KatieLoeb

I think the recipe for the summer melon soups we've been serving at Rouge is pretty simple. Pureed Canteloupe, fresh herbs of choice (usually mint or basil), a bit of fresh lemon juice, sparkling wine and drizzled with thinned yogurt. Quite refreshing.

Right in your neck of the woods is Charlotte-Ann Albertson's Cooking School. There a schedule of classes on the site. The Restaurant School offers non-credit community classes as well. There are also classes offered by JCCabot Catering On Sept 16, 2004, the Food section of the Philadelphia Inquirer will be publishing a full list of cooking classes for the fall semester. Hope that helps.

Do you have an in-house "CFO" or Controller? If not, is the position still available?? I'd even put up with Chicago winters for an opportunity like that!

There's a bet I'd take! I'll bet you can too! Cool! See everyone tomorrow soonly after 5:00PM. Cheers, Katie

Can I suggest we all meet at Davios's first for a $5 martini and some Cheesesteak rolls? We can wander almost anywhere from there since it's the most centrally located. 5:30 PM at Davio's tomorrow? Discuss....

Happy Birthday Craig! I hope you're enjoying your day and drinking some fantastic wines in celebration! I shall toast you this evening! In Vino Veritas, Katie

Ida: It's available in PA by special order for now, however my sales rep tells me they're hoping to have the product "listed" for PLCB retail some time in the next few months. However, if you were to cross the bridge from Philly to NJ, the Zyr is absolutely available at Canals' liquor store on Rt. 38 in Cherry Hill. Zyr's website HERE has a place where you can look for retailers in your state. So far it's only NY, NJ, FL and CA at retail. Special orders in other places.

Ida: The Level vodka is Absolut's entry into the "ultra-premium" market previously occupied by Belvedere, Grey Goose, Pearl, etc. I thought it was good, but really if I were to spend between $25-30 on a bottle of high end vodka, there's no question it would be the Zyr. That's the best vodka I've ever tasted, hands down. Apparently Sean "P. Diddy" Combs agrees with me,. He had like 30 cases of the Zyr shipped to Morocco for his elaborate birthday bash.

We carry the Level also. It's very good for a premium vodka.

Any reviews that appeared in Philadelphia Magazine from December 2001-May 2002 under the pseudonym of Daniel Bergman were by David Fields. My understanding at this point from a reliable source, is that Mr. Fields left the magazine in March of 2002. A few more reviews may have appeared under the pseudonym after that time as many things are deadlined a few months in advance. Salt opened sometime in the summer of 2002, AFTER he had left his post as reviewer. My apologies to Mr. Fields for my error in that regard.

The entire line of Absoluts are the "well" brand we use here at my restaurant, Rouge. It's perfectly fine for mixing, and most of the "vodka up" drinkers express a preference for Grey Goose or Belvedere, which we also carry. Denaka is what I use at home for mixing. Reasonably priced and good smooth flavor.

I've heard tell of this oddity. but not had the chance to have any cross my path yet. But I confess I'm intrigued. What brands of sparling shiraz are readily available in the US? What's the price point?

Gracias mi amigo! That makes more sense. I'm not so sure the aversion to snails can only be ascribed to those of Celtic origin. I'm thinking that most folks that saw a creature that left a slime trail behind it would be a little put off eating it too.

Well, I would imagine that one health concern would be the heart-attack when someone unsuspecting walks into the bathroom and sees a sow soaking in the tub! You have to ask the long suffering and saintly Mrs. Varmint about that!

Very well put Steve. And speaking as one of those serfs myself, whose current job includes making sure that the court ordered creditor payment schedule is met monthly, I really get what you're saying. It's a shame when employees get stiffed and the owner has been collecting payroll taxes all along, of if the restaurant shuts down even though the customers have been contributing their part of the sales/liquor taxes. One of the best operational tricks I've learned is to have separate bank accounts for each of the taxes and your payroll, and to sequester those funds every single week based on the previous weeks sales and credit card tips due to the employees. God forbid if a restaurant ever had to shut down on short notice, you wouldn't get stuck with your pants down and be accussed of fiscal malfeasance.

OK - all making more sense now. I also realize that just because I've heard of some obscure Austrian winemaker, it doesn't make him the Julio Gallo of Eastern Europe. And yes - bringing in the more esoteric and wackier wines/lesser known varietals from slightly less geographically desireable real estate and much smaller producers is a great approach to building a portfolio of good value wines. In fact it's a very similar strategy to that of Moore Brothers, my former employers.

Jason: I didn't mean to offend you. I agree with absolutely everything you've said, and I certainly didn't mean to impugn your palate or good taste. My question was more about the motivations of the winemakers themselves. If the wine they have is their very best, wouldn't they want their own name on the label? If they have a well established reputation under their own label, why be "ghost winemaker" for someone else? Why sell their stuff to go across an ocean, in a bottle whose label doesn't make it clear that it's their viticultural knowhow/winemaking skill in the bottle? If it is some of their best stuff and they've somehow been convinced to sell it, wouldn't it add considerably to the expense of the wine and not still be the good value that Mr. Gluckstern hopes to bring to the savvy consumer? That's what I'm asking. That said, I'd be very interested to try some of his private label wines. As I said, I thought he was a very knowlegeable instructor and particularly passionate about good value wines. Are the wines available anywhere but in his retail wine shop in NYC? Do you know if they're sold to other states?

Interesting. So Mr. Gluckstern is having these wines bottled/labelled "for him" by winemakers all over the globe? I've had other wines from Josef Bayer, who is producing the Austrian Weissburgunder and they're pretty good. I'm just wondering what would lead a winemaker of decent stand alone reputation to sell off some of their juice (that they could just as easily bottle for themselves with THEIR name on the label) to become "unknown wine" in another country? Don't get me wrong. I've never tried any of the Gluckstern wines so I have no idea if they're good or bad. In fact I took a wine class with Willie Gluckstern several years ago found him to be an engaging and entertaining instructor. My question is a more general one. I just wonder if the dregs of the wine, or the equivalent of overcropped, mediocre CA Central Coast jug wines are what are being sold to be bottled under a label that can't be traced back to the actual winemaker. Some folks think me cynical. I think the wine glass is twice as big as it needs to be. Call me a realist.

I recall eating once (I think in Spain), these lovely little tiny snails that were so small you'd pull them out with a pin. They were delicious. Is this dish ringing any bells with anyone?

Greg: I didn't even want to get into any of that other stuff (I did know about the restaurant reviews under the pseudonym before), but you GO brother! You're right. No one should be allowed to hide behind their ego that way, even if there's a lot of room to do it. It's wrong on too many levels.

Well, it's obviously another sales gimmick, but the question is, will it sell the wine? Are the customers that are tempted by easy to read labels in English that have clever names/cute pictures like Fat Bastard, Toasted Head or Smoking Loon, going to be put off because the wine in the bottle is French? I doubt it. I think they'll use the usual finely tuned sense of discretion they always do when they choose wine and say to themselves, "I like the Name/the Label", and "It's under $8! Cool!" I will be curious to see what the market share is after the tv and radio ads and the full page four color ads in major magazines (and I dont mean the Wine Spectator) roll out. If it worked for Arbor Mist and Turning Leaf it could work for anything. I believe this practice is called Tageted Marketing.

The presumption is that it's the best meal so far. If we had nothing left to aspire to, what fun would that be?

You'd be right. I think the former chef of Alouette is now the current owner of Nan in University City.

I'm guessing the proprietor owns the building and has no astronomical rent payment.

We had a couple of guys like that for a while -- I think the management referred to them as "investors," with a wink and a nod... Unfortunately, a lot of the time those "investors" are just taking up a table that could have a paying customer's ass in the chair.