MarketStEl

Well: if it's hot chili and garlic ketchup (e.g. Maggi) http://www.maggime.com/english/products-ke....asp?prodtype=3 then it's great...... Otherwise plain ketchup only because it's better than nothing.... Milagai ← I guess I'll have to see if one of the Asian supermarkets on Washington Avenue carries this line, as it's not part of Maggi's US product line (which is pretty much limited to boullion cubes and concentrate). Heinz--which is synonymous with ketchup to many Americans--now produces a hot ketchup, but it's made with Tabasco, IIRC. I could probably mimic this product by mixing in a little Huy Fong hot chili garlic sauce with regular ketchup, though.

For those of you who wanted to check out Pelicanfish, the seafood place where Girasole used to be on Locust at 13th, but didn't get there before it closed, I have good news: Pelicanfish lives! Only it's not called Pelicanfish anymore. This weekend marked the opening of "Applause, Applause," which bills itself as a "theatrical restaurant," in Pelicanfish's space. For Memorial Day--the head chef's day off--the restaurant offered patrons a free buffet and half-price drinks all day. (The bar has been open for about five weeks and caters to a gay crowd.) I'll have to go back to report on the fare, for the buffet featured items you will never see on the Applause, Applause menu. (Edited to list them: Roast beef au jus, very tender and juicy chicken breast cacciatore, penne pasta with meatballs, and crab cakes. Crab galette does appear on the menu.) My host today, an engaging fellow named Kevin, explained to me that the buffet was provided by a caterer who is friendly with the restaurant staff. He also explained to me how this new-yet-not-really-new restaurant came to be. It seems that the owner of Pelicanfish made two big mistakes: He misjudged the neighborhood and waited too long to open the place after he acquired it, burning up capital on rent for the space without patrons to cover it. Having thus dug himself a hole, he couldn't fill it with enough diners, and -- or so Kevin's comments led me to believe -- may not have made enough of an effort to attract some of the biggest diners out in the neighborhood, namely, its gay residents. So back the owner went to New Jersey--or, as Kevin put it, "We kept the chef and the staff and fired the owner." The menu still has plenty of seafood dishes, but it's expanded a bit beyond that: entrees also include steak au poivre, lemongrass rack of lamb, roasted seven spice Peking duck and chicken piccata Marsala. One dish that looks intriguing, and which I will have to come back to try, is the broiled tandoor marinated cod--but this raises the question: If this place has a tandoori oven, why is this the only tandoori dish they offer? (Which in turn leads me to wonder further whether this is actually "tandoori" or rather something slow-baked in clay with spices.) The new management isn't making the mistake of slighting the gayborhood--on the contrary; they're part of it. Rainbow flags now hang in the windows, and when I stopped in this afternoon, I recognized several of the bar patrons from other gayborhood watering holes. In other words, as I put it to Kevin, this place is "Pelicanfish in drag with a bigger menu"--a comment he found amusing and promptly shared with the new owner, who was seated at the bar. The menu pricing policy is wallet-friendly: The price of the entrée includes a beverage plus soup, salad or an appetizer. (I didn't ask Kevin whether the beverage was alcoholic or not. I'm assuming it isn't. If it is, then this is a real deal.) The menu could use a proofreader, though: I can't say I've ever heard of "Swedish Rolled Salmon Grav-hax" before. I understand that the food at Pelicanfish was quite good, and as the chef remains, that bodes well for Applause, Applause. I'll have to find out for certain on a future visit.

Okay, here's my guess: The American Stonyfield Farm yogurt has added fiber? I don't associate dairy products with dietary fiber usually. Shifting gears to Vidalia onions: Would the reason they used to go bad faster have anything to do with their high moisture content? I note that they go bad faster than regular onions still. It seems to me that Vidalias are still as sweet as ever, but there is certainly more competition in the category they once had to themselves. When Vidalias go out of season, produce bins in Philadelphia quickly fill with "Mayan Sweets" grown in either Central America or Peru, I forget which. And if there aren't Mayan Sweets on sale, someone has Texas 1015s. Great trivia questions, BTW. I need to pick up more of what I see at the H-Mart. Now, however, I'm curious about something else: I'm following an Atlantan's gastronomic adventures and I have yet to see anything aside from Vidalia onions and rhubarb that I would consider traditionally Southern. What happened to all that?

Is that critter a lemur? (Purely a wild guess, as I somehow recall that lemurs are actually related to civet cats or something like that.) Haven't run across lychee or longan yet at the H-Mart I patronize, so either (1) I just haven't noticed or been looking for it or (2) that's what makes yours Super. I am curious to see Atlanta's answer to Upper Darby.

Why does Target even have mayonnaise anywhere near hot dogs? Frankly, it took me some time to get used to the Eastern habit of putting mayonnaise where ketchup should go. (Although one of these misplacements of mayonnaise--as a dip for French fries--is actually a Belgian practice, or so I have been made to understand, and not bad at all.) But I guess that someone who mixes mustard and ketchup together, then dips French fries in the resulting amalgam, shouldn't protest too loudly about this.

Bruni got a lot right. But his typical, non-Cincinnatian reaction to Cincinnati Chili shows he is really not cut out for such a eating quest. Too fixed in his expectations. ← Not having had Gold Star, but having eaten Skyline--and having made my own home version of Cincinnati chili once--may I suggest that the problem just might have something to do with what Gold Star uses to make its chili? (Edited to add:) --Sandy, who recalls that the South Street outpost of Gold Star Chili had a very short half-life

Is The Inquirer's restaurant reviewer really that froufrou? I mean, the guy did champion a cheesesteak--an ordinary one, not the $100 jobbie Barclay Prime sells--from a totally unpretentious place right where I-95 crosses over Oregon Avenue. That said: Mixing stuff together with your mashed potatoes is cool, but not everything was meant to be mixed with mashed potatoes. Leaving aside for the moment the apparently questionable quality of this bowl's components, I think the place where KFC went off the rails with this particular variation on shepherd's pie was when they decided to use fried, breaded chicken nuggets as the meat. Having made my share of turkey shepherd's pie from the Thanksgiving and Christmas leftovers, I know that this dish ought to work in theory, but how the meat is prepared and mixed in is key. Breaded, fried chicken nuggets just strike me as all wrong texture-wise, and how would you keep the breading from going soggy amidst all those moist veggies and potatoes? (Judging from the descriptions posted here so far, the nuggets must have absorbed whatever moisture had been left in the corn.) And as for KFC's story of how this dish came to be: ...it sounds to me like it's an acceleration of, not a remedy to, lunch-starved Americans' usual rushed and unsatisfying lunchtime routine. Besides, the remedy doesn't take the form of eating a particular dish instead of something else. It consists of actually being able to take an hour to sit down, relax and have lunch at some leisure. This usually requires an on-premises quick-service eatery or a brown bag and a nice place to sit outdoors.

The blog opens with a trivia quiz and quickly moves to a trip to an H-Mart. (Okay, not just any H-Mart--a Super H-Mart.) Are you channeling me, Therese? So maybe you could tell me what's Atlanta's answer to Upper Darby Township? (A Korean presence is not enough. You have to have Hispanics, preferably from Central or South America; blacks, some of whom are African, not African-American; recent or not-so-recent immigrants from Europe's poorer (or formerly poorer, in the case of Ireland) nations, and a generous helping of white hyphenated-Americans of various persuasions. This being Atlanta, I'm inclined to insist on the presence of a rapid transit line too, but given how little of the area is directly served by MARTA's rail system, that isn't a requirement.) Atlanta being the city it is now, I imagine one of these places must exist in the metropolitan area. If you could, I'd appreciate it if you could find it and describe it to me. I can say up front that your trivia questions will be much more challenging than mine--so far, I'm 0-for-2, which should tell you how often I watch "The Sopranos." The street light design in the first picture looked an awful lot like those in downtown Atlanta, installed for the Centennial Olympic Games, but the rest of the photo bore no resemblance at all to any American location, so that threw me. As for peaches, we tend not to get good ones from Georgia--the best time for eating peaches around Philly is when the Jersey crop comes in beginning sometime in late July. And speaking of food on license plates, New Jersey ought to issue a plate with a big, juicy tomato on it, but so far, nothing of the sort has been proposed. Maine's standard license plate features a lobster in the background. Kansas plates used to have stalks of wheat in between the numbers, but the current ones now have the state capitol building in Topeka. (A special conservation plate features a bison, the state animal, and the title of the state song, "Home on the Range.") Indiana plates for a while featured a farm scene and the legend "Amber Waves of Grain," and Iowa plates today have a farm-scene background. (I guess that's stretching "produce" a bit, but it is about producing food, so I think it qualifies, or ought to.) I can't think of any other states beyond these and the three already mentioned upthread that have or had food products or food-related themes on their license plates. (Actually, I think Virginia may also have a special Chesapeake Bay plate that has a crab on it.) Looking forward to your future trivia questions and the rest of this blog!

Poked my head in the place on the way back from the State Store tonight. The really cute and friendly host obliged my request to see the menu. He also told me about some of his favorite items. I was relieved to see that I wouldn't have to apply for a loan to eat here, as some posts on this thread had led me to believe. (Maybe these diners had the omakase.) And the design of the place makes it possible to enjoy dinner for one at the sushi bar. Oh, I'll be back. Next time, to eat. Preferably with a friend in tow.

I guess I didn't know it at the time, but probably the point at which I crossed the line from food lover to "foodie"--if such a line exists or can be drawn so sharply--is when I took a mini-course on French cooking during the January inter-semester session at Sunset Hill sophomore year. (Sunset Hill was the all-girls school that coordinated classes and calendar with Pembroke-Country Day, the all-boys school I attended; the two have since merged into a coed institution called Pembroke Hill. A Sunset classmate actually brought that course up during our recent reunion--she recalled every dish we prepared! [i could only recall Coquilles St. Jacques and a dish that involved ground beef and a beaten egg but was not meatloaf; its name escapes me.] Said alum went on to train professionally as a chef; she arranged the catering for our 30th class reunion, which was provided by a wonderful local restaurant, Room 39.) However, I prepped for it. I loved to hang around Dad--the better, or at least more frequent, cook in the family--whenever he got around to grilling or cooking rotisserie meats outdoors (he couldn't barbecue, as his grill had no lid). And I absolutely loved to eat bits of leftover biscuit dough that my grandmother and Mom would set aside for me. I always clamored for "Bikkits!" at Sunday dinner as a young child. (I also pestered Granddad to let me have a sip of his "Cars"--Coors beer--which I guess prefigured a fondness for alcohol that I have since had to temper.) I started making recipes out of our Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book somewhere around the time I turned 12. (This, maybe or maybe not coincidentally, was also when my parents divorced. Mom would go on to fix fabulous Sunday brunch spreads--a practice I have since adopted--but often as not, the meals I ate as a teenager were ones I fixed myself.) And I had my own little food revelations--my first taste of Roman Meal bread at 13, for instance, made me a whole-grain convert on the spot. Which brings me to cheese. My cheese revelation wasn't in quite the same class as Lordof7's--it was Kaukauna cold pack spread, back when they still sold it in those clay crocks, that taught me that cheese had the potential for wonderful and interesting flavors--but it had the same effect on me. BTW, Lordof7: I did discover Cabot after moving to New England, and I agree that it's a great Cheddar, and their premium varieties are among the best in America. But as with Gates' Bar-B-Q among Kansas Citians in the know, it's been eclipsed in my favor by other, far more impressive varieties, such as Pennsylvania Noble, which is technically not a Cheddar because the cheesemaker skips the brining step, but is otherwise made in the same fashion.

Do I have to channel Rodney King -- "Can we all just get along here?" While understanding that it's really bad form for an empty or nearly empty restaurant to seat diners right next to each other, I wouldn't call it a fatal mistake either. And even though the disparaging comments about this practice when it occurs are justified, there is a whiff of overentitlement and underexposure to the public sphere about this whole conversation. I'm straining mightily to keep from going off on a tangent about how we as individuals have overinsulated ourselves from the world's rough edges.

So: what parks are near Gaeta's? Mummer's recommendation leads me in that direction, and if it rains on the 25th, we can always do Joseph's instead. Just tossing this out as an alternative: With July 4 falling on a Tuesday, I suspect that many of you will take a vacation day Monday to make a super-long weekend of it, but if people's schedules leave them freer on July 1-2 than on June 24-25, I'm willing to entertain that weekend instead. Please post your thoughts here, as my initial inclination is to stick with the original date.

The actual line was even better. Respect the pun, sir: The hostess of the Wednesday night karaoke at Pure (see my foodblog) does a parody of a song from the musical "Wicked" called "The Wizard and I." In her version, the love object is that DQ dessert: "My Blizzard and I." I'll have to see if I can get the lyrics to post.

Pierson's e-mail said 2-7p, but I wouldn't count on anyone being there before 3 or after 6. ← Good news. I'll try check it out as soon as I'm able. ← The Farmer's Market Trust market right across the street from my building on Tuesday closes at 6, just like the RTM. To make matters worse, our summer hours begin June 5. The good news is, we get Fridays off. The bad news is, we make up the time by working either 8 am to 5:30 pm or 8:30 am to 6 pm the other four days. That means I'll miss this stand completely unless I can finagle an occasional early departure on Tuesday. Aside: I doubt that too many of the RTM's customers would find themselves in my situation, but I have more evidence to support Paul when he argues with the merchants that they do face competition. In my case, the competition is at 69th Street Terminal. Remember that H-Mart I described in my blog? The Koreans must be savvy produce and seafood buyers, for this store offers quality that matches the Reading Terminal's at even lower prices. I haven't purchased shrimp there, but I have yet to see medium shrimp (41-50/lb) selling for more than $4/pound. Fresh--very fresh--spinach was on sale for 79c/lb when I swung by the place Monday. (It appeared to be freshly harvested wherever they got it--there was plenty of sand on the bunches.) Radicchio, $2.49/lb. Red peppers, $0.99. You get the picture.

Surprised nobody's mentioned the Caribou Café yet. That's one of the best outdoor people-watching scenes in Center City. (Walnut Street just east of 12th, a few doors west of the Forrest Theatre.)

As is this gorgeous hunk, Class of '77 and childhood neighbor (I lived on the 4100 block of Bellefontaine, he on the same block of Benton Boulevard). His memories of Pem-Day are as bitter as mine are pleasant (although I'm not looking forward to encountering the redneck who runs Russell Stover Candies at the reunion). I am looking forward to having the chance to reminisce a bit with him, for better or worse, when he comes to Philly on 3/1 for a performance at Chris' Jazz Cafe a few blocks away from me. ← Further reflections after the fact: --"The redneck who runs Russell Stover Candies" greeted me warmly when he arrived at Charlie Hooper's for the guys-only reunion event. (We weren't close in school; funny how time erases those oh-so-meaningful cleavages from high school days.) I later semi-jokingly said to him that I was considering buying a box of Russell Stover candy to take back as "something from Kansas City" for one of the slew of people who either asked me to bring something back or I had promised something, and he responded by suggesting several barbecue sauces. I guess even he understood the implications of bringing back from Kansas City something the recipient could get at his nearest CVS, even if his family owns the company that makes it. Tom, you're all right; I take back what I said upthread. --My neighbor/Pem-Day '77 classmate didn't have as bitter memories of the place as I thought. He just doesn't feel the school needs his money. (We did have an exchange on coming out--which I did to him many years ago. He and I share sexual orientation as well as race, home neighborhood and secondary school.) --So much has changed about Kansas City: for one thing, they finally built the South Midtown Freeway^W^W^WBruce Watkins Drive! And Brush Creek is totally unrecognizable, as is the intersection of Swope Parkway/Brush Creek^W^WEmmanuel Cleaver II Blvd/The Paseo/Volker Blvd--not to mention the thing that replaced old Paseo High. Yet so little has changed at the same time. It's still a beautiful city, and I'm glad I grew up there. It looks like it's gotten a lot cooler as a place to live since then, though. Edited to add: And apparently in tune with all the current fashions on the coasts. I chuckled inside when we drove past a street in the old Mexican district named for Cesar Chavez. (Philadelphia lacks one of these.)

Between you and Jamie, you may yet make a Canadian out of me! (Actually, you had help from a Vancouver city planner and city council member who gave a presentation on the redevelopment/densification of the False Creek waterfront at a forum on the future of the Delaware riverfront sponsored by the Center City District back in January. All sorts of wonderful slides of fabulous urban(e) neighborhoods with ample parkland right along the banks of False Creek, and stories about how the city pulled this off, partly by keeping the council's paws off the details of getting things done.) Thanks for sharing some wonderful food and good friends. Hope that new range works well for you (I type this right after reading a Consumer Reports article on ranges that suggests that those ultra-high-end ranges don't perform much better than models costing half as much or less and have spotty reliability records). Take care, and see you elsewhere on eG.

Sounds like the title of a children's fable!

Okay, time to nail down the next installment in our odyssey. I've already put forth June 24 or 25 as the date. However, if we are going to include Tacconelli's in this tour stop, we will have to have everyone committed no later than the morning of Friday the 23d so I can reserve enough crusts--and we will need to have drivers with spare room on hand so we can get from there to the other place(s) we visit as a group. I'd like to suggest that we make this the Northeast Edition of the Best of Philly Review Tour. Five pizza places in the Northeast have won "Best of Philly" honors: Tacconelli's (six-time Hall of Famer), Joseph's Pizza (7947 Oxford Ave; 1980), Gaeta's Pizza (7616 Castor Ave; 1996, for their tomato pie), Santucci Square Pizza (1701 Welsh Road/4010 Cottman Avenue/901 Tyson Avenue) and Santucci Brothers Square Pizza (eat-in at Knights Road Shopping Center, 4606 Woodhaven Road, and Pennypack Shopping Center, 8202 Roosevelt Blvd; take-out only at Aramingo Village, 2313 E Venango St, and 3862-64 Terrace St; there is also a Santucci at 4019 O St that I believe is part of this operation, but the location is listed on neither Santucci Web site). If you note some similarity between those last two, that should come as no surprise: this is one of those classic Philly situations where the next generation of a successful family business can't agree on how to run it, so the children split the business and both branches keep the name. I can't figure out which branch is responsible for the "Best of Philly" awards, though from the best info I can gather, it's what's now called Santucci Brothers; that Web site lays claim to two "Best of Philly" awards, and other sites put the 4019 O Street location--the only one of the three I have in my database that is (maybe) still in existence at the same address (the other two are at 3384 Frankford Ave and 1916 Welsh Road; I have all three as being named Best Pizza in the Northeast in 1992)--among Santucci Brothers' locations. So what say we do Tacconelli's, either Joseph's or Gaeta's and Santucci Brothers? (The other two--whichever of Joseph's or Gaeta's we don't visit and the other Santucci chain--we can come back to later in the tour.) Take it away, folks. Comments encouraged, and state whether or not you are available on the 24th or 25th--and whether you prefer an afternoon or an evening outing.

Okay, someone refresh my memory: Is there a difference between "prawns" and "shrimp"? If so, what is it?

One more thing: ISTR that Trader Joe's was acquired a few years ago by the German company Aldi, which also operates one of the leading chains of no-frills supermarkets in the US under the parent company's name. Trader Joe's operating philosophy is essentially the Aldi concept applied to high-end products, so it was a natural fit for the company. And if you go to either company's Web site, you will find no mention of the other anywhere. This is what I mean by "hands off". (I read about the Aldi acquisition in a New York Times Magazine feature on Whole Foods Market about a year or so ago. They focused on TJ's in the course of trying to explain WFM.)

I think that either Ben or Jerry--or perhaps both--have been quoted in the press about why they sold to Unilever. I think part of the problem stems from a common and longstanding idea, namely, that profits and morality don't mix. That isn't true, but it is true that the business of maximizing profit is amoral, and that is discomfiting to just about anyone who believes that other values should govern how one maximizes profit. Our great religious texts all touch on this subject, be it the Koranic injunction against charging interest or the similar tale in the New Testament of Jesus driving the money-changers from the temple. Our suspicion of large companies stems largely from this perceived amorality--they are merely looking for opportunities to make money and aren't much concerned about anything else, except when lack of concern for something else has the potential to hurt the bottom line. But the truth is, even most of the little guys are looking to "win big," so to speak, and the way our economy has evolved, once one reaches a certain size, the easiest--and sometimes maybe the only--way a small business owner can expand, or kick back and enjoy the fruits of success, is to sell (out) to someone big. An astute large company will understand that if part of what made the company successful is a certain image and/or operating philosophy that would suffer if it became part of a larger corporate culture perceived as different, the company will take as hands-off an attitude as possible towards its new acquisition, maybe even going so far as to leave its management structure intact. I believe that is pretty close to what Unilever did when it acquired Ben & Jerry's. If Kellogg's purchasing Kashi means I can now find GoLean Crunch! at an attractive price at a supermarket near me, I'd say it's a net plus. (And I must confess that I like the current Kashi TV ad campaign: "Seven whole grains on a mission.") Most large corporations IMO aren't out to screw the world, though I think their executives taken as a group are grossly overpaid relative to their actual contribution to the company's value. They're just out to make a buck, or as many of them as they can. I think they can be taught about the other things that matter.

Great little blog you got here, and a neat circle of friends to match. But I know I prompted you back at the beginning about the fridge, and I see you've studiously avoided opening it up for us. C'mon, we wanna see!

I don't live in the neighborhood either, so I guess that makes me a "tourist," but I sure didn't feel like one on the three occasions I've been there. I think the epithet is inappropriate and undeserved for Tony Luke's.

I get it, and I have gotten a few ideas from it. But mainly, I clip the coupons. Since I don't have children, a good number of the recipes in Food & Familyreally aren't addressed to me, but there are some that I can adapt. None of them, however, would call for Wish-Bone bottled salad dressing. That's a Unilever product. Kraft has its own line of bottled dressings bearing the Kraft name, plus the Good Seasons brand it acquired when it bought General Foods. Food-historical trivia: Friday afternoon, I went past the birthplace of Wish-Bone salad dressing. The Wishbone Restaurant, a comfort-food classic, was for many years located at 45th and Main streets in Kansas City, Mo. A nondescript office building now occupies its site just northeast of the Country Club Plaza. Like Ken's Steak House in Framingham, Mass., after it, the restaurant's salad dressings were so popular that they eventually were bottled for sale in stores.