Andrew Fenton

Hmm. I asked about the provolone (and asked specifically if they had any aged provolone) and they said no, it was domestic, unaged. They didn't mention other options.

Ooh, that looks real good, Katie. And I think that this: would make a fine, fine lunch tomorrow. Rock!

What, praytell, is a "Skyline Coney"?? ← That'd be with Cincinnati-style chili. I've seen an explanation for why Midwestern hot dogs are called "Coneys" or "Coney Islands" (and why diners in MI are called "Coney Island"), but have forgotten...

I really, really like those bright red hot dogs you get in New England. Grilled, with mustard and kraut, and it must be served on a vertically-sliced roll. Now that's a good dog! Woof.

I recently came across this Super Parma website, which appears to be a sort of Australian Chicken Parmigiana Club. It rates the dish as served at over 200 (!) restaurants, according to criteria including size, quality of sauce, cheese, et cetera. I'm fascinated and a little mystified: chicken parm (as well as veal and eggplant versions) is a staple of red-gravy Italian-American cooking, but a casual googling seems to reveal that the dish occupies a very different, and more prominent, place in the Australian food chain. So what's the story here?

Awe.Some. Good thing the missus doesn't read this forum, because I know what somebody is getting for a birthday present this year...

Wow, what a neat little place Lark is! Dinner last night was terrific: the rare meal at which all four members of Team Fenton walked away happy. Rösti potatoes (did they have the ümlaüt? Well, they sure as hell should have) were great: like grandma's latkes if bubbe had had the good sense to cook with duck fat. And the duck leg added to the sheer ducky goodness. The foie gras terrine? Another waterfowl-based standout. And the snap & snow pea tag-team with mint was a nice simple summer dish. Hanger steak was a little disappointing, and at $16 for a pretty small portion, not really worth ordering; and I agree with others that they oughta beef up their selection of wines by the glass. But those were small exceptions to what was otherwise a lovely dinner. Good stuff, and I'll be back.

I'm glad I'm not the only one bothered by the bread. I mentioned it to my sister and she insisted that she loves the Panzanella rolls. Which just seems crazy to me, but whatev'. I kinda got the sense that Salumi isn't too interested in their sandwiches, just the meat: the cheese (domestic provolone, mozz) and other toppings (grilled onions) were pretty boring. But if you bought your meat there and picked up some good bread, cheese, etc. elsewhere, you could have a truly world-beating sandwich.

Another "finally made it to Salumi" here. There's no question that the meats are first-rate. I tried a couple in line and-- since they were out of lamb prosciutto-- had the culatello sandwich. The culatello is everything I could ask for in prosciutto; wonderful stuff. My folks had roasted lamb which was also quite good: juicy, flavorful. But I have to say that the bread was absolutely awful. It was a round roll that was pale, doughy and bland, with almost no crust or flavor. Other sandwiches-- porchettas, for example-- were served on nice-looking slices of baguette, but not the cold cured meats. I walked away mystified: why would a place that takes such care with their meats spoil their sandwiches by serving them on shitty bread? It's weird. I'd go back to Salumi (and no doubt will, the next time I'm in Seattle), but, I think, just to buy the meat, and make my own sandwich off-site.

In Philadelphia, citrus prices veer wildly around two poles. On the one hand, supermarkets charge outrageous prices: two limes for a dollar, for example. But on the other, you can get limes at Latin or Asian markets or at the Italian Market for like 10/$1. Once I'd discovered these sources, I started drinking a lot more margaritas. I like a 1:1:1 ratio, and sometimes use a little lemon juice mixed into the lime, which brightens the flavor a little.

Shoofly pie is icky. But the rest of the choices range from good to inspired. I particularly like the choice of Olympia oysters: it's non-obvious, fits a niche that none of the others do, and has a great story behind it. Fun article.

Never tried the hot sandwiches, but it seems to me I've heard that the roast pork is at least okay. What scares me a little are the rice bowls. Those look... unappealing. But I like the cold hoagies just fine. Word to that.

Or better than free: last time I used a Wawa ATM it gave me a coupon for a buck off a hoagie. Sweet!

let's face it: when you're down there, just go to chick-fil-a. unless it's sunday. ok let's face it REALLY: just go to john's. or tony luke's. unless it's sunday. in all those cases, just go to wendy's. or ikea! meatballs in dingleberry sauce! Yeah, yeah. But I wanted barbecue, see! Shoulda just driven the fifteen minutes up north...

I've always thought of "Apicius" as being to Roman cooking what "Webster" is to American dictionaries: a brand name that indicates quality, but that isn't necessarily an indication of authorship. Anyway, it's worth noting just how few of A's recipes show the crazy-go-nuts luxury of the stereotype: he's much more interested in, for example, trying to make cheap ingredients taste expensive. Dormice seem weird to us, but they're evidently pretty easy to raise on a farm, just like snails. Evidently silphium came close to dying out sometime around the early first century when, in the course of a dispute with the merchants who sold the plant, the north African nomads who gathered it tried to wipe out the harvest. There's also a wonderful, sad story in Pliny (Natural History 19.40, for the folks following along at home) that silphium was killed off by overgrazing of sheep in North Africa, and that the last known stalk was brought as a gift to the emperor Nero. So that's mid first century. I suspect that later references to silphium were actually asafoetida (which had evidently been a long-standing substitute, having been introduced to the Mediterranean from Asia by Alexander's returning soldiers).

Right: I should have mentioned that I ordered the ribs dry, which is definitely the way to go. If you go, that is...

Stopped by Famous Dave's tonight, after a home-improvement run to the Delaware Ave big boxes. The ribs were surprisingly good: maybe a little too tender, but with okay smoke and nice flavor. Along with the fries, they were also the only dish I tried that wasn't loaded with sugar, which was nice. Everything else was fair (pulled pork-- a little dry and too sweet-- or beans) to middling (brisket: okay, but with some odd flavors: maybe the metallic aftertaste deprofundis noticed?) to nearly inedible (BBQ chicken which, while tender, had a weird astringent bite, presumably from the marinade. Super Sugar Coleslaw was also awful). All in all, I'd say it's not worth making a trip to Famous Dave's. Even in a so-so BBQ town like Philly, it can't compete with Sweet Lucy's. But if you end up there, I'd say get the ribs... and skip the rest. Tell 'em it's an Atkins thing...

On a visit to Maine this weekend, I was introduced to an unexpected and wholly sybaritic delight: the grilled donut. I was told about them, and was told that they're a New England thing (though none of my ME or RI friends had heard of them). We spent some time working with the grilled donut concept and concluded that it's something that absolutely deserves to be better known. Grilled donut mark 1 was based on the big ol' glazed donuts from a local bakery in Gray, ME. Since these donuts are exemplary in their natural state, we were faced with a difficult question: could they be improved? We decided they could, and set to rigorous scientific experimentation. (By "rigorous" and "scientific" I of course mean "drunken" and "debauched".) Our preparation was very simple, just grilling for a couple of minutes on either side until the glaze remelted and hardened: The lighting isn't so great on this photo, but you can see that some caramelization has occurred. But this donut was a little too soft to maintain its shape on the grill. Grilled donut mark 2 is based on a day-old jelly donut. This was an improvement on the original: after a day, it'd dried out enough to maintain its shape, but was still fresh enough to be tasty: Here you can really see the caramelization. This is a donut with something that all donuts-- donuts as I have known them-- have lacked: a sugary caramel shell. This is, in other words, donut brulée, and it's fantastic: crunchy, flaky, oozy, all at once. How to improve? Well, using a kitchen torch would help, letting you use really fresh donuts (and letting you use the kitchen torch-- an end in itself). And I think that ice cream could be involved somehow... but some things are perhaps better dreamed than dared.

Even better to keep in mind that literary representations of Roman cooking (which is what we've been discussing here) are never ideologically neutral. They're always examples of satire, or moralizing, or some other authorial program. I'd be as leery of relying on Petronius as a reflection of the Roman palate as I would relying on Homer Simpson for the American. Elagabalus' camels' heels are even sketchier: remember "Nuts & Gum: Together at Last"? A good book to read on the topic is Emily Gowers, The Loaded Table: Representations of Food in Roman Literature (Oxford 1993)

Hmm... gut reaction says anything involving savory custard or ravioli would be a good bet. But the corn soup with oyster beignets rules the school. Whatever school you're talking about.

Philadelphia is the northernmost city in the South, right? Other parts of the state even more so...

Well shut my mouth, then!

A shame. Zeke is a very good barbecue chef, as well as a real mensch.

I had some bad experiences with the south Le Anh. Happened so long ago that I don't even remember what they were, just that I wasn't all that happy with the food, and after that, I went to the other one. Didn't hurt that I didn't have to cross the street that way. "Closing the Iron Door" sounds like a kung-fu move.

By that criterion, "Silence of the Lambs" qualifies as a food film. As does "Land of the Dead", now playing in a theater near you. Mmm, zombie food...