Andrew Fenton

It's pretty clear that Veracruzana has hired psychics to drive around in trucks, waiting for you to get hungry so that they can bring you food. They could probably bring the food even before you called; but that would shatter your precious illusion of free will. And who would want that? Nobody, that's who.

Word to that. Though I also like their veggie burrito, with guacamole. Good stuff.

I have the juicer: the best thing I can say about it is that, if you have a KA already, the juicer takes up a lot less space than a stand-alone juicer would. That's important if (as I do) you have a small kitchen. But other than that, the KA juicer isn't that great. It does handle different-sized fruits, which is a plus. But the pulp strainer is small and kind of flimsy, and the angle is a little uncomfortable. If you make a lot of juice, and/or you have the space for a juicer, I'd just buy one. But the juicer is the weakest of the attachments that I own. I'll share in the love for the pasta roller: a motor is a HUGE help, as is the height. And I've been very happy with the meat grinder/sausage stuffer, and use them both frequently.

I do this all the time. My pizza recipe produces four medium, thin crust pizzas; I'll make and eat two of them that night. The other two crusts get par-baked (two to three minutes on the stone), cooled and frozen. With the leftover crusts, I'll just pre-heat the stone, top the frozen crust, and bake normally. Since it starts out frozen, the crust and cheese end up cooked at about the same time: I've never had problems with over- or under-baked pizza. It's not as good as fresh, but it's still very good, and basically effortless.

And of course, there's Hardena. Cheap and good.

Oh, if you're the sort of grad student who has access to a time machine, you can head to Ansill on Halloween of this year for a three course "Trick or Meat" offal menu, for only $15. What a bargain that was... Sorry, I'm not being helpful. I'll try harder, I promise!

Um, I think you mean Steven Starr. Ken Starr's restaurant would be very, very different ("Tonight's special prosecution is the Impeachment Melba!") anyway, I agree that Chinatown springs first to the mind... off the very top of my head, there's Nan Zhou (maybe the best soup in the city, for $5.50) and dim sum: on Sunday, we had a terrific meal at HK Golden Phoenix, with tons of food for $14/person.

their pastries are pretty good, but i was unimpressed with the breads i bought from them. both the baguette and the country white loaf i bought had a weird texture, almost crumbly. like, they didn't hold together that well when you sliced them. And this might be kind of obvious, but stay away from their bagels, which have a very un-bagel-like texture and are oddly salty to boot. Their croissants are okay-- I don't love them, but I still buy them-- but I really like their cheese danishes. Those are great.

Good to know... next time I won't wait until 9 PM to call! And yeah, I bet that, if served immediately, that pizza is out of sight.

I've put pizza on a baking sheet, and it works okay, but not as well as a stone. You can get a pizza stone for like $20; if you eat pizza regularly, it's probably worth it.

Bumping this up to say that we had a margherita pizza delivered from Slice last night. That's a very, very good pizza, one of the best I've had in the city. It's a different style from Rustica, and I like 'em both, so it's great to have another option. N.B.: the delivery time on a Friday night was an hour and fifteen minutes, and when it arrived it wasn't as hot as it could have been. I should have anticipated this and heated up the pizza stone in the oven for a couple of minutes' crisping; next time, I will.

Hey, that's the company Mitt Romney founded. I don't know what his current involvement with Bain is, but it'd be awfully interesting if a reporter on the campaign trail asked Governor Romney whether he thinks farm workers ought to get that extra penny.

ha, that's exactly what I got as a consolation prize! Man, that soup is good...

On second thought, I think it was actually fresh. At least, the guy cut the rabbit into itty-bitty bunny pieces for me. I guess he could have cut up a frozen rabbit, but it seems more likely that he cut up a fresh one. oh hell, I have no idea. but they definitely carry the bunnies there!

I've bought rabbit at Godshall's in the Reading Terminal Market. I'm pretty sure, though, that it wasn't fresh, but frozen.

Glad they were open! I stopped by on Tuesday, and found the place empty except for the wowner, who was shaking her head and saying over and over "it's an awful day... an awful day..." Needless to say, they weren't serving food! The scallion pancake looks terrific; I can't wait to try this place...

I think it's indisputable that most of those leftover-turkey recipes are horrible; their prose admits as much, with their desperate claims to help solve the problem of massive amounts of leftover poultry. The real solution is just to not cook an excessively large bird; just enough for an enjoyable amount of leftovers. Still, I like leftover turkey: I like the sandwiches, I like the Thanksgiving-redux meals on Friday and Saturday. Most of all, I really love the turkey soup that follows those meals. The leftover turkey works great in it, and by the end of Thanksgiving weekend, I'm looking forward to something simple, light, with lots of vegetables and broth. So I don't see a real problem there.

Actually, 1955 doesn't seem so late to me. Submarines had been around for a while, but I don't think they really penetrated popular culture (20,000 Leagues under the Sea notwithstanding) until World War II. People had been making sandwiches on long loaves for a long time before that, of course. One of the possible etymologies for "hoagie" were the "hokey-pokey men" who, after the opening of HMS Pinafore in Philadelphia in 1879, made and sold sandwiches on long "Pinafore" loaves. There have to be other, older examples as well.

To continue further with the idea of "neutrality" in a stock, I wonder how a stock made from chicken wings would compare? In my experience that provides a ton of gelatin, but very little flavor; exactly what you've described above.

The JJ space at Whole Foods is now occupied by a coffee bar. Which is especially irritating because there are so many places to get coffee in the immediate vicinity, but nowhere to get fresh juice.

Mountain View Poultry (at the Head House farmers market) has them too. You might be able to order one on Sunday to pick up on Wednesday.

the wings! they're made of... SOYLENT GREEN!

hoo boy. I think we've all been there...

Just curious: did they get worse than the last time you ate them? Not trying to put you on the spot; but your take on them in that thread didn't read as awful. Anyway, I agree with the consensus that next time, carpetbagger might do well to be steered in a different direction. (And let us know; I'm sure he'd easily find some local eGulletguides to lead him through the wilderness.)

Thank goodness that the Crivellaros are safe-- and I'll refrain from making off-topic comments about the aptly named Schoolkill Expressway. But to this: all I can say is: we salute you, hero pork! or to put it another way: that's SOME PIG!