mrbigjas

i really thought someone would chime in with some specific, scientifically-backed advice. but in the absence of that, i can tell you that i've kept quail eggs in my fridge for well over a month and they were fine when i used them. no off smell, no off taste, and i didn't get sick. i don't know how long they were unrefrigerated for, but in a whole lot of the world people don't refrigerate eggs--they keep them out at room temp--so i wouldn't even worry about that if i were you. (edited to clarify: what i meant was i don't know how long YOUR eggs were out of the fridge for. mine weren't for any significant period of time that i know of. but the point remains that if it was a little while here and there, to my knowledge it's no problem--eggs just aren't that perishable) the one thing i have noticed when using quail eggs is that they tend to be kinda dirty, so i always wash them real well before cracking them--don't want to push that dirt into the egg.

my great-aunt-in-law was from the southeast texas coast, and she always made her gumbo starting with browned flour rather than a roux. in fact one time she browned up a bunch of flour and sent it to my brother in law so he could make gumbo. unfortunately i never got the rest of her recipe and she's dead now... edited to clarify: to my knowledge she was never the least bit worried about fat. she musta done it that way because she liked it.

sweeeeet. i'm totally gonna prep this tonight and cook it tomorrow. thanks!

i don't know what that is. but here's a mildly interesting story: out in oregon last week i was talking to someone at... i think it was the carlton winemaker's studio? about how they make so much wine there that never gets out of the northwest. and when she found out where we were from, she mentioned that she'd heard that the head of our LCB was out there buying things right and left, so we have a much better selection than a lot of other states. and a quick search on the website confirmed that.

wow, that looks great. i assume you cooked down the filling before making a pie of it? cooked and drained? was there any other binder in there? i just was at a market near my house and got a massive amount of kale, and that pie's looking pretty darn good to me...

Agreed - that looks fabulous! ← yeah, what they said. nice job.

there was a thread on here a while back about taquerias in reading, wasn't there? i'm not sure if i can find it.... ah, here we go.

I kind of thought so, reading your posts and getting to speak with you at Evan's wine tasting. Good for you, it is time consuming but well worth it in the end. Do you roast the bones first? ← i realized i never replied to this--yes to beef, no to chicken. another bacon report: in portland i had what could be the greatest combination of stuff in one place ever: a piece of white sturgeon, wrapped in bacon. with a side of kale and chanterelles and walnuts. if you think about it, bacon goes well with greens, and mushrooms, and fish--but walnuts? who knew?

one of my non-hidden favorites is water ice from italiano's, 11th & shunk. unfortunately it's closed for the winter now.

will do--i'll talk to my dad, who's done some of this sort of thing in a past life (and who repeatedly told me the old bold thing as i was growing up)...

i'm thinking about taking it up. i figure, i like tramping through the woods, and there's only a moderate chance of dying if i'm relatively careful... i live life on the edge, ya know.

ha... i meant in philadelphia. i wasn't in town to come even if i'd gotten the message in time.

bob, i'm just back from portland, where this morning i witnessed huge piles of chanterelle mushrooms going for $7 a pound, and suddenly my love of the reject packages at iovine's is dulled. i mean they were huge. people were picking through them like the old ladies pick through potatoes and onions here, as if they were something cheap. i did buy a pound of chanterelles and carry them all the way back across the country, through phoenix no less. they're getting cooked tomorrow. pound of raw hazlenuts too.

northeast corner of 19th & sansom, i think. where saffron house was.

you forgot 'be home'!

i make my own. i get really frustrated that it's so hard to find a commercial stock that doesn't have a shitload of salt in it, so i gave up and just make a few gallons of my own a few times a year, reducing it really heavily for compact storage.

it'll take you about 3 or 3.5 hours to get up there, depending on traffic getting out of town and on the northeast extension. last night i used the leftover martin's bacon to make a really hearty soup with these yellow-eye beans i got from the spice corner down in the italian market. fried up the bacon with some onion and garlic, put in the beans, a whole pile of thyme, rosemary and marjoram, chicken stock. and what happened was this: the soup was pretty good last night. but like all bean soups the flavors needed time to combine. and today the smokiness of the bacon had infused the entire soup. it was damn good.

you know, jews aren't the only ones using rendered stock fat for cooking. my mom (and now I do too) always uses the chicken fat from the top of the stock as at least a portion of the fat in the biscuits, when making chicken & biscuits for dinner--my favorite dish growing up. we just didn't call it schmaltz...

i believe a lot of these problems could be solved by means of a simple suffix: -esque for instance: joey joe-joe junior shabadoo's 1986 late bottle vintage port-esque fortified wine or guy incognito's 2000 port-esque fortified zinfandel wine or frank grimes' stilton-esque vermont blue cheese or kraft foods' parmesan-esque green shaker cheese see? problem solved. everyone knows what you're shooting for, but it's also obvious that you're not making the real thing. yours in the spirit of sensible solutions to thorny international regulatory quandaries, jas.

i reckon we'll take a number and wait in line at godshall's. come to think of it, though, i've seen the pan of livers, and of gizzards, but i haven't seen the feet or the hearts there. that's weird--they must have them...

hey, that's neat. i wonder if it's any good. i mean, nickel is one of the components in most stainless steel... on the other hand, if it's such a good cookware material, why haven't things been made of it before? just because it's not very thermally conductive? (only slightly moreso than cast iron itself) or is it because coating a cast iron pan with nickel raises the price 450%, from about $20 to $90? actually i bet that's it--it's just too expensive to be worth it for the most part. still i think it's kinda neat.

http://www.dibruno.com

they also have peach and mint bitters, as well. if you haven't had a martini made with a good amount of vermouth and a dash of orange bitters, you're missing out...

oh and scoats, can you tell me about that double white beer you have on tap? what IS that? it's damn good.

Rich, I think you're confusing A.A. Halteman with L. Halteman. Two different stores, two widely different levels of quality. L. Halteman sells Pennsylvania Dutch cold cuts as well as fresh meats and local produce; A.A. Halteman sells lesser qualtity fresh meats and low grade Dietz & Watson cold cuts. ← a.a. haltemann carries eberly's organic chickens, though, which no one else does.