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Now that is a flavor of gelato Capogiro's not made yet... would be interesting to see a beer flavored gelato... so many beers to choose from, there could be a whole line of them. What a co-venture with Monk's or Brigid's this could be!

The gelato transportation mission worked out quite well this weekend... though not exactly as planned. On Saturday picked up a few pounds of dry ice from Bassett's, as well as a cup of their fine ice cream. Wandered down to Capogiro and picked up two pints of ambrosial gelato, put dry ice and gelato into cooler and drove the hour home. Even in my freezer, the dry ice had evaporated to nothing by the morning... what to do? So I picked up a bag of ice from a convenience store, threw a handful of driveway salt onto it, packed the gelato into ziploc freezer bags and submerged them into the briney slush. Worked like a champ. Managed to freeze solid the 6 liters of beer that were sharing space in the cooler, and the ice had largely maintained its solidity even after a two and a half hour drive to the far wilds of northwest NJ. Now I know that dry ice is just not necessary for long haul gelato delivery missions. Wonder if Capogiro can be convinced to stock ice and driveway salt... much easier to handle than dry ice.

yee hah! I think Bassett's is going to make a dry ice sale today. And Capogiro is going to sell a couple of pints of something interesting.

Has anybody else here thrown a cheese sandwich into a waffle iron? Makes a mighty fine rendition of grilled cheese in my book (not committed to paper, unlike Marlena's fine work). Love the added texture of the thin and crispy bits, as well as the cheese that oozes out from between the bread and gets crispy fried. mmmmm.

Hmmm... does Capogiro sell dry ice or other travel facilitation substances? I'd love to be able to buy some and bring it away from town... but living an hour's drive from center city makes that tough. I recall noting that Bassett's in the Reading Terminal has dry ice listed on their board... do they regularly keep it around, or is it a special order item?

Katie-- Mmmm.. that horseradish cheddar does make a mighty fine grilled cheese... even works with my open faced method. Whose horseradish cheddar did you use? I randomly ran across an English horseradish cheddar from Ilchester called Romany, which was great. Any other suggestions for quality cheese with zing? Spaghetttti-- I like to experiment w/ my cheese and bread (though more the cheese than the bread). So far I've found that the cheese needs to be somewhat hard, like some sharper cheddars, and aged gouda, and this crazy Norwegian cheese (that is full of spices like caraway and cloves) called Nokelost... all of those worked really well. A younger cheddar with a higher moisture content like Cabot's gets a little too oozy and doesn't adhere to the bread quite right once it melts... As to bread, I use supermarket loaf whole wheat or multi grain generally. Artisan breads have too much crust and aren't spongy enough to make a proper grilled cheese sandwich. The proper grilled cheese is about minimizing the bread and maximizing the cheese, as far as I'm concerned. Bread must be soft and spongy and capable of absorbing the cheesy oils that exude from the frying cheese. That is the only real requirement.

My favorite grilled cheese is done open faced... the best part of a grilled cheese sandwich is the crispy fried cheese that oozes out of sandwich while it is cooking... so to maximize that effect I make my sandwiches thusly: Take one slice of bread and cut up some cheese to fit its area closely. Heat a nonstick pan over medium high heat. lay cheese on pan. apply mustard or other favorite condiment to bread. lay bread on cheese condiment side down. allow cheese to brown and ooze its oils out. scrape up cheese and flip bread and allow it to absorb the cheesy oil and fry until golden. Enjoy.

So what is in a Homeskillet? Check in RecipeGullet, of course. Your questions will be answered.

Dammit. I liked his food.

Sad to hear. Where did Vernon Morales land after leaving there?

Just made a trip to Trenton for some Delorenzos the other night... when a friend wanted to eat the best pizza available in the PHL area, that was where I thought to take him. BUT-- does Trenton count as South Jersey? I'd say that it falls within Central Jersey, so the Philly Mag assessment could be technically right... no idea about where Haddonfield is, much less the qualities of its tomato pies... but if Rich gives them the thumbs up, then they gotta be tasty.

IS this stuff flavored at all, or just ethanol/oxygen vapor? i.e. does the flavor of the spirit they bubble the O2 through come along, or just the booze? Sounds like a fireball waiting to happen, actually. Ethanol burns. Oxygen really facilitates burning. The bottleneck that slows combustion is the rate the fuel gets vaporized and mixed with the ambient oxygen. This stuff sounds like premixed fuel just waiting for an errant spark. I can see stupid pub tricks already: inhale a mouthful of the stuff, blow it towards a candle and appear to breath fire. All fun and games until somebody scorches the inside of their lungs trying something like that. Would really take the pleasure factor of combining a drink and a smoke down to nothing... So, sounds dangerous, not particularly pleasurable, and more like a method of medicating somebody than a fun pub toy. Unless all you want is to medicate yourself with enough ethanol to get blotto really quickly. And since the stomach isn't involved, the age old defense mechanisms against alcohol poisioning (e.g. nausea and puking) won't do any good at preventing too much ethanol getting into the bloodstream and actually doing real damage. Maybe these things might survive in New Zealand where liability laws stick people with the consequences of their own stupidity... but in the US and probably the UK these things are a ruinous lawsuit just waiting to happen.

yeah. The ouzo I've met is much closer to pastis than it is to sambuca... the sambuca is syrupy sweet, none of the rest are. I'd say that sambuca is the outsider in this comparision.

OK... I'll quiz the relatives about their favorites. I've never gone out eating in York, so this will be second hand... but I trust the palates of these folks.

TB- Think for a second. What's weird about this drink is not that it has whisky and fruit juice. What's weird is that it has Scotch and fruit juice. Not spicy rye. (goes in a Manhattan) Not sweet Canadian. (goes in an Algonquin) Not even rich and woody Bourbon. (makes a fine whisky sour) This drink calls for mixing smoky iodine-y kinda-briney somewhat bitter and sorta-floral Scotch with sweet fruity stuff. That's weird. All whisky ain't the same, and sub-ing one for another just wouldn't work. Would you want a Sazerac made with scotch? Didn't think so.

I just recalled a true story of mixed up mixology-- In London the Institute of Contemporary Art has a bar... a very well stocked bar. Walked in and spotted the Peychaud's Bitters right on the bar and decided I wanted a Sazerac, so ordered one. What came back was not recognizable as a Sazerac, as it had significant quantities of lemon juice in it, and was nothing like the herbal whisky concoction that a Sazerac was meant to be. So I tasted it, said "no, no fruit in a Sazerac, what's this?" which amused my companions to no end. The tender claimed his mixing book called for lemon in the Sazerac... so I told him to ignore his book and make my drink to my specifications... which he did.

Well... are we just 3? And are we still shooting for Sept 1? Hit my local Trader Joe's and found found their mesquite honey in 3lb cans for $6... which makes me lean toward using it. Also have some truly local honey from back when my parents kept bees... pitch black stuff, but interestingly flavored, so a bit might go into the batch.

Cinnamon. I get headaches and nausea from overindulgence in cinnamon. It just gives me a hangover a few hours after I ingest too much of it. Once, in elementary school, I came into contact with pure cinnamon oil, and it turned me bright red and made me hot and sweaty and gave me a headache just from a small amount of it... so I'm guessing there's some sort of allergy going on.

Is York a commutable distance to the greater Harrisburg area? I've got family in York who rave about a couple of restaurants out there... Will ask them for details if it is close enough to be of use to you.

Alright, what is a bloodbath, and where did the recipe come from. Stump the bartender is not fair if you're making up drink names, or asking for non-standard recipes. Webtender doesn't have anything called a bloodbath in its recipes... nor does hotwired's virtual blender... which isn't saying much since neither has the Blood and Sand listed either... I'm somewhat responsible for a bunch of stumped bartenders and chagrined customers... Years ago I was called in to design the drinks menu for a very large party some friends living in the East Village of NYC were throwing... I went whole hog and presented a whole bunch of options, most canonical but unusual like Algonquins and Aviations and Buckeye Martinis, though I threw in my own signature cocktail that I call the Homeskillet. For years afterward stories have been coming back to me of people who were at that party subsequently asking their bartenders for Homeskillets and getting blank expressions in return. So any barkeeps I flummoxed, I'm sorry. Totally not fair asking complete strangers to read my mind. (and since it contains maraschino, there's no way you could have made it anyway.)

Jackal10's said it quite well... imposing one person's foibles on a whole gathering seems problematic. As a goy with a thoroughly unkosher kitchen, no strictly observant Jew could eat anything I cook... and I've thoughtlessly invited some of the observant over for my summer weekend gastronomic adventures... fortunately they've had the good sense and common decency to decline my invitations rather than turning up and pointing out that they can't eat a thing. If people who are really your friends have these sorts of issues, they should display the social grace to suggest a neutral destination where they can consume, and another time to get together. How about the other side of this coin-- What are the best meals you've had that were the product of religious restrictions? I've never done a Seven Fishes dinner, but have had some really tasty matzoh ball soup at seders and a good meatless borcht in an Eastern Orthodox tradition. What ritually pure foods are really really good eating for all concerned, regardless?

And what a high quality evening it was. Rich took lots of pictures, so photographic documentation will certainly follow. Highlights amongst the offerings were: Otto's Black Mo Stout, which struck me by its resemblance to the Italian burnt licorice candies. A really interestingly flavored stout. Flying Fish Coffee Porter, which was a beautifully balanced coffee flavored treat. Nodding Head 700 Level, which was rich and creamy and smooth. General Lafayette's Sunset Red, which had great citrusy hop aromas and that wonderful candied grapefruit flavor. I'm sure others will chime in as well. Excellent event, and well attended, though less claustrophobic with the additional outdoor space that wasn't there in February.

yeah, that counts. Now that I know about it.

Dunno about this-- neither of your brands are familiar to me up here in Pennsylvania... I'm really not sure who the locally available spring waters are, but I don't think these ones are.

Bob- Can you talk some more about the varietal meads? My local homebrew store has a wide selection of honeys... alfalfa, buckwheat, orange blossom, tupelo, blueberry, and others I can't recall. It sounds like making a base batch and then spiking it with a few pounds of a varietal at the secondary ferment would get the varietal message acrosss loud and clear. Any favorite varietals?