is this the most beautiful pizza you’ve ever seen?
t says: During my daily review of philly.eater, I cam across some pretty awesome-looking pizza. Check it:
shortrib pizza
The words are here:
http://philly.eater.com/archives/2012/05/09/santuccis-debuts-special-pizza-week-pie.php
Now I just have to figure out when/how I’m getting there …
strawberries in season!
t says: It’s one of g’s favorite times of year: strawberry season!
Today marks the first day that Sparacio Farms is open for you-pick strawberries! Unfortunately, lc and I were a little late getting there, so we couldn’t pick ’em, ourselves (they stop you-pick at noon). Nevertheless, they have quarts of berries ready to go at their roadside stand for $5 …
Some still had a bit of green on the tips, but not bad for the first of the season!
Let the strawberry-eating begin!!
g would hurt me if i bought this …
t says: Yes … somewhere, someone (actually, 25 people) will pay $8k for this:
Behold! STING!!
Sorry for the tiny copy-paste – you will have to visit the website to see the real-deal:
http://www.wetanz.com/sting-fine-art-limited-edition-the-master-swordsmith-s-collection/
And there’s even has a movie on how it was made and everything!
8000 dollars!! For a sword that doesn’t actually glow in the presence of orcs (or maybe it does – how would we know?)? That’s a pretty penny indeed.
So as you can tell, I am a Lord of the Rings fan – maybe not so much to motivate me to buy LotR paraphanalia (but someone on our cast has! I don’t want to mention any initials …), but I can’t turn it off if I happen to catch it on TV (those TNT marathons devoured many a weekend). I think readers will be relieved to know that the g&t household contains no such LotR swords (or any swords at all!), as I believe that swords [along with “people” and “people with swords”] kill people! (They also kill orcs and Nazgul, which albeit useful, is thankfully not an active problem of our society today.) So I guess this means that I will never wield this mighty [hobbit-sized] blade. That’s ok. I’ll stick with kitchen cutlery.
a says: What the hell is this? You NERD! First off, the Lord of the Rings movies are overrated (the books are okay). Second, if you make another Lord of the Rings post, I’m going to have to remove my initials from this blog. NERD!
t says: Sounds like someone here is just a little nerdophobic … or maybe trying to hide his own propensity for nerdliness?
Supper’s still got those red velvet waffles
t says: I know we/I kind of ragged on Supper’s brunch the last time we went. Sorry Supper, we gotta call it like we taste it. Be that as it may, we did give Supper another whirl recently, and I feel that to make up for the bad things I said last time, I should focus only on good things this time. Fortunately, Supper made that easy for me with their long-time brunch standard bearer:
red velvet waffles (enlarged to show texture)
This time was even better than I remember – the waffles were moister, the sweet cream was fluffier, the sauce and cherries had more of a vibrant punch. I’d say that this is probably Supper’s best brunch dish. So go there. Eat it. And if you don’t like it, then you have no soul (or you don’t like sweet brunch foods). Now if only Supper also had a dynamite savory dish to go along with these waffles (I’m not sure if the burger counts – I’m looking for an awesome egg-based dish I suppose), we’d be able to consider them again for “best brunch” …
loving Snapdish
t says: I stumbled across an iPhone application that is designed for cleaning up photos of food – it’s called Snapdish. Specifically, it can take any photo and increases brightness (among tweaking other settings) so that those super-dark photos taken in restaurants look much better.
For example, take a photo that I put in the most recent Meme post:
pre-snapdish
post-snapdish
As you can see, the second photo appears far more delectable. Sure, professionals like g could probably do a far better job utilizing Adobe softwares, however … she’s busy. Adobe-illiterate folk like me can rely on Snapdish.
Now, I’m not going to back and re-do all of our prior blog photos, however, from here on out, we’ll Snapdish-ify our photos so they’ll look nice and pretty like on real food blogs! Hooray!
alla spina – good fun!
t says: We went to Alla Spina with k and cm and another friend, super-excited to try out some Vetri-sanctioned food without having to pay for “the meal of our lives”. But don’t get me wrong – I wasn’t expecting dishes like from our most recent visit to Vetri, rather, playful almost-finger-food-like dishes meant to be shared and enjoyed in a bar-like atmosphere. Let’s see how they did.
April 2012, Friday Dinner, Party of 5. This is going to be short – and not because I’m lazy. There were just too many dishes on the table (cm used his elephant-like memory and did the ordering) and my own memory has faded some. Be that as it may, here are the highlights:
-Mushrooms: yea, that’s right – “mushrooms”. But not just any “mushrooms” – these mushrooms are what I imagine Zeus would have been served had he ever wanted “mushrooms”. They were crispy and oh-so-delicious – so much so that g ate them. I’m serious. This is huge! g only eats mushrooms in her mom’s Thanksgiving stuffing. Trust me – these will be a must-order if/when we go again.
the puffed pastry thing on the left is the pig pot pie
-Pig Pot Pie: This was my favorite. It seriously made me wonder why on earth anyone would ever use chicken ever again! Imagine a chicken pot pie, but take out the often-overcooked chicken and replace it with succulent pig meat. Furthermore, I suspect the sauce was made far more flavorful by addition of some pig fat. You’re reading it here: I’m swearing off chicken pot pie – Alla Spina has ruined them for me forever.
la-zag-na
-Lasagna: Everyone else’s fave was the lasagna. (I suspect it’s because they are wimps.) It’s no surprise that a Vetri-associated restaurant can make lasagna … Everything was done right even the sauce/gravy! Amazing!
The biggest letdown of the night was most likely this sucker right here:
bacon chocolate sundae
This dessert turned out to be a little hokey. Those chocolate stick-looking things were chocolate-covered bacon … so there was no bacon anywhere else. Boooooooo. The rest of the sundae was unremarkable. This kinda made me sad – I think I might have pouted a little.
Another shortcoming of Alla Spina was the horrendous wine list: a red (Nebbiolo), a white, and a bubbly … and that’s it. Sure, there were lots of beers, but for the bubble-intolerant, you’re S.O.L.. I understand if they want to avoid the “stuffiness” of wine, but I firmly believe you’re going to have to pack at least 3 reds and 2 whites and a bubbly. Come on, man!
Overall, we feel like Alla Spina is probably a good place for bar-like energy in a restaurant – and the food was pretty good for the most part. Sure, Alla Spina’s gonna be a little pricey – not Vetri pricey, but pricey for a bar akin to how Amis is a bit pricey for “Italian food”. Also, don’t forget that as you drink, you begin ordering more and more of these little plates, so that’s probably going to lend to a pretty large bill. Finally, Alla Spina’s located kind of in the middle-of-nowhere (but Osteria and Route 6 are there!), so we won’t be there every weekend, but we’d be happy to go if anyone else suggests it!
t drools at zachy’s
t says: A weekend or so ago, g and I visited l and c who live outside of NYC in Pleasantville. We made excellent time getting up there, so I was in a good mood. g and l got down to business and did some work, while c and I were left to our own devices. I knew exactly what I wanted to do … go to Zachy’s!
a pretty reasonably sized store ... and it's kept cooler-than-room-temp, too!
We did some Umbrian wine tasting (free!) and some browsing. I walked out with yet another bottle of Napa Cabernet Sauvignon (I’m vowing here and now: no more pricey Cali Cabs until we drink some!). But the coolest thing was walking around the “fine wine room”.
In this pic is a $15k bottle of wine!!
Perhaps a jeroboam of '05 Latour? or ...
... maybe a jeroboam of '05 Mouton Rotschild?
On one hand, yes, Zachy’s is nothing more than a liquor store … but on the other, it’s a darned good one! The selection of fine(r) wines is expansive; I could spend hours in there looking at label after label. The staff try very hard to be helpful, which I like. The prices for some wines are quite good (but some are ridiculous – $30 for 2009 Calera Pinot Noir? That’s way too much!) – so do some iPhone googling before pulling out the plastic and everything’ll be fine. All in all, though, it was a positive trip. Thanks for driving, c!
after dinner sneeze 