APPS411

Il Mondo Vecchio in Madison. Awesome pasta dishes.

Reconstitute them then reduce the liquid into a rich mushroom stock and add back the mushrooms chopped finely. I then like to use that stock w/ some cream and grated parm to make a nice rustic sauce for penne pasta.

I grew up in Poughkeepsie (now live in New Orleans) but I visit often as my family all still live there. I have a few favorites that I like to go to when I venture back to visit. My favorite deli of all time is Rossi's located at 45 South Clover St.. There are tons of deli's in Poughkeepsies, this is the best. One of my best friends family owns a great pizza place called Ronzoni Pizzeria. It's located up in Hyde Park. Probably 15-20 min. from Vassar. Other good pizza is Gino's on Main Street. And Sal's Little Italy on Parker. All small family owned. A must is La Deliziosa Pastry Shop at 10 Mount Carmel Pl. (about 10 min. from Vassar) We've been going there since I can remember for fresh pastries and bread. They are the most authentic old italian bakery that I have every been to and so good. The Palace Diner on Washington (about 5-10 minutes from Vassar) has very decent diner food and open 24/7 for late night eats. As for fine dining. Just across the river is the Ship's Latern Inn. Great food and great atmosphere. It's been run by the same family forever and is very consistent and makes for a great evening. Take a day trip to Millbrook then up to Amenia. It's a great drive in the fall when the leaves are changing. There are some nice places in the small town of Millbrook and if you make it up to Amenia, look up Cascade Vineyards (www.cascademt.com). It's a small batch vineyard in the middle of nowhere up this little unpaved drive. I'm not sure if the chef is the same, but they had a awesome food and a great little patio outside to eat lunch on and really good crisp whites aged in SS vats.

I've had my Bosch for only about a month now and haven't had any complaints. I was originally looking at the 700 series but ended up trying to save some money by going w/ the less expensive 500 series. It retailed for $1350 but I ended up getting a new one on ebay for $800 after shipping. You may want the check ebay out for a 700 series. When I was originally looking at the 700 series, the best price I could find was around $1800. But my thinking was if I'm going to spend in the $2K range, then I may as well go w/ a residential series SS range. I was looking at an 30" American Range - Residentail. I could get that one from a local dealer for $2500, not too much more than the Bosch. Check out their website. They make a very nice looking range. Fairly new, but reviews look good and company has a good reputation. But in the end I ended up going w/ a cheaper alternative. We just bought a 140+ year old victorian that I could better use that use that extra money elsewhere in the restoration budget.

Baking or broiling wings just doesn't appeal to me. Instead I cut up a chicken breast into 3/4" cubes and toss in a beaten egg and then in a light coating of a mixture of breadcrumbs(75%) and flour(25%). Then place on a baking pan, lightly spray with pam and slide under a hot broiler for about 5 to 7 min. While the're cooking I make a quick sauce of whatever I'm feeling or have in the fridge. Sometimes an asian bbq, w/ any bottled bbq sauce, some garlic, ginger, honey, sesame oil and sirachi. Or a buffalo sauce w/ hot sauce, a bit of tomato sauce to give it some body. Whatever your liking. Soon as they are done cooking, w/ a bit of browning on top. Take them out and toss in the sauce. I like to hit them w/ a squeez of lemon just before serving. It's a nice quick meal and healthy if you use just a small amount of egg and breadcrumbs to coat and only enough sauce to cover.

I like to heat up a little cream, thin it w/ stock then add some dijon mustard and fresh taragon. Very versatile.

I do a tuna sashimi bruschetta that my friends seem to like alot but it's got some tomatos in it. Small cubes of raw tuna, halved cherry tomatos, tossed in ponzu sauce (or soy w/ a little sugar and water), little bit of sirachi hot sauce and sesame oil and a light squeze of citrus of your choice, chopped chive or green onion. Be sure to rub that toasted bread w/ a cut piece of garlic. The garlic aroma really sets it off.

I used to serve it very lightlyly dusted w/ s & p and flour then pan seared and topped w/ a browned butter, chopped scallions and sesame seeds sauce. I love the texture of skate, so delicate.

Browned butter. All time favorite over a good cut of steak. While your steak is resting, ,melt a few tablespoons of salted butter in a SS saucepan over medium heat until slightly brown. When it starts to get brown, move it around a bit to keep the particles from burning. When I get it to the color I want, I take it off the heat and add a few pinches of bread crumbs and a few drops of basalmic vinegar. Be careful, the vinegar w/ cause it to bubble up a bit. Spoon over your cooked steak and enjoy. yum....

I love a good silver tequila like Don Julio or Porfidio (my favorite) on the rocks w/ two limes wedges. Another lighter option is to muddle a few lime wedges w/ a sprinkle of sugar add some crushed ice and tequila (silver or aged) shake then pour into a glass and top off w/ some tonic or soda. Nice and refreshing.

My all time favorite dessert is fresh mango w/ coconut ice cream and warm sticky rice. It's so simple but a perfect combination of flavors and textures in my mind. Might have to stop at the vietnamese market on the way home and see if they have any fresh marathon mangos.

Grouper, Grouper, Grouper!!!!! Grilled in a sandwich, pan seared w/ salt and pepper, broiled. Whatever just bring it. Just don't dare fry mine. Breaks my heart. I'm actually surprised to see the lack of grouper votes above. It's nice to see all the votes for smelts. Didn't have any over this past holiday and missed them greatly. Small ones floured and fried w/ a squeez of lemon and some vinegar for dipping is my favorite way. Albacore (white) tuna sashimi or tataki. Melts in your mouth

Porcini parmesaen bowties w/ walnuts and porscuitto Rehydrate the porcinis overnight in warm water. Strain (reserving liquid) and chop porcinis. Reduce soaking liquid to concentrate. This is were the majority of the flavor lies. Reduce to 1/3 and add finely chopped pocinis. This chunky stock will keep in the fridge for a while. I make ice cubes w/ them and place in a ziplock for quick pasta. Add a few scoops of the porcini mixture to a skillet and bring to med high heat. Add a touch of cream and some freshly grated parm to taste. Don't dilute the wonderful porcini flavor w/ too much cream. The sauce should be a light brown chocolate milk like color, not white. Reduce or add more parm or add pasta water to attain proper coating consistency. Add bowties, cooked below al dente as they will cook additionally in the sauce. Toss to coat then add coursely copped walnuts and poscuitto. Everytime I make a variety of pastas for friends, this one turns out to be the favorite. Enjoy.

Porcini parmesaen bowties w/ walnuts and porscuitto Rehydrate the porcinis overnight in warm water. Strain (reserving liquid) and chop porcinis. Reduce soaking liquid to concentrate. This is were the majority of the flavor lies. Reduce to 1/3 and add finely chopped pocinis. This chunky stock will keep in the fridge for a while. I make ice cubes w/ them and place in a ziplock for quick pasta. Add a few scoops of the porcini mixture to a skillet and bring to med high heat. Add a touch of cream and some freshly grated parm to taste. Don't dilute the wonderful porcini flavor w/ too much cream. The sauce should be a light brown chocolate milk like color, not white. Reduce or add more parm or add pasta water to attain proper coating consistency. Add bowties, cooked below al dente as they will cook additionally in the sauce. Toss to coat then add coursely copped walnuts and poscuitto. Everytime I make a variety of pastas for friends, this one turns out to be the favorite. Enjoy.

I like to add pureed roasted pumpkin to the cream/milk to flavor the custard and some golded raisins. As for the bread, brioche or hallah are great, and if it's during the holidays I also use some toasted panatone. I found that using all panatone make it too sweet for me. Top w/ a some cream anglais and ginger spiced toasted pecans. It works so good w/ and the autumn thanksgiving food items, they made me make it for chrismas also. Yum

As you I found Mr. B's to be the best tasting. You can easily find the recipe online w/ a google search. Contains mostly butter and Worcestershire, pepper, garlic and lemon. I've made it a bunch of times for friends and it always comes out great. To cut down on the 6T of butter per serving (Yikes! heart attack), I instead use only 2T of butter and a nice buttery belgian beer like chimay (I'm thinking even a creamy guiness would work. Most importantly is having the right bread. Best I've found in a pinch is actually Pepperidge Farms Twin French. Toss in a hot for a min or two to give a crunchy flaky crust and start sopping up that sauce. Shrimp are the compliment to the sauce and bread in my mind. Enjoy, and make sure to use BIG head on unpeeled fresh shrimp.

My market didn't have any of the yellow sweet potatos, only the orange ones. Good call fredman, they will probably work better due to the dryer starch content. They more closely resemble the texture of acorn which worked best for me.

Just a few notes. I went through this same ordeal last year for thanksgiving trying to come up w/ the best textured and taste sweet potatoe gnocchi. I noticed that the great amount of water content (even if split w/ regular potato) required too much flour to bind and resulted in a very chewy gnochi. Also the taste was severely mutted by the addition of all the flour. I tried a few other versions that came out great. Both butternut squash and acorn sqaush work much better. Roast off the squash on the half shell w/ a little s&p, nutmeg and butter. Scoop out of skin and place in a strainer over a bowl in the fridge to drain off excess water. This didn't work w/ the sweet potatos. They tended to retain their water. With the sqaush I mixed 2 parts sqaush w/ 1 part mashed idaho potato, then add a little egg (roughly 1/4 egg to total of 1 cup potato mixture), season and start adding flour till it comes together. Hope my trial and error helps. That reminds me, I have a bag of acorn gnochi in the freezer.

Panko crusted diver sea scallops w/ a jalepeno, caper, lemon tartar sauce. (had a few scallops left over from a mediteranean shrimp and scallop linguini valenitines dish) Creole oyster stew w/ toasted ciabatta bread. (left over oyster from the weekend shucking)

As "Jeff Boy" stated above. The smaller the better. If they are real small, the backbone actually is edible after frying. We like to hit them w/ a splash of vinegar and fresh lemon and sometime dip in tartar sauce. good stuff

For everday cooking I use Vigo spanish EVOO. I bought a gallon of it not too long ago for a decent price and it's pretty good. For finishing I buy in small quantities and try a different brand every time I run out. There are so many good ones out there I hate to limit myself by choosing just one. Right now I think I have some homemade stuff that someone gave me.

I don't know if we're thinking about the same place, but I think I ate sushi at this place on the main downtown street every night. Can't remember the name. I had a really, really good miso black cod there.

I cut it against the grain. Both the meat and the internal fat was chewy. The brisket never ran out of fat, I just think the temperature was too low to creat a good basting and internal fat fiber breakdown. I was measuring temp with a prob thermometer positioned in the side of the top cover at the same vertical level of the meat. The probe reaches 3" towards the direction of the meat so it should be pretty accurate. I like you idea of using a top vent hole for probe. I'll try that next time. Raising the temp might do the trick. I'll give it a shot. Thanks Klink. I'll report back in a few weeks.

Klink, I have a quick question for you. I smoked an untrimmed brisket in thirds in a water smoker this past weekend. The end result was a nice light smoke flavor but it still had a decent amount of chew to it. As for the treatment. I followed you direction step for step. My temperature was slightly higher(almost 300) during the first half hour due to the initial large batch of coals. From there on I kept it pretty consistently between 190 and 240. With a slight drop during intervals of adding chips and a round of new coals. Total cooking time was 7.5 hrs. The thirds still had a about a .5 inch think fat cap on them, so I don't think it was overcooked and didn't lack fat basting. Was my temp too low? Or was it still undercooked after 7+ hrs? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks,

Gonzales, LA (just outside of Baton Rouge) has some of the best jambalaya chef around. Not too many places to buy it though. If you decide to make a day trip to BR it's on the way. As stated above, it's mostly home cooked. If your ever in the area during the spring, the jambalaya cooking contest is a must. I haven't had any real good (non tomatoe) jambalaya in New Orleans, but I don't often look, being that I'm in Baton Rouge were it is everywhere. Parasols, near commanders palace is a great poboy place. The soft shell poboy is to die for if there in season. I've raved about that sandwich many time throughout the boards. Upperline is a great choice. Don't eat any lucky dogs from the street vendors. There's nothing lucky about them.