Oct 18

Changes, Not for the Better

I like the fact that Seattle is not a stagnant community. The unemployment rate is low, and new restaurants are opening all the time. Unfortunately, there are some changes that are not welcome. A few examples:
1. Hing Loon closed earlier this year. It was a Chinese restaurant in the International District that served the definitive clams in black bean sauce. There was a menu, but many items were posted on the walls in Chinese (with occasional English translations).
2. Sabra was a Mediterranean restaurant in Pike Place Market. The proprietor was a friendly woman from North Africa. It closed over the summer and was replaced by a Chinese sandwich shop, Country Dough. We had lunch there yesterday, and Julian was underwhelmed. My pet peeve about the place was that they served flavored teas for an outrageous price, twice that for a cup of coffee. No plain black tea was served. (See my rant about tea for my take on this faux pas.)

3. Yesterday we learned that the building that houses Julian’s go-to coffee shop, Caffe d’Arte, will be torn down next year. A 40-story building will go up in its place. The coffee shop will move to another location, but this means another soul-less high rise blotting out the Sun and views of Elliott Bay and the Olympic Mountains for folks on the ground.

I’m not sure why HIng Loon and Sabra closed, but rising rents could be to blame. I lived in Dallas when escalating commercial real estate rent and damn-the-torpedos development were rampant. Just before I left for grad school, the bottom fell out of the oil market, savings & loans went bankrupt, and home values (including mine) plummeted. While Seattle’s economy is much more diversified than Dallas’s was at the time, another downturn could result in lots of folks losing their shirts.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/10/18/changes-not-for-the-better/

Oct 18

Are We in the End Times?

I was looking at yesterday’s college football scores and thinking, “Something is seriously amiss.” Perennial doormat teams such as Houston and Duke are in the top 25. Powerhouses such as Oregon and USC are going down to ignominious defeat by traditional underdog teams. Then I looked at the East Coast scores and was reassured that we were not in the End Times. Both Cornell and Columbia lost. Cornell lost to Sacred Heart–really?!? Back when I was an undergrad, often Cornell’s only victory in a season was against Columbia. I can hope.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/10/18/are-we-in-the-end-times/

Oct 18

Mad about Maple Syrup

My brother-in-law, Stan, retired last year. While he occasionally plays golf, he has plenty of other things to do. He’s clearing a spot on some property outside town for a new home. He keeps track of his father, who’s in an assisted-living facility in Rochester. He dotes on his two grandchildren. He tends a vegetable garden. In the fall he goes hunting with his cronies. And in the early spring he taps maple trees on his property and boils the sap for maple syrup. He gave us a pint of this year’s harvest when we were in town two weeks ago.

Do not confuse maple syrup with artificially-colored, artificially-maple-flavored, high-fructose corn syrup. The principal sugar in maple syrup is sucrose (table sugar). It takes up to 50 gallons of maple sap to produce a gallon of maple syrup. (Fun facts courtesy of Wikipedia.) This is why you pay significantly more for the real thing than the fake stuff. Someone has to pay for the fuel to evaporate off so much water.

So what do you do with maple syrup other than drizzling it over pancakes and waffles?  I drizzle it into oatmeal along with dried cranberries. It can be used as a sweetener in breads, cakes, and other desserts. Canadians make a maple syrup pie (tarte au sirop d’érable). It’s similar to pecan pie, except walnuts are used and it’s often a two-crust pie. If you’re using maple syrup as a substitute for honey, be advised that the final product will be less sweet because fructose is the predominant sugar in honey. Fructose is sweeter than sucrose.

Most maple syrup sold in the US comes from Quebec, Vermont, and New York. Cornell University operates a field station for maple research and extension in Lake Placid. You can also find recipes for using maple products at this website. Once you use real maple syrup, you won’t go back to the imitation stuff.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/10/18/mad-about-maple-syrup/

Oct 17

Diners

Diners are a primarily Northeast phenomenon. You rarely find them in the South or on the West Coast. I’m not sure why this is. It could be due to the proliferation of fast-food and family restaurant (e.g., Applebee’s) franchises, where everything is prepackaged, portion-controlled, and lacking creativity. There’s also the cafeteria culture in the South that swamps almost everything else. (Word to the wise: When planning a trip to a Southern cafeteria for Sunday lunch or brunch, go before or well after the local Baptist churches let out. Momma and Granny deserve a Sabbath from cooking, too.)

The diner experience follows a particular pattern. Some diners resemble silver railroad cars; others are large freestanding buildings. The exterior is often festooned with neon lights (or LED’s, for the more eco-conscious). The decor is usually lots of red vinyl booths along the walls with tables in the middle of the floor. You can sit at the bar near the kitchen as well. A glass case featuring a wide variety of desserts greets you at the entrance, a blatant invitation to overconsumption.  The menu features everything from breakfasts to burgers to full meals. There’s always a kids’ menu. The paper placemats feature ads for local businesses. Some of the waitstaff have worked at the same diner since The Beatles first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. As a result, they can steer you to the right item on the menu. And, of course, they will counsel you to save room for dessert!

The epicenter of diner culture is downstate New York and New Jersey. Any self-respecting town will have at least one diner. We went to two on this last trip; one in Goshen and the other in Nanuet. Many diners in the area are run by Greek families. At the Goshen diner, I had a Greek omelet with feta cheese. Curiously, there were few other Greek items on that menu–and no baklava in the dessert case.

The closest thing to a diner I’ve found in the Seattle area is the Wedgwood Broiler, in our old neighborhood. It’s the anchor business at the north end of a strip shopping center, adjacent to the QFC grocery store. The Broiler is a throwback to the 1950’s, and the menu hasn’t changed much since then. The menu features diner standards such as liver and onions. No molecular gastronomy, no swizzles of sauce on a plate, or arugula in the salad.  It’s just straightforward food that my grandmother would recognize as such. That may be the reason behind the staying power of diners in the metro New York area: After you’ve dined at some fancy expense-account restaurant in the city, you can relax with some real food.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/10/17/diners/

Oct 16

The Energizer Pepper Plants

I disposed of the tomato and basil plants before we left on vacation, and I was sure that the pepper plants would be compost by the time we returned. Surprisingly, there were 6 peppers on the padron plant and several blossoms on the cubanelle. I tend to doubt that the latter will have time to set fruit before the first frost, but a woman can dream.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/10/16/the-energizer-pepper-plants/

Oct 12

The Cookbook Store Pilgrimages

The beauty of New York is that I know of two cookbook stores there to feed my fix. On Saturday we visited Kitchen Arts and Letters on the Upper East Side. I’ve been visiting them for nearly 20 years. Since Julian said, “You buy them, you schlep them”, I restrained myself. I saw a new volume by George Greenstein: A Jewish Baker’s Pastry Secrets. His Secrets of a Jewish Baker is one of my favorite books. Unfortunately, Greenstein died in 2012. His daughters and grandson constructed the newer book from computer files. Julian has already requested a babka out of the book.

On Sunday we went to lower Manhattan in search of Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks. Bonnie deals mostly in used editions. Her store used to be on 10th Street in the West (Greenwich) Village, but she lost her lease last year. A fan of hers offered her a space on East 2nd Street, between Bowery and 2nd Avenue, for an unheard-of ten year lease. I got four books from her two years ago and had them shipped back to Seattle. This time I bought three books: The Cooking of Southwest France by Paula Wolfert; Dori Sanders’s Country Cooking; and Recipes into Type by Joan Whitman and Dolores Simon. The first was because of our trip to southwestern France in June. Dori Sanders is the originator of the One True Cobbler®, which was the topic of an earlier blog post. Finally, the last book should be required reading for anyone even pondering writing a cookbook or recipe blog. I have kvetched in another post about the sorry state of cookbook editing these days. When I approached the counter with my booty, Bonnie wisely asked, “Can I ship them for you?” How did she know? Now once we get home I need to figure out where to put these new tomes. Might be time for another cookbook cull.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/10/12/the-cookbook-store-pilgrimages/

Oct 12

Suggestions for Driving in New York City

DON’T! At least if you value your sanity and your car. The trains, buses, and subways can get you around relatively painlessly. You won’t have to worry about parking on the street or in a sketchy garage for an exorbitant price. When we went into Manhattan on Saturday for my honorary niece’s Bat Mitzvah, we took the train to and from Tarrytown. We then took the subway from Grand Central Station to the Upper East Side. We didn’t have a long wait for the train out of town.

On this trip to New York, we noticed a new after-market option to make parallel parking a little less risky to your paint job: the Bumper Bully. This is a black rubber mat that attaches inside your car trunk and hangs over your rear bumper. Bumper Badger is another brand we saw around town. As one reviewer on Amazon said, it may be better than nothing. However, my suggestion is to reduce the need for a Bumper Bully and take mass transit.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/10/12/suggestions-for-driving-in-new-york-city/

Oct 12

A Philosophy of Hotels

When we’re just traveling from point A to point B and need a place to flop for the night, our requirements are simple: Clean, comfortable, quiet, and convenient. Cheap doesn’t hurt, either. Free Wi-Fi is essential, especially for blog and email purposes. Complementary companion animals, i.e., insects, are NOT welcome. We once stayed at a motel in Waterton, Alberta (just north of Glacier National Park) where the room was infested with mosquitoes. My nephew and his wife were besieged by bedbugs when they stayed at a hotel in Tampa.

When we’re staying somewhere for a longer period of time, amenities are useful. Most of the time we’re out and about, so we don’t need anything fancy. We never use room service. Having a complementary breakfast is good, but not essential. An indoor pool is helpful, especially when I was training for triathlons. One year we went to Harrison Hot Springs for Memorial Day weekend and I was able to swim indoors and outdoors in naturally-heated pools.

We occasionally stay at bed and breakfasts in unfamiliar areas to have local guidance about things to do and see. I mentioned in an earlier post the wonderful B&B we stayed in during our trip to France in June. We’ve also stayed at B&B’s in remote places such as Jasper National Park in Canada and Bozeman, Montana. Sometimes B&B’s come with the right kind of complementary companion animals: cats and dogs.

I’ve never been a fan of all-inclusive resort hotels. I stayed at one outside Orlando for a conference once and developed claustrophobia. The hotel and the grounds were literally under a bubble. I didn’t rent a car on that trip, so I couldn’t escape. It made the travel reimbursement easier because everything was on one bill, but I’d rather have some opportunity to explore between talks and poster sessions–or at least have a meal at a local restaurant.

Finding accommodations on the road can be a crapshoot, even if you limit yourself to chain hotels. We try to make reservations well in advance for popular locations like San Francisco or Washington or for holiday weekends. We take advantage of reviews on TripAdvisor and other sites to winnow down our options. For the Nyack part of this trip, many hotels in the area were booked solid. The hotel we wound up staying at was a wedding factory. They hosted guests for at least three receptions and one high school reunion on Saturday. Fortunately, our room was far away from the reception halls so I could sleep.

The most important consideration in choosing a hotel is how you spend your time on the road. If you enjoy the full-service treatment, a resort hotel may suit you better than it does us. People with kids need different amenities than singles. If you get around in a wheelchair, you should make sure that the hotel can accommodate your needs prior to making a reservation. If you express your lodging needs during the reservation process, you’ll be able to select a hotel that will work for you. Enjoy the trip!

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/10/12/a-philosophy-of-hotels/

Oct 08

Nostalgia Day

We left Hannibal this morning to spend the day in Ithaca. Julian and I both got degrees from Cornell, and this is where we met. So how much nostalgia can two people cram into one day? Plenty!
We started off in Collegetown, which has a few leftover establishments from our time here. First we went past the (literal) ruins of the Chapter House and the Royal Palms bars. We had lunch at the Vietnam Restaurant, one of my default dining options from grad school. Aladdin’s, site of our first lunch date, is still in town.
After lunch we wandered around campus. For the first time, he showed me his old haunts in the physics department. I went to visit the nutrition building and ran into one of the administrative assistants from my time there. We also checked out the campus store and got swag at 20% off.
Dinner was at a Turkish restaurant north of downtown with friends. After that we got caffeine at a local chain called Gimme Coffee. We had to make one last foodie pilgrimage for the day, to Wegman’s. For those of you not from the northeast, Wegman’s is the killer grocery store chain hereabouts. If one was built in Seattle, it would clean up. Our beloved Central Market looks like a convenience store in comparison.

Tomorrow morning we’ll make one last trip to an old haunt, Collegetown Bagels. We had many breakfasts there back in the day. After that, we’ll head to Nyack.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/10/08/nostalgia-day/

Oct 08

Rudy’s!

Rudy’s (generally referred to in my family as the fish fry stand) is an institution in Oswego. Generations of locals and more than a few tourists have made pilgrimages there during the seven months that the restaurant is open each year. Naturally, we had to do so on this trip.

When I was a kid, the menu consisted of burgers, fish sandwiches, Texas Hots, Coney (a pork-based hot dog similar to bratwurst) Hots, fries, and onion rings. More recently Rudy’s has diversified its menu to include other fried seafood and sides. Rudy’s put its nearest competitor, Jack’s, out of business years ago. The soft-serve ice cream stand down the road, Bev’s, seems to be next given that Rudy’s has added an ice cream concession.

The ordering experience at Rudy’s hasn’t changed in 50 years. You belly up to the counter and place your order. The counter person writes it on a receipt and a paper plate. The paper plate goes back to the fry stations, and the guys (I’ve never seen a woman staff a fryer) fill the order. When it’s ready, the guy running the french fry fryer calls out the order and the counter person who placed it: “Two fish and chips, one coney hot, Linda.” (Linda was Rudy’s wife–he passed away many years ago.) Rudy’s does not do credit cards or checks. There’s a handy ATM at the edge of the parking lot to help you pay for your meal.

While there are a few tables inside Rudy’s, most folks eat in their cars or at picnic tables. With the latter, you get a view of Lake Ontario. You also get harassed by seagulls (aka flying rats). The specimen posing behind me in the below picture left disappointed. Some of the gulls will not take no for an answer, especially when small children are involved. Dodging gulls is just another part of the Rudy’s experience.

Last year my high school class had its reunion and made a pilgrimage to Rudy’s. I wasn’t able to make it because I was scheduled to visit town two weeks later for my nephew’s wedding. My former third grade teacher (and mother of one of my classmates) was befuddled that her daughter made a beeline from the southern part of the state

At Rudy's, with one of the locals.

At Rudy’s, with one of the locals.

just to go to Rudy’s. “Is it a nostalgia thing?” she asked me. In a way, yes.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/10/08/rudys/

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