phaelon56

My early morning nosh this Sunday was a banana. I'm out of espresso beans and won't roast until this afternoon. Might need to make a trip to my local microroaster for a half pound - have company coming for dinner with Italian influenced food in mind - have GOT to have cappuccino's for after dinner! I'll make a proper omelet a bit later but in the meantime.... here's what my kitchen and dining room REALLY looks like. Not so humongous as the realtor's super wide angle lens made it appear in the first photos but it is a really nice space to work in. The previous owner enclosed a seasonal porch at the rear of the house and opened the wall - it added eight feet of depth to the space. He then removed the wall between the kitchen and dining room, put in French doors (excuse me... those would be "Freedom doors"... ahem) on the rear wall of the dining area and added a deck that they open onto. The peninsula cabinets have loads of space and it's topped by a 30" x 70" butcher block top salvaged from an old restaurant kitchen prep table. The dishwasher is tucked away next to the fridge - it's an odd bird - only 24" wide 'cause that's all that would fit. The space between kitchen and dining area was a load bearing wall - a steel support column was required that extends from the header beam down to the basement floor. It was encased it in a recycled old wooden column - needs a bit of refinishing just as the butcher block top did but it's a nice touch. Just as well that he played it safe with wall support - this house was built in 1925 and is still darn close to plumb and square on the inside - no sense letting it start to settle now. There's an abundance of halogen lighting - cheesy looking track light cans but they do the job. Very cool is the fact the space where my stove sits was actually crafted for a commercial range! At some point, if I can swing it, I'll get a much better range but a duct hood is the first thing on my list - the stove is on an outside wall so this won't be too difficult to accomplish. I may sacrfice the window on the wall and a bit of counter space if I pursue my plan to add a master bath upstairs and a first floor laundry below it as the addition will be in that back corner area. In the meantime... I'm having a ball cooking in a real kitchen after four years in a place that had 30" of counter space and an old harvest gold 24" apartment size gas range. View from the dining room into the kitchen View towards the rear of the kitchen View towards the work area - this is where the real action takes place - espresso preparation! By the way.... yes that's an oriental rug in the work area. Can you tell that I no longer have children in the house? (she comes to visit but she never cooks!). I just love the way it looks with the wooden floors and I'm tidy enough to have no concern about spillage issues with the rug. It's a machine made wool job from back in the day when the machine made rugs were nicer than the ones available today. I'll be adding a larger used Bokhara ( a real one) that matches it in order to have some cushioning in the large empty floor area towards the rear of the kitchen. That expenditure is further down the long list.

Saturday lunch - didn't eat one. Headed to Rochester, 90 minutes west by car, to meet with a friend for coffee and dinner. Had latte and rugalah at the Spin Cafe on Park Ave. Way better than average latte - apart from using cups that are a bit too large for the proper espresso/milk ratio, these guys really have their act together. Just order some extra shots or request less milk as I did. The rugalah had an apricot and mini chocolate chip filling. The twain should never meet. Bizarre - we did not finish it. Dinner at the new Mamasan's location. Thai-Viet food and I think they've gone downhill just a bit. My entree was ordered spicy and was mild at best. No shredded pork included in the fresh spring rolls (huh?) and the iced coffee with condensed milk was brought to the table premixed. Worst of all.... sour curry is no longer on the menu. Fresh Spring Rolls Sweet and Spicy Vegetables with Pork Finished off the leftovers from last night's pint of Edy's vanilla ice cream late tonight with a bit of butterscotch syrup and lots of what germ piled on top. Mmmmmm.....

Wow. Lots of former CNYer's here is right..... I forgot about the term "Stumpy" - four of my mom's five brothers went to the Forestry School (it was free tuition at the time - a big factor). Ahhhh... Molson's. We were pounding down the Molson's lager and Molson's Export around here when no one outside central and northern NY knew about it (apart from Canadians). Ame (accent mark on the "e" - pronounced ah-may) is really good - I like the white more than the red and the rose is third on my list but they're all pretty good. IMHO much better than dealcoholized wine and it doesn't suffer the cloying sweetness so typical in juice made from wine grapes. Here in the Northeast, Wegman's sells it but I've seen it online for about the same price ($5.50 to $6 for the 750 ml bottle). Ame info and reviews The farmer's market: During the week our Regional Market is open only to the wholesale restaurant trade except on Thursday mornings. Saturday mornings it's strictly retail. During the growing season we have lots of fantastic local produce. In the winter the produce is generally much cheaper than the supermarkets - sometimes the quality is as good, other times it's a mix of cull and cosmetic blemishes but with a bit of careful selection there are fantastic deals. We also have some vendors with things like grass fed free range beef and lamb, free range poultry, amazing assortments of locally produced cheese, fresh fish etc. It's a darn good market for such a small city. Entering view: Sam Heller's maple products - I got maple sugar candy and maple cream. Those are one gallon jugs of maple syrup for $33 on the front corner of the table. Fresh whole fish - cheap. I got "dry" scallops at $7 a pound. These are fresh shucked and sold in their own liquid. $6 per pound gets "wet" scallops - that's what the grocery store generally sells. The "wet" variety have preservatives added to a water solution and they are stored in the water. I never knew. Bought a pound of the "dry". Cabbage at a reasonable price - lots of it. Check out the potatoes on the floor. It's a bag marked as # Unclassified, meaning no quality grade assigned. Lots of blems, I'm sure, but it's only $1.00 for the 50 lb bag - not a typo - that's really cheap. I have loads of potatoes already and I'm a single guy but I think it's pretty cool that families on a budget can find bargains like this. "Salt potatoes". These are a bit smaller than most baby new potatoes and pretty much unique to this area. The salt is in the cooking method. They're boiled in very briny water and are typically eaten dunked in melted butter. It helps to eat them at an outdoor fair where you eat them from a little paper hotdog style boat and a wooden stick that serves as the fork. While you're spilling the drink that's in your other hand the butter will move to your shirt as if by magnetism. The custom originated with local Irish immigrants who worked with the evaporating pans where local brine was boiled down and/or left in the sun to cull the salt. I mean ther custom of cooking style - the spilling butter on the shirt while getting drunk is a newer development around here. The workers brought small potatoes and threw them in buckets of the brine to cook for lunch. Did I mention that they're incredibly tasty when eaten with steamed clams on the side? Very nice produce here. I bought a big head of broccoli at $1 and cauliflower was only 75 cents a head! (I'm from eGullet - if they'd known the price might have gone up due to the roasted cauliflower addiction). Cheese. All kinds of cheese. Buttercup Dairy is in northern NY state near lake Ontario. They sell cheese and related products from some other NY state producers. Their own brand of cheese is purchased from the Cuba Cheese company in the Southern tier - out near Hornell NY. Cuba Cheese has an outstanding product called "Reserve Cheddar" - aged three years. Buttercup buys the initial cheddar in bulk and does their own aging. I buy the 5X - aged for FIVE years! This stuff melts in your mouth and has a tang and mouthfeel like no other cheddar you will ever eat. Sometimes living up here has its benefits. Buttercup Dairy's display Cuba Cheese online store This last one has absolutely nothing to do with the market but I just had to have a good latte after all that food shopping. Here's a double ristretto shot showing "the Guiness effect". Gotta love that crema!

Saturday breakfast: My espresso bar A very good latte - the latte art is primitive but we can't all be artistic! Fresh donuts straight from the fryer at the farmer's market - more this evening on the market visit but this donut was the BEST I have ever had - just amazing.

Friday dinner: Sauteed chicken livers with a soy sauce, ginger, white champagne vinegar, honey and garlic sauce - includes plum tomatoes and scallions Oven roasted potatoes with fresh rosemary and thyme String beans sauteed with fresh OJ, orange zest, balsamic white vinegar, turbinado sugar and toasted almonds Drinking Ame - a juice and herbal beverage - great for us non-drinkers Friday dessert: Asian pear poached in Merlot with star anise, vanilla and turbinado sugar - served with Edy's "Dreamery" vanilla ice cream (their answer to ben & jerry's - very good indeed) In a hurry - will be back this evening to discuss if necessary

Sam - I'm shocked but I swear it's not me. My costume was a hard fiberglass shell - far more realistic, not to mention.... highly stylish. Not only that... I never made nice with the kiddies like this putz in the picture We still have some good beers in the area and perhaps more so than in the past. Back in the day.... it was Genny Cream Ale (the Green Monster), Genny Twelve Horse Ale and Matt's beer balls by Utica Club. FX Matt Brewing (maker of Matt's and Utica Club) has gone on to produce the very likable Saranac range of products and also does plenty of contract brewing. They were actually the folks who produced Brooklyn Lager for the first couple years it was back on the market until Brooklyn had their own facilities. Back when I was a wicked drunk.... uhhh.... I meant to say beer aficionado, I also enjoyed Black Horse Ale, produced in Dunkirk NY near Buffalo. Locally, we now have Middle Ages Brewing - British style ales and producing formidable Belgian beers in nearby Cooperstown Brewery Ommegang

It is in fact a very nice looking kitchen "in the flesh", so to speak. One of the nicest features is the light - loads of it all day long both in the kichen and in the adjacent dining area. JPW - speidies are far less common here than they are just down the road in Binghamton but I'll see if I can find a place that has them. We have about six inches of snow on the ground, all of which fell last week. It was a rough winter - almost 160 inches of now fell between late November and early February - we've had quite the reprieve since then. Blovie - I lived in Ithaca for four years back in the 90's when working for Cornell University. Syracuse is just as overcast as Ithaca but much colder and typically has double the snowfall every year. Dinosaur BBQ is on the must visit list for this week but I'll have to plan the timing of the visit carefully - it's typically a one to two hour wait for a table any night of the week and I rarely have that much time to hang out waiting for dinner.

Hound all you like - oddly enough there was never a picture taken. Perhaps just as well.... if there had been it might be plastered all over the Internet by now!

Friday lunch: Went to Las Delicias restaurant in the hippy-dippy "Westcott Nation" neighborhood. Decided to get the fish special for take-out and ate a delicious beef empanada at the counter while I was waiting. My buddy Francisco, the Dominican owner, kept asking if I wanted to try some "Viagra" while I was waiting. He grinned when I insisted that I'll wait for my declining years to consider the offer and handed me a small bowl of.... what the hell is this stuff? I did not have the camera with me but it was, in essence, a fake crab salad. A thin mayo style dressing coated a mix of radiatore, spaghetti and a few pieces of shell pasta. Mixed in with the surimi were some corn kernels, tiny bits of chopped olive and a few unidentifiable veggie type items. Weird but tasty enough. So.... what is the Spanish food item word that sounds something like "viagra"? I was so full I took a pic of the food when I reached the office and put it away for later - maybe tomorrow's lunch. I think the fish may be swordfish steak but it's tough to tell with all the sauce. The style of this dish is more or less identical to his Bacalao (salted codfish), a dish that I enjoy very much. I always get the yellow rice - they also have incredibel flan but today is not the day for that.

It appears that it's my turn.... I was coaxed into this but had already begun thinking about volunteering. As a single guy I tend to cook only on occasion and thought this might serve as the impetus to have some extra fun in the kitchen and also get out to a few more restaurants. Alacarte had to wrap up early due to personal obligations - I might just as well get a head start on this. My story: Growing up in an Irish household in Syracuse NY afforded me exposure to little other than a meat 'n potatoes menu but a two year stint as busboy and waiter opened a new world of food and drink. Syracuse restaurants have begun catching up to larger metro markets in recent years with more progressive menu items and a wider array of ethnic offerings. Extensive personal and business travel and a recent four year stint living in the NYC metro area allowed me to explore even more options. My currently favored cuisine when dining out is Vietnamese but I remain fond of Polish, Thai, Ethiopian and Afghani food, among others. Syracuse is a city of 150,000 with suburbs perhaps twice that size. Traditionally a blue collar town and now struggling with a failing economy, our options remain limited but recent years have seen a real French restaurant open in the area, two additional Vietnamese restaurants and a contemporary Mexican influenced bistro. I remain hopeful that we'll see continued improvement. We still lack an upscale high end steakhouse, all the Italian restaurants are red sauce joints and there is not one single seafood restaurant in town. Presently working as a sales engineer in the world of network analysis and troubleshooting tools, I've walked a rather circuitous career path. The food related aspects of my carer started off with a flourish - at age 14 I was employed part time by my uncle, a Standard Brands food salesman, to serve as "Mr. Peanut" at grocery store openeings and similar events. The costume was hot and heavy and the pay was low but an unlimited supply of dry roasted peanuts had great appeal at the time. At age 20 I spent a summer working on a tomato ranch - yes Virginia - tomato ranches really do exist! We grew 5,000 acres of tomatoes and as the only gringo among the large force of laborers, I was treated to some incredible homemade food on occasion during the morning "taco break". More recently, I spent a number of years tending bar on weekends for a catering service, primarily serving at weddings and barmitzvah's for the more affluent portion of Syracuse's Jewish community. My interest in quality coffee, something that dates back 25 years or more, was elevated to the status of current obsession a few years ago. At this point I roast my own beans (when time permits), make my own espresso blends and serve up killer lattes on a daily basis at my home espresso bar. I hope to mix it up during the coming week: a farmer's market visit, dinners at a few of our more interesting local restaurants (including a new place in which one of the partners worked front of house at Nobu a few short years ago), an artisan bakery visit and maybe.... just maybe.... some real cooking in my own kitchen. Speaking of my kitchen - after four years of cramped apartment living, I'm more than a bit thrilled to have a REAL kitchen again. The previous owner of the home which I acquired a few months ago was at one time co-owner of a local restaurant. He did extensive renovations - the kitchen has a few very minor quirks but overall it's a great place to work and entertain in. I'll get some better and more realistic photos up later but here are the ones the realtor used to lure me in (the perspective is exaggerated - the rooms are not nearly as large as they appear). View into the new kitchen View from the dining area towards the peninsula

I as in NYC last weekend and peused the menu at some "Martini Bar" over on 9th or 10th Avenue. Just about all the so-called Martini's were in the $8 - $12 range. I understand your point in reference ot any major city market were call brands are involved but there is a massive amount of "cocktails" which are consumed in neighborhood bars, college drinking spots etc. It's been a few years since I was a drinker (make that many) but when I tended bar our well liquor always outsold the top shelf. Prices around here (central NY state) tend to be $3 - $4 per drink for well liquor and $5 - $7 for top shelf. Then there was the time two or three years ago when I visited Centro-Fly - a supposedly hip NYC dance club. $14 for two really skimpy diet colas....

Perhaps he's reserving "the Donald" for future use when he begins heavy marketing of "The World's Most Expensive Cocktail" at $64 including tax and tip it's not the priciest but it's right up there. I disagree with the article's claim that the average price for a bar cocktail in the U.S. is $8 - $9. That may be the case in the biggest major cities and upscale establishments but don't the $3 - $5 cocktails sold in abundance elsewhere bring the average down a bit?

Yes.... sleeping bag sized bags. I happened to walk by the theatre manager's office when the door was open - they had about 20 bags of this stuff stacked up - all the way to the ceiling! By the way... I love that multiplex downtown across from the Hyatt on Pine Street. It may be no big deal to you but here in upstate NY there's absolutely no sense of style in the public areas of theatres - it's all totally generic big box styling - strictly functional.

I've never paid attention to the label or the brand - it's whatever they sell in mainstream grocery stores - it must be the "refined" variety as I've never noticed any significant nutty smell or taste. It makes a huge difference because the smoking/burning temp is so much higher.

Welcome to the eGullet - nice to have you here! But of course airlines still serve food - did they forget to give you that 1/4 oz bag of mini "gourmet" pretzels on you last flight? I don't appreciate being next to someone if they have some noxious and messy meal but otherwise I could really care less what people bring on a flight or to the movies. Just don't crackle your wrappers durign the quiet scenes in a movie or spil you shicken wing sauce on me in the plabne - apart from that I'm fine. That was not true of the guy sitting next to me at "Apocalypse Now - redux" when I saw it on the big, big screen in NYC. Out of respect to those around me I munched my popcorn only during the scenes where the on-screen noise levels were fairly high. This guy still insisted on giving me dagger looks with every bit I consumed, as though I had broken some sacred law when I purchased and consumed popcorn in the theatre. He finally burst out to ask me "Are you going to do this throughout the entire movie?". Spare me. I hope he bought the DVD and is happier now. By the way.... the popcorn was horrible. The Loew's Theatre at Astor Plaza in NYC has a sign proudly proclaiming "We serve only the best fresh-popped pocpcorn". Directly below it is an employee busy emptying a huge bag of stale pre-popped popcorn into the bin of the popcorn machine (which is never turned on). And some wonder why I bring my own snacks.....

You had me confused for a moment there (actually a regular occurrence for me in between epiphanies). You dom mean "terroir".... correct? "terrior" puled up lots of dog related links (alternate spelling of terrier?) but also a few fascinating articels about the concept of "terroir" in the context of wine grape growing vs "terrain", which appears ot be more suited for conventional crops. Thanks for pointing me to yet another bit of arcane information that I wil someday find useful (I am not being facetious - it's these jaunts into new territory that are oen fo the many thingss I love about eGullet).

Yes Alacarte... great blog and thanks for the roaste chicken recipe - I'll try that one soon. I'm looking forward to doing this and will try to begin getting stuff up and runnig on Saturday after my greenmarket visit.

I can suggest two possibilities for those with space limitations. If you can afford one of those electric deep friers (DeLonghi and the like) and have the space to store it when it's not in use, it may be a good choice. they eliminate hte splater and do a good job of controlling the temp of the oil. It's difficult to do significant quantities in them but they'll likely come the closest to duplicating what you can do in a commercial kitchen. A better option for most of us is a big, deep and heavy cast iron skillet. Find a splatter screen that will cover it and you'l keep mess at a minimum. heat retention is critical and the cast iron does an amazing job at this - far fewer problems with the temp dropping as you add ingredients. Last and far from least is the fact that for home frying.... peanut oil is very helpful. It's pricey but if you strain through cheesecloth or a fine mesh strainer when done cooking and store the leftover oil in the fridge, it can be reused a few times within reason. The biggest challenge I've always had with home frying is maintaining a high temp with the oil - peanut oil gives you a fighting chance of getting the temp high enough and keping it there.

I doubt that my palate is refined enough to taste the difference between these flours but if one considers the differences between coffee beans grown in different places and other agricultural products as well.... it stands to reason. It's not unusual for coffee grown on one side of an island to have a distinctly different charcater than beans from another side. I have a Cuban friend whose family knows people in Florida who have attempted repeatedly to grow tobacco from Cuban tobacco seeds. They have the right seeds, can dulicate the growing and drying techniques used in Cuba and have the right people to craft the cigars but the taste is still different.

I've tried the dried cranberries - even after plumping them up they still don't do it for me. I have a container of them in the cupboard just waitign to be used for something else. Perhaps in a stuffing the next time I cool a turkey?

Yes, unanticipated dried fruit in a salad was one component of my worst dining experience of all time. Kimmy - do I get credit for helping you eat less or is that a bad thing? I only use them in one particular style of salad, as described. I do find golden raisins to be good in a few other styles of salads - they're more versatile. Plumping them up is a huge factor - the raisins take on an entirely different character and texture when this is done - much softer and sweet and they sort of pop in your mouth like a concentrated grap (not surprising - they are indeed grapes!). I plump them by soaking in cranberry juice or Ame (a fruit based herbal infused beverage that I often drink with meals instead of wine). I've had them plumped with white wine and it's even better. In the truly authentic Polish restaurant in my area (the owner/chef is from Poland and moved here about 10-15 years ago) raisins are not included in the cabbage rolls but I do have Polish-American friends who always include them in when preparing such a dish at home.

We never had anything nearly so radical and adventurous as omelettes in my household growing up but what with the Irish thing going on - potatoes were a daily occurrence. Boiled, baked, mashed, creamd, scalloped - never saw rice or pasta. Boiled potatoes were always cooked in excess amounts on Thursdays or Fridays to allow enough for Saturday morning home fries. If we had excess boiled potatoes on other days they were used to make creamed potatoes. Home fries by definition were crispy and nicely browned - even charred in places. Here in upstate NY we have the occasional independent diner that offers the real thing but one has to specify extra crispy and even that sometimes fails to yield the desired results. Leftover baked or mashed potatoes were reserved for a different treat - potato burgers. A generous amount of butter and if necessary, a bit of flour or milk were added to achieve the right consistency for making a patty. Fried in butter or shortening until golden brown.... I still dream about these on occasion. My parents long ago shifted to healthier eating habits - I haven't had one of those potato patties in at least thirty years. Frittatas are great. Around here (central NY state) they are cooked with everything but the kitchen sink thrown in - potatoes, broccoli, Italian sausage, green and red peppers, onions pepperoni.... sometimes a few other vegatble sif somehtign is available. We even have a greasy spoon diner around here (Mother's Cupboard) that has a a "Wall of Fame" Polaroid photo gallery of the people who have ordered and eaten an entire frittata by themselves - they're that big! I just split one with my dining partner(s). I'm doing the foodblog this next week and intend to include a Mother's Cupboard visit as a stop on my journey.... do they make grease-shields for digital cameras?

The Manhattan tamale ladies (sometimes there is only one and on other days there are two) are just on Mon - Fri but drop down a block or two or three on Saturdays. About 15 - 20 feet west of 8th Ave on 36th, 37th or 38th is a Mexican lunch cart. If you don't speak Spanish, prepare to point to get your order understood. They have real tacos and some other tasty delights and are generally there on Saturdays from mid morning until mid afternoon.

I should think that the flour they're using is "the good stuff" Pasta's Daily Bread Their "stretch bread" is to die for. It's a baguette sort of shape and is hands down the best bread I have ever eaten anywhere. I'm doing the foodblog next week (starting this Saturday) and will include a short piece on them and their resident bread guru Peter Lord. Hopefully this will be out last storm of the season but we've had snow as late as early May on occasion - the Fat Lady has not yet finished singing.

I rarely eat them all by themselves... lonely little shriveled up things that they are... but I just love them on a green salad. Throw some sliced red onion, greens shredded carrot and crumbly blue cheese together with a light toss of balsamic vinegarette. There's something about the texture and the sewwtness that just perfectly complements the other ingredients. that same sald is pretty damn good with room temp extra sharp cheddar cheddar crumbled onto it instead of the blue cheese. I know some ne who puts them in their galumpkies (sp? these are cabbage rols with a rice and meat filling) but I dont' care for them that way. Almost forgot about oatmeal raisin cookies - mmmmmmm.