Andrew Fenton

Franklin Fountain thread FF is very high in my list of places I really like but never seem to go to, I guess because it's sort of tucked out of the way. But just about everything I've had there has been good, and it's a neat place. Maybe I'll head over there one of the nights this week; the end of the summer calls for ice cream...

That was a good read, thanks! The Venice market is wonderful, and I agree that it's a lot like the Syracuse market (I wrote a little blog post about the two a while back). The biggest difference, I think, is architectural: the Venice market is housed in that beautiful building, whereas the Syracuse market just sprawls down a series of streets. But they're both great.

DSG has a very limited menu; I'm not even sure whether they have fish on the menu, so it's probably not a good bet. For seafood, maybe Ken's Seafood on Race St.? I haven't been yet, but all the cool kids say it's great; I'll let one of them respond...

Combining your two topics, I don't believe that I've ever seen-- and a quick googling doesn't turn up-- anybody poach eggs in coffee. You could be the first, though!

Yeah, it could be the dried fish... except that I got the smell on the other side of the store. And H-Mart doesn't seem to have the smell either. (I've never been to the Cheltenham store- 69th St. is on my way home from work, so it's reasonably convenient. And yeah, you gotta love the food court!)

I hate to say it, Katie, but this place is already starting to get a little manky: swarms of fruit flies around the produce and a whiff of that smell. I did get a couple of nice pieces of pork belly for $1.59 a pound (cheap!), but I think in the future I'll stick to the 69th St. H-Mart (bigger, cleaner, and I can head up to Monsieur Chicken afterwards).

I certainly like the concept of wine in boxes. It's great to be able to easily pour a glass for drinking or cooking without having to worry about using an entire bottle. It's true that at the beginning of the box (when there's a lot of pressure) the wine can be a little frothy, but I find that settles out in a few seconds. The only problem I have with it is that the boxed wine I've had has never been better than so-so. It could be I just haven't found the better stuff (in which case I'm open to suggestions). But I'd be happy to spend a little more to get pretty good wine in a box.

This is an interesting discussion, as I went to Kanella for the first time on Wednesday and had the opposite experience: neither I nor my wife were able to finish our food. I thought the appetizers (the dips o' the day and cuttlefish) were reasonably-sized, not huge, but the mains (a sausage special and the dorade) were really a whole lot of food. That's mainly because of the sides that accompanied the dishes (with the fish, a huge mound of Swiss chard, much more than in philadining's photo above, and with the sausage, a really nice stew made with English peas.) At the time, we contrasted it with our last date night, at Zahav, where I liked the food, but which is straight-up poor value for the money. I wonder if part of it is what you ordered? I feel like portions of ravioli are always really skimpy: that's why I rarely order it in restaurants. Anyway, I thought the food was very good, especially the sepia: a little stronger-flavored than squid or octopus, but still tender and delicious. The sausage (lamb, mint) was another high point; I'd buy some to cook at home in a minute. The fish was also very good, but you know, I find that with whole grilled fish, while there's a huge gap between not-very-good and good, there's not so much difference between good and very good. That probably doesn't make any sense (I blame too much sun this weekend), but there you go. Bottom line is, we enjoyed it and would happily go back.

When I smoke salmon, I typically cure or marinate the fillets for a few hours or overnight, then smoke it at as low a temperature as I can. In my Char-Griller, that means I keep it as far away as I can from the smoke box; I don't know what temperature that is, exactly, but my guess is that it averages around 200 degrees. Every so often, I'll mop the fish to keep it from drying out; once it starts to flake, it's ready. Never made a dip with it, but your recipe sounds tasty!

I don't remember off-hand how much my subscription is. But no, they don't send you anything other than the magazine. It's an honest, straightforward organization, as far as I can tell, and the magazine is a good value. That said, I'm thinking about letting my subscription lapse. Two things in a recent issue (June/July, I think) triggered that: - First, the blueberry pie recipe. Not that it's a bad recipe- I tried it, and it was very good. But then a week later, I made blueberry pie the way I normally do. It was much less fussy to prepare, and was just as good. - Second, the recipe for herbed roast chicken (in the same issue, I think). I have nothing against roast chicken- but this is the second roast chicken recipe in a year, and something like the fourth in the last five years! How many roast chicken recipes does the world need? I think that CI suffers from the same problem as a lot of how-to magazines. There are always going to be new people coming in, who want to learn certain basic recipes, like roast chicken. They can't just repeat the same recipe every few years; there has to be a twist, in this case, a new technique that produces a still-better product. Since they can also bring in new recipes (pork lo mein, etc.) it isn't quite as repetitive as, say, parenting magazines or (lord help us) bridal magazines. But because of their focus on basic, middle-of-the-road American dishes, they'll have more repetition than some other cooking magazines do. There's still enough ideas in each new issue to make my subscription worth it... I think. But that gets harder to justify every year.

And here are some pictures! First, the kid on the grill, ready to be smoked: (I smoked some corn, too, which is going to go into a salsa.) It cooked at ~250 for about five hours. I wasn't sure at what temperature it'd be done, so I guessed that since the kid is pretty tender, and doesn't have as much collagen as an adult animal, 165 or so would do the trick. I had pretty bad timing; it started pouring rain JUST as I put the meat in. But I persevered; here's the result: You can see it started to curl up: not enough connective tissue? Anyway, here's the final product, with the meat removed from the bones and chopped a little (minus what I munched on, nom nom nom): The meat is very tasty (and mild-flavored, not too unlike pork), but there wasn't a whole lot of it; there were a lot of ribs, which didn't have a ton of meat on them, and not as much shank and shoulder. So I'm going to go ahead and make tacos with it tonight. It'll be tasty, I think, but next time I'd probably buy an adult goat shoulder and smoke that: it'd be a more effective use of the smoker, I suspect.

I'd never been to any of the Momofukus, so I was excited to have lunch at Momofuku Noodle on Friday, where I treated myself to a three-course porkstravaganza. I started with the pork buns, which are as good as everybody says: it's a dish in which the quality of ingredients really shines. That was even more true with the cherry tomato and candied bacon salad: simple and really extraordinary. I was disappointed, however, by the rolled pork belly ramen. The pork itself was amazing, as good as I've ever had. It's both crispy and melting at once, just what you imagine when you think of good pork belly. But the rest of the dish fell flat: a greasy pork broth, supposedly with egg drops (but really just disintegrated egg) and noodles that were really only so-so. I think it'd be significantly improved if they just served the pork by itself, maybe with some vegetables.

Thanks for posting that, RD! I took some inspiration from the recipe and made a rub out of chiles, Cuban oregano, lemon verbena, salt, pepper, a ton of garlic, and olive oil. The rubbed kid is sitting in the refrigerator now; I'll smoke it tomorrow. I love the idea of goat tacos; unfortunately, the kid doesn't have enough meat to really taco-ize it. But I'll bet that if I can get a whole goat shoulder or leg, smoked goat tacos would be really terrific.

Eek! That is indeed a terrifying typo. Well, I've ordered pink salt (and a copy of Charcuterie), so I should be okay. Thanks for the information, folks.

That's a good question. Philosophically, I'd like to keep the recipe as simple as possible, eliminating excess ingredients; but that's not a really strong opinion. And I don't really know how to balance the potential risks of nitrites against the potential risk of botulism. When it comes right down to it, I don't know. Just looking for more information and opinions...

I'm looking at the NY Times' adaptation of Ruhlman's recipe right now. It looks, well, dead easy. I think that, rather than cooking it in the oven, I can just smoke it in my Char-Griller; 200 degrees should be easy to maintain if I use only a few coals and keep the bacon far away from the smoke box. The question I have is about the sodium nitrite, listed as optional. I figure that botulism isn't much of a concern; other than two hours or so in the smoker, the bacon will spend its life in the refrigerator. I'd just as soon skip the nitrite... but I'm also a bit of a nervous Nelly. Any recommendations?

Good call. That's probably my all-time favorite flavor. Though I concur with the other experts on the board; the sorbets are really outstanding. And in Philadelphia's summer stew, that's more appealing than ice cream. (Well, either that or cut out the middleman and go get a water ice. Can't go wrong there.)

Ooh, that's a good tip. I have two round Le Creusets, but I wouldn't mind getting an oval pot, and at $20, the price is right...

As Capaneus said, that's Zahav. There is a $50 prix fixe every night (mostly mezze and so forth), but the Thursday night menus are what really look crazy good. The regular menu is very good, but it's also more expensive than it really ought to be. (And re: the lobster menu at Matyson... Capaneus is nuts. Some of the courses were good (I liked the dumpling soup with lobster dashi. But the ratatouille, for example, totally overwhelmed the delicate flavor of lobster. Still, Matyson is good way more often than it's not good, and is definitely worth a visit.) Tortilla Press is in Collingswood, and the Container Store is in Cherry Hill (I think); they're spitting distance from each other. Maybe a ten minute drive.

It's embarrassingly simple: I realized that the firebox has a removable tray for the coals. So every 2-3 hours, once the coals had burned down, I dumped out the ash into a metal bucket, and added a new tray of hot coals. It worked great, but I was dumbfounded by how much charcoal I went through... I used an entire large (25 lbs?) bag of Kingsford to smoke that butt. Butt it was tasty, so I have no complaints!

I guess it depends what you mean by a "deal"... I'd say the most exciting prix fixe in Philadelphia at the moment is probably the $65 Thursday night dinner at Zahav. That's not cheap, but it looks amazing. And Matyson's prix fixe (available Mon-Thurs) is a very good deal at $45. I had a disappointing dinner there back in July (the lobster menu, which was only okay, and made worse by lousy service). But that's the exception rather than the rule, I think.

Those are really lovely. I knew that artichokes were members of the thistle family, but had never really seen the connection before. Thanks for posting the photo, pedie!

I bought a quarter of a kid (baby goat, not the other kind) yesterday, and am planning to smoke it soon, probably on Saturday or Sunday. I've never cooked goat before, and am looking for ideas for a spice rub. My default would probably be olive oil, lime juice, garlic and salt, but I'm sure folks have still better ideas! What should I do to this kid?

Congratulations, johnnyd! That's a nice-looking butt you've got there. I don't have any experience with the egg, but given how good it is at retaining heat, maybe you'd have been better off with briquettes? They burn longer, and not as hot, which might have kept the temperature down. Still, you were clearly successful; yum! I have to say that I'm impressed by those of you who smoke overnight. I tried it a couple of weeks ago (started a brisket at 4 PM and finished at around 4 AM), and it was just horrid. Granted, a Green Egg probably takes less tending than my Char-Griller, but I find I'm much better off starting at 7 AM and finishing in the evening. Speaking of which, I smoked my largest butt ever (eight pounds boneless, tied) on Friday. It took thirteen hours, but I'm proud to say that I've overcome my problems with the Char-Griller's firebox choking itself: I can now maintain a fire indefinitely. (Though MAN if thirteen hours of smoking doesn't use a whole lot of charcoal!) No pictures of the butt, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Good smoke flavor, though I might have left it on for just a little bit longer, to let it get even more falling apart. I served it at a party, and asked folks to take home leftovers... which left me with no leftovers for myself! Guess I'll have to block out a day to smoke another one...

A good place to start is the eGullet Culinary Institute's basic knife skills course. Lots of good hints there, and you can ask questions in the associated questions thread. And then, yeah: practice practice practice.