mdt

They had mini-corn dogs on their menu.

Did you have an opportunity to try these?  Do you think perhaps they might become the next mini-burger?  I am salivating at the thought.

They have excellent tuna burgers as well. That, some fries, and a 1/2 bottle of Storybook Zin make a great lunch when in wine country!

Same problem for us until we finish up this series of Tuesday night dance classes on the 7th of June.

Maybe you and Mr. Mktye can show us your moves at the picnic!

I am planning on bringing a Porchetta alla Nonna. Unfortunately not a whole young pig, but just a butt or two. If I can get the time I will also make some sort of dessert.

We going to see any new faces this week?

Citronelle serves "primes" stuffed with blue crab in light tempura batter. No gook!

This available on the lounge menu?

Good point about the side dishes.  Should we avoid very strong flavors with these, too?

Not really. I figure we will do the tastings while we are fresh and save the majority of the food for the pasta feast at the end. Plus with all of us rolling out pasta there is not going to be much room for food on the tables and counter tops.

21P works for me. The usual time of 6pm?

mktye and I will be bringing all the canned tomatoes and sauces in generic similar containers for the blind tasting. Once we come up with a list of the selected brands we will post it here.

What you all can start to think about is what side dishes you would like to bring as I am sure we will all be getting bored with pasta and tomato sauce.

In looking at my schedule the best days for me are either Saturday June 4th or 11th. Email or PM me with your preference. I have no idea about time yet so chime in with suggestions or preferences.

Also if I do not have your email address please send it to me so that we can keep the coordination minutiea out of the thread. I will update the thread with information on how we plan to do the taste test and so forth so everyone can see and comment.

Don't forget about my wife's offer to help arrange a $20 future meal at Malaysia Kopitiam.

YES!

Excuse me?  Explination please (for the rest of us who will never get there)

And why would you never get there? And I agree that we need an explanation.

Marcel's? Poste? 21P?

So which one is it JG? I need to know if I need to bring a change of clothes to work. I don't want to spoil anyone's dining if we go to Marcel's and I am wearing jeans.

Showcasing softshells? Oh my... oh dear..... I must make a reservation!

Welcome Edhead707!

Maybe this deserves to be a new topic, but what is the fascination with softshell crabs? To me it seems that people go a bit crazy to get them. Is is the limited availability? Are they really so good that people?

I enjoy them when available, but do not find them that so good as to go out of my way. That being said, I would love to see what Chef Power is doing with them. Hmmm, tomorrow night???

MDT:

You are NOT alone.  DH and I have decided that the next time friends/family want to eat Ethiopian, we will help with the reservations and give them directions, but will not sit through another uncomfortable, not very good meal at Meskerem.

There are simply too many other types of food which we like a whole lot better than to settle for that.

So sue me.

I no longer stand alone, unless of course I forget to shower...

Just who do I have to... ahem, I mean how many posts till I reach the exalted "Grouper" status?

50. Post away!

Hello my name is Mike and I am a Palena-holic.

I made my second trip in a week (3 in the last 2 1/2 weeks) tonight and had the crayfish bisque followed by the hot dog. That bisque was wonderful and I enjoyed the highlight of spinach flan that was placed atop the soup.

If you are going for the purity of the tomato then I would think all additions except possibly salt would then influence the flavor.  Assuming you use olive oil that right there could change the body of the sauce.  To do this right maybe the sauce should just be pureed tomatoes and a touch of salt.  Otherwise there are a number of uncontrollable variables that could affect the flavor of the tomato.

I think we will get the purity of the tomato with the 'raw' out of the can tasting. The basic sauce will be to see how the different brands compare when used in a typical manner. This is the basic test that Cook's Illustrated performed and I think they do a pretty good job of testing.

Stay tuned to this channel for more info...

How can you people talk about tomato sauce without garlic!!  The nonna I learned from always included garlic.

Depending on the date my pasta roller and I are in.

Of course it should include garlic, but we really want to taste the tomato with as little additional influence as possible. The Batali recipe has carrots and thyme, but that will probably affect the flavor too much.

I want to nominate an Ethiopian place - I've STILL never had Ethiopian.

I know I am in the minority, but you are not missing much.

To keep it simple, we could do the Marcella Hazan method:

Basically, you take a 28-oz. can of tomatoes, squeeze or cut the tomatoes into chunks, and simmer them with half an onion (peeled but not chopped) and 5 T of butter for 45 minutes.

Uh oh, here we go with the Northern versus Southern Italian way to make sauce. mktye have been going back and forth on butter versus olive oil in sauces for fresh versus dried pasta.

To keep from going a bit off topic I will keep my thoughts to myself at the moment.

Here is some information on the wine importer from eGullet:

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And how do we handle the "simple sauce" part of the operation?  That will involve cooking a number of different batches of sauce.

I am working with mktye to have the sauces made in advance as this is a tasting not cooking exercise. Between our combined experimental scientific backgrounds each one will be made in exactly the same way on the same stove. Besides we will have enough to do between making pasta, blind tasting sauces, and tasting wines.

Is anyone up for a happy hour this Friday after work?

Sure. Somewhere new this week?

Well so far it looks like we have a good deal of interest which is great. I will post 2 possible dates later this week for people to comment on.

Found this info on the wines suggested by brendanc.

I will surely need people to bring their pasta machines if they have one. I only have 1 hand crank plus a chitarra.

I’ve been curious about the café menu.  Finally went to try what everyone was raving about.  Though my friend was astonished I ordered the way I did, I plunged right into ordering hot dog as my first course with Macon-Lugny Chard; middle course was cheeseburger; entrée was the roasted chicken matched well with Les Gaillards Grenacha.  Delicioso!  Nothing that reminded me of old fashioned comfort food.  Just good professional cooking done perfectly no matter what it is!

You ate a hot dog, cheeseburger, and roasted chicken in one sitting?! You are my new hero!

It might, if you can think of a way to narrow the field so that we have a coherent format.

That should not be too hard, but this is quickly turning into an all day affair. Not that a full day of food, wine, and friends is a bad thing!

Might I suggest that we include a wine tasting component to this event?  I was thinking maybe Robert Kacher wines.

Wouldn't a selection of Italian wines make more sense?