rlibkind

Lester Halteman Dies Funeral services were held today for Lester Halteman, 76, who operated the eponymous butcher shop and deli in the Reading Terminal Market until he sold the business and retired about a decade ago. He died July 6 at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. L. Halteman Country Foods started out as a poultry purveyor, but expanded over the years to include fresh meats, deli meats and cheeses. Amos Riehl continues the business today. Lester and his wife Millie were featured in "Reading Terminal Market: A Family History", a video recounting the history of the market through interviews with long-time merchants. They were among the honored attendees when the Reading Terminal Market Merchants Association premiered the video at a gala party in the market in 2009. In the video the Haltemans "told vivid stories from their long tenure. In fact some of the best moments in the film were theirs," wrote RTM General Manager in an email announcing Lester's death. In recent years a number of the market's long-time merchants have died. Most recently, Domenic Spataro, whose son continues the family sandwich business, died in January at age 96. Butcher Harry Ochs died at age 80 in December 2009, just a few months after the video's premiere party.

This isn't fancy, but for a homey taste of NorwAy you might want to try Restaurant Schrøder in the St. Haugshagen district. It's one of the few remaining "brown" cafes. The Norwegian equivalent of New Jersey diner food, except better. A more upscale and lively version of the Brown cafe would be Lorry, not far from the royal palace.

My contribution to our urban block party: gazpacho. All local veggies...tomatoes are a couple weeks early and good, even the bell peppers have appeared.

John Yi Fish Market has got live and cooked lobsters, but no lobster tank, at least not yet. Golden Seafood has a new tank, but it isn't filled. Both intend to rectify their respective situations soon. Live lobsters are once again regularly available at the Reading Terminal Market, something that hasn't happened since Coastal Cave closed with its owner's retirement April 1. At $11.99 a pound, John Yi's lobsters are a trifle dear, but that's pretty much the standard once you get away from the Maine and Nova Scotia coasts. In Portland, Maine, last week, 1-1/8 pounders were selling for $3.99 at wharfside fish markets, 1-1/2 pounders $4.99, some of the lowest prices in years for softshell (newly molted) lobsters, which are more common that hardshells during the summer months. (And no, you can't eat the shell of softshells as you can softshell crabs.) Pot Pie Savings Chicken and turkey pot pies are more of an autumn or winter thing for me, but if you enjoy them in the summer. you can safe $1.75 on a small pie if you head over to Martin's Quality Meats in the Reading Terminal Market. Where Fair Food sells the small pies for $12.50, Martin's asks $10.75, iirc.

Dave Garretson of Beechwood Orchards, selling yesterday at Headhouse Square Farmers' Market, says don't count on seeing any local cherries next weekend. In past years he's brought in some from New York State, which run a few weeks later than ours, but he's goint to skip extending the season that way. Yesterday he was the only vendor I spied with cherries -- none were visible at Three Springs Fruit Farm, the other usual stall carrying them and where I picked up a quart of Montmorencey pie cherries last week. Garretson had both sweet and sour cherries today. The red and rose sweets were selling for $4/pint or $7.50/quart. I took advantage of the sour cherry season while I could, since they tend to be here for only a few weeks: three quarts of sorbet, a couple cobblers, and a tart. Time to move on to blueberries and blackberries. (The raspberries look good, but too pricey for anything but a garnish or mixed with yogurt when they're $4.50 for a half pint.) The last few weeks fruit vendors have been featuring a number of different gooseberries and their close relations. Last week Beechwood had Jostaberries, a triple cross of North American coastal black gooseberries, European gooseberry, and black currant. Best in cooked applications or jams and preserves. Other varieties of stone fruit are supplanting cherries now: peaches, plums and apricots. The peaches I picked up Saturday at Fair Food (from Beechwood) had good flavor, though just a tad watery. I expect they'll intensify with the weather we've had lately. Although they don't usually show up for another week or so, since every other crop is advanced this season, why should apples be different? Beechwood had Lodis (best for sauce and cooking rather than eating out-of-hand) for $2/pound today. North Star Orchards, which specializes in apples and pears, usually doesn't start selling at Headhouse until August. Maybe if their crops are as early as everything else seems to be this season, we'll see them back in a few weeks.

Summer vegetables are hitting their peak at local farmers' markets. Yesterday at Headhouse Square was no exception. Corn is coming into its own, though prices can vary widely. (Over at the Reading Terminal Market Ben Kauffman was selling his Lancaster County ears for 75 cents apiece, but Iovine's has Bucks County corn for less than half that price: three ears for a buck.) Tomatoes are also starting to taste real. Blooming Glen, one of the Headhouse vegetable stalwarts, had field tomatoes for $3/pound, and a few heirloom varieties for $4. Those cheap frying peppers I found at Iovine Brother's Produce over the last few weeks have gone up in price to $1.49/pound; they were 99 cents. But we're starting to see bell peppers at the farmers' markets: Tom Culton had green peppers yesterday, and Weaver's Way purples. I've making my third batch of kosher pickles of the season right now, using Mark Bittman's recipe which is nothing but cucumbers, salt, garlic and coriander seeds (you could use fresh or dried dill if you prefer). I wasn't going to make the third batch, but Tom Culton's gherkins just looked too good to pass up. Although at $5 for a box with a net weight of one pound, six ounces they were priced considerably more than full sized kirby cukes, I think they'll make great crisp pickles. Culton, who is into all things French these days (just take a look at his new sign, here) calls them cornichons. Among the other interesting veggies Culton had this week were chickpeas in the shell ($7 a box) and good looking red and golden beets, sans leaves. Here are some pix from yesterday's Headhouse Square visit: Summer squashes and eggplant at A.T. Buzby, Headhouse Beets from Culton Organics Plums and apricots frrom Beechwood Orchards Gherkins from Culton

Reading Terminal Market will let us have the new multipurpose room from Saturday afternoon into the evening after market closes for $100-$200, basically their additional costs for security, maintenance. This does not include the new adjacent kitchen, which is owned/managed by one of the vendors; I hope to firm up costs with her by next weekend and will report back.

I've been visiting Mount Desert Is. for 40 years, and it seems like there are fewer and fewer places to buy fresh finfish. Anyone have good sources in Ellsworth, MDI?

Chix or hard shell?

Beet rosti...basically a beet pancake.

Anyone who loves to eat and cook fish (at least if they live on the East Coast from North Carolina north) should obtain Alan Davidson's North Atlantic Seafood. Plenty of recipes from many different cultures, but even better are his descriptions, discussion and histories of the fish in the pond.

Btw, correcting my typo: it's Gaffel Kölsch. And the head remained through most of my slow consumption. GFW: gee, the water from my tap doesn't form a head...it just boils away!

I'm drinking, on my front stoop, a bottle of Gagfel Kölsch . No glass, just from the bottle. And it has a perfect head! Never noticed that before with any beer still in the bottle. Anyone else ever see this? Or have I just been oblivious until now?

In Norway it 's a big deal. Big communal bonfire, adult beverages, polse (hot docs), and rømmergrøt, a sour cream porridge with lots of sugar and cinnamon, a traditional dish for any holiday. And, iirc, it's always celebrated June 23, notwithstanding whenever the actual solstice falls.

Steve Poses, Rick Nichols, Jose Garces The man who launched the Philadelphia Restaurant renaissance, Steve Poses, was unexpectedly greeted by the man who today represents Philadelphia restaurants to the world, Jose Garces. They met late this afternoon prior to Poses' presentation as part of the Reading Terminal Market's renovation celebration. That celebration centered around the dedication of the Rick Nichols Room, the new multi-purpose room serving as the keystone of the market's Avenue D renovation program. It was Nichols, retired food columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer, who arranged for Garces to make a surprise visit to La Cucina, the kitchen and cooking school located adjacent to the new room. Poses was genuinely surprised by Garces' appearance, who he had never met before. While Garces may be the face of Philadelphia food these days thanks to his role as one of the Food Networks' Iron Chefs, it was Poses, more than any other single individual (George Perrier included), who is associated with the city's restaurant renaissance in the 1970s through his first restaurant, Frog, and later The Commissary. Poses today concentrates on catering, including the recent Franklin Institute fund-raisers for the Obama reelection campaign. For his 5 p.m. program today Poses demonstarted an item which made an early appearance on Frog's menu: Siamese Chicken Curry with Broccoli and Peanuts. Poses said it was added after he tasted a similar dish at staff meals prepared the Thai cooks who populated Frog's kitchen; his twist was to use the Thai curry paste to flavor a defiantly un-Thai bechamel sauce. The more than two dozen foodies in the audience had a chance to sample the dish, as well as a watermelon-feta salad he prepared. The recipe is included in The Frog Commissary Cookbook, which remains a steady seller among cookbooks in the Philadelphia market.

A lunch place I know that specializes in Italian style pulled pork and roast pork frugally utilizes the fat trimmings as 25% of its meatball mix, 75% being exceedingly lean cuts of cheap beef they grind together with the trim. Season it properly and serve with a homey marinara in an Italian roll and you've got a wonderful sandwich.

This is hardly cutting edge cooking, but if you'd like old fashioned Norwegian foods, try one of the few remaining "brown" cafes. Schroeder would be the classic, unreconstructed version. It's In The St. Hanshaugen neighborhood, a short bus or tram ride from Central Oslo. A more upscale version of the brown cafe would be Lorry on Parkveien, neat the royal palace grounds. The brown cafes get their name from the stains on the walls left by the now banned cigarette smoking..

Aliza Green has an entire series of pocket-sized "Field Guides" to food, including one devoted to produce. A-to-Z format covering identification, selection, storage, best prep methods and flavor affinities. It's concise but jam-packed with precisely the info you're looking for. Not a recipe book or cookbook, but a great quick reference guide. I think here publisher should put out iPhone and Android app versions.

I usually get double-cut loin chops so they're at least 1.5-inches thick, whether U cook them in broiler or grill. Haven't tried it in my well-seasoned cast iron, but no reason why that wouldn't work.

Strawberries-by-the-pint were plentiful and reasonably priced at today's Headhouse Square farmers market, ranging about $3.50-$3.75. A.T. Buzby and Beechwood Orchards offered the best deal, however, with quarts selling for $6.50. Zucchinis made their first appearance of the season at both Culton Organics and Buzby. Tom Culton sold out early, but at 1 p.m. Buzby still had some at $1.50/pound. Culton had tons of long, beautiful asparagus ($7.50/pound, iirc), lots of radishes (as did just about every other vegetable farmer), some broccoli, tiny beets with pristine greens ($3/bunch: buy them for the greens, not the beets), and snow peas at $5/quart. The star of Culton's offerings, as far as I was concerned, were the tiny shelled peas, $5 for a half pint. I tasted a few raw and they were as sweet as could be. Lettuces and other salad greens filled farmers' tables, too. I picked up some head lettuce at Blooming Glen and perfect looking endive at Weaver's Way. Traffic at the market seemed quite variable. More than one vendor told me that they'd go from being slammed with long lines at one moment, to no one five minutes later, only to be slammed in another five minutes. The two orchardists at the market, Dave Garretson of Beechwood, and Ben Wenk of Three Springs Fruit Farm, said sweet cheeries are only about two weeks away, with sour pie cherries a week or so behind that

Along with the rhubarb, asparagus and strawberries Kauffman's Lancaster County Produce at the Reading Terminal Market unveiled the season's first English peas, sugar snap peas, and cucumbers. Prices were dear on the peas: $7.99/pound on both the English peas in the pod and the sugar snaps. Ben Kauffman also had shelled English peas, which if I recall correctly were priced at $7.99 for what looked like a half-pint container. Ben says he does the shelling by hand, not machine. Also showing up this week at Kauffman's: beets, scallions, and radishes. I would expect farmers' markets this week to also start displaying local peas. Over at Iovine's the local strawberries were there, but hard to find. More prominently displayed were clamshell packs of California "stemberries" -- huge berries still showing stem -- at quite reasonable prices. If you want a strawberry as a centerpiece, this is for you, but even though the flavor is decent, they still can't compare with the locals. The best bargain in local berries I've seen so far is at L. Halteman, which had pints for $3.29 and quarts for $5.79.

No need to marinate. Treat like you would a good steak. But where I sometimes like a steak rare, loin lamb chops are best medium rare. In any event: Grill, grill, grill. I'd keep the seasoning simple, though rosemary and/or garlic, as well as s&p are always appropriate with lamb.

Believe it or not Cooks Illustrated has a meatloaf recipe using all beef and unflavored gelatin to substitute for the collagen you'd get from veal, I've tried it and it works. No reason this couldn't be adapted to meatballs with success.

Elvers price tops $2000/pound in Maine.nearly double last Year's price. Only a few seasons ago it was less than $100. Article from Bangor Daily News: http://bangordailynews.com/2012/05/09/business/passamaquoddy-tribe-issues-225-elver-licenses-as-prices-top-2000-per-pound/

Bell's Oarsman. At 4% the ultimate session beer.