rlibkind

Livengood's is only at the RTM on Saturdays (though when the growing season is in full swing they may also appear on Fridays). They are located in center court by Tommy DiNic's, as mrbigjas notes. Once the strawberries begin in late May, they'll probably sell at some small farmers' markets in town: Tuesdays from 3 to 7 p.m. at South & Passyunk (between 4th and 5th), and Thursdays from 3 to 7 p.m. at Fairmount & 22nd. Fair Food is open at the RTM Wednesday-Sunday. At both Livengood and Fair Food the grass-fed beef is usually sold frozen, though sometimes you can catch fresh meat at FF if it's just been delivered. Also offering grass-fed, hormone-free beef at the RTM is Giunta's Prime Shop (located across from Iovine Brothers Produce). I very much enjoy Giunta's skirt and hanger steaks, both of which are great on the grill. His meat is sold fresh, not frozen.

Quick report on today's expedition: morels, asparagus, lilacs, all at Earl Livengood's. The asparagus and morels (with a $1 "special" pack of fading but perfectly cookable porcini from Iovine) have gone into frittata for dinner tonight, accompanied by Alsatian riesling, green salad and baguette. The lilacs have alredy lent their heady perfume to the house.

John, you are my Hot Dog Man! Thanks for the checks.

I GRIEVE! But I also rejoice. As restaurants go, Syd's had an incredibly long run (more than 60 yearsunder a number of ownerships and locations). John, will Best continue to make the five-to-a-pound natural casing dogs? I would hope so, since Jimmy Buffs uses them.

It's possible (I know from experience!) to break the glass with a metal spoon.

No fish at the Avenue, just an order of onion rings and protein-topped salads. We weren't expecting anything more than a pedestrian meal, and that's what we got. I did get to the Old Fashioned Saturday night where I consumed a platter of sausages with kraut and gherkins. Admirable. And I'll take issue with you on desserts, at least as far as the apple pie is concerned. Not a traditional double-cruster, but a thoroughly enjoyable crumb topping; what I liked about it was (1) neither the topping nor the filling were over-sugared, in fact, the applies were pleasingly tart, and (2) the apple slices still had a bit of snap to them. Of course, this is all mere personal preference rather than a definitive ruling on apple-pieness. I visited Harvest Friday night and made the market Saturday morning. I'll try to post my impressions (all good) Tuesday.

Therewill be scrapple cheesesteaks, scrapple burgers and -- hold onto your stomachs -- banana scrapple bread pudding -- at Saturday's Scrapplefest at the Reading Terminal Market, 10 a.m. - 2 p.m., according to market GM Paul Steinke. I'm out of town (I'll be circling the Dane County Farmers Market in Madison WI during scrapplefest, so I'll have to settle for brats 'n beer), so please, please, someone taste the banana scrapple bread pudding and report!

New Yorkers and other megapopolitans in the Northeast do see hot smoked salmon. Only difference is they call it kippered salmon. It's not as popular as nova, but it is well-known and enjoyed my many, including me.

Did the Avenue Bar last night. Must say I was underwhelmed. Kinda like a Midwest version of a Jersey diner. Not bad, but decent value. And it fit the bill for a simple, no fuss meal. But not worth a detour. Our real regret, however, was not getting there early enough for the visit by the Budweiser clydesdale. Our waitress showed us Polaroids (remember those?) taken of her with the horse. Tonight: Harvest. We're staying at the Edgewater, which is much improved from when She Who Must Be Obeyed stayed there about five or six years ago. All rooms redone, staff helpful and cheerful. The lakeside bar/snackerie opens this afternoon, and I plan to enjoy a beer and cigar there later this afternoon. Did lunch at the Nitty Gritty today for my wife's old times' sake. Decent enough burger, but the Leinie's version of double bock beer was the real hit. I don't care if it is made by Miller-SAB, it was a very good beer. Edited to add: best part of Avenue Bar was I could get one of my favs, Spotted Cow, on tap.

Thanks all for your suggestions and comments. We're going to give Harvest a whirl Friday evening, though based on the limited survey here there appears to be split opinion. We'll weigh in afterwards (though any restaurant that puts ramps on its menu in early spring certainly gives me a good first impression). For old times sake, She Who Must Be Obeyed wants to lunch at the Nitty Gritty; I'm not optimistic based on the "birthday place" stuff, but, hey, we're talking time machine here. We'll probably fit in a couple of much simpler meals at low-key, non-adventurous venues with wide-ranging menus (SWMBO's tastes and mine can sometimes diverge), perhaps Avenue Bar since SWMBO's old boss, whose opinion we trust, wrote some nice words about it in The Isthmus a few weeks ago. Does anyone think we'll see much beyond prepared foods, maple syrup and cheeses at Saturday's market around the square? Any chance of morels and other fungi delicti or, as I suspect, is it still a wee bit too early?

I'm no expert in the Canton area, but since you will be in that area for 10 days, you should find a little time to experience Barberton Chicken. Most of the joints (and they are joints, not restaurants!) that make it are located about 15-20 miles north of Canton, in the Akron-Barberton area. Rather than try to describe the history and options of this Depression-era dish, I recommend you read the article linked below. Barberton Chicken article

People often use the term "lox" when referring to cold smoked salmon. However, "lox" is not smoked: it's just brined. Cold smoked salmon is either cured or brined, then cold smoked. (To further confuse things, "nova lox" is shorthand for Nova Scotia smoked salmon -- and these days, it's rarely from Nova Scotia, it just describes the smoking style. And to even further confuse things there's gravad lox, the Scandinavian cured salmon, usually with dill as an added flavor, which isn't smoked either.) There's an authoritative list of various brined/smoked salmon products on the Acme Smoked Fish website. When someone describes smoked salmon as flakey, I think of hot smoked salmon. At a Jewish appy store (these days, a deli is easier to find than an appetizer store) it's called kippered salmon. I tend to agree that in pastas the hot smoked salmon would be preferred, but I can see recipes in which bits of smoked salmon are added to a creamy sauce at the end of cooking; it would provide an intense and interesting flavor.

Statistics put out this week by Pennsylvania would seem to indicate we're okay. The blooming is late this year (as noted by cdh), so that means the would-be fruit wasn't harmed. The Ag Agent for Gloucester County NJ (the state's largest peach producing county) says there was very little damage due to the cold. Blooming is later than last year, but it's pretty much on a par with the average of recent years, so unless something else happens it should be a good year for Jersey peaches and other stone fruits. Given the state of the crop down south, the Jersey orchardists should be getting a pretty penny for their output this year.

That's pushing the envelope way beyond reason. In the "old" days you couldn't sue Kodak for screwing up your film developing for anything more than the value of an unexposed role of the film. And for good reason. Anyone could say they captured a million-dollar image. Same thing with contents of a hard-drive. The only way to prove it would be with a backup, and if you have a backup (as you should) what's the point of suing for recovery?

Great deal on mackerel at John Yi's today, $1.99/pound for either Spanish or Boston varieties. And the quality looked very good. Until this week, the Boston mackerel has been on a scrawny side, with Spanish mackerel being more attractive. This week, the Bostons were nicer sized (not huge, just not tiny like they have been) and both fish were pleasingly plump and healthy-looking. Also at Yi's, soft shell crabs came down in a price to a more normal two for $10. Over at Iovine Brothers, Vinnie was passing out samples of some honeydew melon, $1.99 each. Unexpectedly tasty for an out-of-season (here) melon. Vinnie said he got to the Food Center and saw some ugly melons and figured they had to taste good. They did. Also at Iovine's this week, red peppers either 99 cents or $2.99, depending on size, yellows at 99 cents, greens at $1.49, orange peppers at $4.99. Bags of last of the season clementines (taste more like tangerines) $4.99; I bought a bag, and unpeeled three once I got one -- two were perfectly fine, one was a tad dessicated. Still, a reasonably good deal. The price of ramps went up to $3.99 a bunch this week. But avocadoes fell to a buck apiece. Next Saturday, April 21, is Scrapplefest at the RTM. Alas, I'll be foraging at the Dane County Farmers Market around Capitol Square in Madison, WI, seeking morels and cheese, so I won''t be able to pay homage to one of my favorite pig products. Someone post and let me know who wins the sculpture contest! Here's this week's abbreviated shopping list: Iovine Brothers ($8.42) Clementines Red bell pepper Prepared fruit salad Harry Ochs ($4.42) Turkey bacon Fair Food ($11.29) Angusburger Hatville Deli ($0.75) Eggs (half-dozen) Hershel's Deli ($4.60) Lox

That appears to be the case. I was at the market this morning and Martin's had a sign reading "Bone-in leg of lamb, $4.99". Like you said, since you were in a hurry to get out of the loading zone parking area, mis-reads like that can happen. While we need to hold the merchants to account when they intentionally mislead customers, it's important to set the record straight, as you did. As info, even at $6.99 that's a relative bargain for boneless leg. At Harry Ochs today, he was getting $9.99 for bone-in and $7.99 for boneless leg. I'm not a regular at Martins, but I do occasionally buy their sausages, which can be excellent, and their lamb, which I find to be decent and competitively priced. Among red meats, lamb is the least industrial and, especially at most supermarkets, usually of better relative quality than the beef.

That's true today, Sandy. But until about five years ago Wegmans was very pricey on its regular groceries. They saw that some budget-conscious folks were shopping at Topps and other competitors in Wegman's home territory of upstate NY for their staples, and just occasionally visiting Wegmans for prepared foods or specialty items, and responded with the current pricing scenario.

Most folks who are paying for a wedding wouldn't know how big a cake to order. And they always want to figure their costs on a per head basis. So it only makes sense to price the cake that way.

That's disappointing all the conflicting info regarding the birds. I've only bought poultry there a couple of times: a whole Eberly capon and some boneless, skinless breasts. The capon was superb, the boneless breasts good (I have difficulty pronouncing even the best boneless, skinless breasts anything more than good: I'm a dark meat kind of guy, but the other eaters here are not.) I've alwaysa found capon difficult to find year-round. L. Halteman's, for example, carries them in the fall through the holidays, then they disappear. I think that's the case at Godshall's, too. I have been very happy with the beef and lamb at Giunta's. The hanger and skirt steaks have been incredibly beefy tasting and, as one would expect, tender. The lamb shanks I cooked a couple of months ago were nice, too. I was exceedingly pleased with a special order I placed two weeks ago. I'm a fatty lamb lover, so I asked Charles to save me the fatty portion he trims off lamb rib chops when he's frenching the chops. (Usually he grinds it up into the lamb patties along with other lamb trimmings.) Well, he didn't quite give me what I asked for: instead he gave me that portion plus a bit of the breast, all on the bone, all in a single piece. (I was expecting boneless and was going to skewer them as kabobs.) I brought the meat home and cut it between every other bone, creating pieces roughtly 2x3. After marinating in a yogurt-cumin-pepper-cayenne-paprika melange I grilled them on my Weber. Incredible! The lamb was a little bit meatier than I was expecting, and the meat-to-bone ratio was high; all this for what worked out to about $1.80/pound.

Enlightening stuff, Russ. I was a little surprised to read that CSA's don't have much of a toehold in Southern California. There's an interesting approach being used by Iovine Brothers Produce at Philadelphia's Reading Terminal Market. (Keep in mind the RTM is a public market, not a farmers' market.) Most of what the Iovines sell come from traditional wholesale sources. But they also contract with a local farmer to grow specific produce. This helps the farmer share the risk and investment, and gain a reliable marketing outlet. For Iovines it provides an attractive product and increases its sourcing options. For the consumer, Iovines prices the produce very competitively, almost always less expensive than what you'd find in a supermarket and of superior quality, too. It's not organic, but it's good, locally-raised produce, starting with strawberries in the late spring and working its way through all the summer vegetables (see photo below for corn from the contract farm, Shadybrook in nearby Bucks County). Another approach at the Reading Terminal Market is akin to the one Judith relates from Italy. In this instance, it's the non-profit White Dog Cafe Foundation (the charitable offshoot of a local restaurant) which has established the Fair Food Farmstand. The FFF sells dairy, meat and produce from a wide range of different area producers. Most is organic, though not all. They tend to be pricey, but there is an interesting range of products. They provide an additional outlet for the farmer, without having to staff a distant farmstand. Towers of Shadybrook corn at Iovine Produce, Reading Terminal Market

If your hankering to eat large quantities of pretty good Jewish deli, there's Harold's at Raritan Center.

A much better explanation is within the article but here goes: As Eataly succeeds, it will need more and more product. In their attempt to provide that product, the small farmers will get bigger and/or not put as much TLC into their product. If a farmer invests to get bigger, he risks losing the business if a cheaper competitor arrives. The counter-argument: if small producers "don't seize the chance to grow, when can they?". As I said, an interesting and thought-provoking read.

Forgot to add: Earl's got dandelion, too. Expensive at $3.49 for one-third of a pound, but that buys a lot of dandelion and it's very well washed.

If ever there were signs of spring at the Reading Terminal Market, two of them reappeared Saturday: Earl Livengood's farmstand and ramps at Iovine Brothers. Earl's offerings are necessarily limited. Overwintered spinach (not the greenhouse variety) may have the occasional white spot on the leaves, but Earl's crinkly spinach is the real thing. (Benuel Kaufman also has fresh local spinach, and it certainly looks more picture perfect: that's because it's greenhouse spinach.) Earl also is selling a variety of root vegetables. I picked up some German butterball potatoes and parsnips; they were great pureed together for dinner tonight. Over at Iovine Brothers big bunches of ramps (photo above) were selling for $2.95, enough to serve four. I chopped and sauteed them in just a tiny bit of chicken fat (I didn't have bacon fat, which would have been preferred) then served them atop sauteed scallops (about $13/pound for the dry scallops at John Yi, iirc). Dutch Country Meats is "closed for renovations". It's been sold to a new owner and should open in a few weeks. I hope they keep selling the German style wursts and loafs which they added to their lineup after Siegfried's closed. Another sign of the change of seasons was the reappearance of soft shell crabs at John Yi's. Always pricey, they were particularly dear at $6 apiece today. Jim Iovine says he expects to have fiddleheads in about 10 days. He's working with his contract farmer to add new crops this year and expand production. If the weather doesn't deteriorate he expects fine crops of strawberries and raspberries, along with all the other staples. This week he was selling Florida strawberries for $1.49 for a one-pound clamshell (O.K. Lee had them for 99 cents). Key limes were $1.99 for a one-pound bag, kumquats $2.99 for a small box. Another sign of spring: morels, $74.99/pound (porcinis were $49.99). String beans 99 cents, avocados $1.99 each ($1.29 at O.K. Lee). Limes were 3 for a buck, vs. 4 at the competition. Opposite the seating area behind the garden where they serve beer the RTM has updated its display of photos and artifacts (photo above). The added archival photos include a poster depicting individual merchants circa 1984. Check out the mustache on Charles Giunta! This week's shopping list: IOVINE BROTHERS ($7.95) Scallions Carrots Crimini mushrooms Grapes, green seedless Onion Ramps Celery JOHN YI ($6.75) Dry scallops 12th STREET CANTINA ($1.50) Flour tortillas EARL LIVENGOOD ($6.30) Pussywillow branches German butterball potatoes Parsnips GIUNTA'S PRIME SHOP ($13.91) Hanger steak HERSHEL'S DELI ($4.15) Lox

The May 2007 issue of The Atlantic has an interesting article about Eataly in Turn, Italy. It's essentially a Slow Foods supermarket. Indeed, the Slow Foods movement is a consultant to the market's operator. On-line reading is only available to subscribers, but it's worth picking up a hard copy or visiting the library to read. But here's a very brief quote from the article to whet your appetite: