DTBarton

Thanks for the excellent report and pictures. You are an outstanding eater, way to go the distance! Closing it out at a Rutgers grease wagon was an inspired touch of over-the-topness. Lexington market can be a little rough, goes with the neighborhood, I suppose. On a good day there is fun camaraderie in the Faidley's/raw bar area, but that's certainly not always the case. The Cross Street market in Federal Hill is more gentrified. Still has a lot of good stuff, but not as much as Lexington, quite the spot at happy hour. http://www.southbaltimore.com/shop/crossmkt.html If you return to Charm City, hon, bring a cooler and take home some kielbasa from Ostrowski's in Fell's Point, fresh and smoked: http://ostrowskifamous.homestead.com/index2.html

Agree with all above. Our standard mourning gift is lasagna in a throwaway foil pan. Straightforward lasagna, nothing too exotic so all palates and ages will enjoy. I tape an index card on the cover with instructions for baking and a reminder that the whole thing or any leftovers keep in the fridge fine for a few days or freeze very well.

I like to make Chinese style wings. Bake the wings coated with a mixture of soy sauce and oyster sauce. Stir fry briefly in a hot wok or skillet with the Chinese sauce of your choice. I usually use a mixture of soy sauce, brown vinegar, Chinese cooking wine, hot bean paste and a little corn starch. They end up with a nice glaze. Finish on the serving platter with finely chopped scallions and cilantro.

Southerners would want to have some bourbon available to have with barbecue. Some like it mixed with branch (water) and some like it mixed with coca-cola.

For crabs in the city, here are a couple of places: http://www.obryckis.com/obr/stores/1/index.cfm - Old school http://www.bobrooks.com/ - New school in gentrified neighborhood For fine dining, I like Charleston as well. I also like Aldo's in Litle Italy for upscale (and pricy) Italian, but I've found it to be worth the price of admission. http://www.aldositaly.com/recipes.html

They call it that old mountain dew And them that refuse it are few I'll shut up my mug if you'll fill up my jug With that good ol' mountain dew Bluegrass band in college used to do that one, had some great verses My Uncle Mort, he's all sawed off and short He measures 'bout 5 foot 2 But he thinks he's a giant if you give him a pint Of that good ol' mountain dew My pet peeve euphemism came about years ago when dolphin fish became widely available in restaurants and stores and they started calling it mahi-mahi. I'd been fishing for dolphin in North Carolina since I was little. The last straw was when places on Hatteras Island started calling it mahi. I said, since when are you rednecks Polynesian? They said, correctly, that ignorant eco-nuts kept griping about them serving Flipper and it wasn't worth the trouble. So, they're ignorant and I have to speak Polynesian?

I like this place, good Margaritas and nice Mexican fare. http://www.blueagaverestaurant.com/ It does get crowded on the weekends, don't know if you can get 12 in at 7 or 7:30.

I was invited to a raw food lecture once. The weird (maybe obvious) was no one really looked healthy. Coffee and cigarettes, charred fat, wine, triple creme brie cheese. Food of champions! ← I have to concur that the palest looking folks I've ever encountered that weren't genuinely ill were rigid vegetarian/vegan/no fat folks. Not a generalization, I had an old girlfriend vegetarian and she was very healthy, but she did eat dairy, that girl lived on omelets a lot. This thread was in the DC board recently. For those who don't know, Takoma Park is a famously leftist suburb of Washington DC, touches on the subject of former vegans venturing back in to the world of the meated. http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=64019

I pretty much concur with what's been said above. Beaujolais would have been my choice this year due to the easy availability of the nice 2003 vintage. My one comment would be that I tend to steer away from Gewurtztraminer unless I know the audience is somewhat wine savvy. One of the only varietals that I've had people have a distinct dislike for if they haven't had it before. True somewhat for Alsace wines in general (that oily, minerally, glycerin thing that I love hits others the wrong way), but particularly for Gewurtz.

I agree with your frustration at fataphobia. It's important for people to understand that these dishes are traditional, it's not something you eat 3 times a day, and try to maintain a reasonable portion control. Then enjoy! Most folks I've run into that express this fear eat plenty of fatty stuff that they are familiar with, and use the "too fatty" excuse to not eat things they think they won't like. Did your wife read the label on the taquitos and sour cream? Was the only reason they turned down the short ribs dietary, or was this an unfamiliar dish that they were leery of because they'd never seen it before? I attended an outdoor party with a good friend of mine. Among the food offerings were a mixed bag of grilled things and a selection of fried chicken wings with various sauces that had been cooked on a gas burner. My friend allowed as how he wouldn't eat the chicken wings because they were "too fatty and fried". Instead, he had 2 big grilled bratwursts! I suspect that he doesn't like wings, or he was not sure about the hot sauces on them. Sounds similar.

My brain's stuck in retro mode today. Anyone remember a cheesesteak place called Mike and Carol's? I was first taken in to south Philly for a cheesesteak by my friend Gary who had gone to Drexel and had a working knowledge of the area (he took me to Walt's the first time too). Gary was quite the joker. He said "Come on, we're going to Pat's the king of steaks! So we get down there in the maze created where Passayunk screws up all the intersections, find a place to ditch the car after passing Pat's with great fanfare from Gary. "There it is! The King of steaks!" We walk back towards Pat's and he keeps right on walking by. What's up? (It wasn't whattup back in those simpler times). Gary says, "the only thing Pat's is good for is a landmark so you can find Mike and Carol's. Pat's steaks suck!" Mike and Carol's was a shotgun hole in the wall that was about a block east of Pat's I think. I remember the slicer on the counter in there that was cutting the fresh rib eyes for the meat. Great steak, it seems to me, but perhaps rose colored by youth and nostalgia. Been gone for years, probably 20 years gone.

Not Asian, but I really like seared tuna with a sauce made of EVOO, garlic, onion, anchovy, black olive, chicken broth, and lemon juice. Go for balance, not too much of any one thing.

I was browsing this thread to see if someone already mentioned Walt's. We used to really dig those mussels. Had really good fried oysters too. Nice fresh sub rolls to dunk in that mussel broth. I remember watching the guy cook the mussels in a huge pot. He added what appeared to be frightening amounts of chopped garlic and dry crushed red peppers but they came out great. Also used to go to Oregon steaks late night after concerts and ball games. Couldn't find it last time I drove down Oregon.

Wow, Gino's My first job (started on my 16th birthday in 1976) was at a Gino's on Kirkwood highway near Newark, DE. Started out with the Kentucky fried chicken, a truly hot, strenuous job, both the cooking and the cleaning. Did some french fry and grill work. I was there when they introduced the rectangular heroburger mentioned above. Never sold very well, people liked the sirloiner better. The mostly high school kids who worked the night shift had a lot of fun before and after closing time. You haven't lived until you've been involved in an after hours parking lot KFC fight (a warm piece of fried chicken makes quite a satisfying splat on a car window when hurled with some velocity). Hey, the leftovers are thrown away at the end of the night anyway. You were always in jeopardy of being "sauced" after closing time as well. The Russian dressing type stuff that went on the heroburgers was dispensed by a device that resembled a caulk gun. It could hurl a slug of pink goo quite a ways when properly wielded. Gino's was pretty corporate by the time I started there. The same large company owned the local Gino's and Rustler steak house franchises. All the burgers came frozen in crates, as did the fries. Chicken did come in fresh. To make original KFC breading you mixed a 25 lb bag of flour with a premeasured bag of salt (about a pound, I think) and a pre mixed bag of spice blend (no ingredients listed on the bag). Then we cooked it on a gas range in individual pressure cookers that held 18 pieces of chicken. Why 18 pieces? Because KFC cuts their birds in to 9 pieces instead of 8, they cut three pieces out of the breast (2 ribs and one "kiel", the center piece, and very much requested by the KFC afficianados). We were the least busy Gino's in the Wilmington region, and therefore were the last to get the pressurized vats used to cook KFC now. You can make decent chicken with KFC equipment if you do it right. Lots of times when they're in a hurry, they don't heat the oil enough and don't brown the chicken long enought before putting the lid on the pressure cookers leading to hideously greasy mushy bird. The grease rotation was pretty interesting. All shortening started out as 50 pound blocks in the french fry vats. After it got too dark to cook fries, it was filitered and put in the open (non-pressurized) vats used to cook crispy KFC. When it got too dark for crispy, filitered again and used to cook original KFC in the pressure cookers. Finally, too dark for original (well used by that time) in to the grease barrel. A company came and dropped off empty grease barrels and removed the full ones, I guess to a soap factory or something. I believe I started at the princely wage of $2.05 per hour.

Here's his version of chili: - Fry a pound of ground beef. - Dump in a can of cream of tomato soup. - Throw in a can of kidney beans. - Sprinkle with a very, very small amount of chili powder. This reminded me of a college roommate I had who made an even simpler chili. -Fry a pound of ground beef. -Dump in a copious amount of ketchup. -Stir. Dinner!

Lots of faves already mentioned here, Joy of Cooking, Hazan's Italian, Larousse. I am also very fond of the Chinese cookbooks by Pei Mei.

The Hollyeats web site has been updated to add some DC locations: http://www.hollyeats.com/JerrysSeafood.htm http://www.hollyeats.com/FiveGuys.htm http://www.hollyeats.com/BensChiliBowl.htm http://www.hollyeats.com/ColoradoKitchen.htm Thought the locals would enjoy.

I like lamb from Jamison farms: http://www.jamisonfarm.com/ Coffee from New Orleans coffee exchange (1 lb free when you buy 5): http://www.orleanscoffee.com/

Probably about 1985, my roommate's ex next door neighbor started talking at work about the clams he made. Over and over about the clams. best you'll ever have. Not my favorite person, but rooms wanted to go. The guy asks "How many clams can you eat?" He was talking about grilling them somehow. I said, "maybe a dozen or so". So, we get there and this guy has the biggest, gnarliest, chowder clams you've ever seen. They're on a hot charcoal grill. He hadn't washed them and way overcooked them on dry firy heat. The result was gritty, dried up smoked Goodyear tire rubber with a touch of lighter fluid. No sauce, butter, or anything to taint that pure clam goodness. He got mad when I didn't eat my dozen.

You could use it as the liquid for a rich stuffing to put in another bird.

On the somewhat rare occasions I use a cookbook for a whole recipe (I usually will consult two or three books and/or online for some ideas that will accent what I'm already thinking of, that inspired herb or something) and need to have it stay open, I'm pretty brutal. I'll smash the spine as necssary to have it lie flat and not flip pages. I don't worry too much if the book gets spilled on a bit, it's a badge of honor. And you can tell the good books on the shelf, they're the ones that are well worn! We also keep a three ring binder with those plastic sheeted scrapbook pages for handwritten and newspaper/magazine recipes we like.

I would have thought there would at least be some mayo. ← Yeah, and a couple/three eggs fried hard in the bacon grease! As my sister in law said upon hearing of an all you can eat offer: But you're not supposed to eat all you can eat!

"Frankly, if I had the time and the means of transportation, I'd go down to the Delaware Sub Shop in Rehoboth on my lunch hour." wink.gif From Wilmington, that would be a loooong lunch hour. Go for the lunch weekend once the weather warms up! You definitely need to recruit a driver that needs consulting on where to eat.

I'd go for the rib roast and get it bone in if possible.

I'll have to go along with the post that said a hoagie (as someone who grew up in northern Delaware, they'll always be subs to me) is more the sum of the parts. I distinguish places based on whether they use good quality, flavorful meats and ingredients in the right proportions on a good roll. If they do this, I'm usually not hard over on the particular brands. I like all good subs, but tend to favor the traditional Italian (which for me means spicy capacolla, genoa salami, provolone, lettuce, tomato, onion, crushed red peppers, dressed with light oil and Italian herbs). When ordering, you should be asked "pickles and peppers"? Further refining the peppers with "hot, sweet?"I've had great sandwiches from Salumeria, but they're "nouvelle" Italian subs to me. You folks who live in Philly (or northern Delaware) are blessed with many good places that use good ingredients. I live in central Maryland and most sandwich places are inedible. An "Italian" sub gets you way too much low rent greasy salami and (shudder) boiled ham and tasteless industrial cheese with a tiny bit of vegetation. The further south you go, the worse it gets. Italian sub horror story repeated often in more southern regions (I know better, but over the years you have to take some for the team): You order an "Italian" sub and get asked not "pickles or peppers?", but the dreaded 2 questions - "Mustard or mayonaise?" and the worst - "You want that hot?" Oh, the humanity. As for kielbasa, I have one recommendation if you ever find yourself in or near Baltimore. You've got to check out Ostrowski's in the Fell's Point neighborhood. Best fresh and smoked kielbasa I've ever had, really no one else close. Big John is the man! But then, I'm not a midwesterner, bet there's some good kielbasa in Chicago. http://ostrowskifamous.homestead.com/index2.html