mrbigjas

yeah, pre-excel, my parents-in-law created a large notebook with shopping lists and timelines for christmas or thanksgiving or other large dinner parties. they still use them today; they include instructions like when to put the baby in for a nap in the midst of planning. of course that baby is my wife now...

thanks! somehow i missed this post the first time around. has anyone helped you with this yet? PM or email me; i'm sure we can figure something out. the stuff i have been using was called semolina flour when i bought it--it's got a consistency like flour, not like semolina, the coarse stuff we make porridge out of. yeah that's kinda what i thought, too. i'm going to try this next time. i think i'm going to try making orecchiette again; i felt like i was getting the hang of it towards the end. oh crap, august is almost over!

poor ol' grandma, never heard of lard, or beef tallow. or butter, for that matter. wait a minute, maybe her room temp was higher than mine....

jackal10, are you going to demonstrate the boning process? (ok i know i'm like 12 years old, but i still can't believe i just wrote that sentence) ahem. anyway, i always hear that the problem with trotters is getting all the bones out--that the process is a real pain. hence i've never done it. if there's a method to it, and you could demonstrate it while you're doing this, i'd sure appreciate it...

i'm pretty sure i got the bottles i have at the spice terminal. not entirely sure, but pretty much.

Isn't it gorgeous? I bought some on Tuesday, entranced by its beautiful, beautiful spell... ← i think it's good enough to eat raw. a nice dish of mashed silken tofu with raw okra and tomatoes, and a little soy and sesame oil. if i weren't making stuffed mussels from the puglia thread tonight, that's what i'd be having...

this week at livengood's: ground cherries, an interesting fruit similar to a cape gooseberry or tomatillo, but with a flavor all its own. delicious! also the nicest looking okra i ever did see.

keep trying. it'll be an epiphany one day, and you'll be like, 'damn! how did i not get this before?' you may weep a little. it'll be ok, we'll understand. it's the beauty of things like the combo that prevents the title of this thread from being anything more than a minorly annoying phrase that is tossed around as a joke from time to time.

19th & what?

Is this a more general statement, or did you have this experience specifically at Amada? If you did, then I suspect TPTB would want me (you) to tell them. If it happened elsewhere, then that still sucks. In a busy restaurant they want you to un-ass that chair ASAP. There's already someone impatiently waiting for it. I'd be very surprised if it took this long anywhere that really needed to turn over the table. ← it's happened to me quite a bit in the last couple years; it definitely happened at amada--this was back in early july. i was surprised because i thought the same thing you just said, that they'd want us out of there. but our res was at 8, and it was probably 1030 before we were done, so the crowd had thinned out. but either way it was a very minor service glitch in what was a great evening. don't get the wrong impression.

nah, that was a 97 comunali brunello.

thanks pan. tonight i made orecchiette with broccoli rabe--a dish which i've made before, but this time i made the orecchiette, which i have never done before. the interesting thing i found was that there were various recipes for the pasta. over on about.com, kyle phillips calls for a 2:1 semolina/AP ratio. lidia, in lidia's italian table, calls for a 3:5 ratio. ada boni calls for a 1:2 ratio. mario does a 1:1 ratio (as an aside: i just realized that in simple italian food , mario gives a recipe for making orecchiette, but no recipes for dishes including it). anyway, it's all over the place. i tried to remember what i did last time i made semolina pasta, and not remembering, i made a random choice and went with the 2:1 semolina/AP ratio. i might have made the dough a little too soft. you know, it's just not that easy. maybe if you grow up in puglia and have it several times a week it is, but for those of us who didn't, getting that shape just right, not making it too heavy around the edges so it's too chewy and unpleasant to eat, and yet not just ending up with a flat disc, or worse yet breaking through the middle of the thing... it's difficult. i ended up using my thumb rather than the knife. i felt like i was getting better at it by the end, but still my pasta was kinda thick. then the recipes continue to vary: some of them have you boil the greens with the pasta, and then finish the whole thing in oil in which you've sauteed garlic. some have you cook the greens separately. lidia has you braise the greens in stock and then add butter before you add the pasta, to make a sort of sauce. i stuck with sauteeing/braising the greens without boiling so as not to lose their bitterness, and then adding the pasta. i gotta tell you, thick pasta or not, it was delicious. there's something about the flavor of broccoli rabe and a couple of other, similar vegetables (yu choy, a kind of chinese broccoli rabe sort of thing, is another one) that i find incredibly satisfying. i can't quite describe it, but they taste 'right' to me. i've tended towards more and more bitter greens as i've gotten older, but broccoli rabe just has something the others don't. ok the end. no pics this time.

newsgal, no one said welcome yet? well, let me be the first! i think i had a bottle of that 98 nardi brunello that they were selling... or was it another one? anyway, as my mother in law said, it could use ten more years in the bottle. woo--closed, tannic, everything that a young brunello is. the half-bottle that was left was much more drinkable after sitting around my house for two days.

thanks all, and same to you, foodman!

pontormo, it seems like you are the only one cooking nowadays! fortunately the reason for us is the arrival of a new baby, which means that people have been bringing food to us right and left. (edited to add he's a little ol baby boy, who shares a birthday with julia child...) unfortunately that means i haven't had the opportunity to cook much in the last week or so. but i'm hoping to have a little time this afternoon to make orecchiete, with plenty of time to let them dry before dinner. i plan to serve with broccoli rabe tonight. after my experience making the saffron pasta a few months ago, my confidence is high.

did i ever tell you about my shame at lakeside? i ordered the mixed tripe plate. and the waitress came back and was like, you know, that's the plate with like intestine and uterus and stuff, not just tripe, do you really want that? or would you rather have the regular tripe plate? and i was with people who weren't eating either one anyway, so i figured i was going to have to make a dent in it myself and what if i didn't like it? so i wimped out and got the regular plate. which was delicious. oh well next time.

A Monday or Tuesday evening might be your best bet. There's a non-smoking bar in the back lounge area where you could wait and have a Virgin Mojito or Bloody Shame while you were waiting, if you even had to wait. Like in any busy restaurant, early reservations (7PM or earlier) always get seated on time. The later ones are at the mercy of the folks that won't get the hell out when they're done, and feel the need to nurse their coffee for an extra half hour. ← or the folks like us who ask for our check, wait 15 minutes to get it and then wait 15 minutes to pay it... ... anyway, best of luck ladydisdain. i can't think of a better place for a final fling--we went last month for similar reasons and had a great time. maybe mention your situation when you make your reservation, too?

what about spain? everything i got in the several cities of spain i've been in came with plenty of ice. maybe it's because i'm american. but it's so nice, sitting in the central cafe kind of area of cordoba, order a nice drink, dude comes out with the glass full of ice cubes, pours gin till you say stop, sets down the little bottle of coke, and you gradually dilute your drink by refilling with the soda as you sip at it.... man, i wish i was there right now.

Now I'm gonna have to check the ingredients list on the can next time I see one. ← me too--i thought i had a can in the cupboard, but it's just beans (smoke flavoring, not any meat). and the website is totally done on the cheap--they have a stock can image and just change the overlay on it depending on what you click. no ingredient lists that i can find.

that michael chiarlo gavi they're selling is dry and not buttery at all. quite the opposite in fact; like most gavi it tends toward the acidic. cheap too.

sylvia's totally uses smoked turkey in their greens, don't they?

dave-- please don't be discouraged by the lack of response. i've been mostly offline for a couple of days, but have a kitchen renovation coming up later this fall. this thread looks like a great summation of things, if you can keep it going. i'll be reading with interest!

you can totally use fine polenta. i know some people will kill me for this, but polenta and cornmeal for cornbread and whatnot are all various grinds of the same basic thing--the only thing that will be affected by the grind size is the texture. just don't use something that's totally flour-like, or corn starch or something crazy like that. cornbread isn't about that. it's gotta have some texture.

actually sandy, the hoagie from ricci's that was compared to the muffaletta was their antipasto hoagie, not the regular italian. good stuff, that. it's a good shop. anyway, i was out and about today, and because of various circumstances it was about 2:30 and i hadn't had lunch yet. so here's a shot from the brank-spankin-new moe's cafe, a hot dog place on the corner of gray's ferry and washington: pardon the crappy cameraphone pic. that right there is a hotdog/fishcake combo on the passenger seat. good stuff! the sign outside says dietz & watson all-beef franks. quite delicious in every way, and it'll only run you $3.50 or so. (yes, that's ketchup on it. i don't believe in putting ketchup on hot dogs, but i do believe in putting it on fishcakes. fishcakes win out in this case). of course there's one problem, which either holly or rich has noted about johnny's hots before: the dog is too damn big. this one is even bigger than johnny's--it's a big ol' quarter pounder; the combo, as perfected by levis, calls for a little bitty dog. it's all about proportions, you know. the hot dog kept wanting to leap out of the bun. next time i go back, i'm going to recommend that they stock a small dog. but here's another key: see that soda behind it? that's a MF'in champ cherry! wooooo! anyway, the place is open weekdays only. they say they may open for saturday lunch next month. the people are super nice, the place is spotlessly clean, and i'll be back soon.

Apamate (16th & South) IS good -- they've got sandwiches, salads, pintxos, croquettes, churros y chocolate, etc. apamate is currently pulling one of, if not the, best espresso shot in town. fantastic.