Bobby 2 Shakes

Le Petit Mitron. (The Little Baker's Boy) You'd have to visit the Philly area (more specifically Narberth, about a mile west, easily reached from a train from 30th St Station) to realize why. Patrick Rurange gets up at 3 AM and uses the best ingredients (and always butter.)

langue de chat?

Excellent choices. Much more practical and long-lasting than those names of yesteryear that people used to dub their offspring with. Faith, Hope, Charity. These names at least are edible, and easier to live up to possibly. ← But wouldn't it make you hungry every time you called their names? And can't you just hear the shrewish Sybil Fawlty screeching "Basil!"? ← Better decide on the name before the pregnancy. Cravings & naming kids after food sounds like a dangerous intersection... unless losing an extra extra 20 pounds sounds like fun.

I want to be WITH Nigella when I grow up. ← Sure, Bonnie lies over the ocean, And Bonnie lies over the sea, While Bonnie lies over the ocean, Nigella can lie over me. Disclaimer: I'm married to a beautiful woman and would only fant, um, theorize about such an encounter in real life.

Or has he jumped the shark? Does this equate to Fonzie riding a shark in a 2-part cliffhanger in a last gasp for ratings? I agree with an earlier assessment that TF is not regarded as a top-tier Food Network star, let alone a celebrity chef. So it's more like Lenny & Squiggy wrestling a duct-taped alligator.

Amen, brother! Recently, I've been visiting this establishment frequently, and can vouch for their KC pulled pork. Their low heat long time smoke just curls around your tastebuds and makes you wonder why you denied yourself so long. They also make great Tex-Mex and their caramelized onion Black Angus burgers are fantastic, but that pulled pork is on a plane by itself. They also have Carolina, but I just keep coming back to the KC. Screw Oz, Toto, I'm stayin in Kansas. btw, the Trophy Tavern next door (Burmont & Drexel) doesn't mind if you eat Pig Daddy's food there, especially if you're drinkin'. And PD caters all the way out past West Chester to the west and they live in S Joisey and have no trouble going anywhere there either. Catering menu is on the website.

Stopped in Chinatown today and hoofed it to Naked Chocolate Cafe. I had one Chocolate and one Peanut Butter Nudo, and they were delicious. Coffee was good, too, a critical benchmark for the caring level in any bakery. If Le Petit Mitron wasn't reopening Fri Sep 8, I could be a regular here (alternating with Miel, perhaps). I'll be back plenty, though. And next time I'll try the hot chocolate. I'll be eagerly watching for posts about the distinctions between the Classic, Bittersweet, Aztec & Spicy drinking chocolates. Edited to add a link to Thomas Sweet, progenitor to the Naked Chocolate Cafe, for background ambience.

Has anyone been to Eclat Chocolate on High St in West Chester yet (besides me)? Imagine the overachieving offspring of Ferran Adria & Willy Wonka's sister and you have an idea of what Christopher Curtin is like. They won Best of Philly for 2005 without advertising, an accomplishment in itself. Their artwork is on display and you can see the kitchen through a window behind the counter. Never have I seen 20 chocolates disappear so fast, especially when only 1 person was eating them.

Plugra? Say no more, I'm there and then some!

Pig Daddy's has "suicide sauce" that's guaranteed to scorch the front and back porch. When you eat it plain, it's not too bad, but heat it and don't be suprised if fire engines show up. Harold McGee or Alton Brown could probably tell you why better than I could. And they deliver (even outside their delivery area if the order is big enough)

Take heart! Next week folks will be back from the beach.

Sooooo... Does this place use flavorful butter or profitable shortening? And if a mix, does it skew toward the wallet or the tastebuds?

Don't expect lots of foie gras fines =R= ← I wouldn't expect calls early on. Vegans lack the proper proteins necessary for their minds to take quick action. They'll be on it by Christmas, though, I'm reasonably certain.

Wikipedia is always a good source of info on almost any subject. If you'd like to be entertained, try John T. Edge's Donuts: An American Passion.

What's hydrodgy shortening? Is this a food allergy issue? ← I imagine it's short for hydrogenated fats... <snip> ← Bingo! (although you left out that butter is in a different universe of flavor, as well - far superior) ← Which makes it a silly question. Who would serve Tastykakes at a serious dessert business? (Tastykakes have their place, but I would never expect, say, Shola to serve me one.) Since the Thomas Sweet folks are involved in Naked Chocolate, I'll bet the only place they'd not use butter is to offer a "low" fat option buried deep on their menu. I think a low fat chocolate dessert is almost as ridiculous as low fat foie gras. If you want less fat, eat a smaller portion. ← It would be a silly question... if they both cost the same. Butter is more expensive and its use is a reliable benchmark for quality. You'd be suprised how many places don't use butter - but don't expect them to tell you. It's easier pulling teeth than getting them to admit it sometimes. One of the reasons I'm counting the days until Le Petit Mitron opens (Sep 8) is because Patrick and Isabel use butter exclusively, and it shows.

Gelatin Jihad!

What's hydrodgy shortening? Is this a food allergy issue? ← I imagine it's short for hydrogenated fats, substances not found in nature that have been used for quite a while in processed, manufactured foods in order to maintain their shelf life and save a few pennies for the manufacturer. It's in most baked or fried goods you see at the average supermarket. They are created by forcing teeny tiny hydrogen bubbles into fats that are liquid at room temperature (usually the cheapest ones that happen to be available at the moment), making them more solid at room temperature, and longer-lived. They are also very bad for you, though exactly how bad is the subject of some debate, and also depends on the amount of hydrogenation. ← Bingo! (although you left out that butter is in a different universe of flavor, as well - far superior)

Do they use butter or hydrodgy shortening in their baked goods?

These folks see themselves as George Washington's troops and Foie Gras supporters as the Hessians (unpopular, snuck up on, easier to defeat). They no doubt think that this will somehow empower them to take on the equivalent of the British Army of colonial times. I just don't see God & the French taking their side this time, though. Ironically, they're alienating the very people who could help them launch a PR campaign to get them to treat animals less cruelly.

As long as you don't cross the line, you should be able to say anything you want. I say give people a chance to show who they are, and look back and examine where they were. Where do I draw the line? Children's books, racial epithets, discussions of people's religious beliefs, bullying. That's the line I don't cross, others may differ, at least in countries where freedom of speech is the law of the land. Edited to add: Okay, sometimes I do cross that line, but I try to confine it to those settings where I can edit it out later if I reconsider.

I just turned on the TV and saw Chef Jose Andres halfway through Sara Moulton's show, half kicking myself and half pressing "record" on the remote. At the end, I switched over to Epicurious on the Travel Channel and was blessed to find Chef Lomonaco visiting Amada and chatting with Chef Jose Garces. The episode was titled "Spanish Cooking." They showed Chef Lomonaco walking in the front door and taking off his coat, and some atmosphere shots, including dancers. They discussed tapas and ingredients, then went into Amada's kitchen and cooked Tortilla Espagnola (potato onion omelet), Gambas al Ajillo (Garlic Shrimp)in a cazuela, Chanquettes Fritos (white baby fish), and Pulpo Gallego (sliced octopus). The next segment had Chef Lomonaco making a paella, and the segment after that had Chef Douglas Rodriguez from Alma de Cuba making Hot Chocolate Croquettes. The next segment featured Chef Lomonaco whipping up a Freixenet sangria. All in all, Philadelphia was well represented in this episode. BTW, according to Yahoo TV, the Sara's Secrets episode was #SS1E47, "Spectacular Serving."

And don't miss Bobby Flay's throwdown Thursday night. Butch Lupinetti from Butch's Smack Your Lips BBQ is going to be on. From the looks of him, I wonder if he's related to that serial-killer looking maplejack from the Quebec No Reservations episode. He certainly seems to have the menacing psychotic-sounding outburst thing mastered.

Bourdain is a recovering heroin/cocaine addict. Would you rather have him as a clean & sober sounding profanity-free addict or as the salty-tongued clean-living rogue we now know & love? Addicts often act the way people drive when they see a cop car, very carefully. Paradoxically, there is almost no surer drug test than someone adding the words "and shit" to the end of every other sentence. To remove profanity would rob us of our best "bullshit detector." In "Reach of a Chef," Michael Ruhlman explains the dilemma of chefs using profanity to let off steam - but also to assert control. When any authority figure uses abusive language to intimidate, can litigious intervention be far behind? Finally, there's the subject of bleeping. The child who sees a curse word blanked out or bleeped is likely to review every vulgar word in memory, thereby putting all that is vile and foul in the forefront of awareness. Talk about negative reinforcement.

If you like liver, try Au Pied de Cochon. Actually, I mean, if you like life.

Need help? Try these websites BBQ Forum Kansas City BBQ Society Jerry & Linda from Pig Daddy's teach classes in judging BBQ contests. I believe their email is pigdaddy@pigdaddysbarbecue.com They are as gregarious & generous as anyone you'll ever meet and as far as helping you with a NY bad ass name, anybody who has a menu item called "Mother Trucker" would probably have no trouble helping you with that. If you're willing to NY Times register, they were written up here.