MarketStEl

When I get home, I'm throwing out the broken yellow liquid emulsion and starting over with another batch. The mouthfeel was all wrong and there wasn't enough of it on the bread to really complement the Lebanon bologna, process Swiss and lettuce. This time, I will use only 1/2 cup of oil and add more vinegar, sugar, mustard powder and paprika.

It may or may not, but I think I just stumbled across a great name for a leather bar.

Welcome back, homegirl! Lay as much Steely Dan and derivatives on me as you care to. Post MP3s, even, if you dare and they're legal. I do believe you were around my room on a few occasions as I wore out the grooves of Aja. Fagen's never lost his touch for great jazz-inflected songs or offbeat subjects (who else could write songs about pedophiles that get wide airplay?). I'm looking forward to reading your chronicles about taming the Big Fat Monster--and wish I was on that deck overlooking the bay right now. Instead, I'm about to get up from my desk and head over to the Widener Wellness Center for a 20-minute workout, the longest I can shoehorn in on my lunch hour. (Looks like I will be a regular commuter on the 7:03 R2 to Newark, Del., even after we go back to regular 9-5 hours in the fall, for it might be the only way for me to get a longer workout in around my workday.) Blog on!

So the only difference is mustard powder and paprika--and I imagine more sugar than goes into regular mayo? So much Sturm und Drang over so little! Then again, given the industry in which I work, I shouldn't be surprised. There's an old saying that goes, "Academic politics are so vicious because the stakes are so low." This may also come close to resembling those medieval theological arguments about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.

Sorry to hear that. I take it you no longer have the upstairs space. There is a very good restaurant here in Center City Philadelphia called Zanzibar Blue that is also one of the city's premier jazz clubs, and it's all on one level. This is the place where the legends play when they swing through Philly. The jazz, however, is as big a draw as the food, if not bigger, and the stage is on the restaurant side of the house. The bar is separated from the restaurant by a glass partition, which lets you see the performers if you like. This is actually a very good arrangement, for it allows patrons who can't (or don't want to) swing the cover charge for a big act to experience it anyway for the price of drinks; the music is piped into the bar over the restaurant's speaker system. I heard Gato Barbieri perform in just this fashion back in March. I don't know if the space you have now is configurable in this manner, or whether your restaurant patrons would be annoyed or not by the presence of the musicians. I only post this by way of offering an example of how great dining and great jazz can coexist in a single space.

Burned-out shells of buildings? Rampant drug dealing? Intermittent gunfire? Sounds like my part of town. (Gertrude Stein's famous quote applies to my boyhood home: "There's no there there." I had heard that it had fallen into the hands of a drug gang from my brother, who now lives in Seattle, and I had also heard that it had been torched by a rival gang a couple of years ago in a dispute over territory or something like that, but I still wasn't prepared for the weed-covered lot where 4138 Bellefontaine Avenue once stood. Actually, the block I grew up on is in okay shape--minus my house and one other--and the across-the-street neighbors, whose house is still neat as a pin, tell me the block has been very quiet since the dealers were burned out of it. The neighborhood is still lower-middle/middle-class black and looks much like it did when I left it for good in 1976.) But I don't think of that stuff when I think of the Plaza either. You never can tell what crazy notions can enter the heads of suburbanites whose impressions of the Big Bad City are formed largely by what they see on TV, though. Okay, back off my soapbox to ask again what's in Houlihan's Old Place's old place. Dividend: Wanna talk instant urbanism? PM me. That sort of stuff I love to eat up (see my foodblog).

Yep, the good old days of "planned obsolescence," when the annual model changeover was a Really Big Deal. It probably doesn't help matters any now that your auto mechanic also needs to know Linux and C++ in order to fix your car.

Anyone else here seen a copy of Cook's Country, the new down-home cousin of Cook's Illustrated? I just got a promo subscription offer for this in the mail last week.

The amount of oil called for in the recipe is way, way too much. (I too had no canola oil; instead, I used Enova, that soybean/canola oil blend based on incredible Japanese technology that keeps most of it from being stored in your body as fat.) Had I stopped adding oil at the point in the recipe where it says, "After going through about half the oil, your mayo should be very thick," it would have been the right consistency--about 1/2 cup of oil. For one cup, I guess two egg yolks are needed. I don't know whether your use of garlic salt rather than garlic powder may have altered the flavor profile; did you then omit the salt called for in the recipe? I think that more vinegar, sugar and mustard might help; maybe more paprika, but not cayenne. There is now a broken yellow liquid emulsion in my fridge. I put some of this stuff on the bread for my sandwich today. I'll let you all know how it tastes after lunch.

Covering the waterfront, so to speak... Remember when they were called service stations? I remember when just about every gas station did repair work. These have all but disappeared, but a few survive: one such station is still in business at 10th Street and Washington Avenue. And we have come full circle from Holly Moore's reminiscence too. We don't call them general stores any more, though: Around here, we call these places Wawa. In Central Pennsylvania, they're called Sheetz. In my hometown, QuikTrip. The generic term is "convenience store," and yes, the gas station and the C-store have become increasingly indistinguishable from each other.

Not according to the editors of Condé Nast Traveler, you didn't. (The travel mag ran a survey a few years back in which they had their staffers ask random strangers for directions, get recommendations for nightlife and attractions and leave wallets with ID and cash in a public place in six different cities. Philadelphia was pronounced the friendliest of the six in a cover story based on the survey. It probably helped that the locals apparently returned the wallets with the cash to the "victims.") But yes, this friendliness comes with a healthy side of addytood.

I should note one more thing regarding divided loyalties: The split ran right through the middle of my family. I grew up with Miracle Whip in the house. When Mom did the food shopping, that's what she bought. (She was born in Omaha and raised in northeast Kansas, in a small town called Horton, about 30 mi NW of Kansas City and 30 mi NE of Topeka.) Whenever I had sandwiches Grandma (on Dad's side) prepared, they were slathered with Hellmann's mayonnaise. (My dad's family tree traces its male line back to before Missouri was a state, but Grandma was born in Lufkin, Texas, and headed north up the Kansas City Southern line.) Have fun sorting this out, folks.

Treet vs Spam? Okay, now that's hilarious. Which is supposed to be the "upscale one," and which the pate of the trailer parks? ← In this part of the country, we don't even get the chance to engage in such fine class distinctions, as it's all but impossible to find Armour Treet in Philadelphia-area supermarkets. But FTR, Treet is the impostor and Spam the genuine article. I've already donned my flameproof suit for the inevitable ripostes.

Uh-oh.

Zona Rosa received passing mention in a Wall Street Journal feature on the growing phenomenon of "New Urbanist" shopping centers--shopping centers designed around a street rather than an enclosed mall, with housing on top of the stores. It appears that there is some of this at Zona Rosa, though I sure didn't see anything that looked like that on the drive in from MCI. Maybe it's on the side of the project that's away from I-29? Since someone brought up Houlihan's: So what's at the site of the original "Houlihan's Old Place" these days? (I heard it closed not long after that devastating Brush Creek flood back in '77.)

Speaking of jazz, is that still on the menu as well? I have this vague recollection of having gone to Starker's when I brought my partner to KC to "meet the folks" back in 1984. The place was on the second floor of the building housing the Plaza Theatre, Nichols Road side. There was a fairly decent combo performing--and I ran into a neighbor girl who lived across from my Grandma's house (5400 block of Agnes) and with whom I played all the time growing up, who was also there that night with her boyfriend.

I must have lucked out at OK Lee's, then, with the red bell pepper I purchased. There wasn't a problem with the flooring spontaneously combusting during the summer? Changing the subject slightly: Paul and the RTM get a thumbs-up for taking out an ad in the program for the upcoming PGMC concert. (That's this Saturday at 8 at the Kimmel, folks. Maybe I'll see some of you in the audience? 215-893-1999; www.kimmelcenter.org.) I can assure you I'm far from the only chorus member who's a regular patron of the RTM. --Sandy "yes, I'm on the marketing committee of the PGMC" Smith

Use Interstate 70 as a proxy. This gets tricky somewhere around Lawrence, Kan., but it works okay otherwise. (I guess once in Kansas, you should use Interstate 35 instead.) What about mixed lettuces and field greens with a Dijon vinaigrette? (Now to debase myself further: I make a "Catalina"-type dressing using olive oil, rice vinegar and bottled chili sauce.) Hmmmm...I've always been partial to horseradish there.

ACK.......enuf !! NONONONO..........blecch.......... ← I thank you dockhl for both your candor and the remarkable restraint you have shown in waiting this long to post your opinion. You are to be commended. However, as with all oppressed peoples who emerge from the shadows to drink that sweet nectar called freedom I'm afraid that there is no turning back now! Yes some may say that we are "different" and that our love of Miracle Whip is "unnatural" but if you cut us, do we not bleed? And no, we do not bleed Miracle Whip BTW. Our closeted love for this delicious condiment has been liberated and I'm afraid that you'll just have to get used to us taking our rightful place in the culinary world. WE'RE HERE, WE SCHMEAR, GET USED TO IT!!! ← Finally, an appropriate place for me to come out! I haven't bought it in a dog's age, but Miracle Whip makes a tangier potato salad than mayonnaise, tangy enough that I can even get away with omitting the pickle relish from it, though I usually don't. Ditto for deviled eggs. (Edited to add: And of course, a dollop of Miracle Whip on a fresh, ripe tomato slice is pure heaven.) I imagine that this "all-natural" recipe above might even convince some of the haters to try it anew--that is, assuming that the hate is based on the artificiality of the mass-produced product and not on its sweet-and-tangy taste (must be the vinegar, mustard and garlic that give the product tang). Now I'm gonna have to go out and get a jar, or try the homemade version. Before I do, though, I have a question for everyone here: In what part of the country were you born and raised? I recall seeing in Harper's quite a while ago a map that demarcated the divide between areas of the country where people prefer mayo and those where Miracle Whip prevails. The line of demarcation pretty much followed the Mason-Dixon line, with Southerners being Miracle Whip aficionados. Being a native Missourian and thus both Southern and Northern, my divided loyalties on mayo and MW should come as no surprise.

I take it the smoked-turkey fad has yet to invade Atlanta? (Yes, low-fat, health-conscious finger-wagging has even made it into the realm of Southern/soul food cookery. I have several acquaintances who have flavored the cooking water for their greens with smoked turkey butt instead of the traditional fatback or ham hocks. I've done this myself as well.)

...and I thought I was kidding when I called this restaurant "Pelicanfish in drag"... The sign by the door this evening reads "Show at 12:00!" (That's 12 midnight, needless to say.) I asked the bartender who was performing. "Oh, we've got three or four performers...in drag..." Pity my wallet's moth-eaten right now. I just hope the kitchen's open at showtime.

I don't have any pictures from the Clermont (and for this you should be most heartily grateful), but it has been discussed previously here eG. Check out this thread to find some information, including the ringing endorsement of a guy whose opinion was actually featured in Gourmet magazine. I ate at Mary Mac's for my last blog, so I'll scavenge some pictures from the archives for you: ← Looks promising. Tastes as good as it looks?

Yup...that's what I meant...we just call it that and I forget that it has an actual name. Lowry's is the only one for me Childhood throwback...kind of like those Kraft Pizza in a Box things ← I'm partial to McCormick Season-All and Spicy Season-All myself--they're not as sweet (check the ingredients list on each)--but that's why we have variety! I never did cotton to those pizza kits-in-a-box, though I did try making one once. Now I enjoy occasionally making a pizza from scratch.

From the waitstaff? (Male, I'm guessing?) So tell me more about this Mary Mac. And the Clermont, if you're up to it. --Sandy, who's heard lots o'hype about "Hotlanta" and wonders if it's all that

Should your travels ever take you up Philadelphia way, be sure to make your way to Cheryl's Southern Style in downtown Chester (see my foodblog for a brief review). This is one of those "little divey corner joints" -- it's literally a hole in the wall, with no inside seating -- and Cheryl does it right. If she stayed open past 5, I'd grab a platter to go and take it with me on the train home--Chester train station is right across the street.