mrbigjas

which one's the sandwich stand? is that the one behind dinic's?

round five? that's insanity. good show, scoats. what philadining said on most accounts. i missed the tomato pie and the fish & chips, but the other stuff was solid. esp. the mussels and clams.

interesting, gbredben. i have people in danville; next time i'm up there i'll check it out. my favorite ham in the world, that i grew up on, comes from the the country store in pennsdale, up by hughesville, but for some reason that i don't know, i've never had their bacon.

hey, i was defending whatever amada costs, and saying that my initial 'why isn't everything cheaper' mindset is the wrong way to go about things--i wasn't complaining. i mean, i haven't even been yet. another short anecdote from spain this spring: the bar near our hotel, where we stopped for a drink at the end of the evening several times, had tapas on the counter, like every bar does there. and it was cheap. and one of their dishes was a bacon and egg sandwich--they'd fry a couple pieces of bread on the griddle, fry an egg over easy, fry a couple pieces of bacon for no more than about a minute per side, and then glop the biggest spoonful of mayo on the thing i've ever seen on one sandwich. it was 1/4 cup if it was a teaspoon. it's spanish, it's bar food, it's cheap, but do you really want it?

we went back to pumpkin tonight because they had a table for us at 630 and it's close enough to home and the orchestra to make things real easy. i started with the mussels that capaneus described up there--in a saffron mustard sauce with leeks. tiny sweet mussels, with sharp mustard playing off earthy saffron. good stuff. my wife had the tomato soup, which was supposed to be served with creamed corn, but a last minute substitution of the olive paste crouton was not uncalled for. for dinner, a really excellent grilled bronzino with basque sauce--basically roasted reds, onions, paprika, garlic, with a few stalks of broccoli rabe providing a welcome bitter note. i had the pork gratin for dinner, which was as capaneus described it above. if it were up to me, though, i would find another use for the pork, which was described on the menu as 'milk-braised.' i ended up picking the pork out of the gratin and eating it almost plain; it was nearly falling apart tender and just ridiculously good. stuff it inside a couple of piquillo peppers and give it to me cold for an appetizer and i'll be thrilled. so anyway, yeah, a nice meal, overall very pleasant, and $55 before tip. i still like the place. i just want them to bring back the chicken liver app.

you got a point there pedro--why just tonight i drank half a bottle of a strikingly unremarkable tempranillo from madrid that's only $5.99 at the state stores.

i always feel that way too. but thinking about it, i'm trying to get past it. so, considering my big long rambling about bacon last night, i'm just gonna continue with a big long rambling about tapas places in the US today: for a place like amada, i imagine sourcing good ingredients is pricey, for one thing. i'm kinda just thinking out loud here, but maybe it's also about the business model--in spain, you get tapas at a tapas bar, many of which are either hole-in-the-wall diner types of places, or cheap bars, or big ol corporate places. and you go out for dinner at a restaurant, that doesn't have tapas. it's like... i'm trying to figure out what exactly i'm saying here... places over there aren't set up like most every spanish place i've seen in the US: to be places where you go out to what you consider a nice dinner, and sit down with full service and order tapas for your meal. over there, you either go cheap with tapas, or with some menu del dia somewhere. when i was in barcelona earlier this year, i was ... well, surprised isn't the word, but it did catch me off guard how much prices had gone up since i was last there in 2000. in this place el corral down in la ribera, they have old wooden picnic tables, a goat's head on the wall, and no one working there except the proprietor. you get a beer, or a sangria. there are a couple of other groups of spaniards sitting there smoking and drinking wine. it's divey, but you order a plate of jamon bellota and it'll run you over 15 euro. nearby is bar celta, which is a pulperia--fluorescent lights, a stainless counter you sit at... a dish of pulpo, some pimientos al padron, a little cod croquette, a glass of wine and a beer, and you've spent like 40 euro. it may look like a dive, but it ain't cheap. (aside: i would like to have a bar give you little free cheap tapas like patatas bravas or pan con tomate or a dish of olives with every drink you order, like happened to us at several little neighborhoody places in madrid and cordoba, but i don't think that's happening here in the US anytime soon.) so anyway, to sum up where i think i'm going with this train of thought: 1. they're trying to run a nice full-service restaurant (in old city, no less) based on tapas, which aren't necessarily the domain of nice restaurants in spain. but what else can you do? you can't just say, 'we're only running a nice full-service spanish restaurant here. no tapas.' 2. in spain, where restaurants ARE making all their money off of tapas, they're not that nice, and not that cheap. so our perceptions are off--especially since the change to the euro and the subsequent devaluation of the dollar, since when the price of everything in europe has gone up. 3. i bet if tapas REALLY caught on in the US, to the point where every bar had one of those glass cases on top of it, they would be cheap like in spain. but it would really take a sea change in the american style of being out for drinks/snacks for that to happen on a national, or even regional scale. however, all that said, i still won't buy a pair of campers here in the US. because the first time i went to spain they were under $50 a pair. they were the cheap shit! and they cost like $100-150 a pair here. silly. oh and cf. also the clothing store zara, where we went to get some cheap ultrahip clothes for the first day we were over there this year when our luggage was lost--over here they charge like $60-70 a shirt... come to think of it, it seems like every spanish import is pricey these days. oh and to REALLY sum up: i'm still going to amada, and soon. (edited several times for some semblance of clarity)

hm, maybe i CAN go there all the time. where is it again?

i wasn't either--i really did just happen to see it as i was walking by. i've had the double-smoked bacon from them, but not recently. i remember enjoying it, but really that's not saying much, since i can't remember the last time i had bacon that i didn't enjoy. like the neuske's, though, it gets negative points in my book for being noticeably more expensive--when similar products are right there for significantly less money, i tend to go with them.

by some coincidence i have had the opportunity recently to have several different bacons by several local purveyors--both those who make it, and those who sell it--so i figured i'd start a thread on who's making what, and how we found it. i don't suspect this thread will be very long, but hey, i'll babble for a while. so, let's start with the non-local stuff: 1. dibruno's is carrying double-smoked speck. but what i bought was made from pork belly, not the much leaner thigh version they have on their website. actually at the time i was looking for french-style bacon, the unsmoked cured stuff you make lardons from. but since they didn't have that (i shoulda used pancetta, but whatever), i decided what the hell, and got this. it's about $10 a pound. you can get it sliced thick. it's great stuff. double smoked, but not unpleasantly smoky, with a really noticeable pork flavor. not as sweet as a lot of american bacon. perfect for an inauthentic salade lyonnaise--i know smoked bacon isn't traditional in that salad, but it sure doesn't hurt it in my mind. dibruno's also carries neuske's applewood bacon and pepper bacon and whatnot, but it's ungodly expensive, approaching $16 or so a pound, and i just can't bring myself to pay for it, esp. considering the prices of the following, so if one of you gets some and would like to report, feel free. otherwise i'm sure i'll end up one night saying screw it and dropping $8 or so for half a pound of nueske's in some kind of emergency bacon situation. you know how they can crop up. ok so anyway, locals next: 2. haltemann's. this is my go-to bacon, that i always have in the freezer. i usually buy the bacon ends rather than the regular strips. this has a couple of advantages: first, you often get big chunks of solid meat, and big chunks of fat. the former are good for soups and greens and whatnot; the latter for keeping a good amount of bacon fat around. second, they're cheaper, at about $2.19 a pound (compared to about $4 for regular). the disadvantage is that you don't get nice strips (edited to say: actually you DO usually get SOME strips when you buy the ends. just not the real uniform ones). haltemann's bacon is pretty salty, and hickory smoked, so it's got a relatively assertive smoked flavor. however, (like all of these, and unlike supermarket bacon), it's not that sweet, and is not full of briney liquid that leaks out when you cook it. i mean, i guess that's a given when you're not buying oscar meyer, but it's worth noting, i think. 3. martin's. we bought this last week because i was walking by, and because we were having end-of-season BLTs, which of course means with fried green tomatoes instead of fresh ones. martin's is hickory smoked also, runs $3.89 a pound, i think, and is cut relatively thick, between 1/8 and 1/4 inch. they also have slab bacon if you want it whole or cut some other way. it's very similar to haltemann's, above. 4. harry och's. OK this one i had never seen before, but i was walking by that afternoon and saw it up there by the stuffed flank steak and whatnot: our own applewood smoked bacon. also about $4 a pound. fruitwoods in general provide a much lighter, smoother smoke flavor than either hickory or oak, and this one is no exception. it's pre-sliced, and i didn't see it in slabs, but the mellowness of the flavor made me think you wouldn't want to use this in any other way than just cooked slices. it allows the flavor of the pork and the cure to come through more than the asskicking hickory does. so anyway, we cooked up martin's and och's for our BLT sandwiches that night, and while we all agreed that the och's was a great bacon, it didn't stand up to the fried green tomato BLTs as well as the martin's did. i like it more on its own though; it's a more nuanced flavor is more interesting. anyway, the difference is really remarkable when you have them side by side--while in general, really, they're all bacon and whatnot, it's interesting noticing the differences when you have them one after another. as an aside, i've had stoltzfus (dutch country meats) bacon and didn't like it as much as haltemann's, but i can't remember why, because i haven't had it that recently. i do know that my 'everyday' bacon choice between haltemann's and stoltzfus was conscious, in the same way that i prefer the ham from stoltzfus over the ham from haltemann's. OK that's all i got for now. hope y'all find it of interest.

Moving away from Philly (and Dmitri's) is exactly what pushed me to try making it myself. I daresay I have been coming pretty close lately! so... you wanna post a recipe for us? i remember reading an article one time, where they were talking to the folks that cook at dmitri's, and the reporter said, what's the trick to making it so tender? he said, what trick? boil it for three hours, it'll get tender. i haven't ever tried it, though.

40 wines by the glass, spanish-heavy wine list? i'm there.

whoa, i didn't realize it was gonna be so upscale, either. i don't know why; thinking back on everything i'd heard would indicate that it was. i guess my dreams of dropping in relatively frequently for a few little things here and there will have to be replaced by dreams of setting aside a little cash, having an all-out spanish gorge-fest, and then saving up to do it again later. i think i can handle that...

oh yeah, definitely. the problem is, on this pan the disc is so small that you have to keep the stove on medium at the highest, which is annoying. thanks for the pics; that does show it well.

i love crown fried chicken. as marge simpson once said, you might say the extra ingredient is salt. a couple years ago we were watching the mummers down on south broad street and i got kinda hungry, so i turned around and right there at broad & ellsworth was a crown. got the two-piece with fries and it was ridiculously hot and damn good. and that's my best crown fried chicken memory. edited to say there's actually a website some folks put up at http://www.crownfriedchicken.com . it's not an official site, but more like a fansite. and they have a bulletin board, which i find kinda hilarious but some people may think is just stupid. also, if you REALLY like it, they're introducing yourname@crownfriedchicken.com email addresses soon.

steven, i can't tell--do those have a disc bottom, or is the disc encapsulated? i'm curious because i have a couple of old pots that are a similar shape, but they have a disc bottom. and the disc isn't big enough--the flame on my stove (which is no big fancy stove, just a regular crappy old one) hits the pot on the curved part outside of the area covered by the disc, and burns things around the edges if i turn it up too high. it's maddening. i'm saving up for a new 3.5 or 4-quart pot to replace it, but haven't done so yet...

Their style you can mimic with Excel or OpenOffice.org's Calc. ← sure, i COULD, but then i'd have to do it. and i want something to do it for me. until then, my recipes are staying in the manila folder on my bookshelf...

what i'd like is something that will translate recipes that i put into it into http://www.cookingforengineers.com style. i like the setup on that site, but i don't care much about the actual recipes on there.

yeah, what he said

oh my god, a case of tarama. can you imagine the oceans of taramosalata that would make...

i assume you don't use your $30/bottle artisanal olive oil for this...

i've got a gentian-flavored liqueur (called genziana, mysteriously enough) that a friend brought from abruzzo, on the left in this pic: good stuff. but the centerba over there on the right is better.

not even that blueberry wine we had at the tomater festival?

i kid, folks! i kid because i love!

i have a question: do you and philadining just have like, a standing reservation there? like, you finish up one night, and it's all 'ok shola, see you in a couple of weeks, try not to repeat yourself too much next time we're here.' just curious, because other people are all, 'OMG we called and there's such a long wait and i can't get the nights i want and he might be closing soon and whatnot' while you guys are like, 'so anyway, i was toolin around powelton village with nothin to do, so i stopped by studiokitchen for a quick six courses the other night...'