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sashorter

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Posts posted by sashorter

  1. I'm guessing, but I've never spatchcocked anything larger than a 4-pound chicken.  Plus I wrecked my cleaver trying to get the brains of a pig skull once.

    Amateur - I've spatchcocked a turkey before. Not sure pig anatomy lends itself to the process, nor do I think we'll need it, but we have a cleaver if desired.

  2. My vote is for Hot Sour Salty Sweet: A Culinary Journey Through Southeast Asia.  I pick it up and look through it all the time and one day hope to be able to cook from it, but I am not there yet.

    I would recommend buying it just to look at it, though.

    We have it and it is lovely, but there is no room for it in our kitchen when it's open, and we already have several asian cookbooks in regular use.

    Since we moved to a much smaller house last year I have actually started giving cookbooks away. Shocking I know.

    Edit to say that was actually hjshorter speaking, not sashorter. Stupid laptop didn't log me in. :angry:

  3. Just wanted to share a product I recently picked up at the soopermarket. It had a very convincing shade of green within the jar, and an honest to goodness picture of an avacado under the words "Guacamole Dip" on the label. It was only after attempting to eat some that I examined the label, and saw:

    Ingredients:Skim milk, corn oil, modified food starch, tomato paste, salt, less than 2% of: high fructose corn syrup, dehydrated onion, cellulose gum, gelatin, guar gum, artificial flavor, dried red bell pepper, sodium benzoate (preservative), natural flavor, yellow 5, blue 1, cream cheese [pazteurized, cultured milk and cream, stabilizers (xanthan and/or carob bean and/or guar gums)], glocono delta lactone, cellulose gel, vinegar, lactic acid, sodium phosphate, citric acid, hydrolyzed soy protein, color, garlic powder, malt extract, maltodextrin, mono and diglycerides, avocado powder, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, monosodium glutamate, sugar, soy sauce solids, fermented wheat, tamarind, lime juice, caramel color.

    WHEW.

    Now I have a number of questions.

    1. WTF is glocono delta lactone?!!!?!

    2. COLOR? I ATE COLOR??? :shock:

    3. Why did they bother to put in 0.01% of sugar when they already have 1.95% high fructose corn syrup?

    4. Once they list "artificial flavor" and then "natural flavor", couldn't they just skip the rest of the ingredients?

    Anyway, googling on Herr's Guacamole Dip results in a number of amusing hits, including Little avocado in some guacomole dips: consumer group and Food Packaging Often More Hype Than Truth, Consumer Groups Charge.

    Thought y'all might enjoy.

  4. Scott Shorter did the 2:30 to 5:00 shift.  Scott Shorter gets rib.

    Scott is so dreamy. :wub::biggrin:

    He's cutting up the other half of the collard greens right now. Dean bought eight bunches. That's a giant honking load of greens. Bring on the fatback!

    Edit: That was actually Heather posting. Oops. :blush:

  5. Scott Shorter did the 2:30 to 5:00 shift. Scott Shorter gets rib.

    Thanks, Dean. It was darn good. :cool:

    Just think, I could have been at my Diplomacy tournament right now... :unsure:

    Sorry to Tommy, Jason and Rachel, and everyone else who wanted to make it - maybe we can dispatch some leftovers with homebound pig pickers for you.

    As for the promised wireless network and webcam, I had difficulties setting up the network when we arrived Thursday night... I've gotten some advice on how to proceed and will try again this morning.

    Cheers,

    Scott

  6. All and sundry,

    I'll be bringing equipment to set up a temporary Pig Pickin' wireless network, so if you were waffling over whether to bring your wi-fi laptop, wonder no more. We should be able to upload pictures of the pig straight from the pit. :raz:

    Cheers,

    Scott

  7. Varmint,

    Heather suggested I volunteer for the 'pit crew', or whatever you're calling the team to man the pig. Well sign me up.

    I also thought I would offer to lead the cleanup brigade, unless that position is taken already. We will bring some contractor bags, and I will recruit assistants at the event.

  8. New Orleans is the absolute leader of the pack in the Dive Bar category.

    When I heard Tony refer 24-hour laundromats on the New Orleans episode of a Cooks Tour, I said to Heather "Hmm, sounds like he's talking about Checkpoint Charlies". Sure enough, that was the place - my dive bar of choice for a few years in the early 90s.

    It had it all. Bar and grill, two pool tables, laundry, video games, free red beans and rice with $1 beer on Mondays, live music every night, never a cover charge. If they would have let me sleep on top of the dryers (and if I hadn't needed income) I would never have had to leave.

  9. I would highly recommend Fringale - it isn't really in any neighborhood you'd be going to, but it's not at all far from downtown, and there are cabs aplenty.

    It's very very good French Basque food. I've eaten there twice, and been blown away each time.

    One appetizer that I loved was the Sautéed Prosciutto and Sheep's Milk Cheese Terrine. Salty, fatty, and delicious.

    For entrees I've had the veal osso bucco with caramelized parsnips and the duck confit.

  10. Are there any other types of po'boys, or are oyster po'boys the most common version?

    Soba

    Fried shrimp, catfish, other fish, crawfish tails... all of those are favorites here in Houston and New Orleans.

    Growing up in New Orleans, I had plenty of non-seafood poboys (we often didn't bother to punctuate the word). An Italian poboy, for example, is pretty much an Italian sub, except on poboy bread... which we called - Italian bread.

  11. I don't think FedEx charges by distance within the continental US. Priority overnight with a lot of ice packs is just expensive.

    Fedex ships everything through Memphis (they may use one other airport too).

    I did notice on the FedEx tracking website that my steaks are coming from New York to Maryland by way of Memphis.

    I also noticed that the origin was Rochester, NY. Is this an additional location? I thought it was a NYC butcher... :huh:

  12. Do the boys at Mario's still wear those aprons witht he front pockets where they keep the toppings?

    I didn't notice that, but try as I might, the place was too crowded for me to see all the workings. I didn't manage to watch Joe put the toppings on.

    As I recall, the sausage pizza was one big patty in the middle of a square slice.  Is it still the same?

    Didn't get sausage, I'll have to go back to find out.

    One other thing I forgot to mention was the tee shirts they sold. One was fairly standard, but the other was amusing. It pictured a large pepperoni pizza with a brunette in a bikini doing some sort of stretching exercises on top of it. The caption read, "Mario's Pizza, Where I Got My First Piece." :laugh: Maybe I'll pick one up...

    --

    Scott

  13. Oh boy oh boy oh boy. Why isn't there a drooling emoticon?

    Mario's Subs and Pizza is really good. The crust is crusty and brown, the sauce is delicious and in a good amount, the toppings (pepperoni and mushrooms in this case) are on top of the cheese, and they are fixed in place. The cheese and toppings do not move around on the crust.

    There was a Ms. Pac Man game in use, and a crowd of contractors with hardhats in hand when I arrived. Joe took my order - many of the customers greeted him by name, and he knew several of their names.

    As mentioned before, the slices are square, even if you order a small pizza (which I did - it's six slices). This enables them to precook the crust on large baking sheets in the oven. The process is elaborate - they precook the crust, add sauce, cook some more, then use a large fork to score the surface (I think that's why the cheese fuses to the crust so well), and then cut into 4x4" squares and add toppings, cooking some more after that. Joe threw a few shakes of parmesan cheese over the slices once they were in the box and handed it over.

    This is some of the best pizza I've ever had. I'm going to stop writing and eat now.

    --

    Scott

  14. Without question, the best pizza in the region is to be found at Mario's, on Wilson Boulevard in Arlington (basically Balston). The pizza is made in large pans and then cut into squares. You can get each piece with it own toppings.

    I first started going there in 1970, and it has hardly changed at all since then. Although we live in Annapolis, we religiously take out from Marios nearly every Friday, bringing the pizza back home to reheat on a pizza stone. Go before 6 pm any day and get to know Joe, who has worked at Marios since it opened in 1957. After six, Ranvir is the pizza king. He will take care of you. If you try it, especially there where you will have to eat standing up or outside at one of the picnic tables, you will never give it up.

    Well I'm working quite near Ballston today, and I left my lunch at home, so I think I will go try it out. I'll report more later (too bad I didn't bring my digital camera :huh: )

    -

    Scott

  15. Of course the escape valve from this conversation is the fact that all words (and "barbecue" more than most, it appears) have multiple senses. It means a pig smoked over wood, and it means a social gathering around a Weber, and it means chicken parts with spicy tomato sauce on them, et cetera.

    It can even mean contradictory things in different contexts.

    --

    Scott

  16. Widespread incorrect usage doesn't make that usage correct; it makes it something that should be corrected.

    Now we're veering from food to linguistics/lexicology. I've checked with my mom, a leading computational linguist, and your statement is a matter of some debate among linguists and lexicologists.

    The original meaning of barbecue (from dict.org), i.e. the Guiana Indian meaning, is "a frame on which all kinds of flesh and fish are roasted or smoke-dried". They would argue that your definition is incorrect, since it refers to the food and not the tool.

    My mom said:

    This is a longstanding argument.  If we use "their" to refer to "singular" does that mean that "their" will become a correct usage even though it's plural. Language is flexible.  The French Academy would say "Non" but we have no overriding authority so the correct usage is what is accepted as correct. When the New York Times starts using "it's" as a possessive, then you know that the distinction between "it's" and "its" is failing and will eventually disappear.  I would say [Fat Guy] is probably fighting a losing battle.  People refer to barbecue when they mean anything grilled, which is not in my opinion correct, but understandable. It's a useful distinction for people who know the difference, but not for people who don't.  Like the difference between sauting and frying.  But I agree with him/her that food writers should use the correct terminology!  Because they are creating the standard as they write.

    Sorry to get so pedantic... :wink:

    -

    Scott

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