mrbigjas

the fun thing about yocco's, which i stopped at yesterday on my way back from upstate, is how you walk up to the sign that says order here, and the cashier standing there ignores you as the person in the back yells CAN I HELP YOU? and you yell your order to her, and she starts making your dogs and yells your order back to the cashier standing in front of you, who then rings you up and takes your money. it's not actually an inefficient system, but it feels like it is.

i've seen veal shanks at martin's relatively frequently. preserved lemons... if you can make another stop they sell preserved lemons at dibrunos, about eight blocks away. (edited to remove musing, because rlibkind knows better than i do)

looks good to me...

yoinking this thread back up, if you're in the terminal and you're thinking of buying bacon from glick's, be advised that it's kunzler's. not that there's anything wrong with it. i bought a half-pound of pepper bacon from them the other day and it's good. i would, however, like to know why supermarket bacon always shrinks up more and gives off more fat than the other stuff i buy, though. i still suspect a brine cure rather than a rub, but i have no proof of that.

i hope i'm not breaking the rules by saying that i'm going to the wolfert dinner, and wish i could go to the mangoes and curry leaves dinner, but i'll be out of town. the one that really intrigues me is the growing up in a korean kitchen dinner.

to my knowledge, shoulder. but i could be wrong.

i'm most of the way through a bottle of the bushmills 10 year right now, and i agree with this aspect of their tasting. it's excellent, especially for the price. i've had the midleton several times, and it's one of those whiskeys that gets better as it sits in your glass--the first taste can be slightly medicinal and weird, but in the second and third sips all these crazy flavors come out, and by the time you're finished the glass it's all over. i'm finishing off this old bottle of jameson's i opened a month or two ago, and it's really good too--i wish jameson's still tasted like this. i don't know what the difference is between now and then (other than 80 vs. 86 proof), but i wish i could get my hands on more...

too bad--that exhibit was a lot of fun. i think you really hit the nail on the head wrt lacroix. he's never (in my experience) inventive just for the sake of breaking boundaries--only ever for the sake of taste.

i read the italian board because it's great. i read the philadelphia board because i live here. i read the DC board because i'm down there probably half a dozen times a year to see family... ok i admit it, i read the whole site... i'm gonna check out cornucopia next time i'm down there, thanks. now, to bring it back to where to get stuff: does anyone know where might have a good whiskey selection? specifically i'm looking for rittenhouse rye while i'm down there. the NW connecticut/wisconsin run of calvert woodley, circle, chevy chase liquors, and ... whatsitcalled, the fancy old place at wisconsin and mckinley... didn't pan out for me. neither did two places down past dupont circle that i randomly wandered into. who carries good whiskey selections? and i don't mean just the cheap rye above. i mean scotch, and various irishes, and whatnot. thanks.

in lidia bastianich's book lidia's italian table she has a bunch of recipes for infused grappas. maybe the TJ grappa would be good for that. limoncello grappa isn't one of them, though.

i've got a friend with an allium allergy, and it's brutal--EVERYTHING in restaurants has onions or garlic or shallots or leeks or scallions or chives or whatever in it. somehow he's survived to be about 50 so far, but it's basically eliminated his ability to eat in most restaurants. we were out one time at a local bar, and he ordered a plain steak and nearly keeled over--apparently they grilled onions on the grill pretty regularly. on the bright side, he's really rich and likes to go out, so we go places and he buys us dinner and fabulous bottles of wine... and then goes to diners by himself to eat pancakes and french fries on his way home. i always read these threads and never know how to react. on the one hand, like many of you i don't eat for fuel, but for enjoyment, and i wish everyone had that kind of appreciation for things. but on the other hand, you can't make them, and really shouldn't. what's the difference? it's their life. one of my coworkers is a strict meat-and-potatoes type, no green veg, etc. and today she wouldn't even take a bite of another coworker's shepherd's pie. i mean, it's ground beef and potatoes! but no. here's another data point: a relative of mine used to eat everything, but she's gotten sick as she's gotten older and now she has food intolerances--not intolerances in that she chooses not to tolerate things, but that her body basically rejects them and they give her horrible gastric distress. and garlic is one of the major things that sets them off. she's had loads of tests, even to the point of spending an ungodly amount of money to go to the mayo clinic and having a complete workup, and they just can't figure out what's wrong with her. it's really frustrating and has taken a lot of the enjoyment out of eating for her, and going out to eat was one of her major joys in life. these intolerances won't kill her (yet) but it's much easier to just tell people she's allergic to garlic than to try to explain the whole thing. on the other hand, she used to be allergic to shrimp (her face would break out and she'd get wheezy), but that kind of went away over the last 15 years or so--and she's in her mid-60s now. she always liked them, and loves to be able to eat them now. so, the point of all this rambling is that there has to be a happy medium somewhere. people have a million reasons for not liking things, or for requesting meals without them. and really the question is: is being with the person worth dealing with the eating issues? if not, don't invite them over for meals or go out with them. if so, work around it. because these issues don't go away--everybody's gotta eat to live.

too much oak for me. on the other hand, the cab was pretty good, but i'm kinda with kevin on this one--there was nothing wrong with it per se, but i kinda missed something in the middle. i would totally buy a bunch of it for a party but for myself (and since it's mainly only me doing the drinking at home, that's the only criteria i have) i'll keep looking for more interesting wines.

pontormo, did you try calvert woodley? last time i was in DC they had a pretty decent cheese selection. i doubt they'd have older montasio, but at least for the basic younger ones they might...

This seems to be universally true. ← I forgot to post this. In lancaster there is a new bakery run by an Italian family who moved from Long Island. The daughters own and run it. Their father bakes bread for them. At Christmas I too them a bottle of Limoncello from the famous Loeb receipe. You'd have thought I gave them a million dollars. Dad, in particular, was thrilled. Everytime I go in and he sees me he comes out and talks to me and tells me how wonderful it was. It does make a great gift ← The "Famous Loeb Recipe" gets it's own tweak from everyone that tries it, but thanks for the compliment! It remains universally true that there's never too much to give away. ← i gave a bottle to my parents last year when i made it (i don't know if you remember, but the batch was too sweet and not lemony enough for me, because i had fewer lemons in my drawer than i had thought). anyway, they don't drink all that much, so they had some left and recently had a tasting with a commercial limoncello that friends had brought over, and they said mine was definitely the clearcut winner. i said, is that because we like sweet stuff here in america? and my dad said actually that mine was less sweet and more lemony than the other. this recipe is a real winner. i'm actually thinking of making some kumquatcello...

yeah, she talks about it in the intro to the frico section, in Lidia's Italian Table. man that would be deadly.

it's on my list for the very near future; i just haven't gotten there yet. probably in about two weeks...

golden. thanks kevin. pontormo--glad you liked that stuff. the baked polenta was good, but i had purposely made it a little runny the other night when we first had it, so it didn't set up quite as firmly as i would have liked--i suspect that's also the reason for the leakage, is the extra water. but it tasted good, and i like the idea. next time i make polenta, i'm going to try it again, with the cabbage this time.

excellent, thanks for the info. paparot is definitely on my list to make again--there's something really right about it, and next time i'll thicken it more. and i've never loaded up a frittata with that many herbs. that was good. now i have another question: does jota keep and/or travel, or does it fall apart overnight? we're having a "soup day" with my family on saturday, but it's a three hour drive so i'd have to make it on thursday or friday evening. many bean soups improve from sitting overnight, but i'm picturing the sauerkraut disintegrating or something--if so, i'll look for something else...

the first time i had it was at a sushi place in seattle, somewhere in belltown i think. it was a special that the sushi chef gave us that day because it was real fresh--or so he said; we'd been enjoying everything, and saying so, so he was like, i'll make you an uni roll (or whatever)--it's very special today. and when i ate it, it was as you described above, except after about five seconds i had to swallow because it was making me lightheaded and trippy and i thought i was going to fall off my stool. i wonder if anyone has explored the hallucinogenic properties of uni. anyway, i've had it several times since, but never had that intense an experience again.

tea, too. they use nice tea (for bagged tea) and actually steep it in a pot, rather than bringing you a mug and little crappy pitchers of semi-hot water and a box of twinings.

so anyway, y'all mind if i join in the fun here a little bit? i'm not a great photographer, but what the hey. before i mention my little dinner inspired by this thread, i just wanted to point out this link, which i kinda randomly found while googling stuff. it's a straight up listing on food network's site of all mario's shows. i think i hit some back-end part of their site since it's not set up to be real user-friendly, and there aren't even recipe links in all of them, but it's a reference anyway. so, i made and purchased several things tonight inspired by the friulian theme. first, paparot, the spinach soup, recipe from one of mario's shows: that white chunk in the middle is a piece of garlic, badly lit. it's just spinach in broth, after all--i gotta go ahead and leave it in. one thing i couldn't tell from this recipe, because i'm not familiar with the soup is how thick it should be. the recipe calls for 2/3c polenta and 1/3c flour, stirred into two quarts of soup. that seems pretty thick to me, and i was making less than that, so i just stirred in fine polenta until it had a texture that seemed like what i wanted. it was pretty brothy--to make it right, should it have been thick? another dish we had was a herb frittata, with basil and sage and leek and chervil. i know chervil isn't italian, but i had it in the drawer, so in it went. i screwed up the formation of it, though, flipping it badly so all the herbs ended up on one side and it was horribly misshapen, so i didn't photograph. fricos and prosciutto san daniele (OK i bought that), served with a salad which was just spring mix: i don't know that i've brought prosciutto san daniele before. it's got a completely different texture than the prosciutto di parma. it's paler pink, it's softer and silkier, it's less fatty and pungent and stringy than parma. damn good. in reading the links on this thread, i thought the notes about fricos were interesting--many of the sites pointed out that aged montasio should be used. opening up lidia's italian table tonight, she specifically says that younger montasio is best. who's right? anyone? doesn't matter--i bought what they had, and used it, and if there's anything better than cheese fried in its own cheese fat, i have yet to have it. anyway, having leftover polenta was the reason i did this tonight. so the final dish of the night was from lidia's italian table: polenta, gorgonzola, and savoy cabbage tart. i had to make them in those gratin dishes, because i didn't have enough of anything to make a full tart the way the recipe describes (that's life when you're cooking for two). and following lidia's note that 'you may also use any vegetables you like,' i used leeks instead of cabbage, because that's what i had. that odd foam coming out is... i guess from the leeks and potatoes and cheese? and water from the polenta? anyway, it was good. thanks to all for the inspiration to do something a little different.

i don't think they were advertised as fresh. if i remember right, they definitely said wild on the sign, as compared to the several other varieties of shrimp that didn't. but i wouldn't be surprised either way.

what did you think of that? i'm trying to make myself like uni, but i can't help thinking that it tasted like low tide.

thanks for the note on the lineage, kevin. i bought a bottle yesterday, and plan on having it sometime this week. i just checked and the abadia is still in stock at the store down on delaware avenue; i'll pick some up this morning. carrington--thanks for the notes about the billi billi shiraz--sometimes with cooler climate syrahs i find that white pepper note slighty overpowering, but going in the opposite direction and making them intensely alcoholic fruit bombs like so many people are now is a much worse transgression in my book. not that 'my book' means anything to anyone but me, of course. but either way if this thing is as described, i'll be very interested. anyway, a quick search for the billi billi shows that there are about 30 bottles in williamsport and none anywhere else. fortunately i'll be up there next weekend so i'll see if i can get to the store and check them out...

thanks sugarella. yeah, the fact that there were separate bags for 'all purpose' and 'all purpose baking' flour just caught me off guard. good to know that it's all good. and i will do for the pizza dough--i'm very slowly learning about all this...