blakegwinn

Anyone know the secret to making big fat noodles in chicken noodle soup? The kind they have at Panera. My attempts with regular egg noodle recipes don't work for that. They end up a big gummy mess with an uncooked inside. Is it just a matter of letting them simmer long enough to break down a little? Or do I need to change recipes? I have tried less egg, more egg and less flour none of which really work.

You have to go to Faidley's, Obrycki's and Attman's at least once in your life, in my opinion. I might make the drive just for Brewer's art (I have lots of places to crash up there though), Peter's Inn, deck at Bo Brooks (sunset, table full of crabs, cold beers....) Cafe Hon (following or preceding a movie at the Senator), and maybe even breakfast at Spoons. There are plenty of other places I love but these are all pretty unique to Baltimore. You won't be able to find an equivalent in DC I don't think.

You know, even when i have plenty of real beer and wine on hand, I will always reach for the root beer. You know that scene in Ratatouille when the critic eats the dish and flashes back to his childhood memory? For me that is pizza and root beer at (ahem) pizza hut when I was a kid. We almost never ate out growing up but once every month or so my brother and I would fill up our Book-It pins and get to go collect our free personal pan pizza. We would always share one of those red translucent plastic cups full of root beer. Nowadays if there is no root beer around I will settle for a ginger ale. The strange thing is that under no other circumstance do I really drink soda anymore, just with pizza (well some OCCASSIONAL tonic water and club soda primarily on Friday and Saturday nights...)

The Shadow knows..... Crap down to my last bottle. Might be about time for a drive down to DC and a stop at Ace.

Used some of the stock I made last weekend to make squash soup tonight. I used acorn and butternut squashes that I got at the farmer's market. I roasted one of each scooped out the contents and cooked with 2 cups of the chicken stock, nutmeg, cinnamon, a little mapple syrup, orange zest, fresh parsley and a bit of pureed chipotle. Finished it off with some skim milk (GASP!) let it simmer awhile and then blended. I KNOW it is better with cream but it was really quite tasty if not a BIT too spicy for Beth (due to a heavy hand with the chipotle). It doesn't have quite the same body as with cream but the health benefits are huge. I figure it drops probably at LEAST 8-10 grams of saturated fat per bowl. I think next time I might try it using non/low fat sour cream. I think it would add a nice tang and better body than the milk. Anyway the soup and my warm - grilled chicken/spinach/arugula salad with roasted peppers made a very nice light (but autumnal) dinner. I also bought some wonton wrappers today with the intention of making some butternut squash ravioli sometime this weekend. Thinking of a sage/walnut/cream sauce type of thing. Not sure how I am going to get around the cream on that one... I will post with the results.

Sounds similar to the Alton Brown method of Goulashing I tried a few days ago. Seared the shortribs (and nearly caused my whole apartment to be evacuated from the ensuing smoke) tossed them in a tomato paste/paprika/worchest. gloop, wrapped them in foil and put them in a 250 degree oven for 5 hours. Drained off the liquid when it came out, and fridged them overnight. Separated them from the bone in the morning and put them on top of the rest of the stew (which I made earlier) to reheat. Good stew but the meat itself wasn't that great. A lot of bad gristle. Which brings me to another problem, has anyone had issues with Wegman's beef? Everytime I have gotten steaks or beef cuts there they have been very stringy and gristly. Maybe living next to Whole Foods for so long spoiled me forever, who knows...

I got a bunch of apples at the farmer's market when I was in DC on Sunday and I am trying to recreate the charlottes from RTC days of yore. Any ideas?

I live in Central NJ but just as a side note, that might not have been sea bass! NJ has some wacky laws regarding sea bass. We have to serve a striped bass hybrid to abide. I definitely recommend trying to get scallops (if they are sourced locally) when you go to the Jersey shore. You can get realllllly good day boat scallops from different points along the shore. We get all of ours daily from a dude in Point Pleasant. Great stuff.

Two things to add here. First of all, this may be completely illegal and probably dangerous but last time I cooked pizzas I rigged the latch on my oven to keep from locking when I was in "clean" mode. I think that the clean cycle got a good 300 degrees hotter than my maximum allowed 550. At that temp it only took about a minute to char the bottom and the top a bit. The last half of my pizzas were damn near 2amys quality. A couple of things I have learned, I put the pizza stone as close to the top as I can while still being able to move the pizza in and out of the oven. When I kept it at the bottom, the stone would be much hotter than the air and the bottom would crust up way before the top. If I waited for the top to brown the bottom would be rock hard. Putting the stone at the top has helped even out the top/bottom cooking times. I don't like brushing olive oil on the crust because I feel like it affects the rise. I don't seem to get as much poof out of the crust when I do this. Instead I just sprinkle some sea salt all around the outer ring. No one leaves their crusts on the plate anymore. Ok on the grilling pizza I don't think you will ever get results like an oven. The problem is that as soon as you lift the lid all your hot air disappears. I think the air needs to actually be hotter than the stone to make a perfect pizza. This may be completely crazy, way more work than it is worth and wildly unsafe but what about setting up a rig for two stones? Drill four small holes in the lid of your grill and bolt on some small metal hooks. Get four small c-clamps and put one on each corner of a pizza stone, attach wire to each one with a small loop or hook at the other end. Use enough wire that the stone would hang 4-5 inches above the grate. Whenever you wanted to do a pizza you just attach the top stone to the hooks before you preheat. Also I disagree with whoever said one chimney of coals. When cooking pizza the hotter the better. Heck I might use three. If it has to cook for over 4-5 minutes it is too cool in my opinion. If you preheat both of those stones with three chimney's of coals for 30-45 minutes I would be willing to bet there would be enough residual heat in that top stone to blister the top of the pizza just like a brick oven.

Did anyone notice how when discussing people brought on for looks Collichio said that one girl from first season, "Can't compete with the skills of someone like Harold or Sam". I thought that was hilarious. I was waiting for Ilan to be like, "Yo I won second season!". Also about 4 or 5 times during the show they mentioned Sam along with the two winners or talked about how he got screwed. At first I thought Ilan made that insecurity comment as a joke but then it started to look like they had a falling out at some point after the show. I think he is just pissy about Sam getting all the attention. Also when they showed Sam making the duck fat comment I was really expecting Padma to be stripped down slathering duck fat all over herself when the camera came back to her. She loves that guy. It is so obvious.

PLease tell me somebody has the scoop on this. I need details. Somebody has to at least know what restaurant this was. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,290520,00.html

The last few months I have been spending most of my time on the Lower East side. Paladar is my favorite great latin american food, entree prices from 15-20ish. Very good (and strong) mojitos. It is on ludlow a block or two south of Houston - usually decent eye candy for mid 20's by the way. Also good are inoteca (panini and good wine list) alias (modern american type food). Or go up to gramercy-union park area. Both areas have a lot of really "new york" restaurants with a cool casual environment, affordable and with plenty of other young people and post dinner options.

We had a big group go by for a going away party a few months back and about 3 people, including Beth, ordered this one pasta dish. After about three bites she said it was really bland and she thought it was supposed to have sundried tomatoes. I agreed that the menu had said sundried tomatoes. I called the server over and said something about it and she said that the dish didn't have sundried tomatoes and immediately walked away before I could respond. My friend across the table had overheard and asked if we were asking about the tomatoes. So we called her back and asked her again and she said something to the effect of, "I have worked here awhile and there have never been tomatoes on that dish. You must have misread." You could tell she wasn't confident though, fidgeting, not looking directly at us and clearing away some plates as she talked. We were there for other reasons though and just forgot about it. I reviewed the menu after remembering it a few days later and sure enough, sundried tomatoes. The only reason I mention this is that I have a huge tolerance for mistakes in restaurants. Tell me you were out, tell me the kitchen messed up, tell me you accidently rang it in no tomatoes or just tell me you got hungry an picked out all my tomatoes for a snack and I would be totally cool. But please don't call me out in front of all my friends and make me look like a jerk for even bringing it up. Anyways I had a decent fish special. Well cooked piece of rockfish. Bland pasta dish and inconsistent finish on the noodles (some were mushy, some undercooked) and the meat/cheese platter wasn't anything more impressive than you can get prepackaged at Safeway.

I would LOVE to see Landrum and Poivrot Farci on this show. The entertainment value would be through the roof. The only two potential problems: Wikipedia crashing every Wednesday night as people all across america try to figure out obscure French philosophical references and the good chance that Michael would be brought up on manslaughter charges after some judge inevitably says that he isn't venturing outside of his Ray's the Steaks comfort zone...

Delorenzo's was fantastic. Perfectly crisp crust. The sauce didn't so much taste or feel like a "sauce" as it did fresh tomatoes loosely smashed with light seasoning. Good cheese - just the right amount of elasticity without tasting like the processed stuff in bags. We had a half and half with sausage on one side plain on the other. The sausage was in big chunks, on the sweeter side with a tiny hint of kick and very moist. Since moving up here, everytime we have to go somewhere I grab a slice at the nearest pizza joint. I have been sorely disappointed and was starting to wonder what all the hype about NY and Jersey pizza was about. I still prefer the two amy's brick oven variety but this place did restore my faith a bit. Fair warning, bring a rape whistle. I am talking to the guys as much as the girls.. They now have a police officer permanently stationed at the restaurant but he isn't there for decoration. You have to wait for a table outside so if he isn't there or you have to walk from your car don't say I didn't warn you. And this is coming from someone who lived in West Baltimore for awhile. Beth and the newly pregnant girl I was with were not happy with me for insisting we go to this place. I think they were both expecting two amy's. Anyways, when we walked by the cop said "First time in Trenton. (notice the period as opposed to question mark) What the hell are you guys doing down here?" Seriously. I am not making this up. We talked to him for awhile and he says it is really bad around this place. He pointed to a group of kids across the street and said he arrested two of them a few weeks ago for mugging someone around the corner. Nice. Also beware they have no menu, don't take credit cards and didn't seem to answer the phone. We asked the waiter how much the pizzas were about halfway through eating it (we realized that a. they didn't take credit cards and b. we only had about 25 in cash) and he said he had no idea because he had never paid for one and left it at that. Don't get me wrong, I actually liked the hostile environment, I just want to give anyone thinking about a trek an idea of what the place is like. Anyways, I should wrap this post up now. Great great pizza, rock bottom price (large 1 topping and 3 sodas for 20 bucks) and lots and lots of, um, character. p.s. I would bet a weekend of tips that a shady guy in a suit comes by and picks up an envelope of cash from this place every Friday. Maybe a bad Jersey stereotype but go to this place and then tell me it doesn't happen...

Beth and I saw this last night and loved it. I will admit it took me about 15-20 minutes to get over the reflex rat reaction. Until the characters started to develop seeing the sea of rats running around still gave me a full helping of the heebies. Also we both agreed it was a great decision to not have Remy actually speak with Linguini. I know it doesn't all of a sudden make it realistic or anything but I think it would have been considerably cheesier (excuse the word choice) to have the rat talk.

I had a long discussion with one of my foreign (legal) friends one time and it is my understanding that enough paperwork to get a job is not that hard to get your hands on. Not to mention people who have one legal family member and "share" the identity. In the years I have worked in the industry I have met a few folks who were inexplicably called Arturro by their family even though I had known them as Juan for several years. (Names changed to protect the innocent.)

Did anyone else find the teams completely superflous? I mean if they were all doing "trios" why even bother with a team? Each person seemed to work independently of the other two and they all took credit for their own piece and the only one that really seemed to have any cohesive (and successful) theme was the shrimp. But the entire meal should have been linked together and flowed if executed correctly so why inexplicably link their performance to someone else because the dish shared the same plate space? I understand the concept when the team creates a single dish to see how they worked as a team towards a singular goal but this just seemed forced.

Nothing says romance like skunked sam adams and sysco's cheapest chocolate cake. What a waste of a view... Patio after dark at Cafe Ole?

We went by the Wegman's and someone else told us about the Whole Foods but I couldn't find the location on the Whole Foods website. (Or do you mean just a general whole foods store NOT the Whole foods chain?) [blake, this is what I found on The Whole Foods Highland Park]

I am taking off on Friday the 29th. My last shift at Deluxe is tomorrow (Tuesday) night and I have been telling some regulars and ex-employees etc. to come have a drink after the shift. If anyone wants to grab a pre-hump day beer (we just got Widmer bros. Hefe on tap, and Chimay, Blue Moon, and Pilsner in bottles) come by around 9:30-10:00.

We got pizza at Panicos (pizza counter not restaurant) for lunch when we were looking for apartments. I was surrounded by construction workers getting into it with the oven guy on how to move the pizza around in the oven. I was seriously considering a long term relationship....

Haha. Those are the two places I sent my resume. I am also considering Cafe Soho. I am going to wait until I can get up there and do a full scouting report. I looked all over for a board and the best available is chowhound tristate.

As some of you might know Beth and I will be leaving DC for New Brunswick in less than a week. I still love the DC area and will not only still be frequently visiting but will still try to post on here as much as possible. I will try and add to the NYC thread and maybe start posting on some Central Jersey restaurants. I have been told that there are several very high end restaurants in New Brunswick that some serious New Yorkers actually LEAVE the city for. I am hopefully going to be working at one of them and I will let everyone know in case anyone finds themselves in central Jersey (you know, car broke down on the way to NY or something) you can stop by, let me buy you a drink and fill me in on the DC scene. Anyways I think we might stop by RTC's bar around 6:30-7 ish tonight as kind of a last night out. The rest of our nights in town will no doubt be spent working and or packing.

By the way was that dude Clay creepy or what? In his parting words he said something about "learning to just follow his heart" from his Dad. Not trying to be insensitive but uh.... didn't his dad's heart tell him to commit suicide? I thought that was kind of weird.