook by" and "music to dine/entertain by" overlap. If I were alone in my apartment and cooking up a storm, I would have "Resolution" from John Coltrane's masterpiece "A Love Supreme" cranked up full blast. But I almost never find myself in this situation. Other factors invariably come into play. My own tastes in music lean heavily towards jazz and R&B, so that's usually what I put on when working in the kitchen before guests arrive. However, if you recall the kitchen shots I posted on my foodblog, the kitchen is a semi-open space off the L-shaped living/dining room, which means that it's not really practical to have something on in the kitchen separate from what's playing in the living room. So if I'm playing music and I have to accommodate my jazz-hating partner, I might reach for a Windham Hill anthology album or Joaquin Rodrigo's Concierto de Arajunez, a contemporary classical work I'm quite fond of. But even then, eventually, the music will work its way towards the Yellowjackets or Herbie Hancock or Joshua Redman or Rickie Lee Jones or Pieces of a Dream or something in these veins. In most cases, however, the music is upbeat--I find it helps me work better. I generally don't go to pains to match musical and culinary styles if I'm preparing dishes from a foreign land. I do, however, try to provide music that I think my guests will enjoy, especially if I know some of their tastes and have something suitable in my collection. If it's the Class of '81 member who I mentored my sophomore year and his partner, for instance, I know to break out the Steely Dan. For friends who like international fare, I have Celtic music on hand plus a smattering of world music. I often like to introduce friends to artists I enjoy that I think they may not have heard of--Allen Toussaint (who makes an excellent accompaniment to Cajun or Creole fare), for instance. And I have a confession to make: Not long after moving into my current apartment in 2000, when I had a few casual acquaintances over for Sunday brunch, I played "Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano." It seemed appropriate for the occasion. On ordinary weeknights, however, the aural accompaniment to my work in the kitchen is usually "Jeopardy!" followed by Britcoms followed by "The O'Reilly Factor." (Okay, I do like all three. But it's usually my partner who turns on the TV--though if he is home at 7, I can't watch "Jeopardy!")

Glad you bumped this back up! In case anyone (a) is still wondering what "sweet bologna" is and (b) didn't catch Lancastermike's foodblog, what he is referring to is the sweet variety of Lebanon bologna, a Pennsylvania Dutch specialty and God's gift to sandwich lovers. It's made from beef, and only beef, and it's much, much better than any ordinary bologna. (It looks more like salami than bologna. It also comes in a savory variety.) Up there with Lebanon bologna in my pantheon is liverwurst. Four thin slices of liverwurst (use a cheese slicer adjusted to make a slice of medium thickness), a slice of cheese (any of the following: Cheddar, Swiss, Muenster), mustard and mayo. Maybe sliced onion too if I'm feeling adventurous. Make this in the morning, take it to work with you, and don't put it in the fridge. By lunch time it will have reached room temperature, where you can experience all the flavors as they were meant to be. Then there's this very simple and very good sandwich: This is a Stackey's Special, served at Stackey's sandwich shop, located just west of downtown Chester, Pa. It is composed of ham, capicola, provolone cheese and roasted peppers, available toasted or untoasted. Pure simplicity, pure bliss.

Do tell Mizducky! ← Weeeeeeeelllllll ... let's just say that the "experiments" would probably be off-topic for eGullet ... except, perhaps, for the effects of said "experiments" on the subjects' appetites. ← Aren't herbs foodstuffs? Including those from Jamaica?

Historical question: Can we pinpoint when this phenomenon began? I do know that the annual "Best of Philly" issue of Philadelphia magazine just produced its 34th iteration last August. It started as a total lark on the part of the magazine's staff, and it included a list of "worsts" that allowed the writers to throw well-deserved darts at notorious local figures and institutions. By the time it turned 10 in 1984, the judging process had already acquired an air of High Seriousness about it, and the magazine's publisher, in his front-of-every-issue rantspace "Off the Cuff," went to great pains to state that it was impossible to buy one's way into the list. And yet places that just about any Philadelphian will tell you remain among the best today (Taconnelli's for pizza, Tony Luke's for their roast pork sandwich) do not consistently appear in their respective categories. That's in part because some of them have been "retired", but "distributive justice" must have something to do with it too. On a national scale, this is a big country with lots of large cities that would be centers of national culture in their own right in many smaller nations. It sort of follows, then, that an editor of a national magazine, no matter where it is based, would risk alienating a large slice of his potential readership if he selected a "best of" list that was lacking in geographical diversity, even if it was more accurate in terms of true quality.

Your lament is one of the main reasons I am sorry that Brian Eno's great experiment with "ambient music" didn't achieve wider penetration into the collective consciousness than it did. The problem with most atmospheric music is that it falls into a specific genre of some sort, and some segment of the general public will invariably find that genre grating. If you are seeking to attract the type of people who gravitate towards this genre and repel all others, this is not a problem. Most businesses aren't aiming for such specific niche markets, though. And yet...if I wanted a library-like level of background noise, I'd go to one--or I would, as I am doing now, simply turn off Rhapsody on my computer while working. When I'm out in a social setting--and I consider restaurants, coffee houses and bars social spaces--I expect some sort of background buzz, whether that comes from the other patrons or the sound system, to add to my mood. (I can be depressed quite nicely in the comfort of my own home, thanks.) The idea of music that you could tune out without difficulty that would nonetheless prove interesting if you chose to listen to it intrigued me greatly, and still does. However, I don't listen to that many artists who call themselves "ambient," for usually their music comes up short in the latter department. Generally, the New Agey crowd that gathers around the Narada and Windham Hill labels comes as close to ambient as I am willing to go. Though there's plenty of genre music that, by force of repetition, becomes ambient if only because you've heard it so much that you deliberately try to tune it out. Claude Bolling's "Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano," which graced a few too many Sunday brunches I attended in the 1980s, and which for some reason popped into my head as I read this essay, is one of those tunes. Edited to fix subject-verb agreement.

What I remember, Ducks, was the exposure to exotic expletives I received at Harvard. I still remember a conversation a couple of Adams Housemates had about Arabic curse words one night. They were cracking up because a classmate had misunderstood the English translation of one particularly insulting one--the poor soul thought the term translated as "your mother's Volvo"! You will all have to figure out what the actual translation was yourself.

This is a very New York blog--it moves so fast that if you let it slip, you've fallen hopelessly behind. I have to stay on campus tomorrow night to attend a screening of a new documentary film about critics that a member of our communications faculty made over the last year (Books? check. Music? check. Films? check. TV? check. Sorry, no food critics), so please hoist a virtual cocktail for me. Lovely job you did on that kitchen! "...making 4th Avenue into the new Park Avenue..." I thought 4th Avenue became Park Avenue years ago! Oh, wait--you're talking Brooklyn...

It's been a busy week, folks--please forgive the delay in reporting on the latest stop on our epic journey. Before proceeding, though, a word for Jason, Amanda and Katie, along with any pizza aficionados who were too shy to just show up: You missed what was probably the best overall tour stop since the beginning of the tour. I will entertain the notion of a repeat visit for those of you who have yet to experience the two first-rate establishments we visited this past Sunday, for both are worthy contenders for elevation into the pantheon of Philadelphia pizza that currently consists of Marra's and Tacconelli's. Why do I say this? Read on: Center City, East of Broad: Crunch Time Time, as we all know, changes everything. Old favorites disappear and new ones take their place. Familiar faces suddenly become alien as the passage of time (or, in my case, a buzz-cut haircut on Tuesday evening) alters their features. And so it is with pizza: a onetime standard-bearer in Old City falls by the wayside while a transplanted Brooklynite puts down roots in Wash West. But some things never change. Wait a minute. I could have sworn that this establishment at 7th and Chestnut was called Apollo, after the legendary, four-time Best of Philly Media pizzeria that set up Center City digs in the late 1990s. Now the signs on the awnings read "La Scala's." Other than the awnings, everything else looks the same as it did when it was called Apollo: the contemporary casual décor, stone walls and tile floors are all pretty much the same. And so is the pizza, according to the menu. That's because this place is still Apollo. Our waiter explained that the owners decided to change its name because patrons were unaware that the Center City location is a full-blown Italian restaurant with much more than pizza on the menu. Such is Apollo's reputation that its name is associated with pizza and nothing else. The two pies that Dorine, I_call_the_duck and Mr. Duck, Chris and I shared--well, we had to force Chris to share some; he's not that big of an eater--on Sunday demonstrate why this is the case. In addition to the margherita "control pie," we ordered a pie with prosciutto and roasted peppers, largely at the urging of Mr. Duck, who averred that most places that serve prosciutto pie use an inferior grade of the specially cured ham. The control pie was a promising harbinger of things to come, loaded as it was with huge springs of fresh basil, heaping chunks of fresh mozzarella and whole tomato slices atop a thin layer of tomato sauce. The crust on this pie was evenly browned: and the flavor was a perfect balance of sweet and tart. (Luckily for Dorine, the tomato slices were easily removable, which allowed her to sample this pie without triggering a severe allergic reaction to tomato seeds.) The prosciutto pie was IMO even better: The sweetness of the roasted peppers and the saltiness of the prosciutto played against each other well, with the mozzarella cheese acting as mediator. The prosciutto also passed Mr. Duck's exacting standards. The crusts were that rare combination of chewy and crispy, a feat that's difficult to pull off. The prosciutto pie's crust was also evenly browned, but had more of a caramel color to it: Still Worthy? You betcha, in spades--these are first-rate, 20-mile pies. As the ducks had a prior commitment, they took their leave of the party as we departed La Scala's, which left Dorine in the company of two handsome black men, neither of whom were attracted to her physically. (Give us a call the next time you contemplate heading out to a pickup bar and need a defense against unwanted advances, Hon.) We spent the next several blocks craning our necks upward and remarking on the wonderful architectural details to be found on Center City's older buildings as we made our way to the 11th Street precinct house of the New York Pizza Department. That's Chris on the left. He begged off eating more, leaving the job of re-evaluating this newest addition to the Best of Philly ranks to Dorine and me. NYPD is a typical "in-town" neighborhood pizzeria in that it offers both whole pies and pie by the slice--the former for residents and nearby office workers, the latter for the many passers-by who want something quick to eat. It offers a good range of both regular and specialty pies: Top row, left to right: Sausage and pepperoni slices, spinach -- yes, spinach! -- and fresh mozzarella, broccoli and bell pepper in front/tomato in back. Bottom row, left to right: Ground beef and cheese slices, Buffalo chicken, space available. in an atmosphere that feels a little bit like a basement rec room, with exposed brick walls decorated with trappings celebrating New York and Italy, plus a little cop-shop stuff. They're hard to see from this angle, but on top of the yellow I-beam are model police vehicles, gifts from New York and Philadelphia police officers. Guy, the owner of NYPD Pizza, explained to me on a prior visit that his Best of Philly honor--earned in his first year of business--came as a complete surprise. "I kept getting people calling me and stopping in, saying 'Hey, congratulations, you have the best pizza in Philly.' I'd say 'Thank you--I think it's real good too.' I had no idea they were talking about an award until I got the letter from Philadelphia magazine." (How the public found out about it before he did is another mystery. Maybe we should call in the NYPD to investigate.) Because we were down to two, we ordered two "personal size" (10-inch diameter) pies--the control pie and a white seafood pizza topped with shrimp and scallops. As you can see, the margherita pie here used aged rather than fresh mozzarella and was also a bit stingy with the basil, qualities that caused it to lose a few points in our final evaluation. (We found out afterward that we could have asked for more basil on the pizza--Guy's customers apparently are a bit basilphobic, for as he explained to us, he got comments about using too much basil on the pizza.) The extra sauce on this pie also appeared to affect the crust, for the crunchy crispness characteristic of NYPD's pies was strangely missing from this one. It was present in abundance on the seafood pie, a truly superlative specialty pizza with a nicely charred crust. These "personal" pies are large enough to make a complete meal for one very hungry person or a good snack for two ordinarily hungry individuals. By the way, NYPD turns out these great pies using regular, off-the-shelf pizza ovens--no coal, no bricks, no turbocharging. It's the ingredients and the skill with which they are prepared that make these pies standouts--very much Still Worthy pies. Ordinarily, I would rank these as the equal of Apollo's, but the margherita pie we had on our visit forced us to drop them down a bit: We decided these were 17.5-mile pies. By the time you all visit, they should have gotten the missing 2.5 miles back. (Hey, we're a tough crowd.) If you go, be sure to allow time to eat your pie on the premises--the crusts definitely suffer from continued cooking in the box, losing most of their crunchiness. They still taste great, though.

(emphasis added) PHILLLYYY!!! Represent! Checking in late on this one, and I haven't yet had time to wade through all 5 pages of posts, but if I'm going to make the 7:47 to Swarthmore, this is all I have time for right now. Congratulations on your taste in coffee, and I'm looking forward to catching up with the rest of the scene in "Crooklyn." (Or did Spike Lee grow up in a different part of the borough?)

The Überfresh carries D'Artagnan? What do they charge for a 7-ounce tub of duck fat? I went down there for the first time ever the Sunday after Labor Day to pick up some last-minute items for a cookout and was completely disoriented. I felt as if I had wandered into Cherry Hill by mistake. Supermarkets that large have to be alien invaders from the planet Suburbia. However, if I can get specialty foods there and have what I spend count towards this year's free Thanksgiving turkey, I'd willingly go back, even though it requires two buses to get there.

As you do so much so well, I will let this transgression against proper barbecued ribs slide. But the next time you have 4 hours or more to slow smoke them like you should (it looks like you have the right grill), I can give you a great dry rub recipe if you like. Slather it on the night before, and you could even get away with direct cooking them for half the time and they'll still come out great. Edited to add: And thanks for taking us along on a trip through upper Ontario. Lovely country with a larger diversity of foodstuffs available than I had expected to see.

Well, that's the last time I grab the phone during a post! Apologies for the lack of link. I find interesting items here and there at the Giant closest to my house, although I tend to go there mainly in emergency situations. And these items often disappear after a while. I'm curious if anyone thinks that the mainstream big grocers are starting to try to compete with the Whole Foods type stores. ← Didja see my foodblog? The one with the photos of my local Whole Paycheck, and the Super Fresh supermarket right across the street from it? The Super Fresh was there first. It opened in 1987. Whole Foods--then still DBA Fresh Fields locally--opened in 2000. The selection of natural foods increased dramatically at the Super Fresh after WFM opened. WFM's "everyday value" store brand is actually competitive with regular supermarket products on price. But I guess that buying 365 Brand would be beneath the writer. However, her endorsement of Dietz & Watson bacon is noted with interest. The brand is a Philly favorite--the company was established here in 1939, and its headquarters and plant are on Tacony Street in Bridesburg (Northeast Philly). I generally prefer Hatfield pork products myself, so I may want to check D&W out.

Can anyone edit the town? And what happens if they don't get it right? Sorry to hear about the split. Being out in a small town, even in Canada, can be a bear. Oh, and can you explain the significance of this place being "Canada's only unceded Indian reserve"?