rlibkind

No, No, No! Not pretzels and mustard for breakfast. You take yesterday's stale pretzel, break it up into bite-sized pieces into a bowl, then pour some milk over it. To hell with shredded wheat!

Totally off topic, but I just saw Gigi again on the tube, and watching Maurice Chevalier in the opening and closing sequences, well, that's boulevardier for me! But Rittenhouse Square (or the Parkway on a spring Sunday) is the closest we get around here. I think I'll get out my tophat and walking stick and stroll over now. If only someone would open up a cafe on the grounds of the Rodin Museum!

Russ & Daughters is an incredible establishment, and I love it. But it isn't a deli. It's an "appy" as in appetizer store. There are very few of them left. Appys sold dairy products and smoked/cured/pickled fish; delis sell smoked/pickled/cured meats. Their primary overlap was in the salad department.

Actually, it's just as useful when a reviewer's taste is different from one's own, so long as the reviewer is consistent applying those tastes in his or her reviews.

Los Sombreros, 2534 N. Scottsdale Road, 480-994-1799 Open 'til 10 on Sundays. If it's still on the menu, get the lamb shanks.

What, not Genny Cream?

Secrets of a Jewish Baker recipe calls for malt syrup and bread (high gluten) flour. It also has an excellent bialy recipe.

Hey, you live in Akron. You can go for Barberton chicken. Here in Philadelphia and NJ we can't do that (though I'm planning to make a detour on my next Phila-Wisconsin drive).

You can make bagels better than you can get at 99% of the shops selling bagels. Other than a stone, no special equipment needed. Just make sure to use a recipe that calls for boiling the bagels before baking. (There's an excellent recipe, along with for lots of other good bread items, in Secrets of a Jewish Baker.)

To most people, "chocolates" do mean "bon bons". Hey, this was a pre-Valentine's Day report, and 99.998 percent of the American public buying chocolates for giving on that day do not buy Valrhona Guanaja. The "ratings" were meant to help those who wanted some guidance on how to upgrade from Fannie Mae.

Generally I use kosher salt for just about everything. The appeal of occasional use of the specialty salts, at least to me, is the "crunch" factor. Sometimes I like the huge crystals of "coarse" sea salt (the cheapest I can find), other times (particularly for use on buttered bread) I like Maldon flakes.

Sometimes for a brunette I can be very blonde. Of course you can't sell a charitable trust. I am frightened by the number of condos going up in Portland right now. Have you seen the plans for the Westin? Every inch of the block from India to Franklin, Fore to Middle will be 7 story hotel/condos except for the tiny 2 story building that houses Hugo's. ← While the hotel & condo-i-zation of PWM may or may not be a good thing, it should be considered a good thing in terms of making a public market viable. Public markets rely on high neighborhood population densities to survive and thrive; otherwise they become tourists attractions at best. A lot of old office buildings have and are being converted to apartments and condos in Center City Philadelphia, and all the empty-nesters occupying them make a strong customer base for the Reading Terminal Market. Instead of being just a glorified food court for office workers and tourists, the RTM actually has purveyors making money selling produce, fish and meat. Of course, you can get a helluva good roast pork sandwich there, too.

Craig may well lurk here, but tomorrow's article is no proof. He does one like that every year to explain his criteria. Besides, last week's article included a note announcing this week's subject.

Thicker salmon filets today, especially at John Yi's. Someone must have heard my complaint last week (or my timing was just off then). Sardines still available at Golden, and plenty of roe shad available ($3.99 whole at Wan; don't ask them to bone it at that price, besides, boning shad takes a post-graduate education). Organic avocados at Iovine's priced cheaper than conventional? Yup. The organics were packed two-to-a-tray at $1, v.s $1.29 apiece for the conventionals. The organics, btw, were on a rack with other organic products next to Iovine's office. New this week at Iovine's: purple cauliflower from California, priced at $1 for a small head. You'll find them in on the floor opposite the cash registers. On the dollar rack, bunches of asparagus. I passed them by. Although at first glance they looked good, a check of the bottom of the stalks showed dried out gaps. Perhaps if you were just going to use the tips they'd be fine, but they looked a tad long in the tooth. Or I've just been spoiled by in-season local asparagus which, after all, is only about 10 or 12 weeks away! Also on the dollar rack were button domestic white mushrooms for a buck; they weighed out at just under a pound, so they were almost half price. I love the wild and wild-cultivated varieties, too, but we tend to forget that a good old fashion agaricus bisporus is a wonderful thing. And adding them to the more expensive fungi makes the latter go a lot further. But even by themselves, the domestic white (or its slightly pricier sibling, the brown or cremini) makes fine eating. I'll be mixing them with bargain tray-wrapped yellow-footed chanterelles and dried porcini from the cupboard. Three varieities -- count them, three! -- of sweet potatoes at Fair Food: Jewel Yam, Jersey somethingorother, and Beauregards. Betty Kaplan, who coordinated the demonstrations at the RTM's kitchen when it opened and continues in that capacity for Foster's, has taken on an additional task: she'll be at Iovine's most Saturdays dispensing advice and answering questions from shoppers. Now, Betty, what are you going to do about getting paper bags for the mushrooms?

That's no rut! Riesling, IMHO, is the great all purpose food wine and the best NYS rieslings, though not easy to find, are fine wines in their own right. But you already know that!

Yeah. You ask for steak tartare and you get a strip steak with some mayonaisse based sauce with sweet pickles chopped into it.

There is a much bigger risk factor with ground beef because (1) it goes through a grinder with lots of other meat, (2) a lot of the ground meat served in restaurants is ground by the packer, not a the restaurant, by the ton, which creates lots more opportunity for pathogens and their little buddies to spread and multiply , and (3) the very process of grinding the meat exposes a geometrically grater surface area to air and potential contamination. Carpaccio is sliced and prepared to order; because of this much less surface area is exposed to air for a much lesser period of time. That said, I still don't see why I can't get it my way. Require a risk statement, like on a pack of cigarettes, perhaps, but don't limit my choice.

Alas, no establishment will advertise they serve rare burgers, because of city health regulations (Section 3-06.1):

Three bells ain't chopped liver. Craig LaBan defines three bells as "exceptional", reserving four bells for "sets the standard". Obviously, one can have a difference of opinion on such subjective evaluations. But if Lacroix rates only three bells (I think Craig needs to make a return visit), Amada is in good company.

Is there anyplace in town that, city health regulations notwithstanding, will make a burger "Pittsburgh rare", i.e., charred on the outside, but still cool (raw) in the very center? I like to live dangerously.

The freshest sardines I've seen this side of Portugal were on display Friday at Golden Seafood at $2.99 ($3.99 if the fishmonger guts them). At John Yi's white tuna (sometimes called butterfish, though there are at least two other species that also go by that name) was back in stock at $9.99. Not the best time of year to buy salmon. All the fillets, both the formerly frozen wild king and the farmed product from Scotland, Norway and North America, were on the thin side (I prefer a thicker cut), though they were all of acceptable quality. Same with the $14.99 halibut: if a halibut filet is less than an inch and a half thick, I don't want it. Spearling still available at Wan's, which also featured baby octopus. If guacamole is on your menu for Super Bowl Sunday, the price of avocado at Iovine's is holding steady at $1.29 apiece; the samples I saw today needed at least a day of ripening. Small navel oranges (about six ounces each) priced at four for a buck; other navels were 2/$1, but temple oranges (see photo) and some other varieties could be had at the 4/$1 level. The pink grapefruit, at 3/$1 for medium sized fruit, looked like a decent deal if you need your Vitamin C. Persimmons two for a buck. Those strawberries from Plant City, Florida, are back. priced at $1.49 for a one-pound clamshell. No porcini today, but the trumpet royals, hedgehogs and other varieties of fungi delecti were of excellent quality. Limes and meyers lemons still 3/$1. All bell peppers now sell for $1.49, except the oranges ($2.49). Citrus and pineapples Fungi delecti Stopped by Harry Ochs for my chili meat today (chuck roast, ground once) and learned the scrapple of which I sang the praises last week is supplied by Dietz & Watson. Nick also told me that Down Home Diner now uses Hatfield. If you don't want to make your own chili, Ochs will sell you their own prepared version. I'm not a big turnip fan, but Fair Food had some nice looking "pink" turnips. On the large side, though. It's not even Valentine's Day or even Ash Wednesday yet, but Mike Holahan of the Pennsylvania General Store is displaying some Easter chocolates on the counter. He said one woman ran away screaming when she saw them; another complained about Easter candy so early, then bought a half dozen chocolate covered creme eggs. If you're planning on visiting the RTM tomorrow (Feb. 4) be prepared for crowds. The auto show opens at the convention center tomorrow and parking along Arch Street will be curtailed. Get there early. Put it on your calendar: the RTM will hold its annual American Roots Festival Feb. 18, featuring cooking demonstrations, samplings, live bluegrass music and kids activites. As I've averred before, I say it's rutabaga and I say the hell with it. And for Valentine's Day Feb. 14 the market will do its annual thing: music by the Reading Terminals jazz combo to celebrate the marriages of six local couples, all performed in center court by Judge Jeffrey Minehart.

"Presses? Presses? We don't need no stinkin' presses!" Smash 'em with a chef's knife. Presses are more trouble than they're worth.

Not a movie, but I recall an episode of Upstairs Downstairs where the Prince of Wales visited Eaton Place; much of the action centered on Mrs. Bridge's preparations for a rather involved and sumptuous dinner.

That's why they call it "mass media". Started out in the 19th century with the invention of the powered rotary press and "penny papers". Hasn't changed much since then, even if it's distributed via electronics rather than wood pulp.

Funny I could have sworn that I had put that link at the top of the thread right about here ← You did. I missed it.