Category: Uncategorized

hit and miss at The Publick House

I really enjoy The Publick House in Brookline. It has awesome beer and very good french fries, and a congenial atmosphere. (I enjoy nerdy beer snobbery.) But it does seem there’s a spottiness to the quality or at least the execution.

The french fries are even better than last time, which would have been difficult, but now they are *crunchier*. I didn’t detect quite as much meaty flavor, which makes me wonder if they changed cooking fat. If so, I guess I am willing to trade crunch for porkiness. And the sauces, good lord, the sauces: truffle oil mixed into ketchup. garlic mayo. spicy mayo. mayo-mustard whatever it is. YUM.

But my arugula salad with duck cracklings really missed the mark. The cracklings tasted off, stale, as if the fat was old or they’d been sitting around. It made the otherwise acceptable baby arugula mostly unpalatable, and I would go further to say that the goat cheese didn’t do the duck flavor (even had it been at its best) any favors. Bummer.

The ribeye was delicious, with a bit of truffley butter and an unusual and surprisingly complementary diced salad of minted tomato and cucumber, but its shaved potato gratin wasn’t sufficiently cooked. Just because you cut a potato paper thin, y’all, doesn’t mean you get to skip out on cooking the damn thing. I dunked it into the truffley ketchup and ate it anyway, but it bummed out the tallasiandude.

All was forgiven, though, because the Rodenbach beer was so terrific. It’s a Flemish red ale, light in body and extremely easy to drink, especially on a hot day, with a strongly sour flavor, almost like a citrus drink but with more complexity and a bit of bubble and bitter. Absolutely delightful, and just the thing for me after a long couple of days at work getting to a release deadline. Hurray!

summer vegetable yum, right quick

Cut up about 3 summer squashes (yellow/zucchini/whatever) and an onion into large dice. Sweat the onion in a scant tablespoon of bacon fat (or butter or olive oil), then add 2 large cloves minced garlic and the squash. Sprinkle with Lawry’s seasoned salt, and let cook, stirring occasionally, till squash is almost tender. Dump in a bag of Trader Joe’s Soy-cutash, grind in some pepper, add a little more Lawry’s if needed, and cook till hot and squash is tender.

Eat over rice with grated cheddar. Yum.

li’l busy, sorry

It got a little wacky here, with work and a bunch of dance events and other miscellaneous whatnot. Sorry for not posting, but when it gets like this the LAST thing I want to be doing is sitting at the computer even longer. Cannot be helped.
I just made a batch of chili that kind of wasn’t so hot — i think that unsweetened chocolate is not the way to go. Also needed more tomato. But it was definitely a chili sort of weather we’ve been having, so at least there’s that.
Also a rather nice hungarian sauce of sauteed cubanelles with paprika, tomato and Turkish hot pepper paste. Had it on pasta with pork chops, and again with some sauteed kale and potatoes.
And I need to remember to make more cooked carrot and celery dishes. Braising the two together with chicken broth is a delicious thing, and I am continually forgetting that I can and should cook these vegetables on their own.

Oakland Oatmeal Raisin NOM

We got these cookies at Arizmendi Bakery in Oakland, within walking distance from our friend R’s apartment.

Best oatmeal raisin cookies ever.

I’ve always been partial to (shockingly) the Shaw’s store-made oatmeal raisin cookies, but I’ve had to swear off them because they’re made with nasty trans-fatty partially hydrogenated oils. (plus, they’re kinda hit or miss.)

Spendy (we spent $13 on a little under 2 pounds — maybe 12 cookies — to take home with us and for the long flight home), but dericious.

And entirely organimagical. That’s a word, right?

potato-turnip mash with blue cheese crumb topping

turns out that if you have leftover mashed potato-rutabaga mix, and the end of a chunk of roquefort cheese and some fresh breadcrumbs because you had a cocktail party, you can use all these things to make a really tasty lunch.
i heated up the mash a little in the microwave, then put it into a gratin dish, crumbled the roquefort over, and sprinkled a light layer of crumbs over that. stuck it into the toaster oven on broil until I couldn’t endure the smell any longer and had to tuck in immediately. the fat from the cheese crisps up the crumbs, and the whole thing is amazing creamy goodness.

balvenie at The Franklin Cafe

taken by TallMatt, but it was my idea to prop the menu up behind my drink while he was playing with the camera — collaborative photo excellence!
food at The Franklin was very good across the board, but not so awesome that I would necessarily brave the atrocious parking situation very frequently. if you live in Bay Village or are otherwise in walking distance, by all means, and be sure to try the grilled calamari and the meatloaf.
and bring a flashlight — those hipsters like to eat in the dark.

100 chinese foods to try before you die

this one requires rather more thought and research, but I’m posting the link here for future reference:
100 Chinese Foods to Try Before You Die
I think I am doing rather better on the Japanese list at Just Hungry, but that may have to do with the 3 week trip to Japan in 1996 and lifelong fascination with all things Japanese. (Update: I just counted up and I am at 45 on the japanese list. There were 5-10 more that I’d tried, but couldn’t count because the list specified certain handmade/in season/ultra-fresh attributes that I’d not enjoyed. So I’m at roughly half, which is what I was expecting and hoping. Yay.)