rlibkind

You are so devious! Love it!

Scott, I think you mis-read my "smash" statement. I was referring to the end-product of drinking organic or inorganic vodka, not the manufacturing process.

Nathan, I'm not one to defend organic for organic's sake. In purchasing food, I'm looking for flavor and value, not how it's grown and produced, except to the extent that that influences flavor and value. You hit the nail on the head in the statement that "some people will buy anything if they can feel good about it." Yes, but I think that's true of everything we buy; if we don't feel good about it, why are we buying it? Do you purposely buy anything that makes you feel bad? The issue of organic, however, goes beyond the "putative benefits" in consuming the item. It has as much to do with land conservation, economics, etc., as it does with taste and health (perhaps even more). I think the case for organics is overblown and the very idea is being corrupted by agri-business, but that doesn't mean it's a joke. All of this said, while I won't call organic vodka a joke, I do think it's rather silly. The concept of getting organically smashed, rather than inorganically smashed, could be amusing.

Andrew, I hope you plan to extend your experiment to include cocktail franks.

I've got two -- different sizes -- and use them regularly (though I use the bigger one more often than the smaller one).

Sounds like shakshuka, an Israeli staple. Lots of different recipes, but the eggs and tomatoes are its essence; adding the peppers is common but not required.

Which paper? Star-Ledger? The Record? Edited to say: Never mind. Found it, AP story in last Sunday's Asbury Park Press. As for Burning Tree, I haven't been there in years because I didn't think it was anything special; good, but not anything better than that. Others have a higher opinion of it than me. I think I was at Cleonice a few years ago when it first opened, but I don't remember it well enough to comment. Hmmm.

something mit spaetzel?

Could it have been chicken pot pie? The way the Amish make it, it's essentially a thick soup with big flat squarish egg noodles on top, no crust as you'd traditionally think of it.

I am envious of your two-week sojourn on MDI, since it doesn't look like I'll be getting there this year (I'll have to settle for Dorr County, WI, fish boil; not nearly as good as steamers and lobstah's at Thurston's). As for the hot dog place, as of last year it moved to SWH village, just a few doors down from the hardware store on Clark Point Road, occupying the space that used to be the Deacon Seat across the parking lot from the post office. And, if XYZ has blueberry sorbet, get it!

Please, everyone, keep in mind that this program is not about finding the best person to run a restaurant. It's about making compelling television, i.e., a show people will watch. As an entertainment, it works very well. As a test of executive chef skills and talents, it has the tiniest possible dash of versamilitude to make it appear plausible.

The fact that Lolita charged more than normal for what is touted as a bargain promotion is penny-wise, pound-foolish. The food may have been decent, but it obviously left HD73 with a bad taste in his mouth. I don't expect to get caviar for free during promotions like this, but I do expect to avoid feeling ripped off. The restaurant should make a profit on the promotion, it needn't be a loss-leader (especially at a BYO where there's no opportunity to make it up on booze). But the diner should not leave feeling as if the restaurant fleeced him or her.

Wish I could give you advice, but I didn't buy or try them. That said, I did a quick Google search and came up with this, translated by Google from the Spanish on a Puerto Rican website, so it appears you're on the right track if you switch from vodka to rum:

More redesign of vendor stalls at the Reading Terminal this past week. Fair Food Project largely completed their re-do. Now customers can pretty much walk through the stand with the register in the middle. Even self-serve out of the meat freezer. And lots more bin space for produce, though one has to wonder how it will look in the dead of winter when local produce is virtually non-existent except for some hothouse items. The Mirai corn was 50 cents an ear (or three for $1,25, iirc), which compares favorably with the other farm stands. Iovine Brothers was selling their farmer's corn at three for a buck. Fair Food also featured lemon cukes at 75-cents each. Over at OK Lee, the cactus pears are of much better quality than just a week ago, and still priced at 79 cents apiece. Here's what they look like, before and after skinning: Cactus pears (a.k.a. prickly pears) come in a variety of colors. You want to select firm, but not hard, fruits with minimal scarring. These babies peeled easily with a sharp paring knife and were sweet all the way through. Some pulp clung to the skin, so I scraped it into my food mill along with the main body of the pulp. After going through the food mill, I took unpassed seeds and their clingy pulp and pressed them in a strainer to get every last bit of delectible edible fruit. To dense juice of the five cactus pears I added the juice of two large limes and the equivalent of 1-1/2 cups sugar, in the form of sugar syrup. It will be transformed into either sorbet and/or margaritas. Back at Iovine Brothers, green and black figs were available at $4.99 a half pint. Both lemons and limes were selling for 25 cents apiece when I visited on Thursday morning Earlygold has joined MacIntosh over at Halteman's as the first apple of the season. Benuel Kaufman had some blemish-free pears for $1.49/pound.

I concur about putting the flake into a sauce. But I thought you were sprinkling it atop the citrus peels over ice cream; seems to me a little flake would be a nice tactile and flavor accent. Certainly the taste of Maldon Salt is different from table salt or kosher salt -- it is simply saltier than most other salts and reasonably free of off tastes. But where, pray tell, do you find the "fine". I've never see it in the UK or here. Maldon Crystal Salt is the only processor of Maldon salt, and under the "Maldon" brand they only market the flake. Of course they do have another brand, Tidmans, presumably made in Maldon from the same seawater at the same plant. They market Tidmans as a fine grain salt as well as in rock salt and a bath salt formulations. Is this the "fine" salt? Also, seems to me the Maldon flake easily crumbles into fine between the fingers anyway.

By "fine" do you mean "excellent" or do you mean the granularity of the crystal? In my experience what makes Maldon salt special is the size and shape of the flake, which is anything but "fine" in the granular sense. PS: This thread is incredible!

Syd's is a reasonably quick on-and-off, though if you're starting out from NYC/JC it may be too close for lunch. About 45-60 minutes west of the tunnel you can stop at the Bridgewater Wegmans if you want their buffet, though I'm sure there are better suggestions than this.

That's the closest thing I've ever seen to a schnitzel sandwich. Add some brown mushroom gravy and you've got jagerschnitzel!

I've always thought of the nebulous North Jersey-South Jersey dividing line as between those neighborhoods whyere you could get a hoagie, and those where you could get a sub; alternatively, those neighborhoods where a cheesesteak is easier to come by than an Italian hot dog are in South Jersey, while the reverse would be a North Jersey neighborhood. Alas, the nationalization of regional foods is making this demarcation less reliable.

Ted Drewes, because of their volume, is the exception tht proves the rule. Most custard outlets in the Midwest just offer two or three standard flavors plus one "special of the day". Even Kopps in Milwaukee, which probably has at least as much volume as Ted Drewes, only offers a couple of flavors daily plus one daily special. no way could Z's do what Drewes does.

A couple ziggarats of corn (pictured above) flanked the new cross-over aisle at Iovine Brothers this morning. Jimmy Iovine said one of his managers, Charlie, thought it up and executed the design. It can withstand pulling single ears out of the base: just don't grab a dozen from there. New fruit to me: Quenepa, also known as Spanish lime, mamoncilla, genip, chenet, limoncilla and a number of other monikers. At first I thought they were uncured olives, but they are a tart-sweet fruit. The pulp surrounds a single large seed, so you just pop a fruit into your month and suck off the pulp, discarding the seed when you're done. Iovine was selling them for $2.99 a pint. Lemons back down to 25-cents apiece at Iovine. They also had Chilean clementines: a five-pound box for $4.99. If you like tomatillos in your salsa, both Fair Food and Iovine had them. I spoke too soon about the disappearance of apricots: Fair Food had them today, though no one else had local 'cots. It may be late in the season, but Earl Livengood featured some sweet Bing cherries from a orchardist a bit north of him; pretty tasty, $3 a pint. Tomorrow is Earl Livengood's annual farm tour and corn roast plus pot-luck evening meal. He supplies the corn, you supply a pot-luck dish, preferably from something you purchased from him. It runs from 2:30 p.m. to sundown at the Livengood Family Farm, 1648 Morningside Dr., Lancaster. phone 717 464-2698 for details and/or directions.

Individual merchants at the Reading Terminal Market continue to improve their stalls. This week John Yi installed spiffy new cases: Note that the new cases "cut the corner", creating premium display space at a busy intersection while at the same time adding pedestrian floor space. As for what's in those cases, decent-looking sockeye $9.99, king salmon $13.99. Among the farm-raised salmonids, Canadian filets $4.99, Norweigian $7.99. Dry scallops featured once again at $11.99 (vs. $12.99 at Golden). Over at Iovine Brothers a slight redesign in the aisles: The new passage to an interior aisle is oppposite the office area. Necessitated moving the mushrooms and a few other items. Featured items on the outside aisle across from the former A.A. Halteman (soon to be Charles Giunta) meat stall: Jersey peaches, 79 cents, and large Mexican mangoes, $1.49 for two; excellent looking large Haitian mangoes were a buck apiece. It might be time to make some more chutney to go with that grilled pork. Also at Iovine: black figs $4.99 for half a pint (about 10-11 smallish figs); lemons dear again at two for a buck (three for that price at OK Lee). Limes 20-cents each vs. 25 at OKL, which also had Jersey peaches and nectarines at 79-cents. Hard to believe, but it's apple season: witness this photo today at L. Halteman: I generally don't go for McIntosh apples, except early in the season when they are still crisp (and very tart). I picked up two, and the one I bit into this evening was exactly as I had anticipated. I hope it's a good omen for the fall. My trip to the market today was specifically dediated to obtaining Mirai corn at Fair Food Farmstand. I scored ears from Pete's Produce Farm just as Emily opened the bag fresh from the farm (picked today) for display. Immediately upon bringing it home we cooked it and served it with Brandywine tomatoes picked up Tuesday from Rineer's at South Street. Yum! This corn is both sweet and tender. But before getting that corn home I made a short stop at the Fairmount & 22nd Market, picking up blackberries from Carol Margerum ($3/pint); Earl Livengood was selling them, too, but I didn't want to the pay the premium for his $4.50/pint boxes. The berries have been put through the food mill and combined with sugar syrup and lemon; tomorrow they become sorbet.

I agree that the kitchen in Foster's is pretty much useless. The older kitchen was at least visible from the sides and not completely enclosed. And now the owner of Foster's tends to have a tizzy if you venture in and out of that passageway where the sliding doors are to get into the store if the kitchen's in use. After being chastised by him on one occasion, we don't venture in the store anymore. ← That would be Bill, the manager. Ken, the owner, is usually there only on Thursdays. The concern of those side entries is reasonable: shoplifting. It's hard to monitor the comings-and-goings back there, and Foster's does have a number of smaller, easily shopliftable items that are worth a few bucks.

Lots of great tomatoes Tuesday at South Street market stand. Pictured, right-to-left, at Rineer's stall: Brandywines, Cherokee Purples and, mixed together, Mr. Stripey and Old German. Blackberries (the fruit, not the e-mail device) have started to show up at stands other than Livengood's. Fair Food had some last Saturday at the Reading Terminal. MIssing from all the farm stands, however, were apricots. The season for this subtle stone fruits was more normal in length, unlike last year when they seemed to last from late spring through late summer. Over at Iovine's lemons improved in price (slightly) to a quarter apiece. The Best Chef of Southeastern Pennsylvania competition at the RTM Saturday accentuated a market boondoggle: the kitchen located in Foster's. That kitchen was originally built, under the auspices of a prior market manager, as a "public" kitchen where demonstrations and cooking classes could be held in front of a large seating area. The demonstrations and classes were reasonably successful and became a focus of the market's public programs. At the time, Fosters was located in the corner where Blue Mountain Vineyards now sells its wares. But owner Ken Foster was looking for a better location and cut a deal with current market manager Paul Steinke. The deal made eminent bottom line sense to both Paul and Ken in the short run, but it was penny-wise and pound-foolish. The result was, for all practical purposes, loss of the kitchen. Foster's makes some limited use of the kitchen but it is hardly the focus of activity it was meant to be. Which brings me back to Saturday's Best Chefs' competition. Instead of using the kitchen in Fosters the competition was forced to set up a separate, temporary kitchen in the seating area across from Golden Seafood and Fisher's Pretzels. Because the permanent kitchen is now part of Foster's, using it for such a Saturday event cuts down on selling space on the busiest day of the week. The market needs to reverse course: either build a new kitchen in a public space and give Foster's more selling space, or move Fosters and open up the current kitchen.

Chicken fat is pretty flavorful, too; but I wouldn't hazard to offer an opinion as to which would taste better, not having made sausage. As for health, the nutritional components aren't terribly different, according to the USDA Nutrient Data Laboratory web site. Per 100 grams, chicken fat has some water (0.2g) vs. none for lard. Zinc is present in lard (0.6 mg vs. 0 for chicken), vitamin E more prevalent in schmaltz (2.7 mg vs. 0.6). The fatty acid distribution is a tad different: saturated 29.8g for chicken, 39.2 for lard; monounsatured 44.7g for chicken vs. 45.1g for pork; polyunsaturated 20.9g for chicken, 11.2g for pork. Cholesterol: 85 mg for chicken 95 mg for lard. As for the relative health, it all depends on what theories you subscribe to. The only significant difference I see in these numbers is that 100 grams of schmaltz has 10 fewer grams of saturated fat, but I have no idea how significant that is in the big scheme of things. And since I doubt you'll consume three ounces of fat (100 grams is just a little under three ounces) per serving, the difference per portion is even less significant. Go with your tastebuds, not any health concerns.