Florida

Apparently no one is capable of being a sellout as long as you believe in the product you're selling. Yeah commercialism!!

Publix is the dominant local supermarket. They tend to be geared towards the upper middle income demographic, so most of them are quite nice and they should have just about everything you'll need. Whole Foods has a presence as well, with one store not far from Universal. Also, are you really staying in Orlando or are you down by the Mouse? Kissimmee tends to be a bit skankier than Orlando proper so your pickings might be a little more scarce down in that area. As for keeping in simple, buy a bottle of Mojo Criollo (I prefer La Lecheronera - its available danm near everywhere) and what ever meat product you want. Marinate over night, or a day or two, and then grill it. This stuff is very versatile and matches well with almost anything.

sell out / not a sell out to each their own from my perspective, I think this horse is sufficiently dead

What's with the "lighten up" comments? You're the second one. We're all a bunch of anonymous people talking about a relatively unknown person selling a crappy burger from a likewise crappy fast food restaurant. Who is taking anything on this thread so seriously that anyone needs to "lighten up?" is anyone boycotting Hardee's? is anyone tearing down their poster of Padma off the wall because they now know she eats Hardee's?

Does anyone have any experience using Morton Tender Quick to cure bacon? Basically this is a pre-mixed dry cure mixture containing salt, sugar, 0.5% sodium nitrate and 0.5% sodium nitrite. The package says to cure for 4-8 hours, yet most bacon recipes call for curing for several days. In running the percentages against Ruhlman's basic dry cure recipe, the percentages aren't all that far off.

A wheat beer in April? I say it's a little premature to be quaffing the wheat beers when I've still got snow melting on my front lawn. Let me know when the next batch of Hopslam hits the shelves.

You say that liking a hotdog and fine dining aren't mutually exclusive, but following the guidelines you're staking out here they are. If I say "coffee and donuts" from Keller are good and I say the coffee and donuts from my local diner are good, are you saying that I don't have integrity? I wouldn't expect a person to scratch his/her head when I said that, because it's pretty obvious that I don't mean they're "good" in the same way. ← The problem is that Hardee's isn't good. I don't know shit about your local diner. It must just be me. It appears I missed the numerous threads on eGullet that talk about how great fast food is.

My point remains: If she was served this on Top Chef, would she react the same? It has nothing to do with being able to like a fatty greasy sandwich, a hot dog, a pizza pizza and Achatz or Keller. Liking plebian food and high cuisine are not mutually exclusive. I has to do with cognitive dissonace. You say one thing. You say another. If the two don't match, people scratch their head. You might. I wouldn't. I would say not all bacon is created equally. I think there are many who would agree: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...115638&hl=bacon

Even if she might *gasp* actually think it's a good burger? ← Well, she is more than entitled to think it is a good burger. However, if one of the Top Chef contestants put one of these burgers in front of her on Top Chef, would Padma react as orgasmically? I doubt it. And there is the compromise. You can't say "it's great" and "it sucks" both at the same time and expect people to accept both opinions as accurate just because they are opinions. Doing such leaves you (rightfully) open to criticism.

I think it can be argued that Padma, by shilling a fast-food burger, is compromising the "gourmand" persona she has nutured on Top Chef. On the other hand Paris Hilton has no integrity, morality, or principles for which to compromise.

Well, I guess we all have bills to pay....

Personally, I surf many sites, Yelp included. And I do find them helpful. But the key is to look for trends. For example if Restaurant X has 50 reviews scattered over a number of websites and 30 of those reviews say the service sucks, then that is a helpful piece of information about the establishment. However, if only one review of the 50 indicates poor service, then the review is an outlier and should be discarded. As for professional reviews, they're just as uninformative and far more biased than any single Yelp review.

Devlin hit the nail on the head. How many Christian weddings have you been to where the cake has anything at all to do with Christianity? As for the "Laughing Buddha," if it's not offensive, it most certainly is ignorant. The "Laughing Buddha" is not The Buddha (Siddhārtha Gautama). They're two different people. Baking a cake that has anything to do with the "Laughing Buddha" simply reinforces Western stereotypes. And the notion of putting such an object in the face of actual Buddhists and then requesting them to eat it? I just don't see that working out so well. The lotus is a good symbol. While it has ties in Buddhist symbolism, it is also generic enough to not be overly religious.

Yeah, I let mine go a couple of years ago. As much as I used to love the magazine, I just seemed to lose its relevance.

Yes, I should have known I was opening the Chicago Pizza is/isn't actually pizza debate with my commentary. I've almost gotten into fist fights over this damn debate, but that's as much my fault. Swicks, go to the pizza place. I don't care for it much, but, in all reality, it's not offensive. I'm sure you'll enjoy it for what it is. If you like it, the next time your at Walt Disney World you can have another one, because they have a location there too. As for my commentary about the area surrounding Midway, whatever. I'm sure one the monitors of this site will sanitize my comments for everyone's protection.

I'm not a fan of Chicago "pizza," but some people love it. Then again, pizza is pizza and, well, stuffed pizza isn't, but if you've never had it, you might as well have it here in Chicago. Personally, I think there is a better choice - Szalas. It's a very interesting Polish restaurant that is a great conversation piece. Considering virtually no one here speaks English, you're ensured an authentic Polish meal. Plus it's only about a mile north of Midway. As an FYI, if you go, they're not closed - you have to pull the door bell to get in. http://szalasrestaurant.com/ Also, I'm surprised this wasn't mention earlier, but Midway is in a quite shitty ("economically depressed") area, so be careful where and how you venture. Would agree with the other commenters about not going into the Loop, especially by cab. And while the el is a better option, you're still looking at travelling into/out of the city at peak rush hour times. I wouldn't recommend it either.

Mochi is exactly what I was thinking. Sushi is a bad idea and you're asking for trouble with it. As much as I love sushi, I wouldn't want my kid eating some other kid's raw fish. Even if you're not going to include raw fish, you're still imposing on the teacher to ensure the quality of the final product. Plus giving wasabi and soy sauce to a group of 11 yr olds and the teacher will probably want to kill you. Mochi is the answer. It's exotic enough for most kids, but it's still just rice. And if you don't want to make it (most Japanese don't make it themselves anymore) you can just buy a few boxes of the stuff.

Drives me nuts. Just write the damn order down so I don't have to wait 20 minutes to find out if you screwed it up.

AB makes a note about Augusto on his latest blog posting. Seems to recognize the show may not have shown Augusto and his family in the best light. Last night's show was good. Not overly opinated, though who was that idiot who AB ate with at Keen's? If that's the type of people who frequent that place, I'd take a pass on it. Love Katz's deli. I try to hit the place up whenever I'm in the city. Nothing like it here in Chicago.

You can definitely find Bell's here, but you already have access to it, so what's the point? I would agree with both Sam's and Binny's, though Binny's can be very hit or miss depending on what location you go to. Some Binny's have a huge assortment of micro's. Others have next to none. Personally, I go to the one in Naperville. It's an hour outside the city, but it just happens to be close to where I work. Another place is West Lakeview Liquors (not too far from Wrigley). I've never been there, but I hear good things about their selection (though I also hear they are quite pricey). Aside from the aforementioned, other breweries to look out for: -2 Brothers -New Holland -Jolly Pumpkin (exceedingly difficult to find, but absolutely incredible beers)

First of all, what's wrong with Gumbo? There's no beans and you can dump in whatever you want (or don't want). Second, where are you getting your Tasso from in Chicago? I buy mine over the internet, but wouldn't mind having a local source.

Another vote for Brown Butter and Sage. Its as simple and classic a gnocchi sauce could possibly be.

I currently live in Chicago, so I have access to nearly everything on the list. However, when I lived in Birmingham, AL, I could easily get: -pig parts -pancetta -Pomegrante molasses & Sumac (there happened to be a Middle Eastern grocery) -miso (there was both a Japanese/Korean grocery and a Chinese grocery) The other ingredients would be much more difficult to find, though I'm sure I could have turned up a duck if I looked enough. And despite the large hispanic population, Mexican products were actually quite difficult to locate. Now, if you headed outside of the Birmingham area, good luck trying to find anything on that list (other than pig parts, which seemed to be everywhere).

I know this is backwards to what your asking, but I'm sure you can do the math: 1 oz unsweetened chocolate = 3 Tbsp. cocoa powder + 1 Tbsp fat (butter, oil, margarine, etc)

My impression was that Augusto was to be a "fixer" and he bit off more than he could chew. Not to mention I think Augusto was realizing the reality of "you can never go home again." AB made the best out of the situation, but then again, that whole roasted pig could make a lot of bad situations better.