KatieLoeb

I don't know what that is. ← Sorry, Susan. Gruner Veltliner is an Austrian wine made from the grape of the same name. The wines, which are dry, generally have a pleasant acidity level. They generally have some aromas/flavors of lemon, apple, and root vegetables. And some of the better ones will show off some white pepper aroma and flavor. ← Gruner Veltliner is also known for its lovely minerality. And it pairs well with almost any type of food from scrambled eggs to caviar. I have a PDF file of an article I wrote about Gruner Veltliner not long ago. I'd be happy to PM or e-mail it to you if you'd like.

Wrangle an invite. I'm sure there's space and plenty of food for you at someone's table. Being alone on the holidays is only fun if it doesn't make you sad. Like if you were feeling thankful about having the house to yourself for once that would be different. Doesn't sound that way though. The other alternative is to really treat yourself right and have yourself an at home "spa day". Take a long leisurely bath or shower with a pair of exfoliating gloves or a loofah. Walk around in your favorite PJ's or bathrobe all day. Make yourself some mulled wine or cider to curl up with in front of the TV while you watch your favorite DVD's you've laid out in advance and let the head to toe moisturizer soak in. Give yourself a pedicure - not the nail polishing part but pumice off your feet and then grease them up with some vaseline and put on old sweat socks. Walk around with the green Frankenstein mask on. No one's going to see you! Take a nap in the middle of the afternoon if you feel so inclined. If you like to cook, then plan and execute a most fabulous meal for yourself. You can even just go to the local Whole Foods or gourmet shop and pick up pre-made pates, cheeses, whatever. Treat yourself and then be thankful that you can.

Greg, your list is most impressive. But dude. You're scaring me now. You realize the list will never be completely done, as someone is always launching a new publication somewhere. Sometimes the hamster just has to get off the wheel.

It is good. And not just because I eat there. It got a 4 grease stain rating from Holly. That's some serious street cred right there. Now that new management has taken over at Koch's I think they are expanding the hours. They might even have said something about being open on Wednesdays. I suspect that they were closed on Wednesdays because everybody needs at least one day off, one night per week that counts as their "weekend" so they can go out the night before, maybe sleep in a little bit, get some errands done dring other people's "Normal business hours", schedule a doctor's appointment or whatever. Why they chose Wednesdays is a mystery to me, but I certainly understand the need for the day off. There's another Philly restaurant called Pho Xe Lua that's also closed on Wednesdays. Does the phrase "Pho Xe" mean "Closed on Wednesday" in Vietnamese?

eBay!

Windows on the World Wine Complete Wine Course, Kevin Zraly Great Wine Made Simple, Andrea Immer Making Sense of Wine, Matt Kramer The first two books are more user friendly. Andrea Immer's book is definitely meant for laypersons, and steers away from "wine geek speak" and memorization of vintage charts and other such nonsense. The best way to learn about wine is to drink a lot of it. And keep your own journal as to your impressions. As you gather more data certain patterns will begin to emerge. Then you'll start to know what you like just by looking at the label instead of having to pull the cork. And that's about the best wine knowlege that anyone could ask for.

OK - everything was good. Some pizzas were more better than others. DeLorenzo's Tomato Pies pretty much sets the standard for a pizza on this side of the Atlantic. Tacconelli's, DiFara's in Brooklyn and the oft disputed Sally's/Pepe's in New Haven are the only competition I can think of. It's just the best pizza you can eat. Period. Top Road and Conte's were both pretty good, but definitely a step below. I wouldn't drive an hour to go eat those pies of and by themselves. If I'm driving that far for pizza I'm heading to DeLorenzo's. No contest. My favorite beverage of the afternoon was the real birch beer on draught at the Top Road Tavern with a shot of Old Grandad in it. Yee-hah! On a separate note, I had dinner at Mama Palma's tonight (yeah - I didn't eat enough pizza this weekend ) and the special pie we had comprised of chicken, spinach, roasted garlic and roasted peppers on a whole wheat crust was pretty good too. My friend had a four cheese pizza that had the bite of gorgonzola going on and that was excellent too. Not in the same league as DeLorenzo's, but damn fine pizza for downtown Philly.

Thanks Greg. I was hoping they were open and it looks like that's where I'll be stopping tomorrow to pick up some salmon for Thanksgiving gravlax appetizers and probably a nice piece of fish for dinner on Monday as well. I also tend to forget what a great store it is since it's sort of off the beaten track.

There's also THIS perspective on being a turkey too. (be patient)

Courvoisier, Hennessey, Remy Martin or Martell would all fit the bill. I'd go for at least the V.S.O.P. if one wished to drink it after dinner rather than flambe a steak with it. Perfectly acceptable but nothing like the Germain-Robin suggested above. You could get either the V.S. or V.S.O.P. of any of the brands I named at or about $25/bottle. There's a Chalfonte V.S.O.P. Cognac available for $18.99/bottle that's listed, but I have no experience with it. But for $18.99 I'd be curious if it was adequate for the purposes you mentioned.

Mmmm..... Ok, so, how would I make pear ice cream? Would I poach the pears, then puree them and add them to a custard base? What ratio, do you think? Or would I leave the pears in chunks....that seems like they would end up like icy little pockets in the ice cream, though. I found this recipe on epicurious, maybe I could use this as my base: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/1285 ← Hey, I'm not a pastry chef. I'm good with coming up with the flavor combinations, but the execution I leave up to you and your compadres, the trained professionals. I suspect you'd definitely have to "cook" the pears somehow to make them amenable to getting mixed into an ice cream base. Do you have a recipe for apple ice cream? I'd imagine the prep would be similar. I confess I'm a bit spoiled because I have Capogiro Gelato here locally, and they recently had a Pear-Bourbon gelato that just slayed me alive. Sooooo good. The Dulce de leche ribbon is my addition to gild the lily. Seems the flavors would work so well together. Dulce de leche would be good with almost anything, no? The folks at Capogiro really have it down to an art. Maybe they'd tell you the secret formula if you dropped them an e-mail. But it can't be any more complicated than any other orchard fruit ice cream.

Pear-Bourbon Ice cream with a ribbon of dulce de leche. Oh baby.

This is great news, but isn't helping me now, when I'd love for them to be open THIS Sunday before Thanksgiving. Anybody know where I can get a nice side of salmon on a Sunday? Is Ippolito's or any other good fish monger open on Sunday? I need to start the gravlax for Thursday. I suppose I could do it on Monday, but I'd rather have it purchased so I can do the prep on Monday.

A Tutti-Frutti. My latest concoction of green apple vodka, X-rated liqueur and Peach Fresca! Definitely a girlie drink, but a very good use of all of the ingredients.

Abra: Many thanks for sharing your part of the world, your job, your life, your family and pets with us. It's really been a joy.

It sounds delicious to me! Ask your local bartender if it's one of their own creation. Another way to get good ginger flavor into cocktails is if you have a source for Jamaican Ginger beer, which is really more like ginger juice and thick and fibrous like pineapple juice. I've made some pretty tasty drinks using that as the ginger component, like a lemon-ginger cosmopolitan with Lemon vodka. Makes for an ass-kicking Dark and Stormy too.

I'm a fan of bringing out the whites with interesting flavor profiles to go along with the roast turkey. Scheurebe, gruner veltliner and Savennieres are some of my favorite whites for Thanksgiving. For reds, I like cru Beaujolais and dolcetto as well as Pinot Noir.

And my reputation remains unblemished, I hope.

Alec: Glad you're still enjoying everything. I did create the beer list, but didn't order the Blue Moon. It's probably a sample from an overzealous vendor that asked them to "see how it would sell". I assure you I didn't order it.

Tonight I was in the mood for Black Beans. I would've liked to have made my mom's Cubano style ones and served them over rice but didn't have any green peppers in the house to make them with. Instead I cobbled together a very tasty Mexican/Cuban black bean soup out of what I had in the cupboard and the fridge. Half of a large onion finely chopped and two minced garlic cloves sauteed in EVOO until softened. I added one canned chipotle in adobo that I seeded and chopped finely and sauteed for another few minutes. I added 2 cups of chicken broth and one can of Trader Joe's fat free refried black beans with jalapeno. I added one packet of Goya Sazon with cilantro seasoning, about 1.5 teaspoons of ground cumin, 1 teaspoon crumbled oregano, 2 Tablespoons of tomato paste and one Tablespoon of sherry wine vinegar and then whirled everything with the immersion blender. Cooked that for a couple of minutes to thicken back up and then added two cans of drained black beans and heated through. Voila! Spicy black bean soup. Better than I thought it would be given the throw together nature of satisfying my jones for black beans. I have leftovers for a few days woth of lunches and dinners too.

Actually, it is the sugar that the yeast consumes to make alcohol and carbon dioxide. ← As a correlary to this lesson remember that the carbon dioxide will "blow off" from an open tank but if you perform fermentation in a closed container it will carbonate the beverage (i.e. beer, Champagne). Most yeast cells die at around 16-18% ABV. Stuff with higher alcohol levels than that is either fortified (i.e. Port) or is a distilled product.

Finally tried the Peach Citrus tonight. It's pretty good actually, and my mind is already reeling with ideas for cocktails with the peach soda as a mixer. I'll keep working on that and let you all know what I come up with. I still think the original Fresca remains my favorite (even more so with some tequila in it!) but this is a close second. I haven't seen the black cherry at my local grocery yet.

That's what the long forks are for! "And this is our house special mix of AAAGGHH!!!" ← Nice. Defintely. In fact, our waiter (who was verbose but in a helpful and not too annoying way) said he gets folks that just come in for cheese and then chocolate fondues as their meal. Sounds like a great one-two combo to me. [Homer] Mmmmmmm cheese. Mmmmmm Chocolate. [/Homer] Ali, I'm sorry you were so tortured by your experience at the Melting Pot. Could it have been the "too large of a group" situation that made it worse? The bread we had with our cheese fondue was fine. Not crumbling fresh, but certainly not stale. It holds it shape better in the cheese if it isn't too crumbly anyway. Our salads weren't overdressed. The sauces (at least the three I liked the best) were very tasty. Going with good company always helps. Philadining and I were laughing so hard we probably didn't let some of the small stuff bother us. Perhaps if we'd been more analytical and not been so silly we wouldn't have enjoyed ourselves as much. But that kind of would have defeated the purpose I think.

How about a square of cake or gingerbread topped with the most decadent homemade ice cream recipe you can think of? Both could be made ahead. The possibility of combinations is virtually endless. Or a Tarte Tatin topped with Calvados ice cream, or some other flavor combination you and your guests like. Perhaps it is just my personal taste, but the bigger and fancier the dessert, the less impressed I am. The simple and delicious thing done perfectly is so much more impressive to me. Throw in a beautiful presentation and you had me at hello.

I like that idea, as the wait at Delorenzo's hamilton Ave. can be excessive., and Conte's does have a liquor license. ← Cool. Glad I'm making sense (for once). So the plan is still to meet at DeLorenzo's at 3:30 PM, no? What order should the subsequent pizza venues be taken in? And are you leading the caravan, Rich? Maybe we can all print out a Yahoo map from location A to B and then location B to C in case we get separated. And I might have missed this part of the discussion earlier, but what makes Conte's unique? Looking forward to trying something new.