mrbigjas

you don't know about this? it's pennsylvania tradition, yo. hie thee to a wawa and pick up a little bag of grandma utz's. they aren't the best lard-fried chips, but they'll give you the idea. next time i go upstate i'll score you some gibble's and maybe some red-bag good's, which are my families' favorites.

i feel like koreans don't use as much dried seafood as vietnamese/thai do. and hung vuong, 1st oriental et al are vietnamese markets. the smell hits you when you're near the back--unfortunately for hung vuong they put the dried fish next to the meat counter, so even though i know they carry decent (if mass-produced) product there and have high turnover, it smells like ass. the point is, sometimes the market stinks, but it's not because things are bad. it's because dried seafood stinks.

i've been thinking about deux cheminees a lot recently. because it's still there, as far as i know it's still good, but no one i know has been there in ages, and no one talks about it much. and it's not THAT expensive--according to their website it's $85 a person... which is i think what it was when i last went there, which i'm kind of sorry to admit was probably eight years ago. i'ma try to get back over there one of these days.

ok i found a rick nichols column on good's potato chips from adamstown, 6/27/04. that might have been the one. here's a quote from the 'atlas of popular culture in the northeastern US' at http://www.geography.ccsu.edu/harmonj/atlas/potchips.htm : so yeah, if you can find that 1998 penn state study, that must be what i read about. so wait, what's the point here? chumpies? homegirls? or are we trying to come up with a catalogue of pennsylvania chips to look out for? i love me some chips, oh yes i do.

i read somewhere that something like 1/3 of all potato chips are made in this state, including that the big companies like frito-lay have plants here. where did i read this? the inquirer? anyone got a subscription that lets them search old articles? sounds like a rick nichols column to me.

how about that--i didn't know that. i'm there all the time (it's on my way home from work) and will ask if i can remember to do so. i have lots of speculations about the state of dibrunos, but since they're only based on my observations, i'm hesitant to post them.

for what it's worth, growing arugula (or any of the lettuce-y plants, really) is really easy as long as you don't have varmints that eat it out from under you. this year my parents overplanted, and for the last few weeks since the weather has turned cool, we've been inundated with fantastic greens. leaf lettuce, mizuna, chervil, arugula, sorrel... it's out of control. anyway, arugula grown in dirt is really noticeably different and more flavorful than the stuff you get in a grocery store--especially if it's slightly older. the first leaves you pick are nice and sharp and good for salads; as the plant gets older and shoots up more leaves the next few rounds get more and more strongly flavored. it may not be the same stuff we saw the folks picking in the fields down along the appian way, but it's a lot better than the baby arugula in bags in the supermarket. hm.... you know what? yeah, what pontormo said.

AW MAN LET'S GO TONIGHT oh the cravings. so painful.

oh i haven't done it yet--just bought the thing yesterday. it's an orange cauliflower, so it should end up kind of interesting once it's cooked. tomorrow maybe; we're still finishing up thanksgiving leftovers over here...

If you like the kale thing, try this: cook some cauliflower in salted water until it is mush. Spread the mush on Tuscan (or Umbrian!) bread that has been drizzled with olive oil, a little salt and rubbed with some raw garlic. A variation on this is to serve the cauliflower bread in a bowl of chicken broth. Its sort of like kid-comfort food, but highly addictive. I made it 3 times in one week.... thanks hathor, i bought some cauliflower this weekend expressly for this purpose, and will report back...

oh man does that look good. and so impressive, too! i'm totally gonna do it one of these days.

well, i mean, i'm overstating it a little here--after all there are only a few things in the world to eat: proteins, starches, vegetables. i don't know what else there is--fats, i guess, but most cultures don't have a fat course in their usual meal. well, even that, there are several peoples living up near the north pole who do, but they're the exception rather than the rule. but my point is that the US isn't any lamer than most of the european countries whence most of the population immigrated, when it comes to having meals without a meat-based source of protein, at least when it comes to restaurant food. but enough--we dance! as i mentioned over on the tuscan cooking thread, last night i made bruschetta con cavolo nero, and if there's a dish that ends up being more the sum of its parts than that one, i have yet to see it. i mean, you boil up some kale in salted water, and then make a garlic toast and put the kale on top of it, and wet it all down with some of the cooking water. how on earth does that end up being so profoundly satisfying? i ask you.

Well said. I think part of this fallacy comes from the standard American dinner template: meat, starch, and vegetable. oh come on, let's not blame america for this. i mean, in just the countries i've visited the last few years, england, france and spain all have traditionally relied heavily on the meat-starch-veg trio. italy does too, although it's spread out over three courses and served on different plates. and generally if anything gets eliminated or becomes a second thought in the meal prep, it's the vegetable, not the meat. that's restaurant cooking anyway. home cooking is different in all those places from all the cookbooks and articles i've read, just like it is here in the USA. anyway, sorry to derail things more. back to the food soon when i have time to write things up a little more.

a friend of mine calls it the 'tofu church.' google 'soon doo boo' and you'll come up with a site that describes the concept. it's one of the great dishes of korean cooking--a bubbling pot of soup full of silken tofu and other ingredients of your choosing. whole restaurants (like jong ka jib) are dedicated to it. fantastic. don't worry about your husband: while soft tofu is the point, the soup is anything but boring. can i come?

well, i did make the bruschetta tonight, and i have to wonder why i never have before. talk about a dish that transcends the sum of its parts... woo. i mean, toasted/grilled bread with garlic, with some boiled kale on it, and splashed with a little of the salty, kale-y water. i mean, what is that? at the very least just looking at it you'd think that it would need a little cheese or something, but it certainly doesn't. and then in another nod to tuscany, i made some zuppa di farro, which brings up a question i have about this grain: all the recipes i read say to soak it overnight and then cook it for two hours or something (like this here). i'm buying some kinda fancy italian farro (triticum dicoccum, it says on the label), and i've used it a bunch of times, in farrotto, in soup, etc, and it doesn't take more than about 45 minutes to cook, with no pre-soaking. do you think the recipes are talking about wheatberries? like, the red winter wheat you get in the bulk bin at whole foods, instead of the emmer wheat you pay way too much for at the fancy international gourmet store? (of course, even that will cook up in about an hour without soaking). i just don't understand it. are people going for total breakdown here? after less than an hour tonight, the grains were totally cooked--whiter, expanded--but still separate. anyway, we did have the grilled luganega for the meat course, but for the rest of the meal i was thinking of tuscany month, which i've mostly missed so far.

that's what's happened to me! i'm gonna make the bruschetta with black kale tonight, but other than that our meal is going to be grilled luganega, which isn't necessarily tuscan...

in diana kennedy's book there's a recipe where you basically sautee squash in a sofrito of onion garlic tomato pepper that you've cooked down, and for some reason that i can't quite figure out, it totally transcends its ingredients and turns into this fantastic substantial filling for tacos or enchiladas. especially if you put queso blanco on it. you'll notice i didn't specify summer or winter squash. that's because i can't remember right now. i think i've done it with both at various times, which is why my poor addled brain can't remember which the original recipe is for... i'll look it up and post tonight if i have a moment.

see, i'm saving my rants until we have an answer to this question.

aw, no need to be nervous. welcome! post more!

our vegetarian dinner last night: sarson ka saag, punjab-style mustard greens (which i actually made with turnip greens, because that's what i had). served of course with makki di roti, which are kind of like tortillas but made with corn flour instead of masa--i use goya masarepa for it. i have no idea if it's right, but it works for me. and dal and rice of course. the dal i make, from what little i know, is more south indian style than the punjab stuff above (like the recipe here), but i like it. oh and some cucumber raita. this is a good meal. it has everything i like in it. greens. plenty of starchy things in the cornmeal and rice. hot, aromatic, spicy things. yogurt. and it's not hard to make at all (except for the makki di roti, which are pretty tough to deal with because they're cornmeal and have no gluten to hold them together). i really recommend it.

spleen is used in several kinds of sandwiches in italy pane ca meuza described here good old about.com has a recipe for crostini di milza here googling 'italy spleen recipe' or 'spleen panini' turns up a lot.

maxx's

that plating is kind of awesome. it looks like a dali painting.

chef theodore, the first nice greek restaurant i ever went to. actually, i was like 15, so it might not have been that nice. but i remember it being pretty nice. and good. and then he was going to open a place down on delaware ave somewhere, and then he disappeared. or something. i was a suburban kid very new to dining out in the city at the time and only remember the story because i had eaten at the restaurant.

while i hesitate to recommend a chain, you're about 1/2 block from maggiano's in that hotel. however, you're also 1 block from the reading terminal market. and there's no greater carb loadup than amish food. right at the corner you can get a big container of mac & cheese and some massive steak fries. right across the aisle is a bakery that sells sticky buns and various breads. a little further along is the dutch eating place where you can get chicken corn soup (a flour-thickened soup) and all sorts of bready potato-ey pasta-ey things. right around the corner from there is the pretzel place, where you can load up on the best buttery pretzels you ever had. put it this way: a friend of mine went to a wedding out in central PA, and ordered the vegetarian entree. they gave him pasta... with a side of mashed potatoes. i told him if they didn't give him bread to soak up the sauce he got gypped out of a starch. i know marathons start at ungodly hours, though, so i'm not sure how it's going to work for you--the terminal opens at 8. (i feel the need to add my standard disclaimer that i kid about the central PA starch-fest because i love. it's the food i grew up on)