KatieLoeb

I haven't eaten swordfish in years...

Looked like a dulce de leche flavored syrup for your milk, much like the chocolate and strawberry flavored syrups that already exist. Regular dulce de leche is too thick to dissolve into milk, isn't it? This looked engineered exactly for that purpose.

About 20.

I think he means SRO-approved. SRO is Starr Restaurant Organization, the corporate name of the entity which owns so many restaurants.

Out at the supermarket today, right there in the section with all the other milk additives, I noticed a "limited edition" flavor of Hershey's syrup for milk: Dulce de Leche Could it get any easier? Will they wrap the rubber tie around my arm and find the vein for me as well? Has anyone tried this yet? I was so overwhelmed I didn't dare purchase it. It was too scary to contemplate having such easy access. Anyone??

I have a reservation at Lolita for Dining Out for Life on 4/27. Looking forward to it as I haven't been back in awhile. Glad to hear they're still doing a creditable job with the menu. I've always really liked this place. There's definite pride on the plate and in the service and I respect what they're doing there.

UnConundrum the Mandelbrot looks delicious!! Is mandelbrot the same thing as Jewish Biscotti?? I think it might be.... I confess, I get off easy. I'm the constant guest and never the hostess for Passover, but I'm expected, no obligated, to bring the infamous charoset and the fresh horseradish. I love making both and it's an easy way to weasel an invite for Pesach. I've been celebrating Passover with my dear friend/former college roommate and her family for 20 odd years or so. My 2nd night invite is another dear friend who wants me to show up with the goods as well. He always sets a lovely table, so showing up with a pint of horseradish and a few quarts of charoset is hardly a burden and a small tradeoff for what will undoubtedly be one of his usual spectacular dinner parties. I'm very much looking forward to it.

Never seen them in monkfish, but swordfish are riddled with them. Haven't you ever seen little holes or divits in a swordfish steak? Yup - that's where the worm was...

Chop up one whole pineapple and soak it in a bottle of cachaca for 3 or four days. Whirl it all through the blender and then strain through cheesecloth. Use this to make make Caipiriñas - or Caipi-Piñas as I prefer to call them. Me likey. These are quite refreshing...

Last night I roasted fresh beets that will be in tonight's dinner salad and color the horseradish. Tonight - I dig out my ski goggles and make horseradish! Tomorrow - chop all the dry ingredients for enormous batch of charoset. Tuesday -chop fresh fruits for charoset and combine. How's everyone else doing?

I'm way ahead of you darlin'. It's been there since early this week.

I beleive that was probably the Dreamy Doritiny(maybe) made with an Islay. ← Proper full name of the drink would be: Dreamy Dorini Smokin' Martini. I think it's the glass rinse of Ardbeg scotch that provides the Liqiud Smoke flavoring equivalent in that particular drink.

My pleasure, Bob! I've missed your reports and felt the need to fill in the gap since I went specifically on a produce hunting mission. Since the $2 parking was in effect, I had time to go compare prices at OK Lee for the beets and Iovines was .20 cheaper and still had some small sweet ones left. Definitely worth the trip. I'm having the beet salad tomorrow evening with a piece of grilled salmon. Trying to eat healthy these days. To counteract all the drinking, of course...

My big find today was organic asparagus thin fresh horseradish root at Fair Food Farmstand. Looking forward to making some "take-off-the-top-of-your-head" horseradish for Passover next week. Iovine's also had some nice loose beets for roasting. Some are going in a salad with some nice goat cheese and crumbled Carles Roquefort (really the sweetest and most delicious Roquefort EVER) from DiBruno's that will be dressed with Hazelnut Oil and Gegenbauer PX Vinaigrette and the rest will be coloring the horseradish. Mangos were $1 at Iovine's, and there were also clamshells of "stemberries", gargantuan begging-to-be-dipped-in-chocolate strawberries with the stems still attached for $1.99. Bought three $1 "grab bags" of roma tomatoes that are roasting for sauce as I type this. Also got a $1 bag of various colored bell peppers and a small tray of portobellos for the sauce. Good stuff at Iovine's today!

Lunch today, from George's Roast Pork in the Italian Market. I give you the BBQ Veal sandwich. Admittedly not the best picture, and the sandwich had been wrapped for about 15 minutes at that point, so it wasn't as pretty as it was right then when it was made. But, it was raining and I wanted to bring it home to my warm dry house to eat it. Didn't make any difference in the taste. Aside from needing to have at it with a knife and fork after the first couple of bites, this was one very tasty sammie. I'd never had the BBQ veal before and I requested the roasted sweet peppers and very light onions on top. A little spicy, and juicy like a Roast Pork Italiano. I'll be ordering one of these again.

Last night I finally got around to trying a concoction Alchemist had suggested to me in another thread: 2.0 oz aged rum .75 oz fresh lime .50 curacao One barspoon Orgeat This was quite tasty and refreshing. In fact, I had two! The Appleton V/X I have in the house worked fine. I'm certain this drink would be even better with some really well aged rum in it.

Only info I'm finding on Brillet's Website indicates that there are two strengths of the Poire Williams/Cognac blend. I don't see any mention of a distilled-from-pears Cognac as you've suggested. BTW the Brillet Pineau de Charentes is really delicious as well.

This is all making me wonder whether original cocktail recipes I've posted here or recipes I've added to RecipeGullet are ripe for someone else to take credit for them. That wouldn't bother me in the least in a non-commercial context, and in fact that's why I share those things. But it might seriously piss me off if someone were presenting my ideas/recipe/cocktail as their own and benefitting from it monetarily.

Here's a more recent menu from Mandoline, to give you all an idea of the type of cuisine and price structure: ------ APPETIZERS Seasonal soup – $5.5 Caesar Salad - garlic croutons and shaved parmesan cheese $7 Mixed Green Salad - with haricot verts and shallots in a mustard vinaigrette $ 6.5 Mussels – in a red coconut curry sauce with Thai basil and lime $9.5 Fried Calamari- with hot peppers and a lemon garlic aioli $8 Goat Cheese Pistachio Cake - black mission fig and balsamic glaze $10 Lobster Truffle Macaroni and Cheese – with sharp cheddar and grilled Brioche $9.5 Stuffed Granny Smith Apple- with duck confit risotto $8.5 ENTREES Slow-Cooked Beef Short-Ribs- celery root puree and pars lied shallots $26 Mustard Crusted Pork Loin – wild mushroom bread pudding and a caramelized apple jus $21 Seared Striped Bass – saffron roasted fingerling potatoes in Pernod sauce $24.5 Grilled Tuna - goat cheese and chive potato puree with a balsamic port reduction $22.5 Rigatoni – wild mushroom and veal ragout with Grana Padano and herbed breadcrumbs $17.5 European Chicken Breast - roasted garlic mashed potatoes and haricot verts in an apple brandy reduction $18.5 ----- Chef Todd and staff are putting out some very sophisticated dishes from that tiny little kitchen, and the food and service are an amazing value. For those of you that haven't had the opportunity yet, I'd suggest checking out Mandoline at your earliest opportunity.

Welcome to eGullet GabrielleL! Looking forward to your perspective added into the mix here. Can you tell us more about your wines and your winery? And thank you for the link for Women for Wine Sense. Sound like my kinda women. I'm looking into starting a Philadelphia chapter. I've already e-mailed all the wine interested women I know.

I agree with Brad, but the Rosemont GSM would be a good match too. ← Two Hands Lucky Country GSM is really good too. Or a nice Spanish Garnacha, perhaps.

I've known bartenders that brought their own plastic disposable cups to work with them to use for smelly/sticky/creamy drinks so they could save time and just toss the drink between two plastic tumblers and then serve. Saved a lot of time and definitely helped their tip averages from that perspective.

That's odd. I had a bottle of this a couple of weeks ago and it was just fine - aromatic and refreshing. Is it possible you just got a bad bottle? Did you try it with food or just by itself? Often a wine can seem "off" when consumed by itself but will soften dramatically when consumed with the salt/fat/acid in food.

Thanks to a last minute invitation to a "themed" blind tasting held by some of my professional colleagues here in town, I had the remarkable opportunity to try some really excellent Washington State reds last night. The one that impressed me most was a 1998 Kiona Merlot that costs a startling $13.99/bottle. There's a wee bit of it left at 12th & Chestnut and a little out in Pittsburgh if anyone's feeling ambitious enough to request a transfer of it. Very delicious and abundant with black and blue fruit. Drinks like a bottle that's at least twice the price if not more.

Of Wine and Women in the April 10 issue of Time speaks to women wine collectors, a growing segment at auctions and high end wine shops. Seems we ladies tend to be more frugal and don't look to lie down the bottles for decades. Sounds just like most of the sensible wine loving women I know...