KatieLoeb

Not tonight, but last night I had a hankering to muddle up some of the gorgeous fragrant basil I'd acquired at my local Farmer's market over the weekend. I'd been grocery shopping in the afternoon and saw some gorgeous chunks of fresh pineapple on the salad bar. A small container of those came home with me and I ended up making a couple of Pineapple-Basil Caipirinhas for my pre-prandial cocktails. A couple of chunks of pineapple, a few large basil leaves in chiffonade, a squeeze of agave nectar, a big squeeze of fresh lime and some Mae de Ouro (thanks Dave! ). Refreshing and a last heaving sigh of summer on what was still a pretty warm day.

Tierra Colombiana is on North 5th off of Roosevelt Blvd. My favorite place for Cuban eats. The black beans, Cuban sandwiches, picadillo and other platters are a bargain and more food than anyone could possibly eat in one sitting. I always go there for my Cubano fix.

Yet another reason for me to long for my next trip to NOLA. I do love me a good icy cone, be it a Philly Water Ice or a New Orleans Snowball. I'm all over this next time I visit. There's truly nothing better on a sweltering day. Todd - if I ask nicely, will you take me and introduce me to Ashley? I just want to shake her hand and congratulate her for carrying on a wonderful tradition. She's a historian as well as a snowball retailer and I hope she knows it.

I see a Pot Pie Pot Luck Beverage Pairing Smackdown in our future. Anyone?

Precisely what I was thinking.

I'm sure that would be delicious as well. A nice funky sour ale might be good too, to match with the earthy root veggies within. There's no lack of beverage possibilities for food pairing. One of the reasons I like to host cocktail dinners from time to time to broaden everyone's horizons. Not sure where I'd go with a cocktail to pair with chicken pot pie. Maybe a ginger ale based tall drink of some sort?

Since I work into the wee hours of the morning on Saturday nights, I never ever make it to the Head House market before they're about to close, though it's a short two blocks from my front door. I saw the Griggstown Farm fellow packing up his wares and inquired after the pot pies, fully expecting him to tell me he was sold out. He wasn't, having brought extra to feed the high demand from the last few weeks, but I was out of money at that point, having only stuffed a twenty and a few ones in my pocket before running out my front door Sunday afternoon, and having bought all my produce and miscellany for the week already. Damn! I will bring a gold bar with me next Sunday if I must. I gotta get me one of them pies. I've scheduled an appointment with one of those pies for dinner next Monday evening when I'm off. I have a choice of a couple of different bottles of wine to accompany, having gone wine shopping in a <cough> neighboring state this afternoon. I can hardly wait.

Or try Crate & Barrel in KofP. I think they have some nice bottles too.

Today's haul. Two delicato squash. $3 HUGE bag of broccoli. $1 Six Hosui Asian pears from Northstar. $5.80 Smallish piece of Telford Farms Cheddar Blue. $5 Three gorgeous lumpy yellow and red tomatoes. $3 Small dish of radishes from the Asian produce dude. .50 Small handful of incredibly fragrant basil sprigs. .50

Bought a piece of Cheddar Blue at the Sunday Head House Market today. It's going to make an awesome grilled cheese and fig jam sandwich for lunch in a few minutes. Oh yeah.

Again, let's thank Heaven that it happened before the sidewalk was full of bistro customers. And let's also hope the driver goes for some driving lessons or learns to control her right foot. Reminds me of that awful story a few years ago where the elderly man drove through the farmer's market and plowed over a mess of people. I understand all of the news crews were out but I couldn't find anything about it in the local media. Bizarre.

Holy Shit! Did anyone notice the big piece of plywood on the Bainbridge side of the building this week?? Apparently some fool was trying to get out of her parking space next to Coquette earlier this week (Wednesday-ish) and hit the gas and crashed into the restaurant! Thank Heavens they weren't opened yet or they might have plowed down several sidewalk cafe tables of diners. I understand that sometimes we make mistakes and maybe accidentally hit the gas rather than the brake, but how freakin' hard do you have to gunning it to jump the curb and not even be slowed enough by that to be able to take out the bottom half of the bricks under the big front window??? Jeebus!

That. Looks. Awesome! Wow - what a bargain. I often forget what a great value Matyson is because I don't get there nearly as often as I should. I really need to make more of an effort. Food is always fresh, creative, well prepared and generously portioned. Note to self: Get thee to Matyson next time you're going out. PS - Foie looks delicious and worth a trip all by itself.

If the promotion is over on the 7th then I'll only be able to do it for lunch at this point, as I'm working the rest of the week. <sigh> I wish I'd known, and I would have raced around last night on my night off. If anyone wants to meet for lunch foie and perhaps a mini-tour, if not a foiecathalon, PM me.

Alonna: The wine you were drinking is the Sainte-Cosme Little James' Basket Press NV. We're selling quite a bit of it, as it's fruity but has enough backbone to stand up to the shortribs or other red meat. It's pretty hefty for a Grenache and I'm quite fond of it. It's an interesting non-vintage, non-flitered red that's a good value and extremely food friendly. Goes with a lot of our menu. Thanks for stopping in! I'll look forward to seeing you again soon.

Southjerseyepicurean and I checked out dinner at Champa Laos in Cherry Hill. It's owned by the same folks as Cafe de Laos, but has Grandma cooking it up in the kitchen. Fabulous Thai-Laotian-French food and BYOB to boot. Really loved it. Our review and photos can be seen HERE.

This place is delightful and needs to be packed full of customers. The fact that we were the only ones in there on a Monday night is just ridiculous. I hope this review will lead some of you to check the place out. I'll be very disappointed if they go out of business. My epicurean friend has pretty much nailed everything I would have said above. Soups were both delicious, although I liked the chicken one a bit more if I were forced to choose. There were several other soups on the menu I'll happily try on future visits. I will also add that those calamari rings had the lightest and tenderest batter on them I've ever had. And the rings in side were only slightly chewy, but the perfect texture all around. Laap was delicious and a slightly different presentation than I have had before, over a romaine salad rather than with lettuce leaves to wrap it in. But it was well seasoned and delicious. Entrees were also very well seasoned and prepared. Thai Eggplant dish was really delicious and the eggplants themselves were really good. I was surprised to see them using the long Japanese eggplants rather than the little tiny round striped Thai eggplants I had expected, but the flavor was delicious nonetheless. Service was lovely as well. Our charming server, Lin (Linn? Lyn?) is the grandson of the chef. We agreed that regardless of your ethnicity, Grandma always rocks in the kitchen. We had a really interesting conversation with Lin about the various Thai restaurants that Grandma and he have worked at together. The family has ties to Thai Orchid in Frazer, and is also involved with Cafe de Laos in South Philadelphia. I had eaten at Cafe de Laos but didn't find the food to be as delicate or well executed as it was here at Champa Laos. Perhaps it's Grandma's hand in the kitchen rather than the other chefs, but I thought my meal at Champa Laos was as good a Thai/Laotian meal as I've had anywhere in the area. For all of us that were bitching there was no good Thai food in Philly, the answer is a short 15 minute ride over the bridge. I think this place might be a great choice for a future DDC dinner too. They seemed very willing to work with us on that, so maybe I'll try and arrange this for a future date.

Not in your area, but when the Philadelphia store opened a while back I walked in the first time in dread fear of draining my own wallet. Turns out there are a lot of products that come in the small plastic jars that are quite reasonably priced. Great way to try stuff and keep it fresh in smaller quantities. I think I ended up spending about $30 and got close to a dozen different spice mixes, herbs, etc. Now if I only had room in the cabinet for all those tiny jars...

How long is this promotion going on? Is it just this week or all through October? I'd love to plan a Foiecathalon for a night off. Given the confusion I'd call ahead and check to be certain our chosen target restaurants were actually participating. We could plan a little circuit and hit all the places on/west of Rittenhouse for a foie appy in each locale. What say ye? I'll also take two statin pills that morning.

I’m not so sure that the fault lies entirely with the organizers with respect to each of the chefs who are now either not participating in the event or are on the fence. And with this issue, I don't think it's all that simple. A lot of chefs and restaurateurs I've talked to who serve the product and support the cause behind closed doors are reluctant to do so publicly. If they did, there would be targets on their backs. Some don't want the hassle. Others may think they do but then have second thoughts. That's what makes solidarity in a case like this very difficult to maintain. ← Fair enough. But this is a very public display of counter-protest. Either you sign on or you don't. There's no fence to sit on that won't leave a scar on your butt for sitting on it. The whole point of the counter-protest is to rub the bad puppies noses in their own soil, is it not? Or shall we hit them with the metaphorical rolled up newspapers instead? This "list" of counterprotesters was public information from the get-go. There's no hiding from that. Either you're part of the solution or you're willing to be part of the problem. Seems self-evident to me. Supporting the cause "behind closed doors" is meaningless in this context. There's no clandestine way to be part of an advertised "$5 Foie Campaign". If you've signed on, then your restaurant/reputation is out there. If you feel there's a bullseye on your back, then you capitulate, or better yet, don't sign on in the first place. End of story. There's very little grey area here. If they don't want the "hassle" then they shouldn't sign up for an event whose details will be made public. Grow a pair and put your reputation where your mouth is or STFU. Plain and simple. If the problem is truly that of not explaining to the chefs what they were signing on for, then my problem with that fact set was explained a few posts ago. Solidarity is crucial in making any impact whatsoever, in the face of such poor organization. Any and all credibility is lost once the capitulation and appearance of cluelessness sets in.

I'm not trying to be hard on the organizers. It just seems counter-intuitive to me to attempt to show solidarity on an issue or host an event when there's this much confusion. For the record, the same goes for HfPs list. Whether I agree with them or not, they oughta have their shit together to appear legitimate and believable. Perhaps explaining to the participating chefs what they were actually signing on for would have been appropriate?? I dunno. All seems pretty simple to me.

As of yesterday, Michael Klein had a list up on the Inky's Food & Drink blog that contained no errors I could spot. ← StudioKitchen is still on the list, so there's at least one glaring error. Someone, anyone, that was "in charge" of this promotion should have made a call to each and every participant and confirmed their participation prior to publishing this list in cybersapce or anywhere else. That's all I'm saying. Seems this list was slapped together from the list of places we know serve/have served foie in the past. Let's not forget that several restaurateurs caved to the pressure of HfPs and removed it from their menus. That being the case, a little telephone reconaissance might have been a good idea. It's hard to look like an organized counter-protest when you don't really have a clue who your troops are.

"Fact Checking to the white Courtesy Phone please...." Again - how the hell does this get out there with no backup??? Pretty irresponsible reporting if 15-20% of the places on "the List" aren't really part of it. WTF is up with that??

So does anyone have a real, correct list of who is truly participating? Or do we have to call around and hope that the restaurants aren't having their phones tapped by the HfPs and aren't afraid to say out loud that they're part of the protest. Surely the chefs/restaurants that really are a part of this would want the correct information out there. Whom do we call to correct the information and confirm the truth? Who is disseminating this info without a fact check??

Andy: Thanks for the recommendation on some of the other flavors I haven't tried in the Routas line. I'm curious about the Rose and Violet flavors, and will be interested in the pineapple when the weather warms up again in the spring. I think I might get a mixed case of flavors to play with from the link I provided upthread. $99/case for 12 liter bottles is a pretty good price, and it doesn't seem that any flavors are excluded from your choices in a mixed box. Definitely something to think about.