aliwaks

LOVE cowgirl creamery but don't forget Vella dry jack and semi dry jack from monterey I believe, how about capricious cheese..are myer lemons part of CA cuisine? how about plucots? I practically worship at the alter of the Marin County farmers market ( though the Santa Monica one isn't too bad either they have bacon avocados) never seen so many varieties of tomato in my life

I made vagan brownies fro one of my servers birthday a while ago. took the recipe from the back of unsweetened chocolate (Germans i think) substituted Crisco for butter (ok not exactly healthy but vegan) & a ripe banana for eggs & they came out really good I mean they were vegan brownies but they were rich & chocolatey & moist! for an icing & blened peanut butter w. silken tofu & 10x sugar

Jonathan, you will notice that I mentioned I use the flavors of other cuisines rather than saying I have Italian food, chines food etc. on my menu. American food is evolutionary...I use classical techniques none of which are chosen for thier labour saving we play around with the flavors if lemon worked in the classical french why wouldn't sumac work in our adaptation for example or teh other way around if shiso works in the classical japanese application why not try using meadow mint. There are obvioulsy dishes that in themselves with out change are wonderful and perfect and have thier place in teh culinary world and an esteemed place it is, but we as innovators should have the opportunity without regret to adapt & change and create new dishes without it being supposed that we neglect & shun the "old masters as it were" the classical cuisines of have thier place much as a Michelangleo does but thier has to be welcome room for the Jasper Johns & the Basquiats

shopped yesterday bought: 3 limes 1 lemon 1 mango 5 nectarines container of fresh mint 2 hass avocados $12.41 really your Chicago haul is unbelievable.... i'm so jealous

I had then behind the bar for a while sort of a try your luck game...the first one to take a bean (one of my servers) got vomit I managed to only try grass, black pepper (LOVED IT & candied pink peppercorns to garnish a panna cotta as the result) & cherry subsequentially others had booger & ear wax with alarming consistency

when I had an office my drawers would usually be stocked with several kind of sugarless breath mints/gum, low sodium soy sauce, jar of republic of tea plum jam, popcorn (we had a air popper in our office), several kinds of tea, instant oatmeal, equal, muscat or kiwi gummies, wooden chopsticks, bottle of Spa water (which BTW is impossible to find in Philadelphia!) a bag of sugar free chocolate malt balls from the candies store on the corner...I was so different then, equal has not touched my lips in well over a year and the sugar free chocolates ugh!! hmmm funny how life changes.

I though alot about the "American Way " of eating when I was developing my restaurant which is billed as an American bistro. I cannot say whether I grew up typically American in my eating habits... my early years spent on the South Fork of Long Island we relied heavily on seasonal produce my stepfather went fishing we had chickens who we got eggs from but everything else was from either the A&P or when feeling flush Dean & Deluca...then spent months in India where I ate next to nothing but can remember fondly the roasted corn w. lemon & hot pepper they sold on the street and the best chinese food ever in a chinese restaurant in Puna that looked exactly like the one in East Hampton, red leather & red velvet w. gold dragons & muzak playing the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever (it was 1978) oops I digress..when in NYC with the other half of my family..we went to very nice restaurants & every Sunday it was bagels & lox etc brunch w. my grandparents & Chinese Food for dinner (case you were wondering we're Jews). As an adult in NYC I shopped the Union Square farmers market, went to the Ukraninan butcher on First ave, went to Murray's cheese shop , the bakery etc where my grandmother went to do her shopping as well. Supermarkets were for cat food, paper goods & veg/fruits in the winter and the occasional frozen mac & cheese for days when I was hungover all of which was generously supplimented by the myriad of "ethnic foods" in my city. Just within my nieghboorhood (Murray Hill/Gramercy) we had good Indian, Turkish, Mexican, Thai,Chinese, Japanese, French, Afghan, Italian and thats just if you didn't want to take a cab. Not to mention I spent much of my teenage years eating at The Gotham since the guys my Dad worked for owned and frequently visited San Francsico & Seattle I got to eat some great food. I remember the first night at the Gotham when Alfred sent out the cutest tiniest lamb chops and I had pasta primavera (I was young) and it came in a deep rounhd light green bowl w. sugar snap peas and wee carrots & asparagus and for years I have wanted to eat exactly that but could never do it and for dessert we had cookies & milk My food pedigree though throughly American is cannot be defined as anything but that. Sometimes we ate in front of the TV sometimes we ate at the table where sometimes we talked and sometimes we read and alot of the times we'd fight. We rarely drank in the house so wine with dinner was an out thing unless it was a holiday. In the summer we ate outside on the porch in the Hamptons or Fire Island or out in a restaurant with better Air conditioning. So when I opened a restaurant an American bistro I wanted it to reflect all of my food history. The basis was local products with what ever influence works the best for them. American food is the ultimate fusion cuisine as Americans are made up of so many different types of people all bringing thier own tastes and flavors with then upon thier arrival. At the moment on our menu we have Cajun, French. Italian, Thai, Argentinian, Spanish,Isreali, German, Japanses, Polish, African flavors all under the umbrella of American food, while so dish is singularly one of the above ( ok except the basil pesto) we have things like Zaatar Seasoned local lamb with salad of locally grown tomatoes, cucmbers & goat feta, fried free range chicken w. fresh corn & mashed potatoes (a nod to the all American Swansons TV dinner), PEI Mussels in chorizo wine broth w. chimichurri mayo, pigs in a blanket, grilled tuna w. gazpacho vinaigrette, cherry bere-bere glazed duck. I consider all of these menu items to be "American" my ways of procuring ingredients I learned from Alice Waters ( my idol) & my mother & grandmother and my recipes come from things we all like to eat that we've eaten in America served to us by people who are Americans whether their families have been here 200 years or 1 year.

Have begun serving a bacardi razz mojito in our bar we call it an 'all that razz" ...so yummy...soon when raspberries are in season will be including fresh raspberries as garnish but now as it stands 2 1/2 oz bacardi razz 1/2 lime cut in quarters 3 sprigs fresh mint club soda muddle limes & mint, pour rum over muddle a bit more shake with ice , put all ( including "dirty ice) in tall glass top with club soda (and a couple of raspberries.) the razz has a bit os sweetness so I lay off the simple syrup unless some one asks its such nice summer drink lime mint rasspberry + cold & bubbly

edamame is a pretty good substitute for fava beans...I've used them when favas are unavailable(umm like almost always) I love favas but tres expensive for restaurant purposes so we've taken to throwing in edamame .

I believe that Pocono Mountain has ceased serving the Phila . Area, they merged with another trout farm is what I heard from the folks at The Fair Food Project. We can no longer get thier trout which we had been serving since we opened I Lovbed it and our trout salad was a huge seller!

how about heirloom tomato gazpacho with a shot of pepper vodka, sour cream, and cilantro? we made a cool spring pea w. mint served in a champagne glass w. a pea shoot garnish does anyone have a good recipe for white gazpacho?

I have a vague fuzzy memeory of going to the store while on some hallucinagen or another and having a really hard time distinguishing regular paper from paper money it took a really long time ( or 25 sec. who could tell) to buy a pack of cigartettes, several brightly colored pieces of candy and I believe a can of mackeral (as an offering to the giant can of tuna previously pilfered from a dining hall and a can of welfare pork we found in the basement of our house)

Yo in Philly this is what I have discovered The falafel/juice stand in Reading Terminal sells a variety of middle eastern goods, halvah, zaatar turkish delight pomengrante molasses etc. there is another middlle eartern shop around the corner from Genos that has good labneh & quite a few other things but it is a bit too dirty for me. Bell's Market in the Northeast has outstanding array of russian goods + amazing amazing deli & cheese counter #1 Oriental Market on Washington for all things Asain and really nice produce (thier meat dept is kinda scary though) the Shoprite in Cherry Hill has a huge selection of Latino products, though there is a huge Mexican market supposedly around the Italian Market ('nuff said about where to find ilatian stuff) which I have been planning to locate some day for fresh chiles as for dry goods therea Mexican store in New Hope that has all sorts of Mexican pantry items & candies. I've yet to find an Indian market in Philly for that I stock up when in NY at Kalustyans their array of spices is fantastic..it's the only place I've ever seen Urfa Pepper

that was funny...eating on acid definitely an experience if you can remember how to swallow this was a long time ago ...college...the 80's a tab and a half and an encounter at some point late in the evening with a popsicle, jar of peanut butter & a spoon it wasn't pretty and when I finally rejoined the world there was a lot of peanut butter in it ( and also several raw pieces of ziti in the peanut butter jar) wasn't there a thread a bit ago on drunk eating? how different is drunk eating from eating when high? I know that when drunk I am much more satiable just want to eat something greasy if really drunk but am capable of sitting in a restaurant have a nice meal if tipsy to mildy soused ..but while high ummm I actually was never really happy going out to eat back in the day when I not only smoked alot of pot but went to restaurants other than my own There was more active "sensory experience" to eating that I preferred to engage in while high but if couldn't get that going eating would work. however when at home it was all about texture ...crunchy & creamy then savory then sweet then back to crunchy/creamy melted cheesey I could eat for hours back & forth like that. needless to say weigh alot less now that no longer spend evenings smoking pot & eating.

waitrose mag.has some really nice recipes esp. since they do not hinge upon buying products solely at Waitrose shops (also they include a UK/US conversion chart for the recipes) I was very fond of the M&S brand of juices their Apple Juice is amazing!!, Food Emporium's Presidents Choice (same as Canada shop?) products were pretty good as far as I can remember , and the Whole Foods 365 or something like that is pretty high quality

These are the kind I make myself: - Smoked chicken breast, avocado & fresh mayo on toasted country bread - roasted chicken breast sliced thinly, salted butter, radish on whole grain bread - chicken thighs, chermoula mayo, cucumbers & tomato on pita Those are my favorites. Huge into the chicken kebab/pita w. tahini lettuce toamtoe & cucumbers then again am huge faen of any middle eastern food. Did have a decent chicken sandwich just this afternoon at Rouge: grilled chicken w. spinach & really yummy mushrooms (had came w. cheese & honey mustard but I don't like either of those things) Italian style chicken cutlet are pretty good too! Philly style w. broccoli rabe & sharp provolone, Del Colle on Rittenhouse square has a great sandwich: Chicken cutlet ,basil mayo, roasted peppers & smoked gouda YUM!!

just finished pint of strawberries now on to 3 free range egg whites + 1 yolk w. diced country ham chives and bit of crumbled cave aged cheddar. The end slice of a green olive sage focaccia & bottle of saratoga flat spring water

bacon egg & cheese on a bagel & cold cold grape juice... we discovered the grape juice one day when there happened to be some in the restaurant an chef and I were WAAAAAAAYYYYYY hungover it has become our miracle cure closely followed by cheeseburger & glaceau (sp) vitamin water in revive aka dragonfruit that's what I took for my birthday Tequila/champagne hangover (really fun night but in the morning my god I thought I was going to die as I crawled home at 8am ; ) hey it was a good night just a bad bad day slept on one of the couches in my bar for 3 hours)

actually mflourless y chocolate cake recipe the batter needs to sit for a day then after you bake the cake it sits in the fridge for at least 24 hrs before then at room temp for @ at least 3 hrs. its the best chocolate cake I'v ever had (even Craig Laban liked it!!) 16oz dark adrk chocolate (I used onyx pastilles) 4 oz milk chocolate 1 # butter 1 cup sugar 8 eggs 1 cup cold very very strong black tea ( I play around sometimes earl grey some times orange pekoe had yet to stry lapchong suchong) 1 tea bag of tea (or I guess a tsp) ground very fine in the speice grinder In double boiler melt chocolates & butter whip sugar & eggs in kitchen aid thingy for @ 8mins on med. speed then add the tea & tea powder whisk the egg/sugar tea mix into the chocloate butter mix ( will be kinda soupy) let sit in fridge cover 24 hrs. scoop out batter into springform pan that has been buttered and dusted with sugar make sure there are no air pockets bake at 375 for @ 55 minutes. let sit up to 24 hours (can last a month!!!) bring to room temp before serving ( nice w. lightly flavored whipped cream or tea flavored whipped cream you can also replace the tea with coffee & puit in a tsp or finely ground coffee grinds)

cold fried chicken is an UBER food absolutely one of the better things on earth. but to add: lasagne, spagetti & meatballs, (pasta has to be reheated in a pan with some olive oil so bits get crunchy & sorta fried) meatloaf (cold w. ketchup on good white bread), leftover lo mein is pretty good too astraight from the carton with chopsticks . I have a few stew dishes that definately age well same with pasta sauces, and am a huge fan of cold egg rolls don't ask why I just love then so much, pot roast yes..actually I love cold meats left over roast chicken cold pork chops spareribs I just love them. Lamb however has some very unfortunate fat when cold. and the very best thing after fried chicken is thanksgiving dinner the next day turkey heated up with gravy on a sandwich with stuffing & cranberry sauce & homemade mayo.

I have been trying to figure out how to get more cash and that is absolutely brilliant the 5% goes to credit card fees equipment rental any way LOVING YOU!!!!!!

used to hate olives because they were hairy (can't really explain why hairy is the proper description but it is olives like most beans & legumes are hairy) needless to say I also did not like beans but I have gotten used to teh hairy food and now have a very definative list of food I will not eat. okra aubergine (though I think they are beautiful when raw and in a bowl) tongue sweetbreads tripe any liver other than duck, chicken or goose brains hearts kidneys indian pickles chicken with melted cheese UGH!!!! any meat other than a cheeseburger or a cheese steak with melted cheese cheese on vegetables creamy sauce on meat tomatoes that are not perfect blood blood sausage sashimi sea urchin roasted peppers on anythng other than pizza or pasta pickled things other than cucumbers however LOVE LOVE LOVE truffles, foie gras, caviar & veal/beef/pork cheeks & smelly cheese

I almost always bring my own, in fact last year a flight attendent sent me a nice® bottle of wine gratis from first class because I refused the nasty meal and instead had camenbert, walnut bread, fresh pineapple & fresh raspberries. however it is sometimes not possible which is why I have found that if you order the special meals (there are like a hundred to chose from) you are usually better off) Kosher meal is very often a nice piece of BBQ chicken & some colelsaw from a kosher place (not airplane kitchen you can bet) The low fat meal can be very nice or very bad on a BA was given ravioli no sauce & white rice (refused it but happened to have a spare tuna sandwich on me that I had picked up at a deli in NYC before leaving, I know tuna is not the most plane freindly of sandwiches but I ran out of xanax and needed much comforting for my plane ride that day) HOWEVER on the return trip I was in such a rush to the airport (had lingered far too long nursing my excellent hangover in a middle eastrern rest. in west london with the greatest merguez , hummus, fattoush & this gorgeous freshsqeezed honey dew juice) anyway couldn't stop at M&S to grab sandwiches, in fact barely made it to the plane fiegned extreme illness saying I'd been in my hotel room for 3 days with food poisoning ( thus insuring a seat by myself and much water) anyway by the time it was meal time i was famished and it was just fine. Grilled chicken breast plain, roasted potatoes a whole lot of broccoli lemon wedges some crappy salad and they never give you dessert with the low fat meal so just to be safe I purchased a humongous toblerone from duty free on the plane, then we had tea sandwiches half way through that were delightful & had the crusts cut off BTW I told the attendants I think I can manage a few bites since hadn't eaten at all for days since had been so ill amazing since I was probably reeking from alcohol & cumin they actually believed me . It was such a pleasant flight.

I grew up living in pretty much 3 different places Mom's house: No sugary cereal (honey/oat cheerios & honey combs being the exception), no white sugar only honey or raw brown sugar, no white bread except if it was french bread. no convenience foods except for frozen creamed spinach & canned creamed corn because they were the only vegatables my brother would eat. no margarine (thank god!), no ham no bolongna Kosher salami only as far as lunch "meats" and then every once in a while chicken roll I guess'cause it was cheap. no american cheese or velveeta. No soda ever, only real juice noit even cranberry juice "cocktail" used to go to my best freinds house & have margarine & white sugar sandwiches on wonder bread. Cookies were homemade though there were often hidden stashes of crunch n munch & pepperidge farm milanos in my mothers studio Grandparents house: no white bread white sugar no lunch meat no chips no cookies unless my grandma made them ( the worst cookies ever) no salad dressings, only vanilla ice cream no convenmience foods at all ever no soda (except special occasions then there was gingerale)chips only later in life when Bella discovered little soy blues, chocolate was hidden throughout the house though ( cadbury fruit n nut in the fridge behind the weird polish salves, chocolate coffee beans coffee table drawer behind the cards box of whitmans chocolate in the thrid drawer under the "good cloth napkins) Cookies & cakes were kept in the spare bedroom I don't really know why. Dad's house: Also no sugary cereal, no soda, no chips of any kind, no american cheese or velveeta however frozen pizza & canned ravioli was ok as were TV dinners but not boxed mac & cheese , cookies only Pepperidge farm or Mallomars (worlds greatest cookie!!!) no chips ahoy or anything like that and no asparagus because for some reason my father thinks it makes you sterile..(we're kind eccentric)

I had a dream theat there was a storage loft in my restaurant filled with fruit really gorgeous exotic huge fruits but as I went deeper into this seemlingly never ending storage space the fruit got more & more rotten and there were hundreds of flys..needless to say cleaned out the walk-in the next day. I may dream about foods more than I am aware the other morning woke up with lamb on my mind huge hunks of bar-b-que lamb and another day it was pork chops.though I do think it may be because my eating habits are so irregular and spend whole days around nothing but food my subconscious is like feed me protein!!!!!!! now or eat an orange you are going to get scurvy stuff like that. hmm have been having mucho anxiety dreams about huges parties coming in looking around & walking out the reservation book is full and slowly bit by bit the evening deteriorates to only two top of old people who order soup, share chicken and drink endless cups of decaf that are never hot enough ( that is a FOH nightmare)