Andrew Fenton

Yeah, I feel the same way. It's just a little touch, but it's a nice and representative one. I think you're reading my mind, Evan. I'm also an indifferent steak eater, but when we went to Pif about a month back, I had the côte and it was really terrific. I didn't know that it was anchovies that made the demiglace so good, but in retrospect, it doesn't surprise me. (I wonder if you can use a splash of fish sauce to get the same effect without having to deal with a can of anchovies; anybody know?)

Yeah, because I've never ever heard of people faking something for a movie. Sheesh. Anyway, you can watch the clip here and judge for yourself (obviously it's pretty graphic; click at yer own risk). The clip very easily could have been faked; for example, they use basic editing tricks like cutting away at strategic moments. So given all the other evidence, I'm confident that it's bogus. But I like the cool 70's hairstyles on the businessmen, and the silly "spiritual" message.

Dang, you're right. I'm sorry, guys, but you'll have to do DeLorenzo's without me. Check the dining friends thread for an alternative...

"Trenton makes, the world takes."

Are they open on Sunday? I might be able to go this weekend; let me confer with a higher power...

oh, MAAAAN. I'd love to go to DeLorenzo's, but it'll be really tough to make the time to head up to Trenton in the next week and a half. Maybe just mail me a slice of the clam pie: it'll ship well, I'm sure...

So the real emphasis is on fried, eh? Can't go wrong with that, I suppose. Chips seem like a strange accompaniment; but less so, I guess, if you think of it as more like fried chicken and less like anything you'd get in an Italian restaurant. At any rate, it sounds like a good accompaniment to drinking, and I will endeavor to try one out when I finally make it to Australia.

I think you mean "caja china", Spanish for "Chinese box". I've had pork cooked that way a couple of times (most recently yesterday, from the Bridget Foy stand at the Slow Food event at Head House) and it's quite good. Ninety minutes for a whole pig sounds kind of quick, though.

Dude, you've gotta put the link back up. Anybody who clicks has been warned, and there's no way the picture could be any worse than the brains-squirting-from-a-monkey-head image that I'm thinking of...

It won't last long. At some point soon I'm going to invite a bunch of friends over for an afternoon of bocci, prosciutto, melon, and much prosseco and wine. Right on! You've got some lucky friends, dude.

Okay, I'm such an ig'nint rube, fresh off the bus from Palookaville, that I don't know the difference between Peking duck and the other kinds. Can somebody educate me?

That is really beautiful. Congratulations! Two questions come to mind: how long do you think it will last you? And how will you store it in the meantime?

Anzu, thanks for passing along your professor's insights, and your own. That's interesting to hear about Yunnan: is the perception of "foreignness" in that province associated with an idea that it's backward/primitive, or just "other"?

Sang Kee: man, that Peking duck is tha BIZ-ness. Wow. All crispy and juicy and pancakey at first, then, um, stir-fry-ey. Steamed juicy buns weren't as good as I remember; almost no soup at all. Bummer. Also, stuffed eggplant, which was goooooood, but not nearly as great as Szechuan Tasty House's golden coins. Oh, and E-Fu noodles, which from the name you'd expect to be an internet martial art, but instead were not-terribly-distinguished noodles with pork. So what besides the duck is really, really good at Sang Kee?

Nice shootin', Tex! (Sorry, I had to say that.) That is a heck of a deal. No worries about the hamburger roll: it's axiomatic that BBQ should be served on the cheapest, plainest supermarket bread available. Anything else is proof of big-city decadence...

Okay, I've never watched a Rachael Ray show before. But all this fussin' and fightin' got me interested, so last night, when I noticed her program (I guess the $40/day show) on, I watched the last 20 minutes or so. It was a decent show, about food at ballparks, and I thought she did a good job of introducing some of the local favorites at the places she visited (pulled pork at Durham, boiled peanuts and she-crab soup in Charleston.) I don't think I'd watch it again, but I don't see why anybody would get worked up about it: pretty standard travel-show fare. Plus, she is kind of hot. Just sayin', is all.

I asked, but have completely blanked on the dairy's name. I'd never heard of it, but as I said: Delaware. I tried looking for it on their website, which is well worth a visit for the discerning user of the "Inter-Net". Among other drollery, it contains am interesting treatise on the history of ice-cream in Philadelphia. Check it out.

No doubt there are people who eat cooked monkey brains. But live, screaming monkey? Unlikely. Testament to its urban legend-hood is that stories about monkey brains are always told about other people: somebody will know a guy who said he saw it. Or one ethnic group will claim that another ethnic group eats the 'brains. So I'm skeptical until I get a first-hand report; if you actually see it, you'll have quite the scoop. Er, journalistically speaking, that is... (P.S.: There is a kind of Chinese mushroom called "monkey heads". Not quite the same, though.)

Does he give a date? There was evidently a columnist who invented it in 1948. And, of course, Faces of Death. But I have a special place in my heart for Indy's version. Snake surprise, anybody?

Franklin Fountain is great. Amazing that there weren't any old-school ice cream parlors in that neighborhood, and FF really fills the niche. I had a terrific strawberry milkshake; the lemon ice is also quite good. Ice cream comes from a Delaware dairy whose name escapes me at the moment. Next time I'll get one of the sundaes, which are large and beautifully constructed. And their phosphates, according to the menu, are syrup, soda water and citric acid. Who knew?

The live-monkey-brains thing is an urban legend. So why not make your own table? Just buy a cheap wooden table, saw out a hole in the middle and attach a few clamps. Stencil an arrow pointing to the hole and the phrase "MONKEY HEAD GOES HERE" and you're in business!

I agree, and that's why it's strange to me that there aren't more North African restaurants. A note on the penetration of couscous into the American diet: I was just reading a recent issue of Gourmet, which had a "20 Years Ago" feature with a couscous recipe. They noted that at that time it was fairly difficult to get in the US, but that it's of course very common now.

Melkor, I certainly agree that there are more Thai restaurants in the US than Ethiopian, and agree that you won't find Moroccan or Ethiopian in a small town. But I'm pretty confident that there are more Ethiopian than North African restaurants. Philadelphia has at least five Ethiopian restaurants, and two North African (both Moroccan). Seattle has like eight. There are maybe a dozen in DC. There are at least a couple in Minneapolis and one in Ann Arbor. I don't think that any of those cities are as well represented by North African cuisine, and what North African there is is Moroccan. I've lived in all these cities except DC and I've never seen a Tunisian or Algerian restaurant.

This is a very interesting topic, and I don't know that I have any answers to the questions that have been raised. But it occurs to me that one way to test the hypotheses that have been offered would be to compare the status of North African restaurants in America with that of Ethiopian restaurants. It's been my impression that Ethiopian food is pretty well represented (at least in terms of numbers of restaurants) in the US, in both medium-sized and large cities; almost certainly better than North African, and definitely better if you exclude Moroccan. I don't know the relative numbers of Ethiopians vs. North Africans in the US, but an ignorant guess would be that they're not too different. Any ignorance about spice or bias against African food would affect Ethiopian restaurants as much or more than North African. And, of course, there's no SYSCO "Ethiopian kit." So why are there more Ethiopian restaurants in the US?

That shirt design is, frankly, awesome. No possible way I'll be able to make it to the pickin itself, but I'm awfully tempted to buy the shirt, just the same...