mrbigjas

thanks holly. it's also cash only.

following up to myself, does anyone have any comments about this recipe from about.com? http://homecooking.about.com/library/archive/blfruit37.htm

yesterday at the produce market, they had a nice big bag of green olives for $1. so i bought it, figuring hell, i could cure them somehow, and maybe even make good ones like i remember from spain. but then i started looking at the recipes, i'm wondering if i'm up for it, or if i should just toss them. for instance here: http://www.catechnologies.com/LaConda/recipes.html i see a spanish-style recipe, but since i have no experience with doing this, i have no idea which part of the process makes which component of the flavor. i've read other recipes that just use a brine to pull out the bitterness, others that just use salt, and others that go as far as to just use water. has anyone else done this? i'm also worried that when i read a recipe that says 'spanish style' olives that's just going to mean the regular crappy ones you get in the supermarket as 'spanish style.' so i don't even know which recipe to trust. (also i should mention that i don't know what variety they are. they're about an inch long and bright green) so anyway, i thought it might be fun to do, but now i'm wondering if i should bother. and so i turn to you, egullet, for advice. what should i do?

i just ate one and man is that good. i can't believe i never had them before. percy, i don't know what variety they are, but they don't look like any of the pictures you posted there. they're small, about three inches long, slightly kidney-shaped but in general mostly oblong. green, tending towards black as they ripen. they don't have any scales or any of that patterning like a cherimoya does. btw, you can often get cherimoyas at iovine bros. produce in the terminal.

i bought a few of these today--how do you know when they're ripe?

ok, i haven't been able to read much over the last week and a half, so i haven't had a chance to respond. my probe isn't out of whack; i tested it recently in boiling water. in fact it's kinda weird that you mention that because i did it for no reason one day. i suspect you're right, klink, about pulling it out earlier. edited to say: i mean, of course i need to pull it out earlier--that's what 'less done' means. i mean, conceptually, about adjusting my doneness temps down for smaller pieces of meat.

thanks, mike. i'll look into it. generally speaking i buy wines that are ready to drink when i buy them, but i like to keep some age-able things around.

well, we did go over last night. several of the dishes were recognizable from little fish, and it turned out we knew the waitress. i started with an excellent chicken liver toscana, which is a huge serving of a spicy, tangy chicken liver pate/mousse on toast (i took the remainder home for mixing with eggs tomorrrow), served with pickled fennel and a salad. the mrs had seared scallops in a gazpacho sauce, by which apparently they meant gazpacho. the scallops were seared but otherwise barely cooked, so be warned. they weren't mushy, but were pretty rare. we continued with an excellent fish stew of walu and monkfish, made with ouzo, topped with basil and served with croutons and rouille. sort of a bouillabaise, sort of not but very tasty. the mrs had a whole grilled dorade, which was good. we didn't have dessert, because we were stuffed by this time. the decor is cute, the room is loud. i'm happy to see curtains by the front door, for when winter weather comes. one odd note: the bathroom has a sign on it that says 'handicapped accessible bathroom' and it has the bars and sink knobs and things in it--but it's up a step from the dining room. i don't really see how that's handicapped-accessible, but then again i'm not handicapped. but it may make a difference to some of you. overall, very nice little place. i hope it thrives.

you know if we go, i'll report back. i was just hoping that someone had heard something...

awesome. it's the time of year for it, isn't it? i mean, usually people slaughter pigs in the fall, right?

it's open, and it's right around the way from my place. anyone been? we haven't been out to eat much in a couple months for various reasons, and are thinking of heading over tomorrow night.

they booed santa claus 35 years ago; we've moved on. i just don't know anything about hershey, is all. except that the super duper looper was the first rollercoaster i was ever on. if you want to know about most any restaurant in philadelphia west of broad street i've probably been there, though.

i would but i feel like we should do it in the country. here's a recipe from chickenhead.com, which is a hilarious website that really has nothing to do with scrapple: http://www.chickenhead.com/scrapple/recipe.html (don't read the last sentence) here's a recipe for nut scrapple, which is wrong on so many levels that i can't even begin to describe it: http://www.freerecipe.org/Breakfast/nut-sc...recipe-bscr.htm wow there are a lot of recipes out there. this one: http://www.velvitoil.com/Scrapple.htm looks like the real deal to me.

you mean to make scrapple, rather than just preparing it after it's made? i've read a few recipes; it doesn't seem all that hard, although considering the fact that you're starting with a split pig's head, you're going to end up with a lot when you're done. the only other tricky part appears to be dealing with continuing the stirring after you've dumped a couple of pounds of cornmeal into the pot, and it starts to thicken... (i'm talking theoretically here, from reading recipes and testimonials about making it. i haven't done it. although if you wanna have a scrapple-makin fest, i'm in.)

could be. i don't know that i've had many 100% grenache wines, although i like many of the wines i've had that have grenache as one of the grapes in the blend. i'll have to look into it some more.

i've said it before many times and i'll say it again: cuvée de peña. at the pennsylvania state stores the price has gone up from $5.99 a bottle to $7.99 a bottle, but it's still worth it, to me. is it complex? no. will it confound you? no. will you be clamoring for descriptors? absolutely not. it's just plain consistently tasty and goes with everything. yeah i said everything.

interesting to know. thanks robert.

my basement is ok. but the dryer and the hot water heater and the dehumidifier are all down there creating heat. as are the cat boxes, a sump pump, and a crawl space under the kitchen, creating smells. in other words, the temp is usually ok but not always (it's cool in winter because it's underground, and cool in summer because the a/c is based down there, but it can heat up occasionally when the dryer runs). and there are stinky fumes from the cat boxes. really one fifty-bottle wine fridge would be perfect, would fit upstairs, and they aren't that expensive. i might have to look into that. otoh i recently opened a 1995 sterling diamond mountain ranch cab that i bought in 1999 and which had been sitting down there ever since, and it was freaking great. so maybe i shouldn't worry about it so much. that was a real nice wine, made for aging, unlike what i hear about so many california cabs these days. it could have sat around longer. wish i had a few more bottles of it. but whatever.

thanks for all the recommendations, folks. sorry i can't get to egullet more easily at work (if i want to read, i have to use a text browser through an ssh connection, and believe me, this site isn't so pleasant to read in text only), or i would have responded more throughout the day. so anyway, first of all: i'm glad for all the positive responses so far. SCRAPPLE CLUB WILL BE BORN SOON ENOUGH. JUST YOU WAIT. here are some answers: herb: oddly enough a place that had scrapple that i always liked was little pete's. it wasn't the greatest, but they had the cooking right. crusty and cool on the outside, creamy and 8 million degrees on the inside. rlibkind: i may have to give in and go to the down home diner and check it out. also next time i get up to the chestnut hill farmer's market i'll check out godshall's. vw8v, thanks for the tip on the landjaegers. i love them things. cdh: you summed up in a single sentence the problems with finding the right scrapple. and i really thought that haltmann's or dutch country meats would make a good version, and neither of them really do. like you, i don't believe in turkey scrapple. like lowfat cheese, i don't see the point. holly: i'm greatly enjoying the concept of going to the four seasons and having scrapple. it's the principle of the thing that intrigues me. i'm wondering if they have it at lacroix; i've heard great things about their brunch. susan: i'll check them out. hillvalley: who is your local poultry guy, and where is he getting the pig heads for scrapple? and can i get some of it?

you know, it makes sense about ten stone's fries being good (they also have excellent burgers), considering that the place is run by the roosevelt's folks. and they, after all, were the inventors of the recession special back in 1991 or so, which provided me with some of the best food of my college tenure. (i didn't eat very well in college, but that aside, good bar food is good bar food) rich, you're right about chickie's and pete's, too. i'm just consistently surprised that so many places make bad fries. i really am.

aw, my favorite iron chef! i'm sorry i missed it.

thanks for the recommendation, mike. i got a couple bottles of 'the fifteen' when it was the chairman's selection but i wasn't a huge fan of it. if course i can't keep a thought in my head for more than about 15 minutes, so i don't remember what it was that i didn't like about it. and to answer your other question, yes, us folks on the PA board do get together from time to time. check out the pizza club thread. you have a point there. i gotta figure out a way for better storage in my house. will do. thanks to both of you.

Cooking it is the easy part--get a nonstick pan, put it on medium heat, put in some butter/oil, and cook a slab till it's crusty and brown and insanely hot.

p.p.s. i will happily respond to any 'ew, scrapple is gross!' replies with a blistering stream of invective about your heritage and extended family. scrapple rewls. it especially rewls because its very name doesn't sugarcoat what it is. aaaaw yeah.

so i've decided recently to try and figure out who makes scrapple like i remember it growing up. no, not the preparation--which to me is just frying it till it has a crust and eating it blistering hot with either syrup or ketchup, or a ketchup/hotsauce combo--but the scrapple itself. to me, great scrapple is a balance between the texture and taste of coarse cornmeal, the organ-y, tongue-y taste of headcheese or souse, and a definite kick of whatever spices they put in there. so i thought, what the hell, the amish invented the stuff, why not start with two of my favorite purveyors at the terminal? after all, they'll sell me a smallish slab and i won't have to bother with a whole pound of the stuff, considering that i really don't eat breakfast foods all that much. so anyway, here are the first two weeks of results: 1. last week: haltemanns. i love haltemann's. they make my favorite bacon. they have winesap apples nearly till march. they sell fatback for nearly nothing, and they sell duck breast and rabbit, and yellow watermelons and four varieties of plums and GREAT peaches this year. but their scrapple isn't so great. it's got the requisite organ-y taste, and it's got the right cornmeal texture, but it's bland. it's just not strongly flavored enough. 2. this week: dutch country meats. these folks' ham blows away haltemann's, and they carry the most amazing hot dogs and bratwurst and knackwurst and bockwurst i've ever had. also good landjaegers. so i made their scrapple with omelets for my dad after he finished the distance run yesterday. this has some of the requisite organ-y taste, but has far too much cornmeal in it, to the point where that's the main flavor and texture you get. it practically tastes and feels like cornmeal mush to me (if you aren't familiar with that, it's basically kinda like fried polenta, but as made by upstate pennsylvania folks), and might as well be, but for the flavor. so i haven't found the ideal yet, in two weeks of rtm purchases. i know that a couple of the other amish purveyors in the northwest corner of the market there also sell a house brand, so i'll try them and keep y'all up to date. p.s. E! A! G! L! E! S! EAGLES! THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKIN ABOUT!