MarketStEl

You don't mean to tell me I'm more likely to encounter non-cucina frontera Mexican cuisine in Philadelphia than I am in San Antonio? (Unfortunately, the local crowd wasn't quite up enough on the variety of Mexican cooking to keep the first Mexican seafood restaurant in Philly, Rio Bravo, open. It closed after about two years in business, and its space at 11th Street and Washington Avenue now houses a Chinese seafood restaurant. Tequila's on Locust Street offers a more upscale take on the foods of interior Mexico.) On to sausage gravy: Having made sausage gravy, I can second this opinion. Confidential to The Old Foodie: In South Philadelphia, "gravy" is a thick red substance made from tomatoes and served over pasta.

Carman is touring the Mideast and is due back the second (I think) week of July. No international incidents yet, but I'm still hopeful. ← Heard the news from a couple of disappointed would-be patrons en route to the South Philly Acme this morning. I steered them to Sam's Morning Glory as a consolation prize. I hope she's enjoying her trip. If we hear news of a surprise deal between Hamas and Israel, we will know who was responsible.

I work in the Office of University Relations, in the Public Relations Department. As is the case in most such departments, my job--make that one of my jobs--is to pitch the media on reporting about things happening here or using our faculty as experts for commentary (e.g., I lined up two professors to argue pro and con on the benefits of casino gambling for Chester; the essays ran in the Delaware County Daily Times the Friday of the licensing hearings for Chester Downs^W^WHarrah's Chester Racetrack and Casino). My bailiwick is the entire campus, including the School of Hospitality Management. Click on the link to my foodblog in my .sig--you will see a couple of posts devoted to the School of Hospitality Management, with pictures. I'm impressed with the caliber of Widener's program. I may not be interpreting this correctly, and if I'm not, I'm sure you will set me straight, but one of the underlying messages I pick up in your comments is that our food writers should be advocates for the local food community--maybe even going so far as to openly promote deserving restaurants, suppliers, producers, and industry folk. You may have a point here, and I think it may even be possible to do this without doing the reader a disservice. But I think that most journalists see themselves first and foremost as guardians of a trust with the reader, to whom they owe first loyalty. And when that comes to reporting on a subject as subjective as food, that means offering their considered (or even ill-considered) opinions on the places they write about, for better or worse. While boosterism has had a place in journalism for years--and newspapers today still engage in the practice when they deem something worthy of such treatment--it tends to be viewed as a bit unseemly at best by many reporters. Again, I would direct you to my foodblog for a little commentary on how I think the dining scene here got to its current state, which, for all the handwringing on this thread, I don't think is all that bad. Which is not to deny your point that it could be better. Unfortunately, the vehicles by which food writers here can reach a large region-wide audience are few: specifically, the Inquirer and Philadelphia magazine. (Not to say it's not good at what it does, but Philadelphia Style IMO attracts an audience that is more interested in the "scene" than in the substance of dining out and thus is less influential than it could be, and the alt-weeklies also appeal to a relatively narrow segment of the regional audience, one that skews young, which means that some very fine restaurant reviews (especially in Philadelphia Weekly) get less notice than they might deserve.) Now, I don't know whether the audience might be interested in some of the inside-baseball stuff being aired on this thread. Perhaps it might add some sizzle to the food pages; perhaps it might prove distratcting or turn readers off. Or maybe WHYY should take as much of an interest in dining out as it does in cooking in and launch a show (TV or radio) devoted to the local dining scene. Forgive my rambling. I guess all I'm really saying is that you raise some good points, touch on a sensitive matter, and open the door to a bunch of possibilities.

Case in point on your statement about landlords: The space at the intersection of 10th Street, Reed Street and East Passyunk Avenue. For a number of years, this was occupied by a branch of Nifty Fifty's, the local retro-burger/soda joint chain. The store did very well and attracted traffic to this semi-busy intersection well into the night. Then--so my friend Herb Moskowitz, who was a fan of the place, told me--the landlord jacked up the rent, presumably to capture a share of the success. (I believe the economists call this "rent-seeking behavior"--in this case, the term is meant literally.) Nifty Fifty's balked and closed up shop at that location, moving the South Philly operation to South Jersey (and thus following in the footsteps of a generation or two of South Philly Italians). Since then, at least two restaurants have opened in that space. Both closed within a few months of opening. You might think the landlords would get the message. Apparently, they don't. Now, I realize that what all of you have been talking about is the ultra-high end of the dining spectrum rather than the more pedestrian realm represented by this place. But I believe the tale is illustrative all the same.

Well, I should have added aromatics to the liquid when I fired up the Crock-Pot, but as these are being used in a mixed salad (other ingredients: broccoli, corn, diced candy onions from Lancaster County, chopped Lancaster County tomatoes, chopped cilantro and a picante-sauce cider vinaigrette), I think these will be OK. As for the ton and a half of beans still left: I guess it's time to learn how to make black bean dip.

Turned off the Crock-Pot after about 6 hours, and let everything sit until this morning. The beans don't seem to be too mushy--in fact, they're still pretty firm, most of them. More when I go through them for the salad.

I'll buy that first one, as I started soaking them just before I left for work at 6:45 this morning and returned to find the conditions I described at 7:15 this evening.

I would imagine that 6 hours on Auto-Shift (the first two hours are on High, the rest on Low) should be okay...

There may be an answer to this question on this board already; if there is, please forgive my raising the subject again, but I'm curious as I've not cooked dried black beans before. I soaked the beans all day today while I was at work, covering them in about twice as much water as beans by volume. When I got home, the beans had absorbed most of the water, and some of them had split their skins. A few had split, period. And some looked like the skins were ready to fall off. Is this something to be concerned about? Can I go ahead and cook them? Should I eliminate them from my final dish (a mixed veggie and black bean salad)?

Modifying my own prior posts to add further info about SEPTA: As the rapid transit network in Philly is skeletal, many of the places you might want to visit will require a bus ride. As you said you and your wife enjoy "walking vast distances," I didn't say much about the buses, as I assumed you'd enjoy a stroll, but even the hardiest of walkers gets tired sooner or later. Unfortunately, the wonderfully detailed city street and transit map SEPTA produces is very hard to come by these days, as it hasn't been updated since the mid-1990s. You can find information about all SEPTA services, including route maps and schedules, at SEPTA's Web site. For instance, you could hop the Route G bus from Oregon station on the Broad Street Line eastbound to get to Tony Luke's.

So that's why I sing in the PGMC: Because I'm a blue cheese-loving, mixing Libra who loves barbecue sauce most of all! I never would have figured that out if I hadn't taken this quiz. But I too am waiting for that hefty income that would allow me to buy the condo of my dreams. Until then, I guess I'll remain a renter. Despite the obviously promotional nature of this quiz, I must say that I agree with one of the organization's premises: there are few easier ways to have something tasty and feel virtuous at the same time than eating a good salad. I usually eschew blue cheese dressing in favor of another variety to bump up the virtue quotient a bit, especially when I've already lowered it by liberally topping my salad with grated cheese.

Whether it's working the readers, as articles like this one do, or working reporters, as I do, we're all looking for some hook that will draw the target to read the piece. "Eating too much of this may lead to a, but then again, it may not," won't grab someone's attention as effectively as "If you eat lots of this, chances are you will end up with a." Note that in my second sentence, I said nothing definite: there is a qualifier, "chances are," that indicates a less-than-certain outcome. We also can't control how the recipient hears or reads the message we send. (The postmodern literary theorists are right about this much: Every text has two authors, the person who wrote it and the person who reads it.) Our readers may filter out those qualifiers in the course of processing the story. Note how a couple of posters identified saturated fat as the villain even though the story concerned research on consumption of trans fats only? As for the more definitive tone of the headline--"Why fast food is bad even in moderation"--it's not totally supported by the story itself; we have no evidence here of the effects of a small amount of trans fat on the health of the subjects (though reports on other research suggest that even a small amount of trans fat has a negative effect, which would make the headline accurate if it ran over a story that reported that). But "increased risk" of something is by definition bad too; if it weren't, there would be no reason for the insurance industry to exist--or for that industry to either charge up the wazoo or refuse to cover people whose choices make them more likely to cost the insurer money. Now, "a diet largely of fast food" is also by definition not "in moderation," so the headline also states something the article doesn't presume to speak on there as well. But it does do one thing well: Grabs the reader's attention. That it also prepares the reader to filter the information he or she is about to receive in a more negative fashion than it might otherwise have been interpreted is often a secondary consideration in writing a headline, if indeed it is one at all.

Cheryl of Cheryl's Southern Style definitely deserves a boost like this. (See my foodblog for details about the place.) I hope to be able to say the same thing about De' Essence of New Orleans soon as well. The only downside about Cheryl's is that this place is strictly takeout and there's no really comfortable place to eat outdoors near the restaurant. I would hope that wouldn't be an insurmountable bar. In my short time working at Widener, I've met a bunch of people who love this beat-up old town every bit as much as the residents who left seem to and are trying their best to help it back up. As for the larger comment from carpetbagger upthread about what makes this different from everything else on the Food Network: One, Chris is not a food professional, either in a preparing or writing capacity. As a cop who loves good food, he comes to the subject from a completely different angle, and his explanation that I've snipped here explains how. Two, he is focusing on the places you won't find in the tour guides, it appears. Is a three really necessary.

Okay, I'm joining this way late, but congratulations! I'm looking forward to your take on Philly already. You already have Holly, Herb and Katie offering their services, but may I also contribute as another rank amateur guide? When it comes to the Philadelphia region, you can't get much more off the beaten path than Chester, a city that not even the locals visit much. I've already been introduced to or stumbled across several good, small places to eat, some of them run by people with real personality who are doing their small part to nurse this faded industrial center back to good health. I've mentioned one of them in my first foodblog and another in the long-running "Lunch!" thread. A third--which I hoped to include in my blog, but the event fell through--I haven't sampled yet but will report on when I do. (A fourth is a bakery that has amazing donuts (edited to add: It won a "Best of Delco" for its donuts in this year's Daily Times readers' poll) but is only open from 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. As my commute to work now runs via Chester train station, I can stop by this place--which is just steps away--en route.) I'd be glad to assist in any way I can, time and other commitments permitting. As soon as Chris Amirault figures out how best to solicit suggestions, I'll add mine.

You HATE leftovers! I am rendered speechless. Aren't they the main reason for cooking?? What do you have for breakfast? lunch? I am so stunned I am rendered speechless, or writer-less - which is why I had to edit this post - I was so stunned I posted it as soon as I had edited the quote, before I even added anything. Are there any other leftover lovers out there? ← Present and accounted for! I fight an uphill battle with the roomie over this very subject. There are lots of things that I cook in order to have leftovers that I can pack in lunches on subsequent days. In fact, I've got one of those in today's lunch--shredded beef in barbecue sauce, the remnants of a braised top round roast I cooked in my Crock-Pot on Tuesday.

I guess I'm in the distinct minority here as far as walking after dark is concerned, and if you want to take the subject up with me, I'd be happy to discuss it on Phillyblog, but I'll repeat that I haven't had much trouble, nor have I felt particularly uncomfortable, walking after dark in the area of South Philly that includes my recommended walking route to Citizens Bank Park. (Edited to add: And that includes more than a few trips back to my Wash West apartment from the 10th and Reed Acme lugging a cart full of groceries.) If you want to know what I look like, I resemble my avatar strongly. Most of the people who live in South Philly east of Broad do not look like me.

As I happen to live in the only neighborhood in the entire Greater Philadelphia region where you can find a Whole Foods Market and a conventional supermarket right next to each other--10th Street separates the Whole Paycheck from a Super Fresh--that's not really an issue for me. And, of course, I can walk to the Reading Terminal Market. All this gushing about Wegmans leads me to wonder how folks around here feel about a local supermarket operator whose stores may not be on Wegmans' level, but are conceptually quite similar--and are by and large located in neighborhoods where most operators (Pathmark aside) wouldn't think of opening even a plain-vanilla supermarket. Watch for a thread to be started on this local chain.

I would no more expect great writing from you all than you would expect me to turn out a three-star / four-bell dining experience. I'll do what I do well, you do what you do well, and we'll both be happy. Yes key, but this is alot to ask of a city that isn't very welcoming to change. It would take alot of networking and working together amongst chefs along with supporting each other. but above all what would help is if the food journalist would get involved in the future of the philly restaurant scene. They sometimes don't understand how much pull they have. They are the ones who could turn this in the right direction... ← Care to elaborate on just how our food journalists might go about doing this? I argued in my foodblog that writeups in publications like Philadelphia magazine helped the "Restaurant Renaissance" leave a permanent legacy by educating the audience, and today's Philly restaurant scene is the descendant and beneficiary of that. Obviously you believe we can (pardon my Emerilism) "kick it up a notch" and take the entire scene to a higher plane. What should I, the reader, be learning when reading about food and dining around here? What should I, the writer, tell my readers?

Another off-the-beaten-path place to visit if you like Civil War history is the Grand Army of the Republic museum at 4278 Griscom Street in Frankford. It's not as well known as the Civil War Museum and Library in Center City, and it's open by appointment only (call 215-289-6484 for info), but it has an interesting collection of Union artifacts and letters. This is another place that you should save for the day you use your DayPasses, as there is neither a good nor a safe walking route from Center City to Frankford, in the lower northeast part of the city. It's not far from Margaret-Orthodox station on the Market-Frankford Line. Edited to add detail about hours and exact street address.

First off: This is a pretty big city in terms of territory as well as population: Philadelphia County encompasses 156 square miles, and some of the interesting off-the-beaten-path sites worth visiting (e.g., the Wagner Free Institute of Science in North Philadelphia, which is doubly interesting both for its collection of natural artifacts and its unaltered 19th-century display methods, in a building designed by the same man who designed Philadelphia City Hall) are either a long trek from Center City or in areas where I would not recommend that two visitors randomly walk about (the Wagner, at 17th and Montgomery Avenue, is in one of those latter neighborhoods). I would suggest that you consider plunking down $11.50 for two SEPTA DayPasses for one day of your visit and use them to hit some of the further-out sites. (As its name implies, the Wagner charges no admission [voluntary donations are encouraged], which would make it a good stop for penny-pinching travelers.) Another of those further-out sites is the Wissahickon Valley of Fairmount Park. As you two love to walk, you can get a full day of nature in by getting there via the park's own pedestrian paths, which provide an almost unbroken path from Center City (via the Ben Franklin Parkway) to the northwesternmost corner of the city. Tricky spots for you to negotiate on foot will be the area near Eakins Oval, where you will have to cross Kelly Drive at some point to reach the ped/bike path on the Schuylkill's east bank, and the area where Kelly Drive, Lincoln Drive and the City Avenue bridges meet, where you may have to dodge some traffic to get from the path along the Schuylkill to the one along the Wissahickon Creek next to Lincoln Drive. It would probably be easiest for you to cross Kelly Drive at Midvale Avenue, walk up Midvale to Ridge (and maybe have lunch at Johnny Manana's, a fun, not-too-expensive Mexican place right at Ridge and Midvale in East Falls, while you're at it--or maybe check out the other dining options in the area), then follow Ridge up to the Wissahickon and the footpath along it. Midway along Forbidden Drive--the gravel path that parallels the Wissahickon once it veers away from Lincoln Drive and runs all the way to the northwest city limit at Northwestern Avenue--is the Valley Green Inn, an 18th-century tavern that today houses a restaurant and refreshment stand. Unfortunately, I don't think that the Fairmount Park information center in the "spaceship" at LOVE Park will be open by this weekend, but you may be able to obtain park maps and information at Lloyd Hall, the large recreation facility at the beginning of Boathouse Row. A roadway leading into the valley from the north* at Valley Green will take you into Chestnut Hill, where you can catch either the R8 Chestnut Hill West Regional Rail line at St. Martins station or the Route 23 bus on Germantown Avenue to get back into the city if you're not up for walking back. As for the walks you asked about: Center City to Northern Liberties is a perfectly safe hike. Thanks to the fact that the Vine Expressway is on a raised embankment in this area, your path choices between the two districts are somewhat limited (I'd recommend using 2d Street), but it's not difficult to do. You will pass through a light industrial/office/warehouse zone in between Old City and NoLibs. If you like good jazz at all, a visit to Ortlieb's Jazzhaus (847 N. 3d, in the former Ortlieb's brewery) is an absolute must. This is where Philly's rising jazz stars and hometown faves play, and the food's not bad either--the menu is mainly Cajun/Creole. Center City to Citizens Bank Park is also an okay walk, but your path choices are limited to Broad and 7th streets south of Oregon Avenue--the Walt Whitman Bridge approach blocks off just about everything else and most of the area south of the bridge approach is either enclosed residential districts or the vast acres of parking lots and warehouses that surround the sports facilities. I haven't run into much trouble walking anywhere east of Broad in South Philly after dark. For a good walk through South Philly with plenty of opportunities to munch, I would suggest you route your trip to the sports complex as follows: Via 9th Street from South Street to Passyunk Avenue--this takes you right through the heart of the Italian Market; do this on Saturday and you will see the market at its busiest--then down East Passyunk Avenue from "Cheesesteak Corner" to Broad Street at Snyder Avenue. (One block further west on Passyunk Avenue, at 15th, is the Melrose Diner, a legendary local landmark where "everybody who knows" has gone for more than 60 years.) Follow Broad from there to the stadia and arenas. You might want to make a side trip down Washington from 9th Street to "Two Street" to check out the Mummers Museum, the only permanent display devoted to Philly's homegrown New Year's folk tradition; along the way you will pass several very good Vietnamese, Korean and Cambodian eateries, including Pho Ba Le, one of the city's better places to get pho (a noodle soup that is a meal in itself) and bahn mi ("Vietnamese hoagies," which are spicier, heavier on the veggies and less expensive usually than the traditional Philly variety; someone correct me if Ba Le, which is also a bakery, does not serve bahn mi). There is also a very good Vietnamese hoagie shop, Ổ Sandwiches, right next door to Geno's Steaks on 9th Street. (Geno's has been much in the news lately for a request its owner has made of its patrons. Archrival Pat's has the better cheesesteak, and both are bested by other places, including the place I mention below.) Next door to Ổ Sandwiches is La Lupe, one of several authentic, inexpensive Mexican eateries that have sprung up in and around the "Italian" Market over the past several years. Since you're going to pass Oregon Avenue at some point in this trek, you should probably also hike all the way over past Front Street to Tony Luke's at 39 West Oregon Avenue. Besides not caring what language you order in, TL's also serves the best hot sandwich in the city--their roast pork Italian, with sharp provolone and broccoli rabe, is a truly transcendent work of art. I'm sure others will chime in with their suggestions about what to see, do and eat in Philly. Enjoy your visit! *Edited to add a note about compass points. A co-worker gently chided me yesterday for what she referred to as my "Midwestern" habit of referring to directions with cardinal compass points ("that place is south of City Hall"...). As much of the city is laid out in a grid whose north-south axis is a mere 5 degrees E of true north, this is not an egregious mistake for many local locations, but as this grid sometimes bends to follow old local roads, and does not exist at all in our irreguarly surveyed suburbs, it can be less than helpful, especially when--as in the case of this street--the direction I perceive the street as running clashes with its orientation on the city street numbering grid. In Northwest Philadelphia, two thoroughfares that run northwest-southeast--Ridge Avenue to the west of Wissahickon Creek and Germantown Avenue to its east--are the "north-south" axes of the local address grids, and the streets that cross them run east-west. Since the sun seems to rise and set across, not along, the "east-west" streets in Germantown, Mt. Airy and Chestnut Hill, I perceive them as "north-south," hence my reference to a street entering the Wissahickon Valley "from the north."

It was an embellishment Holly. Just to highlight the balance of detail and pretense.... ← None have skewered pretense better than the Doyenne of Etiquette, Miss Manners herself, in the following letter that ran in her first collection of columns, "Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior": Dear Miss Manners: What is the proper way to eat a potato chip? Gentle Reader: With a knife and fork. A fruit knife and an oyster fork, to be specific. Good heavens, Miss Manners understands the need to instruct people in the finer points of dining etiquette, but anyone who doesn't have the common sense to grab a handful of potato chips and stuff them in his mouth is beyond her help.

We go through New Braunfels occasionally, usually either on our way to Lockhart for BBQ or to San Marcos to shop at the outlet malls. I may have been missing out on the German experience in New Braunfels. Only good food I have had there is from an old bakery in their kinda historic downtown-ish area. Any particular places in New Braunfels that you would recommend? I'm sure good German food would be worth traveling for. Whatever she recommends, if you get up that way during this blog, maybe you can pay a visit to the company that makes those smokers with the offset fireboxes and the chimneys that make them look like locomotives? If it's not in New Braunfels, it should change its name. Cool! Caribbean fusion barbecue! You must report on this place.

While awaiting a more authoritative answer from Tupac, I will note that as I have seen "chicken fried chicken" on the menu of at least one restaurant that specializes in this type of "down home" cooking, the answer may well be, Both. (I suspect the logic behind "chicken fried chicken" is the same as that underlying the chicken cheesesteak.)

Well, since you hail from one of the country's other barbecue capitals, I would like to engage you on the relative merits of Texas brisket vs., say, Kansas City burnt ends or ribs. (That was a delish-looking photo you put up as a teaser!) And maybe you could indulge me with a little historical background by way of answering this question: In most of America's other barbecue hotbeds, it's the descendants of slaves or the Scots/Irish Southerners who owned them who mastered the technique, passed on the traditions and continue to spread the Gospel of 'Cue. How is it that in Texas, it's the descendants of German immigrants who are the keepers of the flame? (I don't think I need to poll you on your opinions about banning foie gras.) Blog on...

This thing's still open? Well, let me say that I greatly enjoyed sitting in on your week full of leafy green things and goat meat. That was a beautiful coda you put on the whole affair; it spawned some thoughts in my mind that would be wildly off-topic even by the relaxed standards applied to eG foodblogs--if you'd like to hear them, let me know. I'm going to try my hand at cooking black beans for the first time later this week. No pressure cooker; I assume a Crock-Pot would be an inappropriate vehicle for this effort. Their ultimate destination is a mixed veggie salad I'm making for the PGMC end-of-year party. You don't soak your beans first, right? Or wrong? I'll see you in various places around here in any case. Take care, and stay well...