Andrew Fenton
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Posts posted by Andrew Fenton
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Have you guys heard of Center City? Or Philadelphia? Geez. Miles to go before I eat.
Holly, I didnt think you were getting that lazy in your search for good food.
Hey, some of us no longer have cars!
And as far as I'm concerned, Trenton is, like, North Jersey. It's practically Canada up there! Not that that's stopping me from going...
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I'm with Holly on the Waffle House love. It's cheap, consistent and totally satisfying. It's open 24/7, and you can always get grits. It serves the best Coke around. Waffle House is the only chain I actually get excited about when I'm on a road trip.
(Tangential note: what's up with all the Waffle House clones, mostly around the South? The main one is Huddle House, though there are others: they all have those signs with each letter on a separate square, just like Waffle House.)
I've only been to Outback once (in Parkersburg, WV), and was sorely disappointed. I thought it was gonna be all fun, with no rules- just right! But the steak was pretty mediocre. I was all psyched for the blooming onion, too: it turned out to be a gummy mess. Ick. I couldn't believe it: television has never lied to me before!
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Yeah, I imagine Pasion will fill up pretty quick- we have reservations for Thurs... It'll be good to try it, and for only $30: can't beat that!
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It doesn't surprise me that mint, pasta and Parmesan go well together. After all, mint and basil are closely related, and have flavors that, if not exactly similar, are within spitting distance of each other. There was some talk about basil lemonade (good stuff) in the lemonade thread not long ago; I had an amazingly good strawberry-basil cheesecake at Le Bec Fin on Saturday. So it seems like it could go in either direction.
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Le Bar Lyonnais is; but AFAIK, not the Bec.
Should be fun.
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I know that I might be revealing myself as a 'cue dilletante, but I've rarely seen hush puppies with barbecue -- with bread is typically de rigeur, and hush puppies are for fish fries or shrimp boils. But you found them everywhere. Is this a North Carolina fashion, or were you just concerned that all the smoked meats might nudge the Fried Food Group compelety out of the diet?
It's a NC thing. Even better (when they're good; they often aren't) are corn sticks; those you can use as a utensil.
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I must say that your choice of phrase is somewhat misleading... "traditional American diet". Maybe foodies won't disparage that... but traditional American preparation of the foods that compose that diet? I think lots of foodies will take issue with that.
As for the term "traditional American diet", I was just repeating what Katherine had used. You're right, of course, that there are lots of American food traditions, and diets would have varied considerably by region. And I agree that there was plenty of lousy food in the old days: certainly there was less variety in both kinds of food and methods of preparation.
My point is that, as I said, those days are often romanticized. It's not hard to find traditional or regional American foods and preparations (prominently, Southern food) on the menus of upscale restaurants. That wouldn't have been the case not so long ago. It's when people celebrate the good while forgetting the bad that romantization occurs.
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I thing if we took an overall look at most cuisines that are represented as super-healthy, we would find that the foods most often used as examples represent a small part of what people actually eat, or that people who do eat that way are impoverished and would buy more meat and processed foods if they had more money.
If you look at the traditional American diet, it included more fruits and vegetables than are eaten today by many people who look down on it.
I agree that somebody in a Third World or peasant society will be happy to add more processed foods to his diet, and that processed foods are a high class marker. But that's not the case in the US (or, I presume, Japan).
I doubt you'll find many foodies disparaging the traditional American diet, if (as you seem to be implying) you mean the American diet pre-1950. Indeed, traditional cooking techniques are regularly romanticized and imported into upscale cooking. Using fresh products has become a high class marker; it's the poor folks who eat Big Macs and Wonderbread.
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It is quite sad that we have such a poor opinion of the dining habits of people in our own country, and such an exalted notion of standards in other countries, Japan included. Kristin's experience, wretched as it was, does a lot to correct the balance.
Word, fresco. Kristin, you took that bullet for us; and I salute you!
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Absolutely. Just dump the frozen stock in a pot and go. Start on a low flame so the first bits to melt don't get scalded, then go up to high heat and a medium boil once the pot is actually full of liquid. And if you do it right now you'll be set to participate in the saucemaking exercises for the rest of the week.
Sweet. Then I get to play too!
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Can frozen, non-reduced stock be defrosted and then reduced? I've been making my own stock for a while, but it has never occurred to me to do a serious reduction (hey, mom never did it, so I never learned how.) Now I have a couple of gallons of chicken stock in my freezer right now, and it would be nice to get that down to a manageable, concentrated amount. But I don't want to screw up what I already have...
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Wheaties with an amazingly juicy peach sliced on top.
Coffee.
More coffee.
Oh heck, just one more cup of coffee.
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The key term I heard about the Heaven Hill fire was "a twenty-foot tall wave of flaming whiskey." Alcohol and wood is a dangerous combination, folks...
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I ate three pounds of fresh cherries yesterday. I could have eaten three more without any problem. Today I'm going to pick up another bag and eat them all too...
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I saw a McDonald's ad on TV tonight- a hip-hop version (ouch) of the "two all-beef patties, special sauce" jingle- and it occurred to me that I haven't seen this new ad campaign anywhere yet. So when do I get to start lovin' it, anyway?
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Bubba's, on rt 46 e in south hackensack, is quite unique in that it's only open at night, ostensibly for drunk idiots, and serves only egg sandwiches (or if it *doesn't* serve only egg sandwiches, it should). no soda. only bug juice, which is quite frustrating at 2 am, actually.
That is so very cool. There oughta be more places set up to screw with drunk people like that.
"Sorry- we only serve chili. And Yoo-Hoo."
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That's why I always complained to the lunch ladies at my high school, "Stop serving that turkey Tetrazzini! You're just a pack of recipe thieves! (Plus, it's nasty.)"
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thin sauced chili? Are you MAD? if by thin sauced you meant to type "mud like" hehehehe
I meant what I said and said what I meant. If it was "mud like," it was a watery mud. Perhaps I hit Skyline on a bad day; but I suspect that they have the experience to be pretty consistent.
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One last note- it seems transplants to this city usually do not take a liking to Cincinnati chili- Skyline, Goldstar, or what have you. It is nothing like Texas style chili or chili-mac.
I think this must be right. When I visited Cincinnati, I really wanted to love the chili... but I just didn't. Thin-sauced chili on spaghetti, too much cheese on top- it isn't terrible, but it's not something I particularly need to eat again. I suspect that probably you have to grow up with Cinci-style chili in order to get what it's all about.
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As far as I know, pasties in the US are only widespread in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. There is at least one small chain that features them; can't remember its name right now. Pasties in the UP are pretty bland, but with a little tweaking, I'd think the concept could expand. Certainly piroshki shops always seem to do pretty well, even in places (I'm thinking Seattle in particular) without especially large Russian communities.
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Indeed, I've heard tales, reported by travelers from distant lands, about such "hours of operation." But I always discounted them as delusions: for how could a pizza shop rely on such fictions? What if a humble pizza maker were to have many customers order many pies simultaneously, soon before his final "hour"? Why, he would be overwhelmed! His customers would riot and he would no doubt be torn to pieces by the mob.
No, I think we can safely assume that Messr. Fat Guy is jesting with us, and that we can include his "hours of operation" with such confabulations as "smoke-free bars" and "privately owned liquor stores."
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STOP IT!!!
The more you deny it, the more we all know it's truuuuuue...
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herb and elyse, sitting in a tree...
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If they "sell out early" it would seem to indicate some sort of truculent inefficiency rather than an oven-capacity issue. Totonno's has been known to pull this nonsense as well.
I think it is probably an intentional inefficiency, and I say more power to them. People in the restaurant business are always bitching about the amount they work; Tacconelli's system gives them some added control over that amount. My feeling is, here's a successful family business that makes an exceptionally good product. The owners have decided how much work they want to do on any given day and they stick to it. If they wanted to operate like a typical pizza place, I'm sure they could sell a lot more pies; they'd probably make a lot more money. But they don't want to. I really can't fault them for that decision.
Vietnamese Restaurant Opening at 43d and Spruce
in Pennsylvania: Dining
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I don't know if Pho Ha (that's the one you're talking about, right?) is any more dirty than Pho 75. Neither one would exactly pass the white glove test, if ya know what I mean. And Pho 75, or rather, the hallway that leads to it, always has kind of a funny smell, like fish + disinfectant. But then, if I'd gotten food poisoning from either one I'd probably have pretty strong feelings about it!
When I want a bowl of soup, I most often tend to go to Pho Ha, because it's closest. But there's no question that when the Train pulls into the station, it's carrying the best Vietnamese food in the city.
One cleanliness story: I made the mistake of taking Beth to Pho Xe Lua for the first time on a day when it was raining heavily. The floor wound up muddy and a little disgusting. Didn't bother me, but ever since then, she's been a little turned off by the place...