MarketStEl

Thank you for putting an Official Seal of Approval on an opinion I formed back when Giunta's had just opened and I bought from Charlie the most mind-blowingly delicious ham I have ever eaten. The Lancaster County hams he now carries are good enough, but I may just have to move to Iowa so I can get my hands on one of those Van de Rose beauties. Charlie Giunta offers outstanding value for the money -- meats that are many notches above supermarket quality at prices competitive with supermarkets. I had to chuckle at this one. Guess you can commercialize anything if you find the right angle.

Speaking of eggs: I have managed to trade access to the bounty of a South Jersey vegetable garden for a boss who has a small farm in Bucks County and raises chickens for eggs. Until I had one of those eggs, I hadn't realized how much better a really fresh egg tasted, and how much more vivid the yellow of the yolks. Boss assures me that she will have tomatoes too in season. I really did luck out getting this job!

True. But I can think of many ways to turn a grilled cheese sandwich into something not that common. Port Salut, IMO, makes a yummy grilled cheese sandwich. But who outside France grew up eating Port Salut? And I didn't learn about the yumminess of whole grain bread until my early teens, when I had my first slice of Roman Meal. For me, a "common" grilled cheese sandwich is childhood on a plate. That would be two slices of white bread, buttered on the outside, with a slice of cheese -- American's the classic; here I substitute Cheddar. And I get the feeling that there are some out there for whom this version of the grilled cheese sandwich might be a bit too common.

My, my, my! Like the fridge door after a teenager has gone foraging inside it, this blog has been left open? Good. That gives me a chance to say "Thanks for everything -- especially the drawing of Snakey Boy!" Lovely kitchen, btw. Maybe I might be worthy of such a space in my next life.

Time for a Jargon Clue: You've referred to "3-pans" and "6-pans" on a few occasions in this blog. I would have guessed that "6-pans" were larger than "3-pans," but after comparing the shot of your "canister" drawer and the ice pan in your fridge, I'm not so sure. What do the 3 and 6 refer to? And which is larger? Aren't those the people who put out the parodies of those motivational posters that feature nature scenes and inspirational blather? For the first time in my life, I work in a workplace that has some of these posters in one of its conference rooms. I'm sorely tempted to get a parody poster for my cubicle. (You saw both the cubicle and what I consider inspirational prose in that recently concluded tag-team foodblog.) Had you told me in college that someday I would read the terms "Ritz-Carlton" and "White Plains" in the same sentence, I would have said you were crazy. Times have certainly changed in the Westchester County seat!

Wondered what this post about a "new" place was doing at the top of the list. It got bumped! Nearest SEPTA service: Need you ask?

Do they still make National Bohemian beer? Ever since McCormick & Co. acquired its maker, you can find Old Bay just about anywhere. However, the McCormick people did remain respectful to Old Bay's roots -- you can still find a "Maryland -- With Pride" logo on every can, featuring that wonderful state flag of Maryland's. (The logo does not appear on any other McCormick product, even though the company is still headquartered in metropolitan Baltimore.) Old Bay is wonderful. You can use it on so much more than seafood.

LOL I do I am a nurse!!! ← Yay hummingbirdkiss! My mom was a nurse and I attribute my lack of germ paranoia to that. My mom was also a nurse. She used to joke before taking a swig of water directly from the bottle, "Germs only travel when there's someone looking." That said, there are people who are more susceptible to germs, as the subject of hospital-acquired infections demonstrates, and I'm sure that your mom, like my mom and hummingbirdkiss, took the proper actions to prevent germ transmission when on the job. I tend to spoon some dip onto my plate if I'm at an event that has both plates and lots of people I don't interact with frequently. That said, given how some gay men greet one another, a gathering of same is probably the last place I should hear people complaining about double-dipping.

I was there a week ago tonight for a Phillyblog Happy Hour, and I'd recommend it as a congenial place to graze. In concept, it's quite similar to Tria, only with chocolate. The menu is even more sampling-friendly than Tria's, though: their beers, wines and cheeses can be ordered in full sizes (about $6-$10, depending on what you order) or in small taster portions (1-1.5 ounces of cheese, 50-100 ml of beer in a brandy snifter they call an "e-flask" [or something to that effect]) for about $2-$4. They also offer fondue, sandwiches, paninis, soup, salad, and pizza, everything under $10. Given the place's lineage -- it's owned by the folks who brought you Eulogy Belgian Tavern about a block and a half away on Chestnut -- it shouldn't surprise you that they have an extensive selection of wines and beers to taste. The beer selection is broad but heavy on the Belgian brews, again no surprise. The cheese selection has at least one of all the major styles of cheese (hard, semisoft, soft-ripened, washed-rind, with-stuff), but it could use a little more balance: one-fourth of the offerings were Goudas or Gouda-style cheeses (again, consider the place's name). I ordered a blue cheese-and-beer fondue (the evening's special) with chorizo for dipping (all fondues come with bread cubes, but they encourage you to order additional items off their menu of dippers, each about $3-$6). This isn't that '70s fondue: there are no big metal pots with long-handled skewers here. Instead, it came out in a cute little ramekin, kept warm over a small oil wick flame. The beer added an interesting bite to the already pungent blue cheese and went well with the chorizo. I think I swiped some chocolate something-or-other off another diner's plate -- something that resembled and tasted like tiny thin mints. The restaurant has a very useful feature designed for the taster: small glass washers (we called them "glass bidets") at every table. Several of us who showed up for the happy hour, which began at 5 and didn't end until somewhere past midnight, got hours of amusement from this grownup toy. Beneluxx is in a basement space on Third just below Market -- not good for people-watching but ideal for conviviality. The decor is, like Belgium itself, a mix of French and Dutch elements that didn't seem forced together, unlike Belgium itself. I used a somewhat scatological metaphor to describe to one of the waitresses just how much I adored cheese. Turned out she felt the same way. That's a good sign. Beneluxx Tasting Room 33 South 3d Street (between Market and Chestnut) Tuesday-Thursday 5 pm-midnight; Friday-Saturday 5 pm-2 am Reservations accepted only through OpenTable Nearest SEPTA service: Bus Routes 21 or 42 to 3d and Chestnut, Bus Routes 17, 33, or 48 to 3d and Market, Bus Route 57 northbound on 3d or southbound on 4th to Market or Chestnut, or Market-Frankford Line to 2d Street station, then proceed one block west on Market. The restaurant is on the east side of 3d Street about halfway between Market and Chestnut.

Seconded, thirded and fourthed! He sounds like one cool viper -- a snake I wouldn't mind encountering on a plane. Interesting way your son channels his mom, too! It's a good thing there's no accountant character in that strip!

By the way 2 has a finite value. There are no such things as "large values of 2" ← I heard that line as a joke back in college, told by either a math major or a computer science major. (FTR, I was a government major.) I thought the humor was clear. And when you get into the higher theoretical reaches of math, numbers do some pretty strange things. Lighten up, man. Edited to add: I might concede your main point, however: I have nearly 30 years' experience as a professional writer, including 16 consecutive years full-time in public relations and related work, under my belt. The company that hired me in December found out that hiring two younger writers, each with about 7-10 years' experience, didn't cut it -- and yet following the arithmetic logic you dissed, they had an aggregate 15-20 years' experience, arithmetically speaking. I replaced both of the younger writers, BTW.

Perhaps, but if the experiences are concurrent and even similar but not identical, I don't understand why you can't accumulate them. No two diners' experience of the same restaurant will be identical unless they both dine together on the same visit, and even then there will likely be differences. Nor will the same diner's experience of the same restaurant on different visits -- that's why restaurant reviewers usually make at least two separate visits to a restaurant before writing a review. Tastes also evolve differently over time for different people, even within the same time span. Find me someone else born to African-American parents in Kansas City, Missouri, on Oct. 22, 1958, and I can guarantee you that you won't get the exact same life story, tastes or preferences. In terms of set theory, what we have are intersecting but not congruent sets. To the extent that the group of people in question have visited the same establishments within the same given time span (e.g., the lifetimes of the diners), then we cannot say their cumulative experiences are completely separate, but given that experiences vary within narrower time frames, neither are they completely identical, and IMO it's no less accurate to add their individual time spans together than it is to conflate them into a single number based on the age of the oldest member of the group. Put another way, "2 + 2 = 5 for large values of 2."

Don't tell the oenophiles! However, your attitude somewhat mirrors mine: If I know I will get something better for the extra dough (e.g., Parmigiano-Reggiano at $14/lb vs. the pre-grated stuff in the cans at $6-$8/lb), I will gladly pay the premium, but often enough, the relationship between price and quality is nonlinear. And regardless how much I'm paying, I always want to pay the lowest possible price. I've been told that the nuts inside the seed pods of the female gingko tree are considered a delicacy by the Chinese, and older Chinese women routinely forage for them on the streets of New York City. We could use more of these foragers here in Philadelphia, where gingkos are far more common (I believe they were introduced to the United States here). Or maybe I could use (a) some recipes (b) some instructions on how to extricate the nut without stinking up the place. Tomatoes are easy to grow on one's windowsill, right? I live in an apartment with large south-facing windows.

1) So how long do you give them before they become the reincarnation of Siegfried's? 2) When that happens, they'll have to change the name of the place to Deutsche Country Treats, I guess.

A lot of what New York cheddar? Certainly not what you find in your neighborhood supermarket. And come to think of it, I don't think I've seen any New York State artisanal Cheddars around these parts. Given that New York State is a big Cheddar-producing region, up there with Vermont and Wisconsin, I would think that I'd have seen some artisanal New York Cheddars by now. Or maybe I'm just not paying attention.

Missed the teasers! Glad to see you're blogging, Fabby! Congratulate your husband on his half century. I'll catch up with him this October 22. Since your kitchen is all new, of course, we need photos, including the obligatories. Where in Westchester are you located? Let's see some of your town's native charm. Given the Clinton reference, I'm guessing Chappaqua. And should you serve Green Bean Casserole, I definitely want documentation!

I'm not so sure that the term is meaningless. We all eat to live. Some of us live to eat. "Foodies" would fall into the latter category, as would gourmands. Truth to tell, I had always understood the word "gourmand" to be a high-class version of "glutton." One would never call Diamond Jim Brady a glutton, but one would call him a gourmand. I note that the Wikipedia article on Epicurus stated that he stressed the benefits that came from enjoying modest pleasures. I think that adjective's connotations have been stripped completely from the modern words "epicure" and "epicurean." Though I also note that the person who posted the Wikipedia snippet (gfron?) unconsciously channeled one of my favorite recipe sites, the wonderfully named Epicurious, the joint site of Condé Nast's two food magazines, Gourmet and Bon Appetit Hmmmm..."appetist"?

Thanks, Dave and Sharon, for clearing things up at the source (which, in French, is a spring). My original comment on the subject, then, stands -- most American restaurants do misuse the term by applying it to the plat. Now we can get back to the question of what to call the stuff you can eat without a fork (most of the time) and standing up (some of the time). Hadn't thought of the inappropriateness of lamb chops as an hors d'oeuvre until I read Ivy's essay. Then again, there is the larger issue of cocktail parties that serve hors d'oeuvres and provide you plates for them. Just try balancing your plate on your wine glass as you try to either shake the hand of another guest or spear/pluck/nibble something off it.

Not the whole English-speaking world, just us unworldly Americans. My Australian friends call it the "main course" (or just the "main"), and call appetizers "entrées." Same goes for many of my British friends. ← Now I'm confused. Based on photos I've seen of early (get ready now) Paris Métro stations, and what little I remember of the French I took back before the Flood, I assumed that the entrée was the "entrance" to something. Applied to a meal, that would be the opening or "starter" course. Now comes a knowledgeable food lover to tell us that where they speak French, it's used to apply to the main course, as most American restaurant menus I've seen use the term. Maybe I'll just quit using French to refer to any part of the meal. I'll call canapés "stand-up finger food," amuse-bouches "sit-down finger food freebies," hors d'oeuvres "itty-bitty starters," and entrées "main dishes." There. Everyone will laugh at me, but at least I won't be confused any more, and I won't have to worry what the French think of us, or what they think of Jerry Lewis, or who's Nikolas Sarkozy's latest trophy wife, or any of that stuff. Okay, maybe I don't have to go that far. This much I can follow. Since most American restaurants don't comp their customers with itty-bitty starters, I can leave the amuse-bouche alone, unless a restaurant serves me one, in which case I guess I'll have to eat it. After I read that piece about horrors d'oeuvres.

What's Eton him?

Two reasons: --The prices are lower, and --No sales tax. New Hampshire is unique among the 50 states for having neither a state income tax nor a state sales tax, and NH politicians who suggest either commit career suicide. The state monopoly on liquor sales is about the only thing the Keystone and Granite States share in common -- well, that and I-95 slicing across their southeast corner. But the New Hampshire Liquor Commission's operating philosophy stands in stark contrast to the other dozen or so states (and one Maryland county) where the government has a monopoly on the sale of packaged alcoholic beverages. Those liquor stores are one of the main reasons why NH can get away with no broad-based statewide tax. I still question the wisdom of putting state liquor stores on the turnpikes where service plazas should be.

Okay, now that I've gotten caught up: Thank you for sharing your life with us, and for all that lovely snow. I hope that kids-cooking shots do not become mandatory like fridge shots are (BTW, where's yours?), for that will disqualify me from producing any more foodblogs in the future. Unless, that is, I can borrow Oliver the next time I blog! And given what you're writing, I now understand why you took an interest in our tag-team blog. I think that Ellen and Randi are way ahead of me in the food-that-tastes-good-and-is-good-for-you department, though. However, if your cookbook will have a chapter on how to incorporate lots of cheese into a healthy diet, I'll buy it. Now to the nostalgia trip. I loved those shots from your drive through a bunch of Middlesex villages and towns. I remember driving out to Groton my freshman year in college (obviously, the first semester, for as you now know, I was carless after that) to visit the former music teacher at my prep school, who had landed at Groton after a somewhat controversial tenure at Pem-Day. It's truly lovely country, picture-postcard charming. I'd agree that one of those photos could just as easily be in England, but IMO, all the other shots are distinctively and uniquely New England. Especially the two-lane road lined with evergreen trees. No, wait a minute: You could find scenery like that in the Pacific Northwest. I've heard it said that if the country had been settled from west to east, Washington State and Oregon would look very much like New England does; perhaps it's no accident that both regions have lovely cities named Portland? (Actually, it isn't, as the one in Oregon was founded by New Englanders who fondly recalled the one in Maine and thought the region resembled the one they left.) You're lucky that you and your hubby have figured out how to work around those irreconcilable differences. I've heard of relationships that foundered over much less important matters: you know, little things like money and sex. I look forward to seeing what treats you have in store for us this last day of official blogging!

A:[...] in a Philadelphia, no matter what you ask for, you can’t get it. You ask for something, they're not gonna get it. You want to do something, it ain't gonna get done. You want to go somewhere, you can't get there from here. M: Good God. So this is very serious. A: Just remember, Marcus. This is a condition named for the town that invented the cheese steak. Something that nobody in his right mind would willingly ask for. -- From "The Philadelphia" by David Ives (collected in All in the Timing) ← Edited to add this bit from a review of All in the Timing, in which the reviewer explains the inversion that is a Philadelphia and how the character who finds himself in it learns to cope through reverse psychology: Yep. Philadelphia through and through.

<slaps forehead> Well, duh! It would only make sense that Bell's Market is at Bell's Corner! 8330 Bustleton Avenue Philadelphia, PA 19152 Nearest SEPTA service: Bus Route 58 from Frankford Transportation Center or Bus Route 59 from Arrott Terminal (Margaret-Orthodox station, Market-Frankford Line) to Bell's Corner (junction of Bustleton and Castor avenues, Fox Chase Road and Strahle Street; end of line for Route 59). It's a half-block further north on the west side of Bustleton.

Not that I'm likely to make it up there soon unless someone drags me along, but: Address? SEPTA directions?