rlibkind

The Philadelphia Parking Authority Garage behind Market East, while not a bargain, is fairly priced. Up to 90 minutes for $9, two hours for $10.50, 12 hours for $13, with a flat evening rate of $6. Entrance I use is on 10th between Arch and Filbert, immediately before you get to Market East. When street parking is unavailable, I turn to the PPA garage -- unless the restaurant I'm going to has a discount deal with one of the private garages (like the one at 11th & Race).

That would be Earl Livengood.

This week I made sherbert from pie cherries: pint of pitted cherries, about 3/4 cup sugar (taste and add/subtract as needed) pureed in blender with a bare squeeze of lemon juice. Mixed with 3/4 cup light cream (leftover scalded with sugar and a little vanilla from an ice cream recipe earlier in the week which was too much for my ice cream maker) just before putting into the machine. Great right out of the machine; and still smooth two-days later out of the freezer.

They are a lot softer than sweet cherries and susceptible to oozing juice, but only when mishandled. A little wetness is okay; a lot is not. They definitely shouldn't be "swimming".

For the first Saturday of the summer at the Reading Terminal Market the word is: Cherries! Pie cherries in abundance joined sweet dark Bings, Queen Anne's, and a new one to me, Emperor Francis (available at Benuel Kaufman's stand). The Emeror is a red sweet cherry, and is supposed to be good for making marischino type cherries and for canning, as well as eating out of hand. Prices ranged from $3.50-$3.95 a pint to $6.29-$6.95 a quart. I took pie cherries I purchased Thursday at the Fairmount market from an Amish vendor and turned it into sherbet in my ice cream maker. Incredible! As much as I enjoy sweet cherries (and I do, I do), pie cherries are the essence of cherry flavor. Tonight they'll go into a cobbler. Local blueberries are making an apperance, too. Benuel Kaufman was selling them Saturday for $2.50 a half-pint, $3.95 a full pint. Over at Iovine's New Jersey blues were going for $1.99/pint. Raspberries, black and red, also available, going for $3-$3.95 a half-pint (two for $5 at Kaufman's). Fair Food was selling conventional raspberries for $3 a half-pint, organics for $5. Strawberries remained available at roughly the same price as cherries. Earl Livengood said that since the season is pretty much over in Lancaster County he's getting his from north of Harrisburg. The first local peach of the season was spied at Fair Food Project: $2.25/pound for yellows. Also making it's season debut: local corn. Earl Livengood was selling it at 3/$1.85 or 65-cents apiece. I'll wait until mid to late July to start buying these items. Over at Iovine's, black truffles available for $149.99/pound. Limes still 10 for a buck (lemons 3/$1). Pepper survey: red and greens 99-cents, oranges and yellows $2.99. A pricing anomaly at John Yi's on wild salmon: sockeye $13.99, king $12.99 for filets. Usually the kings are more expensive. In this case the quality of the kings looked to this eye slightly better than the sockeye. Lots of frisky softshell crabs available. I'm still waiting for one of the RTM vendors to carry softshell steamer clams; Wegmans does.

When you're back in Philadelphia, Andrew, check out Golden at the RTM. They've been carrying sardines regularly, though they are the herring variety, not pilchard.

During a visit to North Wales four years ago (loved it!) we stayed a couple nights in Beaumaris and ate twice at Ye Olde Bulls Head. It was okay, but nothing I'd make a detour for. My disappointment was mainly the lack of local seafood. I mean, here you are astride productive northern waters, and there seemed to be a paucity of local fish and shellfish. There wasn't even much in the way of lamb on the menu then. A quick glimpse at the website menu suggests there's been some improvement since then in terms of regional foods.

How can he cook over charcoal for 45 min. without drying it? How far from the coals? ← Note that it was cooked over a "slow fire". The 8-10 minute per inch Canadian technique is based on a very hot fire. On the recommendation of Vadouvan over on the Pennsylvania board I recently roasted a half pound of salmon filet in a 225F oven for 20-25 minutes, and it came out succulent and medium rare. A big thick whole fish like the Rofos can easily take 45 minutes over a slow fire, which would be about the same temperature, and turn out toothsome.

In terms of what you can easily get in the city short of taking out a mortgage before buying, the most important thing is to educate yourself about buying fish. Know how to gauge the relative freshness by look and smell (since few fishmongers will let you poke). If it smells like fish, don't buy it. (It should have the clean smell of the sea.) If it's a pre-cut filet and the flesh looks flabby and is starting to separate, don't buy it. Best bet: buy a whole fish and have the fishmonger filet it or dress it to order. As to the individual fishmongers... Ippolito's. I was there for the first time about two or three weeks ago. It's the retail arm of Samuels & Son, a major wholesaler/restaurant supplier in Philadelphia. (Actually, the business started out as Ippolito's and S&S was created from the retail base.) I wasn't all that impressed with the variety, but you can obtain a decent fish there. I picked up a whole flatfish and had it cut to order. The overall quality is on a par with the Reading Terminal Market vendors, but again, that varies by day and species. Still, since most of the RTM vendors are probably buying their fish from the same source, they should be comparable, with the caveat of handling discrepencies which, as others here have astutely noted, are critical when it comes to seafood. At the Reading Terminal Market there are three fresh fish vendors: Golden, John Yi and Wan's. If I want to buy fish, I check out what each has and then decide based on the available varities and quality. Golden is the only one who regularly has dry scallops, and is more likely than the others to have fresh sardines (herring). John Yi will tend to have a larger variety. Wan's is more likely to have skate. I forget the name of the vendor at the Italian Market (maybe it was D'Arigo?), but the same basics apply. I agree with Vadouvan -- B&C grade at best -- though the one time I picked up a Spanish mackeral there it was fine. Except for frozen fish (and some frozen fish is excellent) rather than set your heart on a particular variety, the best bet is to see what's available and select from the best of that.

Again, no argument. Alas, what is available to the professional kitchen is rarely available to the home cook in this country. Again, no argument. On occasion I've seen some fairly good looking European sea bass (a.k.a. loup de mer and bronzino) at Golden Seafood at the RTM, though I don't know whether or not that's a farm-raised variety. That's one of the distinct advantages of aquaculture, though there more than offsetting disadvantages. The answer to all of this is more knowledgeable and demanding consumers. That's why I'm pushing folks to try the local fish like porgies, butterfish, black sea bass, etc., and let their fishmongers know what is and is not up to snuff.

What I'm reading between the lines of your missive (and please, please I hope I'm wrong) is that good food MUST cost money. Well, of course, but not necessarily lots of money. I expect to pay, and pay well, for well-prepared food that costs money to prepare. And there's also no getting around the fact that high quality ingredients generally cost more than low quality ingredients. But there are also high quality ingredients that do not cost a lot of money. Cost alone is not a determinant of quality. And for the home cook, that matters. I'll invest time and money in cooking dinner when I perceive it's worth it. But more often than not, local, fresh and cheap is my choice vs. imported, old and dear. And I base my raw ingredient purchase decisions not on philosophy or polemics, but on what's going to taste best for my buck. Sometimes that means spending lotsa bucks for six-week dry aged prime beef, sometimes it means opening of tin of sardines. Either can be ethereal.

INHD, a high-definition cable channel, inaugurated a series tonight featuring Daniel Boulud, After Hours. In it, he visits a restaurant and helps prepare a meal for some fellow chefs and foodie friends to enjoy as a very late dinner. Tonight's debut was at Brooklyn's Blue Ribbon Sushi. And his guests included Ed Levine and Anthony Bourdain. The dinner table conversation, which took up most of the show, was a stitch, especially when it came to talking about the Firefly Squid with Uni Sauce. Future programs will be based at: WD-50, Maremma, Dinosaur BBQ, Cru, BLT Prime, Aquavit, and, of course, Daniel. New episodes air Wednesday at 10 pm ET, repeated frequently through the following Sunday. This series alone is almost reason alone to buy an HDTV. And you can watch Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares on BBC America before switching over to Boulud.

No argument from me. I've never bought the tuna at the RTM because if I'm going to have tuna, I want it absolutely fresh. Tuna is not one of the fish the RTM does well. But there are others they handle well. Further explication below. Lots to ponder here. You're right, the city could use better fish markets, and a lot of the fish I see at the three RTM stalls doesn't meet my standards. But if you are selective, you can find some fine fish there. They offer plenty of whole fish, so you can better judge the quality. About a month ago I had some Alaskan halibut from John Yi's that was surprisingly fresh. (Of course, it could well have been frozen, though I don't think so; nonetheless, properly frozen and handled frozen fish can frequently be better than fresh.) Nice, very firm halibut steaks, full of meaty halibut flavor. It was handled with care. I also made a trip a couple of weeks ago to Ippolito's, the retail division of Samuels & Sons; I was generally disappointed with the store (no mackeral?) but the whole fluke I purchased was very fresh and sweet; almost as good if I can caught it myself. Your dead-on in saying the reason people get tasteless fish is because they want it that way. Sigh. Yet, at least some people must want fish that has taste. Or maybe it's price. Mackeral, one of the world's tastiest fishes, can be obtained at less than $3/pound from the RTM fishmongers. Only slightly more expensive is porgy. And guess what? Porgy is a sea bream. You know what they call sea bream in France? Dorade! (Admittedly, it's a particular variety, in this case -- dorade in France, gilthead sea bream in the UK -- and its flavor profile is a little different from other bream. But not that different.) Which brings me to your list of wonderful fish at the Rouen market, bigboss. Look over that list of finfish, and I think you'll find that all of them are landed along the northwest coast of France, maybe 50 or 60 miles from Rouen. (I think the shellfish are also local.) So, the fish you cite as so pristine and fresh are LOCAL fish. They are not imported from half a continent away or a distant corner of the world. And that's the secret of good fish: fresh and local. So don't expect to get a fresh John Dory here; that's asking too much. (By the same token, I think it would be unreasonable to expect fresh-caught bluefish in Rouen.) But you can get some perfectly wonderful local porgies and butterfish and sea bass. You still have to check the individual fish and be a wise consumer, but these less expensive varieties are not only economical, they are fresher than more exotic fish and choice eating. Status they may lack; flavor they do not.

All the more reason to inspect a whole fish, then have it cleaned and cut to order. Not quite. The same NY Times article you linked to observed: While "looks" can be useful in gauging food quality, they aren't foolproof. The issue of "looks good" vs. "tastes good" is an interesting one, because "looks" aren't dependable, and can be outright deceiving, as the use of carbon monoxide for tuna could allow. A prime example is the apple. The consumer's desire for big, bright, shiny red apples has brought us (ta-da!) the Washington State Delicious. (If there were such a thing as truth in advertising, it would be the Washington State Tasteless.) But that's what most American consumers demand. If a supermarket tried to sell russets or scabby Cox Orange Pippins, at the end of the week they'd toss them into the dumpster or make applesauce. Same holds true for fish. We want them pristine white and filletted, compact in form and dense (hence the popularity of Patagonian tooth fish, a.k.a. Chilean Sea Bass). We also want what we want when we want it, even if it is out of season. This is what brought us not only Washington State Nitrogen Controlled Atmosphere Storage Apples (and pears, and cherries, etc.), but out-of-season tuna, farmed salmon, etc. That desire for beautiful looking food is why we not only buy our fish filleted, but why you no longer see hanging sides of beef at a butcher or supermarket. Instead, we get our cow and chicken meat on white trays wrapped in plastic. A cow, after all, is one of the Creator's ugliest creations, inferior in looks to even the ground hog (though better tasting -- I ate same chicken-fried ground hog lst night and while it was fine, I prefer a hunk of beef or stewed chicken, but that's another story). I'll say again what I've said before: to the greatest extent possible, stick to the seasons and avoid excessive demands on our rather advanced transport and warehousing systems. Your tastebuds will thank you. (Now, where are my Chilean grapes!)

Dry fried green beans, ground pork and chili peppers

As I heard the story, it was Maine. But no matter, since Maine was once part of Massachusetts. Not quite so. While that's certainly the case for lobsters you buy along the coast in Maine, few supermarkets or fishmongers buy direct from the pounds. Instead, their purchases come from wholesalers who hold many thousands of lobsters. These are large warehouses, not the pounds you describe. Here's how John McPhee described it in the opening paragraph of "Out In The Sort", an article about UPS operations which appeared on the April 18, 2005 New Yorker: i have no objection to this system, though for matters of taste I generally limit my lobster consumption to my visits to Maine and Canada. So, on a personal level I really don't care whether or WF carries lobsters. And they certainly have the right to carry or not carry any product line they desire. But I do object to their making a moral stink about it, for all the reasons previous posters have noted.

It really isn't that difficult. Just avoid foods that are heavy carb based. While most diabetics can incorporate a moderate side dish of carbs into their meal plan, avoid carbs as a main course -- pasta or pizza, for example -- or serve pie, cake or cookies for dessert. It's June: buy lots of great fresh vegetables and fruits. Make salads. mrsadm got it right: meat, poultry and fish. Fire up the grill for both the protein and the veggies. And don't forget the incredible, edible egg: omelets and frittatas incorporating spring's bounty. Fruits have carbs too, of course, but they are considerably less dense than what most Americans consume for dessert and easily accommodated in most diabetic diets. But again, the key is to ask the guests what they'd like and what works for them, including items to have available for snacks.

OK Lee Produce has completed its redesign (photo below) which eliminates the claustrophonic interior and opens it up to the main aisles. Nice new case for the greens, in particular. Among the deals at OK Lee this week: dark, black-purple artichokes, three large ones for a buck. Harry Ochs has added hanger steak ($9.99) and skirt steak ($8.99) to its regular offerings. Like most of Och's beef, both are dry aged two weeks. If you've got some wads in your wallet, however, you'll want to buy your steaks and roasts from the side case opposite Meze. These are dry aged from four to six weeks. The end of strawberry season is upon us, but with one exception the prices are pretty much where they've been all season. The exception: Iovines, whose local farmer's crop is priced at $3.99/quart, vs. up to $6.50-$6.95 at Livengood's, Kaufman and Fair Food Project ($5.99 iirc at L. Halteman's). Iovine's local berries were dead ripe, perfect for turning into homemade ice cream, which I intend to do tomorrow. Of course, if strawberry season is on its last legs, that means raspberries and cherries are here. The dark sweet cheeries were going for about $3.95/pint at the RTM's three farmstands ($7.99/pound for West Coast cherries at Iovines). In addition to the dark sweets, Benuel Kaufman also had yellow/pink Queen Annes. Ripe and ready to eat avocados at Iovines were two for a buck. Limes continue to be a bargain at 10/$1 (lemons still 3/$1). Jersey blueberries are side-by-side with Georgia blues, both selling for $3.99 pint; local blueberries will probably show up in about three weeks. Iovines was also selling barely ripe California strawberries: $1 for a one-pound clamshell. Belll pepper survey: green $.79, red and yellow $2.99, orange $3.99. Our dinner tonight: slow-roasted Alaskan king salmon from John Yi ($12.99/pound), hull peas from Benuel Kaufman, new potatoes from Earl Livengood, lime sorbet (from Iovines limes). Sardines are back at Golden Seafood. Gorgeous specimens at $3.99/pound. I might pick them up next week and grill them.

Rick's Steaks will get competition at the RTM. Spataro's plans to offer cheesesteaks when they make their move.

Since you're staying near the Convention Center, you've properly scoped out the Reading Terminal Market for lunch. But don't forgo a breakfast at the RTM -- either the Pennsylvania Dutch Eating Place (that's it's name; it used to be Stolfus's) and/or the Down Home Diner. And get a side of scrapple with your eggs or pancakes. Or just grab a cuppa at either Old City Coffee or the Tea Leaf and a pastry or croissant from one of the bakeries: Metropolitan and LeBus for artisinal breads and some sweet things (I frequently go for the veggie foccacia for breakfast at Metroplitan), cupcake or brownies or breakfast brioche from the new Flying Monkey Patisserie, or old fashioned stick to your ribs (and fingers) sticky buns from Bieler's, the Pennsylvania Dutch bakery. (Note: Since you'll be here Sunday-Wednesday, you should be aware that the RTM is closed on Sundays, and the Pennsylvania Dutch vendors are there only from Wed.-Sat.) Chinatown has already been mentioned, since the convention center was basically plunked down in the western part of Chinatown. But also consider Chinatown for a dim sum lunch. On Sunday or Tuesday (not Monday) I'd recommend a walk along the Benjamin Frankilin Parkway. Why not Monday? Well, because the two art museums are closed on Monday, the Rodin Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. From your convention center hotel, find your way along Arch or Filbert Street to City Hall and Love Park, which is just NW of City Hall. From Love Park, just continue to walk NW and you're on the Parkway. Stop and enjoy the recently refurbished and replanted park around Swann Fountain at Logan Square (which is actually a traffic circle), visit the Free Public Library (there are often interesting exhibits in the rare book collection). Also suurrounding Logan Square are the Academy of Natural Sciences and the Franklin Institute, which are open on Mondays. The Rodin Museum is just another two blocks up the Parkway, on the north side. Just look for The Thinker outside. You can spend five minutes or 50 inside this small museum, but either way it's a gem. Don't miss Balzac's head. If you're ready for lunch, any number of good eating places are just a short walk away. Most are within one or two blocks of the corner of Fairmount Avenue & 23rd streets, about a three-four block walk north of the Parkway from the Rodin Museum (which is at the Parkway & 22nd). Around the corner from the Rodin Museum on 20st Street is the Whole Foods market, where you can buy a reasonably inexpensive but decent lunch in a supermarket setting. For finer, but certainly reasonbly priced lunch, there's London Grill at Fairmount & 23d, Jack's Firehouse on Fairmount just east of 22nd, Rembrandt's at 24rd & Aspen (just one block north of Fairmount), Illuminare on Fairmount between 23rd and 24th, Bishops Collar at Fairmount & 24th. This conglomeration of restaurants is only about two blocks away from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. If you're continuing on along the parkway to the Philadelphia Museum of Art (and I hope you do), you could go to the cafeteria or restaurant at the museum, both operated by Restaurant Associates. The cafeteria is reasonable value for reasonable food, but certainly no destination eatery; the restaurant is overpriced for what it is. The museum's art, however, is priceless. The Andrew Wyeth exhibit is featured through mid-July, but be sure to take in some of the permanent collection. If you've entered the museum by climbing up the Rocky steps from the Parkway, exit via the west portico and go down the hill to Fairmount Park's azalea garden and Boathouse Row along the Schuylkill River. A museum ever so slightly off your route but very convenient to the convention center area is the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, at Broad & Cherry Streets. One of the nation's finest museums dedicated to American art, and housed in a landmark Frank Furness building. Like the PMA, it is also closed on Mondays. Some other eating spots within easy walks of the convention center: Happy Hour at various center city establishments. The best deals this summer are on Wednesday nights, but any happy hour offers bargains. Half dozen blue point oysters or live clams on the halfshell for $5 at Sansom Street Oyster House, lots of different cheap options (two-drink minimum) at the respectable chain McCormick & Schmick's are just two examples. Make sure to walk over to Rittenhouse Square. Grab a sandwich or tube steaks from a cart and dine al fresco; great people watching. Matyson BYOB is only a block and a half from Rittenhouse. Around Sansom and 13th are another small conglomeration of restaurants. Two Mexicans are catty-corner: Stephen Starr's El Vez and BYOB Lolita. On the corner is also Capogiroi Gelato. Just up Sansom Street is Ludwig's Garten: decent German fare, better beer list. A couple blocks east on Walnut Street you'll find Caribou Cafe for some French brasserie style vittles. Walk from 13th and Sansom over to Rittenhouse Square and you'll pass many other reasonably priced (cheap to moderate) spots for a meal, including Chris's Jazz Cafe between Broad and 15th, Happy Rooster at 16th; Sansom Street Oyster House between 15th and 16th; Marathon Grill at 16th; La Creperie between 16th and 17th. Enjoy your visit.

I, too, am a big Wegmans fan and have been since 1998, when She Who Must Be Obeyed began a three-year stint running a small company in Ithaca. Upon visits to Ithaca during our weekend marriage I was a regular at both the Ithaca Wegmans and, in season, the Ithaca Farmers Market. Overall, I continued to be bowled over by the depth and quality of their offerings across the board. Wegman will not alter this Fairmount resident's once or twice a week trips to the Reading Terminal Market, but since I head to Cherry Hill Shop Rite at least once or twice a month for supermarket staples, I'll add the Wegmans to my rotation. I got to the Cherry Hill Wegman's today, and here are some thoughts: Market Cafe. If I worked in the area, I'd stop by for lunch at least every week or so. While nothing is exceptional, almost every item is very, very good, even the Asian buffet. I'm not an acolyte, however, of Wegman's pizza or hoagies. Prepared Foods and Bakery. The prepared foods department outshines Whole Foods, imho. I'm not as enamored with the various bread products, although the patisserie is quite nice. Fish & Seafood. What Wegmans offers -- fish for people who don't like fish and a nice selection of shellfish -- is of very good quality. But you won't find fish for a fish lover. No mackeral here, nor porgies nor butterfish. Unless I missed it, I didn't even see that denizen of New Jersey shores, the bluefish. And what fish they have can be terribly expensive: the same halibut Wegmans sells for $22 can be obtained at the Reading Terminal Market for less than half that. Meats & Poultry. Excellent quality and variety. I concur with dagordon's enthusiastic comments on the cryovac lamb; I picked up the boneless loin and intend to make it this weekend. I disagree (mildly), however, on the comparisons to Whole Foods and Harry Ochs. When it's in season, I prefer the Icelandic lamb at Whole Foods to Australian lamb. Harry Ochs does, indeed, carry prime beef that's aged only two weeks; but he also carries prime beef aged for longer than that. It's very expensive, and you've got to ask for it (which, of course, is not the way it should be). Cheese. DiBruno's, Downtown Cheese and Claudio's need not worry, but any other establishment that sells cheese (including Whole Foods) should tremble in their boots. Excellent, wide selection grouped intelligently. They even make fresh mozzarella on premises! That will be a real boon when Jersey tomatoes arrive in a month's time. The cheese section also is an excellent showcase for how Wegmans adds value (and profits). Adorning the cheese counterop were small four-inch square plastic plates upon which were arranged a single serving of good cheese with a preserved fruit accompaniment; the attractive plate was loosely wrapped in plastic, ready-to-go and be served as a cheese course with dinner tonight. Produce. In my view, Wegmans has even greater variety that Iovines, and I find the quality superior to Whole Foods. Wegmans proudly displays the names of local farmers supplying produce as you enter the building; this will be particularly welcome when corn and summer fruits and vegetables start to arrive in force. This puts Wegmans in the same class as Iovines. But what sets Iovines apart is their buying saavy. More than any supermarket I've seen and most other greengrocers, the Iovines know how to be opportunistic, that is, they take advantage of their suppliers' misfortunes to the benefit of the consumer. An example of this would be the five-for-a-buck cucumbers last week. As a general rule (though there are always exceptions) Iovines is superior in price for the same quality. (Note to dagordon: the reason Iovines is hit or miss is because they are much more seasonal; other than non-seasonal items that folks insist on buying, like winer tomatoes, etc., Iovines only goes with what's in season or, if out of season, what is of decent quality and/or exceptionally priced.) Kosher. Wegman's is a distant second to the Cherry Hill Shop Rite's Kosher Corner, and I think this will be one of the things that saves the local Shop Rite. Wegman's, however, excels in the smoked fish department: they will handcut your lox to order, where Shop Rite is strictly pre-packaged. If you don't have easy access to The Famous or another good appy/deli, this is next best. Groceries and staples. When I first started shopping Wegman's in Ithaca, prices for canned and dry goods, frozen, etc., were considerably above other local supermarkets. Wegman's realized this was a problem and adjusted their pricing policies, so today you don't pay (much) of a premium on staples. Plus many of the store-brand items are quite good. Miscellaneous. Where else under the same roof can you buy two world class newspapers: The Times of London and the Star-Ledger of Newark. In the dairy aisle you will find both ultra-pasteurized and plain pasteurized heavy cream; I don't know of any other supermarket (other than Whole Foods) which offers the non-ultra product. If you like Upstate NY style pork hot dogs (I do) you'll find them at Wegman's which, after all, is headquartered in Rochester.

Forget cheesesteaks, they've been done to death; they are certainly not "off the beaten path". Even roast pork sandwiches (the holy trinity: Tommy DiNic's, Tony Luke's and John's) are pretty well known. I think you need to concentrate on awful offal and "variety meats" in Philadelphia: Tripe sandwich at George's in the Italian Market on Ninth Street. Pepperpot soup (if you can find it), which kept the troops alive that winter in Valley Forge. City Tavern has it on the menu, but it's not the real thing: no tripe. Rumor has it The Fountain at the Four Seasons occasionally offers it during cold weather. In lieu of pepperpot soup, there's snapper soup at Sansom Street Oyster House. How about a visit to a scrapple factory in nearby Pennsylvania Dutch country? Who knows, maybe there's one in Intercourse or Blue Ball? Now that would make compelling TV. Perhaps you can find an expert to interview who can elucidate the variations in Pennsylvania Dutch luncheon meats, starting with souse. There's got to be some red gravy restaurant that serves spaghetti with chicken liver. Maybe Villa di Roma? If not, higher-end Italian venues frequently feature buccatini con sardi. A Vietnamese hoagie. No offal except for what's in the paté. A visit to Sonny D'Angelo's meat locker (where else can you find both nutria and camel meat?). Of course, we do not live by offal alone. There's got to be bread, too: Philadelphia's breakfast of champions: Stale pretzel torn up into milk. Or watch them being made at a wholesale bakery, like Federal, and then by hand at Fisher's in the Reading Terminal Market. Another breakfast of champions: Carman's Country Kitchen. Just ask Holly Moore about it (and Carman).

Bumping to find out of anyone has ever found any of the real thing (even though it's more likely to appear in winter than summer).

Me! Me! Me! Though it would be nice to have an occasional break with some pastrami, instead.

Too bad the original UK version of Hell's Kitchen hasn't been shown here. One of the contestants was Edwinna Curry, a former Tory MP to whom the following remark was directed on the floor of the House during debate over a salmonella crisis by Sir Nicholas Fairbairn, a fellow Conservative, when Curry was Health Minister: