aliaseater

You mean salmonella isn't a little salmon? One of my family's favorites is the restaurant in Italy that translated spaghetti into three other languages: "spaghetti, spaghetti, spaghetti." ← I thought everyone knew Sam and Ella are the husband/wife grill cook/waitress team down @ Smokey Joe's.

I've had good results using an immersion blender, with the ice cream in a bowl. Simply churn every fifteen or twenty minutes until the mix becomes too firm to go any further.

Uh..Hot Doug's has a bar? Avec or Blackbird would be good, with Avec being more reasonably priced.

Apparently Anthony was in town over the weekend--and is probably still here for another couple of days. They apparently filmed a segment at Hot Doug's on Friday. This info is courtesy of Gaper's Block, who offer a few hints as to how you can find out where else he filmed. I'm curious to know where he went for his evening meals--there was a great thread here a few years back about a night of drunken revelry at what I suspect was a guerrilla operation. Does anyone want to 'fes up?

Spacca Napoli 1769 W. Sunnyside Ave. ...is not too far from the park and does an incredible thin crust pizza in a special wood burning oven brought over from Italy.

An old friend of mine lives in Seattle. He's about to get married. I'd like to send him a heart shaped cake--not for the wedding--smaller--just as a present. Can anyone give me an idea of a good place to call? A website would be nice. Thanks!

We've just received a fairly old carved wooden butter mold. There is a cylinder containing something that is a bit like a pestle with nicely carved depressions depicting acorns, leaves and such. How do I use this thing? Is it suppossed to be pressed into a pile of softened butter, as my wife suspects. Or do I just coax butter into the cavities? Then how do I get the butter out, leaving nice clean pieces? Thanks!

Has anybody had any experiences with; http://www.freshpicks.com/cms/ ? (aka irv & shelly's...) I just had a really bad experience. I gave them a credit card number and they agreed to bring farm fresh produce every week for two people for $35.00 on Thursdays. The first week was fine--excellent strawberries, a bit too much mesclun (they called it 'field greens'), a head of nice red leaf lettuce, fine collards, what they called scallions (but were more like baby onions), etc. ( more? I don't remember). This week I got nothing. I found a number for the company (in Niles) and called, wondering where my order was. The woman who answered claimed to be Shelly (we all know how that goes...). I was told that I had ordered wrongly. I checked the website and saw that I had a standing order for every Thursday. I called back and was told I had ordered wrongly--I was told I needed to specify what I wanted delivered. I told Ms. S. that I was under the impression that I had signed up for a weekly delivery of whatever was freshest, in season, available, OK? She became rude. She couldn't or wouldn't locate her delivery person nor 'irv' (he's on the road). She couldn't locate my order nor access her website. Tread carefully if you're dealing with these folks. It's a great concept but, maybe, they're in over their heads. It's a tough business, I know, but there's no excuse for rude customer service. Just: don't answer the phone don't take on more than you can handle. Comments would be most welcome.

The newly revamped 'Gourmet' website has a nice video bit with Jose Andres: http://www.gourmet.com/diaryofafoodie/vide...tomymeal_fullep

Several years ago... Working at what was then considered the best Italian restaurant in this city, the chef stormed out of his office one afternoon--stark naked, with a cigarette threatening to drip ashes, to check on a sauce he had forgotten on the stove. The sauce was fine, we were entertained, considered it appropriate behavior and got back to work.

Right on target Doodad--Thank you so much!

This is probably the wrong place to post this, but: I breezed past a FN episode of "Guys Big Bite" (yeah, Fieri). He made a dish they were calling "Moc-Shoe". I know that's not the correct spelling for the classic dish and am wracking my brain (and google) for the right term/recipe. Can anyone give me a clue? Thanks.

I would hope that the most likely scenario is that someone in the party on Friday night made the Chef an offer that was too good to refuse. He's decided to kick back a bit before moving to ...(Spain?)

All along I figured Hung deserved to win. Dale amazed me with his ability to screw up. I would vote for Casey if this was the playboy channel, but...I don't think so. As far as the studio goes: who was there? Everybody I knows was in the bar on the corner watching the cubs loose. ; )

I just caught the (second?) Shanghai episode. Forgive me if I have not searched extensively enough, but has anyone found a source for good yak's milk cheese in the U.S.? Thanks

I'm contemplating making a chili (using turkey) and substituting lentils for the beans. Does this dish exist in any cuisine? Or, as I suspect, am I just asking for trouble?

Cooks, in the Italian restaurant I worked at, would have a hard time differentiating (ESL) the call for a 'veal mushroom' (sauteed) and a 'grilled mushroom' (er, not...). We changed the call for the 'grilled mushroom' to 'Bobby D' (it had to be something Italian

I do my best to make a neat spiral.

Please post only the best!

For a nice, quiet, relatively low key, excellent Italian dinner you can't go wrong with A Tavola on Chicago avenue. It's very small, so make reservations. Due to the size of the kitchen the menu is fairly limited. Still, they continue to offer the lightest gnocchi you will ever find, though you can't go wrong with anything on the menu here.

I've taken to adding chocolate milk to my coffee. More or less, depending upon the quality of the brew. I came up with this trick when I was forced (out of neccessity) to drink inferior "coffee" from the office "common pot". It think it's Nestles reduced fat double strength (?) chocolate milkshake that does the job. Then, a bit of half and half if needed...

At the cheese counter where I used to work we referred to Roaring 40's as "candy" It was a fun cheese the first few times we tasted it but quickly became too sweet for our (finicky) palates. Though it >was< a very easy cheese to sell to novices from the 'burbs. ; )

Hot Doug's was hit on Friday. They took away his dogs and he faces a fine of up to $500 or more if they think he was disrespectful... The story's here: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi...ll=chi-news-hed

There's a place called Krazney's (sp) on Elston Avenue, just a few blocks north of Diversey. There was another restaurant supply outlet on Milwaukee, by Grand, I believe (maybe another Krazney's, maybe closed).

I may be wrong but... It seems Cantu won on presentation: If you take the scores and flip the points for taste and creativity, leaving presentation intact, Cantu still comes out ahead... Odd, or, what....