JAZ

When I first moved to Atlanta, I ate a Chik-Fil-A (inside) a few times and was very favorably impressed, for all the reasons mentioned above. Good quality food served fresh, and good service. There aren't any near me, so I don't go very often, but the last few times I have, it's been through the drive through, and the quality has really suffered. A couple of times, the food was okay but not great, but the last time I went, the food had obviously been sitting around for a long time. I was very disappointed -- to the point where I doubt I'll go back. It wasn't a problem with a particular store -- the mediocre/bad experiences were at three different locations. Maybe they just don't do drive-through well, but if that's the case, why have it as an option?

Good questions, Max. Thanks for bringing them up. 1) Certainly there will be crossover between Wikipedia and the WikiGullet project, but we envision WikiGullet as completely focused on the culinary aspects of its subjects. For our intended audience, Wikipedia is good at general information about ingredients, and terribly weak in providing information on how to actually cook with them. Due to Wikipedia's broad focus, someone who is looking for culinary detail often has to wade through paragraph after paragraph of less pertinent information before getting to what he or she is actually interested in. That's an area where we expect our project to excel -- on the instructional side. 2) The nature of a collaborative project like ours (or Wikipedia) makes it vulnerable to misinformation, but we see two factors that we hope will minimize the problem. First is the existence of eG Forums, which is the perfect place for advancing theories and getting feedback on all kinds of culinary topics. Our members are never shy about arguing facts and working toward the most accurate answers possible. We trust that the "back and forth" that occurs in our discussion forums will result in more factual entries in the WikiGullet project -- both because we expect that our members will discuss questions and issues before posting articles in WikiGullet, and because our sharp membership will be constantly checking articles for accuracy. Second is our stance on original research, which requires that such research be subjected to informal peer review before posting in the WikiGullet Project. I tried to be brief here, but I hope I addressed your concerns. If not, please feel free to discuss them further.

I think of "serving size" as "unit of measurement" rather than "the amount I eat" and in that sense it's helpful. Most charts give both volumes and weights for their "serving sizes" so I weigh out what I'm going to eat and figure out nutritional values that way. One thing that is convenient about serving sizes is that they tend to be alike across types of foods -- that is, most chips/crackers/nuts will use one ounce as a serving. So regardless of whether one ounce is really a "serving" for me, at least I can easily compare, say, Triscuits with Wheat Thins or Fritos.

Holy crap! That happened to me too. Somehow I feel much better now.

For the stems, I use a technique out of Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini by Elizabeth Schneider. She recommends cooking chopped beet stems as a condiment (it works great for chard stems as well if you have those). Simmer a cup of water with a tablespoon each of sugar and olive oil, 3 tablespoons of cider vinegar, garlic, dried chiles, salt, coriander and fennel seeds. Add the chopped stems and simmer until tender. Reduce the liquid if necessary and cool. Serve chilled or at room temperature. You lose a little of the color, but the acid helps to retain it.

I'm drinking decent but not stellar all-malt Scotch instead of great single malts.

Robert Sietsema's response to the original article: Yes, foodies are ridiculous. But then so is BR Myers! Sietsema goes on to make some very good points: that all kinds of people with all kinds of culinary practices fall under the label" foodie, including vegans ("the Church of Food is an edifice with many doors and no locks"); and that pretty much any enthusiasm can be taken to extremes, not just food. A much better read than the original, in my opinion.

You should certainly feel free to use content from Wikipedia, as long as you cite the the relevant article(s) as your source. We've found, in practice, that often Wikipedia articles contain quite a bit of information that is not culinary in nature, and so they can be of limited value. For instance, given that our project has a culinary focus, the WikiGullet article on crayfish rightly ignores large sections of information that can be found in the Wikipedia article, such as raising crayfish as pets, the fossil record of crayfish and the etymology of the name.

Another point about "foodie": I find diminutive versions of words that end in "ie" -- "foodie," "veggie," "breakkie," "sammie" -- infantile. I bite my tongue over "veggie" and the like, but "foodie" offends me on more than an aesthetic level because it refers to a group of people, and dismisses them as infantile. That is, to me it implies that people who are interested in food are childish and trivial. I wonder how Myers (who, although he doesn't say so in the article, appears to be vegan) would take to being called a "veegie"?

We're pleased to announce the WikiGullet Project, a collaborative culinary encyclopedia sponsored by the Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. Please feel free to ask any questions or make comments about the project on this topic. To read the full announcement, click here. To visit the WikiGullet project, click here.

I thought I'd like that, but found it really strange. The cream didn't stir in as I expected; instead, it was like little pieces of butter in yogurt. Maybe I got a bad batch.

Are you talking about flavored sweetened yogurt, or plain, or both? I buy plain, whole milk yogurt, mostly to use in recipes, although I also mix it with fruit for breakfast. For cooking, I don't always want the thicker texture of Greek-style yogurt, so I buy regular Dannon. It's got a good level of acidity, is relatively inexpensive, and performs well in recipes.

I have had a cheesesteak in Philly (wiz with), in fact I have done the Geno's v Pat's one evening. Yeah, that's right one from each. I am in the Pat camp. I have also had from other places around town. I have to tell you, you can get a decent Philly outside of PA. It is rare, but it happens. I think it is MUCH harder getting a Chicago beef out side of Chicago, and it is INFINITELY harder to get a great roast beef po-boy out side of New Orleans. The hard part about the po-boy is the bread. I have NEVER found real po-boy bread outside if New Orleans. The Leidenheimer baking company makes the best. It is light and airy with a perfectly crispy crust. In fact, it took them a while to get back up and running post Katrina and the po-boys around town were not the same. I'm willing to concede that I haven't had the best (or most authentic, or whatever) Philly cheese steak, but it seems to me that syoung is onto something. If there's an ingredient in a sandwich that's impossible to find outside the original locale, then I'll concede that you have to be in that place to get an excellent version of that sandwich. So, I agree about the po'boys. Is there something in cheese steaks that put them in that category? (Incidentally, I'm excluding pastrami and corned beef, meatballs and burgers from this discussion. I think the base filling has to be unaltered roast beef to qualify.)

This morning, NPR's "Wait-Wait" blog featured the iconic Italian beef sandwich from Chicago. It got me thinking about different styles of beef sandwiches -- ones I've tried and ones I've only heard of -- and which style is the best. I've had an Italian beef from one of the big names in Chicago. It was pretty good. I've also had what I'm told is a relatively authentic version of a Philly cheese steak, although it was not from Philadelphia. It was also pretty good. The diner style of an open-faced roast beef sandwich with gravy should probably be considered, as well. I've heard of beef on weck, but I have no idea what exactly that is. My choice for best beef sandwich is the French Dip. It's minimalist and lets you concentrate on the beef. Unlike the diner style, it can be eaten without a fork and knife. Am I missing any iconic beef sandwich variations? Should I seek out beef on weck? Can someone tell me what that is?

Me too. (Scroll down for a recipe.)

A splash of grapefruit juice and a dash of Angostura is great in a gin and tonic. I got the idea from a recipe by Gary Regan.

It occurred to me tonight when I was making enchiladas with leftover duck breast that I could eat Mexican/Mexican inspired food four or five times a week and be perfectly happy. Yet, I was raised with pretty traditional "American" cuisine, so that's not my culinary background at all. Sure, we had "Mexican" (i.e., Mexican-American) food when I was growing up, but we also had lots of American versions of German, Italian and Chinese food. Yet those didn't stick with me the way "Mexican" did. So it got me wondering if other people have grown to have favorite ethnic or regional cuisines that they weren't raised with. Is there a cuisine not your own that you love and could happily eat all the time?

I recently checked out the web site Hungry Girl after hearing about it from several acquaintances. If you're not familiar with the site, the premise is that Lisa Lillien, aka Hungry Girl, finds "healthy" (read low-calorie, low-fat and low sodium) substitutions for unhealthy restaurant dishes. It seemed worth a look, but the reality is pretty bleak. Her staples seem to be Fiber One cereal (for coating everything from chicken to vegetables in her "oven-fried" foods); fat-free versions of Jello products, Cool Whip, cheese and mayonnaise; and "lite" soymilk. Her recipes sound so awful I can't believe anyone would try them. This one for "satay" was especially horrible-sounding. Here's a tip, Hungry Girl -- lite soy milk and reduced fat peanut butter do not a satay sauce make. But she's got several books out and apparently now a TV show, so maybe I'm missing something. I admit that I've only browsed through it quickly. Does anyone find this site helpful? If so, what do you like about it?

I've used the filling recipe from Pamela Sheldon Johns's Parmigiano for spinach and ricotta "handkerchiefs" in ravioli and it's great. I don't see it online, but it's pretty standard (I think). One pound of spinach, steamed or sauteed and then squeezed dry, 1 cup ricotta, 2 oz. parmigiano, grated, one egg yolk. Seasoned with nutmeg, salt and pepper. You could use more spinach, I'm sure -- just be sure to get it as dry as possible.

I make pureed vegetable soups a lot, both for myself and for classes, and what I've found is that my old blender worked better -- faster, actually -- than my food processor, so that's what I used. If I want a really smooth soup, I pass the pureed soup through a medium mesh sieve. I recently got a Blendtec but haven't used it for soups, so I'm not sure if I would need to strain after blending with it. When we teach our Kitchen Basics series, we have our students prep asparagus for steaming and roasting, and then use the ends for asparagus soup the next day. There's a Vitamix where we teach, so that's what I use for pureeing the soup. Even using that, though, I still need to strain, because there's so much fiber in the asparagus ends. If I were using the tender part of the asparagus or other tender vegetables, I'm not sure I'd need to strain the soup. In my experience an immersion blender (I assume that's what you mean by "hand blender") is pretty much worthless if you want a smooth soup. It's great if you want something rustic, but you'd be blending for hours to get the soup totally smooth.

I've been eating a lot of pistachios lately and once again have come up against the ubiquitous problem of how to crack open that handful of nuts that aren't opened. I ignore them as long as possible, tossing them back in the bag as I come across them, but the point comes when that's all that's left in the bag. When I was a kid, I cracked them open with my teeth, but now that I'm older, I value my dental work too much for that solution. A regular nutcracker (at least the one I have) is too big for these little guys -- they just slide out. Any great ideas out there? Am I doomed to just throw them away?

I have a Russell Hobbs toaster, which I bought several years ago. I love it, but it doesn't seem to be made anymore. This is the four-slice version (I have the two-slice), so if you see one on eBay or anywhere else, grab it.

I've seen a sweet potato explode during baking -- what a mess. Ever since then, I make sure to prick or slash any potatoes I put in the oven

Steven, how are you planning to serve the turkey? To me, that makes a difference in how I'd cook it. Although I don't do much turkey, when I cook chicken breasts for sandwiches, I poach them and keep the meat in the cooking liquid, but if I want the meat as the main dish, I'll roast them (brined if I have time).

I've been trying several brands of berries, and Dole is the best of the brands I've had. Cascade Farms is pretty good; Trader Joe's mixed berries were disappointing, and my supermarket brand is mostly pretty bad (blueberries are decent but raspberries are vile).