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stefanyb

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Posts posted by stefanyb

  1. Uh, excuse me but isn't phyllo made with flour even if not with  leavening? :blink:

    So is matzo.

    Its not about wheat flour, its about how its handled and the amount of time in the oven. Thats why its better to stay away from it.

    Forbidden foods

    Several foods are forbidden in observance of the week of Passover.

    Breads and anything made with a leavening agent.

    Wheat, barley, spelt, rye, oats, corn (including corn oil, cornstarch, corn syrup, confectioners' sugar) and products made from them. Also legumes (peanuts, dry beans, peas) and rice. (Sephardic Jews may eat rice.)

    Beverages with grain alcohol or those prepared from grains.

    Miscellaneous items are mustard and vanilla extract.

    From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

    http://www.post-gazette.com/food/20000413seder2.asp

  2. I don't want to sound mean, but Passover and "cake" don't belong together. Why not try a fruit crisp or homemade dark chocolate matzo (purchased matzo dipped in the best dark chocolate}. Even homemade macaroons dipped in dark chocolate. If this is for a present, I might suggest a bottle or two of Kosher for Passover Fox's Ubet. This may sound weird, but this is a vastly superior product than the regular Ubet because they have to use sugar instead of corn syrup. Do a taste comparison then stockup if you're into that kind of stuff.

    These are really good suggestions, Double0.

    Crazy question, but does anyone know if there is a Phyllo that is kosher for passover? If its considered to be leavened, then probably not, but if it is, you could make stuff like baklava and various other honey-flavored Middle Eastern things.

    Uh, excuse me but isn't phyllo made with flour even if not with leavening? :blink:

  3. I'd suggest a dessert recipe from a reliable source that is flourless. A true sponge cake or a coconut macaroon made from scratch. Even fresh fruit with a zabaglione sauce. Any cake made with matzoh meal or potato starch is not worth eating, no less buying.

  4. Or lobster sauce on lobster?

    Growing up on Long Island, Lobster with Lobster Sauce was called Lobster Cantonese. The best part was sucking the lobster meat and sauce out of the shells. Messy but delicious.

    Yes, growing up in Brooklyn and Queens it was Lobster Cantonese. Shrimp in Lobster Sauce was poor man's Lobster Cantonese.

    Broth, cornstarch, garlic, ground pork, egg, peas and scallions.

  5. Pan,

    To Stefanyb's question, "So, what constitutes a deli?" Alacarte answered, "In my opinion, a deli is defined by KOSHER."  So, call me dense, but I interpreted Stefanyb's question to mean: What does each person think when referring to a place that's called a deli?  Even though the term "Jewish" was used in Elyse's post (about Artie's Deli), that does not mean it has to apply to Stefanyb's question.  So as far as Alacarte's response is concerned, I read that to be her own definition or view.  You can choose to disgard the dictionary definition if you wish.  All I know is that when people line up at the deli counter in my local supermarket, they are definitely not thinking "Jewish" or "kosher."

    Yes. I meant Jewish as in Artie's, not all delis. Not that a deli has to serve food Jewish people eat. Not that it has to be kosher. I was just thinking about Artie's and how New York needs another theme restaurant like it needs to deplete the mental institutions of their patients. Again. And that is... not at all.

    When I was growing up in Brooklyn we did not define deli as necessarily kosher and also not necessarily Jewish. Actually, and this is quite some years ago, we often didn't shorten the word delicatessen at all. When we did, there were kosher deli's, German deli's and Italian deli's.........probably others as well.

    However, when we planned for dinner other than what my mother prepared, there were only a couple of choices: delicatessen (that meant kosher), appetizing, and a word that stood for Chinese food which I am loathe to repeat.

  6. Ah, yes.  So when the British controlled what is now the Republic of Ireland, their Protestantism was restraining the cuisine of the indigenous Catholic majority?

    Oh, didn't we forget to add that the Protestant/Catholic argument has a secondary argument which is that in cultures where hard liquor is most prized, fine cuisine does not develop at all? :laugh: Or is it the other way around?

  7. The thing about merchant classes is their businesses are very often family businesses. And it is typical for the parents to encourage the children to come into the business and take it over. So while you are making a joke, and it doesn't take 11 generations, it is a slower process.

    As unpopular as this is going to sound, I think by and large those merchant families take longer to assimilate because they are good at and often place emphasis on things that are not prized in structured school systems and higher education. By certain standards they might be considered less intelligent but we all know that its just different intelligences that are at work. Those families that ended up in the city proper usually had cultural and intellectual interests and were focused on their children succeeding in those spheres.

  8. In thinking about it, I disagree theat Arties Deli is a deli at all.  It's just a Jewish theme restaurant like Hard Rock and Brooklyn Diner.  And we've had Zabar's for an eternity longer than Artie's.

    Why isn't it a deli? What constitutes a deli? Aha! a new question.

  9. Doesn't it all come down to passion and priorities? All cultures have their passions, or I'd imagine thats true, even if their passion is stoicism. When the passion of a culture is "the body" then those things that can best be experienced by the senses develop over time into exquisite forms. When it is intellectual pursuits that are more important in a culture then sensual pleasures take second place and cerebral activities are more prized. Passions of a culture can also morph over time based on changing geo-politics, weather patterns, economic circumstances, immigration etc.

    Protestantism prizes good works and self denial especially in pleasures of the body. It would be unreasonable to expect things that provide sensual pleasure to be highly developed in a culture that labels these things as sinful.

    The US being basically a Protestant country had a very unintersting gastronomic history until immigration from places other than Protestant countries infiltrated the culture.

  10. But when the rule is to keep the aesthetic loyal to an external purpose, like god, art is compormised. It might be great art, but what I see when I walk around a museum is a hell of lot of religious pictures. And while they are great art, who knows how much greater the art might have been if it wasn't tied to religion in that way.

    I think you weakened your argument with that tangent. Since a lot of the greatest art of all time is specifically religious, it's kind of preposterous to suggest that it could have been greater if it was secular. Perhaps you might want to stick to food in this argument?

    I have to throw my hat in the ring with Steve here. When an artist chooses his/her own parameters with respect to creating art, that can be a positive force and can provide focus and specificity. When limitations are imposed from without it often compromises the work. Of course, its a hard position to prove due to lack of control comparisons but from my own experience I find imposed limitations to be deleterious.

  11. Just about any sandwich was disgusting by the time it had been a locker for 4-5 hours.

    Actually, David Rosengarten did a show on how to make the perfect tuna salad sandwich and after mixing the tuna and celery and mayo, he put it on the bread, wrapped the whole thing in aluminum foil, put it in a brown paper bag and let the whole thing marinate for a couple of hours just to get the desired taste.

    Also there are other sandwiches that need to be wrapped, weighed down and stored in order for the dressing to permeate the bread. One is panne bagnat.

  12. I've eaten a few times at The Oyster Bar and, in terms of the general assessment Grimes made, I am in agreement.

    However, did anyone stop to think that because of the grand scale of the place and the number of people they serve on any one day, he had more anonymity than he would have had at another restaurant. What I mean by that is, for instance, I'm pretty sure that when he ate at Babbo in order to review it, he was recognized. Granted, they cannot change the whole kitchen around just for any one diner, but I'm sure they went all out to give him their very best effort. He probably came and went in The Oyster Bar without anyone realizing he had been there.

    I do think that this would make a difference in the overall review.

  13. Is this the phraseology you have arrived at to replace the term "ethnic"?  A little cumbersome, no?

    Stef - Ha, ha, ha. I was waiting for someone clever to figure that out :wink:.

    Steve- You know I was trying to think back to the dark ages of my childhood and I seem to recall the phrase "foreign food". Maybe we could resurrect that one?

  14. If complete verbal "cleanliness" is the goal for a word to be used instead of ethnic then rustic could be it. Its totally non-political, non-biased and completely neutral. Its not as good a descriptor but who cares about precision when someone's feelings are at stake. :laugh:

  15. I'm glad we are in agreement. But Yvonne is right. It has to do with white people describing non-whites. Even though they use a pretty thin measure because they think of Italians and Greeks as non-whites! You just need to find a non-racial word to replace it. It needs to be a word that describes the food, not the people who prepare it.

    Its more than just race. Its the general concept of the other coupled with the notion of peasant. So its both racial and economic. The two root causes of immigration have been poverty and discrimination based on race and/or religion which brings us back to immigrant cuisine. :laugh:

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