mrbigjas

THREE AND A HALF STARS just sayin.

I drink a lot of weissbeir in the summer too. I've been enjoying the Hitachino white, a Japanese one. Rich, they have it at that new place Tria on 18th & Sansom if you're interested.

I'm dragging this topic back up because today I took some people from work down to experience the joy of a hot dog/fishcake combo at Johnny's, and after standing outside in the sun for a while, everyone wanted water ice. And I didn't know where to go between there and work (art museum area, driving back up spring garden). So help me out here. Where should we go next time this happens? Come on people, I know you know these things.

When I was a kid, we'd have apple pancakes, which we'd slather with loads of butter and cinnamon sugar, and pieces of cheddar. You'll note the lack of syrup or anything to make the pancakes not totally dry and gummy. Hence the butter. But it was the cheese that made it a meal. Whoa, I can't believe I'm alive sometimes.

You know, I hadn't really thought about it beofre, but now that I do, I realize most supermarkets around here (downtown Philadelphia, PA, USA) don't carry it--but nearly every produce stand and fancy supermarkets like Whole Foods have lots of it--it's usually in with the bunches of spinach and kale. It's almost like, stores/merchants that care about vegetables even a little carry things like this, but most supermarkets don't bother. BTW the rainbow chard is neat, but I'll buy any of the stuff. I eat it about once a week, more often in the winter.

It would be really pretty damn cool if you could get a deeply flavored stock in like an hour from this method, although with all the developments in cooking in the last 500 years, I'm surprised no one has tried it--or to take it a step further, if it works and is significantly quicker, that it's not common practice in the industry. Or maybe it is! who knows? Keep us posted; I'm interested.

It really really is. Possibly the best ever.

Yeah but 10 lbs of it? That's an awful lot.

It fades a little, as you might imagine, but not totally--it's not like those purple green beans that turn green with cooking. The red stems make everything reddish. I like to cook the leaves and stems separately: the leaves get sauteed with garlic and red pepper, while I lightly bread or batter and deep-fry the stems. Lightly battered enough that the color shows through. Good stuff. I love chard.

Cooking french fries. I mean, not every day, but before you toss it, just once you should have fries cooked in beef fat.

Chicken and waffles (or more often chicken and biscuits--the biscuits made with the chicken fat skimmed from making the stewed chicken the day before) was a regular dinner at my house growing up. In fact, they were one of my favorite meals. When Jones showed up with chicken and waffles on the menu, I was pretty psyched, but then it came out with fried chicken on top, which frightened and confused me. Other than that, it was pretty similar to my mom's version, which is straight out of upstate PA. Damn I love that stuff.

Oh also my wife had the pancakes with summer squash, oregano, and... some other stuff. She liked them OK but had difficulty adjusting to the savory in pancakes--I on the other hand thought it was exactly what pancakes have been missing my whole life. They weren't a boring sweet starchfest like pancakes usually are (pancakes are one of the reasons I don't usually go out for brunch).

I went by this morning; had the sweetbreads and morels. They were quite fabulous. I really didn't need the eggs as well--but that didn't stop me from eating them anyway...

Kewl. Meet me on Tuesday, about 5:45. I'll try to remember. Alternately PM me yer phone.

I had a nice bottle of Hitachino white ale there this afternoon, along with a good-sized block of chevre from massachusetts and a wedge of a pyrenees blue. Oh and a little of a friend's chunk of Montgomery's cheddar. They serve the cheddar with a dish of marinated cherries, and the goat with a dish of local honey. The cherries went really well with the goat cheese, though, so you might want to ask about that. Very pleasant place, very friendly staff. I'll be back, probably relatively often, on my way home from work.

I got these in a meat store, not a supermarket. Your question still stands though.

Gin and seagram's bitter lemon.

In NJ we used to call these things Panzarottis or Nicarottis... They were small, hand-held personal Calzone like dealios... It MIGHT have been a very local thing, I dunno... They were the best! THE BEST! Lil' Banya ref... Coming way late to this thread... Panzarottis are a specifically NJ thing, as far as I know. Or at least calling them that. I saw the local news here in Philadelphia do a special report on them once--I guess it was a slow news day. In scenic lower Bucks County, PA (specifically Levittown and Fairless Hills) we used to call these Ginocottis, because there was a place over by Pennsbury High School called Gino's that made them. But these weren't little handheld things. They were the size of one of those burger-and-fry baskets--which is what they came in. A big ol' puffed fried thing the size of a small football, with a puddle of searing melted cheese and sauce and whatnot inside. You'd break off pieces of the dough and use them to scoop the filling out. Damn they were good.

EXCEPT the three or four times I've been there. I'm nearly convinced that most of South Philadelphia is in a big conspiracy to convince me these things exist when they really don't.

Report: it worked great, and I have it for lunch again today. I think next time I might add a little bread crumb and maybe an egg, to make it hold together better--alternately I could probably add a little less yogurt to the meat.

Heh, definitely. I never thought of mixing yogurt in with the meat either. I had some eggplant but grilled it last night with a black bean/soy glaze, so that's out, though. Thanks for the idea. I'll definitely give it a shot.

ding ding ding ding I think we have a winner here! (Not that the others weren't; I just don't have time to make moussaka tonight, and I just made hamburgers the other night). One question: what do you mean by "etc" when you're talking about the spices? Just a little more detail would be great. Most of the recipes I see call for some breadcrumbs in there too; I'll have to look into that. Thanks Suzanne.

First of all believe me, I'm not discounting your story at all. This winter I and a few friends made the trudge from the 2nd St. el stop to Konak over on Race in the midst of that one-day snowstorm we had in February. We sure woulda been pissed if they had decided to close. That said, what would make you forgive them? An apology? A free meal? An addition to their voicemail saying RESTAURANT TENDS TO CLOSE WITHOUT WARNING? I mean, I just don't see what the resolution could be. You certainly have a valid complaint, and yet most people go there and have a really nice time, which makes me think that it was a one-time customer service screwup on their part--which leads me to think there's gotta be a way to make it up to you somehow.

I am strident about very, very few things when it comes to food-related matters. However, the screwing up of a perfectly good rhubarb pie with the inclusion of strawberries is one of the things about which my opinion will not bend.

I have these two lamb patties that I bought on a whim a while ago. A little over a pound of ground lamb, basically. I had them in the freezer, and am defrosting them for dinner tonight. But I have no idea what I should do with them. I have some nice spinach to go along side, and either have or have access to most any ingredients..... Any ideas? For some reason I'm just drawing a blank on what to make with these things tonight. Usually I have some idea of a direction I want to go in, but I'm not coming up with much. I was thinking maybe a lamb-burger (obviously) but with either a moroccan-style "ketchup" that's all cuminy and raisiny and whatnot, or a mint/herb mayonnaise or something? It's not coming together in my head though.