mrbigjas

Really? I mean, I like it and all, but it's pretty far down my list. Certainly a little more going on than spinach, but I'm much more of a kale man myself. ← i don't know what it is about chard, i just like it--maybe because it's milder, it's versatile in a way that kale isn't. i mean, because of this thread i think how great it is in frittatas, in ravioli, satueed/braised like you did above. but other preparations really work for it too--like a french pie recipe i found once with ham and hard boiled eggs and chard and bechamel wrapped in puff pastry. the stems are great gratineed. baby chard is good in salad. it's all good though. i like every leafy green vegetable--chard, all the various kales, spinach, mustard, collards, pea shoots, brussels, yu choy, bok choy--you name it, i like it. i have yet to find one i don't.

this week at iovine's: raw peanuts. i always find it interesting when they have kinda unusual things like this--green olives, raw peanuts, cardoons and the like--they just show up one week and then they're gone, so i took advantage of it this time. i boiled them up this morning, and just had a big ol plate of boiled peanuts with a glass of sweet tea. and damns, that's a good lunchtime snack. (ok not REAL sweet tea, but gimme a break) as a side note--this month's saveur has a big article about peanuts, and if it's to be believed these are valencia peanuts, which account for less than 1% of US peanut production, and are notable because they have 3-5 nuts per shell instead of the usual two. and i didn't realize this when i bought them, but the article says 'unusually sweet, they are excellent boiled when fresh.' who knew?

you know, that would be a fun thread to have pinned up top--translations of local restaurants' non-english menus. i've got one for pojangmacha (the little korean place in the old white tower in upper darby) up on my site that a friend of mine translated. i think we'd have to make a real effort to make that happen, but it could work. i do wish i could go out to exton with y'all, but that doesn't look like i'm gonna be able to make that happen.

check it out: deeelicious! (there's a little more chicken than the recipe called for, but it was good. i'm going to have some more for lunch today!)

yeah but it's TOTALLY WORTH IT. best vegetable ever.

wow, thanks, y'all. tepee, that soup looks great, but i'm not sure i'm up for buying all those ingredients--i have to admit i don't have dried cuttlefish, bamboo fungus, lotus seeds, red dates, or jasmine petals around the house. also i already cut it in half, so i can't steam it whole now. oops. i think i'm going to have to go with trillium's soup recipe--i made the steamed beef from that course before and it was great. but next time, with some more planning, i'm definitely going to get more complicated with it. thanks again!

i haven't had any experience with profi's, because every time i think about going there, i get something else instead. i just don't find the concept attractive to me outside of france, where it feels right. holy crap the fair food people have a lot of stuff if you get there before saturday at like 1:30 or 2, when i usually do.

thanks jason--that's what i was thinking, that it was similar to a mini-winter melon, but for some reason my googling wasn't turning up anything that actually looked like it, so i wasn't sure they even existed. that first link you posted is probably the closest. this is a discovery i'm pretty happy about, actually--i thought winter melons were only the huge 10-lb things, and there are only two of us, so i thought i was SOL when it came to making them.

hi folks--i bought this melon at the vietnamese market here in philadelphia last week, and i'm wondering what it is, and what kind of recipe to use it in: for size and scale purposes, that's a 10" knife next to it. when i cut it open and tasted it, it's bitter. but it's not shaped like the bitter melon that i'm familiar with (the long wrinkled kind), and it's not quite as firm as that either, but closer to a watermelon or zucchini in texture. anyone know what it is? or have any idea how i should cook it?

yep, he came this morning. he thinks a door was ajar, and condensation froze the fan. so the refrigerator went into defrost mode (i.e. shut down till it melted enough that things started working again), and started working fine after that. i still have a bit of skepticism about this, i have to admit, because when i heard the fridge making that noise, i thought something similar, and when i opened the door it didn't seem as if it was already open. plus that has happened before, when we first got it, and when it did there was frost all over everything in the freezer; there wasn't that day. the only way i can reconcile that in my mind is that it did freeze up enough to go into full shutdown like he said, and that frost had already melted. but the guy checked it out from top to bottom and pronounced it good, and it has been working since that afternoon... and i have a 5-year extension on the 1-year warranty with full replacement promise and a $100 spoiled food rebate, so i guess that's about all i can do about it at the moment. really the thing that pissed me off was the fact that there was no way to get in touch with anyone when it happened. i should say that the people at the scratch and dent were great yesterday when i talked to them on the phone; i love a reputable discount business. oh, one thing he mentioned about these fridges is that since the bottom freezer door slides, it's not self-closing, and slamming the fridge door hard can jar it open a little bit, because the fridge door is pretty heavy. so that's something to watch for, chrisamirault, if you're considering this fridge. other than that i have no complaints about it; it's a great appliance. however, if it dies again, i reserve the right to change my opinion... (mods, if you want to a) move this to general topics, and b) change the title, please go ahead. because although the lamb ribs ended up delicious and i'm finishing the leftovers tonight, this really ended up being more about the fridge...)

ooooh i get it now. that makes sense.

hahahaha i forgot about that one. with the cheese powder from kraft mac & cheese, right? it was somewhere around then that i just thought, this has to be a joke.

For the record mrbigjas exactly what episode did that "sauce" come from? And which ethnic groups did Ms. Sandy zero in on that time? I mean: "canned spaghetti sauce, red wine, beef stock"--she must have a whole warehouse full of canned beef stock [italians?]; "pumpkin pie spice" [Pilgrims?]; with "chocolate chips" added to make -- OH NO, was this last ingredient supposed to be her perverted attempt at making Mole sauce??? [Mexicans?] Wow, with one sauce she hit the culturally insensitive trifecta. Who's next: the Vikings? haha, it was no one specific--by that time i was kind of riffing on horrifying things i've seen her make. the beef with the sauce was on the 'romance' episode, and the 'cookies' were on the 'desserts and drinks' episode. come to think of it, i think she did say it was 'like a mole' when she put in the chocolate, if i remember right. haha lordy be that was a good episode. beef with sauce recipe here

paul, are those three options you're looking at? i kinda like the bar better than the booths, but if it was a bar and two-tops only, you couldn't have more than two or three people eat together. i guess with the booths you couldn't have more than four, so maybe it's not that much of a difference. or maybe the restaurant isn't supposed to be for groups, really, being a small space and conveyor belt sushi and all.

philadining is a consumer extraordinaire. i'm thinking if i get rid of my car, i might could set aside the money i save to start a studiokitchen budget line. that way i figure i could go probably a third to half as often as you guys do.

you should see her 'indian' show, in which she: 1. makes 'nan' using canned pizza crust 2. turns a mango lassi into a cocktail by adding vanilla vodka to it 3. makes 'chicken masala' using a can of cream of chicken soup concentrate or her 'asian' show where she makes a 'scallion pancake' by putting together a couple of tortillas; she also fries up rice noodles, puts powdered sugar on them, and calls them 'asian funnel cakes.' so yeah, it's nothing personal to italians. that show zooms from zero to cultural insensitivity in about five minutes, and continues in that vein the whole rest of the episode. you just gotta embrace it--it goes far beyond the cultural issues into the sublimely ridiculous. i mean, in one episode she pan fries a ribeye, and them makes a 'sauce' for it with canned spaghetti sauce, red wine, beef stock, pumpkin pie spice and chocolate chips. in another, she makes 'cookies' by taking a can of frosting, mixing it with butter and graham cracker crumbs and rolling it in crushed almonds--and tops it off with a hershey's kiss. between that and her cocktails that she makes out of things like maraschino cherry juice, i don't know how she hasn't developed type 2 diabetes. i guess what i'm trying to say is that the show is brilliant, as are the 'reviews' of her recipes on foodnetwork.com, as are the sites that make fun of her. you just need to put aside the concept that this is actually a cooking show, and think of it as a comedy.

thanks, monavano--i'm up and running now; i just want to make sure i'm up and running permanently before fetching my stuff from my neighbor's freezer...

interesting. i wonder how to prevent it, then.

i will definitely keep you updated. as of this morning the fridge continued to work like normal. i just have no idea what happened.

oo, good thought. thanks barbara! i'm not cancelling the service call. btw, i rubbed those lamb ribs with garlic, mint, ashe's savory, red pepper, salt, and oil, and baked them for 3 hours in a slow oven. they were great. a sadly neglected cut of meat.

woo rae kwan in upper darby is closed at the moment, because they're putting the han ah reum supermarket in the building. the sign says they were due to reopen 8/26, but it's nowhere near done. my thai at 22nd & south is closed till 9/18 for vacation.

p.s. after all this ranting, i come back and the fridge is at 37F and the freezer is back down to 17F... what the hell is going on? the compressor was making these awful noises this morning when i came down and found the temps at 56 and 40, respectively... good lord.

yes, i saved my heavily reduced beef, lobster and chicken stocks, and some various meats and things in a friend's freezer. i'm just incensed about the fact that it's impossible to get a live person on the phone from GE, and their piece of shit automated repair scheduler scheduled an appointment for WEDNESDAY, and i can't get out of the automated loop at all on the phone, and it keeps telling me that i can use their very! convenient! automagical! website! WHICH IS DOWN. i seem to get anyone around here on the phone either. do refrigerators not die on sundays? wtf? (it's a profile bottom freezer model that i got at a scratch and dent place near here last october--discounted significantly and it still cost nearly $1000, if that gives you any indication of why i'm so pissed that it's dead. the compressor was making an awful noise this morning) ok, phew, thanks, i feel better. now then, about those lamb ribs, i'm thinking a rub of garlic, dried mint, red pepper, maybe some lemon juice and putting them in a slow oven for a couple-three hours. i'm just not sure how long to bake them for.

OK my less than 1 year old 'i thought it was the greatest fridge ever until this morning' fridge has died, necessitating some emergency cooking of a lot of stuff that was in it. one of things i bought this weekend thinking that i'd have a couple days to research how to cook them is lamb spare ribs. now i don't have a couple of days; i need to cook them now. any tips? i may be posting more about this situation as is warranted.

yeah, what they all said! thanks to all, esp. evan for hosting and deirdre for the ride home. my wine of the night was the priorat as well but like you, i won't be able to afford it very often.