KatieLoeb

I'm SO in for this if one or more of my Philly cohorts would join me. Holly? Herbacidal? Rich?? Mummer??? Fentons???? Somebody pipe up 'cuz I hate long drives, especially all by myself. This place sounds way too good to be missed. I can't remember (and I'm too lazy to look through the whole thread again) - is this restaurant BYOB? Heaven knows I have a reputation to preserve so I'll have to show up laden with wine and spirits... Please keep we Philly folks in mind when these things are planned. Especially on a weekend it's definitely a worthy day trip. And you know we eGulleteers and Dangerous Diners will drive far and wide for a great meal!

I'll go along with this logic. Definitely more efficient than bumping bloated bellies

Turkey, Black Beans and Chorizo. Recipe is in the archives.

Make sure you have the traditional Bavarian side dishes with your goose, including Brotknödel (Bread Dumplings) instead of stuffing, and braised red cabbage and apples. Yummm...

Interesting that Guajolote is "happily" married, and I'm just single-- no accompanying adjective. Sorry Darlin'. Happily Single? Satisfied single? You have to tell me. Guajolote makes no secret of his devotion to Flaca and the little G's. You play it a little closer to the vest so I make no assumptions.

Oh come on boys, all this flattery will swell a poor country girl's head in no time :batting eyelashes: Both Guajolote and Al Dente have met me personally, so I have to believe the diversity in their opinions is due to the fact that Guajolote is happily married and Al Dente is single.

Chef: In addition to all of the sound advice that Beans has offered, and the use of spotters, etc. which is crucial in a high volume establishment, I'd like to mention that how you "crunch the numbers" and do the inventories has a lot to do with keeping a leash on your costs. This happens to be my particular area of expertise so I hope you'll indulge me. What appears on your sales reports has more to do with how you've programmed your POS system and whether it's being properly utilized by the staff than what actually got sold. For instance, having an upcharge for "cosmo" or "up" for vodka and/or gin is only cost effective if all of your product is of similar cost. However, if you have high end vodka (let's use Grey Goose as the example) then the $1 or $2 "up" charge may not accurately reflect the cost differential between a 1.75 oz. "highball" pour (i.e. a vodka and tonic), a 2.5 oz. "cosmo" pour or a 3.5 oz. "up" pour for a Grey Goose martini. It's best to program your POS system to reflect those as "separate" items. Hence, if you've sold 100 "Grey Goose" + 100 "Grey Goose Cosmo" + 100 "Grey Goose Up" in one week then you've sold 300 Grey Goose that week at an average pour of 2.6 oz. Does this equal what's left at the end of that inventory period? Someone has to be taking inventory carefully and comparing beginning inventory + purchases -sales and being certain that that is what ENDING inventory is equal to in any given sales period (I use Monday-Sunday and do inventory Monday AM before service starts every week). Make sense? I've truly seen or heard of every trick in the book, including a bartender sneaking in bottles of the house well liquor so the free drinks they gave out to good customers to jack up their tips wouldn't seem "missing", to a bartender that actually brought their own cash register in and rang half of the nights proceeds into their own till in an extremely busyclub! It's unfortunately true that there's an enormous amount of theft that goes on in house. Keeping careful inventory control and making it difficult to overpour because you've programmed the POS to portion control for you are some of the precautions you can take. Feel free to PM me if I can explain this more clearly. I've done quite a bit of liquor cost control consulting for friends opening restaurants as well as what I jokingly refer to as "forensic liquor accounting" (revisiting the scene of the crime) on a weekly basis at my present job, doing the cost accounting for three different busy restaurants. Admittedly you need to have a spreadsheet geek like myself on staff to do this, but the savings and theft thwarted usually makes it worthwhile.

Some of the greatest wines in the world certainly come from places such as you described. Anyone who has felt a Mistral wind whip through their thickest coat can attest to this. People in Austria are having fun and making great wines. Where else in the world can Pinot Blanc (Weissburgunder) actually achieve more complexity than Condrieu and be imminently more friendly plus have daunting acid? I bought a glazed Le Crueset Pitcher today specifically for decanting Austrian whites. It is blue and very cute. The ceramic warms them up and the air calms down the spastic acid. Right now we are selling a bunch of Austrain wine. When people can have Kungsgaardesque whites with no malo and for only 30 bucks a bottle they are hooked! Carema: Interesting assessment. And I like the idea of the ceramic decanting pitcher. "Spastic Acid" indeed! Your post reminds me that the right Condrieu might have been a spectacular pairing with this dish as well.

Egads! Gotta find me a bottle of that Zwiegelt! That sounds positively yummy. I'm a big fan of Austrian wines, having spent some time there exploring the Wachau and Burgenland at great length. I know I've had wines from Kracher, but I just can't remember which one. I'm certain I liked them though, as the only Austrian wine I've ever had that wasn't good was the predictably ordinary plonk at the local Heurigen. It's about time that the Austrian wine industry came out from beneath the cloud of suspicion following the "Antifreeze Scandal" of 1985. It's been almost twenty years! I'm happy to hear that there's some modern techniques being employed and am very interested to see what the final results of that will be. My belief is that wine that comes from the places where the vines can barely eke out an existence is always the most interesting. Anyone that's ever seen those terraced vineyards and rocky soil will know what I'm talking about where certain Austrian wine is concerned. Couple that with some improved technology and technique and the end results could be mind blowing.

Hi David: Actually I think Booker Noe is Fred's father, hence he's the three sticker (III). However, he's nonetheless a very cool guy and a great teacher about all things bourbon related. His business card (which is proudly saved in my personal Rolodex) says "Bourbon Ambassador". Yup. That pretty much covers it. I forgot about the Eagle Rare - that's delicious too! The Hirsch is getting harder and harder to come by. The Hirsch 20 year old is GONE (at least in PA), to my knowledge, but the 16 year old can still be had. And the Woodford is delicious too. Yet another thing that Beans and I agree about

Gluttony + Sloth = SLUTTONY Gluttony and Sloth are personally, my two favorite Deadly Sins, preferably performed in that order. Eat incredibly well, then lie about completely sated and lazy. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. If you can work Lust in there somewhere, maybe after the Gluttony, just call it a great date. On a more serious note: I think the "sin" in Gluttony was back when the classes were more sharply divided and the overlords would (over)indulge themselves at the expense of serfs. I don't believe I recall any mention of Deadly Sins in the Old Testament or specifically in the New Testament either, so I have to think this was one of Church horrid means of keeping the public order in the Dark Ages. Be good, deny yourself, don't be greedy, lustful, gluttonous, etc. or you might have some fun, get enlightened and rebel. Gluttony is a sin if it comes at the expense of others. But it's really the sin of selfishness. If your eating well and picking up the check at French Laundry isn't hurting anyone but your own waistline and wallet, then is Gourmandise. Does this distinction make sense?

Membrillo!!! Truly the most delicious thing ever with cheese. The classic preparation is a slice of membrillo (imagine a loaf of condensed jam) with a piece of Manchego cheese. Pure heaven!

Suggestions you've received so far are excellent, particularly the gewurztraminer. In addition to the Alsace selections, Foris Vineyards in Oregon makes a surprisingly dry (only .4% residual sugar) and restrained Gewurz that sounds like it would have been perfect with this dish. The other route to take would be a Rhone white single varietal (Marsanne comes to mind) or a blend from the same area. The wines tend to have those lovely nutty notes and earthy character that would compliment this dish. Treana Winery from California's Central Coast makes a proprietary blend that is 34% Marsanne/66% Viognier. It's absolutely delicious and the tropical notes of the wine would compliment the mango salsa quite nicely, I think.

Chef: I wish you every success in this fascinating and ambitious venture. WOW! That's a lot of space to fill and a lot of chairs to put paying rear ends in. Challenging would be an understatement, I'm certain. With the hotels nearby as your captive audience it would seem that you should be quite busy. The graphic of the floor plan is incredible. I never cease to be awed by stylish restaurant design. And I really love the idea of being in the midst of the market. When this is all finished (and I'm certain you'll let us know) this would certainly be worthy of a trip only to see the restaurant.

Rockhopper: Dude - that's some truly righteous eatin' all in one day! Damn - I'm duly impressed. You must have hollow legs or something... I'm more of a diner kinda girl for breakfast so I'll put in my vote for the South Street Diner at 2nd & South. Virtually stumbling distance from my abode and good standard eggs plus and/or omelets. Down Home Diner does a pretty wicked breakfast as well and then you can go poking around Reading Terminal. Oh yeah - you did that already. Blue in Green, as Sara mentioned, does a great breakfast too. Bread isn't really one of my favorite things but I'm with you on Sarcone's being pretty good. I'm also fond of Metropolitan for more rustic breads. The little Amish ladies at Reading Terminal do some delicious breads too. For Pho I have two favorites. In Chinatown there's none better than Pho Xe Lua at 9th and Race. ALL their soups are delicious. Seafood noodle is a fave as well as the Beef Satay soup. Very stick to your ribs kind of winter soup. I also recently discovered Pho Nguyen Hue at 16th & Washington. There's an entrance on 16th Street just north of Washington Ave., or you can enter from inside Hoa Bin Plaza. I had a spicy vermicelli soup with beef from there that was outstanding, and they also make delicious shrimp rolls and Bahn Mi of all sorts. You missed Bitar's (right down the street from Chickie's) Lebanese grill on this particular jaunt, so you'll have to check that out next time.

Evan Williams is my house pour when I'm mixing. Maker's for a low level Manhattan. My personal fave lately is the Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve 20 yr. old. DAMN! That stuff is smooth as silk... Knob Creek and Baker's are also favorites. Booker's is a little hot for my taste at approximately 114 proof, uncut and unfiltered, but it's an excellent bourbon for the stout hearted. Last month I made arrangements to have Frederick Booker Noe, III, great-grandson of Jim Beam himself, come in and do a staff training and tasting on small batch bourbons. Fred Noe is the 7th generation of his family in the bourbon distilling business. It was fantastic, I learned a whole lot more about bourbon right from the source and got to try the Basil Hayden's, Baker's, Knob Creek and Booker's all side by side. Quite edifying. And Mr. Noe is such a nice man, so full of great anecdotes and just a wealth of information about distilling.

Wait... you made a lowfat, low-calorie dessert for Thanksgiving?! Yes - my hostess eats low fat and with all the other multiple filling carbohydrates on the table for Thanksgiving, any little bit to lighten up is good from my perspective. Makes the trousers only tight, not bursting at the seams...

Lobster House on Fisherman's Wharf (just as you cross the bridge into Cape May) has delicious Clam Chowder, as well as Snapper Soup and French Onion. I always order from the outside bar in the summer and sit on the wharf and watch the boats come in and out while eating my lobster. Might be a bit chilly for that now. You can view the menus, etc. HERE edited to add link

I spent Thanksgiving with my best friend, her mom and brother. Her mom is a FABULOUS cook (Thaks Mrs. S!) and made quite a few interesting dishes. My favorite was a vegetable pie that wasn't quite a quiche. Very good! The stuffing she made was also very tasty. I made a Pumpkin Flan for dessert that came out quite well. I made it non-fat and relatively low calorie by using egg substitute, Splenda, evaporated skim milk and fat free half and half, but you could probably make it with real eggs, sugar and half and half and it would be delicious, if not deadly! I'll post the recipe in the archives soon.

I recently attended a wine dinner where the last pairing was a chocolate dessert with a BIG Australian Shiraz. I will look for my handouts and notes from that dinner and post back if I find the exact name of the wine. The pairing was stupefyingly good, and was a bit of an epiphany for me personally. It finally made me "get" the chocolate and red wine thing a bit more clearly. The port suggestions and the Banyuls and Brachetto are all excellent choices as well. I'm currently pairing a glass of Brachetto d'Acqui with our Molten Chocolate Torte for dessert and it never fails to cause sensuous noises from the diners.

In Styria in Southeastern Austria and adjacent parts of Slovenia, and Hungary they raise a certain variety of pumpkin which is used to create pumpkin seed oil. This is (obviously) made from the seeds which are hand harvested then roasted and pressed, and I think the flesh is left to rot in the fields and turn into mulch, of sorts. Like this: then this: Clearly this is a different varietal, and I don't believe that pumpkin is thought of as a vegetable in that part of Europe in quite the same way as it is in Latin America or the United States, for example. For your purposes I think you're better off packing a few cans of pumpkin and making your bread from that. On a separate note, Styrian pumpkin seed oil is absolutely delicious and has numerous scentifically based curative powers. It is powerfully antioxidant, rich in vitamins, minerals, unsturated fat and supposedly good for women's bladder health, men's prostate health and boosting of the immune system. It is available on the net, and although not inexpensive, well worth it's weight in costs. A little goes a long way. It's quite nutty tasting, great for a very simple vinaigrette, drizzled into soups, drizzled over charcuterie (it's served over a head cheese type meat product in Austria - yech!), or even mixed into scrambled eggs. Not good for cooking as it has a low smoke point, but great for anywhere that a strong nutty flavor would be welcome. Canned pumpkin is almost as good as the real thing, particularly for your application, so I think your time may be better served exploring a new place and getting to know the BF's family rather than hunting down an elusive sugar pumpkin!

I always thought yerba buena was... Never mind No - that's La Yerba Amable. The Kind Herb.

You'll need two things to make a truly proper Mojito. You need Guarapo, or fresh sugar cane juice, and you need Yerbabuena, which is a partcular type of Cuban mint that give the drink it's unique flavor. Barring this, you can substitute simple syrup and regular mint, but I think sugar cubes wouldn't dissolve effectively.

Seems like everyone has some excellent choices for their Thanksgiving tables! I forgot to mention earlier that the Sept Grains we'll all be drinking is about $13.00. Not too shabby. I agree with you Mark, re: the German stuff this year, but a lot of those Auslese aren't within the price point quoted, I'd guess. The Argyle Sparkling is yummy. A great starter for a festive dinner.

Tommy: I usually switch to red mid-meal when I start digging into the sides and not just scarfing the bird. I don't do it exactly the way you do, but you do have your own inimitable style that would be hard for ANYONE to replicate...