A Tale Of Three Meals

Some final thoughts about my road trip last weekend. When traveling in unfamiliar terretory, food is often a problem - especially on limited access roads with a 7 year old who will only eat overprocessed chicken nuggets, not fingers, etc. The other three of us are happiest at a truckstop or diner - the kind of place that still serves meatloaf sandwiches and liver and onions. So the first meal was at a Wendy's.

Meal 1: Back when I was in my fast food is only food phase, Wendy's was my favorite. Of late I have found that any fast food makes me physically ill. We aren't talking food poisoning, but massive indigestion. I felt ill on the road. I felt ill at the hotel. I felt ill at the Temple. I felt ill at my Sister's and didn't get to enjoy the lovely buffet she had.

Meal 2: Same problem, with time constrained we talked about a chain, but instead decided to take a risk. A wrong turn took us to beautiful downtown Danbury, and Royal Guard Fish & Chips - run by a Pakistani couple. Crisp and flaky batter around sweet fish, with what appeared to hand cut chips. Delightful. No aroma of overused oil at a great value. Wake up Buffalo! This is what a fish fry should be like!

Meal 3: The Bat Mitzvah. Was the food as good as it was at my cousin Nicole's last fall? Not quite, but then her father rented the FRAKKING Ontario Science Centre for the party! Of course the food was fabulous. The Salem Golf Club did a super under what I personally know to be difficult circumstances. The salad was interesting and tasty, the salmon moist and delicious. but, so much is going on at an event like this that you don't get to enjoy the meal.

The best of the three is, therefore, the fish and chips shop. An accidental discovery enjoyed with family is always the best!

Oh, and one of the distractions at the Bat Mitzvah was finally demonstrating that I am the Graet American Chef! ;-)

Burger Smackdown Update

It is one week until the Great Burger Smackdown. Much of my product is in hand. I will need a few bits of produce as the week goes on, and Dave Cloy has my meat hanging, and will prep it for me Friday. I have done a test run of the condiments and other ingredients. This is going to be fun!

Am I being coy, secretive, evasive, PARANOID? After all I was in Law School, a place where if you get up to use the head you might come back to find your notes gone. Of course I am paranoid!.

Actually, not really. I kind of figure that my fellow contestants don't want to be distracted by what I am planning any more than I want to be distracted by what they are doing. Look, if I try to go head to head as a "chef" with Mike, I lose, and I deserve to. Andrew is a dedicated amateur and knowledgeable food writer, similar to where I come from, but with the potential of a Rocky Balboa knockdown. I hope to thread the needle.

The bottom line is that I look at this as a picnic with friends (new and old). And I am bringing Pomegranate Margaritas!

Keep watching the skies!

Farming and Food Redux

The Buffalo News weighed in on the corn for ethanol in today's lead editorial. Money quote:


"Corn-based ethanol is not the solution to America’s energy woes, and laws that force us to act as though it were are a huge step in the wrong direction."

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all of you Mothers out there. Brunch was Eggs Benedict and Mimosa's (the photo is from a previous brunch).

A New Use for Kitchenware

This is too cool!

Meatwater

I kid you not. Imagine all the flavor. Don't bother to go to England like delGrosso, get your Fish 'n Chips in a bottle. Yum.

Back From Connecticut

Well I am back from a wonderful weekend in Connecticut for my niece's Bat Mitzvah (she was PERFECT). These are a food related items that have caught my attention as I decompress from this event:

The results of my poll were hardly conclusive, but it's an odd coincidence that this article appeared just after the poll closed - it looks like the Japanese are breeding "safe" fugu, and the traditionalists are up in arms: “We won’t approve it,” Hisashi Matsumura, the president of the Shimonoseki Fugu Association and vice president of the National Fugu Association, said of the legalization of fugu liver. He added, “We’re not engaging in this irrelevant discussion.”

Harper's has a great article about Raw Milk, at the same time a Pennsylvania farmer was arrested and his Raw Milk product seized. I have mixed feelings about the latter, as I noted some time ago at A Hunger Artist. ETA It appears the farmer in question has been fined $4,300.

It appears that if you serve foie gras from geese fed naturally, rather than by gavage, you can still find your restaurant picketed.

I have touched upon food for fuel and its affect on food prices well you are going to really start feeling it at the market.

Finally, the Dodge Road Elementary production of The Little Mermaid opens today featuring my youngest as Ursula, the Sea Witch - break a leg, Beezil!