munchymom
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Posts posted by munchymom
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I've been on three cruises, all on Celebrity, and found that it was possible to get good food if you choose carefully. The prepared breakfast and lunch buffet food ranged from so-so to appalling (and I say this as a person who can enjoy a meal at Golden Corral without much difficulty.) The trick with breakfast and lunch is to get to where food is being made fresh; on Celebrity there's an omelette station and waffle station at breakfast, and sandwich station at lunch. Also, the breakfast pastries are excellent. Dinner in the main dining room is profoundly mediocre, about what you'd expect when they're serving 2000 people. Edible if you think of it as catering food rather than fine dining. We usually skipped it in favor of the early evening sushi, noodle, and stir-fry service (this was located in the buffet and was quite good.) There was 24-hour room service with a limited menu, and you could get meals from the main dining room menu during mealtimes. We were underwhelmed by the additional-fee "specialty restaurant", but it really wasn't bad, just not great.
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OED places "poor boy" at 1931 and "po'boy" at 1932; each cite is to a listing for a sandwich shop in New Orleans city directories.
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Do you mean the actual sandwich (i.e. a sandwich in a long roll) by whatever name, or the term "submarine sandwich"? OED's earliest cite for "submarine" as a sandwich is 1955, from the Saturday Evening Post.
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I find it genuinely baffling. To me, the differences between this small computer (I'm using it now) and a pad of paper are insignificant -- and I'm clearly not alone.
Unless your pad of paper has a big bright light in it, the difference is significant. A lighted screen in a dark room is just kind of annoying. In daylight I wouldn't notice it, but at night, in typical light levels in a bar or restaurant, a computer screen really stands out.
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My husband keeps looking for an "everyday" buttery chardonnay. Any thoughts on which reasonably priced wines might fit the bill. Anything under $20.00.
Columbia Crest Grand Estates is widely available and runs about $10. It tastes very buttery to me.
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I think Charlotte could be ready if a great bartender at a good restaurant took the lead... there's no shortage of people willing to shell out for a drink (the nice restaurants here have lists of fruity "martinis" for which they charge $10-$12, and wine by the glass prices are out of sight.) Due to the idiotic liquor laws around here, the venue would have to be a "restaurant with good cocktails" rather than a "cocktail bar." What needs to happen to push Charlotte from a fruity-martini town into a good-cocktail town: someone needs to start a rumor that every "world-class" city has good cocktails. Then the Chamber of Commerce will fall all over themselves to facilitate cocktail culture.
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My non-Chinese 5-year-old will choose Chinese food over McD's every time (although it's Americanized Chinese food, fried shrimp and spring rolls, etc.) His real favorite is the Japanese steak house (with the grill in the middle of the table.) Maybe play (or spectacle) is the most important thing.
I wouldn't predict what food they'll like as adults based on what they like now, any more than I would for music, books, movies, or any other matters of taste. People mature, and hopefully they come to appreciate the good stuff.
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Do not, under any circumstances, "auto-grat" my check. I will freak out.
I recently stayed at a snazzy resort in Asheville, NC where they automatically added an 18% service charge to everything - every restaurant check, bar bill, whatever - and also included an additional line for "gratuity". GRRR. What, was I supposed to not notice and tip an additional 20% on top?
I usually tip 20% and round up, but I didn't like the implication that I was supposed to tip twice.
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The copy says "artisan". I didn't even think of it being a misspelling of "artesian", but that makes a lot more sense. I bet a spell-checker changed it.
And yeah, Busboy, I can't fault D & D for charging whatever they can get; in my opinion, the insanity here is on the part of the consumer willing to pay the price.
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The insanity continues. The Fall catalog arrived today.
"Caramel Apples
Nothing says Halloween quite like a crisp apple dipped in butter-rich caramel. An American tradition dating from the 1950's, these apples up the ante with a final flourish of dark or milk Belgian chocolate. Made exclusively with tart Granny Smiths, a treat for even the most discerning ghosts and goblins. Kosher.
Set of four: two milk, two dark apples: $45."
With shipping costs, including required next-day shipping, of $25.90, you're looking at about 18 bucks per apple. I need to get in on this racket.
I also liked this tidbit:
"Dean & Deluca Osetra Caviar
The finest Osetra caviar originally came from the Caspian Sea where it now is endangered. Ours is harvested in California, where the sturgeon are farm-raised in artisan water and fed natural foods. Clean, creamy and delicately textured.
1 oz. $78
2 oz. $155."
Um, artisan water? ARTISAN WATER?! So, what, they have a chemist somewhere in a workshop painstakingly cobbling together atoms of hydrogen and oxygen? What could this possibly mean?
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Acting in good faith, you can just make the meal you've planned, and she can eat whatever she chooses out of what's available. You don't have to make anything special for her; a 23 year old ought to be capable of sitting politely at a dinner table, going through the motions of eating, and getting herself a peanut butter sandwich before or after the dinner party. If you want to be extra nice, make a side dish that's appropriate to the meal that you know she likes.
In general, when I invite people over I want them to be happy; I ask ahead of time about vegetarians, allergies, and even strong likes and dislikes. But it doesn't sound like this is a person you like very much or want to have around, so the bare minimum of politeness should suffice. How your partner reacts to this is your lookout.
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The first time my guy had fast food was on a road trip - we'd stopped at a Taco Bell along the highway and he had a few bites from a bowl of Pintos and Cheese. I think he was about 1. His first exposure to McDonald's was courtesy of his grandma when he was 2 1/2 - not that I'm especially opposed to it but it's just not a place we go. His favorite fast food is Subway - that's our standby mall or road trip lunch, and the only fast food he actually asks for. He also likes Qdoba.
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I'm a purist when it comes to tomato sandwiches. Squishy white bread, untoasted, Duke's mayo on both sides, one thick slice of tomato, salt. That's it. I think I'll go have one now.
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That's really fascinating. I think adults experience the same thing; people buy their preferred brand of processed foods even though many processors package identical products in different brand labels (like one company manufactures "name-brand" and "generic" canned green beans, but the green beans are the same.)
What I would like to see is a follow-up where the choice wasn't between "branded" and "plain", but between different brands (identical fries in a McDonalds, Wendy's, and Burger King package for instance.) Or even put logos on the packages that are not of food companies, like Mickey Mouse. Would the most popular logo cause the best tasting food?
I don't think it's practical to restrict advertising at the source; I prefer to restrict it at the destination (e.g. we don't watch commercial TV most of the time, and when we do we mute the sound during ads.)
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It was a gallon of pasteurized, homogenized organic milk. I wasn't expecting anything especially stellar in terms of flavor; the fresh mozzarella sold in the grocery store around here is pretty bland stuff until you salt it. It's more the texture I was concerned about...I wanted the soft, squishy stuff and wound up with the string cheese.
(eta: I neglected to say that this was cow's milk, purchased from a grocery store. Nothing special.)
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Inspired by a recipe for 30-minute mozzarella in Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and the availability of rennet in my local health food store, I decided to try my hand at home cheesemaking the other day. The recipe involves heating milk combined with citric acid, adding rennet, then straining the curd, heating it in the microwave, and kneading it to remove the whey. (recipe available at www.animalvegetablemiracle.com)
The good news: It really does take only 30 minutes.
The bad news: Since it was mozzarella, and I was making it fresh, I was expecting the result to be "fresh mozzarella", i.e. the stuff that is sold in round balls covered in liquid. The result that I got, however, was a block of cheese with the taste and texture of string cheese, which is not something that I'm willing to put even 30 minutes of effort into.
Did I overheat or overknead the curds? Or is a different recipe/technique altogether required to get the "fresh mozzarella" texture?
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Dunkin' Donuts is making a major entry into the Charlotte market right now, and all the new stores share space with Baskin Robbins. I've never been in one of the stores, but every time I see the dual-branded sign, I want to eat a donut topped with a scoop of ice cream and hot fudge.
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Note that all of these buffets - even the Japanese ones - are owned by Chinese people and staffed by Chinese people. And a large number of customers are Mexican (especially lawn and construction guys - nothing like doing hard physical labor 24/7 to work up an appetite - hate people who can eat that much and stay thin
).My favorite local hole-in-the-wall Chinese place is owned by Chinese, but the cooks - and most of the customers - are Spanish-speaking. The owners have equally good facility with English and Spanish. This is completely Americanized Chinese, not something one would write about in a book (except to say "Don't bother") but I thought it was a fascinating little demographic fact.
They automatically bring out extra chili sauce to the Mexican customers, but I have to ask for it.
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Oh! I love them! I used to buy them when I was a kid - the local candy store charged a dime for them, which was the cheapest frozen thing you could buy. My folks never bought them for the house - they went for the Popsicle Brand Twin Pops, which were also a fine thing, but I will always be loyal to Flavor-Ice. My favorite flavor is orange. And you're absolutely right that the sugar-free ones are NO SUBSTITUTE.
I have some in the freezer right now - officially they're for the 4-year-old, but I sneak one every so often.
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Soft serve = cake cone (I remember the ones that said Safe-T-Cup too!).
Scooped ice cream = sugar cone.
Just my personal prejudice, I'm not really sure how it got formed.
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Also why most people that drinking diet drinks are overweight. One theory is that you drink a sweet drink and your body expects calories but when it gets zero it compensates by making you either more hungry or delays the full feeling so you over eat so. (Can't remember where I read this).
Another theory is that it's the overweight people who tend to go on diets. Occam's Razor, anyone?
(I consume copious amounts of aspartame [4-5 cans a day of diet soda] and haven't keeled over or contracted autism yet. I'll keep you posted.)
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They ought to keep some of those school cafeteria plates (molded plastic divided into sections) on hand "just in case!"
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What's the big deal? If they want to eat that way, better it be done neatly by a server or the kitchen, than have the customers passing bits around at the table, which could get messy pretty fast.
On the topic of sharing main courses, my parents go frequently to a small restaurant chain which offers half-size main course portions for a bit over half price. Since they often don't want to eat a full-size restaurant portion, they like this option. So do I.
Pot Noodles/Cup Noodles/Instant Ramen
in Ready to Eat
Posted
I love "MAMA" brand, especially the pork flavor, but the sodium's a killer... I haven't had any since I was diagnosed with high blood pressure. (sigh.)