MarketStEl

So how was the food court? I've shopped the supermarket--it's in my foodblog--but I haven't yet sampled the food court fare.

Vernor's I can handle. But you gotta have a lot of moxie to down Moxie. AFAIK, the beverage is confined to New England these days. I hope it doesn't break loose and contaminate the rest of the country again.

I submit to you that this dish sounds worse than it tastes. The same goes for scrapple. But where are there White Castles in New York? I don't ever recall seeing one on my visits to the city. Or do you mean the 'burbs, or upstate? BTW, the White Castle chain originated in Wichita, Kan., in 1921. It's considered the first fast-food chain in America. Oddly enough, you can't find a single White Castle in the Sunflower State today. We did have them in Philly for a while. Then they pulled out of the market. I figured that in a five-page-long, nearly 150-post thread, someone was going to mention chitlins (spelled "chitterlings" but never pronounced that way) sooner or later, but I'd never figure you'd be the one to bring them up. I grew up smelling them cooking. They tasted even worse. Guess I really am an Oreo after all.

I didn't realize this was going to turn into a Coke Zero lovefest, but add me to the ranks of fans. It's nothing at all like Diet Coke. I can't stand the metallic aftertaste of diet sodas sweetened with aspartame. Coke Zero uses a blend of artificial sweeteners that somehow gets rid of the off-tastes.

It's now the middle of July, which means it's time to plan another tour stop. I'd like to throw out a couple of options for your consideration. One would be a second South Philly foray, built around four-time winner Celebre's. There's a regional winner (Wolf Street Pizza, 1992) not far away, and another winner (Russo's, 1991, for their Sicilian pie) even closer. (There are at least three other South Philly places on the list, including one more within spitting distance of Celebre's and two in the Italian Market area, Bitar's ["Best Weird Pizza," 1979] being one of the two.) The other would be a Center City and environs segment. Choices for this installment include NYPD Pizza (Wash West, 2005 Philadelphia City winner), Pietro's (Rittenhouse Square, 2000 city winner), JJ's Grotto (1990, for their eggplant pie), Mama Palma's (Fitler Square, 1999, for their combinations), Montesini Pizza (Liberty Place food court, 1992 and 1993, both times city winner), Pete's Famous Pizza (Logan Circle, 1981) and Towne Pizza (Rittenhouse Square--one of the earliest winners, in 1976 and 1977). In the surrounding area, there's Savas' in Spring Garden (1991, "Best Bizarre Pizza" for their octopus-topped pie, and 1994, Best Classic Pizza). And there are two places not commonly associated with pizza that would probably require special dispensation for a Pizza Club evaluation: Patou in Old City ("Best Upscale Pizza," 2004) and London Grill in Fairmount ("Best Pizza from a Restaurant," 1998). Finally, the owners of Media's Apollo Pizza (best in Delaware County, 1992 and 1993) have an in-town outpost at 7th and Chestnut, which has recently been rechristened. We obviously have to return to South Philly again, and we haven't even begun to tackle the 'burbs yet, but I'd go for an in-town swing this time, with Mama Palma's and NYPD (another place with excellent thin-crust pizza) as the must-visits, plus perhaps one or two others. What say you all?

This is beginning to sound like Carman's all over again: I pass by it all the time and never step inside. I usually don't eat while on my Saturday afternoon shopping expedition. Since I have a four-day work week during the summer, I now do part of that expedition on Friday to avoid the big crowds at the RTM. Maybe I should heed that advice about not shopping for groceries when you're hungry and stop at Ricci's on the way to the Ac-a-me. Confidential to marinade: I don't think it was the nondescript hoagie shops per se that he found mind-boggling. It was an "Italian" hoagie shop where it looks like the only thing that remained Italian was the name over the door. I've commented in various places on this board that the term "Italian Market" is increasingly a misnomer--and I noticed last week that yet another Mexican bodega had opened on 9th Street, this one in the semi-dead zone between Washington Avenue and Cheesesteak Corner, where the (Chinese-run) Great Wall Seafood Market lasted all of about four months the previous year. Between Korean and Vietnamese produce vendors and Mexican grocers, the Market is getting less and less Italian by the week. I wouldn't worry about this, however, unless I read in the paper that DiBruno Bros. has been acquired by a Mexican cheesemaker.

Oh, there's no doubt that the "buy local movement" is part of something bigger--and in that "something bigger" is a sort of revulsion towards industrialism and its byproducts that has been with us ever since the advent of the steam engine and the spinning jenny. Words like "Luddite" and "sabotage" come to us from this reaction to industrialization, and the various efforts to promote small local producers, organic farming, and "slow food" are all the spiritual, if not tactical, heirs to Ned Ludd's counterindustrialization drive. Of course, that same industrialization produced the modern city as we now know it. If you consider yourself a New Urbanist, you too are participating in a revulsion against a different form of industrialization, namely, the reshaping of the American city in the image of the automobile. Farmer's markets at one level attempt to re-establish the connection between the city dweller and the people who produce the food that some city-dwellers had come to think just magically appears on supermarket shelves. To the extent that all these various movements get us to pause and think, if only for a moment, about just what it is we've been doing as individuals and a society to the places we live and the food we eat, then they are doing us all a big favor. But I think it's highly unlikely that we will ever go back completely to that simpler, more honest (ha!) time that these various movements seek to recover. Once something reaches a certain size, it becomes hard to dismantle totally.

These pictures, along with some others that have appeared in this blog, raise an issue that I've been somewhat interested in for a while: Portion sizes. Back in the fall of 2003, The Penn Current (the faculty/staff newspaper at the University of Pennsylvania; I was part of the team that launched it in 1998 and its managing editor from 1999 to 2004) ran an article on research by Penn psychology professor Paul Rozin that concluded that one of the keys to the "French paradox"--despite having a diet that was heavy with rich and fatty foods, the incidence of obesity among the French was lower than among Americans--was that the French simply ate less at each meal. (Hope you appreciate the parody of high-end plating in the photo accompanying the story.) Rozin and his researchers noted something I think most of us who hang out here on eG know by simple observation: American restaurants serve huge portions. Rozin's research concluded that on average, American restaurant portions are 25 percent larger than French ones. And yet one of the things I note about high-end restaurants in the US--and, I suspect, one of the reasons why some Americans, including me, occasionally feel they didn't get their money's worth at such places--is that they almost uniformly buck this trend. To tie this to the photos that prompted this post, your serving of porterhouse was portioned and plated the way it would be at a place like Lacroix or Per Se if those places served porterhouse steak, but if you went to, say, Ruth's Chris Steak House instead, you'd get the entire steak all to yourself for roughly the same price. The reason I say "occasionally" in the above post is because I realize that at places of this type, you're here to experience the food, not just consume it, while at those places with the enormous portions, the opposite is more likely true. And yet I suspect that many Americans have been conditioned by all those large portions to not feel full unless they've had plenty to eat, and as a result, they may (hypothetically) walk out of a three-Michelin-star restaurant awestruck by the quality of what they ate but not completely satisfied because it didn't fill them up. Since there are constant alarms in the press about the rising tide of obesity in the US, and plenty of discussions here and elsewhere about just what is responsible for it--everything from fat to high-fructose corn syrup to carbs in general to Auto Age suburban development has come under the gun--might a campaign to get restaurants to downsize their portions have a bigger effect on reversing this trend?

Sure you didn't stumble across a bunch of converted World War II defense bunkers by mistake?

Indeed, I was recently in Philly to eat. The city is full of charm and some great food. I had lunch at La Croix, gelato at this really great place whose name is now escaping me, Capogiro, probably. In which case, given that you also stopped at the RTM, you were in my neighborhood and stomping ground. You stopped at all the right places. You might want to check out a rather fascinating insiders' discussion on the Pennsylvania board about the aftereffects of Jean-Marie Lacroix leaving his namesake restaurant as well. Oh, and watch your PMs.

Yes, sort of. The "loophole" is a universal one, opened when the USDA developed standards for labeling food as organic. Organic purists (from what I've heard) were unhappy with some of the practices the USDA allowed; those practices (the specifics escape me right now) made large-scale "organic" production more feasible. The net result is that you are already seeing more products bearing the "USDA Organic" label on your supermarket shelf, and when Del Monte comes out with an organic line of canned tomato products, you can't get too much more mainstream than that. I think that elsewhere on this forum, there's a discussion of Michael Pollan's latest book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals." One of those four meals gives him the opportunity to look at what he calls "Big Organic" and sift through its paradoxes and contradictions. There is another discussion arising from one chapter in this section--his chapter on Whole Foods Market, whose CEO responded via open letter on his blog, sparking an unusually civilized exchange between the two.

Yup. And you can get Branston pickles there, too. ← Guess I need to either a) vary my routine and head to the Uberfresh instead of the Super Cruise just to check it out, or b) see if any of this stuff can be found at 56th and Chestnut, though something tells me that that Freshgrocer location might have a great selection of Indian spices but very little in the way of Franco-British delicacies.

This was the restaurant where Marcus Samuelsson (one of those rarities, an Afro-Swede) first got noticed. Then Philly restaurant impresario Stephen Starr lured him down to his 13th restaurant, Washington Square, giving him the keys to the kitchen amid much hype about a menu that would feature "global street food." I'm not sure anyone around here ever figured out exactly what "global street food" was. And whatever it was, the locals weren't impressed by it. Things quickly went south, and pretty soon, Samuelsson was on his way back to New York. What's he doing now, and where? And segueing from this tale to another question: I realize it's easier for you to head into New York City from where you live, but Philly isn't that far away. Have you ever thought about sampling this city's favorite foods (some of which probably do qualify as "street food" of sorts, as you can find carts all over town serving up cheesesteaks) or checking out its dining scene?

In fact, I have. I'm the food and dining editor for The Chronicle, Duke's daily independent newspaper. If you're so inclined you can click on the link and type my last name, Zupon, into the search bar to read some of my work. In the past year I've covered everythign from restaurant reviews, to food sustainability, to molecular gastronomy. I might try to do some writing for the local city paper, but I'm not sure if I'll have the time. ← Just took a look at your work for The Chronicle, and I'm glad to see you've developed a regular beat. I really like your writing style and your no-nonsense approach to explaining good food. (Judging from the front page images on the Web site, The Chronicle is also a very handsome publication. However, your Web site manager should be told to use ASCII character codes (nnnn;) for the accented letters in online stories, for they don't render properly viewed through my browser (Netscape 8.0, based on Mozilla).) As I believe I said over in that food writing thread, one of the good things about attending an Ivy-class university is that the undergraduate student newspaper is independent of both the administration and (in the case of Columbia; does Duke have a J-school?) the journalism program, which frees you to do things you might not otherwise be able to, like (in your case) diss Aramark. (Speaking of Aramark, did you see my post describing dining at Widener in my foodblog?) I really hope that, whatever you do, you at least continue to do this sort of thing on a freelance basis.

Oh, boy, more internal contradictions! Right on the heels of reading a lengthy political essay exposing the internal contradictions of one of our two major parties. I can't talk about that here, but the two do share that connection. Frankly, the only thing a "buy fresh, buy local" movement should be about is promoting local growers, farmers and producers. I can ding the Commonwealth's PA Preferred program for having standards so loose that an outfit like SYSCO Foodservice of Central Pennsylvania can be included, but I really can't ding it for including a large processor like Hatfield Quality Meats as long as that company gets most of the pork, beef and turkey it packs and processes from Pennsylvania sources. (It doesn't? Well, that opens up another can of worms.) If you're concerned about the fat content of the food you eat or sell, then join a campaign to promote "healthier" eating. If you're concerned about the damage conventional farming does to the soil and ecosystems, then by all means buy or sell only organic. But don't confuse these with promoting local agriculture. The answer to your first question is: the National Pork Board, when it began to notice that consumers were shunning pork because it was perceived as being too high in fat--and if you follow those USDA dietary guidelines, it was. As it would be too much effort to go mano a mano with Big Nutrition and its allies in the diet industry to educate consumers to what makes pork pork and why the fat is both necessary and perhaps not something to worry about overmuch once it's cooked, they decided to take the route that those Vietnam War generals did and "destroy the pig in order to save it." This concern over fat is why boneless, skinless chicken breasts have attained Godzilla-like proportions and cost as much as $6 a pound for the industrial-grade variety while stores give away the thighs and leg quarters. And it's why, as you accurately put it, today's pork Tastes Like Chicken. But don't blame political correctness for this. I guarantee you, Big Nutrition is a bipartisan organization.

Understood why you wouldn't want to visit Carman's, Chris. I'd second Tony Luke's and the recommendation that for the show, you skip the cheesesteak in favor of the roast pork Italian, which is a truly transcendent sandwich not well known outside Philly; Tony Luke's is the ne plus ultra roast pork Italian. (You can always eat a cheesesteak for your own edification later; Tony Luke's not too bad in this department either.) Rachel Ray did Villa di Roma for "$40 a Day," so you might want to consider one of the other old-school red-gravy places if you decide on one of those. Caribbean fare is hardly either unique to or closely identified with Philly, but I for one enjoy it, and I still haven't been to the Jamaican Jerk Hut yet... I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "old time American/typical restaurant," but neighboring South Jersey is Dinerland, and Philly has some excellent examples of the genre too--and they still serve their classic social as well as alimentary functions*. "Everybody who knows goes to Melrose," so if that's what you were referring to, I'd zig where "everybody" zags and feature the Mayfair Diner in the Northeast instead. (Melrose Diner: 15th Street and Passyunk Avenue; Mayfair Diner: 7373 Frankford Avenue.) Further comment: Craig LaBan, the Inquirer's restaurant critic, reviewed a different Northeast Philly diner whose name escapes me about five years ago and gave it three bells (Excellent; the scale is zero to four). *The closest diner to me is the Midtown II Restaurant (11th and Sansom). It's popular with the club crowd after the bars close. A friend who goes there more often than I do told me that when he dropped by Sunday, the waitress told him to tell me about the model train show at the Convention Center, to which he responded that we were going together later that day (I ended up seeing the National Train Show alone). Philly diners are like that.

How can I tell when the produce I buy at Iovine's comes from the local growers? Is it reliably identified as Jersey, or locally grown?

I don't know how many of you have been paying attention to the ads on the Inquirer's op-ed page this past week, or whether any of you took note of the fact that the Farm Aid 2006 benefit concert will be held in Camden this year. The two items are related. Farm Aid is taking place in this region because the area around Philadelphia is home to some of the country's most productive farmland and some of its best farmers, and both New Jersey and (especially) Pennsylvania are leaders in the effort to promote local farmers and locally produced foodstuffs. The ads are a run-up to one of those efforts, " Buy Fresh, Buy Local Week," which begins July 15. The ads are an effort to reduce food abuse--after all, if you traveled 2,500 miles from home just to eat dinner, you'd be tired, limp and out a lot of money for gas, too. It looks as if this movement may be attaining critical mass. Over in General Food Topics, last week's foodblogger, phlawless, chronicled her efforts to follow the "100-Mile Diet"--in which one eats only foodstuffs grown or produced within 100 miles of one's residence. In her case, she would have to make an exception for seafood, as Durham, N.C., is just far enough inland to be more than 100 miles from the coast, but she could still rely on Carolina fisheries for her fare. And in Food Media and News, there is a rather enlightening discussion of the open letter Michael Pollan ("The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals") wrote in response to Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey's complaints about the way WFM was portrayed in Pollan's book. The discussion hinges in large part on local sourcing as a key component of what the organic food movement was once all about but is no longer. So perhaps this is a good time to ask: Do you have any plans to celebrate "Buy Fresh, Buy Local Week"? Would you change your shopping habits for the event? Or do you already celebrate it every time you shop? (I'm just beginning to work more local produce into my diet, Jersey tomatoes aside; even though it goes against my penchant for penny-pinching, I've started buying more of my produce from the Fair Food Farmstand and Kauffman's, though not a majority of it yet. I must say that yes, it is much fresher, and tastier too.)

Paul showed off Tokyo Sushi's new look when I ran into him at the RTM this past Friday. They did a great job with the improvements, and it now looks a lot more inviting. If Paul has an MBA, it's news to me. I like what he's doing to try to keep the Market fresh, interesting and appealing to a wide cross-section of Philadelphians. He has a hard time convincing some of the merchants of this, but the RTM does have competition. Everyone who shops there could be shopping somewhere else, and that somewhere else could be anything from their local supermarket to 9th Street to Whole Foods--and now even to Wegmans. The Market has to market itself not just on its uniqueness but also on quality, or price, or both. The things Paul is doing are efforts to reinforce the RTM's reputation for quality, variety and freshness, since in most areas other than produce, where the RTM is perceived by both its patrons and others as offering the best value for money on produce, the merchants don't compete on price. BTW and FWIW, the Halteman's stand whose lease was canceled is not the one that is actually run by the Halteman family. Rather, it's the poultry stand that was once run, but is no longer, by a different Halteman; an Asian family whose name I don't know took it over. As with the other places mentioned here, the issue was keeping the facility in top shape--and in the case of this place, a secondary issue of bringing in better quality product (the other poultry vendors at the RTM either raise their own or buy from local poultry farms; AIUI, A.A. Halteman's did neither). I second Dorine's assessment of O.K. Lee--and I know Bobby Iovine. I patronize both stands and think each has strengths. (O.K. Lee's makeover is also quite nice.) I do note that often one will have a special on something both carry while the other does not. (Those 99-cent-per-pound Jersey tomatoes, for instance. On the day before you went, they were selling for $1.99 at Iovine's and $0.99 at O.K. Lee. Lee's were a little underripe, but a day in the windowsill fixed that. I ate one the following day with fresh mozzarella from Claudio's, dried basil and a balsamic vinegar drizzle.) BTW, welcome to eG, Dorine. I see you were busy catching up. As for your question about the Pizza Club, all you have to do to join is show up at one of our outings. We're currently in the middle of an epic project, which you can read about in the "PIZZA CLUB 2006 -- 'Best' Year Ever" thread on this board. It's about time to start working on the next stop on the tour.

4. seems obvious from what you've posted here. You should definitely give thanks for 5. as well, and though I've never really been a big fan of sourdough, 3. as well. 1. and 2. are intersecting sets, and 2. is something I've lamented before on other threads here. I know that many argue that the real cost of our current food system is much higher than the cost of a more localized system, and we won't even attempt to disentangle the various subsidies to folks like ADM that help contribute to corn products in absolutely everything, but I think that for most of us, the ultimate deal-maker or deal-breaker is what we end up paying for directly, and as long as that figure is two to three times as much for good local food as it is for the stuff shipped all the way from California, it's going to be hard--or at least harder--for most people to buy local. Pity we seem disinclined to send the subsidies where they'd do more good, like to the pockets of local consumers and farmers. That said, you seem to have done quite well at living locally this week. Just curious: how much more did it cost you monetarily? (The time cost will go down as you figure out how to work the local sources into your shopping routine.) Congratulations on pulling it off and sharing the results with us this week. I'm impressed! FWIW, it's Local Food Month here in Philadelphia. The Food Trust has been taking out ads on the Op-Ed page of The Philadelphia Inquirer explaining just how bad it is on the food to make all those long trips; it's a shame they don't have the budget to do the same sort of thing in, say, 30-second spots on 6ABC*, where two-thirds of metropolitan Philadelphia might get the message instead of about one-third, and a more affluent third at that. *"Action News" on WPVI-TV in Philadelphia has long been the ratings leader. For many years, and for all I know still, it was the highest-rated local TV newscast in the country in terms of audience share.

I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy! I expect to be astounded this week. Please don't let me down. You mentioned the brand of the range; I assume the fridge is similarly high-end? (This morning, as I was showering, I was internally fuming over the base-model Frigidaire which our landlord installed about three years ago after the Hotpoint that was part of the original appliance suite conked out. Soon after it went in, the fridge door somehow developed a gap in its bottom left corner (on the side that opens), which the landlord's appliance repair folk "fixed" by stuffing plastic bags in the gasket. Ever since, we've had serious moisture problems, which I was told the last time I complained were because we don't close the door fully -- how can we? Now we get rime in the freezer, including rime that blocks the forced-air vents, the temp control in the fridge is stuck on the coldest setting, and neither the freezer nor the fridge are as cold as they ought to be, and I don't think that's entirely because I've got the freezer almost completely full right now--I shouldn't be able to press my finger into a chicken breast that's been sitting inside it for 12 hours. I was thinking, Maybe we should buy a good fridge and take it off our rent--or maybe not, and take it with us should we move? Okay, rant over. Sorry.) I know we sort of discussed writing about food in another thread a while back on this board. Have you done anything else in this regard since then? And have you given serious thought to doing so? You are a good solid writer, and while the pay's not fabulous (unless you work those Duke connections to land at a top-tier newspaper or magazine), it's very rewarding work.

How many people, and at what time? --Sandy "no, I'm not thinking of crashing the party, but there is an out-of-town visitor who I hope to meet up with later tonight" Smith

Frankly, I'd say the two have parallel scales. You really don't want to mess with either crappy sushi or crappy cheesesteaks. Of course, with the raw varieties, you're not going to run into "average" all that often--it will either be good or lousy. And since even the cooked varieties are also seafood--the omelet is the one widely available exception--the same duality applies there. You won't find much "average" sushi the way you will find "average" cheesesteaks. But there are differences between good sushi and great sushi. I enjoy both. So far, I've had only one sushi experience that was so bad I'd warn people away from the place--at Aoi on Walnut Street. (That was now about a decade ago. The place may have improved since then. I haven't been back to test that proposition, but this is the place with the all-you-can-eat sushi special, so...)

Knew I should have attended the local NLGJA chapter brunch! (The event took place at the Cresheim Cottage Cafe, mentioned in the article.)

Here are a couple of takeout suggestions: --Wasabi House (13th and Pine). Not as good as what you will get at places like Raw or Sagami, but it's good quality, fresh (they do a lot of takeout business) and inexpensive. It's probably your best option for fresh sushi to go. --Genji Sushi Express (Ardmore Farmers' Market and Whole Foods Market locations throughout the region). This is the commissary/catering/prepacked sushi-to-go operation from the owners of Genji, one of the better Japanese restaurants in town with a reputation for excellent sushi. It's not prepared to order like at Wasabi House or the other takeout restaurants, but it is prepared daily in the stores by GSE employees. Depending on where you live, this may well be the most convenient way for you to try sushi where nobody will laugh at you.