Andrew Fenton
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Posts posted by Andrew Fenton
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Hey, I've never eaten at Rouge! I'll be expecting my check in the mail as well. Be sure to add lots of zeroes. (Preferably after the number, not before.)
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I also make corn bread waffles (just use your favorite corn bread recipe and cook in the waffle maker) and top with pulled pork. Really, really good.
Whoah. That's just... genius.
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It works great. I'm sitting here drinking a cup of cafe au lait topped with a 2" high mound of froth. If there's any problem, it's that the froth is too stiff, almost like meringue. If I think of it, I'll take some pictures tomorrow and post them. But in the meantime, you should just try it: it's absurdly easy.
I don't know how well it would work with half-and-half. I'd guess it would work okay (though skim milk is the easiest to foam, thanks to its added proteins). It'd be worth a try.
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for about ten dollars less for the exact same thing as the Frieling, you can buy a French Press. that's all it is. please read Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking" and look up milk and frothing milk. invaluable information.
Indeed! McGee has a method that's basically free and works like a charm:
1) Pour some milk in a clean jar. Close the lid and shake for 20 seconds.
2) Remove the lid and microwave for about 30 seconds.
You end up with a jar filled with lovely frothed milk, hot and stabilized and ready to go. Given the ease and efficacy of the technique, I'd say that $30 spent on a milk frother is $30 wasted.
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My understanding is that brik is a Middle Eastern (or maybe even Turkish) import to North Africa. Obviously there's not much of a North African community in Philadelphia, but I wonder if you couldn't get the pastry or something like it at one of the Middle Eastern food stores, even Bitar's. And while it's probably heresy to say this, it's not that different from phyllo. You could get away with a substitution.
I have some great memories of eating brik in Tunisia. It's amazing stuff: all golden and fried, and when you bite in, the egg yolk bursts open and you have to nibble around it to keep it from slopping on to your fingers. One of those ultimate street foods...
edit: I agree with Matt O'Hara's (crossed) post mentioning Bitar's. Also, it wouldn't surprise me if brik has made inroads in France, so yeah, Assouline could be a good bet.
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Do you want to read over 900 Amazon.com reviews of Tuscan Whole Milk? Well of course you do. THIS IS WHAT THE INTERNETS IS FOR, PEOPLE.
Ahem. A couple of sample reviews:
Only three times in my life have I had better milk than this, and twice I'm fairly certain it was laced with flavor enhancing enzymes. The third was a milk so pure, it was actually hand delivered by the dairy farmer, who pumped it from the milk well right there in the middle of his ranch and drove it out to you in his old model T Ford pickup. Regardless, that was some expensive service, but the milk was like unto gold in a bronze world.Anyway, I digress. Tuscan Whole Milk is clearly a great value for its quality. You get roughly a gallon of this white wonder packaged in an easy to manage container. The handle on the side of the jug has no uncomfortable burs or ridges to impede your grasping and pouring action. The lid has been developed using space age technology to avoid getting the little dry crusty milk flakes around the top that always fall into your cereal like dandruff. Thank god for the astrophysicists at the Tuscan Farms Science Center.
Anyway, as you can see, word has gotten out about how good this product is, and at only 3.99 for a gallon (give or take a few ounces), the stuff is selling fast. In fact, I hear the cows enjoy their milk so much, they have to wear a special harness to keep from drinking it all themselves. Do the right thing, save a kitten from the pound. And when you feed that, feed it Tuscan Whole Milk, in the crustless cap bottle.
And a milk so good, it brought Yeats back for another round:
The Second MilkingSqueezing and squeezing in the wide container
The moo cow cannot hear the farmer;
Machines fall apart, the suction cups cannot hold;
Mere husbandry is loosed upon the cold,
The milk-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The creamery of innocence is mowed;
The best lack all mastication, while the worst
Are full of pregnant immensity.
Surely some expulsion is at hand;
Surely the second milking is at hand.
The Second Milking! Hardly were those curds out
When the vast image of Elsius Mundi
Bubbles my sight: somewhere is the meadows of Wisconsin
A shape with a trademark body, and the head of a cow,
A gaze proud and commercial as television,
Is moving its slow cud, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant end-customer.
The darkness drops again; but now I moo
That twenty hours of pasture sleep
Were vexed to lowing by that swelling udder,
And what rough beast, its hour come at last,
Slouches towards Tuscany to be milked again?
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Do you want the best boiled beef sandwich you've ever eaten? Of course you do. So go to Nerbone. For dinner it doesn't have that certain io non so cosa, but heck, it is open for breakfast...
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Well, I'll have to give it a try, won't I? General Tso's is one of those dishes I usually avoid. But this sounds really good.
Okay, I did try it, and it was okay. Better than most versions of General Tso's, but I'm just not crazy about that sweet, sticky sauce.
But I also ordered the Chinese water spinach, and managed to polish off almost an entire order on my own. Man, is that ever good stuff...
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Maybe we have a terminology issue here... I'm using "fresh pasta" to mean "soft pasta, usually made with egg" like tortellini. "Dry pasta" is pretty much just flour and water, like farfalle or bucatini. Obviously it's not dry when it's coming out of the machine, but it dries really quickly. Presumably Osteria could dry, package and sell their bucatini...
Yeah, I think the rest of us were thinking "House-made pasta", as opposed to "outside-supplier-purchased pasta". The "fresh" part just seems to me to follow naturaly from the fact that the restaurant makes its own.
Fair enough: I was thinking in terms of the Italian distinction between pasta fresca and pasta secca...
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Maybe we have a terminology issue here... I'm using "fresh pasta" to mean "soft pasta, usually made with egg" like tortellini. "Dry pasta" is pretty much just flour and water, like farfalle or bucatini. Obviously it's not dry when it's coming out of the machine, but it dries really quickly. Presumably Osteria could dry, package and sell their bucatini...
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I don't pretend to think that I'll ever make pasta of Vetri's quality at home. My point is that it's somewhat turned me off to store bought pasta. If I can manage to make something at home that is somehow a happy medium between store-bought crap, and Vetri's amazing stuff, I'd be thrilled. Hell, if it was just a half a notch above store-bought, I'd consider it job well done.
You might be surprised. There are plenty of good-quality dry pastas out there. If you pick one of those, and know a few basic techniques, you can cook great pasta at home.
One thing to bear in mind is that, to Italians, the fresh/dried pasta divide isn't one that's based on quality, it's based on region. Fresh pasta, to them, isn't better, it's northern. Fresh, homemade pasta can be fantastic, but you only use it for certain kinds of recipes; for others, you want dry pasta.
Besides, it's just another excuse for me to futz around in the kitchen...Which of course is reason in itself!
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Unless you have 8 grand to spend.....
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt...sa%3DG...forget it.
Well, my birthday is coming up...
Vadouvan, do you have an idea how many restaurants in the US make their own paste secche? That's pretty hard-core!
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Is the bucatini actually hand-made? Traditionally, it's not a fresh pasta, but a dried one. (I don't even know how you would make it by hand.) I could certainly be wrong, but it seems much more likely that it's a top-quality dried imported pasta.
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However, we are witnessing an explosion of do gooders, law suits, threats, dire warnings, save this or that admonishes etc.
Calls for bans, actual bans enacted by frightened legislators, misuse of information and dissemination of faulty information, myriad studies and on and on.....
We are being told how to live our lives and if we don't go along, well then there's a law or a ban to help/force us be good citizens.
It is all tiring and downright subversive!
so
the Alice "tap" Waters only thing is not in and of itself a big deal but these things do add up.
All of that has zero to do with the issue at hand: what a restaurateur chooses to serve in her restaurant. Alice Waters isn't telling anybody how to do anything.
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What foods do you dislike that are supposed to be delicious and "everyone" likes them?
For me it is bone marrow. Tastes like snot to me!
I imagine that the circle in which everybody is assumed to like bone marrow is an extremely narrow one. I mean, I like it fine, but even among eGullet members, I don't think there's any such assumption: and in the non-foodie world (at least in the US), marrow and the people who love it are looked on with some suspicion...
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Years ago before a friend married him and they moved away from Manhattan, a guy I know had seltzer delivered to his apartment in really cool glass bottles. He said it was common practice back in the day of egg creams at the corner drugstore. I assume this kind of fizzy water was locally produced?
At one time, seltzer delivery was common not just in New York, but in Philadelphia and other large US cities (or at least US cities with lots of Jews.) As far as I know, it was always locally produced, and by independent producers: I suppose you could call it an artisanal product.
Oddly, there don't seem to be many eGullet threads on seltzer delivery, but here's one. I remember a few years back listening to an NPR interview (transcript here) with one of the last remaining seltzermen.
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maybe i'm being a bit anal here but, ...........isn't it bruSchetta?
and isn't bruschetta toasted bread w/ olive oil and garlic? the toppings put on bruschetta can vary widely, no?
Somehow I don't think that etymology is a big deal at the pork shack, and that's the name of the steak. try one and you might forget the latin roots of the word too.
As Phil says, the meaning of bruschetta has migrated, from toasted bread, to toasted bread with stuff on it, to the stuff itself. Technically, I suppose it's an example of synecdoche. But it's also an example of the American delight in piling more stuff on top of other stuff: contrast the Italian pizza margherita with the all-American Meat Lover's Delite. The topping becomes more important than the thing itself.
Jars of "bruschetta" make Bambino Gesu cry bitter tears, but what are you gonna do? Anyway, adding a layer of tomato/garlic/onion flavor to a cheesesteak would be a good thing, I bet. It reminds me a little bit of that antipasto hoagie from, um, whatever that place is that has it. (Too lazy to look it up right now...)
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We got takeout from Tiffin last night. As others have mentioned (though not on this thread: hmm, where?) the takeout/delivery/eat-in menu is more or less standard Indian-restaurant fare, a little less exciting than the lunchboxes.
Still, it's good stuff. I was in the mood for lentils, so ordered a nice buttery dal; also a totally respectable baigan bharta. A couple of vegetable samosas had a great savory filling (though the larger one was a teensy bit undercooked). It came with a side dish of yellow split peas, and the whole shebang, including a side of naan, was less than $20. Cheap! And with plenty of leftovers, which I intend to eat as soon as I get home from work this afternoon. I can hear them calling me now...
The missus thought the food was better than that at the late Minar Palace: less greasy, for one thing. I can't speak to that, but I did like it a bunch, and I'm sure I'll get delivery from there again.
One problem: they forgot the naan, which made me cry a little. So don't make the same mistake I did: check your order!
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It occurs to me that the Dutch baby is really a cousin of the clafouti. You could probably make a great cherry Dutch baby. And cherry season is just around the corner...
I think that a clafouti rises because of whipped egg whites and (I may be exposing my ignorance about baking here) baking powder.
I don't think I've seen a clafouti recipe with whipped egg whites or baking powder, though I won't swear that there aren't any that call for those. Here's Julia Child's recipe. Not the same as a Dutch baby, but not too different either...
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A peach Dutch baby sounds really good.
It occurs to me that the Dutch baby is really a cousin of the clafouti. You could probably make a great cherry Dutch baby. And cherry season is just around the corner...
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Every time I peek at this thread, all I want to do is have dinner in that garden...
Well, come on down for a visit! Spring is almost here...
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the giant appetizer platter at Vietnam
eet ees so good, zee appetizer platter...
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The thing is, the noodle soup at the RTM Sang Kee might actually be good, except that it's served in these horrible styrofoam bowls, which always slop my soup all over the place. It's a shame. The good news is that the real Sang Kee is only a few blocks away...
Siam Lotus
in Pennsylvania: Dining
Posted
see, and I thought it was a nod to your well-known love of Thai kickboxing.
Anyway, I really ought to try Siam Lotus-- or really, the whole Erawan real-Thai deal-- because the Thai options in Philly are indeed pretty dreadful.