from brian:
The following appeared on Boston.com:
Headline: Monument to processed cheese planned
Date: April 29, 2004
“Moscow, not short of monuments, will soon boast one to a Soviet-era processed cheese.”
I love my friends. They know me so well.
Month: April 2004
Etorki
While on a rampage at the den of temptation known as the Whole Foods Cheese Department, I acquired a hunk of sheep’s-milk cheese from France: Etorki. It’s just wonderful: it’s creamy, yet nutty and slightly pungent and ever so faintly sheepy. Mild-cheese lovers like it, stinky-cheese lovers like it, and it’s a perfect eating cheese. Good on bread or plain.
best food in Waltham
There is always a scallop dish on the menu at Tuscan Grill, and it is always sublime. They get lovely fresh sweet scallops, and sear them so they’re barely cooked inside but all crunchy, golden and salty on the outside. They put good stuff on the plate next to them too, but those little bivalves, man, they rock.
the holy grail
the holy grail of chips, while we’re on the subject, is Herr’s Hot Cheese Curls. These things are fucking transcendent. They are the best snack EVER. They are everything a snack should be: crunchy, salty, spicy, cheesy, savory. I get chills just thinking about it. (And while on the Herr’s site, I noticed they make/sell the Glenny’s Soy Chip line, which strangely doesn’t suck — they’re good for you, protein/carb balanced, and deliver full doses of flavor crystals. Good for those times you need salty goodness but feel virtuous.)
hmm, and these are good too, but I have no idea where to buy them in these parts.
While we’re on the subject of chips
Check out Taquitos.net. The site is a bit cluttered, but their hearts (and stomachs) are in the right place.
I initially thought it was a commercial site, (I must have been thinking of Tostitos® corn chips) but that misconception was quickly corrected with a quick peek at the FAQ:
Q: Do you manufacture chips?
A: Nope. Mainly, we eat chips.
Well, there you go.
A Chipfest of sorts
Check out this article on Slate where the author runs a head-to-head comparison of the Häagen Dazs vanilla ice creams of potato chips. They evaluated 8 types of “gourmet” chips, although only 5 different brands: Lay’s (2), Kettle (2), Boulder, Terra (2) and Cape Cod.
My only real issue: where’s the control sample?
spring is here!
Roasted a lamb leg tonight, with all the trimmings: mint sauce (New Zealand style, made only of mint, cider vinegar, sugar, water and salt), yukon golds roasted in goose fat, asparagus, and rhubarb frozen yogurt cake. And champagne cosmopolitan cocktails, left over from littlelee’s family easter dinner. (Tasty, as were the pear-nectar and champagne cocktails.)
Firstly, GOOSE FAT. Damn. Makes those taters perfectly brown and very crunchy. Do it the british way. I got my can o’ fatty goodness in London, and I must find a source here.
Lamb was excellent, nice flavor, very moist, and littlelee & spleen are turned on to the NZ mint sauce. And the rhubarb frozen yogurt is what finally pushed me over the edge and caused me to buy an ice cream maker. I couldn’t stand reading another amazing recipe that I couldn’t make because I didn’t have the damn gizmo. Thirty bucks on Amazon for a refurbed Cuisinart machine, and I couldn’t be happier.
It was a nice simple dinner, absolutely delicious, and oozing spring from start to finish. Thank god winter’s over.
frugal
This is from our friend littlelee:
“I am a tad strapped for cash so I made a dinner last night largely based on what was aready in my fridge. I had pork chops marinating in curry ketchup (no joke! I figured it would be like BBQ sauce and had to use it b/c it’s about to expire), a snack box of dried apricots left over from Amy’s wedding in October, chicken broth (one can of which has been blocking the mouse hole under the sink), ghee that I made for Indian food early last September, a half-used onion and lentils. I bought pine nuts, raisins, onions and bulgur. It all turned into a bulgur pilaf worthy of Lala Rokh, sans the shitty service!”
a wee taste of England
went to the boozer just now to fetch some champagne (more on that later) and out of the corner of her eye, littlelee spied a rack of Herr potato chips… and in there we found a new treat: Steak & Worcestershire flavor chips. Oh yes. Yum yum. Full authentic worcestershire flavor, with undertones of meat. Mmmmmm….
take that!
The bake sale netted $2283. Not bad for a few people clustered around some folding tables on the sidewalk. Baked goods kept materializing all day from random contributors, cars pulling up on the street, etc., and most of it disappeared within an hour of arriving. It was so cool. People brought rice crispy treats, pecan pies, an amazing walnut/cinnamon/caramel tart, chocolate cakes, brownies of all sorts, cookies up the wazoo, banana and pumpkin breads, two hot apple pies (i wanted one of those but didn’t act fast enough), a coconut cake, some apple crisps…