Scrumptulescence

testing again

2011-04-08T08:24:00.001-06:00

this is a test.

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2011-04-08T06:19:00.001-06:00

Grilling at home - Beer Can chicken

2009-05-04T11:55:00.004-06:00

Beautiful Chicago weather (finally) led to a desire to cook something outside and have some friends over. Thus my third trip down beer can chicken lane.

I have a very reliable recipe from the folks at Cooks Illustrated, and proceeded to make three chickens, braised kale, broccoli salad, German potato salad, sour cream muffins, and blondies for dessert.

Everything was pretty good, but there were nine people, and the completely devoured all three chickens. In a very short amount of time. The kale was great. I always forget how much I love kale. The muffins were a first try and were surprisingly good for having only 3 ingredients. The chicken was delicious and moist, but I need to get the skin crisper all the way around. there were some non-crisp skin sections, but the chicken was still good.

And blondies are my go-to dessert on short notice. I always have the ingredients, and I can make them in 30 minutes including baking and oven heating time.

Good times.....

Afternoon weekday dining - Hop Leaf

2009-05-04T11:40:00.002-06:00

Sorry for the time between posts. Life gets in the way sometimes. Luckily I have a number of posts to make, I just have to go through and write them. Last Monday night I had a visit from Jayadev, one of our writers from Connecticut. He got in to Chicago around 4, and neither of us had eaten lunch. This means that we could get to one of the great Chicago food and drink establishments before the after work crowd.

The Hopleaf is a "gastropub" in the traditional sense of the word. Large and varied beer selection, well prepared upscale bar food with a European spin. They have a few good things on their menu. The brisket is fine, the ham and cheese sandwich is great, and the frites with aioli are AMAZING. But I'm trying to expand my seafood horizons. I've never been a fan of fish or seafood (perhaps because I've only lived in Idaho and Chicago, both rather landlocked), but I really like the preparation of fish and seafood. So I'm trying to force myself to like more of it. I had a decent mussels experience a few months ago, so Jayadev and I got the mussells and frites for two. I know the Hopleaf is famous for their mussels, so I thought it might work out. if not, I had the frites to fall back on.

I started with a cold asparagus soup. Forgettable. Only mentioning for completeness.

Then the mussels and frites. Frites were awesome. No surprise. The mussels had the right texture and flavor, and I was able to finish my portion. I still don't love them, but I do love dipping bread in the broth left over. I have been made to understand that everyone loves the broth, and there may be other people who only eat mussels to get to the bottom of the bucket. I do think I had a bit of "mussel fatigue" (sorry about the pun) as I got towards the bottom. Just got a little tired of the experience, but I definitely filled up on them, and will do so again I'm sure.

Weekday dining - Tweet

2009-04-09T15:46:00.005-06:00

This is hopefully the first in a somewhat regular series about dining in Chicago... On weekdays... At popular breakfast and lunch spots... When the rest of the city is working. I work on most weekends, leaving me with two weekdays off each week. Chicago has a great roster of breakfast / brunch and lunch places that get PACKED on weekends. Lines out the door and around the block. But for most of these places, if you show up on a Thursday at 10am, there's no wait. Not bad.

Even though I went last week, I went to Tweet again this week. How else can I devote an entire post to a restaurant if I do it from memory? I met up with Ryan, Michelle, and James, who had just finished walking around Montrose beach. (Yes, i should have walked too. I didn't.) Our servers were the 2 guys who are always there on Thursdays: Ted, and another very nice competent server whose name I don't know. After the usual jokes about having no biscuits and gravy available, we got down to business.

First, coffee. I am only recently a coffee drinker, and I use way more cream and sugar than most people can handle, but I do like good coffee. And they brew good coffee. And there's a fresh cup of cream that appears on the table when you order the coffee. I do like that better than plastic cups of half and half.

They do LOTS of things well at Tweet. Literally every time I go, I get the biscuits and gravy.

And I usually 2 eggs on the side, and hashbrowns. I didn't bother with a picture of the eggs:

The biscuits are always fresh, the gravy is well seasoned and has lots of sausage, and the hash browns are amazing. The pictures don't do any of it justice. The hash browns look rather ordinary, perhaps like they were frozen. Let me assure you this is not the case. They are just cooked to a perfect golden brown, and have this amazing richness to them. I finally asked why they were so good. The answer: cooked in 100% clarified butter. Hmm. Naturally.

How do I know the other stuff is good? Because I eat of of other plates, obviously. I can say that Tweet has the best French toast I've ever had in Chicago. This is what Michelle's order looked like today. Sorry about the shadows from the sun.

Looks good, right?

Ryan always gets the vegetarian biscuits and gravy. I've never tried them. I can't wrap my head around vegetarian gravy. Don't you need animal fat and pan drippings for gravy? But he seems to like it:

And James got some sort of a breakfast burrito. They have a whole list of them. You order by number. This might have been # 5:

I must say, it was a great meal. Ted brought us out some complimentary fresh squeezed orange juice. It's part of our VIP treatment. I would highly recommend that anyone in the area try out Tweet for breakfast or brunch. Just be forewarned, if you go on a weekend, you WILL wait quite awhile.

Philly: Checking In, Dining Out

2009-04-07T08:05:00.003-06:00

I feel terrible. I haven't posted to this site in too long, and it's not like I haven't been eating. I don't have a good excuse, but I promise to try to do better in the future. So, back to the eating and reporting. I don't have anything amazing on the burner (ha HA!) so to speak, mostly because I'm sitting in class and can only remember the bowl of cereal I had for breakfast. BUT...I have plans. Stay tuned for upcoming editions of Scrumptudelphia on topics including:

*Inexpensive-yet-invaluable Mexican food delivered rain or shine by bike from El Jarocho.

*Luchalibre masks and white pants juxtaposed with myriad ceviches, tongue tacos and savory bone marrow from DISTRITO.

*The new and improved Drew Coursin Cookies (now with TWO POUNDS OF M&Ms per batch!)

*The merits of Belgian street waffles eaten neither in Belgium nor on the street.

*And more!!

In addition to new content, be prepared for the stellar input of co-gormands including Jax, Smash and the lovely M. Hurray!

... The next night

2009-04-05T21:02:00.003-06:00

You should all read the previous post. The food is much more interesting, and there is a brief discussion of my return to food blogging.

But this is what pushed me into posting again:

Nothing exciting there. It's four Vienna Beef polish sausages that I grilled along with some onions. Got home from work Saturday, wanted to fix something quick, saw the sausages in the fridge, and literally 9 minutes later had this plate of food ready for Akira and I to eat. Had some leftover collards greens, some jalepeno krunchers chips, and some rather turgid grape tomatoes. There was nothing special about the meal, but that plate of food looked good. So I took a picture. And decided I wanted to share it somewhere.

And I remembered the blog.

Not sure when I'll post again. We'll see.

Tap Tap Is this thing on?

2009-04-05T20:22:00.003-06:00

Is it possible to resurrect a food blog, even one that never had a high readership?

No idea.

But I have been thinking quite a bit recently about the great food city that I live in.

It's Chicago, for those of you who don't know...

In any case, I have had some money concerns recently, and I've realized that I still eat some pretty amazing food. Mainly because I live in a great food city, probably also because I prioritize food as an essential expense. There are SO MANY great food options here, even on a tighter budget.

So I thought I'd explore some of those, and maybe try to entice a few of my co-bloggers back.

They don't know that I am posting right now, and all of their lives have changed quite a bit since they last posted. However, I'm pretty sure they are all eating interesting things.

I work an odd schedule. I only worked a partial day on Wednesday, then had Thursday and Friday off, and worked all weekend. As I described the gluttony of Wednesday through Friday to my boss, it hit me that I enjoyed that span of eating so much, I should probably tell the world about it. The world, in this case, consists of my co-workers and my roommates. That's a small group, so I thought I'd post it here.

Wednesday. 4/1/09. As a tribute to my mom, who is from Wisconsin and whose birthday is on April first, I had to leave work early so as to avoid going into overtime for the week. Since I was heading through the southwest suburbs back to my apartment, I realized that if I took a certain path home, I would go by a Culver's. This place is a Wisconsin based fast food chain that has started to spread out quite a bit. To my palate, they tie with In-N-Out for best fast food burger ever. So I had a late lunch there around 2 pm. Double Butterburger with cheese basket is only $4.99 right now. Great food, great price. Called my mom to wish her a Happy Birthday. She was jealous, and then gave me a guilt trip for not flying to Boise to surprise her for her birthday. Serves me right for going to Culver's alone. That experience should be shared.

Thursday. Woke up. Roommate # 1, the Asian one, was off last week, and roommate # 2, the student, doesn't have class on Thursdays. I arranged to meet up with Rick, the new dad, for an early lunch at Hot Doug's. Akira (roommate # 1) and Joe (roommate # 2) both agreed to come. So we went to Doug's at 10:45 am. It's been discussed on this blog before, but I'm too lazy to look for it and link to it. Hot Doug's is one of the best restaurants in Chicago. No one will agree with this until they actually go there, but trust me. Or trust the internet. Do a google search, or just go the link I included a few sentences ago and look at the specials menu. His food is REAL. His food is CHEAP. His food is AMAZING. Best fries I've ever had. Anyway, I had the Cinci style chili dog, 'cause everyone was doing it, and I had the Burgundy Wine Pork Sausage with Bacon-Garlic Mayonnaise and Camembert Cheese. And shared some fries. It was unspeakably good. Anyone who wants to visit Chicago, this place has to be on your itinerary. Get in touch with me. I'll take you.

After lunch, I realized I wanted to make Collard Greens. I like the idea of greens. I have a fascination with "Southern Food." I watched the Good Eats episode about greens. So I wanted to make them. Couldn't make them as a meal unto themselves, so I plotted what else to make. I realized I wanted something grilled. Joe's mom provided us with some home grown ground beef. So I thawed that and made an America's Test Kitchen-based recipe for Well Done burgers. (I have a slight fear of underdone ground beef unless it is ground to order). I also made the oven baked onion rings from the same ATK episode, and sour cream and onion smashed potatoes. Not the healthiest of meals, but it was REALLY good. The burgers were superb, the onion rings were surprisingly good, the potatoes were a little runnier than I usually like, but definitely delicious, and the Collards were GREAT. I need to investigate these hearty greens a little more. Usually if I go down that route it's just kale, but mustard greens and turnip greens are now calling ti me. As for the burgers, home grown ANYTHING is so amazing, and that includes beef. Can't say enough about it. And it was a relatively cheap meal. The beef was free, for us, and then everything else was less than a dollar a pound. Potatoes? Collards? Onions? Cheap! The most expensive part of the meal was the ham hock that went into the greens! Oh, yeah. I almost forgot the chocolate mocha cake with chocolate marscapone mocha frosting that I made. It was pretty good, too. All of the roommates joined me for dinner (Akira, Joe, Dane and Hensley), and Leo made an appearance as well.

Friday I woke up and went for an 11 am brunch at Tweet. Tweet may have made it on to the blog before, too, but just in case, let me tell you something. They have the best biscuits and gravy in Chicago, as well as the best hash browns. (I use hyperbole a lot, but they really are that good). They also have a cool space to work in, and very nice waitstaff. Went with David, a friend I used to work with. It was a great time, and we had some great food. Truth be told, I go to Tweet almost every week, so it will make a return appearance here at some point I'm sure. It's not the cheapest breakfast in town, but for quality AND quantity, it can't be beat. Another place I would travel a long way to visit.

Friday night some friends wanted to go to That Little Mexican Cafe. It's a cool place with great margaritas, very good guacamole, and a grilled pork tenderloin entree that really makes me happy. Good company with David, Ryan, James, and Alan. Good food. Easily the most expensive meal I ate over the past few days, but it was worth it. Plus David paid because I agreed to drive him to my place, give him some chocolate cake, and then drive him home. Definitely worth it.

All of that eating in the span of two and a half days made me realize that I missed writing about food, even for the small audience, but the meal that made me sit back down and start typing again came the next night...

Back in the Have

2008-08-11T11:51:00.003-06:00

So I'm back in New Haven now. I have a new apartment, and a gorgeous new kitchen. I have been going a little nuts with summer farmers market bounty and just enjoying cooking in the big, open, kitchen with two large windows. Also, Mark Bittman's blog, Bitten, has been providing some delightful recipes.

Some of the things I've made:

-Tilapia with cilantro, lime, tomatoes, and crispy garlic (apparently this is Yucatan-style, according to Bittman).

-Scallops stir-fried with green and red pepper and eggplant.

-Cold eggplant salad with sesame dressing.

-A bread salad with cucumbers, olives, tomatoes, and fresh basil.

-pasta with fresh tomatoes, garlic and basil

-A nice simple yellow dal (Indian lentils) with onions and cilantro

- Molaha Mangai- a south Indian mango relish- basically raw mango with asofoetida, chili powder, and a little bit of toasted mustard seeds.

-fresh guac

-fresh peach salsa

-Blueberry/raspberry cheesecake bars (no-bake, no less).

-mango milkshakes

-Sauteed cherries (some of them poured on ice cream, some put in a pie)

Here's a picture of the cherries on top of some blackberry ice cream, and one of the cheesecake bars:

Honey

2008-02-10T13:17:00.000-06:00

So, I guess this my own personal fiefdom of a food blog now...

In any case, made 4 recipes featuring honey this weekend- first, Alton Brown's homemade Protein bars and granola bars, which are quite good, and helpful because I'm at least temporarily back on the workout wagon, and they taste a hell of a lot better than their commercial alternatives.

Second, I made a Honey-topped salmon fillet, inspired by my friend Roja. The recipe is from her entertaining cooking blog, Tameshk in Kitchen. I ended up cooking carrots and potatoes in the same pan as the salmon, as well as an onion, and at the end, I threw in some red and yellow peppers. This was very good with a side of salad, some bread, and a glass of white wine.

Finally, I currently have roasting in the oven a leg of lamb, prepared in a Kashmiri style. It's called Raan, and you first rub the lamb (after removing excess fat) with a spice mixture of garlic, ginger, chili powder, cumin powder, tumeric, cinnamon, cardamom, and salt (I didn't have the cardamom, so I didn't use any), then marinating it with yogurt blended with almonds and pistachios and honey. It smells terrific right now, and I also added some cilantro to the marinade. It's roasting with some onions and green peppers, which will hopefully caramelize.

Quiche and Brie

2008-01-22T21:31:00.000-06:00

So, I got some bloodwork done recently, mainly because of my family history of cardiac issues, and it showed some lipid factors were elevated- so my doctor has asked me to try to reduce the fat in my diet- in particular, to try and eliminate, for a while at least, cheese, red meat, ice cream, and butter (among other things). Now, I love all of those things, and have (or had) a lot of all of those things in my fridge. Instead of throwing them away, I decided to have a blowout weekend before embarking on the diet. Nicole was in Princeton, and we cooked two superb meals on Saturday: lunch was quiche with bacon, mushrooms, scallions, red and green peppers, jack cheese, and italian parsley, served with a mixed green salad with oil and vinegar and slices of blood orange; and dinner was brie baked in pastry with honey and pecans, served with red pears and green apples. Pictures:

Breakfast at the Taj

2007-12-12T21:51:00.000-06:00

Let's not let this space die, boys and girls. It's holiday season- people must be eating and drinking well- so let's post about it.

I'm in Mumbai, India right now, for a conference, and have the amazing good luck to be staying in the Taj Mahal Palace and Towers, one of India's oldest and best known luxury hotels. I'm still a bit jetlagged, so I've been up at 5am the last two day, and have gone down to the gym for a workout. Not really so that I can stay in shape, but more so I can sharpen my appetite for the amazing breakfast buffet here. Now, I'm not usually a huge buffet fan, but this place is cartoonishly good.

Here's what I had for breakfast this morning:

(1) Rava Idli and Sambhar with chutney: a steamed, spiced wheat dumpling with lentil-tamarind stew, served with several different chutneys: coconut, cilantro, tomato, and peanut. Classic South Indian breakfast.

(2) Grilled veggies and cheese: I love grilled cheese, and the grilled veggies went really well with it. Very simple, very tasty.

(3) Smoked Salmon: just amazing to me that I can get this in India, and that it is good smoked salmon at that.

(4) Fruits: papaya, chikku (a sweet brown fruit that looks from the outside a bit like a potato, tastes much better), honeydew melon, watermelon.

(5) French toast with caramelized bananas: perfect dessert to the breakfast, washed down with a mug of hot, milky coffee.

Also a glass of fresh sweetlime juice (sweetlime = a citrus fruit somewhere in between an orange and a lime)...

Of course, for Rs. 1000 (roughly $25), the buffet ought to be good :-)

What I've done

2007-10-23T16:36:00.000-06:00

With my farmer's market bounty:

Beets: roasted them in the oven, ate one of them just with salt, delicious. The others are in the fridge (they store well after roasting), may slice them thin and dress them with oil and vinegar.

Beet greens: stir-fried with potatoes, mustard seeds, and green chili. Very tasty, very typical Assamese dish.

Broccoli: steamed, then put into penne with alfredo sauce (made with the romano I got at the market).

Bacon: still got plenty of it. Had a big French toast and bacon breakfast the other day, which also used up the baguette I bought.

Bell peppers (red and green): some were roasted and mixed with pasta, and home-made tomato and garlic sauce. Others were chopped, lightly stir-fried with mustard seeds and asafoetida to mix in with yogurt and rice- a classic South Indian combo.

Eggplant: made Baigan Bharta, a typical North Indian dish. Roast the eggplant in the broiler, then mash the roasted flesh, fry up some tomatoes and onions with cumin powder, coriander powder, and garam masala, maybe a green chili or two, add in the mashed roasted eggplant, mix it all up, turn the heat down a bit, and at the end, add a bunch of cilantro. Delicious.

Farmers markets and fishmongers

2007-10-16T20:00:00.000-06:00

So, I finally went to the on-campus farmers market here in Princeton. It was quite small, but very nice. I picked up some very nice sheep's milk cheese (one blue and one pecorino), a duck breast, some bacon, beets, red, green, and hot peppers, eggplant, broccoli, tomatoes, apples, cider, honey, and a baguette. So I went a little crazy. But I'm excited to have a fridge full of excellent raw materials to cook with.

Funnily enough, the beets might be what I'm most excited about. I'm planning on roasting them, and serving them with the greens on the side. The greens I'm planning on just wilting with a little bacon and garlic and onion. Other suggestions?

It's also nice that I have a good fishmarket just down the street. I've now twice picked up a piece of fish on my way home from work (opa once, rainbow trout once), marinated it briefly in soy sauce and ginger, and then grilled it and served it with a little pineapple salsa. A nice luxury.

Mmm...dosas

2007-10-03T12:45:00.000-06:00

Great article on NYC street food.

Please help me eat good food

2007-09-26T19:50:00.000-06:00

So, I bought some clams today. Littlenecks, quite nice looking. And I would like to eat them.

Here's the trouble: clams are really hard to shuck. I've googled around, and somehow the instructions on eHow and the like just aren't doing the trick. (Also, I don't have a clam knife. But I was hoping to maybe do this without one...)

Anyone have any secrets for me? Anyone? Post in the comments if you do. I beg you...

(As a totally random aside, the three biggest entries in eHow's "cloud" at the moment are, in order, "lose weight", "get pregnant", and "get rid of fleas". Really? Okay...)

Chautara Reminds me of Thundercats

2007-08-18T09:15:00.000-06:00

Okay, so, I lied about completing my Brussels profile. To be honest, though, the cuisine in Belgium left a little to be desired, and the pizza really was the high point. Seriously, show me another place where you order pie by weight and a pair of cute girls with dangerous-looking shears mangle the prosciutto-pesto flatbread to your exact specifications.

In any case, I'm back in Madison for the time being. What can I say? I was having a coffee in Philly a couple weeks ago, and I was bored, so I got in the car and drove to Wisconsin. What? It's not like you've never taken an impromptu Midwest road trip. You're so judgmental...

Right. Madison. Home sweet home. I had the pleasure of dining with my dear friend Jana, an old college chum (which always makes me think of Jaws, for some reason...the word "chum," not Jana) with whom I spent countless hours studying literature, complaining about studying literature, and drinking heavily to punctuate our complaints about studying literature. I attribute my success in college to our mutual support and copious amounts of Tanqueray. It was my honor, then, to welcome Jana on her first night in Madison.

I opted for a tried-and-true Madison favorite, Chautara. Aside from being my favorite of the two good Nepalese restaurants in Madison, Chautara is also a touch classier than its sister down the street, Himalchuli. I'm pretty sure "Chautara" refers to a city in Nepal, while "Himalchuli" is definitely a mountain in the Himalayas...in case you were wondering.

We sat at a cozy table for two, looking out on State Street, Madison's still-dormant pedestrian mall. Don't get me wrong; there were plenty of people out, but the walkers-only thoroughfare will be flooded with red and white-clad coeds and douchebag frat boys with backwards "W" caps on within a couple weeks. I always love Madison during its down times, when the teeming sea of students has abated and only the charmingly familiar buskers and harmless-compared-to-Philly's-crazy-ass homeless people are out.

Jana and I talked about her imminent matriculation to law school, and it wasn't for twenty-five minutes that we realized nobody had brought us water or greeted us. Finally our server materialized, all apologies and promises of ice water and all kinds of Nepalese culinary delights. Jana went with the lamb korma, and I, in my infinite love for variety, chose the vegetarian thali.

The food appeared in what seemed like a short time, although we had already drunk most of our bottle of wine. Jana's lamb looked and smelled delicious, and I'm assured that it was, in fact, tender and tasty. My thali was a bit overwhelming, if only because of the plethora of chutneys and sauces that accompanied it. Although our server seemed a bit lackadaisical at first, she was very firm as to the application of the yogurt sauce and tamarind chutney to my samosa, and the required pairing of veggie momo and tomato chutney.

As usual, the thali was delicious. The giant, circular silver platter held a flight of meatless Nepalese classics. A perfectly-formed bowl scoop of rice, dusted with paprika, rested in the middle, surrounded by savory potatoes, eggplant, seitan and spinach, and punctuated by one each of the samosa and momo.

Although neither Jana nor I finished our dishes, we agreed that Chautara was an excellent place to begin the Welcome to Madison Pub Crawl 2007. The starchy, delicious Nepalese food was the perfect base upon which to pour dry Tanqueray (or dirty Grey Goose, if you're me) martinis, Spotted Cow beer, 14 year Oban, and something that resembled sewer water but tasted just like one of those chocolate oranges.

Chautara: Highly recommended.

Chautara
334 State St
Madison, WI 53703
(608) 251-3626

Make Your Own

2007-08-08T13:57:00.000-06:00

I've been pretty uninspired by food for most of the summer. Not enough time to cook, lack of desire to do the dishes, and other lame excuses have kept me from cooking, and eating out has been for convenience rather than for quality. But this past weekend, I broke out of that, perhaps only temporarily. Friday night, with Flynn in town, we went to Kuma's. Long wait for the food, but good conversation, good beer, good food. Saturday I woke up early, went to the Evanston farmer's market, bought some nice tomatoes, some corn, some carrots, and some zucchini / summer squash. At 1 pm, I started the cooking.

St. Louis cut spare ribs on the smoker.

Homemade fresh mozzarella.

side dishes: Steamed and chilled green beans tossed with Olive Oil

grilled squash

corn on the cobb

fresh tomatoes, including a few from the garden. Those were REALLY good.

dill pickles and pickled green tomatoes from a Michigan farm.

All together:

All of that took awhile, but it all turned out ok. The ribs were definitely good. Perhaps a bit salty, and I could have taken them off the smoker 30 minutes earlier and the texture would have been a little better, but they were a success.

The mozzarella was a bit of a process. It's not hard, but on my first try the curd didn't set up enough, so I had to try again. The second time I ended up with two mounds of fresh cheese. Not bad for a first or second try. Didn't make enough to serve at dinner, but Joe, Timmy, Liz and Thor all got to try it. The really nice heirloom tomatoes made the cheese taste that much better. I also made tres leches, which was really good. Not hard to make, either. But I didn't take a picture of it.

Then, late lunch Sunday at Los Nopales with Flynn. So, for the weekend, I ate at a couple of great local restaurants, and Saturday was full of local produce, fresh cheese, real home smoked ribs, and fun people. Not bad at all.

Mixed grill

2007-08-04T14:56:00.000-06:00

So, that's a menu board of a restaurant, just down the street from where I was staying in Jerusalem. Couple of things to note:

1) the skewer of Biz/Udder. Didn't really know that former Briefcase intern Biz Silverstein was available in skewer form.

2) the skewer of Turkey Testicles. Wow.

For the record, I wasn't brave enough to order either of these items, sticking to chicken skewers and kebabs (both very good- fresh grilled meat is delicious). However, the previous night, I had eaten across the street from this place at a little food stand, where I had managed to communicate in broken Hebrew my desire for a pita filled with whatever they were grilling, which was some sort of mixed grill with onions. It smelled terrific. I got greviously overcharged (44 shekels, like $10) for a small sandwich, but it was damn good and I had been starving.

What was in it? Well, definitely some liver and other assorted organs, onions, some regular meat, and well, other assorted organs. Probably turkey testicles. I was later told that this type of mixed grill is called a "Jerusalem grill".

So, next time you go to the Holy Land, try the West Bank Oysters.

Marseille

2007-07-23T10:06:00.000-06:00

One thing that's interesting about traveling is how the food culture changes from place to place. In Pisa and Marseille, and really, Tuscany and Provence in general, it's very similar, a Mediterranean culture that really takes pride in its cuisine and time over meals- often to the exclusion of other cuisines- i.e., you're not going to find many ethnic restaurants - maybe one or two Chinese, one or two Indian, and a few middle eastern places, usually all pretty mediocre.

In the two day interlude I had in Geneva in between, I ate mostly at the home of my mom's old school friend (man, was it nice to eat home-cooked Indian- watching the Federer-Nadal Wimbledon final, eating pakoras [deep fried vegetable fritters] with spicy chutney and drinking beer is about as good as it gets) and at ethnic restaurants (Chinese, Indian)- so I didn't really get much of a sense of the food culture.

Israel, where I am now, is still on the Mediterranean, has a much more "American" food culture- fast food being very popular- of course fast food here is mainly falafel, pita, hummus, kebabs, shawarma, etc. I don't really know what the ethnic food (i.e., other than middle-eastern) situation here is, but I did have some mall food-court Chinese, which was oily, gross, but somehow very satisfying at the time.

Anyway, wanted to describe a very, very good meal I had in Marseille at a small restaurant called Resto Provencal, which serves, as you might have guessed, typical Provencal food. It's in the Cours Julien neighborhood, which is a big open-air pedestrian plaza with lots of bars and restaurants, and a lot of children playing and in general people enjoying themselves.

The restaurant itself is unassuming, but I remembered it from when I had gone to Marseille in 2003, and hell, if a meal sticks in your mind for 4 years, it must have been good (or possibly very bad). I went with my colleague and friend Erwan Lanneau and his girlfriend Vacianne, and we all decided on the 3 course prix-fixe menu, and a bottle of rose, which is what you drink in Provence in summer (in Tuscany, of course, you drink red wine. Delicious, full bodied chianti, for the most part. Mmm...red wine).

I started with the onion and anchovy tart, called Pissatiere, which was really fantastic- the salty anchovies and olives nicely complemented by the sweetness of the caramelized onions and the rich, very buttery pastry. I also tried a bit of Vacianne's salmon tartare, which I had back in 2003- still very good. Erwan's soupions (squid, I think, but I'm not sure), grilled, tasted fresh and firm, as they should be in a coastal town.

For the main course, I stuck to what I had eaten 4 years ago- filet de dourade en bouillabaisse- a filet of the fish dourade served in bouillabaisse, the famous Provencal seafood stew. On the side comes little toasts with an aioli-like spread called rouille. I hate to keep using the same words, but the fish was clearly fresh, and the soup surrounding it was delicately flavored- though it could have use a little more salt.

Dessert was an absurd chocolate mousse. Dark, dark, almost black, and thick, rich, and probably more calories than in the rest of the meal, it sent me almost into a stupor- luckily E. and V. then took me out for a digestif, a fiery pear brandy, which was the perfect restoring tonic.

As you can see, I'm missing being in France.

North Carolina Historic Barbecue Trail

2007-07-17T12:09:00.000-06:00

I like North Carolina. I like BBQ. Who's in for a mid-fall trip?

From this article:

The non-profit North Carolina Barbecue Society speaks of barbecue in terms of culture, heritage and tradition. Earlier this year, the society created a historic barbecue trail spotlighting 25 joints from Ayden in the east to Murphy in the west. Each stop on the trail specializes "in roasting pig the old-fashioned way, slowly over pits of wood or charcoal," the society notes. The cited businesses also have to make their own sauce, be in business more than 15 years, provide sit-down service and provide a final product "that is a high quality representation" of the state's barbecue.

Very cool. 25 historic BBQ places serving pork the traditional way? Luckily, the North Carolina Barbecue Society has a website.

This is a link to the description of the historic BBQ trail.

This is a link to the map of the trail.

Who's it? I'm not saying we could hit all 25 places in one trip, but we could start on one side or the other and get as far as we can in an allotted time.

Surprise! New post!

2007-07-17T12:07:00.000-06:00

It's just a link, but it's the type of thing that makes me excited about food.

Make your own what?

Tu peux pas test (Part 1)

2007-07-07T21:02:00.000-06:00

Bonjour. Or, should I say, bonsoir, since it's night here in Stone Harbor. It is, however, early-ass morning in Brussels, where I was just this morning, or rather, late last night in Jersey time. Confused? Me too, but here's the short version: I went to Brussels from M-F this week to check out an MBA program. I don't think it'll pan out, but I did get to sample some fine Belgian cuisine. Let's start at the beginning:

Day 1 - Dans Bruxelles Straight Up, Son
I unfolded myself from sitting in Row 101B in ultra-slim coach seating on Continental's joyful Newark-Brussels night flight. Katie met me at Schuman (you know, Schuman...the Metro stop, duh) and escorted me to her flat in the Sant-Gilles commune (neighborhood, not an actual commune, I was displeased to find). I don't recall eating much, since I'd gorged myself on TCBY, protein shakes, and pizza in the Newark airport (gimme a break, I was there for six hours). I went to bed. I awoke and did some other stuff. You can thank me later for skipping all the non-food stuff and cutting to the chase. If you wanted more Drew Coursin action, you'd have been an avid reader of my heretofore nonexistent travel blog...but it's Scrump, so, whatever.

Katie and I went to the great pizza place, which doesn't sound like much, but was exciting because there was an excellent variety, from aubergine- and pesto-topped (that's right, I've stopped using the word 'eggplant,' it's crude) pie to prosciutto and peppers. Yum! AND the pizza came in these giant slabs monitored by these petite femmes with pruning shears. Basically, I pointed to a type of pizza and made hand signals for how much, and the girls went to town with the scissors and cut me a custom-sized slice. THEN I paid by weight, which I found just delightful. Call me a sucker for the metric system.

Whew, just writing that little bit was exhausting, so I'm off to bed for now. See Part Deux tomorrow!

Pictures of dessert.

2007-07-01T08:05:00.000-06:00

I know pictures aren't the be-all and end-all when it comes to food, but I had to put up a couple of dessert pictures. Nicole was here in Pisa this week, and so we went out for some very nice meals at some nice trattorias and osterias. Here are two standout desserts we had:

First, on my birthday, we had a Lemon Sorbet in Prosecco at the Osteria De Cavalieri, which I've mentioned before. Prosecco is sort of an Italian Champagne, basically sparkling white wine. The tartness of the sorbet and the dryness of the wine work beautifully together:

Last night (Saturday), we went to a trattoria, whose name I sadly don't remember, but we had what the waitress simply described as "chocolate cake". It didn't do it justice. Moist, souffle-esque, and accompanied by perfectly ripe apricots.

Trapped in New Jersey

2007-06-27T10:34:00.001-06:00

So...here I am, back in Philadelphia after month+ of wandering around in No Internet Land, aka the Jersey Shore. It's been tough. And the food kind of sucks down there...hence the not posting for a while. Whatever, don't judge me! It's not like YOU post on Scrumptulescence every day! In any case, I promise to be a better food critic/correspondent, even in the absence of gastronomic delights to report.

In any case, I thought I'd do something a little different a write a round-up of rather sub-par but edible places to eat if you every find yourself in sunny South Jersey. And I don't mean Cherry Hill. Oh no, my friends, I'm talking the cape. You know, down the Garden State Parkway, exit 13 down (that's Swainton/Avalon in case you're wondering).

STONE HARBOR

Green Cuisine:
Okay, so I eat here at least once a day, since it's really the only reasonably healthy joint to eat on the island. I mean, it makes sense, having mostly pizza joints and Italian restaurants, because people are vacationing and love crappy food on the road. Right? Not me, damn it! So yeah. Green Cuisine is a bonafied health food place - they even promise to prepare otherwise alien (to South Jersey and its inhabitants) dishes like tofu, fresh-squeezed (pressed? pulverized?) carrot and celery juice, and salad that's not made of iceberg lettuce. Fresh fruits and vegetables proliferate, and your best bet is to share one of the enormous salads and maybe grab a side of the hummous and pita to supplement. A few stand-outs: the Cobb Salad is a deliciously linear presentation of sliced avocado, turkey breast, bacon, and hard-boiled egg atop mixed greens. Yum! Also, try the Eggless Egg Salad Sandwich, if only for the novelty. Like I said, the hummous is good, especially in the pita sandwich form, although I'm a sucker for anything chick pea-, sprout-, cucumber-, and tomato-based. For a true fruit overload, try the Jamaican Joy - a half pineapple filled to overflowing with blueberries, strawberries, apples, kiwi, and whatever else they can cram in there. Yum!

Peace a Pizza:
Sucks big time.

Stone Harbor Pizza:
Sucks slightly less.

Back Bay Crab Cakes and Seafood:
This is THE place to get your choice of broiled or fried crab cakes. My stalwart culinary companion Todd made the trip down, and we enjoyed the hell out of these heaping, golden-brown mounds of jumbo lump crab. I'm talking no fillers. NO FILLERS, do you even understand the gravity of that?! It's effin' amazing. Seriously. You can even buy frozen crab cakes to make at your leisure...but who really likes to cook these days?

AVALON

Via Mare:
I figured I'd add one Italian spot, since it's my parents' favorite and it's halfway decent. The eggplant parm is good, but I wouldn't recommend skipping a trip to Italy to eat here.

RIO GRANDE

That Sushi Place Right Off the Garden State Parkway:
Okay, so I can't remember exactly what the place is called, but it was delicious. I went with our neighbor, the good Dr. Dave Connelly, and we ate our fill of fresh-caught whitefish, thin-sliced and wrapped with lemon, and finished the meal with flying fish roe and quail's egg atop a mound of rice. Far from the most jaw-dropping sushi I've ever eaten, but considerably better than that one time I ate it in Minnesota and almost died shortly thereafter.

So, there you have it, a rather halfhearted roundup of some pretty lackluster eateries. I promise I'll be back with more, better soon. More better!

Cecina

2007-06-18T10:06:00.000-06:00

So, Saturday night was the festival of San Ranieri here in Pisa. The main celebration was a huge street fair, and lighting up the windows all the buildings along the river Arno with candles (the Luminara). It's quite picturesque, you can read more about it here.

A bunch of us from the conference went into town to take part, including Enrico, who's Italian and did his undergrad in Pisa, and my friend Anish, with whom I plan to open a restaurant/microbrewery in Bangalore, India, after we both get tenure somewhere. Anyway, Enrico had been telling us about Cecina, a typical Pisan snack food, which is more-or-less a thin, savory, brick-oven pancake made with chickpea flour. It's made on a huge pan, and then cut into slices, and served on bread made from pizza dough as a sandwich. So we went to the most famous purveyor of this snack, waited in line for about an hour (LOTS of people come to the festival), and maybe it was the wait, or maybe it was the fact that we got a fresh, fresh slice, but damn, was it good. One of our group got it with jalapeno peppers on it, and this looked even better. It tastes actually quite similar to the Indian snack pakora, which is fried lentil flour dumplings, usually spiced up a bit.

You can find a recipe here.

Anish and I have some ideas for improvement before we serve it at our restaurant- basically, to make it more like a pakora- so before you put it in the oven, we think some finely chopped white onions, fresh green chilis, and cilantro should be mixed in with the dough. I'm getting hungry just writing about it.

does anyone know a single hedge fund manager?

2007-06-11T11:30:00.000-06:00

this weekend i had the opportunity to go to two of the country's best restaurants in 48 hours because of a friend in town from nyc on a culinary mission. friday night - alinea, which you might know from such facts as its the best restaurant in america according to gourmet magazine and the chef grant achatz is a 31 year old mastermind of micro-gastronomy. saturday night - moto, which you might have heard of because they have a class 4 military laser in the kitchen and cook everything in liquid nitrogen. i will lightly touch on moto but the short and long of it is this... alinea is earth shattering. moto... eh. it doesnt even hold a candle to the type of experience you get at alinea on many levels.. food, service, atmosphere. sitting at dinner friday i was thinking about something my dear friend ms. ultimate said to me one night... she said 'im going to start dating the type of guys my parents sent me to private school to meet.' now i didnt go to private school but upon tasting the good life friday night i have learned the wisdom of her ways. so if anyone has a corporate lawyer tucked away for safe keeping... hook a sister up.

but on to alinea. the exterior is a non-descript townhouse on halsted near steppenwolf. looks like somebody's rich aunt's house. but when you walk into the entry hall and the stainless sliding doors pop open you know its something different. for the record, i was wearing a pink satin roberto cavalli skirt, black alexandra neel stilletos, and brought the black fendi. adam was wearing a pale blue jacket and black pants and shirt with a bright blue and purple tie, all ted baker.

you are greeted by a host and on your left is one small dining area, lushly carpeted and comfortable, in front of you is a beautiful structural glass stair to the second floor dining space, and down the hall on your right is a view to the kitchen, all white and stainless and sparkling, where an endless flurry of chefs dance around one another. we sat up stairs in a small dining room on the front of the building. we had an army of people to serve us and literally never for a second were things out of order. it was precision like ive never imagined in dining. we did the grand tour, 25 courses, and chose to get the wine pairings that the chef recommended. with the first champagne based cocktail we got a small croquette made of steelhead roe. i slid it into my mouth from the small white ceramic pedestal it was served on and instantly lost my train of thought. it was perfection. and every course thereafter was better than the last with very few exceptions.

its impossible to outline them all but some highlights... there was a chilled shot glass filled with celery gellee and a small frozen marble sized shell made of horseradish and filled with an apple water that you took all at once. it was sweet, clean and just a tiny hint spicy at the end when the shell dissolved in your mouth. theres a picture here at top left. there was a dish with 7 small bites of rhubarb in different forms, including a dime sized rhubarb ice cream sandwich. there was a duck dish that was served in a bowl placed on top of a pillow filled with a cool lavender scented air that surrounded you as you leaned over to take a taste. there was a small envelope, maybe the size of my thumbnail, made of a sheet of clear pineapple based gel, filled with bacon powder. the chef even defied the local regulations and sent us a smalll cinnamon pastry, hollowed out and filled with foie gras, then sealed with apple pate de fruit.

i wont go on and on because there are no words. grant aschatz is a motherf&$*ing genius. literally.

there is a lot of theater in the food at alinea but it all is part of how the food tastes and how the flavors combine in your mouth. unfortunately moto was a lot of theater in a disney sense. it was a lot of gymnastics for no reason it seemed. most of the courses were uninspired, or inspired by the fact that the kitchen wanted to play with liquid nitrogen and not inspired by taste. the service was marginal and the atmosphere was blah. the music was terrible and it was literally the worst restaurant bathroom ive ever been in. id rather use the restroom at popeyes. a few courses were good but overall for 330$ id rather eat at piece every day for six months. or go to kuma's and eat 33 mastadons.

so in summation, if you can save some money go to alinea. you must go at some point before you die or you will not, in fact, go to heaven. this is a scientific fact and not debatable in any way. the price tag is steep but its worth every penny to witness achatz in action. its like spending money to see micheal jordan play basketball or mike tyson bite someone. the full menu changes every 12 weeks amazingly. hit me up next year and well go again. big time.

miss casual signing off.

Great Food Saturday

2007-06-11T10:03:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone. Sorry about the lack of posting. I don't know why Jayadev is the only one posting. But I do know that there hasn't been any blog-worthy eating on my part for some time. Saturday was a really relaxing day, and pretty interesting food-wise, so I thought I'd try to get back on the horse, as it were.

Saturday morning. 8 am. I had yet to visit the Green City Market this year. It runs Wednesdays and Saturdays in Lincoln Park. Lots of stuff on their mission and their goals. Very admirable. I just know that small farmers from Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana come in for it, and bring usually superb examples of what is in season. I'd go twice a week if I could. There were a LOT of strawberries to be had. Really nice ones, read all of the way through, with great flavor. I picked up some of those, some asparagus, spring garlic, some 3 year old raw cheddar cheese, and some decent early season, started indoors beefsteak tomatoes. I also grabbed some hydroponic yellow tomatoes, which were pretty bad, so enough about them. But the nice red beefsteaks were actually pretty good. Had them for dinner Sunday, which I will get to soon. Anyway, the market is a great little event, and it's held twice a week. I like going around, looking at everything, trying the samples, talking to some of the farmers, and then buying. best produce you'll find anywhere in the city, other than at other farmer's markets, and the farms all supposedly have to practice sustainable growing. Sustainable and local are the new organic, and you can definitely tell the difference in the quality of the food. Plus I like that my money goes from me straight into the hands of the farmer. In some cases, literally. Everyone should check it out.

I've been hearing about the Copper River Salmon that is in season right now. Even though the definition of what constitutes the Copper River has become somewhat lax of late, this time of year means that there is a LOT of really beautiful fish to be had. I definitely want to cook more with fish, and my one experience with grilled wild salmon was great, so I thought this year I'd find some and try grilling it. There is a thread on the lth forum about it. Dirk's, a great fish market in the city, is getting supposedly gorgeous wild salmon right now, selling it around $19 a pound. Whole Foods has some nice stuff. $15 a pound. And then I find that Costco is getting it, too, for $9 a pound, and the reports say that it is REALLY good. So, after the market, I ran into costco and got two sides of it. Those will probably go on the grill Tuesday night.

On the way home from Costco, knowing that AY and the new guy were probably only recently away, I decided to grab Hot Doug's takeout for all of us. What can be said about this place? In some ways, it's the best restaurant in the city. Cool guy making great food from interesting ingredients in a casual setting. And it's very reasonably priced. Saturday the specials menu was particularly inspiring. We shared the duck-fat french fries, and I had half of a jerk-pork sausage with spicy mango mayonnaise, queso fresco, and crispy fried onions, as well as half of the Saucisse de Toulouse with Scallion-Horseradish Beurre de Chevre and Saint Rocco Brie Cheese. Yeah, I'm serious, and yeah, they were fantastic, even after the quick car ride home (about 7 minutes). Doug can do no wrong in my book. And I think he's making a good living out of it.

After a lazy afternoon (it was a weekend off of ultimate and a lot of folks were out of town, so I took it easy), it was time for dinner. I didn't want to cook until more roommates were around. Quick consultation with AY and we were off to Kuma's Corner. Another great place, easy to get to from our apartment, and probably serving the best burger in town. Time-Out may not have picked it as such, but, seriously, they know burgers there. We sat on the patio, I had a couple of great beers off of their interesting beer menu, and then I gad the Kaijo burger. Blue cheese, crispy fried onions, bacon. Had chips on the side. AY had the Mayhem. Pancetta, fresh jalepenos, pepper jack cheese, giardiniera mayo. We had some good conversations, the weather was perfect, the beer was cold, the waitress was friendly. The food was perfect.

Afterwards we went to Scooter's custard. Another establishment that is too new to be called a Chicago institution, they make fresh frozen custard. It's really good. Not much else to say about it.

So, for a day when I didn't have anything planned, I wore flip-flops, shorts, and a t-shirt all day, and I never strayed far from home, I had a GREAT Chicago food day. I hope to repeat it throughout the summer. Although to be honest, I probably don't need to double up Hot Doug's and Kuma's on the same day, and the Scooter's was a bit excessive. But, trust me, it made for a very happy Saturday.

Tuscany

2007-06-09T13:22:00.000-06:00

After 3 days, I have had a great meal in Tuscany. My friend Anish Ghosh and I went to the Fodors-recommended Osteria Dei Cavalieri, which was just round the corner from my office in the Piazza del Cavalieri.

Well, the food was great. First meal in Italy where I can really say it was great, from start to finish. Before dinner we shared a bottle of chianti on the other side of the Piazza, accompanied by some very nice mini-prosciutto sandwiches. The reds here are really something.

So of course, we also had red wine with dinner. Just the house red, it was even better than the pre-dinner bottle.

I suppose, before I use my typically purple prose to praise dinner, I should say why the other meals haven't been great: first, several of them have been in an university cafeteria. There's no way for a meal in an university cafeteria to be great. None. Even it does have prosciutto and melon (which was good, but the rest of the meal was crap).

The other restaurant meals have been fairly mediocre. Not bad, and the ingredients have been very good (the tomatoes actually taste of tomato!), so things like caprese salad have been very nice, but they've all been sort of "eh".

Not tonight, though. Not tonight... (an expression favored by NCAA athletes, when they win a home game against favored opposition: "they may be the better team, but not tonight! Not tonight!" - imagine it being said as a football or basketball player waves a meaty finger at the camera).

OK, end of bizarre parenthetical. I'm kind of drunk, if you can't tell. Red wine. Lots of red wine.

Anyway, back to the meal. I started with swordfish carpaccio, which was really terrific. I love encountering different textures, and the thinly sliced raw swordfish with olive oil, a roasted red pepper strip, and some greens really made me realize about what food critics mean when they say something is "well composed". BTW, I also thought about this after a bacon-rochefort salad at the Union League Cafe in New Haven.

My main course was grilled leg of rabbit accompanied by grilled vegetables (zucchini, eggplant, and peppers). Now, the rabbit was very tasty, gamey of course, with some interesting herbs on top. But for me, the real standout were the grilled veggies. It's very easy to screw these up. But the texture and the flavor (just some olive oil and sea salt) were nigh-on perfect.

Osteria dei Cavalieri also has a 11 Euro lunch tasting menu, so hopefully this is just the first of many good meals there.

More later. I remain, your faithful Tuscan correspondent.

New Haven restaurants

2007-06-07T09:33:00.000-06:00

So, recently, Nicole and I have been exploring the many fine restaurants (and no, I'm not kidding) in New Haven, CT. There's a fine guide called the Menu, which describes itself as "relentlessly opinionated". I like it quite a bit because it tends to underrate restaurants, which is much better for a guide to do than overrating them. Anyway, here's my personal supplements, divided vaguely into categories.

Indian:

There are a LOT of Indian restaurants in New Haven. 3 on my street, within a 5 minute walk of my house. 6 within a 20 minute walk. The clear champion amongst the ones I tried was Thali, a more upscale place, with good drinks, very good food (you could actually taste individual ingredients, unlike most other Indian places). I recommend the Lamb Biryani and the plain Dal.

The other places (Royal India, Tandoor, Zaroka, Sitar (why would you name your restaurant after an instrument?), and India Palace) are all more-or-less interchangeable: same menus, similar decors, etc. I think Royal India is the best of this group, the Lamb Vindaloo is quite good. Tandoor is interesting because it is housed in the building that used to be the Elm City Diner, which was an old train-car style diner.

Pizza:

Now, New Haven is famous for pizza. Even one of Chicago's favorite pizza joints, Piece, proudly serves "New Haven style" pizza. This is extremely thin crust, not overwhelmed with cheese or sauce, and fresh toppings. In fact Piece is very directly inspired by one of my favorite institutions, Bar in New Haven. both brew their own (very tasty) beer, serve a classic New American salad (field greens, pears, candied pecans, blue cheese, vinaigrette), and excellent pies. I think that Billy Jacobs, one of the owners at Piece, was inspired by Bar.

I didn't actually try either of the two grand old New Haven institutions, Sally's and Pepe's, but was reliably informed that the time it took and the rudeness you must endure aren't really worth it. But maybe I'll have to try them at some point in the future.

For me, the other New Haven pizza standout is Modern Apizza. Nothing fancy, just a really yummy brick oven pizza with excellent toppings. Stick to the pizza though, the salads and everything else are pretty mediocre. When Nicole and I went there, her salad was just iceberg lettuce, but our pizza with green peppers, cherry peppers, and onions was delicious. Nicole says that it is one of the best pizzas she's had in New Haven. And she's lived around there for longer than I have, so you should probably trust her.

Latin American:

While New Haven has no decent Mexican places (El Amigo Felix and Viva's are both awful), it has some very nice Latin American options. Soul de Cuba has very tasty Cuban food, and excellent (and cheap) Mojitos.

Pacifico, though, is one of the best restaurants I've eaten at in a while. The drinks and appetizers are superb, and one can quite easily make a meal out of them and a dessert. The Ecuadoran Shrimp Ceviche and Mango baby back ribs are particular standouts from the starter menu. We also had a very good octopus ceviche the last time we were there.

Pub food:

Rudy's. Read it about it here. And yes, on further consideration, the Sunset Wheat is not very good.

Brunch/Diners:

Yankee Doodle: eggs, burgers, bacon, etc. all covered in grease. A counter. The waitress calls you hon. Nothing else in the Have compares, though the Educated Burgher isn't bad, and Anna Liffey's makes a good omelette and is a nice Irish pub.

French:

Oh, the Union League Cafe. How I love thee. Nicole and I went there before seeing a play at the Yale Rep, and it was great fun and better food. A long, impressive-looking (I don't really know much about it) wine-list (and for the record, our Sauvignon Blanc was very nice), and just amazingly well executed food in a beautiful setting.

The sea scallops appetizer (with lemongrass, among other flavor notes) and the chocolate souffle were the standouts.

Malaysian:

Bentara is actually the best Malaysian restaurant I've been to. The curry mussels appetizer is just superb.

OK, I'm starving now. The cafeteria here in Pisa opens at 7:30pm, I don't know how I'm going to survive the next 10 minutes. Maybe I'll gnaw my arm off.

Culinary adventures in New England

2007-06-05T14:03:00.000-06:00

Well, time to resurrect this little corner of the Internets. Your global correspondent here, reporting from Pisa, Tuscany, Italy. But since I just got here, not much to talk about yet (except that Caprese salad with good ingredients is amazingly delicious, and shrinkwrapped sandwiches everywhere taste awful).

So instead, I thought I'd talk about (the highlights of) my culinary adventures as I traveled through New England in the month of May. This actually is NOT going to include my Michelinesque tour through New Haven's fancier eating establishments (and let me tell you, it's an underrated food city), but instead going to focus on interesting food in occasionally strange places:

1. BBQ in Vermont: I wouldn't have believed this for a second, had my friend Steve Wang not alerted me to it. He had come up to New Haven and we were about to embark on a journey to the wilds of Middlebury, VT to play at Get Ho Get Leid. Doing some research about our route, he found information about Curtis's BBQ stand, off exit 4 on I-91, Putney, VT. Damn, were these good ribs. And talking to Curtis, as he minded rack after rack of delicious meat, is quite the experience. The sauce is a tangy, vinegary one, which I think is Carolina, but Curtis is from Georgia. Any info on Georgia BBQ, guys?

2. Cheddar Cheese in Vermont: A little less surprising, I suppose. While playing this tournament, we had several ocassions to sample the famous Cabot Cheddar. First, after games on Saturday, we swung over to Noonies Deli, where many of us enjoyed the Vermonter sandwich: ham, cheddar, apples, and spicy honey mustard on honey oat bread. Just an amazing combo of textures and flavors. It was so good that on Sunday, when we went back, I ordered one after eating a quite substantial (and also delicious) Rueben.

Oh, and Middlebury totally deserves it's Club Midd reputation. On Sunday morning, we had a first round bye, and so strolled into the dining halls (no one at the door), and helped ourselves to omelettes stuffed with, yup, Cabot Cheddar. Best pre-tourney breakfast ever (with the possible exception of poutin, which BK really should post about).

3. Ethnic food in Boston: After Middlebury, drove over to Boston with Steve for the Clay Math conference. On Sunday night, went to dinner with Sam, Steve, and Rohan, and had a nice Vietnamese meal. On Monday for lunch, went on Punjabi Dhaba in Inman Square (I think) for really good Indian highwayside food (Dhaba = food stand on the side of the highway). On Monday for dinner, Chinatown. On Tuesday for lunch, Bartley's burgers. Damn, those are good. On Tuesday for dinner, Ethiopian. As Drew would say, Injeralicious. I like cities with a wide variety of cuisines.

4. Big portions in Newport: On Monday of Memorial Day weekend, Nicole (the gf) and I went up to Newport, RI for a day of R&R. For lunch, we went to the Red Pirate (I think) and had the most enormous portions I've ever seen served to us. I had the Rasta Pasta, and Nicole the Steak Salad, and we ended up taking most of our stuff back to New Haven.

Other meals in Newport were more reasonably sized: a fantastic dinner (oysters, lobster spring rolls, Thai duck and shrimp curry) on Monday night, a nice breakfast at our B&B, and delicious ice cream after going sailing on Tuesday morning.

New Haven guide to follow.

Injeralicious!

2007-05-01T20:16:00.000-06:00

I just went back and read my other restaurant reviews, and I've got to say: it's time for an unconditionally good take on Philadelphia cuisine. I know I seem hypercritical sometimes, but it's only because I want to provide the most comprehensive take on wherever I eat. If I flipped my lid over every bite I take, then I'd feel as if I were doing a disservice to the ridiculously small - but loyal - Scrumptulescence readership. And for those of you that don't know me and think I'm impossible to please...well, you might be right. I have, however, have had a few excellent meals during my time in Philly, and this was one of them...

Okay, show of hands - how many of you like delicious, fragrant, slow-cooked meats and vegetables? All right, how about eating with your hands - any takers? Oh, and beer? No, not Miller Light or Lager, I'm talking Fin du Monde, Paulaner, really whatever your discerning, hops-loving palate might enjoy. Yeah, that's what I thought: EVERYONE likes those things. Now, imagine if you will a delicate combination of those three factors, and there you have it: Abyssinia. No, not the ancient empire, the Ethiopian place in West Philly!

Todd and I ventured to an otherwise kinda dodgy part of town in order to sample some of Philadelphia's most delicious and cost-effective cuisine. Well, I guess it's not all that dodgy - it's just a few blocks from Penn's University City. A few blocks over it might be dodgy, but I'm pretty sure the area is just mildly sketchy. All that aside, we rolled in around ten, which is usually when places around here started closing their kitchens and hustling customers out. Not Abyssinia, though; they serve food until two in the morning (or so we're told - we only stayed until nearly midight).

The first thing I noticed was that the place was full of hipsters. Normally people with tight-rolled jeans, military-style caps, and horn-rimmed glasses really put me off my appetite, but Todd and I were ravenous, so it was okay. We did catch some disdainful, hipper-than-thou looks from a couple patrons; I think it was my polo shirt (or the fact that Todd and I both made loud anti-hipster comments when we came in). You see, Abyssinia sits on the first floor of a multi-story establishment, the top part of which is a beer bar infested by said hip crowd. You know the place - dirty on purpose (grimy would be a better word, since they clean all the time), the strains of some obscure Miles Davis-Ani Difranco-Maria Callas-David Bowie bootleg from a concert in Budapest in 1977 echoing off black walls....people in hoodies with just the right amount of product to make their hair look awful...wow, I'm really letting this get away from me.

Anyway, Abyssinia. We selected both the meat sampler and vegetarian sampler so as to maximize our choices. If you didn't know, Ethiopian food is generally served family-style in a large bowl lined with a spongey flatbread called injera (it's like a pancake made of a dark sourdough-ish flour called teff and water). The plate comes with an accompaniment of other injera, which serves as the primary utensil for scooping up the delicious piles of collard greens, slow-cooked beef tips, lentils, carrots and cabbage, and any number of other delicacies. The meal ends officially when you eat the "plate" of injera, which makes sense, because it minimizes the amount of dishes you have to do, which is nice.

I'm not sure "ate" is an appropriate descriptor for what Todd and I did to the food. "Devoured" comes close, but "laid waste to" is probably most apt. It was, in a word, unbefuckinglievable. Now, I love Ethiopian food, and I might be biased, but when all was said and done, we paid fifteen dollars each for a true feast and tall bottle of Paulaner to wash it all down. That, my friends, is eating right. It's my birthday, by the way, and if you want to get me something, consider renting me my own personal Ethiopian chef. Or at least a gift certificate to Abyssinia. Yum!

Highly recommended. If you come to Philadelphia, I will buy you Ethiopian food.

Abyssinia
229 S. 45th St.
Philadelphia, PA 19104
(215) 387-2424

Taaaaaaangerine

2007-05-01T19:54:00.000-06:00

So, I'm back. To be honest, I really haven't been anywhere out of pocket, but for some reason I haven't posted in what feels like ages. I promise I'm back...with a vengeance (although against what I'm not entirely sure). I've decided to write about events dating back to a month ago up to the present, and if I hadn't told you that, you wouldn't have cared...I just respect you enough to make you party to the fact that I didn't innovate the hell out of poached fruit and caramel, eat out at a handful of restaurants, and read about a hundred new ways to prepare food in one day. So, here goes.

My most recent new restaurant experience was one of Steven Starr's Tangerine. Nestled amidst coffee shops and independent art galleries, this Moroccan fusion venture sits on the cusp of Philadelphia's homeless chic Old City neighborhood. For those of you out there unfamiliar with Philly, this is a place where you can sample a thousand and one delicious beers at Eulogy (reviewed previously), eat your fill of quasi-Filipino goodness and maybe catch a glimpse of the local hiphoperatti (I just coined that term; watch for it in People magazine shortly) at Cebu, and get picked up by sketchy cougars in any of manifold dive bars...all within two blocks. Good times, right? Anyway, back to Tangerine.

As with most of Starr's locations, Tangerine is very much pro-sharing. In fact, I'm not sure it's possible to order independently, since dishes arrive as they come up. So, unless you like teasing your date by taking bite after bite of sumptuous comestibles in front of him/her, I suggest you start to love sharing as well. Dim lighting, low tables, and comfy, quicksand-like leather chairs make Tangerine an excellent lounge spot. It's also great people-watching; my date quipped, "Everybody looks good in 15 watts," which I'd like to believe.

Bucking my usual pre-dinner cocktail trend (Tanqueray and tonic in summer, Belvie white Russian in winter), I went for the special Rum Crush - an, um, interesting blend of crushed ice (not my favorite), rum, pulverized kumquat, simple syrup, and cloves. It was a nice idea, but it was mostly just rum with some kumquat and clove taste. I mean, duh.

We started with a grilled octopus salad, which unfortunately turned out to be heavy on a caesar-like dressing and light on the tasty, flame-kissed octopus (which was yummy - I love anything that, when grown to monstrous proportions, could make for a riveting deep-sea thriller a la Jaws or The Deep. A quick note: the bread basket was filled with delicious, heavy slices of a whole-grain sweet brown bread with sunflower seeds and large pieces of fig, as well as a novel take on a minature sesame soft pretzel (presumably as homage to Philadelphia's lasting pretzel heritage).

After the octo came the grilled za'atar chicken with white bean and mascarpone puree. Although truly delectable, my only complaint was that the half a chicken breast was hardly enough to satisfy my voracious craving for blackened poultry (which is pretty epic by most standards). From there was a rather uninspired shrimp and scallop dish with the seemingly out-of-place serrano ham ravioletti. It wasn't bad, but I admit I've been off scallops since my friend Morgan ate some raw ones in my presence and ended up in the hospital...

No dessert, just an espresso, but that decision was mostly out of my hands (those who know me know I never skip dessert...if only for research purposes). All in all, Tangerine was yummy, and I'd like to go back when I have a larger group, so as to sample a wider variety and maybe knock off a couple bottles of wine and loosen my tie a little.

Recommended. Look for more Starr restaurant reviews to come.

Tangerine
232 Market St.
Philadelphia, PA 19106
(215) 627-5116
http://www.tangerinerestaurant.com

Get Large

2007-04-26T09:05:00.000-06:00

Another country heard from. I'm Ian. I went to UChicago around the dawning of the new millenium, played ultimate there with JL and JSA and BK (when he was around). Now I live in Cambridge, MA. Blah, blah.

Let's talk bivalves.

A few weeks back, I was wandering the aisle of my local fishmonger, seeking shellfish so as to sate a craving. What I really wanted was oysters. Oysters are, well, delicious. But, oysters are also quite expensive, especially really good, really fresh ones. BUT! Next to the oysters was a big colander full of mussels. Mussels aren't expensive, and I hadn't had them in a very long time, so I decided that I'd pick up a couple of pounds and see what I could do with them. (I've found that about $2/pound is a pretty normal price for mussels, at least in the Boston area in the Spring. Figure on about 1 pound per person, assuming that other foodstuffs are going to be on the table as well.)

So, I brought them home, and turned to my trusty copy of Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything. And discovered, to my joy, that cooking mussels is very easy.

You start by cleaning the mussels. This basically means rinsing them, and pulling off any "hair" that's hanging off of them. (Mussel's have beards. As a facial-hair-challenged man, I'm very jealous. Punk-ass shellfish, trying to show me up.) Mussel's that have already opened need to get tossed, because it means that they've already died and won't be tasty (and, well, they may kill you). Likewise for ones that have broken shells.

Chop an onion and some garlic (a very rough cut is fine).

Take a large pot with a tight-fitting lid. Add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, over medium heat, and then saute the onion and garlic just until the onion softens.

Add 1/2 cup of white wine, and the mussels. Cover, and turn the heat to high. Cook for about 10 minutes.

When all is said and done, you end up with a large pile of mussels, now open and cooked. And (and this is the good part. Seriously.) you have a good pile of wonderful, delicious mussel-wine-onion broth.

Pile the mussels in a bowl, pour the broth over them. Serve with crusty bread (which, of course, gets dipped into the broth, and which may actually be the real reason to make mussels in the first place).

Bittman's got about a dozen variations -- other things to add to the broth to make various sauces, or different spices that can be added before cooking to give a hint of other flavors to the shellfish. The ones that I've tried have been pretty good, but I'm still pretty set on the basic recipie. It works for me, and it's tasty.

Over the past 6 or 8 weeks, since my first experiment with cooking mussels, I've found myself ordering them when I go out, as well as cooking them at home on occasion. The Green Street Grill is a great local place that has a very nice mussel appetizer. (It's also one of the hidden gems of Cambridge. It looks like a dive bar on the outside, but inside has some of the best food I've found in the Boston area.) Grafton Street Pub is a little too yuppie for this yuppie, but they also do a nice job with their mussels. Green Street goes a little heavier on the cream and butter in the sauce, and the bread that they serve with the mussels is just about perfect.

(I have a feeling that East Coast Grill probably does a good job with their PEI Mussels steamed in coconut milk, if only because everything that Chris Schlesinger oversees seems to turn out well. Also because East Coast Grill is my vote for bestest restaurant in the whole wide world. But I haven't had a chance to wander down to try them.)

The upshot of all this babble: mussels are tasty, cheap, and easy to cook. You should make them sometime.

Hitting the spot

2007-04-15T10:53:00.000-06:00

Sometimes a meal just hits the spot. Doesn't have to be fancy, just has to be right. Dinner last Wednesday at Rudy's was just that kind of meal. It was just a simple cheeseburger and fries, washed down with a beer, but that doesn't begin to describe why it was so good.

First, I had been at an ultimate practice earlier that evening. Ran hard for 2 hours in 50 degree temps. Drove an hour back to New Haven. Showered. And now, was starving. Didn't have the energy to cook, so I strolled round the corner to Rudy's. Placed my order at the kitchen corner of the bar, with the glorious fry machine (imported from Belgium) in full view, golden potatoes being lifted out of the hot oil. A deluxe cheeseburger with everything (lettuce, tomato, pickle on the side), and samurai sauce (spicy aioli) with my fries (really, more properly, frites, given their Belgian pedigree).

Took a seat at the bar, saw that the special beer on tap was Leinie's Sunset Wheat. Nostalgic for the midwest, how could I resist. And I didn't regret it, the light, flavorful beer refreshing me with every sip. The burger and the fries arrived a short while later, and were devoured. The burger isn't the most spectacular around, but it's more than competent, and the bun, meat, cheese, lettuce and tomato were exactly what I needed. The dill spear was just how I like it, not too briny, so you could taste some of the cucumber that it had once been.

Oh, and those fries. Crisp, hot, and impossibly delicious. I'm salivating just writing about them. The variety of sauces to go with them is also wonderful. Everything from Curry Ketchup, to Andalouse sauce, to many varities of aioli.

Warm, full, and still humming the Band's "Cripple Creek" which had been blasting on the jukebox, I walked back into the cool New England evening...

In summary: Rudy's is a dive, no doubt about it. For Hyde Park readers, think something like Jimmy's with better food and better prices, and a better jukebox. The TV's usually have the game on. It's everything you want from your neighborhood bar.

Rudy's New Haven
370 Elm Street
New Haven, CT 06511
203-865-1242

Friday the 13th links - the Friends in China edition

2007-04-13T08:33:00.000-06:00

OK, I generally don't want to post stuff here that isn't directly food related. I have a dormant personal blog for that. No need to look for it. I haven't updated it in over 6 months.

But, anyway, three friends of mine recently moved to China. And they're all writing about it. Since a lot of what they say is about food, I decided to post the links here. Plus, if they get lots of comments, maybe they'll post more. All three are good writers. Brady and Peggy, it's not surprising. But my friend the Jade Tiger? I know he's funny and witty when he's not quiet and brooding, but his posts are REALLY entertaining. Maybe more so if you know him. Anyway.

Brady and Peggy. The Meisenwangs. Peggy has started calling Brady Matt. And his dad calls him Matt, too. But they're a young married couple who moved to Beijing because Peggy is a genius and therefore gets lots of money to be a genius somewhere else. Brady went because he can only eat bland food, is scared of oppressive governments, and had never left the US before. And he's rather pale and has shockingly red hair. What better place to go than China?

Kevin. Nothing really to say. But I will anyway.

If you've only seen him on the ultimate field, you probably thought, "Hey, how is this 14 year old the best ultimate player anywhere on these fields." And then he would take off the weight vest, shedding 20% of his weight, and you'd realize you're screwed.

If you only saw him at Kraft, you probably thought, "Hey, isn't that Kolb's boyfriend from their cute pictures at the Kraft gym entrance?"

If you only saw him eat, you'd probably say, "Did he just eat his weight in meat at fogo?"

If you only saw his blog, you'd probably say, "I'm surprised he's this funny when he's not drunk."

Anyway, I'm hoping to learn to save money so I can fly over there for a tournament and play with all of them. That would be really cool. Z is probably over there somewhere, too. We only need a few more for a team. Who's in?

Wednesday Morning Links

2007-04-11T08:48:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the lack of posting. It seems only world travelers have the time to post to a food blog. Nothing interesting in food for me lately. So I'll just put up three links and hope for more culinary adventures in the future.

Jerry's is the best sandwich shop in the city. Now they will have a second location.

Mmmmm. Bacon sandwich.....

Mmmmm. BBQ.

Keema Matar

2007-04-05T08:00:00.000-06:00

After all my railing against the dominance of Punjabi/North Indian/Mughlai food, the first recipe I'm going to post is for dish called Keema Matar, which falls firmly in that category. Ah well. This is an easy, one-dish meal, which was a staple of mine in grad school because it's so damn tasty. It was also a particular favorite of trophywife, who called it "the turkey thing":

I'm imprecise with the spices because like most Indian cooks, I cook by taste (andaaz, as mentioned before).

Keema Matar (ground meat with peas)

Ingredients:

1. 1 lb ground turkey (any ground meat will suffice)

2. 1 lb peas (frozen will do fine)

3. 2 medium yellow onions, diced into 1/4 inch pieces

4. 1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste [available at any Indian store, or make your own]

5. 1 tbsp oil (any cooking oil, really)

6. Chili, Cumin, and Coriander powder (to taste) [start with 1 tspn each of cumin and coriander, and 1/2 tsp of chili powder, then keep adding as you like]

7. Salt, sugar, to taste

Optional:

8. Other veggies: a diced tomato can be nice, carrots, potatoes, and mushrooms also go well with this. Make sure you dice the veggies relatively fine.

Instructions:

1. Heat oil in a large saucepan on high heat

2. Fry onions till they are translucent. Dust with salt, and the spice powders

3. Add ginger-garlic paste

4. Add peas (and other veggies, if desired)

5. Keep adding salt, spice powders

6. Add the meat.

7. Keep it up with they, yup, you guessed it, salt and spice powders.

8. When the meat browns, start tasting the mixture. If it is too salty/spicy, add some sugar. Otherwise, add salt/spice.

9. After the meat browns, turn the heat down to low, and cook for another 5-10 minutes, adjusting the spices to taste.

Serving Suggestions:

I like to eat this fresh out of the pot with some hot basmati rice. It also goes well with toasted bread, or naan, or pita. A little yogurt does well to cool the flames, if you've made it spicy. Stuffing a pita with this and yogurt/sour cream is really tasty.

Finally, leftovers can be used as the stuffing for an omelette. This might be my favorite thing to do with it.

Grandma's Cooking

2007-04-03T06:24:00.000-06:00

So, the day I left Assam, my grandmother asked me what I wanted for lunch. Since I like most everything, I hemmed and hawed, not wanting to make life hard for her, but eventually sacked up and requested the following Assamese feast. Unfortunately, I was to busy stuffing myself to take pictures, but here's an attempt at description:

First course: Poita Bhat with Mitha Tel and Khorisa (Fermented rice with mustard oil and bamboo shoots).
This is Assamese comfort food. You take some cooked parboiled rice, cover it with water, and soak it overnight in a cool, dark place. The fridge actually works fine. This ferments it, and gives it an interesting sweet/sour flavor. Drain it, and the mix it with mustard oil and salt, and bamboo shoots to taste. Mustard oil is incredibly pungent, and this is definitely not for everyone. Serve the mixture with a hot green chili and raw salt on the side. Bite into the chili, eat a little salt, and then eat a little of the rice mixture. It's a very loud, very ethnic party in your mouth.

Second course: Masor Mur with Bengana (Fish head curry with baby eggplant).
I actually have very little idea what spices went into this to make it so delicious. I know fish heads scare people, but they are delicious. Interesting texture, great flavor. I'm going to guess there was some onion/garlic (but just a little), salt, and sugar.

Third course: Dayal Bhat and Xak Bhaji (Rice and lentils with a side of stir-fried greens).
The X is Xak should be pronounced like an incredibly soft H. I have no good idea how to transliterate this, but this is relatively standard. Dayal = the Assamese word for Dal. This was a nice, simple Dal, just some onions, cumin, cilantro, and turmeric. No cream, no butter. Light, and very flavorful. I'll post an approximate recipe soon.

The stir fried greens are of note because the incredible variety of greens that one can obtain in Assam is just fantastic, and all have subtly different flavors. By cooking them very lightly, you can really appreciate these differences. I know the Assamese name for many of them, but not the English. Some example of the English ones I do know: Mustard greens, radish greens, collard greens, bok choy (ok, not English, but god knows, familiar to this audience), clover (!). Though, to be fair, clover usually goes into soups.

Fourth course: Masor Tenga (Lemon-tomato soup with fish).
I could rhapsodize about Tenga Anja (literally, sour soup) for ever. It is the signature dish in Assamese cuisine, a delicately flavored broth with lemon, tomatoes, and cilantro, that comes in a thousand variations. It's also incredibly easy to make. I will post instructions soon.

The beauty of it is that you can put almost anything in it. People put in potatoes to add body to the thin broth, or greens to add flavor. Squash or zucchini goes well to absorb flavor. Fried lentil dumplings are another traditional favorite (this variation is called bor diya tenga, bor = dumplings).

But my absolute favorite is masor tenga (mas = fish). The heart of Assam is the Brahmaputra river, and the capital city, Guwahati, is right on the river. Thus, each morning, vendors come by house-to-house selling freshly caught river fish. This fish, cut into relatively small (2"x2") bone-in pieces, is lightly shallow-fried with salt and turmeric rubbed in before being immersed in the broth. The result is just incredible.

Fifth course: Doyi Bhat with Gur and Kol (Yogurt rice with jaggery and banana).
In both of the cultures that I come from (Tamil and Assamese), yogurt and rice is eaten at the end of each meal. However, in south India it's eaten with a salty and spicy pickle of some sort, while here, in Assam, it's eaten with gur (basically, brown sugar in big chunks) and bananas, almost as a proto-dessert. I like it both ways. And since I was in Assam, I followed the sage advice of Ron Burgundy: "When in Rome...".

In the Kitchen with Todd and Geoff

2007-04-01T08:16:00.000-06:00

Before I get into the meat (ha!) of this post, I'd like to make a quick ancillary comment about the state of cinema today: "300" is possibly the most homoerotic movie I've ever seen. Geoff described it best as "an epic battle between RuPaul and a bunch of underwear models." It was pretty much two hours of impassioned speeches heralding immortal man-love punctuated by a thousand silhouette shots of spears thrusting through bodies. Made me realize I need to hit the gym more, but also caused me to question whether floor-length cloaks and bikini briefs are really the ideal battle garments. Oh well, see it for yourself, it was visually stunning and awesomely violent, and definitely fun for the whole family, provided the family comprises a bunch of people who like glistening Scottish dudes with really ripped abs killing each other. Anyway, food...

Right. Saturday night. Geoff and I left the movie a might peckish, and luckily our psychic bond with Todd has a 10-mile radius. Todd texted that he'd be cooking up a storm when we came over, so the Brown Bear and I hopped in the car and headed off to Food Source and the booze store for provisions. All we knew was that Todd was making chicken cacciatore in his Dutch oven. We scooped up some essentials (and by essentials I mean produce that we'd eventually figure out how to prepare and a bunch of sweet, sparkling wine).

Todd was cleaning the chicken when we arrived, so Geoff and I annexed the dining room table on behalf of the kitchen and got to work. Brown Bear cranked out some yummy bruschetta while we waited for the chicken to cook. I cleaned some sweet, crunchy carrots and tossed them in a 1:1 mixture of olive oil (wow, I can't believe I almost just wrote EVOO - somebody needs to slap the Food Network taste out of my mouth) and honey, with a generous grind of black pepper. After, I spread the cut-up carrots in a roasting pan and put them on the top shelf of the oven (above the bruschetta, for those of you keeping track of the menu) to roast for an indeterminate amount of time. The feast was simple, mostly because Todd did all the multi-step cooking.

I stood at the table, santoku in hand, as Todd threw me mushrooms, garlic, and whatever else needed to be sliced or diced. I love chopping food up - always have - it always seems so cathartic. Anyway, we listened to 80s music with "Mean Girls" playing on mute in the background as we cooked (which gives you an excellent picture of our usual Saturday nights, no doubt). The bruschetta was tasty - I love fresh oregano and I'm pretty sure I could just eat garlic and tomatoes if given the opportunity.

The time for chicken was nigh; I sauteed some asparagus in a quick grind of pepper, dash of salt, and about half a lemon's worth of juice. Todd prepared a pungent salad of arugula, fennel, oregano-cooked mushrooms, and a zesty lemon vinaigrette. Wow, I can't believe I just used "zesty" seriously...

Everything came together wonderfully - the slow-cooked chicken fell apart as we speared the meat, the asparagus and carrots complemented the cacciatore nicely, and the salad was crisp and delicious. All that was left, then, was a bit of dessert.

I had bought a bagful of yummy-looking pears earlier and a little snit of bourbon just in case (I mean, things come up, right?) of emergency. In a flash of [potential] brilliance, I decided that pears poached in a bourbon/caramel glaze would do the trick just nicely. I let the cut-up pears stew in some of our wonderfully sweet wine as the sugar and bourbon intermingled in melty nirvana in the adjacent pot. From there, I poured off the wine from the pears into the sauce and brought it to a boil, stirring like a madman to avoid a foamy, but sweet, mess. After a few minutes I poured mosted of the bourbon-sugar-wine sauce mixture back into the pears and poached them for about 15 minutes as I let the glaze sit. The pears cooked until tender, I served each of us a generous helping accompanied by a generous pour of the bourbon sauce. I'd say the dish turned out well, but would have really benefited from some vanilla ice cream (if only to prevent us from the inevitable 2nd degree mouth burns from the molten pear-bourbon-sugar).

All in all, a delicious meal, and certainly more fun in the making than if we had gone out. An excellent end to what turned out to be a busy, stressful week for all.

What are you, some kind of tapas expert?

2007-03-27T13:33:00.000-06:00

It seems like I've become bored with conventional, one-plate dinners, since most of my reviews lately have described tapas places around the country. I promise I haven't grown tired of a hearty burger and fries or chicken pot pie or whatever else isn't really sharing-type finger food. I guess I just have a sweet spot for variety. Call me crazy.

My folks and I met the vivacious M. for dinner at Eno Vino, another of the few retaurants on the West Side that doesn't serve mud butt-inducing crap food or force its employees to adhere to strict flair standards. In fact, since I took my parents to it last Christmas, Eno Vino has become their default joint for a "nice meal" (read: where they serve wine and real cocktails that don't have umbrellas in them). It's a pretty fantastic place - the lights are always low, chairs are wrapped in a rich mahogany leather, and St. Germain never fails to make an appearance on the iPod-driven stereo (thanks, bartender, for the appetite-whetting downtempo beats).

We arrived, sat, and launched immediately into our usual perusal of Eno Vino's seemingly voluminous-yet-one-page menu of succulent shareables, flatbread pizzas, and the like. By the way, I'm pretty sure Succulent Shareables ought to be up there with Potent Potables for 500, Alex. Anyway, M. and I opened with a pair of key lime pie martinis (she recommended them, and I'm a sucker for doing what a beautiful blonde tells me, especially when it is related to pie in even an ancillary fashion), while my dad went for their best ice water and my mother, in her usual unexpected twisty kind of way opted for a cosmo. Apparently she'd fallen in love when supping with her brother, the fabulous and wordly Uncle Steve from South Beach. We bandied around a couple of ideas, and the rest of the table decided I ought to order in their stead. Maybe they've been reading the blog...

I guess now would be a good time to mention that Eno Vino, as its name implies, is actually a wine bar that serves food, and their selection trumps most other wine lists in Madison. It's also one of the few places in town where you can order a quartino - that's about a third of a bottle of wine, for those of you who aren't semi-lush enough to know. Anyway, good wine, good cocktails, but back to the food.

I decided on an eclectic mix of grilled double lamb chops with roasted fingerlings and a minted winter vegetable ragout, foie gras (seared with roasted brandy apples and a cider reduction and served alongisde a quail egg dripping with truffled Hollandaise), portabella mushroom ravioli with a port cream and micro greens, and a flatbread topped with lump crab, bacon, thick slices of avocado, jalapeno (I can't make the tilde on this computer, forgive me), fontina cheese and a mango drizzle). Yum!

The food was delicious, although at the end we were left a bit misty-eyed that our favorite flatbread (with thinly-sliced tenderloin, a creamy sauce, and portabella mushrooms) had been elminated from the menu. All in all, however, the meal was excellent and presentation very aesthetically pleasing. The foie gras stood out - it was like a little battle of unconventional bird parts, with a seared slab of foie gras stacked on buttery, crusty bread on one end and the over-easy, melt-in-your-mouth quail's egg atop its toasty tower on the other. Luckily, neither M. nor my dad wanted any, so Mom and I made short work of it, and I only had to restrain myself from stabbing her for the foie gras once. Or twice.

Bellies full, we sauntered into the warm spring evening (rather atypical for this time of year in Madison, but not at all unpleasant), said our good byes to M. with a promise to meet again and added congratulations for her acceptance into med school, and headed home.

Eno Vino
601 Junction Rd.
Madison, WI 53717
(608) 664-9565
http://www.eno-vino.com

Ribs. Chicken. Jalapenos.

2007-03-27T08:24:00.000-06:00

There wasn’t much in the culinary aspect of this past weekend that would be deemed particularly exotic or adventuresome. It was all rather straightforward. At the same time, it was wholly satisfying. Anticipating decent spring-type weather to start the Spring League season here in Chicago, Joe and I lured the Martin-Lee family up to Lincoln Square for dinner Friday night at Los Nopales. We were seated right away at 7 pm. Pretty cool. They even made room for Akira to squeeze in when he found out we were there and demanded a seat. It’s BYOB, so we brought a six pack each of Pacifico and XX. They were nice enough to provide limes, so we opened our beers and ordered some guacamole. I realize that the Scrumptulescence team hasn’t posted about Los Nopales yet. I’m hoping if I foot the entire bill for Joe to get a good sampling of their menu, he will agree to do a write up about it in his true Crazy Nomad style. Trust me when I say this: It is a small family owned Mexican restaurant, where they use fresh ingredients and basic techniques to make delicious food. I once asked what was in their guacamole. It’s so good, I had to know the secret. Turns out they just make it fresh to order, and only put in 4 things besides the avocado. I think they might be on to something. Anyway, our table had tacos, mainly. Tacos al pastor, Chorizo tacos, and Tilapia tacos. Akira had the carne asada / chile rellenos combo, and Thor had a combo plate with some other stuff, like a taco, an enchilada, and maybe a tamale. I don’t remember. Everything was great, it came out fast, and we topped it off by splitting a slice of tres leches cake. Everyone should try this place.

Saturday morning brought the first day of spring league, and a gorgeous 70+ degree day. This is a food blog, so I won’t go into much detail, but my team won. Our household is split over 3 teams. The other teams in the household did not win. Such is life. My team played early games, so I went home to get the gas grill going and threw together a basic cookout meal to celebrate the nice weather. Not a lot of people, nothing special food-wise, except it was all pretty good. It started off with some guacamole prepared by Angela (which was excellent) as well as some weak salsa prepared by me. The main courses were chicken thighs marinated in mojo criollo, some excellent bratwursts provided by a certain someone’s special someone, a few chicken andouille sausages by Amy, and a grill full of red peppers, zucchini, and portabella mushrooms. Nothing special, but everything was pretty good.

Sunday was the big day. Meal # 3 on the Weber Smoker. Dragged Joe with me to Costco where I purchased six racks of baby back ribs, along with some asparagus and pita chips. Then I took a quick trip to Family Fruit Market to pick up a few more fixin’s. Then I prepared the ribs. A quick rinse in water, followed by a quick rinse with vinegar. A light coating of mustard, a thicker coating of spice rub. Start the fire in the smoker, get the smoke moving. Throw on all six slabs on 2 levels.

While the ribs were cooking, I made hummus, Grandma’s pasta salad, and BBQ sauce. I also sliced open some fresh jalapeños, pulled out the ribs and seeds, stuffed them with chorizo, and wrapped them in bacon. Call it an amuse bouche if you want, although I might have to shoot you if you do. As people started arriving, the double batch of hummus disappeared rather quickly. I kept everything else in reserve. After 3+ hours on the smoker, including a top and bottom rack swap, one flip, and a few spritzes with cranberry juice and olive oil, the ribs were done smoking. I was able to send Ruby the dog in to distract everyone while I took the ribs off, covered them in foil, and hid them in the oven. I put the stuffed jalapeños and 1.5 pounds of fresh Italian sausage on the smoker. Then I fired up the gas grill and covered it with 2 pounds of asparagus that had been tossed in olive oil, salt, pepper, and cayenne (thanks boss). When it was time to put everything on the table, this is what it looked like.

Everything is pretty identifiable. The BBQ sauce is a little shadowed, but it looked like BBQ sauce. The potato chips are jalapeno crunchers. Great BBQ food. The wine is Casillero del Diablo Carmenere from Chile. Great casual red wine. You might not buy it because of it’s price. Trust me, it’s worth every penny.

Closeup time. The pasta salad is very basic. I actually didn’t put enough mayo in, but I knew the crowd would like it better with less mayo. I just used Grandma’s recipe, but instead of the rainbow rotini, I used a very nice imported whole wheat pasta that somehow avoids the graininess of most whole wheat pastas.

Grilled asparagus. So easy, so good.

The smoker has a lot of fire left in it even after 3+ hours of cooking time. Stuffed, wrapped jalapenos and Italian sausage seemed like good things to throw on while the ribs rested awhile. The Italian Sausage was tasty enough, but the flavors were a little too subtle to stand up to the ribs and the jalapenos. The jalapenos were really good. A could of guests said they were the best thing they’ve had that I’ve cooked.

How was the main event? Pretty good. I need to work on the fire control a little bit. They might have been a little overdone in places, but overall, flavor and texture were good. I didn’t sauce them at all, preferring to let the guests add sauce for themselves. People seemed to like them. I thought they were pretty good. Definitely be making them again pretty soon, I would say. Here are a couple of slabs, before I sectioned them for easier eating.

I have to say, it was a pretty good culinary weekend, and the food was appropriate to the weather. Now that we’re supposed to drop into the 40’s this afternoon, I need to start thinking about braising and stewing again, until it’s time for spring to come back. Hopefully mid-April.

Oh, who were the guests? The roommates minus the new guy. One brand new (and fantastic) ultimate player who is also a roommate girlfriend. The Russells, the Martin-Lees, some tall guy from Indiana, puppy Ruby, and her owner. Three of those people just kind of showed up and were fed. If you’re feeling left out, you shouldn’t. I generally don’t make too many phone calls for these things. Just call if you sense there might be something cooking.

Great Grape!

2007-03-25T20:25:00.000-06:00

Okay, just in case you thought I'd descended into full-time melancholy, I'm back with another honest-to-goodness review without any hint of existential crisis! As part of my week in Madison, I thought it would be appropriate to review one of my favorite places back home. I called the delightful M., my favorite luncheon counterpart in the Mad City, and she wasn't so bogged down by a certain healthcare IT company to come out and play for a little while. I suggested Grape and Company, an independent wine shop no larger than your average pantry. It's located, nay, hidden, on the west side of town (right by where my folks live, in fact) in a little strip mall that houses such rarities as Atlanta Bread Company and the Madison Public Library. Well, my dad likes the library, and I confess to a certain fondness for any kind of hearty soup in a bread bowl, so...

Anyway. Grape and Company. Good little place, I've always made a point to stop by whenever I'm in town for the sage advice of Jack, the owner-resident wine expert-fresh mozzarella technician who owns the place. Jack and his wife moved to Madison from New York (which might as well be Istanbul or Djibouti, for all the cosmopolitan graces most Madisonians lack) for some unknown reason (ostensibly to bring solid wine knowledge and delicious pastries to an otherwise culture-starved population). I'm glad they did, whatever the reason, because Grape is one of the most delightful shops I know. There was a time when I still lived in Madison that I would make a weekly (or twice, even thrice, weekly) venture to Grape, if only to shoot the breeze with Jack. Yeah, right. It's impossible for me to leave Target empty-handed, much less a store full to the brim with delicious wines, melt-in-your-mouth confectionaries, and a variety of cheese that intimidate even the most sage cheeseophile (if there's an actual word for this, 1) please don't tell me, and 2) I really don't care).

In any case, I'd usually stroll in, glance about, read a few of the wonderfully descriptive tags that adorn each bottle of wine and pronounce the libations Bold, Big, Refreshing, Sweet, and the like, and then defer to the man behind the counter's better judgment. He would point out one or two I hadn't even seen lurking behind the cab I was holding, and I couldn't say no. There were a couple times I actually bought the place out of a certain riesling because I'd heard it was going out of production. Yeah, I'd heard that rumor three or four times and went into panic each time, snatching up at least half a dozen bottles like it was Wine2K (Jesus, I just thought of that, and it's probably the most hilarious thing I've ever written. I'm tempted to put it in bold). I still have one bottle left, but that's another story...

So yeah, M. and I went over to Grape because I'd heard the served lunch, and I was dying to try it. We arrived to Jack's smiling face and engaging chit-chat, then took a couple minutes to peruse the wines, cheese, and smallish sandwich and specials menu. M. ordered a turkey with Irish cheddar and raspberry dijon mustard on a flour-dusted sourdough roll. I held out until they offered me the pizza special - traditional Neopolitan-style margherita with freshly-made dough, pungent basil, thick-sliced, vine-ripe tomatoes, and some of Jack's trademark mozzarella.

M. and I sat in the back, at the counter by the oven, and were treated to the sight of my pizza cooking away until the clarion *ding* of the oven timer. The savory rectangle placed before me, I set on the simply-dressed field greens and sipped a glass of Pillar Box Red, a subtle shiraz-cab-merlot blend that played on the sweet undertones of the merlot while allowing the spice of the shiraz to show through in a slightly dampened fashion. All in all, simply delicious.

I was sad not to have enough room for a nibble of honeyed goat cheese or a marzipan fruit, but I trust I'll be back soon enough. Grape was, as always, great atmosphere, nice people, and delicious wine and food.

Grape and Company
745 N. Highpoint Rd.
Madison, WI 53717
(608) 831-8900
http://www.grapeandcompany.com

A Sip of Tea, a Bite of Thought

2007-03-25T09:24:00.000-06:00

I'll preface this entry with another "bear with me" disclaimer - I hope you'll forgive this entirely self-indulgent post; another stroll through the dusky narrows of my heart and stomach. Sure, it's about food...but only as much as anything so self-exploratory can be about anything in particular.

It starts with a moment. I sit in repose on what used to be my bed (still is, officially, but I've since moved on to bigger, more comfortable sleeping quarters where cats' noses touch mine as we sleep and most times I wake up reaching for ghostly figures and phantom warmth). Clean, white light of Sunday morning streams through open windows. Strains Neil Young's "Live at Massey Hall 1971" mingle with my dad's tippity-tap on the keyboard at the desk by the windows. I stare at the ceiling, holding back the urge to scroll through my phone's contacts and send a random text. Nervous habit, that, but usually my chief means of communication with the outside world. All of a sudden (it's a rather languid sudden, though; today isn't for rushing about) it hits me: I'm thirsty. And a bit hungry.

I lift myself out of bed and move quietly out of the room, down the hallway that still holds the crappy watercolor and crayon drawing of trees reflected on water I made in third grade that somehow became the cornerstone of any perceived artistic talent within me. Down the stairs, back into the kitchen whose description you, reader, ought to be familiar with - you have been reading, haven't you? A quick aside: this post, while mostly introspective, will also be at times fiercely second-person. I hope it doesn't seem confrontational.

I reach into the daisy-printed bucket that holds an indeterminate number of tea bags and pull out one of the new Mighty Leaf green tea bags my mom scooped up the other day. As I read the tea bag's paper holder, a familiar, delicious smell wafts up and touches my nose. It's very subtle, like a closed-eye dandelion brush, but memories of summer days at the local pool, picnics where the wind blows the grass against my toes, and cold milk with Cheerios all clamor and shove to the front of my mind. I look down. Strawberries! Perhaps, I think as I write (how wonderfully postmodern, huh?), the use of an exclamation point is a bit superfluous - I generally try to reserve such drastic punctuation for truly urgent communication (Fire! Watch out! I'm so excited!), and don't get me started on multiple exclamation points (which are, in my mind, only appropriate in prose dealing with natural disasters and grisly, overplayed death scenes). I'll keep it there, though, since I want to convey the tinge of excitement that welled up when I noticed the plump, barn red fruits. I confess I didn't sample one - really, the smell was enough for me. You know what I mean. Right?

Back to my tea. I tore open the outer package and extricated a uniquely-bagged specimen of green tea infused with some tropical blend of fruit essence. I had laughed when Mom had described a new kind of tea whose leaves were "pulled apart, but whole," and whose gauzy wrapping was "more open" than normal tea bags. I mean, aren't most tea bags filled with pulled apart tea leaves wrapped in mesh? I was, I admit, skeptical, but when I examined this bag and pulled it close to my nostrils to take in its latent aroma I realized she was right. Instead of pulverized tea powder, nearly-whole leaves of green tea rested in a delightfully translucent pouch. The bag wasn't like its nearly-opaque cousins, but rather was more of a dusky viewing-glass to the tea that only barely obscured its dark green contents. More of a tea display than a tea bag, if you ask me. I dropped the bag into an empty mug and flipped the switch on the electric teapot (please note, reader, that this is one of the single most wonderful inventions of the 20th century, if not ever. Just imagine, hot water whenever you want it).

Ding! (Another exclamation point, but this time to reinforce my use of urgent onomatopeoia). I turned the teapot over, awaiting a steaming cascade of water to hit the tea and transubstantiate into what I imagined would be an excellent drink. Not so, though, since I had failed to notice the teapot was empty. Minor setback indeed. I'll cut to the chase: water in, water out, tea made.

"Green Tea Passion," promises the protective tea-pouch. It makes me think: I've been struggling so much with that barely-kindled fire within. I seek my own passion, my unique blend of ache and want and horizon-looking struggle. Perhaps it's time I take a step back. What do I seek? Well, with each sip of my not-too-hot tea I realize one thing: I'm passionate about tea.

Friday Link

2007-03-23T11:43:00.000-06:00

A special Friday link. Neil Gaiman is an excellent storyteller, and that extends to talking about food.

If things go as planned, there might be something interesting going on this weekend, food-wise. If so, I'll write about it. Just to make Rick and Whitney happy. But be forewarned. I'm not the writer that Drew is. I'm not even the writer that Kevin is.

Coming Home for Dinner

2007-03-23T08:00:00.000-06:00

As some of you may know, I flew back to Madison for the week to visit with my parents, do some martial arts training, and clear my head. I apologize in advance if this entry ends up being less food-oriented and more cathartic for me, but I promise to try to make it a good read.

I always smile when I come back home - the drive from the airport, regardless of the season, is always the same. Some things change - Madison is especially fickle about its eateries - and where that Thai place stood now resides the King of Falafel (I've already requested an audience from His Highness, if you were wondering). Likewise, the stores and bars come and go, but the feel of the place is constant. State Street, Madison's pedestrian mall that runs from the Capitol square to the Union at Lake Mendota, is always overrun by bleach-blonde sorostitutes and their beefy, backwards UW Hockey cap-wearing brothers. Interspersed are seemingly innumerable geeks, dweebs, dudes, chicks, foreign exchange students, and people just trying to get by. I usually fly in before lunch, so we have to dodge a million late-risers and slackers sprinting on their way to Psychology 101 or the like. It's fine, though, because it never changes.

When I get home, the first thing I do is open the fridge. I'm not necessarily hungry, and opening that cream-colored gateway is mostly a test for myself and my memory. I'm never disappointed. Without fail, there is an almost-empty half gallon of skim milk next to an unopened counterpart. Cliques of yogurt - usually two groups of three 100-calorie cups each (always one cherry, one blueberry, one peach) - stand as sentinels guarding Sargento low-moisture string cheese and a variety of cold cuts nestled amidst a hundred types of cheese (this time it was corned beef adjacent to queso fresco - Marti and Doug are really firing it up these days). I trust there is always spray-on I Can't Believe It's Not Butter that my dad loves and a couple slabs of Philadelphia cream cheese just in case my mom gets a hankering for cream cheese-and-jelly sandwiches of her childhood. The fridge is like Madison, really - the leftovers change, from a new recipe for potatoes au gratin out of Cooking Light, to penne or flank steak or tuna salad (always chunk light slathered in mayo with a generous shuffle of chopped celery). Some of the components change, but the general mise-en-scene is always the same.

The cupboards and pantry are no different. We've never been a one-cereal family, and it's not often you find us without Cheerios, Quaker Oat Squares, and some sort of granola. Taco shells that I've never seen used sit on the lower shelf along with various broths, Williams-Sonoma glazes and marinades, and countless other tins and cans bespeak my mom's love for exotic, prefab delicacies. You never can tell when you're going to need artichoke lemon tapenade or hand-cut marshmallows, but it's good to have them on hand.

Moving over to the bread box, you can be sure there's a least two slices of Oat Nut left (lucky for me, my parents leave the heels of the loaf until last because I think they're uncertain of their ability to finish an entire loaf before it gets moldy and leaving the end parts on will apparently preserve it). More often than not, there are two or three other loaves ranging from sourdough with whole garlic cloves embedded in it to crusty French peasant that makes a delicious, tooth-ruining peanut butter and jelly sandwich. On top of the bread box is an open package of dried apricots. This may be the touchstone of my culinary existence in Madison. I remember years ago when I started "eating right," and introduced mass quantities of nuts, dried fruit, and the like to our kitchen. At first glance, the package of apricots is the very progenitor of this trend, and by all rights ought to be filled with dessicated, inedible orange-brown lumps. It is, however, at least half-full of succulent, plump fruits whose soft-but-wrinkled skin I bite through with ease. I usually proceed to eat the remainder of the package within minutes, but somehow there is always another half-full clone in its place in a heartbeat. Don't ask me how it happens, because I don't want to know.

Being home reinforces a certain consistency with regard to food, but also reflects the constant change in my life. I don't eat every meal with my folks - not becaues I don't like them, but because sometimes I'm off kickboxing and don't get home until late, or I'm catching up with friends, or I just feel like eating alone...it may be impossible to really "come home" again, but at least I know there will be yogurt waiting for me when I get there.

Wednesday Morning Links. The JL edition.

2007-03-21T08:31:00.000-06:00

Just a quick post this morning. Nothing really interesting has been going on with me food-wise. Maybe Joe will post something.
OK. The links.

Carrots are cool. Go to your local farmers market when it starts up and get some good ones. The non-orange ones are pretty cool and tasty. Joe likes carrots.
Because of this review, we went to Sabatino's last night. It was Kolb's birthday, so the guitar player and the violin player did a very nice Happy Birthday for him, and then offered to play him any song. I was hoping for Moon River, but he asked for a Sinatra song. So we heard a very skilled rendition of Summer Wind. Since Joe had the best dish at the table, perhaps he can do a write-up about it.
This thread over on LTH talks about a cookbook based on O'Brien's British Navy series of books that Master and Commander was based on. Ex-roommate (ex-pat) Kevin is a big fan of those books. If he ever comes back, with or without a wife, we should make a big meal based on that cookbook. Do you know who else is a big fan of those books? JL.

Yeah, a little light today. I'll do better in the future. Have a good Wednesday.

Gumbo and Scrimps on St. Patty's Day

2007-03-19T08:30:00.000-06:00

If I were a little better-versed in the ways of the Deep South, I might open with something cleverly Cajun...but I'm not, so you're going to have to just assume I'm talking like Emeril right now (except for the fact he's kinda from Massachusetts instead of New Orleans, but whatever).

In any case, Todd and I were out on St. Patrick's Day (did you expect anyone else to be out with me on a Saturday night than my beloved Dr. Watson? I mean, unless he's Holmes and I'm Watson, but he's going to be a doctor, and I'm taller anyway). We were off to catch a flick and a quick bite at some chainy place (Bahama Mama? Biscayne Breeze? Whatever, it was rubbish), but luckiliy we opted to head home and check out the newly-opened Bryn Mawr wing of Carmine's Creole Cafe. The gumbo-and-blues joint is nestled inconspicuously (except for a rather garish, but not tasteless, sign out front) between a lousy Vietnamese place and an arthouse movie theater. Please note, I refer to the Vietnamese joint as lousy because the last time Geoff, Todd and I ate there Todd got the "Beef Deluxe," and apparently "deluxe" was a mistranslation of "every part of the cow, including the cat's tongue lining of the scrotum, which I thought was reserved for fan belt production. But yeah, that's another story. Carmine's...

We rolled in on a Saturday holiday at about half seven, which in the real world would equate to no table and an eye roll from the hostess. I mean, we got the eye roll and halfhearted offer for seats at the bar, but we held out, watched the last of a basketball game I can't remember, and were then ushered begrudgingly into the front dining room. Our waitress (server?) Kara brought us cocktails and crusty rolls accompanied by a bowl of oil-soaked garlic cloves. As some of you may know, the way to my heart is with garlic, so I had a good feeling about this joint.

Under advisement from the sage Kara, Todd and I opted to both start with a cup of seafood gumbo and the pork chop and crab cake, respectively. As we waited for the food I sampled one of the house martinis (odd to have a specialty martini list at a creole place...but I wasn't complaining), the Swamp Water. To the best of my sense of taste (and with a little help from the menu), I detected a couple ounces of Grey Goose (Finlandia maybe? My sense for tasteless alcohol is a little off these days), a generous splash of Tabasco, a Tanqueray float, and a couple of blackened shrimp mingling at the bottom. It really did resemble water from a swamp. DELICIOUS water from a swamp, mind you, but the look was a tad off-putting. I slugged it, and it was like a handful of fire for about two seconds followed by that deliciously shrimpy-Tabasco aftertaste I like to accompany all my culinary experiences.

The food came. The presentation was lovely - my mountainous crab cake sat amidst a gentle valley of whipped mashed potatoes, craggy lump crab meat boulders toppling down its perfectly-formed sides. And the taste? Out of this world, definitely in the top five crab cakes I've had. Todd's pork chop obviously came from some mutant, ginormous porcine creature, because it was amazingly big. And delicious (I always insist on eating some of Todd's food, if only to make sure it isn't poisoned). The chop came with an oddly delicious (and rather strangely shaped) brick of cheddar cornbread, which had that almost-done texture without being gummy. All in all, the entrees were wonderful. And yet, somehow, we still had room for dessert...

Two words, my friends: bread pudding. This, however, was not your mom's bread pudding (unless your mom either makes amazing bread pudding or works in the kitchen at Carmine's, in which case I retract). This was a heap of delicious, perfectly-baked, carmel- and fresh whipped cream-topped goodness that melted in your mouth and let the stomach feeling like an overfull bag of groceries (in an awesome way).

I couldn't even finish my coffee, it was so good. I'm not sure there's a good way to end this post...Carmine's I'll call you, and I loves ya, girl.

Carmine's Creole Cafe and Blues
818 Lancaster Ave.
Bryn Mawr, PA 19010
(610) 520-9100

American Born Cooking Desi

2007-03-14T23:56:00.000-06:00

Wow, this is a real honor. I'm really, really excited to be the first non-founding poster. First, about me: some of you (not many) will know me as Eck17. Others will know me as "the dumbest smart kid they know" (thanks, Tazo!). In real life, I do math. In non-real life, I play ultimate.

What qualifies me to write on this blog? I was a member of the late, lamented Dinner Club in Chicago. You can read about it here and here. I travel a lot. So, I get to eat interesting food in interesting places (bouillabaisse in the south of France, falafel in Israel, all kinds of amazing ethnic food in Toronto, etc., etc.).Finally, I'm of Indian (dot on the forehead, not Squanto) descent. Thus, I'm going to focus mainly on Indian food in my writing (I'm also, currently, writing this in India).

Now, you might say, didn't Drew already write about and express his love for Indian food (and, I might add, drop my name in a VERY flattering manner)? Yes, he did. But, with all due respect, Drew knows NOTHING about Indian food. And since I said with all due respect, he can't get mad. It's in the Geneva conventions. Look it up.

OK, so that's not quite fair. What I should say is that the Indian food Drew (and he knows more than essentially all Americans) knows about is but a tiny sliver of the vast variety of deliciousness prepared on this subcontinent. Now, I may not know a much larger percentage, but I do know a different percentage.

More precisely, most of the Indian food that's served in the U.S. is actually an interpretation of Punjabi/Mughlai cuisine. It's from a specific region of Northwest India, and what you get in a restaurant is basically rich, banquet-type food, not an everyday meal. Every now and then you'll hit a South Indian restaurant, which will serve dosas, and idlis, which, while delicious and integral parts of Tamil cuisine, are basically breakfast/snack food.

So, imagine if you ate a bunch of roasts and boiled vegetables with white sauce, and every so often some bacon and eggs, and maybe a croissant, and then, using that, formed an opinion of "European" food. You'd be crazy, right? (funnily enough, in a lot of places in India there is something known as "Continental" cuisine, which is basically what I described above).

So what I'm going to try and do is to highlight the cuisines of my parent's home states, Assam (in the northeast), and Tamil Nadu (in the south). I'll probably try and take it one dish at a time, and hopefully include some rough approximation to a recipe (I cook according to taste, in Indian slang, by andaaz). I'll also occasionally try and describe/cook other popular foods in India that don't often see the light of day in the U.S.

Test Run for Scrumptulescence Summit

2007-03-13T22:43:00.000-06:00

I'm in Washington DC right now for work training. Sunday and Monday night I had disappointing dinners, but was eating at chain restaurants in DC, not known as the best culinary town in the country. Today, Drew came to town. It was our first chance to eat together outside of the Acapulco buffet. His friend Morgan was kind enough to join us, and we went to this little bar / continental tapas place. It didn't compare well to the previous tapas meal that Drew had, but it was good enough. The charcuterie platter and the cheese platter were good. The Steak Tartare was good. But two things pushed it over the top. One, our server, Sarah, was awesome. My previous 2 DC dinners were definitely at the bottom of the ranks in service. Sarah was awesome, waiting on the whole place herself, providing good recommendations, and buying us dessert and shots. Pretty sweet. Second great thing: Pork Belly Confit. Oh. My. God. It is well known that pork belly is the best thing ever. (Anyone know what else is made from pork belly?) Slow cooking it in fat? Jeez. I can't really describe it. Amazing.

I'm up 2 hours later than I wanted to be, but special thanks to Drew and Morgan for treating. And the whole point of this post is to say that Drew will be visiting Madison in a couple of weeks, and I think I've talked him into coming down to Chicago for the first real Scrumptulescence Founders Summit. If he does, we'll probably try to do one great dinner out, and one great dinner in. So far, for the great dinner in, we've talked about grilled kangaroo tenderloin, and possibly grilled pizza with goat cheese and grilled pancetta. It's all theoretical now, but if you want an invite, you'd best start working for it.

Oh, and we're adding a few contributors. You'll find out who when they post.

Amada? Amazing.

2007-03-12T20:51:00.000-06:00

Imagine this: two posts in one day where Todd and I went on a totally nonsexual man-date and had a blast. Take that, women. So yeah, we were hungry again, and shopping at KOP, so we decided spur-of-the-moment to try to snag a table at the tres chic Amada, an Old City tapas favorite that we'd heard a lot about....I called, we got a table. Easy as that. Please take note: if you need a table at some restaurant, just ask Drew Coursin.

Aaaanyway. Amada. We sat and perused the menu - small print + lots of options = confusion. We opted for the first-timer special: the Chef's Choice. Forty-five bucks a person (plus a few bones for delicious red sangria, which tasted dangerously like fruit punch with a ton of fruit in it) got us three courses of tapas that seriously blew our minds. I'll just list everything we got and you can take it from there:

Appetizer/Palate Cleanser:
-Salty flatbread with a tuna and caper dip - seemed pretty unadorned, but hit the spot to start.
-Olive platter - large olives, small olives - definitely hit that salty area on the tongue that needs a good warming up before an enormous meal. Also, bonus points for being able to use the fondue skewer provided to poke at what seemed like innumerable olivey delicacies.

First Course:
-Spanish tortilla with saffron aioli - Spain's response to the traditional Mexican potato and flour dish, I'd imagine. Was a dense pastry-like creation that slid down the gullet in a few nibbles thanks to the deep yellow-orange of the saffron aioli. Yum.
-Serrano ham and fig salad, cabrales, and spiced almonds - arguably one of the best items on the menu - dark green leaves of spinach wrapped in Iberian cured ham and presented with sliced drunken figs, marinated red onions, and salty-sweet almond clusters. Utterly delicious.
-A platter of bread, crisp Granny Smith apple slices, a medium-dry goat's milk cheese, and garlic dulce de leche. Altogether a sumptuous treat - each item individually tasted great, and even better in concert.

Second Course:
-Flatbread with artichokes, black truffles, wild mushrooms, and a slice of aged manchego cheese. Todd commented on how similar manchego is to his favorite - parmesan. I agreed as I munched on the succulent pizza.
-Albondigas - lamb meatballs with shaved manchego that melted in our mouths as we skewered and tossed them down. Another favorite of the meal - a Spanish twist on the Swedish meatball with infinitely more delicate flavor and that wonderful lamb aroma.
-Crab stuffed peppers - sweet red peppers with shaved almonds overflowing with a bubbling cheese and crab filling. Again, hard to say what was the best about this meal, but this may have been it.

Third Course:
-Beef Tenderloin with an aged gorgonzola/bleu cheese and foie gras cover. Words really fall short, to be perfectly honest. We didn't have a steak knife to carve this bad boy, but we didn't need one; the butter knife sawed through the ever-so-tender flesh with remarkable ease. I can't describe the taste. Purchase your plane ticket for Philly now. In hindsight, I should have stabbed Todd and popped the whole tiny filet into my mouth to let its flavor dissolve while I waited for the cops to haul me away.
-Scallops on skewers with parsley, olive oil, and garlic. Unremarkable, to be honest, compared to the tenderloin and other accoutrements, but still tasty, especially with the...
-Chick peas with spinach - the garbanzos were cooked to the point where they were almost crispy (the way I love them, which really reminds me of Barcelona); they tasted almost like the sea, but the spinach set them off in a delicious almost-diavolo sauce.
-Patatas bravas - both Todd and I had experienced this Catalan delicacy in its native land, and really were hoping it didn't come tonight. It did, however, and at that point we were just too full of delicious food to enjoy the couture tater tots and repeated saffron aioli.

Dessert:
-Todd: seven layers of chocolate. As awesome as this sounded, it was a bit scant and not all that tasty. I can't recount what the layers were, exactly, which pretty much sums up the experience.
-Drew: avocado mousse, fresh pineapple, green tea meringue, Meyer lemon ice cream. In a word: amazing. Just like dessert should be: refreshing to the point that you forget you're full and want to eat more.

We finished everything off with a tipple of Ximenez muscato dessert wine and then ambled out into the Philadelphia evening, stuffed and completely satisfied.

Bless you, Amada. You are truly loved.

Amada
217-219 Chestnut St.
Philadelphia, PA 19106
215-625-2540

Grasshoppers and Tequila

2007-03-12T11:21:00.000-06:00

Another Saturday night, and Todd is hungry. So am I, for that matter, so what better thing to do than catch the R5 train into the thriving metropolis that is Philadelphia and blow the foam off a couple exotic brews while munching mussels at Monk's? If you've been reading the blog, you'll recall my so-so review of Monk's Old City sister, Eulogy. I'll dispel any dramatic tension for you:

We didn't go to Monk's.

Well, we went there, but it was a total cluster-, uh, cluster of people (this IS a family-oriented blog), so we put a name down just in case and hustled around the corner to one of my favorite Mexican joints, Tequila's. Quick aside: I realize most of my reviews have been pretty Mexican food-centric, but hey, tough, it's where I eat. And those are usually the places where excitement find us - keep reading.

Tequila's was less hopping than I expected for a Saturday night at nine. Todd and I brushed past a harried hostess and ensconced ourselves at the bar. Or rather, we tried, but some guy was sitting between two empty seats. Enter: Terry (obviously the guy mentioned in the previous sentence - you're not much of a close reader, are you?) Terry moved to one side to accommodate us ; the night was looking up. We ordered a pair of Tequila's house margaritas (rocks and salt, duh, as if there's any other way to drink 'em) and settled in for the final minutes of the Sixers game as we decided what to do (grab a table here or hold out for Monk's). Terry and I got to talking when I noticed a strange-looking appetizer appear before him. To my unexpecting eye it looked like stir-fried chili peppers, which Terry scooped up apprehensively with a corn tortilla and chomped on with a certain air of trepidation (again, the suspense). Of course I asked...

...grasshoppers. Terry's friend, the congenial bartender Don, had recommended a not-listed-on-the-menu-for-obvious-reasons alternative to chips and guac: DIY pan-fried grasshopper taquitos. I expressed interest, he offered, and I have to say the grasshopper faire was pretty yummy. I'm not sure if it was the insects themselves that were piquant, or the mole-like glaze that accompanied them, but I was impressed by the taste and the satisfying crunch. I regaled the bar with stories of my termite banquets in Belize and willingness to eat almost anything that won't try to leave my mouth.

After grasshoppers, we opted for some pre-dinner snifters of the house tequila, which was deep, silver, and vaguely reminiscent of Patron. It went down with the dull fire of good sipping tequila, which we cut with some ice-cold Pacifico. When in Rome, right?

After a few more pleasantries and a promise to meet up with T for some carousing later, Todd and I took a table in back and gorged ourselves on guacamole (again, even better than El Vez...I'm starting to doubt their awesomeness), fundido (a more massive, but ultimately simpler presentation than Lolita), and once again tempted fate with the carne asada order.

In other words, we basically replicated our meal at Lolita at this OTHER Philadelphia Mexican joint. Overall, I was impressed. The steak was done perfectly and melted in my mouth - no chewiness this time, just a couple succulent cuts presented perfectly alongside a chicken taquito, pork tamal, and various typical Mexican accoutrements (black beans, rice, guac).

Stuffed and happy, we departed Tequila's, our lives enriched by grasshopper nibblings and booze on the house...but that's another story.

Try Tequila's the next time you're in Philly. We'll go with you.

Tequila's
1602 Locust St.
Philadelphia, PA 19102
(215-546-0181)

Suddenly I feel like eating a burger.

2007-03-02T11:34:00.000-06:00

I was going to save this for Wednesday's links, but Drew's post, I have to get this up now.

Part of me wants to use this article as a checklist. Except for the Veggie burgers part.

Who's in? We can make it a group thing. Or maybe some of you out in our Chicago readership area can go to some of these places and report back. I'd give some guest post privileges for that. It's going to take me awhile to get through all of these. And lets be honest, it wouldn't be great for me.

Eat this, not that [you fool]!

2007-03-02T09:43:00.000-06:00

So, I work at a gym. There are people of all shapes and sizes, from bodybuilders with lats that jut out and require an airlift in and out of the joint until we replace the doors with wider versions, to career class-goers (Group Ex, for those in the know) whose primary purpose seems to be to spend their husbands' dollars on fitness. In other words, we're just like any other health club as far as clientele goes. And like other places, we have subtle food propaganda that may not even reach the members, but still insinuates itself into the lives of trainers, instructors, and other employees.

Case in point (point in case? point in point?): I was sitting in the employee lounge, munching on my WaWa turkey sandwich (on wheat, whole sandwich toasted, lettuce, tomato, grated parmesan, extra turkey and cheddar, golden barbeque sauce [whateverthehell that is], pepper and oregano - BEEP BOOP BEEP - if you're familiar with WaWa, you know what I'm saying. Otherwise, sorry) and sipping on some of that barely-sweet flavored water when I glanced at a notice on the bulletin board that presented a side-by-side comparison of the "acceptable" choices at favorite chain restaurants versus their obviously immediate death-inducing counterparts.

For example, at Cinnabon, apparently it is wiser to order a Minibon than to go for the regular-size Cinnabon version. It has fewer calories, saturated fat, and is about a third of the size.

Mind = blown.

Basically, the sage advice of such pamphlets as far as I can glean is: eat less bad stuff. Oh? You mean, if I were to eat A piece of the Colonel's secret recipe extra crispy it would be "better" for me than devouring the entire 20-piece family bucket?

Needless to say, I was shocked. I had to share my profound discovery here - you all are so lucky to hear this from me. I'm pretty sure the information was sequestered in our break room because the government or whoever doesn't want the average gym-goer to know that there are relatively-sensible-in-the-way-that-cutting-your-arm-off-is-preferable-to-being-
crushed-under-a-thousand-tons-of-pirate-gold type of choices out there for what you eat and how it affects your wellbeing.

But wait, there's more. Get this: Whooper Jr. has fewer calories than a Whopper. So, my advice as a fitness professional is this: eat five Whoppers Jr. (also, be amazed by my grasp of linguistic formalism) every time you work out. Also, instead of water, drink Diet Coke, since Diet Coke doesn't have any calories, and you can never be too sure about water.

In case you don't have the guts to read this entire post but have skipped to the end, let me distill it down to today's food advice:

1. Eat as many Minibons as you can directly before exercising.
2. Smaller versions of things = waaaaay better.
3. You might not even have to work out if you would just stop eating Whoppers and start eating more Whoppers Jr., fatty.

Vindication is awesome

2007-02-28T18:14:00.000-06:00

So the other night, feeling a bit peckish, as I often do, I embarked on an adventure to cook the kale that had been delivered the week before. Prior roommates and long time friends will remember that I often tried to cook kale while in college, which occassionally resulted in unpleasant odors and uncomplimentary looks from members of U of C's famed X-country team.
Anyway, age gives us the wisdom and the patience to do what escaped us in our youth, or I just got lucky. The kale came out quite good. I did it in two batches, first sauteing 4 cloves of garlic in some olive oil, then added the first batch, another dollop of oil, kept it on low to medium low heat (I remembered that burnt kale is not good eats, as the wise Alton Brown would say) added salt and pepper near the end, took it out, second batch more or less the same. It was pretty good. Bryan even hesitantly ventured the opinion, as if testing his toe in it first, that it might replace brocolli as his favorite vegetable. This, not more than 2 months after his brocolli was declared the "world's best"; by a vegetarian no less. So I am rather proud, even if compliments from Bryan are a little too easy, I know he's just trying to get me to start contributing.

I must apologize for the self-promotion and woop-de-doo-ness of the post, but I am quite proud of the kale. And it has given me the little confidence boost necessary to try and write in such a public and well-regarded forum.

The other aspect of it that makes me happy is that its such a simple thing and means of preparation couldn't be more basic. I find that my tastes in regards to food are often most satisfied by the competently prepared simple dish, rather than anything extravagant. Incisive critics might deride this statement as obvious, pointing to the whole concept of "comfort foods" but for me, it really represents the avenue that I generally pursue with cooking. Trying to make pizza dough right, or the more difficult for me, if less frequently attempted, good black beans is more of what I'm interested than anything else. To be fair, part of this may be attributed to what can only charitably described as my below-average pallet. (can someone help me on the spelling for pallet? No matter what I put into the online dictionary I keep getting painter's pallet, is it the same? trophywife, help.) But as Luther said, "Here I stand; I can do no other. God help me. Amen."

Anyway, that's my post, now maybe bryan will open up the flood gates and allow some outside posting.

Wednesday Morning Links. And Some Encouragement

2007-02-28T09:36:00.000-06:00

Jess submitted this to the editorial staff for inclusion in the Wednesday Morning Links. This article tells of the first female chef to be given three Michelin stars in the past 50 years. I've never been to a Michelin starred restaurant, but I do understand this is a pretty big deal.

I'd like to try to eat more seafood, and it sounds like it might be a good time to try Scylla. I used to walk past the place quite a bit when I lived in Bucktown.

This thread on LTHForum is about Lenten eating, and features Rick / Eric favorite the Duke of Perth. I think my agnosticism finally overtook my childhood upbringing, as this year I only feel the slightest twinges of guilt when eating meat on Fridays. Still, fish on Friday wouldn't be a bad dietary modification for me, although fried fish probably isn't the way to go.

On to the encouragement. I realize that Drew and I haven't been posting much recently. You can tell because two consecutive sets of Wednesday Morning links bump together on the main page. Very tacky. We're working on it. I'm just lazy and haven't done anything interesting food wise this past week, and Drew has been on a super secret mission. I've already said too much. Anyway, there is a third member to the Scrumptulescence team. Joe. You remember, he posted a little intro about how he shouldn't be posting here. Something about qualifications. Well, to encourage him, and to justify my insistence that he start writing about something here on this site, I am going to link to a few posts from his early blogging days on Crazy Nomad. They're not 100% about food, but you can see the genius, the willingness to share share everything with the world, and the lack of decorum. I have only linked to ones that are at least peripherally about food or drink(ing). After reading through some of these, if you know Joe, email him or IM him and encourage him to start writing regularly for our humble site. Ask about the kale he made. It was glorious. If you don't have contact info for him, just leave some comments here. He'll see them.

This is one of a number of postings he made while drunk. I like the assaulting of the waitstaff in a bar.
This post has some more good stuff about being in a bar, along with a talent show including a milk challenge, pizza hut, and pretending to drive while drunk.
More drunken posting, this one involving some BBQ among other things.
He makes soup in this one, and talks about Arrested Development.
In this he talks about wearing a loincloth, as well as touching on a breakfast place that is run by a cult.
And the last one, with a mini restaurant review and some details about an unusual path on a train trip.

See? I told you.

These were just randomly sampled from his archives. There's a lot of good stuff there. Which is why we all need to gently encourage him to write more, both here and on his own blog.

Have a good Wednesday.

Wednesday Morning Links, brought to you by the ellipsis......

2007-02-21T09:11:00.000-06:00

I like this casual approach to buying wine. I have a feeling that a lot of us don't often find ourselves in Sam's or the Wine Discount Center when we want to grab a bottle of wine for casual consumption. I'd like to be a more informed wine buyer, but who has the time? I mean, I'd like to be a more informed college graduate, too....

This isn't food related, but i found it really entertaining. When I was in high school in Idaho we didn't have any cool 24 hour superstore. We were lucky to have indoor plumbing. Our only 24 hour hangout was the Perkins restaurant by the mall. We didn't have room to breakdance there. Who am I kidding? I'm no JL. I can't dance.....

And, finally, some recipes from the greatest cooking show ever produced: Good Eats. I'm not going to spend time describing the show to you, but I will say that it's funny and informative and makes you think you can cook whatever the host, Alton Brown, is cooking. I have tried all three of these and had good results even the first time......

For those who want good Texas-red style chili (no beans!), but don't want to take a lot of time to make it, you can use this recipe from this episode and you'll have a very good version of the stuff. You DO have a pressure cooker, right.......

A great episode gives us a great recipe for broccoli casserole. Easy to make, very tasty, and uses instant ramen in an interesting way.......

Until I saw this episode, I had no idea that making chocolate eclairs was relatively easy. As long as you can make the pâte a choux..............

Last but not least, the episode that started it all. It's a good steak, and it's pretty easy. You just have to be willing to deal with some smoke in your kitchen. My roommates have become rather adept at airing out the apartment when I'm cooking. It's not ALWAYS necessary, though......................

Nooner

2007-02-20T12:00:00.000-06:00

That's right, a few quickies from the past few days that don't rate their own post.

Thursday night we went to Fogo de Chao so Kevin could get his meat on before moving to China. It was the usual meat orgy. I ate too much. Kolb acted like the total n3wb that he was. I've never seen someone so worried about the positioning of a red and green cardboard circle. The meats were all good. While I enjoyed the garlic beef, the pork ribs, the bacon wrapped items, and the new ribeye they are serving, the best tasting meat item the gauchos brought over: chicken legs. I've probably eaten at Fogo ten times. Each time a different meat has been prepared just a little better than the rest. For the first time it was poultry. Good work, Fogo de Chao. By the way, if you ever go to Fogo, take Thor along. Watching him narrow the meats down to the one he wants, and then watching him ask for it at every opportunity, sending the gauchos and managers scurrying to find it is highly entertaining.

Friday I didn't feel much like eating.

Saturday I did some shopping and bought some wine and good beer. I took a BR approach to beer selection: pick the beers with cool labels. Walking down the aisle at Binny's, I started looking at those big Belgian bottles that they sell, some with actual corks in them. I decided that since it would just be JL, KC, and I hanging out, I'd splurge on some good stuff. But I'm not that familiar with the large fancy bottle style of beer, where you don't by 6 or even 4 packs, you buy one 24-36 oz bottle. So I grabbed 8 different bottles from all over the world. I don't know which brands. Trust me, they were good. I know because they were expensive. Went home, did some dishes, and we started drinking the fancy beer. Turns out these nice beers have a lot of alcohol in them. I know because both Kevin and I agreed that "Employee of the Month," which we watched while drinking, was pretty funny. As the fine-beer-haze started drifting away, I offered the choice of two meals: grilled ham and cheese sandwiches with tater tots, or homemade mac & cheese. KC asked for the mac & cheese and the tots. Whatever. I don't think they have any of that stuff in China, so in about 25 minutes, it was ready. I even steamed some broccoli to make it a healthy meal.

Sunday morning we woke up and went to The Depot American Diner for breakfast. It's out of the way, on West Roosevelt. Good cooks doing classic diner food. Had to try the biscuits and gravy, which were definitely good, but I liked the ones at Tweet better. Service was so so, possibly because there was only one server. Great breakfast potatoes.

The Depot American Diner
5840 W. Roosevelt
(773) 261-8422

Sunday for dinner some Cincinnati folks had been talking about chili, so I made Cincinnati-style chili. For those who don't know, it's a ground beef chili made with some sweet spices like allspice, cinnamon, brown sugar, and cocoa powder. Usually it is served over spaghetti and topped with grated cheese, onions, and/or kidney beans. Pretty good stuff, and I do a passable version. So we ate that and watched the NBA All-star game. Which was boring. But the food was good.

Monday I received my new smoker. More on that in the future, I'm sure. Monday night I made winter vegetable chowder from all of the root vegetables that Fresh Picks has been sending. It was decent. Light and hearty at the same time. JL tried it, but the rest of the roommates went with the leftover chili. Hard to argue with that decision, I must say.

Tonight? Meal number one from this 5 step course on mastering the vertical water smoker.

Have a good day. Everyone should eat or drink something good or at least interesting tonight. Feel free to post a comment here about that.

Past Life - an informal poll

2007-02-19T12:05:00.000-06:00

We received some good comments from some ex-Chicago people who now live elsewhere. I knew posting about tortilla chips would get people talking. So, if you used to live in Chicago, and now you don't, what restaurants, bars, or food products do you miss? Maybe some of the Scrumptulescence staff will go to the restaurant or bar or pick up some of the food and then write about it, so you can live vicariously through us.

Might as well expand it, so Drew can do the same thing. If you used to live in Philly, what do you miss?

(If you've only visited either place, and you had some good food, you're welcome to comment as well.)

Disappointment, You Smack of Blood Orange!

2007-02-18T21:46:00.000-06:00

Friday night.

Hot night on the old town tonight.

The Gayborhood. Two men. A bottle of Don Julio Blanco. A wad of cash. Sounds like all the trappings of an excellent night? Well, you could ask Todd, who would probably give an even more scatching review...but you'll have to settle for me.

Long story short, I had convinced Todd to join me at one of my favorite little BYOT (tequila, duh) joints in Philly, the much-lauded, dripping-with-atmosphere Lolita. I had been a handful of times before, and each trip was more satisfying than the last. Known best for their delicious guac (even though the avocado-based starter from across the street at El Vez gets more press, that's just because they makes some poor woman with morter, pestel, and handfuls of garlic make the stuff tableside. People need to realize that all guacamole they get at reputable dining establishments is probably fresh, since that stuff oxidizes like nobody's business and you seldom see brownish green dreck on the menu. Rant over, back to the review) and tender-as-can-be carne asada (which is billed in the English translation as "filet mignon," which I realize is both somewhat of a misnomer and not really English, but whatever)...

...okay, that sentence was out of control. Basically, Lolita's guacamole and carne asada are amazing. There are probably twenty tops in the dimly-lit hallway restaurant, and black-clad hardbody waiters are never too far away. It's a sweet little place, although the lack of reservations on the weekend can make it a madhouse. Luckily, Todd and I only waited about half an hour before grabbing a good table. Our waiter appeared immediately and knew right away that we wanted the fresh blood orange margaritas (passion fruit is for weenies) mixed at the table. The drinks were good, thanks mostly to the quality booze (the mix was a bit dull, to be honest; hardly comparable to their incredible watermelon variety).

We dove into the menu, since neither of us had eaten. The guacamole and fundido con queso y otras cosas (translate: delicious melty cheese with other stuff like salchicha or whatever that you eat in little corn tortillas) were amazing. We both ordered the carne asada, medium. Hopes were high.

This is where the meal took a downward turn. The food arrived quickly, but after five minutes of both chewing our first respective bites, Todd and I looked at each other and shook our heads. The waiter was at my elbow immediately, looking very concerned indeed. Without speaking, he whisked our plates away and replaced them with fresh copies of the menu. Confusion and profuse apologies followed. Please note that while I write for a low-budget food blog, I have never never sent a meal back, it's just not in my nature. But I did, somewhat against my will.

Entree number two was waluu for Todd and mushroom enchiladas and rock shrimp for me. We were both disappointed. I'm serious. All my descriptive prowess and knack for conveying culinary discourse with impeccable equipoise fails me. So, here goes, with minimal energy:

-The fish sucked
-The enchiladas were *yawn*
-Dessert was forced - an uninspired cheesecake with goat cheese for me and some other stuff for Todd (bread pudding? Jesus, I just lost all will to write).

Damn it all, I want my carne asada.

Look, don't let this less than stellar review turn you off. Lolita is awesome and if you come to Philadelphia, I will personally escort you there unless you chew with your mouth open or have cloying BO or something.

I mean, Tiger Woods doesn't birdie every hole.

Lolita
106 South 13th St.
Philadelphia, PA 19107
(215) 546-7100

Truth

2007-02-15T09:58:00.000-06:00

Joe's addiction. On Drive-Thru for all to see.

Yes, they are the best in Chicago. Perhaps in the country, unless you're going to make your own.

Wednesday Morning Links

2007-02-14T10:56:00.000-06:00

To all within earshot: we need to go here.

And this guy has the right idea. Quitting his cubicle job at 30, fishing for 2 years, then becoming a chef with a passion for great ingredients? Did I dream that last night, or read about it here?

Cupid and Cheese Cubes: A Valentine's Day Food Special

2007-02-13T12:36:00.000-06:00

So, Valentine's Day. Another quasi-holiday whose purpose is to exacerbate the situations of the ugly, lonely masses. You go to Hallmark. You buy cards, flowers, candy, little cute Gund bears with those glossy button eyes and ever-so-soft fur, new cars, diamonds, etc. You book the worst table at the best restaurant (you totally should have thought about making reservations BEFORE today). You iron your finest shirt. Ha! Totally got you there; dudes do not iron shirts. Dudes wear shirts (any women out there can disregard the previous sentences. Besides, you probably weren't going to wear a damn shirt anyway. You probably had a blouse or something, or whatever chick shirts are called these days).

Now, if for some reason you couldn't get a table at any restaurant, you might break out the fry pan and caviar (probably in no direct combination) and give an old-fashioned romantic meal a go.

This is an awful idea. Let me tell you why. First, we'll need to go back to basics. Below is a list of known aphrodisiacs/sexy foods that people try to cook without any real experience and probably cock up more than anything:

-Oysters
-Strawberries
-Champagne
-Chocolate
-Asparagus (I didn't know either)
-Almond
-Honey
-Truffles
-Wine

Okay, it's only a partial list, but it's all the ammunition I need. Take a good look at that list, and I guarantee the majority of foods listed are seldom in heavy rotation for you amateur chefs out there. I'll split them into two categories to make this easy:
1) Foods you eat often but don't necessarily incorporate into a special occasion menu;
2) Things you do not eat outside a restaurant.

For me, I know I eat a lot of chocolate, almonds and strawberries, cook asparagus regularly, and drink a good amount of wine. I love truffles, oysters, and sparkling wine when I'm out to eat. I want to you make a note of where these foodstuffs fall in your life. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Right, so, here we are with a bunch of food that are familiar and you probably like. And yet, there's something amiss. Most attempts to present these arousing foodstuffs in concert with each other will turn out disastrous. I imagine two distinct, yet equally awful, scenarios (per items 1 and 2 above - I love referring to my lists, it makes me feel organized).

1) You spread the ingredients out on the counter and see them as completely separate entities. You panic. You and your significant other end up eating a handful of almonds to start (I hear seven is the optimal serving to maximize the positive effects of protein and folic acid, yet minimize the amount of fat). Then you eat some asparagus, probably [I hope] as an accompaniment to something else you know how to cook (like a boring chicken breast - remember, you used all your energy considering the ingredients and their ability to drop the drawers, as it were). Then you finish up with champagne and chocolate, but not necessarily the right sparkling wine that goes with the right chocolate (I won't even get into that). You drink wine throughout, and that's cool, because you like wine. Boooooooooring.

2) You have no clue how to prepare oysters. You've only ever had them raw at Bobby Flay Steak and one time somebody said something about Rockefeller, but you figured it was another one of Jay-Z's marketing ploys to get you to drink his vodka or buy records or something. So you serve them raw. That is, after you cut the hell out of yourself trying to open them with a chef's knife. So, you're bleeding, but you apply pressure and suck down a few oysters. They taste a little fishy, but that's okay, right, because they're from the ocean? A jagged piece of shell scores your esophagus, but only slightly. You wash it down with a hearty swig of Franzia blush. You move on to the main course: asparagus and truffles. You hear it's better if asparagus is crispy, so you don't cook it. You weren't sure if they meant truffles from the ground that pigs sniff out or the chocolate ones. Who would eat something that's all dirty and was in a pig's nose? Eww. You opt for the chocolate ones. You choke everything down with more Franzia. The dinner has ended, thankfully, so you raise a toast of Cold Duck brut as you force-feed Hersey baking squares into your date's maw.

Flash forward a couple hours: your hand is still bleeding, and you feel a little faint. As your date drives you to the ER, she starts vomiting uncontrollably. Somehow you make it, only to hear that you've lost nearly a pint of blood and her healthy bowel flora has been overtaken Vibrio vulnificus and she'll be riding the toilet for the next 48-72 (that is, provided she doesn't die from consuming the tainted oysters). You smile sadly and drool a little, since your throat is bleeding from the shell and you can't swallow. You wake up the next morning with a ridiculous hangover from the cheap booze and have to go to work because Valentine's Day was on a Wednesday. Awesome.

There you have it. Happy Valentine's Day. If you choose to cook, go with what you know and let your charm (read: diamonds) be your aphrodisiac.

Joe Needs Some Assistance

2007-02-13T11:49:00.000-06:00

Here's something to occupy your time while sitting through this snowstorm wishing you weren't at work.

You'll notice a bit of disparity in the number of posts each of the blog authors has put up here on Scrumptulescence. I'll leave the counting to you.

Joe claims that his lack of posting is due to some lack of culinary abilities. I've tasted his food. And believe me, he can cook. He just doesn't choose to cook as often as he should. And he seems to feel that only a truly interesting gastronomic experience is worthy of posting about. I obviously don't share that view.

But in keeping with the spirit of Joe's wishes, I decided to ask you, the five readers of this blog, to leave some comments about what food-related adventure Joe should embark upon, ideally leading to a blog post, or series of posts. We are getting started with sourdough, raising a culture from scratch. We won't know for two weeks whether it will be a viable culture to use for breadmaking, but if it is, hopefully he will write about that. But think bigger.

Perhaps he should go the traditional route, and master some historic dish, like coq au vin. Or maybe he should focus on learning the building blocks of classic cooking, like learning to make the best roasted veal stock possible. Perhaps he should apprentice at a live poultry store for a week and learn to butcher and dress a chicken in under 15 minutes. Or maybe he should find the ten best ethnic grocers in a specific Chicago neighborhood. What about figuring out the 5 meals made at home that are sure to impress a date. Or he could just cook his way through a cool cookbook, perhaps by Rick Bayless or Patricia Wells. How about erotic cooking, like in that Patrick Stewart SNL sketch. He could even model them after his friends. Tell me you wouldn't want to hear about his attempts at a Tiger Titillating Tamale, Jayadev's Jackfruit Jellyroll, Luscious Lyrica's Ladyfingers, Akira's Amorous ASSpic, or George's Generous Galantine. Just reading him write about trying to get Akira to model for an Amorous ASSpic mold would be worth the price of admission.

What comestible adventure would you like to see Joe undertake? Lets get some good brainstorming going on. If we get enough good comments, we'll take the best ideas and have a little poll thing to track them.

The One Where Joe and I Find Ourselves in a Gay Bar

2007-02-12T16:05:00.000-06:00

Yeah. I thought that would get your attention.

Funny Story. Joe and I went to have breakfast Sunday morning. I had heard that there is this place called Tweet that has the best biscuits and gravy in Chicago. I haven't had really good biscuits and gravy in this city, so I thought it might be worth a trip.

We drive over in the Big Green Machine and it's right next to a bar called Big Chicks. Funny. We're a little north of Boystown, so between that and its name, I assumed it was a lesbian bar. Not that we need labels like that. I'd just call it a bar, but that would lessen the story possibilities, I feel. So we went in to Tweet and were told there was a 25 minute wait, and we could wait next door. Next door is Big Chicks. There is quite an extensive art collection on the walls of Big Chicks, mostly depicting women. That further contributed to the lesbian bar feeling. But I just looked it up online, and it's considered a gay bar. Which marks my first visit to one. It sounds like the owner of the place would rather it just be considered a bar. I 'm sure anyone is welcome. We certainly didn't feel that people were looking at us strangely. Although we were a pair of guys. Sunday morning, kind of early. For breakfast.... Anyway, onto the food.

We were seated after about 7 minutes. There were a lot of larger groups, so I think the fact that we were a pair helped us get seated faster. There was some sort of breakfast pastry on the table with a strussel sort of topping. I didn't try it, but Joe said it was good. They also had an entire array of Tabasco brand sauces on the table, along with Whole Foods Organic hot sauce. We both ordered biscuits and gravy. I ordered mine with scrambled eggs and hashbrowns. I also got a big fresh-squeezed orange juice. All breakfasts came with a fruit cup or fruit compote. The rest of the breakfast menu looks pretty good. Emphasis on fresh and organic ingredients where possible, and it shows in the final product.

While we were waiting for the food, I did some looking around. Lots of art on the walls in here, like the bar. But the art here is a little tamer as far as subject matter goes. The clientèle for breakfast was all over the place. Lots of couples, lots of families. A few couples with newborns, a few groups of couples. It was a good, busy Sunday breakfast atmosphere.

OK. The food. Definitely the best biscuits and gravy I've had in the city. Joe declared that the biscuits were the best he'd ever had anywhere. I would agree. The gravy was really good, too. It had a richness to it that went past even normal sausage gravies. The sausage was obviously high quality, and I think they use some cream or at least half-and-half instead of just milk. The eggs were perfectly scrambled. I think scrambled eggs can be deceptively difficult to get right, and I'm not great at it. Whoever was cooking the eggs here did a great job. The hashbrowns were definitely good, as well.

Joe claims that my sausage gravy is better. Well, that's awfully nice of him to say. I'm not so sure. They're a little different. The best sausage gravy I've ever had comes from my grandma. But her family moved to Idaho from Arkansas. She really knows how to make it. When she is making breakfast, she pulls out four ancient perfectly seasoned cast-iron skillets. And then it takes off from there. Believe me, not a speck of bacon or sausage drippings gets wasted. So she makes the best sausage gravy that I've ever had. But this place will do when I get a craving for it in Chicago and don't want to make it myself. But I think I do need to focus a bit more on the biscuits now.

Here's a picture of my biscuits and gravy. I forgot my real digital camera, and only had my phone, which has a crappy camera with no flash. So, it's blurry, but you can at least see the food somewhat. Those are the hashbrowns on the left.

I would definitely recommend checking this place out. Friendly waitstaff, great food, nice atmosphere. We also had no problems parking. Check it out.

Tweet
5020 N. Sheridan Rd.
Chicago, IL

Three posts

2007-02-09T15:43:00.000-06:00

So, over the past week, I've started and nearly finished two posts for this fine website. I also started a third one last night. This week I will be posting all three*. It would be ideal if they had been spread out a little more. It would have also been ideal if the Bears had won the Superbowl. In other news, Joe actually posted to his blog this weekend, albeit with a failed link attempt to this blog. Maybe we'll see a post from him here someday. Joe? Maybe a comment? Throw us a bone.

FYI, I'll keep this post at the top of my three posts. I have finally posted all three of them.

*Disclaimer for the boss, who might be reading. I did not write these at work. I only posted them at work, perhaps with a few alterations.

Game for the Big Game

2007-02-08T13:36:00.000-06:00

What to do for the Superbowl? I like to cook food for people, but cooking for a crowd can be a little overwhelming. And sometimes you have to compromise on quality in order to make it work. This year, I actually wanted to watch the game, and I have a tradition of serving food at halftime, having underestimated the time necessary to get everything ready.

Since we live in Chicago, and one of my roommates is from Indiana and is a huge Colts fan, I wanted to push up the food quality a bit and spend some extra time on making some good food. But I like traditional Superbowl food. Wings, chili, various chips and dips, mini-burgers, taco pie, things of that nature. I have a beef chili recipe that I like quite a bit. It's from a basic slow-cooker recipe in Cook's Country magazine, made with chunks of beef chuck, not ground meat. I change things around and try different things when I make it, but it's a solid recipe. Plus, it doesn't have beans. I don't think beans really belong in chili. Possibly because I don't like beans, but there are historical reasons behind it, too. Anyway.

OK, lets make chili. With beef. Well, there are other meats out there, right? Maybe I should do a beef, lamb, and pork chili based on the same recipe. I've done it before. It's pretty good. But why stop there? This is Chicago. I should be able to get some good meats, right? So I decided to look for a source where I could get venison, boar, and bison. I also checked with my party guests to make sure everyone was willing to contribute about $15 to the event. They all said yes. I posted a query to the great LTH forum folks, and came up with some helpful replies. I called Chicago Game and spoke to a very nice woman there. It's a great business, but there's no storefront. They mainly sell to restaurants, so you have to be willing to buy large pieces of cryovac'd frozen meat. But they have a large variety, and are happy to sell to the public as long you're willing to buy the correct quantities. During our conversation, she helped me to realize that bison isn't practical, because the smallest roast I could get would be like 30 pounds. It turns out the bison is a big animal.
I ended up ordering a 5 pound boar shoulder, and a 20 pound "Denver leg" of venison. This is where they take a venison leg, remove each whole muscle, and clean them up of silverskin and other non-meat matter. I'd use half of the vension for the chili, and keep the other half in the freezer for grilling later on.

I also decided to get some beef stew meat from Costco, to make a pot of beef only chili, so we could compare and decide if the expense of the game meats was worth it.

Cut to the Saturday before the game. I need to cut and brown all of the meat, approximately 20 pounds worth. Well, actually, the beef is all cut. So I cut and clean up the boar first (sorry for the slightly blurry picture):

There was a LOT of fat going through it. No big chunks, but a lot of it. Before eating it, I would have said it was a little fatty. After eating it, I would say it was nicely marbled. I started browning the boar, and then started unwrapping the venison. I took a picture of one piece of it sitting next to a pile of the cubes. It was absolutely beautiful. No fat whatsoever, and a perfect deep red color.

Here's a shot of the meat browning. On the left is boar, on the right is venison.

After one batch of venison, Kevin, Joe, Mina, and I each tried a piece, brown on the outside, medium on the inside. We all agreed it was pretty good. They were up helping clean up after the party the night before, and keeping me company. Yes, I felt a little bad about putting this venison into the chili. It really should have been grilled or roasted, and kept away from a stewing process. Such is life. The patrons were promised game chili.

The browning took quite awhile. After each pan of meat was done, I would deglaze with a cup or so of Goose Island Honker's ale, in the keg that was leftover from a party the night before. I added the beer / fond goodness to the browned meat. Once I finished browning the boar and venison, I moved on to the beef (with some help from Mina). The stew beef from Costco is really nice, but no need for pictures. After the meat was all browned, I packaged it in three bags. One for venison and boar, one for venison and beef, and a third for just beef. I was making three crockpots of chili, so those would be the three varieties. The cutting and browning of the meat had taken about three hours, from 8 am to 11 am on Saturday. I took a break to do a few things, then came back around 4 pm to prepare the rest of the chili ingredients. First, the chili powder.
Usually I used a commercial chili powder for this recipe, but since I had gotten good meat, I took the extra step of making the chili powder. I got pasila, arbol, and ancho dried chiles from the Family Fruit Market, as well as while cumin seed. Next I stemmed and seeded the chiles, and cut them into strips. Then they all got dumped into a dry skillet along with the whole cumin seed. After about 10 minutes, I could smell the chiles and the cumin and they had darkened somewhat. I set them aside to cool, and then spun them in Joe's food processor. I toasted some extra cumin by itself, and ground it in a coffee grinder I keep just for spices. Into the chile and cumin mixture, I added garlic powder and oregano, and spun it again. This would be my chili powder.

The next step in this recipe builds a lot of flavor and adds richness and thickness to the chili. I blistered 18 small fresh corn tortillas under the broiler (six for each pot of chili). Then I tore them up and microwaved them with chicken broth to form a mush of sorts. Spin that in the food processor, then add canned diced tomatoes and some canned chipotles. Spin it all together.

After that, it's time for the aromatics. The yellow onions I got from Family Fruit Market were HUGE, so I only used one per chili pot. I diced and sweated the onions for about 7 minutes along with 3 diced jalepenos per pot, then added some chili powder and chopped garlic and cooked another 2 minutes, and added a little more cumin. I mixed the tomato/tortilla/broth/chipotle mixture with the onion/jalepeno/garlic/chili powder mixture in 3 separate containers, and put it all in the fridge. The chili was ready for Sunday morning.

Sunday. 8 am. Three crockpots. Three batches of chili. Over eight hours of cooking. Each pot took one bag of meat and one bag of the other stuff. Mix and let it go. Here's what that looked like.

Believe me, the smell was awesome.

No superbowl party would be complete without various chips and dips. One of my roommates claims that Hidden Valley Ranch dip (the $2 powder mixed with sour cream)is the best thing I make. So I made it, along with a number of other dips that I made from scratch. You know, for comparison. Here's the table of chips and dips:

Starting at the front left and moving to the right, the dips are packaged ranch dip, caramelized onion dip, guacamole, salsa, and then hummous is back on the right. The chip components are potato chips, tortilla chips, pita chips, pretzels, and pita bread. I got compliments on all of the dips except the ranch dip, which made me happy.

Time to eat the chili. I was too busy eating and drinking and watching the game to get many pictures of the finished product, but I grabbed one. It's serving number two for this bowl, so it's not exactly the cleanest presentation field.

But you get the idea. The toppings for the chili were merely diced white onion (rinsed under cold water), shredded cheese mix (I didn't want to take the time to shred all of that cheese), and Fritos. It was all very good.

Was the game meat worth it? I was really impressed with the boar. It just melted into this intense porky goodness. I feel like I may have overtrimmed it, actually. It was really nice. The venison was good, you could taste the intensity of it's flavor. It has a much stronger flavor than the beef, and that did come through in the chili, IF you were looking for it. But the venison wasn't falling apart like the beef and the boar. It wasn't tough, but you can see in the pictures. There wasn't much connective tissue to melt away, so they chunks of venison stayed chunks of venison. But still, great flavor. I would probably do game meat chili again for a special occasion, but I think for everyday use, I'll stick with beef, and maybe supplement it with pork shoulder.

I wanted to have some good beverage options, not just cheap beer. I asked over on the LTH forum for some beer and wine ideas to go with spicy game chili. (some of this report is copied from my results post there) They had some great ideas. We had half a keg of Honker's ale, so that was the main beverage, and it went really well with the chili. It helps that there were probably about 15 cups (reduced) of the stuff spread across the three pots of chili . Someone suggested a good strong Bock beer. I got the relatively new Anchor Bock. Not bad, but it didn't actually go well with the chili. I went to Binny's wine store and asked them to help me pair some inexpensive wine with the game chili, suggesting maybe a decent Zinfandel. He thought that Zin would be ok, but pointed me at a rack of California field blends, saying their low tannins and fruitiness would go well with the chili. He suggested two in particular, Rosenblum Cellars 2004 Chateau La Paws, a blend of Carignane, Syrah, Zinfandel and Mourvedre, and one known simply as Ten Mile, a blend of Petite Sirah, Zinfandel, Barbera, Malbec, and Carignane. I bought two bottles of each, knowing that the beer would be in high demand, not the wine. I tasted both wines with the chili, and they both went really well. I'm not a wine guy who can describe the bouquet or the nose or detect the spices and fruit that consume my palate, but I can tell you that both wines really highlighted the flavors of the chili. They were both quite different, but both were good. And I can tell you that they are both quite drinkable without the chili present. (I had to kill both bottles later that night). And both were inexpensive. The Ten Mile was 9.99 a bottle, and the Chateau La Paws was like 13.99 or so.

At the end of the night, the Colts had won, but I was feeling pretty good. The food was pretty successful, and thanks to the wonders of the crockpot, I was able to enjoy the game, the food, the drinks, and the people, and not worry about the cooking. I even stayed ahead on the dishes, cleaning up as I went. Thanks to all of the roommates for the help, or at least the encouragement to go ahead with the game chili idea, and thanks to the guests who were willing to chip in so we could have better food and beverages. And if you read this far, good work.

P.S. There was quite a bit leftover. All five of us who live in our house had it for dinner Monday and Tuesday night, and a couple of them had it for lunch those days, too. I think it was all gone by Wednesday night. It was even better tasting each day, but I got a little tired of it. I would have frozen some if it weren't in such demand.

Kuma's Corner

2007-02-06T15:54:00.000-06:00

Last Saturday (over a week ago) three of my my roommates and I accompanied the Filipino couple and the WASP couple out to dinner. With eight of us, getting a table with no reservation could have proven difficult. But we went to Kuma's Corner, a haven of good food and good beer located conveniently at the edge of Logan Square in Chicago. For the second time in less than six weeks, Kuma's was able to seat a large-ish group on Saturday night without much of a wait. Very cool.

But the easy seating isn't what brought me back here for the third time since discovering it in November. Why do we like it? Burgers. Beer. Mac & Cheese. Mussels. The first two times we were there, the menu included a few entrees, a Mac & Cheese section where you pick what toppings to add, a burger and sandwich section, and salad and appetizer sections. They recently revamped their menu, getting rid of the entrees (except as specials), and expanding the burger section to encompass almost its entire panel of the menu.

All three times I've gone, I've had a burger. It's not a hard decision for me. I'm pretty sure someone takes the time to pat out these patties by hand, and they use very good beef. Add to that the fact that all of the burgers and sandwiches are served on a pretzel roll, my all time favorite burger vehicle, and I'm afraid I may never try anything else there. The first time, I purchased the Kuma burger. Going by the Boss's rule of dining that says any dish named after the restaurant has to be good, the Kuma didn't disappoint. It's your basic perfect beef patty, half a pound, on a pretzel roll, it's topped with bacon, cheddar, and a fried egg. I'm not a huge fried egg fan at breakfast time, but just picture this: you take delivery of your Kuma, sitting with the top of the roll off to the side, a strangely nice tomato slice for winter time nestled with some nice green leaf lettuce and raw onions, waiting to be placed atop the burger if you desire. The burger has the cheese and bacon, with the egg sunny-side-up perched on top. Put on whatever vegetable toppings you desire, then gently push the roll top onto this mass of goodness. When the yolk breaks, it makes this beautiful sauce for the deliciousness underneath. Trust me, you want to try it.

The second time there I had the Kaijo. Bacon. Blue Cheese. "Frizzled" onions. Yeah, it was good. Not as word worthy as the Kuma. But really good. The third time I had the Mayhem burger. Same pretzel roll, same perfectly cooked burger (I get mine cooked medium, by the way), topped with pepper-jack cheese, giardinera mayo, pancetta, and fresh slice jalepenos (as opposed to pickled canned jalepenos). Yeah, guess what? It was pretty tasty. The Mayhem burger is pictured above.

The mac and cheese picture is with peas and proscuitto. The hand holding the fork belongs to the moving-to-China roommate. I was able to try the Mac & Cheese pictured, and it's pretty good. He's ordered it twice, so it couldn't be bad.

I am not a big fan of mussels. Or any bi-valve mollusk, really. But RER and EA love them, so I was able to give them a try. I still don't like the texture, and that black-brown ring around the edge is a little weird, but they were sure tasty. Could be the ale-butter-chili broth that they are swimming in.

The beer list is pretty good. Not huge, but all of the beers are interesting. The selection of bottles is better than the draft selection, but it's all pretty good. They have one night with all Belgian beers on sale. Saturdays they discount all of their whiskey.

It's a very casual place, the waitstaff and bartenders are very friendly, and the kitchen crew really knows what they're doing. It's not haute cuisine, but who wants that? Go for good food and good beer.

Kuma's Corner
2900 W. Belmont Ave.
Chicgao, IL 60618
Ph. 773.604.8769

Pizza Pizza Pizza Pizza

2007-02-05T11:00:00.000-06:00

That's right. Pizza. Four times.

Evening dawns in the Old Irving Park neighborhood of Chicago. Which evening? Last Tuesday evening. Having purchased the ingredients for a night of pizza making from Family Fruit Market* , I whipped up a double batch of pizza dough. My dough recipe of choice right now is from this book. I used the 24 hour variation. Slower rise theoretically equals better texture and flavor. I also slow braised some sliced onions in a liquid of olive oil, vinegar, and sugar. Three hours in the oven at 250. Sharing the three hour oven were 8 sliced roma tomatoes on a pan drizzled with olive oil and chopped garlic.

Cut to Wednesday morning. Joe remembers to take the dough out of the fridge for a 10 hour room temperature rise. Cut again to Wednesday night. Pizza stone in the oven, heating to 450. Bag of semolina next to the stove, ready to dust the peel and the stone. I make a quick spicy tomato sauce for use on one pizza. I dice some spicy calabrese salami and slice some andouille sausage. A variety of cheese are grated, sliced, or crumbled: Romano, Parmesan, Gorgonzola, Mozzarella, and Fontina. All were domestic, as I didn't feel the need to go to my favorite Italian cheese importer for pizza for this batch of pizza. It's time to shape the dough.

I cut the dough into 4 pieces, and shape each one into a ball. I'm no whiz with pizza dough. I've been known to resort to a rolling pin if I make a dough that is too elastic and don't feel like waiting for the dough to rest between each attempt at stretching it. This time, with the nicely slow-risen dough, it was actually quite easy to handle.

Pizza number 1:

I made a circle-ish oval with the first dough ball. I just pressed it out with my fingertips, and then used the hold-the-middle-while-pulling-the-sides method, where you do exactly that, rotate 90 degrees, and keep pulling. When it got to the correct size, I put it on the dusted peel, brushed the outside inch of it with olive oil, and poked it all over with a fork. Topping time: a layer of the spicy tomato sauce. A layer of the diced calabrese salami. A layer of sliced mozzarella, then a touch of fresh oregano and some parmesan cheese. Into the oven. It looked pretty good when it came out. It tasted fantastic. The calabrese really elevated it above the usual pepperoni pizza.

Pizza number 2:

We'll call this one the mistake. I decided to get a little bolder with the dough. I patted it out a little, making a disk of sorts, and then put it up on my knuckles and tried tossing it in the air. The amazing thing, it actually worked. I caught it on my fingertips and it was noticeably bigger. So I kept going. Ended up with a nice sized round with a think edge and a REALLY thin center. I dusted an edgeless sheet pan with semolina, because the peel was waiting to pull out the first pizza. I brushed oil on the edge and topped it with a layer of the slow cooked onions, a very little bit of fontina, then the oven-dried tomatoes, then some sliced andouille, and then a little bit of romano. Onto the now vacated peel, to put in the oven. The problem, it won't budge off of the sheet pan. At all. It won't slide. So I have a pizza with a very thin center, with a good amount of topping. I could have just tossed the whole pan into the oven, but I didn't think of that at the time. So Joe and I grabbed it with four hands and tried to cleanly move it to the peel. Surprisingly, the dough didn't break through, but all of the toppings slide to the middle. So after some quick rearranging, the pizza went in the oven. Twelve minutes later, out it comes. It's the second picture. Note that I didn't prick the dough with a fork before it went in, so the edges bubbled up quite a bit. How did it taste? Pretty good. The crust was great at the edges and didn't have much texture in the middle. Not surprising. The tomatoes kind of overpowered everything, and I wish I had looked for better andouille. Also, it needed more cheese.

Pizza number 3:

Not wanting the excessively thin center, I decided not to spin-toss the pizza. When I was about 19, I spent a summer delivering for Dominos. I didn't prepare any food there, but I recall the managers talking about why you should never spin-toss the dough. Instead they used a horizontal method, passing the dough from one hand to the other, holding onto the edges and turning it as you toss it back and forth. Hard to describe, but I tried it, and it worked. It gave me a nice crust that was uniformly thicker in the middle than in the previous attempt, and gave me a good ridge around the edge. Toppings for this one? Gorgonzola and parmesan covering a smear of the slow cooked onions. No tomatoes at all. It came out with the best crust, but overall the calabrese pizza was still in the lead. The Gorgonzola might have been a little too strong for the subtle sweetness of the onions. Still, a good pizza. It's the third picture.

Pizza # 4:

Pizza number four was supposed to be another try at the 2nd pizza, but I put on fewer tomatoes, and threw on the odds and ends of cheese I had from the others. Used the horizontal passing method for the crust. It came out well, with an odd protrusion from one side. Good flavor, tomatoes weren't overpowering, still disappointed with the cheap andouille. Picture number four.

No one came over to share the pizza, it was just three roommates and I. The calabrese / mozzarella pizza was the winner in my mind. The horizontal toss method worked well for the crust. The wooden pizza peel, big stone in the oven, and semolina flour were essential to the success of the evening. Definitely a successful food night.

*Family Fruit Market is a small grocery store in our neighborhood with an amazing selection of produce and deli items. Joe and I probably shop there 2-3 times a week. It will get its own post someday.

Top Chef: Ilan Won Because He Resembles Drew Coursin

2007-01-31T21:58:00.000-06:00

So, I'm sitting here writing my first realtime post, whatever that means. I guess I mean some stuff JUST happened and here I am writing about it already! If there's one thing you Scrumptulescents (you like that? Like adolescents or descendents...whatever) deserve is timely reporting on food-related stuff.

Todd, Geoff and I are sitting at my place, drinking PBR and watching the finale of Top Chef. This was, I confess, was my first episode of the much-touted kinda-cooking-but-mostly-fighting reality series. All I can say is: I'm glad I only saw one episode, because this show is rubbish. First, I'm not a big fan of reality TV, other than Real Housewives of Orange County, The Real World, Next, My Super Sweet Sixteen, World's Most Shocking Police Videos, The Girls Next Door, and really anything about plastic surgery, exploiting painful family drama, or transexual hookers. Okay, so I dig reality TV on a superficial level. Or whatever, stop judging me.

Anyway, back to Top Chef. The finale was your basic drawn-out nonsense with both "chefs" (they're no BK, that's for sure) preparing the best meals of their lives. Tall order, huh? Not so much, apparently, since both Ilan and the Wolverine-meets-Dragonball Z-coiffed knew what they were going to cook in about .2 seconds. I mean, really, they were in Hawaii, they'd been eating there all week, blah blah blah. I'm afraid both competitors, when faced with unlimited budget and an exotic farmer's market, got sucked into what I call Iron Chef Syndrome - if you give someone who usually eats grilled cheese sandwiches a handful sea urchins, those urchins will appear to be the most amazing comestible EVER. Uni-what?!

Long story short, Ilan and Marcel prepared five-course meals for such chefs as Wylie somebodyortheother, this "Molecular Gastronomist" (excuse me? Please keep your molecules away from my food), among others - you can tell how much I cared about this whole affair.

Ilan won. Geoff and Todd yelled at the television. I strolled indifferently to the computer to write this.

I am disappointed in Top Chef. But I still love food.

A Real Man's Vegetarian Chili

2007-01-31T10:57:00.000-06:00

In honor of the upcoming epic clash between Da Bears and the Colts, I've decided to post my as-yet-unpublished-for-totally-inexplicable-reasons recipe for my veggie chili. A quick note: I don't think I've ever made the same chili twice, so maybe the official recipe should be Drew Coursin's Groundhog Day Veggie Chili - you know, innumerable, subtly different iterations of a certain culinary motif. I'd draw the obvious comparison between Rachmaninoff's endless variations on his second symphony, but I'm not sure Scrumptulescence is ready for such stratospheric conceits. So, here goes:

Ingredients:
1 Large, shiny green bell pepper (preferable a deepish hunter green, because that means fresh)

1 Equally large, shiny red bell pepper (or orange, or even yellow, if you like that kind of thing)

2 Pretty much bustin' out of their enormous toadstool chapeaux-size portobello (portabella for those of you who like to spell it that way) mushrooms

1 small can yellowish (not necessarily totally yellow, but it's okay if it is) corn

2 cans kidney beans (one light, one dark to represent the duality of life and impermanence of being) - feel free to cook dry beans if you're one of those non-can purists. Same with the corn - feel free to use fresh-off-the-ear, or better yet, why don't you just grow it, Squanto?*

*Note: this is not a slander toward American Indians, but rather a clever but biting reference to the ostensible "helper of the Pilgrims" before the supposed First Thanksgiving in the apparent pre-United States of America

2 cans chick peas - there is nothing funny about this ingredient

1 package extra firm tofu

1 package seitan (if you have a problem with meat substitutes, you'd probably have stopped reading at tofu. Jerk.)

5 vine-ripened tomatoes

1 can tomato paste (optional for thickening if you put too much bean juice in - don't put too much bean juice in, dummy!)

8 cloves garlic, minced (or squashed, smashed, diced, even whole if you're a real man, in which case make it 50 cloves of garlic)

3 large carrots

Cayenne, hot chili powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper

1/2 can chipotle peppers and sauce (I mean, use the whole thing if you're into it, Hercules)

If you're soft, try 1/2 thinly-sliced jalapeno (sorry, I can't get the tilde to work) pepper without the ribs (it's not that seeds that are the hottest, Alex Trebek! And don't touch your eyes or private parts after handling!)

2 squares semi-sweet baking chocolate

THE ACTUAL RECIPE:
1. Dice everything dice-able up, place into three separate bowls the following:
-Green peppers, mushrooms, tofu, garlic
-Red peppers, corn, carrots, seitan, garlic (Ha! You put all the garlic in the first bowl!)
-Everything else
2. Saute in groups per step 1. Add chipotle peppers and sauce judiciously as the vegetables and meat substitutes cook. Cook until delicious.
3. At about the same time, but a big pot on the stove, on low heat. Squeeze the hell out of those tomatoes and place seeded, diced tomatoes in pot alongside all beans (use some of the delicious, syrupy bean juice if you like. Otherwise, add some water to make it a bit soupy).
4. When step 1 ingredients are cooked to delicious, add them as you see fit.
5. Stir often. Adding spices and hot peppers and other stuff you want to add. It's your meal, I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life.
6. Cook for 2-10 hours on low heat. I mean, cook as long as you want. Do it in a slow cooker if you like.
7. During the last 1/2 hour of cooking, add the squares of chocolate and some more cayenne (you know you need it).
8. Serve in attractive bowls, top with lots of cilantro, maybe some queso fresco, and a draught beer.
9. Enjoy.

If it sucks, it's entirely your fault, because I'm made this stuff countless times, and every time it's been f-ing awesome. Yum!

For the Soul?

2007-01-29T09:37:00.000-06:00

In the current issue of Cook's Country magazine, they published the results of a chicken soup contest. Since it appeared in the mail while I was away in Mexico, I was feeling comparatively cold when I read it. Plus I got a new enameled cast-iron dutch oven that I wanted to put through its paces. So I went to the store and obtained the ingredients necessary to make three of the soups they featured. All of the recipes take less than an hour to make, and all use store-bought chicken broth and boneless - skinless chicken breasts. Heresy, yes, but I don't currently have any made from scratch chicken stock, so these were a good way to get some warming goodness into the roommates and myself. So, over the past 6 days, I made three chicken soups.

First up, New Orleans Chicken and Sausage Soup. It's a pretty basic soup based on onions, garlic, red bell pepper, chicken, smoked sausage, and rice. For the smoked sausage, I would have preferred andouille, but I was shopping at the local produce store, where they have all kinds of smoked polish sausages, but no andouille. So I used kielbasa. The soup was quick and easy to make, involving a very quick blonde roux for thickening. One of my roommates compared it to gumbo, which I can accept, but it didn't have the complex and deep flavors I associate with good gumbo. Probably because of the quick cooked roux, canned chicken broth, and lack of real andouille. No one complained, though. For a hearty soup in less than an hour, it was pretty good.

Next up was Thai chicken soup. Bring chicken broth to a boil, reduce to a simmer. Throw in 6 smashed cloves of garlic, 6 big chunks of ginger (also smashed), the zest of one lime, 5 jalepenos, and 2 chicken breasts. Simmer until the chicken is done, pull out the chicken and set it aside. Fish out all of the aromatics, toss them out. Put in some thin rice noodles, let them simmer until they are soft. Stir in some basil and some cilantro, the juice of half a lime, 5 sliced scallions, and cut up the cooked chicken and throw that in. Then serve it. This was probably my favorite soup of the three. Least amount of prep work, big flavor reward. Lots of leftovers, too.

Those two soups made dinner for 3 nights in a row for me, and some roommates ate it for breakfast and lunch at work, as well. So I took a break for a few days. Last night, I made the last one, which was actually the winner of their contest: Chicken and Corn Chowder with Sweet Potatoes. It's exactly what it sounds like. Make a basic chicken soup that includes chunks of sweet potato. Stir in milk and corn muffin mix. Let it simmer to thicken. Stir in frozen corn and a little bit of cheese. Simmer until the corn isn't frozen anymore. This was my least favorite of the three. It wasn't bad, but I don't really care for sweet potatoes, although I am trying to like them more. Between that and the corn muffin mix and the corn, it was a little too sweet for me. But it was a pretty successful and inexpensive set of meals, and if the roommates will eat the rest of the chowder, we will have eaten a lot of decent meals at home without much effort.

A Total Naan-Issue

2007-01-26T15:30:00.000-06:00

As some of you out there know, Indian food is some of my favorite out there (and for those cultural purists/historical revisionists/bigots/people who routinely confuse the indigenous North American native peoples whose legacy the white man all but wiped out with people from India) that's grub from the Indian subcontinent. You know, Indian food. I'm not really snobbish toward either North or South Indian cuisine; I've been known to join the I Ate a Dosa by Myself Club and sling handfuls of sag paneer down my throat in the same sitting. (I do, however, have some Indian friends who always make fun of one Bengali guy for always smelling like fish, but that's neither here nor there. The humor is lost on me).

So, to celebrate both my love for Indian food and my reunion with The Honorable Rev. Dr. Professor Jayadev Athreya, I have decided to review my favorite cookbook of that culinary subgenre: Lord Krishna's Cuisine, The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking, by Yamuna Devi. For those of you fools out there who don't know, Ms. Devi studied for eleven years with THE A.C. Bhaktivedata Swami (or B-Swam as he is known in my head). So take that, all you haters and doubters. This woman is the real deal.

Being a white kid from Wisconsin with limited exposure to real Indian cooking (thanks for nothing, Ramit, Rajit, Rajat, et. al.), my favorite thing about the book is the easy-to-understand instructions and rich background on each family of dishes. Ms. Devi presents the elements of a traditional Indian meal in a logical fashion and keeps the approximately 800 pages of information lively with anecdotes from her travels and food experiences around the world. The author relates where she obtained recipes, who presented them to her, and innumerable tips on technique, materials, and preparation.

Like most traditional North American cookbooks, Lord Krishna's Cuisine follows a rubric of preparatory methods and dishes that proceed from the basics (starters, accompaniments, basic side dishes) through the more complex showpieces of a meal (more elaborate vegetable dishes, etc.). Since it is a vegetarian cookbook, meat doesn't make much of an appearance, and I promise to write more about fall-off-the-bone, slow-roasted or smoked barbeque in the future. It hardly matters, though, since the book overflows with everything from Indian breads (e.g. chapati, naan, roti), soups, chutneys, salads, pastries, sweets, and even beverages.

Although the volume can be a bit overwhelming at times, I recommend picking a section and exploring the variety of preparatory techniques presented. My first foray into Indian cooking was simple panir (also paneer, see above), the subtly-flavored, unripened farmer cheese that is to Indian cooking what tofu is to many Asian vegetarian dishes (i.e. a hearty substitute for meat that can be prepared quickly and holds the flavor of its surrounding spices and sauce remarkably well). The process is pretty simple - heat milk and add some sort of acid reagent like lemon juice, then follow a couple of steps and boom, panir! The instructions on technique and accompanying drawings were invaluable, as were Ms. Devi's recommendations on ingredients.

I could go on for pages about the things I love about this book, but I recommend you find out for yourself. I realize I'll never be competing in Iron Chef: Bollywood, but as far as expanding my horizons in the kitchen, this is an invaluable resource.

A Brief Sermon on Eulogy

2007-01-25T14:02:00.000-06:00

Let’s get one thing straight: I love beer. You should too. It’s a beverage as full of personality and subtle variation as the range of drinkers who enjoy it. Most people find beer (unlike its grapy counterpart) the most accessible libation out there. I’ve seen even the most stalwart of my friends quiver at a wine list, but you can be sure there’s minimal anxiety associated with calling for a pitcher of Lager or staring the bartender in the eye and saying, “PBR me ASAP.”

And then there’s Eulogy. With 21 rotating draught beers and 300+ bottles from around the world, this Belgian-style eatery/beer emporium can be intimidating to your casual beer drinker. Ask my girlfriend, whose brew of choice is Miller Lite (and you can go to hell if you say you don’t like it. God. Bless. Wisconsin). She and I stared at the four pages of 10-point font beer menu, replete with serving size, origin, alcoholic content, and general type (e.g. lager, ale, etc.) for about 10 minutes before folding it up and asking for our server’s recommendation in terms of a lighter lager.

At this point my bullshit-o-meter starting buzzing. Our server, a nondescript dude who obviously enjoyed beer, stared at Elissa and asked, “What? You don’t know what you drink?” His incredulity and what I’ll term Bourgeois Beer Scorn (BBS from here) were palpable, and E and I rolled our eyes in unison as he skulked away. Needless to say, we were unimpressed, and the initial BBS made us a bit wary of the waiter for the remainder of the evening.

E settled on a full-bodied framboise, which normally I wouldn’t pick for fear of BBS from some of my hop-heavy buddies. It was, however, thick with flavor but still light enough to drink without feeling heavy, not at all syrupy, and darkly ruby in color. As I am a secret fan of fruity brews, the raspberry won me over immediately, and I took more than my fair share of boyfriend sips. I opted for a Young’s Double Chocolate Stout (pretty self-explanatory – it was dark, chocolaty, and I find it more sip-friendly than Guiness, which I find is best for breakfast or pounding alongside Bailey’s and whiskey). Geoff went for Skullsplitter (a heady [no pun intended] Scottish brew that will knock your socks off and is generally only sold in four-packs for obvious reasons). The other people at the table also had some delicious beers, but I can’t remember them exactly (the beers, that is, I remember the people quite well) and I’m not a food critic.

To start, we shared a brie-filled crusty puff pastry drizzled in a raspberry glaze and surrounded by slices of apple and various berries (the aptly named Brie Puff). It was yummy, but I wouldn’t say I’d camp out in front of Eulogy to eat it for breakfast today or anything. A quick aside: having a lactose-intolerant girlfriend reduces the amount of cheesy goodness stolen from one’s plate. I highly recommend it.

Eulogy and its sister restaurant, Monk’s, are known in Philly as THE places to get steaming pots of the best beer-soaked (among about ten different preparations) mussels that rest in big-as-your-palm-unless-you-have-ridiculously-large-hands shells in town. Julie and Bridget shared a pound of the beer mussels (Hoegaarden, garlic and shallots,, celery, onions, peppers, fresh herb mix and butter) and some of Eulogy’s signature Flemish Belgian-style frietjes (read: fries…and they really weren’t all that wicked awesome). Geoff and Todd had the Dijon mussels, which were spicy enough to cut some of the briny mussel taste but not so mustardy that they overwhelmed the natural piquancy of the shiny onyx bivalve.

E and I went the carnivorous route, ordering the steak sandwich and what is hailed as The Best Burger in Philadelphia, respectively. The steak was good, a sort of dressed-up cheesesteak with roasted peppers, fried onions, and cheese on a baguette. Good, but not worth shooting a man in Reno. Same for the burger, which was pompously overtitled the Beneluxx Napoleon Burger. I’ve eaten a lot of burgers in my time, and it takes a lot to impress me. First, their topping offerings were scant – standard cheeses (except for Gruyere and blue, which aren’t even that exotic), the usual bacon, mushrooms, etc. The only unexpected inclusions were leeks and Ardenne ham, which seemed more like a perfunctory nod to real cuisine than anything, and I’m not sure 50 cents worth of leeks would have helped me attain culinary Nirvana.

All in all, I’m pretty sure our crappy interaction with the server colored some of my impression of the meal itself. For the most part, however, I think the food was pretty standard. Everything was good, don’t get me wrong, but nothing stood out as amazing. I recommend going to Eulogy and Monk’s for the beer and munching on mussels, frites, and other shareables as complements to the stunning (albeit slightly overwhelming) menu of brews.

Eulogy Belgian Tavern
136 Chestnut St.
Old City, Philadelphia
(215) 413-1918
http://www.eulogybar.com

Cinnamon Dolce Latte, Why do you Taunt Me?

2007-01-25T09:11:00.000-06:00

I am not a coffee drinker. Even in college, I didn't use coffee to wake up in the morning or to stay awake at night. I never developed the taste for black coffee, and my dad is a coffee purist. No cream, no sugar. And he makes it strong. As the Starbucks phenomenon grew, and a friend of mine worked there, I would get the occasional Frappuccino® . I know that's not real coffee, but I love milkshakes, and a Frappuccino® is like a milkshake, but with more artificial flavors. This magical drink helped me to realize that, while I don't like black coffee, coffee as a flavoring with something sweet can be pretty good. So began a flirtation with desserts such as tiramisu and rich molten chocolate mocha cakes.

Fast forward to last January. I was working as a "Mac Genius" (real title) for the company formerly known as Apple Computer, Inc. A co-worker had me try the Cinnamon Dolce Latte from the Barnes and Noble Cafe (serving Starbucks brand coffee). Ahh. Transcendence. I don't know what it is, but I love it. And now it's back. Let me tell you, I don't need the calories or the fat. But it doesn't work in low or non-fat versions, and it doesn't work with the sugar-free syrup. I can't wait till it's gone. But I will miss it. It's kind of like liquid crack * (which is what we called it at the Apple Store). Go pick one up. You'll be glad you did. And you'll hate me for suggesting it. Oh, and don't get the Cinnamon Dolce Frappuccino®. The cold icy thing doesn't go with the Cinnamon Dolce thing.

In other related news, my body can't handle the caffeine of a 'bucks venti C.D. Latte with nothing else in my stomach, so I'm kind of jittery and can't focus right now. I love Thursday mornings.

* I realize that this statement minimizes the terror of the drug problems in our country, but I wanted something strongly worded, and I also like disclaiming things every so often.

The "Right" Way to do Food in Chicago?

2007-01-25T08:35:00.000-06:00

This is an excellent post from Hungry Magazine about a topic very much on my mind recently: inexpensive meals prepared with care and skill. It's cool because it highlights some interesting things happening in Chicago, and talks about some prominent Chicago and non-Chicago chefs. It's amazing how many names in this piece that I recognized, mostly not because of their restaurants.

Homaru Cantu of the Chicago restaurant Moto just beat Morimoto on Iron Chef America.
Tom Colicchio (based somewhere in California) is the host chef on Top Chef, a reality cooking show that I watch with some regularity.
Rick Bayless was also on Iron Chef America this past year, and also has written possibly the best cookbooks by a "celebrity" chef that I have ever read and cooked from. His PBS show is fun and accessible.
Charlie Trotter is, quite simply, everywhere. The press loves to interview him or write about him.

I got bored with the list thing, but of the four chefs listed, I have only eaten at Bayless's Frontera Grill (which is excellent, by the way). It is impressive how these chefs have become so famous.

Quick side note from the diversion: I have eaten at Hot Doug's quite a bit. It's amazing. Doug Sohn is a personal hero of mine. Every time one eats there, he is the person that takes your order. He's funny, he's friendly, and his specials are some of the most creative and tasty in the city. All I want to do is sit him down and talk with him about his take on food and specifically about the feasibility of opening a unique, casual, inexpensive, lunch only restaurant. In spite of his friendliness, I get a little star struck when I'm there, and only manage to smile and order my wild-boar sausage with imported cheese and house-made sauce.

But allow me to dive back into the point I was going to make. The author of the article throws down a bit of a challenge: "I’d like to see local food stars commit to making well-prepared, well-farmed and creative food affordable in 2007." Chicago is positioned in reasonably close proximity to quite a few farms the provide amazing sustainably grown produce, meat, and dairy products. I know Bayless makes good use of this, but I'm surprised that more places don't. My ideal restaurant/ tavern in this city would have a rotating menu of whatever is coming out of these local farms. I do understand that you can't exclusively use local products without making some big sacrifices on the menu. That's ok. I'm a realist. But if I can get local sustainably grown chicken, beef, and pork year round, and even have it delivered to my door once a week, I feel like the restaurants should be able to, as well. And not just the big name places. It's easy for Frontera to serve me a lamb chop that was grown in Wisconsin. Bayless has the name recognition and the pull to move the industry around a bit. But why can't the smaller places do a little legwork pull in food of the same quality? I'm sure there are some small places doing just that, but we need more.

Food Porn PSA

2007-01-23T17:06:00.000-06:00

I had an interesting conversation the other day with a friend of mine about television. We were talking about our favorite Food Network shows (real men have favorite Food Network shows, and they do not include anything including Rachael Ray, that saucy minx) when he threw out the term food porn. I'd never heard of it, but I immediately assumed that FN had gotten desperate and were featuring some all-out gravyfest replete with cucumber fellatio and Kegel exercises with carrots or parsnips or something.

Boy, was I wrong. And apparently disturbed, but I'm pretty sure the look I got was because my friend didn't know what fellatio meant. Apparently I was the only person who eats food in the world who didn't know what food porn is, so I went to the most credible source on the planet: Wikipedia.

According to the peerless (and flawless) online encyclopedia, food porn refers to any number of things, including:

*Secondary enjoyment of cooking - not actually cooking, but rather watching others cook (e.g. on FN). Go figure, I was already on my way to becoming a food porn star.

*Blogging - it seems that this very medium has popularized this phenomenon and online foodie coalitions have a major hard-on about it. This post, then, has just been catapulted into a sort of postmodern, eminently self-referential corollary to all other criticisms of food, porn, food porn, and the Information Superhighway.

*Real Porno - I totally called that one. And I'm pretty sure that was a mature summer squash featured in Requiem for a Dream (if you caught that reference I'll buy you a beer).

So, the upshot of all that is twofold: food is delicious, and keep an eye on your vagina around fresh produce. And if your bits and bobs aren't particularly yonic, then you are a man and probably not eating vegetables anyway.

I don't know why I was invited to the party

2007-01-23T16:11:00.000-06:00

I feel like I'm out of my depth. I mean, I like food, but I hardly have the most discerning taste. I like everything, and I don't ask questions about what something is or isn't. Not only that, I already have a blog that I'm actively ignoring, so who knows if I'll have the time. Perhaps this means that I'll feel compelled to cook interesting things again, but probably not. Who wants to stir cajeta (or at least watch their girlfriend do it) for 3 hours when bryan cheats and just puts a dollop of tequila in caramel. In short, for my part on this project, I'm managing expectations. But who knows, I may surprise myself; but probably not, its been a long-time since the halcyon days of dinner club. Besides, my real agenda is to get BK and Drew to open a bar/restaurant together, and to that end, I will use any means.

Living to Eat: The Bryan Story

2007-01-23T15:17:00.000-06:00

It's true. I love to eat. As a youngster growing up in Idaho, I was a picky eater with a healthy appetite. Moving to Chicago, one of the great food cities in this country, I was able to grow out of the picky eating phase and into the exploratory eating phase. Then I discovered that I kind of liked to cook. Now it turns out I really like to cook. Not that I've stopped eating out. I try to maintain a healthy balance between the two. I've known Joe for years, and he eats anything I put in front of him (except cheesecake. weird, huh?). He's also a rather accomplished cook himself, so between the two of us, we try to keep our roommates and friends well fed. Meeting Drew in Mexico was cool, as we share an adventurous food philosophy. So here we are.

Food for Drew

2007-01-23T14:41:00.000-06:00

Welcome to Scrumptulescence - your home on the web for limited-scope, highly-opinionated, at times scatological, always spirited commentary on eating, drinking, and general carousing around the world (but mostly in Chicago and Philly). I'm Drew, part of the Philadelphia contingent (read: the sole member of said contingent as of this post). I recently stopped what I was doing in order to devote all my energy to making this the finest self-indulgent blog in the world. I hope you like it.

A little about me: I grew up in Wisconsin, but I can't stand sauerkraut. I learned to love bratwurst, but only because it's apparently un-American and rather un-Wisconsinite not to love them. Since then I have become an equal-opportunity eater, but you just won't convince me to like the taste of raw red onions. I don't know what it is, maybe I have some repressed red onion memory from childhood. I vaguely remember being knocked over by a large black lab when I was a kid, but since I'm not afraid of dogs I can only assume that it was actually a large-ish red onion and not a dog at all.

I love to cook and eat in my ridiculously small kitchen/hallway in the suburbs of Philadelphia. I'm hoping someday to have a kitchen large enough to accommodate my need for a walk-in freezer, roasting pit, and tiki bar. And counter space, maybe a pot rack. And somewhere to put my sweet orange KitchenAid mixer. Is that too much to ask? For now, though, I'm ballin' on a budget, and any money I do find lying around (whether the money or I am lying around is inconsequential) goes into delicious ingredients, ridiculously yummy meals, and unpronounceable wines.

I look forward to collaborating with Joe and Bryan, and maybe someday even eating with them. Until then, though, I'll provide the scoop on Philly eats (or wherever I go). I also like Ultimate and parenthetical asides (like this).

Another food blog?

2007-01-23T13:09:00.000-06:00

So, these three guys were sitting around at an ultimate tournament in Mexico. Joe and Bryan are roommates in real life, and they were talking with their new friend Drew. Since it was lunchtime, the talk turned to food. After some exchanges of stories about wonderful meals, we realized we needed to revisit this topic at a later date. The problem? Joe and Bryan live in Chicago. Drew lives in Philadelphia. The solution? An online exchange of food ideas and stories. While using email and instant messaging would allow for such an ongoing conversation, we decided a weblog would be more fun. Enjoy.

Scrumptulescence

testing again

test

Grilling at home - Beer Can chicken

Afternoon weekday dining - Hop Leaf

Weekday dining - Tweet

Philly: Checking In, Dining Out

... The next night

**Tap Tap** Is this thing on?

Back in the Have

Honey

Quiche and Brie

Breakfast at the Taj

What I've done

Farmers markets and fishmongers

Mmm...dosas

Please help me eat good food

Chautara Reminds me of Thundercats

Make Your Own

Mixed grill

Marseille

North Carolina Historic Barbecue Trail

Surprise! New post!

Tu peux pas test (Part 1)

Pictures of dessert.

Trapped in New Jersey

Cecina

does anyone know a single hedge fund manager?

Great Food Saturday

Tuscany

New Haven restaurants

Culinary adventures in New England

Injeralicious!

Taaaaaaangerine

Get Large

Hitting the spot

Friday the 13th links - the Friends in China edition

Wednesday Morning Links

Keema Matar

Grandma's Cooking

In the Kitchen with Todd and Geoff

What are you, some kind of tapas expert?

Ribs. Chicken. Jalapenos.

Great Grape!

A Sip of Tea, a Bite of Thought

Friday Link

Coming Home for Dinner

Wednesday Morning Links. The JL edition.

Gumbo and Scrimps on St. Patty's Day

American Born Cooking Desi

Test Run for Scrumptulescence Summit

Amada? Amazing.

Grasshoppers and Tequila

Suddenly I feel like eating a burger.

Eat this, not that [you fool]!

Vindication is awesome

Wednesday Morning Links. And Some Encouragement

Wednesday Morning Links, brought to you by the ellipsis......

Nooner

Past Life - an informal poll

Disappointment, You Smack of Blood Orange!

Truth

Wednesday Morning Links

Cupid and Cheese Cubes: A Valentine's Day Food Special

Joe Needs Some Assistance

The One Where Joe and I Find Ourselves in a Gay Bar

Three posts

Game for the Big Game

Kuma's Corner

Pizza Pizza Pizza Pizza

Top Chef: Ilan Won Because He Resembles Drew Coursin

A Real Man's Vegetarian Chili

For the Soul?

A Total Naan-Issue

A Brief Sermon on Eulogy

Cinnamon Dolce Latte, Why do you Taunt Me?

The "Right" Way to do Food in Chicago?

Food Porn PSA

I don't know why I was invited to the party

Living to Eat: The Bryan Story

Tap Tap Is this thing on?