rlibkind

The Headhouse Farmers Market had hoped to find a way to stay open all winter, but is pulling back from that plan for this winter. But there are two year-round farmers' markets, sponsored by the Food Trust (as is Headhouse): Clark Park (Saturdays, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.) and Fitler Square (Saturdays, 10 a.m. - 1 p.m.) The Headhouse Market will remain open through the Sunday before Christmas, Dec. 23, according to Nicky Uy, market manager. The only Sunday they'll miss between now and then will be the Sunday after Thanksgiving, since the market will be open on the day before Thanksgiving. Expect the seasonal shutdown to end when the market reopens next spring on May 4. I stopped by the Hendricks Farm stall today and, after sampling, picked up their Tomme. Telford, Pennsylvania, may not be the Franco-Swiss Alps, but this cheese is worthy of the name. I also bought a pound of their bacon. My most exciting find, however, was over at Old Earth Farm where the sign said they had lamb ribs for $5/pound. If these were rib chops (as the young man serving me said they were), that is a bargain price. But I doubted it and, sure enough, they weren't chops. I could hardly be disappointed, however, since the product available at this price was breast of lamb, commonly called "riblets" and, in this case, mis-labeled as "rack of lamb" (rack of lamb usually refers to rib chops which have not been separated). Lamb breast is one of my favorite cuts, so I bought the package of frozen meat and stuck it in the freezer for future use. For you hard-core sheep meat lovers me like, be aware that Old Earth Farms plans to produce some mutton, too. They also raise Tamworth hogs, a heritage breed from the U.K. which is noteworthy for its meaty, relatively lean bacon. (I think I'll special order a couple of pounds of fresh belly for roasting this winter!) North Star Orchards had some interesting varieties of apples, all at $1.79, iirc. I purchased a couple of golden and razor russets. I enjoyed the razor russet at lunch today: nice and crisp, just sweet enough without being cloying, with sufficient tart bite to make it interesting. A very worthy apple. If my fridge's produce bin did not already have a full peck remaining of Cox Orange Pippins purchased in Massachusetts last month, I would have bought more. (The man who served me at North Star said the reason he and other Pennsylvania growers don't do Cox Orange is because it's still warm when they ripen here in early to mid-September, and they turn to mush when it's warm. Upstate New York and New England offer more favorable weather during harvest. See, you learn something new every day!)

It's that wonderful time of year when some summer produce can still be found yet autumn bounty is in full harvest. Benuel Kaufman, for example, still offers cherry tomatoes and corn (both bicolor and white) along with cauliflower (orange and white) and apples. Earl Livengood featured concord grapes, heirloom tomatoes, and sweet potatoes to demonstrate bi-seasonality. I would have indulged in what is for me a fall classic -- pumpkin ravioli from Pasta by George served with a sage-inflected brown butter -- but the weather forecast says wait. Instead, it will be hanger steak (from Giunta's prime shop) on the grill with Ben's corn to match the 85-degree daytime temperatures. Among the apple varieties available Ben sells Macouns at $1.49 as well as Asian pears at $1.99. And unpasteurized apple cider, too. Over at Iovine Brothers Produce a new addition are matsutake mushrooms, $41.99 if you can afford them. If you haven't read last month's food issue of The New Yorker magazine, find it -- a fascinating article about the PNW's mushroom foraging industry centered on this fungi delecti. Also at Iovine's, Hass avocados back down to $1 apiece. Limes and lemons were three for a buck. Over at O.K. Lee, the limes were 4/$1, and you could also buy a bag of seven for a buck. OKL's cactus pears, ripe and ready, were 50 cents apiece. In addition to the usual varieties and sources of salmon, John Yi featured king salmon from "chili" this week, $11.99. I always thought king (a.k.a. "chinook") salmon was strictly a wild product, but that's not the case. Although most of Chile's salmon aquaculture is devoted to the Atlantic salmon, it also exports farm-raised king and coho salmon. (King salmon was also the main salmon farm-raised in British Columbia, but Atlantic salmon is now dominates the industry.) In other fishy news, Boston mackeral has pretty much disappeared, but Spanish mackeral is abundant at prices of $2.49-$2.99 for this delicious fish. We should start seeing fresh sardines (juvenile herring, actually) in the RTM fish shops soon. Musical stalls As Sandy reported earlier, Amy's will move into the former Foster's space to sell kitchen hardware, though the inventory will be more practical and design-centric than the merchandise Ken Foster sold there. The new stall is projected to open Nov. 15, but it will only occupy the front half of the space. The rear portion of the space will remain the market's demonstration kitchen, which will lose its side walls in order to open up the space (though it will still remain a bit hidden from the market's flow, unless you're heading to the ladies' room). RTM GM Paul Steinke says a Temple instructor is considering moving into the kitchen to operate for-profit classes there. In the space Amy will vacate Steinke hopes to lure short-term vendors in 10-foot stalls selling "Christmas market" type items. One seller of linens is among those he's courting. He says it would represent a return to what once was one of the market's mainstays: day-stall vendors who leased space by the day. Day-stall rents are $35-$150/day, varying by day of the week. Steinke also reports he has one party interested in the Natural Connection space to sell groceries and sustainable/natural household products. No deal yet, however. Between the slices... Attention Roast Pork Sandwich Fans: Expect DiNic's to expand its hours to RTM closing within the next week or two, as soon as Tommy Nicolosi can hire an additional staffer. His new ovens were delivered and installed recently, capable of roasting a total of nearly 500 pounds of meat simultaneously (though he's not figuring on using all of that capacity most of the time). The expansion also required moving most of his refrigerator capacity out of the stall. While most everyone laments the Phillies' loss Saturday night in Colorado, there's a bright side as far as some of the RTM sandwich vendors are concerned: When the Phillies played their first day game against the Rockies at home last Wednesday, business was off considerably. Tommy said he did one-third less volume, and Hershel's reported similar numbers.

How restaurants entice bloggers and posters (and combat what they perceive as unfair comments and reviews) is examined in Saturday's Wall Street Journal. (I believe this article is publicly available, i.e., not behind subscriber wall, at least it wasn't as of this writing.) Among other topics, it looks at comped meals as an inducement for favorable coverage. No surprises in the article, but interesting nonetheless.

I saw it yesterday at a local supermarket in Philadelphia (SuperFresh). I would have purchased it, except the store didn't stock the bags. When I see the bags in stock, I'll probably plunk down the $9.99 for the Reynolds-branded device.

The Ithaca Farmers' Market is a wonderful one, indeed, especially now when all the hard-to-find varieties of apples are available there.But comparing the Ithaca market to the RTM is unfair to both. They are two different animals. Farmers' markets, like Ithaca's as well as our own Headhouse Square and others, are primarily devoted to an incredible variety of picked-that-day produce and other farm products which have had no or minimal processing (fresh meats, eggs, dairy). Public markets are more like über convenience stores, devoted to many of the same items that can be found in a farmers' market (though perhaps not quite as fresh and lacking the more obscure produce varieties) but also offering the whole panoply of comestibles: produce, meats, eggs and dairy, for sure, but also cheeses, fish, baked goods, processed foods, specialty foods, etc. To cite just one example of the difference: At the Ithaca Farmers' Market you've got one of the nation's great artisinal cheese producers, Northland Dairy. But they only offer three or four different sheep cheeses. Here, Downtown Cheese (and Salumeria) offer many scores of excellent cheeses, some of them as worthy as Northland's but, alas, we don't get Northland! But you're right, we here in Philadelphia are fortunate to have the RTM as well as the farmers' markets. Sounds like you treated a visit to Philadelphia's RTM the same way I treat a visit to Ithaca's Farmers' Market: load up the larder!

Rachel: If your expectations were shaped by Tesco or Waitrose bagels, indeed, you didn't taste the real thing. Redsugar: Your recipe didn't mention kneading. I think you really want to develop the gluten in bagels, so they do need some substantial kneading. Redsugar's recipe calls for honey in the boiling water, which certainly works. But if you can get your hands on some malt syrup, that's more traditional and provides a nicer sheen. You can also use it in the dough rather than sugar. If you've got enough syrup in the water, you probably don't need the egg wash, either, though it wouldn't be harmful at all.

I have difficulty imagining a bagel that's too dense. The problem with most bagels today is that they are too light. They are also too big. My ideal would be smallish (no more than four inches diameter) and chewy, dense not puffy.

Today's Wall Street Journal (sorry, subscriber wall, so no link) features an article on how the rising price of corn syrup, due to farmers' sending more and more of their corn to ethanol plants for fuel use, is causing H.J. Heinz to develop new tomatoes with a higher sugar content, thereby cutting down its need to buy corn syrup for its ketchup on the open market. How else will higher corn syrup prices impact industrial food?

Great news, James! I'll be there next Sunday now, for sure.

With unsmoked sablefish, can't go wrong with any decent riesling, even a slightly sweet one, i.e., the BC equivalent of a spätlese, if such exists. With smoked sablefish consider a drier sparkling wine.

Pawpaws were available Thursday at Earl Livengood's when he appeared at the Fairmount & 22nd market. Earl's buddy Sam had a bunch of small, very ripe ones on display, but had some larger, not quite as ripe (but still ready) specimens in the truck available. I took three and let them sit on the counter overnight, then turned them into pawpaw chiffon pie, which was smooth, perfume-y and rich (pureed pawpaws and gelatin mixed in after custard had thickened, then whipped egg whites and cream folded in after the mix began to set). Since the three large pawpaws I purchased were a bit shy of a full cup, I pureed a banana to stretch it out. The resulting product still had a pronounced pawpaw aroma and taste which, after all, is banana-like. Maybe Earl will have some Saturday at the RTM. If it does, grab them. Pawpaws make great ice cream, too. The corn we picked up from Earl was still quite nice, especially considering the season is basically over. The Brandywine tomatoes were still tasty, too. He also has chestnuts available. Today I introduced an English friend to the wonders of Tommy DiNic's roast pork (rabe and cheese); she was instantly won over, both by the sandwich and the variety of foods available at the RTM. She's got some great seafood in North Devon, along with lamb, but nowhere near the diversity of fresh food products as here. She observed, however, that the shrimps and other shellfish back home would cost in pounds sterling what we pay in dollars -- in other words, twice the price. Since it's apple season I invested in some sharp Canadian cheddar ("rat cheese") and brie at Downtown Cheese. Either will go well with the Cox Orange Pippins I brought back from my New England trip. A key focus of the RTM's marketing plan in coming months is to target new condo residents in Center City. They've identified 5,000 such households and will be sending them oversized promotional postcards now, before Thanksgiving and Christmas, and again in the spring, coupled with a giveaway. The idea is to make sure they are aware of the market, especially the Sunday hours. Signs posted in the former Foster's space would lead one to believe the market has found a tenant ("Coming Soon..." but without any additional hint.) RTM General Manager Paul Steinke has been trying to lure another kitchen hard goods retailer and indicated a couple of weeks ago he was negotiating with one which would enable the market to retain the show kitchen space as a separate entity. Benuel Kauffman has got unpasteurized apple cider again. As well as orange and white cauliflower, and those elongated red beets about which I always rave. AJ's Pickle Patch featured pickled kielbasa today. Great beer food. It brought back great memories: a mere four decades ago I regularly consumed the vinegared sausage at an off-campus Irish bar ("Terry's") with draught PBR.

There's definitely not just one NY dog, as everyone has pointed out. But in my youth, because we always took the train from Jersey into Penn Station, the hot dog I remember most was the Nedick's served there on a New England style bun, and with bowls of mustard-relish on the counter (along with the obligatory orange drink). A web search tells me there is (or was) a reconstituted Nedick's on the LIRR side of the station. Anyone tried it? Menu says they serve all different styles of hot dogs, even Wisconsin brats! But it's the Nedick's dog I remember, which, if I recall the taste correctly, was probably a pork/beef dog. I don't recall, either, whether Nedick's was a NY-based chain or from New England (the latter given its bun style). Perhaps the quintessential way to define a NYC hot dog is one served at a transit hub, like the Penn Station Nedick's. Another transit hub where I enjoyed many a dried out grilled hot dog was on the Grand Central end of the shuttle, as you exited the shuttle and headed to the connecting lines. Don't know whether it's still there, since I frequented it in the mid and late 1970s when I worked at GCT for the railroad telling the NY radio stations how late the Harlem, Hudson & NH pm rush trains were running. Anyone else have any transit hub hot dog favs?

Popeyes way ahead of KFC. Not even close. I also enjoy Church's, but find it's more variable by location. .

Yesterday was my clam extravaganza, and pictured above is my winner: J.T. Farnham of Essex. But it won only by a few crumbs. I also sampled Essex Seafood. I would have tried the Clam Box in Ipswich, but since the 50-foot line moved only two feet in 15 minutes, I gave up. It was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon, so I'll have to come back on a weekday for lunch in order to make a true, all-encompassing test. I skipped the clams at Woodman's of Essex, but the clam chowder was very good. A revisit to this home of the fried clam is in order. A few words about the chowders I sampled this past week in both Maine and Massachusetts. They know how to make it here. What they don't do is concoct a corn-starch glop (they save that for the gravy in shepherd's pie) and pass it off as "New England" style chowder. Instead it's just cream and/or milk (there's nothing wrong with a milk-based chowder), potatoes, just a little onion and varying amounts of salt pork or bacon. The bacony-est chowder I sampled was a fish chowder at Sweeney's in Marblehead; it was delicious, unlike the aforementioned shepherd's pie SWMBO ordered. (BTW, I found an alcoholic beverage that's a great accompaniment to these chowders: Jim Beam, up.)

Well, we left MDI this morning and are now in Marblehead MA for a few days visiting a friend before returning to Philly. Too bad we couldn't meet at Thursday's, Shmily. (Maybe we did: I was there Monday, about 3-4 p.m., indulging in steamers and lobster.) Our eating was relatively low key, since we were staying in a place with full kitchen, so we ate a lot of salads -- from materials purchased at the Sunday farmers' market in Bar Harbor, including a wonderful homemade dry cured salami from Smith's Log Smokehouse. I bought a stick of beef salami, cured Italian style; they also offer pork soppresetta, among other dried meat products. XYZ was as good as ever, and I indulged in my regular entree: lengua, as tender as could be, flavorful. For a starter I selected the chile verde. She Who Must Be Obeyed enjoyed, as always, the queso fundido and the chicken mole, with its interesting bitter/spicy sauce. I also had a chance to say hello to Bob, the chef, who recommended two establishments I was unable to try. One is the Claremont, a Southwest Harbor hotel which, in the past, offered routine, unexciting seaside hotel fare. Bob says that under a new chef they are much improved. He also recommended Red Bird Provisions (which was having a Spanish theme wine tasting dinner one night while I was on the island). Maybe next time. We went to Rupununi's twice, since it was convenient and, based on past experience, reliably good. It still is. The Spiny Creek Oysters were exceptional: small but freshly briny, and professionally shucked so that much of the liquor remained in the halfshell. Alas, served with horseradish and cocktail sauce, and although mignonnette sauce was unavailable, these oysters needed nothing, not even a squirt of lemon. The only problem I observed at the restaurant was with the service on our second visit; perhaps it's because the main season is over and all the kids that had worked through the summer and finally got the hang of it by mid-August are now back in school, and the replacement staff hasn't got it yet. Speaking of service, at times I felt I was visiting a resort in the Balkans rather than State of Maine USA. At many establishments (including Jordan Pond House and Beal's) the serving staff was frequently composed of young people from Serbia, Croatia, Romania and/or Bulgaria. Apparently it's been very difficult getting summer help (Bob of XYZ says he pays $14/hour for dishwashers and can't keep them); some employment agency struck gold in placing English-speaking students from the Balkans (all of those serving me spoke excellent colloquial U.S. English) in summer jobs in Maine. When I mentioned to Bob of XYZ that I enjoyed steamer clams at least as much as lobster, he suggested Beal's rather than Thurston's. So I did, and he was right. Although the clams were a tiny bit grittier at Beal's, they were larger and slightly better tasting; besides, the grit easily came off with a swish in the broth. The lobsters were similar at both establishments. Still, I tend to prefer Thurstons for the reason I've given before: the view. All the shoreside lobster pounds I've visited in Hancock and Washington counties do an excellent job with lobsters. What makes the difference is the setting, and here Thurston's is the clear winner. We also picked up sandwiches at Eat-A-Pita in SWH before heading to Seawall's picnic tables. My turkey BLTA (BLT with smashed avocado [not guacamole 'cause of the lack of seasonings] hit the spot. Eat-A-Pita also serves a nice breakfast, including the obligatory blueberry pancakes (nice and eggy, better than Jordan's and without the latter's long lines). While this year's all-too-short one-week visit was hardly food-centric (I spent most of my time looking at the time attacking or retreating at Wonderland), it did have its highlights. Can't wait 'til next time! Tomorrow: Clams in Ipswich. Expect photos and a report.

Both hard shell i.e Quahogs and soft shell i.e steamers are native to New England waters and why anyone would call one 'true', I have no idea? I picked up the facetious "true" modifier from one of my seafood bibles -- I'll try to check and post the reference, though it might have been Mitchum. ← The reference to "true" clam indeed derives from Howard Mitcham's The Provincetown Seafood Cookbook (Reading MA: 1975), though his phrasing is different: As for which clam makes the best chowder, Mitcham plays no favorites: I certainly wouldn't argue with Mitcham, whose back cover photo shows him in a menacing pose holding a rather large chef's knife. No wonder Bourdain got the hell out of his kitchen.

You're right, of course: both of these bivalves are clams. And I concur that the steamer is best steamed (I skip the butter, broth is plenty for me) or fried. And the larger hard clams are best used in chowdah. I picked up the facetious "true" modifier from one of my seafood bibles -- I'll try to check and post the reference, though it might have been Mitchum.

Fair Food Farmstand says they'll have paw paws this week. If they do, figure Earl Livengood will have them, too.

Apparently one farm (I think it was Wenk's) had their truck break down on the NJ Turnpike. Since they take four tables, when they didn't show it left a large opening on the east side of the arcade. One or two others didn't make it, either.

The best clam chowder I ever had was on Mount Desert Island, Maine, cooked by the gentleman from whom I was renting a cottage. But he didn't use quahogs at all -- instead he used the true New England clam, the soft or steamer clam. Not as easy to work with, but it makes a wonderful chowder. And it was cooked in milk, not thickened cream or cornstarch-thickened milk, with just enough potatoes, onions, carrots and celery to round out the flavors and provide contrast.

Rose Tattoo. Goji on Hamilton betw. 20th & 21st (can't vouch; haven't been there). Public House on Logan Square (again, I haven't been there). For bar food, there's a neighborhood tappy, the Cherry Street Tavern at Cherry & N. 22nd.

I've been cooking up peppers and onions (with some sliced garlic thrown in) like mad the last week or so. Just love the combination, especially with red meat (so far I've served them with those Delmonico steaks, burgers and bratwursts) though it works well with heartier fishes as well as on its own. Today I picked up some sweet red frying peppers from Benuel, but last week I used very flavorful Cubanelles from the Fair Food Farmstand.

Fava beans come in number of varieties, including this purple-blotched bean which was being sold this morning next to its legume cousin, the lima, at Livengood Produce. Earl said he was given the seeds by a customer who told him he was a fava bean, but he wasn't sure what it was since it had the same shape and similar taste, eaten raw, to a lima. (I Googled fava images, and found some that looked like Earl's, so that's what it appears to be.) I never much cared for limas as a kid, since they always came out of a can, but the fresh version sauteed in butter or good olive oil, seasoned as you like, makes a nice change in vegetables. Harry Ochs was featuring dry aged Delmonico steaks (rib eye) for $10.99/pound today. That's about what I paid last week for the same cut (wet aged) at Giunta's Prime Shop. Giunta's were excellent, and I would expect Ochs' to be their equal, at the very least. Mammoth cauliflower heads competed for space with the corn at Kauffman's Lancaster County Produce. The Frankenstein-sized veggies were priced at $4.95 apiece. Benuel still doesn't have unpasteurized apple cider. (Benuel will be closed next Saturday because of a family wedding.) Apple varieties are still fairly limited, but we should start to see a diversity of America's favorite pome fruit soon. Iovine Brothers Produce offered local apples from its contract grower, Shady Brook, for 99-cents; the variety was not noted, but they might have been Honey Crisps from the shape and color. (I'll be traveling to Maine and New England until the end of the month, but I've already contacted a Massachusetts orchard which says my favorite dessert apple, the Cox Orange Pippin, should be ready when I'm in the neighborhood. Few orchards grow this variety in the U.S., because it isn't a particularly prolific cultivar, but it's a favorite in the UK, which gets much of its COPs from South Africa.) Smallish Hass avocados on sale at Iovine's today for 99-cents apiece, just in time for football season guacamole dips. Local Shady Brook corn at Iovine was 25-cents an ear, vs. four for a buck at OK Lee. Lee's had a better bargain in lemons, with bagged fruit (seven to a bag) selling for $1; both produce vendors were selling loose lemons at 3/$1. Sam Consylman, who sells foraged finds as well as fruit and veggies from his garden at Livengood's, is still waiting for pawpaws to drop from trees along the riverbank, but if you have a hankering for this most American of fruits you could meander down to southeast Ohio next weekend for the ninth annual Ohio Pawpaw festival. It's at Lake Snowden, just a few miles outside of Athens. The pawpaw eating contest will be held just before dinnertime Saturday.

Some newer items found in the UK foods section of the SuperFresh on Columbus Avenue:

When you visit Earl Livengood's this week -- either Thursday afternoon at the Fairmount market or Saturday at the RTM -- be on the lookout for some of Sam Consylman's gorgeous apples. Their exact provenance is unknown, thoughy they are clearly related to the Delicious variety. But otherwise they hardly resemble the mealy, sticky-icky Washington State product. The exterior of the apples are bumpy and occasionally scabby, but the flesh is, as Tracy said of Hepburn, "cherce". They were $2.50/pound at today's South Street Market. Also, Sam will be checking the paw paw trees by the river this week to see how close the fruit is to dropping. They should show up over the next two weeks. Makes great ice cream.