phaelon56

Excitement is relative. Cozumel has what some consider to be some of the world's best scuba diving not to mention some fantastic little loncheria's and taqueria's if you nose around on the backstreets where the locals eat. Belize City has chronic urban crime probelms that are not representative of the rest of the country. But you can get a water shuttle to Caye Caulker for a day of good snorkeling and good fresh grileld fish at a few of the cafes or get a shuittle inland and check out a caving trip. Fantastic caves with Mayan artifacts still intact are well worth visiting. The food in Belize is less than exciting but Marie Sharpe's hot sauce is everywhere and makes most of it tolerable.

Speaking of butter differences... are typical supermarket brands such as Land 'o Lakes qualitatively better than generic store brand butter or is it just the advertising and marketing costs that account for their higher price? I know none of the supermarket butter is in the same league as products like Plugra but I am curious. This is particularly pertinent for me because my regular local supermarket has cheap store brand butter in salted only. If I want unsalted I have to buy Land 'o Lakes at 2X to 3X the price. But I've discovered that the nearby Aldi's store has generic unsalted for even less than the supermarket's generic salted.

I do the sear + oven technique and am pleased with the results. Due to budgetary constraints I often end up with ribeye's or NY Strip steaks that are thinner than I'd like (it's the way my local grocer cuts and packages all of them when they have a good sale on those two cuts). My girlfriend prefers her steaks medium-well and I like mine on the rarer side of medium rare. It's far from an ideal system but I pan sear both for about 90 seconds on one side and 60 seconds on the other. The cast iron skillet is intially coated with a wiped on layer of melted lard - just a very, very thin coating. The steak to be done medium-rare then goes onto a pre-heated dinner plate on the counter with a piece of foil tossed loosely over the top and her steak goes in the oven at 350 in the cast iron pan. Once her steak has cooked for 3 or 4 minutes (depending on thickness) I toss mine into the pan and then take them both out about 2 to 4 minutes later (again - depending on thickness). Both steaks rest after leaving the oven - each on their own pre-heated plate - for about 3 to 5 minutes on the counter before being served It's not an ideal system but with a bit of practice it does allow multiple steaks of differing thicknesses to be cooked to different doneness levels and all served simultaneously. Oh - and I use McCormick's Montreal steak seasoning rubbbed into the meat before searing. If I could find and afford much higher quality beef I'd leave that out but on these steaks it does add an element that I really enjoy.

It's all in the agitation done using the wonders of electricity. Who wants to stand around for lengthy periods of time shaking their foodsaver vaccum bag with marinade and meat when a machine can shake it for you? Then again... if more people shook their foodsaver bags there'd be fewer fat as*es in the world

Does this look close? It's 10" in diameter, the outer edge of the shallow center depression is 4.5" in diameter and the depression itself is about 1.25" in depth. If this is what you need just PM me. I'll send you one of mine.

1) What is the outside diameter? 2) What's the inside diameter of the depression? 3) Is the flat surface if the rim sloping down slightly towards the outside edge or is that an optical illusion in the photograph? I have dozen such plate/bowls of this style in a plain white glazed finish and they're of the heavy restaurant grade variety. Bought them at the local Syracuse China factory outlet for about $1 each during their summer sale (as a just in case - I have not actually used them yet). Of course I also have both black and white interlocking yin and yang plates I bought at the same time and have actually used a few times (to a mostly unappreciative audiencse but I think they're really cool and they were only $2 each!) Mine were overstocks but they sometimes sell seconds also. Those usually have some small but slightly visible flaw such as a speck in the glaze. But I think they most likely stock them in firsts as well. Post the dimensions or PM them to me and I can check there on my lunch hour tomorrrow to see if they still have some. They do not have on-line purchasing but they might do phone orders. If the ones I have are the right dimensions and you only need one I'll just give you one of mine. The chances of me cookign dinenr for morme than ten people are extremely slim (and if I do we'll be eating ribs and chicken on paper plates on the deck )

I once worked in a place that had "French l'oignon soup gratinee" on the menu. That was only one of the many bizarre French/English language mash-ups they had on the menu. And we have a local Vietnamese restaurant whose menu includes a dish featuring "crunchy cash fish". But it's typo they just havent caught yet (years after it first appeared).

Sorry, that sounds like "urban legend." As an alum of the CIA, I remember all sorts of silly stories told as fact. Do you think a restaurant would really have that many covers on hand? ← I've heard sillier. I waited table back in the late 1970's here in Syracuse in our little town's first "Fern Bar" bistro. The assistant manager was absolutely convinced that the restaurant slang "in the weeds" had been invented in our establishment because we had "Garden Cafe" as part of our name and we were often in the weeds (every weekend as a matter of fact). But she didn't think we invented "covers".

I've been only once - for a Saturday lunch about five years ago. I'd read rave reviews in this forum but our experience was absymal. The food was just "okay" and wasalso very pricey - about $110 for lunch for two people with no alcohol (and my GF got the $25 fixed course plus she shared my dessert). The press pot coffee was so bad we had to send it back and it wasn't much better the second time. Since then I've always glanced at Fleur de Sel comments in this forum and they seem to go up and down - ranigng from "okay but not great" to "absolutely stellar and memorable".

It's also versatile. I once worked in what was at the time considered to be an upscale bistro (upscale in the context of the small rust belt blue-collar city I lived in). The big bricks of Kraft Swiss that worked so nicely on our Ham and Swiss sandwich also did yeoman's duty as the "Imported Gruyere Cheese" that was melted onto our French Onion Soup Imported from Wisconsin methinks. Lately I have on occasion been enjoying some supermarket flavored cheeses such as Jalapeno, Bacon and Horseradish etc. As a straight eating cheese they don't hold up well but melted into omelets, eaten on a cracker with a smear of Dijon... not bad. The first few flavored cheese I tried were medicore btu I switched ot the Yancey's brand - which appears to be akin to a real cheddar rather than being processed cheese food. And it's not bad. That said - I made a grilled cheese last week from the last my extra sharp Canadian XXX Black Diamond cheddar and this weekend I made one from a relatively cheap NY state cheddar that is supposed to be similarly aged but is much cheaper. No contest - the Black Diamond blows away the other cheese for tangy sharpness and also has a crumbly texture that makes it far superior if eaten by itself. (note: I have had NY state cheddar that's every bit as good as the Black Diaomnod but it's not available in the lcoal grocery stores).

I moved from Rutherford back up to central NY state three years ago. Up here that attriition process for neighborhood grocery stores has long since been close to complete. I'll guess that the Shop-Rite just ddidn't have enough drive-in trade to survive. I lived clear over on the other side of town (Mountain Way) and it was actually easier to drive to Lyndhurst rather than make my way past the trafffic circle and snake in an out of their parking lot. But it's a shame. And there's an element of perosnal service in many such stores that just can't be replicated in the bigger stores. My mom shops at a neighborhood grcoery that was part of a three sotre local chain and couldn't survive but was acquired by a larger chain. Some of the cashiers in there have been ringing her up for 25 years and all know her by name. Just curious - with the fish vendor gone and the Shop-Rite going soon... is the little butcher on Park Ave across from Village Gourmet still in business?

You may discover that a $30 burr grinder is not much of a bargain (or any other burr grinder priced much under $80 - $90). The feedback I've seen in this forum and that I've read elsewhere, reinforced by personal experience, is that the cheap burr grinders tend to run hot, be noisy, grind very inconsistent particle sizes (i.e. a mix of small chunks and fine powder unlike a good burr grinder) and are cheaply built. Use your own judgement but if you buy one be sure it can be returned or exchanged. Judicious technique with a cheap whirly-blade grinder can yield results good enough for nearly any coffee prep method short of espresso.

Me too! I bought a dozen of the Illy bar cups with sacuers a few years ago to have at home. But I'm now due to get some in the espresso/machiatto size. The hole in the handle is too small for anything but my pinky but the overall shape, heft and aesthetic is perfect. I just wish that exact cup was available for custom imprinting to allow roasters and coffeehouses to customize it for their retail use.

I went to the eponymous La Taqueria (link to burritophile.com review). It was inexpensive and excellent. My only gripe was the truly awful tomatoes they used for the fresh salsa on our salsa and chips although it was only $1.40 for a decent sized basket. The tomatoes were so pale and fibrous they seemed to be some sort of pink/albino/flavorless tomato variety. But the burritos were huge and stellar. And the salsa verde hot sauce was both flavorul and very hot. My GF has a chicken burrito and I had pork but we could easily have shared a single one between us - neither of us could finish more than half of one burrito. For my birthday earlier that week we stayed in a cabin at Lucia Lodge about 25 miles south of Big Sur. I opted to have my birthday dinner at Nepenthe for sentimental reasons. When I was a stoned 21 year old longhair hitch-hiking down Highway 1 in 1977 when the folks who gave me a ride through that stretch of road stopped at Nepenthe for lunch. They both had the Ambrosia burger (about $7 or $8 back then - quite high for a burger in that era). I was on a pretty tight budget.... couldn't afford to eat but they shared some of their fries with me (and we were all too grungy to get served inside). I swore that I'd get back there someday for a proper meal and last week I finally did it (I've actually driven by Nepenthe a handful of times in the intervening years but never stopped there). There were only two other parties in the whole place, service was great and I kept ordering simple in hopes that the food would be okay. My lentil-ham soup wwas good and the NY Strip was excellent - not Peter Luger good but very fresh, very tasty and perfectly cooked to medium rare as ordered. And this time I even had money for soup, mineral water and dessert! (not to mention a comfy bed, a gas fireplace and a roof over my head that night instead of curling up behind a bush on the ground in my sleeping bag) We were only down the coast for the night and all our other meals were back up in SF. Had lunch at some non-descript dim sum take-out joint on Grant and it was excellent ($5 lunch between two of us and we couldn't finish it). Only other meal of note was shared with my cousin and her daughters - who both wanted to eat at Little Star Pizza on Divisadero out in the Western Addition neighborhood where they live. The desired specialty was deep dish pizza and it was pretty darn good. My GF is a Chicago native and rated it as not quite to the level of Chicago's best deep dish pies but still highly respectable - her assessment was that it needed a bit more cheese and a bit less sauce but had an excellent crust. I saw other tables eating the standard thin crust pizza and although it looked good.... the thin crust pies we saw the next day while walking by Pizzeria Delfina in the Mission looked to be far better. From a quick glance they appeared to have the type of crust texture, spring and char that I associate with the best of NYC type coal oven pizza. The friends we were walking with love Delfina restaurant next door and assured us that if the pizza were of the same caliber as the food at the restaurant they'd be very good indeed. Delfina was on our route from stops at the Blue Bottle Coffee cart at the Ferry Building Saturday farmers market and a leisurely stay at Ritual Coffee on Valencia. The ultimate desinatation that day was Tartine Bakery - well worth the trip. All told it was a very condensed visit without enough time for what we wanted to see and eat but a fair number of memorable highlights.

I was doing some research on a CA food related topic and happened across this thread. Having returned as of yesterday from a California trip I can appreciate the desire to try and/or assess Mexican food and produce in CA when one is from NY (the city or, as in my case, elsewhere in the state). NYC will have some excellent produce available on the retail level but the most interesting selections are available for very short durations of time during a limited number of months (mostly late May to early September) - and in precious few places in the city or the state. As for Mexican food? Manhattan has 4 or 5 million residents and only a handful (i.e. perhaps two or three) of authentic taquerias. The remaining portion of the state (the "real NY" ) has only a few as well. I just returned from San Francisco and had a taqueria dinner in the Mission high on my list of "must-do's".

I have a coffee roaster friend in the Santa Rosa CA area whose background (prior to his entry into coffee) was in the culinary arts. A NY based friend of mine has a son who is currently a CIA student and did a six month internship at Terra - in St. Helena - just a few miles from Rutherford. When I asked my CA based buddy about Terra he insisted on any given day it can be as good - food wise - as the French Laundry. He admits to being biased and I haven't personally eaten there but it may be worth looking into if reservations are available.

As with so many flatware, cutlery, plate and serving vessel issues - much is subjective. When drinking coffee I happen to have a personal preference for the style of mug that "Davydd" illustrates. It's big enough to not be dainty and holds enough to last for awhile but not so much that it cools off too quickly. And the sheer mass of the cramic is a great insulator -especially if the cup is pre-heated. I have never cared for glass as a coffee serving vessell but was highly impressed with double espresso shots or machiatto's served in the Bodum Pavina. It allows you to see the "Guiness effect" of a properly pulled shot. As for machiatto, cappucccino and latte drinks - I always prefer a thick ceramic wall for heat retention and also a wide shallow bowl shape to allow space for latte art (when it is being created). Just conjecture here but I also suspect that the microfoam/crema mixture that characterizes a properly pulled and texturized milk drink is present in greater abundance and lasts longer when there's more surface area. That mixture is the most satisfying part of the drink for me and has the most subtle blend of flavors therefore the more surface area available for microfoam - the better.

From a mass market consumer persepctive I think the continuing growth and popularity of Senseo style pod type coffee makers is a notable trend - not to mention the increasing ubiquity of Starbucks presence as a retail bean offering in places that would once seem unlikely - WalMart, BJ's Club etc. But the more interesting and far more promising news (to me) is occurring on the true specialty coffee front - once a tiny niche within the "gourmet coffee" arena but now increasingly visible and gaining ground by virtue of consumer education and the availability of new brewing equipment. The introduction of the Clover 1S coffee machine is nothing short of groundbreaking. It allows coffeehouses to prepare a wide variety of single origin varietal coffees by the cup with a unique technology that is a cross between French Press and vacuum style brewing. The barista's opportunity to control and make minute and precise adjustments in brew time, temperature, saturation levels etc. allow the most subtle nuances to become evident in coffees that just beg to be tasted and appreciated on their own terms. And the other compelling trend is the emergence of greater recognition for single estate varietals vs. just single origin varietals and blends. Although the parallels to wine appreciation are sometimes stretched a bit thin there are enough corollaries for it to be a useful analogy to the trends emerging in coffee. The terroir concept is increasingly applied to coffee and has great validity. All varietals are not created equal. Blending simlar bean types from a large number of farms to offer a co-op's particular varietal may offer some benefits to the processors due to economy of scale but the quality of the best beans may be masked by virtue of being mixed in with those which are less distinguished. Grower's competitions such as Cup of Excellence and the African E-Cafe Auctions are not only producing higher personal incomes for the farmers growing the high ranking beans - they are also serving to raise awareness of quality issues. A few of the quality driven roasters offering award winning coffees and/or other highly select single estate varietals include Ecco Caffe, Terroir CoffeeCounter Culture, and Stumptown.

Seriously. But what you'll find as a general rule are ham or smoked ham croquettes. I don't recall seeing chicken croquettes on the menu of Portuguese and Brazilian Ironbound places nor have I seen them on the menu in "Spanish" restaurants I've been to elsewhere (which are usually Puerto Rican or Dominican establishments rather than featurinig the cuisine of Spain). In my neck of the woods the chicken croquette is definitely traditional "American comfort food" along the lines of chicken 'n dumplings, pot roast with gravy, meat loaf etc. I'm certain that chicken croquettes are served in Spain as a tapas item and are thought to have originated in France but they have a long history in American cuisine.

That price is right on target. I think that is a disounted price and very fair. And - assuming the prices are fairly close - there is a significant space saving available by using the compact rather than the standard two group model. You'll also need two good grinders - one for decaf and one for regular espresso. The grinders will run $250 - $650 each btu if you noe around on eBay for used or refurbished Mazzer Super Jolly / Luigi grinders you can get those for about $250 - $350 complete with new burrs, new bean hoppers etc. They'll have a few scratches or chips on the paint finish but the Mazzer unis are as good as it gets for most cafe's. And make sure you have a good in-line water filter installed before you put in the espresso machine. if the water in your area is hard (high mineral content) you'll also want a rechargeable or possibly a cartridge based dedicated softener as well.

Take a thick paper plate - like the Chinette brand or its equivalent... cut a rectangular opening in the center that's about 4" x 6" - then place it inverted it on the broken carousel platter. Now place the corn on top to pop it. You may need to turn the bag once or twice during the cooking cycle but this should solve most if not all of your problems. And if it doesn't it was cheap enough to try!

In all fairness to and loyalty for the forum I myself host I refer you to the thread Least Expensive Machine For Decent Espresso? It may answer most of your questions. In the context of this thread it is relevant as to whether there will be commercial use or not. A very good prosumer espresso machine for home use will run about $900 - $1300. But if you are doing light commercial duty and wil need such necessities as plumbed in water supply, plumbed in drain tray, NSF certification and a 220V boiler element for faster heat recovery of the boiler - you can expect to pay closer to $2500 for something like the well proven Cimbali Jr.

If this is for commercial use in a cafe you'll need a 220V commercial unit that gets really hot and recovers heat quickly - plus it should have a surface large enough to cook at least two sandwiches at once if you plan on doing any volume. An eGulleteer of my acquaintance who opened a cafe a year or two ago researched panini grills heavily and bought some French brand that was reputed to be oh-so-deluxe. He was sorely disappointed - when it worked well it was good but it needed service way too often for a brand new machine. IMHO it's worth looking for a domestically produced or widely distributed brand for whicch service is readily available. As for espresso machines - if $$ is no object stick to Synesso or La Marzocco. At the next price level down I consider Rio / Astoria (same machines with different badge) to be one of the most solid. I hear a wide variety of opinions about La Cimbali - another name you're likely to see. Getting less favorable reviews at the high end are Conti and at the low end San Marco. Avoid used machines unless you are comfortable doing a basic rebuild yourself before you put it into servie.

The little blocks of coconut - about the size of a bar of soap - are available in my town in the larger Spanish markets. Shave off a few spponfuls, steep in hot water to make the coconut milk and then strain out the shavings. Great for making Caribbean style rice and so much less waste (at least for me) than using the canned stuff. Cheaper too.

I love goat and have eaten it. usually as Goat Curry in Jamaican restaurants, for many years. A Haitian friend who lives an hour away from here in a small town asked me to help her source goat for her Christmas dinner this year. I found a new mid-eastern Halal market in town that gets fresh goat delivered weekly from NJ and had a half dozen full goats in the walk-in to choose from. We split half a goat, had the butcher saw it in chunks and split the order. I decided to try cooking Jamaican style Curry Goat and am less than pleased by the results. My foundation was the recipe found in the book: Dorinda Hafner's Taste of the Caribbean For starters... the recipe called for scallions, cornstarch, scotch bonnet peppers (I substituted habanero's), a few tbsp of vegetable oil and three to four tbsp of curry powder. But after "marinating" (i.e. leaving the coated meat in the fridge overnight) I noticed references to "reserving the remainder of the marinade after removing the meat from it". The so-called marinade was really a wet rub rather than a marinade - there was no liquid to reserve. My next perplexing dilemma was the amount of water to be added to the two pounds of browned meat, sauteed onions and diced tomatoes in the pan. It called for an entire quart of water but then suggested that after 60 to 90 minutes of simmering it would be cooked down into a thick creamy sauce. No way. Despite simmering for 90 minutes it took two additonal shots of a corstarch/water mixture and some final reduction with the meat removed from the sautee pan before I got the desired consistency. Finally.... the curry just lacked zing. I have now discovered that a "hot" version of Jamaican Blue Mountain Curry Powder is available but I'm inclined to make my own from scratch next time. Can any of you comment, based either on specific experience preparing Jamaican style curry, or even just general experience in preparing braised meats in liquid reductions, why this dish went awry? By the way... the texture of the meat is fine - it's the flavor that's lacking but I still think some fundamental things are not explained clearly in the recipe.