ronnie_suburban
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Posts posted by ronnie_suburban
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If you like the number 23, and you find like-minded people Out There, hell, form a tribe!
i have a tribe. everyone seems pretty cool and normal and like-minded. it's one of my most favorite places on the internet.
hehe 
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Ronnie rocks. Let's form a Ronnie Tribe.
Now, a Maggie tribe would be simply
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I wonder how the Ruffians would do if they squared off vs. the Tribe in some sort of fan group melee
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You would kick their _____________
Hehe....it again brings to mind the question of which kitchen knife would be best in a street fight
What did Tony once suggest? A scimitar?
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Congrats and Good Luck with your venture.
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Ronnie, we still love you! Having seen your site, the difference between them is that yours, while genuinely admiring Bourdain, really maintains a sense of humor and perspective about the whole thing. This one goes over the edge into "rabid" fan territory.
Thanks Cusina...I was just bein' silly...or trying to be anyway.
I wonder how the Ruffians would do if they squared off vs. the Tribe in some sort of fan group melee
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Wow! Anyone who'd be part of a Bourdain fan club must be totally whacked out
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I loved the Trio segment and it made me want to go there even more.
I thought Alpana was good in the episode too. She seems to be developing her own personal style and it's fine with me. She actually mentioned Everest this week too.
But what's up with the fakey restaurant presence track and faux bartender in the background? The show isn't really shot on location, is it? (that wouldn't be a bad idea, btw). That has to be a set or they'd show a lot more of it. I think those added elements give the show a cheezy undertone and diminish it a little bit. Still, I watch it every week because it's a great concept and in far more ways than not, it's very well-produced too.
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4 more just showed up today (from Amazon)...
The Food Taster (does this one count?
) by Peter ElblingFrom My Mexican Kitchen by Diana Kennedy
Simply Ming by Ming Tsai & Arthur Boehm
Craft of Cooking by Tom Colicchio
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cabbage leaves for wrappers, or instead of lasagne sheets
flourless souffles, and the same mix for roulades, sponges
Blumenthal's wicked molten chocolate fondant mix and variantshttp://www.ukgourmet.com/chocfondant.html. Egg white only and don't beat them.
Thanks Jack, especially for the linked recipe, which looks great.
Here is a pic of some stuffed cabbage I made last weekend. I simmered the cauliflower first in some stock I had in the freezer and then used it in the filling--in place of rice. Even with the tomatoes, the dish was extremely low-carb.
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It's cauliflower! Seriously. My wife and I were talking about this over the weekend and we realized that we've gotten a lot of mileage out of substituting cauliflower into certain dishes (spanish-style tortillas, stuffed cabbage rolls, smashed 'potatoes', etc.) in lieu of more 'carby' ingredients like potatoes, bread crumbs and/or rice. We joked that the 'key' to Atkins was cauliflower.
Of course, we really enjoy roasted cauliflower on its own too but with the proper 'pre' steps I've come to appreciate and rely on the versatility of this under-rated veggie as a component in a lot of low-carb dishes.
What other 'cheats' am I missing? If you've got some low-carb cooking secrets, I'd love to hear about them.
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Costco, Sam's Club, and BJ's don't only stock items from the major manufacturers. They're often more receptive to small brands than supermarkets. Every Costco I've ever been to -- and that's probably 50 or more Costcos -- has space set aside for local products with limited distribution. At the Costco in Yonkers they're often sampling kosher cheesecakes or whatever from local area producers. It's well established in the food business -- I've heard this from at least a dozen producers -- that the warehouse stores are great places to go with new products in order to establish market share. That market share can then be parlayed into shelf space and lower slotting fees at mainstream supermarkets.
This is true of Costco in our area too. OTOH, I remember a story not too long ago about Sam's Club making a knock-off of Teva sandles when Teva wouldn't allow themselves to be leveraged by Sam's after the sandals became a popular seller. Pretty sure it ended up in court with Teva winning, but I can't remember for sure. I suppose that risk is present for the manufacturer whether the product is carried at a huge chain or not.
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The point of this diatribe is that we got on the shelves with expensive, weird beer in a very conservative market by just bothering them enough. We did not bribe (much, the occasional keg-but nothing out of hand) and there was never any cash changing hands. No plane tickets for winning a "contest" that never existed and certainly no free product for the store. Hell, we were losing money hand over fist for the first couple of years, how could we just give the stuff away. I think this will work for some things, but not for others. So it is my opinion that in most chains the manager has some say so about local demand.
That's actually quite encouraging Brooks. In your case, it sounds like the slotting fees were paid the old-fashioned way; in blood, sweat and tears.
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I'll add another twist to this discussion, something that actually happened to me. What about a restaurant that doesn't honor a reservation? What recourse does the customer have?
this has happened to me several times over the years. the times that come to mind are at Mesa Grill in NYC, and at Cibreo in Florence.
Mesa Grill handled it horribly, and i've never returned (this was probably 10 years ago, and i no doubt would have gone over and over for personal and business reasons), and Cibreo went out of their way to accommodate us and did the right thing (although the transaction was a bit awkward and left me wondering if we'd be sent packing for the night).
i can't imagine having any real recourse other than never returning (Mesa Grill) and perhaps helping to perpetuate an unflattering nickname for the chef/owner (Booby Flay).
I alluded to this potential outcome (abeit flippantly) a couple of pages ago because I can't read this conversation without thinking about the number of times I've had to wait 20+ minutes for a table at a restaurant when I've had a reservation.
I'd hope that in this case, the restaurant would be especially mindful of honoring, in a timely fashion, the reservations they had accepted. If not, I'd be pretty damned
IMO, anything less would be somewhat hypocritical...although I know there is a difference between being absent and being tardy. =R=
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jhlurie wrote:
Yes, but don't some chains have a rule that they will ONLY deal with brokers--and on occasion only a specific list of brokers who have er... purchased that consideration?Absolutely. And it's a 'rich get richer' configuration IMO. I also think that, in spite of the volume of choices available at most 'super' markets, the diversity of those choices is narrower; specifically because of the way business is done. The chance of a high-quality, entrepreneurial product hitting the shelves in that venue is significantly reduced via the SOP. Also, I cannot really say how much autonomy/discretion is given to Store Managers. I'm sure it varies by chain, region and other factors.
I realized lately, after the fact more or less, than I actively do everything I can to avoid doing my main food shopping at the big chain stores. Every effort I make in discovering new places to shop for food is done with the idea that 'this place will have better choices' or 'that market has the best bread around." I live in the Chicago area and one of our major chains, Dominicks (recently purchased by Safeway) has deteriorated into a void. I think this has been a catalyst, especially of late, in my focusing on alternative suppliers.
I do like the convenience of the 'majors' and there are clearly times and circumstances when their existance is beneficial but when looking for the best stuff, supermarkets are the last place I look and I've made that adjustment without consciously deciding to do so. I do feel like the most potentially interesting items are 'frozen out' of the mainstream.
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if i eat a bowl of daal / lentil soup without cumin, it just tastes wrong...
I'm the same way with chili--if there's no cumin in it, it really isn't chili IMO.
Also, it's become my favorite (and definitive) spice on roasted cauliflower--for which the basic recipe is floating around this site in a bunch of different threads, including this one.
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That great purveyor of wisdom, Paul Newman (can you sense the sarcasm? ) seems to think that food brokers aren't even necessary. Remember, they get a cut too. He seems to think that a manufacturer should be able to get a store manager on the phone and dicker with him directly.
In many cases manufacturers find that it's cheaper to outsource. True, brokers add an extra layer of cost for the consumer but a manufacturer need only pay a percentage to a brokerage company to greatly reduce the costs associated with an internal sales force. On top of that, broker commissions are almost always volume-based so the costs shrink if volume does. Someone has to sell the products to the retail outlets and there will be costs for that regardless of who handles it. I'm not saying I necessarily believe in the validity of the 'broker culture' only that a reasonable argument can be made for its financial sensibility.
Of course the idea of a manufacturer communicating directly with a store manager is a warm and fuzzy notion, but not a very practical one in the current landscape.
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Heya Bill,
How cool that you found those treasures! And it really is too bad about the flood-lost books. It's very painful to lose books--as you said--especially food books.
But...Congrats on the sale! After the big push to make the closing, you'll be one happy buckaroo
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Hey Ronnie,
Slip a deviled egg, into that smoked roma mater shell.
woodburner
Are you serious woodburner?
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Maybe I should call my first wife to the witness stand, and we could ask her if I'm serious.
Marcella Hazan, in her book Marcella's Kitchen offers us,
Pomodori Perini Farciti, Plum tomatoes stuffed with eggs, anchovies and capers.
She uses freshly halved, hollowed out, Roma tomatoes and stuffs them with a deviled egg. I also smoke my own Roma's and decided to try her recipe out with my own twist.
Smoke the Roma's for a few hours. The Plum tomato makes a perfect cradle for the deviled egg.
woodburner
Outstanding! After guajolote innovated putting rendered bacon fat into the devilled egg filling (and sprinkling crispy bacon atop them) , I thought I'd tasted the ultimate devilled egg. I can't wait to try this out and take them to the next level.
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Hey Ronnie,
Slip a deviled egg, into that smoked roma mater shell.
woodburner
Are you serious woodburner? I am intrigued. Wish it weren't 5 degree F here today
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I have smoked tomatoes on my smoker and they were great. I think smaller ones (e.g. romas) work better than larger ones. After I smoked them, I split them in half lengthwise and cooked them down further on a rack in a 250F oven for about an hour. I then served them as a garnish with grilled steaks and they were great.
Can't say I came up with it on my own...I was served something very similar at NaHa (here in Chicago) which blew me away and I was compelled to try it myself.
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They are telling us it will be on tonight at 8:00 PM, Saturday 2:00 PM, 11:00 PM on Sunday. Channel 11.
The Tivo has been, um...tivo'd
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My guess is that the president in question is the president of Arthur Bryant's
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8 more for me: more rediscoveries from the "house of lost, missing, and misplaced books"
"Dining With the Impressionists" (1991), Jocelyn Hackforth-Jones
"Eating Together" (1984), Lillian Hellman & Peter Feibleman...............a great read and some pretty good recipes as well
"Twelve Months of Monastery Soups" (1996), Brother Victor-Antoine d'Avila-Latourrette
"Italian Vegetarian Cooking (1994), Emanuela Stucchi
"Book of English Food --A rediscovery of British food from before the War" (1991), Arabella Boxer
"Chez Panisse Cooking" (1988), Paul Bertolli and Alice Waters
"Sushi", Mia Detrick...............great photos
"The Armenian Cookbook" (1971), Rachel Hogrogian
I get the feeling those won't be the last ones you 'rediscover' Flocko
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They've gone biweekly starting in the New Year. There just aren't 52 restaurants worth reviewing in their coverage area...
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My secret ingredient for low-carb cooking...
in Cooking
Posted
Thanks Mottmott,
guajolote had suggested the same thing--using roasted cauliflower--and I'm definitely going try it next time.
BTW, I find the the quote in your current signature...
to be eerily descriptive of life while low-carbing. I find myself constantly scheming work-arounds and methods while low-carbing...at work, in bed, while driving. It's constant...maybe even more than 'half' the time I spend on food.
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