KatieLoeb

Katie, Thanks for posting the links. Does the Habanero Seasoning taste like habaneros, or does the seasoning provide just heat? The reason I ask is that I don't like the flavor of habaneros but enjoy the heat. ← Mostly heat with a hint of the fruitiness of fresh habanero peppers. I use this stuff in almost everything. On popcorn, fresh corn on the cob, a pinch in a pot of soup to "wake it up", etc. And the tiniest little bit goes a pretty long way. I learned that lesson the hard way. This stuff is HOT. But good.

THIS is my go to recipe for a savory cheesecake. It's delicious. I've never had a crumb of leftovers when I've served it. I'm certain you could substitute in a little bit of Gorgonzola dolce or something in place of part of the mascarpone if you wanted. I also agree about layering the sundried tomatoes and the pesto separately. It looks prettier and isn't really that much more work.

I'm thinking more of fusion cuisines. Those native and well established cuisines that were heavily influenced by years of colonial rule. Like the French influence on Vietnamese cuisine for example.

Steven: Have you checked out Moore Brothers New York yet? They definitely have everything but #5 of your wants covered, and #1 of your don't wants covered. It is a nice shop. Don't hold that against them. Additionally, they will put you in the computer once you register and purchase some items and your portfolio of purchases is available to you online. You will always be able to look up what that lovely little Rhone blend you had was, even if you can't remember the name. You can keep notes on your purchases as well. An awesome customer service. PM me if you need any other details on the place. Sounds right up your alley.

The cure for all insomnia that ails me... Caramel Apple Toddy 6 oz. 2% or whole milk 1 heaping tablespoon of dark Dulce de Leche (1 can Sweetened condensed milk submerged and boiled in pressure cooker for about 50 minutes) 1.5 oz. Laird's Applejack pinch of cinnamon or nutmeg garnish (optional) Heat the milk and DdL in the microwave for about 2 minutes. Whirl in the blender. Heat for another 30-45 seconds. Pour into mug and add applejack. Stir and enjoy. This is the grownup version of warm milk that helps you sleep like a baby... (My apologies for the blurry snapshot. Bad cell phone camera)

If you can't find it there, El Jarochito grocery at Swanson & Wolf in South Philly definitely has cactus. I've seen it there when I go to buy my cheap limes there.

Thanks, Katie, for the strategy about air travel. I re-read my message and it sounded like I haven't tried Bluecoat. I have been lucky enough to try it, once. The not-so-widespread blue bottle got an honoroable mention in the gin tasting in our current issue. ← Cool. Not surprised it did so well in competition. I find it quite delicious and well balanced. I confess I'm not a lover of the juniper "piney-ness" in many gins, but love the citrus-forward flavor of the Bluecoat quite a bit.

slobhan: Not sure about checking a bottle of spirits on a plane. Heaven knows what that might look like going through the x-ray machine! I'd suggest bubble wrap, lots of foam peanuts and a plain brown box getting shipped to your destination of choice. It works. Don't ask me how I know this... The Bluecoat is damned good and I'm certain you'll love it. You should be able to find it in any number of bars here in Philly when you're in town. PM me if you need any suggestions.

This idiocy explains a lot about why well trained and qualified female sommelieres don't get the job when some twenty something year old twinkie in a suit with a hyphenated name always does.

The chips are not overly thick as some boutique (as opposed to major name brands) chips can be. Combined with the heat, they're a great spicy snack. ← Blair's also makes a Death Rain Habanero Seasoning that makes great spicy popcorn! That's my favorite spicy snack aside from wasabi peas and wasabi cashews. There are some great spicy snacks available HERE if anyone is looking for a new favorite.

Sample bottles? I want your job. ← You want my old job anyway. A lot of the liquor salespeople know that I like to play at home and are happy to provide them with end-result drink recipes for press releases and brand literature. It's a win-win for both of us. I'm working on finding a new job that hooks me back up.

Katie, What is your take on Pama? It seems like a pomegranate margarita would be better served by juice rather than liquer. I've never tried the liquer so I'm curious to know how it mixes. I've seen it behind some neighborhood bars but the bartenders don't seem to go to it often. Tom ← Tom: I generally prefer POM pomegranate juice to Pama liqueur, but I have several sample bottles of Pama laying about so it seemed a good way to use some up. In general, I think Pama tastes more like a splash of cranberry juice than like pomegranate and that a splash of real pom juice is way more cost effective and tasty in a cocktail than the Pama. I don't *hate* the Pama. I just don't get it. It seems too expensive for real utility behind a commercial bar. :shrug:

Like any consumer, this woman has the right to choose not to dine in your restaurant because the menu isn't to her taste. Lecturing you and implying that you (the restaurant) were some sort of evil force that needed to be stopped was out of bounds and completely uncalled for. You would have been entirely within the bounds of decorum to politely end the call and hang up.

Eclat = better more "explosive" flavor John & Kira's = better texture, more creaminess in the chocolate portion, not necessarily the fillings. Fillings were more incorporated. If we could get the big flavor of Eclat with the J & K smoothness you'd quite literally have the best chocolate on earth. Katie (recovering from her happy dance after tasting the Calvados Caramel truffle from Eclat. Damn that was delicious! )

Jeanine's!! Yes - that's it. I never had the pleasure but that place has a lot of lore attached to it. My old boss Greg Moore has his first restaurant job at Jeanine's. He told wonderful stories about being awakened to the pleasures of food and wine there. Come to think of it there really isn't a place like that around these days either...

Wasn't that chicken liver and bacon wrapped water chestnuts, aka Rumaki? Pretty good recipe to be found HERE. ← Not if you hate, hate, hate chicken liver (or any other type of liver for that matter). ← Rumaki can be made with scallops in place of the liver if you please. ← Going to do bacon wrapped scallops since I am not even a teeny tiny fan of chicken liver. ← You still need the water chestnut in the center for textural contrast. It doesn't taste like much but it's crunchy! Halve the scallop, place a water chestnut in the middle, wrap with bacon and skewer with a toothpick. Marinate in the soy and brown sugar mixture from the recipe and broil. Delicious and perfectly 50's retro.

I was wondering when the online link would be available. Thanks matthewj! I was flattered to be in the company I was mentioned in the same breath with. And in case you were wondering who was bitchin' about no ingredient focused cocktail bars... I loved the article and thought April hit alot of bases with it. I'm also glad to know I'm not the only one that thinks it's a damned shame there aren't any Italian restaurants that are worthy of national attention somewhere in between Ralph's and Vetri. Why do all the other big cities have a bunch of mid-level trattoria that are fairly priced and serve excellent food and with the dozens of Italian restaurants in Philly, no one seems to have hit the bullseye? Hopefully that's soon to change when Vetri's Osteria opens...

markk: With all due respect you've obviously never been standing at the front door of a busy high volume reservation oriented restaurant at 7:45pm on a Saturday night with a line of people in front of you, trying to make sure that they all get seated in a timely fashion, are seated in a section that didn't also just get sat so you can have your server's undivided attention to get you started, to make sure that everyone doesn't all sit down at once like a boarding house and slam the kitchen because then everyone's meal will suffer, etc. Not liking the color of the guy's shirt at the next table doesn't qualify. Needing to assert your authority to impress your date isn't a good reason either. There are tons of folks that do this every day. I'd ask any other restaurant managers or hosts to chime in here and back me up. I'm not saying you do it, but think about what the real reason you're asking to be moved and see if it qualifies as compelling or not. If by your own definition the request is frivolous, why are you making it?? If it isn't frivolous then it falls under the definition of "compelling" I explained earlier. If there's a compelling issue that can be explained in advance then by all means explain that to the hostess when making the reservation, e.g. "I have a soft cast on my foot from an injury and would prefer a corner booth that would allow me to keep my leg out of harm's way", or whatever. Otherwise do not torment the hostess and everyone else in the restaurant by being insistent at the height of service. It's just inconsiderate of the business. And it is a business. The restaurant business is unlike any other. Frivolous requests can really screw up the groove of what's happening and what has been laid out as the floor plan for the evening in a busy high volume place that relies on reservations. As much as can be mapped out ahead of time has been, so you aren't left standing around and are greeted and seated promptly when you arrive. The five minutes it took to reseat you at another identical table has now made the other parties waiting at the host desk late for their reservation. It snowballs from there. Just because a table is empty doesn't mean it's available. It might be reserved for a guest that requested a certain server or certain table. It might be being kept empty purposely because there's a big party next to it that hasn't arrived yet. There is logic to what's going on that might not be visible to the untrained naked eye. You just have to trust us, just as you trust us to feed you well and not give you food poisoning or mess up your drink order.

Wasn't that chicken liver and bacon wrapped water chestnuts, aka Rumaki? Pretty good recipe to be found HERE. ← Not if you hate, hate, hate chicken liver (or any other type of liver for that matter). ← Rumaki can be made with scallops in place of the liver if you please.

I live alone, so I don't have to take anyone else's tastes into consideration, which can be quite liberating. I tend to be of the fly by the seat of my pants sort when it comes to grocery shopping. I'll go in with a short list of things I really need like milk, eggs, soda, paper towels, etc. and then see what's on sale. I'll also avail myself of the Reading Terminal Market or Italian Markets here in Philly and find produce that's on sale/in season/reduced in price and sort of go from there. I stopped at RTM just a few days ago (detailed HERE) and bought a bunch of reduced price produce and made some pasta with it that night and then a big batch of potato-leek soup yesterday. When I stopped at the supermarket for milk to make the Potato Leek soup, I saw that beef roasts were 50% off so I bought a 4 pound rump roast that I will likely defrost and make tomorrow for dinner and then enjoy the leftovers in sandwiches or sliced on a salad for the rest of the week.

Kouign: Certainly a knee that doesn't fold properly, or any other medical issue is a compelling reason to ask to be moved, and I'm sure a polite and simple explanation to any hostess would remedy the situation. I was talking about the folks (and they are numerous) that just want to exercise authority over the hostess and pick their own seat, as if it were a cafeteria and not a fine dining venue that required a hostess to "direct traffic" and do all those things that phlox was talking about. Moving from one four seater table in the second row of tables to another in the second to last row of tables in NO different, yet folks insist on doing it, in many cases just to feel like they're in charge somehow. I wonder how they'd feel if someone came into their place of business, say a doctor's office and said, "No. I'd like to be in Exam Room #3, not #5", and then proceeded to march in like they owned the place. It's really not very different. I'm sure a lot of people don't realize what goes into seating a busy dining room, but the large parties are already laid out, certain folks may have requested sitting in a particular server's section and are coming in 15 minutes, Server Susie has only had 6 customers and Server John has had 12 so she needs to be caught up, etc. There really is a way to do it properly or else there would be one of those tacky "Please Seat Yourself" signs at the front desk, right?

mrbigjas: Does mrlittlejas eat congee yet? He looked pretty happy balancing on your lap until he got all sleepy and started keeling over.

Phlox: I'm sure you've got the Looking Pretty part down pat. Your employers are just lucky that there's more to you than that. You get what your role in the restaurant is and take it seriously. That's huge. I was referring to those hostesses (and there's an endless supply it seems) that can only manage to Look Pretty, but don't have two brain cells to rub together and make a spark. More on topic for this thread, is that folks need to be nicer to hostesses in general. They're just doing their job. Some obviously better than others.

The hostess really is the go-to gal at the restaurant. It's refreshing to see someone that takes it seriously, instead of the usual hired-only-on-looks-and-definitely-not-brains types that stand around looking statuesque and flipping their long blond locks over their shoulder all night but wouldn't know a thing about the menu or why it's important that you not seat the 450 pound Jabba the Hut sized guy at the duece by the one bottleneck in the room that every waiter has to squeeze through. If you ever want to move to Philly, let me know. I'll help you find a job and hang around with you too. I think we'd have loads of fun.

If you're right, it's just as well. I'm allergic to jellyfish so I'm afraid to try it, lest I have a bad reaction. I realize it's the bodies and not the tentacles, but I don't want to risk it. Same reason I won't take bee pollen or royal jelly supplements. I'm just afraid. There was a jellyfish dish on the table that's not pictured, but I didn't partake.