jsmeeker

When I used to travel to Los Angeles regularly for work, I had a lot of meals at Jerry's Famous Deli. One of my most frequent orders was a half a pastrami sandwich with a cup of chicken noodle soup. The half sandwich was quite large. The cup of soup was more of a bowl. It was PLENTY of food, especially for lunch.

Mine too! Do I make it as a sauce to dress a piece of meat? I have in the past. Mostly, just because I wanted to do it and play around with classic "mother sauces" after making a nice batch of chicken stock. Is that old school? Sure. But old school can still be pretty tasty.

I got one the other week in fast food bag as well. Like you, mine came from Chick-Fil-A!!

Just keep it in the pot on the stove with a really low flame? I assume this means you would need to tend to it now and then and add water to it as needed to keep the desired consistency?

Interesting. Did hominy grits used to be more common?

They are generally made from different strains of corn and polenta is generally a little finer grind (though still relatively coarse). Some grits are also made from hominy while I don't think you ever see polenta made from lye soaked kernels. Though yellow grits are widely available now, they are not the norm while most (all?) polenta is yellow. I wanted to know the same thing. Do all grits have to come from "nixtimal" (hominy) to be considered grits, or are hominy grits a variant/variety on grits? Is one or the other considered more common than the other? Is this a regional thing? Really trying to understand this better.

Where do you park it? On a low burner? In a low oven? Or are you not using any heat at all and just relying on the mass of the pot plus the contents to hold heat?

Yesterday, I braised some lamb shanks. I wanted to serve them with polenta. I started to cook the polenta about 30 minutes prior I thought the lamb shanks would be ready. When the polenta was done, I spooned some into a bowl, put the lamb shank ontop, added some braising liquid/sauce, and are it. It was tasty. Lamb was cooked nicely. So was the polenta. But the timing of this can be pretty tricky to pull off. So, I wanted to talk about how to hold foods prior to serving them. Not just polenta, but anything. There are a few topics about holding specific foods (BBQ, pasta), but no "master" topic. So, here it is. A master topic on how to hold items in the home kitchen. I realize that there are probably a lot of neat restaurant tricks for doing this. Hopefully, some of them can be easily adapted to a common home kitchen. I'll get us started with a few types of foods. Polenta/Grits -- How do I hold this without them setting up into a solid mass? Risotto -- Somewhat like risotto. Hold without it getting gluey. Mashed potatoes -- I just keep them in the pot and stick the pot in the oven with a wood spoon in it to keep the lid ajar. Works OK for a short hold. Braised meats -- I suppose this should be easy. Just kill the heat so it's not at a simmer? Or take meat out of braising liquid ?

Yup.. Polenta.

And this is how it ends

Gonna braise some lamb shanks today. Here is the before. The after will come after they are done.

Out in Las Vegas, I typically will not order bottled water in a restaurant. I will take just the tap. Never have experienced a waiter showing any sign if displeasure over my choice. Of course, there have been times when I have had bottled water in restaurants out there. Usually, they are with larger groups at a chefs table or something like that. As has been mentioned, sometimes a meal like that includes bottled water. They keep opening more bottles and pouring. And it never shows up on the bill. Really, though, I like the places that provide filtered water, no charge. They can bring it to the table in a nice glass carafe or bottle or something like this. In Las Vegas, some places do this. You get "bottled water" without it having come out of a cardboard box, shipped in via truck, and maybe even on a big ship, too. Outside of the restaurants? I'll drink bottled. The cocktail waitresses will bring me a "free" bottle when I am at the craps table or when I am playing slots. I'll buy bottles of it in the hotel gift shops, too. Frequently first thing in the morning and almost always just before I head to my room for the night.

when I make Buffalo Wings, I dredge/dust them in cornstarch. I think it really helps out a lot. David, Tell me a bit more about your onion rings. This is something I've been meaning to try out at home. I used to make them "professionally" when was in high school.

The Cooking Channel did a profile of Dude Sweet on their show "Foodcrafters" a few weeks ago. The owner, Katherine Clapner, seems to be a bit of the renegade type. As she says herself that she chose the town where she opened her shop because she "wanted a neighborhood where rules are not important." "Dude Sweet" refers to her view of males and females, Dudes & Sweets, and her flavor collection is divided into these two categories to reflect that. The "Sweets" are more delicate, flowery flavors; rosepetal jam, lavendar, passion fruit. The "Dudes" are more "aggressive"; tobacco & cognac, black garlic & mushrooms, Irish Whisky. I think it's a pretty clever concept that fits her personality and the flavors are pretty intriguing, although I haven't had the opportunity to try any yet. Hi Tony! Welcome to the eGullet Society. Thank you for becoming one of our newest members. We're glad to have you here. Thanks for providing some good background on "Dude, Sweet". I don't get Cooking Channel on my cable lineup, so don't get to see "Food Crafters". To be honest, I was hoping it really WAS a reference to "Dude, Where's My Car". Do you live in the Dallas area? If you, you should get down there one day and check them out. It's a neat shop. I'm glad that Dallas can have a unique place like this.

Tonight, I finish off the box with the Black Gold and the Irish Channel. The Black Gold seemed to have the most chocolate hit of all the pieces in the box. Something about the mushrooms must have really enhanced it. It had a bit of earthiness to it. As a big dark chocolate fan, I think this one worked really well. It had the best chocolate hit out of all the pieces in the box. When I saw the description on the Irish Channel, I got a little worried. Laphroaig is certainly an acquired taste. Even for someone who really likes drinking. And pine? That can be strong. Well.. This one just didn't work for me. Just didn't like it at all. For the most part, the flavors were not quite as strong was I thought they might be. They were more subtle. Not that that is a bad thing. Overall, I think it worked out pretty well. Next time I make it down that way for a second run at BBQ, I will swing by the shop and buy a box of the "Sweet"

There is a debate over this? I thought we all knew they weren't close to the same thing.

had two more pieces from the box. Parique and Miso Happy. I wasn't so happy with Miso Happy. I was expecting more from this, but really didn't find it all that interesting. Didn't get as much of the tahini flavor as I thought I would. Just some of the black sesame. The Parique was very good. A bit of a sweetness to it. I also cut off a piece of the Kampot chocolate bar. The flavor here is not at all shy. Very strong pepper flavor. I'm a fan of black pepper, so this is right up my alley. The chocolate is really good, too. You don't need much of this to bar to get your fix. Good thing too, considering it set me back $6. Gonna make this last.

If you are tracking this topic, be sure to read up in the "Best BBQ in Texas" topic. I have posted about my recent experiences with two new places in Dallas proper.

Chick-Fil-A is my "go to" meal when I am coming home from work and don't have anything at home to eat, don't want to cook, and don't want to buy anything to cook. The location nearest me has the added advantage of being VERY close to me AND on the same side of the street I am traveling. It's very easy "in and out" through the drive through. The relatively new spicy chicken sandwich is my new standard, default order. Occasionally, I order nuggets. Sometimes I get waffle fries, other times I substitute cole slaw. (no extra charge). I really like the sandwich. It's always good. Very consistent. Service is pretty prompt, and always friendly and courteous. Sometimes, I dine inside. It's always very clean. It's a really well run chain fast food operation. I don't think the "closed on Sunday" would be a killer in Manhattan, but maybe I am wrong. Surely there are other businesses there that close on Sundays (or Saturdays?) and do just fine.

yes. a quick search shows it's a spice blend. I guess it's like the north African equivalent of "curry powder"

Yes.. Seriously Scout's honor.

You haven's seen "Dude, Where's My Car"? The toffee was interesting. To me, the most interesting part was the texture. It was kinda soft and crumbly. One of the people there made a comment about that to another customer, but I didn't quite catch it. However, the flavor of the mushrooms worked well. The toffee wasn't super sweet, either.

After I was done eating some BBQ on Sunday, I swung by a little chocolate shop a block away called Dude, Sweet. Friendly place. Staff offering up samples of all sorts of things. One of the more interesting things was their toffee Fungus Amoungus. One of the things I bought was a box of chocolates called "Dude" So far, I have had the Puro and the Marakesh. There was a slight olive taste to the Puro, but I really didn't pick up on any distinct saltiness. But maybe that's the point? The salt is there to enhance the other flavors and not really to bring an actual saltiness to it. The Marakesh faired much better. Nice sweetness from the dates. I'm not really familiar with Raz (ras?) al Hanout, so it's hard for me to say if that flavor is present. But whatever it is, that piece was great. I'll save the rest for later. Don't want to eat it all at once. Box set me back $12. The other thing I bought was a chocolate bar called "Kampot" The label describes it "65% Columbian dark, Kampot pepper, and cocoa nib". I have not tried this yet, but I will report back when I do.

It's interesting you bring up the salt issue on the ribs. A friend of mine said the exact same thing about the ribs on his initial visit. Very salty. But this past weekend when we were both there, he said it wasn't a problem at all. In fact, he felt that they had gone too far the opposite direction. But I didn't find them to be UNDER seasoned.

The chain is growing like crazy and has lots of fans. One closest to me is located in a mall in north Dallas. I like the place. Good burger. Good fries. As Steven noted, the fry portion is insane. If you are dining with someone, a single order is enough to feed at least two people.