Andrew Fenton

There are lots of ice cream recipes that incorporate condensed milk. I'd think adapting one of those would be pretty straightforward.

Hee! You've never been to Pennsylvania, have you?

Doesn't Fatburger serve burgers with a fried egg on top? Nothing wrong with that.

Sweet. Thanks for the recommendations: the Central PA guide, in particular, will be very useful. I'm heading to Carlisle tomorrow, and will probably try Faye's for breakfast Friday. Hmm... maybe I'll start a Carlisle thread, just for my own amusement. Chris, Mapquest says that York is about an hour from Carlisle; probably a little less from Harrisburg. Might as well post any suggestions, just in case I make a pilgrimage to the home of the Rock.

And the sooner you get her used to going to bars, the better, I say!

Take her to the Italian Market. Start at Claudio's Caseificio. If she's a cute kid, you'll have no trouble getting invited to the back to see how they make mozzarella; then you can try it and talk about how it's different from what you get on a pizza. DiBruno's might be interesting (if possibly overwhelming for a 10 yr old, on a Saturday). Get some awesome salami, one or two kinds of cheese (something mild, of course), maybe try an olive or two. This might be kinda hard core for a ten year old; I just don't know. La Lupe would be fine, I think; there should be lots of kid friendly options, I'd think. Has she had hoagies? Nobody doesn't like an Italian hoagie from Chickie's or Sarcones. (If she doesn't, send her back, I say!)

good god what else is left to eat?? larb?

Hmm. Good point about filling lots of coupes (though, contrariwise, how often are styles of glasses and so forth determined by this kind of mass setting?) I suppose that you can have a cheaper, more dramatic setting with a table of coupes, especially when they're stacked. But on the other hand, a table of flutes would be more efficient, space-wise. Derricks's (welcome!) and jbonne's point about bubbles is of course right. Which is exactly what I was wondering about in the first place: it's not exactly rocket science to know that less surface area will keep your wine bubblier, focus the smell, et cetera. So why did the switch take so long? Rather than assume that people were stupider back in the old days, I'd like to think that the coupe has or had some sort of advantage. Maybe champagne was different a century ago. Less bubbly? I've read that sweeter champagne was more popular then, and I suppose that sweet, flat wine would be better than dry and flat. Maybe people drank faster, so it mattered less? For what it's worth, I tend to think that champagne saucers just look cooler. But maybe that's because I like those old movies... Anyway, interesting point about coupes' popularity in the US. Didn't know that.

I've got a question about the history of champagne glasses. Most of the glasses that I see in restaurants, homes or in various media are tall, skinny flutes. But if you watch old movies (I started wondering about this while watching Casablanca this weekend), most people drink their champagne from saucer-shaped glasses. So at some point the fashion changed, and I have two questions: when did this happen? and why? To take the latter first, I can't imagine that it's because people became less interested in drinking from something shaped like Marie Antoinette's breast and more interested in drinking out of something long and skinny. Flutes do have a technical advantage: they keep wine colder and bubblier. But I don't see why somebody in 1944 would want warm, flat champagne any more than somebody in 2004 would.

Hey bigcat, I've been holding off replying to this topic, because I got nothin' in the way of recommendations for you. But I'm in a similar position to you: this fall, I'll be living in the greater Harrisburg area (Carlisle), have found only those same threads to which you allude, and am thinking that, boy, I'd like to do some interesting eating. So let me encourage you to explore, and when you do, post away! We gots to build that eG database for central PA!

rejected titles for Rib Run, the sequel: Rib Run Redux Revenge of Rib Run Rib Run II: The Rib'ening Rib Run II: "This Time, It's Cholesterol" Son of Rib Run Bride of Rib Run Abbott and Costello Meet Rib Run Rib Run Versus the Wolf Man Rib Run Versus Mothra Rib Run Versus the Vegetarians from Outer Space Rib Run II: Pages from Comrade Pawlak's Little Red Barbecue Book Sweet.

Ahem. My woman cooks, a little. But I do almost all of the cooking. Which is okay, because this way I get out of doing the laundry. Score!

Thanks for the information. I like the look of them thar Nissan mugs. In particular, the leakproof model looks good. It'll fit in a cupholder, and I like having a handle. Not cheap, but on the other hand, if I spill coffee into our new (as in new-to-us) car, the wife will rip my lungs out and I'll have a hard time drinking any coffee. So it's a worthwhile investment. On preheating mugs: oh yeah. I'm all about that; it's my standard operating procedure for making a pot of tea, for example.

Heh. It's Cows Gone Wild! okay, that's even sicker.

This fall, I'll be doing a lot of work-related commuting. Lots of two-hour drives, often early in the morning or late at night. That means I'll need lots of coffee; and I'll need to buy a good travel mug. The way I see it, there are several criteria for a travel mug. Size: it has to hold a lot of coffee, but has to be small (or well-shaped) enough to fit into a cupholder, without tipping over. Insulation: gotta keep the coffee hot. Seal: obviously, I don't want to spill coffee all over the car or into my lap. With the scalding and the screaming and the swerving and the OH GOD, IT BURNS hoyven glaven... Also important, but secondary: Styling: I've always secretly admired those brushed-metal coffee mugs, and wanted one for my very own. If I had a cool coffee mug, maybe I could make some friends and not spend every Saturday night staring at the wall (or, um, posting obsessively to food-related websites...) So... any recommendations? What do you use?

In the interests of science, I tried the MooLatte (mocha version) this hot, hot afternoon. It's... sweet. Very, very sweet. Makes my teeth hurt sweet. I finished it half an hour ago and my mouth still tastes funky sweet. I guess that's because of all the syrup they add to it; I've never had that reaction to a Blizzard or other DQ ice creams. Anyway, it's made in the same mixing machine as the Blizzard, only with an ice mixture added to the ice cream and syrup. I couldn't taste any coffee flavor over the chocolate: bad! But it has whipped cream on top: good! It was nice and cold: good! But not especially refreshing: bad! All in all, it was okay, but I'm probably not going to search one out again. That is, unless I happen to bring my pet cow, Bessie, with me to Center City Philadelphia, and take them up on that free drink.

Or bring a cooler...

You seem to be arguing two things simultaneously. First, that eating meat is okay because it's unnatural (i.e., because we breed animals). Secondly, that eating meat is okay because it's natural (our ancestors ate meat on the savannah). I'm not sure, therefore, what your point is. For myself, I'm not convinced that the naturalness or unnaturalness of an act is connected with its moral status. Incest occurs regularly in nature; that doesn't make it right for humans. Contrariwise, as far as I know animals aren't racists; but racism's unnaturalness doesn't make it right, either. So I don't see (un)naturalness as a moral factor in either direction. It's true that the line that vegetarians draw (eat plants, yes; eat meat, no) is in a sense arbitrary. But that doesn't mean that it's absurd or susceptible to this sort of reductio. We can take it in a different direction. A cannibal, for example, could make the same argument to you: your decision (I presume) to not eat people is also arbitrary. But it's not (necessarily) an absurd decision. And finally, I think you mean "omnivore", not "carnivore." Lucy was an omnivore, as am I; there are probably carnivores out there, but I've never met one. Even among the Atkins folks.

Of course it's exploitation. Breeding an animal to produce milk and meat is as close to a definition of exploitation as you can get. Suppose I had a farm on which I raised human slaves to produce milk and meat: this would obviously be a horrible form of exploitation. Ethical vegetarianism is therefore based on a judgment about the personhood of animals. But even if (as I do) you choose to eat animal products, and believe that it's ethically okay, it's silly to hide from that choice by calling it a "fact of nature", rather than a conscious decision.

Funny, because at a trip to Grand Sichuan last year we did a taste test: had the fresh-killed kung pao chicken, and regular chicken prepared... some other way, can't remember how. The two dishes tasted different, of course, but I couldn't detect any particular "fresh-killed" taste in the kung pao. It just tasted like kung pao chicken. Good kung pao chicken, but nothing special.

Nonsense. The reason for not eating (cow) milk is because it exploits the cow. A breastfeeding mother isn't being exploited. The overwhelming majority of vegans recognize this: there's a slogan to the effect of "milk should only be for baby cows".

I'd never heard of poke before this spring, when one of our local farm stands was selling baby poke. He'd grown it in his basement, so it was a very pale green with a light purple stalk. I just steamed it and served it with a vinaigrette, like asparagus. Had no idea that there was anything toxic about it... Oops. On the other hand, I didn't die, so there you go. On the third hand, I don't even know that what I ate was the same thing; it didn't look like the photos of poke on line.

Yet another argument for Soylent Green...

I haven't had many mojitos in DC, but after last weekend, I can say that those at Cafe Atlantico are fabbo. The flavors are perfectly balanced, and they go down like lemonade... Yow.

Here's a review of Cafe Risque (not safe for work). Food isn't the main focus, but here's what they have to say: