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I like Stouffer's spinach souffle... even if you do have to melt it and fold in some freshly beaten egg whites if you want it to really puff up. (I usually don't bother.) Tasty Bite indian stuff is great! Marie Callendar's pot pies? Word! Barbour chicken things are pretty good as well. Not so much a fan of Trader Joe's dim sum type products... the shrimp always tastes off. The giant Assi Korean market near me does fabulous frozen leek potstickers. Frozen samosas are quite good, but can't remember a favored brand. Frozen burritos are desperation food best not mentioned until the rent is due and the clients are all late in sending in their checks. On the other hand, frozen tamales are awesome! When I lived in Texas, there were always frozen tamales in my freezer.

Hi Rob... Glad to see somebody else with some fermenting honey water out there reading this thread. What yeast did you use? How many pounds of honey to the gallon of water? You're still getting bubbles? Mine hasn't bubbled in months... but is throwing sediment like you wouldn't believe. The cloudiness is slowly but surely dropping out of solution.

Ummmmm... no. Lapsang Souchong has nothing to do with bergamot (which, btw, is a citrus fruit). Lapsang is smoked tea. (Earl Gray is the bergamot tea.) Definitely a tea for grownups.

Lapsangs are really nice teas. They do, however, vary widely. From their name, they should be fairly large whole leaves if the tea is being true to style-- "souchong" means that. Often they aren't. But it can be fun trying to figure out what the base tea under there is. Also the smoke can vary. Traditionally they were smoked over evergreens, giving them a resiny tang. Some LS out there tastes hardwood smoked, which, again is a nice change. You could probably line up 5 or 6 lapsangs for a side by side and taste for the differences. Could be a fun exercise in palate building. I happen to like the LS that Jacksons of Picadilly sells... or sold... mine is probably 10 years old... no telling if it is consistent over time. But the one I've got seems to be a broken leaf indian or ceylon, with some hardwood smoke to it. Contrary to style, but still good.

Only luck as a walkin I've ever had there has been at like 10:30 and later. MMMMMMMMMmmmm. Le Grand.............. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

yee hah!

Envious drooling... Exotic citrus are a favorite thing of mine, and now that I'm in Pennsylvania, they're virtually unaccessable. Even on a jaunt to NYC last weekend, the Fairway citrus supply was downright pedestrian. Not even a Seville in the place. I'm wondering where DocSconz of frozen north managed to get his hands on a fresh bergamot.

Since this topic is bumped, a brief update. My 1.5 gallons is still nowhere near clear... have racked it once so far... maybe will do again soon. Looking and smelling good. And the vinegar that resulted from the mead brewing leftovers is quite good too, and has provided a very active vinegar mother for other acetic experiments... a fine way to get rid of white zindfandels that were brought to the house. Pink vinegar is fun to look at, and better tasting than the wines it came from.

The hurricane... not the secret agent.

Indeed. Great dinner last night. Thanks so much for putting it together, Roonytunes.

Had a Southern Tier Porter with lunch today. Again the full body and slight residual sugar set this apart from other porters I've had which have been drier, and with a more pronounced tart component to the flavor. Every porter has a little tartness to it, but this one's has been well obscured by the dark roastiness of the malts and the hops. There is almost a burnt edge to this porter, but not so much as to make it unenjoyable.

Will have to go looking for them on tap. But for the moment, I've finally found time to sit down with at least one of the beers I got in front of me and write something about it-- Phin & Matt's Extraordinary Ale- Light coppery-amber colored, that holds a thick head for a few minutes, fuller bodied than most beers this shade of copper, grapefruity hop aromas. On the palate the grapefruitiness shares space with a more resinous hoppiness. The bitterness takes a back seat to the hops' more complex flavors. The beer's body is clearly attributable to a little residual sugar, which complements the hop flavors quite well. My favorite of the four. More will follow when I get the IPA, the porter and the trippel in front of me... can't make this a four beer evening, unfortunately.

Indian-ish food goes well with beer if you're looking to bring something boozy... but being in PA does make that more of a commitment since you have to buy by the case. Since you're in Allentown, Shangy's in Emmaus is in your back yard if you're looking for a staggering array of beers to choose from. I'd pick something fuller bodied, and not particularly overhopped... an ESA sort of beer, or maybe a belgian strong blonde like Duvel, or Leffe Blond. Since Bangladesh is a muslim country, however, I'd wager that there is no tradition of pairing booze with their cuisine outside of whatever colonials there did back before 1948... and I don't know any of them to ask. Is your colleague a practicing muslim, and if so, do they strictly observe the no booze rules?

Congrats indeed, Katie! Now another excellent reason to stop into the Oyster House when I'm in town... which must be arranged soon. Good luck in your projects there... can't wait to see the new wine list.

Recently I stopped at Shangy's and picked up a variety case from the Southern Tier Brewing Co. of Lakewood, NY. So far I'm impressed with what I got. The case had a six pack each of IPA Porter Belgian Trippel Phin & Matt's Excellent Ale The house style appears to favor a fuller bodied, maltier beer with an aggressive hopping... but the residual sugars from the malt balance the hoppiness. Once I'm seated in front of each of the beers I'll report on the specifics, but having tried one of each at this point, I'll recommend them. Anybody else tried beers from these guys? Opinions?

Three easy steps: 1) read here for announcements 2) RSVP 3) appear at the designated time and place Looking at all the pictures in the previous Pizza Club thread might give you a sampling of familiar faces to find once you get there. Come along, and enjoy!

Perhaps that's the perfect example of how our national tastes have gone. Here's a substance that should have zero sugar content, but is decsribed as not sweet at all although it has added sugar. Hellman's is sweet for something that calls itself mayonnaise. It's sweetness just registers as neutral because there's plenty of salt and lemon juice and possibly also because of the other products consumed in proximity to the mayonnaise. If one makes a sandwich on commercial sliced bread using commerical deli ham and washes it down with a Coke, that "mayo" is not going to register as sweet on one's palate. By the way, I was going to say "sliced white bread," but it's the whole wheat and "health" breads in the packaged sliced bread market that are really sweet much of the time. ← I'll take a break from chewing on my lumps of rock sugar to respond to this insulting turn the conversation has taken. You're being a dogmatic ass to declare authoritatively that the substance "should have zero sugar content" and publically excoriate my taste buds for not taking similar offense. If you think about my observation, namely that there is more salt than sugar in there, it has certain implications, no? 1) Salt is a wee mite more potent by volume than sugar, so that sets an upper limit on the amount of sugar that could be in there if there is more salt than sugar. 2) Salt is used as a seasoning in limited amounts, and, in this case the amount of sugar is, similarly, an amount no greater than a seasoning with salt. 3) Check on the sugar content of lemons http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-001-02s01hu.html before you pontificate that there is no sugar inherent to a mayonaise... given that Hellman's is an industrial product and uses processed lemon juice, the addition of sugar may be nothing more than a correction for (naturally occurring) sugar removed from the lemon juice elsewhere to aid its shelf stability or otherwise. Now, I must reiterate, I do agree with the general gist of this thread that there is a lot of oversweetening going on in the food industry and that a lot of sweetened foods are really not that pleasant to eat. I'm not, however, on a crusade to plow under the cane fields. And, Bux, you'll attract a lot more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Make a ganache based mostly with another quality chocolate and throw your little bit of special unsweetened chocolate into the mix. It will almost certainly affect the flavor of the ganache in a positive way. Then do what you will with a fine ganache... Ice something, or turn it into a flourless cake, or dip balls of it in enrobing chocolate and have truffles, etc. That is how I have treated the Cluizel 100% bars I've come across, and they really do wonders to a Ghirardelli chip based ganache.

Hmmm, interesting, I haven't noticed that in Hellman's, but I have noticed it in Acme brand mayo (last time I buy that stuff). What really gets me is when someone tells me something is mayo, and then it turns out to be Miracle Whip. Blech. (or, as Jinmyo might say, Gah, gag me with the Devil's cock). ← Agreed that Hellman's (at least in the Philadelphia area market) is not sweet at all. Looking at the jar, sugar comes after salt on the ingredients list, which indicates just how little is in there. There are lots of sweet mayo abominations out there... but Hellman's isn't one of them.

Amen! Apropos this topic, this afternoon I ran across one of the most singularly unappetizing applications of oversweetening I've ever met. I was at my local Trader Joe's picking up a bunch of chocolate products with which to gift various people, and picked up a tray of sushi rolls out of the fridge case as an afternoon snack. "Wasabi Shrimp" rolls not only had no wasabi sharpness, but tasted as though they had been doused in corn syrup... not subtly sweet, but fully sugary. Uck! Echhh! Bad bad bad... I know TJ's prepared products tend a little on the sweet side, but sushi? Egad!

Went shopping at Fairway yesterday afternoon, and noticed Dinosaur's great neon over there under the underpass. Loving quality BBQ, I made my way back into the neighborhood last evening and had a seat at the bar and consumed a mighty fine pulled pork sandwich, some fine and authentic sweet tea, and a slice of sweet potato pecan pie. All quite good, and the BBQ was up there with some of the better Q joints in the Carolinas I've stopped at. Yay for Dinosaur!

Aha! I thought the yeast profile was somewhat familiar... I happen to like Ringwood yeasts, so that explains why Magic Hat beers get my seal of approval. I don't know about a butteryness, but there is definitely a common thread there.

It is good, and their cafe, the Mudspot on 9th St just east of 2nd ave is also quite good.

When this topic started, I'd only had Magic Hat's No. 9, which is a fine beer that I'm glad to see on tap all over the place. It has a great balance of malt and hops and apricot flavor, and it is quite pleasant on a warm summer afternoon. I'd not declare a lifelong allegiance to it, but it is a tasty beer. Knowing only one of their brews, I held off making any comments, figuring that the better informed would jump in, which you all have. I've now tried the Humble Patience, and find that a fine beer as well. The house yeast profile remains constant, in a good way, and the maltiness of the beer is quite pronounced, also in a good way. Magic Hat is in my good beer book... I'd like to hear a reasoned explanation for the pans upthread...

http://www.slate.com/id/2110848/ Interesting, but flawed from a coffeegeek point of view. No mention of which grinder the reviewer used, nor of the importance of the grind in the results. Also interesting to find somebody who liked a FrancisFrancis machine... I remember only running across less than favorable reviews when I was last hunting for a machine. I do agree that the NEspresso system is high quality, based on my few encounters with it.