Andrew Fenton

bow wow wow yippie yo yippie yay Good burgers, very good beer selection. Probably better for lunch than for dinner, when they're usually packed; I've been turned away (ok, self-turned) a couple of times by the crowds.

Finally broke the couscous barrier last night with a couscous dish, served at room temperature, topped with a sauce of chopped heirloom tomatoes, Sicilian olive oil, mint and a little ricotta salata. I had something similar in Rome (at Cavour 313); something between a salad and a pasta, nice and light for hot weather. Leftover caponata: yeah, that has been a problem for me too. I've added it to room-temperature pasta for a salad; rice would work well, too. Yum.

We were meeting friends in Northern Liberties on Friday night, and decided to give A Full Plate Cafe, A Try. The Liberties Walk area is interesting. A cute shopping & residential area air-dropped into a very different neighborhood (crumbling buildings, weeds). Ah, Northern Liberties! Ah, gentrification! Anyway, on a beautiful post-downpour Friday evening, it's a nice spot to walk around for a little bit. As to AFPC, it's cute and friendly. I liked the ice tea, in big ol' Mason jars. The food was sort of a mixed bag: the mac and cheese entree was sort of bland and mushy, but came with a couple of really good stewed tomatoes. A decent catfish po' boy. There are lots of sides; we ordered some absolutely first-rate collard greens, sitting in a lovely little pool of pot likker. I could have eaten about three times as many, both because they were so tasty, and because, frankly, the portion was a little small. Sides are reasonably priced ($3 for one, $5 for two); still, collards are cheap, and they coulda thrown a few more on the plate... We also ordered the fried okra, which, oddly, was fried whole, rather than in slices. I have to say, I prefer the normal way: the coating slides off the whole pods, and it's a little overcooked. The Southern theme doesn't extend to dessert, which that night at least, consisted of a couple of kinds of sweet pierogies or ice cream. We urged the waitress to add banana pudding to the menu, because, hey, can you even get banana pudding in Philadelphia? I don't think so, but this would be a logical place to serve it...

Love the giant corn Jenga, Bob! They oughta hide some sort of prize in there... or, well, you could just get the corn, I suppose. Anyway, friends brought over some of Flying Monkey's brownies last night. They're really, really good. I don't really know how you judge a brownie-- there's nothing avant-garde or magical about them-- but they're dense and moist, with a little snap to the crust and not tooth-achingly sweet. Me likey monkey brownie!

Yep. But I need a car first...

Fair enough. I confess that I hadn't eaten at Minar Palace in years, but my thought at the time was that it basically tasted like every other Indian restaurant in Philadelphia. To be honest, I haven't found any Indian within the city limits that's really worth bothering with.

In any category? Szechuan Tasty House delivers. I'd say the food is better; but while it's cheap, I don't know off-hand if it's cheaper.

HA! Don't know whether you need therapy, but I do need to wipe ice tea off my desk & monitor now...

yes, it's a cruel, cruel summer, while I'm sitting here drooling at the screen... Hey VDV, have you ever played around with varieties of bananas? My Hawaiian friends are always talking about how great apple bananas, etc. are.

True that there are a lot of Chinese restaurants around SM Maggiore, on and around the Via Merulana and in the area towards Termini. There are a couple right behind San Vito, though I never tried them. (That area is pretty good for non-Italian restaurants generally; I ate at a pretty good Egyptian place over there a few times.) As to why you'd eat mediocre Chinese in Italy: well, if you're a tourist, I wouldn't. But if you live in Italy, especially if you're not Italian, you start missing Chinese food after a while...

Good question... I'll be sad to say goodbye to Sicily Month. Judith, that couscous looks great. I've been surprised that so few people (including me) have been making couscous this month; I assumed that folks would gravitate to that, especially in the heat. Elie, for you here's Odysseus' description of the original Sicilian cheesemaker, Polyphemus: And you all know the rest of the story, including the other, less savory aspects of Cyclopean cuisine... Probably we can stay away from those!

Sweet lord in heaven, that looks fantastic. I am drooling on my keyboard right now.

If they don't have it at DiBruno's, I've seen it recently at Anastasi's. No idea about quality, etc. But it's there.

Rombo? Turbot, I think. The spaghetti alla Trapanese sounds like a good bet for the heat. I'm a huge fan of the variant pesto alla Trapanese, with almonds, but no cheese.

$2 local microbrews at Good Dog. Woof!

Processed cheese sauces: "It's So Cheesy" Kraft has a whole range of processed cheeses, including "ChedaSharp" and "Old English". (Funny how upscale food products don't get named after the English; pretty much cheez and malt liquor.) I'm sure that there are other brands, like the one you've eaten at Widener. I have a vague memory, from my college days, of an off-brand whiz product: sorta the Treet to Cheese Whiz's Spam, if that makes any sense. Lots of processed cheese spread products out there; just look the next time you're at the supermarket. Interestingly enough, the first two results when googling "processed cheese spread" are products from Romania and India, respectively. (OK, it's not THAT interesting.)

I'm pretty sure that Tony Luke's-- another top steakeria-- offers steaks with Whiz. Just out of curiosity, why are you freaked out by Whiz but not by American cheese? They're both just variations on processed cheese.

Getting one of these shirts would be a highlight of my LIFE. ← Those are sold at the Down Home Diner. Thanks, Sandy! I'ma get me one of them next time I'm at the RTM.

Ohhhhhh, THIS minneola! As in Minneola, FL. who knew there were so many Mineolae out there?

Mineola, TX "The Birding Capital of East Texas" Mineola, NY Mineola, IA No doubt "salted Mineola" is like "baked Alaska". right? right? Okay, fine. I give up...

Getting one of these shirts would be a highlight of my LIFE.

Just as long as it wasn't the eggs, right? Because I was going to make a quiche for dinner tonight...

From Pat's? Well, maybe. The hard core foodie route would be to skip the obvious (or even historically important) steak and go for the best steak, from Steve's, or Tony Luke's, or Dalessandro's, or (insert list here). And the real black belt foodie would skip the cheese steak entirely, and instead focus like a laser beam on a roast pork sandwich.

Shacke and I were just in Capogiro, where we had a great conversation with Stephanie Reitano. When we were discussing the beet-orange, she said that a given batch has only one beet in it. They started at 50/50, she told us, but the beet was too overwhelming, so they gradually reduced the proportion to the one singular powerbeet. Anyway, there was not beet-orange to be found today, but I made do with lemon verbena and basil. Herbal and refreshing; a perfect summer combo.

What Katie said. I'll add that my favorite part of Wynnorr Farm is the white board with the three corns of the day listed, just like the soup of the day at a restaurant. Brilliant. Then I saw Joe Stratton's Excel spreadsheet with all of the different kinds of corn that will be coming up over the next two months-- something like twenty different varieties. It's an impressive operation. Anyway, I just had a nice dinner of corn. Well, corn plus butter, lime juice and parmesan. Good stuff. The peaches and cantaloupe I bought will need a couple of days to get really ripe before I turn to them, but I'm pretty psyched.