mrbigjas

veal cheeks and hanger steak are the two things i haven't asked for yet. oh and beef heart. as far as lights, that just refers to lamb right? i mean, people don't bother with beef lights, do they?

at desi village, the thing i still reminisce about is the sarson ka saag, the punjabi style mustard greens. DAMN that's a good dish. and the breads. it's so great to have something so close to that awful mall that isn't just another "p.j. mchersheysquirts' family feedtrough" type of place.

bumping this thread up over a year later to point y'all over to the reading terminal market thread, where i just posted that i bought a pound of calf sweetbreads for $10.99 today. they were available at harry ochs for the asking--i had previously thought you had to order them ahead of time, but as it turns out if your timing happens to be right it's not necessarily the case.

kauffmans has had plenty of cider this year so far, even late enough for an afternoon shopper like me. i've been cruising through about a quart a week, and i know i've said it before, but it bears repeating: this is about the best cider i've had anywhere, reminding me of how cider was when i was growing up and we got cider from styer's orchards in langhorne, where they would take school groups on tour past the old cider press... anyway, they apparently stopped making it for several years, but started up again last year. i had some and it was disappointing after kauffman's. another note from today: sometimes it pays to ask about less common ingredients. i was at harry ochs picking up some short ribs and on a whim i asked them about getting sweetbreads. turned out they had some that they'd gotten in today, fresh in 1-lb vacuum packages, $10.99 a pound, which they assured me will easily last a week refrigerated. so i bought a package, and now i'll have to cook them, which i've never done before. but the point is, i thought they had to be preordered, and it turns out they don't necessarily. something to keep in mind.

i wonder if, with the addition of a little egg and maybe some more bread crumbs, one could make the stuffing hold together well enough to act as the 'bread' in a grilled turkey and cheese sandwich. i'm picturing kind of forming the sandwich in your hand like a giant flatter version of suppli, with a slightly wet-ish stuffing encasing a few slices of meat and some fontal or other melty cheese, and then cooking them in a pan with butter till the stuffing casing sets up and the cheese melts. in fact, i may report back on this experiment in a couple of hours.

i love how the chairman's selection program is branching out more into european wines. i hope you can keep that trend going...

buy a pint ahead of time! it's only $10. minor clarification: it's on 20th, not 19th.

There's another Philly restaurant called Pho Xe Lua that's also closed on Wednesdays. Does the phrase "Pho Xe" mean "Closed on Wednesday" in Vietnamese? when we were in niagara falls last year, we were looking to eat somewhere decent and cheap, and you know in a tourist place like that it's not easy. then i discovered (possibly through posting on here, actually) a vietnamese place right downtown! psych, that's gonna be great! no overpriced craptacular tourist food! no oversalted awful chain restaurant dining! no fast food! yeah! until we walked over and it was closed on wednesday. i kinda stood there for a few minutes, not believing that any moment they wouldn't come open up for me. what a sad day, which ended up with us at outback steakhouse, after having misjudged the distance on the map and walking for like 2 miles... the falls are still neat though.

i've heard pretty much nothing but good things about it, from varied enough sources that i'm convinced it's good. not super-creative knock-your-socks-off stuff, but very good. it's the same people who own io e tu.

anyone know anything about the hermitage that showed up today at the 12th & chestnut store? marked down from $127 to $49.99, it's still a little pricey for my wallet, but if it's worth it i'll pick up a bottle for a fancy dinner maybe.

maxh, you're killing me. oily headwaiter indeed... anyway, thanks for the suggestions y'all. i have limited space, so i'm always looking for something that can kind of straddle the line between being nice to drink and cheap enough to cook with. eagle rare walks that line pretty well for bourbon (although it has the disadvantage of not fitting in my cabinet). someone gave me a bottle of that german brandy asbach uralt, which at about $25 is OK for a lot of brandy-related purposes. i've only ever gotten cognac as gifts, so it's been a while since i've priced them. this may end up being a thing like gin, where i end up having to have a cheap one and a nicer one... i see the meukow VS on sale for $25 or so; i wonder if that would do. oh wait, the remy VSOP is now under $35 here. i'm not (and can't afford to be) a cognac connosseiur, so that should do the trick. (ok to tell the truth, where i use it more often for cooking than anything is when i roast a chicken--my wife doesn't like liver, so i fry the liver in butter, deglaze/flame it with cognac and eat it in the kitchen with the butter/cognac 'sauce' poured over it.. there's nothin like it, and it's only a couple tablespoons really. it rocks.) anyway, thanks for the suggestions.

i've read all the things over the last few years about how cognac makers ain't what they used to be; about how XO nowadays is barely the VS of years gone by, and how the cocktail world has gone to hell in a handbasket. i've come to accept that i'm never getting the good stuff, and really i'm OK with that at this point. but that's not what this is about. what i'm interested is in an 'everyday' cognac, as much as there can be an everyday something in a liquor category where the most basic of the basic costs $25 a bottle. i'm looking for the kind of thing where you can use it to flame your steak au poivre without feeling like you're throwing your wallet in the garbage disposal. but i'm also looking for the kind of thing where if you felt like a cognac after dinner, you could drink it without feeling like you were swilling the cognac equivalent of bankers club. does such a thing exist? is there a cognac version of eagle rare 10 year bourbon--damn good sippin' booze that's still reasonably priced enough to use in mixed drinks, cooking, and the like?

anastasi and the other fish vendors in the italian market are open on sunday...

'fallen leaves' from that american bar book by charles schumann. 1/4 oz dry vermouth to 3/4 oz each vermouth rosso and calvados. dashes of brandy, stirred and strained, lemon twist. i really thought it would need bitters but for some reason it didn't.

can anyone post or PM directions? i can't promise we'll show up and i can't promise to make it to all three (which is why i haven't offered a ride to any of the downtown folks), but i'm hoping to work it out.

the really amazing part about this is how often it works for you. i'm gonna start selling balloons of carrot-miso air. $5 each, brah, but i'll totally trade you for a couple hits off the red lentil soup bong!

Hmmmm.... I don't even consider winter melon as bitter. When you eat bitter melon, that's bitter. ← oops, little typo there--you're right, i meant bitter melon. thanks for the info.

...and after the soup course he went from lamp chops in space straight into dark star to start the second set, brah!

is hairy melon bitter like winter melon is?

you know, that's not a bad idea. i think i will!

that's another one of those things you have to watch out for when wrapped in plastic (besides the peppers i whined about earlier). i bought some of the seconds cinnamon cup mushrooms in a package last week and when i got them home and unwrapped them to put them in paper, the smell was like getting punched in the face--i thought they were just wrapped tightly but they were slimy and moldy. but on the bright side they took them back with no problem. i like the deals but just be careful what you're buying.

i made this dish just last week, but with kale, and my first thought was that i'd definitely make it again. (see kevin72's italian cooking thread for details) then i was thinking it would be interesting, probably, if i used that old recipe of chard with raisins and pine nuts and made the tart out of that. but i have an unusually strong predilection for leafy greens in all shapes and sizes, i have to admit.

i think i just got an idea about what to do with these pork chops i have for dinner... anyway, i may have asked this before, but how long do you think it would take to get there from philadelphia, assuming one could get a reservation?

hey it's like profit sharing, like in baseball! so olivieri's is like the yankees, supporting, say, the cookbook stall, which is like the twins or something...

why is that? just because it's light colored, or is it something to do with the enamel itself--or is it some other aspect of the construction?